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 13 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 4 6
Rank change year-on-year -1 +2 +1
Contract jobs citing Finance 3,411 2,235 2,575
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 14.19% 17.56% 12.64%
As % of the General category 28.26% 28.10% 23.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,093 1,423 1,576
10th Percentile £331 £305 £297
25th Percentile £410 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £601 £588 £625
90th Percentile £699 £675 £750
UK median daily rate £538 £555 £582
% change year-on-year -3.15% -4.64% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 133 69 194
10th Percentile £14.10 £17.43 £12.30
25th Percentile £17.00 £21.00 £14.15
Median hourly rate £23.50 £37.02 £31.06
Median % change year-on-year -36.52% +19.20% -29.01%
75th Percentile £54.00 £70.00 £38.12
90th Percentile £84.00 £76.69 £56.25
UK median hourly rate £23.83 £37.57 £26.97
% change year-on-year -36.58% +39.28% +4.90%

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 12,072 7,954 11,061
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 50.22% 62.49% 54.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,056 4,902 6,303
10th Percentile £256 £210 £205
25th Percentile £386 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.68% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £651 £688
UK median daily rate £503 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.37% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,378 576 1,647
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.30 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.62 £16.08 £15.00
Median hourly rate £28.00 £24.50 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% -14.04% -1.72%
75th Percentile £61.50 £55.42 £54.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £66.74
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £27.30 £30.16
% change year-on-year +9.89% -9.48% -10.82%

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 13 May 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 13 May 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 13 May 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 1,150 £485 +2.11% 755
South East -1 642 £503 -2.24% 951
North West +5 613 £466 +0.11% 423
Midlands -1 583 £488 -0.51% 411
Yorkshire +1 501 £514 +5.44% 254
Scotland +1 408 £500 +4.06% 155
West Midlands 0 393 £494 -6.00% 227
South West -2 347 £520 -0.95% 323
East of England 0 199 £525 -4.55% 243
East Midlands 0 186 £465 +4.03% 181
Wales +22 92 £450 +20.00% 79
Northern Ireland -1 43 £525 +28.05% 64
North East -16 37 £488 +4.84% 84
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
1 153 (4.49%) Confluence
2 113 (3.31%) SharePoint
3 24 (0.70%) Apache Spark
4 18 (0.53%) Apache
4 18 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
5 10 (0.29%) CICS
5 10 (0.29%) SAS
6 7 (0.21%) CMS
6 7 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
6 7 (0.21%) TPMS
7 6 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.15%) WebLogic
9 4 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
9 4 (0.12%) IIS
9 4 (0.12%) WebSphere
10 3 (0.088%) Ethereum
10 3 (0.088%) Hyperledger
10 3 (0.088%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.059%) JBoss
11 2 (0.059%) Mule
Applications
1 241 (7.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 118 (3.46%) Microsoft Office
