Waterfall Contracts

Waterfall Model
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Waterfall skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Waterfall 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 134 143 112
Rank change year-on-year +9 -31 -13
Contract jobs citing Waterfall 672 713 1,294
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.06% 1.67% 2.29%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.28% 1.96% 2.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 478 523 964
10th Percentile £331 £378 £405
25th Percentile £405 £445 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - +1.85%
75th Percentile £600 £631 £650
90th Percentile £697 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £509 £550
% change year-on-year -1.72% -7.50% +7.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 7 8
10th Percentile £33.45 £48.50 £23.43
25th Percentile £45.00 £50.00 £38.67
Median hourly rate £48.00 £58.91 £50.24
Median % change year-on-year -18.51% +17.26% -13.31%
75th Percentile £51.00 £62.96 £83.63
90th Percentile £71.55 £65.33 £97.73
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.00 £58.91 £80.00
% change year-on-year -13.42% -26.37% +38.59%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Waterfall 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%

Waterfall
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Waterfall in the UK

Waterfall
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Waterfall in the UK

Waterfall
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Waterfall over the 6 months to 16 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Waterfall in the UK

Waterfall
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Waterfall in the UK

Waterfall
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Waterfall over the 6 months to 16 July 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Waterfall in the UK

Waterfall
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 Waterfall 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 +9 564 £500 -9.09% 746
UK excluding London +21 339 £500 -1.72% 534
London -3 267 £550 -6.38% 283
Work from Home -1 222 £505 -8.27% 277
North of England -10 80 £438 -7.89% 141
South East +34 76 £500 -4.76% 143
Scotland +12 60 £467 -6.55% 32
North West +4 51 £410 -9.89% 72
Midlands 0 48 £519 +16.57% 86
South West +30 43 £550 -5.98% 63
West Midlands +19 37 £525 +1.16% 55
East of England +36 29 £530 +23.98% 47
Yorkshire -12 22 £495 +4.21% 55
East Midlands -23 9 £358 -8.56% 31
North East -4 7 £450 -25.00% 15
Wales +4 2 £488 +5.41% 19
Channel Islands - 1 £640 -

