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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 3 5
Rank change year-on-year -1 +2 +1
Contract jobs citing Finance 3,850 2,653 2,634
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 14.34% 17.59% 13.88%
As % of the General category 27.90% 28.90% 25.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,319 1,754 1,619
10th Percentile £350 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £492 £503
Median % change year-on-year +1.57% -2.04% -4.29%
75th Percentile £600 £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 209 74 167
10th Percentile £15.18 £14.74 £14.24
25th Percentile £22.00 £16.69 £19.45
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.29 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +61.07% -28.40% +14.18%
75th Percentile £48.75 £59.69 £38.44
90th Percentile £85.00 £75.00 £70.07
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £30.50 £38.12
% change year-on-year +44.13% -19.99% +27.07%

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 13,800 9,180 10,146
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 51.40% 60.85% 53.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,722 5,562 5,829
10th Percentile £263 £213 £212
25th Percentile £400 £358 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £472 £494
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -4.40% -1.20%
75th Percentile £594 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,783 817 1,283
10th Percentile £13.91 £13.08 £13.50
25th Percentile £17.25 £15.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £33.50 £22.14 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +51.31% -41.92% +41.19%
75th Percentile £63.75 £48.75 £58.60
90th Percentile £82.25 £72.50 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £32.90 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +30.83% -32.93% +22.79%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 0 1,313 £500 +6.38% 807
South East -2 744 £503 -5.19% 950
North West 0 696 £494 +9.78% 423
Midlands 0 627 £514 +14.22% 449
Yorkshire 0 563 £519 +7.13% 283
Scotland 0 484 £475 -5.00% 210
West Midlands +1 483 £525 +10.53% 274
South West -4 380 £525 -4.55% 367
East of England +6 212 £528 -8.26% 224
East Midlands -2 139 £500 +19.05% 175
Wales +3 75 £525 +13.51% 91
Northern Ireland -1 60 £488 +3.72% 92
North East -18 54 £500 +13.96% 109
Channel Islands +4 3 £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
1 138 (3.58%) Confluence
2 98 (2.55%) SharePoint
3 16 (0.42%) Apache Spark
4 14 (0.36%) Apache
4 14 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
5 13 (0.34%) CMS
6 11 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
6 11 (0.29%) SAS
7 10 (0.26%) CICS
8 8 (0.21%) WebLogic
9 7 (0.18%) IIS
10 6 (0.16%) WebSphere
11 4 (0.10%) Apache Airflow
12 3 (0.078%) Camunda
12 3 (0.078%) Mule
12 3 (0.078%) Mule ESB
12 3 (0.078%) Oracle Coherence
12 3 (0.078%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.052%) Apache Pulsar
13 2 (0.052%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 237 (6.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 106 (2.75%) Microsoft Office
3 93 (2.42%) Microsoft Project
4 69 (1.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 40 (1.04%) MS Visio
6 33 (0.86%) Spreadsheet
7 6 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 6 (0.16%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.13%) Trello
