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 3 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 5 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 +3 -1
Contract jobs citing Finance 2,869 2,616 2,767
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 16.09% 16.43% 13.78%
As % of the General category 27.16% 28.30% 24.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,895 1,524 1,906
10th Percentile £309 £307 £310
25th Percentile £400 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £510 £524
Median % change year-on-year -3.53% -2.63% -0.24%
75th Percentile £590 £625 £625
90th Percentile £688 £700 £706
UK median daily rate £525 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -8.70% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 119 81 73
10th Percentile £14.50 £17.13 £13.60
25th Percentile £16.39 £23.60 £17.72
Median hourly rate £21.65 £28.00 £26.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.68% +5.66% -18.46%
75th Percentile £25.00 £55.00 £49.00
90th Percentile £55.50 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £29.00 £28.75
% change year-on-year -17.24% +0.87% +11.82%

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 10,562 9,243 11,217
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 59.23% 58.04% 55.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,488 5,114 7,064
10th Percentile £204 £210 £213
25th Percentile £360 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £687 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,147 624 918
10th Percentile £13.50 £15.00 £14.16
25th Percentile £16.00 £16.68 £16.03
Median hourly rate £22.08 £26.23 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.84% -12.57% +38.12%
75th Percentile £44.97 £55.00 £57.33
90th Percentile £70.00 £70.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £27.50 £32.00
% change year-on-year -12.73% -14.06% +28.00%

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 3 December 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 3 December 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 3 December 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 0 905 £475 -6.86% 856
South East 0 538 £514 -2.33% 1,564
Midlands -5 472 £475 -9.52% 557
North West -1 452 £450 -11.29% 504
Scotland +1 423 £475 +5.56% 206
Yorkshire 0 418 £500 -2.91% 262
West Midlands -7 297 £525 -4.55% 342
South West -4 285 £525 - 398
East Midlands +1 174 £418 +3.73% 210
East of England -2 161 £550 +4.76% 280
Wales +10 63 £396 -2.46% 107
Northern Ireland -1 62 £488 +8.33% 55
North East -7 35 £450 -5.26% 104
Channel Islands -3 2 - - 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
1 128 (4.46%) Confluence
2 91 (3.17%) SharePoint
3 28 (0.98%) Apache
4 27 (0.94%) Apache Spark
4 27 (0.94%) Microsoft Exchange
5 20 (0.70%) SAS
6 16 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.56%) CMS
7 13 (0.45%) JBoss
8 10 (0.35%) IIS
8 10 (0.35%) WebSphere
9 7 (0.24%) iPlanet
9 7 (0.24%) Mattermost
9 7 (0.24%) Skype for Business
9 7 (0.24%) WebSphere Application Server
10 6 (0.21%) CICS
10 6 (0.21%) TPMS
11 5 (0.17%) HCL Notes
11 5 (0.17%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.070%) HCL Domino
Applications
1 241 (8.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 152 (5.30%) Microsoft Office
3 95 (3.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 89 (3.10%) Microsoft Project
