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

6 months to
4 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 +3 +2
Contract jobs citing Finance 2,977 2,230 2,717
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 15.25% 16.50% 12.96%
As % of the General category 27.13% 26.95% 23.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,890 1,300 1,814
10th Percentile £313 £305 £288
25th Percentile £402 £400 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -2.44% -1.44%
75th Percentile £600 £602 £613
90th Percentile £688 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -8.70% - -2.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 136 60 124
10th Percentile £14.30 £17.25 £11.69
25th Percentile £16.64 £22.50 £13.29
Median hourly rate £22.00 £27.13 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.89% +39.10% -40.00%
75th Percentile £25.00 £57.31 £44.74
90th Percentile £54.00 £77.60 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £23.50 £29.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -18.97% +45.00% -20.00%

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 10,974 8,276 11,653
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 56.20% 61.24% 55.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,738 4,739 7,047
10th Percentile £205 £210 £206
25th Percentile £363 £357 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £595
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,176 468 1,327
10th Percentile £13.50 £15.25 £12.72
25th Percentile £16.00 £18.51 £15.00
Median hourly rate £21.50 £27.00 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -20.37% +9.53% +7.17%
75th Percentile £45.46 £55.42 £55.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £72.50 £66.85
UK median hourly rate £22.81 £29.00 £25.71
% change year-on-year -21.34% +12.80% +2.84%

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 4 February 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 4 February 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 4 February 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 +2 952 £475 -2.81% 675
South East -1 553 £500 -4.76% 1,086
Midlands -3 526 £478 -7.28% 434
North West +3 469 £450 -5.26% 374
Yorkshire 0 434 £500 -2.91% 239
Scotland 0 382 £475 +1.60% 154
West Midlands -4 330 £509 -7.41% 263
South West -7 295 £524 -0.19% 291
East Midlands 0 194 £446 +4.94% 171
East of England -1 173 £525 - 234
Wales +30 89 £413 -12.00% 75
Northern Ireland -1 56 £513 +56.49% 37
North East -7 50 £488 +8.33% 71
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
1 160 (5.37%) Confluence
2 106 (3.56%) SharePoint
3 35 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
4 31 (1.04%) Apache
5 26 (0.87%) Apache Spark
6 19 (0.64%) SAS
7 13 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
8 12 (0.40%) CMS
9 11 (0.37%) TPMS
10 10 (0.34%) JBoss
11 9 (0.30%) IIS
12 8 (0.27%) WebSphere
13 7 (0.24%) CICS
13 7 (0.24%) iPlanet
13 7 (0.24%) Mattermost
13 7 (0.24%) Skype for Business
13 7 (0.24%) WebSphere Application Server
14 6 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 4 (0.13%) Ethereum
15 4 (0.13%) Hyperledger
Applications
1 240 (8.06%) Microsoft Excel
2 163 (5.48%) Microsoft Office
3 105 (3.53%) Microsoft Project
