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 16 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 5 6
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 +1
Contract jobs citing Finance 3,881 2,567 2,805
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 14.43% 17.38% 13.57%
As % of the General category 28.08% 28.55% 25.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,339 1,671 1,706
10th Percentile £340 £309 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £493 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.52% -1.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £624
90th Percentile £700 £675 £738
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £575
% change year-on-year - -4.35% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 197 74 198
10th Percentile £14.82 £15.00 £12.79
25th Percentile £20.31 £17.61 £15.86
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.39 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +60.51% -21.75% -13.42%
75th Percentile £50.00 £60.00 £38.12
90th Percentile £85.00 £75.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £32.31 £33.00
% change year-on-year +36.06% -2.09% +1.54%

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 13,822 8,992 11,146
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 51.39% 60.88% 53.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,777 5,444 6,278
10th Percentile £268 £213 £209
25th Percentile £400 £360 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £470 £490
Median % change year-on-year +6.38% -4.08% -2.00%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £652 £688
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,734 783 1,604
10th Percentile £13.96 £13.08 £12.79
25th Percentile £17.64 £15.33 £15.50
Median hourly rate £33.25 £22.63 £31.97
Median % change year-on-year +46.93% -29.21% +22.96%
75th Percentile £65.00 £50.00 £55.25
90th Percentile £82.25 £73.50 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £33.06 £26.29 £32.50
% change year-on-year +25.75% -19.11% +6.42%

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 16 July 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 16 July 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 16 July 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 1,301 £500 +6.61% 678
South East 0 731 £500 -4.76% 816
North West +2 682 £488 +8.33% 350
Midlands +1 662 £500 +11.11% 412
Yorkshire 0 566 £525 +7.69% 251
Scotland 0 496 £475 -2.96% 138
West Midlands +1 489 £500 +2.88% 227
South West -4 380 £525 -4.55% 275
East of England +5 208 £530 -7.83% 195
East Midlands -1 165 £500 +17.65% 183
Wales +4 86 £525 +13.51% 57
Northern Ireland -1 64 £475 +5.56% 84
North East -18 54 £500 +13.96% 85
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
1 154 (3.97%) Confluence
2 93 (2.40%) SharePoint
3 17 (0.44%) Apache Spark
4 15 (0.39%) Oracle Workflow
5 14 (0.36%) Apache
6 13 (0.33%) CMS
7 12 (0.31%) SAS
8 11 (0.28%) CICS
9 9 (0.23%) Microsoft Exchange
10 7 (0.18%) IIS
11 6 (0.15%) WebSphere
12 5 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.13%) WebLogic
13 4 (0.10%) Apache Airflow
13 4 (0.10%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.077%) Oracle Coherence
15 2 (0.052%) JBoss
15 2 (0.052%) Mule
15 2 (0.052%) Mule ESB
15 2 (0.052%) nginx
Applications
1 239 (6.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 108 (2.78%) Microsoft Office
3 90 (2.32%) Microsoft Project
