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 19 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 516 490 526
Rank change year-on-year -26 +36 -46
Contract jobs citing ISEB 41 72 106
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.12% 0.19% 0.21%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.40% 0.64% 0.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 31 41 89
10th Percentile £325 £156 £312
25th Percentile £405 £205 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £425 £495
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -14.14% +10.00%
75th Percentile £550 £510 £575
90th Percentile £606 £575 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +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 10,355 11,265 13,931
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.43% 29.24% 28.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,468 6,928 8,970
10th Percentile £300 £313 £325
25th Percentile £413 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £711 £729 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - +2.34%
Number of hourly rates quoted 838 653 735
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.00 £16.57
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.18 £25.75
Median hourly rate £25.15 £49.00 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year -48.67% -9.26% +20.00%
75th Percentile £45.00 £68.00 £69.81
90th Percentile £71.00 £76.08 £78.28
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £52.50 £51.90
% change year-on-year -52.10% +1.17% +15.32%

ISEB
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing ISEB as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for ISEB 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 19 September 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 11 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 19 September 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
UK excluding London -3 31 £450 +5.88% 17
England -27 27 £450 +2.86% 15
Work from Home +11 12 £438 +2.94% 10
South East +3 12 £450 -5.01% 6
London -15 8 £569 +35.82% 4
Wales +3 5 £413 +176.43%
Scotland -4 5 £438 -14.63% 3
North of England - 5 £410 - 1
North West - 5 £410 -
Northern Ireland - 3 £588 -
East of England -1 1 £313 -13.79%

ISEB
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 6 (14.63%) Confluence
2 1 (2.44%) SharePoint
Applications
1 6 (14.63%) Microsoft Project
2 4 (9.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (4.88%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (2.44%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 4 (9.76%) Azure
1 4 (9.76%) Azure DevOps
1 4 (9.76%) PaaS
2 3 (7.32%) SaaS
3 2 (4.88%) IaaS
3 2 (4.88%) Power Platform
3 2 (4.88%) PowerApps
4 1 (2.44%) Dynamics 365
4 1 (2.44%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 10 (24.39%) ATM
1 10 (24.39%) Ethernet
1 10 (24.39%) Frame Relay
1 10 (24.39%) GPRS
1 10 (24.39%) GSM
1 10 (24.39%) LAN
1 10 (24.39%) LTE
1 10 (24.39%) MPLS
1 10 (24.39%) SAN
1 10 (24.39%) SDH
1 10 (24.39%) UMTS
1 10 (24.39%) VPN
1 10 (24.39%) WAN
1 10 (24.39%) Wireshark
2 1 (2.44%) Internet
2 1 (2.44%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (4.88%) SQL Server
2 1 (2.44%) MySQL
2 1 (2.44%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 15 (36.59%) JIRA
2 8 (19.51%) Postman
3 2 (4.88%) Cucumber
3 2 (4.88%) Cypress.io
3 2 (4.88%) Git
3 2 (4.88%) Jenkins
3 2 (4.88%) Selenium
3 2 (4.88%) Subversion
3 2 (4.88%) TeamCity
3 2 (4.88%) WebDriver
3 2 (4.88%) Zephyr
4 1 (2.44%) SoapUI
4 1 (2.44%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (2.44%) TestComplete
General
1 21 (51.22%) Social Skills
