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 10 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 5 6
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 +2
Contract jobs citing Finance 3,358 2,185 2,645
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 14.52% 17.27% 12.64%
As % of the General category 27.78% 27.89% 23.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,109 1,395 1,657
10th Percentile £325 £305 £281
25th Percentile £404 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £688 £675 £739
UK median daily rate £526 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -8.48% - -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 153 69 189
10th Percentile £13.98 £18.12 £11.87
25th Percentile £16.92 £22.50 £14.13
Median hourly rate £22.08 £52.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -57.95% +75.00% -25.00%
75th Percentile £35.00 £73.75 £38.12
90th Percentile £75.07 £78.47 £51.76
UK median hourly rate £23.83 £40.00 £28.00
% change year-on-year -40.44% +42.86% -13.85%

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 12,086 7,835 11,456
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 52.27% 61.91% 54.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,282 4,868 6,645
10th Percentile £238 £213 £205
25th Percentile £375 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £587 £600
90th Percentile £675 £665 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,344 545 1,593
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.20 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.62 £17.25 £15.00
Median hourly rate £25.00 £27.00 £25.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% +5.88% -17.05%
75th Percentile £60.00 £58.75 £50.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £26.50 £28.75 £27.00
% change year-on-year -7.83% +6.48% -22.86%

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 10 April 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 10 April 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 10 April 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 1,093 £475 - 695
South East -1 664 £503 -6.73% 1,010
North West +6 585 £460 -1.08% 371
Midlands -1 581 £475 -5.00% 423
Yorkshire 0 460 £500 +2.30% 253
West Midlands 0 387 £492 -7.73% 251
Scotland 0 387 £500 +5.26% 161
South West -2 335 £525 +3.91% 302
East of England -2 200 £515 -6.36% 271
East Midlands 0 189 £448 +0.79% 171
Wales +23 105 £413 +3.13% 89
North East -8 48 £488 +6.56% 88
Northern Ireland 0 44 £513 +46.43% 58
Channel Islands - 2 £450 - 4
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
1 156 (4.65%) Confluence
2 111 (3.31%) SharePoint
3 29 (0.86%) Apache Spark
4 26 (0.77%) Microsoft Exchange
5 22 (0.66%) Apache
6 13 (0.39%) SAS
7 9 (0.27%) CICS
8 8 (0.24%) CMS
8 8 (0.24%) TPMS
8 8 (0.24%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 6 (0.18%) Apache Airflow
10 5 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.12%) Ethereum
11 4 (0.12%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.089%) Camunda
12 3 (0.089%) IIS
12 3 (0.089%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.060%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.060%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 258 (7.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 134 (3.99%) Microsoft Office
3 116 (3.45%) Microsoft Project
4 87 (2.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 41 (1.22%) MS Visio
6 25 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
7 7 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 6 (0.18%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.18%) InVision
8 6 (0.18%) Sketch
8 6 (0.18%) Trello
9 5 (0.15%) Adobe XD
10 2 (0.060%) AutoCAD
11 1 (0.030%) Adobe Captivate
11 1 (0.030%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.030%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.030%) Photoshop
11 1 (0.030%) UXPin
11 1 (0.030%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 158 (4.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 52 (1.55%) Oracle Payables
3 46 (1.37%) Oracle Receivables
4 41 (1.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 39 (1.16%) Oracle EBS
6 32 (0.95%) Oracle ERP
6 32 (0.95%) Oracle General Ledger
7 30 (0.89%) SAP FI
8 28 (0.83%) Oracle Assets
9 25 (0.74%) Oracle Cash Management
10 24 (0.71%) NetSuite
11 20 (0.60%) SAP CO
12 19 (0.57%) Oracle EBS R12
12 19 (0.57%) SAP FI/CO
13 18 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
14 15 (0.45%) SAP BRIM
