Influencing Skills Contract Job Trends

Influencing Skills
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Influencing Skills in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Influencing Skills over the 6 months leading up to 9 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 200 240 204
Rank change year-on-year +40 -36 -24
Contract jobs citing Influencing Skills 602 318 489
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.26% 1.09% 1.13%
As % of the General category 2.33% 1.72% 1.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 414 198 287
10th Percentile £407 £393 £400
25th Percentile £463 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% - -2.22%
75th Percentile £679 £628 £681
90th Percentile £884 £752 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £506 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -3.62% +5.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 11 63
10th Percentile £29.20 £19.91 £22.66
25th Percentile £37.00 £23.46 -
Median hourly rate £85.00 £32.50 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +161.54% -14.74% -38.02%
75th Percentile £102.50 £76.03 -
90th Percentile £103.95 £87.05 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £97.23 £32.50 £38.12
% change year-on-year +199.17% -14.74% -38.02%

All General Skills
UK

Influencing Skills 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 25,814 18,467 25,035
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.09% 63.31% 58.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,819 11,773 15,784
10th Percentile £306 £294 £275
25th Percentile £406 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £769
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +0.63% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,647 781 1,939
10th Percentile £13.86 £14.00 £12.77
25th Percentile £17.50 £17.44 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.82% -10.24%
75th Percentile £61.18 £56.00 £52.78
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.74 £24.66 £28.50
% change year-on-year +12.49% -13.47% -1.72%

Influencing Skills
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Influencing Skills job vacancy trend in the UK

Influencing Skills
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Influencing Skills

Influencing Skills
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Influencing Skills over the 6 months to 9 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Influencing Skills in the UK

Influencing Skills
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Influencing Skills

Influencing Skills
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Influencing Skills over the 6 months to 9 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Influencing Skills in the UK

Influencing Skills
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 Influencing Skills within the UK over the 6 months to 9 May 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 +39 521 £575 +4.55% 380
London +35 284 £600 +6.67% 162
UK excluding London -9 260 £506 -3.62% 240
Work from Home +39 199 £550 +4.76% 177
North of England -12 82 £475 -5.00% 68
South East -28 63 £600 -2.64% 66
Midlands -36 49 £500 -4.76% 46
North West -10 46 £463 +2.78% 36
West Midlands -36 39 £500 -9.09% 30
Yorkshire -29 31 £525 -6.67% 24
Scotland -2 29 £438 -8.66% 10
South West -24 27 £600 - 28
East Midlands -30 9 £520 -0.95% 16
East of England -41 8 £570 +13.21% 24
North East -14 5 £500 - 8
Wales -10 4 £550 -10.20% 3
Northern Ireland +4 1 £385 - 2

