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

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 5 6
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 +1
Contract jobs citing Finance 3,552 2,259 2,593
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 14.18% 17.41% 12.48%
As % of the General category 28.15% 27.89% 23.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,173 1,462 1,567
10th Percentile £333 £305 £280
25th Percentile £411 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £605 £588 £625
90th Percentile £700 £675 £738
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £575
% change year-on-year - -4.35% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 144 65 208
10th Percentile £13.95 £16.00 £12.43
25th Percentile £17.00 £19.91 £14.50
Median hourly rate £32.38 £36.00 £29.41
Median % change year-on-year -10.07% +22.40% -39.04%
75th Percentile £54.00 £66.00 £38.12
90th Percentile £84.70 £75.00 £57.38
UK median hourly rate £29.50 £40.25 £27.00
% change year-on-year -26.71% +49.07% +0.58%

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 12,620 8,099 11,132
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 50.38% 62.42% 53.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,244 4,976 6,292
10th Percentile £263 £210 £205
25th Percentile £399 £360 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £595
90th Percentile £675 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £513 £511 £525
% change year-on-year +0.36% -2.73% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,505 622 1,689
10th Percentile £13.51 £13.10 £12.50
25th Percentile £17.00 £15.62 £15.00
Median hourly rate £30.27 £24.42 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +23.96% -14.32% +1.21%
75th Percentile £61.50 £51.98 £53.75
90th Percentile £81.05 £74.88 £67.38
UK median hourly rate £30.75 £27.94 £30.16
% change year-on-year +10.06% -7.36% -7.20%

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 5 June 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 5 June 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 5 June 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 1,223 £492 +5.47% 870
South East -1 650 £500 -4.31% 935
North West +5 645 £465 +3.33% 516
Midlands -1 600 £500 +6.61% 493
Yorkshire +2 535 £525 +9.95% 278
Scotland 0 438 £500 +4.82% 194
West Midlands 0 416 £500 - 302
South West -2 368 £525 - 368
East of England +2 193 £520 -9.57% 245
East Midlands 0 179 £468 +5.87% 190
Wales +8 82 £483 +18.77% 81
Northern Ireland -1 48 £513 +20.59% 126
North East -15 44 £488 +11.11% 84
Channel Islands - 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
1 159 (4.48%) Confluence
2 103 (2.90%) SharePoint
3 20 (0.56%) Apache Spark
4 15 (0.42%) Apache
5 13 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
6 12 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
7 11 (0.31%) CICS
8 9 (0.25%) CMS
9 8 (0.23%) SAS
10 6 (0.17%) IIS
11 5 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 5 (0.14%) TPMS
11 5 (0.14%) WebLogic
11 5 (0.14%) WebSphere
12 4 (0.11%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.084%) Apache Airflow
14 2 (0.056%) Ethereum
14 2 (0.056%) Hyperledger
14 2 (0.056%) JBoss
14 2 (0.056%) Mule ESB
Applications
1 243 (6.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 112 (3.15%) Microsoft Office
3 103 (2.90%) Microsoft Project