4 78 (2.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 44 (1.13%) MS Visio
6 34 (0.88%) Spreadsheet
7 6 (0.15%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 6 (0.15%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.077%) Trello
9 2 (0.052%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.052%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.052%) EngageOne
9 2 (0.052%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.026%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.026%) Maple
10 1 (0.026%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.026%) Oracle Smart View
10 1 (0.026%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 205 (5.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 44 (1.13%) Oracle Payables
3 41 (1.06%) NetSuite
3 41 (1.06%) Oracle ERP
4 39 (1.00%) Oracle Receivables
5 35 (0.90%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 21 (0.54%) Oracle General Ledger
7 20 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
7 20 (0.52%) Unit4 Business World
8 19 (0.49%) SAP GRC
9 18 (0.46%) SAP FI
10 16 (0.41%) SAP PSCD
11 14 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
12 13 (0.33%) NEC Housing
13 12 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
13 12 (0.31%) SAP BRIM
14 11 (0.28%) SAP Hybris
15 10 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
15 10 (0.26%) Oracle Cash Management
15 10 (0.26%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 477 (12.29%) Azure
2 331 (8.53%) AWS
3 223 (5.75%) Power Platform
4 210 (5.41%) GCP
5 106 (2.73%) SaaS
6 92 (2.37%) Azure DevOps
7 88 (2.27%) GitHub
7 88 (2.27%) Microsoft 365
8 76 (1.96%) Dynamics 365
9 71 (1.83%) Entra ID
10 45 (1.16%) OpenShift
10 45 (1.16%) Snowflake
11 40 (1.03%) Serverless
12 39 (1.00%) OCI
13 38 (0.98%) Microsoft Copilot
14 25 (0.64%) PowerApps
15 24 (0.62%) Amazon S3
16 23 (0.59%) Google Kubernetes Engine
16 23 (0.59%) Power Automate
17 22 (0.57%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 86 (2.22%) Firewall
2 65 (1.67%) Network Security
3 40 (1.03%) VPN
4 39 (1.00%) DNS
5 28 (0.72%) WAN
6 26 (0.67%) SSL
7 24 (0.62%) TCP/IP
8 19 (0.49%) LAN
9 14 (0.36%) DHCP
10 11 (0.28%) VSAN
11 10 (0.26%) SD-WAN
11 10 (0.26%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (0.23%) BGP
12 9 (0.23%) MPLS
13 8 (0.21%) Internet
14 6 (0.15%) Cisco Nexus
15 5 (0.13%) BIG-IP
15 5 (0.13%) Cisco ASA
15 5 (0.13%) Intranet
15 5 (0.13%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 183 (4.72%) Power BI
2 80 (2.06%) Data Warehouse
3 75 (1.93%) Relational Database
4 68 (1.75%) Metadata
5 61 (1.57%) SQL Server
6 59 (1.52%) PostgreSQL
7 52 (1.34%) Oracle Reports
8 38 (0.98%) Data Lake
9 34 (0.88%) Tableau
10 28 (0.72%) MongoDB
11 27 (0.70%) NoSQL
12 24 (0.62%) Snowflake Schema
13 23 (0.59%) Db2
13 23 (0.59%) Oracle ODI
14 22 (0.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 19 (0.49%) Data Vault
16 18 (0.46%) DynamoDB
16 18 (0.46%) Oracle Database
17 16 (0.41%) Power Query
18 14 (0.36%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 265 (6.83%) JIRA
2 93 (2.40%) Git
3 66 (1.70%) Jenkins
4 27 (0.70%) JUnit
5 19 (0.49%) Selenium
6 18 (0.46%) Cucumber
7 17 (0.44%) Sonatype Nexus
8 16 (0.41%) GitLab
9 14 (0.36%) Hudson
10 13 (0.33%) SonarQube
11 12 (0.31%) Postman
12 9 (0.23%) Oracle Forms
13 8 (0.21%) Gradle
13 8 (0.21%) Maven
14 7 (0.18%) ERwin
14 7 (0.18%) Liquibase
14 7 (0.18%) Visual Studio
15 6 (0.15%) Bitbucket
