Senior
UK

The median Senior daily rate in the UK is £550 according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 28 May 2024.

The first table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
28 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 17 20 21
Rank change year-on-year +3 +1 0
Contract jobs requiring a Senior 3,522 4,553 6,989
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 8.22% 8.09% 7.92%
As % of the Job Titles category 8.86% 8.55% 8.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,295 3,287 5,084
10th Percentile £394 £413 £413
25th Percentile £463 £488 £490
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £591 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.88% +2.72% +9.52%
75th Percentile £675 £700 £688
90th Percentile £800 £800 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £538 £525
% change year-on-year -4.65% +2.38% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 112 104
10th Percentile £21.83 £17.72 £20.25
25th Percentile £31.80 £35.00 £25.68
Median hourly rate £50.00 £53.78 £43.36
Median % change year-on-year -7.03% +24.05% +31.98%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.75 £57.88
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.96 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.00 £45.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +13.33% - +52.71%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 39,738 53,234 84,137
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.79% 94.60% 95.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,861 37,175 59,182
10th Percentile £280 £313 £313
25th Percentile £410 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £540 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% +2.86% +7.69%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -2.50% +5.26% +10.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,776 1,475 2,018
10th Percentile £12.81 £14.25 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.30 £19.06 £15.90
Median hourly rate £37.18 £45.00 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.38% +87.50% +6.90%
75th Percentile £61.30 £65.75 £49.25
90th Percentile £73.50 £76.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £42.50 £20.00
% change year-on-year -5.88% +112.50% +5.26%

Senior
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Senior in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Senior in the UK

Senior
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Senior.

Daily rate trend for Senior in the UK

Senior
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Senior over the 6 months to 28 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Senior in the UK

Senior
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Senior.

Hourly rate trend for Senior in the UK

Senior
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Senior over the 6 months to 28 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Senior in the UK

Senior
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Senior within the UK over the 6 months to 28 May 2024. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +2 3,075 £550 -8.33% 3,923
London +1 1,822 £600 -4.00% 1,657
UK excluding London +7 1,358 £513 -4.65% 2,445
Work from Home +3 1,347 £575 - 1,960
South East +10 450 £525 +5.00% 543
North of England +1 326 £500 -10.71% 596
North West +6 233 £509 -3.00% 378
Scotland +3 174 £497 -0.60% 214
South West -4 151 £500 -16.67% 343
Midlands +8 138 £500 -6.98% 384
West Midlands +12 112 £500 -9.09% 262
East of England -14 93 £534 -4.00% 289
Yorkshire -11 80 £500 -13.04% 166
Wales +7 32 £600 +9.09% 68
East Midlands -10 23 £550 +4.76% 123
North East +1 14 £500 -23.08% 55
Northern Ireland -2 5 £435 -27.50% 63

Senior Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 28 May 2024, Senior contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Senior in the job title.

1 956 (27.14%) Agile
2 760 (21.58%) Finance
3 733 (20.81%) Social Skills
4 615 (17.46%) Azure
5 565 (16.04%) Security Cleared
6 517 (14.68%) DevOps
7 481 (13.66%) AWS
8 467 (13.26%) Python
9 464 (13.17%) Microsoft
10 456 (12.95%) Public Sector
11 443 (12.58%) SQL
12 432 (12.27%) Java
13 387 (10.99%) Software Engineering
14 371 (10.53%) SC Cleared
15 367 (10.42%) CI/CD
16 350 (9.94%) Problem-Solving
17 313 (8.89%) C#
18 304 (8.63%) Degree
19 294 (8.35%) Stakeholder Management
20 288 (8.18%) Project Management
21 279 (7.92%) JavaScript
21 279 (7.92%) Banking
22 258 (7.33%) Analytical Skills
23 251 (7.13%) .NET
24 249 (7.07%) Scrum
25 247 (7.01%) Migration
26 230 (6.53%) React
27 229 (6.50%) Windows
28 222 (6.30%) SQL Server
29 217 (6.16%) Test Automation

