Senior Contracts in the UK excluding London

Senior
UK > UK excluding London

The median Senior daily rate in the UK excluding London is £511, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 3 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 22 21 28
Rank change year-on-year -1 +7 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Senior 938 1,383 1,617
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 7.34% 6.68% 6.76%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.97% 7.22% 7.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 564 811 1,172
10th Percentile £363 £350 £382
25th Percentile £419 £431 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £515 £548
Median % change year-on-year -0.85% -6.06% +4.43%
75th Percentile £625 £613 £638
90th Percentile £688 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £550 £560 £590
% change year-on-year -1.79% -5.08% +2.61%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 142 76
10th Percentile £20.04 £23.09 £17.72
25th Percentile £30.40 £35.52 £20.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £48.75 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.82% +8.33% +7.14%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £57.58
90th Percentile £80.50 £75.00 £70.14
UK median hourly rate £52.75 £47.50 £48.75
% change year-on-year +11.05% -2.56% +29.99%

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 11,771 19,161 22,551
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.14% 92.57% 94.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,545 11,699 15,818
10th Percentile £213 £213 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £598 £600
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 836 2,248 1,160
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.50 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.79 £15.75 £18.08
Median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -29.22% -6.94% +117.95%
75th Percentile £64.50 £61.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £28.88 £36.42 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.71% -19.07% +94.45%

Senior
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings that featured Senior in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Senior in the UK excluding London

Senior
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Senior in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Senior in the UK excluding London

Senior
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Senior in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 3 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Senior in the UK excluding London

Senior
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Senior in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Senior in the UK excluding London

Senior
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Senior in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 3 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Senior in the UK excluding London

Senior
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 Senior within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 3 May 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
North of England -2 269 £500 -0.79% 1,138
South East -10 217 £570 +8.57% 1,412
North West -4 162 £499 -2.73% 698
Scotland -3 138 £432 -14.46% 322
Midlands -2 112 £525 +2.69% 550
South West +6 108 £525 +5.00% 424
Yorkshire +8 91 £513 +0.99% 326
West Midlands -2 88 £550 +7.58% 333
East of England +15 74 £563 +3.78% 467
Wales +3 28 £413 -31.25% 104
North East +2 25 £550 -8.33% 123
East Midlands +11 21 £483 -8.10% 186
Northern Ireland 0 10 £500 +14.94% 84
Senior
UK

Senior Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 3 May 2025, Senior contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Senior in the job title.

1 244 (26.01%) Security Cleared
2 232 (24.73%) Social Skills
3 225 (23.99%) Agile
4 175 (18.66%) Finance
5 174 (18.55%) Azure
6 168 (17.91%) SC Cleared
7 163 (17.38%) Python
8 158 (16.84%) SQL
9 154 (16.42%) AWS
10 151 (16.10%) Problem-Solving
11 143 (15.25%) Public Sector
12 133 (14.18%) CI/CD
13 116 (12.37%) Stakeholder Management
14 114 (12.15%) Analytical Skills
15 109 (11.62%) Microsoft
16 107 (11.41%) DevOps
17 96 (10.23%) Kubernetes
18 94 (10.02%) Linux
19 88 (9.38%) Analytics
20 87 (9.28%) Docker
21 86 (9.17%) Degree
22 79 (8.42%) Test Automation
23 77 (8.21%) Software Engineering
24 75 (8.00%) JIRA
25 70 (7.46%) Migration
25 70 (7.46%) Project Management
25 70 (7.46%) Containerisation
26 69 (7.36%) Windows
27 66 (7.04%) Risk Management
27 66 (7.04%) Decision-Making

