Junior Contract Job Trends in England

Junior
UK > England

The median Junior daily rate in England is £325, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 July 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 389 346 343
Rank change year-on-year -43 -3 +38
Contract jobs requiring a Junior 236 165 206
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.53% 0.61% 0.56%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.57% 0.66% 0.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 152 101 157
10th Percentile £163 £155 £124
25th Percentile £248 £200 £208
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £325 £250 £300
Median % change year-on-year +30.00% -16.67% +11.11%
75th Percentile £438 £338 £394
90th Percentile £498 £425 £505
UK median daily rate £325 £257 £300
% change year-on-year +26.23% -14.18% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 9 9
10th Percentile £11.32 £20.00 -
25th Percentile £12.43 £20.64 -
Median hourly rate £14.00 £23.50 £10.42
Median % change year-on-year -40.43% +125.53% -40.46%
75th Percentile £21.00 £43.75 -
90th Percentile £23.12 - £11.51
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 41,387 24,981 33,973
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.47% 91.90% 92.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,310 16,224 22,273
10th Percentile £325 £291 £300
25th Percentile £423 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,974 1,234 2,436
10th Percentile £16.04 £13.80 £13.00
25th Percentile £22.50 £17.87 £17.25
Median hourly rate £46.73 £28.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.89% -30.00% -6.98%
75th Percentile £68.00 £57.50 £64.25
90th Percentile £80.04 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £45.00 £26.21 £40.00
% change year-on-year +71.69% -34.48% -5.88%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 -23 142 £310 +19.23% 85
South West -2 32 £425 +36.00% 49
North of England -70 21 £350 +64.71% 78
South East -58 20 £325 +7.44% 97
North West -44 12 £323 +51.76% 41
West Midlands -57 10 £151 +0.67% 24
Midlands -72 10 £151 -26.34% 37
North East - 8 £363 - 16
East of England -29 6 £400 +82.86% 30
Yorkshire -55 1 £355 +67.06% 23
Junior
UK

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

For the 6 months to 16 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 67 (28.39%) Agile
2 57 (24.15%) Security Cleared
3 50 (21.19%) SC Cleared
4 39 (16.53%) SQL
5 34 (14.41%) Degree
6 31 (13.14%) Azure
6 31 (13.14%) Microsoft
7 27 (11.44%) Problem-Solving
7 27 (11.44%) Python
8 24 (10.17%) C#
9 23 (9.75%) Computer Science
9 23 (9.75%) DevOps
10 22 (9.32%) Migration
10 22 (9.32%) Project Management
11 21 (8.90%) Accessibility
12 20 (8.47%) Java
13 19 (8.05%) .NET
13 19 (8.05%) Software Engineering
14 17 (7.20%) Business Intelligence
14 17 (7.20%) Continuous Improvement
14 17 (7.20%) Scrum
14 17 (7.20%) Stakeholder Management
15 16 (6.78%) REST
16 15 (6.36%) AI
16 15 (6.36%) AWS
16 15 (6.36%) Figma
16 15 (6.36%) Microsoft Excel
16 15 (6.36%) Power BI
16 15 (6.36%) Power Platform
16 15 (6.36%) User Experience

