Finance Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Financial
UK > UK excluding London

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Finance in contract job vacancies in the UK excluding London. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Finance over the 6 months leading up to 26 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 5 6
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 +1
Contract jobs citing Finance 3,384 2,223 2,619
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 14.28% 17.44% 12.60%
As % of the General category 27.93% 27.98% 23.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,102 1,421 1,614
10th Percentile £325 £305 £281
25th Percentile £405 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £625
90th Percentile £688 £675 £750
UK median daily rate £530 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -7.83% - -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 145 71 193
10th Percentile £14.17 £17.79 £12.06
25th Percentile £17.00 £21.75 £14.13
Median hourly rate £22.08 £36.00 £30.83
Median % change year-on-year -38.68% +16.79% -33.35%
75th Percentile £40.00 £71.25 £38.12
90th Percentile £75.40 £78.47 £55.80
UK median hourly rate £23.83 £35.50 £27.00
% change year-on-year -32.89% +31.48% -12.21%

All General Skills
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 12,115 7,944 11,383
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 51.14% 62.32% 54.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,222 4,913 6,542
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £375 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £583 £580 £595
90th Percentile £675 £663 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,373 584 1,634
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.62 £16.67 £15.00
Median hourly rate £25.50 £25.43 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.28% -7.53% -9.95%
75th Percentile £61.00 £58.42 £51.75
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £28.17 £28.50
% change year-on-year +2.96% -1.18% -18.57%

Finance
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Finance relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Finance job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Finance
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Finance.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Finance

Finance
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Finance in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 26 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Finance in the UK excluding London

Finance
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Finance.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Finance

Finance
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Finance in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 26 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Finance in the UK excluding London

Finance
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Finance within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 26 April 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
North of England +3 1,128 £475 - 565
South East -1 649 £503 -3.83% 875
North West +6 610 £465 - 290
Midlands -1 579 £475 -5.00% 365
Yorkshire +1 478 £500 - 202
Scotland 0 399 £500 +2.25% 120
West Midlands 0 386 £492 -6.29% 212
South West -2 342 £510 +2.00% 283
East of England -3 197 £525 -4.55% 205
East Midlands 0 188 £450 +0.67% 150
Wales +24 98 £413 +10.00% 52
Northern Ireland -1 43 £500 +25.00% 68
North East -11 41 £488 +8.33% 82
Channel Islands - 2 £450 - 1
Finance
UK

