Junior Contract Job Trends in England

Junior
UK > England

The median Junior daily rate in England is £336, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 25 July 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 393 345 333
Rank change year-on-year -48 -12 +36
Contract jobs requiring a Junior 239 173 207
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.53% 0.63% 0.60%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.57% 0.69% 0.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 156 102 155
10th Percentile £175 £150 £124
25th Percentile £250 £185 £202
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £336 £250 £300
Median % change year-on-year +34.50% -16.67% +11.11%
75th Percentile £438 £339 £381
90th Percentile £499 £424 £508
UK median daily rate £325 £257 £300
% change year-on-year +26.49% -14.36% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 11 7
10th Percentile £11.32 £20.64 -
25th Percentile £12.43 £21.60 -
Median hourly rate £14.00 £23.50 £10.42
Median % change year-on-year -40.43% +125.53% -40.46%
75th Percentile £21.75 £43.75 -
90th Percentile £22.10 - -
UK median hourly rate £15.00 £23.50 £10.42
% change year-on-year -36.19% +125.53% -40.46%

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 41,767 25,148 32,288
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 91.78% 93.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,470 16,339 21,305
10th Percentile £325 £288 £300
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,003 1,263 2,075
10th Percentile £16.00 £13.75 £13.69
25th Percentile £22.42 £17.80 £18.50
Median hourly rate £45.00 £26.45 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +70.13% -38.49% -2.39%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.04 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.85 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +70.39% -39.40% -5.26%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 -19 147 £311 +19.71% 85
South West -2 35 £425 +36.00% 63
North of England -70 18 £350 +75.00% 81
South East -75 16 £325 +7.44% 92
West Midlands -53 13 £162 +8.00% 25
Midlands -64 13 £162 -20.98% 42
North West -47 11 £323 +43.33% 38
North East - 6 £275 - 18
East of England -29 5 £400 +82.86% 37
Yorkshire -53 1 £355 +108.82% 27
Junior
UK

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

For the 6 months to 25 July 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 71 (29.71%) Agile
2 58 (24.27%) Security Cleared
3 52 (21.76%) SC Cleared
4 39 (16.32%) SQL
5 36 (15.06%) Azure
5 36 (15.06%) Microsoft
6 34 (14.23%) Degree
7 31 (12.97%) Problem-Solving
8 27 (11.30%) Python
9 25 (10.46%) DevOps
10 24 (10.04%) C#
11 23 (9.62%) Computer Science
11 23 (9.62%) Migration
12 22 (9.21%) Project Management
13 21 (8.79%) Accessibility
14 20 (8.37%) Java
14 20 (8.37%) Software Engineering
15 19 (7.95%) .NET
15 19 (7.95%) Continuous Improvement
16 18 (7.53%) Business Intelligence
16 18 (7.53%) Scrum
17 17 (7.11%) AWS
17 17 (7.11%) CI/CD
17 17 (7.11%) Stakeholder Management
18 16 (6.69%) AI
18 16 (6.69%) Microsoft Excel
18 16 (6.69%) Power BI
18 16 (6.69%) Power Platform
18 16 (6.69%) REST
19 15 (6.28%) Figma