Senior Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 68 (1.93%) Confluence
2 60 (1.70%) SharePoint
3 59 (1.68%) Apache
4 57 (1.62%) Apache Airflow
5 44 (1.25%) CMS
6 36 (1.02%) Microsoft Exchange
7 32 (0.91%) Apache Spark
8 21 (0.60%) SAS
9 8 (0.23%) Jupyter
10 7 (0.20%) Documentum
10 7 (0.20%) WebSphere
10 7 (0.20%) WebSphere Application Server
10 7 (0.20%) WordPress
11 6 (0.17%) Appian
11 6 (0.17%) IBM HTTP Server
11 6 (0.17%) Skype for Business
11 6 (0.17%) WebSphere Portal
12 5 (0.14%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.14%) nginx
13 4 (0.11%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 62 (1.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 60 (1.70%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (0.57%) MS Visio
3 20 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
4 18 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.34%) Photoshop
6 11 (0.31%) Adobe Illustrator
6 11 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
7 10 (0.28%) Acrobat
8 9 (0.26%) Revit
9 8 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.23%) InDesign
10 6 (0.17%) AutoCAD
11 5 (0.14%) InVision
11 5 (0.14%) SPSS
12 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.11%) Sketch
12 4 (0.11%) Trello
13 3 (0.085%) Adobe Premiere
14 2 (0.057%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 56 (1.59%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.48%) Primavera
4 15 (0.43%) Endur
5 14 (0.40%) NEC Housing
6 12 (0.34%) Elite 3E
6 12 (0.34%) Teamcenter
7 11 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
8 9 (0.26%) SAP SD
9 7 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.20%) SAP CO
9 7 (0.20%) SAP FI
9 7 (0.20%) SAP FI/CO
10 6 (0.17%) SAP EWM
11 5 (0.14%) OPENHousing
11 5 (0.14%) Shopify
11 5 (0.14%) SimCorp Dimension
12 4 (0.11%) RMDS
12 4 (0.11%) SAP ERP
12 4 (0.11%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 615 (17.46%) Azure
2 481 (13.66%) AWS
3 197 (5.59%) Azure DevOps
4 128 (3.63%) GCP
5 125 (3.55%) Power Platform
6 112 (3.18%) Microsoft 365
7 94 (2.67%) Serverless
8 88 (2.50%) GitHub
9 75 (2.13%) Entra ID
10 73 (2.07%) SaaS
11 72 (2.04%) Snowflake
12 60 (1.70%) Azure Service Bus
13 58 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
13 58 (1.65%) dbt
13 58 (1.65%) PaaS
14 50 (1.42%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 45 (1.28%) Amazon S3
16 42 (1.19%) IaaS
17 39 (1.11%) AWS CloudFormation
18 35 (0.99%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 162 (4.60%) Firewall
2 68 (1.93%) Network Security
3 67 (1.90%) WAN
4 59 (1.68%) DNS
5 54 (1.53%) LAN
6 42 (1.19%) BGP
7 38 (1.08%) VPN
8 36 (1.02%) DHCP
9 29 (0.82%) MPLS
9 29 (0.82%) OSPF
10 28 (0.80%) SD-WAN
11 27 (0.77%) DMZ
12 25 (0.71%) SAN
13 24 (0.68%) Cisco ASA
14 23 (0.65%) Internet
14 23 (0.65%) Wireless
15 22 (0.62%) IPsec
15 22 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
16 21 (0.60%) TCP/IP
17 19 (0.54%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 222 (6.30%) SQL Server
2 104 (2.95%) Power BI
3 71 (2.02%) NoSQL
4 66 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
5 64 (1.82%) Data Lake
6 52 (1.48%) Relational Database
7 48 (1.36%) MongoDB
8 45 (1.28%) Apache Cassandra
9 44 (1.25%) Oracle Database
10 42 (1.19%) Amazon Athena
11 38 (1.08%) Tableau
12 37 (1.05%) Big Data
12 37 (1.05%) PostgreSQL
13 36 (1.02%) Apache Arrow
13 36 (1.02%) Apache Ignite
13 36 (1.02%) Dremio
14 32 (0.91%) KDB
15 29 (0.82%) MySQL
16 24 (0.68%) Redis
