SEO Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring SEO skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 31 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 374 316 370
Rank change year-on-year -58 +54 +82
Contract jobs citing SEO 25 40 38
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.14% 0.27% 0.20%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.16% 0.31% 0.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 7 14 23
10th Percentile £165 £206 £251
25th Percentile £194 £333 £281
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £263 £488 £400
Median % change year-on-year -46.15% +21.88% -
75th Percentile £354 £577 £456
90th Percentile £506 £607 £665
UK median daily rate £388 £433 £400
% change year-on-year -10.40% +8.13% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 2 2
10th Percentile £13.52 £25.42 £14.38
25th Percentile £14.00 £25.52 £14.90
Median hourly rate £20.50 £26.18 £15.77
Median % change year-on-year -21.70% +66.06% -28.34%
75th Percentile £27.50 £27.34 £16.63
90th Percentile - £27.74 £17.15
UK median hourly rate £22.75 £31.00 £26.25
% change year-on-year -26.61% +18.10% +9.38%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

SEO falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 15,652 12,774 16,981
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 85.55% 87.39% 87.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,590 7,494 10,922
10th Percentile £221 £243 £250
25th Percentile £375 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £685 £691
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,719 732 1,219
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.50 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.58 £30.45 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.58% -32.33% +40.63%
75th Percentile £51.50 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.22 £73.75 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.00
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.14% +25.71%

SEO
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SEO relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

SEO job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

SEO
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SEO.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SEO

SEO
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SEO in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 31 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SEO in the UK excluding London

SEO
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SEO.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SEO

SEO
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SEO in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 31 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for SEO in the UK excluding London

SEO
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 SEO within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 31 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
North of England -45 12 £440 -20.29% 133
Yorkshire -36 11 £518 +9.00% 51
South East -22 8 £263 +27.43% 137
South West -6 2 £170 -66.42% 55
Scotland +8 1 - - 15
East of England -19 1 - - 78
North West -25 1 £223 -60.50% 71
West Midlands -32 1 - - 45
Midlands -36 1 - - 94
SEO
UK

SEO
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 17 (68.00%) CMS
2 5 (20.00%) WordPress
3 3 (12.00%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (4.00%) Umbraco
Applications
1 4 (16.00%) Trello
2 1 (4.00%) InVision
2 1 (4.00%) Photoshop
2 1 (4.00%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 4 (16.00%) Payment Gateway
1 4 (16.00%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 5 (20.00%) Figma
1 5 (20.00%) Google Analytics
2 4 (16.00%) Asana
2 4 (16.00%) Azure
2 4 (16.00%) Google Ads
2 4 (16.00%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
2 4 (16.00%) Serverless
2 4 (16.00%) Wix.com
3 2 (8.00%) Canva
3 2 (8.00%) SaaS
4 1 (4.00%) Adobe Creative Cloud
4 1 (4.00%) Contentsquare
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.00%) Metadata
1 1 (4.00%) MongoDB
1 1 (4.00%) MySQL
1 1 (4.00%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 4 (16.00%) Storybook
2 2 (8.00%) JIRA
3 1 (4.00%) Bundler
3 1 (4.00%) ESLint
3 1 (4.00%) Git
3 1 (4.00%) Jasmine
3 1 (4.00%) Karma Test Runner
3 1 (4.00%) SonarQube
3 1 (4.00%) webpack
General
1 15 (60.00%) Marketing
2 9 (36.00%) Social Skills
3 4 (16.00%) Publishing
3 4 (16.00%) Retail
4 2 (8.00%) Arabic Language
4 2 (8.00%) Brand Awareness
4 2 (8.00%) Dutch Language
4 2 (8.00%) French Language
4 2 (8.00%) German Language
4 2 (8.00%) Italian Language
4 2 (8.00%) Japanese Language
4 2 (8.00%) Legal
4 2 (8.00%) Mandarin Language
4 2 (8.00%) Organisational Skills
4 2 (8.00%) Polish Language
4 2 (8.00%) Portuguese Language
4 2 (8.00%) Public Sector
4 2 (8.00%) Spanish Language
5 1 (4.00%) Analytical Skills
5 1 (4.00%) Banking
Job Titles
1 5 (20.00%) Coordinator
1 5 (20.00%) Lead
2 4 (16.00%) Project Coordinator
2 4 (16.00%) Technical Leader
3 3 (12.00%) Designer
3 3 (12.00%) Marketing Executive
4 2 (8.00%) Content Marketing Specialist
4 2 (8.00%) Digital Executive
4 2 (8.00%) Marketing Specialist
4 2 (8.00%) Salesforce Technical Leader
5 1 (4.00%) Content Coordinator
5 1 (4.00%) Content Designer
5 1 (4.00%) Digital Marketing Officer
5 1 (4.00%) JavaScript Developer
5 1 (4.00%) Marketing Officer
5 1 (4.00%) React Developer
5 1 (4.00%) SEO Executive
5 1 (4.00%) UX Designer
5 1 (4.00%) Web Content Officer
5 1 (4.00%) Web Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (28.00%) HTML
2 6 (24.00%) CSS
3 5 (20.00%) Bootstrap
3 5 (20.00%) CSS3
3 5 (20.00%) HTML5
3 5 (20.00%) React
4 4 (16.00%) Express.js
4 4 (16.00%) Next.js
4 4 (16.00%) Node.js
4 4 (16.00%) Redux
4 4 (16.00%) RESTful
5 1 (4.00%) DOM
5 1 (4.00%) EDI
5 1 (4.00%) Enzyme
5 1 (4.00%) GraphQL
5 1 (4.00%) Handlebars
5 1 (4.00%) Jest
5 1 (4.00%) Mustache
5 1 (4.00%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 6 (24.00%) Social Media
2 4 (16.00%) Blog
3 2 (8.00%) Educational Technology
3 2 (8.00%) Freedom of Information
3 2 (8.00%) Podcast
4 1 (4.00%) Client/Server
4 1 (4.00%) Graphic Design
4 1 (4.00%) Management Information System
4 1 (4.00%) Product Ownership
4 1 (4.00%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (4.00%) Video Editing
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (48.00%) Analytics
2 7 (28.00%) Content Management
3 6 (24.00%) E-Commerce
3 6 (24.00%) Pay per click
3 6 (24.00%) Project Management
4 5 (20.00%) Code Quality
4 5 (20.00%) Digital Marketing
4 5 (20.00%) Progressive Web App
5 4 (16.00%) B2C
5 4 (16.00%) DevSecOps
5 4 (16.00%) Impact Assessments
5 4 (16.00%) Performance Analysis
5 4 (16.00%) Time Management
5 4 (16.00%) Translating Business Requirements
5 4 (16.00%) User Experience
6 3 (12.00%) Content Marketing
6 3 (12.00%) CRM
7 2 (8.00%) Content Curation
7 2 (8.00%) Digital Content Management
7 2 (8.00%) Lead Generation
Programming Languages
1 3 (12.00%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 1 (4.00%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (20.00%) Accessibility
2 2 (8.00%) QA
Vendors
1 5 (20.00%) Adobe
1 5 (20.00%) Google
2 4 (16.00%) Microsoft
2 4 (16.00%) Salesforce
3 2 (8.00%) HubSpot
3 2 (8.00%) YouTube
4 1 (4.00%) Brio
4 1 (4.00%) Facebook