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 29 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 5 6
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 +1
Contract jobs citing Finance 3,401 2,219 2,595
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 14.22% 17.48% 12.56%
As % of the General category 27.89% 28.03% 22.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,109 1,417 1,589
10th Percentile £325 £305 £281
25th Percentile £405 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £625
90th Percentile £688 £675 £750
UK median daily rate £533 £572 £575
% change year-on-year -6.77% -0.52% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 142 71 192
10th Percentile £14.01 £17.79 £12.30
25th Percentile £17.00 £21.75 £14.13
Median hourly rate £22.08 £36.00 £32.12
Median % change year-on-year -38.68% +12.10% -28.63%
75th Percentile £41.78 £71.25 £38.12
90th Percentile £75.40 £78.47 £56.03
UK median hourly rate £23.83 £35.50 £27.00
% change year-on-year -32.89% +31.48% -11.84%

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 12,196 7,916 11,313
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 50.98% 62.36% 54.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,244 4,891 6,472
10th Percentile £250 £213 £205
25th Percentile £376 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £496
Median % change year-on-year - -4.23% -0.80%
75th Percentile £588 £580 £600
90th Percentile £675 £663 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,400 584 1,640
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.62 £16.67 £15.00
Median hourly rate £25.77 £25.29 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% -9.14% -8.86%
75th Percentile £61.18 £58.29 £51.91
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £28.08 £30.00
% change year-on-year +3.29% -6.42% -14.29%

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 29 April 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 29 April 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 29 April 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 1,134 £475 - 588
South East -1 652 £503 -2.88% 849
North West +6 612 £464 -0.27% 314
Midlands -1 586 £475 -5.00% 370
Yorkshire +1 481 £500 - 210
Scotland 0 400 £500 +2.25% 114
West Midlands 0 389 £492 -6.29% 226
South West -2 342 £508 +1.50% 268
East of England -4 199 £525 -4.55% 198
East Midlands 0 193 £450 +0.67% 141
Wales +25 98 £413 +10.00% 45
Northern Ireland -1 42 £513 +28.13% 69
North East -10 42 £488 +4.84% 75
Channel Islands - 2 £450 - 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
1 155 (4.56%) Confluence
2 115 (3.38%) SharePoint
3 29 (0.85%) Apache Spark
4 24 (0.71%) Microsoft Exchange
5 22 (0.65%) Apache
6 13 (0.38%) SAS
7 9 (0.26%) CICS
7 9 (0.26%) CMS
8 8 (0.24%) TPMS
9 6 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.15%) Apache Airflow
10 5 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.15%) WebLogic
11 4 (0.12%) Ethereum
11 4 (0.12%) Hyperledger
11 4 (0.12%) IIS
12 3 (0.088%) Camunda
12 3 (0.088%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.088%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.059%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 260 (7.64%) Microsoft Excel
2 127 (3.73%) Microsoft Office
3 115 (3.38%) Microsoft Project
