Programme Manager Contract Job Trends

Programme Manager
UK

The median Programme Manager daily rate in the UK is £675, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 September 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 300 271 299
Rank change year-on-year -29 +28 -82
Contract jobs requiring a Programme Manager 433 319 292
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.80% 0.97% 0.76%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.86% 1.06% 0.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 279 197 200
10th Percentile £500 £447 £500
25th Percentile £589 £556 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £675 £690 £665
Median % change year-on-year -2.17% +3.76% -1.48%
75th Percentile £781 £800 £796
90th Percentile £875 £888 £875
UK excluding London median daily rate £625 £650 £650
% change year-on-year -3.85% - +4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 9 3
10th Percentile £46.90 £44.15 £41.38
25th Percentile £61.87 £48.75 £41.94
Median hourly rate £63.73 £65.00 £42.88
Median % change year-on-year -1.95% +51.59% -46.40%
75th Percentile £65.60 £71.50 £56.19
90th Percentile £70.20 £85.43 £64.18
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.73 £71.00 £41.94
% change year-on-year -10.24% +69.29% -27.09%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 50,200 29,979 35,866
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.34% 91.08% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,804 18,923 22,265
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £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 3,754 1,564 1,727
10th Percentile £14.59 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.27 £17.00 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.13 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.50% -41.51% -0.76%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.93 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +10.86%

Programme Manager
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Programme Manager' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Programme Manager job vacancy trend in the UK

Programme Manager
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Programme Manager job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Programme Manager job vacancies in the UK

Programme Manager
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Programme Manager over the 6 months to 13 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Programme Manager in the UK

Programme Manager
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Programme Manager job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Programme Manager job vacancies in the UK

Programme Manager
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Programme Manager over the 6 months to 13 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Programme Manager in the UK

Programme Manager
Top 18 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 Manager within the UK over the 6 months to 13 September 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 -38 387 £675 -2.88% 169
London -26 203 £700 -3.45% 95
UK excluding London -62 193 £625 -3.85% 87
Work from Home -56 109 £688 -6.78% 72
North of England -47 63 £630 +5.00% 20
South East -53 47 £575 -17.86% 28
Midlands -46 34 £638 -1.92% 17
Yorkshire -28 28 £625 +4.17% 6
North West -50 27 £543 -9.46% 15
West Midlands -42 23 £625 -16.67% 10
South West -27 22 £650 -13.33% 5
Scotland -28 12 £550 -13.04% 7
East Midlands -23 11 £700 +45.08% 7
East of England -26 9 £688 -8.33% 10
North East -36 8 £775 +27.84%
Channel Islands - 3 £525 -
Northern Ireland +3 2 - - 2
Wales -13 2 - -

Programme Manager Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 13 September 2026, Programme Manager contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Programme Manager in the job title.

1 211 (48.73%) Stakeholder Management
2 122 (28.18%) Agile
3 118 (27.25%) Programme Governance
4 94 (21.71%) Programme Management
5 82 (18.94%) Project Management
6 75 (17.32%) Risk Management
6 75 (17.32%) Roadmaps
7 72 (16.63%) Programme Delivery
8 61 (14.09%) PRINCE2
9 57 (13.16%) Migration
10 54 (12.47%) Decision-Making
11 53 (12.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 49 (11.32%) Change Management
13 45 (10.39%) SAP
14 43 (9.93%) Continuous Improvement
14 43 (9.93%) ERP
15 42 (9.70%) Business Case
15 42 (9.70%) Security Cleared
16 40 (9.24%) Waterfall
17 37 (8.55%) Microsoft
18 36 (8.31%) PMP
19 35 (8.08%) DevOps
20 34 (7.85%) Project Delivery
20 34 (7.85%) Technology Transformation
21 33 (7.62%) PMO
21 33 (7.62%) SC Cleared
22 32 (7.39%) PMI Certification
23 29 (6.70%) AI
23 29 (6.70%) Matrix Organization
24 28 (6.47%) SDLC

