Junior Contract Job Trends in England

Junior
UK > England

The median Junior daily rate in England is £300, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 March 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 367 315 363
Rank change year-on-year -52 +48 +25
Contract jobs requiring a Junior 214 156 186
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.57% 0.63% 0.49%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.62% 0.68% 0.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 108 126 134
10th Percentile £150 £141 £123
25th Percentile £181 £185 £209
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £300 £275 £325
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -15.38% +18.18%
75th Percentile £406 £398 £419
90th Percentile £489 £450 £509
UK median daily rate £300 £270 £325
% change year-on-year +11.11% -16.92% +18.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 3 12
10th Percentile £12.43 £16.63 -
25th Percentile £12.86 £17.19 £10.42
Median hourly rate £13.25 £18.13 £12.97
Median % change year-on-year -26.92% +39.78% -7.36%
75th Percentile £14.00 £20.03 £21.63
90th Percentile £18.32 £21.16 £38.97
UK median hourly rate £14.00 £18.13 £12.30
% change year-on-year -22.78% +47.40% -8.07%

All Contract IT Job Roles
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in England. 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 England with a recognized job title 34,420 22,977 34,988
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.07% 93.06% 92.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,721 15,223 23,383
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £409 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,262 800 2,288
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.50 £21.24 £16.25
Median hourly rate £38.63 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.37% +7.69% -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.22 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +10.77% - -23.85%

Junior
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Junior' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Junior job vacancy trend in England

Junior
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Junior job vacancies in England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Junior job vacancies in England

Junior
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Junior in England over the 6 months to 23 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Junior in England

Junior
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Junior job vacancies in England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Junior job vacancies in England

Junior
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 Junior within the England region over the 6 months to 23 March 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
London -20 102 £323 +11.98% 86
South East -40 36 £275 -8.41% 87
North of England -62 25 £360 +57.89% 66
Midlands -67 21 £195 +8.33% 59
West Midlands -60 18 £185 +15.63% 25
North West -22 17 £327 -17.22% 27
East of England -15 16 £168 -44.40% 34
South West -15 12 £425 +36.00% 21
North East - 8 £398 - 16
East Midlands -37 3 £297 +48.50% 34
Yorkshire -69 2 £441 +204.31% 24
Junior
UK

Junior Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 23 March 2026, Junior contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the England region featuring Junior in the job title.

1 39 (18.22%) Security Cleared
2 35 (16.36%) Agile
3 31 (14.49%) SC Cleared
4 30 (14.02%) Problem-Solving
5 28 (13.08%) SQL
6 27 (12.62%) Break/Fix
6 27 (12.62%) HP
7 23 (10.75%) Python
8 21 (9.81%) Microsoft
9 20 (9.35%) Degree
10 19 (8.88%) Time Management
11 18 (8.41%) Azure
12 17 (7.94%) TCP/IP
13 16 (7.48%) CI/CD
13 16 (7.48%) DNS
14 15 (7.01%) Continuous Improvement
15 14 (6.54%) Computer Science
16 13 (6.07%) DevOps
16 13 (6.07%) Project Management
16 13 (6.07%) Scrum
17 12 (5.61%) .NET
17 12 (5.61%) Ansible
17 12 (5.61%) BIG-IP
17 12 (5.61%) C#
17 12 (5.61%) DV Cleared
17 12 (5.61%) F5
17 12 (5.61%) HTTP
17 12 (5.61%) Java
17 12 (5.61%) JIRA
17 12 (5.61%) Project Delivery

