Junior Contract Job Trends in England

Junior
UK > England

The median Junior daily rate in England is £325, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 25 September 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 419 347 348
Rank change year-on-year -72 +1 +29
Contract jobs requiring a Junior 217 161 190
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.47% 0.58% 0.58%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.51% 0.63% 0.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 146 88 130
10th Percentile £163 £147 £125
25th Percentile £225 £196 £201
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £325 £260 £300
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -13.33% -
75th Percentile £438 £342 £379
90th Percentile £488 £425 £476
UK median daily rate £325 £261 £300
% change year-on-year +24.40% -12.92% +3.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 11 3
10th Percentile £11.32 £15.25 -
25th Percentile £12.71 £21.60 -
Median hourly rate £14.00 £23.50 £10.42
Median % change year-on-year -40.43% +125.53% -45.87%
75th Percentile £21.75 £43.75 £18.71
90th Percentile £22.15 - £23.68
UK median hourly rate £15.99 £23.50 £12.30
% change year-on-year -31.96% +91.06% -38.78%

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 42,921 25,440 30,511
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.23% 91.33% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,465 16,413 18,833
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.11%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £735 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,560 1,395 1,422
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.76 £14.84
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.44 £21.37
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -45.54% +2.62%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.10 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -3.37%

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 25 September 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Junior in England over the 6 months to 25 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Junior 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 25 September 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 -58 121 £310 +12.73% 225
South West -1 43 £425 +30.77% 53
West Midlands -32 17 £162 -22.86% 32
Midlands -53 17 £162 -20.98% 56
South East -78 15 £318 +27.00% 113
North of England -59 14 £308 +26.15% 98
North West -52 10 £295 +3.96% 48
East of England -43 3 £400 +166.67% 44
North East - 3 - - 13
Yorkshire -40 1 £355 +108.82% 37
Junior
UK

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

For the 6 months to 25 September 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 59 (27.19%) Agile
2 49 (22.58%) Security Cleared
3 48 (22.12%) Microsoft
4 45 (20.74%) SC Cleared
5 37 (17.05%) Problem-Solving
6 31 (14.29%) Azure
7 28 (12.90%) Degree
8 27 (12.44%) SQL
9 22 (10.14%) Python
10 21 (9.68%) Project Management
11 20 (9.22%) AWS
11 20 (9.22%) Continuous Improvement
11 20 (9.22%) DevOps
12 19 (8.76%) Analytics
12 19 (8.76%) Microsoft Excel
12 19 (8.76%) Stakeholder Management
13 18 (8.29%) Accessibility
13 18 (8.29%) AI
13 18 (8.29%) Business Intelligence
13 18 (8.29%) Migration
14 17 (7.83%) Scrum
15 16 (7.37%) Customer Service
15 16 (7.37%) Project Delivery
15 16 (7.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 15 (6.91%) Computer Science
16 15 (6.91%) Data Quality
16 15 (6.91%) Git
16 15 (6.91%) PMO
16 15 (6.91%) User Experience
17 14 (6.45%) Java

