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 18 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 4 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -1 +3 -2
Contract jobs citing Finance 2,658 2,678 3,077
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 17.18% 14.95% 14.42%
As % of the General category 28.18% 27.03% 25.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,762 1,568 2,106
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £400 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.90% -2.38% +0.96%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £688 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £536 £575 £600
% change year-on-year -6.78% -4.17% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 116 69
10th Percentile £13.35 £13.75 £13.49
25th Percentile £15.49 £18.74 £16.29
Median hourly rate £25.68 £33.00 £26.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.18% +24.53% -18.46%
75th Percentile £32.08 £54.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £61.02 £72.50 £69.00
UK median hourly rate £29.27 £33.00 £25.71
% change year-on-year -11.30% +28.35% -20.89%

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 common skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 9,433 9,906 11,845
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 60.98% 55.29% 55.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,680 5,437 7,625
10th Percentile £210 £208 £225
25th Percentile £358 £363 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £499 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.81% -0.20% -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £656 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 902 939 858
10th Percentile £13.25 £14.50 £13.41
25th Percentile £15.50 £16.00 £15.16
Median hourly rate £21.35 £35.36 £26.25
Median % change year-on-year -39.64% +34.70% +25.00%
75th Percentile £43.15 £61.30 £57.50
90th Percentile £69.65 £71.50 £70.20
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year -30.14% +30.91% +12.24%

Finance
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Finance as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Finance 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 18 September 2025.

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 18 September 2025.

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 18 September 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
North of England 0 814 £463 -11.90% 1,156
Scotland +2 465 £492 +9.33% 384
South East -1 451 £514 +1.28% 2,158
North West 0 426 £450 -11.24% 683
Midlands -3 414 £475 -12.84% 733
Yorkshire 0 362 £495 -5.71% 338
South West +2 296 £575 +9.52% 536
West Midlands -5 266 £500 -13.04% 425
East Midlands 0 144 £415 -10.03% 292
East of England +1 122 £565 +7.62% 453
Northern Ireland -1 88 £500 +31.15% 100
Wales +4 39 £463 +1.37% 145
North East -2 27 £438 -25.53% 147
Channel Islands -5 1 - -
Finance
UK

Finance
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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
1 133 (5.00%) Confluence
2 85 (3.20%) SharePoint
3 23 (0.87%) JBoss
4 22 (0.83%) SAS
5 21 (0.79%) WebSphere
6 20 (0.75%) Apache
6 20 (0.75%) Apache Spark
7 16 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
8 14 (0.53%) CMS
9 12 (0.45%) IIS
9 12 (0.45%) Tomcat
10 11 (0.41%) WebLogic
11 9 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
11 9 (0.34%) CICS
11 9 (0.34%) WebSphere Application Server
