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

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -1 +2 +1
Contract jobs citing Finance 3,884 2,694 2,590
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 14.21% 17.64% 14.15%
As % of the General category 27.51% 28.85% 26.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,338 1,782 1,589
10th Percentile £344 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.02% -1.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £625
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 229 68 158
10th Percentile £15.08 £14.54 £14.50
25th Percentile £20.87 £16.31 £23.64
Median hourly rate £43.96 £26.36 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +66.80% -30.86% +23.95%
75th Percentile - £58.13 £40.06
90th Percentile £83.40 £75.00 £70.05
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £30.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year +46.53% -21.30% +46.62%

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 14,116 9,338 9,845
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 51.63% 61.16% 53.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,819 5,633 5,644
10th Percentile £263 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £360 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £494
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -3.89% -1.15%
75th Percentile £594 £575 £600
90th Percentile £681 £650 £690
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,931 843 1,177
10th Percentile £13.65 £13.08 £13.86
25th Percentile £16.64 £15.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £32.50 £22.14 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +46.79% -41.92% +51.72%
75th Percentile £61.18 £45.40 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £70.25
UK median hourly rate £32.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +27.24% -34.02% +31.45%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 1,330 £500 +6.72% 1,611
South East -1 737 £500 -6.32% 1,499
North West 0 688 £500 +9.29% 976
Midlands 0 633 £514 +14.22% 754
Yorkshire 0 575 £514 +8.21% 451
Scotland 0 503 £475 -5.00% 844
West Midlands +1 481 £525 +5.85% 453
South West -4 382 £525 -4.55% 759
East of England +5 202 £530 -7.83% 486
East Midlands -3 146 £500 +21.21% 301
Wales +1 67 £530 +14.59% 187
Northern Ireland -1 65 £475 - 351
North East -14 60 £500 +11.11% 202
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
1 146 (3.76%) Confluence
2 96 (2.47%) SharePoint
3 15 (0.39%) Apache Spark
3 15 (0.39%) CMS
4 14 (0.36%) Apache
4 14 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
5 11 (0.28%) Microsoft Exchange
5 11 (0.28%) SAS
6 8 (0.21%) WebLogic
7 7 (0.18%) IIS
7 7 (0.18%) WebSphere
8 6 (0.15%) CICS
9 4 (0.10%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.077%) Camunda
10 3 (0.077%) nginx
10 3 (0.077%) Oracle Coherence
10 3 (0.077%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.051%) JBoss
11 2 (0.051%) Mule
11 2 (0.051%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 243 (6.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 114 (2.94%) Microsoft Office
3 85 (2.19%) Microsoft Project
4 76 (1.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 39 (1.00%) MS Visio
6 37 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
7 7 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 6 (0.15%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.13%) Trello
10 4 (0.10%) 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%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 201 (5.18%) SAP S/4HANA
2 47 (1.21%) Oracle ERP
3 46 (1.18%) Oracle Payables
4 42 (1.08%) Oracle Receivables
5 41 (1.06%) NetSuite
6 32 (0.82%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 24 (0.62%) Unit4 Business World
8 23 (0.59%) Oracle General Ledger
9 22 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
10 21 (0.54%) Oracle EBS
10 21 (0.54%) SAP FI
10 21 (0.54%) SAP GRC
11 15 (0.39%) Workday HCM
12 13 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
12 13 (0.33%) SAP CO
12 13 (0.33%) SAP PSCD
13 12 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
13 12 (0.31%) SAP FI/CO
14 11 (0.28%) Oracle Cash Management
