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 2 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 4 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 +3 +3
Contract jobs citing Finance 438 344 363
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 17.50% 16.13% 13.61%
As % of the General category 28.65% 27.70% 24.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 299 196 238
10th Percentile £310 £304 £371
25th Percentile £363 £356 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £490 £525
Median % change year-on-year -8.16% -6.67% +5.00%
75th Percentile £544 £588 £625
90th Percentile £638 £681 £722
England median daily rate £535 £588 £585
% change year-on-year -8.94% +0.43% -0.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 9 20
10th Percentile £17.64 £24.41 £12.66
25th Percentile £19.75 £25.26 £13.93
Median hourly rate £23.18 £37.00 £16.68
Median % change year-on-year -37.36% +121.82% -12.21%
75th Percentile £42.50 £69.75 £26.54
90th Percentile £63.40 £79.50 £50.28
England median hourly rate £23.83 £30.30 £27.50
% change year-on-year -21.36% +10.16% +10.00%

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 1,529 1,242 1,469
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 61.09% 58.23% 55.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 989 674 958
10th Percentile £200 £250 £262
25th Percentile £350 £360 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £638 £675 £703
England median daily rate £500 £534 £550
% change year-on-year -6.37% -2.91% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 127 93 114
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.92 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.13 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.60 £25.43 £21.50
Median % change year-on-year +16.40% +18.28% +4.75%
75th Percentile £45.46 £37.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £67.84 £67.00 £52.55
England median hourly rate £23.58 £30.00 £33.00
% change year-on-year -21.42% -9.09% +29.31%

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 2 January 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 2 January 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 2 January 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 +1 209 £450 -10.00% 188
Cheshire 0 175 £465 -7.00% 65
Merseyside -14 23 £400 +25.00% 19
Lancashire -6 22 £375 -5.36% 79
Cumbria -1 4 £475 -12.84% 7
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 23 (5.25%) Confluence
2 20 (4.57%) SharePoint
3 15 (3.42%) Apache
4 12 (2.74%) SAS
5 10 (2.28%) JBoss
6 8 (1.83%) CMS
6 8 (1.83%) IIS
6 8 (1.83%) WebSphere
7 7 (1.60%) iPlanet
7 7 (1.60%) WebSphere Application Server
8 6 (1.37%) Apache Airflow
9 5 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.68%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.23%) Apache Spark
11 1 (0.23%) Mule
11 1 (0.23%) Mule ESB
11 1 (0.23%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.23%) WebLogic
Applications
1 27 (6.16%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (5.48%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (2.28%) MS Visio
4 9 (2.05%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (1.60%) Sketch
6 6 (1.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 4 (0.91%) Trello
8 2 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.23%) InVision
Business Applications
1 35 (7.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (2.05%) SAP FI
3 8 (1.83%) SAP CO
3 8 (1.83%) SAP FI/CO
4 7 (1.60%) Remedy ITSM
5 5 (1.14%) Oracle EBS
6 4 (0.91%) SAP ERP
6 4 (0.91%) SAP MM
7 3 (0.68%) ContrOCC
7 3 (0.68%) Oracle Cash Management
7 3 (0.68%) Oracle EBS R12
7 3 (0.68%) Oracle Financials
7 3 (0.68%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.68%) SAP HR
8 2 (0.46%) Advent Geneva
8 2 (0.46%) Dynamics AX
8 2 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
8 2 (0.46%) SAP BPC
9 1 (0.23%) NetSuite
9 1 (0.23%) Oracle ASCP
Cloud Services
1 93 (21.23%) AWS
2 45 (10.27%) Azure
3 32 (7.31%) GCP
4 21 (4.79%) Microsoft 365
5 17 (3.88%) Serverless
