PDA Contracts

Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term PDA in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited PDA over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 515 574 712
Rank change year-on-year +59 +138 +132
Contract jobs citing PDA 5 8 6
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.017% 0.018% 0.010%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.050% 0.060% 0.030%
Number of daily rates quoted 2 3 3
10th Percentile £210 £166 -
25th Percentile £225 £174 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £250 £195 £300
Median % change year-on-year +28.21% -35.00% +34.83%
75th Percentile £275 £203 £350
90th Percentile £290 - -
UK excluding London median daily rate £200 £178 £300
% change year-on-year +12.68% -40.83% +34.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 2
Median hourly rate - - £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £70.00

All Generic Skills
UK

PDA falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 9,944 13,250 19,897
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.97% 30.42% 33.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,345 8,502 13,668
10th Percentile £300 £263 £308
25th Percentile £413 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £650 £660 £680
90th Percentile £775 £788 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £496 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.80% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 394 912 640
10th Percentile £16.46 £12.25 £9.80
25th Percentile £21.00 £15.17 £10.63
Median hourly rate £32.05 £30.00 £22.49
Median % change year-on-year +6.83% +33.42% -18.24%
75th Percentile £63.75 £60.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.99 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.08 £28.25 £22.00
% change year-on-year +10.02% +28.41% +9.64%

PDA
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for PDA in the UK

PDA
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing PDA.

Daily rate trend for PDA in the UK

PDA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing PDA.

Hourly rate trend for PDA in the UK

PDA
Top 4 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing PDA within the UK over the 6 months to 1 May 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
England +54 4 £300 +53.85% 20
London +41 4 £300 +53.85% 6
UK excluding London +57 1 £200 +12.68% 24
Scotland - 1 £200 - 5

PDA
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:

Applications
1 1 (20.00%) Acrobat
1 1 (20.00%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (20.00%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (20.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 1 (20.00%) Microsoft Project
1 1 (20.00%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (20.00%) Aligne
1 1 (20.00%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 1 (20.00%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 1 (20.00%) Internet
1 1 (20.00%) Remote Desktop
1 1 (20.00%) VPN
1 1 (20.00%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (60.00%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 3 (60.00%) JIRA
1 3 (60.00%) Zephyr
General
1 2 (40.00%) Social Skills
2 1 (20.00%) Documentation Skills
2 1 (20.00%) Finance
2 1 (20.00%) Presentation Skills
2 1 (20.00%) Retail
Job Titles
1 3 (60.00%) Analyst
2 2 (40.00%) Test Analyst
3 1 (20.00%) Business Analyst
3 1 (20.00%) Desktop Support
3 1 (20.00%) ETRM Business Analyst
3 1 (20.00%) Junior
3 1 (20.00%) Junior Tester
3 1 (20.00%) Portfolio Analyst
3 1 (20.00%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (20.00%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 1 (20.00%) Blackberry
1 1 (20.00%) PMI
1 1 (20.00%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 1 (20.00%) Windows
1 1 (20.00%) Windows 10
1 1 (20.00%) Windows Server 2008
1 1 (20.00%) Windows Server 2012
1 1 (20.00%) Windows Server 2016
1 1 (20.00%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (60.00%) Test Scripting
2 2 (40.00%) Problem-Solving
3 1 (20.00%) Acceptance Criteria
3 1 (20.00%) Agile
3 1 (20.00%) Analytics
3 1 (20.00%) Asset Management
3 1 (20.00%) Business Analysis
3 1 (20.00%) Business Case
3 1 (20.00%) Change Management
3 1 (20.00%) Data Analysis
3 1 (20.00%) Data Validation
3 1 (20.00%) ETRM
3 1 (20.00%) ITIL
3 1 (20.00%) ITSM
3 1 (20.00%) Logistics
3 1 (20.00%) Stakeholder Management
3 1 (20.00%) Systems Engineering
3 1 (20.00%) Test Management
3 1 (20.00%) Use Case
3 1 (20.00%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 3 (60.00%) SQL
Qualifications
1 2 (40.00%) Degree
2 1 (20.00%) A+ Certification
2 1 (20.00%) CBAP
2 1 (20.00%) Cisco Certification
2 1 (20.00%) MCP
2 1 (20.00%) PMI Certification
System Software
1 1 (20.00%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 1 (20.00%) ServiceCenter
1 1 (20.00%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 3 (60.00%) Oracle
2 1 (20.00%) Adobe
2 1 (20.00%) Bomgar
2 1 (20.00%) Cisco
2 1 (20.00%) HP
2 1 (20.00%) Microsoft
2 1 (20.00%) Peregrine
2 1 (20.00%) Remedy