Inclusion and Diversity Contract Job Trends

Inclusion and Diversity
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Inclusion and Diversity in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Inclusion and Diversity over the 6 months leading up to 27 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 204 154 169
Rank change year-on-year -50 +15 0
Contract jobs citing Inclusion and Diversity 763 620 553
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.40% 1.88% 1.45%
As % of the General category 2.49% 2.96% 2.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 403 239 326
10th Percentile £306 £183 £425
25th Percentile £363 £354 £501
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £463 £600
Median % change year-on-year -2.70% -22.92% -
75th Percentile £572 £614 £675
90th Percentile £650 £650 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £410 £500
% change year-on-year +3.66% -18.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 14 3
10th Percentile £12.63 £17.48 £26.05
25th Percentile £13.87 £18.64 £33.63
Median hourly rate £17.07 £22.14 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.90% -53.39% -25.20%
75th Percentile £30.28 £22.41 £53.13
90th Percentile £44.99 £67.50 £55.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £14.05 £22.14 -
% change year-on-year -36.54% - -

All General Skills
UK

Inclusion and Diversity falls under the General Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring general skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 30,582 20,973 22,309
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.96% 63.46% 58.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,867 13,026 13,214
10th Percentile £313 £275 £281
25th Percentile £419 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,616 1,223 1,039
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £14.95
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.17 £17.35
Median hourly rate £29.01 £25.15 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.35% -28.14% +27.27%
75th Percentile £53.87 £47.12 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.07 £21.39 £35.00
% change year-on-year +35.90% -38.89% +29.63%

Inclusion and Diversity
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Inclusion and Diversity relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Inclusion and Diversity job vacancy trend in the UK

Inclusion and Diversity
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Inclusion and Diversity.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Inclusion and Diversity

Inclusion and Diversity
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Inclusion and Diversity over the 6 months to 27 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Inclusion and Diversity in the UK

Inclusion and Diversity
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Inclusion and Diversity.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Inclusion and Diversity

Inclusion and Diversity
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Inclusion and Diversity over the 6 months to 27 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Inclusion and Diversity in the UK

Inclusion and Diversity
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Inclusion and Diversity within the UK over the 6 months to 27 September 2026. 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 -52 644 £450 -5.26% 4,609
UK excluding London -10 356 £425 +3.66% 2,935
London -69 320 £510 -5.12% 2,379
Work from Home -24 269 £475 -2.56% 2,425
Midlands -7 112 £425 +2.41% 377
South East -16 88 £425 -5.56% 574
North of England -44 79 £425 +14.09% 692
West Midlands -16 78 £425 +2.41% 247
North East +8 53 £425 +6.25% 91
East Midlands -6 34 £163 -62.21% 130
South West -19 27 £475 -20.83% 426
Scotland -31 27 £210 -53.33% 429
Yorkshire -72 14 £425 +112.50% 163
East of England -26 12 £425 +30.77% 251
North West -56 12 £518 +29.38% 438
Wales -8 8 £413 +24.56% 70
Northern Ireland +1 3 - - 147

