Inclusion and Diversity Contract Job Trends

Inclusion and Diversity
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Inclusion and Diversity in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Inclusion and Diversity over the 6 months leading up to 3 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 207 156 178
Rank change year-on-year -51 +22 -12
Contract jobs citing Inclusion and Diversity 763 619 546
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.39% 1.87% 1.44%
As % of the General category 2.48% 2.95% 2.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 396 243 322
10th Percentile £306 £183 £418
25th Percentile £363 £356 £501
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £463 £600
Median % change year-on-year -2.70% -22.92% -
75th Percentile £570 £625 £675
90th Percentile £650 £661 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £410 £501
% change year-on-year +3.66% -18.20% +2.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 14 2
10th Percentile £13.02 £17.48 £24.15
25th Percentile £14.05 £18.64 £28.88
Median hourly rate £14.85 £22.14 £38.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.93% -41.74% -40.16%
75th Percentile £25.86 £22.41 £48.38
90th Percentile £44.71 £67.50 £53.85
UK excluding London median hourly rate £14.05 £22.14 -
% change year-on-year -36.54% - -

All General Skills
UK

Inclusion and Diversity 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 30,811 20,994 22,244
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 56.17% 63.35% 58.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,953 13,037 13,174
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 £743 £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 2,677 1,229 1,005
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.51 £14.73
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.17 £17.08
Median hourly rate £28.26 £25.08 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.68% -28.36% +27.27%
75th Percentile £53.75 £45.80 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.50 £21.39 £33.00
% change year-on-year +33.24% -35.18% +25.71%

Inclusion and Diversity
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Inclusion and Diversity job vacancy trend in the UK

Inclusion and Diversity
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Inclusion and Diversity.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Inclusion and Diversity

Inclusion and Diversity
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Inclusion and Diversity over the 6 months to 3 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Inclusion and Diversity in the UK

Inclusion and Diversity
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Inclusion and Diversity.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Inclusion and Diversity

Inclusion and Diversity
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Inclusion and Diversity over the 6 months to 3 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Inclusion and Diversity in the UK

Inclusion and Diversity
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Inclusion and Diversity within the UK over the 6 months to 3 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 -63 644 £450 -7.69% 5,771
UK excluding London -23 362 £425 +3.66% 3,836
London -74 315 £510 -7.27% 3,016
Work from Home -37 267 £480 -1.03% 3,304
Midlands -16 113 £425 +2.41% 453
South East -8 91 £425 -4.23% 661
North of England -51 79 £425 +21.43% 839
West Midlands -14 78 £425 +2.41% 308
North East +3 53 £425 +6.25% 133
East Midlands -7 35 £163 -63.59% 145
South West -24 28 £475 -20.83% 485
Scotland -31 27 £210 -30.00% 737
Yorkshire -62 14 £425 +112.50% 216
East of England -29 13 £425 +30.77% 323
North West -54 12 £518 +29.38% 493
Wales -8 8 £413 +24.56% 168
Northern Ireland +3 3 - - 199