Senior Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 32 (3.41%) SharePoint
2 30 (3.20%) Confluence
3 19 (2.03%) Apache Spark
4 13 (1.39%) Microsoft Exchange
4 13 (1.39%) Moodle
5 11 (1.17%) Apache
6 9 (0.96%) CMS
7 8 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
7 8 (0.85%) nginx
8 7 (0.75%) SAS
9 6 (0.64%) Traefik
10 5 (0.53%) Umbraco
11 4 (0.43%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.21%) CICS
12 2 (0.21%) JBoss
13 1 (0.11%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
13 1 (0.11%) Skype for Business
13 1 (0.11%) WebSphere
13 1 (0.11%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 25 (2.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (2.03%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (1.39%) Microsoft Project
4 8 (0.85%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.43%) Windchill
6 3 (0.32%) Adobe Illustrator
6 3 (0.32%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.32%) Maya
6 3 (0.32%) NUKE
7 2 (0.21%) Adobe After Effects
7 2 (0.21%) Photoshop
7 2 (0.21%) Sketch
7 2 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.11%) Adobe Premiere
8 1 (0.11%) Final Cut Pro
8 1 (0.11%) MadCap Flare
8 1 (0.11%) OmniGraffle
8 1 (0.11%) Trello
8 1 (0.11%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 12 (1.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.43%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (0.43%) Primavera
2 4 (0.43%) SAP LE
3 3 (0.32%) NetSuite
3 3 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.21%) LabWindows
4 2 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.11%) Infor CloudSuite
5 1 (0.11%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.11%) Oracle iProcurement
5 1 (0.11%) Oracle SCM
5 1 (0.11%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.11%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.11%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.11%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 174 (18.55%) Azure
2 154 (16.42%) AWS
3 44 (4.69%) Microsoft 365
4 38 (4.05%) SaaS
5 35 (3.73%) GCP
6 34 (3.62%) Power Platform
7 28 (2.99%) Azure DevOps
8 27 (2.88%) Serverless
9 23 (2.45%) AWS CloudFormation
10 22 (2.35%) Entra ID
11 19 (2.03%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 19 (2.03%) GitHub
12 16 (1.71%) Amazon S3
12 16 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
12 16 (1.71%) IaaS
12 16 (1.71%) PaaS
13 15 (1.60%) Amazon EC2
13 15 (1.60%) Snowflake
14 14 (1.49%) Cloud Computing
15 13 (1.39%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 47 (5.01%) Firewall
2 31 (3.30%) Network Security
3 28 (2.99%) VPN
4 25 (2.67%) DNS
5 21 (2.24%) WAN
6 16 (1.71%) TCP/IP
6 16 (1.71%) Wi-Fi
7 15 (1.60%) BGP
8 14 (1.49%) OSPF
8 14 (1.49%) SD-WAN
8 14 (1.49%) Wireless
9 13 (1.39%) Internet
10 12 (1.28%) LAN
11 9 (0.96%) Cisco Firepower
11 9 (0.96%) DHCP
11 9 (0.96%) HTTP
11 9 (0.96%) IPsec
12 8 (0.85%) Cisco ASA
12 8 (0.85%) MPLS
12 8 (0.85%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (3.84%) MongoDB
2 35 (3.73%) PostgreSQL
3 28 (2.99%) Power BI
4 23 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
4 23 (2.45%) Relational Database
5 22 (2.35%) SQL Server
6 20 (2.13%) Big Data
7 18 (1.92%) Hadoop
7 18 (1.92%) Tableau
8 16 (1.71%) NoSQL
9 15 (1.60%) MySQL
10 12 (1.28%) Apache Cassandra
11 11 (1.17%) KDB
11 11 (1.17%) Kdb+
12 9 (0.96%) Metadata