9 2 (0.052%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.052%) AutoCAD
9 2 (0.052%) EngageOne
9 2 (0.052%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.026%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.026%) Maple
10 1 (0.026%) MicroStation
10 1 (0.026%) Oracle Smart View
10 1 (0.026%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 198 (5.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (1.17%) Oracle ERP
3 43 (1.12%) Oracle Payables
4 42 (1.09%) NetSuite
5 40 (1.04%) Oracle Receivables
6 33 (0.86%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 24 (0.62%) Unit4 Business World
8 23 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
9 22 (0.57%) Oracle General Ledger
10 20 (0.52%) SAP GRC
11 18 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
11 18 (0.47%) SAP FI
12 14 (0.36%) SAP PSCD
13 13 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
14 12 (0.31%) Oracle Financials
14 12 (0.31%) Workday HCM
15 11 (0.29%) Oracle Cash Management
16 10 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
16 10 (0.26%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
16 10 (0.26%) SAP BRIM
Cloud Services
1 475 (12.34%) Azure
2 322 (8.36%) AWS
3 224 (5.82%) Power Platform
4 217 (5.64%) GCP
5 102 (2.65%) SaaS
6 92 (2.39%) Azure DevOps
7 88 (2.29%) Dynamics 365
7 88 (2.29%) Microsoft 365
8 83 (2.16%) GitHub
9 69 (1.79%) Entra ID
10 45 (1.17%) OCI
11 44 (1.14%) OpenShift
11 44 (1.14%) Snowflake
12 40 (1.04%) Microsoft Copilot
13 39 (1.01%) Serverless
14 26 (0.68%) PowerApps
15 25 (0.65%) AWS CloudFormation
15 25 (0.65%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 25 (0.65%) Power Automate
16 21 (0.55%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 85 (2.21%) Firewall
2 65 (1.69%) Network Security
3 41 (1.06%) VPN
4 38 (0.99%) DNS
5 26 (0.68%) SSL
6 25 (0.65%) TCP/IP
6 25 (0.65%) WAN
7 18 (0.47%) LAN
8 13 (0.34%) DHCP
9 11 (0.29%) VSAN
10 8 (0.21%) BGP
10 8 (0.21%) HTTP
10 8 (0.21%) SD-WAN
10 8 (0.21%) Wi-Fi
11 7 (0.18%) Internet
11 7 (0.18%) MPLS
12 6 (0.16%) BIG-IP
12 6 (0.16%) Cisco Nexus
12 6 (0.16%) Wireless
13 5 (0.13%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 184 (4.78%) Power BI
2 76 (1.97%) Data Warehouse
3 72 (1.87%) Relational Database
4 68 (1.77%) Metadata
5 64 (1.66%) SQL Server
6 53 (1.38%) PostgreSQL
7 49 (1.27%) Oracle Reports
8 35 (0.91%) Data Lake
8 35 (0.91%) Tableau
9 28 (0.73%) MongoDB
10 24 (0.62%) Snowflake Schema
11 23 (0.60%) Db2
11 23 (0.60%) NoSQL
11 23 (0.60%) Oracle ODI
12 21 (0.55%) Data Vault
12 21 (0.55%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 17 (0.44%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.42%) DynamoDB
14 16 (0.42%) Power Query
15 14 (0.36%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 244 (6.34%) JIRA
2 93 (2.42%) Git
3 57 (1.48%) Jenkins
4 24 (0.62%) JUnit
5 18 (0.47%) Selenium
6 16 (0.42%) Cucumber
7 14 (0.36%) GitLab
7 14 (0.36%) Hudson
8 13 (0.34%) Sonatype Nexus
9 11 (0.29%) SonarQube
10 9 (0.23%) Postman
11 8 (0.21%) Oracle Forms
12 7 (0.18%) Claude Code
12 7 (0.18%) ERwin
12 7 (0.18%) Visual Studio
12 7 (0.18%) Zephyr
13 6 (0.16%) Liquibase
14 5 (0.13%) Bitbucket
14 5 (0.13%) Gradle
14 5 (0.13%) IntelliJ
General
1 1,208 (31.38%) Social Skills
2 539 (14.00%) Analytical Skills
3 523 (13.58%) Banking
4 289 (7.51%) Public Sector
