Finance Contract Job Trends

Financial
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Finance in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Finance over the 6 months leading up to 1 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 2 2
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 0
Contract jobs citing Finance 10,048 7,293 7,695
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 18.30% 22.06% 20.34%
As % of the General category 32.63% 34.74% 34.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,063 4,758 4,833
10th Percentile £360 £332 £360
25th Percentile £450 £415 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £534 £575
Median % change year-on-year +3.04% -7.17% -4.01%
75th Percentile £675 £675 £701
90th Percentile £788 £788 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 348 137 129
10th Percentile £14.82 £15.39 £14.50
25th Percentile £19.03 £18.82 £23.82
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.89 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +57.65% -15.50% +28.35%
75th Percentile - £53.95 £55.00
90th Percentile £65.00 £75.25 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.00 £31.91
% change year-on-year +83.17% -24.79% +22.74%

All General Skills
UK

Finance 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 30,797 20,995 22,110
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 56.09% 63.51% 58.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,960 13,047 13,078
10th Percentile £313 £275 £281
25th Percentile £420 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,644 1,219 1,011
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.51 £14.73
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.17 £17.16
Median hourly rate £28.50 £25.15 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.32% -28.14% +27.27%
75th Percentile £53.75 £46.27 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.00 £21.39 £35.00
% change year-on-year +35.58% -38.89% +30.69%

Finance
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Finance job vacancy trend in the UK

Finance
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Finance.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Finance

Finance
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Finance over the 6 months to 1 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Finance in the UK

Finance
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Finance.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Finance

Finance
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Finance over the 6 months to 1 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Finance in the UK

Finance
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Finance within the UK over the 6 months to 1 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
England -1 8,618 £550 - 17,377
London 0 5,208 £600 +2.56% 10,541
UK excluding London -1 3,919 £510 +2.00% 8,689
Work from Home -1 2,819 £550 -1.79% 7,194
North of England 0 1,351 £514 +9.36% 2,045
South East -1 749 £500 -2.72% 2,186
North West -2 644 £507 +12.56% 1,135
Yorkshire 0 629 £519 +3.75% 683
Midlands -2 619 £507 +6.74% 1,165
Scotland 0 548 £464 -7.25% 989
West Midlands -2 463 £515 -0.91% 718
South West -5 348 £525 -4.55% 1,034
East of England +2 203 £550 -4.35% 634
East Midlands -2 151 £500 +19.05% 447
North East -4 71 £538 +22.51% 243
Wales 0 63 £525 +20.69% 314
Northern Ireland 0 63 £510 -1.92% 386
Channel Islands 0 5 £600 - 20