12 7 (0.26%) iPlanet
12 7 (0.26%) Mattermost
12 7 (0.26%) Skype for Business
13 5 (0.19%) HCL Notes
14 2 (0.075%) HCL Domino
Applications
1 227 (8.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 123 (4.63%) Microsoft Office
3 93 (3.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 63 (2.37%) Microsoft Project
5 55 (2.07%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.45%) Sketch
8 7 (0.26%) Trello
9 5 (0.19%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.19%) Oracle Smart View
10 4 (0.15%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 3 (0.11%) Camtasia
11 3 (0.11%) InVision
11 3 (0.11%) Snagit
12 2 (0.075%) Adobe Captivate
12 2 (0.075%) Adobe XD
13 1 (0.038%) Adobe Premiere
Business Applications
1 110 (4.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.54%) Oracle ERP
3 26 (0.98%) Oracle Payables
4 24 (0.90%) SAP CO
5 23 (0.87%) SAP FI
5 23 (0.87%) SAP FI/CO
6 20 (0.75%) Oracle EBS R12
7 19 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
7 19 (0.71%) Oracle EBS
8 17 (0.64%) Oracle Cash Management
8 17 (0.64%) Oracle Receivables
9 15 (0.56%) SAP ERP
10 14 (0.53%) Oracle Assets
11 13 (0.49%) NetSuite
12 12 (0.45%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
13 10 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
14 9 (0.34%) Unit4 Business World
15 8 (0.30%) Oracle SCM
15 8 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
15 8 (0.30%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 283 (10.65%) AWS
2 276 (10.38%) Azure
3 158 (5.94%) Power Platform
4 117 (4.40%) GCP
5 59 (2.22%) Azure DevOps
5 59 (2.22%) Microsoft 365
6 52 (1.96%) SaaS
7 50 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
8 47 (1.77%) OCI
9 44 (1.66%) GitHub
10 38 (1.43%) Serverless
11 37 (1.39%) Entra ID
12 32 (1.20%) Figma
13 28 (1.05%) Snowflake
14 20 (0.75%) OpenShift
15 19 (0.71%) GitHub Actions
16 16 (0.60%) SuccessFactors
17 15 (0.56%) Lucidchart
17 15 (0.56%) PowerApps
18 14 (0.53%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 60 (2.26%) Firewall
2 26 (0.98%) DNS
3 25 (0.94%) TCP/IP
4 24 (0.90%) Network Security
5 18 (0.68%) DHCP
5 18 (0.68%) VPN
5 18 (0.68%) WAN
6 17 (0.64%) LAN
6 17 (0.64%) WebEx
7 13 (0.49%) Kerberos
7 13 (0.49%) SSL
8 10 (0.38%) HTTP
9 9 (0.34%) VLAN
10 8 (0.30%) Wi-Fi
11 7 (0.26%) BGP
11 7 (0.26%) SAN
11 7 (0.26%) Skype
12 6 (0.23%) OSPF
12 6 (0.23%) VoIP
12 6 (0.23%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (5.38%) Power BI
2 84 (3.16%) Relational Database
3 64 (2.41%) Data Warehouse
4 51 (1.92%) SQL Server
5 48 (1.81%) PostgreSQL
5 48 (1.81%) Tableau
6 45 (1.69%) NoSQL
7 42 (1.58%) DB2
7 42 (1.58%) MongoDB
8 38 (1.43%) Oracle Reports
9 34 (1.28%) Oracle Database
10 33 (1.24%) Power Query
11 27 (1.02%) Big Data
12 21 (0.79%) Hadoop
13 20 (0.75%) Data Lake
14 16 (0.60%) MySQL
14 16 (0.60%) RDBMS
15 15 (0.56%) Metadata
16 11 (0.41%) Oracle BI Publisher
17 10 (0.38%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 216 (8.13%) JIRA
2 115 (4.33%) Jenkins
3 94 (3.54%) Git
4 53 (1.99%) GitLab
5 52 (1.96%) JUnit
6 37 (1.39%) Bitbucket
7 30 (1.13%) Liquibase
8 27 (1.02%) Postman
9 19 (0.71%) Selenium
10 16 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
11 15 (0.56%) Mockito
11 15 (0.56%) Visual Studio
12 14 (0.53%) Cucumber
12 14 (0.53%) IntelliJ
13 13 (0.49%) Cypress.io
13 13 (0.49%) Gradle
13 13 (0.49%) Maven
13 13 (0.49%) Visual Studio Code
14 12 (0.45%) PyCharm
14 12 (0.45%) SonarQube
General
1 947 (35.63%) Social Skills
