Programme Manager Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Programme Manager
UK > UK excluding London

The median Programme Manager daily rate in the UK excluding London is £663, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 27 December 2025.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 263 228 224
Rank change year-on-year -35 -4 +17
Contract jobs requiring a Programme Manager 145 128 186
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.79% 0.87% 0.94%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.87% 0.94% 1.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 108 87 145
10th Percentile £449 £448 £363
25th Percentile £525 £525 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £663 £650 £600
Median % change year-on-year +1.92% +8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £775 £750 £713
90th Percentile £888 £843 £775
UK median daily rate £675 £675 £650
% change year-on-year - +3.85% -7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 2
10th Percentile - £41.19 £31.10
25th Percentile £92.50 £41.47 £32.71
Median hourly rate £95.00 £41.94 £35.78
Median % change year-on-year +126.51% +17.23% -57.91%
75th Percentile £97.50 £42.41 £39.21
90th Percentile - £42.69 £41.03
UK median hourly rate £48.52 £38.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year +27.68% -8.43% -48.92%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 16,619 13,612 18,391
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.26% 92.38% 93.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,198 8,120 11,936
10th Percentile £213 £213 £213
25th Percentile £373 £363 £375
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 £678 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,674 773 1,298
10th Percentile £13.95 £15.25 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.24 £18.26
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.55
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -28.64% +82.18%
75th Percentile £60.00 £64.10 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.25 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £26.00 £32.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.00% -27.78% +46.96%

Programme Manager
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Programme Manager' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Programme Manager job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Programme Manager
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Programme Manager job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Programme Manager job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Programme Manager
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Programme Manager in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 27 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Programme Manager in the UK excluding London

Programme Manager
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Programme Manager job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Programme Manager job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Programme Manager
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 Programme Manager within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 27 December 2025. 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
South East -3 40 £750 +15.38% 22
North of England -38 35 £556 -14.42% 6
Midlands -40 34 £628 -10.29% 7
North West -12 20 £544 -17.47% 1
West Midlands -36 18 £825 +13.79% 4
East Midlands -11 16 £529 +5.70% 3
Yorkshire -38 13 £638 +6.25% 5
South West -9 12 £750 +42.86% 2
Scotland -1 11 £588 -9.62% 3
East of England -14 11 £750 +4.17% 2
Wales 0 3 £550 -35.29% 1
North East -6 2 £681 -9.17%
Programme Manager
UK

Programme Manager Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 27 December 2025, Programme Manager contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Programme Manager in the job title.

1 57 (39.31%) Stakeholder Management
2 42 (28.97%) Agile
2 42 (28.97%) Programme Management
3 36 (24.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 28 (19.31%) Project Management
5 24 (16.55%) Programme Delivery
6 23 (15.86%) Migration
6 23 (15.86%) Waterfall
7 22 (15.17%) Security Cleared
8 21 (14.48%) Change Management
9 20 (13.79%) PRINCE2
10 19 (13.10%) ERP
11 18 (12.41%) Project Delivery
12 16 (11.03%) Continuous Improvement
13 14 (9.66%) Microsoft
13 14 (9.66%) PMI Certification
14 13 (8.97%) AI
14 13 (8.97%) Decision-Making
14 13 (8.97%) Degree
14 13 (8.97%) Programme Governance
14 13 (8.97%) Roadmaps
15 12 (8.28%) Risk Management
15 12 (8.28%) SAP
15 12 (8.28%) Scaled Agile Framework
16 11 (7.59%) Azure
16 11 (7.59%) JIRA
16 11 (7.59%) Matrix Organization
16 11 (7.59%) SC Cleared
17 10 (6.90%) Budget Management
17 10 (6.90%) Budgeting