Finance
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding 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
1 155 (4.58%) Confluence
2 114 (3.37%) SharePoint
3 29 (0.86%) Apache Spark
4 24 (0.71%) Microsoft Exchange
5 22 (0.65%) Apache
6 14 (0.41%) SAS
7 9 (0.27%) CICS
8 8 (0.24%) CMS
8 8 (0.24%) TPMS
9 6 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 6 (0.18%) WebLogic
10 5 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
10 5 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.12%) Ethereum
11 4 (0.12%) Hyperledger
11 4 (0.12%) IIS
12 3 (0.089%) Camunda
12 3 (0.089%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.089%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.059%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 260 (7.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 128 (3.78%) Microsoft Office
3 114 (3.37%) Microsoft Project
4 86 (2.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 42 (1.24%) MS Visio
6 26 (0.77%) Spreadsheet
7 7 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 5 (0.15%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.15%) InVision
8 5 (0.15%) Sketch
8 5 (0.15%) Trello
9 4 (0.12%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.059%) AutoCAD
11 1 (0.030%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.030%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.030%) Photoshop
11 1 (0.030%) UXPin
11 1 (0.030%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 157 (4.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (1.36%) Oracle Payables
3 43 (1.27%) Oracle Receivables
4 40 (1.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 38 (1.12%) Oracle ERP
6 35 (1.03%) Oracle EBS
7 29 (0.86%) Oracle General Ledger
8 25 (0.74%) NetSuite
8 25 (0.74%) Oracle Assets
9 22 (0.65%) SAP FI
10 21 (0.62%) Oracle Cash Management
11 19 (0.56%) Oracle EBS R12
12 17 (0.50%) Dynamics CRM
12 17 (0.50%) SAP CO
13 16 (0.47%) SAP FI/CO
14 13 (0.38%) NEC Housing
15 12 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
15 12 (0.35%) SAP ERP
15 12 (0.35%) Workday HCM
16 11 (0.33%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 410 (12.12%) Azure
2 352 (10.40%) AWS
3 210 (6.21%) Power Platform
4 161 (4.76%) GCP
5 109 (3.22%) Microsoft 365
6 92 (2.72%) GitHub
7 85 (2.51%) SaaS
8 77 (2.28%) Azure DevOps
9 75 (2.22%) Dynamics 365
10 58 (1.71%) Entra ID
11 50 (1.48%) Serverless
12 49 (1.45%) OpenShift
13 39 (1.15%) OCI
13 39 (1.15%) Snowflake
14 34 (1.00%) AWS CloudFormation
15 31 (0.92%) Amazon S3
15 31 (0.92%) AWS Lambda
16 30 (0.89%) GitHub Actions
17 28 (0.83%) Microsoft Copilot
18 24 (0.71%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 79 (2.33%) Firewall
2 39 (1.15%) DNS
2 39 (1.15%) Network Security
3 37 (1.09%) WAN
4 32 (0.95%) VPN
5 19 (0.56%) SD-WAN
6 18 (0.53%) Skype
6 18 (0.53%) TCP/IP
7 16 (0.47%) LAN
7 16 (0.47%) SSL
8 13 (0.38%) DHCP
9 12 (0.35%) Internet
10 10 (0.30%) SSH
11 9 (0.27%) MPLS
12 8 (0.24%) Cisco IOS
12 8 (0.24%) SNMP
12 8 (0.24%) VSAN
13 7 (0.21%) Wi-Fi
14 6 (0.18%) HTTP
14 6 (0.18%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 194 (5.73%) Power BI
2 74 (2.19%) Data Warehouse
3 67 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
4 51 (1.51%) Relational Database
5 50 (1.48%) Metadata
6 49 (1.45%) Oracle Reports
7 38 (1.12%) NoSQL
7 38 (1.12%) Tableau
8 36 (1.06%) SQL Server
9 30 (0.89%) DynamoDB
10 24 (0.71%) Data Lake
11 22 (0.65%) Big Data
11 22 (0.65%) Oracle ODI
12 21 (0.62%) Power Query
13 20 (0.59%) MongoDB
14 15 (0.44%) DB2
15 14 (0.41%) Snowflake Schema
16 13 (0.38%) MySQL
16 13 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 11 (0.33%) DataStage
