Junior Contract Job Trends in England

Junior
UK > England

The median Junior daily rate in England is £300, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 March 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 357 318 361
Rank change year-on-year -39 +43 +47
Contract jobs requiring a Junior 211 155 193
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.58% 0.63% 0.51%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.63% 0.67% 0.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 107 123 140
10th Percentile £150 £143 £125
25th Percentile £179 £185 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £300 £288 £325
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% -11.54% +18.18%
75th Percentile £413 £400 £420
90th Percentile £490 £451 £519
UK median daily rate £300 £275 £325
% change year-on-year +9.09% -15.38% +18.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 2 12
10th Percentile £12.43 £16.44 -
25th Percentile £12.72 £16.72 £10.42
Median hourly rate £13.25 £17.19 £15.71
Median % change year-on-year -22.92% +9.46% +17.25%
75th Percentile £14.00 £17.66 £26.93
90th Percentile £18.43 £17.94 £38.97
UK median hourly rate £14.00 £17.19 £15.52
% change year-on-year -18.56% +10.76% +10.86%

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 33,332 23,040 35,329
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.11% 93.07% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,054 15,071 23,616
10th Percentile £308 £300 £270
25th Percentile £413 £409 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £748
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,175 758 2,288
10th Percentile £15.35 £15.44 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.41 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £36.00 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% +7.69% -23.29%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.61
90th Percentile £75.79 £77.50 £71.78
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £33.20 £32.69
% change year-on-year +5.42% +1.56% -22.84%

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 March 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 10 March 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 96 £300 +1.69% 76
South East -23 37 £275 -8.33% 64
North of England -55 26 £337 +33.47% 60
Midlands -68 22 £195 -2.50% 51
North West -28 18 £283 -28.65% 30
West Midlands -61 18 £185 -7.50% 25
East of England -17 16 £168 -42.24% 28
South West -19 13 £383 +27.50% 35
North East - 8 £398 - 12
East Midlands -32 4 £297 +48.50% 26
Yorkshire -62 2 £441 +204.31% 19
Junior
UK

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

For the 6 months to 10 March 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 37 (17.54%) Security Cleared
2 34 (16.11%) Agile
3 30 (14.22%) Problem-Solving
4 29 (13.74%) SC Cleared
5 27 (12.80%) Break/Fix
5 27 (12.80%) HP
6 26 (12.32%) SQL
7 25 (11.85%) Python
8 23 (10.90%) Microsoft
9 19 (9.00%) Azure
9 19 (9.00%) Degree
9 19 (9.00%) Time Management
10 18 (8.53%) TCP/IP
11 17 (8.06%) DNS
12 16 (7.58%) CI/CD
12 16 (7.58%) Continuous Improvement
13 14 (6.64%) DevOps
14 13 (6.16%) Ansible
14 13 (6.16%) BIG-IP
14 13 (6.16%) F5
14 13 (6.16%) HTTP
14 13 (6.16%) JIRA
14 13 (6.16%) Project Delivery
14 13 (6.16%) Scrum
14 13 (6.16%) SSL
14 13 (6.16%) Wireshark
15 12 (5.69%) Blue Coat
15 12 (5.69%) DV Cleared
15 12 (5.69%) Fiddler
15 12 (5.69%) Load Balancing

