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

6 months to
22 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 +3 +2
Contract jobs citing Finance 2,916 2,309 2,533
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 15.53% 16.66% 12.79%
As % of the General category 27.25% 27.29% 23.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,889 1,357 1,698
10th Percentile £313 £304 £300
25th Percentile £402 £408 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £509
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% -0.79% -3.05%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £612
90th Percentile £688 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -8.70% - -2.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 128 64 99
10th Percentile £14.50 £17.54 £11.56
25th Percentile £16.85 £22.50 £13.24
Median hourly rate £22.00 £27.13 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.89% +39.10% -40.00%
75th Percentile £24.63 £56.26 £47.50
90th Percentile £50.00 £78.18 £54.22
UK median hourly rate £23.50 £29.00 £22.57
% change year-on-year -18.97% +28.47% -9.71%

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 10,700 8,460 10,953
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 56.98% 61.03% 55.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,613 4,796 6,715
10th Percentile £204 £213 £210
25th Percentile £363 £358 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,145 499 1,124
10th Percentile £13.50 £15.36 £13.17
25th Percentile £16.00 £18.30 £15.00
Median hourly rate £21.30 £26.50 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.62% +1.92% +15.56%
75th Percentile £45.00 £55.25 £55.81
90th Percentile £69.86 £72.50 £67.54
UK median hourly rate £22.99 £27.84 £27.50
% change year-on-year -17.41% +1.22% +10.00%

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 22 January 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 22 January 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 22 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
North of England +1 931 £475 -4.34% 979
South East -2 538 £503 -4.29% 1,775
Midlands -3 519 £475 -9.52% 691
North West +2 454 £450 -8.16% 420
Yorkshire 0 429 £500 -2.91% 412
Scotland 0 382 £500 +7.64% 213
West Midlands -5 315 £525 -4.55% 282
South West -6 290 £525 -1.87% 619
East Midlands +1 203 £420 -1.18% 398
East of England -2 173 £529 +0.71% 680
Wales +25 75 £413 -12.00% 248
Northern Ireland -1 57 £500 +53.85% 111
North East -4 49 £481 +1.32% 160
Channel Islands +1 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 (5.32%) Confluence
2 101 (3.46%) SharePoint
3 34 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (1.10%) Apache
5 28 (0.96%) Apache Spark
6 19 (0.65%) SAS
7 15 (0.51%) Apache Airflow
8 13 (0.45%) CMS
9 11 (0.38%) JBoss
9 11 (0.38%) TPMS
10 9 (0.31%) IIS
11 8 (0.27%) WebSphere
12 7 (0.24%) iPlanet
12 7 (0.24%) Mattermost
12 7 (0.24%) Skype for Business
12 7 (0.24%) WebSphere Application Server
13 6 (0.21%) CICS
14 4 (0.14%) Ethereum
14 4 (0.14%) Hyperledger
14 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
Applications
1 241 (8.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 156 (5.35%) Microsoft Office
3 105 (3.60%) Microsoft Project
4 92 (3.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 51 (1.75%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.72%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.55%) Sketch