Finance
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
1 325 (3.23%) Confluence
2 264 (2.63%) SharePoint
3 94 (0.94%) Apache Airflow
4 81 (0.81%) Apache Spark
5 80 (0.80%) Apache
6 46 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
7 31 (0.31%) CMS
8 23 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
9 22 (0.22%) SAS
10 19 (0.19%) IIS
11 17 (0.17%) Jupyter
12 15 (0.15%) Camunda
13 13 (0.13%) CICS
14 11 (0.11%) Ethereum
15 10 (0.100%) WebSphere
16 8 (0.080%) Oracle SOA Suite
17 7 (0.070%) Adobe Experience Manager
18 6 (0.060%) Appian
18 6 (0.060%) JBoss
19 5 (0.050%) WebLogic
Applications
1 526 (5.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 225 (2.24%) Microsoft Office
3 196 (1.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 142 (1.41%) Microsoft Project
5 85 (0.85%) MS Visio
6 65 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
7 28 (0.28%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.11%) Trello
9 8 (0.080%) Adobe Illustrator
9 8 (0.080%) Photoshop
10 7 (0.070%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 4 (0.040%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.040%) Sketch
11 4 (0.040%) Windchill
12 3 (0.030%) 1Password
12 3 (0.030%) Adobe Premiere
12 3 (0.030%) AutoCAD
12 3 (0.030%) Final Cut Pro
12 3 (0.030%) Notion
12 3 (0.030%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 444 (4.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 125 (1.24%) Oracle Payables
3 112 (1.11%) Oracle Receivables
4 99 (0.99%) NetSuite
5 90 (0.90%) Oracle ERP
6 88 (0.88%) Oracle General Ledger
7 82 (0.82%) SAP FI
8 80 (0.80%) Oracle EBS
9 67 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
10 58 (0.58%) Oracle Financials
11 54 (0.54%) SAP CO
12 50 (0.50%) Workday HCM
13 49 (0.49%) SAP FI/CO
14 48 (0.48%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
15 46 (0.46%) Oracle Assets
16 40 (0.40%) Aladdin
17 34 (0.34%) SAP GRC
17 34 (0.34%) Unit4 Business World
18 30 (0.30%) SAP BRIM
19 25 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,604 (15.96%) Azure
2 1,108 (11.03%) AWS
3 658 (6.55%) Power Platform
4 572 (5.69%) GCP
5 355 (3.53%) Azure DevOps
6 332 (3.30%) GitHub
7 328 (3.26%) Microsoft 365
8 316 (3.14%) SaaS
9 267 (2.66%) Dynamics 365
10 231 (2.30%) Entra ID
11 223 (2.22%) Snowflake
12 161 (1.60%) Serverless
13 145 (1.44%) OCI
14 136 (1.35%) GitHub Actions
15 133 (1.32%) Power Automate
16 132 (1.31%) Amazon S3
16 132 (1.31%) dbt
17 122 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
18 114 (1.13%) Azure Data Factory
19 104 (1.04%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 177 (1.76%) Firewall
2 162 (1.61%) Network Security
3 106 (1.05%) VPN
4 88 (0.88%) DNS
5 58 (0.58%) TCP/IP
6 55 (0.55%) WAN
7 50 (0.50%) DHCP
8 45 (0.45%) BGP
9 38 (0.38%) SSL
10 34 (0.34%) Multicast
11 32 (0.32%) LAN
11 32 (0.32%) VLAN
12 31 (0.31%) HTTP
13 30 (0.30%) Wi-Fi
13 30 (0.30%) Wireless
14 27 (0.27%) OSPF
14 27 (0.27%) SAN
15 24 (0.24%) Internet
16 18 (0.18%) Broadband
16 18 (0.18%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 524 (5.21%) Power BI
2 287 (2.86%) SQL Server
3 257 (2.56%) Data Warehouse
4 202 (2.01%) Metadata
5 175 (1.74%) Relational Database
6 145 (1.44%) Data Lake
7 135 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
8 128 (1.27%) Tableau
9 90 (0.90%) NoSQL
10 82 (0.82%) BigQuery
11 80 (0.80%) Oracle Database
12 79 (0.79%) MongoDB
13 62 (0.62%) Oracle Reports
14 58 (0.58%) Snowflake Schema
15 54 (0.54%) Power Query
16 53 (0.53%) Delta Lake
17 44 (0.44%) Azure SQL Database
17 44 (0.44%) Big Data
17 44 (0.44%) Db2
18 43 (0.43%) Oracle BI Publisher
Development Applications
1 646 (6.43%) JIRA
2 336 (3.34%) Git
3 182 (1.81%) Jenkins
