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 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 5 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 +3 -1
Contract jobs citing Finance 2,809 2,491 2,717
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 15.52% 16.65% 13.79%
As % of the General category 26.63% 28.07% 24.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,835 1,480 1,874
10th Percentile £307 £305 £305
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £509 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.72% -3.10% -
75th Percentile £594 £625 £625
90th Percentile £688 £701 £710
UK median daily rate £525 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -8.70% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 127 74 65
10th Percentile £14.80 £16.98 £13.33
25th Percentile £16.72 £22.78 £16.38
Median hourly rate £22.00 £29.00 £26.99
Median % change year-on-year -24.14% +7.45% -16.95%
75th Percentile £24.75 £59.31 £49.00
90th Percentile £44.00 £75.00 £63.00
UK median hourly rate £23.79 £29.12 £28.75
% change year-on-year -18.30% +1.27% +11.82%

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 common skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 10,548 8,875 11,065
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 58.30% 59.33% 56.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,467 5,011 6,951
10th Percentile £204 £210 £213
25th Percentile £361 £360 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.66% -2.40% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,168 572 892
10th Percentile £13.50 £15.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £16.00 £17.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £22.00 £26.23 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.13% -12.57% +39.53%
75th Percentile £44.94 £55.25 £57.50
90th Percentile £69.75 £70.25 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £23.58 £27.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -14.27% -15.38% +30.00%

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025. 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 0 878 £475 -5.00% 1,073
South East -1 528 £514 -6.55% 1,535
Midlands -5 464 £475 -9.52% 757
North West 0 434 £456 -8.75% 578
Yorkshire 0 409 £500 -2.91% 395
Scotland +1 401 £475 +5.56% 246
South West -4 286 £525 - 482
West Midlands -8 286 £525 -4.55% 408
East Midlands +1 177 £420 +2.88% 326
East of England -1 161 £550 +4.76% 514
Wales +12 68 £391 -2.19% 119
Northern Ireland -1 61 £475 +7.04% 83
North East -10 35 £450 -2.70% 114
Channel Islands -1 2 - -
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
1 126 (4.49%) Confluence
2 91 (3.24%) SharePoint
3 31 (1.10%) Apache
4 30 (1.07%) Apache Spark
5 27 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
6 20 (0.71%) SAS
7 17 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.57%) CMS
9 13 (0.46%) JBoss
10 10 (0.36%) WebSphere
11 9 (0.32%) IIS
12 7 (0.25%) iPlanet
12 7 (0.25%) Mattermost
12 7 (0.25%) Skype for Business
12 7 (0.25%) WebSphere Application Server
13 6 (0.21%) CICS
13 6 (0.21%) TPMS
14 5 (0.18%) HCL Notes
14 5 (0.18%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 233 (8.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 145 (5.16%) Microsoft Office
3 91 (3.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 88 (3.13%) Microsoft Project
5 38 (1.35%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.50%) Sketch
8 10 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.25%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.21%) Trello
11 5 (0.18%) InVision
12 3 (0.11%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.11%) Camtasia
12 3 (0.11%) Snagit
13 2 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
14 1 (0.036%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 109 (3.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 49 (1.74%) Oracle Payables
3 42 (1.50%) Oracle EBS
4 41 (1.46%) Oracle Receivables
5 35 (1.25%) Oracle General Ledger
6 33 (1.17%) SAP FI
7 31 (1.10%) Oracle Cash Management
8 28 (1.00%) Oracle ERP
9 27 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
10 26 (0.93%) Oracle Assets
11 24 (0.85%) SAP CO
12 23 (0.82%) SAP FI/CO
13 21 (0.75%) Oracle EBS R12
13 21 (0.75%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
14 19 (0.68%) SAP ERP
15 16 (0.57%) NetSuite
16 15 (0.53%) Workday HCM
17 12 (0.43%) Oracle AGIS
