Senior
UK

The median Senior daily rate in the UK is £575 according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 7 December 2023.

The first table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
7 Dec 2023
Same period 2022 Same period 2021
Rank 21 17 20
Rank change year-on-year -4 +3 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Senior 3,570 6,729 7,290
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 7.95% 8.76% 8.14%
As % of the Job Titles category 8.52% 9.21% 8.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,467 4,815 5,283
10th Percentile £400 £413 £407
25th Percentile £475 £500 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £588 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% +6.82% +4.76%
75th Percentile £688 £700 £650
90th Percentile £775 £775 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £540 £510
% change year-on-year +1.85% +5.88% +13.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 95 100 115
10th Percentile £17.72 £17.72 £15.00
25th Percentile £24.50 £22.38 £16.28
Median hourly rate £47.90 £43.50 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.10% +20.83% +18.93%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.50 £50.94
90th Percentile £75.85 £65.00 £69.06
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £45.00 £33.00
% change year-on-year -5.56% +36.36% +20.00%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes 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 41,924 73,055 85,608
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.41% 95.16% 95.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,255 50,934 59,949
10th Percentile £294 £313 £301
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £510
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +7.84% +7.37%
75th Percentile £644 £650 £613
90th Percentile £742 £750 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £450
% change year-on-year - +11.11% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,489 1,726 2,212
10th Percentile £15.16 £13.25 £12.00
25th Percentile £19.06 £17.00 £14.00
Median hourly rate £44.00 £30.87 £20.15
Median % change year-on-year +42.53% +53.22% -13.99%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £45.89
90th Percentile £77.50 £73.54 £62.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.00 £17.75
% change year-on-year +78.00% +40.85% -11.25%

Senior
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Senior in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Senior in the UK

Senior
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Senior.

Daily rate trend for Senior in the UK

Senior
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Senior over the 6 months to 7 December 2023.

Daily rate histogram for Senior in the UK

Senior
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Senior.

Hourly rate trend for Senior in the UK

Senior
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Senior over the 6 months to 7 December 2023.

Hourly rate histogram for Senior in the UK

Senior
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Senior within the UK over the 6 months to 7 December 2023. 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 -4 3,016 £577 -3.83% 4,557
London -4 1,772 £600 -3.27% 2,119
Work from Home -1 1,400 £575 - 2,522
UK excluding London +2 1,391 £550 +1.85% 2,718
South East -1 364 £550 +4.76% 833
North of England 0 295 £541 -1.59% 670
Scotland +3 260 £575 +18.25% 185
Midlands +17 183 £550 +1.85% 377
North West +4 181 £544 +0.69% 379
South West +2 170 £600 +4.35% 300
West Midlands +21 146 £575 +6.48% 256
Yorkshire -2 114 £550 - 215
East of England -3 110 £550 - 310
East Midlands +9 38 £513 -10.87% 120
Wales 0 34 £525 -4.55% 67
North East +7 22 £715 +24.35% 88
Northern Ireland -1 8 £625 +15.74% 35

Senior Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 7 December 2023, Senior contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Senior in the job title.

1 1,040 (29.13%) Agile
2 744 (20.84%) Social Skills
3 693 (19.41%) Finance
4 652 (18.26%) Security Cleared
5 635 (17.79%) Azure
6 570 (15.97%) Public Sector
7 551 (15.43%) AWS
8 506 (14.17%) SC Cleared
9 474 (13.28%) SQL
10 433 (12.13%) DevOps
11 420 (11.76%) Microsoft
12 418 (11.71%) Python
13 364 (10.20%) Stakeholder Management
14 347 (9.72%) CI/CD
15 328 (9.19%) Problem-Solving
16 327 (9.16%) Java
17 325 (9.10%) Degree
18 295 (8.26%) Windows
19 282 (7.90%) Linux
20 281 (7.87%) Analytical Skills
21 268 (7.51%) Project Management
22 261 (7.31%) Banking
23 259 (7.25%) Migration
24 254 (7.11%) JavaScript
25 250 (7.00%) C#
26 240 (6.72%) Docker
27 234 (6.55%) JIRA
28 230 (6.44%) Firewall
29 228 (6.39%) Scrum
29 228 (6.39%) Analytics

