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

6 months to
28 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 +3 +2
Contract jobs citing Finance 2,938 2,278 2,646
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 15.40% 16.69% 12.92%
As % of the General category 27.24% 27.22% 23.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,885 1,331 1,772
10th Percentile £313 £305 £288
25th Percentile £404 £404 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year - -2.20% -2.62%
75th Percentile £600 £612 £613
90th Percentile £688 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -8.70% - -2.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 128 60 113
10th Percentile £14.50 £17.25 £11.27
25th Percentile £16.74 £22.50 £13.23
Median hourly rate £22.00 £27.13 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.89% +39.10% -39.06%
75th Percentile £24.50 £56.26 £47.50
90th Percentile £50.00 £77.60 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £23.50 £27.50 £21.50
% change year-on-year -14.55% +27.91% -14.00%

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 10,787 8,368 11,346
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 56.54% 61.30% 55.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,650 4,749 6,904
10th Percentile £204 £210 £209
25th Percentile £363 £356 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £481 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.15% -3.90% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £534
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.69% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,140 481 1,221
10th Percentile £13.50 £15.36 £13.00
25th Percentile £16.00 £18.50 £15.00
Median hourly rate £21.28 £26.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.72% +6.00% +11.56%
75th Percentile £45.46 £55.00 £55.25
90th Percentile £70.00 £72.50 £67.50
UK median hourly rate £22.85 £27.50 £26.00
% change year-on-year -16.91% +5.77% +4.00%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +2 923 £475 -3.06% 807
South East -1 547 £503 -4.29% 1,510
Midlands -3 528 £492 -6.29% 554
North West +3 453 £450 -5.26% 372
Yorkshire 0 421 £500 -2.68% 327
Scotland 0 386 £500 +7.07% 158
West Midlands -4 323 £525 -4.55% 270
South West -5 289 £525 -1.87% 466
East Midlands 0 203 £447 +5.80% 279
East of England -2 172 £525 - 481
Wales +25 82 £400 -14.67% 177
Northern Ireland -1 59 £500 +42.86% 83
North East -7 50 £488 +1.30% 120
Channel Islands +1 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
1 161 (5.48%) Confluence
2 102 (3.47%) SharePoint
3 34 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.02%) Apache
5 26 (0.88%) Apache Spark
6 19 (0.65%) SAS
7 13 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
7 13 (0.44%) CMS
8 11 (0.37%) JBoss
8 11 (0.37%) TPMS
9 9 (0.31%) IIS
10 8 (0.27%) WebSphere
11 7 (0.24%) iPlanet
11 7 (0.24%) Mattermost
11 7 (0.24%) Skype for Business
11 7 (0.24%) WebSphere Application Server
12 6 (0.20%) CICS
13 4 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.14%) Ethereum
13 4 (0.14%) Hyperledger
Applications
1 237 (8.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 160 (5.45%) Microsoft Office
3 104 (3.54%) Microsoft Project
4 90 (3.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 52 (1.77%) MS Visio
