Senior Contract Job Trends in Reading

Senior
Berkshire > Reading

The median Senior daily rate in Reading is £582, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 28 September 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 21 15
Rank change year-on-year -2 -6 +6
Contract jobs requiring a Senior 77 47 113
As % of all contract jobs in Reading 7.07% 7.93% 10.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.58% 8.72% 11.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 46 30 44
10th Percentile £425 £350 £437
25th Percentile £472 £423 £519
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £582 £528 £550
Median % change year-on-year +10.33% -4.09% -
75th Percentile £638 £600 £675
90th Percentile £663 £648 £730
Berkshire median daily rate £550 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +4.76% -4.55% -4.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 3 5
10th Percentile £66.43 - £56.85
25th Percentile £67.71 £66.25 £58.49
Median hourly rate £71.43 £67.50 £61.06
Median % change year-on-year +5.82% +10.55% -12.46%
75th Percentile £80.43 £81.25 £64.73
90th Percentile £85.03 £88.75 £72.08
Berkshire median hourly rate £71.43 £87.04 £61.50
% change year-on-year -17.93% +41.54% -6.83%

All Contract IT Job Roles
Reading

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in Reading. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in Reading with a recognized job title 1,016 539 978
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.30% 90.89% 88.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 582 349 536
10th Percentile £400 £325 £345
25th Percentile £499 £425 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £570 £525 £580
Median % change year-on-year +8.57% -9.48% +5.45%
75th Percentile £650 £609 £650
90th Percentile £775 £650 £700
Berkshire median daily rate £550 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +10.00% -9.09% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 151 18 33
10th Percentile £23.21 - £48.34
25th Percentile £41.25 £14.75 £57.50
Median hourly rate £80.55 £24.13 £63.15
Median % change year-on-year +233.89% -61.80% -4.32%
75th Percentile £91.91 £53.13 £97.50
90th Percentile £104.50 £68.75 £100.00
Berkshire median hourly rate £73.60 £32.18 £61.60
% change year-on-year +128.71% -47.76% +5.40%

Senior
Job Vacancy Trend in Reading

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Senior' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Reading.

Senior job vacancy trend in Reading

Senior
Daily Rate Trend in Reading

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Senior job vacancies in Reading.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Senior job vacancies in Reading

Senior
Daily Rate Histogram in Reading

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Senior in Reading over the 6 months to 28 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Senior in Reading

Senior
Hourly Rate Trend in Reading

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Senior job vacancies in Reading.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Senior job vacancies in Reading

Senior
Hourly Rate Histogram in Reading

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Senior in Reading over the 6 months to 28 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Senior in Reading

Senior Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Reading

For the 6 months to 28 September 2026, Senior contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the Reading region featuring Senior in the job title.

1 36 (46.75%) Security Cleared
2 28 (36.36%) DevOps
3 27 (35.06%) Azure
4 25 (32.47%) SC Cleared
5 24 (31.17%) Agile
6 19 (24.68%) CI/CD
6 19 (24.68%) Stakeholder Management
7 18 (23.38%) Python
8 14 (18.18%) Ansible
9 13 (16.88%) Azure DevOps
9 13 (16.88%) Infrastructure as Code
9 13 (16.88%) Oracle
10 12 (15.58%) AWS
10 12 (15.58%) Platform Engineering
11 11 (14.29%) Migration
11 11 (14.29%) SQL
11 11 (14.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 11 (14.29%) Terraform
12 10 (12.99%) Data Pipeline
12 10 (12.99%) Microsoft
12 10 (12.99%) Roadmaps
12 10 (12.99%) Technical Leadership
12 10 (12.99%) Validation
13 9 (11.69%) Bash
13 9 (11.69%) DV Cleared
13 9 (11.69%) Kubernetes
13 9 (11.69%) PowerShell
13 9 (11.69%) Test Automation
14 8 (10.39%) Analytics
14 8 (10.39%) Continuous Improvement

