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 15 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 207 159 183
Rank change year-on-year -48 +24 -9
Contract jobs citing Inclusion and Diversity 775 607 531
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.40% 1.83% 1.41%
As % of the General category 2.47% 2.89% 2.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 400 231 313
10th Percentile £306 £181 £416
25th Percentile £363 £360 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £600
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -20.83% -
75th Percentile £538 £625 £675
90th Percentile £650 £664 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £415 £510
% change year-on-year +2.41% -18.63% +2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 14 2
10th Percentile £12.34 £17.48 £24.15
25th Percentile £13.31 £18.64 £28.88
Median hourly rate £14.85 £22.14 £38.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.93% -41.74% -40.06%
75th Percentile £21.22 £22.41 £48.38
90th Percentile £37.39 £67.50 £53.85
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 31,386 21,013 22,089
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 56.76% 63.28% 58.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,231 13,114 13,043
10th Percentile £313 £275 £280
25th Percentile £420 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £649
90th Percentile £740 £738 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £478
% change year-on-year +5.26% -0.52% -4.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,837 1,247 919
10th Percentile £13.46 £13.59 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.01 £16.30 £17.08
Median hourly rate £27.38 £25.00 £32.28
Median % change year-on-year +9.52% -22.55% +8.50%
75th Percentile £53.75 £44.42 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.10 £71.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.08 £21.39 £30.00
% change year-on-year +26.59% -28.70% +11.11%

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 15 October 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 15 October 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 15 October 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 -60 657 £450 -7.69% 2,870
UK excluding London -12 382 £425 +2.41% 1,530
London -80 308 £500 -9.09% 1,602
Work from Home -35 265 £475 -5.00% 1,539
Midlands -13 118 £425 +2.41% 190
South East -14 93 £425 -5.56% 271
North of England -40 85 £425 +7.59% 441
West Midlands -18 77 £425 +2.41% 136
North East +12 55 £425 +6.25% 75
East Midlands +4 41 £163 -63.59% 54
South West -22 32 £475 -20.83% 151
Scotland -32 26 £210 -28.51% 253
Yorkshire -57 17 £425 +112.50% 105
East of England -27 16 £389 +61.98% 128
North West -54 13 £520 +29.88% 261
Wales -6 9 £413 +24.56% 41
Northern Ireland +4 3 - - 61

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 36 (4.65%) SharePoint
2 17 (2.19%) Confluence
3 14 (1.81%) Apache Airflow
4 12 (1.55%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (1.16%) CMS
6 8 (1.03%) Apache Spark
6 8 (1.03%) WordPress
7 7 (0.90%) Apache
8 4 (0.52%) Jupyter
8 4 (0.52%) Kentico
9 2 (0.26%) SAS
9 2 (0.26%) Skype for Business
10 1 (0.13%) JBoss
10 1 (0.13%) nginx
Applications
1 31 (4.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (2.32%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.77%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.39%) AutoCAD
5 3 (0.39%) Trello
6 2 (0.26%) Acrobat
6 2 (0.26%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.13%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.13%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.13%) Sketch
7 1 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 21 (2.71%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (2.32%) NetSuite
3 5 (0.65%) Sage X3
3 5 (0.65%) Salesforce CRM
3 5 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.52%) Dynamics NAV
4 4 (0.52%) Oracle ERP
4 4 (0.52%) Workday HCM
5 1 (0.13%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.13%) Hyperion Planning
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Financials
5 1 (0.13%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 222 (28.65%) Azure