4 86 (2.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 43 (1.26%) MS Visio
6 25 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
7 7 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 5 (0.15%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.15%) InVision
8 5 (0.15%) Sketch
8 5 (0.15%) Trello
9 4 (0.12%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.059%) AutoCAD
11 1 (0.029%) MicroStation
11 1 (0.029%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.029%) Photoshop
11 1 (0.029%) UXPin
11 1 (0.029%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 160 (4.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 46 (1.35%) Oracle Payables
3 43 (1.26%) Oracle Receivables
4 40 (1.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 38 (1.12%) Oracle ERP
6 36 (1.06%) Oracle EBS
7 29 (0.85%) Oracle General Ledger
8 26 (0.76%) NetSuite
9 25 (0.74%) Oracle Assets
10 24 (0.71%) SAP FI
11 21 (0.62%) Oracle Cash Management
12 19 (0.56%) Oracle EBS R12
13 18 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
13 18 (0.53%) SAP CO
14 17 (0.50%) SAP FI/CO
15 13 (0.38%) NEC Housing
16 12 (0.35%) SAP ERP
16 12 (0.35%) Workday HCM
17 11 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
17 11 (0.32%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 408 (12.00%) Azure
2 352 (10.35%) AWS
3 214 (6.29%) Power Platform
4 163 (4.79%) GCP
5 111 (3.26%) Microsoft 365
6 90 (2.65%) GitHub
7 86 (2.53%) SaaS
8 78 (2.29%) Azure DevOps
9 76 (2.23%) Dynamics 365
10 59 (1.73%) Entra ID
11 51 (1.50%) Serverless
12 49 (1.44%) OpenShift
13 39 (1.15%) OCI
13 39 (1.15%) Snowflake
14 36 (1.06%) AWS CloudFormation
15 32 (0.94%) AWS Lambda
16 31 (0.91%) Amazon S3
17 28 (0.82%) GitHub Actions
17 28 (0.82%) Microsoft Copilot
18 24 (0.71%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 77 (2.26%) Firewall
2 40 (1.18%) Network Security
3 38 (1.12%) DNS
4 36 (1.06%) WAN
5 31 (0.91%) VPN
6 19 (0.56%) SD-WAN
7 18 (0.53%) Skype
7 18 (0.53%) TCP/IP
8 15 (0.44%) LAN
8 15 (0.44%) SSL
9 13 (0.38%) DHCP
10 10 (0.29%) Internet
10 10 (0.29%) SSH
11 9 (0.26%) MPLS
12 8 (0.24%) Cisco IOS
12 8 (0.24%) SNMP
12 8 (0.24%) VSAN
13 7 (0.21%) Wi-Fi
14 6 (0.18%) HTTP
14 6 (0.18%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 198 (5.82%) Power BI
2 74 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
3 65 (1.91%) PostgreSQL
4 51 (1.50%) Relational Database
5 49 (1.44%) Metadata
5 49 (1.44%) Oracle Reports
6 38 (1.12%) Tableau
7 37 (1.09%) NoSQL
7 37 (1.09%) SQL Server
8 31 (0.91%) DynamoDB
9 25 (0.74%) Data Lake
10 22 (0.65%) Big Data
10 22 (0.65%) Oracle ODI
11 21 (0.62%) Power Query
12 20 (0.59%) MongoDB
13 15 (0.44%) DB2
14 14 (0.41%) Snowflake Schema
15 13 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 12 (0.35%) MySQL
17 11 (0.32%) DataStage
Development Applications
1 297 (8.73%) JIRA
2 90 (2.65%) Jenkins
3 65 (1.91%) Git
4 43 (1.26%) GitLab
5 32 (0.94%) JUnit
6 28 (0.82%) Sonatype Nexus
7 27 (0.79%) Cucumber
8 20 (0.59%) Selenium
9 14 (0.41%) SonarQube
10 13 (0.38%) Hudson
10 13 (0.38%) Postman
11 11 (0.32%) Bitbucket
12 8 (0.24%) Gradle
12 8 (0.24%) Jaeger
12 8 (0.24%) REST Assured
13 7 (0.21%) Maven
14 6 (0.18%) IntelliJ
14 6 (0.18%) JMeter
14 6 (0.18%) Snyk
14 6 (0.18%) Zephyr
General
1 1,128 (33.17%) Social Skills
2 490 (14.41%) Banking
3 461 (13.55%) Analytical Skills
4 294 (8.64%) Public Sector