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%) IIS
2 3 (1.27%) Confluence
3 2 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.85%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.42%) Apache
4 1 (0.42%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.42%) govService
4 1 (0.42%) WebLogic
Applications
1 15 (6.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (2.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (2.12%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (1.69%) Adobe Illustrator
4 4 (1.69%) Photoshop
4 4 (1.69%) Spreadsheet
4 4 (1.69%) UserZoom
5 3 (1.27%) Adobe After Effects
5 3 (1.27%) InDesign
6 2 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.42%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.42%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.42%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.42%) Sketch
7 1 (0.42%) Trello
Business Applications
1 4 (1.69%) Magento
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 31 (13.14%) Azure
2 15 (6.36%) AWS
2 15 (6.36%) Figma
2 15 (6.36%) Power Platform
3 12 (5.08%) Azure DevOps
4 9 (3.81%) Microsoft 365
5 6 (2.54%) GitHub
6 5 (2.12%) Miro
7 4 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
8 3 (1.27%) Azure AKS
8 3 (1.27%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 3 (1.27%) Azure Data Factory
8 3 (1.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 3 (1.27%) Canva
8 3 (1.27%) GCP
8 3 (1.27%) Microsoft Purview
9 2 (0.85%) Anthropic Claude
9 2 (0.85%) ChatGPT
9 2 (0.85%) dbt
9 2 (0.85%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 12 (5.08%) TCP/IP
2 9 (3.81%) DNS
3 7 (2.97%) Internet
4 6 (2.54%) DHCP
5 5 (2.12%) Wi-Fi
6 4 (1.69%) LAN
6 4 (1.69%) Network Security
6 4 (1.69%) VLAN
6 4 (1.69%) VPN
7 3 (1.27%) BGP
7 3 (1.27%) BIG-IP
7 3 (1.27%) HTTP
7 3 (1.27%) SSL
7 3 (1.27%) Wireshark
8 2 (0.85%) Firewall
8 2 (0.85%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (6.36%) Power BI
2 14 (5.93%) Relational Database
3 8 (3.39%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (1.69%) DTS
4 4 (1.69%) SQL Server
4 4 (1.69%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 3 (1.27%) Data Vault
5 3 (1.27%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.85%) BigQuery
6 2 (0.85%) Looker
6 2 (0.85%) Power Query
6 2 (0.85%) RDBMS
6 2 (0.85%) Tableau
7 1 (0.42%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.42%) MySQL
7 1 (0.42%) PostgreSQL
7 1 (0.42%) Redis
7 1 (0.42%) SAP BW
7 1 (0.42%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 1 (0.42%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 11 (4.66%) Git
2 7 (2.97%) Jenkins
2 7 (2.97%) JIRA
3 4 (1.69%) Subversion
4 3 (1.27%) Bitbucket
4 3 (1.27%) Fiddler
5 2 (0.85%) Artifactory
5 2 (0.85%) GitLab
5 2 (0.85%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.42%) Claude Code
6 1 (0.42%) Gatling
6 1 (0.42%) JMeter
6 1 (0.42%) LoadRunner
6 1 (0.42%) NeoLoad
General
1 82 (34.75%) Social Skills
2 48 (20.34%) Finance
3 25 (10.59%) Analytical Skills
3 25 (10.59%) Public Sector
4 23 (9.75%) Organisational Skills
5 16 (6.78%) Banking
6 9 (3.81%) Retail
7 8 (3.39%) Legal
7 8 (3.39%) Publishing
8 6 (2.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 6 (2.54%) Investment Banking
8 6 (2.54%) Marketing
9 4 (1.69%) French Language
9 4 (1.69%) Front Office
9 4 (1.69%) Social Science
10 3 (1.27%) Games
10 3 (1.27%) Local Government
10 3 (1.27%) Pharmaceutical
10 3 (1.27%) Retail Banking
11 2 (0.85%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (8.05%) .NET
2 16 (6.78%) REST
3 7 (2.97%) Spring
4 4 (1.69%) VML
4 4 (1.69%) XML
5 3 (1.27%) ASP.NET
5 3 (1.27%) Spring Boot
6 2 (0.85%) .NET Framework
6 2 (0.85%) ADO.NET
6 2 (0.85%) Ajax
6 2 (0.85%) AngularJS
6 2 (0.85%) ASP.NET Web Forms
6 2 (0.85%) HTML
6 2 (0.85%) React
6 2 (0.85%) SOAP
6 2 (0.85%) Vue
6 2 (0.85%) Web Services
