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 18 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 214 144 158
Rank change year-on-year -70 +14 +20
Contract jobs citing Inclusion and Diversity 708 652 589
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.32% 1.98% 1.52%
As % of the General category 2.40% 3.12% 2.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 369 262 407
10th Percentile £306 £173 £425
25th Percentile £375 £353 £508
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £470 £600
Median % change year-on-year -4.26% -21.67% -
75th Percentile £581 £623 £688
90th Percentile £675 £660 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £430 £500
% change year-on-year -1.16% -14.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 20 6
10th Percentile £14.85 £17.48 £27.61
25th Percentile £17.36 - £36.28
Median hourly rate £19.65 £22.14 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.27% -50.80% -16.86%
75th Percentile £28.81 £22.23 £48.44
90th Percentile £54.80 £60.00 £53.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.90 £22.14 £34.21
% change year-on-year +44.06% -35.28% -51.73%

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 29,482 20,875 22,222
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.05% 63.50% 57.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,469 12,963 13,968
10th Percentile £313 £275 £290
25th Percentile £415 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £626 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,257 1,147 1,334
10th Percentile £13.99 £13.25 £14.06
25th Percentile £17.25 £16.25 £16.88
Median hourly rate £31.56 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +25.47% -34.02% +38.62%
75th Percentile £57.50 £50.25 £58.65
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.06 £70.23
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £22.14 £38.12
% change year-on-year +46.79% -41.92% +52.48%

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 18 August 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 18 August 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 18 August 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 -75 623 £475 -4.04% 848
UK excluding London -63 323 £425 -1.16% 772
London -61 322 £510 -7.27% 292
Work from Home -33 266 £525 -1.87% 381
Midlands -21 103 £509 +18.26% 114
South East -50 81 £450 -11.33% 229
West Midlands -14 78 £525 +25.00% 60
North of England -82 74 £425 +7.59% 177
North East +2 45 £425 +6.25% 34
South West -36 27 £475 -15.56% 131
East Midlands -17 25 £165 -63.33% 53
Scotland -21 22 £250 -45.95% 41
Yorkshire -82 15 £400 +100.00% 59
North West -54 14 £518 +29.38% 84
East of England -35 8 £425 +174.19% 51
Wales -15 7 £394 +18.90% 17
Northern Ireland +3 1 - - 32

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 31 (4.38%) SharePoint
2 16 (2.26%) Confluence
3 12 (1.69%) Apache Airflow
4 11 (1.55%) CMS
4 11 (1.55%) Microsoft Exchange
5 9 (1.27%) Apache Spark
5 9 (1.27%) WordPress
6 6 (0.85%) Apache
7 4 (0.56%) Kentico
8 3 (0.42%) Jupyter
9 2 (0.28%) Skype for Business
10 1 (0.14%) Drupal
10 1 (0.14%) JBoss
10 1 (0.14%) SAS
10 1 (0.14%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 18 (2.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
3 6 (0.85%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (0.42%) AutoCAD
4 3 (0.42%) Trello
5 2 (0.28%) Acrobat
5 2 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.28%) Sketch
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.14%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.14%) InVision
6 1 (0.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 16 (2.26%) NetSuite
2 11 (1.55%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (1.27%) SAP S/4HANA
4 5 (0.71%) Sage X3
4 5 (0.71%) Salesforce CRM
4 5 (0.71%) Workday HCM
5 4 (0.56%) Dynamics NAV
5 4 (0.56%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.28%) SAP Business One
7 1 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
7 1 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
7 1 (0.14%) Hyperion Planning
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.14%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.14%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.14%) SAP FS