Senior Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 140 (3.92%) Confluence
2 91 (2.55%) SharePoint
3 43 (1.20%) Apache Spark
4 42 (1.18%) CMS
5 23 (0.64%) Apache
6 18 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
7 17 (0.48%) Jupyter
8 13 (0.36%) SAS
9 12 (0.34%) MS Exchange
10 10 (0.28%) WebSphere
11 9 (0.25%) IIS
12 7 (0.20%) WordPress
13 6 (0.17%) Apache Solr
13 6 (0.17%) OpenStack
14 5 (0.14%) nginx
14 5 (0.14%) Skype for Business
14 5 (0.14%) Tomcat
15 4 (0.11%) Camunda
16 3 (0.084%) Red Hat Fuse
16 3 (0.084%) WebLogic
Applications
1 97 (2.72%) Microsoft Excel
2 69 (1.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 64 (1.79%) Microsoft Office
4 17 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 15 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 10 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.25%) SPSS
8 7 (0.20%) Stata
8 7 (0.20%) Windchill
9 6 (0.17%) Adobe Premiere
9 6 (0.17%) CINEMA 4D
10 5 (0.14%) Adobe After Effects
10 5 (0.14%) AutoCAD
10 5 (0.14%) Revit
11 4 (0.11%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 3 (0.084%) SOLIDWORKS
12 3 (0.084%) UXPin
13 2 (0.056%) Oracle Smart View
14 1 (0.028%) MicroStation
14 1 (0.028%) Trello
Business Applications
1 38 (1.06%) Dynamics CRM
2 33 (0.92%) SAP S/4HANA
3 12 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
3 12 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
3 12 (0.34%) Primavera
4 9 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
5 7 (0.20%) SAP FI
5 7 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 5 (0.14%) CA PPM
6 5 (0.14%) Shopify
7 4 (0.11%) Aligne
7 4 (0.11%) Endur
7 4 (0.11%) Northgate Housing
7 4 (0.11%) Orchard Housing
7 4 (0.11%) ResourceLink
7 4 (0.11%) SAP BPC
7 4 (0.11%) SAP PM
7 4 (0.11%) SAP QM
8 3 (0.084%) ENOVIA
8 3 (0.084%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 635 (17.79%) Azure
2 551 (15.43%) AWS
3 158 (4.43%) Microsoft 365
4 126 (3.53%) Power Platform
5 114 (3.19%) GCP
6 109 (3.05%) Serverless
7 100 (2.80%) Azure DevOps
8 92 (2.58%) GitHub
9 91 (2.55%) SaaS
10 67 (1.88%) AWS Lambda
11 64 (1.79%) Dynamics 365
12 59 (1.65%) AWS CloudFormation
13 53 (1.48%) Cloud Computing
14 50 (1.40%) Amazon S3
15 44 (1.23%) Azure Data Factory
15 44 (1.23%) Entra ID
16 42 (1.18%) PaaS
17 39 (1.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 38 (1.06%) IaaS
19 34 (0.95%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 230 (6.44%) Firewall
2 93 (2.61%) LAN
3 92 (2.58%) WAN
4 71 (1.99%) DNS
5 64 (1.79%) Network Security
6 63 (1.76%) VPN
7 58 (1.62%) TCP/IP
8 47 (1.32%) BGP
8 47 (1.32%) DHCP
8 47 (1.32%) SAN
9 43 (1.20%) Wireless
10 40 (1.12%) OSPF
11 36 (1.01%) WLAN
12 32 (0.90%) Internet
13 31 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
14 28 (0.78%) MPLS
15 27 (0.76%) Cisco ASA
16 26 (0.73%) Cisco Nexus
17 25 (0.70%) VoIP
18 23 (0.64%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 180 (5.04%) SQL Server
2 114 (3.19%) Power BI
3 95 (2.66%) Data Warehouse
4 66 (1.85%) Relational Database
5 61 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
6 56 (1.57%) NoSQL
7 55 (1.54%) Big Data
8 51 (1.43%) MySQL
9 48 (1.34%) Data Lake
10 40 (1.12%) MongoDB
11 35 (0.98%) Elasticsearch
12 32 (0.90%) DynamoDB
13 29 (0.81%) Amazon RDS
14 27 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
15 26 (0.73%) Metadata
16 22 (0.62%) Tableau
17 21 (0.59%) Apache Cassandra
18 19 (0.53%) RDBMS