4 94 (3.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 53 (1.78%) MS Visio
6 22 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.54%) Sketch
8 11 (0.37%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.24%) Chatbot
9 7 (0.24%) InVision
10 6 (0.20%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.20%) Trello
11 4 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
12 2 (0.067%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.034%) Camtasia
13 1 (0.034%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.034%) Snagit
13 1 (0.034%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 128 (4.30%) SAP S/4HANA
2 55 (1.85%) Oracle Payables
3 45 (1.51%) Oracle Receivables
4 39 (1.31%) Oracle EBS
5 35 (1.18%) Oracle General Ledger
6 32 (1.07%) SAP FI
7 30 (1.01%) Oracle Cash Management
8 29 (0.97%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 28 (0.94%) Oracle Assets
10 24 (0.81%) Dynamics CRM
11 23 (0.77%) Oracle EBS R12
11 23 (0.77%) SAP CO
12 22 (0.74%) SAP FI/CO
13 17 (0.57%) SAP ERP
14 16 (0.54%) Remedy ITSM
14 16 (0.54%) SAP BRIM
14 16 (0.54%) SAP Hybris
14 16 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
15 14 (0.47%) Workday HCM
16 13 (0.44%) Oracle AGIS
Cloud Services
1 397 (13.34%) AWS
2 372 (12.50%) Azure
3 173 (5.81%) Power Platform
4 168 (5.64%) GCP
5 125 (4.20%) Microsoft 365
6 79 (2.65%) Dynamics 365
7 74 (2.49%) GitHub
7 74 (2.49%) Serverless
8 64 (2.15%) SaaS
9 60 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
10 51 (1.71%) Entra ID
11 42 (1.41%) OCI
12 41 (1.38%) AWS CloudFormation
12 41 (1.38%) OpenShift
13 36 (1.21%) AWS Lambda
13 36 (1.21%) Snowflake
14 34 (1.14%) Figma
15 31 (1.04%) Amazon S3
16 28 (0.94%) GitHub Actions
16 28 (0.94%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 69 (2.32%) Firewall
2 34 (1.14%) WAN
3 25 (0.84%) Network Security
4 23 (0.77%) Skype
4 23 (0.77%) VPN
5 22 (0.74%) DNS
5 22 (0.74%) Wireless
6 18 (0.60%) LAN
7 16 (0.54%) Kerberos
7 16 (0.54%) SD-WAN
8 15 (0.50%) SSH
8 15 (0.50%) SSL
9 13 (0.44%) DHCP
10 11 (0.37%) Internet
10 11 (0.37%) SNMP
10 11 (0.37%) TCP/IP
11 8 (0.27%) Cisco IOS
12 7 (0.24%) HTTP
12 7 (0.24%) Wi-Fi
13 6 (0.20%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (5.48%) Power BI
2 74 (2.49%) PostgreSQL
3 72 (2.42%) Data Warehouse
4 64 (2.15%) NoSQL
5 51 (1.71%) Relational Database
6 39 (1.31%) Tableau
7 32 (1.07%) Metadata
8 31 (1.04%) SQL Server
9 27 (0.91%) Big Data
10 25 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
11 23 (0.77%) DynamoDB
12 22 (0.74%) Data Lake
13 21 (0.71%) Power Query
14 19 (0.64%) BigQuery
15 18 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
15 18 (0.60%) Oracle Database
16 16 (0.54%) MongoDB
16 16 (0.54%) MySQL
17 15 (0.50%) Hadoop
18 12 (0.40%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 290 (9.74%) JIRA
2 147 (4.94%) Jenkins
3 89 (2.99%) GitLab
4 69 (2.32%) Git
5 40 (1.34%) JUnit
5 40 (1.34%) Sonatype Nexus
6 35 (1.18%) Cucumber
7 25 (0.84%) Bitbucket
7 25 (0.84%) Selenium
8 21 (0.71%) Liquibase
9 14 (0.47%) Gradle
9 14 (0.47%) Postman
10 11 (0.37%) Maven
10 11 (0.37%) REST Assured
11 10 (0.34%) Cypress.io
11 10 (0.34%) JMeter
12 8 (0.27%) Bitbucket Server
12 8 (0.27%) CA Release Automation
12 8 (0.27%) Hudson
12 8 (0.27%) Jaeger
General