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 (1.67%) IIS
2 3 (1.26%) Confluence
3 2 (0.84%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.42%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.42%) govService
4 1 (0.42%) WebLogic
Applications
1 16 (6.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (2.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (2.09%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (1.67%) Adobe Illustrator
4 4 (1.67%) Photoshop
4 4 (1.67%) UserZoom
5 3 (1.26%) Adobe After Effects
5 3 (1.26%) InDesign
6 2 (0.84%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.84%) Trello
7 1 (0.42%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.42%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.42%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.42%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 4 (1.67%) Magento
2 1 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.42%) MIS ActiveH
2 1 (0.42%) SAP BPC
2 1 (0.42%) SAP CO
2 1 (0.42%) SAP FI
2 1 (0.42%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 36 (15.06%) Azure
2 17 (7.11%) AWS
3 16 (6.69%) Power Platform
4 15 (6.28%) Figma
5 13 (5.44%) Azure DevOps
6 8 (3.35%) GitHub
6 8 (3.35%) Microsoft 365
7 5 (2.09%) Dynamics 365
7 5 (2.09%) Miro
8 4 (1.67%) GCP
9 3 (1.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 3 (1.26%) Azure AKS
9 3 (1.26%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 3 (1.26%) Azure Data Factory
9 3 (1.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 3 (1.26%) Canva
9 3 (1.26%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (1.26%) Microsoft Purview
9 3 (1.26%) Power Automate
10 2 (0.84%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 11 (4.60%) TCP/IP
2 8 (3.35%) DNS
3 7 (2.93%) Internet
4 6 (2.51%) DHCP
4 6 (2.51%) LAN
5 5 (2.09%) VPN
5 5 (2.09%) Wi-Fi
6 4 (1.67%) Network Security
6 4 (1.67%) VLAN
7 3 (1.26%) BGP
8 2 (0.84%) BIG-IP
8 2 (0.84%) Firewall
8 2 (0.84%) HTTP
8 2 (0.84%) Intranet
8 2 (0.84%) SSL
8 2 (0.84%) WAN
8 2 (0.84%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (6.69%) Power BI
2 15 (6.28%) Relational Database
3 8 (3.35%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (2.09%) DTS
5 4 (1.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 3 (1.26%) Data Vault
6 3 (1.26%) NoSQL
6 3 (1.26%) Power Query
6 3 (1.26%) SQL Server
7 2 (0.84%) BigQuery
7 2 (0.84%) Elasticsearch
7 2 (0.84%) Looker
7 2 (0.84%) MongoDB
7 2 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.84%) RDBMS
7 2 (0.84%) Redis
7 2 (0.84%) Tableau
8 1 (0.42%) MySQL
8 1 (0.42%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 1 (0.42%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 13 (5.44%) Git
2 9 (3.77%) JIRA
3 7 (2.93%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.67%) Bitbucket
4 4 (1.67%) Subversion
5 3 (1.26%) GitLab
6 2 (0.84%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.84%) Fiddler
6 2 (0.84%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.42%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.42%) Gatling
7 1 (0.42%) JMeter
7 1 (0.42%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.42%) NeoLoad
General
1 84 (35.15%) Social Skills
2 51 (21.34%) Finance
3 29 (12.13%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (11.30%) Public Sector
5 20 (8.37%) Organisational Skills
6 17 (7.11%) Banking
7 10 (4.18%) Retail
8 9 (3.77%) Legal
9 8 (3.35%) Publishing
10 7 (2.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (2.51%) Investment Banking
11 6 (2.51%) Marketing
12 4 (1.67%) French Language
12 4 (1.67%) Front Office
12 4 (1.67%) Social Science
13 3 (1.26%) Games
13 3 (1.26%) Local Government
13 3 (1.26%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (1.26%) Retail Banking
14 2 (0.84%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (7.95%) .NET
2 16 (6.69%) REST
3 8 (3.35%) Spring
4 4 (1.67%) VML
4 4 (1.67%) XML
5 3 (1.26%) ASP.NET
5 3 (1.26%) Spring Boot
6 2 (0.84%) .NET Framework
6 2 (0.84%) ADO.NET
6 2 (0.84%) Ajax
6 2 (0.84%) AngularJS
6 2 (0.84%) ASP.NET Web Forms
6 2 (0.84%) HTML
6 2 (0.84%) Ktor
6 2 (0.84%) React
6 2 (0.84%) SOAP
6 2 (0.84%) Vue
6 2 (0.84%) Web Services
6 2 (0.84%) XSL
