Junior Contract Job Trends in England

Junior
UK > England

The median Junior daily rate in England is £263, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 January 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 374 325 359
Rank change year-on-year -49 +34 +63
Contract jobs requiring a Junior 178 155 187
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.55% 0.59% 0.50%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.60% 0.63% 0.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 86 114 131
10th Percentile £145 £141 £130
25th Percentile £158 £200 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £263 £295 £325
Median % change year-on-year -11.02% -9.23% +10.17%
75th Percentile £359 £429 £400
90th Percentile £488 £468 £500
UK median daily rate £275 £289 £325
% change year-on-year -4.68% -11.23% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 3 12
10th Percentile - £16.63 £11.27
25th Percentile - £17.19 £14.60
Median hourly rate £13.25 £18.13 £20.22
Median % change year-on-year -26.92% -10.31% +44.39%
75th Percentile £15.75 £22.57 £30.05
90th Percentile £18.90 £25.23 £39.10
UK median hourly rate £14.61 £18.13 £18.93
% change year-on-year -19.42% -4.23% +35.21%

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 29,574 24,600 35,001
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.64% 93.00% 92.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,859 15,166 23,647
10th Percentile £300 £300 £275
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £745
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,840 745 1,921
10th Percentile £14.82 £16.00 £13.41
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.64
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -6.67% +7.14%
75th Percentile £63.56 £64.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £28.88 £32.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year -11.14% -13.33% +8.49%

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 26 January 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 26 January 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 -26 61 £275 -15.38% 83
South East -16 39 £165 -40.00% 103
Midlands -33 29 £170 -42.13% 35
North of England -55 23 £315 -16.28% 64
West Midlands -31 21 £190 -52.50% 14
North West -18 19 £305 -23.30% 30
East of England +1 15 £175 -39.66% 50
South West -10 11 £333 +23.72% 43
East Midlands -21 8 £135 -3.57% 21
North East - 4 £398 - 16
Yorkshire -55 2 £441 +138.51% 18
Junior
UK

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

For the 6 months to 26 January 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 31 (17.42%) Problem-Solving
2 30 (16.85%) Break/Fix
3 27 (15.17%) HP
3 27 (15.17%) Microsoft
4 23 (12.92%) Python
5 22 (12.36%) Agile
6 21 (11.80%) Security Cleared
7 20 (11.24%) Time Management
8 17 (9.55%) Degree
8 17 (9.55%) TCP/IP
9 16 (8.99%) SC Cleared
10 15 (8.43%) JIRA
10 15 (8.43%) SQL
11 14 (7.87%) DNS
11 14 (7.87%) Windows
12 13 (7.30%) Ansible
12 13 (7.30%) BIG-IP
12 13 (7.30%) F5
12 13 (7.30%) HTTP
12 13 (7.30%) Project Delivery
12 13 (7.30%) SSL
12 13 (7.30%) Wireshark
13 12 (6.74%) Azure
13 12 (6.74%) Blue Coat
13 12 (6.74%) CI/CD
13 12 (6.74%) Fiddler
13 12 (6.74%) Load Balancing
13 12 (6.74%) McAfee
13 12 (6.74%) Microsoft Office
14 11 (6.18%) Microsoft 365