6 22 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.54%) Sketch
8 11 (0.37%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.24%) Chatbot
9 7 (0.24%) InVision
10 6 (0.20%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.20%) Trello
11 4 (0.14%) Adobe Captivate
12 2 (0.068%) Camtasia
12 2 (0.068%) Oracle Smart View
12 2 (0.068%) Snagit
13 1 (0.034%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.034%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 136 (4.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 57 (1.94%) Oracle Payables
3 46 (1.57%) Oracle Receivables
4 40 (1.36%) Oracle EBS
5 38 (1.29%) SAP FI
6 37 (1.26%) Oracle General Ledger
7 31 (1.06%) Oracle Cash Management
8 29 (0.99%) Oracle Assets
8 29 (0.99%) SAP CO
9 28 (0.95%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 28 (0.95%) SAP FI/CO
10 25 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
11 23 (0.78%) Oracle EBS R12
11 23 (0.78%) Oracle ERP
12 18 (0.61%) SAP ERP
13 16 (0.54%) SAP BRIM
13 16 (0.54%) SAP Hybris
13 16 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
14 15 (0.51%) Remedy ITSM
14 15 (0.51%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 386 (13.14%) AWS
2 370 (12.59%) Azure
3 183 (6.23%) Power Platform
4 166 (5.65%) GCP
5 119 (4.05%) Microsoft 365
6 79 (2.69%) Dynamics 365
7 75 (2.55%) GitHub
7 75 (2.55%) Serverless
8 62 (2.11%) Azure DevOps
9 61 (2.08%) SaaS
10 48 (1.63%) Entra ID
11 44 (1.50%) OCI
12 39 (1.33%) AWS CloudFormation
12 39 (1.33%) OpenShift
13 38 (1.29%) Snowflake
14 37 (1.26%) AWS Lambda
14 37 (1.26%) Figma
15 30 (1.02%) Amazon S3
16 29 (0.99%) GitHub Actions
17 26 (0.88%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 62 (2.11%) Firewall
2 33 (1.12%) WAN
3 23 (0.78%) Network Security
4 22 (0.75%) Skype
4 22 (0.75%) VPN
4 22 (0.75%) Wireless
5 20 (0.68%) DNS
6 18 (0.61%) LAN
6 18 (0.61%) SSH
7 16 (0.54%) SD-WAN
7 16 (0.54%) SSL
8 15 (0.51%) Kerberos
9 13 (0.44%) DHCP
10 11 (0.37%) Internet
10 11 (0.37%) SNMP
10 11 (0.37%) TCP/IP
11 8 (0.27%) Cisco IOS
11 8 (0.27%) HTTP
12 6 (0.20%) Unified Communications
12 6 (0.20%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 173 (5.89%) Power BI
2 74 (2.52%) Data Warehouse
3 70 (2.38%) PostgreSQL
4 65 (2.21%) NoSQL
5 51 (1.74%) Relational Database
6 39 (1.33%) Tableau
7 33 (1.12%) SQL Server
8 29 (0.99%) Metadata
9 27 (0.92%) Big Data
9 27 (0.92%) Data Lake
10 26 (0.88%) Oracle Reports
11 22 (0.75%) Power Query
12 20 (0.68%) BigQuery
12 20 (0.68%) DynamoDB
13 18 (0.61%) Amazon RDS
13 18 (0.61%) MongoDB
13 18 (0.61%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.54%) Hadoop
14 16 (0.54%) MySQL
15 13 (0.44%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 289 (9.84%) JIRA
2 145 (4.94%) Jenkins
3 87 (2.96%) GitLab
4 69 (2.35%) Git
5 43 (1.46%) JUnit
6 40 (1.36%) Sonatype Nexus
7 35 (1.19%) Cucumber
8 27 (0.92%) Bitbucket
9 24 (0.82%) Liquibase
9 24 (0.82%) Selenium
10 15 (0.51%) Gradle
11 13 (0.44%) Postman
12 11 (0.37%) Cypress.io
12 11 (0.37%) Maven
13 10 (0.34%) JMeter
13 10 (0.34%) REST Assured
14 8 (0.27%) Bitbucket Server
14 8 (0.27%) CA Release Automation
14 8 (0.27%) Hudson
14 8 (0.27%) Jaeger
General
1 1,099 (37.41%) Social Skills
2 515 (17.53%) Banking
3 396 (13.48%) Analytical Skills
4 341 (11.61%) Public Sector
