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

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 4 5
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 +1
Contract jobs citing Finance 3,894 2,686 2,590
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 14.28% 17.64% 14.06%
As % of the General category 27.64% 28.87% 26.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,352 1,780 1,592
10th Percentile £340 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £494 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.82% -1.25% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £626
90th Percentile £700 £688 £738
UK median daily rate £550 £545 £575
% change year-on-year +0.92% -5.22% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 218 73 158
10th Percentile £15.18 £15.00 £14.50
25th Percentile £22.00 £17.55 £22.97
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.38 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +60.58% -28.19% +17.29%
75th Percentile - £60.00 £40.06
90th Percentile £84.00 £75.00 £70.05
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £30.50 £38.12
% change year-on-year +44.13% -19.99% +39.94%

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 14,088 9,305 9,877
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 51.65% 61.10% 53.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,838 5,623 5,662
10th Percentile £263 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £360 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
75th Percentile £594 £575 £600
90th Percentile £680 £650 £690
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,877 832 1,206
10th Percentile £13.81 £13.08 £13.69
25th Percentile £16.85 £15.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £32.50 £22.14 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +46.79% -41.92% +46.62%
75th Percentile £63.38 £47.12 £58.75
90th Percentile £81.05 £73.63 £70.09
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +29.22% -34.02% +27.07%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 1,331 £500 +6.84% 1,049
South East -1 746 £505 -6.05% 1,118
North West 0 703 £500 +10.01% 578
Midlands 0 636 £525 +16.67% 559
Yorkshire 0 564 £517 +8.80% 351
Scotland 0 505 £475 -5.00% 280
West Midlands +1 483 £525 +6.71% 338
South West -4 377 £525 -5.47% 442
East of England +6 206 £525 -7.89% 301
East Midlands -2 147 £500 +21.21% 221
Wales +1 68 £530 +14.59% 119
Northern Ireland -1 63 £475 +1.06% 117
North East -13 57 £500 +11.11% 129
Channel Islands +4 3 £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
1 145 (3.72%) Confluence
2 99 (2.54%) SharePoint
3 16 (0.41%) Apache Spark
4 14 (0.36%) CMS
4 14 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
5 13 (0.33%) Apache
6 12 (0.31%) Microsoft Exchange
7 11 (0.28%) SAS
8 9 (0.23%) CICS
9 8 (0.21%) WebLogic
10 7 (0.18%) IIS
10 7 (0.18%) WebSphere
11 4 (0.10%) Apache Airflow
12 3 (0.077%) Camunda
12 3 (0.077%) Mule
12 3 (0.077%) Mule ESB
12 3 (0.077%) Oracle Coherence
12 3 (0.077%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.051%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.051%) nginx
Applications
1 246 (6.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 110 (2.82%) Microsoft Office
3 91 (2.34%) Microsoft Project
4 72 (1.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 39 (1.00%) MS Visio
6 36 (0.92%) Spreadsheet
