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 11 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 +3 +2
Contract jobs citing Finance 3,010 2,237 2,686
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 15.18% 16.64% 12.86%
As % of the General category 27.11% 27.23% 23.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,917 1,298 1,784
10th Percentile £313 £305 £282
25th Percentile £405 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -1.44%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £613
90th Percentile £688 £694 £715
UK median daily rate £525 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -8.70% - -2.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 141 61 127
10th Percentile £13.95 £17.25 £11.72
25th Percentile £16.50 £22.50 £13.31
Median hourly rate £22.00 £27.13 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.89% +39.10% -41.86%
75th Percentile £25.00 £60.00 £44.74
90th Percentile £54.00 £78.47 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £23.50 £30.00 £20.25
% change year-on-year -21.67% +48.15% -19.00%

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 11,103 8,215 11,586
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 56.00% 61.10% 55.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,806 4,730 6,976
10th Percentile £204 £210 £205
25th Percentile £363 £356 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £594
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,197 455 1,333
10th Percentile £13.50 £15.14 £12.54
25th Percentile £16.00 £18.51 £15.00
Median hourly rate £21.80 £27.13 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.63% +13.02% -1.03%
75th Percentile £46.00 £57.50 £53.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £72.50 £66.25
UK median hourly rate £22.83 £29.00 £25.22
% change year-on-year -21.28% +15.01% -3.02%

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 11 February 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 11 February 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 11 February 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 +2 965 £475 -2.56% 619
South East -1 560 £500 -4.76% 1,011
Midlands -3 537 £485 -3.39% 385
North West +3 484 £450 -5.26% 338
Yorkshire 0 432 £513 -2.38% 218
Scotland 0 380 £475 +1.33% 135
West Midlands -3 339 £500 -9.09% 237
South West -6 299 £525 -0.47% 278
East Midlands 0 196 £449 +5.59% 147
East of England -1 180 £525 - 215
Wales +33 92 £413 +1.54% 70
Northern Ireland -1 53 £513 +57.69% 33
North East -6 50 £481 +6.94% 75
Channel Islands +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
1 161 (5.35%) Confluence
2 108 (3.59%) SharePoint
3 36 (1.20%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.86%) Apache
5 25 (0.83%) Apache Spark
6 19 (0.63%) SAS
7 13 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
8 11 (0.37%) CMS
8 11 (0.37%) TPMS
9 9 (0.30%) CICS
10 7 (0.23%) Mattermost
10 7 (0.23%) Skype for Business
11 6 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 6 (0.20%) JBoss
12 5 (0.17%) IIS
13 4 (0.13%) Ethereum
13 4 (0.13%) Hyperledger
13 4 (0.13%) iPlanet
13 4 (0.13%) WebSphere
13 4 (0.13%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 242 (8.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 162 (5.38%) Microsoft Office
3 115 (3.82%) Microsoft Project
4 89 (2.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 53 (1.76%) MS Visio
6 22 (0.73%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.53%) Sketch
8 11 (0.37%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.23%) Chatbot
9 7 (0.23%) InVision
10 6 (0.20%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.20%) Trello
11 4 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
12 3 (0.100%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.033%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.033%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 129 (4.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 54 (1.79%) Oracle Payables
3 46 (1.53%) Oracle Receivables
4 36 (1.20%) Oracle EBS
4 36 (1.20%) Oracle General Ledger
5 31 (1.03%) SAP FI
6 30 (1.00%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 29 (0.96%) Oracle Assets
7 29 (0.96%) Oracle Cash Management
8 22 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
8 22 (0.73%) SAP CO
9 21 (0.70%) Oracle EBS R12
9 21 (0.70%) SAP FI/CO
10 17 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
10 17 (0.56%) SAP BRIM