Inclusion and Diversity
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 37 (4.85%) SharePoint
2 17 (2.23%) Confluence
3 13 (1.70%) Apache Airflow
4 11 (1.44%) CMS
5 10 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
6 9 (1.18%) WordPress
7 8 (1.05%) Apache Spark
8 7 (0.92%) Apache
9 4 (0.52%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.52%) Kentico
10 2 (0.26%) Skype for Business
11 1 (0.13%) Drupal
11 1 (0.13%) JBoss
11 1 (0.13%) nginx
11 1 (0.13%) SAS
Applications
1 27 (3.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (1.97%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (1.05%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.39%) AutoCAD
5 3 (0.39%) Trello
6 2 (0.26%) Acrobat
6 2 (0.26%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.26%) Sketch
7 1 (0.13%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.13%) InVision
Business Applications
1 21 (2.75%) Dynamics CRM
2 17 (2.23%) NetSuite
3 8 (1.05%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.66%) Sage X3
4 5 (0.66%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.52%) Dynamics NAV
5 4 (0.52%) Oracle ERP
5 4 (0.52%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.13%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.13%) Hyperion Planning
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Financials
6 1 (0.13%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.13%) SAP FI
6 1 (0.13%) SAP FS
6 1 (0.13%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 223 (29.23%) Azure
2 140 (18.35%) AWS
3 87 (11.40%) Azure DevOps
4 84 (11.01%) Power Platform
5 68 (8.91%) Microsoft 365
6 56 (7.34%) GCP
7 50 (6.55%) GitHub
8 47 (6.16%) Serverless
9 45 (5.90%) Dynamics 365
10 38 (4.98%) GitHub Actions
10 38 (4.98%) Power Automate
11 30 (3.93%) Amazon EKS
12 29 (3.80%) Entra ID
13 27 (3.54%) AWS Lambda
14 24 (3.15%) Snowflake
15 21 (2.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 21 (2.75%) Azure Data Factory
16 19 (2.49%) Amazon S3
17 18 (2.36%) Azure Functions
17 18 (2.36%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (2.10%) VPN
2 15 (1.97%) Firewall
2 15 (1.97%) Network Security
3 13 (1.70%) DNS
4 12 (1.57%) VLAN
5 9 (1.18%) DHCP
5 9 (1.18%) Wi-Fi
5 9 (1.18%) Wireless
6 8 (1.05%) TCP/IP
7 6 (0.79%) Structured Cabling
7 6 (0.79%) WAN
8 5 (0.66%) 3GPP
8 5 (0.66%) 5G
8 5 (0.66%) BGP
8 5 (0.66%) NGN
8 5 (0.66%) OSPF
8 5 (0.66%) Radio Access Network
8 5 (0.66%) SD-WAN
8 5 (0.66%) tcpdump
8 5 (0.66%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (7.08%) Power BI
2 39 (5.11%) PostgreSQL
3 31 (4.06%) SQL Server
4 25 (3.28%) Data Warehouse
5 23 (3.01%) MongoDB
6 22 (2.88%) Metadata
7 15 (1.97%) Power Query
8 11 (1.44%) Amazon RDS
8 11 (1.44%) NoSQL
9 10 (1.31%) Data Lake
9 10 (1.31%) Looker
10 9 (1.18%) Redis
10 9 (1.18%) Relational Database
11 8 (1.05%) Azure SQL Database
11 8 (1.05%) Big Data
11 8 (1.05%) Tableau
12 7 (0.92%) DocumentDB
12 7 (0.92%) Snowflake Schema
13 6 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
14 5 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 49 (6.42%) Git
2 47 (6.16%) JIRA
3 34 (4.46%) GitLab
4 31 (4.06%) Jenkins
5 13 (1.70%) Cucumber
5 13 (1.70%) Cypress.io
6 12 (1.57%) Postman
6 12 (1.57%) Selenium
7 11 (1.44%) WebDriver
8 8 (1.05%) fastlane
8 8 (1.05%) JUnit
8 8 (1.05%) Mockito