18 19 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
19 18 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 234 (6.55%) JIRA
2 198 (5.55%) Git
3 133 (3.73%) Jenkins
4 64 (1.79%) Cypress.io
5 40 (1.12%) Selenium
6 35 (0.98%) Cucumber
7 34 (0.95%) GitLab
7 34 (0.95%) TeamCity
8 32 (0.90%) Bitbucket
8 32 (0.90%) Postman
9 25 (0.70%) Maven
9 25 (0.70%) Visual Studio
10 20 (0.56%) Subversion
11 18 (0.50%) SpecFlow
12 14 (0.39%) Rational DOORS
13 13 (0.36%) SonarQube
13 13 (0.36%) TestRail
14 12 (0.34%) SoapUI
14 12 (0.34%) Team Foundation Server
14 12 (0.34%) webpack
General
1 744 (20.84%) Social Skills
2 693 (19.41%) Finance
3 570 (15.97%) Public Sector
4 281 (7.87%) Analytical Skills
5 261 (7.31%) Banking
6 92 (2.58%) Marketing
7 90 (2.52%) Telecoms
8 78 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 75 (2.10%) Retail
10 72 (2.02%) Presentation Skills
11 71 (1.99%) Front Office
11 71 (1.99%) Investment Banking
12 61 (1.71%) Back Office
12 61 (1.71%) Legal
13 53 (1.48%) Manufacturing
14 42 (1.18%) Influencing Skills
15 39 (1.09%) Electronics
16 34 (0.95%) Advertising
16 34 (0.95%) Organisational Skills
17 33 (0.92%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 215 (6.02%) .NET
2 132 (3.70%) React
3 126 (3.53%) Kafka
4 121 (3.39%) HTML
5 118 (3.31%) REST
6 116 (3.25%) Node.js
7 106 (2.97%) CSS
8 93 (2.61%) AngularJS
9 75 (2.10%) RESTful
10 74 (2.07%) Spring
11 72 (2.02%) JSON
12 61 (1.71%) Spring Boot
13 56 (1.57%) XML
14 54 (1.51%) Web Services
15 51 (1.43%) .NET Core
16 50 (1.40%) ASP.NET
17 42 (1.18%) .NET Framework
18 41 (1.15%) Jest
19 38 (1.06%) GraphQL
20 37 (1.04%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 140 (3.92%) Product Ownership
2 97 (2.72%) Data Centre
3 89 (2.49%) Management Information System
4 68 (1.90%) Greenfield Project
5 61 (1.71%) Onboarding
6 53 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
7 51 (1.43%) Cloud Native
8 50 (1.40%) Algorithms
8 50 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
9 49 (1.37%) Public Cloud
10 45 (1.26%) Data Structures
11 39 (1.09%) Mobile App
12 36 (1.01%) Hedge funds
13 35 (0.98%) PKI
14 32 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
15 31 (0.87%) NHS
16 29 (0.81%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 29 (0.81%) Virtual Team
17 27 (0.76%) Derivative
17 27 (0.76%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 295 (8.26%) Windows
2 282 (7.90%) Linux
3 103 (2.89%) Windows Server
4 100 (2.80%) Unix
5 51 (1.43%) Android
6 43 (1.20%) Apple iOS
7 34 (0.95%) Windows 10
8 26 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 17 (0.48%) Ubuntu
10 13 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
11 12 (0.34%) Mac OS
12 11 (0.31%) Mac OS X
13 10 (0.28%) CentOS
13 10 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
14 9 (0.25%) Windows 7
15 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
16 5 (0.14%) Debian
17 4 (0.11%) OpenVMS
18 3 (0.084%) Solaris
18 3 (0.084%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,040 (29.13%) Agile
2 433 (12.13%) DevOps
3 364 (10.20%) Stakeholder Management
4 347 (9.72%) CI/CD
5 328 (9.19%) Problem-Solving
6 268 (7.51%) Project Management
7 259 (7.25%) Migration
8 228 (6.39%) Analytics
8 228 (6.39%) Scrum
9 218 (6.11%) Microservices
9 218 (6.11%) Software Engineering
10 217 (6.08%) Roadmaps
11 200 (5.60%) Mentoring
12 199 (5.57%) Test Automation
13 196 (5.49%) ITIL
14 191 (5.35%) Business Intelligence
15 188 (5.27%) Cybersecurity
