Junior Contract Job Trends in England

Junior
UK > England

The median Junior daily rate in England is £326, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 August 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 387 340 341
Rank change year-on-year -47 +1 +37
Contract jobs requiring a Junior 245 173 200
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.54% 0.62% 0.60%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.58% 0.68% 0.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 160 101 147
10th Percentile £176 £150 £123
25th Percentile £243 £185 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £326 £250 £300
Median % change year-on-year +30.50% -16.67% +11.11%
75th Percentile £438 £340 £387
90th Percentile £498 £425 £493
UK median daily rate £325 £250 £300
% change year-on-year +30.00% -16.67% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 11 5
10th Percentile £11.32 £20.64 -
25th Percentile £12.50 £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 £22.00 - -
UK median hourly rate £15.99 £23.50 £10.42
% change year-on-year -31.96% +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 42,140 25,508 30,829
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.51% 91.65% 92.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,526 16,531 20,304
10th Percentile £325 £285 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,165 1,327 1,793
10th Percentile £15.25 £13.53 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.48 £21.25
Median hourly rate £42.65 £25.30 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.58% -43.78% +5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £66.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% +1.18%

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 10 August 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 10 August 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 10 August 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 -26 153 £311 +19.71% 98
South West -12 35 £425 +51.79% 62
West Midlands -44 17 £162 +8.00% 23
Midlands -56 17 £162 -19.00% 38
South East -76 16 £325 +3.83% 100
North of England -58 14 £355 +67.06% 106
North West -41 8 £323 +42.38% 51
East of England -29 5 £400 +128.57% 37
North East - 5 £425 - 18
Yorkshire -44 1 £355 +108.82% 39
Junior
UK

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

For the 6 months to 10 August 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 (28.98%) Agile
2 59 (24.08%) Security Cleared
3 53 (21.63%) SC Cleared
4 46 (18.78%) Microsoft
5 40 (16.33%) Azure
6 38 (15.51%) Problem-Solving
6 38 (15.51%) SQL
7 32 (13.06%) Degree
8 26 (10.61%) DevOps
9 24 (9.80%) C#
9 24 (9.80%) Computer Science
10 23 (9.39%) Migration
11 22 (8.98%) Java
11 22 (8.98%) Project Management
11 22 (8.98%) Python
12 21 (8.57%) Accessibility
12 21 (8.57%) Software Engineering
13 20 (8.16%) Business Intelligence
14 19 (7.76%) .NET
14 19 (7.76%) AI
14 19 (7.76%) AWS
14 19 (7.76%) CI/CD
14 19 (7.76%) Continuous Improvement
14 19 (7.76%) Project Delivery
14 19 (7.76%) Scrum
15 18 (7.35%) Microsoft Excel
16 17 (6.94%) REST
16 17 (6.94%) Stakeholder Management
17 16 (6.53%) Analytics
17 16 (6.53%) Power BI