7 7 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 6 (0.15%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.13%) Trello
10 3 (0.077%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.051%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.051%) EngageOne
11 2 (0.051%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.026%) Adobe XD
12 1 (0.026%) Maple
12 1 (0.026%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.026%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.026%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 203 (5.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 48 (1.23%) Oracle ERP
3 46 (1.18%) Oracle Payables
4 42 (1.08%) Oracle Receivables
5 41 (1.05%) NetSuite
6 32 (0.82%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 24 (0.62%) Oracle General Ledger
7 24 (0.62%) Unit4 Business World
8 22 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
9 21 (0.54%) Oracle EBS
9 21 (0.54%) SAP GRC
10 19 (0.49%) SAP FI
11 15 (0.39%) Workday HCM
12 13 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
12 13 (0.33%) SAP PSCD
13 12 (0.31%) Oracle Cash Management
13 12 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
14 11 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
14 11 (0.28%) SAP CO
15 10 (0.26%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 478 (12.28%) Azure
2 313 (8.04%) AWS
3 227 (5.83%) Power Platform
4 219 (5.62%) GCP
5 105 (2.70%) SaaS
6 93 (2.39%) Azure DevOps
7 89 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
8 88 (2.26%) Dynamics 365
9 85 (2.18%) GitHub
10 69 (1.77%) Entra ID
11 51 (1.31%) OCI
12 44 (1.13%) Snowflake
13 39 (1.00%) Microsoft Copilot
13 39 (1.00%) Serverless
14 38 (0.98%) OpenShift
15 26 (0.67%) Power Automate
15 26 (0.67%) PowerApps
16 23 (0.59%) AWS CloudFormation
16 23 (0.59%) Google Kubernetes Engine
17 22 (0.56%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 82 (2.11%) Firewall
2 67 (1.72%) Network Security
3 42 (1.08%) VPN
4 33 (0.85%) DNS
5 26 (0.67%) SSL
5 26 (0.67%) TCP/IP
5 26 (0.67%) WAN
6 19 (0.49%) LAN
7 12 (0.31%) DHCP
7 12 (0.31%) VSAN
8 10 (0.26%) HTTP
9 9 (0.23%) SD-WAN
9 9 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
10 8 (0.21%) BGP
11 7 (0.18%) Internet
11 7 (0.18%) Wireless
12 6 (0.15%) Cisco Nexus
12 6 (0.15%) MPLS
13 5 (0.13%) BIG-IP
13 5 (0.13%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 186 (4.78%) Power BI
2 79 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
3 71 (1.82%) Relational Database
4 68 (1.75%) Metadata
5 65 (1.67%) SQL Server
6 52 (1.34%) Oracle Reports
7 48 (1.23%) PostgreSQL
8 38 (0.98%) Data Lake
9 36 (0.92%) Tableau
10 29 (0.74%) MongoDB
11 24 (0.62%) Db2
12 23 (0.59%) Oracle ODI
13 22 (0.56%) NoSQL
13 22 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
13 22 (0.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 21 (0.54%) Data Vault
15 18 (0.46%) Oracle BI Publisher
16 16 (0.41%) Power Query
17 15 (0.39%) Oracle Database
18 14 (0.36%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 251 (6.45%) JIRA
2 99 (2.54%) Git
3 55 (1.41%) Jenkins
4 23 (0.59%) JUnit
5 16 (0.41%) GitLab
5 16 (0.41%) Selenium
6 15 (0.39%) Cucumber
6 15 (0.39%) Hudson
7 14 (0.36%) Claude Code
8 13 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
9 11 (0.28%) SonarQube
10 9 (0.23%) Oracle Forms
10 9 (0.23%) Postman
11 8 (0.21%) ERwin
12 7 (0.18%) Visual Studio
12 7 (0.18%) Zephyr
13 6 (0.15%) Liquibase
14 5 (0.13%) Bitbucket
