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 28 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 271 181 141
Rank change year-on-year -90 -40 +10
Contract jobs citing Programme Management 513 518 659
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.95% 1.58% 1.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.13% 1.75% 1.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 300 315 405
10th Percentile £394 £300 £281
25th Percentile £450 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £578 £600 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% +9.09% -7.56%
75th Percentile £700 £700 £700
90th Percentile £850 £800 £811
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £598 £525
% change year-on-year -12.13% +13.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 30 24
10th Percentile £34.31 £20.11 £12.75
25th Percentile £59.25 £29.16 £21.10
Median hourly rate £88.00 £46.25 £35.25
Median % change year-on-year +90.27% +31.21% -10.87%
75th Percentile - £65.19 £50.94
90th Percentile £100.51 £74.13 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £35.60 £20.46
% change year-on-year +147.19% +74.04% -48.28%

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 45,469 29,582 33,102
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 90.43% 85.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,813 18,412 20,921
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,891 1,754 1,674
10th Percentile £14.10 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £67.89 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.92 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.80% -46.07% +6.25%

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 28 August 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 28 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Programme Management in the UK

Programme Management
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 Programme Management within the UK over the 6 months to 28 August 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 -90 444 £600 - 712
London -38 255 £631 +1.00% 458
UK excluding London -123 215 £525 -12.13% 355
Work from Home -45 179 £550 -10.20% 287
South East -24 83 £572 -12.08% 82
North of England -66 49 £507 -7.91% 70
Scotland -15 32 £450 -5.26% 34
Yorkshire -28 29 £503 -9.73% 20
Midlands -77 21 £538 -10.42% 42
North West -59 20 £514 -4.81% 42
South West -78 16 £700 +24.44% 59
East of England -22 12 £575 -13.21% 40
West Midlands -84 12 £525 -12.50% 30
East Midlands -16 9 £575 +4.26% 12
Northern Ireland -3 2 £775 +369.70% 24
Wales -19 2 £425 +153.73% 10

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 22 (4.29%) Confluence
2 9 (1.75%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.97%) CMS
3 5 (0.97%) IIS
4 2 (0.39%) Oracle Service Bus
4 2 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.19%) Apache
5 1 (0.19%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.19%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.19%) Apache Superset
5 1 (0.19%) nginx
5 1 (0.19%) SharePoint 2013
5 1 (0.19%) Tomcat
Applications
1 31 (6.04%) Microsoft Project
2 30 (5.85%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (4.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (4.29%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (0.58%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.39%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.19%) Notion
7 1 (0.19%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 25 (4.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.97%) Oracle ERP
2 5 (0.97%) SAP MDG
3 4 (0.78%) Magento
4 3 (0.58%) SAP MDG-F
4 3 (0.58%) SAP SD
5 2 (0.39%) SAP BRIM
5 2 (0.39%) SAP ERP
5 2 (0.39%) SAP EWM
5 2 (0.39%) SAP IBP
5 2 (0.39%) SAP MM