4 116 (1.15%) GitLab
5 67 (0.67%) Selenium
6 51 (0.51%) JUnit
7 42 (0.42%) Claude Code
8 38 (0.38%) Bitbucket
8 38 (0.38%) Maven
9 36 (0.36%) Cucumber
9 36 (0.36%) SonarQube
10 33 (0.33%) Gradle
11 31 (0.31%) REST Assured
11 31 (0.31%) Visual Studio
12 28 (0.28%) ERwin
13 27 (0.27%) Cypress.io
14 26 (0.26%) Postman
14 26 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
15 21 (0.21%) Mockito
16 20 (0.20%) ER Studio
General
1 3,154 (31.39%) Social Skills
2 2,116 (21.06%) Banking
3 1,415 (14.08%) Analytical Skills
4 546 (5.43%) Public Sector
5 532 (5.29%) Legal
6 465 (4.63%) Organisational Skills
7 398 (3.96%) Investment Banking
8 374 (3.72%) Retail
9 349 (3.47%) Influencing Skills
10 345 (3.43%) Front Office
11 306 (3.05%) Financial Institution
12 227 (2.26%) Manufacturing
13 208 (2.07%) Documentation Skills
14 196 (1.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 189 (1.88%) Marketing
16 187 (1.86%) Billing
17 183 (1.82%) General Ledger
18 160 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
19 151 (1.50%) Local Government
20 143 (1.42%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 1,398 (13.91%) Analyst
2 1,144 (11.39%) Senior
3 1,001 (9.96%) Developer
4 968 (9.63%) Lead
5 861 (8.57%) Architect
6 742 (7.38%) Consultant
7 722 (7.19%) Business Analyst
8 689 (6.86%) Project Manager
9 341 (3.39%) Solutions Architect
10 301 (3.00%) Data Engineer
11 255 (2.54%) Financial Analyst
12 224 (2.23%) Senior Manager
13 213 (2.12%) Senior Developer
14 210 (2.09%) Java Developer
15 203 (2.02%) Data Analyst
16 196 (1.95%) Programme Manager
17 181 (1.80%) Accountant
18 180 (1.79%) IT Manager
19 167 (1.66%) Finance Manager
20 154 (1.53%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 417 (4.15%) Terraform
2 412 (4.10%) REST
3 280 (2.79%) Kafka
4 273 (2.72%) .NET
5 268 (2.67%) Oracle Fusion
6 249 (2.48%) React
7 199 (1.98%) Spring
8 198 (1.97%) Middleware
9 195 (1.94%) Spring Boot
10 145 (1.44%) PySpark
10 145 (1.44%) RESTful
11 113 (1.12%) JSON
12 112 (1.11%) OAuth
13 108 (1.07%) XML
14 100 (1.00%) SOAP
15 90 (0.90%) Web Services
16 88 (0.88%) Redux
17 85 (0.85%) AngularJS
18 82 (0.82%) HTML
19 75 (0.75%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 535 (5.32%) Onboarding
2 518 (5.16%) Product Ownership
3 486 (4.84%) Cloud Native
4 268 (2.67%) Management Information System
5 254 (2.53%) Legacy Systems
6 237 (2.36%) Data Structures
7 230 (2.29%) Virtual Team
8 220 (2.19%) AI Agents
8 220 (2.19%) Distributed Systems
9 205 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
10 194 (1.93%) Derivative
11 174 (1.73%) Data Centre
12 171 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
13 152 (1.51%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 137 (1.36%) Greenfield Project
15 134 (1.33%) Fixed Income
16 121 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
17 119 (1.18%) Equities
18 114 (1.13%) Podcast
18 114 (1.13%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 388 (3.86%) Windows
2 346 (3.44%) Linux
3 174 (1.73%) Unix
4 100 (1.00%) Windows Server
5 62 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 50 (0.50%) Apple iOS
7 43 (0.43%) Android
8 40 (0.40%) Windows 10
9 37 (0.37%) zOS
10 36 (0.36%) Mac OS
11 32 (0.32%) Solaris
12 14 (0.14%) AIX
12 14 (0.14%) VMS
13 11 (0.11%) Ubuntu
14 7 (0.070%) Oracle Linux
15 6 (0.060%) HPUX
15 6 (0.060%) SUSE
16 5 (0.050%) CentOS
17 4 (0.040%) MVS
17 4 (0.040%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,781 (27.68%) Stakeholder Management
2 2,064 (20.54%) Agile
3 1,350 (13.44%) Migration
4 1,335 (13.29%) AI
5 1,333 (13.27%) Problem-Solving
6 1,184 (11.78%) CI/CD
7 1,130 (11.25%) Continuous Improvement
