Junior Contract Job Trends in England

Junior
UK > England

The median Junior daily rate in England is £355, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 May 2026.

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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 360 323 357
Rank change year-on-year -37 +34 +29
Contract jobs requiring a Junior 236 146 180
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.58% 0.60% 0.49%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.63% 0.65% 0.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 145 111 135
10th Percentile £158 £153 £123
25th Percentile £250 £185 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £355 £275 £325
Median % change year-on-year +29.09% -15.38% +20.37%
75th Percentile £438 £388 £400
90th Percentile £498 £438 £500
UK median daily rate £325 £270 £325
% change year-on-year +20.37% -16.92% +20.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 6 11
10th Percentile - £16.85 -
25th Percentile £12.43 £17.61 -
Median hourly rate £14.00 £19.71 £10.42
Median % change year-on-year -28.95% +89.11% -25.57%
75th Percentile £18.90 £23.67 £13.16
90th Percentile £21.00 £24.25 £40.00
UK median hourly rate £15.99 £19.71 £10.42
% change year-on-year -18.85% +89.11% -26.20%

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 37,605 22,375 33,819
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.47% 92.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,373 14,887 22,423
10th Percentile £316 £300 £281
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,580 908 2,438
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.00 £12.87
25th Percentile £20.90 £18.51 £16.30
Median hourly rate £46.14 £30.20 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +52.78% -18.77% -17.38%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.09 £28.60 £37.18
% change year-on-year +50.66% -23.08% -17.38%

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 15 May 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 15 May 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 -22 126 £320 +16.36% 82
South East -35 37 £376 +23.31% 87
North of England -53 25 £363 +61.11% 89
South West -11 24 £425 +36.00% 49
North West -28 17 £360 +21.93% 38
Midlands -77 12 £190 -5.00% 46
West Midlands -67 11 £190 +26.67% 27
East of England -27 10 £188 -40.00% 28
North East - 8 £398 - 20
Yorkshire -58 2 £363 +81.25% 33
East Midlands -33 1 - - 19
Junior
UK

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

For the 6 months to 15 May 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 60 (25.42%) Security Cleared
2 52 (22.03%) SC Cleared
3 46 (19.49%) Agile
4 32 (13.56%) SQL
5 26 (11.02%) Python
6 24 (10.17%) Microsoft
7 22 (9.32%) C#
8 21 (8.90%) Problem-Solving
9 20 (8.47%) Accessibility
10 19 (8.05%) Azure
10 19 (8.05%) Computer Science
10 19 (8.05%) Degree
11 17 (7.20%) Break/Fix
11 17 (7.20%) HP
12 16 (6.78%) .NET
12 16 (6.78%) Migration
12 16 (6.78%) Project Management
12 16 (6.78%) TCP/IP
13 15 (6.36%) Software Engineering
14 14 (5.93%) DNS
14 14 (5.93%) Java
14 14 (5.93%) Time Management
14 14 (5.93%) User Experience
15 13 (5.51%) CI/CD
15 13 (5.51%) Continuous Improvement
15 13 (5.51%) VMware
16 12 (5.08%) Ansible
16 12 (5.08%) DevOps
16 12 (5.08%) REST
17 11 (4.66%) Active Directory