2 143 (18.45%) AWS
3 87 (11.23%) Azure DevOps
4 85 (10.97%) Power Platform
5 70 (9.03%) Microsoft 365
6 58 (7.48%) GCP
7 50 (6.45%) GitHub
8 48 (6.19%) Serverless
9 47 (6.06%) Dynamics 365
10 39 (5.03%) GitHub Actions
10 39 (5.03%) Power Automate
11 31 (4.00%) Entra ID
12 29 (3.74%) Amazon EKS
13 28 (3.61%) AWS Lambda
14 23 (2.97%) Snowflake
15 21 (2.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 20 (2.58%) Amazon S3
16 20 (2.58%) Azure Data Factory
17 19 (2.45%) PowerApps
17 19 (2.45%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (2.06%) VPN
2 14 (1.81%) Firewall
2 14 (1.81%) Network Security
3 13 (1.68%) DNS
4 10 (1.29%) Wi-Fi
5 9 (1.16%) DHCP
5 9 (1.16%) TCP/IP
5 9 (1.16%) VLAN
5 9 (1.16%) Wireless
6 6 (0.77%) Structured Cabling
6 6 (0.77%) WAN
7 5 (0.65%) 3GPP
7 5 (0.65%) 5G
7 5 (0.65%) HTTP
7 5 (0.65%) NGN
7 5 (0.65%) OSPF
7 5 (0.65%) Radio Access Network
7 5 (0.65%) SD-WAN
7 5 (0.65%) tcpdump
7 5 (0.65%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (6.97%) Power BI
2 37 (4.77%) PostgreSQL
3 35 (4.52%) SQL Server
4 24 (3.10%) Metadata
4 24 (3.10%) MongoDB
5 20 (2.58%) Data Warehouse
6 13 (1.68%) Power Query
7 11 (1.42%) Amazon RDS
7 11 (1.42%) Data Lake
8 10 (1.29%) Looker
8 10 (1.29%) NoSQL
9 9 (1.16%) Redis
9 9 (1.16%) Relational Database
10 8 (1.03%) Big Data
11 7 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
11 7 (0.90%) DocumentDB
11 7 (0.90%) Elasticsearch
12 6 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
12 6 (0.77%) Tableau
13 5 (0.65%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 49 (6.32%) Git
2 48 (6.19%) JIRA
3 34 (4.39%) GitLab
4 32 (4.13%) Jenkins
5 14 (1.81%) Cypress.io
6 13 (1.68%) Cucumber
7 12 (1.55%) Postman
7 12 (1.55%) Selenium
8 11 (1.42%) WebDriver
9 8 (1.03%) fastlane
9 8 (1.03%) JUnit
9 8 (1.03%) Mockito
10 7 (0.90%) Gradle
10 7 (0.90%) JMeter
11 6 (0.77%) Gatling
11 6 (0.77%) LoadRunner
11 6 (0.77%) Vite
12 5 (0.65%) Visual Studio
13 4 (0.52%) CircleCI
13 4 (0.52%) Xcode
General
1 329 (42.45%) Social Skills
2 244 (31.48%) Public Sector
3 193 (24.90%) Finance
4 123 (15.87%) Analytical Skills
5 41 (5.29%) Organisational Skills
6 35 (4.52%) Manufacturing
7 28 (3.61%) Local Government
8 25 (3.23%) Banking
9 21 (2.71%) Documentation Skills
9 21 (2.71%) Influencing Skills
10 18 (2.32%) Retail
11 17 (2.19%) Law
11 17 (2.19%) Marketing
12 14 (1.81%) Legal
12 14 (1.81%) Telecoms
13 10 (1.29%) Back Office
14 9 (1.16%) Japanese Language
14 9 (1.16%) Presentation Skills
15 8 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
16 7 (0.90%) Billing
Job Titles
1 130 (16.77%) Developer
2 111 (14.32%) Senior
3 109 (14.06%) Analyst
4 80 (10.32%) Lead
5 58 (7.48%) Architect
6 38 (4.90%) Consultant
7 36 (4.65%) Senior Developer
8 29 (3.74%) Business Analyst
9 28 (3.61%) Administrator
10 27 (3.48%) DevOps Engineer
11 25 (3.23%) Data Engineer
12 24 (3.10%) Software Developer
13 23 (2.97%) Data Analyst
13 23 (2.97%) Dynamics 365 Developer
14 21 (2.71%) Support Engineer
15 20 (2.58%) Coordinator
16 18 (2.32%) IT Engineer
16 18 (2.32%) Project Manager
17 17 (2.19%) Senior Analyst
18 16 (2.06%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (10.97%) Terraform
2 51 (6.58%) RESTful
3 33 (4.26%) .NET
4 29 (3.74%) Node.js
4 29 (3.74%) React
5 27 (3.48%) CSS
5 27 (3.48%) HTML
5 27 (3.48%) Kafka
6 26 (3.35%) GraphQL
6 26 (3.35%) JSON
6 26 (3.35%) REST
7 23 (2.97%) Spring
7 23 (2.97%) Spring Boot
8 18 (2.32%) Django
9 15 (1.94%) PySpark
10 14 (1.81%) XML
11 13 (1.68%) Gherkin
11 13 (1.68%) OAuth
11 13 (1.68%) Web Services
11 13 (1.68%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 75 (9.68%) Onboarding
2 52 (6.71%) Product Ownership
3 43 (5.55%) Cloud Native
4 28 (3.61%) Management Information System
5 22 (2.84%) Distributed Systems
5 22 (2.84%) Legacy Systems
6 19 (2.45%) Data Structures
7 16 (2.06%) AI Agents
8 14 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
9 13 (1.68%) Data Centre
10 12 (1.55%) Self-Motivation
10 12 (1.55%) Taxonomies
11 11 (1.42%) Virtual Team
12 10 (1.29%) Driving Licence
13 9 (1.16%) Mobile App
13 9 (1.16%) NHS
14 8 (1.03%) Blog
15 6 (0.77%) Algorithms
15 6 (0.77%) EPoS