Senior Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Reading by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 4 (5.19%) Apache Spark
2 1 (1.30%) Confluence
2 1 (1.30%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.30%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (3.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.30%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (6.49%) Teamcenter
2 4 (5.19%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (2.60%) Primavera
4 1 (1.30%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (1.30%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (1.30%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 27 (35.06%) Azure
2 13 (16.88%) Azure DevOps
3 12 (15.58%) AWS
4 7 (9.09%) GitHub
5 6 (7.79%) GCP
6 5 (6.49%) GitHub Actions
7 4 (5.19%) Dynamics 365
7 4 (5.19%) OpenShift
8 2 (2.60%) IaaS
8 2 (2.60%) SaaS
8 2 (2.60%) Salesforce Service Cloud
9 1 (1.30%) Amazon S3
9 1 (1.30%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (1.30%) AWS Step Functions
9 1 (1.30%) Entra ID
9 1 (1.30%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (1.30%) Power Platform
9 1 (1.30%) Serverless
9 1 (1.30%) Snowflake
9 1 (1.30%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 6 (7.79%) Firewall
2 5 (6.49%) VPN
3 4 (5.19%) BGP
3 4 (5.19%) DHCP
3 4 (5.19%) DNS
3 4 (5.19%) TCP/IP
3 4 (5.19%) VXLAN
4 3 (3.90%) Ethernet VPN
4 3 (3.90%) Software-Defined Networking
5 2 (2.60%) Network Security
5 2 (2.60%) VSAN
6 1 (1.30%) BIG-IP
6 1 (1.30%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (1.30%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
6 1 (1.30%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 1 (1.30%) HSRP
6 1 (1.30%) Junos
6 1 (1.30%) Multicast
6 1 (1.30%) SD-WAN
6 1 (1.30%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (6.49%) Oracle Database
2 4 (5.19%) Big Data
3 3 (3.90%) NoSQL
4 2 (2.60%) Amazon Redshift
4 2 (2.60%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (2.60%) Hadoop
4 2 (2.60%) Metadata
4 2 (2.60%) Spark SQL
5 1 (1.30%) Amazon Athena
5 1 (1.30%) BigQuery
5 1 (1.30%) Data Lake
5 1 (1.30%) Oracle Reports
5 1 (1.30%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 5 (6.49%) GitLab
1 5 (6.49%) Jenkins
2 4 (5.19%) Git
2 4 (5.19%) JIRA
3 2 (2.60%) Postman
4 1 (1.30%) Cucumber
4 1 (1.30%) REST Assured
General
1 20 (25.97%) Social Skills
2 15 (19.48%) Aerospace
3 10 (12.99%) Finance
4 7 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (6.49%) Influencing Skills
5 5 (6.49%) Telecoms
6 4 (5.19%) Marketing
7 3 (3.90%) Public Sector
8 2 (2.60%) Military
9 1 (1.30%) Advertising
9 1 (1.30%) Automotive
9 1 (1.30%) Billing
9 1 (1.30%) Legal
9 1 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (1.30%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (14.29%) Terraform
2 6 (7.79%) ARM Templates
3 3 (3.90%) ADO
3 3 (3.90%) Middleware
3 3 (3.90%) PySpark
3 3 (3.90%) REST
4 2 (2.60%) Apache NiFi
4 2 (2.60%) Lightning Web Components
4 2 (2.60%) SOAP
5 1 (1.30%) 802.1X
5 1 (1.30%) JSON
5 1 (1.30%) Microsoft Graph
5 1 (1.30%) OAuth
5 1 (1.30%) Playwright
5 1 (1.30%) React
5 1 (1.30%) RESTful
5 1 (1.30%) SAML
5 1 (1.30%) Streamlit
5 1 (1.30%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 10 (12.99%) Hybrid Cloud
2 5 (6.49%) Product Ownership
3 4 (5.19%) Management Information System
3 4 (5.19%) Onboarding
4 3 (3.90%) Cloud Native
