Programme Management Contract Job Trends

Programme Management (Program Management)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Programme Management skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 204 131 117
Rank change year-on-year -73 -14 +44
Contract jobs citing Programme Management 545 629 896
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.33% 2.05% 2.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.53% 2.28% 2.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 334 351 643
10th Percentile £170 £263 £288
25th Percentile £425 £425 £428
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -
75th Percentile £650 £665 £688
90th Percentile £787 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £550 £575
% change year-on-year -4.55% -4.35% +4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 21 12
10th Percentile £18.84 £20.26 £27.12
25th Percentile £20.50 £22.50 £39.88
Median hourly rate £23.83 £28.60 £65.58
Median % change year-on-year -16.70% -56.39% +101.79%
75th Percentile £41.60 £44.08 £74.19
90th Percentile £72.36 £65.00 £79.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £23.00 £72.33
% change year-on-year +3.59% -68.20% +28.59%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Programme Management falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 35,563 27,597 38,882
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.83% 89.79% 87.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,526 17,059 25,424
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £410 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -2.54% -1.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,133 855 2,176
10th Percentile £14.62 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.77 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.71% -7.14% -
75th Percentile £60.46 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £75.00 £73.27
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.29 £35.00
% change year-on-year -19.62% -10.60% -

Programme Management
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Programme Management job vacancy trend in the UK

Programme Management
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Programme Management

Programme Management
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Programme Management over the 6 months to 21 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Programme Management in the UK

Programme Management
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Programme Management

Programme Management
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Programme Management over the 6 months to 21 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Programme Management in the UK

Programme Management
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Programme Management within the UK over the 6 months to 21 February 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 -77 481 £550 - 100
UK excluding London -83 301 £525 -4.55% 78
London -41 208 £550 -1.12% 33
Work from Home -68 124 £550 -4.35% 46
South East -57 70 £550 -8.33% 38
Midlands -46 62 £550 -1.12% 14
North of England -59 54 £509 +1.34% 12
South West -46 49 £525 -5.41% 11
East Midlands +2 41 £531 +10.34% 3
Yorkshire -45 27 £537 -2.36% 5
East of England -12 26 £600 +17.07% 3
Scotland -10 22 £500 -2.44% 2
West Midlands -73 21 £600 - 11
North West -45 15 £475 -5.94% 7
Wales +5 12 £160 -72.47% 1
North East -21 12 £175 -55.70%
Northern Ireland 0 6 £650 +136.36%