8 12 (0.41%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.24%) Chatbot
9 7 (0.24%) InVision
10 6 (0.21%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.21%) Trello
11 5 (0.17%) Adobe Captivate
12 3 (0.10%) Camtasia
12 3 (0.10%) Snagit
13 2 (0.069%) Oracle Smart View
14 1 (0.034%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.034%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 133 (4.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 57 (1.95%) Oracle Payables
3 45 (1.54%) Oracle Receivables
4 41 (1.41%) Oracle EBS
5 39 (1.34%) SAP FI
6 37 (1.27%) Oracle General Ledger
7 31 (1.06%) Oracle Cash Management
8 30 (1.03%) SAP CO
9 29 (0.99%) SAP FI/CO
10 28 (0.96%) Oracle Assets
11 27 (0.93%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 26 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
13 24 (0.82%) Oracle ERP
14 23 (0.79%) Oracle EBS R12
15 18 (0.62%) SAP ERP
16 16 (0.55%) SAP BRIM
16 16 (0.55%) SAP Hybris
16 16 (0.55%) SAP PSCD
17 15 (0.51%) Workday HCM
18 14 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 386 (13.24%) AWS
2 364 (12.48%) Azure
3 186 (6.38%) Power Platform
4 170 (5.83%) GCP
5 114 (3.91%) Microsoft 365
6 78 (2.67%) Dynamics 365
7 75 (2.57%) Serverless
8 69 (2.37%) GitHub
9 60 (2.06%) Azure DevOps
9 60 (2.06%) SaaS
10 48 (1.65%) Entra ID
11 45 (1.54%) OCI
12 39 (1.34%) AWS CloudFormation
12 39 (1.34%) OpenShift
13 38 (1.30%) Figma
13 38 (1.30%) Snowflake
14 37 (1.27%) AWS Lambda
15 30 (1.03%) Amazon S3
16 28 (0.96%) GitHub Actions
17 24 (0.82%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 61 (2.09%) Firewall
2 33 (1.13%) WAN
3 24 (0.82%) Network Security
4 22 (0.75%) Wireless
5 21 (0.72%) Skype
6 20 (0.69%) VPN
7 19 (0.65%) DNS
8 18 (0.62%) LAN
8 18 (0.62%) SSH
9 17 (0.58%) SSL
10 16 (0.55%) SD-WAN
11 14 (0.48%) Kerberos
12 12 (0.41%) DHCP
13 11 (0.38%) SNMP
13 11 (0.38%) TCP/IP
14 10 (0.34%) Internet
15 9 (0.31%) HTTP
16 8 (0.27%) Cisco IOS
17 6 (0.21%) Unified Communications
17 6 (0.21%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 176 (6.04%) Power BI
2 75 (2.57%) Data Warehouse
3 69 (2.37%) PostgreSQL
4 68 (2.33%) NoSQL
5 54 (1.85%) Relational Database
6 39 (1.34%) Tableau
7 33 (1.13%) SQL Server
8 29 (0.99%) Big Data
8 29 (0.99%) Metadata
9 25 (0.86%) Oracle Reports
9 25 (0.86%) Power Query
10 24 (0.82%) Data Lake
11 21 (0.72%) BigQuery
12 20 (0.69%) DynamoDB
13 18 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
13 18 (0.62%) Hadoop
13 18 (0.62%) MongoDB
14 16 (0.55%) MySQL
14 16 (0.55%) Oracle Database
15 14 (0.48%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 283 (9.71%) JIRA
2 143 (4.90%) Jenkins
3 86 (2.95%) GitLab
4 73 (2.50%) Git
5 43 (1.47%) JUnit
6 37 (1.27%) Sonatype Nexus
7 34 (1.17%) Cucumber
8 26 (0.89%) Bitbucket
9 24 (0.82%) Liquibase
9 24 (0.82%) Selenium
10 15 (0.51%) Gradle
11 13 (0.45%) Postman
12 11 (0.38%) Cypress.io
13 10 (0.34%) JMeter
13 10 (0.34%) Maven
13 10 (0.34%) REST Assured
14 8 (0.27%) Bitbucket Server
14 8 (0.27%) CA Release Automation
14 8 (0.27%) Hudson
14 8 (0.27%) Visual Studio
General
1 1,086 (37.24%) Social Skills
2 524 (17.97%) Banking
3 409 (14.03%) Analytical Skills
4 338 (11.59%) Public Sector
5 194 (6.65%) Manufacturing
6 186 (6.38%) Telecoms
7 166 (5.69%) Marketing
