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 30 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 221 146 158
Rank change year-on-year -75 +12 +32
Contract jobs citing Inclusion and Diversity 617 601 649
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.20% 1.96% 1.50%
As % of the General category 2.21% 3.10% 2.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 300 240 436
10th Percentile £306 £182 £413
25th Percentile £376 £381 £520
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £600
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -16.67% -
75th Percentile £588 £638 £700
90th Percentile £675 £675 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £503
% change year-on-year - -10.45% +0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 14 22
10th Percentile £18.40 - £11.37
25th Percentile £19.00 - £12.56
Median hourly rate £22.64 £22.14 £21.32
Median % change year-on-year +2.24% +3.85% -47.36%
75th Percentile £44.50 - £44.18
90th Percentile £106.30 £50.00 £56.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £94.75 £22.14 £17.60
% change year-on-year +327.96% +25.80% -76.22%

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 27,939 19,359 24,652
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.44% 63.27% 57.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,796 12,166 15,404
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £516 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.27% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £490
% change year-on-year +6.38% -4.08% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,916 953 1,974
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.47 £12.79
25th Percentile £18.14 £16.41 £15.62
Median hourly rate £32.00 £27.50 £31.61
Median % change year-on-year +16.36% -12.99% +5.35%
75th Percentile £60.00 £53.50 £53.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.53 £23.55 £30.37
% change year-on-year +33.87% -22.46% +20.88%

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 30 June 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 30 June 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 30 June 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 -79 535 £490 -4.39% 648
London -64 286 £525 -8.70% 326
UK excluding London -100 261 £450 - 476
Work from Home -34 257 £528 -1.40% 327
Midlands -52 75 £525 +17.98% 65
South East -52 72 £425 -16.26% 157
West Midlands -36 60 £525 +22.09% 36
North of England -95 55 £425 +6.25% 99
North East - 28 £425 - 15
Scotland -21 21 £250 -45.95% 32
East of England -25 18 £338 +3.85% 28
South West -35 18 £475 -15.59% 61
East Midlands -26 15 £133 -70.56% 29
Yorkshire -86 15 £375 -5.66% 27
North West -59 12 £365 -14.21% 57
Northern Ireland +1 1 - - 25
Wales -16 1 £700 +62.57% 20

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 23 (3.73%) SharePoint
2 15 (2.43%) Apache Spark
3 12 (1.94%) Microsoft Exchange
4 11 (1.78%) Apache Airflow
5 10 (1.62%) Confluence
6 8 (1.30%) CMS
7 5 (0.81%) Apache
7 5 (0.81%) WordPress
8 4 (0.65%) Kentico
9 3 (0.49%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.32%) Skype for Business
11 1 (0.16%) Drupal
11 1 (0.16%) nginx
11 1 (0.16%) SAS
11 1 (0.16%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 22 (3.57%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (1.94%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.49%) AutoCAD
4 2 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.32%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.32%) Sketch
4 2 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.32%) Trello
5 1 (0.16%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.16%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.16%) InVision
5 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 12 (1.94%) NetSuite
2 9 (1.46%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
4 5 (0.81%) Sage X3
5 4 (0.65%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.32%) SAP Business One
7 1 (0.16%) Advent Geneva
7 1 (0.16%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.16%) Hyperion Planning
7 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.16%) Oracle Financials
7 1 (0.16%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.16%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.16%) SAP FS