5 47 (1.64%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.49%) Sketch
8 10 (0.35%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.24%) Chatbot
9 7 (0.24%) Trello
10 6 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
11 5 (0.17%) InVision
12 3 (0.10%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.10%) Camtasia
12 3 (0.10%) Snagit
13 2 (0.070%) Oracle Smart View
14 1 (0.035%) Adobe Premiere
14 1 (0.035%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 113 (3.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.43%) Oracle Payables
3 38 (1.32%) Oracle EBS
4 33 (1.15%) Oracle Receivables
5 31 (1.08%) SAP FI
6 28 (0.98%) Oracle General Ledger
7 27 (0.94%) Oracle ERP
8 26 (0.91%) Dynamics CRM
8 26 (0.91%) Oracle Cash Management
9 24 (0.84%) SAP CO
10 23 (0.80%) SAP FI/CO
11 21 (0.73%) Oracle Assets
12 20 (0.70%) Oracle EBS R12
13 19 (0.66%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
13 19 (0.66%) SAP ERP
14 16 (0.56%) NetSuite
15 12 (0.42%) SAP BRIM
15 12 (0.42%) SAP Hybris
15 12 (0.42%) SAP MM
15 12 (0.42%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 381 (13.28%) AWS
2 340 (11.85%) Azure
3 181 (6.31%) Power Platform
4 171 (5.96%) GCP
5 92 (3.21%) Microsoft 365
6 74 (2.58%) Dynamics 365
7 73 (2.54%) Serverless
8 68 (2.37%) Azure DevOps
8 68 (2.37%) GitHub
9 55 (1.92%) SaaS
10 48 (1.67%) OCI
11 39 (1.36%) Entra ID
11 39 (1.36%) Figma
12 36 (1.25%) AWS CloudFormation
13 33 (1.15%) Snowflake
14 32 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
15 31 (1.08%) OpenShift
16 30 (1.05%) AWS Lambda
17 25 (0.87%) Amazon S3
18 21 (0.73%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 60 (2.09%) Firewall
2 21 (0.73%) DNS
2 21 (0.73%) Network Security
2 21 (0.73%) Wireless
3 17 (0.59%) Kerberos
3 17 (0.59%) SSL
4 16 (0.56%) Skype
5 15 (0.52%) SSH
5 15 (0.52%) TCP/IP
5 15 (0.52%) VPN
5 15 (0.52%) WAN
6 14 (0.49%) LAN
7 12 (0.42%) HTTP
8 10 (0.35%) DHCP
8 10 (0.35%) Internet
9 8 (0.28%) Cisco IOS
10 6 (0.21%) SNMP
10 6 (0.21%) Unified Communications
10 6 (0.21%) VoIP
11 5 (0.17%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 168 (5.86%) Power BI
2 73 (2.54%) Data Warehouse
3 69 (2.41%) PostgreSQL
4 68 (2.37%) NoSQL
5 65 (2.27%) Relational Database
6 43 (1.50%) Tableau
7 42 (1.46%) SQL Server
8 34 (1.19%) Power Query
9 30 (1.05%) Big Data
9 30 (1.05%) Metadata
10 27 (0.94%) MongoDB
11 25 (0.87%) Data Lake
12 24 (0.84%) DB2
12 24 (0.84%) Hadoop
13 23 (0.80%) Oracle Reports
14 21 (0.73%) BigQuery
14 21 (0.73%) Oracle Database
15 19 (0.66%) MySQL
16 17 (0.59%) Amazon RDS
17 16 (0.56%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 248 (8.64%) JIRA
2 151 (5.26%) Jenkins
3 88 (3.07%) GitLab
4 82 (2.86%) Git
5 48 (1.67%) JUnit
6 37 (1.29%) Sonatype Nexus
7 33 (1.15%) Bitbucket
8 32 (1.12%) Liquibase
9 28 (0.98%) Cucumber
10 21 (0.73%) Selenium
11 15 (0.52%) Postman
12 13 (0.45%) PyCharm
13 12 (0.42%) IntelliJ
14 11 (0.38%) Cypress.io
14 11 (0.38%) Gradle
14 11 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
15 10 (0.35%) Hudson
15 10 (0.35%) JMeter
15 10 (0.35%) SonarQube
15 10 (0.35%) Visual Studio
General
1 1,071 (37.33%) Social Skills
2 517 (18.02%) Banking
3 477 (16.63%) Analytical Skills
4 329 (11.47%) Public Sector
5 209 (7.28%) Manufacturing
6 202 (7.04%) Telecoms
7 173 (6.03%) Marketing
