Senior Contract Job Trends in London

Senior
England > London

The median Senior daily rate in London is £575, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 June 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 19 14
Rank change year-on-year +3 -5 +1
Contract jobs requiring a Senior 2,187 1,260 1,874
As % of all contract jobs in London 11.76% 10.31% 10.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.65% 11.02% 11.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,416 891 1,326
10th Percentile £400 £400 £410
25th Percentile £475 £475 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £575 £600
Median % change year-on-year - -4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £688 £713 £725
90th Percentile £816 £825 £850
England median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 15 25
10th Percentile £31.55 £26.37 £18.68
25th Percentile £41.75 £28.60 £20.02
Median hourly rate £58.74 £48.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +22.36% +28.00% -14.77%
75th Percentile £66.69 £55.25 £72.50
90th Percentile £95.00 £74.00 £83.75
England median hourly rate £59.67 £52.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year +14.75% +4.00% +3.09%

All Contract IT Job Roles
London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in London. 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 London with a recognized job title 17,290 11,429 16,523
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.96% 93.53% 93.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,417 7,726 11,916
10th Percentile £356 £350 £325
25th Percentile £434 £425 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.64% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £680
90th Percentile £761 £800 £800
England median daily rate £520 £514 £525
% change year-on-year +1.17% -2.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 282 161 326
10th Percentile £18.75 £20.24 £16.00
25th Percentile £25.15 £24.66 £20.23
Median hourly rate £39.25 £32.50 £27.81
Median % change year-on-year +20.77% +16.86% -22.75%
75th Percentile £63.10 £50.50 £46.77
90th Percentile £76.74 £63.75 £67.50
England median hourly rate £45.78 £30.00 £38.14
% change year-on-year +52.60% -21.33% -15.26%

Senior
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Senior' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in London.

Senior job vacancy trend in London

Senior
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Senior job vacancies in London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Senior job vacancies in London

Senior
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Senior in London over the 6 months to 7 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Senior in London

Senior
Hourly Rate Trend in London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Senior job vacancies in London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Senior job vacancies in London

Senior
Hourly Rate Histogram in London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Senior in London over the 6 months to 7 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Senior in London

Senior
Contract Job Locations in London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Senior within the London region over the 6 months to 7 June 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
Central London +9 304 £575 -4.17% 425
South London 0 24 £425 -54.05% 19
West London -19 23 £560 +17.25% 25
East London +8 17 £628 +14.09% 26
North London +3 3 £550 -15.38% 8
Senior
England

Senior Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London

For the 6 months to 7 June 2026, Senior 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 London region featuring Senior in the job title.

1 453 (20.71%) Azure
2 451 (20.62%) Agile
3 413 (18.88%) Python
4 407 (18.61%) AWS
5 389 (17.79%) CI/CD
6 339 (15.50%) DevOps
7 324 (14.81%) SQL
8 272 (12.44%) Security Cleared
9 270 (12.35%) AI
10 265 (12.12%) Java
11 257 (11.75%) Microsoft
12 242 (11.07%) Software Engineering
13 232 (10.61%) Analytics
14 229 (10.47%) SC Cleared
15 226 (10.33%) Stakeholder Management
16 190 (8.69%) Terraform
17 186 (8.50%) Decision-Making
17 186 (8.50%) Kubernetes
18 185 (8.46%) Problem-Solving
19 179 (8.18%) Migration
20 171 (7.82%) Data Modelling
21 169 (7.73%) Microservices
22 162 (7.41%) Docker
23 151 (6.90%) Infrastructure as Code
24 148 (6.77%) Test Automation
25 142 (6.49%) Kafka
26 139 (6.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
27 138 (6.31%) Data Pipeline
28 137 (6.26%) TypeScript
29 134 (6.13%) C#

