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 3 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 546 473 521
Rank change year-on-year -73 +48 +41
Contract jobs citing ISEB 70 53 76
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.17% 0.18% 0.17%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.49% 0.59% 0.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 42 30 68
10th Percentile £356 £224 £348
25th Percentile £384 £306 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £400 £500
Median % change year-on-year +31.25% -20.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £702 £511 £600
90th Percentile £853 £551 £665
UK excluding London median daily rate £690 £400 £460
% change year-on-year +72.50% -13.04% +8.23%
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 14,173 8,953 13,521
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.97% 29.98% 30.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,358 5,531 8,335
10th Percentile £331 £285 £288
25th Percentile £420 £413 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £614 £628 £650
90th Percentile £719 £725 £732
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,042 446 998
10th Percentile £16.17 £20.06 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.38 £24.50 £19.99
Median hourly rate £25.77 £42.21 £40.28
Median % change year-on-year -38.94% +4.79% -19.45%
75th Percentile £65.00 £67.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £81.50 £82.18 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £47.81 £40.97
% change year-on-year -47.39% +16.68% -8.96%

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 3 March 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 3 March 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 -69 66 £525 +36.01% 10
UK excluding London -82 39 £690 +72.50% 9
London -26 24 £513 +122.83% 1
Work from Home -25 19 £444 +1.43% 4
South West -2 17 £772 +137.46%
South East -40 17 £510 +27.50% 2
West Midlands -52 3 £359 -10.55%
Midlands -56 3 £359 -10.55% 1
Scotland +11 2 £416 -20.76%
East of England -25 2 £278 -11.20% 1
North of England -60 1 £463 -2.63% 5
Yorkshire - 1 £463 - 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 7 (10.00%) Confluence
2 3 (4.29%) WebLogic
3 2 (2.86%) SharePoint
4 1 (1.43%) CMS
4 1 (1.43%) IIS
Applications
1 1 (1.43%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (1.43%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (1.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 1 (1.43%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (2.86%) Oracle EBS R12
1 2 (2.86%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (1.43%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.43%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (1.43%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 8 (11.43%) Azure
2 6 (8.57%) Azure DevOps
3 5 (7.14%) Tricentis Tosca
4 2 (2.86%) GCP
4 2 (2.86%) PaaS
5 1 (1.43%) AWS
5 1 (1.43%) Azure Cosmos DB
5 1 (1.43%) Azure Pipelines
5 1 (1.43%) Google Ads
5 1 (1.43%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.86%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (2.86%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.43%) BigQuery
2 1 (1.43%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
2 1 (1.43%) MySQL
2 1 (1.43%) NoSQL
2 1 (1.43%) Power BI
2 1 (1.43%) Relational Database
2 1 (1.43%) SAP BW
2 1 (1.43%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 24 (34.29%) JIRA
2 4 (5.71%) Toad
3 3 (4.29%) Postman
3 3 (4.29%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (1.43%) CircleCI
4 1 (1.43%) Cucumber
4 1 (1.43%) Cypress.io
4 1 (1.43%) NUnit
4 1 (1.43%) Selenium
4 1 (1.43%) WebDriver
General
1 27 (38.57%) Public Sector
2 18 (25.71%) Social Skills
3 12 (17.14%) Finance
4 10 (14.29%) Legal