17 23 (0.65%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 171 (4.86%) Git
2 152 (4.32%) JIRA
3 118 (3.35%) Jenkins
4 59 (1.68%) Selenium
5 51 (1.45%) Postman
6 48 (1.36%) Cucumber
6 48 (1.36%) GitLab
7 34 (0.97%) SpecFlow
8 33 (0.94%) Cypress.io
8 33 (0.94%) JUnit
9 32 (0.91%) Mockito
10 28 (0.80%) Visual Studio
11 27 (0.77%) Bitbucket
12 26 (0.74%) TeamCity
13 24 (0.68%) WebDriver
14 22 (0.62%) JMeter
14 22 (0.62%) Maven
15 14 (0.40%) CircleCI
16 13 (0.37%) Artifactory
16 13 (0.37%) REST Assured
General
1 760 (21.58%) Finance
2 733 (20.81%) Social Skills
3 456 (12.95%) Public Sector
4 279 (7.92%) Banking
5 258 (7.33%) Analytical Skills
6 129 (3.66%) Front Office
7 95 (2.70%) Marketing
8 87 (2.47%) Back Office
9 80 (2.27%) Presentation Skills
9 80 (2.27%) Telecoms
10 76 (2.16%) Investment Banking
11 71 (2.02%) Local Government
12 69 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 68 (1.93%) Retail
14 53 (1.50%) Legal
14 53 (1.50%) Manufacturing
15 44 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
16 42 (1.19%) Influencing Skills
17 37 (1.05%) Pharmaceutical
18 29 (0.82%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 251 (7.13%) .NET
2 230 (6.53%) React
3 126 (3.58%) XML
4 122 (3.46%) HTML
5 119 (3.38%) CSS
6 113 (3.21%) Kafka
7 111 (3.15%) AngularJS
8 106 (3.01%) REST
9 98 (2.78%) Node.js
10 79 (2.24%) Spring Boot
11 76 (2.16%) Spring
12 72 (2.04%) .NET Core
13 71 (2.02%) Pandas
14 63 (1.79%) .NET Framework
15 62 (1.76%) RESTful
16 60 (1.70%) NumPy
17 58 (1.65%) Web Services
18 52 (1.48%) SciPy
19 50 (1.42%) gRPC
20 46 (1.31%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 165 (4.68%) Product Ownership
2 95 (2.70%) Derivative
3 93 (2.64%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 86 (2.44%) Management Information System
5 85 (2.41%) Fixed Income
6 83 (2.36%) Data Centre
7 71 (2.02%) Hedge funds
8 66 (1.87%) Onboarding
9 62 (1.76%) Distributed Systems
9 62 (1.76%) Mobile App
10 56 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
11 53 (1.50%) Equities
12 49 (1.39%) Algorithms
13 42 (1.19%) Greenfield Project
14 41 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
14 41 (1.16%) NHS
15 39 (1.11%) Data Structures
15 39 (1.11%) Public Cloud
16 35 (0.99%) Cloud Native
17 32 (0.91%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 229 (6.50%) Windows
2 178 (5.05%) Linux
3 66 (1.87%) Unix
4 59 (1.68%) Android
5 52 (1.48%) Windows Server
6 51 (1.45%) Windows 10
7 49 (1.39%) Apple iOS
8 20 (0.57%) Mac OS X
9 14 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
9 14 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
10 11 (0.31%) Mac OS
10 11 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 8 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.17%) Ubuntu
13 5 (0.14%) VMS
13 5 (0.14%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.11%) Solaris
15 2 (0.057%) Debian
15 2 (0.057%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 956 (27.14%) Agile
2 517 (14.68%) DevOps
3 387 (10.99%) Software Engineering
4 367 (10.42%) CI/CD
5 350 (9.94%) Problem-Solving
6 294 (8.35%) Stakeholder Management
7 288 (8.18%) Project Management
8 249 (7.07%) Scrum
9 247 (7.01%) Migration
10 217 (6.16%) Test Automation
11 197 (5.59%) Analytics
12 189 (5.37%) User Experience
13 177 (5.03%) Project Delivery
14 175 (4.97%) TDD
15 174 (4.94%) Mentoring
16 172 (4.88%) Roadmaps
17 164 (4.66%) Business Intelligence
18 158 (4.49%) Microservices