5 216 (5.61%) Legal
6 207 (5.38%) Organisational Skills
7 142 (3.69%) Retail
8 127 (3.30%) Influencing Skills
9 110 (2.86%) Local Government
10 109 (2.83%) Manufacturing
11 101 (2.62%) Documentation Skills
12 81 (2.10%) Financial Institution
13 79 (2.05%) General Ledger
14 76 (1.97%) Investment Banking
15 73 (1.90%) Billing
16 65 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 55 (1.43%) Marketing
18 54 (1.40%) Telecoms
19 50 (1.30%) Aerospace
19 50 (1.30%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 524 (13.61%) Analyst
2 412 (10.70%) Lead
3 349 (9.06%) Senior
4 332 (8.62%) Project Manager
5 314 (8.16%) Architect
6 290 (7.53%) Developer
7 245 (6.36%) Business Analyst
7 245 (6.36%) Consultant
8 173 (4.49%) Accountant
9 134 (3.48%) Solutions Architect
10 105 (2.73%) Systems Accountant
11 102 (2.65%) IT Manager
12 97 (2.52%) Senior Manager
13 89 (2.31%) Financial Analyst
14 86 (2.23%) Java Developer
15 76 (1.97%) Programme Manager
16 69 (1.79%) Administrator
16 69 (1.79%) Finance Manager
17 68 (1.77%) Data Analyst
18 64 (1.66%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 142 (3.69%) Oracle Fusion
2 84 (2.18%) Middleware
3 81 (2.10%) REST
4 69 (1.79%) Kafka
5 65 (1.69%) Spring Boot
6 63 (1.64%) Spring
7 59 (1.53%) .NET
7 59 (1.53%) React
8 37 (0.96%) OAuth
9 36 (0.94%) RESTful
10 32 (0.83%) Node.js
11 30 (0.78%) JSON
12 28 (0.73%) XML
13 27 (0.70%) SAP Fiori
14 25 (0.65%) OpenID
15 23 (0.60%) SailPoint
15 23 (0.60%) SAML
16 22 (0.57%) Redux
17 21 (0.55%) HTML
18 20 (0.52%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 153 (3.97%) Cloud Native
2 152 (3.95%) Onboarding
3 151 (3.92%) Product Ownership
4 116 (3.01%) Virtual Team
5 111 (2.88%) Management Information System
6 104 (2.70%) Legacy Systems
7 103 (2.68%) Data Protection Act
8 67 (1.74%) Data Structures
8 67 (1.74%) Web Conferencing
9 66 (1.71%) Podcast
10 63 (1.64%) Data Centre
11 56 (1.45%) Public Cloud
12 52 (1.35%) Security Posture
13 51 (1.32%) Mainframe
14 49 (1.27%) Distributed Systems
15 40 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
16 37 (0.96%) Greenfield Project
17 35 (0.91%) AI Agents
18 34 (0.88%) Analytical Mindset
19 33 (0.86%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 124 (3.22%) Windows
2 109 (2.83%) Linux
3 65 (1.69%) Unix
4 32 (0.83%) Windows Server
5 28 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 28 (0.73%) Solaris
6 25 (0.65%) zOS
7 14 (0.36%) AIX
8 10 (0.26%) Android
9 9 (0.23%) Apple iOS
10 8 (0.21%) Windows 10
11 7 (0.18%) Mac OS
12 6 (0.16%) VMS
13 5 (0.13%) HPUX
13 5 (0.13%) Oracle Linux
13 5 (0.13%) SUSE
14 4 (0.10%) MVS
14 4 (0.10%) Windows Server 2012
15 2 (0.052%) Windows Server 2019
16 1 (0.026%) Check Point GAiA
Processes & Methodologies
1 889 (23.09%) Stakeholder Management
2 703 (18.26%) Agile
3 549 (14.26%) Problem-Solving
4 544 (14.13%) Continuous Improvement
5 529 (13.74%) Migration
6 512 (13.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 504 (13.09%) ERP
8 372 (9.66%) Project Management
9 360 (9.35%) Decision-Making
10 351 (9.12%) DevOps
11 344 (8.94%) CI/CD
12 341 (8.86%) Change Management
13 329 (8.55%) AI
14 319 (8.29%) Project Delivery
15 294 (7.64%) Roadmaps
16 281 (7.30%) User Acceptance Testing
17 275 (7.14%) Validation
18 261 (6.78%) Risk Management
19 251 (6.52%) Analytics
20 236 (6.13%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 322 (8.36%) SQL
