Senior Contracts in the UK excluding London

Senior
UK > UK excluding London

The median Senior daily rate in the UK excluding London is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 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
13 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 23 21 28
Rank change year-on-year -2 +7 0
Contract jobs requiring a Senior 963 1,383 1,546
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 7.53% 6.75% 6.58%
As % of the Job Titles category 8.17% 7.30% 6.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 543 813 1,109
10th Percentile £363 £350 £381
25th Percentile £413 £430 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £540
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -4.63% +2.86%
75th Percentile £617 £613 £638
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £550 £560 £590
% change year-on-year -1.79% -5.08% +2.61%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 143 70
10th Percentile £19.84 £23.18 £17.72
25th Percentile £32.70 £35.51 £24.22
Median hourly rate £55.00 £50.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +11.11% -
75th Percentile £71.88 £65.00 £61.91
90th Percentile £83.30 £75.00 £74.91
UK median hourly rate £52.75 £47.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +11.05% -9.52% +23.53%

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 11,781 18,945 22,165
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.10% 92.49% 94.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,499 11,550 15,483
10th Percentile £213 £213 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £400
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 £513 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -2.38% -2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 840 2,261 1,134
10th Percentile £13.99 £12.50 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.30 £15.75 £18.08
Median hourly rate £27.13 £40.00 £42.08
Median % change year-on-year -32.19% -4.94% +110.39%
75th Percentile £63.75 £61.60 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £74.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £28.18 £37.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -24.85% -16.67% +88.21%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 0 263 £500 -0.79% 1,215
South East -9 210 £545 +3.81% 1,652
Scotland +2 178 £433 -13.45% 359
North West -4 164 £497 -3.26% 734
South West +11 110 £525 +5.00% 436
Midlands 0 110 £518 +3.50% 528
Yorkshire +8 87 £500 - 365
West Midlands -1 86 £525 +5.00% 333
East of England +4 67 £550 +1.48% 478
Wales +4 30 £400 -33.33% 116
East Midlands +7 21 £475 -9.52% 161
North East -4 21 £534 -11.00% 124
Northern Ireland -1 11 £544 +25.00% 98
Senior
UK

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

For the 6 months to 13 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.

1 269 (27.93%) Social Skills
2 234 (24.30%) Security Cleared
3 220 (22.85%) Agile
4 216 (22.43%) Finance
5 164 (17.03%) Azure
6 160 (16.61%) Stakeholder Management
7 158 (16.41%) SC Cleared
8 156 (16.20%) SQL
9 155 (16.10%) Python
10 153 (15.89%) Problem-Solving
11 142 (14.75%) AWS
12 137 (14.23%) Public Sector
13 125 (12.98%) CI/CD
14 111 (11.53%) Analytical Skills
15 104 (10.80%) Microsoft
16 101 (10.49%) DevOps
17 88 (9.14%) Kubernetes
18 87 (9.03%) Analytics
18 87 (9.03%) Degree
19 86 (8.93%) SAP
20 85 (8.83%) Docker
21 83 (8.62%) Linux
22 79 (8.20%) Test Automation
23 75 (7.79%) JIRA
24 73 (7.58%) Software Engineering
25 70 (7.27%) Containerisation
26 68 (7.06%) Java
27 67 (6.96%) Project Management
28 66 (6.85%) JavaScript
28 66 (6.85%) Migration