6 2 (0.85%) XSL
6 2 (0.85%) XSLT
7 1 (0.42%) ADO
Miscellaneous
1 19 (8.05%) Onboarding
1 19 (8.05%) Product Ownership
2 8 (3.39%) Data Centre
3 5 (2.12%) Cloud Native
3 5 (2.12%) Data Structures
3 5 (2.12%) Distributed Systems
3 5 (2.12%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 4 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
4 4 (1.69%) Graphic Design
4 4 (1.69%) Hedge funds
4 4 (1.69%) Housing Association
4 4 (1.69%) Management Information System
5 3 (1.27%) Public Cloud
5 3 (1.27%) Security Posture
5 3 (1.27%) Team-Oriented Environment
6 2 (0.85%) AI Agents
6 2 (0.85%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (0.85%) Private Cloud
6 2 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (0.85%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 9 (3.81%) Windows
2 5 (2.12%) Windows 10
3 2 (0.85%) AIX
3 2 (0.85%) Linux
3 2 (0.85%) Mac OS
3 2 (0.85%) Solaris
3 2 (0.85%) Unix
4 1 (0.42%) Windows 7
4 1 (0.42%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.42%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (28.39%) Agile
2 27 (11.44%) Problem-Solving
3 23 (9.75%) Computer Science
3 23 (9.75%) DevOps
4 22 (9.32%) Migration
4 22 (9.32%) Project Management
5 19 (8.05%) Software Engineering
6 17 (7.20%) Business Intelligence
6 17 (7.20%) Continuous Improvement
6 17 (7.20%) Scrum
6 17 (7.20%) Stakeholder Management
7 15 (6.36%) AI
7 15 (6.36%) User Experience
8 14 (5.93%) CI/CD
8 14 (5.93%) Data Protection
8 14 (5.93%) Project Delivery
8 14 (5.93%) Validation
9 13 (5.51%) Decision-Making
9 13 (5.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 13 (5.51%) UX Design
Programming Languages
1 39 (16.53%) SQL
2 27 (11.44%) Python
3 24 (10.17%) C#
4 20 (8.47%) Java
5 4 (1.69%) JavaScript
6 3 (1.27%) C++
6 3 (1.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 3 (1.27%) Kotlin
7 2 (0.85%) Bash
7 2 (0.85%) PL/SQL
7 2 (0.85%) PowerShell
7 2 (0.85%) T-SQL
8 1 (0.42%) Ruby
8 1 (0.42%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.42%) TypeScript
8 1 (0.42%) VB
Qualifications
1 57 (24.15%) Security Cleared
2 50 (21.19%) SC Cleared
3 34 (14.41%) Degree
4 7 (2.97%) Computer Science Degree
4 7 (2.97%) DV Cleared
5 5 (2.12%) Master's Degree
6 3 (1.27%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.42%) A+ Certification
7 1 (0.42%) ACCA
7 1 (0.42%) CIMA
7 1 (0.42%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (0.42%) Network+ 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
7 1 (0.42%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (8.90%) Accessibility
2 11 (4.66%) Data Quality
3 8 (3.39%) PMO
4 7 (2.97%) QA
5 3 (1.27%) SLA
6 2 (0.85%) GRC
6 2 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.85%) WCAG
7 1 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.42%) GDPR
7 1 (0.42%) HL7
7 1 (0.42%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.42%) NIST
7 1 (0.42%) P3O
7 1 (0.42%) SEPA
System Software
1 12 (5.08%) Active Directory
2 3 (1.27%) Docker
2 3 (1.27%) VMware NSX
3 2 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.42%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.42%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 9 (3.81%) Ansible
2 4 (1.69%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.69%) Terraform
3 2 (0.85%) Jamf Pro
3 2 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (0.85%) Packer
3 2 (0.85%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.42%) Grafana
4 1 (0.42%) Istio
Vendors
1 31 (13.14%) Microsoft
2 7 (2.97%) VMware
3 6 (2.54%) Google
4 4 (1.69%) Adobe
4 4 (1.69%) SAP
5 3 (1.27%) Arista
5 3 (1.27%) Blue Coat
5 3 (1.27%) Cisco
5 3 (1.27%) F5
5 3 (1.27%) McAfee
5 3 (1.27%) ServiceNow
6 2 (0.85%) Fortinet
6 2 (0.85%) Oracle
6 2 (0.85%) Salesforce
6 2 (0.85%) Sitecore
7 1 (0.42%) Alteryx
7 1 (0.42%) Citrix
7 1 (0.42%) InterSystems
7 1 (0.42%) New Relic
7 1 (0.42%) Splunk