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 8 (3.79%) Confluence
2 6 (2.84%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.95%) Apache
3 2 (0.95%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.47%) FileNet
4 1 (0.47%) govService
4 1 (0.47%) IIS
4 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 9 (4.27%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (3.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (2.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (2.37%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (1.42%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.95%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.47%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.47%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 5 (2.37%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 19 (9.00%) Azure
2 8 (3.79%) AWS
2 8 (3.79%) Power Platform
3 7 (3.32%) Microsoft 365
4 6 (2.84%) Azure DevOps
5 5 (2.37%) Entra ID
5 5 (2.37%) Serverless
6 4 (1.90%) Amazon S3
6 4 (1.90%) AWS Lambda
7 3 (1.42%) Amazon Kinesis
7 3 (1.42%) AWS Step Functions
7 3 (1.42%) Azure AKS
7 3 (1.42%) Azure Cosmos DB
7 3 (1.42%) GitHub
7 3 (1.42%) SaaS
8 2 (0.95%) Amazon EC2
8 2 (0.95%) Amazon SQS
8 2 (0.95%) dbt
8 2 (0.95%) Figma
8 2 (0.95%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 18 (8.53%) TCP/IP
2 17 (8.06%) DNS
3 13 (6.16%) BIG-IP
3 13 (6.16%) HTTP
3 13 (6.16%) SSL
3 13 (6.16%) Wireshark
4 9 (4.27%) VPN
5 6 (2.84%) Wireless
6 5 (2.37%) Internet
6 5 (2.37%) LAN
6 5 (2.37%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (1.90%) DHCP
7 4 (1.90%) VLAN
8 1 (0.47%) DMZ
8 1 (0.47%) Ethereal
8 1 (0.47%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 1 (0.47%) Firewall
8 1 (0.47%) HTTPS
8 1 (0.47%) IPsec
8 1 (0.47%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (3.79%) Power BI
2 4 (1.90%) NoSQL
3 3 (1.42%) Amazon Athena
4 2 (0.95%) Big Data
4 2 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (0.95%) Relational Database
4 2 (0.95%) SQL Server
5 1 (0.47%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (0.47%) Apache Hive
5 1 (0.47%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.47%) DataStage
5 1 (0.47%) Dremio
5 1 (0.47%) Hadoop
5 1 (0.47%) Metadata
5 1 (0.47%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.47%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 13 (6.16%) JIRA
2 12 (5.69%) Fiddler
3 7 (3.32%) Git
4 5 (2.37%) GitLab
5 1 (0.47%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.47%) JUnit
5 1 (0.47%) TeamCity
General
1 61 (28.91%) Social Skills
2 34 (16.11%) Organisational Skills
3 27 (12.80%) Finance
4 17 (8.06%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (5.69%) Banking
5 12 (5.69%) Public Sector
6 8 (3.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (2.37%) Military
8 4 (1.90%) Front Office
8 4 (1.90%) Retail
9 3 (1.42%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.95%) Back Office
10 2 (0.95%) Investment Banking
10 2 (0.95%) Legal
10 2 (0.95%) Marketing
10 2 (0.95%) Retail Banking
11 1 (0.47%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.47%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.47%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (4.27%) .NET
2 4 (1.90%) REST
2 4 (1.90%) Spring
3 3 (1.42%) HTML
3 3 (1.42%) React
4 2 (0.95%) ADO
4 2 (0.95%) AngularJS
4 2 (0.95%) Vue
5 1 (0.47%) .NET Core
5 1 (0.47%) Apache Commons
5 1 (0.47%) CSS
5 1 (0.47%) Gherkin
5 1 (0.47%) Guava
5 1 (0.47%) Kafka
5 1 (0.47%) LDAP
5 1 (0.47%) Oracle Fusion
5 1 (0.47%) Struts
5 1 (0.47%) Swagger
5 1 (0.47%) XML
5 1 (0.47%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 17 (8.06%) Mobile App
2 13 (6.16%) Data Centre
3 9 (4.27%) Management Information System
4 8 (3.79%) Onboarding
4 8 (3.79%) Product Ownership
5 6 (2.84%) Cloud Native
6 4 (1.90%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (1.90%) Hedge funds
7 3 (1.42%) Distributed Systems
7 3 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (0.95%) Data Structures
8 2 (0.95%) Equities
8 2 (0.95%) Fat Client
8 2 (0.95%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (0.95%) PMI
8 2 (0.95%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 2 (0.95%) Thin Client
9 1 (0.47%) Fixed Income
9 1 (0.47%) NHS
9 1 (0.47%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 10 (4.74%) Windows
2 5 (2.37%) Windows 10
3 4 (1.90%) Mac OS
4 3 (1.42%) Linux
5 1 (0.47%) CatOS
5 1 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.47%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (16.11%) Agile
2 30 (14.22%) Problem-Solving
3 27 (12.80%) Break/Fix
4 19 (9.00%) Time Management
5 16 (7.58%) CI/CD
5 16 (7.58%) Continuous Improvement
6 14 (6.64%) DevOps
7 13 (6.16%) Project Delivery
7 13 (6.16%) Scrum
8 12 (5.69%) Load Balancing
8 12 (5.69%) Project Management
9 11 (5.21%) Computer Science
9 11 (5.21%) Data Loss Prevention
9 11 (5.21%) Malware Detection/Protection
9 11 (5.21%) Migration
10 10 (4.74%) Data Engineering
10 10 (4.74%) Stakeholder Management
11 9 (4.27%) Analytics
11 9 (4.27%) Customer Service
12 8 (3.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 26 (12.32%) SQL
2 25 (11.85%) Python
3 11 (5.21%) Java
4 9 (4.27%) C#
5 6 (2.84%) JavaScript
6 3 (1.42%) Bash
7 2 (0.95%) PHP
7 2 (0.95%) PowerShell
8 1 (0.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.47%) Korn
8 1 (0.47%) Ruby
8 1 (0.47%) Rust
8 1 (0.47%) T-SQL
8 1 (0.47%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 37 (17.54%) Security Cleared
2 29 (13.74%) SC Cleared
3 19 (9.00%) Degree
4 12 (5.69%) DV Cleared
5 6 (2.84%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.90%) PMI Certification
6 4 (1.90%) PMP
7 3 (1.42%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.47%) CompTIA Security+
8 1 (0.47%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.47%) MBA
8 1 (0.47%) Network+ Certification
8 1 (0.47%) SAFe Agilist
8 1 (0.47%) Six Sigma Black Belt
8 1 (0.47%) Six Sigma Green Belt
8 1 (0.47%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.21%) PMO
2 5 (2.37%) Data Quality
3 4 (1.90%) Accessibility
4 3 (1.42%) QA
5 2 (0.95%) SLA
5 2 (0.95%) WCAG
6 1 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.47%) Basel III
6 1 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.47%) GRC
6 1 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.47%) P3O
System Software
1 12 (5.69%) VMware NSX
2 11 (5.21%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.90%) Docker
4 1 (0.47%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 13 (6.16%) Ansible
2 5 (2.37%) Terraform
3 4 (1.90%) Jamf Pro
3 4 (1.90%) Kubernetes
3 4 (1.90%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.47%) Istio
4 1 (0.47%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 27 (12.80%) HP
2 23 (10.90%) Microsoft
3 13 (6.16%) F5
4 12 (5.69%) Blue Coat
4 12 (5.69%) McAfee
4 12 (5.69%) VMware
5 5 (2.37%) Cisco
5 5 (2.37%) Remedy
6 4 (1.90%) Netskope
7 3 (1.42%) ServiceNow
8 2 (0.95%) Databricks
8 2 (0.95%) Oracle
8 2 (0.95%) Salesforce
9 1 (0.47%) Adobe
9 1 (0.47%) CheckPoint
9 1 (0.47%) Google
9 1 (0.47%) IBM
9 1 (0.47%) ION Trading
9 1 (0.47%) NetApp
9 1 (0.47%) Palo Alto