Senior
UK

The median Senior daily rate in the UK is £550 according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 29 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
29 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 3,537 4,536 6,941
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 8.24% 8.08% 7.92%
As % of the Job Titles category 8.88% 8.54% 8.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,294 3,273 5,054
10th Percentile £400 £413 £413
25th Percentile £463 £488 £492
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £595 £575
Median % change year-on-year -7.56% +3.48% +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 190 112 104
10th Percentile £21.87 £17.72 £20.25
25th Percentile £32.13 £35.00 £25.68
Median hourly rate £50.50 £54.56 £43.36
Median % change year-on-year -7.44% +25.84% +31.98%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.75 £57.88
90th Percentile £75.02 £74.23 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.89 £45.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +15.31% - +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 39,824 53,123 83,534
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.80% 94.61% 95.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,845 37,082 58,755
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 2,796 1,480 1,998
10th Percentile £12.81 £14.25 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.30 £19.06 £15.90
Median hourly rate £37.50 £45.00 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +87.50% +6.90%
75th Percentile £61.30 £65.75 £49.25
90th Percentile £73.75 £76.28 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £43.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -6.98% +115.00% +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 29 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 29 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 29 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 3,083 £550 -8.33% 3,936
London +1 1,828 £600 -4.00% 1,640
UK excluding London +7 1,362 £513 -4.65% 2,477
Work from Home +2 1,354 £575 - 1,935
South East +8 452 £525 +5.00% 536
North of England +1 327 £500 -11.11% 626
North West +4 233 £508 -3.33% 384
Scotland +2 178 £494 -1.20% 211
South West -5 147 £500 -16.67% 339
Midlands +10 139 £500 -6.98% 388
West Midlands +15 113 £500 -9.09% 268
East of England -15 92 £534 -2.91% 297
Yorkshire -9 81 £500 -13.04% 175
Wales +9 32 £600 +9.09% 71
East Midlands -15 23 £550 +4.76% 121
North East -2 14 £500 -23.08% 70
Northern Ireland -4 5 £435 -27.50% 64

Senior Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 29 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.

1 965 (27.28%) Agile
2 758 (21.43%) Finance
3 737 (20.84%) Social Skills
4 619 (17.50%) Azure
5 567 (16.03%) Security Cleared
6 522 (14.76%) DevOps
7 484 (13.68%) AWS
8 467 (13.20%) Python
9 466 (13.18%) Microsoft
10 457 (12.92%) Public Sector
11 445 (12.58%) SQL
12 433 (12.24%) Java
13 393 (11.11%) Software Engineering
14 372 (10.52%) SC Cleared
15 367 (10.38%) CI/CD
16 351 (9.92%) Problem-Solving
17 309 (8.74%) C#
18 301 (8.51%) Stakeholder Management
18 301 (8.51%) Degree
19 287 (8.11%) Project Management
20 281 (7.94%) JavaScript
21 280 (7.92%) Banking
22 255 (7.21%) Analytical Skills
23 250 (7.07%) .NET
24 247 (6.98%) Scrum
25 246 (6.96%) Migration
26 232 (6.56%) React
27 229 (6.47%) Windows
28 222 (6.28%) SQL Server
29 216 (6.11%) 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 (1.92%) Confluence
2 59 (1.67%) Apache
2 59 (1.67%) SharePoint
3 57 (1.61%) Apache Airflow
4 47 (1.33%) CMS
5 36 (1.02%) Microsoft Exchange
6 32 (0.90%) Apache Spark
7 22 (0.62%) SAS
8 8 (0.23%) Jupyter
9 7 (0.20%) Documentum
9 7 (0.20%) WebSphere
9 7 (0.20%) WebSphere Application Server
9 7 (0.20%) WordPress
10 6 (0.17%) Appian
10 6 (0.17%) IBM HTTP Server
10 6 (0.17%) Skype for Business
10 6 (0.17%) WebSphere Portal
11 5 (0.14%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.14%) nginx
12 4 (0.11%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 61 (1.72%) Microsoft Excel
2 60 (1.70%) Microsoft Office
3 20 (0.57%) MS Visio
4 19 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
5 17 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 12 (0.34%) Photoshop
