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 31 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 4 4
Rank change year-on-year 0 0 +2
Contract jobs citing Finance 3,882 2,685 2,669
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 14.02% 17.41% 14.82%
As % of the General category 27.23% 28.51% 27.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,324 1,780 1,600
10th Percentile £350 £307 £300
25th Percentile £413 £399 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £506 £492 £513
Median % change year-on-year +2.84% -3.95% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £625
90th Percentile £700 £688 £725
UK median daily rate £550 £538 £575
% change year-on-year +2.33% -6.52% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 258 63 133
10th Percentile £15.09 £13.46 £14.50
25th Percentile £22.00 £15.50 £20.75
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -28.14% +16.67%
75th Percentile - £34.16 £50.00
90th Percentile £75.40 £72.20 £70.14
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £28.53 £35.00
% change year-on-year +54.11% -18.50% +36.13%

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 14,254 9,419 9,767
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 51.49% 61.06% 54.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,830 5,666 5,495
10th Percentile £263 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £358 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% 0.00%
75th Percentile £597 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £653 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,999 880 1,025
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.12 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.50 £15.45 £16.00
Median hourly rate £31.56 £22.05 £37.28
Median % change year-on-year +43.11% -40.85% +45.63%
75th Percentile £56.25 £43.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.27 £71.40
UK median hourly rate £31.16 £25.15 £37.04
% change year-on-year +23.88% -32.10% +34.69%

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 31 August 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 31 August 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 31 August 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 0 1,341 £500 +7.99% 1,026
South East -1 735 £505 -3.81% 1,235
North West -1 681 £500 +11.11% 579
Midlands -1 614 £500 +8.40% 519
Yorkshire 0 580 £514 +6.20% 318
Scotland 0 525 £470 -2.49% 379
West Midlands +1 458 £520 +4.00% 322
South West -5 368 £550 -0.97% 700
East of England +4 207 £534 -6.36% 340
East Midlands -3 152 £500 +20.85% 195
North East -4 73 £500 +13.64% 143
Northern Ireland -1 64 £500 +3.90% 109
Wales -2 57 £525 +18.31% 111
Channel Islands +2 5 £550 - 5
South Coast - 1 £450 -
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
1 157 (4.04%) Confluence
2 94 (2.42%) SharePoint
3 16 (0.41%) Apache
4 15 (0.39%) Apache Spark
5 14 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
6 13 (0.33%) SAS
7 12 (0.31%) CMS
8 9 (0.23%) Microsoft Exchange
8 9 (0.23%) WebSphere
9 8 (0.21%) IIS
9 8 (0.21%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.15%) Camunda
11 5 (0.13%) Apache Airflow
12 4 (0.10%) CICS
12 4 (0.10%) nginx
13 3 (0.077%) Oracle Coherence
13 3 (0.077%) Tomcat
14 2 (0.052%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.052%) JBoss
14 2 (0.052%) Mule
Applications
1 246 (6.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 111 (2.86%) Microsoft Office
