ISEB Contract Job Trends

Information Systems Examinations Board (ISEB)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for ISEB qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 20 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 578 471 517
Rank change year-on-year -107 +46 +18
Contract jobs citing ISEB 47 58 67
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.098% 0.20% 0.16%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.31% 0.64% 0.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 29 40 51
10th Percentile £356 £307 £250
25th Percentile £416 £361 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £410 £450
Median % change year-on-year +28.05% -8.89% -5.26%
75th Percentile £690 £463 £538
90th Percentile £705 £545 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £410 £430
% change year-on-year +17.07% -4.65% +1.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £24.19 - -
75th Percentile £24.60 - -
90th Percentile £24.84 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.60 - -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

ISEB falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 15,227 9,041 12,797
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.63% 31.00% 30.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,134 5,692 7,977
10th Percentile £350 £281 £306
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £532
Median % change year-on-year - -1.32% -3.27%
75th Percentile £623 £619 £646
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £530
% change year-on-year - -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,070 515 1,058
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.07 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.57 £17.73
Median hourly rate £47.80 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.45% -6.25% -27.25%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.03 £80.00 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £36.65 £40.30
% change year-on-year +29.62% -9.07% -19.40%

ISEB
Job Vacancy Trend

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

ISEB job vacancy trend in the UK

ISEB
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing ISEB

ISEB
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing ISEB over the 6 months to 20 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for ISEB in the UK

ISEB
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing ISEB

ISEB
Top 11 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing ISEB within the UK over the 6 months to 20 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 -119 42 £575 +40.24% 3
UK excluding London -112 28 £480 +17.07% 3
Work from Home -39 16 £450 +9.09% 2
London -45 16 £550 +12.82% 1
South West -25 15 £703 +116.31% 1
South East -85 9 £600 +33.33%
Scotland -14 2 £421 +5.13% 1
East of England -28 2 £278 -11.20%
Channel Islands - 2 £450 -
West Midlands -53 1 - - 1
Midlands -66 1 - - 1

ISEB
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 6 (12.77%) Confluence
2 1 (2.13%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (2.13%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (2.13%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (2.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (6.38%) Oracle EBS R12
1 3 (6.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (2.13%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 6 (12.77%) Azure
2 4 (8.51%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (2.13%) Azure Cosmos DB
3 1 (2.13%) Azure Pipelines
3 1 (2.13%) GCP
3 1 (2.13%) GitHub
3 1 (2.13%) Google Ads
3 1 (2.13%) PaaS
3 1 (2.13%) Power Platform
3 1 (2.13%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.13%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.13%) BigQuery
1 1 (2.13%) Geospatial Data
1 1 (2.13%) NoSQL
1 1 (2.13%) Power BI
1 1 (2.13%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 14 (29.79%) JIRA
2 1 (2.13%) Artifactory
2 1 (2.13%) Cucumber
2 1 (2.13%) Git
2 1 (2.13%) GitLab
2 1 (2.13%) IntelliJ
2 1 (2.13%) Jenkins
2 1 (2.13%) JMeter
2 1 (2.13%) JUnit
2 1 (2.13%) NUnit
2 1 (2.13%) Postman
2 1 (2.13%) Protractor
2 1 (2.13%) Selenium
2 1 (2.13%) Sonatype Nexus
2 1 (2.13%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 15 (31.91%) Social Skills
2 14 (29.79%) Public Sector
3 12 (25.53%) Finance
4 10 (21.28%) Legal
5 7 (14.89%) Analytical Skills
6 5 (10.64%) Banking
7 4 (8.51%) Manufacturing
7 4 (8.51%) Military
8 2 (4.26%) Digital Health
8 2 (4.26%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (4.26%) Local Government
9 1 (2.13%) Automotive
9 1 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (2.13%) Law
9 1 (2.13%) Police
Job Titles
1 18 (38.30%) Architect
2 17 (36.17%) Enterprise Architect
3 15 (31.91%) Analyst
4 12 (25.53%) Business Analyst
5 3 (6.38%) Integration Tester
5 3 (6.38%) Lead
5 3 (6.38%) Test Analyst
5 3 (6.38%) Test Leader
5 3 (6.38%) Test Manager
5 3 (6.38%) Tester
6 2 (4.26%) Information Governance Officer
6 2 (4.26%) Information Officer
6 2 (4.26%) Programme Manager
6 2 (4.26%) QA Engineer
6 2 (4.26%) Senior
7 1 (2.13%) Azure Engineer
7 1 (2.13%) Data Protection Officer
7 1 (2.13%) Governance Manager
7 1 (2.13%) JavaScript Engineer
7 1 (2.13%) Life and Pensions Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (2.13%) .NET
1 1 (2.13%) ADO
1 1 (2.13%) ebXML
1 1 (2.13%) Gherkin
1 1 (2.13%) JSON
1 1 (2.13%) Node.js
1 1 (2.13%) Playwright
1 1 (2.13%) REST
1 1 (2.13%) RESTful
1 1 (2.13%) SOAP
1 1 (2.13%) WebdriverIO
1 1 (2.13%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 3 (6.38%) Analytical Mindset
2 1 (2.13%) Cloud Native
2 1 (2.13%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (2.13%) Freedom of Information
2 1 (2.13%) NHS
2 1 (2.13%) Onboarding
2 1 (2.13%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.13%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 21 (44.68%) Roadmaps
2 19 (40.43%) ITIL
3 18 (38.30%) Agile
3 18 (38.30%) IT4IT
3 18 (38.30%) TOGAF
4 16 (34.04%) Enterprise Architecture
4 16 (34.04%) Strategic Roadmap
5 15 (31.91%) Stakeholder Management
6 12 (25.53%) Conflict Resolution
7 11 (23.40%) Architectural Design
8 10 (21.28%) SDLC
9 9 (19.15%) Waterfall
10 8 (17.02%) Acceptance Criteria
10 8 (17.02%) Business Analysis
10 8 (17.02%) DevOps
10 8 (17.02%) Software Testing
10 8 (17.02%) User Stories
11 7 (14.89%) Workshop Facilitation
12 6 (12.77%) Decision-Making
12 6 (12.77%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 4 (8.51%) SQL
2 1 (2.13%) C#
2 1 (2.13%) Groovy
2 1 (2.13%) Java
2 1 (2.13%) JavaScript
2 1 (2.13%) PL/SQL
2 1 (2.13%) Python
2 1 (2.13%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 24 (51.06%) Security Cleared
2 21 (44.68%) SC Cleared
3 13 (27.66%) ISTQB
3 13 (27.66%) ITIL Certification
4 11 (23.40%) Degree
5 7 (14.89%) CBAP
5 7 (14.89%) IIBA
6 4 (8.51%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 3 (6.38%) ISEB Practitioner
8 2 (4.26%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 1 (2.13%) APMP
9 1 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (2.13%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (2.13%) DV Cleared
9 1 (2.13%) Master's Degree
9 1 (2.13%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (38.30%) COBIT
2 7 (14.89%) QA
3 4 (8.51%) GDPR
4 2 (4.26%) ISO 15022
4 2 (4.26%) ISO 20022
5 1 (2.13%) Accessibility
5 1 (2.13%) PMO
System Software
1 1 (2.13%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 1 (2.13%) Grafana
1 1 (2.13%) HP ALM
1 1 (2.13%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 3 (6.38%) Oracle
1 3 (6.38%) ServiceNow
2 2 (4.26%) Microsoft
3 1 (2.13%) Citrix
3 1 (2.13%) Dynatrace
3 1 (2.13%) HP
3 1 (2.13%) Splunk
3 1 (2.13%) TOWER Software