7 11 (0.31%) Adobe Illustrator
7 11 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
8 10 (0.28%) Acrobat
9 9 (0.25%) Revit
10 8 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 8 (0.23%) InDesign
11 6 (0.17%) AutoCAD
12 5 (0.14%) InVision
12 5 (0.14%) SPSS
13 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
13 4 (0.11%) Sketch
13 4 (0.11%) Trello
14 3 (0.085%) Adobe Premiere
15 2 (0.057%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 55 (1.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.48%) Primavera
4 15 (0.42%) Endur
5 14 (0.40%) NEC Housing
6 13 (0.37%) Elite 3E
7 12 (0.34%) Teamcenter
8 11 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
9 9 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
9 9 (0.25%) SAP SD
10 7 (0.20%) SAP CO
10 7 (0.20%) SAP FI
10 7 (0.20%) SAP FI/CO
11 6 (0.17%) SAP ERP
11 6 (0.17%) SAP EWM
12 5 (0.14%) OPENHousing
12 5 (0.14%) Shopify
12 5 (0.14%) SimCorp Dimension
13 4 (0.11%) RMDS
13 4 (0.11%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 619 (17.50%) Azure
2 484 (13.68%) AWS
3 199 (5.63%) Azure DevOps
4 130 (3.68%) GCP
5 122 (3.45%) Power Platform
6 113 (3.19%) Microsoft 365
7 93 (2.63%) Serverless
8 87 (2.46%) GitHub
9 75 (2.12%) Entra ID
10 72 (2.04%) Snowflake
11 71 (2.01%) SaaS
12 60 (1.70%) Azure Service Bus
13 58 (1.64%) dbt
13 58 (1.64%) PaaS
14 57 (1.61%) AWS Lambda
15 50 (1.41%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 44 (1.24%) Amazon S3
17 42 (1.19%) IaaS
18 39 (1.10%) AWS CloudFormation
19 35 (0.99%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 161 (4.55%) Firewall
2 67 (1.89%) Network Security
3 66 (1.87%) WAN
4 59 (1.67%) DNS
5 53 (1.50%) LAN
6 41 (1.16%) BGP
7 39 (1.10%) VPN
8 36 (1.02%) DHCP
9 28 (0.79%) MPLS
9 28 (0.79%) OSPF
9 28 (0.79%) SD-WAN
10 27 (0.76%) DMZ
11 25 (0.71%) SAN
12 23 (0.65%) Cisco ASA
12 23 (0.65%) Internet
12 23 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
13 22 (0.62%) Wireless
14 21 (0.59%) IPsec
14 21 (0.59%) TCP/IP
15 19 (0.54%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 222 (6.28%) SQL Server
2 101 (2.86%) Power BI
3 70 (1.98%) NoSQL
4 66 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
5 65 (1.84%) Data Lake
6 53 (1.50%) Relational Database
7 49 (1.39%) MongoDB
8 45 (1.27%) Apache Cassandra
8 45 (1.27%) Oracle Database
9 42 (1.19%) Amazon Athena
10 38 (1.07%) Big Data
11 37 (1.05%) PostgreSQL
11 37 (1.05%) Tableau
12 36 (1.02%) Apache Arrow
12 36 (1.02%) Apache Ignite
12 36 (1.02%) Dremio
13 32 (0.90%) KDB
14 29 (0.82%) MySQL
15 24 (0.68%) Redis
16 23 (0.65%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 173 (4.89%) Git
2 151 (4.27%) JIRA
3 119 (3.36%) Jenkins
4 59 (1.67%) Selenium
5 51 (1.44%) Postman
6 49 (1.39%) GitLab
7 48 (1.36%) Cucumber
8 34 (0.96%) SpecFlow
9 33 (0.93%) JUnit
10 32 (0.90%) Cypress.io
10 32 (0.90%) Mockito
11 28 (0.79%) Visual Studio
12 27 (0.76%) Bitbucket
13 25 (0.71%) TeamCity
14 24 (0.68%) WebDriver
15 22 (0.62%) JMeter
16 21 (0.59%) Maven
17 14 (0.40%) CircleCI
18 13 (0.37%) Artifactory
18 13 (0.37%) REST Assured
General
1 758 (21.43%) Finance
2 737 (20.84%) Social Skills
3 457 (12.92%) Public Sector
4 280 (7.92%) Banking
5 255 (7.21%) Analytical Skills
6 129 (3.65%) Front Office
7 94 (2.66%) Marketing
8 87 (2.46%) Back Office
9 80 (2.26%) Presentation Skills
10 79 (2.23%) Telecoms
11 75 (2.12%) Investment Banking
12 71 (2.01%) Local Government
13 70 (1.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 70 (1.98%) Retail
14 54 (1.53%) Manufacturing
15 53 (1.50%) Legal
16 45 (1.27%) Influencing Skills
17 43 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
18 35 (0.99%) Pharmaceutical
19 26 (0.74%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 250 (7.07%) .NET
2 232 (6.56%) React
3 126 (3.56%) XML
4 122 (3.45%) HTML
5 120 (3.39%) CSS
6 114 (3.22%) Kafka
7 110 (3.11%) AngularJS
8 108 (3.05%) REST
9 99 (2.80%) Node.js
10 80 (2.26%) Spring Boot
11 76 (2.15%) Spring
12 71 (2.01%) .NET Core
12 71 (2.01%) Pandas
13 62 (1.75%) RESTful
14 61 (1.72%) .NET Framework
15 60 (1.70%) NumPy
16 58 (1.64%) Web Services
17 52 (1.47%) SciPy
18 50 (1.41%) gRPC
19 45 (1.27%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 167 (4.72%) Product Ownership
