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

6 months to
29 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 277 182 139
Rank change year-on-year -95 -43 +11
Contract jobs citing Programme Management 515 521 664
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.96% 1.58% 1.72%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.13% 1.75% 2.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 305 317 404
10th Percentile £395 £300 £281
25th Percentile £450 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £580 £600 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% +9.09% -7.56%
75th Percentile £700 £700 £700
90th Percentile £850 £805 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £598 £525
% change year-on-year -12.55% +13.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 32 24
10th Percentile £32.75 £19.82 £12.75
25th Percentile £57.63 £28.29 £21.10
Median hourly rate £88.00 £46.25 £35.25
Median % change year-on-year +90.27% +31.21% -10.87%
75th Percentile - £65.25 £50.94
90th Percentile £101.18 £77.13 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £88.00 £32.08 £20.46
% change year-on-year +174.36% +56.81% -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 45,621 29,800 32,930
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.64% 90.44% 85.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,920 18,562 20,756
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 2,892 1,765 1,620
10th Percentile £14.10 £14.21 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.30 £18.50
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.03
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.16% +0.31%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.12 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.15 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.11 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +90.48% -47.37% +14.67%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -91 446 £600 - 784
London -26 257 £638 +2.00% 503
UK excluding London -120 215 £523 -12.55% 400
Work from Home -44 180 £550 -12.00% 327
South East -31 81 £568 -12.62% 94
North of England -67 51 £507 -7.91% 83
Scotland -23 32 £450 -5.26% 38
Yorkshire -26 30 £500 -10.31% 22
North West -71 21 £520 -3.80% 53
Midlands -76 21 £538 -10.42% 44
South West -88 17 £700 +24.44% 63
East of England -27 12 £575 -13.21% 42
West Midlands -69 12 £525 -12.50% 29
East Midlands -13 9 £575 +4.26% 15
Northern Ireland -4 2 £775 +369.70% 31
Wales -16 2 £425 +153.73% 11

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 23 (4.47%) 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 32 (6.21%) Microsoft Project
2 30 (5.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (4.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (4.27%) 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 (4.85%) 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%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.19%) SAP Convergent Charging
6 1 (0.19%) SAP FI/CO
6 1 (0.19%) Temenos T24
6 1 (0.19%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 41 (7.96%) Azure
2 22 (4.27%) SaaS
3 18 (3.50%) AWS
4 17 (3.30%) Power Platform
5 13 (2.52%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (2.14%) Smartsheet
7 9 (1.75%) Entra ID
8 8 (1.55%) Google Workspace
8 8 (1.55%) 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 (2.72%) 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 48 (9.32%) JIRA
2 18 (3.50%) 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
1 251 (48.74%) Finance
2 207 (40.19%) Social Skills
3 86 (16.70%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (11.65%) Public Sector
5 50 (9.71%) Influencing Skills
6 46 (8.93%) Retail
7 45 (8.74%) Organisational Skills
8 37 (7.18%) Banking
9 34 (6.60%) Aerospace
10 29 (5.63%) Legal
11 26 (5.05%) Marketing
12 18 (3.50%) Manufacturing
12 18 (3.50%) Presentation Skills
13 14 (2.72%) Telecoms
14 12 (2.33%) 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 (1.55%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 122 (23.69%) Project Manager
2 97 (18.83%) Programme Manager
3 79 (15.34%) Lead
4 67 (13.01%) Senior
5 49 (9.51%) Senior Manager
6 35 (6.80%) Delivery Manager
7 34 (6.60%) Technical Manager
8 27 (5.24%) Transformation Manager
9 26 (5.05%) Analyst
9 26 (5.05%) Senior Project Manager
10 23 (4.47%) Product Manager
11 21 (4.08%) Product Delivery Manager
12 20 (3.88%) SAP Manager
13 19 (3.69%) Consultant
14 17 (3.30%) Transformation Programme Manager
15 16 (3.11%) Systems Manager
16 15 (2.91%) Business Analyst
16 15 (2.91%) Systems Delivery Manager
17 14 (2.72%) IT Manager
18 13 (2.52%) Technical Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (2.33%) Oracle Fusion
2 8 (1.55%) 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 40 (7.77%) Product Ownership
2 19 (3.69%) Onboarding
3 18 (3.50%) Data Structures
3 18 (3.50%) Management Information System
4 17 (3.30%) Data Protection Act
5 14 (2.72%) Legacy Systems
6 12 (2.33%) PMI
7 11 (2.14%) Operational Technology
8 9 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
8 9 (1.75%) FMCG
9 7 (1.36%) NHS
10 6 (1.17%) Data Centre
10 6 (1.17%) Learning Management System
11 5 (0.97%) AI Agents
11 5 (0.97%) Greenfield Project
11 5 (0.97%) Virtual Team
12 4 (0.78%) Analytical Mindset
12 4 (0.78%) Digital Currency
12 4 (0.78%) Marketing Technology
12 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
1 254 (49.32%) Stakeholder Management
2 187 (36.31%) Agile
3 150 (29.13%) Project Management
4 129 (25.05%) PRINCE2
5 123 (23.88%) Continuous Improvement
6 121 (23.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 113 (21.94%) Decision-Making
8 98 (19.03%) Change Management
9 91 (17.67%) Roadmaps
10 80 (15.53%) Project Delivery
11 78 (15.15%) Risk Management
12 76 (14.76%) Programme Delivery
12 76 (14.76%) Programme Governance
13 73 (14.17%) Problem-Solving
14 66 (12.82%) AI
15 61 (11.84%) Migration
16 55 (10.68%) Matrix Organization
17 52 (10.10%) Scaled Agile Framework
18 49 (9.51%) Business Case
19 47 (9.13%) Waterfall
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 98 (19.03%) Degree
2 96 (18.64%) Security Cleared
3 73 (14.17%) PMP
4 60 (11.65%) PMI Certification
5 54 (10.49%) SC Cleared
6 13 (2.52%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 12 (2.33%) DV Cleared
8 11 (2.14%) CISM
8 11 (2.14%) CISSP
9 10 (1.94%) BPSS Clearance
10 9 (1.75%) Master's Degree
11 7 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
12 6 (1.17%) TOGAF Certification
13 5 (0.97%) MBA
13 5 (0.97%) PgMP
14 4 (0.78%) HND
14 4 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
14 4 (0.78%) Six Sigma Green Belt
15 3 (0.58%) APMP
16 2 (0.39%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (18.83%) PMO
2 23 (4.47%) QA
3 16 (3.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 15 (2.91%) Data Quality
5 11 (2.14%) GDPR
6 8 (1.55%) GRC
6 8 (1.55%) 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 (12.62%) Microsoft
2 48 (9.32%) SAP
3 21 (4.08%) IBM
4 19 (3.69%) Oracle
4 19 (3.69%) ServiceNow
5 14 (2.72%) 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