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

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 +3 +2
Contract jobs citing Finance 2,804 2,286 2,546
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 15.47% 16.69% 13.07%
As % of the General category 27.01% 27.58% 23.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,817 1,350 1,727
10th Percentile £310 £301 £300
25th Percentile £402 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £497 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year -0.70% -2.44% -1.63%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £620
90th Percentile £688 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -8.70% - -0.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 123 63 78
10th Percentile £14.50 £17.44 £11.80
25th Percentile £16.89 £22.50 £14.05
Median hourly rate £22.00 £27.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +10.00% -22.48%
75th Percentile £24.50 £55.13 £49.75
90th Percentile £40.00 £78.27 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £23.54 £29.00 £26.66
% change year-on-year -18.84% +8.78% +6.64%

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 10,380 8,288 10,783
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 57.26% 60.50% 55.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,406 4,676 6,712
10th Percentile £204 £210 £210
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 £600
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,108 487 959
10th Percentile £13.50 £15.22 £13.41
25th Percentile £16.00 £18.13 £15.00
Median hourly rate £21.38 £25.43 £29.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.93% -12.31% +28.89%
75th Percentile £44.94 £53.75 £56.95
90th Percentile £69.75 £70.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £27.13 £30.00
% change year-on-year -15.21% -9.58% +20.00%

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 13 January 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 13 January 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 13 January 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 +1 887 £475 -4.34% 792
South East -2 523 £505 -3.81% 1,446
Midlands -4 487 £475 -9.52% 549
North West +1 424 £450 -8.16% 348
Yorkshire 0 419 £500 -2.68% 329
Scotland 0 372 £475 +5.56% 164
West Midlands -6 300 £525 -4.55% 246
South West -3 282 £525 - 493
East Midlands +1 188 £423 +2.05% 298
East of England -2 170 £525 - 525
Wales +20 74 £406 -1.52% 178
Northern Ireland -1 55 £513 +57.69% 79
North East -6 44 £481 +1.32% 126
Channel Islands +2 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
1 136 (4.85%) Confluence
2 98 (3.50%) SharePoint
3 33 (1.18%) Apache
4 32 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
5 31 (1.11%) Apache Spark
6 18 (0.64%) SAS
7 16 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
8 15 (0.53%) CMS
9 11 (0.39%) JBoss
10 10 (0.36%) TPMS
11 9 (0.32%) IIS
12 8 (0.29%) WebSphere
13 7 (0.25%) iPlanet
13 7 (0.25%) Mattermost
13 7 (0.25%) Skype for Business
13 7 (0.25%) WebSphere Application Server
14 5 (0.18%) CICS
15 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
16 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
16 3 (0.11%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 239 (8.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 152 (5.42%) Microsoft Office
3 104 (3.71%) Microsoft Project
4 89 (3.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 47 (1.68%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.71%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.61%) Sketch
8 12 (0.43%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.29%) InVision
10 7 (0.25%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.21%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.21%) Trello
12 5 (0.18%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.11%) Camtasia
13 3 (0.11%) Snagit
14 2 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
15 1 (0.036%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 116 (4.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 54 (1.93%) Oracle Payables
3 43 (1.53%) Oracle Receivables
4 41 (1.46%) Oracle EBS
5 38 (1.36%) SAP FI
6 36 (1.28%) Oracle General Ledger
7 31 (1.11%) Oracle Cash Management
8 29 (1.03%) SAP CO
9 28 (1.00%) Oracle Assets
9 28 (1.00%) SAP FI/CO
10 26 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
10 26 (0.93%) Oracle ERP
11 24 (0.86%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 23 (0.82%) Oracle EBS R12