5 5 (7.14%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (7.14%) Influencing Skills
6 4 (5.71%) Military
7 3 (4.29%) Manufacturing
8 2 (2.86%) Digital Health
8 2 (2.86%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (1.43%) Automotive
9 1 (1.43%) Banking
9 1 (1.43%) Law
9 1 (1.43%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 30 (42.86%) Architect
2 26 (37.14%) Enterprise Architect
3 22 (31.43%) Analyst
4 15 (21.43%) Lead
5 13 (18.57%) Business Analyst
6 12 (17.14%) Lead Architect
7 11 (15.71%) Lead Enterprise Architect
8 7 (10.00%) Senior
8 7 (10.00%) Test Analyst
9 5 (7.14%) Tester
10 4 (5.71%) Information Governance Officer
10 4 (5.71%) Information Officer
10 4 (5.71%) Senior Architect
11 3 (4.29%) Digital Architect
11 3 (4.29%) SAP Analyst
11 3 (4.29%) SAP Test Analyst
11 3 (4.29%) Technical Analyst
12 2 (2.86%) Insurance Business Analyst
12 2 (2.86%) QA Tester
12 2 (2.86%) Senior Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (8.57%) XML
2 3 (4.29%) .NET
2 3 (4.29%) Playwright
3 2 (2.86%) Oracle Fusion
3 2 (2.86%) REST
4 1 (1.43%) ADO
4 1 (1.43%) CSS
4 1 (1.43%) Django
4 1 (1.43%) ebXML
4 1 (1.43%) Gherkin
4 1 (1.43%) pytest
4 1 (1.43%) SAP Fiori
4 1 (1.43%) SOAP
4 1 (1.43%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 3 (4.29%) Analytical Mindset
1 3 (4.29%) NHS
1 3 (4.29%) Product Ownership
2 2 (2.86%) Data Protection Act
2 2 (2.86%) Freedom of Information
3 1 (1.43%) Hybrid Cloud
3 1 (1.43%) Management Information System
3 1 (1.43%) Mobile App
3 1 (1.43%) Operational Technology
3 1 (1.43%) PMI
3 1 (1.43%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 4 (5.71%) Windows
2 1 (1.43%) Linux
2 1 (1.43%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (47.14%) ITIL
2 30 (42.86%) IT4IT
3 23 (32.86%) Agile
4 19 (27.14%) Roadmaps
5 17 (24.29%) TOGAF
6 14 (20.00%) Customer Requirements
7 13 (18.57%) Enterprise Architecture
7 13 (18.57%) Strategic Roadmap
8 12 (17.14%) Digital Strategy
8 12 (17.14%) Stakeholder Management
8 12 (17.14%) Test Scripting
9 11 (15.71%) Business Analysis
9 11 (15.71%) Test Automation
10 10 (14.29%) Architectural Design
10 10 (14.29%) Conflict Resolution
11 9 (12.86%) DevOps
11 9 (12.86%) Scrum
11 9 (12.86%) SDLC
11 9 (12.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 8 (11.43%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 10 (14.29%) SQL
2 6 (8.57%) Java
3 3 (4.29%) Python
4 1 (1.43%) C#
4 1 (1.43%) JavaScript
4 1 (1.43%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 38 (54.29%) Security Cleared
2 30 (42.86%) SC Cleared
3 23 (32.86%) ITIL Certification
4 17 (24.29%) ISTQB
5 16 (22.86%) Degree
6 9 (12.86%) CBAP
7 7 (10.00%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 6 (8.57%) IIBA
9 5 (7.14%) ISEB Practitioner
10 4 (5.71%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (4.29%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (2.86%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
13 1 (1.43%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 1 (1.43%) APMP
13 1 (1.43%) CEH
13 1 (1.43%) CISM
13 1 (1.43%) CITP
13 1 (1.43%) DV Cleared
13 1 (1.43%) Master's Degree
13 1 (1.43%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (42.86%) COBIT
2 9 (12.86%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 9 (12.86%) JSP 440
2 9 (12.86%) QA
3 5 (7.14%) GDPR
4 1 (1.43%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.43%) WCAG
System Software
1 1 (1.43%) Docker
1 1 (1.43%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 2 (2.86%) HP ALM
1 2 (2.86%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 7 (10.00%) Oracle
2 5 (7.14%) SAP
3 4 (5.71%) webMethods
4 2 (2.86%) HP
4 2 (2.86%) Microsoft
4 2 (2.86%) ServiceNow
5 1 (1.43%) CheckPoint
5 1 (1.43%) Citrix
5 1 (1.43%) Salesforce
5 1 (1.43%) TOWER Software