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

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 +3 +2
Contract jobs citing Finance 2,774 2,298 2,552
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 15.45% 16.69% 13.07%
As % of the General category 26.98% 27.59% 23.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,792 1,358 1,729
10th Percentile £310 £302 £300
25th Percentile £402 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £500 £514
Median % change year-on-year -1.13% -2.63% -1.34%
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 £23.58 £29.00 £26.66
% change year-on-year -18.71% +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 10,282 8,330 10,814
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 57.27% 60.50% 55.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,334 4,705 6,721
10th Percentile £204 £210 £210
25th Percentile £363 £356 £365
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £481 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.14% -3.90% -
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 1,104 488 962
10th Percentile £13.50 £15.24 £13.41
25th Percentile £16.00 £18.13 £15.00
Median hourly rate £21.46 £26.00 £28.68
Median % change year-on-year -17.45% -9.36% +27.47%
75th Percentile £44.94 £53.75 £56.56
90th Percentile £69.89 £70.38 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £27.19 £30.00
% change year-on-year -15.40% -9.38% +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 12 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 12 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 12 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 +1 867 £475 -4.43% 928
South East -2 519 £510 -2.86% 1,599
Midlands -4 481 £475 -9.52% 646
North West 0 418 £450 -8.16% 394
Yorkshire 0 407 £500 -2.44% 399
Scotland 0 371 £475 +5.56% 187
West Midlands -7 297 £525 -4.55% 275
South West -3 281 £525 - 587
East Midlands +1 185 £420 +1.45% 361
East of England -2 169 £525 - 655
Wales +22 75 £406 -1.52% 216
Northern Ireland -1 56 £513 +57.69% 106
North East -7 42 £488 +2.63% 146
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
1 135 (4.87%) Confluence
2 97 (3.50%) SharePoint
3 33 (1.19%) Apache
4 32 (1.15%) Microsoft Exchange
5 31 (1.12%) Apache Spark
6 18 (0.65%) SAS
7 16 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
8 15 (0.54%) CMS
9 11 (0.40%) JBoss
10 9 (0.32%) IIS
10 9 (0.32%) TPMS
11 8 (0.29%) WebSphere
12 7 (0.25%) iPlanet
12 7 (0.25%) Mattermost
12 7 (0.25%) Skype for Business
12 7 (0.25%) WebSphere Application Server
13 5 (0.18%) CICS
14 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.11%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.11%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 238 (8.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 151 (5.44%) Microsoft Office
3 103 (3.71%) Microsoft Project
4 88 (3.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 47 (1.69%) MS Visio
6 19 (0.68%) 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 (0.22%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.22%) Trello
12 5 (0.18%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.11%) Camtasia
13 3 (0.11%) Snagit
14 2 (0.072%) Oracle Smart View
15 1 (0.036%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 114 (4.11%) SAP S/4HANA
2 53 (1.91%) Oracle Payables
3 42 (1.51%) Oracle Receivables
4 41 (1.48%) Oracle EBS
5 38 (1.37%) SAP FI
6 35 (1.26%) Oracle General Ledger
7 31 (1.12%) Oracle Cash Management
8 29 (1.05%) SAP CO
9 28 (1.01%) Oracle Assets
9 28 (1.01%) SAP FI/CO
10 27 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
11 26 (0.94%) Oracle ERP
12 23 (0.83%) Oracle EBS R12
12 23 (0.83%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
13 18 (0.65%) SAP ERP
14 15 (0.54%) NetSuite
15 14 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
16 13 (0.47%) Oracle AGIS
16 13 (0.47%) SAP PSCD
16 13 (0.47%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 374 (13.48%) AWS
2 344 (12.40%) Azure
3 190 (6.85%) Power Platform
4 166 (5.98%) GCP
5 107 (3.86%) Microsoft 365
