Client/Server Contract Job Trends

Client Server
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Client/Server in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Client/Server over the 6 months leading up to 8 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 558 494 508
Rank change year-on-year -64 +14 +102
Contract jobs citing Client/Server 34 37 93
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.092% 0.11% 0.22%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.27% 0.36% 0.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 20 32 63
10th Percentile £406 £387 £350
25th Percentile £491 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £553 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.45% +10.00% -16.67%
75th Percentile £629 £591 £603
90th Percentile £667 £668 £681
UK excluding London median daily rate £563 £550 £501
% change year-on-year +2.27% +9.78% +0.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 5
10th Percentile - - £40.82
25th Percentile - £71.25 £40.82
Median hourly rate £89.00 £72.50 £49.88
Median % change year-on-year +22.76% +45.35% -21.36%
75th Percentile - £73.75 £65.00
90th Percentile - - £69.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £89.00 £72.50 -
% change year-on-year +22.76% - -

All Generic Skills
UK

Client/Server falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 12,690 10,379 13,145
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.39% 32.16% 31.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,974 6,170 8,706
10th Percentile £282 £265 £263
25th Percentile £406 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £545
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% -2.75% -0.91%
75th Percentile £625 £656 £660
90th Percentile £738 £775 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 625 325 523
10th Percentile £14.25 £18.01 £16.00
25th Percentile £18.25 £23.00 £19.74
Median hourly rate £27.50 £33.00 £38.16
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% -13.51% +52.62%
75th Percentile £61.50 £64.75 £64.77
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.75 £76.47
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.36 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -15.83% -26.97% +108.04%

Client/Server
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Client/Server relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Client/Server job vacancy trend in the UK

Client/Server
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Client/Server.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Client/Server

Client/Server
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Client/Server over the 6 months to 8 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Client/Server in the UK

Client/Server
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Client/Server.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Client/Server

Client/Server
Top 12 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Client/Server within the UK over the 6 months to 8 January 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
England -56 28 £600 +9.09% 257
UK excluding London -75 18 £563 +2.27% 247
London -2 13 £500 +2.56% 36
Work from Home -4 13 £520 +22.35% 217
South East -26 5 £595 +3.48% 81
Midlands - 5 £603 - 21
West Midlands - 5 £603 - 9
Wales - 3 £520 - 17
South West -7 2 £475 -51.28% 24
Yorkshire -45 2 - - 11
North of England -51 2 - - 41
Scotland -2 1 - - 8