17 12 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
17 12 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 379 (13.49%) AWS
2 338 (12.03%) Azure
3 182 (6.48%) Power Platform
4 177 (6.30%) GCP
5 97 (3.45%) Microsoft 365
6 76 (2.71%) Dynamics 365
7 75 (2.67%) Serverless
8 66 (2.35%) GitHub
9 65 (2.31%) Azure DevOps
10 49 (1.74%) OCI
11 47 (1.67%) SaaS
12 40 (1.42%) AWS CloudFormation
12 40 (1.42%) Entra ID
13 36 (1.28%) Figma
13 36 (1.28%) OpenShift
14 34 (1.21%) Snowflake
15 31 (1.10%) AWS Lambda
15 31 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
16 26 (0.93%) Amazon S3
17 21 (0.75%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 61 (2.17%) Firewall
2 23 (0.82%) DNS
3 21 (0.75%) Network Security
3 21 (0.75%) Wireless
4 19 (0.68%) Skype
4 19 (0.68%) VPN
5 17 (0.61%) SSL
5 17 (0.61%) TCP/IP
6 16 (0.57%) Kerberos
7 15 (0.53%) SSH
7 15 (0.53%) WAN
8 14 (0.50%) LAN
9 12 (0.43%) DHCP
10 11 (0.39%) HTTP
11 10 (0.36%) Internet
12 8 (0.28%) Cisco IOS
13 6 (0.21%) SNMP
13 6 (0.21%) Unified Communications
13 6 (0.21%) VoIP
14 5 (0.18%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 171 (6.09%) Power BI
2 74 (2.63%) Data Warehouse
3 69 (2.46%) PostgreSQL
4 68 (2.42%) NoSQL
5 61 (2.17%) Relational Database
6 45 (1.60%) Tableau
7 38 (1.35%) SQL Server
8 33 (1.17%) Power Query
9 32 (1.14%) Big Data
10 30 (1.07%) Metadata
11 26 (0.93%) MongoDB
12 25 (0.89%) Hadoop
13 24 (0.85%) Data Lake
14 23 (0.82%) Oracle Reports
15 21 (0.75%) DB2
16 20 (0.71%) BigQuery
17 19 (0.68%) MySQL
18 18 (0.64%) Oracle Database
19 16 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
20 15 (0.53%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 247 (8.79%) JIRA
2 152 (5.41%) Jenkins
3 88 (3.13%) GitLab
4 85 (3.03%) Git
5 44 (1.57%) JUnit
6 38 (1.35%) Sonatype Nexus
7 34 (1.21%) Bitbucket
8 32 (1.14%) Liquibase
9 30 (1.07%) Cucumber
10 23 (0.82%) Selenium
11 15 (0.53%) Postman
12 12 (0.43%) SonarQube
13 11 (0.39%) Cypress.io
13 11 (0.39%) Gradle
13 11 (0.39%) PyCharm
14 10 (0.36%) Hudson
14 10 (0.36%) IntelliJ
14 10 (0.36%) JMeter
15 9 (0.32%) CA Release Automation
15 9 (0.32%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 1,041 (37.06%) Social Skills
2 511 (18.19%) Banking
3 453 (16.13%) Analytical Skills
4 337 (12.00%) Public Sector
5 215 (7.65%) Manufacturing
6 199 (7.08%) Telecoms
7 178 (6.34%) Marketing
8 143 (5.09%) Electronics
9 118 (4.20%) Organisational Skills
10 110 (3.92%) Financial Institution
11 91 (3.24%) Legal
12 89 (3.17%) Documentation Skills
13 65 (2.31%) Investment Banking
14 62 (2.21%) Influencing Skills
15 58 (2.06%) Presentation Skills
16 49 (1.74%) General Ledger
17 47 (1.67%) Retail
18 40 (1.42%) Billing
19 39 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 38 (1.35%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 480 (17.09%) Analyst
2 255 (9.08%) Project Manager
3 222 (7.90%) Senior
4 213 (7.58%) Developer
5 204 (7.26%) Consultant
6 178 (6.34%) Business Analyst
7 176 (6.27%) Architect
8 170 (6.05%) Lead
9 110 (3.92%) Data Analyst
10 84 (2.99%) Programme Manager
11 64 (2.28%) Accountant
12 63 (2.24%) IT Support
12 63 (2.24%) Solutions Architect
13 58 (2.06%) Java Developer
14 56 (1.99%) IT Manager
15 54 (1.92%) SAP Consultant
15 54 (1.92%) Software Engineer
16 53 (1.89%) DevOps Engineer
17 52 (1.85%) Senior Manager
18 48 (1.71%) Functional Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (4.66%) REST
2 89 (3.17%) Spring
3 84 (2.99%) RESTful
4 74 (2.63%) Spring Boot
5 64 (2.28%) Oracle Fusion
6 58 (2.06%) Kafka
7 49 (1.74%) .NET
8 43 (1.53%) Elastic Stack
9 41 (1.46%) SOAP
10 40 (1.42%) React
11 38 (1.35%) Node.js
12 34 (1.21%) HTML
13 32 (1.14%) OAuth
14 30 (1.07%) CSS
15 27 (0.96%) AngularJS
15 27 (0.96%) JSON
16 26 (0.93%) JMS
17 21 (0.75%) PySpark
17 21 (0.75%) SAML
18 20 (0.71%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 143 (5.09%) Onboarding
2 119 (4.24%) Product Ownership
3 90 (3.20%) Cloud Native
4 78 (2.78%) Data Centre
5 74 (2.63%) Public Cloud
6 59 (2.10%) Management Information System
7 56 (1.99%) Data Protection Act
7 56 (1.99%) Distributed Systems
8 52 (1.85%) Analytical Mindset
9 44 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
10 39 (1.39%) Mobile App
11 38 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
12 35 (1.25%) Data Structures
13 32 (1.14%) CMDB
13 32 (1.14%) Virtual Team
14 26 (0.93%) Mainframe
15 23 (0.82%) NHS
16 21 (0.75%) Credit Risk
16 21 (0.75%) Enterprise Software