5 197 (6.71%) Manufacturing
6 185 (6.30%) Telecoms
7 164 (5.58%) Marketing
8 127 (4.32%) Electronics
9 116 (3.95%) Organisational Skills
10 104 (3.54%) Financial Institution
11 100 (3.40%) Legal
12 93 (3.17%) Documentation Skills
13 62 (2.11%) General Ledger
14 58 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
15 55 (1.87%) Retail
16 54 (1.84%) Investment Banking
17 49 (1.67%) Local Government
18 45 (1.53%) Billing
18 45 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
19 33 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 461 (15.69%) Analyst
2 285 (9.70%) Project Manager
3 227 (7.73%) Architect
4 226 (7.69%) Senior
5 218 (7.42%) Consultant
6 209 (7.11%) Developer
7 193 (6.57%) Business Analyst
8 187 (6.36%) Lead
9 101 (3.44%) Solutions Architect
10 96 (3.27%) Programme Manager
11 82 (2.79%) Data Analyst
12 63 (2.14%) Senior Manager
13 59 (2.01%) SAP Consultant
14 57 (1.94%) Java Developer
15 56 (1.91%) Finance Manager
16 55 (1.87%) Designer
17 54 (1.84%) Accountant
17 54 (1.84%) IT Manager
18 52 (1.77%) Functional Consultant
19 50 (1.70%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 129 (4.39%) REST
2 91 (3.10%) Spring
3 80 (2.72%) Spring Boot
4 76 (2.59%) RESTful
5 67 (2.28%) Oracle Fusion
6 60 (2.04%) Kafka
7 52 (1.77%) .NET
8 45 (1.53%) React
9 39 (1.33%) Middleware
10 37 (1.26%) Node.js
11 35 (1.19%) SOAP
12 33 (1.12%) Elastic Stack
12 33 (1.12%) OAuth
13 30 (1.02%) AngularJS
13 30 (1.02%) JSON
14 28 (0.95%) HTML
15 24 (0.82%) CSS
16 23 (0.78%) JMS
16 23 (0.78%) XML
17 19 (0.65%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 143 (4.87%) Onboarding
2 129 (4.39%) Product Ownership
3 90 (3.06%) Cloud Native
4 78 (2.65%) Data Centre
5 71 (2.42%) Public Cloud
6 67 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
7 65 (2.21%) Management Information System
8 62 (2.11%) Data Protection Act
9 56 (1.91%) Legacy Systems
10 50 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
11 37 (1.26%) Data Structures
12 35 (1.19%) Mobile App
13 33 (1.12%) CMDB
14 31 (1.06%) Virtual Team
15 30 (1.02%) PMI
15 30 (1.02%) Self-Motivation
16 23 (0.78%) SWIFT Messaging Network
17 22 (0.75%) NHS
18 21 (0.71%) Credit Risk
19 20 (0.68%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 141 (4.80%) Linux
2 127 (4.32%) Windows
3 43 (1.46%) Mac OS
4 40 (1.36%) Windows 10
5 39 (1.33%) Unix
6 31 (1.06%) Android
7 20 (0.68%) Windows Server
8 10 (0.34%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.10%) VMS
10 3 (0.10%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.068%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.068%) Windows 8
12 1 (0.034%) Kali Linux
12 1 (0.034%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.034%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 687 (23.38%) Agile
2 564 (19.20%) Stakeholder Management
3 490 (16.68%) Problem-Solving
4 381 (12.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 380 (12.93%) Migration
6 336 (11.44%) Project Management
7 329 (11.20%) Business Intelligence
8 325 (11.06%) DevOps
9 313 (10.65%) ERP
10 300 (10.21%) CI/CD
11 299 (10.18%) Continuous Improvement
12 257 (8.75%) Change Management
13 233 (7.93%) Programme Management
14 218 (7.42%) Decision-Making
15 210 (7.15%) Analytics
15 210 (7.15%) Project Delivery
