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

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 +3 +2
Contract jobs citing Finance 2,864 2,325 2,512
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 15.54% 16.68% 12.95%
As % of the General category 27.11% 27.49% 23.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,860 1,374 1,698
10th Percentile £311 £300 £300
25th Percentile £402 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £497 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year -0.60% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £615 £617
90th Percentile £688 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -8.70% - -0.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 128 65 79
10th Percentile £14.50 £17.63 £11.83
25th Percentile £16.85 £22.50 £13.87
Median hourly rate £22.00 £29.00 £22.87
Median % change year-on-year -24.14% +26.80% -29.09%
75th Percentile £24.50 £55.93 £49.50
90th Percentile £43.00 £78.08 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £23.50 £29.00 £24.00
% change year-on-year -18.97% +20.83% -4.00%

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 10,564 8,457 10,701
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 57.32% 60.66% 55.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,532 4,797 6,640
10th Percentile £204 £210 £210
25th Percentile £363 £356 £369
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.06% -3.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,124 501 970
10th Percentile £13.50 £15.25 £13.41
25th Percentile £16.00 £18.16 £15.00
Median hourly rate £21.13 £26.50 £29.83
Median % change year-on-year -20.28% -11.15% +32.56%
75th Percentile £44.84 £53.75 £57.33
90th Percentile £69.65 £70.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £27.50 £30.48
% change year-on-year -16.38% -9.76% +21.90%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 +1 920 £475 -3.96% 834
South East -2 531 £505 -3.81% 1,453
Midlands -4 494 £478 -9.05% 561
North West +1 441 £450 -8.16% 375
Yorkshire 0 434 £500 -2.44% 333
Scotland 0 379 £488 +8.33% 174
West Midlands -6 307 £525 -4.55% 257
South West -4 286 £525 -0.94% 504
East Midlands +1 188 £423 +0.60% 296
East of England -2 172 £525 - 546
Wales +22 76 £413 - 190
Northern Ireland -1 55 £513 +57.69% 86
North East -8 45 £481 +1.32% 137
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
1 145 (5.06%) Confluence
2 103 (3.60%) SharePoint
3 34 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.15%) Apache
5 31 (1.08%) Apache Spark
6 18 (0.63%) SAS
7 16 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
8 14 (0.49%) CMS
9 11 (0.38%) JBoss
10 10 (0.35%) TPMS
11 9 (0.31%) IIS
12 8 (0.28%) WebSphere
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 5 (0.17%) CICS
15 4 (0.14%) Ethereum
15 4 (0.14%) Hyperledger
15 4 (0.14%) WebLogic
Applications
1 241 (8.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 154 (5.38%) Microsoft Office
3 104 (3.63%) Microsoft Project
4 91 (3.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 49 (1.71%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.59%) Sketch
8 12 (0.42%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 8 (0.28%) InVision
10 7 (0.24%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.21%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.21%) Trello
12 5 (0.17%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.10%) Camtasia
13 3 (0.10%) Snagit
14 2 (0.070%) Oracle Smart View
15 1 (0.035%) Photoshop
15 1 (0.035%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 120 (4.19%) SAP S/4HANA
2 55 (1.92%) Oracle Payables
3 44 (1.54%) Oracle Receivables
4 41 (1.43%) Oracle EBS
5 38 (1.33%) SAP FI
6 37 (1.29%) Oracle General Ledger
7 31 (1.08%) Oracle Cash Management
8 29 (1.01%) SAP CO
9 28 (0.98%) Oracle Assets
9 28 (0.98%) SAP FI/CO
10 26 (0.91%) Dynamics CRM
10 26 (0.91%) Oracle ERP
10 26 (0.91%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 23 (0.80%) Oracle EBS R12
12 18 (0.63%) SAP ERP
13 15 (0.52%) NetSuite
13 15 (0.52%) Workday HCM
14 14 (0.49%) Remedy ITSM
14 14 (0.49%) SAP BRIM
14 14 (0.49%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 383 (13.37%) AWS
2 358 (12.50%) Azure
3 188 (6.56%) Power Platform