3 111 (3.25%) Microsoft Project
4 82 (2.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 42 (1.23%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
7 6 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 5 (0.15%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.15%) InVision
8 5 (0.15%) Sketch
9 4 (0.12%) Trello
10 3 (0.088%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.059%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.059%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.059%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.029%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.029%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.029%) UXPin
12 1 (0.029%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 175 (5.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 49 (1.44%) Oracle Payables
3 41 (1.20%) Oracle Receivables
4 40 (1.17%) Oracle ERP
5 38 (1.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 29 (0.85%) NetSuite
6 29 (0.85%) Oracle EBS
7 28 (0.82%) Oracle General Ledger
8 23 (0.67%) Oracle Assets
9 20 (0.59%) Oracle Cash Management
10 18 (0.53%) SAP FI
11 16 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
12 15 (0.44%) SAP CO
12 15 (0.44%) Unit4 Business World
13 14 (0.41%) SAP FI/CO
14 13 (0.38%) NEC Housing
14 13 (0.38%) Oracle EBS R12
15 12 (0.35%) Workday HCM
16 11 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
16 11 (0.32%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 407 (11.93%) Azure
2 322 (9.44%) AWS
3 217 (6.36%) Power Platform
4 156 (4.57%) GCP
5 105 (3.08%) Microsoft 365
6 88 (2.58%) Azure DevOps
6 88 (2.58%) SaaS
7 78 (2.29%) GitHub
8 77 (2.26%) Dynamics 365
9 61 (1.79%) Entra ID
10 42 (1.23%) OpenShift
10 42 (1.23%) Snowflake
11 37 (1.08%) OCI
11 37 (1.08%) Serverless
12 30 (0.88%) Microsoft Copilot
13 26 (0.76%) Amazon S3
14 24 (0.70%) Google Workspace
14 24 (0.70%) OneDrive
15 23 (0.67%) AWS CloudFormation
15 23 (0.67%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 73 (2.14%) Firewall
2 41 (1.20%) Network Security
3 39 (1.14%) DNS
4 37 (1.08%) WAN
5 32 (0.94%) VPN
6 22 (0.64%) TCP/IP
7 19 (0.56%) SD-WAN
8 16 (0.47%) LAN
9 15 (0.44%) DHCP
9 15 (0.44%) SSL
10 13 (0.38%) Skype
11 10 (0.29%) VSAN
12 9 (0.26%) MPLS
12 9 (0.26%) SSH
13 8 (0.23%) Internet
14 7 (0.21%) BGP
14 7 (0.21%) SNMP
14 7 (0.21%) Wi-Fi
15 6 (0.18%) Cisco Nexus
16 5 (0.15%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 196 (5.75%) Power BI
2 65 (1.91%) Data Warehouse
3 59 (1.73%) PostgreSQL
4 58 (1.70%) Relational Database
5 53 (1.55%) Metadata
6 48 (1.41%) Oracle Reports
7 41 (1.20%) SQL Server
8 39 (1.14%) Tableau
9 33 (0.97%) NoSQL
10 29 (0.85%) DynamoDB
11 23 (0.67%) Data Lake
12 22 (0.64%) Oracle ODI
13 21 (0.62%) MongoDB
14 19 (0.56%) Big Data
15 18 (0.53%) Power Query
16 16 (0.47%) Snowflake Schema
16 16 (0.47%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 14 (0.41%) DB2
18 11 (0.32%) Data Vault
18 11 (0.32%) DataStage
Development Applications
1 286 (8.38%) JIRA
2 71 (2.08%) Jenkins
3 60 (1.76%) Git
4 33 (0.97%) GitLab
5 22 (0.64%) JUnit
6 17 (0.50%) Cucumber
7 16 (0.47%) Selenium
7 16 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
8 15 (0.44%) Hudson
9 12 (0.35%) SonarQube
10 10 (0.29%) Postman
11 8 (0.23%) Jaeger
12 7 (0.21%) Maven
12 7 (0.21%) REST Assured
13 6 (0.18%) Bitbucket
