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 6 February 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 371 336 372
Rank change year-on-year -35 +36 +45
Contract jobs requiring a Junior 181 152 195
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.54% 0.58% 0.51%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.59% 0.62% 0.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 87 116 139
10th Percentile £143 £141 £134
25th Percentile £158 £200 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £263 £288 £325
Median % change year-on-year -8.85% -11.38% +8.33%
75th Percentile £358 £425 £400
90th Percentile £480 £464 £520
UK median daily rate £275 £280 £325
% change year-on-year -1.79% -13.85% +8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 3 13
10th Percentile £13.03 £16.63 £10.42
25th Percentile - £17.19 £11.21
Median hourly rate £13.25 £18.13 £15.89
Median % change year-on-year -26.92% +14.10% +26.92%
75th Percentile £15.75 £22.57 £26.00
90th Percentile £18.59 £25.23 £37.94
UK median hourly rate £14.61 £18.13 £15.71
% change year-on-year -19.42% +15.44% +22.94%

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 30,616 24,434 35,357
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.64% 93.01% 93.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,494 15,146 23,822
10th Percentile £300 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £640
90th Percentile £725 £750 £745
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,931 720 2,109
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.99 £13.23
25th Percentile £18.82 £21.41 £16.79
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £61.50
90th Percentile £71.99 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £29.65 £33.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -10.17% -5.71% -

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 6 February 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 6 February 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 -45 66 £275 -12.00% 87
South East -14 38 £165 -34.00% 83
Midlands -47 26 £190 -12.14% 33
North of England -52 26 £305 -5.21% 58
North West -22 20 £305 -23.30% 25
West Midlands -39 20 £190 -12.64% 15
East of England -12 14 £168 -42.24% 29
South West -9 11 £340 +26.51% 41
East Midlands -23 6 £210 +50.00% 18
North East - 6 £335 - 13
Yorkshire -63 2 £441 +204.31% 21
Junior
UK

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

For the 6 months to 6 February 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 29 (16.02%) Break/Fix
1 29 (16.02%) Problem-Solving
2 27 (14.92%) HP
3 24 (13.26%) Agile
3 24 (13.26%) Microsoft
3 24 (13.26%) Python
4 20 (11.05%) Security Cleared
4 20 (11.05%) Time Management
5 19 (10.50%) TCP/IP
6 16 (8.84%) Degree
6 16 (8.84%) DNS
6 16 (8.84%) JIRA
6 16 (8.84%) SQL
7 15 (8.29%) SC Cleared
8 14 (7.73%) Ansible
8 14 (7.73%) BIG-IP
8 14 (7.73%) F5
8 14 (7.73%) HTTP
8 14 (7.73%) SSL
8 14 (7.73%) Windows
8 14 (7.73%) Wireshark
9 13 (7.18%) Blue Coat
9 13 (7.18%) Fiddler
9 13 (7.18%) Load Balancing
9 13 (7.18%) McAfee
9 13 (7.18%) Project Delivery
10 11 (6.08%) CI/CD
10 11 (6.08%) Continuous Improvement
10 11 (6.08%) Microsoft 365
10 11 (6.08%) Microsoft Office