4 81 (2.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 47 (1.32%) MS Visio
6 25 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
7 6 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 4 (0.11%) Adobe XD
8 4 (0.11%) InVision
8 4 (0.11%) Sketch
9 3 (0.084%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.056%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.056%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.056%) Photoshop
10 2 (0.056%) Trello
11 1 (0.028%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.028%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.028%) UXPin
11 1 (0.028%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 191 (5.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (1.30%) Oracle Payables
3 41 (1.15%) Oracle ERP
4 38 (1.07%) Oracle Receivables
5 35 (0.99%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 34 (0.96%) NetSuite
7 22 (0.62%) Oracle General Ledger
8 19 (0.53%) SAP FI
9 17 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
9 17 (0.48%) Unit4 Business World
10 15 (0.42%) SAP CO
10 15 (0.42%) SAP GRC
11 14 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
11 14 (0.39%) Oracle Assets
11 14 (0.39%) SAP FI/CO
12 13 (0.37%) Oracle Cash Management
13 12 (0.34%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
14 11 (0.31%) NEC Housing
14 11 (0.31%) SAP BRIM
14 11 (0.31%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 436 (12.27%) Azure
2 317 (8.92%) AWS
3 215 (6.05%) Power Platform
4 177 (4.98%) GCP
5 98 (2.76%) Microsoft 365
6 96 (2.70%) SaaS
7 86 (2.42%) Azure DevOps
8 81 (2.28%) GitHub
9 69 (1.94%) Dynamics 365
10 59 (1.66%) Entra ID
11 45 (1.27%) OpenShift
12 41 (1.15%) Snowflake
13 37 (1.04%) Microsoft Copilot
13 37 (1.04%) Serverless
14 33 (0.93%) OCI
15 24 (0.68%) Google Workspace
15 24 (0.68%) Power Automate
16 23 (0.65%) GitHub Actions
17 22 (0.62%) Amazon S3
17 22 (0.62%) Google Sheets
Communications & Networking
1 82 (2.31%) Firewall
2 52 (1.46%) Network Security
3 39 (1.10%) DNS
4 37 (1.04%) WAN
5 34 (0.96%) VPN
6 23 (0.65%) TCP/IP
7 20 (0.56%) SSL
8 19 (0.53%) SD-WAN
9 16 (0.45%) LAN
10 14 (0.39%) DHCP
11 11 (0.31%) VSAN
12 10 (0.28%) MPLS
13 8 (0.23%) BGP
13 8 (0.23%) Skype
13 8 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
14 7 (0.20%) Cisco Nexus
14 7 (0.20%) Internet
15 5 (0.14%) FTP
15 5 (0.14%) OSPF
15 5 (0.14%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 187 (5.26%) Power BI
2 70 (1.97%) Data Warehouse
3 61 (1.72%) Metadata
3 61 (1.72%) Relational Database
4 60 (1.69%) PostgreSQL
5 47 (1.32%) Oracle Reports
6 45 (1.27%) SQL Server
7 36 (1.01%) Tableau
8 35 (0.99%) NoSQL
9 28 (0.79%) Data Lake
10 25 (0.70%) MongoDB
11 24 (0.68%) DynamoDB
12 22 (0.62%) Oracle ODI
13 20 (0.56%) Snowflake Schema
14 19 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 18 (0.51%) Big Data
16 17 (0.48%) Db2
17 16 (0.45%) Power Query
18 15 (0.42%) Data Vault
19 14 (0.39%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 286 (8.05%) JIRA
2 75 (2.11%) Jenkins
3 70 (1.97%) Git
4 29 (0.82%) GitLab
5 27 (0.76%) JUnit
6 21 (0.59%) Cucumber
7 19 (0.53%) Sonatype Nexus
8 18 (0.51%) Selenium
9 14 (0.39%) SonarQube
10 13 (0.37%) Hudson
10 13 (0.37%) Postman
11 9 (0.25%) Visual Studio
12 8 (0.23%) Jaeger
13 7 (0.20%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.20%) Liquibase
13 7 (0.20%) REST Assured
14 6 (0.17%) IntelliJ
14 6 (0.17%) Maven
