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 24 October 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 519 484 545
Rank change year-on-year -35 +61 -52
Contract jobs citing ISEB 36 68 91
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.11% 0.18% 0.19%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.33% 0.62% 0.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 28 41 79
10th Percentile £319 £160 £279
25th Percentile £411 £205 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £400 £495
Median % change year-on-year +21.88% -19.19% +10.00%
75th Percentile £606 £486 £581
90th Percentile £675 £550 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £456 £381 £450
% change year-on-year +19.67% -15.28% -

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 10,870 10,881 13,619
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.33% 29.35% 28.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,860 6,615 8,765
10th Percentile £289 £312 £313
25th Percentile £413 £420 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £708 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £520 £538
% change year-on-year -3.85% -3.26% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 920 527 750
10th Percentile £17.08 £18.13 £16.60
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.80 £26.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £47.50 £53.58
Median % change year-on-year -47.05% -11.35% +19.07%
75th Percentile £40.25 £67.50 £68.75
90th Percentile £70.24 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £49.50 £51.89
% change year-on-year -49.19% -4.61% +15.31%

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 24 October 2025.

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 24 October 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 -53 23 £475 +15.15% 20
UK excluding London -52 19 £456 +19.67% 21
Work from Home +18 15 £450 +7.14% 8
London +3 15 £569 +80.56% 10
Wales -4 5 £413 +176.43%
Scotland +4 4 £450 -7.69% 4
South East -18 4 £463 -1.20% 9
Northern Ireland - 3 £588 -
North of England - 2 £394 - 3
East of England -7 1 £313 -
Yorkshire - 1 £463 - 3
North West - 1 £325 -