Programme Manager Skill Set
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 9 (6.21%) Confluence
Applications
1 9 (6.21%) Microsoft Project
2 6 (4.14%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (2.07%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 9 (6.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (2.76%) Oracle ERP
2 4 (2.76%) SAP ERP
3 3 (2.07%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (1.38%) Primavera
5 1 (0.69%) Maximo
5 1 (0.69%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.69%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.69%) SAP CRM
5 1 (0.69%) SAP Oil and Gas
5 1 (0.69%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 11 (7.59%) Azure
2 8 (5.52%) AWS
3 6 (4.14%) GCP
3 6 (4.14%) Microsoft 365
4 5 (3.45%) Power Platform
4 5 (3.45%) SaaS
5 4 (2.76%) Dynamics 365
6 3 (2.07%) Entra ID
6 3 (2.07%) Google Sheets
6 3 (2.07%) Google Workspace
6 3 (2.07%) SuccessFactors
7 2 (1.38%) Cloud Computing
7 2 (1.38%) PaaS
8 1 (0.69%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 1 (0.69%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.69%) 5G
1 1 (0.69%) DNS
1 1 (0.69%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.38%) Power BI
2 1 (0.69%) DTS
Development Applications
1 11 (7.59%) JIRA
General
1 86 (59.31%) Finance
2 49 (33.79%) Social Skills
3 18 (12.41%) Public Sector
4 13 (8.97%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (8.28%) Influencing Skills
6 9 (6.21%) Banking
7 8 (5.52%) Legal
7 8 (5.52%) Retail
8 3 (2.07%) Billing
8 3 (2.07%) Local Government
8 3 (2.07%) Manufacturing
8 3 (2.07%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.38%) Marketing
9 2 (1.38%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.69%) Advertising
10 1 (0.69%) General Ledger
10 1 (0.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.69%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.69%) Retail Banking
10 1 (0.69%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (2.76%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 8 (5.52%) PMI
2 7 (4.83%) Data Centre
3 5 (3.45%) Public Cloud
4 4 (2.76%) Greenfield Project
5 3 (2.07%) Management Information System
6 2 (1.38%) EPoS
6 2 (1.38%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.38%) Product Ownership
6 2 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.69%) AI Agents
7 1 (0.69%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.69%) FMCG
7 1 (0.69%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.69%) Life Science
7 1 (0.69%) Mobile App
7 1 (0.69%) Renewable Energy
7 1 (0.69%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 5 (3.45%) Windows
2 3 (2.07%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (39.31%) Stakeholder Management
2 42 (28.97%) Agile
2 42 (28.97%) Programme Management
3 36 (24.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 28 (19.31%) Project Management
5 24 (16.55%) Programme Delivery
6 23 (15.86%) Migration
6 23 (15.86%) Waterfall
7 21 (14.48%) Change Management
8 20 (13.79%) PRINCE2
9 19 (13.10%) ERP
10 18 (12.41%) Project Delivery
11 16 (11.03%) Continuous Improvement
12 13 (8.97%) AI
12 13 (8.97%) Decision-Making
12 13 (8.97%) Programme Governance
12 13 (8.97%) Roadmaps
13 12 (8.28%) Risk Management
13 12 (8.28%) Scaled Agile Framework
14 11 (7.59%) Matrix Organization
Programming Languages
1 3 (2.07%) Bash
1 3 (2.07%) PowerShell
1 3 (2.07%) SQL
Qualifications
1 22 (15.17%) Security Cleared
2 14 (9.66%) PMI Certification
3 13 (8.97%) Degree
4 11 (7.59%) SC Cleared
5 10 (6.90%) PMP
6 9 (6.21%) APMP
7 7 (4.83%) DV Cleared
8 6 (4.14%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 3 (2.07%) MAPM
9 3 (2.07%) PRINCE2 Certification
10 2 (1.38%) BPSS Clearance
11 1 (0.69%) BC Cleared
11 1 (0.69%) Chartered Engineer
11 1 (0.69%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.69%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.69%) MBA
11 1 (0.69%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.90%) PMO
2 4 (2.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (2.76%) QA
3 3 (2.07%) GDPR
4 2 (1.38%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.38%) ISO 19650
4 2 (1.38%) NIST
5 1 (0.69%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.69%) JSP 440
5 1 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.69%) SLA
System Software
1 5 (3.45%) Active Directory
2 3 (2.07%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 3 (2.07%) Microsoft Intune
1 3 (2.07%) SCCM
Vendors
1 14 (9.66%) Microsoft
2 12 (8.28%) SAP
3 7 (4.83%) Oracle
4 5 (3.45%) Atlassian
4 5 (3.45%) ServiceNow
5 4 (2.76%) Google
5 4 (2.76%) Workday
6 3 (2.07%) Citrix
6 3 (2.07%) Guidewire
6 3 (2.07%) Salesforce
6 3 (2.07%) Snow
6 3 (2.07%) VMware
7 1 (0.69%) Ariba
7 1 (0.69%) Concur
7 1 (0.69%) IBM
7 1 (0.69%) Remedy