8 136 (4.74%) Electronics
9 117 (4.08%) Organisational Skills
10 116 (4.04%) Financial Institution
11 104 (3.62%) Legal
12 90 (3.14%) Documentation Skills
13 70 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
13 70 (2.44%) Investment Banking
14 67 (2.34%) Presentation Skills
15 50 (1.74%) Retail
16 48 (1.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 44 (1.53%) General Ledger
18 40 (1.39%) Billing
18 40 (1.39%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 505 (17.60%) Analyst
2 263 (9.17%) Project Manager
3 231 (8.05%) Developer
4 224 (7.81%) Senior
5 206 (7.18%) Consultant
6 188 (6.55%) Business Analyst
7 180 (6.27%) Architect
8 174 (6.06%) Lead
9 106 (3.69%) Data Analyst
10 89 (3.10%) Programme Manager
11 64 (2.23%) Accountant
12 63 (2.20%) IT Support
13 62 (2.16%) Java Developer
14 61 (2.13%) IT Manager
15 58 (2.02%) Solutions Architect
16 57 (1.99%) Software Engineer
17 55 (1.92%) SAP Consultant
18 53 (1.85%) Senior Manager
19 52 (1.81%) Financial Analyst
20 50 (1.74%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 129 (4.50%) REST
2 92 (3.21%) Spring
3 83 (2.89%) RESTful
4 71 (2.47%) Spring Boot
5 62 (2.16%) Oracle Fusion
6 57 (1.99%) Kafka
7 53 (1.85%) .NET
8 45 (1.57%) React
9 43 (1.50%) SOAP
10 42 (1.46%) Elastic Stack
11 39 (1.36%) OAuth
12 36 (1.25%) Node.js
13 35 (1.22%) HTML
14 33 (1.15%) CSS
15 29 (1.01%) AngularJS
16 28 (0.98%) JMS
16 28 (0.98%) JSON
17 25 (0.87%) SAML
18 21 (0.73%) PySpark
19 19 (0.66%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 142 (4.95%) Onboarding
2 120 (4.18%) Product Ownership
3 91 (3.17%) Cloud Native
4 81 (2.82%) Data Centre
5 77 (2.68%) Public Cloud
6 61 (2.13%) Management Information System
7 58 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
8 54 (1.88%) Analytical Mindset
9 53 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
10 45 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
11 42 (1.46%) Mobile App
12 40 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
13 37 (1.29%) Virtual Team
14 34 (1.19%) Data Structures
15 29 (1.01%) Enterprise Software
16 27 (0.94%) CMDB
17 25 (0.87%) Mainframe
18 23 (0.80%) Credit Risk
19 22 (0.77%) NHS
20 19 (0.66%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 175 (6.10%) Linux
2 129 (4.50%) Windows
3 51 (1.78%) Unix
4 42 (1.46%) Mac OS
5 40 (1.39%) Android
6 32 (1.12%) Windows 10
7 18 (0.63%) Apple iOS
8 16 (0.56%) Windows Server
9 9 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.10%) VMS
11 2 (0.070%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.070%) Windows 8
11 2 (0.070%) zOS
12 1 (0.035%) CentOS
12 1 (0.035%) MVS
12 1 (0.035%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.035%) SUSE
12 1 (0.035%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 720 (25.10%) Agile
2 516 (17.99%) Stakeholder Management
3 502 (17.50%) Problem-Solving
4 342 (11.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 341 (11.89%) Migration
6 334 (11.64%) Business Intelligence
7 318 (11.08%) Continuous Improvement
8 313 (10.91%) Project Management
9 307 (10.70%) DevOps
10 296 (10.32%) CI/CD
11 252 (8.78%) ERP
12 249 (8.68%) Change Management
13 237 (8.26%) Decision-Making
14 224 (7.81%) Programme Management
15 219 (7.63%) Project Delivery
16 202 (7.04%) Analytics
17 186 (6.48%) ITIL
18 179 (6.24%) Roadmaps
19 178 (6.20%) Risk Management