16 189 (6.43%) User Acceptance Testing
17 184 (6.26%) Risk Management
18 183 (6.23%) Roadmaps
19 172 (5.85%) AI
Programming Languages
1 342 (11.64%) SQL
2 283 (9.63%) Python
3 199 (6.77%) Java
4 76 (2.59%) PowerShell
5 44 (1.50%) JavaScript
5 44 (1.50%) TypeScript
6 41 (1.40%) C#
7 38 (1.29%) Go
8 25 (0.85%) PL/SQL
8 25 (0.85%) Shell Script
9 21 (0.71%) Bash
10 18 (0.61%) R
10 18 (0.61%) VBA
11 14 (0.48%) Groovy
12 13 (0.44%) Perl
13 11 (0.37%) Rust
14 9 (0.31%) ABAP
14 9 (0.31%) Ruby
15 8 (0.27%) C++
15 8 (0.27%) JCL
Qualifications
1 320 (10.89%) Degree
2 267 (9.09%) Security Cleared
3 186 (6.33%) SC Cleared
4 75 (2.55%) Master's Degree
5 72 (2.45%) PMI Certification
5 72 (2.45%) PMP
6 71 (2.42%) BPSS Clearance
7 68 (2.31%) Computer Science Degree
8 66 (2.25%) ACCA
9 60 (2.04%) CIMA
10 50 (1.70%) AWS Certification
11 49 (1.67%) DV Cleared
12 46 (1.57%) CISSP
13 40 (1.36%) CISM
14 34 (1.16%) ITIL Certification
15 21 (0.71%) TOGAF Certification
16 15 (0.51%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 15 (0.51%) MBA
17 14 (0.48%) FFIEC
18 13 (0.44%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (4.83%) PMO
2 134 (4.56%) QA
3 110 (3.74%) Data Quality
4 102 (3.47%) GDPR
5 56 (1.91%) NIST
6 51 (1.74%) SLA
7 46 (1.57%) PCI DSS
8 45 (1.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 40 (1.36%) Accessibility
10 32 (1.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 28 (0.95%) ISO 20022
12 26 (0.88%) PSD2
13 23 (0.78%) IFRS
14 22 (0.75%) GRC
15 17 (0.58%) SEPA
16 14 (0.48%) Disclosure Scotland
17 12 (0.41%) Basel III
17 12 (0.41%) COBIT
18 11 (0.37%) GLBA
18 11 (0.37%) NCSC
System Software
1 130 (4.42%) Docker
2 103 (3.51%) Active Directory
3 26 (0.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.44%) vSphere
6 9 (0.31%) GPFS
7 8 (0.27%) NFS
7 8 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.20%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.17%) Tivoli Directory Server
10 4 (0.14%) Firmware
10 4 (0.14%) ISA Server
11 3 (0.10%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.10%) HDFS
11 3 (0.10%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.068%) ACF2
12 2 (0.068%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.068%) RACF
12 2 (0.068%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 152 (5.17%) Kubernetes
2 103 (3.51%) Terraform
3 87 (2.96%) Ansible
4 59 (2.01%) Grafana
5 54 (1.84%) Prometheus
6 24 (0.82%) SCCM
7 18 (0.61%) Progress Chef
8 15 (0.51%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.48%) Microsoft Intune
10 10 (0.34%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (0.34%) vRealize
11 9 (0.31%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.27%) CA Single Sign-On
12 8 (0.27%) Kiali
12 8 (0.27%) SCOM
13 7 (0.24%) CA Wily
13 7 (0.24%) HP SiteScope
13 7 (0.24%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.17%) Control-M
14 5 (0.17%) Nessus
Vendors
1 449 (15.28%) Microsoft
2 396 (13.48%) SAP
3 269 (9.16%) Oracle
4 146 (4.97%) ServiceNow
5 95 (3.23%) Splunk
6 83 (2.83%) Cisco
7 80 (2.72%) Google
8 48 (1.63%) IBM
9 47 (1.60%) Salesforce
10 41 (1.40%) VMware
10 41 (1.40%) Workday
11 35 (1.19%) Databricks
11 35 (1.19%) HP
12 34 (1.16%) Dell
13 29 (0.99%) Apple
14 25 (0.85%) Adobe
14 25 (0.85%) Citrix
15 24 (0.82%) Sage
16 21 (0.71%) Remedy
17 19 (0.65%) IFS