9 7 (0.92%) Gradle
10 6 (0.79%) Vite
11 5 (0.66%) JMeter
11 5 (0.66%) Visual Studio
12 4 (0.52%) Android Studio
12 4 (0.52%) Gatling
12 4 (0.52%) LoadRunner
12 4 (0.52%) Xcode
General
1 321 (42.07%) Social Skills
2 240 (31.45%) Public Sector
3 195 (25.56%) Finance
4 121 (15.86%) Analytical Skills
5 35 (4.59%) Organisational Skills
6 27 (3.54%) Local Government
6 27 (3.54%) Manufacturing
7 25 (3.28%) Banking
8 22 (2.88%) Influencing Skills
9 21 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
10 17 (2.23%) Law
10 17 (2.23%) Retail
11 15 (1.97%) Marketing
12 14 (1.83%) Legal
12 14 (1.83%) Telecoms
13 9 (1.18%) Back Office
14 7 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
14 7 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
14 7 (0.92%) Publishing
15 6 (0.79%) Japanese Language
Job Titles
1 127 (16.64%) Developer
2 108 (14.15%) Analyst
3 102 (13.37%) Senior
4 79 (10.35%) Lead
5 62 (8.13%) Architect
6 39 (5.11%) Consultant
7 33 (4.33%) Senior Developer
8 29 (3.80%) Data Engineer
9 27 (3.54%) Business Analyst
9 27 (3.54%) Data Analyst
9 27 (3.54%) DevOps Engineer
10 24 (3.15%) Software Developer
11 22 (2.88%) Dynamics 365 Developer
12 21 (2.75%) Administrator
12 21 (2.75%) Support Engineer
13 19 (2.49%) Coordinator
13 19 (2.49%) IT Engineer
13 19 (2.49%) Project Manager
14 17 (2.23%) Senior Analyst
15 16 (2.10%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (11.53%) Terraform
2 51 (6.68%) RESTful
3 31 (4.06%) .NET
3 31 (4.06%) React
4 30 (3.93%) Node.js
5 28 (3.67%) HTML
6 27 (3.54%) CSS
6 27 (3.54%) Kafka
7 26 (3.41%) GraphQL
7 26 (3.41%) JSON
8 25 (3.28%) REST
9 19 (2.49%) Spring
9 19 (2.49%) Spring Boot
10 17 (2.23%) Django
11 15 (1.97%) PySpark
11 15 (1.97%) XML
12 14 (1.83%) XSLT
13 13 (1.70%) Gherkin
13 13 (1.70%) OAuth
14 12 (1.57%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 73 (9.57%) Onboarding
2 50 (6.55%) Product Ownership
3 43 (5.64%) Cloud Native
4 27 (3.54%) Management Information System
5 21 (2.75%) Distributed Systems
5 21 (2.75%) Legacy Systems
6 19 (2.49%) Data Structures
7 13 (1.70%) AI Agents
7 13 (1.70%) Data Centre
8 11 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
8 11 (1.44%) Taxonomies
8 11 (1.44%) Virtual Team
9 9 (1.18%) Driving Licence
9 9 (1.18%) Mobile App
10 8 (1.05%) Blog
10 8 (1.05%) Replication
10 8 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (0.92%) Security Posture
12 6 (0.79%) EPoS
12 6 (0.79%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 79 (10.35%) Windows
2 22 (2.88%) Linux
3 18 (2.36%) Windows Server
4 17 (2.23%) Windows 10
5 13 (1.70%) Apple iOS
6 12 (1.57%) Android
7 8 (1.05%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.66%) Unix
9 4 (0.52%) Windows 7
10 3 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 2 (0.26%) AIX
11 2 (0.26%) VMS
11 2 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 275 (36.04%) Agile
2 180 (23.59%) Problem-Solving
3 171 (22.41%) DevOps
4 167 (21.89%) CI/CD
5 160 (20.97%) Stakeholder Management
6 137 (17.96%) Continuous Improvement
7 136 (17.82%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 123 (16.12%) AI
8 123 (16.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 105 (13.76%) Decision-Making
10 100 (13.11%) Analytics
11 82 (10.75%) Mentoring
12 79 (10.35%) Test Automation
