Social Skills Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Social Skills (Interpersonal, Communication)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Social Skills in contract job vacancies in the UK excluding London. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Social Skills over the 6 months leading up to 14 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 1 1
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +1
Contract jobs citing Social Skills 6,652 4,931 3,989
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 23.36% 30.99% 23.14%
As % of the General category 43.91% 51.08% 41.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,608 2,975 2,221
10th Percentile £203 £190 £183
25th Percentile £367 £319 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £460 £465
Median % change year-on-year +6.52% -1.08% -2.11%
75th Percentile £588 £556 £575
90th Percentile £675 £650 £650
UK median daily rate £510 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,060 560 287
10th Percentile £13.25 £13.00 £15.00
25th Percentile £14.10 £15.17 £15.62
Median hourly rate £18.58 £19.23 £21.59
Median % change year-on-year -3.41% -10.93% +23.37%
75th Percentile £43.96 £34.25 £43.13
90th Percentile £68.50 £65.03 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £19.33 £20.71 £24.18
% change year-on-year -6.66% -14.35% +24.00%

All General Skills
UK excluding London

Social Skills 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 15,148 9,654 9,716
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 53.19% 60.67% 56.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,981 5,864 5,297
10th Percentile £256 £205 £206
25th Percentile £400 £360 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £477
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -0.42% -4.60%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £588
90th Percentile £688 £662 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,412 976 763
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.42 £14.73
25th Percentile £15.50 £15.66 £15.95
Median hourly rate £27.50 £21.39 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.56% -28.70% +11.11%
75th Percentile £54.29 £42.25 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.13 £71.50
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £25.00 £32.00
% change year-on-year +10.00% -21.88% +7.56%

Social Skills
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Social Skills job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Social Skills
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

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

Social Skills
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Social Skills in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 14 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Social Skills in the UK excluding London

Social Skills
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

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

Social Skills
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Social Skills in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 14 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Social Skills in the UK excluding London

Social Skills
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 Social Skills within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 14 October 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 0 1,817 £500 +5.26% 1,359
South East -1 1,615 £500 +11.11% 1,427
Midlands 0 1,167 £470 +4.44% 827
North West 0 920 £500 +5.26% 716
West Midlands 0 849 £470 -3.09% 514
South West 0 742 £525 +14.13% 568
Yorkshire 0 721 £500 +5.26% 482
Scotland 0 627 £450 - 419
East of England 0 523 £375 -25.00% 569
East Midlands 0 304 £467 +16.04% 313
North East -1 188 £452 -4.95% 170
Wales 0 158 £400 +6.67% 161
Northern Ireland 0 79 £450 +20.81% 197
Channel Islands -1 6 £575 - 6
South Coast - 1 £450 -
Social Skills
UK