7 1 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.16%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 167 (27.07%) Azure
2 105 (17.02%) AWS
3 51 (8.27%) Azure DevOps
4 44 (7.13%) Power Platform
5 42 (6.81%) Microsoft 365
6 40 (6.48%) GCP
7 34 (5.51%) GitHub
8 26 (4.21%) GitHub Actions
9 23 (3.73%) Entra ID
10 19 (3.08%) dbt
10 19 (3.08%) Snowflake
11 17 (2.76%) Azure Data Factory
11 17 (2.76%) Serverless
12 15 (2.43%) Dynamics 365
13 13 (2.11%) Power Automate
14 12 (1.94%) Amazon EKS
15 11 (1.78%) SaaS
16 10 (1.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 10 (1.62%) AWS Lambda
16 10 (1.62%) Firebase
Communications & Networking
1 20 (3.24%) TCP/IP
2 15 (2.43%) Ethernet
3 11 (1.78%) Network Security
4 9 (1.46%) Firewall
4 9 (1.46%) WAN
5 8 (1.30%) DNS
5 8 (1.30%) VLAN
5 8 (1.30%) Wi-Fi
6 6 (0.97%) DHCP
6 6 (0.97%) HTTP
6 6 (0.97%) SD-WAN
6 6 (0.97%) VSAN
7 5 (0.81%) VPN
8 4 (0.65%) MPLS
9 3 (0.49%) BGP
9 3 (0.49%) Ethernet VPN
9 3 (0.49%) LAN
9 3 (0.49%) OSPF
9 3 (0.49%) Structured Cabling
9 3 (0.49%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (6.32%) Power BI
2 29 (4.70%) Data Warehouse
3 26 (4.21%) SQL Server
4 21 (3.40%) PostgreSQL
5 13 (2.11%) Big Data
6 12 (1.94%) Hadoop
7 11 (1.78%) Metadata
8 9 (1.46%) NoSQL
8 9 (1.46%) Snowflake Schema
9 8 (1.30%) Azure SQL Database
9 8 (1.30%) Db2
10 7 (1.13%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 7 (1.13%) Tableau
11 6 (0.97%) Amazon RDS
11 6 (0.97%) Data Lake
11 6 (0.97%) Geospatial Data
11 6 (0.97%) Looker
11 6 (0.97%) MongoDB
11 6 (0.97%) Redis
12 5 (0.81%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 31 (5.02%) JIRA
2 28 (4.54%) Jenkins
3 21 (3.40%) Git
4 19 (3.08%) GitLab
5 10 (1.62%) fastlane
6 7 (1.13%) Selenium
7 6 (0.97%) JMeter
7 6 (0.97%) Vite
8 5 (0.81%) Android Studio
8 5 (0.81%) Crashlytics
8 5 (0.81%) Cucumber
8 5 (0.81%) Cypress.io
8 5 (0.81%) Gatling
8 5 (0.81%) Gradle
8 5 (0.81%) JUnit
8 5 (0.81%) LoadRunner
8 5 (0.81%) Mockito
8 5 (0.81%) Postman
8 5 (0.81%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.81%) Xcode
General
1 211 (34.20%) Social Skills
2 172 (27.88%) Finance
3 144 (23.34%) Public Sector
4 86 (13.94%) Analytical Skills
5 26 (4.21%) Banking
6 18 (2.92%) Law
6 18 (2.92%) Organisational Skills
6 18 (2.92%) Presentation Skills
7 16 (2.59%) Legal
8 15 (2.43%) Manufacturing
9 12 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
9 12 (1.94%) Influencing Skills
10 11 (1.78%) Pharmaceutical
11 10 (1.62%) Marketing
12 8 (1.30%) Local Government
12 8 (1.30%) Retail
12 8 (1.30%) Telecoms
13 5 (0.81%) Billing
13 5 (0.81%) General Ledger
14 4 (0.65%) Police
Job Titles
1 82 (13.29%) Analyst
2 76 (12.32%) Developer
3 66 (10.70%) Senior
4 59 (9.56%) Lead
5 40 (6.48%) Architect
6 39 (6.32%) Consultant
7 38 (6.16%) Data Engineer
8 24 (3.89%) Data Analyst
9 23 (3.73%) DevOps Engineer
10 22 (3.57%) Business Analyst
11 21 (3.40%) Support Engineer
12 19 (3.08%) IT Support
12 19 (3.08%) Senior Developer
13 17 (2.76%) IT Engineer
14 16 (2.59%) Project Manager
14 16 (2.59%) Systems Engineer
15 15 (2.43%) Technical Engineer
16 14 (2.27%) Azure Engineer
16 14 (2.27%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 12 (1.94%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (4.54%) RESTful
2 21 (3.40%) .NET
2 21 (3.40%) GraphQL
2 21 (3.40%) React
3 16 (2.59%) REST
4 14 (2.27%) Kafka
5 13 (2.11%) HTML
5 13 (2.11%) PySpark
6 12 (1.94%) CSS
6 12 (1.94%) Spring
6 12 (1.94%) Spring Boot
7 10 (1.62%) Node.js
8 9 (1.46%) JSON
9 8 (1.30%) Django
10 7 (1.13%) ARM Templates
10 7 (1.13%) Middleware
10 7 (1.13%) Next.js
10 7 (1.13%) RabbitMQ
11 6 (0.97%) Gherkin
11 6 (0.97%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 51 (8.27%) Onboarding
2 36 (5.83%) Cloud Native
3 28 (4.54%) Product Ownership
4 20 (3.24%) Distributed Systems
5 19 (3.08%) Legacy Systems
6 17 (2.76%) Data Centre
7 15 (2.43%) Industry 4.0
7 15 (2.43%) Robotics
8 14 (2.27%) Data Structures
9 10 (1.62%) Mobile App
10 9 (1.46%) Linux Command Line
11 8 (1.30%) Algorithms
11 8 (1.30%) Management Information System
11 8 (1.30%) Security Posture
12 7 (1.13%) Enterprise Software
13 6 (0.97%) EPoS
13 6 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
14 5 (0.81%) Reinsurance
14 5 (0.81%) Replication
14 5 (0.81%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 59 (9.56%) Windows