6 16 (3.65%) Power Platform
7 11 (2.51%) Amazon S3
7 11 (2.51%) GitHub
8 10 (2.28%) AWS Lambda
8 10 (2.28%) Figma
8 10 (2.28%) OpenShift
9 8 (1.83%) SuccessFactors
10 7 (1.60%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (1.60%) AWS Step Functions
11 6 (1.37%) Amazon ECS
11 6 (1.37%) SaaS
12 5 (1.14%) Amazon EC2
12 5 (1.14%) Apigee
12 5 (1.14%) Dynamics 365
12 5 (1.14%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 18 (4.11%) Firewall
2 11 (2.51%) Network Security
3 8 (1.83%) VPN
4 7 (1.60%) Kerberos
4 7 (1.60%) LAN
4 7 (1.60%) WAN
5 6 (1.37%) DNS
5 6 (1.37%) Skype
5 6 (1.37%) TCP/IP
5 6 (1.37%) Wireless
6 5 (1.14%) HTTP
6 5 (1.14%) SSH
6 5 (1.14%) SSL
7 2 (0.46%) ATM
7 2 (0.46%) Cisco ASA
7 2 (0.46%) DHCP
7 2 (0.46%) NetScaler
7 2 (0.46%) Remote Desktop
7 2 (0.46%) Wireshark
8 1 (0.23%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (3.88%) Data Warehouse
2 13 (2.97%) Power BI
3 8 (1.83%) Tableau
4 7 (1.60%) DynamoDB
4 7 (1.60%) Oracle Database
4 7 (1.60%) SQL Server
5 6 (1.37%) BigQuery
5 6 (1.37%) MySQL
6 5 (1.14%) Data Lake
6 5 (1.14%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 4 (0.91%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.91%) Cognos Framework Manager
7 4 (0.91%) Cognos Report Studio
7 4 (0.91%) Hadoop
7 4 (0.91%) MS Access
7 4 (0.91%) Power Query
7 4 (0.91%) Relational Database
8 3 (0.68%) Cognos Transformer
8 3 (0.68%) Impala
8 3 (0.68%) OLAP Cube
Development Applications
1 43 (9.82%) JIRA
2 22 (5.02%) Git
3 17 (3.88%) Jenkins
4 8 (1.83%) Bitbucket Server
4 8 (1.83%) CA Release Automation
4 8 (1.83%) GitLab
5 7 (1.60%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (0.91%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.68%) Jasmine
8 2 (0.46%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.46%) Fiddler
8 2 (0.46%) Gradle
8 2 (0.46%) Selenium
8 2 (0.46%) Snyk
8 2 (0.46%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.23%) JUnit
9 1 (0.23%) Postman
9 1 (0.23%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.23%) Storybook
9 1 (0.23%) Xcode
General
1 157 (35.84%) Social Skills
2 101 (23.06%) Banking
3 71 (16.21%) Analytical Skills
4 37 (8.45%) Public Sector
5 20 (4.57%) Manufacturing
6 15 (3.42%) Telecoms
7 14 (3.20%) Marketing
8 13 (2.97%) Influencing Skills
9 12 (2.74%) Organisational Skills
10 10 (2.28%) Electronics
11 9 (2.05%) Investment Banking
11 9 (2.05%) Legal
11 9 (2.05%) Local Government
12 8 (1.83%) Documentation Skills
12 8 (1.83%) Presentation Skills
13 6 (1.37%) Pharmaceutical
13 6 (1.37%) Retail
14 5 (1.14%) Billing
14 5 (1.14%) Financial Institution
15 4 (0.91%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 60 (13.70%) Analyst
2 45 (10.27%) Architect
3 43 (9.82%) Developer
4 32 (7.31%) Consultant
4 32 (7.31%) Project Manager
5 31 (7.08%) Senior
6 27 (6.16%) Business Analyst
7 26 (5.94%) Lead
8 19 (4.34%) Solutions Architect
9 14 (3.20%) SAP Consultant
10 12 (2.74%) Administrator
11 11 (2.51%) Java Developer
12 10 (2.28%) IT Support
12 10 (2.28%) Programme Manager
12 10 (2.28%) Technical Manager
13 9 (2.05%) SAP Analyst
14 8 (1.83%) Designer
14 8 (1.83%) Product Owner
14 8 (1.83%) Security Engineer
15 7 (1.60%) Applications Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (7.08%) Spring Boot
2 30 (6.85%) Spring
3 27 (6.16%) REST
4 20 (4.57%) OAuth
5 12 (2.74%) AngularJS
5 12 (2.74%) HTML
6 11 (2.51%) JMS
6 11 (2.51%) Kafka
7 10 (2.28%) LDAP
7 10 (2.28%) RESTful
8 9 (2.05%) CSS
8 9 (2.05%) JSON
8 9 (2.05%) Node.js
8 9 (2.05%) XML
9 8 (1.83%) NestJS
9 8 (1.83%) OpenID
9 8 (1.83%) React
9 8 (1.83%) SAML
10 7 (1.60%) CSS3
10 7 (1.60%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 25 (5.71%) Onboarding
2 23 (5.25%) Product Ownership
3 16 (3.65%) Cloud Native
4 13 (2.97%) Data Centre
5 12 (2.74%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 11 (2.51%) Data Protection Act
7 9 (2.05%) Management Information System
7 9 (2.05%) Public Cloud
8 8 (1.83%) CMDB
8 8 (1.83%) Legacy Systems
9 7 (1.60%) Credit Risk
9 7 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