4 171 (5.97%) GCP
5 112 (3.91%) Microsoft 365
6 79 (2.76%) Dynamics 365
7 76 (2.65%) Serverless
8 66 (2.30%) GitHub
9 60 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
10 57 (1.99%) SaaS
11 47 (1.64%) OCI
12 46 (1.61%) Entra ID
13 39 (1.36%) AWS CloudFormation
13 39 (1.36%) Figma
13 39 (1.36%) OpenShift
14 38 (1.33%) Snowflake
15 36 (1.26%) AWS Lambda
16 30 (1.05%) Amazon S3
16 30 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
17 22 (0.77%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 60 (2.09%) Firewall
2 30 (1.05%) WAN
3 23 (0.80%) Network Security
4 22 (0.77%) Wireless
5 21 (0.73%) Skype
6 19 (0.66%) DNS
6 19 (0.66%) VPN
7 17 (0.59%) LAN
7 17 (0.59%) SSH
8 16 (0.56%) SSL
9 14 (0.49%) Kerberos
9 14 (0.49%) SD-WAN
10 12 (0.42%) DHCP
10 12 (0.42%) TCP/IP
11 10 (0.35%) Internet
11 10 (0.35%) SNMP
12 9 (0.31%) HTTP
13 8 (0.28%) Cisco IOS
14 6 (0.21%) Unified Communications
14 6 (0.21%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 178 (6.22%) Power BI
2 76 (2.65%) Data Warehouse
3 69 (2.41%) NoSQL
4 65 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
5 54 (1.89%) Relational Database
6 41 (1.43%) Tableau
7 34 (1.19%) SQL Server
8 32 (1.12%) Big Data
9 30 (1.05%) Metadata
10 27 (0.94%) Power Query
11 25 (0.87%) Oracle Reports
12 24 (0.84%) Data Lake
13 23 (0.80%) Hadoop
14 21 (0.73%) BigQuery
15 19 (0.66%) DynamoDB
15 19 (0.66%) MongoDB
16 18 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
17 16 (0.56%) Oracle Database
18 15 (0.52%) MySQL
19 14 (0.49%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 268 (9.36%) JIRA
2 146 (5.10%) Jenkins
3 86 (3.00%) GitLab
4 72 (2.51%) Git
5 41 (1.43%) JUnit
6 36 (1.26%) Sonatype Nexus
7 33 (1.15%) Cucumber
8 28 (0.98%) Liquibase
9 26 (0.91%) Bitbucket
10 23 (0.80%) Selenium
11 12 (0.42%) Gradle
11 12 (0.42%) Postman
12 11 (0.38%) Cypress.io
13 10 (0.35%) JMeter
14 9 (0.31%) REST Assured
15 8 (0.28%) Bitbucket Server
15 8 (0.28%) CA Release Automation
15 8 (0.28%) Hudson
15 8 (0.28%) Visual Studio
16 7 (0.24%) Maven
General
1 1,067 (37.26%) Social Skills
2 529 (18.47%) Banking
3 410 (14.32%) Analytical Skills
4 330 (11.52%) Public Sector
5 200 (6.98%) Manufacturing
6 191 (6.67%) Telecoms
7 171 (5.97%) Marketing
8 134 (4.68%) Electronics
9 114 (3.98%) Organisational Skills
10 102 (3.56%) Financial Institution
11 97 (3.39%) Legal
12 92 (3.21%) Documentation Skills
13 57 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
13 57 (1.99%) Investment Banking
14 54 (1.89%) General Ledger
15 53 (1.85%) Retail
16 51 (1.78%) Presentation Skills
17 43 (1.50%) Billing
18 36 (1.26%) Local Government
19 35 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 470 (16.41%) Analyst
2 282 (9.85%) Project Manager
3 219 (7.65%) Senior
4 214 (7.47%) Consultant
5 210 (7.33%) Architect
6 202 (7.05%) Developer
7 188 (6.56%) Business Analyst
8 169 (5.90%) Lead
9 94 (3.28%) Data Analyst
10 92 (3.21%) Solutions Architect
11 84 (2.93%) Programme Manager
12 58 (2.03%) Java Developer
13 55 (1.92%) IT Support
13 55 (1.92%) SAP Consultant
14 54 (1.89%) Accountant
14 54 (1.89%) Senior Manager
15 51 (1.78%) Designer
15 51 (1.78%) Functional Consultant
15 51 (1.78%) IT Manager
15 51 (1.78%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 130 (4.54%) REST
2 88 (3.07%) Spring
3 80 (2.79%) Spring Boot
4 78 (2.72%) RESTful
5 65 (2.27%) Oracle Fusion
6 61 (2.13%) Kafka
7 55 (1.92%) .NET
8 41 (1.43%) React
9 37 (1.29%) Node.js
10 35 (1.22%) Elastic Stack
10 35 (1.22%) SOAP
11 32 (1.12%) OAuth
12 28 (0.98%) Middleware
13 27 (0.94%) AngularJS
13 27 (0.94%) HTML
13 27 (0.94%) JSON
14 24 (0.84%) JMS
15 23 (0.80%) CSS
16 22 (0.77%) XML
17 20 (0.70%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 149 (5.20%) Onboarding
2 124 (4.33%) Product Ownership
3 95 (3.32%) Cloud Native
4 81 (2.83%) Data Centre
5 68 (2.37%) Public Cloud
6 65 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
6 65 (2.27%) Management Information System
7 53 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
8 50 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
9 48 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
10 37 (1.29%) Mobile App
11 34 (1.19%) Data Structures