13 8 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
13 8 (0.85%) Elasticsearch
14 6 (0.64%) Oracle Database
14 6 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
14 6 (0.64%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 75 (8.00%) JIRA
2 62 (6.61%) Git
3 53 (5.65%) Jenkins
4 43 (4.58%) GitLab
5 17 (1.81%) JUnit
6 14 (1.49%) Bitbucket
6 14 (1.49%) Cucumber
7 13 (1.39%) TestRail
8 11 (1.17%) Jasmine
9 10 (1.07%) Cypress.io
10 9 (0.96%) Rational DOORS
11 8 (0.85%) Postman
11 8 (0.85%) Selenium
12 7 (0.75%) GoogleTest
12 7 (0.75%) Subversion
12 7 (0.75%) Visual Studio
13 6 (0.64%) Maven
14 5 (0.53%) Mockito
14 5 (0.53%) SoapUI
14 5 (0.53%) SpecFlow
General
1 232 (24.73%) Social Skills
2 175 (18.66%) Finance
3 143 (15.25%) Public Sector
4 114 (12.15%) Analytical Skills
5 44 (4.69%) Banking
6 37 (3.94%) Telecoms
7 29 (3.09%) Marketing
8 27 (2.88%) Manufacturing
9 25 (2.67%) Retail
10 23 (2.45%) Military
11 19 (2.03%) Electronics
12 18 (1.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 18 (1.92%) Legal
13 17 (1.81%) Organisational Skills
14 16 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
15 15 (1.60%) Pharmaceutical
16 14 (1.49%) Games
17 12 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
17 12 (1.28%) Local Government
18 11 (1.17%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (4.69%) RESTful
2 42 (4.48%) React
3 38 (4.05%) Node.js
4 36 (3.84%) .NET
5 31 (3.30%) Kafka
6 28 (2.99%) HTML
7 26 (2.77%) CSS
7 26 (2.77%) REST
8 23 (2.45%) Spring
8 23 (2.45%) Spring Boot
9 22 (2.35%) AngularJS
9 22 (2.35%) XML
10 19 (2.03%) Web Services
11 16 (1.71%) TensorFlow
12 15 (1.60%) cloud-init
12 15 (1.60%) PyTorch
12 15 (1.60%) SOAP
13 13 (1.39%) JSON
13 13 (1.39%) Pandas
13 13 (1.39%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 50 (5.33%) Management Information System
2 33 (3.52%) Product Ownership
3 32 (3.41%) Algorithms
4 23 (2.45%) Cloud Native
5 21 (2.24%) PKI
5 21 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
6 19 (2.03%) Data Centre
7 18 (1.92%) Hybrid Cloud
8 15 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
9 14 (1.49%) Greenfield Project
10 13 (1.39%) Mobile App
10 13 (1.39%) Public Cloud
11 11 (1.17%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 10 (1.07%) Data Protection Act
12 10 (1.07%) Onboarding
13 9 (0.96%) Legacy Systems
14 8 (0.85%) CMDB
14 8 (0.85%) Video Conferencing
15 7 (0.75%) Life Science
15 7 (0.75%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 94 (10.02%) Linux
2 69 (7.36%) Windows
3 37 (3.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 26 (2.77%) Unix
5 22 (2.35%) CentOS
6 15 (1.60%) Windows Server
7 11 (1.17%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.85%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.75%) Embedded Linux
9 7 (0.75%) Windows Server 2016
10 6 (0.64%) AIX
11 4 (0.43%) Android
11 4 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.32%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.32%) Solaris
13 2 (0.21%) Apple iOS
14 1 (0.11%) Alpine Linux
14 1 (0.11%) VMS
14 1 (0.11%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 225 (23.99%) Agile
2 151 (16.10%) Problem-Solving
3 133 (14.18%) CI/CD
4 116 (12.37%) Stakeholder Management
5 107 (11.41%) DevOps
6 88 (9.38%) Analytics
7 79 (8.42%) Test Automation
8 77 (8.21%) Software Engineering
9 70 (7.46%) Containerisation
