Cost Reduction Contracts

Cost Reduction
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Cost Reduction skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Cost Reduction over the 6 months leading up to 18 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 430 466 581
Rank change year-on-year +36 +115 +20
Contract jobs citing Cost Reduction 93 113 120
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.32% 0.27% 0.21%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.35% 0.31% 0.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 44 65 42
10th Percentile £367 £413 £147
25th Percentile £450 £508 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £531 £600 £513
Median % change year-on-year -11.50% +17.07% -6.82%
75th Percentile £626 £750 £638
90th Percentile £738 £814 £798
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £575 £500
% change year-on-year -13.04% +15.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 7 0
10th Percentile £32.15 £30.70 -
25th Percentile £33.09 £45.48 -
Median hourly rate £36.06 £60.50 -
Median % change year-on-year -40.40% - -
75th Percentile £40.42 £60.75 -
90th Percentile £42.20 £68.12 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.06 £60.50 -
% change year-on-year -40.40% - -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Cost Reduction 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 26,783 36,704 51,058
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.97% 86.15% 89.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,188 23,629 35,390
10th Percentile £305 £300 £325
25th Percentile £410 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -4.55% +3.77%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,099 2,440 1,690
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.75 £10.63
25th Percentile £18.13 £15.99 £15.99
Median hourly rate £28.00 £36.05 £35.65
Median % change year-on-year -22.32% +1.11% +38.82%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £37.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -32.93% +7.14% +75.00%

Cost Reduction
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Cost Reduction as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Cost Reduction in the UK

Cost Reduction
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Cost Reduction.

Daily rate trend for Cost Reduction in the UK

Cost Reduction
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cost Reduction over the 6 months to 18 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Cost Reduction in the UK

Cost Reduction
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Cost Reduction.

Hourly rate trend for Cost Reduction in the UK

Cost Reduction
Top 14 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Cost Reduction within the UK over the 6 months to 18 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
England +30 82 £500 -16.67% 191
UK excluding London +22 44 £500 -13.04% 103
London +49 40 £563 -13.46% 115
Work from Home +27 23 £540 -6.09% 109
Midlands +8 12 £500 -13.04% 12
South West +44 11 £538 +53.57% 11
West Midlands -5 10 £500 -13.04% 8
North of England +3 9 £489 -12.72% 36
South East +44 7 £450 -32.08% 32
North West 0 7 £489 -20.85% 18
East of England +24 4 £353 -37.05% 5
Scotland +4 3 £610 - 8
Yorkshire +13 2 - - 12
East Midlands +13 2 £450 - 4