7 1 (0.14%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 214 (30.23%) Azure
2 124 (17.51%) AWS
3 76 (10.73%) Azure DevOps
4 70 (9.89%) Power Platform
5 64 (9.04%) Microsoft 365
6 49 (6.92%) GCP
7 40 (5.65%) GitHub
8 33 (4.66%) Dynamics 365
9 32 (4.52%) GitHub Actions
10 29 (4.10%) Serverless
11 28 (3.95%) Entra ID
12 26 (3.67%) Power Automate
13 22 (3.11%) Azure Data Factory
13 22 (3.11%) Snowflake
14 19 (2.68%) Amazon EKS
15 18 (2.54%) AWS Lambda
16 17 (2.40%) dbt
17 15 (2.12%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 14 (1.98%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 14 (1.98%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.98%) DNS
1 14 (1.98%) Firewall
1 14 (1.98%) Network Security
2 12 (1.69%) VPN
3 11 (1.55%) VLAN
3 11 (1.55%) Wi-Fi
4 10 (1.41%) DHCP
4 10 (1.41%) Wireless
5 7 (0.99%) HTTP
6 6 (0.85%) Structured Cabling
6 6 (0.85%) TCP/IP
6 6 (0.85%) WAN
7 5 (0.71%) SD-WAN
8 4 (0.56%) BGP
8 4 (0.56%) OSPF
9 3 (0.42%) Ethernet VPN
9 3 (0.42%) MPLS
9 3 (0.42%) SSL
9 3 (0.42%) VXLAN
10 2 (0.28%) Cisco IOS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (7.06%) Power BI
2 34 (4.80%) Data Warehouse
3 29 (4.10%) PostgreSQL
4 20 (2.82%) SQL Server
5 14 (1.98%) Metadata
6 12 (1.69%) MongoDB
7 10 (1.41%) Big Data
8 9 (1.27%) Data Lake
8 9 (1.27%) Relational Database
9 8 (1.13%) Azure SQL Database
9 8 (1.13%) Looker
9 8 (1.13%) NoSQL
9 8 (1.13%) Power Query
9 8 (1.13%) Snowflake Schema
9 8 (1.13%) Tableau
10 7 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
10 7 (0.99%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 7 (0.99%) Redis
11 6 (0.85%) Hadoop
12 5 (0.71%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 39 (5.51%) JIRA
2 35 (4.94%) Git
3 28 (3.95%) Jenkins
4 23 (3.25%) GitLab
5 11 (1.55%) Cypress.io
5 11 (1.55%) Selenium
6 10 (1.41%) fastlane
6 10 (1.41%) Postman
7 9 (1.27%) WebDriver
8 8 (1.13%) Cucumber
9 6 (0.85%) JMeter
9 6 (0.85%) Vite
10 5 (0.71%) Android Studio
10 5 (0.71%) Gatling
10 5 (0.71%) Gradle
10 5 (0.71%) JUnit
10 5 (0.71%) LoadRunner
10 5 (0.71%) Mockito
10 5 (0.71%) Visual Studio
10 5 (0.71%) Xcode
General
1 266 (37.57%) Social Skills
2 190 (26.84%) Public Sector
3 189 (26.69%) Finance
4 103 (14.55%) Analytical Skills
5 28 (3.95%) Organisational Skills
6 23 (3.25%) Banking
7 20 (2.82%) Manufacturing
8 18 (2.54%) Influencing Skills
9 17 (2.40%) Law
10 16 (2.26%) Documentation Skills
11 15 (2.12%) Legal
12 14 (1.98%) Marketing
13 11 (1.55%) Retail
14 9 (1.27%) Local Government
14 9 (1.27%) Pharmaceutical
14 9 (1.27%) Telecoms
15 8 (1.13%) Presentation Skills
16 7 (0.99%) Aerospace
16 7 (0.99%) Publishing
17 5 (0.71%) Billing
Job Titles
1 104 (14.69%) Developer
2 100 (14.12%) Analyst
3 79 (11.16%) Senior
4 73 (10.31%) Lead
5 56 (7.91%) Architect
6 48 (6.78%) Consultant
7 33 (4.66%) Data Engineer
8 27 (3.81%) Business Analyst
8 27 (3.81%) Data Analyst
9 25 (3.53%) DevOps Engineer
9 25 (3.53%) Senior Developer
10 22 (3.11%) IT Engineer
10 22 (3.11%) Support Engineer
11 18 (2.54%) Coordinator
11 18 (2.54%) IT Support
11 18 (2.54%) Project Manager
12 16 (2.26%) Software Developer
13 15 (2.12%) Solutions Architect
14 14 (1.98%) Administrator
14 14 (1.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (5.51%) RESTful
2 29 (4.10%) React
3 28 (3.95%) .NET
4 23 (3.25%) GraphQL
4 23 (3.25%) HTML
5 22 (3.11%) CSS
6 20 (2.82%) PySpark
7 19 (2.68%) Node.js
8 18 (2.54%) Kafka
8 18 (2.54%) REST
9 17 (2.40%) Django
9 17 (2.40%) JSON
10 14 (1.98%) Spring
10 14 (1.98%) Spring Boot
11 13 (1.84%) OAuth
12 12 (1.69%) OpenID
13 11 (1.55%) Gherkin
13 11 (1.55%) OAuth2
14 9 (1.27%) Web Services
15 8 (1.13%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 64 (9.04%) Onboarding
2 41 (5.79%) Cloud Native
3 39 (5.51%) Product Ownership
4 23 (3.25%) Legacy Systems
5 21 (2.97%) Distributed Systems
6 18 (2.54%) Data Centre
7 13 (1.84%) Data Structures
8 12 (1.69%) Management Information System
9 10 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
9 10 (1.41%) Mobile App
10 9 (1.27%) Security Posture
11 7 (0.99%) EPoS
11 7 (0.99%) Replication
11 7 (0.99%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (0.99%) Virtual Team
12 6 (0.85%) Algorithms
13 5 (0.71%) Reinsurance
14 4 (0.56%) Driving Licence