Inclusion and Diversity
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 37 (4.85%) SharePoint
2 17 (2.23%) Confluence
3 13 (1.70%) Apache Airflow
4 11 (1.44%) CMS
5 10 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
6 9 (1.18%) WordPress
7 8 (1.05%) Apache Spark
8 7 (0.92%) Apache
9 4 (0.52%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.52%) Kentico
10 2 (0.26%) Skype for Business
11 1 (0.13%) Drupal
11 1 (0.13%) JBoss
11 1 (0.13%) nginx
11 1 (0.13%) SAS
Applications
1 28 (3.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (2.23%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (1.05%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.39%) AutoCAD
5 3 (0.39%) Trello
6 2 (0.26%) Acrobat
6 2 (0.26%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.26%) Sketch
7 1 (0.13%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.13%) InVision
Business Applications
1 21 (2.75%) Dynamics CRM
2 17 (2.23%) NetSuite
3 5 (0.66%) Sage X3
3 5 (0.66%) Salesforce CRM
3 5 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.52%) Dynamics NAV
4 4 (0.52%) Oracle ERP
4 4 (0.52%) Workday HCM
5 1 (0.13%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.13%) Hyperion Planning
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Financials
5 1 (0.13%) SAP FI
5 1 (0.13%) SAP FS
5 1 (0.13%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 220 (28.83%) Azure
2 140 (18.35%) AWS
3 86 (11.27%) Azure DevOps
4 83 (10.88%) Power Platform
5 68 (8.91%) Microsoft 365
6 57 (7.47%) GCP
7 50 (6.55%) GitHub
8 47 (6.16%) Serverless
9 46 (6.03%) Dynamics 365
10 38 (4.98%) GitHub Actions
10 38 (4.98%) Power Automate
11 30 (3.93%) Amazon EKS
12 29 (3.80%) Entra ID
13 27 (3.54%) AWS Lambda
14 24 (3.15%) Snowflake
15 21 (2.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 21 (2.75%) Azure Data Factory
16 19 (2.49%) Amazon S3
17 18 (2.36%) Azure Functions
17 18 (2.36%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (2.10%) VPN
2 14 (1.83%) Firewall
2 14 (1.83%) Network Security
3 13 (1.70%) DNS
4 11 (1.44%) VLAN
5 10 (1.31%) Wi-Fi
6 9 (1.18%) DHCP
6 9 (1.18%) TCP/IP
6 9 (1.18%) Wireless
7 6 (0.79%) Structured Cabling
7 6 (0.79%) WAN
8 5 (0.66%) 3GPP
8 5 (0.66%) 5G
8 5 (0.66%) BGP
8 5 (0.66%) HTTP
8 5 (0.66%) NGN
8 5 (0.66%) OSPF
8 5 (0.66%) Radio Access Network
8 5 (0.66%) tcpdump
8 5 (0.66%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (6.95%) Power BI
2 37 (4.85%) PostgreSQL
3 31 (4.06%) SQL Server
4 24 (3.15%) Data Warehouse
5 23 (3.01%) MongoDB
6 22 (2.88%) Metadata
7 15 (1.97%) Power Query
8 11 (1.44%) Amazon RDS
9 10 (1.31%) Data Lake
9 10 (1.31%) Looker
9 10 (1.31%) NoSQL
10 9 (1.18%) Redis
11 8 (1.05%) Big Data
11 8 (1.05%) Relational Database
11 8 (1.05%) Tableau
12 7 (0.92%) Azure SQL Database
12 7 (0.92%) DocumentDB
12 7 (0.92%) Elasticsearch
12 7 (0.92%) Snowflake Schema
13 5 (0.66%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 49 (6.42%) Git
2 47 (6.16%) JIRA
3 34 (4.46%) GitLab
4 31 (4.06%) Jenkins
5 13 (1.70%) Cucumber
5 13 (1.70%) Cypress.io
6 12 (1.57%) Postman
6 12 (1.57%) Selenium
7 11 (1.44%) WebDriver
8 8 (1.05%) fastlane
8 8 (1.05%) JUnit
8 8 (1.05%) Mockito
9 7 (0.92%) Gradle
10 6 (0.79%) JMeter
10 6 (0.79%) Vite
11 5 (0.66%) Gatling
11 5 (0.66%) LoadRunner
11 5 (0.66%) Visual Studio
12 4 (0.52%) Android Studio
12 4 (0.52%) CircleCI
General
1 324 (42.46%) Social Skills
2 238 (31.19%) Public Sector
3 194 (25.43%) Finance
4 121 (15.86%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (4.98%) Organisational Skills
6 27 (3.54%) Local Government
7 26 (3.41%) Manufacturing
8 25 (3.28%) Banking
9 21 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
9 21 (2.75%) Influencing Skills
10 17 (2.23%) Law
10 17 (2.23%) Retail
11 15 (1.97%) Marketing
12 14 (1.83%) Telecoms
13 13 (1.70%) Legal
14 10 (1.31%) Back Office
15 8 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
16 7 (0.92%) Military
16 7 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
16 7 (0.92%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 126 (16.51%) Developer
2 110 (14.42%) Analyst
3 102 (13.37%) Senior
4 81 (10.62%) Lead
5 60 (7.86%) Architect
6 38 (4.98%) Consultant
7 33 (4.33%) Senior Developer
8 29 (3.80%) Business Analyst
9 28 (3.67%) Data Engineer
10 27 (3.54%) Administrator
10 27 (3.54%) DevOps Engineer
11 25 (3.28%) Data Analyst
12 24 (3.15%) Software Developer
13 22 (2.88%) Dynamics 365 Developer
14 21 (2.75%) Support Engineer
15 19 (2.49%) Coordinator
16 18 (2.36%) IT Engineer
16 18 (2.36%) Project Manager
17 17 (2.23%) Senior Analyst
18 16 (2.10%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (11.14%) Terraform
2 50 (6.55%) RESTful
3 31 (4.06%) .NET
3 31 (4.06%) React
4 30 (3.93%) Node.js
5 28 (3.67%) HTML
6 27 (3.54%) CSS
6 27 (3.54%) Kafka
7 26 (3.41%) GraphQL
7 26 (3.41%) JSON
8 25 (3.28%) REST
9 19 (2.49%) Spring
9 19 (2.49%) Spring Boot
10 17 (2.23%) Django