Cost Reduction
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 8 (8.60%) SharePoint
2 7 (7.53%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (1.08%) Confluence
Applications
1 4 (4.30%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (3.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (2.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (1.08%) CATIA
4 1 (1.08%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (1.08%) MS Visio
4 1 (1.08%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (2.15%) SAP S/4HANA
1 2 (2.15%) Shopify
2 1 (1.08%) SAP EWM
2 1 (1.08%) SAP GTS
2 1 (1.08%) SAP IBP
2 1 (1.08%) SAP MM
2 1 (1.08%) SAP PP
2 1 (1.08%) SAP SCM
2 1 (1.08%) SAP SRM
Cloud Services
1 14 (15.05%) Azure
2 13 (13.98%) Microsoft 365
3 11 (11.83%) AWS
4 10 (10.75%) SaaS
5 8 (8.60%) PaaS
6 6 (6.45%) Entra ID
6 6 (6.45%) GCP
6 6 (6.45%) Power Platform
7 4 (4.30%) Azure Functions
7 4 (4.30%) Azure Logic Apps
7 4 (4.30%) OneDrive
7 4 (4.30%) Serverless
8 3 (3.23%) Cloud Run
8 3 (3.23%) GitHub
8 3 (3.23%) GitHub Actions
8 3 (3.23%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 3 (3.23%) Yammer
9 2 (2.15%) BigCommerce
9 2 (2.15%) Datadog
9 2 (2.15%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 8 (8.60%) PBX
1 8 (8.60%) VoIP
2 3 (3.23%) Firewall
3 2 (2.15%) DSL
4 1 (1.08%) Broadband
4 1 (1.08%) Extranet
4 1 (1.08%) Intranet
4 1 (1.08%) LAN
4 1 (1.08%) MPLS
4 1 (1.08%) SDH
4 1 (1.08%) WAN
4 1 (1.08%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (6.45%) Power BI
2 3 (3.23%) Data Mining
2 3 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
2 3 (3.23%) Tableau
3 2 (2.15%) Big Data
3 2 (2.15%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 3 (3.23%) CircleCI
1 3 (3.23%) GitLab
1 3 (3.23%) Jenkins
1 3 (3.23%) Terragrunt
2 2 (2.15%) ERwin
2 2 (2.15%) JMeter
3 1 (1.08%) Grunt
3 1 (1.08%) gulp
3 1 (1.08%) Jasmine
3 1 (1.08%) JIRA
3 1 (1.08%) Mocha
General
1 37 (39.78%) Social Skills
2 30 (32.26%) Finance
3 18 (19.35%) Public Sector
4 13 (13.98%) Telecoms
5 11 (11.83%) Analytical Skills
6 9 (9.68%) Marketing
7 7 (7.53%) Banking
8 6 (6.45%) Electronics
8 6 (6.45%) Retail
9 5 (5.38%) Manufacturing
9 5 (5.38%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (2.15%) Italian Language
10 2 (2.15%) Legal
10 2 (2.15%) Local Government
10 2 (2.15%) Military
11 1 (1.08%) Automotive
11 1 (1.08%) French Language
11 1 (1.08%) German Language
11 1 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 23 (24.73%) Architect
2 10 (10.75%) Consultant
3 9 (9.68%) Analyst
3 9 (9.68%) Applications Architect
4 7 (7.53%) Business Analyst
4 7 (7.53%) Lead
5 6 (6.45%) Senior
6 5 (5.38%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
6 5 (5.38%) Security Consultant
7 4 (4.30%) Data Business Analyst
7 4 (4.30%) IT Manager
7 4 (4.30%) Microsoft 365 Architect
8 3 (3.23%) Data Analyst
8 3 (3.23%) Data Scientist
8 3 (3.23%) Exchange Engineer
8 3 (3.23%) GCP Architect
8 3 (3.23%) Infrastructure Architect
8 3 (3.23%) Solutions Architect
9 2 (2.15%) Network Services Manager
9 2 (2.15%) Operations Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (4.30%) Microsoft Graph
2 3 (3.23%) GraphQL
2 3 (3.23%) Web Services
2 3 (3.23%) XML
3 2 (2.15%) Apache Axis
3 2 (2.15%) HTML
3 2 (2.15%) Kafka
3 2 (2.15%) Spring
3 2 (2.15%) Spring Boot
3 2 (2.15%) VML
4 1 (1.08%) CSS
4 1 (1.08%) HTML5
4 1 (1.08%) Java RMI
4 1 (1.08%) jQuery
4 1 (1.08%) JSON
4 1 (1.08%) Mustache
4 1 (1.08%) Node.js
4 1 (1.08%) Sass
4 1 (1.08%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 8 (8.60%) Blackberry