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 4 (1.84%) IIS
2 3 (1.38%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.92%) Confluence
4 1 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.46%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.46%) WebLogic
Applications
1 19 (8.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (4.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (3.69%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (1.84%) Trello
4 4 (1.84%) UserZoom
5 3 (1.38%) Adobe After Effects
5 3 (1.38%) Adobe Illustrator
5 3 (1.38%) Photoshop
6 2 (0.92%) InDesign
6 2 (0.92%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.92%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (1.84%) Magento
2 1 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.46%) MIS ActiveH
2 1 (0.46%) SAP BPC
2 1 (0.46%) SAP CO
2 1 (0.46%) SAP FI
2 1 (0.46%) SAP FI/CO
2 1 (0.46%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 31 (14.29%) Azure
2 20 (9.22%) AWS
3 14 (6.45%) Power Platform
4 12 (5.53%) Figma
5 11 (5.07%) Microsoft 365
6 10 (4.61%) Azure DevOps
7 8 (3.69%) GitHub
8 6 (2.76%) Dynamics 365
8 6 (2.76%) GCP
9 5 (2.30%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (2.30%) Miro
10 4 (1.84%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 4 (1.84%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 4 (1.84%) Azure Data Factory
10 4 (1.84%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 4 (1.84%) dbt
10 4 (1.84%) Microsoft Purview
11 3 (1.38%) Canva
11 3 (1.38%) OneDrive
11 3 (1.38%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 8 (3.69%) TCP/IP
2 7 (3.23%) Internet
3 6 (2.76%) LAN
3 6 (2.76%) WAN
4 3 (1.38%) BGP
4 3 (1.38%) DHCP
4 3 (1.38%) DNS
4 3 (1.38%) Network Security
5 2 (0.92%) Firewall
5 2 (0.92%) Intranet
5 2 (0.92%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.46%) Unified Communications
6 1 (0.46%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (6.45%) Power BI
2 11 (5.07%) Relational Database
3 10 (4.61%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (2.30%) DTS
4 5 (2.30%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (2.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 4 (1.84%) Data Vault
5 4 (1.84%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (1.84%) MongoDB
5 4 (1.84%) Redis
5 4 (1.84%) SQL Server
6 3 (1.38%) Power Query
6 3 (1.38%) Tableau
7 2 (0.92%) Looker
7 2 (0.92%) MySQL
7 2 (0.92%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.46%) Amazon Athena
8 1 (0.46%) Chroma
8 1 (0.46%) Data Lake
8 1 (0.46%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 15 (6.91%) Git
2 9 (4.15%) JIRA
3 7 (3.23%) Jenkins
4 6 (2.76%) Bitbucket
5 5 (2.30%) Subversion
6 4 (1.84%) GitLab
7 2 (0.92%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.92%) TeamCity
8 1 (0.46%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.46%) Gatling
8 1 (0.46%) git-flow
8 1 (0.46%) JMeter
8 1 (0.46%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.46%) NeoLoad
8 1 (0.46%) RhodeCode
8 1 (0.46%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 81 (37.33%) Social Skills
2 50 (23.04%) Finance
3 35 (16.13%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (9.68%) Public Sector
5 20 (9.22%) Organisational Skills
6 16 (7.37%) Banking
7 14 (6.45%) Retail
8 10 (4.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 9 (4.15%) Legal
10 8 (3.69%) Publishing
11 6 (2.76%) Marketing
11 6 (2.76%) Military
12 5 (2.30%) Investment Banking
13 4 (1.84%) French Language
13 4 (1.84%) Social Science
14 3 (1.38%) Games
14 3 (1.38%) Retail Banking
15 2 (0.92%) Front Office
15 2 (0.92%) Local Government
15 2 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (5.07%) REST
2 8 (3.69%) .NET
3 7 (3.23%) Spring
4 5 (2.30%) Terraform
4 5 (2.30%) XML
5 4 (1.84%) Ktor
5 4 (1.84%) VML
6 3 (1.38%) ASP.NET
6 3 (1.38%) SOAP
6 3 (1.38%) Spring Boot
6 3 (1.38%) Web Services
7 2 (0.92%) .NET Framework
7 2 (0.92%) ADO.NET
7 2 (0.92%) Ajax
7 2 (0.92%) ASP.NET Web Forms
7 2 (0.92%) NumPy
7 2 (0.92%) RESTful
7 2 (0.92%) SciPy
7 2 (0.92%) XSL
