Games Contracts

Gaming
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Games in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Games over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 418 458 443
Rank change year-on-year +40 -15 -53
Contract jobs citing Games 101 142 278
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.35% 0.33% 0.47%
As % of the General category 0.55% 0.56% 0.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 54 96 224
10th Percentile £159 £220 £254
25th Percentile £267 £325 £367
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £402 £419 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.12% -16.20% -
75th Percentile £497 £553 £610
90th Percentile £600 £675 £718
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £400 £450
% change year-on-year - -11.11% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 14 3
10th Percentile £13.78 £7.67 -
25th Percentile £30.81 £18.67 -
Median hourly rate £34.46 £36.25 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.95% -39.58% +37.93%
75th Percentile £59.88 £42.04 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.28 £59.25 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.91 £21.10 -
% change year-on-year +60.71% - -

All General Skills
UK

Games falls under the General Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring common skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 18,465 25,387 34,897
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 63.16% 58.23% 58.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,795 16,033 24,201
10th Percentile £300 £270 £313
25th Percentile £409 £413 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +2.80%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £763 £763 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -4.23% -0.80% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 794 1,939 1,062
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.78 £13.42
25th Percentile £17.85 £15.50 £18.09
Median hourly rate £28.00 £30.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% -14.29% +59.71%
75th Percentile £56.00 £51.91 £61.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £65.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £28.13 £30.54
% change year-on-year -10.58% -7.91% +65.08%

Games
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Games in the UK

Games
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Games in the UK

Games
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Games over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Games in the UK

Games
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Games in the UK

Games
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Games over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Games in the UK

Games
Top 13 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Games within the UK over the 6 months to 30 April 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 +23 86 £364 -13.13% 1,146
UK excluding London +55 54 £400 - 593
London +4 36 £364 -19.11% 608
Work from Home +38 32 £361 -24.05% 669
Midlands +34 28 £313 -2.80% 106
West Midlands +29 24 £250 +11.11% 58
North of England +28 12 £475 -5.00% 204
Scotland +16 8 £600 - 31
North West +14 8 £475 +47.29% 118
East of England +23 4 - - 50
Yorkshire +12 4 £600 +4.35% 54
East Midlands +7 4 £316 -24.58% 48
South East +44 2 - - 146

