SOA Contracts

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring SOA skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited SOA over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 366 470 443
Rank change year-on-year +104 -27 -87
Contract jobs citing SOA 158 112 283
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.54% 0.26% 0.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.59% 0.30% 0.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 113 68 178
10th Percentile £427 £417 £409
25th Percentile £506 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% +4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £750 £739 £650
90th Percentile £825 £775 £757
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £663 £575
% change year-on-year -16.98% +15.22% +9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 4
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate - £56.25 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year - +60.71% -29.02%
75th Percentile - - £39.69
90th Percentile - - £48.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £56.25 £35.00
% change year-on-year - +60.71% -44.98%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

SOA 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 26,594 37,597 53,655
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.84% 86.31% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,149 24,227 37,238
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £743 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,443 1,746
10th Percentile £14.41 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.21 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%
75th Percentile £60.38 £59.98 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
% change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%

SOA
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for SOA in the UK

SOA
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for SOA in the UK

SOA
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SOA over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SOA in the UK

SOA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for SOA in the UK

SOA
Top 14 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SOA within the UK over the 6 months to 1 May 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 +77 118 £625 +11.11% 96
UK excluding London +89 78 £550 -16.98% 53
Work from Home +56 61 £550 +10.00% 57
London +49 58 £775 +44.19% 55
South East +68 27 £625 -16.67% 24
Yorkshire +18 18 £550 -17.23% 2
North of England +16 18 £550 -4.35% 7
Scotland +22 15 £503 -8.64% 5
Midlands +7 7 £500 -33.33% 7
West Midlands +5 7 £500 -33.33% 3
East of England - 4 £600 - 5
Northern Ireland - 4 £410 -
Wales - 3 £473 - 1
South West +47 2 £725 - 7

