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

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 541 462 529
Rank change year-on-year -79 +67 +41
Contract jobs citing ISEB 71 53 74
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.16% 0.18% 0.17%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.48% 0.59% 0.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 43 34 65
10th Percentile £357 £302 £315
25th Percentile £400 £308 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £400 £500
Median % change year-on-year +27.50% -20.00% +9.59%
75th Percentile £705 £506 £600
90th Percentile £850 £548 £680
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £400 £450
% change year-on-year +23.13% -11.11% +5.88%
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 14,900 8,922 13,557
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.46% 30.69% 30.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,833 5,681 8,418
10th Percentile £340 £296 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.87% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £618 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,094 488 1,011
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.51 £13.85
25th Percentile £20.50 £24.18 £17.72
Median hourly rate £36.70 £42.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.65% +13.33% -28.57%
75th Percentile £68.75 £67.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £84.70 £80.72 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £47.81 £37.50
% change year-on-year -26.79% +27.48% -23.47%

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 31 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 13 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 31 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 -95 64 £550 +36.94% 8
UK excluding London -99 45 £493 +23.13% 9
Work from Home -26 22 £450 +2.86% 4
South West -8 21 £705 +116.77% 1
London -50 19 £483 +1.58%
South East -59 18 £510 +29.77% 1
West Midlands -56 3 £359 -10.55% 2
Midlands -66 3 £359 -10.55% 2
Scotland +2 2 £421 +17.54% 1
East of England -35 2 £278 -11.20% 2
Channel Islands - 2 £450 -
North of England -74 1 £463 +12.80% 2
Yorkshire - 1 £463 -