Junior Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 8 (3.74%) Confluence
2 5 (2.34%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.93%) Apache
3 2 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.47%) FileNet
4 1 (0.47%) govService
4 1 (0.47%) IIS
Applications
1 9 (4.21%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (2.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (2.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (2.34%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (1.40%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.93%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.47%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.47%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 5 (2.34%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 18 (8.41%) Azure
2 8 (3.74%) AWS
2 8 (3.74%) Power Platform
3 6 (2.80%) Azure DevOps
3 6 (2.80%) Microsoft 365
4 5 (2.34%) Entra ID
4 5 (2.34%) Serverless
5 4 (1.87%) Amazon S3
5 4 (1.87%) AWS Lambda
6 3 (1.40%) Amazon Kinesis
6 3 (1.40%) AWS Step Functions
6 3 (1.40%) Azure AKS
6 3 (1.40%) Azure Cosmos DB
6 3 (1.40%) GitHub
6 3 (1.40%) SaaS
7 2 (0.93%) Amazon EC2
7 2 (0.93%) Amazon SQS
7 2 (0.93%) dbt
7 2 (0.93%) Figma
7 2 (0.93%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 17 (7.94%) TCP/IP
2 16 (7.48%) DNS
3 12 (5.61%) BIG-IP
3 12 (5.61%) HTTP
3 12 (5.61%) SSL
3 12 (5.61%) Wireshark
4 9 (4.21%) VPN
5 6 (2.80%) Wireless
6 5 (2.34%) Internet
6 5 (2.34%) LAN
6 5 (2.34%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (1.87%) DHCP
7 4 (1.87%) VLAN
8 1 (0.47%) Cisco Nexus
8 1 (0.47%) Ethereal
8 1 (0.47%) Firewall
8 1 (0.47%) HTTPS
8 1 (0.47%) IPsec
8 1 (0.47%) Network Security
8 1 (0.47%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (3.74%) Power BI
2 5 (2.34%) Relational Database
3 4 (1.87%) NoSQL
4 3 (1.40%) Amazon Athena
4 3 (1.40%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.93%) Big Data
5 2 (0.93%) SQL Server
6 1 (0.47%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.47%) Apache Hive
6 1 (0.47%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.47%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.47%) DataStage
6 1 (0.47%) Dremio
6 1 (0.47%) Hadoop
6 1 (0.47%) Looker
6 1 (0.47%) Metadata
6 1 (0.47%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.47%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.47%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 12 (5.61%) JIRA
2 11 (5.14%) Fiddler
3 7 (3.27%) Git
4 5 (2.34%) GitLab
5 1 (0.47%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.47%) JUnit
5 1 (0.47%) TeamCity
General
1 60 (28.04%) Social Skills
2 35 (16.36%) Organisational Skills
3 27 (12.62%) Finance
4 18 (8.41%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (5.61%) Public Sector
6 11 (5.14%) Banking
7 9 (4.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (2.34%) Military
9 4 (1.87%) Front Office
9 4 (1.87%) Retail
10 3 (1.40%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (1.40%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (0.93%) Back Office
11 2 (0.93%) Legal
11 2 (0.93%) Marketing
11 2 (0.93%) Retail Banking
12 1 (0.47%) Law
12 1 (0.47%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.47%) Publishing
12 1 (0.47%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (5.61%) .NET
2 7 (3.27%) REST
3 4 (1.87%) Spring
4 3 (1.40%) HTML
4 3 (1.40%) React
5 2 (0.93%) ADO
5 2 (0.93%) AngularJS
5 2 (0.93%) Vue
6 1 (0.47%) .NET Core
6 1 (0.47%) CSS
6 1 (0.47%) FIX Protocol
6 1 (0.47%) Hibernate
6 1 (0.47%) JSF
6 1 (0.47%) JSON
6 1 (0.47%) LDAP
6 1 (0.47%) SAML
