SEO Contracts

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring SEO skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited SEO over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 440 491 542
Rank change year-on-year +51 +51 +71
Contract jobs citing SEO 79 109 171
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.27% 0.25% 0.29%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.30% 0.29% 0.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 41 73 120
10th Percentile £165 £260 £247
25th Percentile £245 £278 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £360 £400 £369
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +8.40% -18.00%
75th Percentile £525 £475 £476
90th Percentile £600 £598 £550
UK excluding London median daily rate £360 £400 £375
% change year-on-year -10.00% +6.67% -14.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 9 15
10th Percentile £13.92 £11.44 -
25th Percentile £14.78 £24.00 £21.00
Median hourly rate £32.25 £27.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.27% +10.00% -4.83%
75th Percentile £53.06 £32.50 £31.50
90th Percentile £57.68 £37.30 £33.97
UK excluding London median hourly rate £14.70 £19.47 £22.00
% change year-on-year -24.50% -11.50% -26.67%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

SEO 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 26,551 37,621 53,662
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.82% 86.30% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,137 24,254 37,244
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.86% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £744 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.80% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,437 1,746
10th Percentile £14.70 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.50 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.31% -4.83% +49.20%
75th Percentile £62.00 £59.95 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.94 £36.50 £36.00
% change year-on-year -23.45% +1.39% +80.00%

SEO
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing SEO as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for SEO in the UK

SEO
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for SEO in the UK

SEO
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SEO over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SEO in the UK

SEO
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for SEO in the UK

SEO
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SEO over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for SEO in the UK

SEO
Top 13 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SEO within the UK over the 6 months to 30 April 2025. 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 +32 69 £325 -19.75% 543
London +16 42 £301 -23.49% 257
Work from Home +35 31 £400 -5.88% 299
UK excluding London +44 27 £360 -10.00% 309
South West +47 8 £388 -20.51% 35
South East +42 6 £206 -48.50% 80
East of England +31 4 £450 +53.85% 33
North of England +27 4 £175 -47.76% 80
Scotland +9 4 £380 +16.92% 16
North East -1 2 - - 10
North West - 2 £175 - 53
Midlands +17 1 £525 +1.60% 66
West Midlands +9 1 £525 +1.60% 46