10 17 (0.56%) SAP Hybris
10 17 (0.56%) SAP PSCD
11 14 (0.47%) SAP ERP
12 13 (0.43%) Oracle AGIS
13 12 (0.40%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 395 (13.12%) AWS
2 386 (12.82%) Azure
3 178 (5.91%) Power Platform
4 176 (5.85%) GCP
5 129 (4.29%) Microsoft 365
6 83 (2.76%) Dynamics 365
7 79 (2.62%) GitHub
8 74 (2.46%) Serverless
9 67 (2.23%) SaaS
10 62 (2.06%) Azure DevOps
11 60 (1.99%) Entra ID
12 41 (1.36%) AWS CloudFormation
12 41 (1.36%) OpenShift
13 39 (1.30%) OCI
14 36 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
14 36 (1.20%) Snowflake
15 34 (1.13%) Figma
16 31 (1.03%) Amazon S3
17 29 (0.96%) GitHub Actions
17 29 (0.96%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 70 (2.33%) Firewall
2 35 (1.16%) WAN
3 24 (0.80%) DNS
3 24 (0.80%) Skype
3 24 (0.80%) VPN
4 22 (0.73%) Network Security
4 22 (0.73%) Wireless
5 18 (0.60%) LAN
6 16 (0.53%) SD-WAN
7 15 (0.50%) SSH
7 15 (0.50%) SSL
8 13 (0.43%) DHCP
8 13 (0.43%) Kerberos
9 11 (0.37%) Internet
9 11 (0.37%) SNMP
9 11 (0.37%) TCP/IP
10 8 (0.27%) Cisco IOS
11 7 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
12 6 (0.20%) BGP
12 6 (0.20%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 168 (5.58%) Power BI
2 78 (2.59%) PostgreSQL
3 73 (2.43%) Data Warehouse
4 65 (2.16%) NoSQL
5 51 (1.69%) Relational Database
6 38 (1.26%) Tableau
7 35 (1.16%) Metadata
8 31 (1.03%) SQL Server
9 26 (0.86%) Big Data
10 25 (0.83%) Oracle Reports
11 24 (0.80%) Data Lake
11 24 (0.80%) DynamoDB
12 19 (0.63%) BigQuery
12 19 (0.63%) Power Query
13 18 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.53%) MongoDB
14 16 (0.53%) MySQL
14 16 (0.53%) Oracle Database
15 14 (0.47%) Hadoop
16 12 (0.40%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 293 (9.73%) JIRA
2 146 (4.85%) Jenkins
3 88 (2.92%) GitLab
4 62 (2.06%) Git
5 39 (1.30%) JUnit
6 38 (1.26%) Sonatype Nexus
7 37 (1.23%) Cucumber
8 25 (0.83%) Selenium
9 24 (0.80%) Bitbucket
10 22 (0.73%) Liquibase
11 14 (0.47%) Gradle
11 14 (0.47%) Postman
12 12 (0.40%) REST Assured
13 11 (0.37%) Maven
14 10 (0.33%) JMeter
15 9 (0.30%) Cypress.io
16 8 (0.27%) Hudson
16 8 (0.27%) Jaeger
17 7 (0.23%) SonarQube
18 6 (0.20%) Snyk
General
1 1,125 (37.38%) Social Skills
2 510 (16.94%) Banking
3 374 (12.43%) Analytical Skills
4 350 (11.63%) Public Sector
5 187 (6.21%) Manufacturing
6 174 (5.78%) Telecoms
7 160 (5.32%) Marketing
8 124 (4.12%) Organisational Skills
9 118 (3.92%) Electronics
10 104 (3.46%) Financial Institution
11 93 (3.09%) Legal
12 89 (2.96%) Documentation Skills
13 64 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
14 61 (2.03%) Local Government
15 60 (1.99%) General Ledger
16 56 (1.86%) Retail
17 49 (1.63%) Billing
17 49 (1.63%) Investment Banking
18 47 (1.56%) Presentation Skills
19 32 (1.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 466 (15.48%) Analyst
2 283 (9.40%) Project Manager
3 241 (8.01%) Architect
4 226 (7.51%) Senior
5 206 (6.84%) Business Analyst
5 206 (6.84%) Lead
6 205 (6.81%) Developer
7 204 (6.78%) Consultant
8 104 (3.46%) Solutions Architect
9 101 (3.36%) Programme Manager
10 81 (2.69%) Data Analyst
11 62 (2.06%) Senior Manager
12 61 (2.03%) Finance Manager
13 58 (1.93%) SAP Consultant
14 56 (1.86%) Designer
15 55 (1.83%) Accountant
15 55 (1.83%) Java Developer
16 54 (1.79%) Functional Consultant
17 50 (1.66%) Administrator
17 50 (1.66%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 128 (4.25%) REST
2 89 (2.96%) Spring
3 81 (2.69%) Spring Boot
4 78 (2.59%) RESTful
5 65 (2.16%) Kafka
6 59 (1.96%) Oracle Fusion
7 49 (1.63%) .NET
8 45 (1.50%) Middleware
8 45 (1.50%) React
9 38 (1.26%) Node.js
10 35 (1.16%) SOAP
11 33 (1.10%) Elastic Stack
11 33 (1.10%) JSON
12 30 (1.00%) OAuth
13 29 (0.96%) AngularJS
14 28 (0.93%) HTML
15 24 (0.80%) CSS
16 23 (0.76%) OpenTelemetry
16 23 (0.76%) XML
17 19 (0.63%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 145 (4.82%) Onboarding
2 132 (4.39%) Product Ownership
3 97 (3.22%) Cloud Native
4 86 (2.86%) Data Centre
5 71 (2.36%) Distributed Systems
5 71 (2.36%) Management Information System
5 71 (2.36%) Public Cloud
6 66 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
7 59 (1.96%) Legacy Systems
8 43 (1.43%) Analytical Mindset
9 35 (1.16%) Data Structures
10 34 (1.13%) Mobile App
10 34 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
11 33 (1.10%) CMDB
12 31 (1.03%) PMI
12 31 (1.03%) Virtual Team
13 23 (0.76%) SWIFT Messaging Network