Programme Management
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 31 (5.69%) Confluence
2 19 (3.49%) SharePoint
3 12 (2.20%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.55%) Apache
5 2 (0.37%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.37%) Oracle Service Bus
5 2 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.18%) Apache Superset
6 1 (0.18%) CMS
6 1 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
Applications
1 47 (8.62%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (7.52%) Microsoft Project
3 37 (6.79%) Microsoft Excel
4 21 (3.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.55%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.37%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.18%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.18%) Trello
Business Applications
1 14 (2.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.92%) Oracle ERP
3 3 (0.55%) Primavera
4 2 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.37%) Maximo
4 2 (0.37%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.37%) SAP IBP
5 1 (0.18%) Dynamics NAV
5 1 (0.18%) iTrent
5 1 (0.18%) SAP CRM
5 1 (0.18%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 45 (8.26%) Microsoft 365
2 39 (7.16%) Azure
3 33 (6.06%) AWS
4 27 (4.95%) Power Platform
5 22 (4.04%) Google Workspace
6 21 (3.85%) Cloud Computing
7 20 (3.67%) Google Sheets
8 14 (2.57%) GCP
8 14 (2.57%) SaaS
9 7 (1.28%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (1.28%) Smartsheet
10 6 (1.10%) Dynamics 365
10 6 (1.10%) GitHub
11 4 (0.73%) GitHub Actions
11 4 (0.73%) OCI
11 4 (0.73%) OpenShift
11 4 (0.73%) Power Automate
11 4 (0.73%) Slack
12 3 (0.55%) Microsoft Purview
12 3 (0.55%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 26 (4.77%) Wireless
2 9 (1.65%) LAN
2 9 (1.65%) Network Security
3 8 (1.47%) Cisco IOS
3 8 (1.47%) Skype
4 7 (1.28%) 5G
5 6 (1.10%) Broadband
5 6 (1.10%) VPN
5 6 (1.10%) WAN
6 5 (0.92%) Internet
7 4 (0.73%) DNS
7 4 (0.73%) Kerberos
7 4 (0.73%) Structured Cabling
7 4 (0.73%) Unified Communications
8 3 (0.55%) BGP
8 3 (0.55%) Firewall
8 3 (0.55%) InfiniBand
8 3 (0.55%) Junos
8 3 (0.55%) OSPF
8 3 (0.55%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (4.59%) Power BI
2 9 (1.65%) Relational Database
3 7 (1.28%) Electronic Patient Records
4 6 (1.10%) Oracle Reports
4 6 (1.10%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (0.92%) Tableau
6 4 (0.73%) MySQL
7 3 (0.55%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.37%) Big Data
8 2 (0.37%) Power Query
8 2 (0.37%) Qlik Sense
8 2 (0.37%) QlikView
9 1 (0.18%) Data Lake
9 1 (0.18%) Data Mining
9 1 (0.18%) Looker
9 1 (0.18%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.18%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 68 (12.48%) JIRA
2 3 (0.55%) Jenkins
2 3 (0.55%) JUnit
2 3 (0.55%) Rational DOORS
2 3 (0.55%) Storybook
3 1 (0.18%) GitLab
3 1 (0.18%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 336 (61.65%) Finance
2 234 (42.94%) Social Skills
3 204 (37.43%) Public Sector
4 173 (31.74%) Marketing
5 169 (31.01%) Manufacturing
6 163 (29.91%) Telecoms
7 156 (28.62%) Electronics
8 56 (10.28%) Analytical Skills
9 42 (7.71%) Organisational Skills
10 31 (5.69%) Banking
11 29 (5.32%) Retail
12 18 (3.30%) Influencing Skills
13 16 (2.94%) Presentation Skills
14 13 (2.39%) Legal
15 11 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
16 8 (1.47%) Investment Banking
17 7 (1.28%) Aerospace
17 7 (1.28%) Military
17 7 (1.28%) Pharmaceutical
18 6 (1.10%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 101 (18.53%) Programme Manager
2 70 (12.84%) Project Manager
3 53 (9.72%) Lead
4 47 (8.62%) Senior
5 45 (8.26%) Analyst
6 39 (7.16%) IT Support
7 34 (6.24%) Technical Manager
8 33 (6.06%) Desktop Support
9 32 (5.87%) Senior Manager
10 25 (4.59%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
10 25 (4.59%) 2nd Line Support
10 25 (4.59%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
11 22 (4.04%) Architect
12 20 (3.67%) Migration Engineer
13 19 (3.49%) IT Engineer
14 17 (3.12%) Senior Project Manager
15 15 (2.75%) Business Analyst
15 15 (2.75%) Delivery Manager
16 14 (2.57%) Coordinator
