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

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 4 6
Rank change year-on-year -1 +2 +1
Contract jobs citing Finance 3,434 2,234 2,593
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 14.18% 17.46% 12.66%
As % of the General category 28.18% 27.96% 23.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,111 1,427 1,582
10th Percentile £326 £305 £281
25th Percentile £408 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £625
90th Percentile £700 £675 £750
UK median daily rate £538 £563 £576
% change year-on-year -4.44% -2.30% -4.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 137 69 195
10th Percentile £14.39 £17.43 £12.30
25th Percentile £17.00 £21.00 £14.18
Median hourly rate £23.50 £48.82 £32.12
Median % change year-on-year -51.86% +52.00% -26.59%
75th Percentile £54.00 £72.50 £38.12
90th Percentile £84.40 £78.47 £56.25
UK median hourly rate £23.83 £39.06 £26.97
% change year-on-year -39.00% +44.81% +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 12,186 7,989 11,124
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 50.32% 62.45% 54.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,131 4,929 6,349
10th Percentile £254 £210 £205
25th Percentile £381 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.16% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £660 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,398 580 1,651
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.74 £16.25 £15.00
Median hourly rate £27.96 £24.62 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.55% -13.61% -5.00%
75th Percentile £61.88 £57.31 £53.88
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £66.74
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £30.16
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.82% -11.29%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 1,151 £482 +1.39% 743
South East -1 651 £503 -2.88% 942
North West +5 617 £465 - 421
Midlands -1 589 £475 -2.56% 398
Yorkshire +1 498 £514 +3.84% 250
Scotland +1 414 £500 +4.28% 138
West Midlands 0 394 £492 -6.29% 213
South West -2 349 £520 -0.95% 305
East of England -3 199 £525 -4.55% 237
East Midlands 0 191 £463 +3.47% 182
Wales +21 93 £450 +20.00% 80
Northern Ireland -1 41 £525 +28.05% 72
North East -16 37 £488 +4.84% 79
Channel Islands - 2 £450 - 2
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 (4.46%) Confluence
2 115 (3.35%) SharePoint
3 24 (0.70%) Apache Spark
4 18 (0.52%) Apache
4 18 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
5 10 (0.29%) CICS
5 10 (0.29%) SAS
6 7 (0.20%) CMS
6 7 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
6 7 (0.20%) TPMS
7 6 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.15%) WebLogic
9 4 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
9 4 (0.12%) Ethereum
9 4 (0.12%) Hyperledger
9 4 (0.12%) IIS
9 4 (0.12%) WebSphere
10 3 (0.087%) Camunda
10 3 (0.087%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.058%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 245 (7.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 119 (3.47%) Microsoft Office
3 114 (3.32%) Microsoft Project
4 82 (2.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 41 (1.19%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
7 7 (0.20%) 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 3 (0.087%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.058%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.058%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.058%) Photoshop
11 1 (0.029%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.029%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.029%) UXPin
11 1 (0.029%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 174 (5.07%) SAP S/4HANA
2 49 (1.43%) Oracle Payables
3 41 (1.19%) Oracle Receivables
4 40 (1.16%) Oracle ERP
5 38 (1.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 29 (0.84%) Oracle EBS
6 29 (0.84%) Oracle General Ledger
7 28 (0.82%) NetSuite
8 23 (0.67%) Oracle Assets
9 20 (0.58%) Oracle Cash Management
9 20 (0.58%) SAP FI
10 16 (0.47%) SAP CO
11 15 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
11 15 (0.44%) SAP FI/CO
12 13 (0.38%) NEC Housing
12 13 (0.38%) Oracle EBS R12
12 13 (0.38%) Unit4 Business World
13 12 (0.35%) Workday HCM