13 18 (0.64%) SAP ERP
14 15 (0.53%) NetSuite
15 14 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
16 13 (0.46%) Oracle AGIS
16 13 (0.46%) SAP PSCD
16 13 (0.46%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 375 (13.37%) AWS
2 347 (12.38%) Azure
3 190 (6.78%) Power Platform
4 167 (5.96%) GCP
5 108 (3.85%) Microsoft 365
6 79 (2.82%) Dynamics 365
7 73 (2.60%) Serverless
8 63 (2.25%) GitHub
9 59 (2.10%) Azure DevOps
10 56 (2.00%) SaaS
11 47 (1.68%) OCI
12 44 (1.57%) Entra ID
13 41 (1.46%) Figma
14 39 (1.39%) AWS CloudFormation
15 37 (1.32%) OpenShift
15 37 (1.32%) Snowflake
16 34 (1.21%) AWS Lambda
17 29 (1.03%) Amazon S3
17 29 (1.03%) GitHub Actions
18 21 (0.75%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 59 (2.10%) Firewall
2 27 (0.96%) WAN
3 21 (0.75%) Skype
3 21 (0.75%) Wireless
4 20 (0.71%) DNS
5 19 (0.68%) Network Security
5 19 (0.68%) VPN
6 18 (0.64%) SSH
7 16 (0.57%) LAN
7 16 (0.57%) SSL
8 14 (0.50%) Kerberos
9 12 (0.43%) DHCP
9 12 (0.43%) SD-WAN
9 12 (0.43%) TCP/IP
10 10 (0.36%) Internet
10 10 (0.36%) SNMP
11 9 (0.32%) HTTP
12 8 (0.29%) Cisco IOS
13 6 (0.21%) Unified Communications
13 6 (0.21%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 180 (6.42%) Power BI
2 75 (2.67%) Data Warehouse
3 65 (2.32%) NoSQL
4 64 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
5 53 (1.89%) Relational Database
6 39 (1.39%) Tableau
7 33 (1.18%) Big Data
8 32 (1.14%) SQL Server
9 30 (1.07%) Metadata
10 28 (1.00%) Power Query
11 24 (0.86%) Hadoop
11 24 (0.86%) Oracle Reports
12 23 (0.82%) Data Lake
13 20 (0.71%) BigQuery
14 19 (0.68%) MongoDB
15 17 (0.61%) Amazon RDS
15 17 (0.61%) DynamoDB
15 17 (0.61%) MySQL
15 17 (0.61%) Oracle Database
16 14 (0.50%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 254 (9.06%) JIRA
2 142 (5.06%) Jenkins
3 83 (2.96%) GitLab
4 70 (2.50%) Git
5 40 (1.43%) JUnit
6 35 (1.25%) Sonatype Nexus
7 31 (1.11%) Cucumber
8 28 (1.00%) Liquibase
9 26 (0.93%) Bitbucket
10 21 (0.75%) Selenium
11 11 (0.39%) Cypress.io
11 11 (0.39%) Gradle
12 10 (0.36%) Postman
13 9 (0.32%) JMeter
13 9 (0.32%) REST Assured
14 8 (0.29%) Bitbucket Server
14 8 (0.29%) CA Release Automation
14 8 (0.29%) Hudson
14 8 (0.29%) Visual Studio
15 6 (0.21%) Jaeger
General
1 1,047 (37.34%) Social Skills
2 517 (18.44%) Banking
3 403 (14.37%) Analytical Skills
4 329 (11.73%) Public Sector
5 203 (7.24%) Manufacturing
6 189 (6.74%) Telecoms
7 171 (6.10%) Marketing
8 135 (4.81%) Electronics
9 114 (4.07%) Organisational Skills
10 103 (3.67%) Financial Institution
11 92 (3.28%) Legal
12 88 (3.14%) Documentation Skills
13 56 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
13 56 (2.00%) Investment Banking
14 52 (1.85%) General Ledger
15 51 (1.82%) Presentation Skills
15 51 (1.82%) Retail
16 42 (1.50%) Billing
17 38 (1.36%) Local Government
18 35 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 469 (16.73%) Analyst
2 274 (9.77%) Project Manager
3 224 (7.99%) Senior
4 208 (7.42%) Consultant
5 200 (7.13%) Developer
6 195 (6.95%) Architect
7 187 (6.67%) Business Analyst
8 163 (5.81%) Lead
9 98 (3.50%) Data Analyst
10 86 (3.07%) Solutions Architect
11 82 (2.92%) Programme Manager
12 56 (2.00%) Accountant
12 56 (2.00%) Senior Manager
13 55 (1.96%) IT Support
14 53 (1.89%) Java Developer
15 52 (1.85%) Designer
16 51 (1.82%) SAP Consultant
17 50 (1.78%) Functional Consultant
17 50 (1.78%) Software Engineer
18 49 (1.75%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 127 (4.53%) REST
2 84 (3.00%) Spring
3 77 (2.75%) RESTful
4 76 (2.71%) Spring Boot
5 64 (2.28%) Oracle Fusion
6 59 (2.10%) Kafka
7 57 (2.03%) .NET
8 40 (1.43%) React
9 37 (1.32%) Node.js
10 36 (1.28%) SOAP
11 35 (1.25%) Elastic Stack
12 32 (1.14%) OAuth
13 29 (1.03%) HTML
14 28 (1.00%) JSON
15 27 (0.96%) AngularJS
15 27 (0.96%) Middleware
16 25 (0.89%) CSS
17 22 (0.78%) JMS
17 22 (0.78%) XML
18 21 (0.75%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 143 (5.10%) Onboarding
2 120 (4.28%) Product Ownership
3 90 (3.21%) Cloud Native
4 80 (2.85%) Data Centre
5 68 (2.43%) Public Cloud
6 63 (2.25%) Management Information System
7 61 (2.18%) Distributed Systems
8 53 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
9 50 (1.78%) Analytical Mindset
10 47 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
11 37 (1.32%) Mobile App
12 33 (1.18%) Data Structures
13 30 (1.07%) CMDB
13 30 (1.07%) Self-Motivation
14 29 (1.03%) PMI
15 26 (0.93%) Virtual Team
16 24 (0.86%) Mainframe
17 23 (0.82%) NHS
18 19 (0.68%) Credit Risk