Influencing Skills
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 25 (4.15%) Confluence
2 14 (2.33%) SharePoint
3 11 (1.83%) CICS
4 5 (0.83%) CMS
4 5 (0.83%) NetWeaver
4 5 (0.83%) SAP EP
5 3 (0.50%) SAS
6 2 (0.33%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.33%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.17%) Appian
7 1 (0.17%) Drupal
7 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 43 (7.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 20 (3.32%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (3.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (1.66%) MS Visio
4 8 (1.33%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.33%) Photoshop
5 2 (0.33%) Sketch
6 1 (0.17%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.17%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.17%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.17%) InVision
6 1 (0.17%) OmniGraffle
6 1 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 29 (4.82%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (1.33%) Oracle EBS
3 5 (0.83%) SAP CRM
4 4 (0.66%) NetSuite
5 3 (0.50%) Aladdin
5 3 (0.50%) SAP CO
5 3 (0.50%) SAP FI
5 3 (0.50%) SAP FI/CO
5 3 (0.50%) Workday HCM
6 2 (0.33%) Dynamics CRM
6 2 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.33%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.33%) SAP MDG
6 2 (0.33%) SAP MDG-F
7 1 (0.17%) Loan IQ
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 1 (0.17%) SAP Business One
7 1 (0.17%) SAP SCM
Cloud Services
1 73 (12.13%) Azure
2 59 (9.80%) AWS
3 38 (6.31%) Power Platform
4 34 (5.65%) SaaS
5 25 (4.15%) GCP
6 21 (3.49%) Microsoft 365
7 18 (2.99%) Azure DevOps
8 13 (2.16%) OpenShift
8 13 (2.16%) SuccessFactors
9 12 (1.99%) GitHub
10 11 (1.83%) PaaS
11 7 (1.16%) Figma
11 7 (1.16%) Snowflake
12 6 (1.00%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (1.00%) iPaaS
13 5 (0.83%) Microsoft Purview
14 4 (0.66%) Entra ID
14 4 (0.66%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
14 4 (0.66%) Salesforce Service Cloud
14 4 (0.66%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 16 (2.66%) Firewall
2 4 (0.66%) Intranet
3 3 (0.50%) WAN
4 2 (0.33%) Broadband
4 2 (0.33%) Internet
4 2 (0.33%) LAN
4 2 (0.33%) MPLS
4 2 (0.33%) Network Security
4 2 (0.33%) SD-WAN
4 2 (0.33%) VPN
5 1 (0.17%) BGP
5 1 (0.17%) Cisco Nexus
5 1 (0.17%) Cisco Wireless
5 1 (0.17%) Ethernet VPN
5 1 (0.17%) MIMO
5 1 (0.17%) Multicast
5 1 (0.17%) OSPF
5 1 (0.17%) Radio Access Network
5 1 (0.17%) RSVP
5 1 (0.17%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (5.15%) Power BI
2 16 (2.66%) Metadata
3 10 (1.66%) Data Lake
3 10 (1.66%) Data Warehouse
3 10 (1.66%) DataStage
4 9 (1.50%) Oracle Reports
5 8 (1.33%) Tableau
6 5 (0.83%) NoSQL
6 5 (0.83%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 3 (0.50%) Electronic Patient Records
7 3 (0.50%) Pentaho
7 3 (0.50%) SQL Server
8 2 (0.33%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.33%) Big Data
8 2 (0.33%) GIS
8 2 (0.33%) PostgreSQL
8 2 (0.33%) Power Query
8 2 (0.33%) Relational Database
9 1 (0.17%) Amazon Redshift
9 1 (0.17%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 38 (6.31%) JIRA
2 20 (3.32%) Jenkins
3 9 (1.50%) Git
4 5 (0.83%) GitLab
5 2 (0.33%) IBM UrbanCode
5 2 (0.33%) MSI
5 2 (0.33%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (0.17%) Axure RP
6 1 (0.17%) Balsamiq
6 1 (0.17%) CircleCI
6 1 (0.17%) Cucumber
6 1 (0.17%) Selenium
6 1 (0.17%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.17%) WebDriver
General
1 314 (52.16%) Social Skills
2 209 (34.72%) Finance
3 104 (17.28%) Analytical Skills
4 88 (14.62%) Public Sector
5 46 (7.64%) Legal
6 37 (6.15%) Presentation Skills
7 36 (5.98%) Banking
8 22 (3.65%) Documentation Skills
8 22 (3.65%) Retail
9 19 (3.16%) Marketing
10 18 (2.99%) Local Government
10 18 (2.99%) Organisational Skills
11 15 (2.49%) Law
12 14 (2.33%) Financial Institution
12 14 (2.33%) Telecoms
13 13 (2.16%) Front Office
14 10 (1.66%) Aerospace
14 10 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 7 (1.16%) Aviation
15 7 (1.16%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 113 (18.77%) Architect
2 99 (16.45%) Lead
3 79 (13.12%) Analyst
4 69 (11.46%) Senior
5 62 (10.30%) Business Analyst
6 44 (7.31%) Project Manager
7 28 (4.65%) Programme Manager
8 25 (4.15%) Designer
8 25 (4.15%) Technical Architect
9 22 (3.65%) Consultant
9 22 (3.65%) Solutions Architect
10 19 (3.16%) Enterprise Architect
11 18 (2.99%) Change Manager
12 16 (2.66%) Senior Analyst
13 15 (2.49%) Product Manager
13 15 (2.49%) Security Architect
13 15 (2.49%) Senior Manager
14 14 (2.33%) Business Manager
14 14 (2.33%) IT Manager
14 14 (2.33%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (2.82%) Middleware