Development Applications
1 302 (8.92%) JIRA
2 92 (2.72%) Jenkins
3 62 (1.83%) Git
4 43 (1.27%) GitLab
5 35 (1.03%) JUnit
6 29 (0.86%) Sonatype Nexus
7 28 (0.83%) Cucumber
8 21 (0.62%) Selenium
9 14 (0.41%) SonarQube
10 13 (0.38%) Hudson
10 13 (0.38%) Postman
11 11 (0.33%) Bitbucket
12 8 (0.24%) Gradle
12 8 (0.24%) Jaeger
12 8 (0.24%) REST Assured
13 7 (0.21%) JMeter
13 7 (0.21%) Maven
14 6 (0.18%) IntelliJ
14 6 (0.18%) Snyk
14 6 (0.18%) Zephyr
General
1 1,127 (33.30%) Social Skills
2 492 (14.54%) Banking
3 460 (13.59%) Analytical Skills
4 299 (8.84%) Public Sector
5 140 (4.14%) Manufacturing
6 130 (3.84%) Organisational Skills
7 117 (3.46%) Legal
8 101 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
8 101 (2.98%) Telecoms
9 99 (2.93%) Marketing
10 96 (2.84%) Retail
11 81 (2.39%) Influencing Skills
11 81 (2.39%) Local Government
12 74 (2.19%) Financial Institution
13 67 (1.98%) General Ledger
14 54 (1.60%) Electronics
15 53 (1.57%) Investment Banking
16 48 (1.42%) Billing
17 43 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
18 35 (1.03%) Law
Job Titles
1 486 (14.36%) Analyst
2 344 (10.17%) Project Manager
3 314 (9.28%) Architect
4 288 (8.51%) Lead
5 273 (8.07%) Senior
6 229 (6.77%) Consultant
7 226 (6.68%) Developer
8 220 (6.50%) Business Analyst
9 134 (3.96%) Solutions Architect
10 117 (3.46%) Accountant
11 89 (2.63%) Senior Manager
12 87 (2.57%) Programme Manager
13 77 (2.28%) Finance Manager
14 67 (1.98%) Systems Accountant
15 65 (1.92%) Data Analyst
15 65 (1.92%) Java Developer
16 61 (1.80%) Data Engineer
17 57 (1.68%) IT Manager
17 57 (1.68%) SAP Consultant
18 55 (1.63%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (2.69%) REST
2 82 (2.42%) Spring
3 80 (2.36%) Spring Boot
4 73 (2.16%) Kafka
4 73 (2.16%) Middleware
5 69 (2.04%) Oracle Fusion
6 42 (1.24%) RESTful
7 39 (1.15%) .NET
8 35 (1.03%) React
9 33 (0.98%) Node.js
10 32 (0.95%) OAuth
11 29 (0.86%) JSON
12 27 (0.80%) XML
13 26 (0.77%) HTML
14 24 (0.71%) AngularJS
15 22 (0.65%) CSS
15 22 (0.65%) SOAP
16 21 (0.62%) OpenID
17 20 (0.59%) OpenTelemetry
17 20 (0.59%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 152 (4.49%) Onboarding
2 131 (3.87%) Product Ownership
3 110 (3.25%) Cloud Native
3 110 (3.25%) Management Information System
4 88 (2.60%) Data Protection Act
5 85 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
6 79 (2.33%) Data Centre
7 57 (1.68%) Public Cloud
8 55 (1.63%) Distributed Systems
9 54 (1.60%) Data Structures
10 39 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
11 36 (1.06%) Virtual Team
12 35 (1.03%) Mainframe
13 34 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
13 34 (1.00%) PMI
14 30 (0.89%) Mobile App
15 29 (0.86%) CMDB
16 24 (0.71%) Security Posture
17 20 (0.59%) Operational Technology
18 16 (0.47%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 113 (3.34%) Linux
2 109 (3.22%) Windows
3 54 (1.60%) Unix
4 27 (0.80%) Windows 10
4 27 (0.80%) Windows Server
5 20 (0.59%) Solaris
6 15 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (0.41%) Android
8 13 (0.38%) AIX
9 12 (0.35%) Mac OS
10 7 (0.21%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.21%) zOS
11 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.12%) HPUX
13 4 (0.12%) MVS
13 4 (0.12%) Oracle Linux
13 4 (0.12%) SUSE
13 4 (0.12%) VMS
14 1 (0.030%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 666 (19.68%) Stakeholder Management
2 653 (19.30%) Agile
3 540 (15.96%) Problem-Solving
4 507 (14.98%) Migration
5 450 (13.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 435 (12.85%) ERP
7 416 (12.29%) Continuous Improvement
8 412 (12.17%) Project Management
9 337 (9.96%) DevOps
10 303 (8.95%) CI/CD