4 3 (3.90%) Data Protection Act
4 3 (3.90%) Distributed Architecture
5 2 (2.60%) AI Agents
5 2 (2.60%) Data Centre
5 2 (2.60%) Distributed Computing
5 2 (2.60%) Enterprise Cloud
6 1 (1.30%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.30%) Distributed Systems
6 1 (1.30%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 6 (7.79%) Linux
2 5 (6.49%) Windows
2 5 (6.49%) Windows Server
3 2 (2.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (2.60%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (36.36%) DevOps
2 24 (31.17%) Agile
3 19 (24.68%) CI/CD
3 19 (24.68%) Stakeholder Management
4 13 (16.88%) Infrastructure as Code
5 12 (15.58%) Platform Engineering
6 11 (14.29%) Migration
6 11 (14.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 10 (12.99%) Data Pipeline
7 10 (12.99%) Roadmaps
7 10 (12.99%) Technical Leadership
7 10 (12.99%) Validation
8 9 (11.69%) Test Automation
9 8 (10.39%) Analytics
9 8 (10.39%) Continuous Improvement
9 8 (10.39%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 8 (10.39%) Problem-Solving
9 8 (10.39%) Project Delivery
10 7 (9.09%) Data Science
10 7 (9.09%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 18 (23.38%) Python
2 11 (14.29%) SQL
3 9 (11.69%) Bash
3 9 (11.69%) PowerShell
4 7 (9.09%) Bicep
5 4 (5.19%) Java
6 3 (3.90%) Apex Code
7 2 (2.60%) Shell Script
8 1 (1.30%) JavaScript
8 1 (1.30%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 36 (46.75%) Security Cleared
2 25 (32.47%) SC Cleared
3 9 (11.69%) DV Cleared
4 7 (9.09%) Degree
5 4 (5.19%) Azure Certification
5 4 (5.19%) Cisco Certification
6 3 (3.90%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 3 (3.90%) CEH
6 3 (3.90%) CISSP
6 3 (3.90%) CompTIA Security+
6 3 (3.90%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (3.90%) Microsoft Certification
6 3 (3.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 1 (1.30%) AWS Certification
7 1 (1.30%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
7 1 (1.30%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (1.30%) CCNP
7 1 (1.30%) PMI Certification
7 1 (1.30%) PMP
7 1 (1.30%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (10.39%) Data Quality
2 5 (6.49%) PMO
3 4 (5.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (5.19%) QA
4 3 (3.90%) Cyber Essentials
4 3 (3.90%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 3 (3.90%) NCSC
4 3 (3.90%) NIST
5 2 (2.60%) GRC
6 1 (1.30%) GDPR
System Software
1 6 (7.79%) Docker
1 6 (7.79%) VMware Infrastructure
2 4 (5.19%) Hyper-V
2 4 (5.19%) VMware ESXi
2 4 (5.19%) vSphere
3 2 (2.60%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (2.60%) VMware NSX
4 1 (1.30%) Active Directory
4 1 (1.30%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 14 (18.18%) Ansible
2 9 (11.69%) Kubernetes
3 3 (3.90%) Istio
4 2 (2.60%) Podman
4 2 (2.60%) vCenter Server
5 1 (1.30%) Check_MK
5 1 (1.30%) FortiGate
5 1 (1.30%) Grafana
5 1 (1.30%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.30%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 13 (16.88%) Oracle
2 10 (12.99%) Microsoft
3 8 (10.39%) VMware
4 4 (5.19%) ServiceNow
5 3 (3.90%) Arista
5 3 (3.90%) Databricks
5 3 (3.90%) Red Hat
5 3 (3.90%) Salesforce
5 3 (3.90%) SAP
6 1 (1.30%) Ariba
6 1 (1.30%) Ceridian
6 1 (1.30%) Cisco
6 1 (1.30%) Concur
6 1 (1.30%) Conga
6 1 (1.30%) Ekahau
6 1 (1.30%) Fortinet
6 1 (1.30%) GoCardless
6 1 (1.30%) Google
6 1 (1.30%) Juniper
6 1 (1.30%) Workday