PDA Contract Job Trends

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 16 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 596 541 600
Rank change year-on-year -55 +59 +176
Contract jobs citing PDA 7 3 2
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.019% 0.009% 0.005%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.054% 0.027% 0.014%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 2 2
10th Percentile £351 - -
25th Percentile £391 £363 -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £456 £375 £210
Median % change year-on-year +21.67% +78.57% +5.00%
75th Percentile £508 £388 -
90th Percentile £533 - -
UK excluding London median daily rate £406 - £210
% change year-on-year - - -7.69%

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 12,874 10,932 13,996
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.07% 31.94% 31.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,044 6,530 9,323
10th Percentile £275 £270 £265
25th Percentile £406 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.88% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £661 £669
90th Percentile £738 £775 £770
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 650 345 494
10th Percentile £13.89 £17.25 £16.51
25th Percentile £18.08 £22.72 £20.50
Median hourly rate £27.11 £33.54 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.19% -21.08% +21.43%
75th Percentile £58.56 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.33 £78.44 £77.28
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.11 £32.50 £45.21
% change year-on-year -16.60% -28.11% +53.25%

PDA
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing PDA relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

PDA job vacancy trend in the UK

PDA
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing PDA.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing PDA

PDA
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing PDA over the 6 months to 16 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for PDA in the UK

PDA
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing PDA.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing PDA

PDA
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 PDA within the UK over the 6 months to 16 December 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 -33 7 £456 +21.67% 2
London -1 4 £488 +30.00%
Work from Home - 3 £550 - 1
UK excluding London - 3 £406 - 2
North of England - 1 £325 -
East of England - 1 - - 2
Yorkshire - 1 £325 -
Midlands - 1 £488 -
West Midlands - 1 £488 -

PDA
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 1 (14.29%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 4 (57.14%) Azure
2 2 (28.57%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 1 (14.29%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (14.29%) BigQuery
1 1 (14.29%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (14.29%) Jenkins
1 1 (14.29%) JIRA
1 1 (14.29%) Selenium
1 1 (14.29%) SoapUI
1 1 (14.29%) Zephyr
General
1 2 (28.57%) Public Sector
2 1 (14.29%) Manufacturing
2 1 (14.29%) Pharmaceutical
2 1 (14.29%) Retail
2 1 (14.29%) Social Skills
2 1 (14.29%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 3 (42.86%) Architect
1 3 (42.86%) Azure Architect
1 3 (42.86%) Solutions Architect
2 2 (28.57%) Supply Chain Architect
3 1 (14.29%) Analyst
3 1 (14.29%) Data Manager
3 1 (14.29%) Developer
3 1 (14.29%) Engagement Manager
3 1 (14.29%) Integration Architect
3 1 (14.29%) Middleware Architect
3 1 (14.29%) Mobile Solutions Architect
3 1 (14.29%) Mobile Test Analyst
3 1 (14.29%) Procurement Manager
3 1 (14.29%) Senior
3 1 (14.29%) Senior Analyst
3 1 (14.29%) Senior Test Analyst
3 1 (14.29%) Test Analyst
3 1 (14.29%) Xamarin Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (14.29%) Kafka
1 1 (14.29%) Middleware
1 1 (14.29%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 2 (28.57%) Management Information System
2 1 (14.29%) Data Centre
2 1 (14.29%) FMCG
Operating Systems
1 1 (14.29%) Android
1 1 (14.29%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (42.86%) Agile
1 3 (42.86%) Logistics
1 3 (42.86%) Scrum
2 2 (28.57%) DevOps
2 2 (28.57%) Event-Driven
2 2 (28.57%) Event-Driven Architecture
2 2 (28.57%) Supply Chain Management
2 2 (28.57%) Technical Leadership
3 1 (14.29%) Business Intelligence
3 1 (14.29%) Generative AI
3 1 (14.29%) Integration Testing
3 1 (14.29%) Kanban
3 1 (14.29%) Manual Testing
3 1 (14.29%) Migration
3 1 (14.29%) Performance Management
3 1 (14.29%) Project Management
3 1 (14.29%) Technology Strategy
3 1 (14.29%) Test Automation
3 1 (14.29%) User Stories
3 1 (14.29%) Waterfall
Programming Languages
1 1 (14.29%) C#
1 1 (14.29%) Java
Qualifications
1 2 (28.57%) Security Cleared
Vendors
1 1 (14.29%) Google
1 1 (14.29%) Microsoft
1 1 (14.29%) Oracle
1 1 (14.29%) Xamarin