13 77 (10.09%) Migration
14 73 (9.57%) Infrastructure as Code
15 72 (9.44%) Data Modelling
15 72 (9.44%) Technical Leadership
16 71 (9.31%) Validation
17 68 (8.91%) Digital Transformation Programme
18 65 (8.52%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 113 (14.81%) Python
2 105 (13.76%) SQL
3 81 (10.62%) JavaScript
4 54 (7.08%) C#
5 43 (5.64%) Java
6 34 (4.46%) TypeScript
7 15 (1.97%) Kotlin
7 15 (1.97%) Scala
8 14 (1.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 13 (1.70%) PowerShell
10 12 (1.57%) Bash
11 10 (1.31%) Go
12 9 (1.18%) Ruby
12 9 (1.18%) Swift
13 8 (1.05%) Bicep
14 6 (0.79%) Groovy
14 6 (0.79%) PL/SQL
15 5 (0.66%) PHP
16 4 (0.52%) Shell Script
16 4 (0.52%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 175 (22.94%) Security Cleared
2 165 (21.63%) SC Cleared
3 66 (8.65%) Degree
4 37 (4.85%) Microsoft Certification
5 32 (4.19%) BPSS Clearance
6 28 (3.67%) Azure Certification
6 28 (3.67%) DBS Check
7 26 (3.41%) Computer Science Degree
8 15 (1.97%) Master's Degree
9 13 (1.70%) ISTQB
10 7 (0.92%) CISSP
11 6 (0.79%) ACCA
11 6 (0.79%) AWS Certification
11 6 (0.79%) CIMA
11 6 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
12 5 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 5 (0.66%) CISM
12 5 (0.66%) PhD
12 5 (0.66%) PMP
13 4 (0.52%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 108 (14.15%) Accessibility
2 57 (7.47%) QA
3 52 (6.82%) WCAG
4 48 (6.29%) GDPR
5 46 (6.03%) Data Quality
6 20 (2.62%) SLA
7 18 (2.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 18 (2.36%) NCSC
8 9 (1.18%) NIST
8 9 (1.18%) PMO
9 6 (0.79%) Actionable Recommendations
9 6 (0.79%) GRC
10 5 (0.66%) COBIT
10 5 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
11 3 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 3 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
12 2 (0.26%) Def Stans
12 2 (0.26%) DICOM
12 2 (0.26%) HL7
13 1 (0.13%) JSP 440
System Software
1 66 (8.65%) Docker
2 43 (5.64%) Active Directory
3 11 (1.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (1.18%) Hyper-V
5 6 (0.79%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.39%) Firmware
8 2 (0.26%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 2 (0.26%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.26%) vSphere
9 1 (0.13%) KVM
9 1 (0.13%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 72 (9.44%) Kubernetes
2 37 (4.85%) Grafana
3 28 (3.67%) Prometheus
4 20 (2.62%) Microsoft Intune
5 17 (2.23%) Ansible
6 14 (1.83%) SCCM
7 7 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.79%) Kibana
9 5 (0.66%) Consul
10 4 (0.52%) Rancher
11 3 (0.39%) Packer
12 2 (0.26%) HP ALM
12 2 (0.26%) HP Quality Center
12 2 (0.26%) ITRS Geneos
12 2 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
12 2 (0.26%) ZABBIX
12 2 (0.26%) Zipkin
13 1 (0.13%) McAfee ePO
13 1 (0.13%) Nessus
13 1 (0.13%) SCOM
Vendors
1 186 (24.38%) Microsoft
2 32 (4.19%) Google
3 27 (3.54%) Dynatrace
4 24 (3.15%) Databricks
4 24 (3.15%) ServiceNow
5 21 (2.75%) Salesforce
6 20 (2.62%) Oracle
7 17 (2.23%) SAP
8 14 (1.83%) Splunk
9 13 (1.70%) VMware
10 11 (1.44%) Apple
10 11 (1.44%) CyberArk
10 11 (1.44%) OpenAI
10 11 (1.44%) Sage
11 9 (1.18%) Cisco
11 9 (1.18%) PagerDuty
12 8 (1.05%) Qualys
12 8 (1.05%) UiPath
13 7 (0.92%) CA Agile Central
13 7 (0.92%) Confluent