15 10 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
Cloud Services
1 473 (12.18%) Azure
2 312 (8.03%) AWS
3 221 (5.69%) GCP
4 220 (5.66%) Power Platform
5 103 (2.65%) SaaS
6 93 (2.39%) Azure DevOps
7 90 (2.32%) Dynamics 365
7 90 (2.32%) Microsoft 365
8 88 (2.27%) GitHub
9 65 (1.67%) Entra ID
10 50 (1.29%) OCI
11 43 (1.11%) Snowflake
12 40 (1.03%) Serverless
13 39 (1.00%) Microsoft Copilot
14 37 (0.95%) OpenShift
15 27 (0.70%) Power Automate
16 25 (0.64%) GitHub Actions
16 25 (0.64%) Google Kubernetes Engine
16 25 (0.64%) PowerApps
17 24 (0.62%) Anthropic Claude
Communications & Networking
1 80 (2.06%) Firewall
2 69 (1.78%) Network Security
3 43 (1.11%) VPN
4 34 (0.88%) DNS
5 27 (0.70%) WAN
6 26 (0.67%) SSL
6 26 (0.67%) TCP/IP
7 21 (0.54%) LAN
8 12 (0.31%) DHCP
8 12 (0.31%) VSAN
9 10 (0.26%) HTTP
10 9 (0.23%) SD-WAN
10 9 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
11 8 (0.21%) BGP
12 7 (0.18%) Internet
12 7 (0.18%) Wireless
13 6 (0.15%) BIG-IP
13 6 (0.15%) Broadband
13 6 (0.15%) Cisco Nexus
14 5 (0.13%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 179 (4.61%) Power BI
2 77 (1.98%) Data Warehouse
3 69 (1.78%) Relational Database
4 67 (1.73%) Metadata
5 65 (1.67%) SQL Server
6 50 (1.29%) Oracle Reports
7 43 (1.11%) PostgreSQL
8 37 (0.95%) Data Lake
9 34 (0.88%) Tableau
10 27 (0.70%) MongoDB
11 24 (0.62%) Db2
12 23 (0.59%) Oracle ODI
13 22 (0.57%) Snowflake Schema
14 21 (0.54%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 20 (0.51%) Data Vault
15 20 (0.51%) NoSQL
16 17 (0.44%) Oracle BI Publisher
17 15 (0.39%) BigQuery
17 15 (0.39%) Oracle Database
17 15 (0.39%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 245 (6.31%) JIRA
2 102 (2.63%) Git
3 55 (1.42%) Jenkins
4 22 (0.57%) JUnit
5 16 (0.41%) Selenium
6 15 (0.39%) GitLab
6 15 (0.39%) Hudson
7 14 (0.36%) Claude Code
7 14 (0.36%) Cucumber
8 13 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
9 11 (0.28%) SonarQube
10 10 (0.26%) Postman
11 9 (0.23%) Oracle Forms
12 8 (0.21%) ERwin
13 7 (0.18%) Visual Studio
13 7 (0.18%) Zephyr
14 6 (0.15%) LoadRunner
15 5 (0.13%) IntelliJ
15 5 (0.13%) JMeter
15 5 (0.13%) Maven
General
1 1,242 (31.98%) Social Skills
2 556 (14.32%) Analytical Skills
3 539 (13.88%) Banking
4 284 (7.31%) Public Sector
5 237 (6.10%) Legal
6 236 (6.08%) Organisational Skills
7 159 (4.09%) Retail
8 132 (3.40%) Influencing Skills
9 112 (2.88%) Manufacturing
10 103 (2.65%) Local Government
11 99 (2.55%) Documentation Skills
12 82 (2.11%) General Ledger
13 78 (2.01%) Financial Institution
14 76 (1.96%) Investment Banking
15 72 (1.85%) Billing
16 69 (1.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 57 (1.47%) Telecoms
18 55 (1.42%) Marketing
19 50 (1.29%) Law
19 50 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 518 (13.34%) Analyst
2 422 (10.87%) Lead
3 357 (9.19%) Senior
4 325 (8.37%) Project Manager
5 305 (7.85%) Architect
6 282 (7.26%) Developer
7 266 (6.85%) Consultant
8 244 (6.28%) Business Analyst
9 173 (4.45%) Accountant
10 137 (3.53%) Solutions Architect
11 104 (2.68%) Systems Accountant
12 100 (2.57%) IT Manager
13 96 (2.47%) Senior Manager
14 90 (2.32%) Financial Analyst
15 81 (2.09%) Java Developer
16 76 (1.96%) Administrator
17 72 (1.85%) Programme Manager
18 70 (1.80%) Finance Manager
19 67 (1.73%) Data Analyst
20 64 (1.65%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 148 (3.81%) Oracle Fusion
2 81 (2.09%) REST
3 75 (1.93%) Middleware
4 62 (1.60%) Kafka
5 60 (1.54%) Spring Boot
6 59 (1.52%) .NET
6 59 (1.52%) Spring
7 56 (1.44%) React
8 37 (0.95%) OAuth
9 33 (0.85%) RESTful
10 32 (0.82%) Node.js
11 29 (0.75%) XML
12 27 (0.70%) JSON
12 27 (0.70%) SAP Fiori
13 26 (0.67%) OpenID
13 26 (0.67%) SAML
14 22 (0.57%) SailPoint
15 20 (0.51%) HTML
15 20 (0.51%) OAuth2
15 20 (0.51%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 157 (4.04%) Onboarding
2 155 (3.99%) Product Ownership
3 149 (3.84%) Cloud Native
4 135 (3.48%) Virtual Team
5 113 (2.91%) Management Information System
6 106 (2.73%) Legacy Systems
7 103 (2.65%) Data Protection Act
8 90 (2.32%) Podcast
8 90 (2.32%) Web Conferencing
9 70 (1.80%) Data Structures
10 56 (1.44%) Data Centre
11 55 (1.42%) Public Cloud