1 1,109 (37.25%) Social Skills
2 515 (17.30%) Banking
3 380 (12.76%) Analytical Skills
4 343 (11.52%) Public Sector
5 191 (6.42%) Manufacturing
6 179 (6.01%) Telecoms
7 162 (5.44%) Marketing
8 122 (4.10%) Organisational Skills
9 121 (4.06%) Electronics
10 104 (3.49%) Financial Institution
11 98 (3.29%) Legal
12 90 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
13 62 (2.08%) General Ledger
14 58 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
15 55 (1.85%) Retail
16 54 (1.81%) Local Government
17 49 (1.65%) Investment Banking
18 47 (1.58%) Billing
19 43 (1.44%) Presentation Skills
20 32 (1.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 463 (15.55%) Analyst
2 283 (9.51%) Project Manager
3 235 (7.89%) Architect
4 219 (7.36%) Senior
5 212 (7.12%) Consultant
6 208 (6.99%) Developer
7 203 (6.82%) Business Analyst
8 194 (6.52%) Lead
9 103 (3.46%) Solutions Architect
10 94 (3.16%) Programme Manager
11 84 (2.82%) Data Analyst
12 61 (2.05%) Finance Manager
12 61 (2.05%) Senior Manager
13 59 (1.98%) SAP Consultant
14 58 (1.95%) Java Developer
15 55 (1.85%) Designer
16 54 (1.81%) Accountant
16 54 (1.81%) IT Manager
17 52 (1.75%) Functional Consultant
18 49 (1.65%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 128 (4.30%) REST
2 92 (3.09%) Spring
3 83 (2.79%) Spring Boot
4 76 (2.55%) RESTful
5 63 (2.12%) Kafka
6 60 (2.02%) Oracle Fusion
7 52 (1.75%) .NET
8 45 (1.51%) React
9 42 (1.41%) Middleware
10 37 (1.24%) Node.js
11 34 (1.14%) OAuth
11 34 (1.14%) SOAP
12 32 (1.07%) Elastic Stack
13 31 (1.04%) JSON
14 30 (1.01%) AngularJS
15 28 (0.94%) HTML
16 24 (0.81%) CSS
17 23 (0.77%) JMS
18 22 (0.74%) XML
19 21 (0.71%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 145 (4.87%) Onboarding
2 129 (4.33%) Product Ownership
3 94 (3.16%) Cloud Native
4 82 (2.75%) Data Centre
5 73 (2.45%) Management Information System
6 71 (2.38%) Distributed Systems
7 69 (2.32%) Public Cloud
8 65 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
9 58 (1.95%) Legacy Systems
10 46 (1.55%) Analytical Mindset
11 36 (1.21%) Data Structures
12 34 (1.14%) Mobile App
13 33 (1.11%) Virtual Team
14 32 (1.07%) CMDB
14 32 (1.07%) Self-Motivation
15 29 (0.97%) PMI
16 25 (0.84%) SWIFT Messaging Network
17 22 (0.74%) NHS
18 21 (0.71%) Credit Risk
19 20 (0.67%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 132 (4.43%) Linux
2 125 (4.20%) Windows
3 43 (1.44%) Mac OS
4 39 (1.31%) Unix
4 39 (1.31%) Windows 10
5 30 (1.01%) Android
6 21 (0.71%) Windows Server
7 9 (0.30%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.13%) VMS
9 4 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.067%) AIX
10 2 (0.067%) Solaris
11 1 (0.034%) Kali Linux
11 1 (0.034%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.034%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 688 (23.11%) Agile
2 559 (18.78%) Stakeholder Management
3 496 (16.66%) Problem-Solving
4 386 (12.97%) Migration
5 378 (12.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 341 (11.45%) Project Management
7 328 (11.02%) DevOps
8 319 (10.72%) Business Intelligence
9 309 (10.38%) ERP
10 303 (10.18%) CI/CD
11 302 (10.14%) Continuous Improvement
12 254 (8.53%) Change Management
13 228 (7.66%) Programme Management
14 215 (7.22%) Decision-Making
