Finance Contract Job Trends in the North West

Financial
England > North West

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Finance in contract job vacancies in the North West. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Finance over the 6 months leading up to 17 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 2 3
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 +6
Contract jobs citing Finance 695 424 376
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 18.15% 19.21% 15.61%
As % of the General category 35.01% 31.38% 28.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 423 318 271
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £402 £399 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -14.29% -1.41%
75th Percentile £588 £586 £597
90th Percentile £643 £688 £700
England median daily rate £550 £550 £593
% change year-on-year - -7.17% -1.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 11 11
10th Percentile £21.04 £25.38 £34.21
25th Percentile - £26.93 -
Median hourly rate £43.96 £50.99 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.78% +45.67% +107.59%
75th Percentile £50.00 £73.13 £54.00
90th Percentile £74.88 £76.25 £69.75
England median hourly rate £43.96 £32.60 £38.12
% change year-on-year +34.85% -14.48% +48.27%

All General Skills
North West

Finance falls under the General Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring general skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 1,985 1,351 1,308
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 51.84% 61.21% 54.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,125 858 784
10th Percentile £240 £268 £300
25th Percentile £400 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £467 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.01% -6.55% -
75th Percentile £588 £580 £588
90th Percentile £671 £676 £684
England median daily rate £525 £510 £538
% change year-on-year +2.94% -5.20% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 251 111 103
10th Percentile £16.01 £12.82 £16.06
25th Percentile £24.86 £15.64 £16.16
Median hourly rate £35.00 £28.75 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +21.74% -12.60% +26.52%
75th Percentile £58.22 £52.50 £43.43
90th Percentile £83.75 £72.50 £56.80
England median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +29.22% -34.02% +38.62%

Finance
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Finance relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Finance job vacancy trend in the North West

Finance
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Finance.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Finance

Finance
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Finance in the North West over the 6 months to 17 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Finance in the North West

Finance
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Finance.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Finance

Finance
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Finance in the North West over the 6 months to 17 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Finance in the North West

Finance
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Finance within the North West region over the 6 months to 17 August 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
Manchester 0 369 £475 +3.83% 249
Cheshire +1 201 £500 +11.11% 60
Merseyside +2 75 £550 +28.50% 41
Lancashire -1 25 £475 - 98
Cumbria -8 14 £510 -15.00% 12
Finance
England