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 31 (3.22%) SharePoint
2 30 (3.12%) Confluence
3 17 (1.77%) Apache Spark
4 13 (1.35%) Moodle
5 12 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
6 11 (1.14%) Apache
7 9 (0.93%) CMS
8 8 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
9 7 (0.73%) SAS
10 5 (0.52%) Umbraco
11 4 (0.42%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.21%) CICS
12 2 (0.21%) JBoss
12 2 (0.21%) nginx
13 1 (0.10%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.10%) Luigi
13 1 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.10%) Skype for Business
13 1 (0.10%) WebSphere
13 1 (0.10%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 21 (2.18%) Microsoft Excel
1 21 (2.18%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (1.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 14 (1.45%) Microsoft Project
3 9 (0.93%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.42%) Windchill
5 3 (0.31%) Adobe Illustrator
5 3 (0.31%) Maya
5 3 (0.31%) NUKE
6 2 (0.21%) Adobe After Effects
6 2 (0.21%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.21%) Photoshop
6 2 (0.21%) Sketch
6 2 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.10%) Adobe Premiere
7 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.10%) CINEMA 4D
7 1 (0.10%) Final Cut Pro
7 1 (0.10%) OmniGraffle
7 1 (0.10%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 10 (1.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (0.42%) Primavera
2 4 (0.42%) SAP LE
3 3 (0.31%) NetSuite
3 3 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.21%) LabWindows
4 2 (0.21%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.10%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.10%) Infor CloudSuite
5 1 (0.10%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.10%) Oracle iProcurement
5 1 (0.10%) Oracle SCM
5 1 (0.10%) Sage X3
5 1 (0.10%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.10%) SAP Payroll
5 1 (0.10%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.10%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 164 (17.03%) Azure
2 142 (14.75%) AWS
3 38 (3.95%) Microsoft 365
4 34 (3.53%) Power Platform
5 33 (3.43%) GCP
5 33 (3.43%) SaaS
6 28 (2.91%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (2.70%) Serverless
8 19 (1.97%) GitHub
9 16 (1.66%) AWS CloudFormation
10 15 (1.56%) IaaS
10 15 (1.56%) Snowflake
11 14 (1.45%) Amazon EC2
11 14 (1.45%) Amazon S3
11 14 (1.45%) AWS Lambda
11 14 (1.45%) Cloud Computing
11 14 (1.45%) PaaS
12 12 (1.25%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 12 (1.25%) Entra ID
13 9 (0.93%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 45 (4.67%) Firewall
2 44 (4.57%) Broadband
3 33 (3.43%) Network Security
4 28 (2.91%) VPN
5 21 (2.18%) WAN
6 19 (1.97%) DNS
7 17 (1.77%) BGP
8 16 (1.66%) Wi-Fi
9 14 (1.45%) OSPF
9 14 (1.45%) SD-WAN
9 14 (1.45%) Wireless
10 13 (1.35%) Internet
11 12 (1.25%) LAN
12 10 (1.04%) TCP/IP
13 9 (0.93%) Cisco Firepower
13 9 (0.93%) DHCP
13 9 (0.93%) HTTP
13 9 (0.93%) IPsec
14 8 (0.83%) Cisco ASA
14 8 (0.83%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (3.53%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (3.22%) MongoDB
3 29 (3.01%) Power BI
4 23 (2.39%) Data Warehouse
4 23 (2.39%) Relational Database
5 21 (2.18%) SQL Server
6 19 (1.97%) Big Data
7 17 (1.77%) Hadoop
7 17 (1.77%) NoSQL
8 16 (1.66%) MySQL
9 15 (1.56%) Tableau
10 12 (1.25%) Apache Cassandra