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 (1.63%) IIS
2 3 (1.22%) Confluence
2 3 (1.22%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.41%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.41%) govService
3 1 (0.41%) WebLogic
Applications
1 18 (7.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (3.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (3.27%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (1.63%) Adobe Illustrator
4 4 (1.63%) Photoshop
4 4 (1.63%) Trello
4 4 (1.63%) UserZoom
5 3 (1.22%) Adobe After Effects
5 3 (1.22%) InDesign
6 2 (0.82%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.41%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.41%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.41%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.41%) Sketch
7 1 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (1.63%) Magento
2 1 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.41%) MIS ActiveH
2 1 (0.41%) SAP BPC
2 1 (0.41%) SAP CO
2 1 (0.41%) SAP FI
2 1 (0.41%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 40 (16.33%) Azure
2 19 (7.76%) AWS
3 16 (6.53%) Power Platform
4 14 (5.71%) Azure DevOps
4 14 (5.71%) Figma
5 10 (4.08%) GitHub
5 10 (4.08%) Microsoft 365
6 6 (2.45%) Dynamics 365
6 6 (2.45%) GCP
7 5 (2.04%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 5 (2.04%) GitHub Actions
7 5 (2.04%) Miro
8 4 (1.63%) Amazon OpenSearch
8 4 (1.63%) Azure Data Factory
8 4 (1.63%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 4 (1.63%) Microsoft Purview
9 3 (1.22%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (1.22%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 3 (1.22%) Canva
9 3 (1.22%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 8 (3.27%) TCP/IP
2 7 (2.86%) Internet
3 6 (2.45%) LAN
4 5 (2.04%) DHCP
4 5 (2.04%) DNS
5 4 (1.63%) Network Security
5 4 (1.63%) WAN
5 4 (1.63%) Wi-Fi
6 3 (1.22%) BGP
6 3 (1.22%) VPN
7 2 (0.82%) Firewall
7 2 (0.82%) Intranet
7 2 (0.82%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (6.53%) Power BI
2 15 (6.12%) Relational Database
3 10 (4.08%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (2.04%) DTS
4 5 (2.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 4 (1.63%) Data Vault
5 4 (1.63%) Elasticsearch
5 4 (1.63%) MongoDB
5 4 (1.63%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (1.63%) Redis
6 3 (1.22%) Looker
6 3 (1.22%) NoSQL
6 3 (1.22%) Power Query
6 3 (1.22%) SQL Server
6 3 (1.22%) Tableau
7 2 (0.82%) BigQuery
7 2 (0.82%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.41%) Data Lake
8 1 (0.41%) Pinecone
8 1 (0.41%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 15 (6.12%) Git
2 10 (4.08%) JIRA
3 7 (2.86%) Jenkins
4 6 (2.45%) Bitbucket
5 5 (2.04%) GitLab
6 4 (1.63%) Subversion
7 2 (0.82%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.82%) TeamCity
8 1 (0.41%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.41%) Gatling
8 1 (0.41%) git-flow
8 1 (0.41%) JMeter
8 1 (0.41%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.41%) NeoLoad
8 1 (0.41%) RhodeCode
General
1 87 (35.51%) Social Skills
2 48 (19.59%) Finance
3 33 (13.47%) Analytical Skills
4 29 (11.84%) Public Sector
5 22 (8.98%) Organisational Skills
6 17 (6.94%) Banking
7 13 (5.31%) Retail
8 8 (3.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (3.27%) Legal
8 8 (3.27%) Publishing
9 6 (2.45%) Investment Banking
9 6 (2.45%) Marketing
10 4 (1.63%) French Language
10 4 (1.63%) Social Science
11 3 (1.22%) Front Office
11 3 (1.22%) Games
11 3 (1.22%) Local Government
11 3 (1.22%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (1.22%) Retail Banking
12 2 (0.82%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (7.76%) .NET
2 17 (6.94%) REST
3 10 (4.08%) Spring
4 4 (1.63%) Ktor
4 4 (1.63%) VML
4 4 (1.63%) XML
5 3 (1.22%) ASP.NET
5 3 (1.22%) Spring Boot
6 2 (0.82%) .NET Framework
6 2 (0.82%) ADO.NET
6 2 (0.82%) Ajax
6 2 (0.82%) AngularJS
6 2 (0.82%) ASP.NET Web Forms
6 2 (0.82%) HTML
6 2 (0.82%) React
6 2 (0.82%) SOAP
6 2 (0.82%) Vue
6 2 (0.82%) Web Services
6 2 (0.82%) XSL