6 79 (2.85%) Dynamics 365
7 73 (2.63%) Serverless
8 62 (2.24%) GitHub
9 57 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
10 53 (1.91%) SaaS
11 47 (1.69%) OCI
12 43 (1.55%) Entra ID
13 41 (1.48%) Figma
14 39 (1.41%) AWS CloudFormation
15 37 (1.33%) OpenShift
15 37 (1.33%) Snowflake
16 34 (1.23%) AWS Lambda
17 29 (1.05%) Amazon S3
17 29 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
18 21 (0.76%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 59 (2.13%) Firewall
2 27 (0.97%) WAN
3 21 (0.76%) Skype
3 21 (0.76%) Wireless
4 20 (0.72%) DNS
5 19 (0.68%) Network Security
5 19 (0.68%) VPN
6 17 (0.61%) SSH
7 16 (0.58%) LAN
8 15 (0.54%) SSL
9 14 (0.50%) Kerberos
10 12 (0.43%) DHCP
10 12 (0.43%) SD-WAN
10 12 (0.43%) TCP/IP
11 10 (0.36%) Internet
12 9 (0.32%) HTTP
12 9 (0.32%) SNMP
13 8 (0.29%) Cisco IOS
14 6 (0.22%) Unified Communications
14 6 (0.22%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 180 (6.49%) Power BI
2 74 (2.67%) Data Warehouse
3 63 (2.27%) NoSQL
3 63 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
4 53 (1.91%) Relational Database
5 39 (1.41%) Tableau
6 33 (1.19%) Big Data
7 32 (1.15%) SQL Server
8 29 (1.05%) Metadata
9 28 (1.01%) Power Query
10 24 (0.87%) Hadoop
10 24 (0.87%) Oracle Reports
11 23 (0.83%) Data Lake
12 20 (0.72%) BigQuery
13 19 (0.68%) MongoDB
14 17 (0.61%) Amazon RDS
14 17 (0.61%) DynamoDB
14 17 (0.61%) MySQL
14 17 (0.61%) Oracle Database
15 14 (0.50%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 253 (9.12%) JIRA
2 140 (5.05%) Jenkins
3 83 (2.99%) GitLab
4 69 (2.49%) Git
5 40 (1.44%) JUnit
6 34 (1.23%) Sonatype Nexus
7 31 (1.12%) Cucumber
8 28 (1.01%) Liquibase
9 26 (0.94%) Bitbucket
10 21 (0.76%) Selenium
11 11 (0.40%) Cypress.io
11 11 (0.40%) 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
15 7 (0.25%) Visual Studio
16 6 (0.22%) Maven
General
1 1,036 (37.35%) Social Skills
2 511 (18.42%) Banking
3 401 (14.46%) Analytical Skills
4 329 (11.86%) Public Sector
5 203 (7.32%) Manufacturing
6 188 (6.78%) Telecoms
7 171 (6.16%) Marketing
8 135 (4.87%) Electronics
9 113 (4.07%) Organisational Skills
10 104 (3.75%) Financial Institution
11 91 (3.28%) Legal
12 87 (3.14%) Documentation Skills
13 57 (2.05%) Investment Banking
14 55 (1.98%) Influencing Skills
15 51 (1.84%) General Ledger
15 51 (1.84%) Presentation Skills
16 49 (1.77%) Retail
17 42 (1.51%) Billing
18 38 (1.37%) Local Government
19 35 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 463 (16.69%) Analyst
2 271 (9.77%) Project Manager
3 224 (8.07%) Senior
4 203 (7.32%) Consultant
5 200 (7.21%) Developer
6 192 (6.92%) Architect
7 184 (6.63%) Business Analyst
8 162 (5.84%) Lead
9 97 (3.50%) Data Analyst
10 85 (3.06%) Solutions Architect
11 79 (2.85%) Programme Manager
12 57 (2.05%) Accountant
13 56 (2.02%) IT Support
13 56 (2.02%) Senior Manager
14 53 (1.91%) Java Developer
15 52 (1.87%) Designer
16 51 (1.84%) SAP Consultant
17 50 (1.80%) Functional Consultant
17 50 (1.80%) Software Engineer
18 49 (1.77%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 127 (4.58%) REST
2 84 (3.03%) Spring
3 77 (2.78%) RESTful
4 76 (2.74%) Spring Boot
5 63 (2.27%) Oracle Fusion
6 59 (2.13%) Kafka
7 55 (1.98%) .NET
8 40 (1.44%) React
9 37 (1.33%) Node.js
10 36 (1.30%) SOAP
11 35 (1.26%) Elastic Stack
12 32 (1.15%) OAuth
13 29 (1.05%) HTML
14 28 (1.01%) JSON
15 27 (0.97%) AngularJS
16 25 (0.90%) CSS
16 25 (0.90%) Middleware
17 22 (0.79%) JMS
17 22 (0.79%) XML
18 21 (0.76%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 140 (5.05%) Onboarding
2 118 (4.25%) Product Ownership
3 90 (3.24%) Cloud Native
4 78 (2.81%) Data Centre
5 67 (2.42%) Public Cloud
6 63 (2.27%) Management Information System
7 61 (2.20%) Distributed Systems
8 50 (1.80%) Analytical Mindset
8 50 (1.80%) Data Protection Act
9 47 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
10 37 (1.33%) Mobile App
11 31 (1.12%) Data Structures
12 30 (1.08%) Self-Motivation
13 28 (1.01%) CMDB
14 26 (0.94%) PMI
14 26 (0.94%) Virtual Team
15 24 (0.87%) Mainframe
16 23 (0.83%) NHS
17 19 (0.68%) Credit Risk
17 19 (0.68%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 142 (5.12%) Linux