2 307 (7.97%) Python
3 220 (5.71%) Java
4 72 (1.87%) PowerShell
5 57 (1.48%) C#
6 49 (1.27%) JavaScript
7 46 (1.19%) Bash
8 36 (0.94%) PL/SQL
9 35 (0.91%) TypeScript
10 29 (0.75%) Shell Script
11 24 (0.62%) Go
12 22 (0.57%) C++
13 16 (0.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 13 (0.34%) Bicep
14 13 (0.34%) T-SQL
15 11 (0.29%) Kotlin
15 11 (0.29%) PHP
15 11 (0.29%) VBA
16 10 (0.26%) ABAP
16 10 (0.26%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 372 (9.66%) Security Cleared
2 280 (7.27%) Degree
3 226 (5.87%) SC Cleared
4 134 (3.48%) BPSS Clearance
5 117 (3.04%) ACCA
6 113 (2.94%) CIMA
7 111 (2.88%) PMP
8 96 (2.49%) PMI Certification
9 85 (2.21%) DV Cleared
10 69 (1.79%) CISSP
11 42 (1.09%) CISM
12 35 (0.91%) AWS Certification
13 34 (0.88%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
14 33 (0.86%) Azure Certification
15 30 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
15 30 (0.78%) Computer Science Degree
16 23 (0.60%) Master's Degree
17 22 (0.57%) ITIL Certification
18 20 (0.52%) DBS Check
19 19 (0.49%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 212 (5.51%) Data Quality
2 176 (4.57%) PMO
3 143 (3.71%) QA
4 133 (3.45%) GDPR
5 48 (1.25%) SLA
6 44 (1.14%) NIST
7 43 (1.12%) GRC
8 37 (0.96%) IFRS
9 34 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 33 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 32 (0.83%) Accessibility
12 22 (0.57%) PCI DSS
13 13 (0.34%) GAAP
13 13 (0.34%) SOC 2
14 11 (0.29%) ISO 20022
15 10 (0.26%) EMIR
16 9 (0.23%) IFRS 17
17 8 (0.21%) WCAG
18 7 (0.18%) COBIT
18 7 (0.18%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 78 (2.03%) Docker
2 72 (1.87%) Active Directory
3 43 (1.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.55%) RACF
5 16 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
6 13 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (0.34%) vSphere
7 12 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
8 8 (0.21%) Hyper-V
9 5 (0.13%) GPFS
9 5 (0.13%) NFS
9 5 (0.13%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.10%) KVM
11 3 (0.078%) ACF2
12 2 (0.052%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.052%) SRDF
12 2 (0.052%) zsh
13 1 (0.026%) Firmware
13 1 (0.026%) Job Entry Subsystem
13 1 (0.026%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 166 (4.31%) Kubernetes
2 107 (2.78%) Terraform
3 74 (1.92%) Ansible
4 32 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
5 31 (0.81%) Grafana
6 24 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
7 23 (0.60%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.44%) OMEGAMON
9 16 (0.42%) SCCM
10 13 (0.34%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.29%) Argo
11 11 (0.29%) Istio
12 10 (0.26%) Control-M
13 9 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
14 7 (0.18%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.18%) Nessus
14 7 (0.18%) vRealize
15 6 (0.16%) Kustomize
15 6 (0.16%) vCenter Server
16 5 (0.13%) VxRail
Vendors
1 516 (13.40%) Microsoft
2 394 (10.23%) SAP
3 380 (9.87%) Oracle
4 170 (4.42%) ServiceNow
5 102 (2.65%) Google
6 85 (2.21%) IBM
7 76 (1.97%) Databricks
8 62 (1.61%) VMware
9 55 (1.43%) Salesforce
10 52 (1.35%) Sage
11 42 (1.09%) Cisco
12 33 (0.86%) Ariba
12 33 (0.86%) IFS
12 33 (0.86%) Workday
13 32 (0.83%) Splunk
14 25 (0.65%) Red Hat
15 22 (0.57%) MuleSoft
16 20 (0.52%) HP
16 20 (0.52%) Sybase
17 18 (0.47%) Foundry