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 2 (5.56%) Confluence
2 1 (2.78%) SharePoint
Applications
1 7 (19.44%) Microsoft Project
2 4 (11.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (5.56%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (2.78%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 6 (16.67%) Azure
1 6 (16.67%) Azure DevOps
2 2 (5.56%) PaaS
3 1 (2.78%) Dynamics 365
3 1 (2.78%) Figma
3 1 (2.78%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.78%) ATM
1 1 (2.78%) Ethernet
1 1 (2.78%) Frame Relay
1 1 (2.78%) GPRS
1 1 (2.78%) GSM
1 1 (2.78%) Internet
1 1 (2.78%) LAN
1 1 (2.78%) LTE
1 1 (2.78%) MPLS
1 1 (2.78%) RTP
1 1 (2.78%) SAN
1 1 (2.78%) SDH
1 1 (2.78%) UMTS
1 1 (2.78%) VPN
1 1 (2.78%) WAN
1 1 (2.78%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.56%) SQL Server
2 1 (2.78%) MySQL
2 1 (2.78%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 12 (33.33%) JIRA
2 7 (19.44%) Postman
3 3 (8.33%) Team Foundation Server
4 2 (5.56%) Zephyr
5 1 (2.78%) Cucumber
5 1 (2.78%) Cypress.io
5 1 (2.78%) Selenium
5 1 (2.78%) SoapUI
5 1 (2.78%) TestComplete
5 1 (2.78%) WebDriver
General
1 15 (41.67%) Social Skills
2 14 (38.89%) Finance
3 10 (27.78%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (13.89%) Banking
4 5 (13.89%) Public Sector
5 4 (11.11%) Influencing Skills
5 4 (11.11%) Presentation Skills
6 1 (2.78%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (2.78%) Games
6 1 (2.78%) Legal
6 1 (2.78%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (2.78%) Social Housing
6 1 (2.78%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 27 (75.00%) Analyst
2 11 (30.56%) Business Analyst
3 9 (25.00%) Test Analyst
4 8 (22.22%) Senior
5 6 (16.67%) Senior Analyst
6 5 (13.89%) Business Test Analyst
7 4 (11.11%) Data Analyst
7 4 (11.11%) Senior Data Analyst
7 4 (11.11%) Technical Analyst
8 3 (8.33%) Market Risk Analyst
8 3 (8.33%) Payments Analyst
8 3 (8.33%) Risk Analyst
8 3 (8.33%) Risk Data Analyst
8 3 (8.33%) Senior Risk Analyst
8 3 (8.33%) Systems Analyst
9 2 (5.56%) Information Governance Officer
9 2 (5.56%) Information Officer
9 2 (5.56%) Insurance Business Analyst
9 2 (5.56%) Operations Analyst
9 2 (5.56%) Operations Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (16.67%) REST
1 6 (16.67%) SOAP
1 6 (16.67%) XML
2 5 (13.89%) JSON
3 3 (8.33%) .NET
4 2 (5.56%) Oracle Fusion
4 2 (5.56%) XML Messaging
5 1 (2.78%) Playwright
5 1 (2.78%) RESTful
5 1 (2.78%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 7 (19.44%) Data Protection Act
2 5 (13.89%) Product Ownership
2 5 (13.89%) SWIFT Messaging Network
3 4 (11.11%) Management Information System
3 4 (11.11%) Market Risk
4 3 (8.33%) Freedom of Information
4 3 (8.33%) Onboarding
5 2 (5.56%) Data Structures
5 2 (5.56%) Mobile App
5 2 (5.56%) NHS
5 2 (5.56%) Operational Technology
6 1 (2.78%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (2.78%) Credit Risk
6 1 (2.78%) Equities
6 1 (2.78%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 1 (2.78%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (2.78%) N-Tier
6 1 (2.78%) PMI
6 1 (2.78%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (2.78%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 2 (5.56%) Linux
1 2 (5.56%) Unix
2 1 (2.78%) Mac OS X
2 1 (2.78%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (47.22%) Business Analysis
2 16 (44.44%) Agile
3 14 (38.89%) User Acceptance Testing
4 12 (33.33%) Project Management
5 11 (30.56%) Problem-Solving
6 10 (27.78%) Test Automation
7 9 (25.00%) Data Protection
7 9 (25.00%) Test Strategy
8 8 (22.22%) Computer Science
8 8 (22.22%) Software Testing
9 7 (19.44%) Change Management
9 7 (19.44%) Scenario Testing
9 7 (19.44%) Stakeholder Management
10 6 (16.67%) Business Strategy
10 6 (16.67%) DevOps
10 6 (16.67%) Requirements Gathering
10 6 (16.67%) Scrum
11 5 (13.89%) Data Analysis
11 5 (13.89%) Project Delivery
11 5 (13.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 6 (16.67%) SQL
2 5 (13.89%) Python
3 4 (11.11%) Java
Qualifications
1 22 (61.11%) Degree
2 10 (27.78%) ISTQB
3 9 (25.00%) Computer Science Degree
4 5 (13.89%) Master's Degree
4 5 (13.89%) PMI Certification
5 4 (11.11%) CBAP
5 4 (11.11%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 4 (11.11%) PMP
5 4 (11.11%) Security Cleared
6 3 (8.33%) ISEB Practitioner
7 2 (5.56%) IIBA
7 2 (5.56%) SC Cleared
8 1 (2.78%) APMP
8 1 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (2.78%) CITP
8 1 (2.78%) DV Cleared
8 1 (2.78%) HND
8 1 (2.78%) Numerate Degree
8 1 (2.78%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 1 (2.78%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (13.89%) GDPR
1 5 (13.89%) SEPA
2 4 (11.11%) Data Quality
3 2 (5.56%) QA
4 1 (2.78%) PSD2
Vendors
1 5 (13.89%) Microsoft
2 2 (5.56%) Oracle
3 1 (2.78%) CheckPoint
3 1 (2.78%) Cisco
3 1 (2.78%) Compaq
3 1 (2.78%) HP
3 1 (2.78%) Juniper
3 1 (2.78%) Salesforce
3 1 (2.78%) Terracotta
3 1 (2.78%) webMethods