IT Manager Contract Job Trends

IT Manager
UK

The median IT Manager daily rate in the UK is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 October 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 276 252 177
Rank change year-on-year -24 -75 +16
Contract jobs requiring an IT Manager 525 354 529
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.96% 1.08% 1.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.04% 1.19% 1.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 306 236 329
10th Percentile £400 £348 £321
25th Percentile £455 £420 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £625
90th Percentile £688 £689 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.50% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 8 8
10th Percentile £61.25 - -
25th Percentile - £60.00 £21.19
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.75 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.59% +109.17% -51.46%
75th Percentile £74.16 £73.63 £36.25
90th Percentile £85.00 £88.14 £47.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £22.56
% change year-on-year +4.00% +177.04% -54.88%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 50,334 29,798 35,032
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.11% 90.81% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,572 18,806 21,176
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £638 £620 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,026 1,619 1,521
10th Percentile £14.45 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £19.76 £17.30 £20.50
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -40.82% -4.49%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.38 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.00 £74.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.74 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.44% -41.69% -2.16%

IT Manager
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'IT Manager' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

IT Manager job vacancy trend in the UK

IT Manager
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for IT Manager job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for IT Manager job vacancies in the UK

IT Manager
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing IT Manager over the 6 months to 6 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for IT Manager in the UK

IT Manager
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for IT Manager job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for IT Manager job vacancies in the UK

IT Manager
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing IT Manager over the 6 months to 6 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for IT Manager in the UK

IT Manager
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing IT Manager within the UK over the 6 months to 6 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 -36 453 £525 - 639
UK excluding London -35 279 £513 +2.50% 444
London -34 198 £550 - 253
Work from Home -36 151 £525 - 291
South East -13 80 £519 -1.19% 120
North of England -49 80 £475 -5.00% 121
North West -30 41 £444 -15.48% 55
Midlands -43 40 £575 +9.52% 75
East of England -5 33 £500 - 37
Yorkshire -40 26 £450 -10.00% 58
Scotland -8 24 £475 +11.76% 31
West Midlands -55 24 £550 +5.77% 39
South West -49 17 £550 +20.55% 29
East Midlands -1 16 £588 +4.44% 36
North East -27 13 £775 +72.22% 8
Wales -9 6 £375 -23.08% 14

IT Manager Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 6 October 2026, IT Manager contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring IT Manager in the job title.

1 208 (39.62%) Stakeholder Management
2 116 (22.10%) Project Management
3 106 (20.19%) Agile
4 90 (17.14%) Microsoft
4 90 (17.14%) Project Delivery
5 78 (14.86%) Azure
5 78 (14.86%) ITIL
6 76 (14.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 74 (14.10%) Continuous Improvement
8 65 (12.38%) Cybersecurity
9 64 (12.19%) PRINCE2
9 64 (12.19%) Service Management
10 61 (11.62%) Problem-Solving
11 58 (11.05%) Change Management
12 56 (10.67%) Decision-Making
12 56 (10.67%) Risk Management
13 55 (10.48%) Service Delivery
14 54 (10.29%) Degree
15 52 (9.90%) Security Cleared
16 50 (9.52%) ITSM
16 50 (9.52%) Supplier Management
17 49 (9.33%) Microsoft 365
17 49 (9.33%) PMP
18 44 (8.38%) Budget Management
18 44 (8.38%) Migration
18 44 (8.38%) PMI Certification
19 43 (8.19%) Project Governance
19 43 (8.19%) Waterfall
20 42 (8.00%) ServiceNow
21 41 (7.81%) SC Cleared