5 2 (0.39%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.19%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.19%) Finacle
6 1 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.19%) SAP Convergent Charging
6 1 (0.19%) SAP MDG-S
6 1 (0.19%) Temenos T24
6 1 (0.19%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.19%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 41 (7.99%) Azure
2 22 (4.29%) SaaS
3 18 (3.51%) AWS
4 17 (3.31%) Power Platform
5 13 (2.53%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (2.14%) Smartsheet
7 9 (1.75%) Entra ID
8 8 (1.56%) Google Workspace
8 8 (1.56%) OCI
9 6 (1.17%) GCP
10 5 (0.97%) Dynamics 365
10 5 (0.97%) Microsoft 365
11 4 (0.78%) ClickUp
11 4 (0.78%) Snowflake
12 2 (0.39%) Anthropic Claude
12 2 (0.39%) Asana
12 2 (0.39%) Azure Data Factory
12 2 (0.39%) ChatGPT
12 2 (0.39%) Google Sheets
12 2 (0.39%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.36%) Network Security
2 5 (0.97%) HTTPS
3 3 (0.58%) DNS
3 3 (0.58%) Firewall
3 3 (0.58%) LAN
3 3 (0.58%) TCP/IP
3 3 (0.58%) WAN
4 2 (0.39%) DHCP
4 2 (0.39%) FTP
4 2 (0.39%) IPv4
4 2 (0.39%) IPv6
4 2 (0.39%) VLAN
4 2 (0.39%) VPN
5 1 (0.19%) HTTP
5 1 (0.19%) Internet
5 1 (0.19%) Radio Access Network
5 1 (0.19%) SAN
5 1 (0.19%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (2.73%) Power BI
2 4 (0.78%) Data Warehouse
3 3 (0.58%) Big Data
3 3 (0.58%) PostgreSQL
3 3 (0.58%) SAP HANA
4 2 (0.39%) Electronic Patient Records
5 1 (0.19%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.19%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (0.19%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.19%) SQL Server Analysis Services
5 1 (0.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (0.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 1 (0.19%) Tableau
5 1 (0.19%) Trino
Development Applications
1 47 (9.16%) JIRA
2 21 (4.09%) Rational DOORS
3 4 (0.78%) Git
3 4 (0.78%) Jenkins
3 4 (0.78%) Subversion
4 2 (0.39%) Atlassian Bamboo
4 2 (0.39%) Bitbucket
General
1 249 (48.54%) Finance
2 205 (39.96%) Social Skills
3 85 (16.57%) Analytical Skills
4 57 (11.11%) Public Sector
5 49 (9.55%) Influencing Skills
6 46 (8.97%) Retail
7 45 (8.77%) Organisational Skills
8 37 (7.21%) Aerospace
8 37 (7.21%) Banking
9 29 (5.65%) Legal
10 26 (5.07%) Marketing
11 18 (3.51%) Manufacturing
12 17 (3.31%) Presentation Skills
13 14 (2.73%) Telecoms
14 12 (2.34%) Documentation Skills
15 11 (2.14%) Local Government
16 9 (1.75%) Front Office
16 9 (1.75%) Investment Banking
16 9 (1.75%) Law
17 8 (1.56%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 121 (23.59%) Project Manager
2 97 (18.91%) Programme Manager
3 75 (14.62%) Lead
4 67 (13.06%) Senior
5 49 (9.55%) Senior Manager
6 38 (7.41%) Delivery Manager
7 34 (6.63%) Technical Manager
8 27 (5.26%) Transformation Manager
9 26 (5.07%) Analyst
9 26 (5.07%) Product Manager
9 26 (5.07%) Senior Project Manager
10 24 (4.68%) Product Delivery Manager
11 20 (3.90%) SAP Manager
12 19 (3.70%) Consultant
12 19 (3.70%) Systems Manager
13 18 (3.51%) Systems Delivery Manager
14 17 (3.31%) Transformation Programme Manager
15 15 (2.92%) Business Analyst
16 13 (2.53%) IT Manager
16 13 (2.53%) Technical Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (2.34%) Oracle Fusion
2 8 (1.56%) Middleware
3 7 (1.36%) REST
4 5 (0.97%) XML
5 4 (0.78%) SailPoint
5 4 (0.78%) VML
6 3 (0.58%) RESTful
7 2 (0.39%) ADO
7 2 (0.39%) JSON
7 2 (0.39%) ModSecurity
7 2 (0.39%) OAuth
7 2 (0.39%) OAuth2
7 2 (0.39%) SOAP
7 2 (0.39%) Terraform
7 2 (0.39%) Web Services
7 2 (0.39%) XSD
7 2 (0.39%) XSLT
8 1 (0.19%) Azure Blueprints
8 1 (0.19%) React
8 1 (0.19%) SAP Basis
Miscellaneous
1 42 (8.19%) Product Ownership
2 21 (4.09%) Data Structures
3 19 (3.70%) Onboarding
4 18 (3.51%) Management Information System
5 17 (3.31%) Data Protection Act
6 14 (2.73%) Legacy Systems
7 12 (2.34%) PMI