17 19 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 169 (6.02%) Linux
2 128 (4.56%) Windows
3 49 (1.74%) Unix
4 43 (1.53%) Mac OS
5 37 (1.32%) Android
5 37 (1.32%) Windows 10
6 16 (0.57%) Windows Server
7 15 (0.53%) Apple iOS
8 9 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.14%) VMS
10 2 (0.071%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.071%) Windows 8
10 2 (0.071%) zOS
11 1 (0.036%) MVS
11 1 (0.036%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.036%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 682 (24.28%) Agile
2 495 (17.62%) Problem-Solving
3 486 (17.30%) Stakeholder Management
4 344 (12.25%) Migration
5 343 (12.21%) Business Intelligence
6 329 (11.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 304 (10.82%) Project Management
8 303 (10.79%) DevOps
9 298 (10.61%) Continuous Improvement
10 295 (10.50%) CI/CD
11 261 (9.29%) ERP
12 236 (8.40%) Change Management
13 234 (8.33%) Programme Management
14 221 (7.87%) Decision-Making
15 205 (7.30%) Project Delivery
16 198 (7.05%) Analytics
17 186 (6.62%) Risk Management
18 177 (6.30%) Roadmaps
19 175 (6.23%) ITIL
20 159 (5.66%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 319 (11.36%) SQL
2 311 (11.07%) Python
3 188 (6.69%) Java
4 65 (2.31%) PowerShell
5 52 (1.85%) JavaScript
6 49 (1.74%) Go
7 48 (1.71%) TypeScript
8 46 (1.64%) C#
9 32 (1.14%) Shell Script
10 26 (0.93%) PL/SQL
11 25 (0.89%) Bash
12 23 (0.82%) R
13 20 (0.71%) VBA
14 17 (0.61%) Groovy
14 17 (0.61%) Perl
15 10 (0.36%) ABAP
15 10 (0.36%) Kotlin
16 9 (0.32%) COBOL
16 9 (0.32%) JCL
16 9 (0.32%) PHP
Qualifications
1 276 (9.83%) Degree
2 259 (9.22%) Security Cleared
3 175 (6.23%) SC Cleared
4 69 (2.46%) Master's Degree
5 68 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
6 61 (2.17%) AWS Certification
7 60 (2.14%) PMP
8 58 (2.06%) ACCA
9 57 (2.03%) PMI Certification
10 54 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
11 52 (1.85%) CIMA
11 52 (1.85%) CISSP
12 51 (1.82%) DV Cleared
13 38 (1.35%) CISM
14 35 (1.25%) ITIL Certification
15 20 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 19 (0.68%) Azure Certification
17 14 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
18 12 (0.43%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 12 (0.43%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 136 (4.84%) PMO
2 124 (4.41%) QA
3 108 (3.84%) GDPR
4 107 (3.81%) Data Quality
5 56 (1.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 53 (1.89%) NIST
7 50 (1.78%) SLA
8 43 (1.53%) Accessibility
9 39 (1.39%) PCI DSS
10 32 (1.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (0.82%) PSD2
12 22 (0.78%) ISO 20022
13 17 (0.61%) IFRS
14 13 (0.46%) Disclosure Scotland
14 13 (0.46%) GRC
14 13 (0.46%) NCSC
14 13 (0.46%) SEPA
15 12 (0.43%) COBIT
16 9 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
16 9 (0.32%) P3O
System Software
1 122 (4.34%) Docker
2 101 (3.60%) Active Directory
3 25 (0.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (0.36%) vSphere
6 8 (0.28%) GPFS
6 8 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.25%) NFS
8 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.18%) Hyper-V
9 5 (0.18%) Tivoli Directory Server
10 4 (0.14%) HDFS
10 4 (0.14%) ISA Server
10 4 (0.14%) Time Sharing Option
10 4 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.11%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.11%) RACF
12 2 (0.071%) Firmware
12 2 (0.071%) Job Entry Subsystem
Systems Management
1 153 (5.45%) Kubernetes
2 123 (4.38%) Terraform
3 100 (3.56%) Ansible
4 56 (1.99%) Grafana
5 50 (1.78%) Prometheus
6 23 (0.82%) SCCM
7 19 (0.68%) Progress Chef
8 13 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
8 13 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.39%) Jamf Pro
10 9 (0.32%) vRealize
11 8 (0.28%) CA Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.28%) SCOM
12 7 (0.25%) CA Wily
12 7 (0.25%) HP SiteScope
12 7 (0.25%) Puppet
12 7 (0.25%) Tivoli
13 6 (0.21%) Argo
13 6 (0.21%) QRadar
14 5 (0.18%) CA Endevor
Vendors
1 468 (16.66%) Microsoft
2 381 (13.56%) SAP
3 269 (9.58%) Oracle
4 153 (5.45%) ServiceNow
5 86 (3.06%) Splunk
6 68 (2.42%) Cisco
7 67 (2.39%) Google
8 50 (1.78%) Salesforce
9 43 (1.53%) IBM
10 41 (1.46%) VMware
11 37 (1.32%) Workday
12 33 (1.17%) Dell
12 33 (1.17%) HP
13 29 (1.03%) Apple
13 29 (1.03%) Databricks
14 27 (0.96%) Citrix
15 26 (0.93%) Adobe
16 22 (0.78%) IFS
17 21 (0.75%) CyberArk
18 20 (0.71%) Remedy