2 19 (3.08%) Linux
3 18 (2.92%) Windows 10
4 17 (2.76%) Windows Server
5 11 (1.78%) Android
5 11 (1.78%) Apple iOS
6 9 (1.46%) Unix
7 6 (0.97%) AIX
8 3 (0.49%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.49%) Windows 7
9 2 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.32%) VMS
10 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 158 (25.61%) Agile
2 152 (24.64%) Problem-Solving
3 121 (19.61%) CI/CD
4 114 (18.48%) DevOps
5 107 (17.34%) Decision-Making
6 96 (15.56%) Stakeholder Management
7 92 (14.91%) Analytics
8 81 (13.13%) Continuous Improvement
9 75 (12.16%) AI
9 75 (12.16%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
10 69 (11.18%) Migration
11 65 (10.53%) Infrastructure as Code
12 58 (9.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 57 (9.24%) Test Automation
14 54 (8.75%) Mentoring
15 51 (8.27%) Data Modelling
16 47 (7.62%) Validation
17 46 (7.46%) Business Intelligence
18 44 (7.13%) Data Pipeline
19 42 (6.81%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 109 (17.67%) Python
2 92 (14.91%) SQL
3 41 (6.65%) Java
4 37 (6.00%) JavaScript
5 25 (4.05%) C#
6 24 (3.89%) TypeScript
7 23 (3.73%) PowerShell
8 15 (2.43%) Bash
9 12 (1.94%) Kotlin
10 11 (1.78%) R
11 10 (1.62%) Swift
12 8 (1.30%) Bicep
12 8 (1.30%) Go
13 6 (0.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 6 (0.97%) Ruby
14 5 (0.81%) Scala
14 5 (0.81%) VBA
15 4 (0.65%) Groovy
15 4 (0.65%) PL/SQL
15 4 (0.65%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 99 (16.05%) Security Cleared
2 92 (14.91%) SC Cleared
3 52 (8.43%) Degree
4 21 (3.40%) DBS Check
5 16 (2.59%) Azure Certification
5 16 (2.59%) BPSS Clearance
6 13 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
7 11 (1.78%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (1.13%) AWS Certification
9 6 (0.97%) Master's Degree
10 5 (0.81%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 5 (0.81%) ISTQB
10 5 (0.81%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (0.65%) PMP
12 3 (0.49%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 2 (0.32%) ACCA
13 2 (0.32%) CIPD
13 2 (0.32%) CRISC
13 2 (0.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 2 (0.32%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 60 (9.72%) Accessibility
2 36 (5.83%) Data Quality
3 25 (4.05%) QA
4 22 (3.57%) WCAG
5 19 (3.08%) GDPR
6 12 (1.94%) SLA
7 10 (1.62%) Actionable Recommendations
8 9 (1.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 8 (1.30%) PMO
10 7 (1.13%) NCSC
11 5 (0.81%) COBIT
12 4 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
12 4 (0.65%) GRC
13 3 (0.49%) NIST
14 2 (0.32%) Def Stans
15 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 1 (0.16%) Disclosure Scotland
15 1 (0.16%) ISO 22301
15 1 (0.16%) ISO 31000
15 1 (0.16%) PSD2
System Software
1 50 (8.10%) Docker
2 40 (6.48%) Active Directory
3 13 (2.11%) Hyper-V
4 11 (1.78%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (0.97%) KVM
5 6 (0.97%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.97%) VMware NSX
5 6 (0.97%) vSphere
6 4 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.32%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 2 (0.32%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.16%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 69 (11.18%) Terraform
2 50 (8.10%) Kubernetes
3 22 (3.57%) Grafana
4 19 (3.08%) Prometheus
5 17 (2.76%) Ansible
6 13 (2.11%) SCCM
7 11 (1.78%) Microsoft Intune
8 8 (1.30%) Kibana
9 6 (0.97%) IBM BigFix
9 6 (0.97%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.65%) Consul
10 4 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.49%) Rancher
12 2 (0.32%) HP ALM
12 2 (0.32%) HP Quality Center
12 2 (0.32%) ITRS Geneos
12 2 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
12 2 (0.32%) Packer
12 2 (0.32%) Zipkin
13 1 (0.16%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 109 (17.67%) Microsoft
2 27 (4.38%) Databricks
3 26 (4.21%) Google
4 23 (3.73%) Salesforce
5 22 (3.57%) SAP
6 21 (3.40%) Dynatrace
6 21 (3.40%) ServiceNow
7 15 (2.43%) Siemens
8 14 (2.27%) Oracle
9 12 (1.94%) CyberArk
9 12 (1.94%) VMware
10 9 (1.46%) PagerDuty
11 7 (1.13%) IBM
11 7 (1.13%) Qualys
11 7 (1.13%) Sage
12 6 (0.97%) Apple
13 5 (0.81%) Cisco
14 4 (0.65%) Atlassian
14 4 (0.65%) OpenAI
15 3 (0.49%) Acronis