Finance
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 40 (5.76%) Confluence
2 9 (1.29%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.58%) Apache
3 4 (0.58%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.43%) CICS
4 3 (0.43%) SAS
5 2 (0.29%) Camunda
5 2 (0.29%) IIS
5 2 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.14%) Anypoint
6 1 (0.14%) JBoss
6 1 (0.14%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.14%) Mule
6 1 (0.14%) Mule ESB
6 1 (0.14%) NetWeaver
6 1 (0.14%) nginx
6 1 (0.14%) WebLogic
Applications
1 33 (4.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (2.01%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.73%) MS Visio
4 11 (1.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (1.29%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.14%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.14%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 61 (8.78%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (1.29%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.58%) Oracle Payables
3 4 (0.58%) SAP MDG
4 3 (0.43%) Adobe Campaign
4 3 (0.43%) Elite 3E
4 3 (0.43%) NetSuite
4 3 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.43%) SAP ERP
4 3 (0.43%) SAP SD
5 2 (0.29%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.29%) Oracle Cash Management
5 2 (0.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.29%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.29%) SAP MDG-F
6 1 (0.14%) OpenText VIM for SAP
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.14%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.14%) ResourceLink
6 1 (0.14%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 114 (16.40%) Azure
2 105 (15.11%) AWS
3 37 (5.32%) GCP
4 27 (3.88%) Power Platform
5 23 (3.31%) Entra ID
6 21 (3.02%) SaaS
7 16 (2.30%) Dynamics 365
8 15 (2.16%) Serverless
9 12 (1.73%) AWS CloudFormation
9 12 (1.73%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 11 (1.58%) Azure DevOps
11 10 (1.44%) Microsoft 365
12 9 (1.29%) Azure Sentinel
13 8 (1.15%) Snowflake
13 8 (1.15%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 6 (0.86%) Amazon ECS
14 6 (0.86%) Azure AKS
14 6 (0.86%) Azure Key Vault
15 5 (0.72%) AWS Lambda
15 5 (0.72%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 36 (5.18%) Firewall
2 15 (2.16%) Network Security
3 11 (1.58%) DNS
3 11 (1.58%) VPN
4 8 (1.15%) TCP/IP
4 8 (1.15%) WAN
5 6 (0.86%) BGP
5 6 (0.86%) LAN
5 6 (0.86%) SSL
6 3 (0.43%) BIG-IP
6 3 (0.43%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
6 3 (0.43%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 2 (0.29%) DHCP
7 2 (0.29%) OSPF
7 2 (0.29%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.29%) SSH
7 2 (0.29%) VSAN
7 2 (0.29%) Wi-Fi
8 1 (0.14%) IGMP
8 1 (0.14%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (3.74%) Power BI
2 21 (3.02%) SQL Server
3 20 (2.88%) Data Warehouse
4 14 (2.01%) Relational Database
5 11 (1.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 10 (1.44%) PostgreSQL
7 9 (1.29%) Data Lake
8 8 (1.15%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 7 (1.01%) DataStage
9 7 (1.01%) RDBMS
9 7 (1.01%) Snowflake Schema
10 6 (0.86%) MongoDB
10 6 (0.86%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 5 (0.72%) Amazon Redshift
11 5 (0.72%) Delta Lake
11 5 (0.72%) Metadata
11 5 (0.72%) NoSQL
11 5 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
11 5 (0.72%) Sybase ASE
11 5 (0.72%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 51 (7.34%) JIRA
2 14 (2.01%) Git
3 8 (1.15%) Cucumber
3 8 (1.15%) GitLab
4 7 (1.01%) Selenium
5 6 (0.86%) Jenkins
6 5 (0.72%) Hudson
6 5 (0.72%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (0.58%) JUnit
7 4 (0.58%) Postman
8 3 (0.43%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.29%) JDeveloper
9 2 (0.29%) Zephyr
10 1 (0.14%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.14%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.14%) Eclipse
10 1 (0.14%) Gradle
10 1 (0.14%) JMeter
10 1 (0.14%) LoadRunner
General
1 256 (36.83%) Social Skills
2 144 (20.72%) Banking
3 95 (13.67%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (5.90%) Organisational Skills
4 41 (5.90%) Retail
5 37 (5.32%) Legal
6 29 (4.17%) Public Sector
7 26 (3.74%) Influencing Skills
8 21 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
9 20 (2.88%) Manufacturing
9 20 (2.88%) Marketing
10 19 (2.73%) Investment Banking
11 11 (1.58%) Back Office
11 11 (1.58%) Financial Institution
11 11 (1.58%) Presentation Skills
12 9 (1.29%) Billing
13 8 (1.15%) Retail Banking
14 6 (0.86%) Advertising
14 6 (0.86%) Military
14 6 (0.86%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 102 (14.68%) Analyst
2 78 (11.22%) Architect
3 61 (8.78%) Lead
4 56 (8.06%) Business Analyst
5 49 (7.05%) Senior
6 47 (6.76%) Project Manager
7 43 (6.19%) Solutions Architect
8 42 (6.04%) Consultant
9 34 (4.89%) Security Engineer
10 30 (4.32%) Accountant
11 22 (3.17%) Developer
12 19 (2.73%) Financial Analyst
12 19 (2.73%) Systems Accountant
13 18 (2.59%) Finance Manager
14 16 (2.30%) DBA
15 15 (2.16%) Data Analyst
15 15 (2.16%) Programme Manager
16 13 (1.87%) Finance Business Analyst
16 13 (1.87%) IT Manager