14 15 (0.45%) SAP Hybris
14 15 (0.45%) SAP PSCD
15 13 (0.39%) NEC Housing
16 12 (0.36%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 414 (12.33%) Azure
2 350 (10.42%) AWS
3 206 (6.13%) Power Platform
4 156 (4.65%) GCP
5 117 (3.48%) Microsoft 365
6 93 (2.77%) GitHub
7 86 (2.56%) SaaS
8 80 (2.38%) Azure DevOps
9 73 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
10 57 (1.70%) Serverless
11 56 (1.67%) Entra ID
12 49 (1.46%) OpenShift
13 45 (1.34%) OCI
14 38 (1.13%) AWS CloudFormation
14 38 (1.13%) Snowflake
15 35 (1.04%) AWS Lambda
16 34 (1.01%) GitHub Actions
17 31 (0.92%) Amazon S3
18 27 (0.80%) Microsoft Copilot
19 26 (0.77%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 82 (2.44%) Firewall
2 37 (1.10%) DNS
2 37 (1.10%) Network Security
2 37 (1.10%) WAN
3 31 (0.92%) VPN
4 20 (0.60%) SD-WAN
5 18 (0.54%) Skype
6 17 (0.51%) LAN
7 16 (0.48%) SSL
7 16 (0.48%) TCP/IP
8 14 (0.42%) Internet
9 11 (0.33%) DHCP
9 11 (0.33%) Wireless
10 10 (0.30%) SSH
11 9 (0.27%) MPLS
12 8 (0.24%) Cisco IOS
12 8 (0.24%) SNMP
12 8 (0.24%) VSAN
12 8 (0.24%) Wi-Fi
13 6 (0.18%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 189 (5.63%) Power BI
2 76 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
3 70 (2.08%) PostgreSQL
4 53 (1.58%) Oracle Reports
5 50 (1.49%) Metadata
6 46 (1.37%) Relational Database
7 40 (1.19%) NoSQL
8 38 (1.13%) SQL Server
9 36 (1.07%) Tableau
10 29 (0.86%) DynamoDB
11 26 (0.77%) Data Lake
12 25 (0.74%) Big Data
13 22 (0.66%) Oracle ODI
13 22 (0.66%) Power Query
14 14 (0.42%) BigQuery
14 14 (0.42%) MongoDB
14 14 (0.42%) MySQL
15 13 (0.39%) Snowflake Schema
15 13 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 12 (0.36%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 302 (8.99%) JIRA
2 103 (3.07%) Jenkins
3 61 (1.82%) Git
4 51 (1.52%) GitLab
5 38 (1.13%) JUnit
6 34 (1.01%) Sonatype Nexus
7 29 (0.86%) Cucumber
8 20 (0.60%) Selenium
9 14 (0.42%) SonarQube
10 13 (0.39%) Hudson
10 13 (0.39%) Postman
11 12 (0.36%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.27%) JMeter
13 8 (0.24%) Gradle
13 8 (0.24%) Jaeger
13 8 (0.24%) REST Assured
14 6 (0.18%) IntelliJ
14 6 (0.18%) Maven
14 6 (0.18%) Snyk
14 6 (0.18%) Zephyr
General
1 1,129 (33.62%) Social Skills
2 498 (14.83%) Banking
3 445 (13.25%) Analytical Skills
4 336 (10.01%) Public Sector
5 158 (4.71%) Manufacturing
6 133 (3.96%) Telecoms
7 129 (3.84%) Organisational Skills
8 118 (3.51%) Marketing
9 116 (3.45%) Legal
10 101 (3.01%) Documentation Skills
11 86 (2.56%) Local Government
12 78 (2.32%) Financial Institution
12 78 (2.32%) Retail
13 76 (2.26%) Electronics
14 75 (2.23%) Influencing Skills
15 64 (1.91%) General Ledger
16 53 (1.58%) Billing
17 48 (1.43%) Investment Banking
18 41 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
19 35 (1.04%) Law
Job Titles
1 499 (14.86%) Analyst
2 336 (10.01%) Project Manager
3 297 (8.84%) Architect
4 295 (8.78%) Lead
5 264 (7.86%) Senior
6 240 (7.15%) Consultant
7 226 (6.73%) Business Analyst
8 215 (6.40%) Developer
9 126 (3.75%) Solutions Architect
10 110 (3.28%) Accountant
11 89 (2.65%) Programme Manager
12 86 (2.56%) Senior Manager
13 81 (2.41%) Finance Manager
14 72 (2.14%) Data Analyst
15 69 (2.05%) SAP Consultant
16 66 (1.97%) Systems Accountant
17 60 (1.79%) Data Engineer
18 59 (1.76%) Java Developer
19 57 (1.70%) Functional Consultant
19 57 (1.70%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (2.89%) REST
2 86 (2.56%) Spring
3 81 (2.41%) Spring Boot
4 76 (2.26%) Oracle Fusion
5 72 (2.14%) Kafka
6 68 (2.03%) Middleware
7 42 (1.25%) RESTful
8 38 (1.13%) .NET
9 36 (1.07%) Node.js
10 34 (1.01%) React
11 32 (0.95%) JSON
12 31 (0.92%) OAuth
13 28 (0.83%) XML
14 27 (0.80%) SOAP
15 26 (0.77%) HTML
16 24 (0.71%) AngularJS
17 23 (0.68%) CSS
18 20 (0.60%) OpenID
19 19 (0.57%) PySpark
19 19 (0.57%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 149 (4.44%) Onboarding
2 126 (3.75%) Product Ownership
3 104 (3.10%) Cloud Native
4 103 (3.07%) Management Information System
5 82 (2.44%) Data Centre
6 80 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
6 80 (2.38%) Legacy Systems
7 57 (1.70%) Public Cloud
8 53 (1.58%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (1.43%) Data Structures
10 40 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
11 36 (1.07%) Virtual Team
12 35 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
13 34 (1.01%) PMI
14 32 (0.95%) Mainframe
15 31 (0.92%) CMDB
16 30 (0.89%) Mobile App
17 23 (0.68%) Security Posture
18 19 (0.57%) Operational Technology