SEO
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 24 (30.38%) CMS
2 10 (12.66%) WordPress
3 6 (7.59%) Drupal
4 4 (5.06%) Headless CMS
5 3 (3.80%) Confluence
6 2 (2.53%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (2.53%) Sitecore CMS
7 1 (1.27%) SAS
7 1 (1.27%) Umbraco
Applications
1 2 (2.53%) Chatbot
1 2 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.27%) Adobe XD
2 1 (1.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.27%) Photoshop
2 1 (1.27%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 5 (6.33%) Shopify
2 3 (3.80%) Magento
3 1 (1.27%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 17 (21.52%) Google Analytics
2 6 (7.59%) AWS
3 5 (6.33%) Amazon S3
3 5 (6.33%) Azure
4 4 (5.06%) Power Platform
5 3 (3.80%) Adobe Analytics
5 3 (3.80%) Amazon Cognito
5 3 (3.80%) Amazon SQS
5 3 (3.80%) AWS Lambda
5 3 (3.80%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (3.80%) Figma
5 3 (3.80%) GCP
5 3 (3.80%) GitHub
5 3 (3.80%) Google Ads
5 3 (3.80%) Serverless
6 2 (2.53%) BigCommerce
6 2 (2.53%) Cloud Computing
6 2 (2.53%) Miro
7 1 (1.27%) Amazon EventBridge
7 1 (1.27%) Contentstack
Communications & Networking
1 3 (3.80%) HTTP
2 1 (1.27%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (5.06%) DynamoDB
1 4 (5.06%) Power BI
2 2 (2.53%) Amazon Redshift
2 2 (2.53%) BigQuery
2 2 (2.53%) Looker
2 2 (2.53%) Tableau
3 1 (1.27%) Amazon Athena
3 1 (1.27%) Amazon QuickSight
3 1 (1.27%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (1.27%) Data Mining
3 1 (1.27%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.27%) NoSQL
3 1 (1.27%) Power Query
3 1 (1.27%) PowerPivot
3 1 (1.27%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 5 (6.33%) Cypress.io
1 5 (6.33%) JIRA
2 3 (3.80%) Bitbucket
2 3 (3.80%) Mocha
2 3 (3.80%) Postman
2 3 (3.80%) Visual Studio Code
3 1 (1.27%) ESLint
3 1 (1.27%) Git
3 1 (1.27%) Grunt
3 1 (1.27%) webpack
General
1 40 (50.63%) Marketing
2 20 (25.32%) Social Skills
3 12 (15.19%) Finance
3 12 (15.19%) Public Sector
4 11 (13.92%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (10.13%) Presentation Skills
6 6 (7.59%) Retail
7 5 (6.33%) Advertising
7 5 (6.33%) Automotive
7 5 (6.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (6.33%) Publishing
8 4 (5.06%) Brand Awareness
9 3 (3.80%) Legal
10 2 (2.53%) Digital Health
10 2 (2.53%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (2.53%) Telecoms
11 1 (1.27%) Digital Healthcare
11 1 (1.27%) Health Technology
11 1 (1.27%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (1.27%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 12 (15.19%) SEO Manager
2 9 (11.39%) Senior
3 8 (10.13%) Developer
3 8 (10.13%) Project Manager
4 7 (8.86%) Account Manager
4 7 (8.86%) Designer
5 6 (7.59%) Content Designer
5 6 (7.59%) Digital Project Manager
6 5 (6.33%) Consultant
6 5 (6.33%) Marketing Manager
6 5 (6.33%) Product Manager
6 5 (6.33%) SEO Consultant
7 4 (5.06%) Analyst
7 4 (5.06%) E-Commerce Manager
7 4 (5.06%) E-Commerce Project Manager
7 4 (5.06%) Junior
8 3 (3.80%) Content Manager
8 3 (3.80%) Junior Content Designer
8 3 (3.80%) Junior Designer
8 3 (3.80%) SEO Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (16.46%) HTML
2 10 (12.66%) CSS
3 7 (8.86%) React
4 6 (7.59%) Next.js
4 6 (7.59%) Node.js
5 5 (6.33%) Jest
6 4 (5.06%) AngularJS
6 4 (5.06%) GraphQL
6 4 (5.06%) HTML5
7 3 (3.80%) AWS CDK
7 3 (3.80%) GatsbyJS
7 3 (3.80%) OpenAPI
7 3 (3.80%) REST
7 3 (3.80%) RESTful
7 3 (3.80%) SVG
7 3 (3.80%) Swagger
7 3 (3.80%) Vue
7 3 (3.80%) Web Services
7 3 (3.80%) WebRTC
7 3 (3.80%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 8 (10.13%) Mobile App
2 7 (8.86%) Algorithms
3 5 (6.33%) Digital Media
3 5 (6.33%) Social Media
4 4 (5.06%) Life Science
4 4 (5.06%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (3.80%) Data Structures
5 3 (3.80%) Vector Graphics
6 2 (2.53%) Blog
6 2 (2.53%) Digital Signage
6 2 (2.53%) Freedom of Information
6 2 (2.53%) Management Information System
6 2 (2.53%) Onboarding
6 2 (2.53%) Taxonomies
7 1 (1.27%) Cloud Native
7 1 (1.27%) Freedom of Information Act
7 1 (1.27%) Multi-touch
7 1 (1.27%) Photography
7 1 (1.27%) Virtual Team
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (37.97%) Analytics
2 24 (30.38%) User Experience
3 22 (27.85%) Digital Marketing
4 19 (24.05%) Project Management
5 16 (20.25%) Agile
5 16 (20.25%) UX Design
6 15 (18.99%) Content Management
6 15 (18.99%) E-Commerce
7 13 (16.46%) Stakeholder Management
8 11 (13.92%) Actionable Insight
8 11 (13.92%) Web Development
9 10 (12.66%) DevOps
9 10 (12.66%) Marketing Strategy
10 9 (11.39%) Collaborative Working
11 8 (10.13%) Artificial Intelligence
11 8 (10.13%) Content Strategy
11 8 (10.13%) Digital Strategy
11 8 (10.13%) Front End Development
12 6 (7.59%) B2B
13 5 (6.33%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 9 (11.39%) JavaScript
2 5 (6.33%) SQL
3 3 (3.80%) TypeScript
4 2 (2.53%) Python
4 2 (2.53%) R
5 1 (1.27%) C#
5 1 (1.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 1 (1.27%) Java
5 1 (1.27%) MATLAB
5 1 (1.27%) PHP
Qualifications
1 11 (13.92%) Degree
2 4 (5.06%) SC Cleared
2 4 (5.06%) Security Cleared
3 2 (2.53%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (15.19%) Accessibility
2 8 (10.13%) WCAG
3 5 (6.33%) QA
4 4 (5.06%) Actionable Recommendations
5 3 (3.80%) GDPR
5 3 (3.80%) PERC
6 1 (1.27%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (1.27%) PMO
6 1 (1.27%) SLA
Vendors
1 22 (27.85%) Google
2 11 (13.92%) Adobe
3 4 (5.06%) Screaming Frog
4 3 (3.80%) Facebook
4 3 (3.80%) Salesforce
4 3 (3.80%) Sitecore
5 2 (2.53%) Ahrefs
5 2 (2.53%) Dynatrace
5 2 (2.53%) Optimizely
5 2 (2.53%) TikTok
6 1 (1.27%) HubSpot
6 1 (1.27%) IBM
6 1 (1.27%) Instagram
6 1 (1.27%) Intel
6 1 (1.27%) Microsoft
6 1 (1.27%) MuleSoft
6 1 (1.27%) Oracle
6 1 (1.27%) SAP
6 1 (1.27%) WooCommerce