3 89 (2.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 88 (2.27%) Microsoft Project
5 35 (0.90%) MS Visio
6 34 (0.88%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 5 (0.13%) Trello
9 4 (0.10%) AutoCAD
9 4 (0.10%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.052%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.052%) EngageOne
10 2 (0.052%) Photoshop
11 1 (0.026%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.026%) Maple
11 1 (0.026%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.026%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 194 (5.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 54 (1.39%) Oracle Payables
3 47 (1.21%) Oracle ERP
3 47 (1.21%) Oracle Receivables
4 39 (1.00%) NetSuite
5 32 (0.82%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 28 (0.72%) Oracle General Ledger
7 24 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
7 24 (0.62%) Oracle EBS
7 24 (0.62%) Unit4 Business World
8 22 (0.57%) SAP GRC
9 19 (0.49%) SAP FI
10 15 (0.39%) Workday HCM
11 13 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
11 13 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
11 13 (0.33%) SAP PSCD
12 11 (0.28%) Oracle Cash Management
12 11 (0.28%) SAP CO
13 10 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
13 10 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 491 (12.65%) Azure
2 338 (8.71%) AWS
3 235 (6.05%) GCP
4 226 (5.82%) Power Platform
5 100 (2.58%) SaaS
6 98 (2.52%) Azure DevOps
6 98 (2.52%) GitHub
7 96 (2.47%) Microsoft 365
8 94 (2.42%) Dynamics 365
9 74 (1.91%) Entra ID
10 47 (1.21%) OCI
11 43 (1.11%) Snowflake
12 42 (1.08%) Microsoft Copilot
13 39 (1.00%) OpenShift
14 38 (0.98%) Serverless
15 31 (0.80%) GitHub Actions
15 31 (0.80%) Power Automate
16 26 (0.67%) AWS CloudFormation
16 26 (0.67%) Google Kubernetes Engine
16 26 (0.67%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 80 (2.06%) Firewall
2 71 (1.83%) Network Security
3 48 (1.24%) VPN
4 33 (0.85%) DNS
5 28 (0.72%) WAN
6 23 (0.59%) TCP/IP
7 22 (0.57%) LAN
7 22 (0.57%) SSL
8 12 (0.31%) DHCP
9 11 (0.28%) Broadband
9 11 (0.28%) HTTP
9 11 (0.28%) VSAN
10 10 (0.26%) Wi-Fi
11 9 (0.23%) SD-WAN
12 8 (0.21%) BGP
12 8 (0.21%) BIG-IP
12 8 (0.21%) Internet
13 7 (0.18%) Wireless
14 6 (0.15%) Cisco ASA
14 6 (0.15%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 186 (4.79%) Power BI
2 76 (1.96%) Data Warehouse
3 73 (1.88%) Relational Database
4 70 (1.80%) SQL Server
5 65 (1.67%) Metadata
6 39 (1.00%) Data Lake
6 39 (1.00%) Oracle Reports
7 36 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
8 35 (0.90%) Tableau
9 29 (0.75%) MongoDB
10 27 (0.70%) Db2
11 21 (0.54%) Oracle ODI
11 21 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
12 19 (0.49%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 19 (0.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 18 (0.46%) Data Vault
13 18 (0.46%) NoSQL
14 16 (0.41%) BigQuery
15 15 (0.39%) Oracle Database
16 14 (0.36%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 242 (6.23%) JIRA
2 107 (2.76%) Git
3 54 (1.39%) Jenkins
4 26 (0.67%) JUnit
5 18 (0.46%) GitLab
6 16 (0.41%) Sonatype Nexus
7 15 (0.39%) Claude Code
7 15 (0.39%) Selenium
8 14 (0.36%) Hudson
9 13 (0.33%) Cucumber
9 13 (0.33%) SonarQube
10 10 (0.26%) Maven
11 9 (0.23%) Gradle
11 9 (0.23%) Oracle Forms
11 9 (0.23%) Postman
12 8 (0.21%) ERwin
13 7 (0.18%) Visual Studio
14 6 (0.15%) Bitbucket