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 (1.69%) Confluence
1 4 (1.69%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.27%) IIS
3 2 (0.85%) Apache
3 2 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.42%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.42%) FileNet
4 1 (0.42%) govService
Applications
1 5 (2.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.27%) Microsoft Project
2 3 (1.27%) Spreadsheet
2 3 (1.27%) UserZoom
3 2 (0.85%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.85%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.42%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 1 (0.42%) Adobe Illustrator
4 1 (0.42%) Adobe XD
4 1 (0.42%) InDesign
4 1 (0.42%) Photoshop
4 1 (0.42%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 1 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 19 (8.05%) Azure
2 10 (4.24%) AWS
2 10 (4.24%) Figma
3 9 (3.81%) Power Platform
4 8 (3.39%) Microsoft 365
5 6 (2.54%) Azure DevOps
6 5 (2.12%) Serverless
7 4 (1.69%) Amazon S3
7 4 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
7 4 (1.69%) Entra ID
8 3 (1.27%) Amazon Kinesis
8 3 (1.27%) AWS Step Functions
8 3 (1.27%) Azure AKS
8 3 (1.27%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 3 (1.27%) GitHub
8 3 (1.27%) Miro
9 2 (0.85%) Anthropic Claude
9 2 (0.85%) ChatGPT
9 2 (0.85%) dbt
9 2 (0.85%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 16 (6.78%) TCP/IP
2 14 (5.93%) DNS
3 10 (4.24%) BIG-IP
3 10 (4.24%) HTTP
3 10 (4.24%) SSL
3 10 (4.24%) Wireshark
4 5 (2.12%) LAN
4 5 (2.12%) VPN
4 5 (2.12%) Wi-Fi
5 4 (1.69%) DHCP
5 4 (1.69%) Internet
5 4 (1.69%) VLAN
6 3 (1.27%) Firewall
7 2 (0.85%) BGP
8 1 (0.42%) Cisco Nexus
8 1 (0.42%) Ethereal
8 1 (0.42%) HTTPS
8 1 (0.42%) IPsec
8 1 (0.42%) WAN
8 1 (0.42%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (3.81%) Power BI
1 9 (3.81%) Relational Database
2 3 (1.27%) Amazon Athena
2 3 (1.27%) NoSQL
2 3 (1.27%) SQL Server
3 2 (0.85%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.85%) Power Query
4 1 (0.42%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.42%) Big Data
4 1 (0.42%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.42%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.42%) DataStage
4 1 (0.42%) Looker
4 1 (0.42%) MS Access
4 1 (0.42%) MySQL
4 1 (0.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.42%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 1 (0.42%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 9 (3.81%) Fiddler
2 8 (3.39%) JIRA
3 5 (2.12%) GitLab
4 4 (1.69%) Git
5 1 (0.42%) TeamCity
General
1 64 (27.12%) Social Skills
2 34 (14.41%) Finance
3 25 (10.59%) Organisational Skills
4 17 (7.20%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (5.93%) Banking
5 14 (5.93%) Public Sector
6 7 (2.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 6 (2.54%) Investment Banking
7 6 (2.54%) Publishing
8 4 (1.69%) Retail
9 3 (1.27%) Legal
9 3 (1.27%) Pharmaceutical
9 3 (1.27%) Retail Banking
9 3 (1.27%) Social Science
10 2 (0.85%) Documentation Skills
10 2 (0.85%) Front Office
10 2 (0.85%) Law
10 2 (0.85%) Marketing
10 2 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.85%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (6.78%) .NET
2 12 (5.08%) REST
3 6 (2.54%) Spring
4 3 (1.27%) XML
5 2 (0.85%) ADO
5 2 (0.85%) AngularJS
5 2 (0.85%) HTML
5 2 (0.85%) React
5 2 (0.85%) Spring Boot
5 2 (0.85%) Vue
6 1 (0.42%) Apache Commons
6 1 (0.42%) Guava
6 1 (0.42%) Hibernate
6 1 (0.42%) JSF
6 1 (0.42%) LDAP
6 1 (0.42%) RESTful
