Junior Contract Job Trends in England

Junior
UK > England

The median Junior daily rate in England is £283, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 27 February 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 377 337 370
Rank change year-on-year -40 +33 +22
Contract jobs requiring a Junior 194 147 189
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.55% 0.57% 0.50%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.60% 0.62% 0.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 96 116 141
10th Percentile £150 £143 £130
25th Percentile £164 £200 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £283 £289 £325
Median % change year-on-year -2.33% -11.00% +18.18%
75th Percentile £398 £400 £419
90th Percentile £488 £454 £519
UK median daily rate £288 £288 £325
% change year-on-year - -11.54% +18.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 3 10
10th Percentile £12.43 £16.63 £10.42
25th Percentile £12.72 £17.19 £11.70
Median hourly rate £13.25 £18.13 £17.41
Median % change year-on-year -26.92% +4.14% +39.06%
75th Percentile £14.00 £22.57 £28.79
90th Percentile £18.43 £25.23 £40.38
UK median hourly rate £14.00 £18.13 £15.89
% change year-on-year -22.78% +14.10% +24.24%

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 32,563 23,895 34,861
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.89% 92.95% 92.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,678 15,176 23,386
10th Percentile £306 £300 £270
25th Percentile £411 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £640
90th Percentile £725 £750 £748
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,085 729 2,154
10th Percentile £15.18 £16.25 £13.23
25th Percentile £19.00 £22.00 £16.30
Median hourly rate £35.00 £36.00 £34.52
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% +4.30% -13.71%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.30 £71.89
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £34.31 £35.00
% change year-on-year -2.35% -1.99% -12.50%

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 27 February 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 27 February 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 -39 78 £300 -5.36% 69
South East -16 36 £165 -45.00% 56
North of England -60 27 £337 +33.47% 54
Midlands -49 24 £203 -2.41% 33
West Midlands -44 20 £190 -8.43% 16
North West -24 19 £283 -28.65% 25
East of England -15 15 £168 -42.24% 25
South West -15 14 £340 +13.33% 25
North East - 8 £398 - 10
East Midlands -25 4 £297 +31.71% 17
Yorkshire -71 2 £441 +204.31% 20
Junior
UK

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

For the 6 months to 27 February 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 (15.98%) Agile
2 30 (15.46%) Problem-Solving
3 28 (14.43%) Security Cleared
4 27 (13.92%) Break/Fix
4 27 (13.92%) HP
5 24 (12.37%) Python
6 22 (11.34%) Microsoft
6 22 (11.34%) SC Cleared
6 22 (11.34%) SQL
7 19 (9.79%) DNS
7 19 (9.79%) TCP/IP
8 18 (9.28%) Degree
8 18 (9.28%) Time Management
9 15 (7.73%) Azure
9 15 (7.73%) Continuous Improvement
10 14 (7.22%) Ansible
10 14 (7.22%) BIG-IP
10 14 (7.22%) CI/CD
10 14 (7.22%) F5
10 14 (7.22%) HTTP
10 14 (7.22%) JIRA
10 14 (7.22%) Project Delivery
10 14 (7.22%) SSL
10 14 (7.22%) Wireshark
11 13 (6.70%) Blue Coat
11 13 (6.70%) DevOps
11 13 (6.70%) Fiddler
11 13 (6.70%) Load Balancing
11 13 (6.70%) McAfee
11 13 (6.70%) Scrum

