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

6 months to
16 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 622 499 502
Rank change year-on-year -123 +3 +56
Contract jobs citing ISEB 44 51 67
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.082% 0.15% 0.17%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.26% 0.49% 0.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 31 39 47
10th Percentile £400 £308 £159
25th Percentile £419 £362 £228
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £450 £425
Median % change year-on-year +14.22% +5.88% -12.37%
75th Percentile £558 £550 £510
90th Percentile £644 £606 £583
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £419 £425
% change year-on-year +15.10% -1.47% -

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 16,845 10,348 11,632
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.37% 31.27% 30.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,288 6,362 7,388
10th Percentile £350 £288 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £526
Median % change year-on-year - -0.24% -4.32%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £715 £702 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £514 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.80% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,263 822 844
10th Percentile £17.72 £17.98 £14.94
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £51.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +102.78% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £74.00 £53.95 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.80 £73.75 £75.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +98.81% -47.05% -8.46%

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 16 August 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 12 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 16 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 -118 36 £525 +16.67% 14
UK excluding London -113 22 £482 +15.10% 10
London -64 18 £525 -10.64% 6
Work from Home -66 12 £450 -2.70% 8
South East -78 12 £525 +16.67% 5
West Midlands - 5 £400 - 3
Midlands - 5 £400 - 5
South West -47 4 £552 +72.34%
Scotland -16 2 £421 +1.94%
Channel Islands - 2 £450 -
North West -45 1 £550 +34.15%
North of England -79 1 £550 +34.15%