Waterfall
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 51 (7.59%) Confluence
2 32 (4.76%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.34%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (0.74%) WebSphere
5 3 (0.45%) CMS
5 3 (0.45%) OpenEdge
5 3 (0.45%) Skype for Business
6 2 (0.30%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 2 (0.30%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.15%) Camunda
7 1 (0.15%) CICS
7 1 (0.15%) IBM Notes
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.15%) WebLogic
Applications
1 53 (7.89%) Microsoft Project
2 42 (6.25%) Microsoft Office
3 40 (5.95%) Microsoft Excel
4 27 (4.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 17 (2.53%) MS Visio
6 7 (1.04%) Trello
7 2 (0.30%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 15 (2.23%) Dynamics CRM
2 14 (2.08%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (1.04%) Primavera
3 7 (1.04%) SAP ERP
4 6 (0.89%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.45%) Oracle ERP
5 3 (0.45%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.45%) SAP FI
5 3 (0.45%) Shopify
6 2 (0.30%) Adobe Campaign
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle Financials
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.15%) Epicor iScala
7 1 (0.15%) IntelliMatch
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle EBS R12
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle General Ledger
Cloud Services
1 98 (14.58%) Azure
2 45 (6.70%) Power Platform
3 42 (6.25%) SaaS
4 40 (5.95%) Azure DevOps
5 29 (4.32%) AWS
6 27 (4.02%) Microsoft 365
7 16 (2.38%) GitHub
7 16 (2.38%) IaaS
8 13 (1.93%) PaaS
9 12 (1.79%) Power Automate
10 11 (1.64%) GCP
11 10 (1.49%) OCI
12 9 (1.34%) Dynamics 365
13 8 (1.19%) Asana
13 8 (1.19%) PowerApps
14 7 (1.04%) Entra ID
14 7 (1.04%) Smartsheet
14 7 (1.04%) Yammer
15 6 (0.89%) Miro
15 6 (0.89%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 19 (2.83%) Firewall
2 11 (1.64%) DNS
3 10 (1.49%) Network Security
3 10 (1.49%) WAN
4 6 (0.89%) 5G
4 6 (0.89%) DHCP
4 6 (0.89%) LAN
4 6 (0.89%) Unified Communications
5 5 (0.74%) VPN
5 5 (0.74%) VSAN
6 4 (0.60%) SAN
6 4 (0.60%) Skype
7 3 (0.45%) Broadband
7 3 (0.45%) SD-WAN
8 2 (0.30%) BGP
8 2 (0.30%) Cisco ISE
8 2 (0.30%) Intrusion Detection
8 2 (0.30%) OSPF
8 2 (0.30%) TCP/IP
9 1 (0.15%) HSRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (5.51%) Power BI
2 25 (3.72%) SQL Server
3 15 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (1.34%) Oracle Reports
5 8 (1.19%) MS Access
5 8 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
5 8 (1.19%) Tableau
6 6 (0.89%) Data Lake
6 6 (0.89%) Oracle ODI
6 6 (0.89%) Relational Database
7 5 (0.74%) BigQuery
7 5 (0.74%) DB2
8 4 (0.60%) Big Data
8 4 (0.60%) HPCC
8 4 (0.60%) Metadata
8 4 (0.60%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 2 (0.30%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.30%) Hadoop
9 2 (0.30%) Oracle Database
9 2 (0.30%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 144 (21.43%) JIRA
2 30 (4.46%) Jenkins
3 15 (2.23%) Git
4 13 (1.93%) SoapUI
5 10 (1.49%) QARun
5 10 (1.49%) Subversion
5 10 (1.49%) WinRunner
6 6 (0.89%) Selenium
7 5 (0.74%) GitLab
7 5 (0.74%) LoadRunner
7 5 (0.74%) NeoLoad
8 4 (0.60%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.60%) Cucumber
8 4 (0.60%) Zephyr
9 3 (0.45%) Eclipse
9 3 (0.45%) GoCD
9 3 (0.45%) JMeter
9 3 (0.45%) Maven
9 3 (0.45%) Postman
9 3 (0.45%) Visual Studio
General
1 314 (46.73%) Social Skills
2 247 (36.76%) Finance
3 116 (17.26%) Analytical Skills
4 71 (10.57%) Banking
5 55 (8.18%) Public Sector
6 36 (5.36%) Influencing Skills
7 30 (4.46%) Retail
8 25 (3.72%) Organisational Skills
9 23 (3.42%) Legal
10 21 (3.13%) Presentation Skills
11 14 (2.08%) Investment Banking
12 13 (1.93%) Telecoms
13 12 (1.79%) Pharmaceutical
14 11 (1.64%) Financial Institution
14 11 (1.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 11 (1.64%) Manufacturing
14 11 (1.64%) Publishing
15 10 (1.49%) Marketing
16 8 (1.19%) Back Office
17 7 (1.04%) Billing
Job Titles
1 185 (27.53%) Analyst
2 175 (26.04%) Project Manager
3 125 (18.60%) Business Analyst
4 81 (12.05%) Senior
5 54 (8.04%) Lead
6 42 (6.25%) Architect
7 31 (4.61%) Senior Manager
8 29 (4.32%) Delivery Manager
9 28 (4.17%) Developer
9 28 (4.17%) Senior Analyst
10 27 (4.02%) Senior Project Manager
11 26 (3.87%) Test Analyst
12 22 (3.27%) Infrastructure Manager
13 21 (3.13%) IT Manager
13 21 (3.13%) IT Project Manager
13 21 (3.13%) Solutions Architect
14 17 (2.53%) Programme Manager
15 16 (2.38%) Infrastructure Project Manager
15 16 (2.38%) Test Leader
16 15 (2.23%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (3.27%) XML
2 21 (3.13%) Middleware
3 17 (2.53%) SOAP
4 12 (1.79%) Kafka
4 12 (1.79%) REST
5 11 (1.64%) Web Services
6 10 (1.49%) Oracle Fusion
7 8 (1.19%) Flash
8 7 (1.04%) HTML