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 (5.52%) Confluence
2 5 (2.76%) SharePoint
3 2 (1.10%) Apache
3 2 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.55%) FileNet
4 1 (0.55%) IIS
Applications
1 11 (6.08%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (3.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (2.76%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (2.21%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (2.21%) MS Visio
5 3 (1.66%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (1.10%) Adobe After Effects
6 2 (1.10%) Adobe Illustrator
6 2 (1.10%) Adobe Premiere
6 2 (1.10%) InDesign
6 2 (1.10%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 5 (2.76%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 11 (6.08%) Microsoft 365
2 10 (5.52%) Azure
3 8 (4.42%) AWS
4 5 (2.76%) Power Platform
5 4 (2.21%) Entra ID
5 4 (2.21%) Serverless
6 3 (1.66%) Amazon Kinesis
6 3 (1.66%) Amazon S3
6 3 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
6 3 (1.66%) AWS Step Functions
6 3 (1.66%) SaaS
7 2 (1.10%) Adobe Creative Cloud
7 2 (1.10%) Amazon EC2
7 2 (1.10%) Amazon SQS
7 2 (1.10%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (1.10%) dbt
7 2 (1.10%) GitHub
7 2 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (1.10%) Power Automate
7 2 (1.10%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 19 (10.50%) TCP/IP
2 16 (8.84%) DNS
3 14 (7.73%) BIG-IP
3 14 (7.73%) HTTP
3 14 (7.73%) SSL
3 14 (7.73%) Wireshark
4 7 (3.87%) VPN
5 6 (3.31%) Wireless
6 5 (2.76%) Internet
7 3 (1.66%) DMZ
7 3 (1.66%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
7 3 (1.66%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 2 (1.10%) DHCP
8 2 (1.10%) LAN
8 2 (1.10%) Wi-Fi
9 1 (0.55%) Cisco ASA
9 1 (0.55%) Firewall
9 1 (0.55%) HTTPS
9 1 (0.55%) IPsec
9 1 (0.55%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.21%) Power BI
2 3 (1.66%) Amazon Athena
2 3 (1.66%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.10%) Big Data
3 2 (1.10%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.55%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.55%) Apache Hive
4 1 (0.55%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.55%) DataStage
4 1 (0.55%) Dremio
4 1 (0.55%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.55%) Metadata
4 1 (0.55%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.55%) NoSQL
4 1 (0.55%) Snowflake Schema
4 1 (0.55%) SQL Server Analysis Services
4 1 (0.55%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 16 (8.84%) JIRA
2 13 (7.18%) Fiddler
3 5 (2.76%) GitLab
4 4 (2.21%) Git
5 3 (1.66%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.55%) JUnit
6 1 (0.55%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.55%) Visual Studio
General
1 50 (27.62%) Social Skills
2 30 (16.57%) Organisational Skills
3 21 (11.60%) Finance
4 15 (8.29%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (6.08%) Banking
6 9 (4.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (2.76%) Military
7 5 (2.76%) Retail
8 4 (2.21%) Front Office
8 4 (2.21%) Manufacturing
8 4 (2.21%) Marketing
9 3 (1.66%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (1.66%) Investment Banking
9 3 (1.66%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (1.66%) Public Sector
10 2 (1.10%) Back Office
10 2 (1.10%) Retail Banking
11 1 (0.55%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.55%) Legal
11 1 (0.55%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (1.10%) .NET
1 2 (1.10%) ADO
1 2 (1.10%) REST
2 1 (0.55%) Apache Commons
2 1 (0.55%) CSS
2 1 (0.55%) Gherkin
2 1 (0.55%) Guava
2 1 (0.55%) Hibernate
2 1 (0.55%) HTML
2 1 (0.55%) JSF
2 1 (0.55%) JSON
2 1 (0.55%) Kafka
2 1 (0.55%) LDAP
2 1 (0.55%) Oracle Fusion
2 1 (0.55%) SAML
2 1 (0.55%) Spring
2 1 (0.55%) Struts
2 1 (0.55%) Swagger
2 1 (0.55%) XML
2 1 (0.55%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 16 (8.84%) Mobile App
2 12 (6.63%) Data Centre
3 10 (5.52%) Management Information System
4 8 (4.42%) Onboarding
5 5 (2.76%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (1.66%) Cloud Native
7 2 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (1.10%) FMCG
7 2 (1.10%) Graphic Design
7 2 (1.10%) Low-Code
7 2 (1.10%) Operational Technology
7 2 (1.10%) Product Ownership
7 2 (1.10%) Social Media
8 1 (0.55%) Equities
8 1 (0.55%) Fixed Income
8 1 (0.55%) Hedge funds
8 1 (0.55%) NHS
8 1 (0.55%) PMI
8 1 (0.55%) Reference Data
8 1 (0.55%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 14 (7.73%) Windows
2 4 (2.21%) Linux
2 4 (2.21%) Windows 10
3 3 (1.66%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.55%) CatOS
4 1 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.55%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (16.02%) Break/Fix
1 29 (16.02%) Problem-Solving
2 24 (13.26%) Agile
3 20 (11.05%) Time Management
4 13 (7.18%) Load Balancing
4 13 (7.18%) Project Delivery
5 11 (6.08%) CI/CD
5 11 (6.08%) Continuous Improvement
5 11 (6.08%) Project Management
5 11 (6.08%) Scrum
6 10 (5.52%) Data Loss Prevention
6 10 (5.52%) Malware Detection/Protection
7 9 (4.97%) Analytics
7 9 (4.97%) Customer Service
7 9 (4.97%) DevOps
7 9 (4.97%) Migration
7 9 (4.97%) Stakeholder Management
8 8 (4.42%) ITIL
8 8 (4.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 7 (3.87%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 24 (13.26%) Python
2 16 (8.84%) SQL
3 5 (2.76%) Java
4 4 (2.21%) Bash
5 3 (1.66%) PowerShell
6 2 (1.10%) JavaScript
6 2 (1.10%) PHP
6 2 (1.10%) Rust
6 2 (1.10%) T-SQL
7 1 (0.55%) C#
7 1 (0.55%) Korn
7 1 (0.55%) TypeScript
7 1 (0.55%) VBA
Qualifications
1 20 (11.05%) Security Cleared
2 16 (8.84%) Degree
3 15 (8.29%) SC Cleared
4 9 (4.97%) DV Cleared
5 4 (2.21%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (2.21%) PMI Certification
5 4 (2.21%) PMP
6 3 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.55%) A+ Certification
7 1 (0.55%) CompTIA Security+
7 1 (0.55%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.55%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.55%) MBA
7 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.55%) Network+ Certification
7 1 (0.55%) SAFe Agilist
7 1 (0.55%) SSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.52%) PMO
2 5 (2.76%) QA
3 4 (2.21%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.10%) SLA
5 1 (0.55%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.55%) Basel III
5 1 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 11 (6.08%) VMware NSX
2 10 (5.52%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.10%) Docker
4 1 (0.55%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 14 (7.73%) Ansible
2 4 (2.21%) Terraform
3 3 (1.66%) Jamf Pro
3 3 (1.66%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.55%) Kubernetes
4 1 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 27 (14.92%) HP
2 24 (13.26%) Microsoft
3 14 (7.73%) F5
4 13 (7.18%) Blue Coat
4 13 (7.18%) McAfee
5 11 (6.08%) VMware
6 7 (3.87%) Cisco
7 5 (2.76%) Remedy
8 4 (2.21%) Netskope
9 3 (1.66%) NetApp
9 3 (1.66%) Oracle
10 2 (1.10%) Adobe
10 2 (1.10%) Databricks
10 2 (1.10%) Fortinet
10 2 (1.10%) Google
11 1 (0.55%) Alteryx
11 1 (0.55%) Aruba
11 1 (0.55%) Palo Alto
11 1 (0.55%) ServiceNow
11 1 (0.55%) Talend