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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 5 6
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 +1
Contract jobs citing Finance 3,325 2,217 2,642
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 14.33% 17.45% 12.68%
As % of the General category 27.73% 28.06% 23.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,075 1,414 1,645
10th Percentile £325 £305 £281
25th Percentile £405 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £625
90th Percentile £688 £675 £746
UK median daily rate £525 £573 £575
% change year-on-year -8.38% -0.35% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 146 69 194
10th Percentile £13.95 £18.12 £11.91
25th Percentile £17.00 £22.50 £14.13
Median hourly rate £22.20 £52.50 £30.41
Median % change year-on-year -57.72% +72.63% -32.42%
75th Percentile £37.44 £73.75 £38.12
90th Percentile £74.58 £78.47 £52.93
UK median hourly rate £23.83 £39.06 £27.00
% change year-on-year -39.00% +44.65% -16.28%

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 11,991 7,901 11,428
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 51.67% 62.20% 54.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,198 4,889 6,602
10th Percentile £240 £213 £205
25th Percentile £375 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £579 £584 £600
90th Percentile £675 £663 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,347 560 1,607
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.53 £16.95 £15.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £26.42 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.80% +1.61% -16.85%
75th Percentile £60.00 £58.42 £50.00
90th Percentile £79.40 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £28.75 £27.50
% change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -21.43%

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 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 16 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 16 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 1,082 £475 - 618
South East 0 646 £503 -4.74% 903
North West +5 580 £463 -0.54% 327
Midlands -1 578 £475 -5.00% 370
Yorkshire 0 456 £500 +2.30% 216
Scotland 0 394 £500 +4.38% 129
West Midlands 0 382 £490 -6.67% 215
South West -3 331 £525 +5.00% 285
East of England -2 200 £523 -5.00% 233
East Midlands 0 191 £450 +0.67% 152
Wales +23 103 £413 +10.00% 74
North East -9 46 £488 +6.56% 87
Northern Ireland 0 42 £513 +46.43% 49
Channel Islands - 2 £450 - 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
1 153 (4.60%) Confluence
2 109 (3.28%) SharePoint
3 29 (0.87%) Apache Spark
4 25 (0.75%) 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
9 6 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 6 (0.18%) Apache Airflow
9 6 (0.18%) WebLogic
10 5 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.12%) Ethereum
11 4 (0.12%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.090%) Camunda
12 3 (0.090%) IIS
12 3 (0.090%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.060%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.060%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 254 (7.64%) Microsoft Excel
2 131 (3.94%) Microsoft Office
3 113 (3.40%) Microsoft Project
4 86 (2.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 40 (1.20%) MS Visio
6 24 (0.72%) Spreadsheet
7 7 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 6 (0.18%) InVision
8 6 (0.18%) Sketch
9 5 (0.15%) Adobe XD
9 5 (0.15%) Trello
10 4 (0.12%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.060%) AutoCAD
12 1 (0.030%) Adobe Captivate
12 1 (0.030%) MicroStation
12 1 (0.030%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.030%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.030%) UXPin
12 1 (0.030%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 158 (4.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 48 (1.44%) Oracle Payables
3 43 (1.29%) Oracle Receivables
4 41 (1.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 40 (1.20%) Oracle EBS
6 35 (1.05%) Oracle ERP
7 29 (0.87%) Oracle General Ledger
8 28 (0.84%) SAP FI
9 25 (0.75%) Oracle Assets
10 24 (0.72%) NetSuite
11 23 (0.69%) Oracle Cash Management
12 19 (0.57%) Oracle EBS R12
13 18 (0.54%) SAP CO
14 17 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
14 17 (0.51%) SAP FI/CO
15 13 (0.39%) NEC Housing
15 13 (0.39%) SAP ERP