10 12 (1.25%) KDB
10 12 (1.25%) Kdb+
11 9 (0.93%) Azure SQL Database
12 8 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
12 8 (0.83%) Metadata
13 7 (0.73%) Oracle Database
14 6 (0.62%) Data Lake
14 6 (0.62%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 75 (7.79%) JIRA
2 62 (6.44%) Git
3 46 (4.78%) Jenkins
4 35 (3.63%) GitLab
5 18 (1.87%) JUnit
6 14 (1.45%) Cucumber
7 13 (1.35%) Bitbucket
8 12 (1.25%) TestRail
9 11 (1.14%) Jasmine
10 10 (1.04%) Cypress.io
11 8 (0.83%) Postman
11 8 (0.83%) Rational DOORS
11 8 (0.83%) Selenium
12 7 (0.73%) Maven
12 7 (0.73%) Subversion
12 7 (0.73%) Visual Studio
13 6 (0.62%) GoogleTest
13 6 (0.62%) Mockito
14 5 (0.52%) SoapUI
14 5 (0.52%) SpecFlow
General
1 269 (27.93%) Social Skills
2 216 (22.43%) Finance
3 137 (14.23%) Public Sector
4 111 (11.53%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (5.09%) General Ledger
6 43 (4.47%) Banking
7 37 (3.84%) Telecoms
8 30 (3.12%) Manufacturing
9 29 (3.01%) Marketing
10 25 (2.60%) Retail
11 20 (2.08%) Military
12 19 (1.97%) Electronics
13 18 (1.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 18 (1.87%) Legal
14 17 (1.77%) Presentation Skills
15 16 (1.66%) Organisational Skills
16 15 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
17 13 (1.35%) Games
17 13 (1.35%) Law
18 12 (1.25%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (4.57%) React
1 44 (4.57%) RESTful
2 39 (4.05%) Node.js
3 36 (3.74%) .NET
4 27 (2.80%) HTML
5 25 (2.60%) CSS
5 25 (2.60%) REST
6 24 (2.49%) Spring
6 24 (2.49%) Spring Boot
7 23 (2.39%) AngularJS
8 22 (2.28%) Kafka
8 22 (2.28%) XML
9 19 (1.97%) Web Services
10 15 (1.56%) TensorFlow
11 14 (1.45%) PyTorch
11 14 (1.45%) SOAP
12 13 (1.35%) JSON
12 13 (1.35%) OpenAPI
12 13 (1.35%) Swagger
13 12 (1.25%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 47 (4.88%) Management Information System
1 47 (4.88%) Social Media
2 33 (3.43%) Product Ownership
3 30 (3.12%) Algorithms
4 22 (2.28%) Cloud Native
5 18 (1.87%) Data Centre
5 18 (1.87%) Self-Motivation
6 16 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
7 14 (1.45%) Greenfield Project
7 14 (1.45%) Hybrid Cloud
7 14 (1.45%) Onboarding
7 14 (1.45%) PKI
8 12 (1.25%) Mobile App
9 11 (1.14%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 10 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
10 10 (1.04%) Public Cloud
11 9 (0.93%) CMDB
12 8 (0.83%) Data Structures
12 8 (0.83%) Video Conferencing
13 7 (0.73%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 83 (8.62%) Linux
2 64 (6.65%) Windows
3 30 (3.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 16 (1.66%) Unix
5 12 (1.25%) CentOS
5 12 (1.25%) Windows Server
6 11 (1.14%) Windows 10
7 6 (0.62%) Embedded Linux
8 5 (0.52%) AIX
8 5 (0.52%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.42%) Android
9 4 (0.42%) Windows Server 2012
9 4 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
10 3 (0.31%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.31%) Solaris
11 2 (0.21%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.10%) Alpine Linux
12 1 (0.10%) VMS
12 1 (0.10%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 220 (22.85%) Agile
2 160 (16.61%) Stakeholder Management
3 153 (15.89%) Problem-Solving
4 125 (12.98%) CI/CD
5 101 (10.49%) DevOps
6 87 (9.03%) Analytics
7 79 (8.20%) Test Automation
8 73 (7.58%) Software Engineering
9 70 (7.27%) Containerisation
10 67 (6.96%) Project Management