15 6 (0.15%) Claude Code
15 6 (0.15%) IntelliJ
General
1 1,245 (32.08%) Social Skills
2 535 (13.79%) Analytical Skills
3 533 (13.73%) Banking
4 294 (7.58%) Public Sector
5 208 (5.36%) Legal
6 189 (4.87%) Organisational Skills
7 136 (3.50%) Retail
8 115 (2.96%) Influencing Skills
9 114 (2.94%) Local Government
9 114 (2.94%) Manufacturing
10 101 (2.60%) Documentation Skills
11 86 (2.22%) Financial Institution
12 83 (2.14%) General Ledger
13 81 (2.09%) Investment Banking
14 72 (1.86%) Billing
15 61 (1.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 56 (1.44%) Telecoms
17 54 (1.39%) Marketing
18 48 (1.24%) Aerospace
19 46 (1.19%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 536 (13.81%) Analyst
2 394 (10.15%) Lead
3 354 (9.12%) Senior
4 337 (8.68%) Project Manager
5 333 (8.58%) Architect
6 292 (7.52%) Developer
7 253 (6.52%) Business Analyst
8 243 (6.26%) Consultant
9 174 (4.48%) Accountant
10 144 (3.71%) Solutions Architect
11 108 (2.78%) Systems Accountant
12 103 (2.65%) Senior Manager
13 101 (2.60%) IT Manager
14 89 (2.29%) Financial Analyst
15 88 (2.27%) Programme Manager
16 85 (2.19%) Java Developer
17 72 (1.86%) Finance Manager
18 66 (1.70%) Administrator
19 65 (1.67%) Data Engineer
20 64 (1.65%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (3.48%) Oracle Fusion
2 89 (2.29%) Middleware
3 88 (2.27%) REST
4 70 (1.80%) Kafka
5 68 (1.75%) Spring
6 67 (1.73%) Spring Boot
7 61 (1.57%) React
8 57 (1.47%) .NET
9 42 (1.08%) RESTful
10 37 (0.95%) OAuth
11 33 (0.85%) JSON
12 31 (0.80%) Node.js
13 27 (0.70%) OpenID
13 27 (0.70%) SAP Fiori
13 27 (0.70%) XML
14 25 (0.64%) SailPoint
15 23 (0.59%) Redux
16 22 (0.57%) AngularJS
17 21 (0.54%) HTML
18 20 (0.52%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 156 (4.02%) Product Ownership
2 151 (3.89%) Onboarding
3 145 (3.74%) Cloud Native
4 117 (3.01%) Management Information System
5 109 (2.81%) Data Protection Act
6 107 (2.76%) Legacy Systems
7 103 (2.65%) Virtual Team
8 71 (1.83%) Data Centre
9 70 (1.80%) Public Cloud
10 69 (1.78%) Data Structures
11 55 (1.42%) Web Conferencing
12 54 (1.39%) Podcast
13 52 (1.34%) Mainframe
14 50 (1.29%) Distributed Systems
15 49 (1.26%) Security Posture
16 44 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
17 33 (0.85%) Greenfield Project
18 32 (0.82%) Analytical Mindset
19 29 (0.75%) AI Agents
20 28 (0.72%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 121 (3.12%) Windows
2 106 (2.73%) Linux
3 63 (1.62%) Unix
4 31 (0.80%) Windows Server
5 28 (0.72%) Solaris
6 26 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 25 (0.64%) zOS
8 14 (0.36%) AIX
9 10 (0.26%) Android
10 9 (0.23%) Apple iOS
10 9 (0.23%) Windows 10
11 7 (0.18%) Mac OS
12 6 (0.15%) VMS
13 5 (0.13%) HPUX
13 5 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
13 5 (0.13%) SUSE
13 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
14 4 (0.10%) MVS
15 3 (0.077%) Windows Server 2019
16 1 (0.026%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 898 (23.14%) Stakeholder Management
2 712 (18.35%) Agile
3 565 (14.56%) Problem-Solving
4 548 (14.12%) Migration
5 540 (13.91%) Continuous Improvement
6 529 (13.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 502 (12.93%) ERP
8 386 (9.95%) Project Management
9 364 (9.38%) DevOps
10 357 (9.20%) Change Management
11 356 (9.17%) Decision-Making
12 351 (9.04%) CI/CD
13 317 (8.17%) AI
13 317 (8.17%) Project Delivery