9 7 (1.60%) Mobile App
10 5 (1.14%) Data Structures
10 5 (1.14%) IVR
10 5 (1.14%) PMI
10 5 (1.14%) Security Posture
11 4 (0.91%) Cloud Security Posture
11 4 (0.91%) NHS
11 4 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 26 (5.94%) Windows
2 23 (5.25%) Linux
3 19 (4.34%) Unix
4 8 (1.83%) Android
4 8 (1.83%) Windows Server
5 7 (1.60%) Windows 10
6 6 (1.37%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.68%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.46%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.23%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 106 (24.20%) Agile
2 104 (23.74%) Problem-Solving
3 85 (19.41%) Stakeholder Management
4 61 (13.93%) DevOps
5 47 (10.73%) User Acceptance Testing
6 45 (10.27%) Project Management
6 45 (10.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 44 (10.05%) Change Management
8 42 (9.59%) CI/CD
8 42 (9.59%) ERP
9 41 (9.36%) Continuous Improvement
10 39 (8.90%) Business Intelligence
11 38 (8.68%) Analytics
12 37 (8.45%) Validation
13 34 (7.76%) Containerisation
14 33 (7.53%) Microservices
15 32 (7.31%) Migration
16 31 (7.08%) Roadmaps
17 27 (6.16%) Requirements Gathering
17 27 (6.16%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 51 (11.64%) SQL
2 45 (10.27%) Python
3 44 (10.05%) Java
4 14 (3.20%) TypeScript
5 11 (2.51%) R
6 10 (2.28%) JavaScript
7 8 (1.83%) Groovy
8 6 (1.37%) PHP
8 6 (1.37%) PowerShell
9 5 (1.14%) Kotlin
9 5 (1.14%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.68%) Bash
10 3 (0.68%) JCL
11 2 (0.46%) C
11 2 (0.46%) CLIST
11 2 (0.46%) Perl
11 2 (0.46%) REXX
11 2 (0.46%) Ruby
11 2 (0.46%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.46%) X++
Qualifications
1 59 (13.47%) Degree
2 33 (7.53%) Security Cleared
3 25 (5.71%) BPSS Clearance
4 22 (5.02%) SC Cleared
5 16 (3.65%) Computer Science Degree
6 13 (2.97%) PMI Certification
6 13 (2.97%) PMP
7 12 (2.74%) AWS Certification
7 12 (2.74%) Master's Degree
8 11 (2.51%) Six Sigma Green Belt
9 10 (2.28%) CISSP
10 7 (1.60%) CISM
10 7 (1.60%) MBA
11 6 (1.37%) ITIL Certification
12 5 (1.14%) ISTQB
13 3 (0.68%) ACCA
13 3 (0.68%) Azure Certification
13 3 (0.68%) CIMA
13 3 (0.68%) CISA
13 3 (0.68%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (6.39%) QA
2 17 (3.88%) ISO 20022
3 13 (2.97%) PSD2
4 12 (2.74%) SEPA
5 10 (2.28%) Accessibility
5 10 (2.28%) PMO
6 9 (2.05%) Data Quality
6 9 (2.05%) GDPR
7 8 (1.83%) IFRS
7 8 (1.83%) PCI DSS
8 5 (1.14%) IFRS 17
8 5 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (1.14%) NIST
9 4 (0.91%) P3O
10 3 (0.68%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.46%) Basel III
11 2 (0.46%) GRC
11 2 (0.46%) IEC 61508
11 2 (0.46%) ISO 26262
12 1 (0.23%) SOC 2
System Software
1 39 (8.90%) Docker
2 18 (4.11%) Active Directory
3 5 (1.14%) Tivoli Directory Server
4 3 (0.68%) ISA Server
4 3 (0.68%) Time Sharing Option
5 2 (0.46%) ACF2
5 2 (0.46%) RACF
5 2 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.46%) Virtual Servers
5 2 (0.46%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.46%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 36 (8.22%) Kubernetes
2 8 (1.83%) CA Single Sign-On
2 8 (1.83%) Progress Chef
2 8 (1.83%) Terraform
3 7 (1.60%) CA Wily
3 7 (1.60%) Tivoli
4 6 (1.37%) Grafana
5 5 (1.14%) SCCM
6 4 (0.91%) Ansible
6 4 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (0.91%) Prometheus
6 4 (0.91%) QRadar
7 3 (0.68%) CA Endevor
7 3 (0.68%) CASB
7 3 (0.68%) Nessus
8 2 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.46%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 1 (0.23%) Autotask
9 1 (0.23%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 93 (21.23%) Microsoft
2 66 (15.07%) SAP
3 31 (7.08%) Oracle
4 23 (5.25%) ServiceNow
5 20 (4.57%) Splunk
6 16 (3.65%) IBM
7 14 (3.20%) Cisco
8 10 (2.28%) Citrix
8 10 (2.28%) Remedy
9 9 (2.05%) Google
10 8 (1.83%) AppDynamics
10 8 (1.83%) Broadcom
11 7 (1.60%) Pega
12 6 (1.37%) Apple
12 6 (1.37%) Hopewiser
12 6 (1.37%) MuleSoft
13 5 (1.14%) Dell
13 5 (1.14%) HP
13 5 (1.14%) Salesforce
13 5 (1.14%) Workday