12 54 (1.39%) Security Posture
13 49 (1.26%) Distributed Systems
13 49 (1.26%) Mainframe
14 40 (1.03%) AI Agents
14 40 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
15 38 (0.98%) Self-Motivation
16 37 (0.95%) Mobile App
17 34 (0.88%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 125 (3.22%) Windows
2 108 (2.78%) Linux
3 60 (1.54%) Unix
4 30 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 30 (0.77%) Windows Server
5 25 (0.64%) zOS
6 23 (0.59%) Solaris
7 12 (0.31%) Android
8 11 (0.28%) Apple iOS
9 9 (0.23%) AIX
10 8 (0.21%) Mac OS
11 7 (0.18%) Windows 10
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%) CentOS
15 1 (0.026%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 938 (24.15%) Stakeholder Management
2 703 (18.10%) Agile
3 545 (14.03%) Continuous Improvement
4 538 (13.85%) Problem-Solving
5 523 (13.47%) Migration
6 518 (13.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 507 (13.05%) ERP
8 364 (9.37%) Decision-Making
9 360 (9.27%) AI
10 352 (9.06%) Project Management
11 350 (9.01%) CI/CD
12 347 (8.93%) DevOps
13 343 (8.83%) Change Management
14 308 (7.93%) Project Delivery
15 282 (7.26%) Roadmaps
16 278 (7.16%) User Acceptance Testing
17 277 (7.13%) Risk Management
18 274 (7.05%) Validation
19 271 (6.98%) Analytics
20 241 (6.20%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 323 (8.32%) SQL
2 315 (8.11%) Python
3 215 (5.54%) Java
4 72 (1.85%) PowerShell
5 56 (1.44%) C#
6 53 (1.36%) Bash
7 52 (1.34%) JavaScript
8 37 (0.95%) PL/SQL
9 36 (0.93%) TypeScript
10 33 (0.85%) Shell Script
11 23 (0.59%) C++
11 23 (0.59%) Go
12 15 (0.39%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 14 (0.36%) T-SQL
14 12 (0.31%) ABAP
14 12 (0.31%) Bicep
14 12 (0.31%) PHP
15 10 (0.26%) VBA
16 9 (0.23%) Kotlin
16 9 (0.23%) Perl
Qualifications
1 362 (9.32%) Security Cleared
2 273 (7.03%) Degree
3 223 (5.74%) SC Cleared
4 149 (3.84%) BPSS Clearance
5 113 (2.91%) ACCA
6 110 (2.83%) CIMA
7 99 (2.55%) PMP
8 86 (2.21%) DV Cleared
8 86 (2.21%) PMI Certification
9 73 (1.88%) CISSP
10 42 (1.08%) CISM
11 34 (0.88%) AWS Certification
11 34 (0.88%) Azure Certification
11 34 (0.88%) Cisco Certification
12 30 (0.77%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
13 29 (0.75%) Computer Science Degree
14 24 (0.62%) ITIL Certification
15 22 (0.57%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 21 (0.54%) Master's Degree
17 20 (0.51%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 224 (5.77%) Data Quality
2 176 (4.53%) PMO
3 133 (3.42%) QA
4 132 (3.40%) GDPR
5 49 (1.26%) GRC
5 49 (1.26%) NIST
6 46 (1.18%) SLA
7 34 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 33 (0.85%) Accessibility
8 33 (0.85%) IFRS
8 33 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 17 (0.44%) PCI DSS
10 13 (0.33%) SOC 2
11 10 (0.26%) EMIR
11 10 (0.26%) GAAP
12 8 (0.21%) COBIT
12 8 (0.21%) ISO 20022
13 7 (0.18%) ISO 9001
13 7 (0.18%) Solvency II
13 7 (0.18%) WCAG
System Software
1 73 (1.88%) Active Directory
2 71 (1.83%) Docker
3 39 (1.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.54%) RACF
5 17 (0.44%) 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
10 5 (0.13%) 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
1 164 (4.22%) Kubernetes
2 111 (2.86%) Terraform
3 72 (1.85%) Ansible
4 32 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
5 27 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
6 26 (0.67%) Grafana
7 18 (0.46%) OMEGAMON
8 17 (0.44%) Prometheus
9 16 (0.41%) Progress Chef
10 15 (0.39%) SCCM
11 10 (0.26%) Istio
11 10 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.23%) Argo
12 9 (0.23%) Control-M
13 7 (0.18%) CASB
13 7 (0.18%) HP ALM
13 7 (0.18%) vRealize
14 6 (0.15%) Kustomize
14 6 (0.15%) Nessus
14 6 (0.15%) Puppet
Vendors
1 537 (13.83%) Microsoft
2 403 (10.38%) SAP
3 385 (9.91%) Oracle
4 177 (4.56%) ServiceNow
5 109 (2.81%) Google
6 86 (2.21%) IBM
7 79 (2.03%) Databricks
8 61 (1.57%) Salesforce
9 55 (1.42%) VMware
10 50 (1.29%) Sage
11 45 (1.16%) Cisco
12 37 (0.95%) Workday
13 34 (0.88%) Splunk
14 31 (0.80%) IFS
15 30 (0.77%) Ariba
16 24 (0.62%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.54%) MuleSoft
18 20 (0.51%) HP
18 20 (0.51%) Sybase
19 19 (0.49%) CyberArk