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 15 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 201 235 219
Rank change year-on-year +34 -16 -60
Contract jobs citing Influencing Skills 513 372 501
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.41% 1.09% 1.13%
As % of the General category 2.29% 1.78% 1.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 334 221 337
10th Percentile £358 £325 £399
25th Percentile £428 £431 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £535 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.80% -2.73% -
75th Percentile £650 £638 £650
90th Percentile £775 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -7.62% -2.33% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 11 8
10th Percentile £28.95 - £19.10
25th Percentile £33.55 £25.26 £29.79
Median hourly rate £40.73 £32.50 £34.75
Median % change year-on-year +25.32% -6.47% -43.50%
75th Percentile £56.63 £75.00 £35.63
90th Percentile £85.84 £93.00 £45.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £34.50
% change year-on-year +39.88% -5.80% -43.90%

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 common skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 22,394 20,846 26,494
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 61.45% 60.80% 59.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,014 12,434 17,495
10th Percentile £275 £290 £280
25th Percentile £400 £413 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,453 739 1,086
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.32 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.50 £18.13 £16.85
Median hourly rate £23.58 £27.50 £32.75
Median % change year-on-year -14.27% -16.03% +31.00%
75th Percentile £45.46 £53.75 £59.03
90th Percentile £70.00 £70.45 £71.28
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £26.06 £30.00
% change year-on-year -15.59% -13.13% +38.12%

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 15 December 2025.

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 15 December 2025.

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 15 December 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 +46 457 £550 -4.35% 403
UK excluding London -2 253 £485 -7.62% 360
London +31 218 £600 +5.68% 124
Work from Home +18 161 £542 +1.26% 250
North of England -11 70 £475 -11.63% 76
Midlands -16 63 £450 -26.95% 39
South East +19 59 £529 +2.77% 126
North West -8 46 £475 -5.00% 53
West Midlands -17 46 £450 -26.95% 20
South West +10 30 £613 +11.36% 47
Scotland -21 22 £431 -11.90% 20
Yorkshire -28 21 £492 -17.31% 19
East Midlands -6 17 £456 +3.64% 18
East of England -19 8 £595 +18.17% 40
Wales -11 3 £308 -23.13% 21
North East - 3 £525 - 5
Northern Ireland - 1 £275 - 5