SOA
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 47 (29.75%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 5 (3.16%) Oracle Service Bus
3 4 (2.53%) Apache Spark
3 4 (2.53%) WebLogic
4 2 (1.27%) Apache
4 2 (1.27%) Apache Solr
4 2 (1.27%) CMS
4 2 (1.27%) Confluence
4 2 (1.27%) Oracle Workflow
5 1 (0.63%) Anypoint
5 1 (0.63%) CICS
5 1 (0.63%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.63%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.63%) SharePoint 2010
Business Applications
1 6 (3.80%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (2.53%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (1.90%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (1.27%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (1.27%) Oracle BPM
5 1 (0.63%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.63%) Oracle General Ledger
5 1 (0.63%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 33 (20.89%) Azure
2 24 (15.19%) AWS
3 16 (10.13%) GCP
4 13 (8.23%) OCI
5 11 (6.96%) PaaS
6 10 (6.33%) SaaS
6 10 (6.33%) Serverless
7 9 (5.70%) IaaS
8 7 (4.43%) Oracle CX
8 7 (4.43%) Power Platform
9 6 (3.80%) Azure DevOps
9 6 (3.80%) Azure Sentinel
10 3 (1.90%) Amazon ECS
10 3 (1.90%) Amazon SQS
10 3 (1.90%) AWS KMS
10 3 (1.90%) Azure Event Grid
10 3 (1.90%) Azure Service Bus
10 3 (1.90%) Boomi
10 3 (1.90%) PowerApps
10 3 (1.90%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 16 (10.13%) DNS
2 4 (2.53%) SSL
3 3 (1.90%) IPsec
3 3 (1.90%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.63%) Firewall
4 1 (0.63%) HTTP
4 1 (0.63%) Internet
4 1 (0.63%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (11.39%) Oracle Database
2 15 (9.49%) Relational Database
3 12 (7.59%) SQL Server
4 6 (3.80%) MongoDB
4 6 (3.80%) NoSQL
4 6 (3.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 6 (3.80%) Tableau
5 4 (2.53%) Data Warehouse
5 4 (2.53%) MySQL
5 4 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (2.53%) Power BI
5 4 (2.53%) SQL Server Analysis Services
5 4 (2.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 3 (1.90%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (1.90%) ClickHouse
7 2 (1.27%) Apache Hive
7 2 (1.27%) Big Data
7 2 (1.27%) HBase
7 2 (1.27%) Impala
7 2 (1.27%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 17 (10.76%) Git
2 14 (8.86%) TeamCity
3 11 (6.96%) Jenkins
4 10 (6.33%) Bitbucket
4 10 (6.33%) Maven
5 9 (5.70%) GitLab
6 6 (3.80%) Selenium
7 5 (3.16%) Subversion
8 4 (2.53%) JIRA
9 3 (1.90%) Cucumber
9 3 (1.90%) Cypress.io
9 3 (1.90%) Postman
9 3 (1.90%) WebDriver
10 2 (1.27%) Bitbucket Server
10 2 (1.27%) JUnit
10 2 (1.27%) Mockito
10 2 (1.27%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (1.27%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.63%) Appium
11 1 (0.63%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 61 (38.61%) Social Skills
2 24 (15.19%) Analytical Skills
2 24 (15.19%) Front Office
3 21 (13.29%) Finance
4 20 (12.66%) Public Sector
5 18 (11.39%) Banking
6 13 (8.23%) Investment Banking
7 12 (7.59%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (3.16%) Retail
9 4 (2.53%) Telecoms
10 3 (1.90%) Financial Institution
10 3 (1.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (1.27%) Law
12 1 (0.63%) Automotive
12 1 (0.63%) Aviation
12 1 (0.63%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.63%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.63%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.63%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 42 (26.58%) Developer
2 33 (20.89%) Architect
3 17 (10.76%) C# Developer
3 17 (10.76%) Senior
4 11 (6.96%) Lead
4 11 (6.96%) Software Engineer
5 10 (6.33%) Security Engineer
6 9 (5.70%) .NET Developer
6 9 (5.70%) Applications Architect
6 9 (5.70%) C# .NET Developer
6 9 (5.70%) Solutions Architect
7 8 (5.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 8 (5.06%) Senior Developer
8 7 (4.43%) Engineering Specialist
8 7 (4.43%) Infrastructure Specialist
8 7 (4.43%) Senior Security Engineer
9 6 (3.80%) Java Developer
9 6 (3.80%) Lead Developer
9 6 (3.80%) Technical Architect