16 13 (1.87%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (4.17%) Middleware
2 15 (2.16%) Spring
3 14 (2.01%) Spring Boot
4 12 (1.73%) REST
4 12 (1.73%) SAML
5 11 (1.58%) OAuth
6 10 (1.44%) React
6 10 (1.44%) XML
7 9 (1.29%) JSON
8 8 (1.15%) Kafka
8 8 (1.15%) LangChain
9 7 (1.01%) Oracle Fusion
9 7 (1.01%) PySpark
9 7 (1.01%) SailPoint
10 6 (0.86%) AWS CDK
10 6 (0.86%) Node.js
10 6 (0.86%) OpenID
10 6 (0.86%) PyTorch
11 5 (0.72%) AngularJS
11 5 (0.72%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 44 (6.33%) Management Information System
2 42 (6.04%) Cloud Native
3 34 (4.89%) Product Ownership
4 31 (4.46%) Legacy Systems
5 25 (3.60%) Security Posture
6 24 (3.45%) Data Protection Act
6 24 (3.45%) Onboarding
6 24 (3.45%) Virtual Team
7 20 (2.88%) Web Conferencing
8 19 (2.73%) Podcast
9 14 (2.01%) Data Structures
9 14 (2.01%) Mobile App
10 12 (1.73%) Credit Risk
11 11 (1.58%) Enterprise Cloud
12 10 (1.44%) Analytical Mindset
12 10 (1.44%) CMDB
12 10 (1.44%) Data Centre
12 10 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
12 10 (1.44%) Mainframe
12 10 (1.44%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 39 (5.61%) Linux
2 29 (4.17%) Windows
3 21 (3.02%) Unix
4 18 (2.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 14 (2.01%) Solaris
6 8 (1.15%) AIX
7 7 (1.01%) Windows Server
8 5 (0.72%) HPUX
8 5 (0.72%) Oracle Linux
8 5 (0.72%) SUSE
9 4 (0.58%) zOS
10 3 (0.43%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.14%) CentOS
12 1 (0.14%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.14%) MVS
12 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.14%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (24.60%) Stakeholder Management
2 165 (23.74%) Agile
3 110 (15.83%) Migration
4 89 (12.81%) ERP
5 86 (12.37%) Problem-Solving
6 81 (11.65%) Change Management
7 80 (11.51%) Continuous Improvement
8 75 (10.79%) CI/CD
9 74 (10.65%) Project Management
10 73 (10.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 71 (10.22%) DevOps
12 63 (9.06%) AI
13 59 (8.49%) Roadmaps
14 53 (7.63%) Analytics
15 52 (7.48%) Data Modelling
15 52 (7.48%) Workshop Facilitation
16 51 (7.34%) ITIL
17 49 (7.05%) Data Migration
17 49 (7.05%) Decision-Making
18 48 (6.91%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 77 (11.08%) SQL
2 74 (10.65%) Python
3 46 (6.62%) Java
4 37 (5.32%) PowerShell
5 21 (3.02%) Bash
6 11 (1.58%) Bicep
7 9 (1.29%) Shell Script
8 7 (1.01%) PL/SQL
8 7 (1.01%) TypeScript
9 6 (0.86%) JavaScript
10 5 (0.72%) T-SQL
11 4 (0.58%) C#
12 3 (0.43%) COBOL
12 3 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 3 (0.43%) Kotlin
12 3 (0.43%) Search Processing Language
13 2 (0.29%) BeanShell
13 2 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.29%) Scala
14 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 52 (7.48%) Degree
2 36 (5.18%) CISSP
3 29 (4.17%) BPSS Clearance
4 22 (3.17%) Security Cleared
5 18 (2.59%) AWS Certification
5 18 (2.59%) Azure Certification
6 17 (2.45%) ACCA
6 17 (2.45%) CIMA
7 11 (1.58%) CIPFA
8 10 (1.44%) SC Cleared
9 9 (1.29%) PMI Certification
9 9 (1.29%) PMP
10 7 (1.01%) CompTIA Security+
10 7 (1.01%) ITIL Certification
11 6 (0.86%) Cisco Certification
12 5 (0.72%) CISM
12 5 (0.72%) RHCE
13 4 (0.58%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 4 (0.58%) GIAC
13 4 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 56 (8.06%) Data Quality
2 30 (4.32%) GDPR
3 21 (3.02%) PMO
3 21 (3.02%) QA
4 18 (2.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 17 (2.45%) GRC
6 16 (2.30%) NIST
7 11 (1.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 8 (1.15%) PCI DSS
9 7 (1.01%) SLA
10 6 (0.86%) IFRS
10 6 (0.86%) Solvency II
11 4 (0.58%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 4 (0.58%) HIPAA
11 4 (0.58%) IFRS 17
11 4 (0.58%) PERC
12 3 (0.43%) GAAP
13 2 (0.29%) Basel III
13 2 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 2 (0.29%) P3O
System Software
1 26 (3.74%) Docker
2 23 (3.31%) Active Directory
3 11 (1.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (0.58%) RACF
6 3 (0.43%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.29%) GPFS
7 2 (0.29%) NFS
7 2 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.29%) vSphere
8 1 (0.14%) Firmware
8 1 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 41 (5.90%) Kubernetes
2 30 (4.32%) Terraform
3 19 (2.73%) Ansible
4 15 (2.16%) Progress Chef
5 12 (1.73%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.58%) Grafana
6 4 (0.58%) Istio
6 4 (0.58%) OMEGAMON
7 3 (0.43%) CASB
7 3 (0.43%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.43%) SCCM
8 2 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.29%) AirWatch
8 2 (0.29%) Failover Clustering
8 2 (0.29%) QRadar
8 2 (0.29%) vRealize
8 2 (0.29%) VxRail
8 2 (0.29%) WMI
9 1 (0.14%) Cisco CUCM
9 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 110 (15.83%) Microsoft
2 89 (12.81%) SAP
3 39 (5.61%) Oracle
4 35 (5.04%) ServiceNow
5 23 (3.31%) Google
6 20 (2.88%) IBM
7 17 (2.45%) Cisco
7 17 (2.45%) Sage
8 16 (2.30%) Red Hat
9 13 (1.87%) BeyondTrust
9 13 (1.87%) Databricks
9 13 (1.87%) Salesforce
9 13 (1.87%) VMware
10 11 (1.58%) Splunk
11 8 (1.15%) CyberArk
12 7 (1.01%) HP
13 6 (0.86%) Adobe
14 5 (0.72%) Sybase
14 5 (0.72%) Thales
15 4 (0.58%) Tealium