9 70 (7.46%) Migration
9 70 (7.46%) Project Management
10 66 (7.04%) Decision-Making
10 66 (7.04%) Risk Management
11 63 (6.72%) Mentoring
12 59 (6.29%) Microservices
13 57 (6.08%) Artificial Intelligence
14 55 (5.86%) Project Delivery
15 54 (5.76%) Infrastructure as Code
16 52 (5.54%) Continuous Integration
17 48 (5.12%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 163 (17.38%) Python
2 158 (16.84%) SQL
3 65 (6.93%) Java
3 65 (6.93%) JavaScript
4 49 (5.22%) TypeScript
5 47 (5.01%) Bash
6 35 (3.73%) PowerShell
7 29 (3.09%) C#
8 28 (2.99%) C++
9 21 (2.24%) Go
10 14 (1.49%) R
11 13 (1.39%) C
12 9 (0.96%) Scala
13 7 (0.75%) T-SQL
14 6 (0.64%) VBA
15 5 (0.53%) PHP
15 5 (0.53%) PL/SQL
15 5 (0.53%) Shell Script
16 4 (0.43%) Groovy
16 4 (0.43%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 244 (26.01%) Security Cleared
2 168 (17.91%) SC Cleared
3 86 (9.17%) Degree
4 62 (6.61%) DV Cleared
5 27 (2.88%) CISM
6 23 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
7 22 (2.35%) Cisco Certification
7 22 (2.35%) Master's Degree
8 20 (2.13%) AWS Certification
9 17 (1.81%) CISSP
9 17 (1.81%) PhD
10 14 (1.49%) BPSS Clearance
11 13 (1.39%) CCNP
11 13 (1.39%) Microsoft Certification
12 10 (1.07%) MCSE
13 9 (0.96%) ISEB
14 7 (0.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 6 (0.64%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 6 (0.64%) Azure Certification
15 6 (0.64%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (3.73%) QA
2 33 (3.52%) Data Quality
3 24 (2.56%) GDPR
4 21 (2.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 21 (2.24%) NCSC
5 20 (2.13%) Accessibility
6 16 (1.71%) PMO
7 10 (1.07%) Cyber Essentials
8 9 (0.96%) Disclosure Scotland
8 9 (0.96%) NIST
9 7 (0.75%) SLA
10 6 (0.64%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.64%) WCAG
11 5 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.21%) GRC
12 2 (0.21%) IFRS
12 2 (0.21%) NIST 800
12 2 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
13 1 (0.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 1 (0.11%) ITGC
System Software
1 87 (9.28%) Docker
2 35 (3.73%) Active Directory
3 21 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.85%) VMware NSX
4 8 (0.85%) vSphere
5 7 (0.75%) Firmware
6 4 (0.43%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.21%) Embedded Firmware
9 1 (0.11%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.11%) KVM
9 1 (0.11%) QEMU
9 1 (0.11%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.11%) Xen
Systems Management
1 96 (10.23%) Kubernetes
2 61 (6.50%) Terraform
3 27 (2.88%) Ansible
4 19 (2.03%) Grafana
5 18 (1.92%) Prometheus
6 16 (1.71%) Packer
7 14 (1.49%) Microsoft Intune
8 10 (1.07%) Puppet
9 9 (0.96%) Jamf Pro
10 8 (0.85%) Consul
10 8 (0.85%) Istio
10 8 (0.85%) linkerd
10 8 (0.85%) Nessus
10 8 (0.85%) Rancher
10 8 (0.85%) vCenter Server
10 8 (0.85%) ZABBIX
11 7 (0.75%) Kibana
11 7 (0.75%) SCCM
12 6 (0.64%) Progress Chef
12 6 (0.64%) WSUS
Vendors
1 109 (11.62%) Microsoft
2 57 (6.08%) Oracle
3 43 (4.58%) SAP
4 36 (3.84%) Cisco
5 32 (3.41%) ServiceNow
6 31 (3.30%) VMware
7 25 (2.67%) Google
8 20 (2.13%) Databricks
9 17 (1.81%) Splunk
10 16 (1.71%) IBM
10 16 (1.71%) Palo Alto
11 13 (1.39%) Red Hat
12 12 (1.28%) webMethods
13 10 (1.07%) Dynatrace
13 10 (1.07%) Software AG
14 9 (0.96%) Aruba
14 9 (0.96%) Atlassian
14 9 (0.96%) Darktrace
15 8 (0.85%) Adobe
15 8 (0.85%) Okta