8 127 (4.36%) Electronics
9 112 (3.84%) Organisational Skills
10 101 (3.46%) Financial Institution
11 99 (3.40%) Legal
12 95 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
13 60 (2.06%) General Ledger
14 58 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
15 54 (1.85%) Investment Banking
16 52 (1.78%) Presentation Skills
16 52 (1.78%) Retail
17 47 (1.61%) Billing
18 46 (1.58%) Local Government
19 34 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 465 (15.95%) Analyst
2 286 (9.81%) Project Manager
3 230 (7.89%) Architect
4 220 (7.54%) Consultant
5 216 (7.41%) Senior
6 210 (7.20%) Developer
7 193 (6.62%) Business Analyst
8 184 (6.31%) Lead
9 104 (3.57%) Solutions Architect
10 89 (3.05%) Data Analyst
11 86 (2.95%) Programme Manager
12 61 (2.09%) SAP Consultant
13 59 (2.02%) Java Developer
14 55 (1.89%) Designer
15 54 (1.85%) Accountant
16 53 (1.82%) Functional Consultant
16 53 (1.82%) Senior Manager
17 52 (1.78%) IT Manager
18 50 (1.71%) Administrator
18 50 (1.71%) Finance Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 133 (4.56%) REST
2 90 (3.09%) Spring
3 79 (2.71%) Spring Boot
4 76 (2.61%) RESTful
5 66 (2.26%) Oracle Fusion
6 61 (2.09%) Kafka
7 52 (1.78%) .NET
8 46 (1.58%) React
9 37 (1.27%) Middleware
9 37 (1.27%) Node.js
9 37 (1.27%) SOAP
10 33 (1.13%) Elastic Stack
10 33 (1.13%) OAuth
11 30 (1.03%) AngularJS
11 30 (1.03%) JSON
12 29 (0.99%) HTML
13 25 (0.86%) CSS
14 24 (0.82%) XML
15 23 (0.79%) JMS
16 20 (0.69%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 148 (5.08%) Onboarding
2 126 (4.32%) Product Ownership
3 94 (3.22%) Cloud Native
4 85 (2.91%) Data Centre
5 76 (2.61%) Public Cloud
6 67 (2.30%) Distributed Systems
7 66 (2.26%) Management Information System
8 56 (1.92%) Data Protection Act
9 52 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
10 50 (1.71%) Analytical Mindset
11 36 (1.23%) Mobile App
12 34 (1.17%) Data Structures
13 33 (1.13%) CMDB
14 32 (1.10%) PMI
15 30 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
15 30 (1.03%) Virtual Team
16 23 (0.79%) Mainframe
17 22 (0.75%) NHS
17 22 (0.75%) SWIFT Messaging Network
18 21 (0.72%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 141 (4.84%) Linux
2 126 (4.32%) Windows
3 43 (1.47%) Mac OS
4 41 (1.41%) Unix
5 39 (1.34%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.10%) Android
7 19 (0.65%) Windows Server
8 11 (0.38%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.10%) VMS
10 3 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.069%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.069%) Windows 8
11 2 (0.069%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.034%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.034%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 690 (23.66%) Agile
2 550 (18.86%) Stakeholder Management
3 488 (16.74%) Problem-Solving
4 367 (12.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 365 (12.52%) Migration
6 339 (11.63%) Project Management
7 328 (11.25%) Business Intelligence
8 318 (10.91%) DevOps
9 307 (10.53%) ERP
10 301 (10.32%) CI/CD
11 298 (10.22%) Continuous Improvement
12 248 (8.50%) Change Management
13 229 (7.85%) Programme Management
14 213 (7.30%) Decision-Making
15 209 (7.17%) Analytics
16 206 (7.06%) Project Delivery
17 187 (6.41%) Roadmaps
18 186 (6.38%) User Acceptance Testing