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 18 (3.51%) Confluence
2 11 (2.14%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.75%) Apache
3 9 (1.75%) JBoss
3 9 (1.75%) WebLogic
4 4 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
4 4 (0.78%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.58%) CMS
6 2 (0.39%) NetWeaver
6 2 (0.39%) SAP EP
7 1 (0.19%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.19%) nginx
7 1 (0.19%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 33 (6.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 20 (3.90%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (2.92%) Microsoft Project
4 14 (2.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (1.56%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.19%) Adobe After Effects
6 1 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.19%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.19%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.19%) Blender
6 1 (0.19%) CINEMA 4D
6 1 (0.19%) Sketch
6 1 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 19 (3.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.36%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.78%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.58%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.58%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.39%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.39%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.39%) SAP CRM
6 1 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.19%) Endur
6 1 (0.19%) HFM
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.19%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.19%) SAP IBP
6 1 (0.19%) SAP MDG
6 1 (0.19%) SAP MM
6 1 (0.19%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 1 (0.19%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 98 (19.10%) Azure
2 50 (9.75%) AWS
3 34 (6.63%) Power Platform
4 33 (6.43%) GCP
5 26 (5.07%) Azure DevOps
6 23 (4.48%) Microsoft 365
7 19 (3.70%) SaaS
8 15 (2.92%) Entra ID
9 14 (2.73%) Snowflake
10 12 (2.34%) Cloud Computing
11 7 (1.36%) IaaS
12 6 (1.17%) PaaS
13 5 (0.97%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 5 (0.97%) SuccessFactors
13 5 (0.97%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 4 (0.78%) dbt
14 4 (0.78%) Figma
14 4 (0.78%) OpenShift
14 4 (0.78%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
14 4 (0.78%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 9 (1.75%) Firewall
2 8 (1.56%) DNS
3 7 (1.36%) DHCP
4 5 (0.97%) Network Security
4 5 (0.97%) VLAN
4 5 (0.97%) VPN
4 5 (0.97%) WAN
5 4 (0.78%) Cisco ASA
5 4 (0.78%) VSAN
6 3 (0.58%) BGP
6 3 (0.58%) Cisco ISE
6 3 (0.58%) EIGRP
6 3 (0.58%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 3 (0.58%) IPv4
6 3 (0.58%) IPv6
6 3 (0.58%) MPLS
6 3 (0.58%) OSPF
6 3 (0.58%) SD-WAN
6 3 (0.58%) VXLAN
6 3 (0.58%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (6.63%) Power BI
2 17 (3.31%) Data Lake
3 13 (2.53%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (1.75%) MongoDB
4 9 (1.75%) Oracle Reports
5 8 (1.56%) Tableau
6 7 (1.36%) Metadata
7 6 (1.17%) BigQuery
8 4 (0.78%) SQL Server
9 3 (0.58%) Big Data
9 3 (0.58%) Data Vault
9 3 (0.58%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 3 (0.58%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
10 2 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.39%) GIS
10 2 (0.39%) PostgreSQL
10 2 (0.39%) Relational Database
11 1 (0.19%) BusinessObjects
11 1 (0.19%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 42 (8.19%) JIRA
2 10 (1.95%) Git
2 10 (1.95%) Selenium
3 9 (1.75%) Eclipse
3 9 (1.75%) IntelliJ
3 9 (1.75%) JUnit
4 6 (1.17%) GitLab
4 6 (1.17%) Jenkins
5 5 (0.97%) Team Foundation Server
6 2 (0.39%) IBM UrbanCode
7 1 (0.19%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.19%) Cypress.io
General
1 293 (57.12%) Social Skills
2 158 (30.80%) Finance
3 124 (24.17%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (12.28%) Public Sector
5 46 (8.97%) Presentation Skills
6 32 (6.24%) Banking
7 22 (4.29%) Marketing
7 22 (4.29%) Retail
8 19 (3.70%) Organisational Skills
9 15 (2.92%) Legal
9 15 (2.92%) Pharmaceutical
10 13 (2.53%) Documentation Skills
11 10 (1.95%) Manufacturing
12 9 (1.75%) Front Office
13 8 (1.56%) Publishing
14 6 (1.17%) Automotive
14 6 (1.17%) Back Office
14 6 (1.17%) Telecoms
15 5 (0.97%) Investment Banking
15 5 (0.97%) Law
Job Titles
1 77 (15.01%) Analyst
1 77 (15.01%) Lead
2 71 (13.84%) Architect
3 57 (11.11%) Business Analyst
4 50 (9.75%) Senior
5 39 (7.60%) Project Manager
6 28 (5.46%) Solutions Architect
7 23 (4.48%) Change Manager
8 21 (4.09%) Programme Manager
9 16 (3.12%) Consultant
10 15 (2.92%) Senior Manager
11 11 (2.14%) Product Owner