15 5 (0.14%) Gradle
15 5 (0.14%) Oracle Forms
General
1 1,133 (31.90%) Social Skills
2 509 (14.33%) Banking
3 462 (13.01%) Analytical Skills
4 252 (7.09%) Public Sector
5 148 (4.17%) Legal
6 135 (3.80%) Organisational Skills
7 120 (3.38%) Retail
8 109 (3.07%) Manufacturing
9 102 (2.87%) Documentation Skills
10 98 (2.76%) Local Government
11 92 (2.59%) Influencing Skills
12 76 (2.14%) Financial Institution
13 69 (1.94%) General Ledger
13 69 (1.94%) Investment Banking
14 57 (1.60%) Billing
14 57 (1.60%) Telecoms
15 54 (1.52%) Marketing
16 46 (1.30%) Law
17 45 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 37 (1.04%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 522 (14.70%) Analyst
2 346 (9.74%) Project Manager
3 325 (9.15%) Architect
4 320 (9.01%) Lead
5 311 (8.76%) Senior
6 243 (6.84%) Consultant
7 236 (6.64%) Business Analyst
8 234 (6.59%) Developer
9 152 (4.28%) Solutions Architect
10 135 (3.80%) Accountant
11 97 (2.73%) Senior Manager
12 88 (2.48%) Programme Manager
13 84 (2.36%) Systems Accountant
14 80 (2.25%) IT Manager
15 75 (2.11%) Finance Manager
16 68 (1.91%) Financial Analyst
16 68 (1.91%) Java Developer
17 65 (1.83%) Data Analyst
18 61 (1.72%) Data Engineer
19 60 (1.69%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (2.90%) Oracle Fusion
2 88 (2.48%) Middleware
3 84 (2.36%) REST
4 67 (1.89%) Spring Boot
5 66 (1.86%) Kafka
5 66 (1.86%) Spring
6 47 (1.32%) React
7 46 (1.30%) .NET
8 43 (1.21%) RESTful
9 30 (0.84%) Node.js
9 30 (0.84%) OAuth
10 28 (0.79%) JSON
11 26 (0.73%) OpenID
12 24 (0.68%) AngularJS
12 24 (0.68%) XML
13 22 (0.62%) OpenTelemetry
14 18 (0.51%) HTML
14 18 (0.51%) SailPoint
14 18 (0.51%) SAML
14 18 (0.51%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 147 (4.14%) Onboarding
2 145 (4.08%) Product Ownership
3 124 (3.49%) Cloud Native
4 113 (3.18%) Management Information System
5 98 (2.76%) Legacy Systems
6 87 (2.45%) Data Protection Act
7 81 (2.28%) Data Centre
8 65 (1.83%) Public Cloud
9 60 (1.69%) Data Structures
10 51 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
11 45 (1.27%) Virtual Team
12 41 (1.15%) Mainframe
13 39 (1.10%) Security Posture
13 39 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
14 26 (0.73%) PMI
15 25 (0.70%) CMDB
16 24 (0.68%) Analytical Mindset
17 21 (0.59%) Operational Technology
18 20 (0.56%) Greenfield Project
19 19 (0.53%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 123 (3.46%) Windows
2 102 (2.87%) Linux
3 54 (1.52%) Unix
4 30 (0.84%) Windows Server
5 27 (0.76%) Solaris
6 23 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 17 (0.48%) zOS
8 16 (0.45%) Windows 10
9 13 (0.37%) AIX
10 10 (0.28%) Android
11 9 (0.25%) Apple iOS
12 7 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
13 6 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
14 4 (0.11%) HPUX
14 4 (0.11%) Mac OS
14 4 (0.11%) MVS
14 4 (0.11%) Oracle Linux
14 4 (0.11%) SUSE
14 4 (0.11%) VMS
15 1 (0.028%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 756 (21.28%) Stakeholder Management
2 661 (18.61%) Agile
3 533 (15.01%) Problem-Solving
4 521 (14.67%) Migration
5 472 (13.29%) ERP
6 470 (13.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 451 (12.70%) Continuous Improvement
8 398 (11.20%) Project Management
9 345 (9.71%) DevOps
10 315 (8.87%) Change Management
11 314 (8.84%) CI/CD
12 297 (8.36%) Decision-Making
13 287 (8.08%) Project Delivery