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 (9.86%) Confluence
2 3 (4.23%) WebLogic
3 2 (2.82%) SharePoint
4 1 (1.41%) CMS
4 1 (1.41%) IIS
Applications
1 1 (1.41%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (1.41%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (1.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (2.82%) Oracle EBS R12
1 2 (2.82%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (1.41%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.41%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 8 (11.27%) Azure
2 5 (7.04%) Azure DevOps
2 5 (7.04%) Tricentis Tosca
3 2 (2.82%) GCP
4 1 (1.41%) AWS
4 1 (1.41%) Azure Cosmos DB
4 1 (1.41%) Azure Pipelines
4 1 (1.41%) GitHub
4 1 (1.41%) Google Ads
4 1 (1.41%) PaaS
4 1 (1.41%) Power Platform
4 1 (1.41%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.82%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.41%) BigQuery
1 1 (1.41%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.41%) Geospatial Data
1 1 (1.41%) NoSQL
1 1 (1.41%) Power BI
1 1 (1.41%) Relational Database
1 1 (1.41%) SAP BW
1 1 (1.41%) SQL Server
1 1 (1.41%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 20 (28.17%) JIRA
2 4 (5.63%) Toad
3 2 (2.82%) Postman
3 2 (2.82%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (1.41%) Artifactory
4 1 (1.41%) CircleCI
4 1 (1.41%) Cucumber
4 1 (1.41%) Git
4 1 (1.41%) GitLab
4 1 (1.41%) IntelliJ
4 1 (1.41%) Jenkins
4 1 (1.41%) JMeter
4 1 (1.41%) JUnit
4 1 (1.41%) NUnit
4 1 (1.41%) Protractor
4 1 (1.41%) Selenium
4 1 (1.41%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 28 (39.44%) Public Sector
2 14 (19.72%) Social Skills
3 13 (18.31%) Finance
4 12 (16.90%) Legal
5 5 (7.04%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (7.04%) Military
6 3 (4.23%) Banking
6 3 (4.23%) Influencing Skills
6 3 (4.23%) Manufacturing
7 2 (2.82%) Digital Health
8 1 (1.41%) Automotive
8 1 (1.41%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.41%) Law
8 1 (1.41%) Local Government
8 1 (1.41%) Police
Job Titles
1 33 (46.48%) Architect
2 29 (40.85%) Enterprise Architect
3 21 (29.58%) Analyst
4 16 (22.54%) Lead
5 14 (19.72%) Business Analyst
6 12 (16.90%) Lead Architect
7 11 (15.49%) Lead Enterprise Architect
8 6 (8.45%) Test Analyst
9 5 (7.04%) Senior
10 4 (5.63%) Senior Architect
10 4 (5.63%) Test Leader
10 4 (5.63%) Tester
11 3 (4.23%) Digital Architect
11 3 (4.23%) Information Governance Officer
11 3 (4.23%) Information Officer
11 3 (4.23%) SAP Analyst
11 3 (4.23%) SAP Test Analyst
11 3 (4.23%) Test Manager
12 2 (2.82%) Technical Analyst
12 2 (2.82%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (8.45%) XML
2 2 (2.82%) .NET
2 2 (2.82%) Gherkin
2 2 (2.82%) Playwright
3 1 (1.41%) ADO
3 1 (1.41%) CSS
3 1 (1.41%) Django
3 1 (1.41%) ebXML
3 1 (1.41%) JSON
3 1 (1.41%) Node.js
3 1 (1.41%) pytest
3 1 (1.41%) REST
3 1 (1.41%) RESTful
3 1 (1.41%) SAP Fiori
3 1 (1.41%) SOAP
3 1 (1.41%) Web Services
3 1 (1.41%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 2 (2.82%) Analytical Mindset
1 2 (2.82%) NHS
2 1 (1.41%) Cloud Native
2 1 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (1.41%) Freedom of Information
2 1 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
2 1 (1.41%) Management Information System
2 1 (1.41%) Onboarding
2 1 (1.41%) Operational Technology
2 1 (1.41%) PMI
2 1 (1.41%) Product Ownership
2 1 (1.41%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 3 (4.23%) Windows
2 1 (1.41%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 36 (50.70%) ITIL
2 33 (46.48%) IT4IT
3 22 (30.99%) Roadmaps
4 20 (28.17%) Agile
4 20 (28.17%) TOGAF
5 16 (22.54%) Enterprise Architecture
5 16 (22.54%) Strategic Roadmap
6 14 (19.72%) Customer Requirements
7 12 (16.90%) Architectural Design
7 12 (16.90%) Conflict Resolution
7 12 (16.90%) Digital Strategy
7 12 (16.90%) Stakeholder Management
8 10 (14.08%) Business Analysis
8 10 (14.08%) SDLC
8 10 (14.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 9 (12.68%) DevOps
9 9 (12.68%) Test Automation
9 9 (12.68%) Test Scripting
9 9 (12.68%) Workshop Facilitation
10 8 (11.27%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 10 (14.08%) SQL
2 6 (8.45%) Java
3 3 (4.23%) Python
4 2 (2.82%) JavaScript
5 1 (1.41%) C#
5 1 (1.41%) Groovy
5 1 (1.41%) PL/SQL
5 1 (1.41%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 40 (56.34%) Security Cleared
2 32 (45.07%) SC Cleared
3 25 (35.21%) ITIL Certification
4 16 (22.54%) ISTQB
5 15 (21.13%) Degree
6 9 (12.68%) CBAP
7 7 (9.86%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 5 (7.04%) IIBA
9 4 (5.63%) BPSS Clearance
9 4 (5.63%) ISEB Practitioner
10 2 (2.82%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (2.82%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 1 (1.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 1 (1.41%) APMP
11 1 (1.41%) CEH
11 1 (1.41%) CITP
11 1 (1.41%) DV Cleared
11 1 (1.41%) Master's Degree
11 1 (1.41%) PMI Certification
11 1 (1.41%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (46.48%) COBIT
2 9 (12.68%) HMG Security Policy Framework
2 9 (12.68%) JSP 440
3 8 (11.27%) QA
4 4 (5.63%) GDPR
5 2 (2.82%) Accessibility
6 1 (1.41%) PMO
6 1 (1.41%) WCAG
System Software
1 1 (1.41%) Docker
1 1 (1.41%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 2 (2.82%) HP ALM
1 2 (2.82%) Kubernetes
2 1 (1.41%) Grafana
Vendors
1 5 (7.04%) Oracle
1 5 (7.04%) SAP
2 4 (5.63%) webMethods
3 3 (4.23%) ServiceNow
4 2 (2.82%) HP
4 2 (2.82%) Microsoft
5 1 (1.41%) CheckPoint
5 1 (1.41%) Citrix
5 1 (1.41%) Dynatrace
5 1 (1.41%) Salesforce
5 1 (1.41%) Splunk
5 1 (1.41%) TOWER Software