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

6 months to
19 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 +3 +2
Contract jobs citing Finance 2,852 2,301 2,548
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 15.52% 16.72% 12.91%
As % of the General category 27.22% 27.46% 23.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,851 1,354 1,709
10th Percentile £313 £305 £300
25th Percentile £402 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £513
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% -1.46% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £614 £615
90th Percentile £688 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -8.70% - -1.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 127 65 94
10th Percentile £14.69 £17.63 £11.32
25th Percentile £16.89 £22.50 £13.23
Median hourly rate £22.00 £27.13 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.89% +39.10% -41.86%
75th Percentile £24.50 £55.93 £47.88
90th Percentile £50.00 £78.08 £57.83
UK median hourly rate £23.50 £29.00 £22.28
% change year-on-year -18.97% +30.19% -10.90%

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 10,479 8,378 10,928
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 57.03% 60.86% 55.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,479 4,743 6,728
10th Percentile £204 £213 £210
25th Percentile £363 £358 £365
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,116 499 1,065
10th Percentile £13.50 £15.36 £13.28
25th Percentile £16.00 £18.20 £15.00
Median hourly rate £21.38 £26.50 £26.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.32% - +17.78%
75th Percentile £44.95 £55.13 £56.49
90th Percentile £69.65 £70.50 £68.75
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £27.50 £28.47
% change year-on-year -16.36% -3.41% +13.88%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +1 911 £475 -4.26% 950
South East -2 533 £505 -3.81% 1,686
Midlands -3 501 £475 -9.52% 666
North West +1 440 £450 -8.16% 406
Yorkshire 0 424 £500 -2.91% 395
Scotland 0 373 £500 +7.30% 198
West Midlands -6 306 £525 -4.55% 283
South West -6 284 £525 -0.47% 605
East Midlands 0 195 £420 - 371
East of England -3 170 £541 +3.10% 698
Wales +24 74 £413 -12.00% 245
Northern Ireland -1 53 £506 +55.77% 114
North East -5 47 £481 - 162
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
1 146 (5.12%) Confluence
2 102 (3.58%) SharePoint
3 34 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
4 32 (1.12%) Apache
5 28 (0.98%) Apache Spark
6 18 (0.63%) SAS
7 15 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
8 13 (0.46%) CMS
9 11 (0.39%) JBoss
10 10 (0.35%) TPMS
11 9 (0.32%) IIS
12 8 (0.28%) WebSphere
13 7 (0.25%) iPlanet
13 7 (0.25%) Mattermost
13 7 (0.25%) Skype for Business
13 7 (0.25%) WebSphere Application Server
14 6 (0.21%) CICS
15 4 (0.14%) Ethereum
15 4 (0.14%) Hyperledger
15 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
Applications
1 239 (8.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 155 (5.43%) Microsoft Office
3 104 (3.65%) Microsoft Project
4 92 (3.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 51 (1.79%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.56%) Sketch
8 12 (0.42%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.25%) Chatbot
9 7 (0.25%) InVision
10 6 (0.21%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.21%) Trello
11 5 (0.18%) Adobe Captivate
12 3 (0.11%) Camtasia
12 3 (0.11%) Snagit
13 2 (0.070%) Oracle Smart View
14 1 (0.035%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.035%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 126 (4.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 55 (1.93%) Oracle Payables
3 44 (1.54%) Oracle Receivables
4 41 (1.44%) Oracle EBS
5 39 (1.37%) SAP FI
6 37 (1.30%) Oracle General Ledger
7 31 (1.09%) Oracle Cash Management
8 30 (1.05%) SAP CO
9 29 (1.02%) SAP FI/CO
10 28 (0.98%) Oracle Assets
11 26 (0.91%) Dynamics CRM
11 26 (0.91%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 24 (0.84%) Oracle ERP
13 23 (0.81%) Oracle EBS R12
14 18 (0.63%) SAP ERP
15 15 (0.53%) SAP BRIM
15 15 (0.53%) SAP Hybris
15 15 (0.53%) SAP PSCD
15 15 (0.53%) Workday HCM
16 14 (0.49%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 380 (13.32%) AWS
2 360 (12.62%) Azure
3 185 (6.49%) Power Platform
4 169 (5.93%) GCP