Programme Manager Skill Set
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 13 (3.00%) Confluence
2 6 (1.39%) CMS
2 6 (1.39%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.69%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.23%) SAS
Applications
1 17 (3.93%) Microsoft Project
2 11 (2.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (1.85%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (1.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.23%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 25 (5.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.92%) Magento
3 3 (0.69%) SAP MDG
4 2 (0.46%) Aladdin
4 2 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.46%) Dynamics NAV
4 2 (0.46%) Finacle
4 2 (0.46%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.46%) SAP EWM
4 2 (0.46%) SAP MDG-F
4 2 (0.46%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.23%) ENOVIA
5 1 (0.23%) FLEXCUBE
5 1 (0.23%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.23%) SimCorp Dimension
5 1 (0.23%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.23%) TrackWise
5 1 (0.23%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 27 (6.24%) Azure
2 14 (3.23%) SaaS
3 12 (2.77%) AWS
4 9 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
4 9 (2.08%) OCI
5 7 (1.62%) Azure DevOps
6 6 (1.39%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (0.92%) Amazon S3
7 4 (0.92%) Entra ID
8 3 (0.69%) Power Platform
8 3 (0.69%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 3 (0.69%) Salesforce Service Cloud
9 2 (0.46%) GCP
9 2 (0.46%) Google Workspace
9 2 (0.46%) Miro
9 2 (0.46%) Serverless
9 2 (0.46%) Smartsheet
9 2 (0.46%) SuccessFactors
9 2 (0.46%) Tricentis Tosca
10 1 (0.23%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.69%) IPv4
1 3 (0.69%) IPv6
2 1 (0.23%) Broadband
2 1 (0.23%) Cisco ISE
2 1 (0.23%) DNS
2 1 (0.23%) Firewall
2 1 (0.23%) Internet
2 1 (0.23%) Network Security
2 1 (0.23%) Radio Access Network
2 1 (0.23%) Unified Communications
2 1 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (0.69%) SAP HANA
2 2 (0.46%) Data Lake
2 2 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
2 2 (0.46%) Power BI
3 1 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (0.23%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 23 (5.31%) JIRA
2 4 (0.92%) eggPlant
2 4 (0.92%) Git
2 4 (0.92%) Jenkins
2 4 (0.92%) Selenium
2 4 (0.92%) Subversion
3 3 (0.69%) SOAtest
4 2 (0.46%) HP UFT
4 2 (0.46%) Rational Functional Tester
4 2 (0.46%) SilkTest
5 1 (0.23%) Hudson
General
1 190 (43.88%) Finance
2 113 (26.10%) Social Skills
3 34 (7.85%) Banking
4 33 (7.62%) Influencing Skills
5 32 (7.39%) Public Sector
6 29 (6.70%) Retail
7 21 (4.85%) Organisational Skills
8 20 (4.62%) Analytical Skills
9 19 (4.39%) Legal
10 17 (3.93%) Marketing
10 17 (3.93%) Telecoms
11 14 (3.23%) Manufacturing
12 10 (2.31%) Local Government
13 5 (1.15%) Law
14 4 (0.92%) Financial Institution
15 3 (0.69%) Automotive
15 3 (0.69%) Back Office
15 3 (0.69%) Billing
15 3 (0.69%) Front Office
15 3 (0.69%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (2.08%) Oracle Fusion
2 6 (1.39%) XML
3 4 (0.92%) Middleware
3 4 (0.92%) VML
3 4 (0.92%) Web Services
4 3 (0.69%) .NET
4 3 (0.69%) SailPoint
5 2 (0.46%) HTML
5 2 (0.46%) SOAP
5 2 (0.46%) XBRL