14 6 (0.15%) LoadRunner
14 6 (0.15%) Mockito
General
1 1,307 (33.67%) Social Skills
2 575 (14.81%) Banking
3 546 (14.06%) Analytical Skills
4 279 (7.19%) Public Sector
5 266 (6.85%) Organisational Skills
6 258 (6.65%) Legal
7 170 (4.38%) Retail
8 142 (3.66%) Influencing Skills
9 103 (2.65%) Manufacturing
10 96 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
11 95 (2.45%) Local Government
12 83 (2.14%) General Ledger
13 77 (1.98%) Financial Institution
13 77 (1.98%) Investment Banking
14 74 (1.91%) Billing
15 72 (1.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 57 (1.47%) Marketing
17 56 (1.44%) Presentation Skills
18 54 (1.39%) Telecoms
19 49 (1.26%) Law
Job Titles
1 499 (12.85%) Analyst
2 410 (10.56%) Lead
3 352 (9.07%) Senior
4 319 (8.22%) Project Manager
5 311 (8.01%) Architect
6 289 (7.44%) Developer
7 263 (6.77%) Consultant
8 237 (6.11%) Business Analyst
9 157 (4.04%) Accountant
10 144 (3.71%) Solutions Architect
11 97 (2.50%) Systems Accountant
12 96 (2.47%) IT Manager
13 93 (2.40%) Senior Manager
14 90 (2.32%) Financial Analyst
15 86 (2.22%) Java Developer
16 77 (1.98%) Administrator
16 77 (1.98%) Finance Manager
17 69 (1.78%) Programme Manager
18 68 (1.75%) Software Engineer
19 66 (1.70%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 152 (3.92%) Oracle Fusion
2 134 (3.45%) Terraform
3 91 (2.34%) REST
4 70 (1.80%) Middleware
5 69 (1.78%) Kafka
6 68 (1.75%) Spring Boot
7 64 (1.65%) Spring
8 59 (1.52%) .NET
8 59 (1.52%) React
9 41 (1.06%) OAuth
9 41 (1.06%) RESTful
10 32 (0.82%) Node.js
11 30 (0.77%) JSON
11 30 (0.77%) OpenID
12 29 (0.75%) SAML
13 28 (0.72%) SAP Fiori
13 28 (0.72%) XML
14 24 (0.62%) HTML
15 23 (0.59%) Redux
15 23 (0.59%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 165 (4.25%) Onboarding
2 163 (4.20%) Product Ownership
3 154 (3.97%) Virtual Team
4 152 (3.92%) Cloud Native
5 115 (2.96%) Data Protection Act
6 112 (2.89%) Podcast
6 112 (2.89%) Web Conferencing
7 111 (2.86%) Management Information System
8 101 (2.60%) Legacy Systems
9 67 (1.73%) Data Structures
10 56 (1.44%) Data Centre
11 53 (1.37%) Distributed Systems
11 53 (1.37%) Public Cloud
12 47 (1.21%) Mainframe
12 47 (1.21%) Security Posture
13 46 (1.18%) AI Agents
14 43 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
15 42 (1.08%) Mobile App
16 39 (1.00%) CMDB
17 38 (0.98%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 119 (3.07%) Windows
2 109 (2.81%) Linux
3 61 (1.57%) Unix
4 33 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 32 (0.82%) Windows Server
6 24 (0.62%) zOS
7 23 (0.59%) Solaris
8 14 (0.36%) Android
8 14 (0.36%) Apple iOS
9 9 (0.23%) AIX
10 8 (0.21%) Mac OS
11 6 (0.15%) Windows 10
12 5 (0.13%) HPUX
12 5 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
12 5 (0.13%) SUSE
12 5 (0.13%) VMS
13 3 (0.077%) CentOS
13 3 (0.077%) MVS
13 3 (0.077%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.026%) Check Point GAiA
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,000 (25.76%) Stakeholder Management
2 724 (18.65%) Agile
3 546 (14.06%) Continuous Improvement
4 524 (13.50%) Problem-Solving
5 518 (13.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 504 (12.98%) Migration
7 499 (12.85%) ERP
8 369 (9.51%) CI/CD
8 369 (9.51%) Decision-Making
9 368 (9.48%) AI
10 360 (9.27%) Project Management
11 350 (9.02%) DevOps
12 347 (8.94%) Change Management
13 299 (7.70%) Project Delivery
14 293 (7.55%) Roadmaps
15 279 (7.19%) Risk Management
