Junior Contract Job Trends in England

Junior
UK > England

The median Junior daily rate in England is £263, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 January 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 372 343 369
Rank change year-on-year -29 +26 +44
Contract jobs requiring a Junior 178 158 185
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.55% 0.59% 0.51%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.60% 0.63% 0.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 85 112 130
10th Percentile £144 £140 £130
25th Percentile £158 £200 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £263 £295 £325
Median % change year-on-year -11.02% -9.23% +10.17%
75th Percentile £360 £432 £400
90th Percentile £488 £471 £502
UK median daily rate £275 £290 £325
% change year-on-year -5.17% -10.77% +12.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 3 12
10th Percentile - £16.63 £11.27
25th Percentile £13.25 £17.19 £14.60
Median hourly rate £13.63 £18.13 £20.22
Median % change year-on-year -24.85% -10.31% +44.39%
75th Percentile £16.54 £22.57 £30.05
90th Percentile £22.70 £25.23 £39.10
UK median hourly rate £14.61 £18.13 £20.22
% change year-on-year -19.42% -10.31% +44.39%

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 29,665 24,937 34,070
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.62% 92.94% 93.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,946 15,424 23,052
10th Percentile £300 £300 £275
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £748
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,838 759 1,774
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.98 £13.50
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.72
Median hourly rate £28.84 £35.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.61% -12.50% +14.29%
75th Percentile £63.26 £64.61 £62.83
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% -18.75% +14.29%

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 January 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 January 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 January 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 -35 64 £275 -15.38% 85
South East -20 37 £165 -34.00% 106
Midlands -36 29 £170 -42.13% 36
North of England -66 22 £325 -16.67% 64
West Midlands -36 21 £190 -52.50% 13
North West -26 19 £305 -23.30% 26
East of England -4 16 £175 -39.66% 48
South West -6 10 £333 +23.72% 46
East Midlands -17 8 £135 -3.57% 23
North East - 3 £425 - 16
Yorkshire -60 2 £441 +204.31% 23
Junior
UK

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

For the 6 months to 22 January 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 33 (18.54%) Problem-Solving
2 30 (16.85%) Break/Fix
3 27 (15.17%) HP
4 25 (14.04%) Microsoft
4 25 (14.04%) Python
5 21 (11.80%) Agile
6 20 (11.24%) Security Cleared
6 20 (11.24%) Time Management
7 18 (10.11%) Degree
8 17 (9.55%) TCP/IP
9 16 (8.99%) SC Cleared
10 15 (8.43%) JIRA
10 15 (8.43%) SQL
11 14 (7.87%) DNS
12 13 (7.30%) Ansible
12 13 (7.30%) BIG-IP
12 13 (7.30%) F5
12 13 (7.30%) HTTP
12 13 (7.30%) Project Delivery
12 13 (7.30%) SSL
12 13 (7.30%) Windows
12 13 (7.30%) Wireshark
13 12 (6.74%) Azure
13 12 (6.74%) Blue Coat
13 12 (6.74%) CI/CD
13 12 (6.74%) Fiddler
13 12 (6.74%) Load Balancing
13 12 (6.74%) McAfee
13 12 (6.74%) Microsoft Office
14 10 (5.62%) Analytics

