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 1 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 644 519 491
Rank change year-on-year -125 -28 +57
Contract jobs citing ISEB 41 38 71
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.075% 0.11% 0.19%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.24% 0.36% 0.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 30 29 41
10th Percentile £402 £321 £156
25th Percentile £481 £413 £183
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £450 £400
Median % change year-on-year +22.22% +12.50% -19.19%
75th Percentile £613 £606 £510
90th Percentile £725 £628 £550
UK excluding London median daily rate £538 £450 £425
% change year-on-year +19.44% +5.88% -5.56%

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 17,434 10,440 11,050
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.75% 31.58% 29.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,583 6,528 6,719
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £444 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £635
90th Percentile £713 £711 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,409 875 610
10th Percentile £17.00 £17.87 £17.99
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £25.26
Median hourly rate £46.80 £25.15 £48.78
Median % change year-on-year +86.08% -48.44% -8.82%
75th Percentile £71.50 £42.63 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £70.00 £75.49
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -49.70% -3.64%

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 1 October 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 9 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 1 October 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 -88 38 £550 +22.22% 27
London -75 20 £550 -3.30% 9
UK excluding London -108 16 £538 +19.44% 19
South East -56 13 £552 +22.58% 6
Work from Home -67 12 £552 +26.09% 14
West Midlands - 5 £400 - 3
Midlands - 5 £400 - 3
North West -48 1 £550 +69.23% 3
North of England -73 1 £550 +69.23% 5