5 138 (4.06%) Manufacturing
6 129 (3.79%) Organisational Skills
7 117 (3.44%) Legal
8 103 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
9 99 (2.91%) Telecoms
10 97 (2.85%) Retail
11 94 (2.76%) Marketing
12 79 (2.32%) Influencing Skills
12 79 (2.32%) Local Government
13 75 (2.21%) Financial Institution
14 66 (1.94%) General Ledger
15 52 (1.53%) Investment Banking
16 51 (1.50%) Electronics
17 49 (1.44%) Billing
18 43 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
19 35 (1.03%) Law
Job Titles
1 493 (14.50%) Analyst
2 345 (10.14%) Project Manager
3 314 (9.23%) Architect
4 291 (8.56%) Lead
5 279 (8.20%) Senior
6 230 (6.76%) Consultant
7 229 (6.73%) Developer
8 220 (6.47%) Business Analyst
9 135 (3.97%) Solutions Architect
10 116 (3.41%) Accountant
11 91 (2.68%) Senior Manager
12 88 (2.59%) Programme Manager
13 77 (2.26%) Finance Manager
14 67 (1.97%) Systems Accountant
15 65 (1.91%) Data Analyst
16 64 (1.88%) Java Developer
17 63 (1.85%) Data Engineer
18 58 (1.71%) IT Manager
19 57 (1.68%) SAP Consultant
20 55 (1.62%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (2.71%) REST
2 78 (2.29%) Spring
3 77 (2.26%) Spring Boot
4 75 (2.21%) Middleware
5 73 (2.15%) Kafka
6 70 (2.06%) Oracle Fusion
7 42 (1.23%) RESTful
8 40 (1.18%) .NET
9 34 (1.00%) OAuth
10 33 (0.97%) Node.js
10 33 (0.97%) React
11 29 (0.85%) JSON
12 26 (0.76%) XML
13 25 (0.74%) HTML
14 23 (0.68%) AngularJS
14 23 (0.68%) OpenID
15 22 (0.65%) SOAP
16 21 (0.62%) CSS
17 20 (0.59%) OpenTelemetry
17 20 (0.59%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 152 (4.47%) Onboarding
2 136 (4.00%) Product Ownership
3 114 (3.35%) Cloud Native
4 110 (3.23%) Management Information System
5 88 (2.59%) Data Protection Act
6 84 (2.47%) Legacy Systems
7 78 (2.29%) Data Centre
8 59 (1.73%) Public Cloud
9 55 (1.62%) Distributed Systems
10 54 (1.59%) Data Structures
11 39 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
12 36 (1.06%) Virtual Team
13 35 (1.03%) Mainframe
14 34 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
14 34 (1.00%) PMI
15 30 (0.88%) Mobile App
16 25 (0.74%) CMDB
16 25 (0.74%) Security Posture
17 20 (0.59%) Operational Technology
18 16 (0.47%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 111 (3.26%) Linux
2 108 (3.18%) Windows
3 55 (1.62%) Unix
4 26 (0.76%) Windows 10
4 26 (0.76%) Windows Server
5 20 (0.59%) Solaris
6 16 (0.47%) Android
7 15 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (0.38%) AIX
9 12 (0.35%) Mac OS
10 9 (0.26%) Apple iOS
11 7 (0.21%) zOS
12 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
14 4 (0.12%) HPUX
14 4 (0.12%) MVS
14 4 (0.12%) Oracle Linux
14 4 (0.12%) SUSE
14 4 (0.12%) VMS
15 1 (0.029%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 677 (19.91%) Stakeholder Management
2 658 (19.35%) Agile
3 544 (16.00%) Problem-Solving
4 506 (14.88%) Migration
5 453 (13.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 436 (12.82%) ERP
7 425 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
8 406 (11.94%) Project Management
9 338 (9.94%) DevOps
10 307 (9.03%) CI/CD
11 295 (8.67%) Project Delivery
12 286 (8.41%) Change Management
13 285 (8.38%) Business Intelligence
14 268 (7.88%) Decision-Making
15 250 (7.35%) User Acceptance Testing
16 243 (7.14%) AI
17 236 (6.94%) Roadmaps
18 235 (6.91%) Risk Management