11 297 (8.78%) Project Delivery
12 295 (8.72%) Change Management
13 287 (8.48%) Business Intelligence
14 265 (7.83%) Decision-Making
15 251 (7.42%) User Acceptance Testing
16 238 (7.03%) AI
17 234 (6.91%) Roadmaps
18 233 (6.89%) Risk Management
19 222 (6.56%) Validation
20 220 (6.50%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 329 (9.72%) SQL
2 245 (7.24%) Python
3 211 (6.24%) Java
4 67 (1.98%) PowerShell
5 30 (0.89%) JavaScript
6 29 (0.86%) Bash
7 28 (0.83%) TypeScript
8 22 (0.65%) C#
9 21 (0.62%) VBA
10 19 (0.56%) PL/SQL
11 18 (0.53%) Shell Script
12 15 (0.44%) Kotlin
13 14 (0.41%) C++
13 14 (0.41%) Go
14 11 (0.33%) COBOL
14 11 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 9 (0.27%) Perl
16 8 (0.24%) Apex Code
16 8 (0.24%) Rust
16 8 (0.24%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 330 (9.75%) Degree
2 329 (9.72%) Security Cleared
3 203 (6.00%) SC Cleared
4 117 (3.46%) ACCA
5 115 (3.40%) PMP
6 113 (3.34%) CIMA
7 107 (3.16%) PMI Certification
8 93 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
9 67 (1.98%) DV Cleared
10 65 (1.92%) CISSP
11 52 (1.54%) Master's Degree
12 42 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
13 41 (1.21%) CISM
14 32 (0.95%) AWS Certification
15 26 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
16 25 (0.74%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 18 (0.53%) TOGAF Certification
18 17 (0.50%) MBA
19 14 (0.41%) APMP
19 14 (0.41%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 181 (5.35%) PMO
2 168 (4.96%) Data Quality
3 141 (4.17%) QA
4 140 (4.14%) GDPR
5 63 (1.86%) NIST
6 44 (1.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 44 (1.30%) PCI DSS
6 44 (1.30%) SLA
7 31 (0.92%) GRC
8 27 (0.80%) Accessibility
8 27 (0.80%) IFRS
9 23 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.62%) ISO 20022
11 16 (0.47%) PSD2
12 13 (0.38%) SOC 2
13 12 (0.35%) Basel III
13 12 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
13 12 (0.35%) SEPA
14 10 (0.30%) GAAP
15 9 (0.27%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 106 (3.13%) Docker
2 74 (2.19%) Active Directory
3 39 (1.15%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.53%) vSphere
5 13 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (0.30%) GPFS
7 9 (0.27%) NFS
8 7 (0.21%) Hyper-V
8 7 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.12%) ACF2
9 4 (0.12%) KVM
9 4 (0.12%) RACF
10 3 (0.089%) Firmware
10 3 (0.089%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.089%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.059%) HDFS
11 2 (0.059%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 2 (0.059%) SRDF
11 2 (0.059%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 158 (4.67%) Kubernetes
2 74 (2.19%) Terraform
3 68 (2.01%) Ansible
4 41 (1.21%) Grafana
5 31 (0.92%) Prometheus
6 18 (0.53%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.44%) SCCM
8 14 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.33%) Progress Chef
9 11 (0.33%) vRealize
10 10 (0.30%) Nessus
11 9 (0.27%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.24%) Kiali
13 7 (0.21%) Control-M
13 7 (0.21%) HP ALM
14 6 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.18%) VxRail
15 5 (0.15%) Argo
15 5 (0.15%) CASB
15 5 (0.15%) Istio
Vendors
1 439 (12.97%) Microsoft
2 355 (10.49%) SAP
3 288 (8.51%) Oracle
4 155 (4.58%) ServiceNow
5 92 (2.72%) Google
6 59 (1.74%) Cisco
7 57 (1.68%) Sage
8 55 (1.63%) IBM
9 54 (1.60%) Databricks
9 54 (1.60%) Splunk
10 50 (1.48%) VMware
11 44 (1.30%) Salesforce
12 38 (1.12%) IFS
13 32 (0.95%) Workday
14 22 (0.65%) HP
15 20 (0.59%) Citrix
16 19 (0.56%) Ariba
16 19 (0.56%) Red Hat
16 19 (0.56%) Remedy
17 18 (0.53%) Adobe