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 16 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 465 483 492
Rank change year-on-year +18 +9 +168
Contract jobs citing SEO 69 109 194
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.21% 0.26% 0.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.23% 0.30% 0.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 32 83 142
10th Percentile £156 £215 £222
25th Percentile £237 £275 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £355 £425 £347
Median % change year-on-year -16.47% +22.30% -26.84%
75th Percentile £493 £569 £450
90th Percentile £549 £623 £525
UK excluding London median daily rate £380 £400 £350
% change year-on-year -5.00% +14.29% -26.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 5 16
10th Percentile £13.25 - £17.00
25th Percentile £13.33 £11.44 £21.00
Median hourly rate £18.00 £21.50 £23.75
Median % change year-on-year -16.28% -9.47% -8.65%
75th Percentile £28.50 £35.00 £30.75
90th Percentile £37.73 £41.90 £33.81
UK excluding London median hourly rate £14.70 £11.44 £22.00
% change year-on-year +28.50% -48.00% -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 29,412 36,374 50,495
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.38% 85.33% 89.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,450 23,255 34,776
10th Percentile £300 £304 £325
25th Percentile £405 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,550 2,429 1,686
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.79 £13.41
25th Percentile £17.34 £16.25 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £38.12 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -34.02% -4.70% +50.94%
75th Percentile £51.98 £61.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £72.50 £76.87
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.34 £38.12 £39.60
% change year-on-year -36.15% -3.74% +84.19%

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 16 July 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 16 July 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for SEO in the UK

SEO
Top 15 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 16 July 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 -7 60 £301 -29.12% 649
London +14 35 £301 -29.12% 312
Work from Home +15 28 £360 -15.29% 305
UK excluding London +27 27 £380 -5.00% 372
South West +31 6 £223 -47.65% 45
North of England +9 6 £313 -6.72% 150
South East +38 5 - - 73
East of England +20 5 £450 +50.00% 35
Scotland +4 3 £380 +29.53% 5
Yorkshire +3 2 £450 +34.33% 61
Midlands 0 2 £525 +1.60% 55
North East -4 2 - - 15
North West - 2 £175 - 78
West Midlands -2 1 £525 +1.60% 33
East Midlands - 1 - - 22

