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 22 September 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 431 340 350
Rank change year-on-year -91 +10 +30
Contract jobs requiring a Junior 213 162 185
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.46% 0.59% 0.57%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.50% 0.65% 0.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 144 89 129
10th Percentile £163 £148 £125
25th Percentile £225 £185 £205
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £325 £260 £300
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -13.33% -
75th Percentile £438 £340 £380
90th Percentile £488 £425 £478
UK median daily rate £325 £260 £300
% change year-on-year +25.00% -13.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 12 3
10th Percentile £11.32 £15.47 -
25th Percentile £12.71 £19.84 -
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 42,705 25,037 30,206
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 91.31% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,379 16,124 18,786
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £401 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -3.98%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,515 1,363 1,435
10th Percentile £14.87 £13.75 £14.84
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £43.61 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +73.38% -45.54% +2.62%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.87 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -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 22 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 22 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 22 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 -42 120 £310 +12.73% 267
South West -2 42 £425 +30.77% 58
West Midlands -42 15 £162 -22.86% 34
Midlands -59 15 £162 -20.98% 54
South East -70 15 £318 +27.00% 110
North of England -69 14 £308 +26.15% 105
North West -51 10 £295 +3.96% 50
East of England -42 3 £400 +166.67% 42
North East - 3 - - 12
Yorkshire -47 1 £355 +108.82% 44
Junior
UK

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

For the 6 months to 22 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 (27.70%) Agile
2 49 (23.00%) Security Cleared
3 45 (21.13%) Microsoft
3 45 (21.13%) SC Cleared
4 37 (17.37%) Problem-Solving
5 30 (14.08%) Azure
6 28 (13.15%) Degree
7 27 (12.68%) SQL
8 21 (9.86%) Python
9 20 (9.39%) DevOps
9 20 (9.39%) Project Management
10 19 (8.92%) Analytics
10 19 (8.92%) AWS
11 18 (8.45%) Accessibility
11 18 (8.45%) AI
11 18 (8.45%) Business Intelligence
11 18 (8.45%) Continuous Improvement
11 18 (8.45%) Microsoft Excel
11 18 (8.45%) Migration
11 18 (8.45%) Stakeholder Management
12 17 (7.98%) Scrum
13 16 (7.51%) Computer Science
13 16 (7.51%) Customer Service
13 16 (7.51%) Project Delivery
13 16 (7.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 15 (7.04%) PMO
14 15 (7.04%) User Experience
15 14 (6.57%) Data Quality
15 14 (6.57%) Git
15 14 (6.57%) 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 (1.88%) IIS
2 3 (1.41%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.94%) Confluence
4 1 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.47%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.47%) WebLogic
Applications
1 18 (8.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (3.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (3.29%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (1.88%) Adobe Illustrator
4 4 (1.88%) Photoshop
4 4 (1.88%) Trello
4 4 (1.88%) UserZoom
5 3 (1.41%) Adobe After Effects
5 3 (1.41%) InDesign
6 2 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.47%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.47%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (1.88%) Magento
2 1 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.47%) MIS ActiveH
2 1 (0.47%) SAP BPC
2 1 (0.47%) SAP CO
2 1 (0.47%) SAP FI
2 1 (0.47%) SAP FI/CO
2 1 (0.47%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 30 (14.08%) Azure
2 19 (8.92%) AWS
3 14 (6.57%) Power Platform
4 13 (6.10%) Figma
5 10 (4.69%) Azure DevOps
5 10 (4.69%) Microsoft 365
6 7 (3.29%) GitHub
7 6 (2.82%) Dynamics 365
7 6 (2.82%) GCP
8 5 (2.35%) GitHub Actions
8 5 (2.35%) Miro
9 4 (1.88%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 4 (1.88%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 4 (1.88%) Azure Data Factory
9 4 (1.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 4 (1.88%) dbt
9 4 (1.88%) Microsoft Purview
10 3 (1.41%) Canva
10 3 (1.41%) OneDrive
10 3 (1.41%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 8 (3.76%) TCP/IP
2 7 (3.29%) Internet
3 6 (2.82%) LAN
3 6 (2.82%) WAN
4 3 (1.41%) BGP
4 3 (1.41%) DHCP
4 3 (1.41%) DNS
4 3 (1.41%) Network Security
5 2 (0.94%) Firewall
5 2 (0.94%) Intranet
5 2 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.47%) Unified Communications
6 1 (0.47%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (6.57%) Power BI
2 11 (5.16%) Relational Database
3 10 (4.69%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (2.35%) DTS
4 5 (2.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 4 (1.88%) Data Vault
5 4 (1.88%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (1.88%) MongoDB
5 4 (1.88%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (1.88%) Redis
6 3 (1.41%) Power Query
6 3 (1.41%) SQL Server
6 3 (1.41%) Tableau
7 2 (0.94%) Looker
7 2 (0.94%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.47%) Amazon Athena