6 2 (0.82%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 22 (8.98%) Product Ownership
2 20 (8.16%) Onboarding
3 7 (2.86%) Data Structures
4 6 (2.45%) Data Centre
5 5 (2.04%) Cloud Native
5 5 (2.04%) Distributed Systems
5 5 (2.04%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 4 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (1.63%) EPoS
6 4 (1.63%) Graphic Design
6 4 (1.63%) Greenfield Project
6 4 (1.63%) Housing Association
6 4 (1.63%) Management Information System
6 4 (1.63%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.22%) Hedge funds
7 3 (1.22%) Security Posture
7 3 (1.22%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 2 (0.82%) Fat Client
8 2 (0.82%) Mobile App
8 2 (0.82%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 11 (4.49%) Windows
2 4 (1.63%) Windows 10
3 3 (1.22%) Linux
4 2 (0.82%) AIX
4 2 (0.82%) Mac OS
4 2 (0.82%) Solaris
4 2 (0.82%) Unix
4 2 (0.82%) Windows 7
4 2 (0.82%) Windows Server 2008
5 1 (0.41%) Android
5 1 (0.41%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.41%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.41%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 71 (28.98%) Agile
2 38 (15.51%) Problem-Solving
3 26 (10.61%) DevOps
4 24 (9.80%) Computer Science
5 23 (9.39%) Migration
6 22 (8.98%) Project Management
7 21 (8.57%) Software Engineering
8 20 (8.16%) Business Intelligence
9 19 (7.76%) AI
9 19 (7.76%) CI/CD
9 19 (7.76%) Continuous Improvement
9 19 (7.76%) Project Delivery
9 19 (7.76%) Scrum
10 17 (6.94%) Stakeholder Management
11 16 (6.53%) Analytics
11 16 (6.53%) User Experience
12 15 (6.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 14 (5.71%) Decision-Making
14 13 (5.31%) Data Protection
14 13 (5.31%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 38 (15.51%) SQL
2 24 (9.80%) C#
3 22 (8.98%) Java
3 22 (8.98%) Python
4 6 (2.45%) Kotlin
5 4 (1.63%) JavaScript
6 3 (1.22%) C++
6 3 (1.22%) PowerShell
6 3 (1.22%) T-SQL
7 2 (0.82%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 2 (0.82%) PL/SQL
8 1 (0.41%) Bash
8 1 (0.41%) Bicep
8 1 (0.41%) Ruby
8 1 (0.41%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.41%) TypeScript
8 1 (0.41%) VB
Qualifications
1 59 (24.08%) Security Cleared
2 53 (21.63%) SC Cleared
3 32 (13.06%) Degree
4 6 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
4 6 (2.45%) DV Cleared
5 5 (2.04%) Master's Degree
6 2 (0.82%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.41%) A+ Certification
7 1 (0.41%) ACCA
7 1 (0.41%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.41%) CIMA
7 1 (0.41%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
7 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.41%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.41%) PMP
7 1 (0.41%) Six Sigma Black Belt
7 1 (0.41%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (8.57%) Accessibility
2 13 (5.31%) PMO
3 12 (4.90%) Data Quality
4 8 (3.27%) QA
5 4 (1.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.22%) GRC
7 2 (0.82%) SLA
7 2 (0.82%) WCAG
8 1 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.41%) GDPR
8 1 (0.41%) HL7
8 1 (0.41%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.41%) NCSC
8 1 (0.41%) NIST
8 1 (0.41%) P3O
8 1 (0.41%) SEPA
System Software
1 10 (4.08%) Active Directory
2 6 (2.45%) Docker
3 2 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.41%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.41%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 8 (3.27%) Kubernetes
2 7 (2.86%) Ansible
3 6 (2.45%) Terraform
4 5 (2.04%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.22%) Packer
6 1 (0.41%) Grafana
6 1 (0.41%) Istio
6 1 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
6 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 46 (18.78%) Microsoft
2 6 (2.45%) Google
3 4 (1.63%) Adobe
3 4 (1.63%) SAP
3 4 (1.63%) VMware
4 3 (1.22%) Arista
4 3 (1.22%) Cisco
5 2 (0.82%) Citrix
5 2 (0.82%) Dynatrace
5 2 (0.82%) Fortinet
5 2 (0.82%) Oracle
5 2 (0.82%) Salesforce
5 2 (0.82%) ServiceNow
5 2 (0.82%) Sitecore
6 1 (0.41%) Anaplan
6 1 (0.41%) AppDynamics
6 1 (0.41%) IFS
6 1 (0.41%) InterSystems
6 1 (0.41%) New Relic
6 1 (0.41%) Splunk