5 111 (3.89%) Microsoft 365
6 78 (2.73%) Dynamics 365
7 74 (2.59%) Serverless
8 67 (2.35%) GitHub
9 60 (2.10%) Azure DevOps
10 57 (2.00%) SaaS
11 46 (1.61%) Entra ID
12 45 (1.58%) OCI
13 39 (1.37%) AWS CloudFormation
13 39 (1.37%) OpenShift
14 38 (1.33%) Figma
15 37 (1.30%) Snowflake
16 36 (1.26%) AWS Lambda
17 30 (1.05%) Amazon S3
18 29 (1.02%) GitHub Actions
19 24 (0.84%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 61 (2.14%) Firewall
2 32 (1.12%) WAN
3 24 (0.84%) Network Security
4 22 (0.77%) Wireless
5 21 (0.74%) Skype
6 19 (0.67%) DNS
6 19 (0.67%) VPN
7 17 (0.60%) LAN
7 17 (0.60%) SSH
8 16 (0.56%) SD-WAN
8 16 (0.56%) SSL
9 14 (0.49%) Kerberos
10 12 (0.42%) DHCP
11 11 (0.39%) TCP/IP
12 10 (0.35%) Internet
12 10 (0.35%) SNMP
13 9 (0.32%) HTTP
14 8 (0.28%) Cisco IOS
15 6 (0.21%) Unified Communications
15 6 (0.21%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 175 (6.14%) Power BI
2 74 (2.59%) Data Warehouse
3 67 (2.35%) NoSQL
3 67 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
4 51 (1.79%) Relational Database
5 38 (1.33%) Tableau
6 32 (1.12%) SQL Server
7 29 (1.02%) Big Data
8 28 (0.98%) Metadata
9 25 (0.88%) Oracle Reports
9 25 (0.88%) Power Query
10 24 (0.84%) Data Lake
11 21 (0.74%) BigQuery
12 20 (0.70%) DynamoDB
12 20 (0.70%) Hadoop
13 18 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
13 18 (0.63%) MongoDB
14 16 (0.56%) Oracle Database
15 15 (0.53%) MySQL
16 14 (0.49%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 271 (9.50%) JIRA
2 144 (5.05%) Jenkins
3 85 (2.98%) GitLab
4 71 (2.49%) Git
5 42 (1.47%) JUnit
6 36 (1.26%) Sonatype Nexus
7 34 (1.19%) Cucumber
8 26 (0.91%) Bitbucket
9 24 (0.84%) Liquibase
9 24 (0.84%) Selenium
10 14 (0.49%) Gradle
11 11 (0.39%) Cypress.io
11 11 (0.39%) Postman
12 10 (0.35%) JMeter
12 10 (0.35%) REST Assured
13 9 (0.32%) Maven
14 8 (0.28%) Bitbucket Server
14 8 (0.28%) CA Release Automation
14 8 (0.28%) Hudson
14 8 (0.28%) Visual Studio
General
1 1,060 (37.17%) Social Skills
2 520 (18.23%) Banking
3 401 (14.06%) Analytical Skills
4 333 (11.68%) Public Sector
5 195 (6.84%) Manufacturing
6 185 (6.49%) Telecoms
7 166 (5.82%) Marketing
8 128 (4.49%) Electronics
9 111 (3.89%) Organisational Skills
10 100 (3.51%) Financial Institution
11 98 (3.44%) Legal
12 90 (3.16%) Documentation Skills
13 57 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
14 56 (1.96%) General Ledger
15 54 (1.89%) Investment Banking
16 51 (1.79%) Presentation Skills
16 51 (1.79%) Retail
17 44 (1.54%) Billing
17 44 (1.54%) Local Government
18 34 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 456 (15.99%) Analyst
2 278 (9.75%) Project Manager
3 220 (7.71%) Architect
4 218 (7.64%) Consultant
5 213 (7.47%) Senior
6 200 (7.01%) Developer
7 185 (6.49%) Business Analyst
8 179 (6.28%) Lead
9 98 (3.44%) Solutions Architect
10 93 (3.26%) Data Analyst
11 85 (2.98%) Programme Manager
12 58 (2.03%) Java Developer
13 57 (2.00%) SAP Consultant
14 54 (1.89%) Accountant
15 53 (1.86%) Senior Manager
16 52 (1.82%) Designer
16 52 (1.82%) Functional Consultant
17 50 (1.75%) Administrator
17 50 (1.75%) IT Manager
18 49 (1.72%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 128 (4.49%) REST
2 89 (3.12%) Spring
3 80 (2.81%) Spring Boot
4 74 (2.59%) RESTful
5 65 (2.28%) Oracle Fusion
6 61 (2.14%) Kafka
7 51 (1.79%) .NET
8 43 (1.51%) React
9 37 (1.30%) Node.js
10 35 (1.23%) SOAP
11 32 (1.12%) Elastic Stack
11 32 (1.12%) Middleware
11 32 (1.12%) OAuth
12 29 (1.02%) AngularJS
13 28 (0.98%) HTML
14 27 (0.95%) JSON
15 24 (0.84%) CSS
16 23 (0.81%) JMS
17 22 (0.77%) XML
18 20 (0.70%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 150 (5.26%) Onboarding
2 124 (4.35%) Product Ownership
3 95 (3.33%) Cloud Native
4 82 (2.88%) Data Centre
5 74 (2.59%) Public Cloud
6 66 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
7 63 (2.21%) Management Information System
8 53 (1.86%) Data Protection Act
9 50 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
10 48 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
11 37 (1.30%) Mobile App
12 33 (1.16%) Data Structures
13 30 (1.05%) CMDB
13 30 (1.05%) PMI
13 30 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
14 28 (0.98%) Virtual Team
15 23 (0.81%) Mainframe
16 22 (0.77%) NHS
17 20 (0.70%) Credit Risk
18 19 (0.67%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 140 (4.91%) Linux