16 14 (2.57%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (1.83%) Oracle Fusion
2 8 (1.47%) React
3 7 (1.28%) RESTful
4 6 (1.10%) OAuth
5 5 (0.92%) ADO
5 5 (0.92%) SailPoint
5 5 (0.92%) SAML
6 4 (0.73%) .NET
6 4 (0.73%) CSS
6 4 (0.73%) HTML
6 4 (0.73%) REST
7 3 (0.55%) Middleware
7 3 (0.55%) PySpark
7 3 (0.55%) SOAP
7 3 (0.55%) Spring
7 3 (0.55%) Spring Boot
7 3 (0.55%) TensorFlow
7 3 (0.55%) Web Services
7 3 (0.55%) XML
7 3 (0.55%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 42 (7.71%) Data Centre
2 26 (4.77%) Data Protection Act
2 26 (4.77%) NHS
3 23 (4.22%) Onboarding
4 21 (3.85%) Product Ownership
5 19 (3.49%) Management Information System
6 13 (2.39%) Virtual Team
7 12 (2.20%) CMDB
8 11 (2.02%) PMI
9 10 (1.83%) Self-Motivation
10 9 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
10 9 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
10 9 (1.65%) Mobile App
11 8 (1.47%) Cloud Native
12 7 (1.28%) Public Cloud
13 5 (0.92%) AI Agents
14 4 (0.73%) Enterprise Software
14 4 (0.73%) FMCG
14 4 (0.73%) Hedge funds
14 4 (0.73%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 31 (5.69%) Android
1 31 (5.69%) Mac OS
2 21 (3.85%) Windows
3 13 (2.39%) Windows 10
4 2 (0.37%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.18%) Linux
5 1 (0.18%) VMS
5 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 183 (33.58%) Business Intelligence
2 171 (31.38%) Stakeholder Management
3 161 (29.54%) Digital Marketing
4 141 (25.87%) Agile
5 107 (19.63%) Migration
6 103 (18.90%) Project Management
7 94 (17.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 91 (16.70%) Risk Management
9 86 (15.78%) Continuous Improvement
10 72 (13.21%) Decision-Making
10 72 (13.21%) PRINCE2
11 71 (13.03%) Problem-Solving
12 65 (11.93%) Change Management
13 62 (11.38%) Project Delivery
14 56 (10.28%) Roadmaps
15 45 (8.26%) Logistics
16 43 (7.89%) Workflow
17 40 (7.34%) AI
18 39 (7.16%) Analytics
19 38 (6.97%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 42 (7.71%) SQL
2 18 (3.30%) Python
3 13 (2.39%) Java
4 7 (1.28%) JavaScript
4 7 (1.28%) PowerShell
5 4 (0.73%) TypeScript
6 2 (0.37%) BeanShell
6 2 (0.37%) Go
7 1 (0.18%) C#
7 1 (0.18%) Google Apps Script
7 1 (0.18%) Korn
7 1 (0.18%) PHP
7 1 (0.18%) PL/SQL
7 1 (0.18%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 146 (26.79%) Security Cleared
2 116 (21.28%) SC Cleared
3 91 (16.70%) Degree
4 52 (9.54%) PMI Certification
5 48 (8.81%) PMP
6 24 (4.40%) DV Cleared
7 19 (3.49%) Master's Degree
8 16 (2.94%) ITIL Certification
9 15 (2.75%) CISSP
10 12 (2.20%) CISM
11 11 (2.02%) APMP
12 9 (1.65%) TOGAF Certification
13 7 (1.28%) PhD
13 7 (1.28%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
14 5 (0.92%) Computer Science Degree
15 4 (0.73%) OCP
15 4 (0.73%) Oracle Certification
15 4 (0.73%) PgMP
16 3 (0.55%) JNCIA
16 3 (0.55%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (11.74%) PMO
2 28 (5.14%) QA
3 11 (2.02%) Data Quality
4 8 (1.47%) Accessibility
4 8 (1.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 7 (1.28%) NIST
6 6 (1.10%) GDPR
6 6 (1.10%) JSP 440
7 5 (0.92%) P3O
7 5 (0.92%) RMADS
8 4 (0.73%) NCSC
9 3 (0.55%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.55%) SLA
10 2 (0.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.37%) GMP
10 2 (0.37%) ISO 9001
10 2 (0.37%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.37%) WCAG
11 1 (0.18%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 15 (2.75%) Active Directory
2 4 (0.73%) Docker
3 2 (0.37%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 6 (1.10%) Kubernetes
2 5 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
3 2 (0.37%) vRealize
4 1 (0.18%) Failover Clustering
4 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.18%) SCCM
4 1 (0.18%) Terraform
Vendors
1 176 (32.29%) SAP
2 72 (13.21%) Microsoft
3 46 (8.44%) Cisco
4 29 (5.32%) Google
5 23 (4.22%) Apple
5 23 (4.22%) Dell
5 23 (4.22%) HP
6 22 (4.04%) ServiceNow
7 16 (2.94%) Oracle
8 12 (2.20%) Salesforce
9 7 (1.28%) BiZZdesign
10 5 (0.92%) Ariba
10 5 (0.92%) CyberArk
10 5 (0.92%) Databricks
10 5 (0.92%) GoldenSource
11 4 (0.73%) Centrify
11 4 (0.73%) VMware
11 4 (0.73%) Workday
12 3 (0.55%) Planview
12 3 (0.55%) Samsung