10 5 (3.16%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (20.25%) .NET
2 24 (15.19%) Web Services
3 19 (12.03%) REST
4 17 (10.76%) Node.js
5 16 (10.13%) ASP.NET
5 16 (10.13%) HTML
6 15 (9.49%) HTML5
6 15 (9.49%) Kafka
6 15 (9.49%) React
6 15 (9.49%) SOAP
7 12 (7.59%) CSS
7 12 (7.59%) Middleware
8 11 (6.96%) Spring
8 11 (6.96%) Spring Boot
9 10 (6.33%) Oracle Fusion
10 9 (5.70%) AngularJS
10 9 (5.70%) ASP.NET Web API
10 9 (5.70%) JSON
11 8 (5.06%) LESS
11 8 (5.06%) Sass
Miscellaneous
1 16 (10.13%) Linux Command Line
2 13 (8.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 11 (6.96%) Data Structures
4 9 (5.70%) Fixed Income
5 8 (5.06%) Onboarding
6 7 (4.43%) Algorithms
7 6 (3.80%) Blockchain
7 6 (3.80%) IoT
7 6 (3.80%) N-Tier
7 6 (3.80%) Public Cloud
8 5 (3.16%) Derivative
9 3 (1.90%) Client/Server
9 3 (1.90%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 3 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (1.90%) Equity Derivative
9 3 (1.90%) Management Information System
9 3 (1.90%) Mobile App
10 2 (1.27%) Equities
10 2 (1.27%) Greenfield Project
10 2 (1.27%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 32 (20.25%) Windows
2 23 (14.56%) Linux
3 19 (12.03%) Windows Server
4 3 (1.90%) Windows Server 2016
5 2 (1.27%) Unix
6 1 (0.63%) Android
6 1 (0.63%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 77 (48.73%) Agile
1 77 (48.73%) Microservices
2 41 (25.95%) CI/CD
3 39 (24.68%) DevOps
4 36 (22.78%) Problem-Solving
5 30 (18.99%) Migration
5 30 (18.99%) OO
6 29 (18.35%) Technical Leadership
7 28 (17.72%) TDD
7 28 (17.72%) Test Automation
8 24 (15.19%) Design Patterns
9 21 (13.29%) Mentoring
10 20 (12.66%) Scrum
11 18 (11.39%) Event-Driven Architecture
12 17 (10.76%) Full-Stack Development
12 17 (10.76%) Software Engineering
13 16 (10.13%) Enterprise Architecture
13 16 (10.13%) OOP
13 16 (10.13%) Roadmaps
13 16 (10.13%) Security Management
Programming Languages
1 51 (32.28%) SQL
2 49 (31.01%) Java
3 44 (27.85%) JavaScript
4 38 (24.05%) C#
5 25 (15.82%) Python
6 21 (13.29%) PL/SQL
7 19 (12.03%) PowerShell
8 18 (11.39%) TypeScript
9 17 (10.76%) Bash
10 16 (10.13%) C++
10 16 (10.13%) Perl
11 6 (3.80%) Shell Script
12 5 (3.16%) F#
12 5 (3.16%) Scala
13 4 (2.53%) Ruby
13 4 (2.53%) T-SQL
14 3 (1.90%) ABAP
14 3 (1.90%) VBA
14 3 (1.90%) VBScript
14 3 (1.90%) XPath
Qualifications
1 45 (28.48%) Security Cleared
2 42 (26.58%) SC Cleared
3 17 (10.76%) Degree
4 16 (10.13%) Cisco Certification
5 12 (7.59%) CISSP
6 9 (5.70%) CISM
7 6 (3.80%) Oracle Certification
8 4 (2.53%) PMI Certification
9 3 (1.90%) CAPM
9 3 (1.90%) CompTIA Security+
9 3 (1.90%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (1.90%) ISEB
9 3 (1.90%) ISTQB
9 3 (1.90%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 2 (1.27%) Azure Certification
10 2 (1.27%) BPSS Clearance
11 1 (0.63%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.63%) TOGAF Certification
11 1 (0.63%) VCAP
11 1 (0.63%) VCDX
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.43%) QA
2 6 (3.80%) Accessibility
2 6 (3.80%) GDPR
3 4 (2.53%) Data Quality
3 4 (2.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.27%) Disclosure Scotland
4 2 (1.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 2 (1.27%) WCAG
5 1 (0.63%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 22 (13.92%) Active Directory
2 19 (12.03%) Docker
3 3 (1.90%) RACF
4 2 (1.27%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 8 (5.06%) Kubernetes
2 7 (4.43%) Single Sign-On
2 7 (4.43%) Terraform
3 5 (3.16%) Ansible
4 3 (1.90%) Packer
5 2 (1.27%) MOM
6 1 (0.63%) CA Endevor
6 1 (0.63%) CloudHub
6 1 (0.63%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.63%) QRadar
Vendors
1 47 (29.75%) Oracle
2 21 (13.29%) Microsoft
3 16 (10.13%) Cisco
4 4 (2.53%) Google
4 4 (2.53%) IBM
4 4 (2.53%) MuleSoft
4 4 (2.53%) SAP
4 4 (2.53%) ServiceNow
5 2 (1.27%) Ariba
5 2 (1.27%) Dell
5 2 (1.27%) Informatica
5 2 (1.27%) Pega
5 2 (1.27%) Salesforce
5 2 (1.27%) Splunk
6 1 (0.63%) Hitachi
6 1 (0.63%) Sybase
6 1 (0.63%) VMware
6 1 (0.63%) webMethods
6 1 (0.63%) Zscaler