16 269 (6.93%) Analytics
17 265 (6.83%) User Acceptance Testing
18 258 (6.65%) Validation
19 228 (5.87%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 331 (8.53%) SQL
2 328 (8.45%) Python
3 237 (6.11%) Java
4 81 (2.09%) PowerShell
5 63 (1.62%) JavaScript
6 58 (1.49%) C#
7 57 (1.47%) Bash
8 41 (1.06%) PL/SQL
9 39 (1.00%) TypeScript
10 37 (0.95%) Shell Script
11 29 (0.75%) Go
12 23 (0.59%) C++
13 16 (0.41%) Bicep
14 13 (0.33%) T-SQL
15 12 (0.31%) ABAP
15 12 (0.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.31%) PHP
15 12 (0.31%) Scala
16 10 (0.26%) Perl
17 9 (0.23%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 356 (9.17%) Security Cleared
2 261 (6.72%) Degree
3 218 (5.62%) SC Cleared
4 171 (4.40%) BPSS Clearance
5 111 (2.86%) ACCA
6 107 (2.76%) CIMA
7 100 (2.58%) PMP
8 89 (2.29%) DV Cleared
9 86 (2.22%) PMI Certification
10 72 (1.85%) CISSP
11 47 (1.21%) CISM
12 43 (1.11%) Cisco Certification
13 38 (0.98%) Azure Certification
14 37 (0.95%) AWS Certification
15 31 (0.80%) Computer Science Degree
16 30 (0.77%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 28 (0.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 24 (0.62%) ITIL Certification
19 22 (0.57%) CCSP
20 21 (0.54%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 232 (5.98%) Data Quality
2 174 (4.48%) PMO
3 134 (3.45%) QA
4 118 (3.04%) GDPR
5 56 (1.44%) GRC
6 50 (1.29%) NIST
7 44 (1.13%) SLA
8 42 (1.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 39 (1.00%) Accessibility
10 32 (0.82%) IFRS
11 29 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 20 (0.52%) PCI DSS
13 11 (0.28%) COBIT
14 10 (0.26%) EMIR
14 10 (0.26%) GAAP
14 10 (0.26%) SOC 2
15 9 (0.23%) ISO 9001
16 8 (0.21%) NCSC
16 8 (0.21%) WCAG
17 7 (0.18%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 75 (1.93%) Active Directory
2 68 (1.75%) Docker
3 45 (1.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.57%) RACF
5 20 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
6 11 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.21%) vSphere
9 7 (0.18%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.15%) Hyper-V
11 5 (0.13%) GPFS
11 5 (0.13%) NFS
12 4 (0.10%) ACF2
12 4 (0.10%) zsh
13 2 (0.052%) KVM
13 2 (0.052%) Oracle RAC
14 1 (0.026%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
14 1 (0.026%) IAG
14 1 (0.026%) Job Entry Subsystem
14 1 (0.026%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 192 (4.95%) Kubernetes
2 75 (1.93%) Ansible
3 35 (0.90%) Grafana
4 33 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
5 31 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
6 21 (0.54%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.46%) OMEGAMON
8 17 (0.44%) Progress Chef
9 15 (0.39%) SCCM
10 11 (0.28%) Argo
10 11 (0.28%) Istio
11 10 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.23%) Control-M
13 7 (0.18%) Kustomize
14 6 (0.15%) vRealize
15 5 (0.13%) FortiGate
16 4 (0.10%) HP ALM
16 4 (0.10%) Puppet
16 4 (0.10%) QRadar
16 4 (0.10%) VxRail
Vendors
1 567 (14.61%) Microsoft
2 404 (10.41%) SAP
3 386 (9.94%) Oracle
4 172 (4.43%) ServiceNow
5 111 (2.86%) Google
6 86 (2.22%) IBM
7 79 (2.04%) Databricks
8 67 (1.73%) Salesforce
9 59 (1.52%) VMware
10 43 (1.11%) Cisco
11 41 (1.06%) Splunk
12 37 (0.95%) Ariba
12 37 (0.95%) Sage
12 37 (0.95%) Workday
13 27 (0.70%) IFS
14 25 (0.64%) MuleSoft
14 25 (0.64%) Red Hat
15 21 (0.54%) Adobe
16 20 (0.52%) Sybase
17 18 (0.46%) Foundry