20 166 (5.79%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 313 (10.91%) Python
1 313 (10.91%) SQL
2 195 (6.80%) Java
3 64 (2.23%) PowerShell
4 53 (1.85%) JavaScript
5 49 (1.71%) Go
5 49 (1.71%) TypeScript
6 48 (1.67%) C#
7 30 (1.05%) Shell Script
8 28 (0.98%) PL/SQL
9 23 (0.80%) R
10 22 (0.77%) Bash
11 20 (0.70%) VBA
12 19 (0.66%) Groovy
13 16 (0.56%) Perl
14 12 (0.42%) Apex Code
15 10 (0.35%) ABAP
15 10 (0.35%) PHP
16 9 (0.31%) COBOL
16 9 (0.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 274 (9.55%) Degree
2 250 (8.71%) Security Cleared
3 166 (5.79%) SC Cleared
4 70 (2.44%) Computer Science Degree
5 67 (2.34%) Master's Degree
6 64 (2.23%) ACCA
7 63 (2.20%) PMP
8 60 (2.09%) BPSS Clearance
9 59 (2.06%) AWS Certification
10 58 (2.02%) CIMA
11 57 (1.99%) PMI Certification
12 55 (1.92%) DV Cleared
13 54 (1.88%) CISSP
14 39 (1.36%) CISM
15 37 (1.29%) ITIL Certification
16 22 (0.77%) Azure Certification
17 18 (0.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 16 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
19 13 (0.45%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
20 12 (0.42%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (5.12%) PMO
2 130 (4.53%) QA
3 117 (4.08%) GDPR
4 106 (3.69%) Data Quality
5 59 (2.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 56 (1.95%) NIST
7 47 (1.64%) SLA
8 46 (1.60%) Accessibility
9 40 (1.39%) PCI DSS
10 36 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (0.80%) PSD2
12 22 (0.77%) ISO 20022
13 17 (0.59%) IFRS
14 15 (0.52%) GRC
15 14 (0.49%) SEPA
16 13 (0.45%) Disclosure Scotland
17 12 (0.42%) COBIT
17 12 (0.42%) NCSC
18 9 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
18 9 (0.31%) P3O
System Software
1 115 (4.01%) Docker
2 98 (3.42%) Active Directory
3 26 (0.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.35%) vSphere
6 9 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.24%) GPFS
8 6 (0.21%) NFS
8 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
9 5 (0.17%) Tivoli Directory Server
10 4 (0.14%) Hyper-V
10 4 (0.14%) Time Sharing Option
10 4 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.10%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.10%) RACF
12 2 (0.070%) ACF2
12 2 (0.070%) HDFS
12 2 (0.070%) Job Entry Subsystem
12 2 (0.070%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 151 (5.26%) Kubernetes
2 130 (4.53%) Terraform
3 102 (3.56%) Ansible
4 53 (1.85%) Grafana
5 47 (1.64%) Prometheus
6 23 (0.80%) SCCM
7 19 (0.66%) Progress Chef
8 15 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
10 12 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.42%) Puppet
11 8 (0.28%) CA Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.28%) SCOM
11 8 (0.28%) vRealize
12 7 (0.24%) CA Wily
12 7 (0.24%) HP SiteScope
12 7 (0.24%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 7 (0.24%) QRadar
12 7 (0.24%) Tivoli
13 6 (0.21%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 511 (17.81%) Microsoft
2 380 (13.25%) SAP
3 270 (9.41%) Oracle
4 153 (5.33%) ServiceNow
5 82 (2.86%) Splunk
6 68 (2.37%) Google
7 63 (2.20%) Cisco
8 60 (2.09%) Salesforce
9 43 (1.50%) IBM
10 42 (1.46%) VMware
11 33 (1.15%) HP
12 32 (1.12%) Dell
12 32 (1.12%) Workday
13 29 (1.01%) Apple
13 29 (1.01%) Databricks
14 25 (0.87%) Citrix
14 25 (0.87%) IFS
15 24 (0.84%) Adobe
16 21 (0.73%) CyberArk
16 21 (0.73%) F5