2 492 (18.51%) Analytical Skills
3 477 (17.95%) Banking
4 245 (9.22%) Public Sector
5 162 (6.09%) Manufacturing
6 155 (5.83%) Telecoms
7 125 (4.70%) Marketing
8 117 (4.40%) Legal
9 103 (3.88%) Financial Institution
10 92 (3.46%) Electronics
11 85 (3.20%) Organisational Skills
12 80 (3.01%) Investment Banking
13 75 (2.82%) Influencing Skills
14 73 (2.75%) Presentation Skills
15 68 (2.56%) Retail
16 63 (2.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 62 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
18 41 (1.54%) Front Office
19 36 (1.35%) Pharmaceutical
20 33 (1.24%) Law
Job Titles
1 509 (19.15%) Analyst
2 231 (8.69%) Project Manager
3 228 (8.58%) Developer
4 178 (6.70%) Senior
5 175 (6.58%) Architect
5 175 (6.58%) Business Analyst
6 166 (6.25%) Consultant
7 143 (5.38%) Lead
8 122 (4.59%) Data Analyst
9 77 (2.90%) Programme Manager
10 76 (2.86%) Java Developer
11 63 (2.37%) Solutions Architect
12 61 (2.29%) IT Manager
13 52 (1.96%) Software Engineer
14 50 (1.88%) Support Analyst
15 49 (1.84%) SAP Consultant
16 47 (1.77%) Administrator
16 47 (1.77%) Financial Analyst
17 41 (1.54%) Delivery Manager
17 41 (1.54%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (3.69%) REST
2 97 (3.65%) Spring
3 71 (2.67%) Spring Boot
4 66 (2.48%) Kafka
5 59 (2.22%) RESTful
6 51 (1.92%) Oracle Fusion
6 51 (1.92%) React
7 49 (1.84%) .NET
8 48 (1.81%) SOAP
9 37 (1.39%) JMS
9 37 (1.39%) Web Services
10 30 (1.13%) AngularJS
11 29 (1.09%) Middleware
12 28 (1.05%) CSS
13 27 (1.02%) Elastic Stack
13 27 (1.02%) HTML
14 25 (0.94%) OAuth
15 21 (0.79%) JSON
15 21 (0.79%) Node.js
16 18 (0.68%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 120 (4.51%) Product Ownership
2 85 (3.20%) Onboarding
3 84 (3.16%) Data Centre
4 82 (3.09%) Management Information System
5 67 (2.52%) Cloud Native
6 65 (2.45%) Public Cloud
7 63 (2.37%) Data Protection Act
8 50 (1.88%) Data Structures
9 45 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
10 43 (1.62%) Analytical Mindset
11 38 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
12 33 (1.24%) Virtual Team
13 30 (1.13%) Enterprise Software
14 29 (1.09%) Distributed Systems
14 29 (1.09%) Mainframe
15 25 (0.94%) Equities
16 23 (0.87%) Credit Risk
16 23 (0.87%) Greenfield Project
17 21 (0.79%) Mobile App
18 20 (0.75%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 160 (6.02%) Linux
2 150 (5.64%) Windows
3 51 (1.92%) Unix
4 23 (0.87%) Windows 10
5 20 (0.75%) Apple iOS
5 20 (0.75%) Mac OS
5 20 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 19 (0.71%) Windows Server
7 17 (0.64%) Android
8 9 (0.34%) Solaris
9 6 (0.23%) HPUX
10 4 (0.15%) zOS
11 3 (0.11%) AIX
11 3 (0.11%) Amazon Linux
11 3 (0.11%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 2 (0.075%) VMS
12 2 (0.075%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.075%) Windows 8
13 1 (0.038%) MVS
13 1 (0.038%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 684 (25.73%) Agile
2 505 (19.00%) Problem-Solving
3 472 (17.76%) Stakeholder Management
4 345 (12.98%) Migration
5 330 (12.42%) Project Management
6 280 (10.53%) Continuous Improvement
7 264 (9.93%) DevOps
8 260 (9.78%) Business Intelligence
9 241 (9.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 239 (8.99%) Change Management
11 232 (8.73%) CI/CD
12 222 (8.35%) Decision-Making
13 216 (8.13%) Project Delivery
14 207 (7.79%) ERP
15 202 (7.60%) Risk Management
16 163 (6.13%) Programme Management
17 162 (6.09%) ITIL
17 162 (6.09%) Roadmaps