13 6 (0.18%) Gradle
13 6 (0.18%) IntelliJ
13 6 (0.18%) Liquibase
14 5 (0.15%) Axure RP
14 5 (0.15%) Zephyr
General
1 1,100 (32.25%) Social Skills
2 484 (14.19%) Banking
3 447 (13.10%) Analytical Skills
4 267 (7.83%) Public Sector
5 128 (3.75%) Organisational Skills
6 121 (3.55%) Legal
7 115 (3.37%) Manufacturing
8 110 (3.22%) Retail
9 103 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
10 87 (2.55%) Influencing Skills
11 86 (2.52%) Local Government
12 75 (2.20%) Telecoms
13 73 (2.14%) Financial Institution
14 70 (2.05%) General Ledger
15 67 (1.96%) Marketing
16 57 (1.67%) Investment Banking
17 47 (1.38%) Billing
18 42 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
19 35 (1.03%) Law
20 31 (0.91%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 494 (14.48%) Analyst
2 342 (10.03%) Project Manager
3 308 (9.03%) Architect
4 295 (8.65%) Lead
5 276 (8.09%) Senior
6 238 (6.98%) Consultant
7 227 (6.65%) Business Analyst
8 226 (6.63%) Developer
9 142 (4.16%) Solutions Architect
10 126 (3.69%) Accountant
11 94 (2.76%) Programme Manager
12 89 (2.61%) Senior Manager
13 76 (2.23%) Systems Accountant
14 74 (2.17%) Finance Manager
15 64 (1.88%) Data Engineer
16 62 (1.82%) Data Analyst
17 60 (1.76%) IT Manager
18 59 (1.73%) Java Developer
19 55 (1.61%) SAP Consultant
20 54 (1.58%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (2.37%) REST
2 79 (2.32%) Middleware
3 73 (2.14%) Oracle Fusion
3 73 (2.14%) Spring Boot
4 70 (2.05%) Spring
5 67 (1.96%) Kafka
6 41 (1.20%) .NET
7 39 (1.14%) RESTful
8 35 (1.03%) React
9 32 (0.94%) OAuth
10 29 (0.85%) JSON
11 28 (0.82%) Node.js
11 28 (0.82%) XML
12 23 (0.67%) OpenID
13 22 (0.64%) AngularJS
14 20 (0.59%) HTML
14 20 (0.59%) OpenTelemetry
14 20 (0.59%) SailPoint
15 19 (0.56%) CSS
15 19 (0.56%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 144 (4.22%) Onboarding
2 142 (4.16%) Product Ownership
3 113 (3.31%) Cloud Native
4 110 (3.22%) Management Information System
5 86 (2.52%) Data Protection Act
6 85 (2.49%) Legacy Systems
7 84 (2.46%) Data Centre
8 58 (1.70%) Data Structures
9 55 (1.61%) Public Cloud
10 54 (1.58%) Distributed Systems
11 39 (1.14%) Self-Motivation
12 38 (1.11%) Virtual Team
13 35 (1.03%) Mainframe
14 31 (0.91%) PMI
15 28 (0.82%) Analytical Mindset
16 27 (0.79%) Security Posture
17 26 (0.76%) CMDB
18 25 (0.73%) Mobile App
19 20 (0.59%) Operational Technology
20 16 (0.47%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 107 (3.14%) Windows
2 99 (2.90%) Linux
3 49 (1.44%) Unix
4 28 (0.82%) Windows Server
5 24 (0.70%) Solaris
6 21 (0.62%) Windows 10
7 16 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.38%) AIX
9 12 (0.35%) Android
10 8 (0.23%) Apple iOS
10 8 (0.23%) zOS
11 7 (0.21%) Mac OS
12 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
14 4 (0.12%) HPUX
14 4 (0.12%) MVS
14 4 (0.12%) Oracle Linux
14 4 (0.12%) SUSE
15 3 (0.088%) VMS
16 1 (0.029%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 698 (20.46%) Stakeholder Management
2 655 (19.20%) Agile
3 534 (15.66%) Problem-Solving
4 494 (14.48%) Migration
5 457 (13.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 447 (13.10%) ERP
7 437 (12.81%) Continuous Improvement
8 407 (11.93%) Project Management
9 331 (9.70%) DevOps
10 295 (8.65%) Change Management
11 288 (8.44%) CI/CD
12 286 (8.38%) Project Delivery
13 282 (8.27%) Decision-Making
14 263 (7.71%) User Acceptance Testing
