Junior Contract Job Trends in England

Junior
UK > England

The median Junior daily rate in England is £320, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 4 April 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 366 329 361
Rank change year-on-year -37 +32 +32
Contract jobs requiring a Junior 225 150 180
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.58% 0.62% 0.48%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.63% 0.66% 0.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 121 120 131
10th Percentile £150 £143 £123
25th Percentile £185 £185 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £320 £275 £338
Median % change year-on-year +16.36% -18.52% +22.73%
75th Percentile £438 £395 £422
90th Percentile £490 £450 £500
UK median daily rate £312 £270 £325
% change year-on-year +15.65% -16.92% +18.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 4 14
10th Percentile £12.43 £16.61 -
25th Percentile £12.86 £17.14 -
Median hourly rate £13.63 £17.79 £10.42
Median % change year-on-year -23.39% +70.68% -25.57%
75th Percentile £18.02 £19.08 £18.17
90th Percentile £21.00 £20.78 £36.92
UK median hourly rate £14.31 £17.79 £10.42
% change year-on-year -19.57% +70.68% -25.57%

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 35,653 22,632 34,809
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.34% 92.88% 92.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,473 15,157 23,256
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £409 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,346 840 2,307
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.84 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.09 £20.30 £16.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £33.00 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.79% - -24.36%
75th Percentile £65.60 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.75 £76.25 £71.45
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £32.00 £33.78
% change year-on-year +25.00% -5.26% -24.15%

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 4 April 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 4 April 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 -18 116 £325 +12.36% 84
South East -33 36 £275 -8.33% 82
North of England -68 22 £360 +60.00% 64
South West -13 17 £425 +36.00% 27
Midlands -78 17 £190 -5.00% 60
East of England -22 15 £185 -38.59% 34
North West -39 15 £350 -6.98% 24
West Midlands -63 14 £170 +7.94% 26
North East - 8 £398 - 18
East Midlands -31 3 £297 -4.50% 34
Yorkshire -63 1 £370 +155.17% 23
Junior
UK

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

For the 6 months to 4 April 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 46 (20.44%) Security Cleared
2 38 (16.89%) SC Cleared
3 37 (16.44%) Agile
4 32 (14.22%) SQL
5 30 (13.33%) Problem-Solving
6 27 (12.00%) Break/Fix
6 27 (12.00%) HP
7 24 (10.67%) Microsoft
8 22 (9.78%) Python
8 22 (9.78%) Time Management
9 21 (9.33%) Degree
10 19 (8.44%) Azure
11 17 (7.56%) C#
11 17 (7.56%) Computer Science
12 16 (7.11%) .NET
12 16 (7.11%) CI/CD
13 15 (6.67%) Continuous Improvement
13 15 (6.67%) DNS
13 15 (6.67%) TCP/IP
14 14 (6.22%) Project Management
14 14 (6.22%) Software Engineering
15 13 (5.78%) DevOps
15 13 (5.78%) Java
15 13 (5.78%) Project Delivery
15 13 (5.78%) REST
15 13 (5.78%) Scrum
16 12 (5.33%) DV Cleared
16 12 (5.33%) Stakeholder Management
16 12 (5.33%) VMware
17 11 (4.89%) Ansible