11 66 (6.85%) Migration
12 65 (6.75%) Decision-Making
13 63 (6.54%) Mentoring
14 62 (6.44%) Risk Management
15 57 (5.92%) Microservices
16 54 (5.61%) Artificial Intelligence
17 53 (5.50%) Project Delivery
17 53 (5.50%) Root Cause Analysis
18 52 (5.40%) Procure-to-Pay
19 51 (5.30%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 156 (16.20%) SQL
2 155 (16.10%) Python
3 68 (7.06%) Java
4 66 (6.85%) JavaScript
5 49 (5.09%) TypeScript
6 40 (4.15%) Bash
7 30 (3.12%) PowerShell
8 29 (3.01%) C#
9 28 (2.91%) C++
10 13 (1.35%) C
10 13 (1.35%) Go
10 13 (1.35%) R
11 9 (0.93%) Scala
12 7 (0.73%) T-SQL
13 6 (0.62%) VBA
14 5 (0.52%) PHP
14 5 (0.52%) PL/SQL
14 5 (0.52%) Shell Script
15 4 (0.42%) Groovy
15 4 (0.42%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 234 (24.30%) Security Cleared
2 158 (16.41%) SC Cleared
3 87 (9.03%) Degree
4 62 (6.44%) DV Cleared
5 48 (4.98%) ACCA
6 46 (4.78%) CIMA
7 28 (2.91%) CISM
8 22 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
9 21 (2.18%) Master's Degree
10 20 (2.08%) Cisco Certification
11 16 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
11 16 (1.66%) PhD
12 15 (1.56%) AWS Certification
12 15 (1.56%) CISSP
13 13 (1.35%) CCNP
14 12 (1.25%) Microsoft Certification
15 10 (1.04%) ISEB
16 9 (0.93%) MCSE
17 7 (0.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 6 (0.62%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (3.84%) QA
2 34 (3.53%) Data Quality
3 23 (2.39%) GDPR
4 22 (2.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 20 (2.08%) Accessibility
6 17 (1.77%) PMO
7 15 (1.56%) NCSC
8 9 (0.93%) Cyber Essentials
9 8 (0.83%) Disclosure Scotland
10 7 (0.73%) NIST
10 7 (0.73%) SLA
11 6 (0.62%) PCI DSS
11 6 (0.62%) WCAG
12 5 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 2 (0.21%) DO-254
13 2 (0.21%) GRC
13 2 (0.21%) IFRS
13 2 (0.21%) NIST 800
13 2 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
14 1 (0.10%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 85 (8.83%) Docker
2 31 (3.22%) Active Directory
3 17 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.73%) VMware NSX
5 6 (0.62%) Firmware
6 5 (0.52%) vSphere
7 4 (0.42%) Oracle RAC
8 3 (0.31%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.21%) Embedded Firmware
10 1 (0.10%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.10%) KVM
10 1 (0.10%) QEMU
10 1 (0.10%) Time Sharing Option
10 1 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.10%) Xen
Systems Management
1 88 (9.14%) Kubernetes
2 50 (5.19%) Terraform
3 24 (2.49%) Ansible
4 13 (1.35%) Grafana
5 12 (1.25%) Microsoft Intune
5 12 (1.25%) Prometheus
6 9 (0.93%) Packer
6 9 (0.93%) Puppet
7 7 (0.73%) Kibana
8 6 (0.62%) SCCM
8 6 (0.62%) WSUS
9 5 (0.52%) Nessus
9 5 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
9 5 (0.52%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.42%) Data Guard
10 4 (0.42%) FortiGate
10 4 (0.42%) logstash
10 4 (0.42%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.31%) AppManager
11 3 (0.31%) EMC NetWorker
Vendors
1 104 (10.80%) Microsoft
2 86 (8.93%) SAP
3 53 (5.50%) Oracle
4 35 (3.63%) Cisco
5 34 (3.53%) ServiceNow
6 28 (2.91%) VMware
7 23 (2.39%) Google
8 18 (1.87%) Databricks
9 15 (1.56%) IBM
9 15 (1.56%) Palo Alto
10 12 (1.25%) webMethods
11 11 (1.14%) Red Hat
11 11 (1.14%) Splunk
12 10 (1.04%) Dynatrace
12 10 (1.04%) Software AG
13 9 (0.93%) Aruba
13 9 (0.93%) Atlassian
13 9 (0.93%) Darktrace
14 8 (0.83%) Adobe
15 7 (0.73%) Juniper