1 8 (8.60%) Onboarding
1 8 (8.60%) Video Conferencing
2 7 (7.53%) IoT
3 6 (6.45%) Blockchain
3 6 (6.45%) Data Structures
4 4 (4.30%) Legacy Systems
4 4 (4.30%) Management Information System
4 4 (4.30%) Social Media
5 3 (3.23%) Algorithms
5 3 (3.23%) Cloud Native
5 3 (3.23%) NHS
5 3 (3.23%) Public Cloud
6 2 (2.15%) FMCG
7 1 (1.08%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (1.08%) Data Centre
7 1 (1.08%) Driving Licence
7 1 (1.08%) Fixed Income
7 1 (1.08%) Microsoft Licensing
7 1 (1.08%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 6 (6.45%) Windows
2 5 (5.38%) Linux
3 3 (3.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 3 (3.23%) Windows 10
4 2 (2.15%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.15%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (32.26%) Problem-Solving
2 25 (26.88%) Roadmaps
3 19 (20.43%) Agile
4 16 (17.20%) Migration
5 15 (16.13%) Business Intelligence
5 15 (16.13%) DevOps
5 15 (16.13%) Technical Leadership
5 15 (16.13%) Thought Leadership
6 14 (15.05%) Service Design
7 13 (13.98%) Cost Optimisation
7 13 (13.98%) Process Improvement
8 12 (12.90%) Commercial Awareness
8 12 (12.90%) Stakeholder Management
9 11 (11.83%) Machine Learning
9 11 (11.83%) Microservices
9 11 (11.83%) SOA
10 10 (10.75%) Actionable Insight
10 10 (10.75%) Decision-Making
10 10 (10.75%) Product Roadmap
11 9 (9.68%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 9 (9.68%) PowerShell
2 7 (7.53%) SQL
3 6 (6.45%) JavaScript
4 5 (5.38%) Java
5 3 (3.23%) Python
6 2 (2.15%) C#
6 2 (2.15%) Ruby
6 2 (2.15%) Shell Script
6 2 (2.15%) TypeScript
7 1 (1.08%) Go
Qualifications
1 26 (27.96%) Security Cleared
2 23 (24.73%) SC Cleared
3 9 (9.68%) Degree
4 8 (8.60%) CCNP
4 8 (8.60%) Cisco Certification
4 8 (8.60%) DV Cleared
4 8 (8.60%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
5 3 (3.23%) Azure Certification
5 3 (3.23%) Master's Degree
6 2 (2.15%) CISSP
6 2 (2.15%) CompTIA Security+
6 2 (2.15%) PMI Certification
6 2 (2.15%) PMP
6 2 (2.15%) Six Sigma Black Belt
7 1 (1.08%) BC Cleared
7 1 (1.08%) HNC
7 1 (1.08%) MBA
7 1 (1.08%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (1.08%) Six Sigma Green Belt
7 1 (1.08%) Six Sigma Master Black Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (6.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (4.30%) Accessibility
2 4 (4.30%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
2 4 (4.30%) NIST
2 4 (4.30%) PCI DSS
3 3 (3.23%) Actionable Recommendations
3 3 (3.23%) QA
4 2 (2.15%) GDPR
5 1 (1.08%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (1.08%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (1.08%) SLA
5 1 (1.08%) WCAG
System Software
1 10 (10.75%) Active Directory
2 8 (8.60%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (1.08%) Docker
Systems Management
1 9 (9.68%) Terraform
2 5 (5.38%) Ansible
3 4 (4.30%) Kubernetes
4 3 (3.23%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (3.23%) Opsview
5 2 (2.15%) Progress Chef
5 2 (2.15%) Puppet
5 2 (2.15%) Salt
5 2 (2.15%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 16 (17.20%) Microsoft
2 9 (9.68%) Cisco
2 9 (9.68%) Nokia
2 9 (9.68%) SAP
3 8 (8.60%) Avaya
3 8 (8.60%) Ericsson
3 8 (8.60%) F5
3 8 (8.60%) Juniper
3 8 (8.60%) Palo Alto
3 8 (8.60%) Ribbon
3 8 (8.60%) VMware
4 4 (4.30%) Salesforce
5 3 (3.23%) PagerDuty
6 2 (2.15%) Adobe
6 2 (2.15%) Google
6 2 (2.15%) New Relic
6 2 (2.15%) Sitecore
6 2 (2.15%) TOWER Software
7 1 (1.08%) Bloomberg
7 1 (1.08%) Pega