Senior Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London 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 44 (2.01%) Apache Airflow
2 43 (1.97%) Confluence
3 31 (1.42%) Apache Spark
4 28 (1.28%) SharePoint
5 23 (1.05%) Apache
5 23 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
6 10 (0.46%) CMS
7 8 (0.37%) Ethereum
7 8 (0.37%) Hyperledger
8 7 (0.32%) Jupyter
9 5 (0.23%) Headless CMS
10 4 (0.18%) Camunda
11 3 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.091%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.091%) IIS
12 2 (0.091%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.091%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.091%) SAS
13 1 (0.046%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 1 (0.046%) Tomcat
Applications
1 43 (1.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 22 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
4 13 (0.59%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (0.32%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.18%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 3 (0.14%) Final Cut Pro
9 2 (0.091%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.091%) InDesign
9 2 (0.091%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.046%) Adobe After Effects
10 1 (0.046%) Blender
10 1 (0.046%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 18 (0.82%) Shopify
2 14 (0.64%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.50%) Endur
4 9 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
5 8 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.23%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 5 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
9 4 (0.18%) Magento
9 4 (0.18%) R3 Corda
10 3 (0.14%) Infor CloudSuite
10 3 (0.14%) Quorum
10 3 (0.14%) Ripple
10 3 (0.14%) Sage X3
10 3 (0.14%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.14%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 453 (20.71%) Azure
2 407 (18.61%) AWS
3 133 (6.08%) GitHub
4 128 (5.85%) Power Platform
5 114 (5.21%) Azure DevOps
6 109 (4.98%) GCP
7 77 (3.52%) Serverless
8 76 (3.48%) GitHub Actions
9 61 (2.79%) SaaS
10 54 (2.47%) AWS Lambda
11 49 (2.24%) Amazon S3
11 49 (2.24%) Snowflake
12 48 (2.19%) dbt
13 45 (2.06%) Entra ID
14 44 (2.01%) Azure Data Factory
14 44 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
15 39 (1.78%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 36 (1.65%) Amazon EKS
17 35 (1.60%) Power Automate
18 27 (1.23%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 53 (2.42%) Firewall
2 38 (1.74%) Network Security
3 28 (1.28%) WAN
4 27 (1.23%) Multicast
5 26 (1.19%) DNS
6 22 (1.01%) BGP
6 22 (1.01%) VPN
7 20 (0.91%) OSPF
8 19 (0.87%) HTTP
8 19 (0.87%) LAN
9 16 (0.73%) DHCP
10 14 (0.64%) VLAN
11 12 (0.55%) Internet
12 11 (0.50%) Cisco ASA
12 11 (0.50%) EIGRP
13 10 (0.46%) MPLS
14 8 (0.37%) TCP/IP
14 8 (0.37%) Wireless
15 7 (0.32%) SAN
16 6 (0.27%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (5.08%) Power BI
2 92 (4.21%) SQL Server
3 88 (4.02%) PostgreSQL
4 69 (3.16%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.29%) Data Lake
6 44 (2.01%) Relational Database
7 38 (1.74%) Tableau
8 34 (1.55%) MongoDB
9 31 (1.42%) BigQuery
9 31 (1.42%) NoSQL
10 25 (1.14%) Metadata
11 24 (1.10%) Delta Lake
12 23 (1.05%) Azure SQL Database
13 22 (1.01%) Apache Cassandra