19 226 (6.65%) Validation
20 220 (6.47%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 330 (9.70%) SQL
2 252 (7.41%) Python
3 208 (6.12%) Java
4 66 (1.94%) PowerShell
5 29 (0.85%) Bash
5 29 (0.85%) JavaScript
6 27 (0.79%) TypeScript
7 22 (0.65%) C#
8 21 (0.62%) VBA
9 19 (0.56%) PL/SQL
10 18 (0.53%) Shell Script
11 15 (0.44%) Kotlin
12 14 (0.41%) C++
12 14 (0.41%) Go
13 12 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 11 (0.32%) COBOL
15 9 (0.26%) Perl
16 8 (0.24%) Apex Code
16 8 (0.24%) Rust
16 8 (0.24%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 330 (9.70%) Degree
2 326 (9.59%) Security Cleared
3 200 (5.88%) SC Cleared
4 117 (3.44%) ACCA
5 112 (3.29%) CIMA
5 112 (3.29%) PMP
6 104 (3.06%) PMI Certification
7 94 (2.76%) BPSS Clearance
8 67 (1.97%) DV Cleared
9 66 (1.94%) CISSP
10 52 (1.53%) Master's Degree
11 42 (1.23%) CISM
11 42 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
12 34 (1.00%) AWS Certification
13 26 (0.76%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
14 24 (0.71%) ITIL Certification
15 18 (0.53%) TOGAF Certification
16 17 (0.50%) MBA
17 14 (0.41%) APMP
17 14 (0.41%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 184 (5.41%) PMO
2 171 (5.03%) Data Quality
3 142 (4.18%) QA
4 141 (4.15%) GDPR
5 64 (1.88%) NIST
6 45 (1.32%) PCI DSS
7 44 (1.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 44 (1.29%) SLA
8 31 (0.91%) GRC
9 27 (0.79%) Accessibility
9 27 (0.79%) IFRS
10 25 (0.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 20 (0.59%) ISO 20022
12 16 (0.47%) PSD2
13 13 (0.38%) SOC 2
14 12 (0.35%) Basel III
14 12 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
14 12 (0.35%) SEPA
15 10 (0.29%) GAAP
16 9 (0.26%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 105 (3.09%) Docker
2 73 (2.15%) Active Directory
3 39 (1.15%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.53%) vSphere
5 13 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
6 10 (0.29%) GPFS
7 9 (0.26%) NFS
8 7 (0.21%) Hyper-V
8 7 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.12%) ACF2
9 4 (0.12%) KVM
9 4 (0.12%) RACF
10 3 (0.088%) Firmware
10 3 (0.088%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.088%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.059%) HDFS
11 2 (0.059%) Job Entry Subsystem
11 2 (0.059%) SRDF
11 2 (0.059%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 162 (4.76%) Kubernetes
2 78 (2.29%) Terraform
3 65 (1.91%) Ansible
4 41 (1.21%) Grafana
5 31 (0.91%) Prometheus
6 18 (0.53%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (0.44%) SCCM
8 14 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.32%) vRealize
10 10 (0.29%) Nessus
10 10 (0.29%) Progress Chef
11 8 (0.24%) FortiGate
11 8 (0.24%) HP ALM
11 8 (0.24%) Kiali
12 7 (0.21%) Control-M
13 6 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.18%) VxRail
14 5 (0.15%) Argo
14 5 (0.15%) CASB
14 5 (0.15%) IBM Guardium
Vendors
1 439 (12.91%) Microsoft
2 356 (10.47%) SAP
3 289 (8.50%) Oracle
4 152 (4.47%) ServiceNow
5 94 (2.76%) Google
6 58 (1.71%) Cisco
7 57 (1.68%) Sage
8 55 (1.62%) Databricks
9 54 (1.59%) Splunk
10 52 (1.53%) IBM
11 49 (1.44%) VMware
12 43 (1.26%) Salesforce
13 38 (1.12%) IFS
14 32 (0.94%) Workday
15 23 (0.68%) HP
16 19 (0.56%) Ariba
16 19 (0.56%) Citrix
16 19 (0.56%) Red Hat
17 18 (0.53%) Adobe
17 18 (0.53%) Remedy