Technical Discovery Contract Job Trends

Technical Discovery
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Technical Discovery skills. It covers vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 26 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 538 570 629
Rank change year-on-year +32 +59 +191
Contract jobs citing Technical Discovery 14 1 18
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.042% 0.003% 0.037%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.047% 0.003% 0.041%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 1 17
10th Percentile £308 - £408
25th Percentile £391 £513 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% - +7.69%
75th Percentile £604 £538 £600
90th Percentile £688 - £660
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 - £520
% change year-on-year - - +60.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £61.50 - -
Median hourly rate £63.00 - -
75th Percentile £64.50 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.00 - -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Technical Discovery 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 29,940 32,891 43,872
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.51% 85.83% 89.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,607 19,949 29,793
10th Percentile £300 £308 £313
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,849 1,396 1,560
10th Percentile £14.32 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.33 £20.00 £18.68
Median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -40.82% - +47.06%
75th Percentile £43.75 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £65.25 £74.22 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £43.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -47.67% +1.18% +81.28%

Technical Discovery
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Technical Discovery in the UK

Technical Discovery
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Technical Discovery.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Technical Discovery

Technical Discovery
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Technical Discovery over the 6 months to 26 September 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Technical Discovery in the UK

Technical Discovery
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Technical Discovery.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Technical Discovery

Technical Discovery
Top 11 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Technical Discovery within the UK over the 6 months to 26 September 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 +26 14 £475 -9.52% 22
Work from Home +32 8 £425 -19.05% 13
UK excluding London - 8 £425 - 18
London +32 5 £675 +28.57% 10
North of England - 3 £488 - 2
South West - 3 £425 - 2
North West - 2 £420 - 1
South East - 1 £568 - 7
Midlands - 1 £338 - 2
North East - 1 £488 - 1
West Midlands - 1 £338 - 1

Technical Discovery
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 3 (21.43%) Microsoft Exchange
1 3 (21.43%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (21.43%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 6 (42.86%) Azure
2 4 (28.57%) Microsoft 365
2 4 (28.57%) Power Platform
3 3 (21.43%) Entra ID
3 3 (21.43%) SaaS
3 3 (21.43%) ShareGate
4 2 (14.29%) AWS
5 1 (7.14%) Anthropic Claude
5 1 (7.14%) GitHub
5 1 (7.14%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 3 (21.43%) Kerberos
2 1 (7.14%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (21.43%) Metadata
1 3 (21.43%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 2 (14.29%) Git
1 2 (14.29%) Jenkins
2 1 (7.14%) GitLab
2 1 (7.14%) Hudson
General
1 10 (71.43%) Social Skills
2 4 (28.57%) Public Sector
3 3 (21.43%) Documentation Skills
4 2 (14.29%) Finance
5 1 (7.14%) Aerospace
5 1 (7.14%) Influencing Skills
5 1 (7.14%) Legal
5 1 (7.14%) Manufacturing
5 1 (7.14%) Retail
Job Titles
1 5 (35.71%) Analyst
2 3 (21.43%) Architect
2 3 (21.43%) Senior
2 3 (21.43%) Technical Analyst
3 2 (14.29%) Business Analyst
3 2 (14.29%) Developer
3 2 (14.29%) Java Developer
3 2 (14.29%) Senior Developer
3 2 (14.29%) Senior Java Developer
3 2 (14.29%) Solutions Architect
3 2 (14.29%) Technical Architect
3 2 (14.29%) Technical Solutions Architect
4 1 (7.14%) Consultant
4 1 (7.14%) Data Analyst
4 1 (7.14%) Java Software Developer
4 1 (7.14%) Project Manager
4 1 (7.14%) Senior Analyst
4 1 (7.14%) Senior Java Software Developer
4 1 (7.14%) Software Developer
4 1 (7.14%) Technical Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (21.43%) LDAP
1 3 (21.43%) OAuth
1 3 (21.43%) OpenID
1 3 (21.43%) SAML
2 2 (14.29%) Kafka
3 1 (7.14%) Hugging Face
Miscellaneous
1 2 (14.29%) Legacy Systems
2 1 (7.14%) Data Centre
2 1 (7.14%) Driving Licence
2 1 (7.14%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 1 (7.14%) Linux
1 1 (7.14%) Mac OS
1 1 (7.14%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (50.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
2 6 (42.86%) Migration
3 4 (28.57%) Technical Analysis
4 3 (21.43%) Agile
4 3 (21.43%) Business Intelligence
4 3 (21.43%) Change Management
4 3 (21.43%) Data Analysis
4 3 (21.43%) Data Discovery
4 3 (21.43%) Data Transformation
4 3 (21.43%) Decision-Making
4 3 (21.43%) Information Architecture
4 3 (21.43%) RBAC
4 3 (21.43%) Remediation Plan
4 3 (21.43%) Runbook
4 3 (21.43%) Technical Architecture
5 2 (14.29%) Business Strategy
5 2 (14.29%) CI/CD
5 2 (14.29%) Refactoring
5 2 (14.29%) Roadmaps
5 2 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 4 (28.57%) PowerShell
2 2 (14.29%) Java
Qualifications
1 2 (14.29%) Security Cleared
2 1 (7.14%) BPSS Clearance
2 1 (7.14%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (28.57%) GDPR
2 3 (21.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 4 (28.57%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 3 (21.43%) Microsoft Intune
1 3 (21.43%) SCCM
2 2 (14.29%) Kubernetes
3 1 (7.14%) Cisco CUCM
Vendors
1 5 (35.71%) Microsoft
2 2 (14.29%) ServiceNow
3 1 (7.14%) Cisco
3 1 (7.14%) OpenAI