14 11 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
14 11 (0.32%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 408 (11.88%) Azure
2 327 (9.52%) AWS
3 217 (6.32%) Power Platform
4 154 (4.48%) GCP
5 106 (3.09%) Microsoft 365
6 90 (2.62%) SaaS
7 88 (2.56%) Azure DevOps
8 80 (2.33%) GitHub
9 76 (2.21%) Dynamics 365
10 62 (1.81%) Entra ID
11 43 (1.25%) OpenShift
12 42 (1.22%) Snowflake
13 38 (1.11%) OCI
13 38 (1.11%) Serverless
14 30 (0.87%) Microsoft Copilot
15 26 (0.76%) Amazon S3
16 24 (0.70%) AWS CloudFormation
16 24 (0.70%) GitHub Actions
16 24 (0.70%) Google Workspace
16 24 (0.70%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 73 (2.13%) Firewall
2 40 (1.16%) Network Security
3 39 (1.14%) DNS
4 37 (1.08%) WAN
5 31 (0.90%) VPN
6 21 (0.61%) TCP/IP
7 19 (0.55%) SD-WAN
8 16 (0.47%) LAN
9 15 (0.44%) DHCP
9 15 (0.44%) SSL
10 13 (0.38%) Skype
11 9 (0.26%) Internet
11 9 (0.26%) MPLS
11 9 (0.26%) SSH
11 9 (0.26%) VSAN
12 7 (0.20%) BGP
12 7 (0.20%) SNMP
12 7 (0.20%) Wi-Fi
13 6 (0.17%) OSPF
14 5 (0.15%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 196 (5.71%) Power BI
2 64 (1.86%) Data Warehouse
3 61 (1.78%) PostgreSQL
4 58 (1.69%) Relational Database
5 52 (1.51%) Metadata
6 49 (1.43%) Oracle Reports
7 43 (1.25%) SQL Server
8 38 (1.11%) Tableau
9 33 (0.96%) NoSQL
10 29 (0.84%) DynamoDB
11 23 (0.67%) Data Lake
12 22 (0.64%) Oracle ODI
13 21 (0.61%) MongoDB
14 19 (0.55%) Big Data
14 19 (0.55%) Power Query
15 16 (0.47%) DB2
15 16 (0.47%) Snowflake Schema
16 15 (0.44%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 12 (0.35%) MySQL
18 11 (0.32%) DataStage
Development Applications
1 289 (8.42%) JIRA
2 75 (2.18%) Jenkins
3 62 (1.81%) Git
4 33 (0.96%) GitLab
5 24 (0.70%) JUnit
6 19 (0.55%) Cucumber
6 19 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
7 16 (0.47%) Selenium
8 15 (0.44%) Hudson
9 12 (0.35%) SonarQube
10 10 (0.29%) Postman
11 8 (0.23%) Jaeger
12 7 (0.20%) Bitbucket
12 7 (0.20%) Gradle
12 7 (0.20%) Maven
12 7 (0.20%) REST Assured
13 6 (0.17%) IntelliJ
13 6 (0.17%) Liquibase
14 5 (0.15%) Axure RP
14 5 (0.15%) Zephyr
General
1 1,110 (32.32%) Social Skills
2 486 (14.15%) Banking
3 455 (13.25%) Analytical Skills
4 272 (7.92%) Public Sector
5 130 (3.79%) Organisational Skills
6 122 (3.55%) Legal
7 115 (3.35%) Manufacturing
8 107 (3.12%) Retail
9 103 (3.00%) Documentation Skills
10 87 (2.53%) Influencing Skills
11 86 (2.50%) Local Government
12 78 (2.27%) Telecoms
13 74 (2.15%) Financial Institution
14 69 (2.01%) General Ledger
14 69 (2.01%) Marketing
15 55 (1.60%) Investment Banking
16 46 (1.34%) Billing
17 43 (1.25%) Presentation Skills
18 36 (1.05%) Law
19 31 (0.90%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 489 (14.24%) Analyst
2 346 (10.08%) Project Manager
3 311 (9.06%) Architect
4 299 (8.71%) Lead
5 280 (8.15%) Senior
6 238 (6.93%) Consultant
7 230 (6.70%) Developer
8 224 (6.52%) Business Analyst
9 142 (4.14%) Solutions Architect
10 126 (3.67%) Accountant
11 95 (2.77%) Programme Manager
12 91 (2.65%) Senior Manager
13 76 (2.21%) Finance Manager
13 76 (2.21%) Systems Accountant
14 64 (1.86%) Data Engineer
15 63 (1.83%) Data Analyst
16 60 (1.75%) IT Manager
17 59 (1.72%) Administrator
17 59 (1.72%) Java Developer
18 57 (1.66%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 83 (2.42%) REST
2 79 (2.30%) Middleware
3 75 (2.18%) Spring Boot
4 74 (2.15%) Oracle Fusion
5 72 (2.10%) Spring
6 69 (2.01%) Kafka
7 43 (1.25%) .NET
8 38 (1.11%) RESTful
9 35 (1.02%) React
10 33 (0.96%) OAuth
11 29 (0.84%) JSON
11 29 (0.84%) Node.js
12 27 (0.79%) XML
13 23 (0.67%) OpenID
14 22 (0.64%) AngularJS
15 21 (0.61%) SailPoint
15 21 (0.61%) SOAP
16 20 (0.58%) HTML
16 20 (0.58%) OpenTelemetry
17 19 (0.55%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 147 (4.28%) Onboarding
2 143 (4.16%) Product Ownership
3 114 (3.32%) Cloud Native
4 110 (3.20%) Management Information System
5 86 (2.50%) Data Protection Act
6 85 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
7 83 (2.42%) Data Centre
8 58 (1.69%) Data Structures
9 57 (1.66%) Public Cloud
10 54 (1.57%) Distributed Systems
11 39 (1.14%) Self-Motivation
12 38 (1.11%) Mainframe
12 38 (1.11%) Virtual Team
13 32 (0.93%) Analytical Mindset
13 32 (0.93%) PMI
14 26 (0.76%) CMDB
14 26 (0.76%) Mobile App
14 26 (0.76%) Security Posture