2 125 (4.51%) Windows
3 43 (1.55%) Mac OS
4 40 (1.44%) Unix
5 38 (1.37%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.15%) Android
7 19 (0.68%) Windows Server
8 11 (0.40%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.11%) VMS
10 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.072%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.072%) Windows 8
11 2 (0.072%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.036%) MVS
12 1 (0.036%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.036%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 667 (24.04%) Agile
2 505 (18.20%) Stakeholder Management
3 479 (17.27%) Problem-Solving
4 345 (12.44%) Migration
5 344 (12.40%) Business Intelligence
6 337 (12.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 316 (11.39%) Project Management
8 296 (10.67%) DevOps
9 292 (10.53%) ERP
10 285 (10.27%) Continuous Improvement
11 277 (9.99%) CI/CD
12 236 (8.51%) Change Management
13 230 (8.29%) Programme Management
14 203 (7.32%) Decision-Making
15 195 (7.03%) Analytics
16 194 (6.99%) Project Delivery
17 180 (6.49%) Roadmaps
18 173 (6.24%) Risk Management
19 164 (5.91%) User Acceptance Testing
20 158 (5.70%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 321 (11.57%) SQL
2 287 (10.35%) Python
3 185 (6.67%) Java
4 68 (2.45%) PowerShell
5 46 (1.66%) JavaScript
6 44 (1.59%) C#
7 43 (1.55%) Go
7 43 (1.55%) TypeScript
8 27 (0.97%) Shell Script
9 25 (0.90%) PL/SQL
10 23 (0.83%) Bash
11 22 (0.79%) R
12 19 (0.68%) VBA
13 16 (0.58%) 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
1 290 (10.45%) Degree
2 253 (9.12%) Security Cleared
3 171 (6.16%) SC Cleared
4 73 (2.63%) Master's Degree
5 65 (2.34%) PMP
6 64 (2.31%) Computer Science Degree
7 63 (2.27%) PMI Certification
8 57 (2.05%) ACCA
8 57 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
9 54 (1.95%) AWS Certification
10 50 (1.80%) CIMA
11 48 (1.73%) DV Cleared
12 44 (1.59%) CISSP
13 34 (1.23%) CISM
14 33 (1.19%) ITIL Certification
15 16 (0.58%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 16 (0.58%) Azure Certification
16 13 (0.47%) MBA
16 13 (0.47%) TOGAF Certification
17 11 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (5.19%) PMO
2 123 (4.43%) QA
3 107 (3.86%) Data Quality
4 100 (3.60%) GDPR
5 52 (1.87%) SLA
6 50 (1.80%) NIST
7 49 (1.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 46 (1.66%) Accessibility
9 45 (1.62%) PCI DSS
10 30 (1.08%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.87%) PSD2
12 23 (0.83%) ISO 20022
13 22 (0.79%) IFRS
14 14 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
14 14 (0.50%) GRC
15 12 (0.43%) NCSC
15 12 (0.43%) SEPA
16 11 (0.40%) Basel III
16 11 (0.40%) COBIT
16 11 (0.40%) P3O
System Software
1 120 (4.33%) Docker
2 99 (3.57%) Active Directory
3 25 (0.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
5 11 (0.40%) vSphere
6 8 (0.29%) GPFS
7 7 (0.25%) NFS
7 7 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.22%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.22%) 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
12 2 (0.072%) ACF2
12 2 (0.072%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.072%) RACF
12 2 (0.072%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 141 (5.08%) Kubernetes
2 106 (3.82%) Terraform
3 85 (3.06%) Ansible
4 56 (2.02%) Grafana
5 50 (1.80%) Prometheus
6 23 (0.83%) SCCM
7 17 (0.61%) Progress Chef
8 14 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
8 14 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (0.40%) 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 (0.22%) Kiali
14 5 (0.18%) CA Endevor
14 5 (0.18%) QRadar
Vendors
1 442 (15.93%) Microsoft
2 377 (13.59%) SAP
3 264 (9.52%) Oracle
4 138 (4.97%) ServiceNow
5 83 (2.99%) Splunk
6 75 (2.70%) Cisco
7 68 (2.45%) Google
8 51 (1.84%) Salesforce
9 45 (1.62%) IBM
10 38 (1.37%) VMware
11 37 (1.33%) Workday
12 35 (1.26%) Databricks
13 33 (1.19%) Dell
14 32 (1.15%) HP
15 29 (1.05%) Adobe
15 29 (1.05%) Apple
16 26 (0.94%) Citrix
17 22 (0.79%) IFS
18 20 (0.72%) Sage
19 19 (0.68%) Remedy