14 22 (0.73%) Mainframe
14 22 (0.73%) NHS
15 21 (0.70%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 131 (4.35%) Linux
2 121 (4.02%) Windows
3 43 (1.43%) Mac OS
4 40 (1.33%) Windows 10
5 38 (1.26%) Unix
6 30 (1.00%) Android
7 18 (0.60%) Windows Server
8 9 (0.30%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.17%) AIX
9 5 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.17%) Solaris
9 5 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.13%) VMS
10 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.066%) zOS
12 1 (0.033%) Kali Linux
12 1 (0.033%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 689 (22.89%) Agile
2 573 (19.04%) Stakeholder Management
3 508 (16.88%) Problem-Solving
4 399 (13.26%) Migration
5 390 (12.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 358 (11.89%) Project Management
7 326 (10.83%) DevOps
8 321 (10.66%) Business Intelligence
9 312 (10.37%) Continuous Improvement
9 312 (10.37%) ERP
10 305 (10.13%) CI/CD
11 263 (8.74%) Change Management
12 223 (7.41%) Project Delivery
13 222 (7.38%) Programme Management
14 215 (7.14%) Decision-Making
15 205 (6.81%) Analytics
16 203 (6.74%) Roadmaps
17 193 (6.41%) User Acceptance Testing
18 181 (6.01%) Data Modelling
19 179 (5.95%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 340 (11.30%) SQL
2 292 (9.70%) Python
3 202 (6.71%) Java
4 82 (2.72%) PowerShell
5 43 (1.43%) TypeScript
6 42 (1.40%) JavaScript
7 37 (1.23%) C#
8 36 (1.20%) Go
9 23 (0.76%) Bash
9 23 (0.76%) PL/SQL
10 21 (0.70%) Shell Script
11 18 (0.60%) R
11 18 (0.60%) VBA
12 12 (0.40%) Perl
13 11 (0.37%) COBOL
13 11 (0.37%) Rust
14 9 (0.30%) Ruby
15 7 (0.23%) ABAP
15 7 (0.23%) C++
15 7 (0.23%) VB
Qualifications
1 329 (10.93%) Degree
2 288 (9.57%) Security Cleared
3 196 (6.51%) SC Cleared
4 77 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
4 77 (2.56%) PMP
5 75 (2.49%) Master's Degree
5 75 (2.49%) PMI Certification
6 72 (2.39%) ACCA
7 71 (2.36%) Computer Science Degree
8 65 (2.16%) CIMA
9 53 (1.76%) DV Cleared
10 49 (1.63%) AWS Certification
11 45 (1.50%) CISSP
12 39 (1.30%) CISM
13 33 (1.10%) ITIL Certification
14 22 (0.73%) TOGAF Certification
15 17 (0.56%) MBA
15 17 (0.56%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 16 (0.53%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 14 (0.47%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 153 (5.08%) PMO
2 139 (4.62%) QA
3 117 (3.89%) Data Quality
4 108 (3.59%) GDPR
5 53 (1.76%) NIST
6 50 (1.66%) PCI DSS
7 47 (1.56%) SLA
8 43 (1.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 37 (1.23%) Accessibility
10 34 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 29 (0.96%) ISO 20022
12 26 (0.86%) PSD2
13 24 (0.80%) IFRS
14 20 (0.66%) GRC
15 17 (0.56%) SEPA
16 15 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
17 13 (0.43%) Basel III
18 11 (0.37%) GAAP
18 11 (0.37%) GLBA
19 10 (0.33%) NCSC
System Software
1 133 (4.42%) Docker
2 105 (3.49%) Active Directory
3 33 (1.10%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
5 17 (0.56%) vSphere
6 10 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.30%) GPFS
8 8 (0.27%) Hyper-V
8 8 (0.27%) NFS
9 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
11 4 (0.13%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.100%) HDFS
12 3 (0.100%) Tivoli Directory Server
12 3 (0.100%) VMware NSX
13 2 (0.066%) ACF2
13 2 (0.066%) Firmware
13 2 (0.066%) KVM
13 2 (0.066%) RACF
13 2 (0.066%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 164 (5.45%) Kubernetes
2 100 (3.32%) Terraform
3 86 (2.86%) Ansible
4 62 (2.06%) Grafana
5 57 (1.89%) Prometheus
6 23 (0.76%) SCCM
7 16 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
8 15 (0.50%) Progress Chef
9 10 (0.33%) Jamf Pro
10 9 (0.30%) FortiGate
10 9 (0.30%) vRealize
11 8 (0.27%) Kiali
12 7 (0.23%) HP SiteScope
12 7 (0.23%) SCOM
13 6 (0.20%) Control-M
13 6 (0.20%) Nessus
14 5 (0.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 5 (0.17%) HP ALM
14 5 (0.17%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 468 (15.55%) Microsoft
2 378 (12.56%) SAP
3 245 (8.14%) Oracle
4 153 (5.08%) ServiceNow
5 90 (2.99%) Splunk
6 84 (2.79%) Cisco
6 84 (2.79%) Google
7 50 (1.66%) VMware
8 49 (1.63%) IBM
9 46 (1.53%) Salesforce
10 40 (1.33%) Workday
11 38 (1.26%) Databricks
12 34 (1.13%) HP
13 33 (1.10%) Dell
14 29 (0.96%) Apple
14 29 (0.96%) Sage
15 26 (0.86%) Citrix
16 25 (0.83%) Adobe
17 21 (0.70%) Remedy
18 18 (0.60%) Ariba