8 1,114 (11.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 1,023 (10.18%) Analytics
10 1,020 (10.15%) DevOps
11 973 (9.68%) ERP
12 931 (9.27%) Decision-Making
13 900 (8.96%) Roadmaps
14 894 (8.90%) Validation
15 786 (7.82%) Project Management
16 769 (7.65%) Data Modelling
17 763 (7.59%) User Acceptance Testing
18 732 (7.29%) Risk Management
19 717 (7.14%) Change Management
20 692 (6.89%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 1,373 (13.66%) SQL
2 1,303 (12.97%) Python
3 665 (6.62%) Java
4 364 (3.62%) C#
5 295 (2.94%) PowerShell
6 263 (2.62%) JavaScript
7 224 (2.23%) TypeScript
8 169 (1.68%) Bash
9 109 (1.08%) PL/SQL
10 93 (0.93%) Shell Script
11 80 (0.80%) C++
12 72 (0.72%) Go
13 70 (0.70%) T-SQL
14 60 (0.60%) Bicep
14 60 (0.60%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 53 (0.53%) Korn
16 46 (0.46%) Scala
17 36 (0.36%) Kotlin
18 34 (0.34%) Apex Code
19 31 (0.31%) VBA
Qualifications
1 783 (7.79%) Security Cleared
2 738 (7.34%) Degree
3 559 (5.56%) SC Cleared
4 260 (2.59%) BPSS Clearance
5 259 (2.58%) PMP
6 231 (2.30%) PMI Certification
7 191 (1.90%) ACCA
8 168 (1.67%) CIMA
9 144 (1.43%) DV Cleared
10 137 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
11 127 (1.26%) CISSP
12 115 (1.14%) Azure Certification
13 86 (0.86%) AWS Certification
14 82 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
15 79 (0.79%) Master's Degree
16 64 (0.64%) CISM
17 54 (0.54%) Microsoft Certification
18 50 (0.50%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 40 (0.40%) ITIL Certification
20 39 (0.39%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 713 (7.10%) Data Quality
2 433 (4.31%) QA
3 355 (3.53%) PMO
4 200 (1.99%) GDPR
5 131 (1.30%) NIST
6 128 (1.27%) GRC
7 115 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 110 (1.09%) Accessibility
9 95 (0.95%) SLA
10 92 (0.92%) IFRS
11 74 (0.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 67 (0.67%) ISO 20022
13 46 (0.46%) GAAP
14 43 (0.43%) PCI DSS
15 40 (0.40%) SEPA
16 33 (0.33%) Solvency II
17 29 (0.29%) COBIT
17 29 (0.29%) MiFID
18 27 (0.27%) EMIR
19 25 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 270 (2.69%) Docker
2 244 (2.43%) Active Directory
3 101 (1.01%) VMware Infrastructure
4 35 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
5 28 (0.28%) RACF
5 28 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
5 28 (0.28%) vSphere
6 17 (0.17%) Hyper-V
7 16 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
8 15 (0.15%) VMware NSX
9 11 (0.11%) NFS
10 8 (0.080%) IAG
11 6 (0.060%) ACF2
11 6 (0.060%) Oracle RAC
11 6 (0.060%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.050%) GPFS
13 4 (0.040%) Time Sharing Option
13 4 (0.040%) zsh
14 3 (0.030%) KVM
15 2 (0.020%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 508 (5.06%) Kubernetes
2 195 (1.94%) Ansible
3 100 (1.00%) Grafana
4 86 (0.86%) Microsoft Intune
5 72 (0.72%) Prometheus
6 62 (0.62%) SCCM
6 62 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
7 28 (0.28%) Progress Chef
8 27 (0.27%) Control-M
9 21 (0.21%) Jamf Pro
10 20 (0.20%) Argo
11 18 (0.18%) OMEGAMON
12 15 (0.15%) Istio
13 14 (0.14%) FortiGate
14 11 (0.11%) HP ALM
14 11 (0.11%) Puppet
15 10 (0.100%) Packer
15 10 (0.100%) Tivoli
16 8 (0.080%) ITRS Geneos
16 8 (0.080%) vRealize
Vendors
1 1,455 (14.48%) Microsoft
2 887 (8.83%) SAP
3 879 (8.75%) Oracle
4 372 (3.70%) ServiceNow
5 364 (3.62%) Databricks
6 238 (2.37%) Google
7 234 (2.33%) Salesforce
8 205 (2.04%) IBM
9 156 (1.55%) Workday
10 154 (1.53%) VMware
11 133 (1.32%) Cisco
12 118 (1.17%) Splunk
13 113 (1.12%) Ariba
14 93 (0.93%) OpenAI
15 89 (0.89%) CyberArk
16 57 (0.57%) Citrix
17 56 (0.56%) Bloomberg
18 55 (0.55%) Murex
18 55 (0.55%) Sage
19 53 (0.53%) Red Hat