12 32 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
13 30 (1.05%) CMDB
14 29 (1.01%) PMI
15 27 (0.94%) Virtual Team
16 23 (0.80%) Mainframe
16 23 (0.80%) NHS
17 21 (0.73%) Enterprise Software
18 20 (0.70%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 145 (5.06%) Linux
2 125 (4.36%) Windows
3 43 (1.50%) Mac OS
4 41 (1.43%) Unix
5 38 (1.33%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.12%) Android
7 19 (0.66%) Windows Server
8 11 (0.38%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.10%) VMS
10 3 (0.10%) 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
1 685 (23.92%) Agile
2 525 (18.33%) Stakeholder Management
3 491 (17.14%) Problem-Solving
4 352 (12.29%) Migration
5 344 (12.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 340 (11.87%) Business Intelligence
7 333 (11.63%) Project Management
8 313 (10.93%) DevOps
9 298 (10.41%) ERP
10 292 (10.20%) CI/CD
10 292 (10.20%) Continuous Improvement
11 241 (8.41%) Change Management
12 233 (8.14%) Programme Management
13 213 (7.44%) Decision-Making
14 207 (7.23%) Project Delivery
15 199 (6.95%) Analytics
16 186 (6.49%) Roadmaps
17 180 (6.28%) Risk Management
18 171 (5.97%) User Acceptance Testing
19 168 (5.87%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 333 (11.63%) SQL
2 292 (10.20%) Python
3 193 (6.74%) Java
4 72 (2.51%) PowerShell
5 45 (1.57%) JavaScript
6 43 (1.50%) C#
6 43 (1.50%) Go
6 43 (1.50%) TypeScript
7 27 (0.94%) Shell Script
8 23 (0.80%) Bash
8 23 (0.80%) PL/SQL
9 21 (0.73%) R
10 19 (0.66%) VBA
11 17 (0.59%) Groovy
12 14 (0.49%) Perl
13 10 (0.35%) Rust
14 9 (0.31%) ABAP
14 9 (0.31%) Ruby
15 8 (0.28%) C++
15 8 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 304 (10.61%) Degree
2 260 (9.08%) Security Cleared
3 177 (6.18%) SC Cleared
4 77 (2.69%) Master's Degree
5 67 (2.34%) PMP
6 66 (2.30%) Computer Science Degree
6 66 (2.30%) PMI Certification
7 63 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
8 59 (2.06%) ACCA
9 56 (1.96%) AWS Certification
10 53 (1.85%) CIMA
11 48 (1.68%) CISSP
11 48 (1.68%) DV Cleared
12 38 (1.33%) CISM
13 33 (1.15%) ITIL Certification
14 17 (0.59%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 16 (0.56%) Azure Certification
15 16 (0.56%) TOGAF Certification
16 15 (0.52%) MBA
17 12 (0.42%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (5.03%) PMO
2 126 (4.40%) QA
3 109 (3.81%) Data Quality
4 103 (3.60%) GDPR
5 52 (1.82%) NIST
6 51 (1.78%) SLA
7 48 (1.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 46 (1.61%) Accessibility
9 45 (1.57%) PCI DSS
10 31 (1.08%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 27 (0.94%) PSD2
12 25 (0.87%) ISO 20022
13 23 (0.80%) IFRS
14 15 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
14 15 (0.52%) GRC
15 14 (0.49%) SEPA
16 12 (0.42%) Basel III
17 11 (0.38%) COBIT
17 11 (0.38%) NCSC
17 11 (0.38%) P3O
System Software
1 127 (4.43%) Docker
2 99 (3.46%) Active Directory
3 26 (0.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
5 12 (0.42%) vSphere
6 9 (0.31%) 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 (0.17%) Tivoli Directory Server
10 4 (0.14%) Firmware
10 4 (0.14%) HDFS
10 4 (0.14%) ISA Server
11 3 (0.10%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.10%) 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
1 152 (5.31%) Kubernetes
2 108 (3.77%) Terraform
3 87 (3.04%) Ansible
4 58 (2.03%) Grafana
5 52 (1.82%) Prometheus
6 24 (0.84%) SCCM
7 17 (0.59%) Progress Chef
8 14 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
10 10 (0.35%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (0.35%) vRealize
11 9 (0.31%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.28%) CA Single Sign-On
12 8 (0.28%) SCOM
13 7 (0.24%) CA Wily
13 7 (0.24%) HP SiteScope
13 7 (0.24%) Kiali
13 7 (0.24%) Tivoli
14 5 (0.17%) QRadar
15 4 (0.14%) CA Endevor
Vendors
1 453 (15.82%) Microsoft
2 385 (13.44%) SAP
3 269 (9.39%) Oracle
4 143 (4.99%) ServiceNow
5 86 (3.00%) Splunk
6 79 (2.76%) Cisco
7 72 (2.51%) Google
8 48 (1.68%) Salesforce
9 46 (1.61%) IBM
10 40 (1.40%) Workday
11 39 (1.36%) VMware
12 34 (1.19%) Databricks
12 34 (1.19%) Dell
12 34 (1.19%) HP
13 29 (1.01%) Apple
14 28 (0.98%) Adobe
15 24 (0.84%) Citrix
16 20 (0.70%) IFS
17 19 (0.66%) Remedy
17 19 (0.66%) Sage