Lead Contracts in the Thames Valley

Leader
South East > Thames Valley

The median Leader daily rate in the Thames Valley is £575, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 28 30 35
Rank change year-on-year +2 +5 -5
Contract jobs requiring a Lead 98 152 172
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 6.49% 5.66% 5.87%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.98% 6.07% 6.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 70 82 136
10th Percentile £408 £360 £391
25th Percentile £450 £461 £495
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £555 £595
Median % change year-on-year +3.56% -6.68% +13.33%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £661
90th Percentile £676 £650 £735
South East median daily rate £575 £550 £600
% change year-on-year +4.55% -8.33% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 3 1
10th Percentile - £63.37 -
25th Percentile £86.29 £64.67 £53.50
Median hourly rate £87.58 £68.67 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.55% +24.85% -31.25%
75th Percentile £88.87 £70.34 £56.50
90th Percentile - £70.43 -
South East median hourly rate £83.50 £31.00 £57.99
% change year-on-year +169.35% -46.54% +65.69%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
Thames Valley

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the Thames Valley. 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 the Thames Valley with a recognized job title 1,405 2,505 2,767
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.98% 93.26% 94.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 864 1,430 1,916
10th Percentile £300 £206 £313
25th Percentile £409 £370 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - +5.26%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - +2.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 189 76
10th Percentile £14.20 £15.78 £17.31
25th Percentile £16.94 £19.25 £20.75
Median hourly rate £45.65 £45.00 £46.70
Median % change year-on-year +1.44% -3.64% +166.86%
75th Percentile £65.62 £62.50 £66.21
90th Percentile £77.47 £84.57 £79.19
South East median hourly rate £32.50 £47.50 £48.40
% change year-on-year -31.58% -1.86% +130.48%

Lead
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Job postings that featured Lead in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Job vacancy trend for Lead in the Thames Valley

Lead
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Lead in the Thames Valley.

Daily rate trend for Lead in the Thames Valley

Lead
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Lead in the Thames Valley

Lead
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Lead in the Thames Valley.

Hourly rate trend for Lead in the Thames Valley

Lead
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Lead within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 1 May 2025. 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
Berkshire -3 73 £600 +4.35% 102
Buckinghamshire +16 16 £508 -7.73% 57
Oxfordshire +1 9 £600 +33.33% 49
Lead
South East

Lead Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the Thames Valley

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Lead contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the Thames Valley region featuring Lead in the job title.

1 41 (41.84%) Social Skills
2 26 (26.53%) Problem-Solving
3 22 (22.45%) Agile
4 14 (14.29%) Oracle
5 13 (13.27%) ITIL
5 13 (13.27%) Project Management
5 13 (13.27%) Stakeholder Management
5 13 (13.27%) Security Cleared
5 13 (13.27%) Roadmaps
6 12 (12.24%) Project Delivery
7 11 (11.22%) Workflow
7 11 (11.22%) Windows
8 10 (10.20%) SAP
8 10 (10.20%) Service Management
8 10 (10.20%) Firewall
8 10 (10.20%) Cybersecurity
8 10 (10.20%) DevOps
8 10 (10.20%) Analytical Skills
9 9 (9.18%) Mentoring
9 9 (9.18%) Azure
9 9 (9.18%) Scrum
9 9 (9.18%) Legal
10 8 (8.16%) Technical Leadership
10 8 (8.16%) Decision-Making
10 8 (8.16%) Finance
10 8 (8.16%) Service Delivery
10 8 (8.16%) ITSM
10 8 (8.16%) SC Cleared
10 8 (8.16%) DV Cleared
10 8 (8.16%) Waterfall

