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

6 months to
15 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 4 6
Rank change year-on-year 0 +2 +1
Contract jobs citing Finance 3,666 2,368 2,686
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 14.32% 17.71% 12.57%
As % of the General category 28.40% 28.33% 23.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,253 1,540 1,610
10th Percentile £333 £308 £281
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 £603 £588 £619
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 155 69 216
10th Percentile £14.45 £15.25 £12.56
25th Percentile £17.15 £18.51 £14.50
Median hourly rate £39.00 £32.31 £29.41
Median % change year-on-year +20.71% +9.85% -39.08%
75th Percentile £54.00 £65.00 £38.12
90th Percentile £85.00 £75.00 £58.13
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £40.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year -12.50% +45.45% -1.72%

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 12,910 8,359 11,371
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 50.44% 62.51% 53.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,396 5,119 6,380
10th Percentile £268 £213 £205
25th Percentile £400 £358 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £594
90th Percentile £675 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £513 £504 £525
% change year-on-year +1.79% -4.05% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,545 664 1,718
10th Percentile £13.57 £13.13 £12.50
25th Percentile £17.13 £15.62 £15.00
Median hourly rate £31.18 £24.50 £29.50
Median % change year-on-year +27.24% -16.95% +9.26%
75th Percentile £63.38 £50.00 £53.75
90th Percentile £81.16 £75.00 £67.50
UK median hourly rate £32.00 £28.15 £30.91
% change year-on-year +13.68% -8.94% +1.22%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +2 1,263 £492 +6.32% 675
North West +5 666 £465 +3.33% 350
South East -1 664 £500 -4.53% 865
Midlands 0 630 £500 +8.11% 368
Yorkshire 0 550 £525 +10.53% 250
Scotland 0 456 £500 +4.11% 114
West Midlands +1 451 £514 +2.80% 227
South West -1 372 £525 - 297
East of England +1 195 £513 -8.89% 179
East Midlands -1 174 £468 +8.21% 138
Wales +8 86 £513 +16.81% 75
Northern Ireland -1 52 £513 +20.59% 67
North East -17 48 £500 +13.64% 82
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
1 163 (4.45%) Confluence
2 105 (2.86%) SharePoint
3 20 (0.55%) Apache Spark
4 15 (0.41%) Apache
4 15 (0.41%) Microsoft Exchange
4 15 (0.41%) Oracle Workflow
5 11 (0.30%) CICS
6 9 (0.25%) CMS
6 9 (0.25%) SAS
7 6 (0.16%) IIS
8 5 (0.14%) TPMS
8 5 (0.14%) WebLogic
8 5 (0.14%) WebSphere
9 4 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 4 (0.11%) Tomcat
10 3 (0.082%) Apache Airflow
11 2 (0.055%) Apache Pulsar
11 2 (0.055%) Camunda
11 2 (0.055%) Ethereum
11 2 (0.055%) Hyperledger
Applications
1 243 (6.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 114 (3.11%) Microsoft Office
3 100 (2.73%) Microsoft Project
4 82 (2.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 47 (1.28%) MS Visio
6 27 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
7 7 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 4 (0.11%) Adobe XD
8 4 (0.11%) InVision
8 4 (0.11%) Sketch