18 161 (6.06%) Analytics
19 145 (5.46%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 329 (12.38%) SQL
2 250 (9.41%) Python
3 195 (7.34%) Java
4 55 (2.07%) JavaScript
5 54 (2.03%) TypeScript
6 50 (1.88%) PowerShell
7 48 (1.81%) C#
8 43 (1.62%) Shell Script
9 31 (1.17%) Go
9 31 (1.17%) PL/SQL
10 23 (0.87%) Bash
11 20 (0.75%) R
12 19 (0.71%) Groovy
13 16 (0.60%) VBA
14 12 (0.45%) Apex Code
14 12 (0.45%) COBOL
15 10 (0.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 10 (0.38%) VB
16 9 (0.34%) JCL
17 8 (0.30%) Perl
Qualifications
1 217 (8.16%) Degree
2 212 (7.98%) Security Cleared
3 145 (5.46%) SC Cleared
4 56 (2.11%) ACCA
4 56 (2.11%) CIMA
5 51 (1.92%) Computer Science Degree
6 50 (1.88%) PMP
7 49 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
8 45 (1.69%) CISSP
9 42 (1.58%) AWS Certification
10 40 (1.50%) PMI Certification
11 37 (1.39%) DV Cleared
12 35 (1.32%) Master's Degree
13 29 (1.09%) CISM
13 29 (1.09%) ITIL Certification
14 27 (1.02%) Azure Certification
15 18 (0.68%) ISTQB
16 17 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
17 13 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 11 (0.41%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 124 (4.67%) PMO
2 100 (3.76%) GDPR
2 100 (3.76%) QA
3 79 (2.97%) Data Quality
4 56 (2.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 51 (1.92%) NIST
6 42 (1.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 41 (1.54%) SLA
8 36 (1.35%) Accessibility
9 32 (1.20%) PCI DSS
10 21 (0.79%) GRC
11 16 (0.60%) IFRS
12 14 (0.53%) PSD2
13 13 (0.49%) Basel III
13 13 (0.49%) SEPA
14 12 (0.45%) MiFID
15 11 (0.41%) ISO 20022
15 11 (0.41%) P3O
16 10 (0.38%) RMADS
17 9 (0.34%) COBIT
System Software
1 101 (3.80%) Active Directory
2 95 (3.57%) Docker
3 26 (0.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
5 5 (0.19%) Tivoli Directory Server
5 5 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.15%) HDFS
6 4 (0.15%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.15%) RACF
6 4 (0.15%) Veritas Cluster Server
6 4 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.11%) Firmware
7 3 (0.11%) vSphere
8 2 (0.075%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.075%) Time Sharing Option
8 2 (0.075%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.075%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.038%) IAG
9 1 (0.038%) Job Entry Subsystem
Systems Management
1 119 (4.48%) Kubernetes
2 109 (4.10%) Terraform
3 79 (2.97%) Ansible
4 31 (1.17%) Grafana
5 27 (1.02%) SCCM
6 24 (0.90%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.71%) Puppet
8 17 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
9 15 (0.56%) Oracle RMAN
10 14 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 9 (0.34%) Progress Chef
11 9 (0.34%) SCOM
12 8 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
12 8 (0.30%) NSN NetAct
13 7 (0.26%) CA Wily
13 7 (0.26%) HP SiteScope
14 6 (0.23%) Data Guard
14 6 (0.23%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
14 6 (0.23%) QRadar
14 6 (0.23%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 484 (18.21%) Microsoft
2 323 (12.15%) SAP
3 254 (9.56%) Oracle
4 123 (4.63%) ServiceNow
5 58 (2.18%) Splunk
6 54 (2.03%) Salesforce
7 49 (1.84%) Google
8 44 (1.66%) IBM
9 41 (1.54%) VMware
10 37 (1.39%) Cisco
10 37 (1.39%) Citrix
11 31 (1.17%) IFS
12 30 (1.13%) MuleSoft
13 29 (1.09%) Sybase
14 27 (1.02%) Adobe
14 27 (1.02%) Sage
15 26 (0.98%) Workday
16 21 (0.79%) Databricks
17 20 (0.75%) Ariba
17 20 (0.75%) HP