8 11 (2.14%) Operational Technology
9 9 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
9 9 (1.75%) FMCG
10 7 (1.36%) NHS
11 6 (1.17%) Data Centre
11 6 (1.17%) Learning Management System
12 5 (0.97%) AI Agents
12 5 (0.97%) Greenfield Project
12 5 (0.97%) Virtual Team
13 4 (0.78%) Analytical Mindset
13 4 (0.78%) Digital Currency
13 4 (0.78%) Marketing Technology
13 4 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 11 (2.14%) Windows
2 2 (0.39%) Linux
3 1 (0.19%) Alpine Linux
3 1 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (0.19%) Solaris
3 1 (0.19%) Ubuntu
3 1 (0.19%) Unix
3 1 (0.19%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
3 1 (0.19%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 250 (48.73%) Stakeholder Management
2 187 (36.45%) Agile
3 147 (28.65%) Project Management
4 129 (25.15%) PRINCE2
5 125 (24.37%) Continuous Improvement
6 123 (23.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 108 (21.05%) Decision-Making
8 96 (18.71%) Change Management
9 91 (17.74%) Roadmaps
10 78 (15.20%) Project Delivery
10 78 (15.20%) Risk Management
11 76 (14.81%) Programme Governance
12 74 (14.42%) Programme Delivery
13 71 (13.84%) Problem-Solving
14 66 (12.87%) AI
15 61 (11.89%) Migration
16 55 (10.72%) Scaled Agile Framework
17 54 (10.53%) Matrix Organization
18 48 (9.36%) Business Case
18 48 (9.36%) Change Control
Programming Languages
1 4 (0.78%) SQL
2 2 (0.39%) Java
2 2 (0.39%) Python
3 1 (0.19%) ABAP
3 1 (0.19%) Bicep
3 1 (0.19%) Korn
3 1 (0.19%) PL/SQL
3 1 (0.19%) PowerShell
3 1 (0.19%) VBA
Qualifications
1 100 (19.49%) Degree
2 99 (19.30%) Security Cleared
3 72 (14.04%) PMP
4 59 (11.50%) PMI Certification
5 54 (10.53%) SC Cleared
6 12 (2.34%) DV Cleared
7 11 (2.14%) CISM
7 11 (2.14%) CISSP
7 11 (2.14%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 9 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
8 9 (1.75%) Master's Degree
9 7 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
10 6 (1.17%) TOGAF Certification
11 5 (0.97%) MBA
11 5 (0.97%) PgMP
12 4 (0.78%) HND
12 4 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (0.78%) Six Sigma Green Belt
13 3 (0.58%) APMP
14 2 (0.39%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (18.32%) PMO
2 23 (4.48%) QA
3 16 (3.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 15 (2.92%) Data Quality
5 11 (2.14%) GDPR
6 8 (1.56%) GRC
6 8 (1.56%) SLA
7 7 (1.36%) NIST
8 6 (1.17%) HIPAA
9 5 (0.97%) NCSC
9 5 (0.97%) P3O
9 5 (0.97%) PCI DSS
9 5 (0.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 4 (0.78%) MiFID
11 3 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
11 3 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 3 (0.58%) EMIR
11 3 (0.58%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.39%) Accessibility
12 2 (0.39%) NIST 800
System Software
1 4 (0.78%) Active Directory
2 3 (0.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.39%) Docker
4 1 (0.19%) ISA Server
4 1 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
4 1 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.19%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.19%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 3 (0.58%) Ansible
2 2 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (0.19%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.19%) MOM
3 1 (0.19%) Oracle RMAN
3 1 (0.19%) SCCM
3 1 (0.19%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 65 (12.67%) Microsoft
2 48 (9.36%) SAP
3 24 (4.68%) IBM
4 19 (3.70%) Oracle
4 19 (3.70%) ServiceNow
5 14 (2.73%) Google
6 11 (2.14%) Salesforce
7 6 (1.17%) Atlassian
7 6 (1.17%) Databricks
8 5 (0.97%) Zscaler
9 4 (0.78%) Workday
10 3 (0.58%) Bloomberg
10 3 (0.58%) Charles River
10 3 (0.58%) Rapid7
10 3 (0.58%) VMware
11 2 (0.39%) Ariba
11 2 (0.39%) Qualys
11 2 (0.39%) Siebel
11 2 (0.39%) SimCorp
11 2 (0.39%) Temenos