6 1 (0.42%) SAML
6 1 (0.42%) Struts
6 1 (0.42%) Swagger
6 1 (0.42%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 14 (5.93%) Onboarding
2 12 (5.08%) Product Ownership
3 10 (4.24%) Mobile App
4 8 (3.39%) Cloud Native
5 7 (2.97%) Data Centre
6 5 (2.12%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 4 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
7 4 (1.69%) Hedge funds
8 3 (1.27%) Management Information System
8 3 (1.27%) Security Posture
8 3 (1.27%) Team-Oriented Environment
9 2 (0.85%) Data Structures
9 2 (0.85%) Equities
9 2 (0.85%) Fat Client
9 2 (0.85%) Housing Association
9 2 (0.85%) NHS
9 2 (0.85%) Private Cloud
9 2 (0.85%) Thin Client
9 2 (0.85%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 8 (3.39%) Windows
2 6 (2.54%) Windows 10
3 4 (1.69%) Mac OS
4 2 (0.85%) AIX
4 2 (0.85%) Solaris
5 1 (0.42%) CatOS
5 1 (0.42%) Linux
5 1 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.42%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (19.49%) Agile
2 21 (8.90%) Problem-Solving
3 19 (8.05%) Computer Science
4 17 (7.20%) Break/Fix
5 16 (6.78%) Migration
5 16 (6.78%) Project Management
6 15 (6.36%) Software Engineering
7 14 (5.93%) Time Management
7 14 (5.93%) User Experience
8 13 (5.51%) CI/CD
8 13 (5.51%) Continuous Improvement
9 12 (5.08%) DevOps
10 11 (4.66%) Project Delivery
10 11 (4.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 11 (4.66%) Stakeholder Management
10 11 (4.66%) UX Design
11 10 (4.24%) Data Protection
11 10 (4.24%) Validation
12 9 (3.81%) Analytics
12 9 (3.81%) Malware Detection/Protection
Programming Languages
1 32 (13.56%) SQL
2 26 (11.02%) Python
3 22 (9.32%) C#
4 14 (5.93%) Java
5 4 (1.69%) JavaScript
6 3 (1.27%) Bash
6 3 (1.27%) C++
7 1 (0.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 1 (0.42%) Korn
7 1 (0.42%) PowerShell
7 1 (0.42%) Ruby
7 1 (0.42%) Rust
7 1 (0.42%) T-SQL
7 1 (0.42%) VB
Qualifications
1 60 (25.42%) Security Cleared
2 52 (22.03%) SC Cleared
3 19 (8.05%) Degree
4 9 (3.81%) DV Cleared
5 5 (2.12%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.69%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (1.27%) Master's Degree
7 3 (1.27%) PMI Certification
7 3 (1.27%) PMP
8 1 (0.42%) A+ Certification
8 1 (0.42%) ACCA
8 1 (0.42%) CIMA
8 1 (0.42%) CompTIA Security+
8 1 (0.42%) Network+ Certification
8 1 (0.42%) Six Sigma Black Belt
8 1 (0.42%) Six Sigma Green Belt
8 1 (0.42%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (8.47%) Accessibility
2 10 (4.24%) PMO
3 5 (2.12%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.69%) QA
5 3 (1.27%) SLA
6 2 (0.85%) WCAG
7 1 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.42%) GRC
7 1 (0.42%) HL7
7 1 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.42%) P3O
System Software
1 11 (4.66%) Active Directory
2 10 (4.24%) VMware NSX
3 3 (1.27%) Docker
4 2 (0.85%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 12 (5.08%) Ansible
2 5 (2.12%) Terraform
3 4 (1.69%) Jamf Pro
3 4 (1.69%) Kubernetes
3 4 (1.69%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.42%) Istio
4 1 (0.42%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 24 (10.17%) Microsoft
2 17 (7.20%) HP
3 13 (5.51%) VMware
4 10 (4.24%) F5
5 9 (3.81%) Blue Coat
5 9 (3.81%) McAfee
6 3 (1.27%) Cisco
6 3 (1.27%) ServiceNow
7 2 (0.85%) Adobe
7 2 (0.85%) Arista
7 2 (0.85%) Fortinet
7 2 (0.85%) Google
7 2 (0.85%) Salesforce
7 2 (0.85%) SAP
8 1 (0.42%) Alteryx
8 1 (0.42%) Anaplan
8 1 (0.42%) CheckPoint
8 1 (0.42%) IBM
8 1 (0.42%) Oracle
8 1 (0.42%) Palo Alto