15 255 (7.48%) Business Intelligence
16 245 (7.18%) AI
17 240 (7.04%) Roadmaps
18 238 (6.98%) Risk Management
19 224 (6.57%) Validation
20 215 (6.30%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 324 (9.50%) SQL
2 239 (7.01%) Python
3 198 (5.80%) Java
4 67 (1.96%) PowerShell
5 29 (0.85%) Bash
6 25 (0.73%) JavaScript
7 24 (0.70%) PL/SQL
7 24 (0.70%) TypeScript
8 22 (0.64%) C#
9 20 (0.59%) VBA
10 17 (0.50%) Shell Script
11 16 (0.47%) Go
12 15 (0.44%) Kotlin
13 14 (0.41%) C++
14 13 (0.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 10 (0.29%) Rust
15 10 (0.29%) T-SQL
16 9 (0.26%) COBOL
17 8 (0.23%) VB
18 7 (0.21%) Perl
Qualifications
1 332 (9.73%) Security Cleared
2 309 (9.06%) Degree
3 209 (6.13%) SC Cleared
4 124 (3.64%) ACCA
5 119 (3.49%) CIMA
6 112 (3.28%) PMP
7 103 (3.02%) PMI Certification
8 91 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
9 69 (2.02%) DV Cleared
10 67 (1.96%) CISSP
11 45 (1.32%) CISM
12 42 (1.23%) Master's Degree
13 37 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
14 29 (0.85%) AWS Certification
15 26 (0.76%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 19 (0.56%) Cisco Certification
16 19 (0.56%) ITIL Certification
17 17 (0.50%) TOGAF Certification
18 16 (0.47%) MBA
19 14 (0.41%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 173 (5.07%) PMO
2 166 (4.87%) Data Quality
3 136 (3.99%) QA
4 125 (3.66%) GDPR
5 65 (1.91%) NIST
6 47 (1.38%) SLA
7 40 (1.17%) GRC
7 40 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 38 (1.11%) PCI DSS
9 29 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 28 (0.82%) Accessibility
10 28 (0.82%) IFRS
11 20 (0.59%) ISO 20022
12 15 (0.44%) PSD2
13 13 (0.38%) SOC 2
14 12 (0.35%) SEPA
15 10 (0.29%) Basel III
15 10 (0.29%) GAAP
15 10 (0.29%) NCSC
16 9 (0.26%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 92 (2.70%) Docker
2 69 (2.02%) Active Directory
3 37 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
4 17 (0.50%) vSphere
5 14 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (0.26%) GPFS
7 8 (0.23%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.23%) NFS
7 8 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.12%) KVM
8 4 (0.12%) RACF
9 3 (0.088%) Firmware
9 3 (0.088%) ISA Server
9 3 (0.088%) VMware NSX
10 2 (0.059%) ACF2
10 2 (0.059%) HDFS
10 2 (0.059%) SRDF
11 1 (0.029%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 1 (0.029%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 152 (4.46%) Kubernetes
2 73 (2.14%) Terraform
3 60 (1.76%) Ansible
4 37 (1.08%) Grafana
5 28 (0.82%) Prometheus
6 22 (0.64%) Microsoft Intune
7 16 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.41%) SCCM
9 10 (0.29%) HP ALM
9 10 (0.29%) Nessus
9 10 (0.29%) vRealize
10 8 (0.23%) FortiGate
10 8 (0.23%) Kiali
11 6 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.18%) Control-M
11 6 (0.18%) VxRail
12 5 (0.15%) Argo
12 5 (0.15%) CASB
12 5 (0.15%) IBM Guardium
12 5 (0.15%) Istio
Vendors
1 424 (12.43%) Microsoft
2 353 (10.35%) SAP
3 296 (8.68%) Oracle
4 144 (4.22%) ServiceNow
5 88 (2.58%) Google
6 53 (1.55%) IBM
6 53 (1.55%) Sage
6 53 (1.55%) Splunk
7 52 (1.52%) Cisco
7 52 (1.52%) Databricks
8 45 (1.32%) VMware
9 40 (1.17%) IFS
10 37 (1.08%) Salesforce
11 32 (0.94%) Workday
12 25 (0.73%) HP
13 21 (0.62%) Ariba
14 19 (0.56%) Adobe
15 18 (0.53%) Citrix
15 18 (0.53%) Red Hat
15 18 (0.53%) Remedy