Games
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 2 (1.98%) CMS
1 2 (1.98%) Headless CMS
2 1 (0.99%) Apache
2 1 (0.99%) Apache Spark
2 1 (0.99%) Strapi
Applications
1 9 (8.91%) Maya
2 5 (4.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (3.96%) Photoshop
4 3 (2.97%) Adobe After Effects
4 3 (2.97%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 3 (2.97%) NUKE
4 3 (2.97%) Simulink
5 2 (1.98%) Blender
5 2 (1.98%) CINEMA 4D
5 2 (1.98%) Final Cut Pro
5 2 (1.98%) Microsoft Office
6 1 (0.99%) ZBrush
Business Applications
1 2 (1.98%) Payment Gateway
1 2 (1.98%) Shopify
2 1 (0.99%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.99%) SAP BPC
2 1 (0.99%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 8 (7.92%) AWS
1 8 (7.92%) Azure
2 5 (4.95%) Power Platform
2 5 (4.95%) SaaS
3 4 (3.96%) Azure DevOps
3 4 (3.96%) Figma
4 3 (2.97%) Dynamics 365
4 3 (2.97%) Entra ID
4 3 (2.97%) GCP
4 3 (2.97%) Microsoft 365
5 2 (1.98%) BigCommerce
6 1 (0.99%) Amazon S3
6 1 (0.99%) Amazon SageMaker
6 1 (0.99%) Anthropic Claude
6 1 (0.99%) Azure AI
6 1 (0.99%) Azure Data Factory
6 1 (0.99%) Canva
6 1 (0.99%) Cloud Computing
6 1 (0.99%) GitHub
6 1 (0.99%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.97%) Ethernet
1 3 (2.97%) LAN
1 3 (2.97%) TCP/IP
1 3 (2.97%) WAN
1 3 (2.97%) Wi-Fi
2 2 (1.98%) Broadband
3 1 (0.99%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (4.95%) Power BI
1 5 (4.95%) Tableau
2 2 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.99%) MySQL
3 1 (0.99%) Pinecone
3 1 (0.99%) Redis
3 1 (0.99%) Weaviate
3 1 (0.99%) Yellowfin
Development Applications
1 9 (8.91%) Git
2 4 (3.96%) JIRA
3 3 (2.97%) Plastic SCM
4 1 (0.99%) GitLab
4 1 (0.99%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.99%) TeamCity
General
1 30 (29.70%) Social Skills
2 12 (11.88%) Finance
3 10 (9.90%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (8.91%) Retail
5 7 (6.93%) Marketing
6 5 (4.95%) Manufacturing
6 5 (4.95%) Polish Language
7 4 (3.96%) Automotive
8 3 (2.97%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (2.97%) Electronics
8 3 (2.97%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (2.97%) Publishing
8 3 (2.97%) Spanish Language
9 2 (1.98%) Banking
9 2 (1.98%) French Language
9 2 (1.98%) German Language
9 2 (1.98%) Italian Language
9 2 (1.98%) Japanese Language
9 2 (1.98%) Legal
9 2 (1.98%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 24 (23.76%) Senior
2 14 (13.86%) Developer
3 12 (11.88%) Designer
4 8 (7.92%) Senior Designer
5 7 (6.93%) Games Designer
6 6 (5.94%) Lead
6 6 (5.94%) Technical Designer
7 5 (4.95%) 3D Artist
7 5 (4.95%) Analyst
7 5 (4.95%) Animator
7 5 (4.95%) Architect
7 5 (4.95%) Senior Games Designer
8 4 (3.96%) Data Analyst
8 4 (3.96%) Games Developer
8 4 (3.96%) Security Architect
9 3 (2.97%) Administrator
9 3 (2.97%) DevOps Engineer
9 3 (2.97%) Programme Manager
9 3 (2.97%) Senior Developer
9 3 (2.97%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (18.81%) Unreal Engine
2 12 (11.88%) Unity (Game Engine)
3 5 (4.95%) CSS
4 4 (3.96%) Django
4 4 (3.96%) Godot
4 4 (3.96%) HTML
5 3 (2.97%) Kafka
6 2 (1.98%) Framer.js
6 2 (1.98%) Google Maps API
6 2 (1.98%) RESTful
6 2 (1.98%) VML
7 1 (0.99%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.99%) GraphQL
7 1 (0.99%) Next.js
7 1 (0.99%) Nuxt
7 1 (0.99%) PySpark
7 1 (0.99%) PyTorch
7 1 (0.99%) Tailwind CSS
7 1 (0.99%) TensorFlow
7 1 (0.99%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 12 (11.88%) Animation
2 11 (10.89%) Virtual Reality
3 7 (6.93%) Mobile Games
3 7 (6.93%) Self-Motivation
4 4 (3.96%) Algorithms
4 4 (3.96%) Cloud Native
4 4 (3.96%) Onboarding
5 3 (2.97%) Augmented Reality
5 3 (2.97%) Data Protection Act
5 3 (2.97%) FPGA
5 3 (2.97%) Online Games
5 3 (2.97%) PCIe
5 3 (2.97%) Verilog
6 2 (1.98%) Mixed Reality
7 1 (0.99%) AI Agents
7 1 (0.99%) Autonomous Agent
7 1 (0.99%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (0.99%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.99%) Life Science
7 1 (0.99%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.99%) Android
1 1 (0.99%) Linux
1 1 (0.99%) Windows
1 1 (0.99%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (18.81%) Problem-Solving
2 14 (13.86%) Agile
2 14 (13.86%) Artificial Intelligence
2 14 (13.86%) Game Development
2 14 (13.86%) User Experience
3 12 (11.88%) CI/CD
4 10 (9.90%) Decision-Making
5 9 (8.91%) DevOps
6 7 (6.93%) Customer Service
6 7 (6.93%) Stakeholder Management
7 6 (5.94%) Analytics
7 6 (5.94%) Business Intelligence
7 6 (5.94%) Cybersecurity
7 6 (5.94%) Machine Learning
7 6 (5.94%) Test Automation
7 6 (5.94%) Visualisation
8 5 (4.95%) Code Quality
8 5 (4.95%) Data Analysis
8 5 (4.95%) Mathematics
8 5 (4.95%) UX Design
Programming Languages
1 17 (16.83%) Python
2 13 (12.87%) SQL
3 10 (9.90%) TypeScript
4 8 (7.92%) C#
4 8 (7.92%) Java
5 6 (5.94%) Tcl
6 4 (3.96%) C++
6 4 (3.96%) JavaScript
7 3 (2.97%) MATLAB
7 3 (2.97%) SystemVerilog
8 2 (1.98%) Go
8 2 (1.98%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.99%) PowerShell
9 1 (0.99%) R
Qualifications
1 7 (6.93%) Degree
2 5 (4.95%) Security Cleared
3 3 (2.97%) HNC
3 3 (2.97%) HND
3 3 (2.97%) SC Cleared
4 2 (1.98%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (0.99%) CCA
5 1 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (11.88%) QA
2 4 (3.96%) Software Quality Assurance
3 3 (2.97%) Accessibility
3 3 (2.97%) DO-254
4 1 (0.99%) Data Quality
System Software
1 3 (2.97%) Active Directory
1 3 (2.97%) Firmware
2 1 (0.99%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (2.97%) Kubernetes
1 3 (2.97%) Terraform
2 1 (0.99%) Prometheus
2 1 (0.99%) SCCM
Vendors
1 9 (8.91%) Microsoft
2 8 (7.92%) Databricks
3 3 (2.97%) Actel
3 3 (2.97%) Adobe
3 3 (2.97%) Altera
3 3 (2.97%) Google
3 3 (2.97%) Intel
3 3 (2.97%) Microsemi
3 3 (2.97%) SAP
3 3 (2.97%) Xilinx
4 2 (1.98%) BT
4 2 (1.98%) ForgeRock
4 2 (1.98%) Perforce
4 2 (1.98%) Ping Identity
4 2 (1.98%) Salesforce
4 2 (1.98%) Samsung
4 2 (1.98%) Sitecore
4 2 (1.98%) Spotify
5 1 (0.99%) OpenAI
5 1 (0.99%) Remedy