8 1 (0.47%) BigQuery
8 1 (0.47%) Data Lake
8 1 (0.47%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.47%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 14 (6.57%) Git
2 9 (4.23%) JIRA
3 7 (3.29%) Jenkins
4 6 (2.82%) Bitbucket
5 4 (1.88%) GitLab
5 4 (1.88%) Subversion
6 2 (0.94%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.94%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.47%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.47%) Gatling
7 1 (0.47%) git-flow
7 1 (0.47%) JMeter
7 1 (0.47%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.47%) NeoLoad
7 1 (0.47%) RhodeCode
General
1 79 (37.09%) Social Skills
2 47 (22.07%) Finance
3 33 (15.49%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (9.86%) Organisational Skills
4 21 (9.86%) Public Sector
5 15 (7.04%) Banking
6 14 (6.57%) Retail
7 9 (4.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 9 (4.23%) Legal
8 8 (3.76%) Publishing
9 7 (3.29%) Marketing
10 6 (2.82%) Military
11 5 (2.35%) Investment Banking
12 4 (1.88%) French Language
12 4 (1.88%) Social Science
13 3 (1.41%) Games
13 3 (1.41%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (1.41%) Retail Banking
14 2 (0.94%) Front Office
14 2 (0.94%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (5.63%) REST
2 9 (4.23%) .NET
3 7 (3.29%) Spring
4 5 (2.35%) Terraform
5 4 (1.88%) Ktor
5 4 (1.88%) VML
5 4 (1.88%) XML
6 3 (1.41%) ASP.NET
6 3 (1.41%) Spring Boot
7 2 (0.94%) .NET Framework
7 2 (0.94%) ADO.NET
7 2 (0.94%) Ajax
7 2 (0.94%) ASP.NET Web Forms
7 2 (0.94%) NumPy
7 2 (0.94%) SciPy
7 2 (0.94%) SOAP
7 2 (0.94%) Web Services
7 2 (0.94%) XSL
7 2 (0.94%) XSLT
8 1 (0.47%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 19 (8.92%) Onboarding
2 14 (6.57%) Product Ownership
3 6 (2.82%) EPoS
4 5 (2.35%) Data Centre
4 5 (2.35%) Data Structures
4 5 (2.35%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 4 (1.88%) Graphic Design
5 4 (1.88%) Management Information System
5 4 (1.88%) Public Cloud
6 3 (1.41%) Greenfield Project
6 3 (1.41%) Security Posture
7 2 (0.94%) AI Agents
7 2 (0.94%) Cloud Native
7 2 (0.94%) Housing Association
7 2 (0.94%) Life Science
7 2 (0.94%) Private Cloud
7 2 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (0.94%) Web Conferencing
8 1 (0.47%) Social Media
8 1 (0.47%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 12 (5.63%) Windows
2 3 (1.41%) Linux
2 3 (1.41%) Windows 10
3 2 (0.94%) AIX
3 2 (0.94%) Solaris
3 2 (0.94%) Unix
3 2 (0.94%) Windows 7
3 2 (0.94%) Windows Server 2008
4 1 (0.47%) Android
4 1 (0.47%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.47%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.47%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.47%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 59 (27.70%) Agile
2 37 (17.37%) Problem-Solving
3 20 (9.39%) DevOps
3 20 (9.39%) Project Management
4 19 (8.92%) Analytics
5 18 (8.45%) AI
5 18 (8.45%) Business Intelligence
5 18 (8.45%) Continuous Improvement
5 18 (8.45%) Migration
5 18 (8.45%) Stakeholder Management
6 17 (7.98%) Scrum
7 16 (7.51%) Computer Science
7 16 (7.51%) Customer Service
7 16 (7.51%) Project Delivery
7 16 (7.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 15 (7.04%) User Experience
9 13 (6.10%) Decision-Making
10 12 (5.63%) Data Modelling
10 12 (5.63%) Risk Management
10 12 (5.63%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 27 (12.68%) SQL
2 21 (9.86%) Python
3 14 (6.57%) Java
4 12 (5.63%) C#
5 6 (2.82%) Kotlin
6 3 (1.41%) PowerShell
6 3 (1.41%) T-SQL
7 2 (0.94%) C++
7 2 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 2 (0.94%) PL/SQL
8 1 (0.47%) Bash
8 1 (0.47%) Bicep
8 1 (0.47%) Korn
8 1 (0.47%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.47%) TypeScript
8 1 (0.47%) VB
8 1 (0.47%) VBA
Qualifications
1 49 (23.00%) Security Cleared
2 45 (21.13%) SC Cleared
3 28 (13.15%) Degree
4 5 (2.35%) Master's Degree
5 4 (1.88%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.41%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.47%) A+ Certification
7 1 (0.47%) ACCA
7 1 (0.47%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.47%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.47%) CIMA
7 1 (0.47%) CISSP
7 1 (0.47%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (0.47%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
7 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.47%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (8.45%) Accessibility
2 15 (7.04%) PMO
3 14 (6.57%) Data Quality
4 6 (2.82%) QA
5 4 (1.88%) GRC
6 3 (1.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.94%) NIST
7 2 (0.94%) SLA
8 1 (0.47%) GDPR
8 1 (0.47%) HL7
8 1 (0.47%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.47%) NCSC
8 1 (0.47%) SEPA
System Software
1 7 (3.29%) Active Directory
2 6 (2.82%) Docker
3 2 (0.94%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.47%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.47%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 7 (3.29%) Ansible
2 5 (2.35%) Kubernetes
3 4 (1.88%) Prometheus
4 3 (1.41%) Packer
5 1 (0.47%) Grafana
Vendors
1 45 (21.13%) Microsoft
2 6 (2.82%) Google
3 5 (2.35%) SAP
4 4 (1.88%) VMware
5 3 (1.41%) Adobe
5 3 (1.41%) Arista
5 3 (1.41%) Cisco
6 2 (0.94%) Citrix
6 2 (0.94%) Dynatrace
6 2 (0.94%) Fortinet
6 2 (0.94%) Oracle
6 2 (0.94%) Sitecore
7 1 (0.47%) Anaplan
7 1 (0.47%) AppDynamics
7 1 (0.47%) Databricks
7 1 (0.47%) IFS
7 1 (0.47%) New Relic
7 1 (0.47%) OpenAI
7 1 (0.47%) Splunk
7 1 (0.47%) UiPath