16 12 (0.36%) Remedy ITSM
17 11 (0.33%) Oracle AGIS
17 11 (0.33%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 410 (12.33%) Azure
2 343 (10.32%) AWS
3 207 (6.23%) Power Platform
4 155 (4.66%) GCP
5 115 (3.46%) Microsoft 365
6 93 (2.80%) GitHub
7 82 (2.47%) SaaS
8 80 (2.41%) Azure DevOps
9 69 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
10 57 (1.71%) Entra ID
11 54 (1.62%) Serverless
12 47 (1.41%) OpenShift
13 43 (1.29%) OCI
14 38 (1.14%) Snowflake
15 36 (1.08%) AWS CloudFormation
16 34 (1.02%) AWS Lambda
17 32 (0.96%) GitHub Actions
18 31 (0.93%) Amazon S3
19 28 (0.84%) Microsoft Copilot
20 26 (0.78%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 80 (2.41%) Firewall
2 37 (1.11%) DNS
2 37 (1.11%) Network Security
3 35 (1.05%) WAN
4 31 (0.93%) VPN
5 19 (0.57%) SD-WAN
6 18 (0.54%) Skype
7 16 (0.48%) SSL
7 16 (0.48%) TCP/IP
8 15 (0.45%) LAN
9 12 (0.36%) Internet
10 11 (0.33%) DHCP
11 10 (0.30%) SSH
12 9 (0.27%) MPLS
13 8 (0.24%) Cisco IOS
13 8 (0.24%) SNMP
13 8 (0.24%) VSAN
14 7 (0.21%) Wi-Fi
14 7 (0.21%) Wireless
15 5 (0.15%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 189 (5.68%) Power BI
2 72 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
3 66 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
4 58 (1.74%) Metadata
5 53 (1.59%) Oracle Reports
6 47 (1.41%) Relational Database
7 37 (1.11%) NoSQL
8 36 (1.08%) Tableau
9 35 (1.05%) SQL Server
10 30 (0.90%) DynamoDB
11 24 (0.72%) Big Data
11 24 (0.72%) Data Lake
12 22 (0.66%) Power Query
13 21 (0.63%) Oracle ODI
14 17 (0.51%) MongoDB
15 15 (0.45%) BigQuery
16 13 (0.39%) Snowflake Schema
16 13 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 12 (0.36%) DB2
17 12 (0.36%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 296 (8.90%) JIRA
2 96 (2.89%) Jenkins
3 57 (1.71%) Git
4 47 (1.41%) GitLab
5 36 (1.08%) JUnit
6 31 (0.93%) Sonatype Nexus
7 29 (0.87%) Cucumber
8 21 (0.63%) Selenium
9 14 (0.42%) SonarQube
10 13 (0.39%) Hudson
11 12 (0.36%) Postman
12 11 (0.33%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.24%) Gradle
13 8 (0.24%) Jaeger
13 8 (0.24%) JMeter
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 1,111 (33.41%) Social Skills
2 487 (14.65%) Banking
3 443 (13.32%) Analytical Skills
4 316 (9.50%) Public Sector
5 152 (4.57%) Manufacturing
6 130 (3.91%) Organisational Skills
7 116 (3.49%) Telecoms
8 113 (3.40%) Legal
9 110 (3.31%) Marketing
10 99 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
11 86 (2.59%) Local Government
12 82 (2.47%) Retail
13 75 (2.26%) Financial Institution
13 75 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
14 68 (2.05%) Electronics
15 65 (1.95%) General Ledger
16 49 (1.47%) Investment Banking
17 47 (1.41%) Billing
18 42 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
19 33 (0.99%) Law
Job Titles
1 489 (14.71%) Analyst
2 329 (9.89%) Project Manager
3 296 (8.90%) Architect
4 294 (8.84%) Lead
5 263 (7.91%) Senior
6 231 (6.95%) Consultant
7 222 (6.68%) Business Analyst
8 212 (6.38%) Developer
9 124 (3.73%) Solutions Architect
10 113 (3.40%) Accountant
11 88 (2.65%) Programme Manager
12 86 (2.59%) Senior Manager
13 80 (2.41%) Finance Manager
14 72 (2.17%) Data Analyst
15 66 (1.98%) Systems Accountant
16 62 (1.86%) SAP Consultant
17 61 (1.83%) Data Engineer
18 60 (1.80%) Java Developer
19 56 (1.68%) IT Manager
20 55 (1.65%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (2.68%) REST
2 82 (2.47%) Spring
3 79 (2.38%) Spring Boot
4 73 (2.20%) Oracle Fusion
5 69 (2.08%) Kafka
6 67 (2.02%) Middleware
7 41 (1.23%) RESTful
8 37 (1.11%) .NET
9 35 (1.05%) Node.js
10 34 (1.02%) React
11 31 (0.93%) JSON
12 30 (0.90%) OAuth
13 27 (0.81%) XML
14 25 (0.75%) HTML
15 24 (0.72%) AngularJS
16 23 (0.69%) SOAP
17 22 (0.66%) CSS
18 20 (0.60%) OpenID
18 20 (0.60%) OpenTelemetry
19 19 (0.57%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 147 (4.42%) Onboarding
2 122 (3.67%) Product Ownership
3 104 (3.13%) Cloud Native
4 103 (3.10%) Management Information System
5 81 (2.44%) Data Protection Act
5 81 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
6 80 (2.41%) Data Centre
7 58 (1.74%) Public Cloud
8 52 (1.56%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (1.44%) Data Structures
10 40 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
11 35 (1.05%) Virtual Team
12 34 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
12 34 (1.02%) PMI
13 33 (0.99%) CMDB