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 (13.64%) Confluence
2 4 (9.09%) SharePoint
3 3 (6.82%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 3 (6.82%) WebLogic
Applications
1 2 (4.55%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (4.55%) MS Visio
2 1 (2.27%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (2.27%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (2.27%) Oracle EBS R12
1 1 (2.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 8 (18.18%) Azure
2 6 (13.64%) Azure DevOps
3 3 (6.82%) Tricentis Tosca
4 2 (4.55%) OpenShift
5 1 (2.27%) Dynamics 365
5 1 (2.27%) GCP
5 1 (2.27%) GitHub
5 1 (2.27%) PaaS
5 1 (2.27%) Power Platform
5 1 (2.27%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.27%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (6.82%) Oracle Database
1 3 (6.82%) Tableau
2 2 (4.55%) SQL Server
3 1 (2.27%) BigQuery
3 1 (2.27%) Geospatial Data
3 1 (2.27%) Power BI
3 1 (2.27%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 15 (34.09%) JIRA
2 4 (9.09%) JMeter
2 4 (9.09%) Postman
2 4 (9.09%) Selenium
3 3 (6.82%) eggPlant
3 3 (6.82%) LoadRunner
3 3 (6.82%) SoapUI
3 3 (6.82%) SonarQube
3 3 (6.82%) Toad
4 2 (4.55%) HP UFT
4 2 (4.55%) Jenkins
5 1 (2.27%) Artifactory
5 1 (2.27%) Cucumber
5 1 (2.27%) Git
5 1 (2.27%) GitLab
5 1 (2.27%) JUnit
5 1 (2.27%) Protractor
5 1 (2.27%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (2.27%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 1 (2.27%) Zephyr
General
1 14 (31.82%) Finance
1 14 (31.82%) Social Skills
2 12 (27.27%) Public Sector
3 11 (25.00%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (9.09%) Banking
5 3 (6.82%) Influencing Skills
5 3 (6.82%) Legal
6 2 (4.55%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (4.55%) Police
7 1 (2.27%) Advertising
7 1 (2.27%) Automotive
7 1 (2.27%) Law
7 1 (2.27%) Local Government
7 1 (2.27%) Manufacturing
7 1 (2.27%) Military
7 1 (2.27%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (2.27%) Social Housing
7 1 (2.27%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 20 (45.45%) Analyst
2 14 (31.82%) Business Analyst
3 12 (27.27%) Lead
4 8 (18.18%) Senior
5 7 (15.91%) Test Leader
6 5 (11.36%) Senior Analyst
6 5 (11.36%) Senior Business Analyst
6 5 (11.36%) Test Analyst
7 4 (9.09%) SAP Analyst
7 4 (9.09%) SAP Test Analyst
7 4 (9.09%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
8 3 (6.82%) Architect
8 3 (6.82%) Enterprise Architect
8 3 (6.82%) Test Manager
8 3 (6.82%) Tester
9 2 (4.55%) QA Engineer
9 2 (4.55%) Senior Test Automation Engineer
9 2 (4.55%) Senior Test Engineer
9 2 (4.55%) Test Automation Engineer
9 2 (4.55%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (18.18%) XML
2 5 (11.36%) Kafka
3 3 (6.82%) .NET
3 3 (6.82%) SOAP
3 3 (6.82%) Web Services
4 2 (4.55%) HTML
4 2 (4.55%) Middleware
4 2 (4.55%) RESTful
4 2 (4.55%) XBRL
5 1 (2.27%) ADO
5 1 (2.27%) ebXML
5 1 (2.27%) Gherkin
5 1 (2.27%) JSON
5 1 (2.27%) Node.js
5 1 (2.27%) Playwright
5 1 (2.27%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 2 (4.55%) Analytical Mindset
1 2 (4.55%) Enterprise Software
1 2 (4.55%) Reinsurance
1 2 (4.55%) SWIFT Messaging Network
1 2 (4.55%) Virtual Team
2 1 (2.27%) Cloud Native
2 1 (2.27%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (2.27%) Freedom of Information
2 1 (2.27%) Life Science
2 1 (2.27%) Management Information System
2 1 (2.27%) Onboarding
2 1 (2.27%) Product Ownership
2 1 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
2 1 (2.27%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 6 (13.64%) Windows
2 5 (11.36%) Unix
3 4 (9.09%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (43.18%) Agile
2 17 (38.64%) Defect Management
2 17 (38.64%) Stakeholder Management
3 15 (34.09%) SDLC
3 15 (34.09%) Software Testing
4 14 (31.82%) Business Analysis
5 12 (27.27%) Waterfall
6 11 (25.00%) Test Automation
6 11 (25.00%) Workshop Facilitation
7 10 (22.73%) PRINCE2
7 10 (22.73%) Test Strategy
7 10 (22.73%) User Acceptance Testing
8 8 (18.18%) Acceptance Criteria
8 8 (18.18%) ITIL
8 8 (18.18%) Problem-Solving
8 8 (18.18%) Process Improvement
8 8 (18.18%) User Stories
8 8 (18.18%) Validation
9 7 (15.91%) API Testing
9 7 (15.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 20 (45.45%) SQL
2 9 (20.45%) Java
3 4 (9.09%) JavaScript
3 4 (9.09%) Python
4 2 (4.55%) VB.NET
5 1 (2.27%) Groovy
5 1 (2.27%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 26 (59.09%) ISTQB
2 21 (47.73%) Security Cleared
3 20 (45.45%) SC Cleared
4 18 (40.91%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 6 (13.64%) Degree
6 5 (11.36%) CBAP
6 5 (11.36%) IIBA
7 4 (9.09%) ISEB Practitioner
7 4 (9.09%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 2 (4.55%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (4.55%) ITIL Certification
8 2 (4.55%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 1 (2.27%) APMP
9 1 (2.27%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (11.36%) QA
2 3 (6.82%) COBIT
2 3 (6.82%) Data Quality
2 3 (6.82%) ISO 15022
2 3 (6.82%) ISO 20022
3 2 (4.55%) GDPR
4 1 (2.27%) Accessibility
4 1 (2.27%) PERC
4 1 (2.27%) PMO
System Software
1 1 (2.27%) Virtual Desktop
1 1 (2.27%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 3 (6.82%) Control-M
1 3 (6.82%) HP Fortify
2 1 (2.27%) Grafana
2 1 (2.27%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 10 (22.73%) SAP
2 8 (18.18%) Oracle
3 4 (9.09%) Microsoft
4 3 (6.82%) IBM
4 3 (6.82%) webMethods
5 2 (4.55%) ServiceNow
6 1 (2.27%) CheckPoint
6 1 (2.27%) Citrix
6 1 (2.27%) Dynatrace
6 1 (2.27%) Salesforce
6 1 (2.27%) Splunk