12 10 (1.95%) Product Manager
13 9 (1.75%) Designer
13 9 (1.75%) Service Manager
13 9 (1.75%) Technical Analyst
14 8 (1.56%) Data Analyst
14 8 (1.56%) Enterprise Architect
14 8 (1.56%) Governance Manager
14 8 (1.56%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (2.53%) HTML
1 13 (2.53%) XML
2 12 (2.34%) REST
3 11 (2.14%) Spring
4 10 (1.95%) SOAP
5 9 (1.75%) EJB
5 9 (1.75%) Hibernate
5 9 (1.75%) HTML5
5 9 (1.75%) J2EE
5 9 (1.75%) J2SE
5 9 (1.75%) JSON
5 9 (1.75%) Play Framework
5 9 (1.75%) SailPoint
6 8 (1.56%) Kafka
7 7 (1.36%) .NET
7 7 (1.36%) Oracle Fusion
8 4 (0.78%) Middleware
8 4 (0.78%) PySpark
8 4 (0.78%) React
8 4 (0.78%) VML
Miscellaneous
1 44 (8.58%) Product Ownership
2 30 (5.85%) Management Information System
3 21 (4.09%) Onboarding
4 12 (2.34%) Data Centre
5 11 (2.14%) Analytical Mindset
5 11 (2.14%) Cloud Native
5 11 (2.14%) NHS
6 9 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
7 8 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
7 8 (1.56%) Public Cloud
8 7 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
8 7 (1.36%) Learning Management System
8 7 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
9 6 (1.17%) Operational Technology
9 6 (1.17%) Security Operations Centre
10 5 (0.97%) Cyber Threat
10 5 (0.97%) e-Learning
10 5 (0.97%) PMI
10 5 (0.97%) Reinsurance
11 4 (0.78%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 13 (2.53%) Unix
2 12 (2.34%) Windows
3 6 (1.17%) Linux
3 6 (1.17%) VMS
4 4 (0.78%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.19%) Android
5 1 (0.19%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 189 (36.84%) Stakeholder Management
2 183 (35.67%) Agile
3 141 (27.49%) Problem-Solving
4 123 (23.98%) Continuous Improvement
5 122 (23.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 95 (18.52%) Decision-Making
7 89 (17.35%) Roadmaps
8 74 (14.42%) Project Management
9 71 (13.84%) Change Management
10 67 (13.06%) Project Delivery
11 61 (11.89%) Scrum
12 55 (10.72%) DevOps
13 53 (10.33%) AI
13 53 (10.33%) Mentoring
14 51 (9.94%) Risk Management
15 48 (9.36%) Analytics
16 47 (9.16%) Strategic Thinking
17 43 (8.38%) Coaching
18 41 (7.99%) Business Strategy
19 39 (7.60%) Matrix Organization
Programming Languages
1 32 (6.24%) Python
2 30 (5.85%) SQL
3 29 (5.65%) Java
4 11 (2.14%) PowerShell
4 11 (2.14%) Scala
5 6 (1.17%) C#
6 5 (0.97%) Bash
6 5 (0.97%) JavaScript
7 3 (0.58%) Go
8 2 (0.39%) ABAP
8 2 (0.39%) Kotlin
8 2 (0.39%) R
8 2 (0.39%) Ruby
9 1 (0.19%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.19%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 93 (18.13%) Security Cleared
2 88 (17.15%) Degree
3 80 (15.59%) SC Cleared
4 18 (3.51%) Master's Degree
5 15 (2.92%) BPSS Clearance
6 14 (2.73%) PMI Certification
7 13 (2.53%) Computer Science Degree
8 12 (2.34%) CISSP
9 11 (2.14%) Azure Certification
10 10 (1.95%) PMP
11 8 (1.56%) ITIL Certification
12 6 (1.17%) Cisco Certification
13 5 (0.97%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 5 (0.97%) APMG
13 5 (0.97%) AWS Certification
13 5 (0.97%) CISM
13 5 (0.97%) CSPO
13 5 (0.97%) ISEB
13 5 (0.97%) ISTQB
13 5 (0.97%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (4.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 24 (4.68%) GDPR
3 19 (3.70%) Data Quality
4 16 (3.12%) NIST
5 14 (2.73%) Accessibility
5 14 (2.73%) QA
6 11 (2.14%) PMO
7 8 (1.56%) GRC
8 6 (1.17%) NCSC
8 6 (1.17%) PCI DSS
9 5 (0.97%) Disclosure Scotland
9 5 (0.97%) ISO 9001
9 5 (0.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 5 (0.97%) SLA
10 3 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.58%) COBIT
10 3 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.58%) WCAG
11 1 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 1 (0.19%) MiFID
System Software
1 14 (2.73%) Docker
1 14 (2.73%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (1.95%) Active Directory
3 7 (1.36%) VMware NSX
4 4 (0.78%) vSphere
5 2 (0.39%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 23 (4.48%) Terraform
2 12 (2.34%) Kubernetes
3 9 (1.75%) Puppet
4 6 (1.17%) Ansible
4 6 (1.17%) Microsoft Intune
4 6 (1.17%) SCCM
5 2 (0.39%) Grafana
5 2 (0.39%) Rancher
6 1 (0.19%) Argo
6 1 (0.19%) Consul
6 1 (0.19%) Packer
6 1 (0.19%) Podman
6 1 (0.19%) RSA Archer
6 1 (0.19%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.19%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 60 (11.70%) Microsoft
2 44 (8.58%) SAP
3 30 (5.85%) Oracle
4 24 (4.68%) ServiceNow
5 20 (3.90%) Workday
6 16 (3.12%) Salesforce
7 14 (2.73%) Ariba
7 14 (2.73%) VMware
8 11 (2.14%) Google
9 9 (1.75%) webMethods
10 6 (1.17%) Cisco
10 6 (1.17%) Citrix
10 6 (1.17%) F5
11 5 (0.97%) Databricks
11 5 (0.97%) Palo Alto
12 4 (0.78%) Adobe
12 4 (0.78%) Avaloq
12 4 (0.78%) Fortinet
12 4 (0.78%) IFS
13 3 (0.58%) Murex