9 3 (0.082%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.055%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.055%) AutoCAD
10 2 (0.055%) Photoshop
10 2 (0.055%) Trello
11 1 (0.027%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.027%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.027%) UXPin
11 1 (0.027%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 195 (5.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (1.23%) Oracle Payables
3 41 (1.12%) Oracle ERP
4 37 (1.01%) Oracle Receivables
5 36 (0.98%) NetSuite
5 36 (0.98%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 20 (0.55%) Oracle General Ledger
6 20 (0.55%) SAP FI
7 19 (0.52%) Unit4 Business World
8 17 (0.46%) SAP GRC
9 16 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
10 15 (0.41%) SAP CO
11 14 (0.38%) SAP FI/CO
12 13 (0.35%) NEC Housing
12 13 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
12 13 (0.35%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
13 12 (0.33%) Oracle Assets
13 12 (0.33%) SAP BRIM
13 12 (0.33%) SAP PSCD
14 11 (0.30%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 449 (12.25%) Azure
2 321 (8.76%) AWS
3 222 (6.06%) Power Platform
4 184 (5.02%) GCP
5 102 (2.78%) SaaS
6 95 (2.59%) Microsoft 365
7 88 (2.40%) Azure DevOps
8 78 (2.13%) GitHub
9 69 (1.88%) Dynamics 365
10 62 (1.69%) Entra ID
11 45 (1.23%) OpenShift
12 42 (1.15%) Snowflake
13 41 (1.12%) Microsoft Copilot
14 40 (1.09%) Serverless
15 32 (0.87%) OCI
16 25 (0.68%) Power Automate
17 23 (0.63%) GitHub Actions
17 23 (0.63%) OneDrive
18 22 (0.60%) Google Workspace
18 22 (0.60%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 79 (2.15%) Firewall
2 53 (1.45%) Network Security
3 39 (1.06%) DNS
4 38 (1.04%) WAN
5 32 (0.87%) VPN
6 24 (0.65%) TCP/IP
7 20 (0.55%) SSL
8 19 (0.52%) SD-WAN
9 17 (0.46%) LAN
10 14 (0.38%) DHCP
11 11 (0.30%) VSAN
12 9 (0.25%) MPLS
13 8 (0.22%) Wi-Fi
14 7 (0.19%) BGP
14 7 (0.19%) Cisco Nexus
14 7 (0.19%) Internet
14 7 (0.19%) SSH
15 6 (0.16%) Skype
16 5 (0.14%) Cisco ASA
16 5 (0.14%) Cisco Firepower
Database & Business Intelligence
1 191 (5.21%) Power BI
2 75 (2.05%) Data Warehouse
3 64 (1.75%) Relational Database
4 62 (1.69%) PostgreSQL
5 60 (1.64%) Metadata
6 51 (1.39%) Oracle Reports
7 48 (1.31%) SQL Server
8 37 (1.01%) Tableau
9 34 (0.93%) NoSQL
10 31 (0.85%) Data Lake
11 26 (0.71%) MongoDB
12 24 (0.65%) DynamoDB
13 22 (0.60%) Oracle ODI
13 22 (0.60%) Snowflake Schema
14 19 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 18 (0.49%) Db2
16 17 (0.46%) Big Data
17 16 (0.44%) Power Query
18 15 (0.41%) Data Vault
18 15 (0.41%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 287 (7.83%) JIRA
2 75 (2.05%) Git
2 75 (2.05%) Jenkins
3 28 (0.76%) GitLab
3 28 (0.76%) JUnit
4 22 (0.60%) Cucumber
5 20 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
6 19 (0.52%) Selenium
7 13 (0.35%) Hudson
7 13 (0.35%) Postman
7 13 (0.35%) SonarQube
8 10 (0.27%) Visual Studio
9 7 (0.19%) Liquibase
9 7 (0.19%) Oracle Forms
9 7 (0.19%) REST Assured
10 6 (0.16%) IntelliJ
10 6 (0.16%) Jaeger
10 6 (0.16%) Maven
11 5 (0.14%) Bitbucket
11 5 (0.14%) Gradle
General
1 1,173 (32.00%) Social Skills
2 520 (14.18%) Banking
3 479 (13.07%) Analytical Skills