Social Skills
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
1 300 (4.51%) SharePoint
2 272 (4.09%) Confluence
3 83 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
4 41 (0.62%) CMS
5 38 (0.57%) Apache
6 35 (0.53%) Apache Spark
7 25 (0.38%) SAS
8 19 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
9 12 (0.18%) OpenStack
9 12 (0.18%) WebLogic
9 12 (0.18%) WebSphere
10 11 (0.17%) HCL Notes
11 9 (0.14%) Jupyter
12 7 (0.11%) Tomcat
13 6 (0.090%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 6 (0.090%) IIS
13 6 (0.090%) WordPress
14 5 (0.075%) Apache Superset
14 5 (0.075%) nginx
14 5 (0.075%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 527 (7.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 415 (6.24%) Microsoft Office
3 172 (2.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 106 (1.59%) Microsoft Project
5 77 (1.16%) MS Visio
6 54 (0.81%) Spreadsheet
7 22 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 14 (0.21%) Windchill
9 9 (0.14%) Chatbot
9 9 (0.14%) Revit
9 9 (0.14%) Sketch
10 7 (0.11%) AutoCAD
11 6 (0.090%) CATIA
12 5 (0.075%) Navisworks
12 5 (0.075%) NUKE
12 5 (0.075%) PTC Creo
12 5 (0.075%) Trello
13 4 (0.060%) Adobe Illustrator
13 4 (0.060%) Houdini
13 4 (0.060%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 128 (1.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 60 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
3 44 (0.66%) Remedy ITSM
4 30 (0.45%) SAP Payroll
5 25 (0.38%) SAP HR
6 23 (0.35%) Workday HCM
7 19 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
7 19 (0.29%) SAP HCM
8 18 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
8 18 (0.27%) SAP PSCD
9 17 (0.26%) Primavera
9 17 (0.26%) SAP CRM
9 17 (0.26%) Teamcenter
10 13 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
11 12 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 12 (0.18%) SAP MDG
12 11 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
12 11 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
12 11 (0.17%) SAP ERP
12 11 (0.17%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 1,012 (15.21%) Azure
2 738 (11.09%) AWS
3 621 (9.34%) Microsoft 365
4 406 (6.10%) Power Platform
5 293 (4.40%) GCP
6 241 (3.62%) Entra ID
7 224 (3.37%) Azure DevOps
8 183 (2.75%) GitHub
9 112 (1.68%) SaaS
10 109 (1.64%) Power Automate
11 102 (1.53%) Dynamics 365
12 99 (1.49%) Serverless
13 81 (1.22%) PowerApps
14 70 (1.05%) Microsoft Copilot
15 69 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
15 69 (1.04%) OneDrive
16 65 (0.98%) Amazon S3
17 61 (0.92%) Snowflake
18 58 (0.87%) AWS Lambda
19 51 (0.77%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 183 (2.75%) Firewall
2 164 (2.47%) DNS
3 142 (2.13%) VPN
4 141 (2.12%) Network Security
5 133 (2.00%) LAN
6 129 (1.94%) WAN
7 112 (1.68%) TCP/IP
8 109 (1.64%) DHCP
9 101 (1.52%) Wi-Fi
10 70 (1.05%) Wireless
11 50 (0.75%) MPLS
12 45 (0.68%) BGP
12 45 (0.68%) Broadband
12 45 (0.68%) VLAN
13 44 (0.66%) Structured Cabling
14 42 (0.63%) SAN
15 34 (0.51%) Intranet
15 34 (0.51%) SD-WAN
16 30 (0.45%) VoIP
17 27 (0.41%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 313 (4.71%) Power BI
2 146 (2.19%) SQL Server
3 143 (2.15%) Data Warehouse
4 119 (1.79%) Relational Database
5 114 (1.71%) Metadata
6 78 (1.17%) PostgreSQL
7 61 (0.92%) Data Lake
8 54 (0.81%) MongoDB
9 49 (0.74%) Tableau
10 46 (0.69%) MySQL
11 38 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
12 34 (0.51%) BigQuery
13 31 (0.47%) NoSQL
14 27 (0.41%) Big Data
14 27 (0.41%) Power Query
15 24 (0.36%) Db2
15 24 (0.36%) DynamoDB
15 24 (0.36%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 23 (0.35%) Amazon Redshift
17 22 (0.33%) Looker
Development Applications
1 463 (6.96%) JIRA