14 5 (0.13%) Gradle
14 5 (0.13%) Maven
General
1 1,233 (31.66%) Social Skills
2 553 (14.20%) Analytical Skills
3 540 (13.87%) Banking
4 292 (7.50%) Public Sector
5 228 (5.86%) Legal
6 218 (5.60%) Organisational Skills
7 154 (3.95%) Retail
8 132 (3.39%) Influencing Skills
9 112 (2.88%) Manufacturing
10 107 (2.75%) Local Government
11 101 (2.59%) Documentation Skills
12 81 (2.08%) General Ledger
13 80 (2.05%) Financial Institution
14 79 (2.03%) Investment Banking
15 72 (1.85%) Billing
16 70 (1.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 54 (1.39%) Marketing
18 53 (1.36%) Presentation Skills
19 52 (1.34%) Telecoms
20 49 (1.26%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 526 (13.51%) Analyst
2 423 (10.86%) Lead
3 361 (9.27%) Senior
4 326 (8.37%) Project Manager
5 313 (8.04%) Architect
6 287 (7.37%) Developer
7 261 (6.70%) Consultant
8 245 (6.29%) Business Analyst
9 174 (4.47%) Accountant
10 137 (3.52%) Solutions Architect
11 105 (2.70%) Systems Accountant
12 100 (2.57%) IT Manager
13 97 (2.49%) Senior Manager
14 88 (2.26%) Financial Analyst
15 83 (2.13%) Java Developer
16 73 (1.87%) Administrator
16 73 (1.87%) Programme Manager
17 70 (1.80%) Finance Manager
18 67 (1.72%) Data Analyst
19 64 (1.64%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 151 (3.88%) Oracle Fusion
2 82 (2.11%) REST
3 81 (2.08%) Middleware
4 62 (1.59%) Kafka
5 61 (1.57%) Spring Boot
6 60 (1.54%) Spring
7 59 (1.52%) .NET
8 58 (1.49%) React
9 36 (0.92%) OAuth
9 36 (0.92%) RESTful
10 33 (0.85%) Node.js
11 31 (0.80%) XML
12 29 (0.74%) JSON
13 27 (0.69%) SAP Fiori
14 25 (0.64%) OpenID
14 25 (0.64%) SAML
15 22 (0.56%) Redux
15 22 (0.56%) SailPoint
16 21 (0.54%) HTML
17 19 (0.49%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 156 (4.01%) Product Ownership
2 154 (3.95%) Onboarding
3 149 (3.83%) Cloud Native
4 125 (3.21%) Virtual Team
5 112 (2.88%) Management Information System
6 108 (2.77%) Legacy Systems
7 102 (2.62%) Data Protection Act
8 79 (2.03%) Podcast
8 79 (2.03%) Web Conferencing
9 71 (1.82%) Data Structures
10 57 (1.46%) Public Cloud
11 56 (1.44%) Data Centre
12 53 (1.36%) Mainframe
13 52 (1.34%) Security Posture
14 48 (1.23%) Distributed Systems
15 39 (1.00%) AI Agents
16 38 (0.98%) Greenfield Project
16 38 (0.98%) Self-Motivation
17 36 (0.92%) Mobile App
18 34 (0.87%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 122 (3.13%) Windows
2 110 (2.82%) Linux
3 63 (1.62%) Unix
4 30 (0.77%) Windows Server
5 29 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 26 (0.67%) Solaris
6 26 (0.67%) zOS
7 12 (0.31%) AIX
8 11 (0.28%) Android
9 10 (0.26%) Apple iOS
10 8 (0.21%) Windows 10
11 7 (0.18%) Mac OS
12 5 (0.13%) HPUX
12 5 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
12 5 (0.13%) SUSE
12 5 (0.13%) VMS
13 4 (0.10%) MVS
14 3 (0.077%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.026%) Check Point GAiA
15 1 (0.026%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 927 (23.81%) Stakeholder Management
2 713 (18.31%) Agile
3 546 (14.02%) Continuous Improvement
4 543 (13.94%) Problem-Solving
5 530 (13.61%) Migration
6 523 (13.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 514 (13.20%) ERP
8 361 (9.27%) Decision-Making
9 358 (9.19%) Project Management
10 350 (8.99%) DevOps
11 348 (8.94%) CI/CD
12 345 (8.86%) AI
13 343 (8.81%) Change Management
14 312 (8.01%) Project Delivery
15 288 (7.40%) Roadmaps
16 284 (7.29%) User Acceptance Testing