4 252 (6.87%) Public Sector
5 158 (4.31%) Legal
6 141 (3.85%) Organisational Skills
7 125 (3.41%) Retail
8 107 (2.92%) Manufacturing
9 102 (2.78%) Documentation Skills
9 102 (2.78%) Local Government
10 92 (2.51%) Influencing Skills
11 78 (2.13%) Investment Banking
12 77 (2.10%) Financial Institution
13 71 (1.94%) General Ledger
14 59 (1.61%) Billing
15 52 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 51 (1.39%) Telecoms
17 50 (1.36%) Marketing
18 48 (1.31%) Law
19 42 (1.15%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 526 (14.35%) Analyst
2 351 (9.57%) Project Manager
3 338 (9.22%) Architect
4 333 (9.08%) Lead
5 327 (8.92%) Senior
6 257 (7.01%) Developer
7 242 (6.60%) Consultant
8 239 (6.52%) Business Analyst
9 160 (4.36%) Solutions Architect
10 145 (3.96%) Accountant
11 96 (2.62%) Senior Manager
12 91 (2.48%) Systems Accountant
13 89 (2.43%) IT Manager
14 88 (2.40%) Programme Manager
15 79 (2.15%) Java Developer
16 76 (2.07%) Finance Manager
17 73 (1.99%) Financial Analyst
18 64 (1.75%) Administrator
18 64 (1.75%) Data Engineer
19 60 (1.64%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 116 (3.16%) Oracle Fusion
2 89 (2.43%) Middleware
3 85 (2.32%) REST
4 70 (1.91%) Kafka
5 69 (1.88%) Spring Boot
6 67 (1.83%) Spring
7 58 (1.58%) React
8 50 (1.36%) .NET
9 43 (1.17%) RESTful
10 31 (0.85%) JSON
10 31 (0.85%) OAuth
11 28 (0.76%) Node.js
12 27 (0.74%) OpenID
13 26 (0.71%) XML
14 23 (0.63%) AngularJS
15 21 (0.57%) Redux
15 21 (0.57%) SAP Fiori
16 19 (0.52%) OpenTelemetry
17 18 (0.49%) SailPoint
17 18 (0.49%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 153 (4.17%) Onboarding
2 145 (3.96%) Product Ownership
3 125 (3.41%) Cloud Native
4 120 (3.27%) Management Information System
5 107 (2.92%) Legacy Systems
6 92 (2.51%) Data Protection Act
7 79 (2.15%) Data Centre
8 66 (1.80%) Public Cloud
9 62 (1.69%) Data Structures
10 59 (1.61%) Virtual Team
11 50 (1.36%) Distributed Systems
12 41 (1.12%) Mainframe
13 40 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
14 38 (1.04%) Security Posture
15 27 (0.74%) Analytical Mindset
16 26 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
17 25 (0.68%) PMI
18 23 (0.63%) CMDB
18 23 (0.63%) Web Conferencing
19 22 (0.60%) Podcast
Operating Systems
1 124 (3.38%) Windows
2 103 (2.81%) Linux
3 57 (1.55%) Unix
4 30 (0.82%) Windows Server
5 27 (0.74%) Solaris
6 22 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 17 (0.46%) zOS
8 13 (0.35%) AIX
9 11 (0.30%) Windows 10
10 10 (0.27%) Android
11 9 (0.25%) Apple iOS
12 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.14%) 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 (0.027%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 804 (21.93%) Stakeholder Management
2 684 (18.66%) Agile
3 545 (14.87%) Problem-Solving
4 534 (14.57%) Migration
5 491 (13.39%) ERP
6 488 (13.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 480 (13.09%) Continuous Improvement
8 408 (11.13%) Project Management
9 352 (9.60%) DevOps
10 326 (8.89%) Change Management
11 320 (8.73%) CI/CD
12 316 (8.62%) Decision-Making
13 296 (8.07%) Project Delivery
14 281 (7.67%) AI
15 279 (7.61%) User Acceptance Testing
16 269 (7.34%) Roadmaps
17 264 (7.20%) Validation