19 181 (6.21%) Risk Management
20 170 (5.83%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 336 (11.52%) SQL
2 286 (9.81%) Python
3 193 (6.62%) Java
4 73 (2.50%) PowerShell
5 46 (1.58%) JavaScript
6 44 (1.51%) TypeScript
7 41 (1.41%) C#
8 39 (1.34%) Go
9 25 (0.86%) PL/SQL
9 25 (0.86%) Shell Script
10 23 (0.79%) Bash
11 20 (0.69%) VBA
12 18 (0.62%) R
13 15 (0.51%) Groovy
14 14 (0.48%) Perl
15 10 (0.34%) Rust
16 9 (0.31%) ABAP
16 9 (0.31%) Ruby
17 8 (0.27%) C++
17 8 (0.27%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 307 (10.53%) Degree
2 262 (8.98%) Security Cleared
3 179 (6.14%) SC Cleared
4 75 (2.57%) Master's Degree
5 74 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
6 73 (2.50%) PMI Certification
7 72 (2.47%) PMP
8 68 (2.33%) Computer Science Degree
9 62 (2.13%) ACCA
10 56 (1.92%) CIMA
11 54 (1.85%) AWS Certification
12 49 (1.68%) DV Cleared
13 48 (1.65%) CISSP
14 38 (1.30%) CISM
15 33 (1.13%) ITIL Certification
16 18 (0.62%) TOGAF Certification
17 16 (0.55%) Azure Certification
18 15 (0.51%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 15 (0.51%) MBA
19 14 (0.48%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 143 (4.90%) PMO
2 134 (4.60%) QA
3 110 (3.77%) Data Quality
4 103 (3.53%) GDPR
5 55 (1.89%) NIST
6 51 (1.75%) SLA
7 49 (1.68%) PCI DSS
8 48 (1.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 44 (1.51%) Accessibility
10 31 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 30 (1.03%) PSD2
12 27 (0.93%) ISO 20022
13 23 (0.79%) IFRS
14 19 (0.65%) GRC
15 16 (0.55%) SEPA
16 14 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
17 13 (0.45%) Basel III
18 12 (0.41%) COBIT
18 12 (0.41%) P3O
19 11 (0.38%) NCSC
System Software
1 129 (4.42%) Docker
2 100 (3.43%) Active Directory
3 25 (0.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
5 12 (0.41%) vSphere
6 9 (0.31%) GPFS
7 8 (0.27%) NFS
7 8 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.21%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.17%) Tivoli Directory Server
10 4 (0.14%) Firmware
10 4 (0.14%) HDFS
10 4 (0.14%) ISA Server
11 3 (0.10%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.10%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.069%) ACF2
12 2 (0.069%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.069%) RACF
12 2 (0.069%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 149 (5.11%) Kubernetes
2 102 (3.50%) Terraform
3 85 (2.91%) Ansible
4 57 (1.95%) Grafana
5 51 (1.75%) Prometheus
6 24 (0.82%) SCCM
7 17 (0.58%) Progress Chef
8 14 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
10 10 (0.34%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (0.34%) vRealize
11 9 (0.31%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.27%) CA Single Sign-On
12 8 (0.27%) SCOM
13 7 (0.24%) CA Wily
13 7 (0.24%) HP SiteScope
13 7 (0.24%) Kiali
13 7 (0.24%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.17%) QRadar
15 4 (0.14%) CA Endevor
Vendors
1 454 (15.57%) Microsoft
2 393 (13.48%) SAP
3 270 (9.26%) Oracle
4 146 (5.01%) ServiceNow
5 90 (3.09%) Splunk
6 82 (2.81%) Cisco
7 72 (2.47%) Google
8 50 (1.71%) Salesforce
9 48 (1.65%) IBM
10 41 (1.41%) Workday
11 39 (1.34%) VMware
12 35 (1.20%) Databricks
13 34 (1.17%) Dell
13 34 (1.17%) HP
14 29 (0.99%) Apple
15 26 (0.89%) Adobe
16 24 (0.82%) Citrix
17 20 (0.69%) Remedy
17 20 (0.69%) Sage
18 19 (0.65%) IFS