15 214 (7.19%) Project Delivery
16 208 (6.99%) Analytics
17 193 (6.48%) User Acceptance Testing
18 186 (6.25%) Roadmaps
19 180 (6.05%) Risk Management
20 176 (5.91%) AI
Programming Languages
1 342 (11.49%) SQL
2 283 (9.51%) Python
3 203 (6.82%) Java
4 80 (2.69%) PowerShell
5 41 (1.38%) JavaScript
5 41 (1.38%) TypeScript
6 39 (1.31%) C#
7 34 (1.14%) Go
8 25 (0.84%) Shell Script
9 22 (0.74%) PL/SQL
10 21 (0.71%) Bash
11 18 (0.60%) R
11 18 (0.60%) VBA
12 12 (0.40%) Groovy
12 12 (0.40%) Perl
13 11 (0.37%) Rust
14 9 (0.30%) ABAP
14 9 (0.30%) COBOL
14 9 (0.30%) Ruby
15 8 (0.27%) C++
Qualifications
1 324 (10.88%) Degree
2 273 (9.17%) Security Cleared
3 189 (6.35%) SC Cleared
4 77 (2.59%) BPSS Clearance
5 76 (2.55%) PMP
6 75 (2.52%) PMI Certification
7 74 (2.49%) Master's Degree
8 72 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
9 68 (2.28%) ACCA
10 62 (2.08%) CIMA
11 53 (1.78%) AWS Certification
12 48 (1.61%) CISSP
12 48 (1.61%) DV Cleared
13 42 (1.41%) CISM
14 34 (1.14%) ITIL Certification
15 21 (0.71%) TOGAF Certification
16 16 (0.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 16 (0.54%) MBA
17 15 (0.50%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 14 (0.47%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (4.77%) PMO
2 137 (4.60%) QA
3 116 (3.90%) Data Quality
4 105 (3.53%) GDPR
5 54 (1.81%) NIST
6 49 (1.65%) SLA
7 48 (1.61%) PCI DSS
8 43 (1.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 38 (1.28%) Accessibility
10 32 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 31 (1.04%) ISO 20022
12 28 (0.94%) PSD2
13 23 (0.77%) IFRS
14 22 (0.74%) GRC
15 19 (0.64%) SEPA
16 14 (0.47%) Disclosure Scotland
17 12 (0.40%) Basel III
18 11 (0.37%) COBIT
18 11 (0.37%) GAAP
18 11 (0.37%) GLBA
System Software
1 134 (4.50%) Docker
2 102 (3.43%) Active Directory
3 29 (0.97%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
5 14 (0.47%) vSphere
6 9 (0.30%) GPFS
6 9 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.27%) NFS
8 7 (0.24%) Hyper-V
9 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.17%) Tivoli Directory Server
11 4 (0.13%) ISA Server
11 4 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
12 3 (0.10%) HDFS
13 2 (0.067%) ACF2
13 2 (0.067%) Firmware
13 2 (0.067%) RACF
13 2 (0.067%) Time Sharing Option
14 1 (0.034%) XenApp
14 1 (0.034%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 157 (5.27%) Kubernetes
2 101 (3.39%) Terraform
3 84 (2.82%) Ansible
4 59 (1.98%) Grafana
5 55 (1.85%) Prometheus
6 23 (0.77%) SCCM
7 18 (0.60%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
10 10 (0.34%) Jamf Pro
11 9 (0.30%) FortiGate
11 9 (0.30%) vRealize
12 8 (0.27%) CA Single Sign-On
12 8 (0.27%) Kiali
13 7 (0.24%) CA Wily
13 7 (0.24%) HP SiteScope
13 7 (0.24%) SCOM
13 7 (0.24%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.17%) Nessus
14 5 (0.17%) QRadar
Vendors
1 455 (15.28%) Microsoft
2 380 (12.76%) SAP
3 257 (8.63%) Oracle
4 152 (5.11%) ServiceNow
5 94 (3.16%) Splunk
6 83 (2.79%) Cisco
7 82 (2.75%) Google
8 49 (1.65%) IBM
9 47 (1.58%) Salesforce
10 44 (1.48%) VMware
11 41 (1.38%) Workday
12 36 (1.21%) Databricks
12 36 (1.21%) HP
13 34 (1.14%) Dell
14 29 (0.97%) Apple
15 27 (0.91%) Sage
16 26 (0.87%) Adobe
17 25 (0.84%) Citrix
18 20 (0.67%) Remedy
19 19 (0.64%) IFS