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 10 (5.62%) Confluence
2 5 (2.81%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.56%) Apache
4 1 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.56%) FileNet
4 1 (0.56%) IIS
Applications
1 12 (6.74%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (3.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (2.81%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (2.81%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (2.25%) MS Visio
5 3 (1.69%) Adobe Illustrator
5 3 (1.69%) InDesign
5 3 (1.69%) Photoshop
6 2 (1.12%) Adobe After Effects
6 2 (1.12%) Adobe Premiere
6 2 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.56%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.56%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 5 (2.81%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.56%) BondVision
2 1 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 12 (6.74%) Azure
2 10 (5.62%) Microsoft 365
3 9 (5.06%) AWS
4 5 (2.81%) Power Platform
5 4 (2.25%) Serverless
6 3 (1.69%) Amazon Kinesis
6 3 (1.69%) Amazon S3
6 3 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
6 3 (1.69%) AWS Step Functions
6 3 (1.69%) Entra ID
6 3 (1.69%) SaaS
6 3 (1.69%) Snowflake
7 2 (1.12%) Adobe Creative Cloud
7 2 (1.12%) Amazon EC2
7 2 (1.12%) Amazon SQS
7 2 (1.12%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (1.12%) dbt
7 2 (1.12%) GCP
7 2 (1.12%) GitHub
7 2 (1.12%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 17 (9.55%) TCP/IP
2 14 (7.87%) DNS
3 13 (7.30%) BIG-IP
3 13 (7.30%) HTTP
3 13 (7.30%) SSL
3 13 (7.30%) Wireshark
4 6 (3.37%) VPN
4 6 (3.37%) Wireless
5 5 (2.81%) Internet
6 3 (1.69%) DMZ
6 3 (1.69%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
6 3 (1.69%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 1 (0.56%) Cisco Nexus
7 1 (0.56%) DHCP
7 1 (0.56%) Firewall
7 1 (0.56%) HTTPS
7 1 (0.56%) IPsec
7 1 (0.56%) LAN
7 1 (0.56%) WAN
7 1 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.25%) Power BI
2 3 (1.69%) Amazon Athena
2 3 (1.69%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (1.12%) Big Data
3 2 (1.12%) Data Lake
3 2 (1.12%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.56%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.56%) DataStage
4 1 (0.56%) Dremio
4 1 (0.56%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.56%) Metadata
4 1 (0.56%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.56%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
4 1 (0.56%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 1 (0.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.56%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 15 (8.43%) JIRA
2 12 (6.74%) Fiddler
3 5 (2.81%) GitLab
4 4 (2.25%) Git
5 3 (1.69%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.56%) JUnit
6 1 (0.56%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.56%) Visual Studio
General
1 49 (27.53%) Social Skills
2 28 (15.73%) Organisational Skills
3 22 (12.36%) Finance
4 15 (8.43%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (6.74%) Banking
6 10 (5.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (2.81%) Marketing
7 5 (2.81%) Military
8 4 (2.25%) Front Office
8 4 (2.25%) Retail
9 3 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (1.69%) Investment Banking
9 3 (1.69%) Manufacturing
10 2 (1.12%) Back Office
10 2 (1.12%) Public Sector
10 2 (1.12%) Retail Banking
11 1 (0.56%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.56%) Corporate Banking
11 1 (0.56%) Law
11 1 (0.56%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.12%) .NET
1 2 (1.12%) ADO
1 2 (1.12%) JSON
1 2 (1.12%) XML
2 1 (0.56%) .NET Core
2 1 (0.56%) CSS
2 1 (0.56%) Django
2 1 (0.56%) Gherkin
2 1 (0.56%) Guava
2 1 (0.56%) Hibernate
2 1 (0.56%) HTML
2 1 (0.56%) JSF
2 1 (0.56%) Kafka
2 1 (0.56%) LDAP
2 1 (0.56%) Oracle Fusion
2 1 (0.56%) REST
2 1 (0.56%) SAML
2 1 (0.56%) Spring
2 1 (0.56%) Struts
2 1 (0.56%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 16 (8.99%) Mobile App
2 10 (5.62%) Data Centre
2 10 (5.62%) Management Information System
3 8 (4.49%) Onboarding
4 5 (2.81%) Self-Motivation
5 4 (2.25%) Cloud Native
6 3 (1.69%) Social Media
7 2 (1.12%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (1.12%) Fixed Income
7 2 (1.12%) Graphic Design
7 2 (1.12%) Low-Code
7 2 (1.12%) Operational Technology
7 2 (1.12%) Product Ownership
8 1 (0.56%) Distributed Systems
8 1 (0.56%) FMCG
8 1 (0.56%) Learning Management System
8 1 (0.56%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (0.56%) SCADA
8 1 (0.56%) Sports Betting
8 1 (0.56%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 13 (7.30%) Windows
2 4 (2.25%) Linux
3 3 (1.69%) Windows 10
4 2 (1.12%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.56%) CatOS
5 1 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.56%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (18.54%) Problem-Solving
2 30 (16.85%) Break/Fix
3 21 (11.80%) Agile
4 20 (11.24%) Time Management
5 13 (7.30%) Project Delivery
6 12 (6.74%) CI/CD
6 12 (6.74%) Load Balancing
7 10 (5.62%) Analytics
7 10 (5.62%) DevOps
7 10 (5.62%) Scrum
8 9 (5.06%) Continuous Improvement
8 9 (5.06%) Customer Service
8 9 (5.06%) Data Loss Prevention
8 9 (5.06%) Malware Detection/Protection
8 9 (5.06%) Migration
8 9 (5.06%) Project Management
9 8 (4.49%) Data Modelling
9 8 (4.49%) Data Transformation
9 8 (4.49%) ITIL
9 8 (4.49%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 25 (14.04%) Python
2 15 (8.43%) SQL
3 7 (3.93%) Java
4 3 (1.69%) Bash
4 3 (1.69%) PowerShell
5 2 (1.12%) JavaScript
5 2 (1.12%) PHP
5 2 (1.12%) Rust
5 2 (1.12%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.56%) C#
6 1 (0.56%) Go
6 1 (0.56%) Korn
6 1 (0.56%) TypeScript
6 1 (0.56%) VBA
Qualifications
1 20 (11.24%) Security Cleared
2 18 (10.11%) Degree
3 16 (8.99%) SC Cleared
4 9 (5.06%) DV Cleared
5 4 (2.25%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (2.25%) PMI Certification
5 4 (2.25%) PMP
6 2 (1.12%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.56%) A+ Certification
7 1 (0.56%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (0.56%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.56%) HNC
7 1 (0.56%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.56%) MBA
7 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.56%) Network+ Certification
7 1 (0.56%) SAFe Agilist
7 1 (0.56%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (5.06%) PMO
2 5 (2.81%) Data Quality
2 5 (2.81%) QA
3 2 (1.12%) SLA
4 1 (0.56%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.56%) Basel III
4 1 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 10 (5.62%) VMware NSX
2 8 (4.49%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.12%) Docker
4 1 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 13 (7.30%) Ansible
2 4 (2.25%) Terraform
3 2 (1.12%) Jamf Pro
3 2 (1.12%) Kubernetes
3 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.56%) SCCM
4 1 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 27 (15.17%) HP
2 25 (14.04%) Microsoft
3 13 (7.30%) F5
4 12 (6.74%) Blue Coat
4 12 (6.74%) McAfee
5 10 (5.62%) VMware
6 8 (4.49%) Cisco
7 5 (2.81%) Remedy
8 4 (2.25%) Netskope
8 4 (2.25%) Oracle
9 3 (1.69%) Adobe
9 3 (1.69%) Fortinet
9 3 (1.69%) NetApp
10 2 (1.12%) Databricks
10 2 (1.12%) Google
10 2 (1.12%) ION Trading
10 2 (1.12%) SAP
11 1 (0.56%) Instagram
11 1 (0.56%) OpenAI
11 1 (0.56%) Workday