18 19 (0.68%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 143 (5.10%) Linux
2 126 (4.49%) Windows
3 43 (1.53%) Mac OS
4 40 (1.43%) Unix
5 38 (1.36%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.14%) Android
7 19 (0.68%) Windows Server
8 11 (0.39%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.11%) VMS
10 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.071%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.071%) Windows 8
11 2 (0.071%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.036%) MVS
12 1 (0.036%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.036%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 674 (24.04%) Agile
2 516 (18.40%) Stakeholder Management
3 483 (17.23%) Problem-Solving
4 349 (12.45%) Migration
5 344 (12.27%) Business Intelligence
6 341 (12.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 319 (11.38%) Project Management
8 302 (10.77%) DevOps
9 293 (10.45%) ERP
10 286 (10.20%) Continuous Improvement
11 281 (10.02%) CI/CD
12 237 (8.45%) Change Management
13 231 (8.24%) Programme Management
14 209 (7.45%) Decision-Making
15 198 (7.06%) Analytics
15 198 (7.06%) Project Delivery
16 184 (6.56%) Roadmaps
17 178 (6.35%) Risk Management
18 165 (5.88%) User Acceptance Testing
19 162 (5.78%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 327 (11.66%) SQL
2 291 (10.38%) Python
3 185 (6.60%) Java
4 69 (2.46%) PowerShell
5 46 (1.64%) JavaScript
6 45 (1.60%) C#
7 43 (1.53%) Go
7 43 (1.53%) TypeScript
8 27 (0.96%) Shell Script
9 25 (0.89%) PL/SQL
10 23 (0.82%) Bash
11 22 (0.78%) R
12 19 (0.68%) VBA
13 17 (0.61%) Groovy
14 14 (0.50%) Perl
15 9 (0.32%) ABAP
15 9 (0.32%) Ruby
15 9 (0.32%) Rust
16 8 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 8 (0.29%) PHP
Qualifications
1 294 (10.49%) Degree
2 253 (9.02%) Security Cleared
3 171 (6.10%) SC Cleared
4 75 (2.67%) Master's Degree
5 66 (2.35%) Computer Science Degree
5 66 (2.35%) PMI Certification
6 65 (2.32%) PMP
7 57 (2.03%) ACCA
7 57 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
8 54 (1.93%) AWS Certification
9 50 (1.78%) CIMA
10 48 (1.71%) DV Cleared
11 44 (1.57%) CISSP
12 34 (1.21%) CISM
13 33 (1.18%) ITIL Certification
14 16 (0.57%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 16 (0.57%) Azure Certification
15 13 (0.46%) MBA
15 13 (0.46%) TOGAF Certification
16 12 (0.43%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (5.14%) PMO
2 123 (4.39%) QA
3 112 (3.99%) Data Quality
4 103 (3.67%) GDPR
5 52 (1.85%) SLA
6 51 (1.82%) NIST
7 49 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 46 (1.64%) Accessibility
8 46 (1.64%) PCI DSS
9 30 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (0.86%) PSD2
11 23 (0.82%) ISO 20022
12 22 (0.78%) IFRS
13 14 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
13 14 (0.50%) GRC
14 12 (0.43%) NCSC
14 12 (0.43%) SEPA
15 11 (0.39%) Basel III
15 11 (0.39%) COBIT
15 11 (0.39%) P3O
System Software
1 121 (4.32%) Docker
2 99 (3.53%) Active Directory
3 26 (0.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.39%) vSphere
6 8 (0.29%) GPFS
7 7 (0.25%) NFS
7 7 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.21%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.18%) Tivoli Directory Server
10 4 (0.14%) Firmware
10 4 (0.14%) HDFS
10 4 (0.14%) ISA Server
11 3 (0.11%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.11%) Time Sharing Option
11 3 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.071%) ACF2
12 2 (0.071%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.071%) RACF
Systems Management
1 143 (5.10%) Kubernetes
2 107 (3.82%) Terraform
3 86 (3.07%) Ansible
4 57 (2.03%) Grafana
5 51 (1.82%) Prometheus
6 25 (0.89%) SCCM
7 17 (0.61%) Progress Chef
8 14 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
8 14 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.39%) Jamf Pro
10 9 (0.32%) vRealize
11 8 (0.29%) CA Single Sign-On
11 8 (0.29%) SCOM
12 7 (0.25%) CA Wily
12 7 (0.25%) FortiGate
12 7 (0.25%) HP SiteScope
12 7 (0.25%) Tivoli
13 6 (0.21%) Kiali
14 5 (0.18%) CA Endevor
14 5 (0.18%) QRadar
Vendors
1 444 (15.83%) Microsoft
2 378 (13.48%) SAP
3 265 (9.45%) Oracle
4 140 (4.99%) ServiceNow
5 84 (3.00%) Splunk
6 75 (2.67%) Cisco
7 69 (2.46%) Google
8 51 (1.82%) Salesforce
9 45 (1.60%) IBM
10 39 (1.39%) VMware
11 37 (1.32%) Workday
12 35 (1.25%) Databricks
13 33 (1.18%) Dell
14 32 (1.14%) HP
15 29 (1.03%) Adobe
15 29 (1.03%) Apple
16 26 (0.93%) Citrix
17 22 (0.78%) IFS
18 20 (0.71%) Sage
19 19 (0.68%) Remedy