7 2 (0.92%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 20 (9.22%) Onboarding
2 14 (6.45%) Product Ownership
3 6 (2.76%) EPoS
4 5 (2.30%) Data Centre
4 5 (2.30%) Data Structures
4 5 (2.30%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 5 (2.30%) Management Information System
5 4 (1.84%) Public Cloud
6 3 (1.38%) Graphic Design
6 3 (1.38%) Greenfield Project
6 3 (1.38%) Security Posture
7 2 (0.92%) AI Agents
7 2 (0.92%) Cloud Native
7 2 (0.92%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (0.92%) Housing Association
7 2 (0.92%) Life Science
7 2 (0.92%) Private Cloud
7 2 (0.92%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (0.92%) Web Conferencing
8 1 (0.46%) Cyber Defence
Operating Systems
1 12 (5.53%) Windows
2 4 (1.84%) Linux
3 3 (1.38%) Windows 10
4 2 (0.92%) AIX
4 2 (0.92%) Solaris
4 2 (0.92%) Unix
4 2 (0.92%) Windows 7
4 2 (0.92%) Windows Server 2008
5 1 (0.46%) Android
5 1 (0.46%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.46%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.46%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.46%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (27.19%) Agile
2 37 (17.05%) Problem-Solving
3 21 (9.68%) Project Management
4 20 (9.22%) Continuous Improvement
4 20 (9.22%) DevOps
5 19 (8.76%) Analytics
5 19 (8.76%) Stakeholder Management
6 18 (8.29%) AI
6 18 (8.29%) Business Intelligence
6 18 (8.29%) Migration
7 17 (7.83%) Scrum
8 16 (7.37%) Customer Service
8 16 (7.37%) Project Delivery
8 16 (7.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 15 (6.91%) Computer Science
9 15 (6.91%) User Experience
10 13 (5.99%) Decision-Making
11 12 (5.53%) Data Modelling
11 12 (5.53%) Risk Management
12 11 (5.07%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 27 (12.44%) SQL
2 22 (10.14%) Python
3 14 (6.45%) Java
4 11 (5.07%) C#
5 6 (2.76%) Kotlin
6 4 (1.84%) T-SQL
7 3 (1.38%) PowerShell
8 2 (0.92%) Bash
8 2 (0.92%) C++
8 2 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 2 (0.92%) PL/SQL
8 2 (0.92%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.92%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.46%) Bicep
9 1 (0.46%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.46%) Korn
9 1 (0.46%) VB
9 1 (0.46%) VBA
Qualifications
1 49 (22.58%) Security Cleared
2 45 (20.74%) SC Cleared
3 28 (12.90%) Degree
4 5 (2.30%) Master's Degree
5 4 (1.84%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.38%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.46%) A+ Certification
7 1 (0.46%) ACCA
7 1 (0.46%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.46%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.46%) CIMA
7 1 (0.46%) CISSP
7 1 (0.46%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (0.46%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
7 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.46%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (8.29%) Accessibility
2 15 (6.91%) Data Quality
2 15 (6.91%) PMO
3 6 (2.76%) QA
4 5 (2.30%) GRC
5 3 (1.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.92%) NIST
6 2 (0.92%) SLA
7 1 (0.46%) GDPR
7 1 (0.46%) HL7
7 1 (0.46%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.46%) NCSC
7 1 (0.46%) SEPA
System Software
1 7 (3.23%) Active Directory
1 7 (3.23%) Docker
2 2 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
2 2 (0.92%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.46%) Hyper-V
3 1 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (0.46%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 7 (3.23%) Ansible
2 5 (2.30%) Kubernetes
3 4 (1.84%) Prometheus
4 3 (1.38%) Packer
5 1 (0.46%) Grafana
Vendors
1 48 (22.12%) Microsoft
2 6 (2.76%) Google
3 5 (2.30%) SAP
4 4 (1.84%) VMware
5 3 (1.38%) Arista
5 3 (1.38%) Cisco
6 2 (0.92%) Adobe
6 2 (0.92%) Citrix
6 2 (0.92%) Dynatrace
6 2 (0.92%) Fortinet
6 2 (0.92%) Oracle
6 2 (0.92%) Sitecore
7 1 (0.46%) Anaplan
7 1 (0.46%) AppDynamics
7 1 (0.46%) IFS
7 1 (0.46%) InterSystems
7 1 (0.46%) New Relic
7 1 (0.46%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.46%) ServiceNow
7 1 (0.46%) Splunk