19 156 (4.43%) Continuous Improvement
19 156 (4.43%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 467 (13.26%) Python
2 443 (12.58%) SQL
3 432 (12.27%) Java
4 313 (8.89%) C#
5 279 (7.92%) JavaScript
6 208 (5.91%) TypeScript
7 204 (5.79%) PowerShell
8 84 (2.39%) Go
9 64 (1.82%) C++
10 60 (1.70%) Bicep
11 54 (1.53%) Kotlin
12 49 (1.39%) Scala
13 48 (1.36%) Bash
14 39 (1.11%) C
15 23 (0.65%) Perl
16 22 (0.62%) T-SQL
17 19 (0.54%) Rust
18 18 (0.51%) Swift
19 17 (0.48%) PHP
19 17 (0.48%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 565 (16.04%) Security Cleared
2 371 (10.53%) SC Cleared
3 304 (8.63%) Degree
4 135 (3.83%) DV Cleared
5 97 (2.75%) Cisco Certification
6 69 (1.96%) Computer Science Degree
7 54 (1.53%) Master's Degree
8 48 (1.36%) CCNP
9 39 (1.11%) CCNA
10 33 (0.94%) Microsoft Certification
11 29 (0.82%) PMI Certification
12 25 (0.71%) PMP
13 23 (0.65%) CISSP
13 23 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
14 22 (0.62%) Azure Certification
14 22 (0.62%) BPSS Clearance
15 20 (0.57%) AWS Certification
16 18 (0.51%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 16 (0.45%) CCIE
18 11 (0.31%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 82 (2.33%) Data Quality
1 82 (2.33%) QA
2 73 (2.07%) Accessibility
2 73 (2.07%) PMO
3 48 (1.36%) PCI DSS
4 47 (1.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 36 (1.02%) GDPR
6 31 (0.88%) NIST
7 25 (0.71%) SLA
7 25 (0.71%) WCAG
8 16 (0.45%) Disclosure Scotland
9 11 (0.31%) GRC
10 10 (0.28%) NCSC
11 9 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
11 9 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
12 8 (0.23%) HL7
13 6 (0.17%) ISO 20022
14 5 (0.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 4 (0.11%) MiFID
15 4 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 204 (5.79%) Active Directory
2 182 (5.17%) Docker
3 41 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (0.71%) vSphere
6 17 (0.48%) VMware NSX
7 14 (0.40%) Hyper-V
8 10 (0.28%) Firmware
9 8 (0.23%) ACF2
9 8 (0.23%) IAG
9 8 (0.23%) RACF
9 8 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
10 7 (0.20%) XenApp
11 5 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.085%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 3 (0.085%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.085%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.085%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.085%) XenDesktop
13 2 (0.057%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 207 (5.88%) Kubernetes
2 167 (4.74%) Terraform
3 87 (2.47%) Ansible
4 42 (1.19%) Grafana
5 30 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
6 26 (0.74%) SCCM
7 24 (0.68%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.57%) Microsoft Intune
9 13 (0.37%) Puppet
10 12 (0.34%) Kibana
11 11 (0.31%) Docker Swarm
11 11 (0.31%) Podman
12 9 (0.26%) FortiGate
13 8 (0.23%) NetIQ Identity Manager
13 8 (0.23%) vCenter Server
14 7 (0.20%) Jamf Pro
14 7 (0.20%) SolarWinds Orion
14 7 (0.20%) VxRail
15 6 (0.17%) Argo
15 6 (0.17%) WSUS
Vendors
1 464 (13.17%) Microsoft
2 167 (4.74%) SAP
3 139 (3.95%) Cisco
4 125 (3.55%) Oracle
5 89 (2.53%) VMware
6 69 (1.96%) Google
7 60 (1.70%) ServiceNow
8 52 (1.48%) Palo Alto
9 43 (1.22%) Adobe
9 43 (1.22%) Citrix
9 43 (1.22%) Splunk
10 40 (1.14%) Salesforce
11 36 (1.02%) CheckPoint
11 36 (1.02%) Databricks
12 34 (0.97%) Juniper
13 32 (0.91%) Apple
13 32 (0.91%) F5
14 30 (0.85%) Atlassian
14 30 (0.85%) IBM
15 25 (0.71%) SolarWinds