14 4 (0.56%) Hybrid Cloud
14 4 (0.56%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 69 (9.75%) Windows
2 17 (2.40%) Linux
3 16 (2.26%) Windows 10
3 16 (2.26%) Windows Server
4 13 (1.84%) Apple iOS
5 12 (1.69%) Android
6 5 (0.71%) Windows 7
7 4 (0.56%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.56%) Unix
8 3 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.42%) Windows Server 2008
9 2 (0.28%) VMS
10 1 (0.14%) AIX
10 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 224 (31.64%) Agile
2 174 (24.58%) Problem-Solving
3 155 (21.89%) DevOps
4 147 (20.76%) CI/CD
5 139 (19.63%) Stakeholder Management
6 123 (17.37%) Continuous Improvement
7 110 (15.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 110 (15.54%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
8 105 (14.83%) Analytics
9 97 (13.70%) Decision-Making
10 90 (12.71%) AI
11 85 (12.01%) Migration
12 71 (10.03%) Test Automation
13 70 (9.89%) Infrastructure as Code
14 68 (9.60%) Mentoring
15 66 (9.32%) Validation
16 62 (8.76%) Digital Transformation Programme
17 60 (8.47%) Technical Leadership
18 59 (8.33%) Business Intelligence
19 55 (7.77%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 115 (16.24%) Python
2 99 (13.98%) SQL
3 58 (8.19%) JavaScript
4 42 (5.93%) C#
5 40 (5.65%) Java
6 28 (3.95%) TypeScript
7 14 (1.98%) PowerShell
8 13 (1.84%) Kotlin
9 10 (1.41%) Bash
9 10 (1.41%) Go
9 10 (1.41%) Swift
10 9 (1.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 8 (1.13%) Bicep
11 8 (1.13%) Ruby
11 8 (1.13%) Scala
12 6 (0.85%) PL/SQL
13 5 (0.71%) Groovy
13 5 (0.71%) PHP
13 5 (0.71%) R
14 4 (0.56%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 137 (19.35%) Security Cleared
2 125 (17.66%) SC Cleared
3 50 (7.06%) Degree
4 26 (3.67%) DBS Check
5 25 (3.53%) Azure Certification
6 24 (3.39%) Microsoft Certification
7 22 (3.11%) BPSS Clearance
8 20 (2.82%) Computer Science Degree
9 10 (1.41%) Master's Degree
10 9 (1.27%) ISTQB
11 7 (0.99%) CISSP
12 6 (0.85%) ACCA
12 6 (0.85%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 6 (0.85%) CIMA
12 6 (0.85%) ITIL Certification
13 5 (0.71%) AWS Certification
13 5 (0.71%) CISM
13 5 (0.71%) PMP
14 4 (0.56%) DV Cleared
15 3 (0.42%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (13.14%) Accessibility
2 43 (6.07%) QA
3 39 (5.51%) Data Quality
4 37 (5.23%) WCAG
5 31 (4.38%) GDPR
6 21 (2.97%) SLA
7 17 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 12 (1.69%) NCSC
9 9 (1.27%) PMO
10 8 (1.13%) NIST
11 7 (0.99%) Actionable Recommendations
12 6 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
12 6 (0.85%) GRC
13 5 (0.71%) COBIT
14 3 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 2 (0.28%) Def Stans
15 2 (0.28%) DICOM
15 2 (0.28%) HL7
16 1 (0.14%) ISO 22301
16 1 (0.14%) JSP 440
System Software
1 57 (8.05%) Docker
2 49 (6.92%) Active Directory
3 9 (1.27%) Hyper-V
4 7 (0.99%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.71%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.42%) Firmware
8 2 (0.28%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 2 (0.28%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.28%) vSphere
9 1 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.14%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 80 (11.30%) Terraform
2 62 (8.76%) Kubernetes
3 28 (3.95%) Grafana
4 22 (3.11%) Prometheus
5 20 (2.82%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (2.12%) Ansible
7 12 (1.69%) SCCM
8 7 (0.99%) Kibana
9 5 (0.71%) Consul
9 5 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.42%) Packer
10 3 (0.42%) Rancher
11 2 (0.28%) HP ALM
11 2 (0.28%) HP Quality Center
11 2 (0.28%) ITRS Geneos
11 2 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.28%) ZABBIX
11 2 (0.28%) Zipkin
12 1 (0.14%) PaperCut
12 1 (0.14%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 164 (23.16%) Microsoft
2 33 (4.66%) Google
3 31 (4.38%) Databricks
4 25 (3.53%) SAP
5 24 (3.39%) Dynatrace
5 24 (3.39%) Salesforce
5 24 (3.39%) ServiceNow
6 16 (2.26%) Oracle
7 12 (1.69%) CyberArk
7 12 (1.69%) Sage
8 10 (1.41%) Splunk
9 9 (1.27%) Apple
9 9 (1.27%) Cisco
9 9 (1.27%) PagerDuty
9 9 (1.27%) VMware
10 8 (1.13%) OpenAI
10 8 (1.13%) UiPath
11 7 (0.99%) Aspera
11 7 (0.99%) CA Agile Central
11 7 (0.99%) Signiant