6 2 (0.84%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 22 (9.21%) Product Ownership
2 19 (7.95%) Onboarding
3 8 (3.35%) Data Centre
4 6 (2.51%) Data Structures
5 5 (2.09%) Cloud Native
5 5 (2.09%) Distributed Systems
5 5 (2.09%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 4 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (1.67%) Graphic Design
6 4 (1.67%) Hedge funds
6 4 (1.67%) Housing Association
6 4 (1.67%) Management Information System
6 4 (1.67%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.26%) Greenfield Project
7 3 (1.26%) Security Posture
7 3 (1.26%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 2 (0.84%) AI Agents
8 2 (0.84%) Fat Client
8 2 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (0.84%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 9 (3.77%) Windows
2 4 (1.67%) Windows 10
3 3 (1.26%) Linux
4 2 (0.84%) AIX
4 2 (0.84%) Mac OS
4 2 (0.84%) Solaris
4 2 (0.84%) Unix
5 1 (0.42%) Android
5 1 (0.42%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.42%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.42%) Windows 7
5 1 (0.42%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.42%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 71 (29.71%) Agile
2 31 (12.97%) Problem-Solving
3 25 (10.46%) DevOps
4 23 (9.62%) Computer Science
4 23 (9.62%) Migration
5 22 (9.21%) Project Management
6 20 (8.37%) Software Engineering
7 19 (7.95%) Continuous Improvement
8 18 (7.53%) Business Intelligence
8 18 (7.53%) Scrum
9 17 (7.11%) CI/CD
9 17 (7.11%) Stakeholder Management
10 16 (6.69%) AI
11 15 (6.28%) Project Delivery
11 15 (6.28%) User Experience
12 14 (5.86%) Validation
13 13 (5.44%) Analytics
13 13 (5.44%) Data Protection
13 13 (5.44%) Decision-Making
13 13 (5.44%) UX Design
Programming Languages
1 39 (16.32%) SQL
2 27 (11.30%) Python
3 24 (10.04%) C#
4 20 (8.37%) Java
5 4 (1.67%) JavaScript
5 4 (1.67%) Kotlin
6 3 (1.26%) C++
6 3 (1.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 3 (1.26%) PowerShell
7 2 (0.84%) Bash
7 2 (0.84%) PL/SQL
7 2 (0.84%) T-SQL
8 1 (0.42%) Bicep
8 1 (0.42%) Ruby
8 1 (0.42%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.42%) TypeScript
8 1 (0.42%) VB
Qualifications
1 58 (24.27%) Security Cleared
2 52 (21.76%) SC Cleared
3 34 (14.23%) Degree
4 6 (2.51%) Computer Science Degree
4 6 (2.51%) DV Cleared
5 5 (2.09%) Master's Degree
6 3 (1.26%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.42%) A+ Certification
7 1 (0.42%) ACCA
7 1 (0.42%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.42%) CIMA
7 1 (0.42%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
7 1 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.42%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.42%) PMP
7 1 (0.42%) Six Sigma Black Belt
7 1 (0.42%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (8.79%) Accessibility
2 11 (4.60%) Data Quality
3 9 (3.77%) PMO
4 8 (3.35%) QA
5 4 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.26%) GRC
6 3 (1.26%) SLA
7 2 (0.84%) WCAG
8 1 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.42%) GDPR
8 1 (0.42%) HL7
8 1 (0.42%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.42%) NCSC
8 1 (0.42%) NIST
8 1 (0.42%) P3O
8 1 (0.42%) SEPA
System Software
1 11 (4.60%) Active Directory
2 4 (1.67%) Docker
3 2 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.84%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.42%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.42%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 9 (3.77%) Ansible
2 6 (2.51%) Kubernetes
2 6 (2.51%) Terraform
3 3 (1.26%) Packer
3 3 (1.26%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.42%) Grafana
4 1 (0.42%) Istio
4 1 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
4 1 (0.42%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 36 (15.06%) Microsoft
2 6 (2.51%) Google
2 6 (2.51%) VMware
3 4 (1.67%) Adobe
3 4 (1.67%) SAP
4 3 (1.26%) Arista
4 3 (1.26%) Cisco
4 3 (1.26%) ServiceNow
5 2 (0.84%) Blue Coat
5 2 (0.84%) F5
5 2 (0.84%) Fortinet
5 2 (0.84%) McAfee
5 2 (0.84%) Oracle
5 2 (0.84%) Salesforce
5 2 (0.84%) Sitecore
6 1 (0.42%) Anaplan
6 1 (0.42%) Citrix
6 1 (0.42%) InterSystems
6 1 (0.42%) New Relic
6 1 (0.42%) Splunk