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 10 (5.62%) Confluence
2 5 (2.81%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.12%) Apache
3 2 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.56%) FileNet
4 1 (0.56%) IIS
Applications
1 12 (6.74%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (3.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (2.81%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (2.81%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (2.25%) MS Visio
5 3 (1.69%) Adobe Illustrator
5 3 (1.69%) InDesign
5 3 (1.69%) Photoshop
6 2 (1.12%) Adobe After Effects
6 2 (1.12%) Adobe Premiere
6 2 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.56%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 5 (2.81%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 12 (6.74%) Azure
2 11 (6.18%) Microsoft 365
3 9 (5.06%) AWS
4 5 (2.81%) Power Platform
5 4 (2.25%) Entra ID
5 4 (2.25%) Serverless
6 3 (1.69%) Amazon Kinesis
6 3 (1.69%) Amazon S3
6 3 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
6 3 (1.69%) AWS Step Functions
6 3 (1.69%) SaaS
7 2 (1.12%) Adobe Creative Cloud
7 2 (1.12%) Amazon SQS
7 2 (1.12%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (1.12%) dbt
7 2 (1.12%) GCP
7 2 (1.12%) GitHub
7 2 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (1.12%) Power Automate
7 2 (1.12%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 17 (9.55%) TCP/IP
2 14 (7.87%) DNS
3 13 (7.30%) BIG-IP
3 13 (7.30%) HTTP
3 13 (7.30%) SSL
3 13 (7.30%) Wireshark
4 6 (3.37%) VPN
4 6 (3.37%) Wireless
5 5 (2.81%) Internet
6 3 (1.69%) DMZ
6 3 (1.69%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
6 3 (1.69%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 1 (0.56%) Cisco Nexus
7 1 (0.56%) DHCP
7 1 (0.56%) Firewall
7 1 (0.56%) HTTPS
7 1 (0.56%) IPsec
7 1 (0.56%) LAN
7 1 (0.56%) WAN
7 1 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.25%) Power BI
2 3 (1.69%) Amazon Athena
2 3 (1.69%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.12%) Big Data
3 2 (1.12%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.56%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.56%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.56%) DataStage
4 1 (0.56%) Dremio
4 1 (0.56%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.56%) Metadata
4 1 (0.56%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.56%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
4 1 (0.56%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 1 (0.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.56%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 15 (8.43%) JIRA
2 12 (6.74%) Fiddler
3 5 (2.81%) GitLab
4 4 (2.25%) Git
5 3 (1.69%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.56%) JUnit
6 1 (0.56%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.56%) Visual Studio
General
1 50 (28.09%) Social Skills
2 29 (16.29%) Organisational Skills
3 19 (10.67%) Finance
4 15 (8.43%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (6.18%) Banking
6 9 (5.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (2.81%) Marketing
7 5 (2.81%) Military
7 5 (2.81%) Retail
8 3 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (1.69%) Front Office
8 3 (1.69%) Investment Banking
8 3 (1.69%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.69%) Public Sector
9 2 (1.12%) Back Office
9 2 (1.12%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (1.12%) Retail Banking
10 1 (0.56%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.56%) Corporate Banking
10 1 (0.56%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.12%) .NET
1 2 (1.12%) ADO
1 2 (1.12%) REST
2 1 (0.56%) CSS
2 1 (0.56%) Django
2 1 (0.56%) Gherkin
2 1 (0.56%) Guava
2 1 (0.56%) Hibernate
2 1 (0.56%) HTML
2 1 (0.56%) JSF
2 1 (0.56%) JSON
2 1 (0.56%) Kafka
2 1 (0.56%) LDAP
2 1 (0.56%) Oracle Fusion
2 1 (0.56%) SAML
2 1 (0.56%) Spring
2 1 (0.56%) Struts
2 1 (0.56%) Swagger
2 1 (0.56%) XML
2 1 (0.56%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 16 (8.99%) Mobile App
2 10 (5.62%) Data Centre
2 10 (5.62%) Management Information System
3 8 (4.49%) Onboarding
4 5 (2.81%) Self-Motivation
5 4 (2.25%) Cloud Native
6 3 (1.69%) Social Media
7 2 (1.12%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (1.12%) Graphic Design
7 2 (1.12%) Low-Code
7 2 (1.12%) Operational Technology
7 2 (1.12%) Product Ownership
8 1 (0.56%) Distributed Systems
8 1 (0.56%) Fixed Income
8 1 (0.56%) FMCG
8 1 (0.56%) NHS
8 1 (0.56%) PMI
8 1 (0.56%) Reference Data
8 1 (0.56%) SCADA
8 1 (0.56%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 14 (7.87%) Windows
2 4 (2.25%) Linux
2 4 (2.25%) Windows 10
3 3 (1.69%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.56%) CatOS
4 1 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.56%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (17.42%) Problem-Solving
2 30 (16.85%) Break/Fix
3 22 (12.36%) Agile
4 20 (11.24%) Time Management
5 13 (7.30%) Project Delivery
6 12 (6.74%) CI/CD
6 12 (6.74%) Load Balancing
7 10 (5.62%) DevOps
7 10 (5.62%) Project Management
7 10 (5.62%) Scrum
8 9 (5.06%) Continuous Improvement
8 9 (5.06%) Customer Service
8 9 (5.06%) Data Loss Prevention
8 9 (5.06%) Malware Detection/Protection
8 9 (5.06%) Migration
9 8 (4.49%) Analytics
9 8 (4.49%) ITIL
9 8 (4.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 8 (4.49%) Stakeholder Management
10 7 (3.93%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 23 (12.92%) Python
2 15 (8.43%) SQL
3 6 (3.37%) Java
4 3 (1.69%) Bash
4 3 (1.69%) PowerShell
5 2 (1.12%) JavaScript
5 2 (1.12%) PHP
5 2 (1.12%) Rust
5 2 (1.12%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.56%) C#
6 1 (0.56%) Go
6 1 (0.56%) Korn
6 1 (0.56%) TypeScript
6 1 (0.56%) VBA
Qualifications
1 21 (11.80%) Security Cleared
2 17 (9.55%) Degree
3 16 (8.99%) SC Cleared
4 9 (5.06%) DV Cleared
5 4 (2.25%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (2.25%) PMI Certification
5 4 (2.25%) PMP
6 2 (1.12%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.56%) A+ Certification
7 1 (0.56%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (0.56%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.56%) HNC
7 1 (0.56%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.56%) MBA
7 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.56%) Network+ Certification
7 1 (0.56%) SAFe Agilist
7 1 (0.56%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.06%) PMO
2 5 (2.81%) QA
3 4 (2.25%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.12%) SLA
5 1 (0.56%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.56%) Basel III
5 1 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 10 (5.62%) VMware NSX
2 9 (5.06%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.12%) Docker
4 1 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 13 (7.30%) Ansible
2 4 (2.25%) Terraform
3 3 (1.69%) Jamf Pro
3 3 (1.69%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (1.12%) Kubernetes
5 1 (0.56%) SCCM
5 1 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 27 (15.17%) HP
1 27 (15.17%) Microsoft
2 13 (7.30%) F5
3 12 (6.74%) Blue Coat
3 12 (6.74%) McAfee
4 10 (5.62%) VMware
5 8 (4.49%) Cisco
6 5 (2.81%) Remedy
7 4 (2.25%) Netskope
8 3 (1.69%) Adobe
8 3 (1.69%) Fortinet
8 3 (1.69%) NetApp
8 3 (1.69%) Oracle
9 2 (1.12%) Databricks
9 2 (1.12%) Google
10 1 (0.56%) Alteryx
10 1 (0.56%) Aruba
10 1 (0.56%) Facebook
10 1 (0.56%) Instagram
10 1 (0.56%) Talend