17 277 (7.11%) Validation
18 270 (6.93%) Risk Management
19 267 (6.86%) Analytics
20 243 (6.24%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 329 (8.45%) SQL
2 311 (7.99%) Python
3 215 (5.52%) Java
4 70 (1.80%) PowerShell
5 56 (1.44%) C#
6 52 (1.34%) JavaScript
7 50 (1.28%) Bash
8 38 (0.98%) PL/SQL
9 37 (0.95%) TypeScript
10 33 (0.85%) Shell Script
11 23 (0.59%) C++
11 23 (0.59%) Go
12 16 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 14 (0.36%) T-SQL
14 13 (0.33%) ABAP
15 11 (0.28%) Bicep
15 11 (0.28%) PHP
15 11 (0.28%) VBA
16 10 (0.26%) Kotlin
17 9 (0.23%) Perl
Qualifications
1 370 (9.50%) Security Cleared
2 284 (7.29%) Degree
3 223 (5.73%) SC Cleared
4 143 (3.67%) BPSS Clearance
5 116 (2.98%) ACCA
6 113 (2.90%) CIMA
7 103 (2.65%) PMP
8 91 (2.34%) DV Cleared
9 89 (2.29%) PMI Certification
10 71 (1.82%) CISSP
11 40 (1.03%) CISM
12 33 (0.85%) AWS Certification
12 33 (0.85%) Azure Certification
13 32 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
14 31 (0.80%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 29 (0.74%) Computer Science Degree
16 23 (0.59%) ITIL Certification
17 22 (0.56%) Master's Degree
18 20 (0.51%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 20 (0.51%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 225 (5.78%) Data Quality
2 182 (4.67%) PMO
3 139 (3.57%) QA
4 137 (3.52%) GDPR
5 50 (1.28%) SLA
6 47 (1.21%) GRC
6 47 (1.21%) NIST
7 35 (0.90%) IFRS
7 35 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 33 (0.85%) Accessibility
8 33 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 21 (0.54%) PCI DSS
10 13 (0.33%) SOC 2
11 11 (0.28%) GAAP
12 10 (0.26%) EMIR
12 10 (0.26%) ISO 20022
13 9 (0.23%) IFRS 17
14 7 (0.18%) NCSC
14 7 (0.18%) Solvency II
14 7 (0.18%) WCAG
System Software
1 75 (1.93%) Active Directory
2 73 (1.87%) Docker
3 38 (0.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.54%) RACF
5 16 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
6 11 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
8 9 (0.23%) vSphere
9 6 (0.15%) Hyper-V
10 5 (0.13%) GPFS
10 5 (0.13%) NFS
11 4 (0.10%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.10%) zsh
12 3 (0.077%) ACF2
13 2 (0.051%) KVM
13 2 (0.051%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.051%) SRDF
14 1 (0.026%) Firmware
14 1 (0.026%) Job Entry Subsystem
14 1 (0.026%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 163 (4.19%) Kubernetes
2 107 (2.75%) Terraform
3 72 (1.85%) Ansible
4 31 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (0.67%) Grafana
5 26 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
6 19 (0.49%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.46%) OMEGAMON
8 15 (0.39%) Progress Chef
8 15 (0.39%) SCCM
9 10 (0.26%) Control-M
10 9 (0.23%) Argo
10 9 (0.23%) Istio
10 9 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
11 7 (0.18%) CASB
11 7 (0.18%) HP ALM
11 7 (0.18%) Nessus
11 7 (0.18%) vRealize
12 6 (0.15%) Kustomize
12 6 (0.15%) Puppet
Vendors
1 526 (13.51%) Microsoft
2 401 (10.30%) SAP
3 387 (9.94%) Oracle
4 174 (4.47%) ServiceNow
5 107 (2.75%) Google
6 85 (2.18%) IBM
7 78 (2.00%) Databricks
8 59 (1.52%) Salesforce
9 56 (1.44%) VMware
10 51 (1.31%) Sage
11 43 (1.10%) Cisco
12 37 (0.95%) Workday
13 32 (0.82%) IFS
13 32 (0.82%) Splunk
14 31 (0.80%) Ariba
15 23 (0.59%) MuleSoft
15 23 (0.59%) Red Hat
16 20 (0.51%) HP
16 20 (0.51%) Sybase
17 19 (0.49%) CyberArk