19 18 (0.54%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 121 (3.60%) Linux
2 107 (3.19%) Windows
3 49 (1.46%) Unix
4 27 (0.80%) Windows 10
5 24 (0.71%) Windows Server
6 22 (0.66%) Android
7 20 (0.60%) Mac OS
8 12 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 11 (0.33%) Solaris
10 10 (0.30%) AIX
11 8 (0.24%) Apple iOS
12 5 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.15%) zOS
13 4 (0.12%) VMS
14 3 (0.089%) MVS
15 2 (0.060%) HPUX
15 2 (0.060%) Oracle Linux
15 2 (0.060%) SUSE
16 1 (0.030%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 662 (19.71%) Stakeholder Management
2 644 (19.18%) Agile
3 545 (16.23%) Problem-Solving
4 488 (14.53%) Migration
5 449 (13.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 413 (12.30%) ERP
7 409 (12.18%) Project Management
8 389 (11.58%) Continuous Improvement
9 347 (10.33%) DevOps
10 313 (9.32%) Business Intelligence
11 299 (8.90%) CI/CD
12 298 (8.87%) Project Delivery
13 289 (8.61%) Change Management
14 249 (7.42%) Decision-Making
15 238 (7.09%) User Acceptance Testing
16 228 (6.79%) Analytics
17 223 (6.64%) Roadmaps
18 218 (6.49%) AI
19 214 (6.37%) Risk Management
20 212 (6.31%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 330 (9.83%) SQL
2 239 (7.12%) Python
3 200 (5.96%) Java
4 67 (2.00%) PowerShell
5 30 (0.89%) TypeScript
6 29 (0.86%) JavaScript
7 24 (0.71%) Bash
8 22 (0.66%) C#
8 22 (0.66%) VBA
9 21 (0.63%) PL/SQL
10 16 (0.48%) Shell Script
11 14 (0.42%) Go
12 12 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 12 (0.36%) Kotlin
13 11 (0.33%) COBOL
14 10 (0.30%) ABAP
14 10 (0.30%) Perl
15 9 (0.27%) C++
15 9 (0.27%) R
16 8 (0.24%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 346 (10.30%) Security Cleared
2 325 (9.68%) Degree
3 215 (6.40%) SC Cleared
4 110 (3.28%) PMP
5 104 (3.10%) ACCA
5 104 (3.10%) PMI Certification
6 99 (2.95%) CIMA
7 96 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
8 73 (2.17%) DV Cleared
9 64 (1.91%) CISSP
10 53 (1.58%) Master's Degree
11 44 (1.31%) Computer Science Degree
12 41 (1.22%) CISM
13 38 (1.13%) AWS Certification
14 27 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
15 20 (0.60%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 19 (0.57%) TOGAF Certification
17 16 (0.48%) MBA
18 14 (0.42%) APMP
18 14 (0.42%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 181 (5.39%) PMO
2 157 (4.68%) Data Quality
3 142 (4.23%) QA
4 136 (4.05%) GDPR
5 63 (1.88%) NIST
6 51 (1.52%) SLA
7 46 (1.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 45 (1.34%) PCI DSS
9 27 (0.80%) GRC
9 27 (0.80%) IFRS
10 26 (0.77%) Accessibility
11 24 (0.71%) ISO 20022
12 23 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 19 (0.57%) PSD2
14 14 (0.42%) Disclosure Scotland
15 13 (0.39%) SEPA
15 13 (0.39%) SOC 2
16 12 (0.36%) Basel III
17 11 (0.33%) GAAP
18 9 (0.27%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 108 (3.22%) Docker
2 72 (2.14%) Active Directory
3 40 (1.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.63%) vSphere
5 15 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (0.39%) Virtual Desktop
7 12 (0.36%) GPFS
8 11 (0.33%) NFS
9 7 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (0.18%) Hyper-V
11 4 (0.12%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.12%) KVM
11 4 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.089%) ACF2
12 3 (0.089%) Firmware
12 3 (0.089%) RACF
12 3 (0.089%) VMware NSX
13 2 (0.060%) HDFS
13 2 (0.060%) SRDF
13 2 (0.060%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 157 (4.68%) Kubernetes
2 78 (2.32%) Terraform
3 71 (2.11%) Ansible
4 41 (1.22%) Grafana
5 32 (0.95%) Prometheus
6 17 (0.51%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.45%) SCCM
8 14 (0.42%) Progress Chef
8 14 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.42%) vRealize
9 9 (0.27%) FortiGate
9 9 (0.27%) Nessus
10 8 (0.24%) Kiali
11 6 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.18%) HP ALM
11 6 (0.18%) VxRail
12 5 (0.15%) Argo
12 5 (0.15%) CASB
12 5 (0.15%) Istio
12 5 (0.15%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 438 (13.04%) Microsoft
2 372 (11.08%) SAP
3 297 (8.84%) Oracle
4 163 (4.85%) ServiceNow
5 91 (2.71%) Google
6 73 (2.17%) Cisco
7 58 (1.73%) Sage
7 58 (1.73%) Splunk
8 55 (1.64%) IBM
9 54 (1.61%) Databricks
9 54 (1.61%) VMware
10 44 (1.31%) Salesforce
11 35 (1.04%) IFS
12 32 (0.95%) Workday
13 26 (0.77%) HP
14 25 (0.74%) Dell
15 20 (0.60%) Citrix
16 19 (0.57%) Adobe
16 19 (0.57%) Ariba
16 19 (0.57%) Remedy