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 5 (12.20%) SharePoint
2 3 (7.32%) Confluence
2 3 (7.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 3 (7.32%) WebLogic
Applications
1 2 (4.88%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (4.88%) MS Visio
2 1 (2.44%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (2.44%) Oracle EBS R12
1 1 (2.44%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 6 (14.63%) Azure
2 5 (12.20%) Azure DevOps
3 3 (7.32%) Tricentis Tosca
4 2 (4.88%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 2 (4.88%) Amazon EC2
4 2 (4.88%) Amazon EKS
4 2 (4.88%) Amazon EventBridge
4 2 (4.88%) Amazon S3
4 2 (4.88%) Amazon SQS
4 2 (4.88%) AWS
4 2 (4.88%) AWS Lambda
4 2 (4.88%) OpenShift
4 2 (4.88%) Serverless
5 1 (2.44%) Dynamics 365
5 1 (2.44%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (2.44%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.44%) Cisco IPT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (7.32%) Oracle Database
1 3 (7.32%) Tableau
2 1 (2.44%) Big Data
2 1 (2.44%) Power BI
2 1 (2.44%) Relational Database
2 1 (2.44%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 12 (29.27%) JIRA
2 6 (14.63%) Selenium
3 5 (12.20%) JMeter
3 5 (12.20%) Postman
4 4 (9.76%) eggPlant
5 3 (7.32%) Jenkins
5 3 (7.32%) LoadRunner
5 3 (7.32%) SoapUI
5 3 (7.32%) SonarQube
5 3 (7.32%) Toad
6 2 (4.88%) Cucumber
6 2 (4.88%) Cypress.io
6 2 (4.88%) GitLab
6 2 (4.88%) HP UFT
6 2 (4.88%) REST Assured
6 2 (4.88%) SpecFlow
7 1 (2.44%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (2.44%) Visual Studio
7 1 (2.44%) Zephyr
General
1 15 (36.59%) Finance
2 14 (34.15%) Social Skills
3 12 (29.27%) Public Sector
4 11 (26.83%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (9.76%) Influencing Skills
6 3 (7.32%) Banking
6 3 (7.32%) Law
6 3 (7.32%) Legal
6 3 (7.32%) Police
7 1 (2.44%) Advertising
7 1 (2.44%) Automotive
7 1 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (2.44%) Local Government
7 1 (2.44%) Manufacturing
7 1 (2.44%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (2.44%) Social Housing
7 1 (2.44%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 16 (39.02%) Analyst
2 10 (24.39%) Business Analyst
2 10 (24.39%) Lead
3 8 (19.51%) Senior
4 5 (12.20%) Senior Analyst
4 5 (12.20%) Senior Business Analyst
4 5 (12.20%) Test Analyst
5 4 (9.76%) SAP Analyst
5 4 (9.76%) SAP Test Analyst
5 4 (9.76%) SC Cleared Business Analyst
5 4 (9.76%) Test Automation Engineer
5 4 (9.76%) Test Engineer
5 4 (9.76%) Test Leader
6 3 (7.32%) Programme Manager
6 3 (7.32%) Tester
7 2 (4.88%) Automation Engineer
7 2 (4.88%) DevOps Automation Engineer
7 2 (4.88%) Lead Tester
7 2 (4.88%) SDLC Business Analyst
7 2 (4.88%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (19.51%) XML
2 7 (17.07%) Kafka
3 4 (9.76%) .NET
3 4 (9.76%) Web Services
4 3 (7.32%) Playwright
4 3 (7.32%) SOAP
5 2 (4.88%) HTML
5 2 (4.88%) Middleware
5 2 (4.88%) REST
5 2 (4.88%) Terraform
5 2 (4.88%) XBRL
6 1 (2.44%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 2 (4.88%) Analytical Mindset
1 2 (4.88%) Cloud Native
1 2 (4.88%) Data Protection Act
1 2 (4.88%) Distributed Systems
1 2 (4.88%) Enterprise Software
1 2 (4.88%) Reinsurance
1 2 (4.88%) SWIFT Messaging Network
2 1 (2.44%) Freedom of Information
2 1 (2.44%) Life Science
2 1 (2.44%) Management Information System
2 1 (2.44%) Product Ownership
2 1 (2.44%) Robotics
2 1 (2.44%) Self-Motivation
2 1 (2.44%) Tandem
2 1 (2.44%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 6 (14.63%) Unix
1 6 (14.63%) Windows
2 4 (9.76%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (48.78%) Stakeholder Management
2 17 (41.46%) Defect Management
3 16 (39.02%) Agile
4 15 (36.59%) SDLC
5 13 (31.71%) PRINCE2
5 13 (31.71%) Software Testing
5 13 (31.71%) Test Automation
6 12 (29.27%) Business Analysis
6 12 (29.27%) Waterfall
7 10 (24.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 10 (24.39%) User Acceptance Testing
8 9 (21.95%) Problem-Solving
9 8 (19.51%) Process Improvement
9 8 (19.51%) Workshop Facilitation
10 7 (17.07%) Impact Assessments
10 7 (17.07%) Regression Testing
10 7 (17.07%) Scenario Testing
10 7 (17.07%) Test Strategy
10 7 (17.07%) Validation
11 6 (14.63%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 19 (46.34%) SQL
2 9 (21.95%) Java
3 5 (12.20%) Python
4 3 (7.32%) JavaScript
5 2 (4.88%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 26 (63.41%) ISTQB
2 21 (51.22%) SC Cleared
2 21 (51.22%) Security Cleared
3 17 (41.46%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 6 (14.63%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
5 5 (12.20%) Degree
6 4 (9.76%) DV Cleared
6 4 (9.76%) IIBA
6 4 (9.76%) ISEB Practitioner
7 3 (7.32%) CBAP
8 2 (4.88%) AWS Certification
8 2 (4.88%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 1 (2.44%) APMP
9 1 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (2.44%) ITIL Certification
9 1 (2.44%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (12.20%) QA
2 3 (7.32%) Data Quality
2 3 (7.32%) GDPR
2 3 (7.32%) ISO 15022
2 3 (7.32%) ISO 20022
3 2 (4.88%) PERC
System Software
1 2 (4.88%) Docker
2 1 (2.44%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 3 (7.32%) Control-M
1 3 (7.32%) HP Fortify
2 2 (4.88%) Ansible
2 2 (4.88%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 11 (26.83%) SAP
2 9 (21.95%) Oracle
3 4 (9.76%) Microsoft
4 3 (7.32%) IBM
4 3 (7.32%) webMethods
5 1 (2.44%) CheckPoint
5 1 (2.44%) Parasoft
5 1 (2.44%) Salesforce
5 1 (2.44%) ServiceNow
5 1 (2.44%) SOASTA