2 122 (4.28%) Windows
3 43 (1.51%) Mac OS
4 41 (1.44%) Unix
5 38 (1.33%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.12%) Android
7 19 (0.67%) Windows Server
8 11 (0.39%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.11%) VMS
10 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.070%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.070%) Windows 8
11 2 (0.070%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.035%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.035%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 676 (23.70%) Agile
2 530 (18.58%) Stakeholder Management
3 477 (16.73%) Problem-Solving
4 352 (12.34%) Migration
5 346 (12.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 331 (11.61%) Project Management
7 329 (11.54%) Business Intelligence
8 309 (10.83%) DevOps
9 295 (10.34%) ERP
10 290 (10.17%) CI/CD
11 286 (10.03%) Continuous Improvement
12 240 (8.42%) Change Management
13 228 (7.99%) Programme Management
14 213 (7.47%) Decision-Making
15 207 (7.26%) Project Delivery
16 206 (7.22%) Analytics
17 185 (6.49%) Roadmaps
18 179 (6.28%) Risk Management
19 176 (6.17%) User Acceptance Testing
20 168 (5.89%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 329 (11.54%) SQL
2 283 (9.92%) Python
3 191 (6.70%) Java
4 72 (2.52%) PowerShell
5 44 (1.54%) JavaScript
6 43 (1.51%) TypeScript
7 41 (1.44%) C#
8 39 (1.37%) Go
9 25 (0.88%) Shell Script
10 23 (0.81%) Bash
10 23 (0.81%) PL/SQL
11 21 (0.74%) R
12 18 (0.63%) VBA
13 17 (0.60%) Groovy
14 14 (0.49%) Perl
15 10 (0.35%) Rust
16 9 (0.32%) ABAP
16 9 (0.32%) Ruby
17 8 (0.28%) C++
17 8 (0.28%) JCL
Qualifications
1 302 (10.59%) Degree
2 257 (9.01%) Security Cleared
3 173 (6.07%) SC Cleared
4 74 (2.59%) Master's Degree
5 69 (2.42%) PMI Certification
5 69 (2.42%) PMP
6 68 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
7 65 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
8 58 (2.03%) ACCA
9 54 (1.89%) AWS Certification
10 52 (1.82%) CIMA
11 50 (1.75%) DV Cleared
12 49 (1.72%) CISSP
13 39 (1.37%) CISM
14 33 (1.16%) ITIL Certification
15 17 (0.60%) TOGAF Certification
16 16 (0.56%) Azure Certification
17 15 (0.53%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 15 (0.53%) MBA
18 13 (0.46%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (4.98%) PMO
2 126 (4.42%) QA
3 110 (3.86%) Data Quality
4 100 (3.51%) GDPR
5 53 (1.86%) NIST
6 51 (1.79%) SLA
7 48 (1.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 46 (1.61%) PCI DSS
9 44 (1.54%) Accessibility
10 31 (1.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 28 (0.98%) PSD2
12 25 (0.88%) ISO 20022
13 23 (0.81%) IFRS
14 16 (0.56%) GRC
15 14 (0.49%) Disclosure Scotland
15 14 (0.49%) SEPA
16 13 (0.46%) Basel III
17 12 (0.42%) P3O
18 11 (0.39%) COBIT
18 11 (0.39%) NCSC
System Software
1 128 (4.49%) Docker
2 98 (3.44%) Active Directory
3 25 (0.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
5 12 (0.42%) vSphere
6 9 (0.32%) GPFS
7 8 (0.28%) NFS
7 8 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.21%) Hyper-V
8 6 (0.21%) 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%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.070%) ACF2
12 2 (0.070%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.070%) RACF
12 2 (0.070%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 149 (5.22%) Kubernetes
2 105 (3.68%) Terraform
3 82 (2.88%) Ansible
4 55 (1.93%) Grafana
5 49 (1.72%) Prometheus
6 23 (0.81%) SCCM
7 17 (0.60%) Progress Chef
8 14 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
10 10 (0.35%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (0.35%) vRealize
11 9 (0.32%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.28%) CA Single Sign-On
12 8 (0.28%) SCOM
13 7 (0.25%) CA Wily
13 7 (0.25%) HP SiteScope
13 7 (0.25%) Kiali
13 7 (0.25%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.18%) QRadar
15 4 (0.14%) CA Endevor
Vendors
1 448 (15.71%) Microsoft
2 385 (13.50%) SAP
3 267 (9.36%) Oracle
4 140 (4.91%) ServiceNow
5 85 (2.98%) Splunk
6 81 (2.84%) Cisco
7 70 (2.45%) Google
8 46 (1.61%) IBM
9 45 (1.58%) Salesforce
10 40 (1.40%) Workday
11 38 (1.33%) VMware
12 34 (1.19%) Dell
12 34 (1.19%) HP
13 33 (1.16%) Databricks
14 29 (1.02%) Apple
15 26 (0.91%) Adobe
16 24 (0.84%) Citrix
17 20 (0.70%) IFS
18 19 (0.67%) Remedy
18 19 (0.67%) Sage