2 14 (2.33%) LDAP
2 14 (2.33%) OpenID
2 14 (2.33%) SAML
3 8 (1.33%) Oracle Fusion
4 7 (1.16%) Kafka
5 6 (1.00%) SAP Fiori
5 6 (1.00%) SAPUI5
6 5 (0.83%) REST
6 5 (0.83%) SAP PI
7 4 (0.66%) VML
8 3 (0.50%) Node.js
8 3 (0.50%) Pandas
8 3 (0.50%) React
8 3 (0.50%) Spring
9 2 (0.33%) AngularJS
9 2 (0.33%) GraphQL
9 2 (0.33%) PySpark
9 2 (0.33%) PyTorch
9 2 (0.33%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 39 (6.48%) Onboarding
2 37 (6.15%) Cloud Native
3 34 (5.65%) Product Ownership
4 24 (3.99%) Distributed Systems
5 23 (3.82%) Management Information System
6 21 (3.49%) Data Centre
7 15 (2.49%) Self-Motivation
8 13 (2.16%) Data Protection Act
8 13 (2.16%) Public Cloud
9 12 (1.99%) AI Agents
10 10 (1.66%) BYOD
10 10 (1.66%) Mainframe
10 10 (1.66%) VSAM
11 9 (1.50%) NHS
11 9 (1.50%) Virtual Team
12 8 (1.33%) Analytical Mindset
13 7 (1.16%) PMI
14 6 (1.00%) Data Structures
14 6 (1.00%) Enterprise Software
15 5 (0.83%) Learning Management System
Operating Systems
1 17 (2.82%) Linux
2 10 (1.66%) AIX
2 10 (1.66%) Solaris
2 10 (1.66%) Unix
3 7 (1.16%) Windows
4 6 (1.00%) VMS
5 3 (0.50%) Android
5 3 (0.50%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.17%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.17%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 243 (40.37%) Stakeholder Management
2 183 (30.40%) Agile
3 137 (22.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 119 (19.77%) Continuous Improvement
5 117 (19.44%) Problem-Solving
6 113 (18.77%) Decision-Making
7 106 (17.61%) Roadmaps
8 90 (14.95%) AI
9 77 (12.79%) Project Management
10 67 (11.13%) DevOps
11 62 (10.30%) ERP
12 61 (10.13%) Change Management
13 57 (9.47%) CI/CD
14 52 (8.64%) Analytics
14 52 (8.64%) Coaching
14 52 (8.64%) Project Delivery
15 51 (8.47%) Mentoring
16 50 (8.31%) Migration
17 48 (7.97%) Risk Management
18 46 (7.64%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 46 (7.64%) Python
2 33 (5.48%) Java
3 21 (3.49%) SQL
4 13 (2.16%) Ruby
5 10 (1.66%) COBOL
6 7 (1.16%) PowerShell
7 5 (0.83%) ABAP
8 4 (0.66%) JavaScript
8 4 (0.66%) R
9 2 (0.33%) Go
9 2 (0.33%) PL/SQL
9 2 (0.33%) VBA
9 2 (0.33%) VBScript
10 1 (0.17%) Bicep
10 1 (0.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.17%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.17%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.17%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.17%) VB
Qualifications
1 127 (21.10%) Security Cleared
2 104 (17.28%) SC Cleared
3 73 (12.13%) Degree
4 21 (3.49%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (2.16%) PMI Certification
6 12 (1.99%) CISSP
7 10 (1.66%) PMP
8 9 (1.50%) Master's Degree
9 7 (1.16%) CISM
9 7 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
10 6 (1.00%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (1.00%) TOGAF Certification
11 5 (0.83%) AWS Certification
11 5 (0.83%) DV Cleared
12 4 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 4 (0.66%) Azure Certification
12 4 (0.66%) CSPO
12 4 (0.66%) IIBA
13 3 (0.50%) APMG
13 3 (0.50%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (4.82%) Data Quality
2 28 (4.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 26 (4.32%) QA
4 24 (3.99%) NIST
5 23 (3.82%) PMO
6 22 (3.65%) NCSC
7 18 (2.99%) Accessibility
7 18 (2.99%) GDPR
8 14 (2.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 9 (1.50%) GRC
10 7 (1.16%) SLA
10 7 (1.16%) WCAG
11 6 (1.00%) COBIT
12 5 (0.83%) Actionable Recommendations
12 5 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
13 4 (0.66%) COREP
13 4 (0.66%) FINREP
13 4 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 4 (0.66%) PCI DSS
14 3 (0.50%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 6 (1.00%) VMware Infrastructure
2 5 (0.83%) Active Directory
2 5 (0.83%) Docker
3 2 (0.33%) Microsoft App-V
3 2 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.17%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 25 (4.15%) Kubernetes
2 12 (1.99%) Terraform
3 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (0.33%) Rancher
4 1 (0.17%) Ansible
4 1 (0.17%) FortiGate
4 1 (0.17%) Grafana
4 1 (0.17%) Kibana
4 1 (0.17%) logstash
4 1 (0.17%) Nessus
4 1 (0.17%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.17%) RSA Archer
4 1 (0.17%) SCCM
Vendors
1 53 (8.80%) Microsoft
1 53 (8.80%) SAP
2 31 (5.15%) Oracle
3 22 (3.65%) ServiceNow
4 14 (2.33%) CyberArk
4 14 (2.33%) Google
5 13 (2.16%) Salesforce
5 13 (2.16%) Splunk
5 13 (2.16%) VMware
6 11 (1.83%) IBM
7 9 (1.50%) Workday
8 7 (1.16%) Ariba
9 6 (1.00%) Databricks
9 6 (1.00%) OpenAI
10 5 (0.83%) GoldenSource
10 5 (0.83%) Zscaler
11 4 (0.66%) Avaloq
11 4 (0.66%) Cisco
11 4 (0.66%) Pega
12 3 (0.50%) Adobe