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 25 (36.23%) CMS
2 8 (11.59%) WordPress
3 5 (7.25%) Drupal
4 4 (5.80%) Headless CMS
5 3 (4.35%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 3 (4.35%) Confluence
6 2 (2.90%) Sitecore CMS
6 2 (2.90%) Umbraco
7 1 (1.45%) SAS
Applications
1 2 (2.90%) Photoshop
2 1 (1.45%) Adobe XD
2 1 (1.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.45%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 6 (8.70%) Shopify
2 3 (4.35%) Magento
3 1 (1.45%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 15 (21.74%) Google Analytics
2 5 (7.25%) AWS
3 4 (5.80%) Amazon S3
3 4 (5.80%) Azure
4 3 (4.35%) Adobe Analytics
4 3 (4.35%) Amazon Cognito
4 3 (4.35%) Amazon SQS
4 3 (4.35%) AWS Lambda
4 3 (4.35%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (4.35%) Figma
4 3 (4.35%) GitHub
4 3 (4.35%) Google Ads
4 3 (4.35%) Power Platform
4 3 (4.35%) Serverless
5 2 (2.90%) BigCommerce
5 2 (2.90%) Contentsquare
5 2 (2.90%) GCP
5 2 (2.90%) Google Data Studio
5 2 (2.90%) Miro
5 2 (2.90%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (5.80%) HTTP
2 1 (1.45%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (5.80%) Metadata
2 3 (4.35%) DynamoDB
2 3 (4.35%) Power BI
3 1 (1.45%) Amazon Athena
3 1 (1.45%) Amazon Redshift
3 1 (1.45%) BigQuery
3 1 (1.45%) Looker
3 1 (1.45%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 6 (8.70%) JIRA
2 5 (7.25%) Cypress.io
3 3 (4.35%) Bitbucket
3 3 (4.35%) Mocha
3 3 (4.35%) Postman
3 3 (4.35%) Visual Studio Code
4 1 (1.45%) ESLint
4 1 (1.45%) Git
4 1 (1.45%) Grunt
4 1 (1.45%) webpack
General
1 40 (57.97%) Marketing
2 21 (30.43%) Social Skills
3 11 (15.94%) Public Sector
4 10 (14.49%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (11.59%) Retail
6 7 (10.14%) Publishing
7 6 (8.70%) Finance
8 5 (7.25%) Brand Awareness
9 4 (5.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (4.35%) Advertising
10 3 (4.35%) Automotive
10 3 (4.35%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (4.35%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (2.90%) Legal
11 2 (2.90%) Telecoms
12 1 (1.45%) Digital Health
12 1 (1.45%) French Language
12 1 (1.45%) Health Technology
12 1 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (1.45%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 9 (13.04%) Project Manager
2 8 (11.59%) Designer
2 8 (11.59%) Marketing Manager
3 7 (10.14%) Digital Project Manager
4 6 (8.70%) Content Designer
4 6 (8.70%) Developer
4 6 (8.70%) SEO Manager
5 5 (7.25%) Account Manager
5 5 (7.25%) Consultant
5 5 (7.25%) SEO Consultant
6 4 (5.80%) E-Commerce Manager
6 4 (5.80%) E-Commerce Project Manager
6 4 (5.80%) Junior
6 4 (5.80%) Product Manager
6 4 (5.80%) Senior
7 3 (4.35%) Administrator
7 3 (4.35%) Analyst
7 3 (4.35%) Digital Marketing Manager
7 3 (4.35%) Junior Content Designer
7 3 (4.35%) Junior Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (20.29%) HTML
2 9 (13.04%) CSS
3 6 (8.70%) Jest
4 5 (7.25%) HTML5
5 4 (5.80%) GraphQL
5 4 (5.80%) Node.js
5 4 (5.80%) React
5 4 (5.80%) REST
6 3 (4.35%) AWS CDK
6 3 (4.35%) GatsbyJS
6 3 (4.35%) Next.js
6 3 (4.35%) OpenAPI
6 3 (4.35%) RESTful
6 3 (4.35%) SVG
6 3 (4.35%) Swagger
6 3 (4.35%) Vue
6 3 (4.35%) Web Services
6 3 (4.35%) WebRTC
6 3 (4.35%) WebSockets
7 1 (1.45%) MACH
Miscellaneous
1 7 (10.14%) Social Media
2 6 (8.70%) Algorithms
2 6 (8.70%) Mobile App
3 4 (5.80%) Digital Media
4 3 (4.35%) Blog
4 3 (4.35%) Data Structures
4 3 (4.35%) Life Science
4 3 (4.35%) Self-Motivation
4 3 (4.35%) Vector Graphics
5 2 (2.90%) Digital Signage
5 2 (2.90%) Learning Management System
5 2 (2.90%) Management Information System
5 2 (2.90%) Onboarding
5 2 (2.90%) Taxonomies
6 1 (1.45%) Cloud Native
6 1 (1.45%) Educational Technology
6 1 (1.45%) Freedom of Information
6 1 (1.45%) Marketing Technology
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (36.23%) Analytics
1 25 (36.23%) User Experience
2 24 (34.78%) Digital Marketing
3 18 (26.09%) E-Commerce
3 18 (26.09%) Project Management
4 17 (24.64%) Content Management
5 14 (20.29%) Agile
5 14 (20.29%) Stakeholder Management
6 12 (17.39%) Marketing Strategy
6 12 (17.39%) UX Design
7 10 (14.49%) Web Development
8 9 (13.04%) DevOps
9 8 (11.59%) Actionable Insight
9 8 (11.59%) Content Strategy
10 7 (10.14%) Artificial Intelligence
10 7 (10.14%) B2B
10 7 (10.14%) Collaborative Working
10 7 (10.14%) CRM
10 7 (10.14%) Front End Development
11 6 (8.70%) Pay per click
Programming Languages
1 7 (10.14%) JavaScript
2 3 (4.35%) SQL
3 2 (2.90%) TypeScript
4 1 (1.45%) C#
4 1 (1.45%) Java
4 1 (1.45%) PHP
Qualifications
1 9 (13.04%) Degree
2 2 (2.90%) SC Cleared
2 2 (2.90%) Security Cleared
3 1 (1.45%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (21.74%) Accessibility
2 4 (5.80%) WCAG
3 3 (4.35%) GDPR
3 3 (4.35%) PERC
4 2 (2.90%) Actionable Recommendations
4 2 (2.90%) QA
4 2 (2.90%) SLA
5 1 (1.45%) PMO
Vendors
1 21 (30.43%) Google
2 12 (17.39%) Adobe
3 5 (7.25%) Facebook
3 5 (7.25%) Salesforce
4 3 (4.35%) Sitecore
5 2 (2.90%) Dynatrace
5 2 (2.90%) Hotjar
5 2 (2.90%) HubSpot
5 2 (2.90%) TikTok
6 1 (1.45%) IBM
6 1 (1.45%) Instagram
6 1 (1.45%) Mercator
6 1 (1.45%) Microsoft
6 1 (1.45%) MuleSoft
6 1 (1.45%) Optimizely
6 1 (1.45%) SAP
6 1 (1.45%) Screaming Frog
6 1 (1.45%) WooCommerce