2 258 (3.88%) Git
3 126 (1.89%) Jenkins
4 116 (1.74%) GitLab
5 82 (1.23%) Selenium
6 55 (0.83%) Cucumber
7 50 (0.75%) JUnit
8 43 (0.65%) Postman
9 35 (0.53%) SonarQube
10 33 (0.50%) Bitbucket
10 33 (0.50%) Gatling
11 31 (0.47%) Cypress.io
12 24 (0.36%) Zephyr
13 23 (0.35%) Maven
14 21 (0.32%) Rational DOORS
15 19 (0.29%) REST Assured
16 18 (0.27%) WebDriver
17 17 (0.26%) Mockito
17 17 (0.26%) Rational Rhapsody
18 16 (0.24%) Visual Studio
General
1 1,378 (20.72%) Finance
2 1,186 (17.83%) Analytical Skills
3 797 (11.98%) Public Sector
4 756 (11.37%) Organisational Skills
5 369 (5.55%) Manufacturing
6 288 (4.33%) Legal
7 277 (4.16%) Banking
8 257 (3.86%) Documentation Skills
9 223 (3.35%) Retail
10 213 (3.20%) Influencing Skills
11 165 (2.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 157 (2.36%) Aerospace
13 143 (2.15%) Telecoms
14 142 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
15 114 (1.71%) Marketing
16 101 (1.52%) Military
17 78 (1.17%) Billing
17 78 (1.17%) Local Government
18 66 (0.99%) Police
19 59 (0.89%) Law
Job Titles
1 734 (11.03%) Analyst
2 553 (8.31%) Architect
3 506 (7.61%) Senior
4 497 (7.47%) Lead
5 380 (5.71%) Developer
6 344 (5.17%) Consultant
7 341 (5.13%) Administrator
8 280 (4.21%) Project Manager
9 277 (4.16%) IT Support
10 259 (3.89%) Business Analyst
11 255 (3.83%) Support Engineer
12 194 (2.92%) IT Engineer
13 190 (2.86%) Solutions Architect
14 155 (2.33%) IT Support Engineer
15 142 (2.13%) Data Engineer
16 118 (1.77%) Coordinator
17 105 (1.58%) IT Manager
18 87 (1.31%) Data Analyst
18 87 (1.31%) Delivery Manager
19 86 (1.29%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 241 (3.62%) Terraform
2 206 (3.10%) REST
3 116 (1.74%) Spring
4 106 (1.59%) .NET
5 101 (1.52%) React
6 86 (1.29%) Spring Boot
7 83 (1.25%) RESTful
8 82 (1.23%) Oracle Fusion
9 77 (1.16%) Kafka
10 76 (1.14%) JSON
11 72 (1.08%) Web Services
12 69 (1.04%) SOAP
13 68 (1.02%) Node.js
14 67 (1.01%) LDAP
15 66 (0.99%) HTML
16 63 (0.95%) Middleware
16 63 (0.95%) Playwright
17 59 (0.89%) OAuth
18 54 (0.81%) XML
19 52 (0.78%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 376 (5.65%) Onboarding
2 323 (4.86%) Product Ownership
3 296 (4.45%) Management Information System
4 247 (3.71%) Cloud Native
5 189 (2.84%) Data Protection Act
6 183 (2.75%) Virtual Team
7 177 (2.66%) Data Centre
8 167 (2.51%) Self-Motivation
9 161 (2.42%) Enterprise Software
10 135 (2.03%) Driving Licence
11 122 (1.83%) Web Conferencing
12 112 (1.68%) Distributed Systems
12 112 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
12 112 (1.68%) Operational Technology
13 110 (1.65%) Podcast
14 95 (1.43%) CMDB
15 83 (1.25%) Data Structures
16 72 (1.08%) Analytical Mindset
17 71 (1.07%) Mobile App
18 68 (1.02%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 777 (11.68%) Windows
2 265 (3.98%) Windows 10
3 243 (3.65%) Linux
4 126 (1.89%) Windows Server
5 77 (1.16%) Android
6 76 (1.14%) Unix
7 70 (1.05%) Apple iOS
8 43 (0.65%) macOS
9 33 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 16 (0.24%) Solaris
11 14 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
12 12 (0.18%) zOS
13 11 (0.17%) VMS
13 11 (0.17%) Windows 7
14 10 (0.15%) AIX
15 8 (0.12%) CentOS
15 8 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
16 6 (0.090%) Rocky
16 6 (0.090%) Ubuntu
16 6 (0.090%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,120 (31.87%) Stakeholder Management
2 1,760 (26.46%) Problem-Solving
3 1,487 (22.35%) Agile
4 1,319 (19.83%) Continuous Improvement
5 971 (14.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 899 (13.51%) Customer Service
7 745 (11.20%) CI/CD
8 660 (9.92%) Decision-Making
9 639 (9.61%) DevOps
10 618 (9.29%) Migration
11 602 (9.05%) AI