14 265 (7.46%) AI
15 263 (7.40%) User Acceptance Testing
16 259 (7.29%) Roadmaps
17 256 (7.21%) Validation
18 243 (6.84%) Risk Management
19 231 (6.50%) Business Intelligence
20 226 (6.36%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 339 (9.54%) SQL
2 262 (7.38%) Python
3 214 (6.02%) Java
4 81 (2.28%) PowerShell
5 38 (1.07%) Bash
6 36 (1.01%) C#
6 36 (1.01%) JavaScript
7 27 (0.76%) TypeScript
8 24 (0.68%) PL/SQL
9 21 (0.59%) C++
10 20 (0.56%) Go
10 20 (0.56%) Shell Script
11 17 (0.48%) VBA
12 14 (0.39%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 12 (0.34%) Rust
14 11 (0.31%) T-SQL
15 10 (0.28%) COBOL
15 10 (0.28%) Kotlin
15 10 (0.28%) PHP
16 9 (0.25%) Perl
Qualifications
1 321 (9.04%) Security Cleared
2 313 (8.81%) Degree
3 203 (5.72%) SC Cleared
4 135 (3.80%) ACCA
5 131 (3.69%) CIMA
6 111 (3.13%) PMP
7 97 (2.73%) PMI Certification
8 96 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
9 74 (2.08%) CISSP
10 54 (1.52%) DV Cleared
11 46 (1.30%) CISM
12 38 (1.07%) Computer Science Degree
13 35 (0.99%) Master's Degree
14 29 (0.82%) AWS Certification
15 25 (0.70%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 24 (0.68%) Cisco Certification
17 21 (0.59%) Azure Certification
18 16 (0.45%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 16 (0.45%) DBS Check
18 16 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 184 (5.18%) Data Quality
2 159 (4.48%) PMO
3 140 (3.94%) GDPR
4 138 (3.89%) QA
5 63 (1.77%) NIST
6 45 (1.27%) SLA
7 42 (1.18%) GRC
7 42 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 39 (1.10%) PCI DSS
9 38 (1.07%) IFRS
10 35 (0.99%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 34 (0.96%) Accessibility
12 15 (0.42%) IFRS 17
12 15 (0.42%) ISO 20022
13 13 (0.37%) SOC 2
14 12 (0.34%) PSD2
15 10 (0.28%) Basel III
16 9 (0.25%) GAAP
16 9 (0.25%) ISO 8583
16 9 (0.25%) SEPA
System Software
1 100 (2.82%) Docker
2 67 (1.89%) Active Directory
3 39 (1.10%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.42%) vSphere
6 13 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 12 (0.34%) RACF
8 11 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.20%) Hyper-V
10 6 (0.17%) GPFS
10 6 (0.17%) NFS
11 5 (0.14%) VMware NSX
12 4 (0.11%) KVM
13 3 (0.084%) Firmware
14 2 (0.056%) ACF2
14 2 (0.056%) SRDF
15 1 (0.028%) HDFS
15 1 (0.028%) ISA Server
15 1 (0.028%) Job Entry Subsystem
15 1 (0.028%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 167 (4.70%) Kubernetes
2 81 (2.28%) Terraform
3 71 (2.00%) Ansible
4 42 (1.18%) Grafana
5 34 (0.96%) Prometheus
6 24 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (0.51%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.48%) SCCM
9 13 (0.37%) FortiGate
10 11 (0.31%) Progress Chef
11 10 (0.28%) HP ALM
11 10 (0.28%) Nessus
12 9 (0.25%) OMEGAMON
13 8 (0.23%) Istio
13 8 (0.23%) Kiali
13 8 (0.23%) vRealize
14 7 (0.20%) Argo
14 7 (0.20%) Control-M
15 6 (0.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 6 (0.17%) VxRail
Vendors
1 438 (12.33%) Microsoft
2 374 (10.53%) SAP
3 315 (8.87%) Oracle
4 143 (4.03%) ServiceNow
5 100 (2.82%) Google
6 63 (1.77%) Databricks
7 62 (1.75%) IBM
8 55 (1.55%) Sage
9 53 (1.49%) Splunk
10 52 (1.46%) Cisco
11 51 (1.44%) VMware
12 37 (1.04%) IFS
13 34 (0.96%) Salesforce
14 31 (0.87%) Ariba
15 29 (0.82%) Workday
16 24 (0.68%) HP
17 22 (0.62%) Red Hat
18 17 (0.48%) Adobe
18 17 (0.48%) Atlassian
19 16 (0.45%) Remedy