13 33 (0.99%) Mainframe
14 30 (0.90%) Mobile App
15 23 (0.69%) Security Posture
16 19 (0.57%) Operational Technology
17 17 (0.51%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 116 (3.49%) Linux
2 106 (3.19%) Windows
3 49 (1.47%) Unix
4 27 (0.81%) Windows 10
5 24 (0.72%) Windows Server
6 20 (0.60%) Android
7 17 (0.51%) Mac OS
8 15 (0.45%) Solaris
9 13 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 11 (0.33%) AIX
11 8 (0.24%) Apple iOS
12 7 (0.21%) zOS
13 5 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
14 4 (0.12%) MVS
14 4 (0.12%) VMS
15 3 (0.090%) HPUX
15 3 (0.090%) Oracle Linux
15 3 (0.090%) SUSE
16 1 (0.030%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 650 (19.55%) Stakeholder Management
2 622 (18.71%) Agile
3 537 (16.15%) Problem-Solving
4 491 (14.77%) Migration
5 447 (13.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 416 (12.51%) ERP
7 405 (12.18%) Project Management
8 394 (11.85%) Continuous Improvement
9 335 (10.08%) DevOps
10 298 (8.96%) Business Intelligence
11 297 (8.93%) CI/CD
12 294 (8.84%) Project Delivery
13 288 (8.66%) Change Management
14 250 (7.52%) Decision-Making
15 237 (7.13%) User Acceptance Testing
16 226 (6.80%) Analytics
17 223 (6.71%) AI
17 223 (6.71%) Roadmaps
18 215 (6.47%) Risk Management
19 214 (6.44%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 328 (9.86%) SQL
2 236 (7.10%) Python
3 202 (6.08%) Java
4 66 (1.98%) PowerShell
5 29 (0.87%) JavaScript
6 28 (0.84%) TypeScript
7 25 (0.75%) Bash
8 22 (0.66%) VBA
9 21 (0.63%) C#
10 17 (0.51%) PL/SQL
11 15 (0.45%) Go
11 15 (0.45%) Shell Script
12 13 (0.39%) C++
13 12 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 12 (0.36%) Kotlin
14 11 (0.33%) COBOL
14 11 (0.33%) Perl
15 10 (0.30%) ABAP
16 9 (0.27%) R
17 8 (0.24%) Rust
Qualifications
1 334 (10.05%) Security Cleared
2 319 (9.59%) Degree
3 208 (6.26%) SC Cleared
4 110 (3.31%) ACCA
4 110 (3.31%) PMP
5 106 (3.19%) CIMA
6 104 (3.13%) PMI Certification
7 93 (2.80%) BPSS Clearance
8 71 (2.14%) DV Cleared
9 63 (1.89%) CISSP
10 51 (1.53%) Master's Degree
11 43 (1.29%) Computer Science Degree
12 39 (1.17%) CISM
13 37 (1.11%) AWS Certification
14 26 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
15 21 (0.63%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 18 (0.54%) TOGAF Certification
17 16 (0.48%) MBA
18 14 (0.42%) APMP
18 14 (0.42%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 183 (5.50%) PMO
2 164 (4.93%) Data Quality
3 143 (4.30%) QA
4 137 (4.12%) GDPR
5 62 (1.86%) NIST
6 48 (1.44%) SLA
7 45 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 44 (1.32%) PCI DSS
9 28 (0.84%) GRC
10 27 (0.81%) Accessibility
11 26 (0.78%) IFRS
12 23 (0.69%) ISO 20022
12 23 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 18 (0.54%) PSD2
14 14 (0.42%) Disclosure Scotland
15 12 (0.36%) Basel III
15 12 (0.36%) SEPA
15 12 (0.36%) SOC 2
16 10 (0.30%) GAAP
17 9 (0.27%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 109 (3.28%) Docker
2 71 (2.14%) Active Directory
3 40 (1.20%) 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%) ACF2
11 4 (0.12%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.12%) KVM
11 4 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.090%) Firmware
12 3 (0.090%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.090%) VMware NSX
13 2 (0.060%) Job Entry Subsystem
13 2 (0.060%) SRDF
13 2 (0.060%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 156 (4.69%) Kubernetes
2 75 (2.26%) Terraform
3 70 (2.11%) Ansible
4 42 (1.26%) Grafana
5 33 (0.99%) Prometheus
6 18 (0.54%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.45%) SCCM
8 14 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.42%) vRealize
9 12 (0.36%) Progress Chef
10 10 (0.30%) Nessus
11 9 (0.27%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.24%) Kiali
13 7 (0.21%) Control-M
13 7 (0.21%) HP ALM
14 6 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.18%) VxRail
15 5 (0.15%) Argo
15 5 (0.15%) CASB
15 5 (0.15%) Istio
Vendors
1 435 (13.08%) Microsoft
2 361 (10.86%) SAP
3 295 (8.87%) Oracle
4 164 (4.93%) ServiceNow
5 91 (2.74%) Google
6 68 (2.05%) Cisco
7 59 (1.77%) Sage
8 57 (1.71%) IBM
9 55 (1.65%) Splunk
10 52 (1.56%) Databricks
10 52 (1.56%) VMware
11 42 (1.26%) Salesforce
12 35 (1.05%) IFS
13 32 (0.96%) Workday
14 25 (0.75%) HP
15 22 (0.66%) Dell
16 20 (0.60%) Citrix
17 19 (0.57%) Adobe
17 19 (0.57%) Ariba
17 19 (0.57%) Remedy