12 593 (8.91%) ITIL
13 521 (7.83%) Roadmaps
14 519 (7.80%) Project Delivery
15 477 (7.17%) Analytics
16 476 (7.16%) Cybersecurity
17 445 (6.69%) Project Management
18 430 (6.46%) ITSM
19 421 (6.33%) Validation
20 414 (6.22%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 572 (8.60%) SQL
2 534 (8.03%) Python
3 316 (4.75%) Java
4 204 (3.07%) JavaScript
5 200 (3.01%) PowerShell
6 116 (1.74%) C#
7 111 (1.67%) TypeScript
8 103 (1.55%) Bash
9 48 (0.72%) C++
10 45 (0.68%) ABAP
11 38 (0.57%) Kotlin
12 29 (0.44%) C
12 29 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 28 (0.42%) PL/SQL
14 27 (0.41%) Go
15 24 (0.36%) Bicep
16 22 (0.33%) Apex Code
16 22 (0.33%) Perl
17 21 (0.32%) T-SQL
18 20 (0.30%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 1,564 (23.51%) Security Cleared
2 1,098 (16.51%) SC Cleared
3 577 (8.67%) Degree
4 374 (5.62%) DV Cleared
5 362 (5.44%) BPSS Clearance
6 130 (1.95%) Microsoft Certification
7 125 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
8 124 (1.86%) CISSP
9 115 (1.73%) DBS Check
10 101 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
11 83 (1.25%) PMI Certification
12 77 (1.16%) CISM
13 73 (1.10%) PMP
14 65 (0.98%) Azure Certification
15 59 (0.89%) ISTQB
16 55 (0.83%) CCNP
17 53 (0.80%) AWS Certification
18 50 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
19 46 (0.69%) ACCA
19 46 (0.69%) CIMA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 378 (5.68%) Data Quality
2 346 (5.20%) QA
3 194 (2.92%) Accessibility
4 191 (2.87%) PMO
5 169 (2.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 161 (2.42%) GDPR
7 150 (2.25%) SLA
8 146 (2.19%) NIST
9 71 (1.07%) GRC
10 65 (0.98%) WCAG
11 43 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
12 37 (0.56%) NCSC
13 30 (0.45%) Disclosure Scotland
13 30 (0.45%) PCI DSS
14 27 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 25 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
16 22 (0.33%) Def Stans
17 18 (0.27%) ISO 9001
17 18 (0.27%) JSP 440
18 16 (0.24%) NIST 800
System Software
1 501 (7.53%) Active Directory
2 214 (3.22%) Docker
3 139 (2.09%) VMware Infrastructure
4 40 (0.60%) Hyper-V
5 37 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
6 33 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
7 31 (0.47%) Firmware
8 29 (0.44%) vSphere
9 18 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
10 15 (0.23%) VMware NSX
11 10 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
12 8 (0.12%) IAG
12 8 (0.12%) NFS
13 7 (0.11%) KVM
13 7 (0.11%) XenApp
14 6 (0.090%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 6 (0.090%) Oracle RAC
14 6 (0.090%) Time Sharing Option
14 6 (0.090%) XenDesktop
15 5 (0.075%) FreeRADIUS
Systems Management
1 253 (3.80%) Kubernetes
2 179 (2.69%) Microsoft Intune
3 167 (2.51%) Ansible
4 122 (1.83%) SCCM
5 61 (0.92%) Grafana
6 44 (0.66%) Prometheus
7 29 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
8 23 (0.35%) Progress Chef
9 22 (0.33%) Jamf Pro
10 15 (0.23%) Puppet
10 15 (0.23%) vCenter Server
11 13 (0.20%) Functional Safety
12 12 (0.18%) NetBackup
13 11 (0.17%) SCOM
14 10 (0.15%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 10 (0.15%) Dell DRAC
14 10 (0.15%) FortiGate
14 10 (0.15%) Nessus
15 8 (0.12%) Kibana
15 8 (0.12%) WMI
Vendors
1 1,640 (24.65%) Microsoft
2 425 (6.39%) SAP
3 335 (5.04%) ServiceNow
4 331 (4.98%) Oracle
5 183 (2.75%) Cisco
6 169 (2.54%) VMware
7 162 (2.44%) Google
8 138 (2.07%) Salesforce
9 115 (1.73%) Databricks
10 82 (1.23%) Splunk
11 71 (1.07%) Workday
12 67 (1.01%) CyberArk
13 65 (0.98%) IBM
14 57 (0.86%) Remedy
15 52 (0.78%) Adobe
16 41 (0.62%) Dynatrace
17 39 (0.59%) Ariba
17 39 (0.59%) MuleSoft
18 37 (0.56%) Citrix
19 35 (0.53%) Fortinet