2 95 (2.69%) Derivative
3 93 (2.63%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 86 (2.43%) Management Information System
5 85 (2.40%) Fixed Income
6 83 (2.35%) Data Centre
7 71 (2.01%) Hedge funds
8 65 (1.84%) Onboarding
9 64 (1.81%) Mobile App
10 62 (1.75%) Distributed Systems
11 56 (1.58%) Self-Motivation
12 53 (1.50%) Equities
13 49 (1.39%) Algorithms
14 42 (1.19%) NHS
15 41 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
15 41 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
16 39 (1.10%) Data Structures
16 39 (1.10%) Public Cloud
17 35 (0.99%) Cloud Native
18 33 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 229 (6.47%) Windows
2 177 (5.00%) Linux
3 65 (1.84%) Unix
4 59 (1.67%) Android
5 52 (1.47%) Apple iOS
5 52 (1.47%) Windows Server
6 51 (1.44%) Windows 10
7 20 (0.57%) Mac OS X
8 14 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
8 14 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
9 11 (0.31%) Mac OS
10 10 (0.28%) 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
1 965 (27.28%) Agile
2 522 (14.76%) DevOps
3 393 (11.11%) Software Engineering
4 367 (10.38%) CI/CD
5 351 (9.92%) Problem-Solving
6 301 (8.51%) Stakeholder Management
7 287 (8.11%) Project Management
8 247 (6.98%) Scrum
9 246 (6.96%) Migration
10 216 (6.11%) Test Automation
11 195 (5.51%) Analytics
12 188 (5.32%) User Experience
13 180 (5.09%) Project Delivery
14 177 (5.00%) TDD
15 175 (4.95%) Mentoring
16 173 (4.89%) Roadmaps
17 162 (4.58%) Business Intelligence
18 159 (4.50%) Microservices
19 157 (4.44%) Continuous Improvement
20 155 (4.38%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 467 (13.20%) Python
2 445 (12.58%) SQL
3 433 (12.24%) Java
4 309 (8.74%) C#
5 281 (7.94%) JavaScript
6 211 (5.97%) TypeScript
7 204 (5.77%) PowerShell
8 84 (2.37%) Go
9 65 (1.84%) C++
10 60 (1.70%) Bicep
11 54 (1.53%) Kotlin
12 49 (1.39%) Scala
13 48 (1.36%) Bash
14 41 (1.16%) C
15 23 (0.65%) Perl
16 22 (0.62%) T-SQL
17 20 (0.57%) Swift
18 18 (0.51%) Shell Script
19 17 (0.48%) PHP
19 17 (0.48%) Rust
Qualifications
1 567 (16.03%) Security Cleared
2 372 (10.52%) SC Cleared
3 301 (8.51%) Degree
4 135 (3.82%) DV Cleared
5 96 (2.71%) Cisco Certification
6 69 (1.95%) Computer Science Degree
7 54 (1.53%) Master's Degree
8 48 (1.36%) CCNP
9 39 (1.10%) CCNA
10 33 (0.93%) Microsoft Certification
11 29 (0.82%) PMI Certification
12 25 (0.71%) PMP
13 24 (0.68%) Azure Certification
14 23 (0.65%) BPSS Clearance
14 23 (0.65%) CISSP
14 23 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
15 21 (0.59%) AWS Certification
16 18 (0.51%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 16 (0.45%) CCIE
18 11 (0.31%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 82 (2.32%) Data Quality
2 81 (2.29%) QA
3 75 (2.12%) Accessibility
4 70 (1.98%) PMO
5 48 (1.36%) PCI DSS
6 47 (1.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 36 (1.02%) GDPR
8 30 (0.85%) NIST
9 26 (0.74%) WCAG
10 25 (0.71%) SLA
11 17 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
12 11 (0.31%) GRC
13 10 (0.28%) NCSC
14 9 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
14 9 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
15 8 (0.23%) HL7
16 6 (0.17%) ISO 20022
17 5 (0.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 4 (0.11%) MiFID
19 3 (0.085%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 204 (5.77%) Active Directory
2 186 (5.26%) Docker
3 40 (1.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (0.71%) vSphere
6 16 (0.45%) 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 6 (0.17%) 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
1 209 (5.91%) Kubernetes
2 170 (4.81%) Terraform
3 86 (2.43%) 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 (0.25%) 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
1 466 (13.18%) Microsoft
2 169 (4.78%) SAP
3 139 (3.93%) Cisco
4 126 (3.56%) Oracle
5 87 (2.46%) VMware
6 69 (1.95%) Google
7 61 (1.72%) ServiceNow
8 53 (1.50%) Palo Alto
9 43 (1.22%) Salesforce
9 43 (1.22%) Splunk
10 42 (1.19%) Adobe
10 42 (1.19%) Citrix
11 37 (1.05%) Databricks
12 36 (1.02%) CheckPoint
13 34 (0.96%) Juniper
14 32 (0.90%) Apple
14 32 (0.90%) F5
15 30 (0.85%) Atlassian
15 30 (0.85%) IBM
16 25 (0.71%) SolarWinds