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 (4.12%) Confluence
2 7 (3.61%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.03%) Apache
3 2 (1.03%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (1.03%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.52%) FileNet
4 1 (0.52%) IIS
Applications
1 9 (4.64%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (3.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (3.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (2.58%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (1.55%) MS Visio
4 3 (1.55%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.52%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.52%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 5 (2.58%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 15 (7.73%) Azure
2 10 (5.15%) Microsoft 365
3 7 (3.61%) AWS
3 7 (3.61%) Power Platform
4 5 (2.58%) Entra ID
5 4 (2.06%) Azure DevOps
5 4 (2.06%) Serverless
6 3 (1.55%) Amazon Kinesis
6 3 (1.55%) Amazon S3
6 3 (1.55%) AWS Lambda
6 3 (1.55%) AWS Step Functions
6 3 (1.55%) SaaS
7 2 (1.03%) dbt
7 2 (1.03%) Figma
7 2 (1.03%) GitHub
7 2 (1.03%) Snowflake
8 1 (0.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 1 (0.52%) Amazon EC2
8 1 (0.52%) GCP
8 1 (0.52%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 19 (9.79%) DNS
1 19 (9.79%) TCP/IP
2 14 (7.22%) BIG-IP
2 14 (7.22%) HTTP
2 14 (7.22%) SSL
2 14 (7.22%) Wireshark
3 10 (5.15%) VPN
4 6 (3.09%) Wireless
5 5 (2.58%) DHCP
5 5 (2.58%) Internet
5 5 (2.58%) LAN
5 5 (2.58%) Wi-Fi
6 4 (2.06%) VLAN
7 2 (1.03%) DMZ
7 2 (1.03%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
7 2 (1.03%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 1 (0.52%) Cisco ASA
8 1 (0.52%) Cisco Nexus
8 1 (0.52%) HTTPS
8 1 (0.52%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (3.61%) Power BI
2 3 (1.55%) Amazon Athena
2 3 (1.55%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.03%) Big Data
3 2 (1.03%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (1.03%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.52%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.52%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.52%) DataStage
4 1 (0.52%) Dremio
4 1 (0.52%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.52%) Metadata
4 1 (0.52%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
4 1 (0.52%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 1 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.52%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 14 (7.22%) JIRA
2 13 (6.70%) Fiddler
3 5 (2.58%) Git
4 4 (2.06%) GitLab
5 2 (1.03%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.52%) JUnit
6 1 (0.52%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.52%) Visual Studio
General
1 57 (29.38%) Social Skills
2 34 (17.53%) Organisational Skills
3 26 (13.40%) Finance
4 15 (7.73%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (6.70%) Banking
6 9 (4.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 7 (3.61%) Public Sector
8 5 (2.58%) Military
9 4 (2.06%) Front Office
10 3 (1.55%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (1.55%) Investment Banking
10 3 (1.55%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (1.55%) Retail
11 2 (1.03%) Back Office
11 2 (1.03%) Legal
11 2 (1.03%) Marketing
11 2 (1.03%) Retail Banking
12 1 (0.52%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.52%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.52%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (3.09%) .NET
2 3 (1.55%) HTML
3 2 (1.03%) ADO
3 2 (1.03%) AngularJS
3 2 (1.03%) REST
3 2 (1.03%) Spring
4 1 (0.52%) .NET Core
4 1 (0.52%) Apache Commons
4 1 (0.52%) CSS
4 1 (0.52%) Gherkin
4 1 (0.52%) Guava
4 1 (0.52%) JSF
4 1 (0.52%) JSON
4 1 (0.52%) Kafka
4 1 (0.52%) Oracle Fusion
4 1 (0.52%) React
4 1 (0.52%) Struts
4 1 (0.52%) Swagger
4 1 (0.52%) XML
4 1 (0.52%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 17 (8.76%) Mobile App
2 13 (6.70%) Data Centre
3 10 (5.15%) Management Information System
4 9 (4.64%) Onboarding
5 4 (2.06%) Cloud Native
5 4 (2.06%) Product Ownership
6 3 (1.55%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (1.03%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (1.03%) Data Structures
7 2 (1.03%) Fat Client
7 2 (1.03%) Hedge funds
7 2 (1.03%) PMI
7 2 (1.03%) Thin Client
8 1 (0.52%) CMDB
8 1 (0.52%) Equities
8 1 (0.52%) Fixed Income
8 1 (0.52%) FMCG
8 1 (0.52%) NHS
8 1 (0.52%) Reference Data
8 1 (0.52%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 13 (6.70%) Windows
2 5 (2.58%) Windows 10
3 4 (2.06%) Mac OS
4 3 (1.55%) Linux
5 1 (0.52%) CatOS
5 1 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.52%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (15.98%) Agile
2 30 (15.46%) Problem-Solving
3 27 (13.92%) Break/Fix
4 18 (9.28%) Time Management
5 15 (7.73%) Continuous Improvement
6 14 (7.22%) CI/CD
6 14 (7.22%) Project Delivery
7 13 (6.70%) DevOps
7 13 (6.70%) Load Balancing
7 13 (6.70%) Scrum
8 12 (6.19%) Project Management
9 11 (5.67%) Data Loss Prevention
9 11 (5.67%) Malware Detection/Protection
9 11 (5.67%) Stakeholder Management
10 10 (5.15%) Migration
11 9 (4.64%) Analytics
11 9 (4.64%) Customer Service
11 9 (4.64%) ITIL
12 8 (4.12%) Data Engineering
12 8 (4.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 24 (12.37%) Python
2 22 (11.34%) SQL
3 7 (3.61%) Java
4 5 (2.58%) C#
5 4 (2.06%) JavaScript
6 3 (1.55%) Bash
6 3 (1.55%) PowerShell
7 2 (1.03%) PHP
7 2 (1.03%) T-SQL
8 1 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.52%) Korn
8 1 (0.52%) Ruby
8 1 (0.52%) Rust
8 1 (0.52%) TypeScript
8 1 (0.52%) VBA
Qualifications
1 28 (14.43%) Security Cleared
2 22 (11.34%) SC Cleared
3 18 (9.28%) Degree
4 10 (5.15%) DV Cleared
5 5 (2.58%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (2.06%) PMI Certification
6 4 (2.06%) PMP
7 2 (1.03%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.52%) A+ Certification
8 1 (0.52%) CompTIA Security+
8 1 (0.52%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.52%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.52%) MBA
8 1 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.52%) Network+ Certification
8 1 (0.52%) SAFe Agilist
8 1 (0.52%) Six Sigma Black Belt
8 1 (0.52%) Six Sigma Green Belt
8 1 (0.52%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.67%) PMO
2 5 (2.58%) Data Quality
3 3 (1.55%) QA
4 2 (1.03%) Accessibility
4 2 (1.03%) SLA
5 1 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.52%) Basel III
5 1 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.52%) GRC
5 1 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.52%) P3O
System Software
1 12 (6.19%) Active Directory
1 12 (6.19%) VMware NSX
2 3 (1.55%) Docker
3 1 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 14 (7.22%) Ansible
2 5 (2.58%) Terraform
3 4 (2.06%) Jamf Pro
3 4 (2.06%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (1.03%) Kubernetes
5 1 (0.52%) Istio
5 1 (0.52%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 27 (13.92%) HP
2 22 (11.34%) Microsoft
3 14 (7.22%) F5
4 13 (6.70%) Blue Coat
4 13 (6.70%) McAfee
5 12 (6.19%) VMware
6 5 (2.58%) Cisco
6 5 (2.58%) Remedy
7 4 (2.06%) Netskope
8 3 (1.55%) ServiceNow
9 2 (1.03%) Databricks
9 2 (1.03%) Google
9 2 (1.03%) NetApp
9 2 (1.03%) Oracle
9 2 (1.03%) Salesforce
10 1 (0.52%) Adobe
10 1 (0.52%) Automation Anywhere
10 1 (0.52%) CheckPoint
10 1 (0.52%) IBM
10 1 (0.52%) ION Trading