14 19 (0.87%) Amazon RDS
14 19 (0.87%) DynamoDB
15 18 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
16 17 (0.78%) Big Data
16 17 (0.78%) Snowflake Schema
17 16 (0.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 86 (3.93%) JIRA
2 83 (3.80%) Git
3 68 (3.11%) Jenkins
4 63 (2.88%) GitLab
5 21 (0.96%) JUnit
6 17 (0.78%) Gradle
6 17 (0.78%) Selenium
7 16 (0.73%) Maven
8 14 (0.64%) Cypress.io
9 13 (0.59%) Cucumber
10 12 (0.55%) JMeter
11 10 (0.46%) Mockito
12 9 (0.41%) Gatling
12 9 (0.41%) SonarQube
13 7 (0.32%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.32%) MSTest
13 7 (0.32%) TeamCity
14 6 (0.27%) CircleCI
14 6 (0.27%) Mocha
14 6 (0.27%) Postman
General
1 606 (27.71%) Finance
2 404 (18.47%) Social Skills
3 246 (11.25%) Banking
4 180 (8.23%) Public Sector
5 157 (7.18%) Analytical Skills
6 97 (4.44%) Retail
7 91 (4.16%) Front Office
8 67 (3.06%) Investment Banking
9 63 (2.88%) Financial Institution
10 61 (2.79%) Marketing
11 48 (2.19%) Law
12 44 (2.01%) Legal
13 42 (1.92%) Organisational Skills
14 38 (1.74%) Influencing Skills
15 27 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 25 (1.14%) Telecoms
17 23 (1.05%) Documentation Skills
17 23 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
18 21 (0.96%) Manufacturing
19 19 (0.87%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 142 (6.49%) Kafka
2 113 (5.17%) React
3 87 (3.98%) REST
4 86 (3.93%) .NET
5 84 (3.84%) Spring Boot
6 81 (3.70%) Spring
7 67 (3.06%) RESTful
8 61 (2.79%) AngularJS
9 49 (2.24%) Node.js
9 49 (2.24%) PySpark
10 43 (1.97%) HTML
11 41 (1.87%) CSS
12 32 (1.46%) Pandas
13 30 (1.37%) OAuth
14 28 (1.28%) FIX Protocol
15 27 (1.23%) Django
15 27 (1.23%) Playwright
16 25 (1.14%) Redux
17 24 (1.10%) JSON
18 23 (1.05%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 120 (5.49%) Cloud Native
2 111 (5.08%) Distributed Systems
3 74 (3.38%) Product Ownership
4 51 (2.33%) Greenfield Project
5 48 (2.19%) Onboarding
6 45 (2.06%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 43 (1.97%) AI Agents
8 40 (1.83%) Data Centre
9 39 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
10 38 (1.74%) Fixed Income
11 37 (1.69%) Data Structures
11 37 (1.69%) Derivative
11 37 (1.69%) Equities
12 34 (1.55%) Algorithms
13 32 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
14 26 (1.19%) Virtual Team
15 25 (1.14%) Management Information System
16 22 (1.01%) Hybrid Cloud
17 21 (0.96%) Mobile App
18 18 (0.82%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 101 (4.62%) Linux
2 66 (3.02%) Windows
3 47 (2.15%) Unix
4 25 (1.14%) Apple iOS
5 24 (1.10%) Android
6 14 (0.64%) Windows Server
7 10 (0.46%) Windows 10
8 6 (0.27%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.14%) Alpine Linux
9 3 (0.14%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.046%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.046%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.046%) Rocky
10 1 (0.046%) Solaris
10 1 (0.046%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 451 (20.62%) Agile
2 389 (17.79%) CI/CD
3 339 (15.50%) DevOps
4 270 (12.35%) AI
5 242 (11.07%) Software Engineering
6 232 (10.61%) Analytics
7 226 (10.33%) Stakeholder Management
8 186 (8.50%) Decision-Making
9 185 (8.46%) Problem-Solving
10 179 (8.18%) Migration
11 171 (7.82%) Data Modelling
12 169 (7.73%) Microservices
13 151 (6.90%) Infrastructure as Code
14 148 (6.77%) Test Automation