16 186 (5.21%) Data Modelling
17 156 (4.37%) User Experience
18 152 (4.26%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 474 (13.28%) SQL
2 418 (11.71%) Python
3 327 (9.16%) Java
4 254 (7.11%) JavaScript
5 250 (7.00%) C#
6 136 (3.81%) PowerShell
7 119 (3.33%) TypeScript
8 93 (2.61%) C++
9 69 (1.93%) Go
10 65 (1.82%) T-SQL
11 58 (1.62%) Bash
12 55 (1.54%) Scala
13 49 (1.37%) C
14 43 (1.20%) Kotlin
15 36 (1.01%) Ruby
16 35 (0.98%) Perl
17 31 (0.87%) PHP
18 29 (0.81%) Shell Script
19 24 (0.67%) PL/SQL
20 23 (0.64%) R
Qualifications
1 652 (18.26%) Security Cleared
2 506 (14.17%) SC Cleared
3 325 (9.10%) Degree
4 129 (3.61%) DV Cleared
5 89 (2.49%) Cisco Certification
6 68 (1.90%) Computer Science Degree
7 64 (1.79%) CISSP
8 50 (1.40%) ITIL Certification
9 46 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
10 42 (1.18%) CCNP
11 41 (1.15%) CISM
12 40 (1.12%) Master's Degree
13 32 (0.90%) AWS Certification
13 32 (0.90%) CCNA
14 28 (0.78%) GIAC
15 25 (0.70%) ISTQB
16 21 (0.59%) CRISC
17 19 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
18 17 (0.48%) CCIE
18 17 (0.48%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 109 (3.05%) QA
2 71 (1.99%) Data Quality
3 61 (1.71%) PMO
4 60 (1.68%) NIST
5 58 (1.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 53 (1.48%) Accessibility
7 37 (1.04%) PCI DSS
8 32 (0.90%) GDPR
9 29 (0.81%) Disclosure Scotland
10 27 (0.76%) SLA
11 20 (0.56%) NCSC
12 19 (0.53%) NIST 800
13 15 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
14 14 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.34%) DO-254
15 12 (0.34%) WCAG
16 11 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27005
17 10 (0.28%) EMIR
18 8 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
19 7 (0.20%) GRC
System Software
1 240 (6.72%) Docker
2 156 (4.37%) Active Directory
3 85 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (1.04%) VMware NSX
5 27 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
6 26 (0.73%) vSphere
7 21 (0.59%) Firmware
8 17 (0.48%) Hyper-V
8 17 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
9 11 (0.31%) BitLocker
9 11 (0.31%) NFS
10 9 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
11 7 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
12 5 (0.14%) Ceph
12 5 (0.14%) XenApp
13 4 (0.11%) Microsoft App-V
13 4 (0.11%) XenDesktop
14 3 (0.084%) Apache Flume
14 3 (0.084%) Embedded Firmware
15 2 (0.056%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 226 (6.33%) Kubernetes
2 195 (5.46%) Terraform
3 133 (3.73%) Ansible
4 64 (1.79%) SCCM
5 49 (1.37%) Puppet
6 46 (1.29%) Grafana
6 46 (1.29%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.92%) Prometheus
8 24 (0.67%) FortiGate
9 23 (0.64%) Progress Chef
10 20 (0.56%) Packer
11 18 (0.50%) Kibana
12 14 (0.39%) SCOM
13 12 (0.34%) ZABBIX
14 10 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 10 (0.28%) EMC NetWorker
14 10 (0.28%) vCenter Server
15 9 (0.25%) Consul
15 9 (0.25%) HP ALM
15 9 (0.25%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 420 (11.76%) Microsoft
2 176 (4.93%) Cisco
3 154 (4.31%) VMware
4 146 (4.09%) Oracle
5 127 (3.56%) SAP
6 108 (3.03%) ServiceNow
7 75 (2.10%) Databricks
8 64 (1.79%) Palo Alto
8 64 (1.79%) Salesforce
9 56 (1.57%) Juniper
10 54 (1.51%) Citrix
11 52 (1.46%) Splunk
12 51 (1.43%) Google
13 39 (1.09%) Fortinet
13 39 (1.09%) Red Hat
14 36 (1.01%) IBM
15 33 (0.92%) HP
16 32 (0.90%) Atlassian
16 32 (0.90%) F5
17 25 (0.70%) Dell