15 6 (0.77%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 78 (10.06%) Windows
2 21 (2.71%) Linux
3 18 (2.32%) Windows 10
4 16 (2.06%) Windows Server
5 13 (1.68%) Apple iOS
6 12 (1.55%) Android
7 9 (1.16%) macOS
8 5 (0.65%) Unix
9 4 (0.52%) Windows 7
10 3 (0.39%) AIX
10 3 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 2 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 284 (36.65%) Agile
2 184 (23.74%) Problem-Solving
3 173 (22.32%) DevOps
4 171 (22.06%) CI/CD
5 163 (21.03%) Stakeholder Management
6 142 (18.32%) Continuous Improvement
7 139 (17.94%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 125 (16.13%) AI
9 123 (15.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 106 (13.68%) Decision-Making
11 98 (12.65%) Analytics
12 90 (11.61%) Mentoring
13 81 (10.45%) Test Automation
14 76 (9.81%) Technical Leadership
15 73 (9.42%) Digital Transformation Programme
15 73 (9.42%) Infrastructure as Code
16 70 (9.03%) Validation
17 69 (8.90%) Migration
18 67 (8.65%) Data Modelling
19 64 (8.26%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 111 (14.32%) Python
2 104 (13.42%) SQL
3 83 (10.71%) JavaScript
4 57 (7.35%) C#
5 45 (5.81%) Java
6 34 (4.39%) TypeScript
7 15 (1.94%) Kotlin
8 13 (1.68%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 13 (1.68%) Scala
9 12 (1.55%) Bash
9 12 (1.55%) PowerShell
10 10 (1.29%) Go
10 10 (1.29%) Ruby
11 9 (1.16%) Swift
12 8 (1.03%) Bicep
13 6 (0.77%) Groovy
13 6 (0.77%) PL/SQL
14 5 (0.65%) PHP
14 5 (0.65%) R
15 4 (0.52%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 181 (23.35%) Security Cleared
2 172 (22.19%) SC Cleared
3 70 (9.03%) Degree
4 37 (4.77%) Microsoft Certification
5 32 (4.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 30 (3.87%) Azure Certification
7 28 (3.61%) DBS Check
8 26 (3.35%) Computer Science Degree
9 16 (2.06%) Master's Degree
10 14 (1.81%) ISTQB
11 8 (1.03%) AWS Certification
11 8 (1.03%) CISSP
12 6 (0.77%) ACCA
12 6 (0.77%) CIMA
12 6 (0.77%) CISM
12 6 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
13 5 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 5 (0.65%) PhD
13 5 (0.65%) PMP
14 4 (0.52%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (13.55%) Accessibility
2 59 (7.61%) QA
3 53 (6.84%) WCAG
4 48 (6.19%) GDPR
5 44 (5.68%) Data Quality
6 22 (2.84%) SLA
7 20 (2.58%) NCSC
8 18 (2.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 12 (1.55%) PMO
10 9 (1.16%) NIST
11 6 (0.77%) Actionable Recommendations
12 5 (0.65%) COBIT
12 5 (0.65%) GRC
13 4 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
14 3 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 3 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
15 2 (0.26%) Def Stans
15 2 (0.26%) DICOM
15 2 (0.26%) HL7
15 2 (0.26%) ITGC
System Software
1 65 (8.39%) Docker
2 42 (5.42%) Active Directory
3 9 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.90%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.39%) BitLocker
6 3 (0.39%) Firmware
7 2 (0.26%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 2 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (0.26%) vSphere
8 1 (0.13%) KVM
8 1 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.13%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 71 (9.16%) Kubernetes
2 36 (4.65%) Grafana
3 27 (3.48%) Prometheus
4 20 (2.58%) Microsoft Intune
5 16 (2.06%) Ansible
6 14 (1.81%) SCCM
7 7 (0.90%) Kibana
7 7 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.65%) Consul
9 4 (0.52%) Rancher
10 3 (0.39%) Packer
11 2 (0.26%) HP ALM
11 2 (0.26%) HP Quality Center
11 2 (0.26%) ITRS Geneos
11 2 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.26%) ZABBIX
11 2 (0.26%) Zipkin
12 1 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 1 (0.13%) Kustomize
12 1 (0.13%) McAfee ePO
Vendors
1 189 (24.39%) Microsoft
2 31 (4.00%) Google
3 29 (3.74%) Dynatrace
4 26 (3.35%) Oracle
5 25 (3.23%) Databricks
6 23 (2.97%) ServiceNow
7 20 (2.58%) Salesforce
8 14 (1.81%) SAP
8 14 (1.81%) Splunk
9 11 (1.42%) Apple
9 11 (1.42%) CyberArk
9 11 (1.42%) Sage
9 11 (1.42%) VMware
10 10 (1.29%) OpenAI
11 9 (1.16%) Cisco
11 9 (1.16%) PagerDuty
11 9 (1.16%) UiPath
12 8 (1.03%) Qualys
13 7 (0.90%) CA Agile Central
13 7 (0.90%) Confluent