8 7 (1.04%) JSON
9 6 (0.89%) .NET
9 6 (0.89%) GraphQL
9 6 (0.89%) gRPC
9 6 (0.89%) RabbitMQ
9 6 (0.89%) WebdriverIO
10 5 (0.74%) SailPoint
11 4 (0.60%) Spring
12 3 (0.45%) ADO
12 3 (0.45%) DCOM
12 3 (0.45%) SAP Basis
Miscellaneous
1 29 (4.32%) Product Ownership
2 20 (2.98%) Data Centre
3 19 (2.83%) Onboarding
4 18 (2.68%) Legacy Systems
5 16 (2.38%) Self-Motivation
6 15 (2.23%) Management Information System
7 14 (2.08%) PMI
8 13 (1.93%) Virtual Team
9 10 (1.49%) Life Science
10 9 (1.34%) Analytical Mindset
10 9 (1.34%) Data Structures
10 9 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
10 9 (1.34%) Private Cloud
11 8 (1.19%) Clustering
11 8 (1.19%) CMDB
11 8 (1.19%) Mobile App
12 7 (1.04%) Cloud Native
12 7 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
12 7 (1.04%) Reinsurance
13 5 (0.74%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 48 (7.14%) Windows
2 18 (2.68%) Unix
3 16 (2.38%) Linux
4 9 (1.34%) Windows Server
5 8 (1.19%) Windows 10
6 4 (0.60%) VMS
7 3 (0.45%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.30%) Android
8 2 (0.30%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.15%) MVS
9 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.15%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 630 (93.75%) Agile
2 222 (33.04%) Stakeholder Management
3 211 (31.40%) Project Management
4 156 (23.21%) Problem-Solving
5 122 (18.15%) Project Delivery
6 100 (14.88%) Scrum
7 94 (13.99%) Change Management
8 84 (12.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 83 (12.35%) DevOps
10 79 (11.76%) PRINCE2
11 75 (11.16%) Migration
12 71 (10.57%) Risk Management
13 69 (10.27%) Business Analysis
14 62 (9.23%) User Acceptance Testing
15 61 (9.08%) Test Automation
16 59 (8.78%) Continuous Improvement
16 59 (8.78%) Requirements Gathering
17 54 (8.04%) Decision-Making
18 50 (7.44%) SDLC
19 48 (7.14%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 66 (9.82%) SQL
2 19 (2.83%) C#
3 14 (2.08%) Java
3 14 (2.08%) Python
4 12 (1.79%) VB
5 8 (1.19%) PowerShell
6 7 (1.04%) C++
7 6 (0.89%) C
7 6 (0.89%) Go
8 5 (0.74%) JavaScript
8 5 (0.74%) PL/SQL
8 5 (0.74%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.30%) COBOL
9 2 (0.30%) JCL
9 2 (0.30%) Ruby
9 2 (0.30%) VBA
9 2 (0.30%) VBScript
10 1 (0.15%) Assembly Language
10 1 (0.15%) PL/1
10 1 (0.15%) XPath
Qualifications
1 96 (14.29%) Degree
2 95 (14.14%) Security Cleared
3 70 (10.42%) PMI Certification
4 68 (10.12%) SC Cleared
5 64 (9.52%) PMP
6 28 (4.17%) DV Cleared
7 17 (2.53%) Master's Degree
8 15 (2.23%) Computer Science Degree
9 12 (1.79%) ISTQB
10 11 (1.64%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 10 (1.49%) IIBA
12 9 (1.34%) Cisco Certification
12 9 (1.34%) CISSP
13 8 (1.19%) CCNA
13 8 (1.19%) ISEB
13 8 (1.19%) PRINCE2 Certification
14 7 (1.04%) BPSS Clearance
14 7 (1.04%) CBAP
15 6 (0.89%) ITIL Certification
16 5 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (11.31%) QA
2 36 (5.36%) PMO
3 20 (2.98%) GDPR
4 18 (2.68%) NIST
5 13 (1.93%) Data Quality
6 8 (1.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 8 (1.19%) SLA
7 6 (0.89%) MiFID
8 5 (0.74%) Basel III
8 5 (0.74%) HIPAA
8 5 (0.74%) P3O
9 4 (0.60%) GxP
9 4 (0.60%) JSP 440
9 4 (0.60%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.60%) RMADS
9 4 (0.60%) Solvency II
10 3 (0.45%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 3 (0.45%) IFRS
10 3 (0.45%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 13 (1.93%) Active Directory
1 13 (1.93%) VMware NSX
2 12 (1.79%) VMware ESXi
2 12 (1.79%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (1.04%) Docker
3 7 (1.04%) Virtual Servers
4 4 (0.60%) vSphere
5 3 (0.45%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.45%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 2 (0.30%) Time Sharing Option
6 2 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.15%) XenApp
7 1 (0.15%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 15 (2.23%) vCenter Server
2 6 (0.89%) Amdocs OSS
2 6 (0.89%) Ansible
2 6 (0.89%) VxRail
3 4 (0.60%) HP ALM
3 4 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
3 4 (0.60%) PowerCLI
3 4 (0.60%) Terraform
4 3 (0.45%) OPNET
4 3 (0.45%) WSUS
5 2 (0.30%) Avamar
5 2 (0.30%) Control-M
5 2 (0.30%) Sysdig
6 1 (0.15%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 1 (0.15%) HP Quality Center
6 1 (0.15%) Puppet
6 1 (0.15%) SCCM
6 1 (0.15%) SCOM
6 1 (0.15%) TrustSec
6 1 (0.15%) vRealize
Vendors
1 133 (19.79%) Microsoft
2 58 (8.63%) Oracle
3 50 (7.44%) SAP
4 35 (5.21%) ServiceNow
5 28 (4.17%) Salesforce
6 20 (2.98%) Atlassian
7 19 (2.83%) VMware
8 16 (2.38%) Citrix
9 14 (2.08%) Cisco
10 12 (1.79%) Ariba
11 10 (1.49%) Databricks
11 10 (1.49%) IBM
12 9 (1.34%) HP
12 9 (1.34%) Workday
13 8 (1.19%) NetCracker
14 7 (1.04%) CA Agile Central
14 7 (1.04%) Dell
14 7 (1.04%) F5
14 7 (1.04%) Pega
15 6 (0.89%) Guidewire