11 15 (1.97%) PySpark
11 15 (1.97%) XML
12 14 (1.83%) XSLT
13 13 (1.70%) Gherkin
13 13 (1.70%) OAuth
14 12 (1.57%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 75 (9.83%) Onboarding
2 49 (6.42%) Product Ownership
3 42 (5.50%) Cloud Native
4 28 (3.67%) Management Information System
5 22 (2.88%) Distributed Systems
6 20 (2.62%) Data Structures
6 20 (2.62%) Legacy Systems
7 13 (1.70%) AI Agents
7 13 (1.70%) Data Centre
8 12 (1.57%) Taxonomies
9 11 (1.44%) Virtual Team
10 10 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
10 10 (1.31%) Self-Motivation
11 9 (1.18%) Driving Licence
11 9 (1.18%) Mobile App
11 9 (1.18%) NHS
12 8 (1.05%) Blog
12 8 (1.05%) Replication
13 7 (0.92%) Security Posture
14 6 (0.79%) EPoS
Operating Systems
1 80 (10.48%) Windows
2 22 (2.88%) Linux
3 18 (2.36%) Windows 10
3 18 (2.36%) Windows Server
4 13 (1.70%) Apple iOS
5 12 (1.57%) Android
6 9 (1.18%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.66%) Unix
8 4 (0.52%) Windows 7
9 3 (0.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.26%) AIX
10 2 (0.26%) VMS
10 2 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 275 (36.04%) Agile
2 181 (23.72%) Problem-Solving
3 169 (22.15%) DevOps
4 166 (21.76%) CI/CD
5 160 (20.97%) Stakeholder Management
6 137 (17.96%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 135 (17.69%) Continuous Improvement
8 123 (16.12%) AI
9 122 (15.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 104 (13.63%) Decision-Making
11 99 (12.98%) Analytics
12 84 (11.01%) Mentoring
13 79 (10.35%) Test Automation
14 74 (9.70%) Technical Leadership
15 72 (9.44%) Migration
15 72 (9.44%) Validation
16 71 (9.31%) Data Modelling
16 71 (9.31%) Infrastructure as Code
17 67 (8.78%) Digital Transformation Programme
18 64 (8.39%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 112 (14.68%) Python
2 104 (13.63%) SQL
3 81 (10.62%) JavaScript
4 54 (7.08%) C#
5 43 (5.64%) Java
6 34 (4.46%) TypeScript
7 15 (1.97%) Kotlin
7 15 (1.97%) Scala
8 14 (1.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 12 (1.57%) Bash
9 12 (1.57%) PowerShell
10 10 (1.31%) Go
11 9 (1.18%) Ruby
11 9 (1.18%) Swift
12 8 (1.05%) Bicep
13 6 (0.79%) Groovy
13 6 (0.79%) PL/SQL
14 5 (0.66%) PHP
15 4 (0.52%) C++
15 4 (0.52%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 176 (23.07%) Security Cleared
2 166 (21.76%) SC Cleared
3 68 (8.91%) Degree
4 37 (4.85%) Microsoft Certification
5 31 (4.06%) BPSS Clearance
6 29 (3.80%) Azure Certification
7 28 (3.67%) DBS Check
8 26 (3.41%) Computer Science Degree
9 15 (1.97%) Master's Degree
10 13 (1.70%) ISTQB
11 7 (0.92%) AWS Certification
11 7 (0.92%) CISSP
12 6 (0.79%) ACCA
12 6 (0.79%) CIMA
12 6 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
13 5 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 5 (0.66%) CISM
13 5 (0.66%) PhD
13 5 (0.66%) PMP
14 4 (0.52%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 109 (14.29%) Accessibility
2 57 (7.47%) QA
3 52 (6.82%) WCAG
4 49 (6.42%) GDPR
5 45 (5.90%) Data Quality
6 21 (2.75%) SLA
7 19 (2.49%) NCSC
8 17 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 11 (1.44%) PMO
10 9 (1.18%) NIST
11 6 (0.79%) GRC
12 5 (0.66%) Actionable Recommendations
12 5 (0.66%) COBIT
13 4 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
14 3 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 3 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
15 2 (0.26%) Def Stans
15 2 (0.26%) DICOM
15 2 (0.26%) HL7
16 1 (0.13%) JSP 440
System Software
1 66 (8.65%) Docker
2 43 (5.64%) Active Directory
3 12 (1.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (1.31%) Hyper-V
5 6 (0.79%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.39%) Firmware
8 2 (0.26%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 2 (0.26%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.26%) vSphere
9 1 (0.13%) KVM
9 1 (0.13%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 71 (9.31%) Kubernetes
2 38 (4.98%) Grafana
3 28 (3.67%) Prometheus
4 20 (2.62%) Microsoft Intune
5 17 (2.23%) Ansible
6 14 (1.83%) SCCM
7 7 (0.92%) Kibana
7 7 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.66%) Consul
9 4 (0.52%) Rancher
10 3 (0.39%) Packer
11 2 (0.26%) HP ALM
11 2 (0.26%) HP Quality Center
11 2 (0.26%) ITRS Geneos
11 2 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.26%) ZABBIX
11 2 (0.26%) Zipkin
12 1 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 1 (0.13%) Kustomize
12 1 (0.13%) VxRail
Vendors
1 186 (24.38%) Microsoft
2 32 (4.19%) Google
3 29 (3.80%) Dynatrace
4 24 (3.15%) Databricks
5 23 (3.01%) ServiceNow
6 21 (2.75%) Oracle
7 19 (2.49%) Salesforce
8 14 (1.83%) SAP
8 14 (1.83%) Splunk
8 14 (1.83%) VMware
9 11 (1.44%) Apple
9 11 (1.44%) CyberArk
9 11 (1.44%) OpenAI
9 11 (1.44%) Sage
10 9 (1.18%) Cisco
10 9 (1.18%) PagerDuty
11 8 (1.05%) Qualys
11 8 (1.05%) UiPath
12 7 (0.92%) CA Agile Central
12 7 (0.92%) Confluent