Client/Server
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 2 (5.88%) CMS
2 1 (2.94%) Apache
2 1 (2.94%) Confluence
Applications
1 6 (17.65%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (8.82%) MS Visio
3 1 (2.94%) InVision
3 1 (2.94%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 3 (8.82%) Magento
2 1 (2.94%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (2.94%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 10 (29.41%) Azure
2 7 (20.59%) Microsoft 365
3 4 (11.76%) AWS
4 2 (5.88%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (2.94%) Adobe Creative Cloud
5 1 (2.94%) BigCommerce
5 1 (2.94%) Entra ID
5 1 (2.94%) GCP
5 1 (2.94%) Google Workspace
5 1 (2.94%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (11.76%) Cisco IPT
2 3 (8.82%) LAN
2 3 (8.82%) NetScaler
3 1 (2.94%) Asterisk PBX
3 1 (2.94%) DMZ
3 1 (2.94%) Firewall
3 1 (2.94%) NAS
3 1 (2.94%) SAN
3 1 (2.94%) TCP/IP
3 1 (2.94%) VoIP
3 1 (2.94%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (14.71%) SQL Server
2 4 (11.76%) Redis
2 4 (11.76%) Relational Database
3 3 (8.82%) Elasticsearch
3 3 (8.82%) MySQL
4 2 (5.88%) SAP HANA
5 1 (2.94%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (2.94%) Metadata
5 1 (2.94%) NoSQL
5 1 (2.94%) Oracle Database
5 1 (2.94%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 4 (11.76%) Cypress.io
1 4 (11.76%) Git
2 1 (2.94%) Artifactory
2 1 (2.94%) Bitbucket
2 1 (2.94%) Cucumber
2 1 (2.94%) GitLab
2 1 (2.94%) Jenkins
2 1 (2.94%) JIRA
2 1 (2.94%) Mocha
2 1 (2.94%) REST Assured
2 1 (2.94%) Selenium
2 1 (2.94%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 8 (23.53%) Social Skills
2 7 (20.59%) Documentation Skills
3 6 (17.65%) Public Sector
4 5 (14.71%) Finance
4 5 (14.71%) Legal
5 4 (11.76%) Banking
6 3 (8.82%) Electronics
7 1 (2.94%) Automotive
7 1 (2.94%) Front Office
7 1 (2.94%) Investment Banking
7 1 (2.94%) Marketing
7 1 (2.94%) Retail
7 1 (2.94%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 6 (17.65%) Architect
1 6 (17.65%) Consultant
2 5 (14.71%) Developer
2 5 (14.71%) Lead
3 3 (8.82%) 3rd Line Support
3 3 (8.82%) Analyst
3 3 (8.82%) Application Integration Engineer
3 3 (8.82%) Applications Engineer
3 3 (8.82%) Citrix Support
3 3 (8.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 3 (8.82%) Integration Engineer
3 3 (8.82%) Technical Architect
3 3 (8.82%) Technology Consultant
3 3 (8.82%) VMware Engineer
3 3 (8.82%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
3 3 (8.82%) Windows Engineer
3 3 (8.82%) Windows Infrastructure Engineer
4 2 (5.88%) ABAP Developer
4 2 (5.88%) Solutions Architect
4 2 (5.88%) Technical Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (20.59%) .NET
2 6 (17.65%) REST
3 5 (14.71%) Jest
3 5 (14.71%) React
4 4 (11.76%) .NET Core
4 4 (11.76%) Next.js
5 3 (8.82%) CSS
5 3 (8.82%) HTML
5 3 (8.82%) RabbitMQ
5 3 (8.82%) SOAP
5 3 (8.82%) VML
6 2 (5.88%) .NET Framework
6 2 (5.88%) BAPI
6 2 (5.88%) Entity Framework
6 2 (5.88%) Node.js
6 2 (5.88%) SAP Smart Forms
6 2 (5.88%) Web Services
7 1 (2.94%) AngularJS
7 1 (2.94%) Express.js
7 1 (2.94%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 3 (8.82%) Onboarding
1 3 (8.82%) Product Ownership
1 3 (8.82%) Replication
2 1 (2.94%) Cloud Native
2 1 (2.94%) CMDB
2 1 (2.94%) Data Centre
2 1 (2.94%) Marketing Technology
2 1 (2.94%) PACS
2 1 (2.94%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 13 (38.24%) Windows
2 8 (23.53%) Linux
2 8 (23.53%) Windows Server
3 6 (17.65%) Windows Server 2016
4 4 (11.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (8.82%) Ubuntu
5 3 (8.82%) Windows 10
5 3 (8.82%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (2.94%) CentOS
6 1 (2.94%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (41.18%) Agile
2 9 (26.47%) CI/CD
3 8 (23.53%) Scaled Agile Framework
4 7 (20.59%) Code Quality
4 7 (20.59%) Continuous Improvement
4 7 (20.59%) E-Commerce
4 7 (20.59%) Test Automation
5 6 (17.65%) DevOps
5 6 (17.65%) Epics
5 6 (17.65%) Migration
6 5 (14.71%) Acceptance Criteria
6 5 (14.71%) BDD
6 5 (14.71%) Case Management
6 5 (14.71%) End-to-End Testing
6 5 (14.71%) Front End Development
6 5 (14.71%) SDLC
6 5 (14.71%) Technical Leadership
6 5 (14.71%) Unit Testing
7 4 (11.76%) Mentoring
7 4 (11.76%) Release Train
Programming Languages
1 10 (29.41%) PowerShell
1 10 (29.41%) SQL
2 5 (14.71%) JavaScript
2 5 (14.71%) Python
2 5 (14.71%) TypeScript
3 3 (8.82%) PHP
3 3 (8.82%) VBScript
4 2 (5.88%) ABAP
4 2 (5.88%) T-SQL
5 1 (2.94%) C#
5 1 (2.94%) C++
5 1 (2.94%) Java
5 1 (2.94%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 10 (29.41%) Security Cleared
2 8 (23.53%) Degree
3 7 (20.59%) DV Cleared
4 3 (8.82%) CCA
4 3 (8.82%) Citrix Certification
4 3 (8.82%) SC Cleared
5 2 (5.88%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (2.94%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 1 (2.94%) Master's Degree
6 1 (2.94%) MCSA
6 1 (2.94%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (14.71%) Accessibility
2 4 (11.76%) GDPR
2 4 (11.76%) PERC
3 3 (8.82%) WCAG
4 2 (5.88%) QA
System Software
1 5 (14.71%) Docker
2 4 (11.76%) Active Directory
2 4 (11.76%) Hyper-V
2 4 (11.76%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (8.82%) Varnish
3 3 (8.82%) Virtual Desktop
3 3 (8.82%) XenApp
3 3 (8.82%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 7 (20.59%) SCCM
2 3 (8.82%) Microsoft Intune
2 3 (8.82%) SCVMM
3 1 (2.94%) Ansible
3 1 (2.94%) Kubernetes
3 1 (2.94%) Terraform
Vendors
1 8 (23.53%) Microsoft
2 7 (20.59%) VMware
3 4 (11.76%) Adobe
3 4 (11.76%) Citrix
4 3 (8.82%) Oracle
4 3 (8.82%) SAP
4 3 (8.82%) Veeam
5 2 (5.88%) ArcSight
5 2 (5.88%) Red Hat
5 2 (5.88%) ServiceNow
6 1 (2.94%) Bloomberg
6 1 (2.94%) iManage
6 1 (2.94%) ION Trading
6 1 (2.94%) Reuters
6 1 (2.94%) Salesforce
6 1 (2.94%) Sitecore
6 1 (2.94%) Veritas