6 1 (0.47%) Struts
6 1 (0.47%) Swagger
6 1 (0.47%) XML
6 1 (0.47%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 17 (7.94%) Mobile App
2 12 (5.61%) Data Centre
3 10 (4.67%) Product Ownership
4 8 (3.74%) Management Information System
4 8 (3.74%) Onboarding
5 6 (2.80%) Cloud Native
6 4 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
6 4 (1.87%) Hedge funds
7 3 (1.40%) Data Structures
7 3 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (1.40%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 2 (0.93%) Equities
8 2 (0.93%) Fat Client
8 2 (0.93%) Fixed Income
8 2 (0.93%) Housing Association
8 2 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (0.93%) PMI
8 2 (0.93%) Thin Client
9 1 (0.47%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 8 (3.74%) Windows
2 5 (2.34%) Windows 10
3 4 (1.87%) Mac OS
4 3 (1.40%) Linux
5 1 (0.47%) CatOS
5 1 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.47%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (16.36%) Agile
2 30 (14.02%) Problem-Solving
3 27 (12.62%) Break/Fix
4 19 (8.88%) Time Management
5 16 (7.48%) CI/CD
6 15 (7.01%) Continuous Improvement
7 14 (6.54%) Computer Science
8 13 (6.07%) DevOps
8 13 (6.07%) Project Management
8 13 (6.07%) Scrum
9 12 (5.61%) Project Delivery
10 11 (5.14%) Data Loss Prevention
10 11 (5.14%) Load Balancing
10 11 (5.14%) Malware Detection/Protection
10 11 (5.14%) Stakeholder Management
11 9 (4.21%) Customer Service
11 9 (4.21%) Data Engineering
11 9 (4.21%) Migration
11 9 (4.21%) Software Engineering
12 8 (3.74%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 28 (13.08%) SQL
2 23 (10.75%) Python
3 12 (5.61%) C#
3 12 (5.61%) Java
4 5 (2.34%) JavaScript
5 3 (1.40%) Bash
6 2 (0.93%) PowerShell
7 1 (0.47%) C++
7 1 (0.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 1 (0.47%) Korn
7 1 (0.47%) Ruby
7 1 (0.47%) Rust
7 1 (0.47%) T-SQL
7 1 (0.47%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 39 (18.22%) Security Cleared
2 31 (14.49%) SC Cleared
3 20 (9.35%) Degree
4 12 (5.61%) DV Cleared
5 6 (2.80%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.87%) PMI Certification
6 4 (1.87%) PMP
7 3 (1.40%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.47%) CompTIA Security+
8 1 (0.47%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.47%) MBA
8 1 (0.47%) Network+ Certification
8 1 (0.47%) SAFe Agilist
8 1 (0.47%) Six Sigma Black Belt
8 1 (0.47%) Six Sigma Green Belt
8 1 (0.47%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (4.67%) PMO
2 6 (2.80%) Data Quality
3 4 (1.87%) Accessibility
4 3 (1.40%) QA
5 2 (0.93%) SLA
5 2 (0.93%) WCAG
6 1 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.47%) Basel III
6 1 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.47%) GRC
6 1 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.47%) P3O
System Software
1 12 (5.61%) VMware NSX
2 11 (5.14%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.87%) Docker
4 1 (0.47%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 12 (5.61%) Ansible
2 5 (2.34%) Terraform
3 4 (1.87%) Jamf Pro
3 4 (1.87%) Kubernetes
3 4 (1.87%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.47%) Istio
4 1 (0.47%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 27 (12.62%) HP
2 21 (9.81%) Microsoft
3 12 (5.61%) F5
3 12 (5.61%) VMware
4 11 (5.14%) Blue Coat
4 11 (5.14%) McAfee
5 5 (2.34%) Cisco
5 5 (2.34%) Remedy
6 4 (1.87%) Netskope
7 3 (1.40%) ServiceNow
8 2 (0.93%) Salesforce
9 1 (0.47%) Adobe
9 1 (0.47%) Alteryx
9 1 (0.47%) Aruba
9 1 (0.47%) CheckPoint
9 1 (0.47%) Google
9 1 (0.47%) IBM
9 1 (0.47%) ION Trading
9 1 (0.47%) Oracle
9 1 (0.47%) Talend