Games Contracts in England

Gaming
UK > England

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Games in contract job vacancies in England. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Games over the 6 months leading up to 25 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 352 418 409
Rank change year-on-year +66 -9 -28
Contract jobs citing Games 134 141 234
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.53% 0.38% 0.50%
As % of the General category 0.83% 0.66% 0.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 48 86 203
10th Percentile £159 £220 £263
25th Percentile £260 £300 £323
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £388 £408 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.02% -9.33% -10.00%
75th Percentile £481 £539 £609
90th Percentile £579 £675 £738
UK median daily rate £400 £408 £450
% change year-on-year -1.96% -9.33% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 12 3
10th Percentile £28.60 £6.93 -
25th Percentile £33.91 £29.75 -
Median hourly rate £50.00 £41.21 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.33% -31.32% +37.54%
75th Percentile - £52.50 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £63.75 £72.00
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £39.92 £60.00
% change year-on-year +25.25% -33.47% +37.54%

All General Skills
England

Games falls under the General Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring common skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 16,145 21,416 27,812
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 64.29% 57.20% 59.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,401 13,688 19,526
10th Percentile £282 £288 £315
25th Percentile £404 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £535 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.80% -2.73% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £688
90th Percentile £763 £775 £798
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 775 1,825 924
10th Percentile £13.25 £12.88 £13.90
25th Percentile £16.53 £15.62 £17.25
Median hourly rate £27.94 £32.29 £28.07
Median % change year-on-year -13.47% +15.03% +20.01%
75th Percentile £53.00 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £68.75 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £31.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year -12.70% +5.00% +24.87%

Games
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing Games as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Games in England

Games
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

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

Daily rate trend for Games in England

Games
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Games in England over the 6 months to 25 June 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Games in England

Games
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

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

Hourly rate trend for Games in England

Games
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Games in England over the 6 months to 25 June 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Games in England

Games
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Games within the England region over the 6 months to 25 June 2025. 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
Midlands +33 40 £258 +14.44% 92
London +5 37 £408 -5.23% 887
West Midlands +29 36 £219 -2.78% 57
South East +61 16 - - 215
East of England +27 16 £360 -4.00% 83
North of England +19 16 £475 -5.00% 246
North West +6 10 £475 +2.70% 136
Yorkshire +5 6 £600 +17.07% 76
East Midlands +4 4 £316 -24.40% 34
South West +46 1 £160 -69.52% 60
Games
UK