14 296 (7.63%) User Acceptance Testing
15 289 (7.45%) Roadmaps
16 274 (7.06%) Validation
17 266 (6.85%) Risk Management
18 252 (6.49%) Analytics
19 237 (6.11%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 347 (8.94%) SQL
2 301 (7.76%) Python
3 223 (5.75%) Java
4 74 (1.91%) PowerShell
5 56 (1.44%) C#
6 46 (1.19%) JavaScript
7 42 (1.08%) Bash
8 39 (1.00%) PL/SQL
9 35 (0.90%) TypeScript
10 27 (0.70%) Shell Script
11 25 (0.64%) Go
12 20 (0.52%) C++
13 16 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 14 (0.36%) VBA
15 12 (0.31%) T-SQL
16 11 (0.28%) COBOL
16 11 (0.28%) Kotlin
17 10 (0.26%) ABAP
17 10 (0.26%) PHP
18 9 (0.23%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 359 (9.25%) Security Cleared
2 294 (7.58%) Degree
3 221 (5.69%) SC Cleared
4 135 (3.48%) BPSS Clearance
5 124 (3.20%) ACCA
6 120 (3.09%) CIMA
7 113 (2.91%) PMP
8 99 (2.55%) PMI Certification
9 72 (1.86%) CISSP
10 69 (1.78%) DV Cleared
11 43 (1.11%) CISM
12 37 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
13 35 (0.90%) AWS Certification
14 33 (0.85%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 31 (0.80%) Azure Certification
16 28 (0.72%) Cisco Certification
17 24 (0.62%) Master's Degree
18 23 (0.59%) ITIL Certification
19 21 (0.54%) DBS Check
20 17 (0.44%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 212 (5.46%) Data Quality
2 171 (4.41%) PMO
3 145 (3.74%) QA
4 141 (3.63%) GDPR
5 51 (1.31%) NIST
6 48 (1.24%) GRC
7 47 (1.21%) SLA
8 37 (0.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 36 (0.93%) IFRS
10 33 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 31 (0.80%) Accessibility
12 28 (0.72%) PCI DSS
13 16 (0.41%) ISO 20022
14 13 (0.33%) SOC 2
15 12 (0.31%) GAAP
16 10 (0.26%) EMIR
17 9 (0.23%) IFRS 17
17 9 (0.23%) NCSC
18 8 (0.21%) PSD2
18 8 (0.21%) SEPA
System Software
1 84 (2.16%) Docker
2 77 (1.98%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.54%) RACF
5 18 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
6 14 (0.36%) vSphere
7 13 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
8 12 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.18%) Hyper-V
10 6 (0.15%) VMware NSX
11 5 (0.13%) GPFS
11 5 (0.13%) NFS
12 4 (0.10%) KVM
13 3 (0.077%) ACF2
14 2 (0.052%) Oracle RAC
14 2 (0.052%) SRDF
14 2 (0.052%) zsh
15 1 (0.026%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
15 1 (0.026%) Job Entry Subsystem
15 1 (0.026%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 167 (4.30%) Kubernetes
2 104 (2.68%) Terraform
3 81 (2.09%) Ansible
4 36 (0.93%) Grafana
5 32 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
6 29 (0.75%) Prometheus
7 23 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.46%) SCCM
9 17 (0.44%) OMEGAMON
10 12 (0.31%) Control-M
10 12 (0.31%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.28%) Argo
11 11 (0.28%) Istio
12 10 (0.26%) Nessus
13 9 (0.23%) HP ALM
13 9 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
14 7 (0.18%) vRealize
15 6 (0.15%) Kustomize
15 6 (0.15%) vCenter Server
16 5 (0.13%) CEMLI
Vendors
1 490 (12.63%) Microsoft
2 400 (10.31%) SAP
3 367 (9.46%) Oracle
4 164 (4.23%) ServiceNow
5 105 (2.71%) Google
6 81 (2.09%) IBM
7 76 (1.96%) Databricks
8 63 (1.62%) VMware
9 55 (1.42%) Sage
10 49 (1.26%) Salesforce
11 45 (1.16%) Cisco
11 45 (1.16%) Splunk
12 34 (0.88%) IFS
13 31 (0.80%) Ariba
14 29 (0.75%) Workday
15 23 (0.59%) Red Hat
16 22 (0.57%) HP
17 21 (0.54%) MuleSoft
18 19 (0.49%) Adobe
18 19 (0.49%) Sybase