6 1 (0.23%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 17 (3.93%) Onboarding
2 14 (3.23%) Product Ownership
3 10 (2.31%) FMCG
4 9 (2.08%) Legacy Systems
5 8 (1.85%) Virtual Team
6 7 (1.62%) Greenfield Project
7 5 (1.15%) Data Centre
7 5 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (0.92%) Management Information System
8 4 (0.92%) Security Posture
9 3 (0.69%) Cloud Native
9 3 (0.69%) Cyber Security Posture
9 3 (0.69%) Life Science
9 3 (0.69%) NHS
9 3 (0.69%) Operational Technology
9 3 (0.69%) PMI
10 2 (0.46%) AI Agents
10 2 (0.46%) Data Structures
10 2 (0.46%) Hybrid Cloud
10 2 (0.46%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 8 (1.85%) Windows
2 7 (1.62%) Linux
3 4 (0.92%) Unix
4 1 (0.23%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 211 (48.73%) Stakeholder Management
2 122 (28.18%) Agile
3 118 (27.25%) Programme Governance
4 94 (21.71%) Programme Management
5 82 (18.94%) Project Management
6 75 (17.32%) Risk Management
6 75 (17.32%) Roadmaps
7 72 (16.63%) Programme Delivery
8 61 (14.09%) PRINCE2
9 57 (13.16%) Migration
10 54 (12.47%) Decision-Making
11 53 (12.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 49 (11.32%) Change Management
13 43 (9.93%) Continuous Improvement
13 43 (9.93%) ERP
14 42 (9.70%) Business Case
15 40 (9.24%) Waterfall
16 35 (8.08%) DevOps
17 34 (7.85%) Project Delivery
17 34 (7.85%) Technology Transformation
Programming Languages
1 6 (1.39%) Korn
2 5 (1.15%) SQL
3 4 (0.92%) C
4 3 (0.69%) Java
5 2 (0.46%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 42 (9.70%) Security Cleared
2 36 (8.31%) PMP
3 33 (7.62%) SC Cleared
4 32 (7.39%) PMI Certification
5 26 (6.00%) Degree
6 10 (2.31%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 5 (1.15%) Master's Degree
8 4 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
8 4 (0.92%) DV Cleared
9 3 (0.69%) MBA
9 3 (0.69%) PgMP
10 2 (0.46%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.46%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.46%) ISTQB
10 2 (0.46%) SAFe Agilist
11 1 (0.23%) APMG
11 1 (0.23%) APMP
11 1 (0.23%) CISM
11 1 (0.23%) DBS Check
11 1 (0.23%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (7.62%) PMO
2 19 (4.39%) QA
3 12 (2.77%) Data Quality
4 6 (1.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (0.92%) GDPR
5 4 (0.92%) IFRS
5 4 (0.92%) IFRS 17
6 3 (0.69%) GRC
6 3 (0.69%) NIST
7 2 (0.46%) COREP
7 2 (0.46%) FINREP
7 2 (0.46%) SOC 1
7 2 (0.46%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.23%) ITGC
8 1 (0.23%) PMBOK
8 1 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.23%) SLA
8 1 (0.23%) Solvency II
System Software
1 5 (1.15%) Active Directory
2 4 (0.92%) Docker
2 4 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.23%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 2 (0.46%) OPNET
2 1 (0.23%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 45 (10.39%) SAP
2 37 (8.55%) Microsoft
3 18 (4.16%) Oracle
4 12 (2.77%) Salesforce
4 12 (2.77%) ServiceNow
5 7 (1.62%) Workday
6 5 (1.15%) Ariba
7 2 (0.46%) Atlassian
7 2 (0.46%) Charles River
7 2 (0.46%) Cisco
7 2 (0.46%) Cognizant
7 2 (0.46%) Databricks
7 2 (0.46%) FIS
7 2 (0.46%) GoldenSource
7 2 (0.46%) Google
7 2 (0.46%) Planview
7 2 (0.46%) SGI
7 2 (0.46%) SimCorp
7 2 (0.46%) Temenos
7 2 (0.46%) VMware