2 14 (34.15%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (29.27%) Finance
4 10 (24.39%) Telecoms
5 5 (12.20%) Banking
5 5 (12.20%) Influencing Skills
5 5 (12.20%) Public Sector
6 4 (9.76%) Automotive
6 4 (9.76%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (2.44%) Games
7 1 (2.44%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (2.44%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 24 (58.54%) Analyst
2 10 (24.39%) Business Analyst
3 9 (21.95%) IP Engineer
3 9 (21.95%) Test Analyst
4 8 (19.51%) Test Engineer
5 6 (14.63%) Senior
6 5 (12.20%) Business Test Analyst
6 5 (12.20%) IP Network Engineer
6 5 (12.20%) Network Engineer
6 5 (12.20%) Senior Analyst
7 4 (9.76%) Data Analyst
7 4 (9.76%) Senior Data Analyst
8 3 (7.32%) Market Risk Analyst
8 3 (7.32%) Payments Analyst
8 3 (7.32%) Risk Analyst
8 3 (7.32%) Risk Data Analyst
8 3 (7.32%) Senior Risk Analyst
9 2 (4.88%) IP Consultant
9 2 (4.88%) IP Network Consultant
9 2 (4.88%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (14.63%) REST
1 6 (14.63%) SOAP
1 6 (14.63%) XML
2 5 (12.20%) JSON
3 3 (7.32%) .NET
4 2 (4.88%) Oracle Fusion
4 2 (4.88%) XML Messaging
5 1 (2.44%) Playwright
5 1 (2.44%) RESTful
5 1 (2.44%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 10 (24.39%) Self-Motivation
2 6 (14.63%) Data Protection Act
3 5 (12.20%) SWIFT Messaging Network
4 4 (9.76%) Market Risk
4 4 (9.76%) Mobile App
5 3 (7.32%) Management Information System
5 3 (7.32%) Onboarding
5 3 (7.32%) Product Ownership
6 2 (4.88%) Client/Server
6 2 (4.88%) Data Structures
6 2 (4.88%) Freedom of Information
7 1 (2.44%) Credit Risk
7 1 (2.44%) Equities
7 1 (2.44%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (2.44%) NHS
7 1 (2.44%) N-Tier
7 1 (2.44%) Operational Technology
7 1 (2.44%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 11 (26.83%) Linux
1 11 (26.83%) Unix
2 1 (2.44%) Mac OS X
2 1 (2.44%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (46.34%) Problem-Solving
1 19 (46.34%) Project Management
2 17 (41.46%) Agile
2 17 (41.46%) Test Strategy
3 15 (36.59%) Business Analysis
4 12 (29.27%) User Acceptance Testing
5 11 (26.83%) Change Management
5 11 (26.83%) Regression Testing
5 11 (26.83%) Test Automation
6 10 (24.39%) Fault Management
7 9 (21.95%) Waterfall
8 8 (19.51%) Data Protection
8 8 (19.51%) Software Testing
8 8 (19.51%) Stakeholder Management
9 7 (17.07%) Scenario Testing
10 6 (14.63%) Business Strategy
10 6 (14.63%) Computer Science
11 5 (12.20%) Data Analysis
11 5 (12.20%) Translating Business Requirements
12 4 (9.76%) Defect Management
Programming Languages
1 13 (31.71%) Java
2 6 (14.63%) SQL
3 3 (7.32%) Python
4 2 (4.88%) C#
4 2 (4.88%) C++
4 2 (4.88%) JavaScript
4 2 (4.88%) Shell Script
4 2 (4.88%) VBA
4 2 (4.88%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 20 (48.78%) ISTQB
2 17 (41.46%) Degree
3 15 (36.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 10 (24.39%) CCNP
4 10 (24.39%) Cisco Certification
5 7 (17.07%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (12.20%) IIBA
6 5 (12.20%) Master's Degree
7 4 (9.76%) PMI Certification
7 4 (9.76%) PMP
7 4 (9.76%) Security Cleared
8 2 (4.88%) ISEB Practitioner
8 2 (4.88%) SC Cleared
9 1 (2.44%) APMP
9 1 (2.44%) CBAP
9 1 (2.44%) CISSP
9 1 (2.44%) DV Cleared
9 1 (2.44%) HND
9 1 (2.44%) PRINCE2 Certification
9 1 (2.44%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (12.20%) SEPA
2 4 (9.76%) Data Quality
2 4 (9.76%) GDPR
3 3 (7.32%) QA
4 1 (2.44%) PSD2
Vendors
1 13 (31.71%) Microsoft
2 10 (24.39%) Cisco
2 10 (24.39%) Juniper
3 2 (4.88%) Oracle
4 1 (2.44%) Compaq
4 1 (2.44%) HP
4 1 (2.44%) Terracotta
4 1 (2.44%) webMethods