IT Manager Skill Set
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 24 (4.57%) SharePoint
2 7 (1.33%) Confluence
3 6 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.19%) Documentum
Applications
1 30 (5.71%) Microsoft Project
2 22 (4.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (2.48%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (1.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.38%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 4 (0.76%) Endur
1 4 (0.76%) Maximo
1 4 (0.76%) NetSuite
2 2 (0.38%) Teamcenter
3 1 (0.19%) assyst
3 1 (0.19%) CA PPM
3 1 (0.19%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.19%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.19%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.19%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 78 (14.86%) Azure
2 49 (9.33%) Microsoft 365
3 23 (4.38%) SaaS
4 22 (4.19%) AWS
5 20 (3.81%) Azure DevOps
6 15 (2.86%) Entra ID
6 15 (2.86%) Power Platform
7 7 (1.33%) Dynamics 365
8 6 (1.14%) GCP
8 6 (1.14%) OneDrive
8 6 (1.14%) Smartsheet
9 5 (0.95%) IaaS
10 4 (0.76%) Microsoft Copilot
11 2 (0.38%) Google Workspace
12 1 (0.19%) Boomi
12 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Purview
12 1 (0.19%) Nutanix
12 1 (0.19%) PaaS
12 1 (0.19%) Rubrik
12 1 (0.19%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 13 (2.48%) WAN
2 10 (1.90%) Firewall
2 10 (1.90%) Network Security
3 8 (1.52%) LAN
4 5 (0.95%) DNS
5 3 (0.57%) SD-WAN
6 2 (0.38%) Broadband
6 2 (0.38%) DHCP
6 2 (0.38%) Internet
7 1 (0.19%) Fibre Channel
7 1 (0.19%) FTP
7 1 (0.19%) Intranet
7 1 (0.19%) iSCSI
7 1 (0.19%) NAS
7 1 (0.19%) SAN
7 1 (0.19%) Structured Cabling
7 1 (0.19%) Unified Communications
7 1 (0.19%) VoIP
7 1 (0.19%) Wi-Fi
7 1 (0.19%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (2.67%) Power BI
2 2 (0.38%) Data Lake
3 1 (0.19%) BusinessObjects
3 1 (0.19%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.19%) EDMS
3 1 (0.19%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (0.19%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 37 (7.05%) JIRA
General
1 185 (35.24%) Social Skills
2 181 (34.48%) Finance
3 53 (10.10%) Public Sector
4 45 (8.57%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (7.24%) Legal
6 29 (5.52%) Organisational Skills
7 26 (4.95%) Banking
7 26 (4.95%) Influencing Skills
8 23 (4.38%) Manufacturing
9 19 (3.62%) Retail
10 17 (3.24%) Law
11 12 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 11 (2.10%) Financial Institution
13 8 (1.52%) Local Government
14 7 (1.33%) Automotive
14 7 (1.33%) Military
14 7 (1.33%) Presentation Skills
14 7 (1.33%) Telecoms
15 4 (0.76%) Aerospace
15 4 (0.76%) Japanese Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (3.62%) Oracle Fusion
2 4 (0.76%) Middleware
3 3 (0.57%) Terraform
4 1 (0.19%) ADO
4 1 (0.19%) JSON
4 1 (0.19%) OpenJDK
Miscellaneous
1 25 (4.76%) Onboarding
2 22 (4.19%) Product Ownership
3 21 (4.00%) Operational Technology
4 20 (3.81%) Enterprise Software
5 14 (2.67%) Legacy Systems
6 13 (2.48%) Management Information System
7 12 (2.29%) Data Centre
8 11 (2.10%) Credit Risk
8 11 (2.10%) Virtual Team
9 9 (1.71%) Mobile App
10 8 (1.52%) CMDB
10 8 (1.52%) Industry 4.0
11 7 (1.33%) FMCG
12 6 (1.14%) PMI
13 4 (0.76%) Reinsurance
13 4 (0.76%) Robotics
13 4 (0.76%) Self-Motivation
14 3 (0.57%) Analytical Mindset
14 3 (0.57%) Data Protection Act
14 3 (0.57%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 29 (5.52%) Windows
2 8 (1.52%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.19%) AIX
3 1 (0.19%) Linux
3 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
3 1 (0.19%) Windows 10
3 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
3 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 208 (39.62%) Stakeholder Management
2 116 (22.10%) Project Management
3 106 (20.19%) Agile
4 90 (17.14%) Project Delivery
5 78 (14.86%) ITIL
6 76 (14.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 74 (14.10%) Continuous Improvement
8 65 (12.38%) Cybersecurity
9 64 (12.19%) PRINCE2
9 64 (12.19%) Service Management
10 61 (11.62%) Problem-Solving
11 58 (11.05%) Change Management
12 56 (10.67%) Decision-Making
12 56 (10.67%) Risk Management
13 55 (10.48%) Service Delivery
14 50 (9.52%) ITSM
14 50 (9.52%) Supplier Management
15 44 (8.38%) Budget Management
15 44 (8.38%) Migration
16 43 (8.19%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 5 (0.95%) SQL
2 2 (0.38%) PowerShell
3 1 (0.19%) Java
3 1 (0.19%) Python
Qualifications
1 54 (10.29%) Degree
2 52 (9.90%) Security Cleared
3 49 (9.33%) PMP
4 44 (8.38%) PMI Certification
5 41 (7.81%) SC Cleared
6 21 (4.00%) ITIL Certification
7 11 (2.10%) CISA
8 10 (1.90%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 9 (1.71%) CISSP
10 8 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
11 6 (1.14%) PRINCE2 Certification
12 5 (0.95%) PgMP
13 4 (0.76%) DV Cleared
14 3 (0.57%) APMP
14 3 (0.57%) Computer Science Degree
15 2 (0.38%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 1 (0.19%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 1 (0.19%) CRISC
16 1 (0.19%) CTC Cleared
16 1 (0.19%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (3.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 14 (2.67%) PMO
3 13 (2.48%) GRC
4 10 (1.90%) Cyber Essentials
4 10 (1.90%) SLA
5 7 (1.33%) COBIT
5 7 (1.33%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 6 (1.14%) QA
7 3 (0.57%) GDPR
7 3 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 2 (0.38%) Data Quality
8 2 (0.38%) GxP
8 2 (0.38%) ISO 20022
8 2 (0.38%) ISO 31000
8 2 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27005
8 2 (0.38%) ITGC
8 2 (0.38%) NIST
8 2 (0.38%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.38%) SEPA
8 2 (0.38%) TARGET2
System Software
1 18 (3.43%) Active Directory
2 6 (1.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.38%) vSphere
4 1 (0.19%) Firmware
4 1 (0.19%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.19%) KVM
4 1 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 5 (0.95%) Microsoft Intune
2 2 (0.38%) Jamf Pro
3 1 (0.19%) Ansible
3 1 (0.19%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (0.19%) vCenter Server
3 1 (0.19%) vMotion
Vendors
1 90 (17.14%) Microsoft
2 42 (8.00%) ServiceNow
3 30 (5.71%) SAP
4 27 (5.14%) Ariba
5 24 (4.57%) Oracle
6 14 (2.67%) Snow
7 10 (1.90%) VMware
8 8 (1.52%) Salesforce
9 7 (1.33%) Planview
10 4 (0.76%) Apple
10 4 (0.76%) Fortinet
11 3 (0.57%) Bloomberg
11 3 (0.57%) MuleSoft
11 3 (0.57%) Refinitiv
11 3 (0.57%) Samsung
12 2 (0.38%) Cisco
12 2 (0.38%) Google
12 2 (0.38%) IBM
12 2 (0.38%) IFS
12 2 (0.38%) SolarWinds