Lead Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the Thames Valley by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 2 (2.04%) Confluence
2 1 (1.02%) Apache
2 1 (1.02%) Apache Spark
2 1 (1.02%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.02%) Oracle Service Bus
2 1 (1.02%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 2 (2.04%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (2.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.02%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.02%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (6.12%) Oracle EBS
2 5 (5.10%) Oracle ERP
3 3 (3.06%) SAP Oil and Gas
3 3 (3.06%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (1.02%) Maximo
4 1 (1.02%) Primavera
4 1 (1.02%) SAP CO
4 1 (1.02%) SAP EWM
4 1 (1.02%) SAP FI
4 1 (1.02%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 9 (9.18%) Azure
2 6 (6.12%) OCI
3 5 (5.10%) Google Workspace
4 4 (4.08%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (4.08%) Entra ID
5 3 (3.06%) Oracle CX
6 2 (2.04%) AWS
6 2 (2.04%) Azure API Management
6 2 (2.04%) Azure Monitor
6 2 (2.04%) Figma
6 2 (2.04%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (2.04%) PaaS
6 2 (2.04%) SaaS
7 1 (1.02%) AWS Data Pipeline
7 1 (1.02%) Azure AKS
7 1 (1.02%) Azure Machine Learning
7 1 (1.02%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 1 (1.02%) GCP
7 1 (1.02%) IaaS
7 1 (1.02%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 10 (10.20%) Firewall
2 5 (5.10%) VLAN
2 5 (5.10%) Wi-Fi
3 4 (4.08%) DHCP
3 4 (4.08%) DNS
3 4 (4.08%) TCP/IP
4 3 (3.06%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (1.02%) 2G
5 1 (1.02%) 3G
5 1 (1.02%) 4G
5 1 (1.02%) 5G
5 1 (1.02%) Network Security
5 1 (1.02%) NGFW
5 1 (1.02%) Radio Access Network
5 1 (1.02%) SSL
5 1 (1.02%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.06%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (2.04%) BigQuery
2 2 (2.04%) Data Lake
2 2 (2.04%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (1.02%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 5 (5.10%) JIRA
2 1 (1.02%) GitLab
2 1 (1.02%) Jenkins
2 1 (1.02%) Rational DOORS
2 1 (1.02%) Selenium
2 1 (1.02%) VectorCAST
General
1 41 (41.84%) Social Skills
2 10 (10.20%) Analytical Skills
3 9 (9.18%) Legal
4 8 (8.16%) Finance
5 6 (6.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 5 (5.10%) Presentation Skills
7 4 (4.08%) Manufacturing
7 4 (4.08%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (3.06%) Telecoms
9 2 (2.04%) Billing
9 2 (2.04%) Marketing
10 1 (1.02%) Aerospace
10 1 (1.02%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (1.02%) Military
10 1 (1.02%) Public Sector
10 1 (1.02%) Publishing
10 1 (1.02%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.10%) Oracle Fusion
2 3 (3.06%) Elastic Stack
2 3 (3.06%) JBoss Seam
2 3 (3.06%) OAuth
2 3 (3.06%) SOAP
2 3 (3.06%) Web Services
3 2 (2.04%) Kafka
3 2 (2.04%) RESTful
4 1 (1.02%) ADO
4 1 (1.02%) EDI
4 1 (1.02%) LDAP
4 1 (1.02%) Node.js
4 1 (1.02%) OAuth2
4 1 (1.02%) React
4 1 (1.02%) React Native
4 1 (1.02%) REST
4 1 (1.02%) SAML
4 1 (1.02%) SAP Fiori
4 1 (1.02%) SAPUI5
4 1 (1.02%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 8 (8.16%) Data Centre
2 5 (5.10%) EPoS
3 4 (4.08%) Enterprise Storage
3 4 (4.08%) Management Information System
3 4 (4.08%) Security Operations Centre
4 3 (3.06%) Life Science
4 3 (3.06%) Renewable Energy
4 3 (3.06%) Security Posture
4 3 (3.06%) Self-Motivation
5 2 (2.04%) CMDB
5 2 (2.04%) CSOC
5 2 (2.04%) Cyber Threat
5 2 (2.04%) Hybrid Cloud
5 2 (2.04%) Podcast
5 2 (2.04%) Product Ownership
5 2 (2.04%) Reference Data
5 2 (2.04%) Social Media
5 2 (2.04%) Virtual Team
6 1 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.02%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 11 (11.22%) Windows
2 7 (7.14%) Linux
3 4 (4.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 4 (4.08%) Windows Server
3 4 (4.08%) Windows Server 2019
4 1 (1.02%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (26.53%) Problem-Solving
2 22 (22.45%) Agile
3 13 (13.27%) ITIL
3 13 (13.27%) Project Management
3 13 (13.27%) Roadmaps
3 13 (13.27%) Stakeholder Management
4 12 (12.24%) Project Delivery
5 11 (11.22%) Workflow
6 10 (10.20%) Cybersecurity
6 10 (10.20%) DevOps
6 10 (10.20%) Service Management
7 9 (9.18%) Mentoring
7 9 (9.18%) Scrum
8 8 (8.16%) Analytics
8 8 (8.16%) Decision-Making
8 8 (8.16%) ITSM
8 8 (8.16%) Service Delivery
8 8 (8.16%) Technical Leadership
8 8 (8.16%) Waterfall
9 7 (7.14%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 5 (5.10%) SQL
2 3 (3.06%) Python
3 2 (2.04%) PowerShell
4 1 (1.02%) ABAP
4 1 (1.02%) C
4 1 (1.02%) Java
4 1 (1.02%) JavaScript
4 1 (1.02%) MATLAB
4 1 (1.02%) PL/SQL
4 1 (1.02%) R
4 1 (1.02%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 13 (13.27%) Security Cleared
2 8 (8.16%) Degree
2 8 (8.16%) DV Cleared
2 8 (8.16%) SC Cleared
3 3 (3.06%) Azure Certification
4 2 (2.04%) CISSP
4 2 (2.04%) Computer Science Degree
4 2 (2.04%) PMI Certification
4 2 (2.04%) PMP
5 1 (1.02%) ACCA
5 1 (1.02%) CISA
5 1 (1.02%) CISM
5 1 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
5 1 (1.02%) Master's Degree
5 1 (1.02%) PgMP
5 1 (1.02%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (3.06%) QA
1 3 (3.06%) SLA
2 2 (2.04%) Data Quality
3 1 (1.02%) DO-178B
3 1 (1.02%) GDPR
3 1 (1.02%) ISO 26262
3 1 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (1.02%) NIST
3 1 (1.02%) PCI DSS
3 1 (1.02%) PMO
System Software
1 2 (2.04%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (1.02%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.02%) Docker
2 1 (1.02%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (1.02%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 4 (4.08%) NetBackup
2 2 (2.04%) Terraform
3 1 (1.02%) Kubernetes
3 1 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 14 (14.29%) Oracle
2 10 (10.20%) SAP
3 7 (7.14%) VMware
4 5 (5.10%) Google
4 5 (5.10%) ServiceNow
5 4 (4.08%) 3PAR
5 4 (4.08%) Dell
5 4 (4.08%) HP
5 4 (4.08%) Microsoft
5 4 (4.08%) Red Hat
5 4 (4.08%) Salesforce
5 4 (4.08%) Veritas
6 3 (3.06%) Darktrace
7 2 (2.04%) Cisco
7 2 (2.04%) Snow
8 1 (1.02%) Epicor
8 1 (1.02%) IBM
8 1 (1.02%) JD Edwards
8 1 (1.02%) MuleSoft
8 1 (1.02%) Splunk