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 7 (3.11%) Confluence
2 5 (2.22%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.89%) Apache
3 2 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.44%) FileNet
4 1 (0.44%) govService
4 1 (0.44%) IIS
Applications
1 8 (3.56%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (3.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (2.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (2.22%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (1.33%) MS Visio
4 3 (1.33%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.44%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 1 (0.44%) Adobe Illustrator
5 1 (0.44%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.44%) InDesign
5 1 (0.44%) Photoshop
5 1 (0.44%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 5 (2.22%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 19 (8.44%) Azure
2 8 (3.56%) AWS
2 8 (3.56%) Power Platform
3 6 (2.67%) Azure DevOps
3 6 (2.67%) Microsoft 365
4 5 (2.22%) Figma
4 5 (2.22%) Serverless
5 4 (1.78%) Amazon S3
5 4 (1.78%) AWS Lambda
5 4 (1.78%) Entra ID
6 3 (1.33%) Amazon Kinesis
6 3 (1.33%) AWS Step Functions
6 3 (1.33%) Azure AKS
6 3 (1.33%) Azure Cosmos DB
6 3 (1.33%) GitHub
6 3 (1.33%) SaaS
7 2 (0.89%) Amazon EC2
7 2 (0.89%) Amazon SQS
7 2 (0.89%) dbt
7 2 (0.89%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 15 (6.67%) DNS
1 15 (6.67%) TCP/IP
2 11 (4.89%) BIG-IP
2 11 (4.89%) HTTP
2 11 (4.89%) SSL
2 11 (4.89%) Wireshark
3 6 (2.67%) VPN
4 5 (2.22%) LAN
4 5 (2.22%) Wi-Fi
5 4 (1.78%) DHCP
5 4 (1.78%) Internet
5 4 (1.78%) VLAN
5 4 (1.78%) Wireless
6 1 (0.44%) Cisco ASA
6 1 (0.44%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (0.44%) Ethereal
6 1 (0.44%) Firewall
6 1 (0.44%) HTTPS
6 1 (0.44%) IPsec
6 1 (0.44%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (3.56%) Power BI
1 8 (3.56%) Relational Database
2 3 (1.33%) Amazon Athena
2 3 (1.33%) Data Warehouse
2 3 (1.33%) NoSQL
3 2 (0.89%) Big Data
3 2 (0.89%) SQL Server
4 1 (0.44%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.44%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.44%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.44%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.44%) DataStage
4 1 (0.44%) Dremio
4 1 (0.44%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.44%) Looker
4 1 (0.44%) Metadata
4 1 (0.44%) Power Query
4 1 (0.44%) Snowflake Schema
4 1 (0.44%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 11 (4.89%) JIRA
2 10 (4.44%) Fiddler
3 7 (3.11%) Git
4 5 (2.22%) GitLab
5 1 (0.44%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.44%) TeamCity
General
1 61 (27.11%) Social Skills
2 35 (15.56%) Organisational Skills
3 32 (14.22%) Finance
4 15 (6.67%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (5.33%) Public Sector
6 10 (4.44%) Banking
7 7 (3.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (2.22%) Military
9 4 (1.78%) Front Office
9 4 (1.78%) Retail
10 3 (1.33%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (1.33%) Marketing
10 3 (1.33%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (0.89%) Back Office
11 2 (0.89%) French Language
11 2 (0.89%) German Language
11 2 (0.89%) Investment Banking
11 2 (0.89%) Legal
11 2 (0.89%) Publishing
11 2 (0.89%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (7.11%) .NET
2 13 (5.78%) REST
3 6 (2.67%) Spring
4 3 (1.33%) HTML
4 3 (1.33%) React
5 2 (0.89%) ADO
5 2 (0.89%) AngularJS
5 2 (0.89%) Spring Boot
5 2 (0.89%) Vue
6 1 (0.44%) CSS
6 1 (0.44%) FIX Protocol
6 1 (0.44%) Hibernate
6 1 (0.44%) JSF
6 1 (0.44%) JSON
6 1 (0.44%) LDAP
6 1 (0.44%) SAML
6 1 (0.44%) Spring MVC
6 1 (0.44%) Struts
6 1 (0.44%) XML
6 1 (0.44%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 17 (7.56%) Mobile App
2 10 (4.44%) Product Ownership
3 9 (4.00%) Onboarding
4 8 (3.56%) Data Centre
5 7 (3.11%) Management Information System
6 6 (2.67%) Cloud Native
7 5 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.78%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (1.78%) Hedge funds
9 3 (1.33%) Data Structures
9 3 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.33%) Team-Oriented Environment
10 2 (0.89%) Equities
10 2 (0.89%) Fat Client
10 2 (0.89%) Fixed Income
10 2 (0.89%) Housing Association
10 2 (0.89%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (0.89%) NHS
10 2 (0.89%) PMI
10 2 (0.89%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 8 (3.56%) Windows
2 5 (2.22%) Windows 10
3 4 (1.78%) Mac OS
4 3 (1.33%) Linux
5 1 (0.44%) CatOS
5 1 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.44%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (16.44%) Agile
2 30 (13.33%) Problem-Solving
3 27 (12.00%) Break/Fix
4 22 (9.78%) Time Management
5 17 (7.56%) Computer Science
6 16 (7.11%) CI/CD
7 15 (6.67%) Continuous Improvement
8 14 (6.22%) Project Management
8 14 (6.22%) Software Engineering
9 13 (5.78%) DevOps
9 13 (5.78%) Project Delivery
9 13 (5.78%) Scrum
10 12 (5.33%) Stakeholder Management
11 11 (4.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 10 (4.44%) Data Loss Prevention
12 10 (4.44%) Load Balancing
12 10 (4.44%) Malware Detection/Protection
12 10 (4.44%) Migration
13 9 (4.00%) Data Modelling
13 9 (4.00%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 32 (14.22%) SQL
2 22 (9.78%) Python
3 17 (7.56%) C#
4 13 (5.78%) Java
5 5 (2.22%) JavaScript
6 3 (1.33%) Bash
7 2 (0.89%) PowerShell
8 1 (0.44%) C++
8 1 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.44%) Korn
8 1 (0.44%) Ruby
8 1 (0.44%) Rust
8 1 (0.44%) T-SQL
8 1 (0.44%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 46 (20.44%) Security Cleared
2 38 (16.89%) SC Cleared
3 21 (9.33%) Degree
4 12 (5.33%) DV Cleared
5 6 (2.67%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.78%) PMI Certification
6 4 (1.78%) PMP
7 3 (1.33%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.44%) CompTIA Security+
8 1 (0.44%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.44%) MBA
8 1 (0.44%) Network+ Certification
8 1 (0.44%) SAFe Agilist
8 1 (0.44%) Six Sigma Black Belt
8 1 (0.44%) Six Sigma Green Belt
8 1 (0.44%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (4.89%) PMO
2 8 (3.56%) Accessibility
3 6 (2.67%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.78%) QA
5 3 (1.33%) SLA
6 2 (0.89%) WCAG
7 1 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.44%) Basel III
7 1 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.44%) GRC
7 1 (0.44%) HL7
7 1 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.44%) P3O
System Software
1 11 (4.89%) VMware NSX
2 10 (4.44%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.78%) Docker
4 2 (0.89%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 11 (4.89%) Ansible
2 5 (2.22%) Terraform
3 4 (1.78%) Jamf Pro
3 4 (1.78%) Kubernetes
3 4 (1.78%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.44%) Istio
4 1 (0.44%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 27 (12.00%) HP
2 24 (10.67%) Microsoft
3 12 (5.33%) VMware
4 11 (4.89%) F5
5 10 (4.44%) Blue Coat
5 10 (4.44%) McAfee
6 5 (2.22%) Remedy
7 3 (1.33%) ServiceNow
8 2 (0.89%) Adobe
8 2 (0.89%) Cisco
8 2 (0.89%) Salesforce
9 1 (0.44%) Alteryx
9 1 (0.44%) Anaplan
9 1 (0.44%) Aruba
9 1 (0.44%) CheckPoint
9 1 (0.44%) Google
9 1 (0.44%) IBM
9 1 (0.44%) ION Trading
9 1 (0.44%) Oracle
9 1 (0.44%) Talend