18 245 (6.68%) Risk Management
19 234 (6.38%) Data Modelling
20 230 (6.27%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 354 (9.66%) SQL
2 276 (7.53%) Python
3 227 (6.19%) Java
4 79 (2.15%) PowerShell
5 47 (1.28%) C#
6 43 (1.17%) JavaScript
7 37 (1.01%) Bash
8 33 (0.90%) TypeScript
9 31 (0.85%) PL/SQL
10 22 (0.60%) C++
10 22 (0.60%) Go
11 20 (0.55%) Shell Script
12 17 (0.46%) VBA
13 14 (0.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 11 (0.30%) Rust
14 11 (0.30%) T-SQL
15 10 (0.27%) COBOL
15 10 (0.27%) Kotlin
15 10 (0.27%) PHP
16 9 (0.25%) Perl
Qualifications
1 325 (8.87%) Security Cleared
2 316 (8.62%) Degree
3 202 (5.51%) SC Cleared
4 137 (3.74%) ACCA
5 133 (3.63%) CIMA
6 115 (3.14%) PMP
7 108 (2.95%) BPSS Clearance
8 102 (2.78%) PMI Certification
9 74 (2.02%) CISSP
10 58 (1.58%) DV Cleared
11 47 (1.28%) CISM
12 41 (1.12%) Computer Science Degree
13 36 (0.98%) Master's Degree
14 29 (0.79%) AWS Certification
15 27 (0.74%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 25 (0.68%) Cisco Certification
17 23 (0.63%) Azure Certification
18 18 (0.49%) ITIL Certification
19 17 (0.46%) (ISC)2 CCSP
20 16 (0.44%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 189 (5.16%) Data Quality
2 162 (4.42%) PMO
3 145 (3.96%) GDPR
4 141 (3.85%) QA
5 62 (1.69%) NIST
6 45 (1.23%) GRC
7 44 (1.20%) SLA
8 41 (1.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 39 (1.06%) IFRS
9 39 (1.06%) PCI DSS
10 35 (0.95%) Accessibility
11 34 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 15 (0.41%) IFRS 17
12 15 (0.41%) ISO 20022
13 13 (0.35%) SOC 2
14 12 (0.33%) PSD2
15 9 (0.25%) GAAP
15 9 (0.25%) ISO 8583
15 9 (0.25%) SEPA
16 8 (0.22%) Basel III
System Software
1 94 (2.56%) Docker
2 71 (1.94%) Active Directory
3 38 (1.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.52%) Virtual Desktop
5 14 (0.38%) vSphere
6 13 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
7 12 (0.33%) RACF
8 11 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.19%) Hyper-V
10 6 (0.16%) GPFS
10 6 (0.16%) NFS
11 5 (0.14%) VMware NSX
12 4 (0.11%) KVM
13 3 (0.082%) Firmware
14 2 (0.055%) ACF2
14 2 (0.055%) Oracle RAC
14 2 (0.055%) SRDF
15 1 (0.027%) HDFS
15 1 (0.027%) Job Entry Subsystem
15 1 (0.027%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 165 (4.50%) Kubernetes
2 83 (2.26%) Terraform
3 74 (2.02%) Ansible
4 42 (1.15%) Grafana
5 34 (0.93%) Prometheus
6 26 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
7 20 (0.55%) SCCM
7 20 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (0.35%) FortiGate
9 11 (0.30%) Progress Chef
10 10 (0.27%) Control-M
10 10 (0.27%) HP ALM
10 10 (0.27%) Nessus
11 9 (0.25%) Istio
11 9 (0.25%) OMEGAMON
12 8 (0.22%) Argo
12 8 (0.22%) vRealize
13 6 (0.16%) Jamf Pro
13 6 (0.16%) Kiali
13 6 (0.16%) VxRail
Vendors
1 452 (12.33%) Microsoft
2 384 (10.47%) SAP
3 335 (9.14%) Oracle
4 143 (3.90%) ServiceNow
5 101 (2.76%) Google
6 66 (1.80%) Databricks
7 64 (1.75%) IBM
8 55 (1.50%) Sage
8 55 (1.50%) VMware
9 52 (1.42%) Splunk
10 50 (1.36%) Cisco
11 38 (1.04%) Salesforce
12 37 (1.01%) IFS
13 33 (0.90%) Ariba
14 28 (0.76%) Workday
15 24 (0.65%) HP
16 21 (0.57%) Red Hat
17 19 (0.52%) Adobe
18 17 (0.46%) Atlassian
18 17 (0.46%) MuleSoft