15 139 (6.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 138 (6.31%) Data Pipeline
17 132 (6.04%) Business Intelligence
18 128 (5.85%) Containerisation
19 124 (5.67%) Continuous Improvement
20 123 (5.62%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 413 (18.88%) Python
2 324 (14.81%) SQL
3 265 (12.12%) Java
4 137 (6.26%) TypeScript
5 134 (6.13%) C#
6 110 (5.03%) JavaScript
7 52 (2.38%) PowerShell
8 43 (1.97%) C++
9 38 (1.74%) Go
10 25 (1.14%) Ruby
11 24 (1.10%) Bicep
12 18 (0.82%) Kotlin
13 17 (0.78%) R
14 16 (0.73%) Bash
14 16 (0.73%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 15 (0.69%) Shell Script
16 14 (0.64%) PL/SQL
16 14 (0.64%) T-SQL
17 12 (0.55%) Rust
17 12 (0.55%) Scala
Qualifications
1 272 (12.44%) Security Cleared
2 229 (10.47%) SC Cleared
3 129 (5.90%) Degree
4 31 (1.42%) BPSS Clearance
5 24 (1.10%) PMI Certification
6 23 (1.05%) Computer Science Degree
6 23 (1.05%) PMP
7 20 (0.91%) CISSP
8 19 (0.87%) Azure Certification
9 17 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
10 16 (0.73%) DV Cleared
10 16 (0.73%) Master's Degree
11 14 (0.64%) Cisco Certification
12 13 (0.59%) CBAP
13 11 (0.50%) AWS Certification
14 10 (0.46%) CCNP
15 9 (0.41%) ISTQB
16 8 (0.37%) IIBA
17 7 (0.32%) CISA
18 6 (0.27%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (5.12%) QA
2 102 (4.66%) Data Quality
3 67 (3.06%) Accessibility
4 25 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 24 (1.10%) GDPR
6 22 (1.01%) NIST
6 22 (1.01%) SLA
7 16 (0.73%) PMO
8 13 (0.59%) WCAG
9 12 (0.55%) GRC
10 11 (0.50%) NCSC
11 9 (0.41%) ISO 20022
12 8 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
13 7 (0.32%) COREP
13 7 (0.32%) FINREP
13 7 (0.32%) NIST 800
13 7 (0.32%) SEPA
14 6 (0.27%) IFRS
14 6 (0.27%) SOC 2
15 5 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 162 (7.41%) Docker
2 49 (2.24%) Active Directory
3 14 (0.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
5 7 (0.32%) Firmware
6 6 (0.27%) vSphere
7 5 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.18%) Microsoft App-V
8 4 (0.18%) VMware NSX
9 3 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.091%) GridGain
10 2 (0.091%) HDFS
10 2 (0.091%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.091%) Squid
10 2 (0.091%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.046%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.046%) IAG
11 1 (0.046%) NFS
11 1 (0.046%) RACF
Systems Management
1 190 (8.69%) Terraform
2 186 (8.50%) Kubernetes
3 46 (2.10%) Grafana
4 40 (1.83%) Prometheus
5 37 (1.69%) Ansible
6 25 (1.14%) Microsoft Intune
7 13 (0.59%) SCCM
8 12 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.50%) Argo
10 9 (0.41%) Kibana
11 7 (0.32%) Istio
12 4 (0.18%) FortiGate
12 4 (0.18%) Kubeflow
13 3 (0.14%) Kustomize
13 3 (0.14%) Salt
13 3 (0.14%) vCenter Server
14 2 (0.091%) Jamf Pro
14 2 (0.091%) RSA Archer
14 2 (0.091%) vRealize
15 1 (0.046%) Rancher
Vendors
1 257 (11.75%) Microsoft
2 90 (4.12%) Oracle
3 82 (3.75%) SAP
4 70 (3.20%) Salesforce
5 69 (3.16%) Databricks
6 44 (2.01%) Google
7 36 (1.65%) Cisco
8 31 (1.42%) Palo Alto
8 31 (1.42%) VMware
9 29 (1.33%) Splunk
10 26 (1.19%) ServiceNow
11 22 (1.01%) F5
12 21 (0.96%) Adobe
13 16 (0.73%) Fortinet
14 15 (0.69%) Informatica
15 14 (0.64%) Arista
15 14 (0.64%) Workday
16 12 (0.55%) CheckPoint
16 12 (0.55%) Dynatrace
17 11 (0.50%) Atlassian