Games
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England 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 21 (15.67%) IBM Domino
1 21 (15.67%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (2.99%) CMS
3 3 (2.24%) Headless CMS
4 2 (1.49%) Strapi
5 1 (0.75%) Apache
5 1 (0.75%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.75%) WordPress
Applications
1 21 (15.67%) Maya
2 11 (8.21%) NUKE
3 6 (4.48%) Adobe Captivate
3 6 (4.48%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (4.48%) Simulink
4 5 (3.73%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (2.99%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.75%) SOLIDWORKS
6 1 (0.75%) SPSS
6 1 (0.75%) Stata
6 1 (0.75%) ZBrush
Cloud Services
1 26 (19.40%) Microsoft 365
2 9 (6.72%) Azure
3 6 (4.48%) Entra ID
4 5 (3.73%) Power Platform
5 3 (2.24%) AWS
5 3 (2.24%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (2.24%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (0.75%) Amazon S3
6 1 (0.75%) Azure Data Factory
6 1 (0.75%) Azure Monitor
6 1 (0.75%) Canva
6 1 (0.75%) Cloud Computing
6 1 (0.75%) GCP
6 1 (0.75%) Storyblok
Communications & Networking
1 22 (16.42%) Firewall
2 21 (15.67%) Cisco IOS
3 6 (4.48%) Ethernet
4 5 (3.73%) LAN
4 5 (3.73%) TCP/IP
4 5 (3.73%) WAN
4 5 (3.73%) Wi-Fi
5 2 (1.49%) Broadband
6 1 (0.75%) Network Security
6 1 (0.75%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.73%) Power BI
1 5 (3.73%) Tableau
2 2 (1.49%) GIS
3 1 (0.75%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 10 (7.46%) Git
2 3 (2.24%) Plastic SCM
3 2 (1.49%) JIRA
4 1 (0.75%) GitLab
4 1 (0.75%) TeamCity
General
1 42 (31.34%) Social Skills
2 25 (18.66%) Analytical Skills
3 18 (13.43%) Automotive
4 8 (5.97%) Manufacturing
4 8 (5.97%) Retail
5 6 (4.48%) Aerospace
5 6 (4.48%) Documentation Skills
5 6 (4.48%) Electronics
5 6 (4.48%) Finance
5 6 (4.48%) Marketing
6 5 (3.73%) Polish Language
6 5 (3.73%) Publishing
7 3 (2.24%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.49%) Banking
8 2 (1.49%) French Language
8 2 (1.49%) German Language
8 2 (1.49%) Italian Language
8 2 (1.49%) Japanese Language
8 2 (1.49%) Spanish Language
9 1 (0.75%) Legal
Job Titles
1 28 (20.90%) Senior
2 21 (15.67%) Platform Engineer
3 12 (8.96%) Lead
4 11 (8.21%) Analyst
5 9 (6.72%) Developer
6 8 (5.97%) Designer
7 7 (5.22%) Games Designer
8 6 (4.48%) Senior Designer
8 6 (4.48%) Technical Designer
9 5 (3.73%) Animator
9 5 (3.73%) Senior Games Designer
10 4 (2.99%) 2nd Line Engineer
10 4 (2.99%) 3D Artist
10 4 (2.99%) Compliance Executive
10 4 (2.99%) Data Analyst
10 4 (2.99%) FPGA Engineer
10 4 (2.99%) Games Developer
11 3 (2.24%) Data Engineer
11 3 (2.24%) Games Engineer
11 3 (2.24%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (19.40%) Unreal Engine
2 20 (14.93%) CSS
2 20 (14.93%) HTML
3 18 (13.43%) Django
4 13 (9.70%) Unity (Game Engine)
5 6 (4.48%) V-Ray
6 3 (2.24%) Godot
7 2 (1.49%) Next.js
7 2 (1.49%) React
8 1 (0.75%) Apollo GraphQL
8 1 (0.75%) ARM Templates
8 1 (0.75%) Bazel
8 1 (0.75%) Blazor
8 1 (0.75%) Framer.js
8 1 (0.75%) GraphQL
8 1 (0.75%) Nuxt
8 1 (0.75%) Playwright
8 1 (0.75%) PySpark
8 1 (0.75%) Tailwind CSS
8 1 (0.75%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 25 (18.66%) Animation
2 17 (12.69%) Virtual Reality
3 8 (5.97%) Onboarding
4 7 (5.22%) Algorithms
5 6 (4.48%) FPGA
5 6 (4.48%) Mobile Games
5 6 (4.48%) PCIe
5 6 (4.48%) Verilog
6 5 (3.73%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (2.24%) Augmented Reality
7 3 (2.24%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (2.24%) Online Games
8 2 (1.49%) Data Structures
8 2 (1.49%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 1 (0.75%) Hybrid Cloud
9 1 (0.75%) Learning Management System
9 1 (0.75%) Management Information System
9 1 (0.75%) Mobile App
9 1 (0.75%) PMI
9 1 (0.75%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 22 (16.42%) Android
1 22 (16.42%) Windows
2 21 (15.67%) Mac OS
3 1 (0.75%) Linux
3 1 (0.75%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (16.42%) E-Commerce
2 20 (14.93%) Problem-Solving
3 17 (12.69%) Artificial Intelligence
4 14 (10.45%) Game Development
4 14 (10.45%) User Experience
5 12 (8.96%) Analytical Thinking
5 12 (8.96%) Visualisation
6 11 (8.21%) Agile
6 11 (8.21%) Customer Service
7 9 (6.72%) Cybersecurity
7 9 (6.72%) Machine Learning
7 9 (6.72%) Stakeholder Management
8 7 (5.22%) Computer Science
9 6 (4.48%) Business Intelligence
9 6 (4.48%) Cryptography
9 6 (4.48%) Decision-Making
9 6 (4.48%) DevOps
9 6 (4.48%) Physics
9 6 (4.48%) Process Improvement
9 6 (4.48%) UVM
Programming Languages
1 25 (18.66%) Python
1 25 (18.66%) SQL
2 23 (17.16%) PowerShell
3 22 (16.42%) C++
4 19 (14.18%) Java
5 17 (12.69%) Tcl
6 11 (8.21%) TypeScript
7 7 (5.22%) C#
7 7 (5.22%) JavaScript
8 6 (4.48%) MATLAB
8 6 (4.48%) SystemVerilog
9 2 (1.49%) R
10 1 (0.75%) Bicep
10 1 (0.75%) PHP
Qualifications
1 15 (11.19%) Degree
2 7 (5.22%) SC Cleared
2 7 (5.22%) Security Cleared
3 6 (4.48%) HNC
3 6 (4.48%) HND
4 1 (0.75%) BPSS Clearance
4 1 (0.75%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (0.75%) ISEB
4 1 (0.75%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 1 (0.75%) Master's Degree
4 1 (0.75%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (8.96%) QA
2 6 (4.48%) DO-254
3 3 (2.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (2.24%) Software Quality Assurance
4 1 (0.75%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.75%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.75%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.75%) GRC
4 1 (0.75%) ISO 22301
4 1 (0.75%) NIST
System Software
1 27 (20.15%) Active Directory
2 6 (4.48%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 22 (16.42%) SCCM
2 21 (15.67%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (0.75%) Terraform
Vendors
1 35 (26.12%) Microsoft
2 21 (15.67%) Cisco
2 21 (15.67%) Meraki
2 21 (15.67%) Splunk
3 7 (5.22%) Adobe
3 7 (5.22%) Databricks
4 6 (4.48%) Actel
4 6 (4.48%) Altera
4 6 (4.48%) Autodesk
4 6 (4.48%) Intel
4 6 (4.48%) Microsemi
4 6 (4.48%) Xilinx
5 2 (1.49%) BT
5 2 (1.49%) Perforce
6 1 (0.75%) HP
6 1 (0.75%) ServiceNow