15 20 (0.58%) Operational Technology
16 16 (0.47%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 106 (3.09%) Windows
2 100 (2.91%) Linux
3 49 (1.43%) Unix
4 28 (0.82%) Windows Server
5 24 (0.70%) Solaris
6 21 (0.61%) Windows 10
7 16 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.38%) AIX
9 12 (0.35%) Android
10 10 (0.29%) Apple iOS
11 9 (0.26%) zOS
12 7 (0.20%) Mac OS
13 6 (0.17%) Windows Server 2012
14 5 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
15 4 (0.12%) HPUX
15 4 (0.12%) MVS
15 4 (0.12%) Oracle Linux
15 4 (0.12%) SUSE
16 3 (0.087%) VMS
17 1 (0.029%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 702 (20.44%) Stakeholder Management
2 662 (19.28%) Agile
3 539 (15.70%) Problem-Solving
4 496 (14.44%) Migration
5 459 (13.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 446 (12.99%) ERP
7 438 (12.75%) Continuous Improvement
8 404 (11.76%) Project Management
9 331 (9.64%) DevOps
10 294 (8.56%) Change Management
11 291 (8.47%) Project Delivery
12 288 (8.39%) CI/CD
13 282 (8.21%) Decision-Making
14 261 (7.60%) User Acceptance Testing
15 258 (7.51%) Business Intelligence
16 251 (7.31%) AI
17 243 (7.08%) Risk Management
18 238 (6.93%) Roadmaps
19 228 (6.64%) Validation
20 219 (6.38%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 328 (9.55%) SQL
2 240 (6.99%) Python
3 200 (5.82%) Java
4 69 (2.01%) PowerShell
5 29 (0.84%) Bash
6 25 (0.73%) JavaScript
7 24 (0.70%) PL/SQL
7 24 (0.70%) TypeScript
8 21 (0.61%) C#
8 21 (0.61%) VBA
9 17 (0.50%) Shell Script
10 16 (0.47%) Go
11 15 (0.44%) Kotlin
12 14 (0.41%) C++
13 13 (0.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 11 (0.32%) COBOL
15 10 (0.29%) Rust
16 9 (0.26%) T-SQL
17 8 (0.23%) Apex Code
17 8 (0.23%) Perl
Qualifications
1 334 (9.73%) Security Cleared
2 315 (9.17%) Degree
3 210 (6.12%) SC Cleared
4 122 (3.55%) ACCA
5 117 (3.41%) CIMA
6 111 (3.23%) PMP
7 102 (2.97%) PMI Certification
8 91 (2.65%) BPSS Clearance
9 69 (2.01%) DV Cleared
10 67 (1.95%) CISSP
11 45 (1.31%) CISM
12 42 (1.22%) Master's Degree
13 37 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
14 30 (0.87%) AWS Certification
15 26 (0.76%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 19 (0.55%) ITIL Certification
17 17 (0.50%) MBA
17 17 (0.50%) TOGAF Certification
18 16 (0.47%) Cisco Certification
19 14 (0.41%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 177 (5.15%) PMO
2 168 (4.89%) Data Quality
3 138 (4.02%) QA
4 131 (3.81%) GDPR
5 65 (1.89%) NIST
6 45 (1.31%) SLA
7 41 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 40 (1.16%) GRC
9 39 (1.14%) PCI DSS
10 30 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 29 (0.84%) Accessibility
11 29 (0.84%) IFRS
12 20 (0.58%) ISO 20022
13 15 (0.44%) PSD2
14 13 (0.38%) SOC 2
15 12 (0.35%) SEPA
16 11 (0.32%) Basel III
17 10 (0.29%) GAAP
17 10 (0.29%) NCSC
18 9 (0.26%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 93 (2.71%) Docker
2 70 (2.04%) Active Directory
3 37 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
4 17 (0.50%) vSphere
5 13 (0.38%) 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 6 (0.17%) RACF
9 4 (0.12%) ACF2
9 4 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.087%) Firmware
10 3 (0.087%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.087%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.058%) HDFS
11 2 (0.058%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 2 (0.058%) SRDF
11 2 (0.058%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 154 (4.48%) Kubernetes
2 74 (2.15%) Terraform
3 61 (1.78%) 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%) Nessus
9 10 (0.29%) vRealize
10 9 (0.26%) HP ALM
11 8 (0.23%) FortiGate
11 8 (0.23%) Kiali
12 6 (0.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.17%) Control-M
12 6 (0.17%) Progress Chef
12 6 (0.17%) VxRail
13 5 (0.15%) Argo
13 5 (0.15%) CASB
13 5 (0.15%) IBM Guardium
Vendors
1 426 (12.41%) Microsoft
2 354 (10.31%) SAP
3 296 (8.62%) Oracle
4 145 (4.22%) ServiceNow
5 90 (2.62%) Google
6 54 (1.57%) IBM
6 54 (1.57%) Splunk
7 53 (1.54%) Sage
8 52 (1.51%) Databricks
9 51 (1.49%) Cisco
10 45 (1.31%) VMware
11 40 (1.16%) IFS
12 37 (1.08%) Salesforce
13 31 (0.90%) Workday
14 24 (0.70%) HP
15 22 (0.64%) Ariba
16 20 (0.58%) Adobe
17 18 (0.52%) Citrix
17 18 (0.52%) Red Hat
17 18 (0.52%) Remedy