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 27 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 660 546 530
Rank change year-on-year -114 -16 -14
Contract jobs citing Client/Server 24 22 35
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.044% 0.067% 0.091%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.13% 0.19% 0.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 16 16 32
10th Percentile £319 £379 £314
25th Percentile £340 £438 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £409 £519 £538
Median % change year-on-year -21.11% -3.49% +7.29%
75th Percentile £480 £548 £588
90th Percentile £539 £625 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £456 £505 £575
% change year-on-year -9.61% -12.22% +14.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £71.25
Median hourly rate - £21.25 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year - -70.69% +1.75%
75th Percentile - - £73.75
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £21.25 £72.50
% change year-on-year - -70.69% -

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 18,663 11,816 11,703
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.15% 35.76% 30.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,170 7,233 7,072
10th Percentile £320 £293 £284
25th Percentile £425 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £519 £538
Median % change year-on-year +1.25% -3.53% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £672
90th Percentile £750 £750 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,235 601 445
10th Percentile £14.02 £15.00 £15.22
25th Percentile £17.85 £18.87 £22.50
Median hourly rate £37.50 £29.33 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.86% -41.34% +12.36%
75th Percentile £67.50 £52.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £30.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +27.50% -47.69% +17.04%

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 27 September 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 8 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 27 September 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 -106 22 £375 -29.25% 77
London -65 18 £363 -31.60% 42
UK excluding London -106 6 £456 -9.61% 40
Work from Home -55 5 £474 -8.63% 37
North West -50 3 £445 -9.55% 2
North of England -66 3 £445 -9.55% 4
Scotland -25 2 £468 +7.22% 2
South East -66 1 - - 13

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 6 (25.00%) Confluence
2 3 (12.50%) nginx
2 3 (12.50%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 7 (29.17%) Azure
2 6 (25.00%) AWS
3 3 (12.50%) Amazon EC2
3 3 (12.50%) GitHub
3 3 (12.50%) GitHub Actions
3 3 (12.50%) Microsoft 365
3 3 (12.50%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 2 (8.33%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 5 (20.83%) TCP/IP
2 3 (12.50%) OpenVPN
2 3 (12.50%) SSH
3 2 (8.33%) DMZ
3 2 (8.33%) Firewall
3 2 (8.33%) VPN
4 1 (4.17%) Fibre Channel
4 1 (4.17%) iSCSI
4 1 (4.17%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (20.83%) PostgreSQL
1 5 (20.83%) Relational Database
2 3 (12.50%) SQL Server
3 2 (8.33%) Oracle Database
4 1 (4.17%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 11 (45.83%) Git
2 5 (20.83%) Gradle
2 5 (20.83%) Maven
3 4 (16.67%) PowerBuilder
4 3 (12.50%) JIRA
4 3 (12.50%) Moq
General
1 9 (37.50%) Finance
2 6 (25.00%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (12.50%) Banking
3 3 (12.50%) Social Skills
4 2 (8.33%) Documentation Skills
4 2 (8.33%) Front Office
4 2 (8.33%) Investment Banking
5 1 (4.17%) Public Sector
5 1 (4.17%) Retail
Job Titles
1 6 (25.00%) Developer
2 4 (16.67%) Java Engineer
3 3 (12.50%) AWS Engineer
3 3 (12.50%) Cloud Platform Engineer
3 3 (12.50%) Delivery Manager
3 3 (12.50%) Platform Engineer
3 3 (12.50%) Technical Delivery Manager
3 3 (12.50%) Technical Manager
4 2 (8.33%) Analyst
4 2 (8.33%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
4 2 (8.33%) Help Desk Analyst
4 2 (8.33%) IT Analyst
5 1 (4.17%) AWS Database Engineer
5 1 (4.17%) AWS Platform Engineer
5 1 (4.17%) Finance Manager
5 1 (4.17%) Full-Stack Developer
5 1 (4.17%) Full-Stack Engineer
5 1 (4.17%) IT Engineer
5 1 (4.17%) Python Engineer
5 1 (4.17%) Senior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (25.00%) REST
2 5 (20.83%) Spring
2 5 (20.83%) Spring Boot
3 4 (16.67%) CSS
3 4 (16.67%) HTML
3 4 (16.67%) JSF
3 4 (16.67%) JSP
4 3 (12.50%) .NET
4 3 (12.50%) boto
4 3 (12.50%) Django
4 3 (12.50%) OpenTofu
4 3 (12.50%) Terraform
4 3 (12.50%) Web Services
5 1 (4.17%) POSIX
5 1 (4.17%) React
5 1 (4.17%) RESTful
5 1 (4.17%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 8 (33.33%) Distributed Systems
1 8 (33.33%) Product Ownership
2 3 (12.50%) Distributed Applications
2 3 (12.50%) Linux Command Line
3 2 (8.33%) Legacy Systems
3 2 (8.33%) Onboarding
4 1 (4.17%) Data Protection Act
4 1 (4.17%) Equities
4 1 (4.17%) Legacy Applications
4 1 (4.17%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 10 (41.67%) Linux
2 6 (25.00%) Unix
3 3 (12.50%) Windows
4 2 (8.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (4.17%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (45.83%) Agile
1 11 (45.83%) Performance Optimisation
2 10 (41.67%) CI/CD
3 9 (37.50%) Software Engineering
4 8 (33.33%) DevOps
4 8 (33.33%) User Stories
5 7 (29.17%) Front End Development
5 7 (29.17%) Problem-Solving
6 5 (20.83%) Acceptance Criteria
6 5 (20.83%) Clean Code
6 5 (20.83%) Memory Management
6 5 (20.83%) Test Automation
7 4 (16.67%) Computer Science
7 4 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
7 4 (16.67%) Mentoring
7 4 (16.67%) Performance Tuning
7 4 (16.67%) Project Management
7 4 (16.67%) Root Cause Analysis
7 4 (16.67%) SDLC
7 4 (16.67%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 10 (41.67%) SQL
2 8 (33.33%) Java
3 5 (20.83%) JavaScript
4 4 (16.67%) Python
5 3 (12.50%) PL/SQL
6 2 (8.33%) PowerShell
7 1 (4.17%) C
7 1 (4.17%) C++
7 1 (4.17%) Perl
Qualifications
1 4 (16.67%) Degree
1 4 (16.67%) Security Cleared
2 3 (12.50%) SC Cleared
3 1 (4.17%) BPSS Clearance
3 1 (4.17%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (4.17%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
3 1 (4.17%) MCSA
3 1 (4.17%) Microsoft Certification
3 1 (4.17%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (29.17%) QA
2 2 (8.33%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (4.17%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (4.17%) SLA
System Software
1 7 (29.17%) Docker
2 1 (4.17%) Active Directory
2 1 (4.17%) NFS
Systems Management
1 3 (12.50%) Ansible
1 3 (12.50%) SCCM
1 3 (12.50%) SELinux
1 3 (12.50%) Single Sign-On
2 2 (8.33%) WSUS
Vendors
1 5 (20.83%) Microsoft
2 4 (16.67%) Oracle
2 4 (16.67%) ServiceNow
3 3 (12.50%) Atlassian
3 3 (12.50%) Red Hat
4 2 (8.33%) Bloomberg
4 2 (8.33%) Citrix
4 2 (8.33%) ION Trading
4 2 (8.33%) Reuters