Senior Contract Job Trends in Reading

Senior
Berkshire > Reading

The median Senior daily rate in Reading is £600, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 August 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -4 -5 +6
Contract jobs requiring a Senior 85 49 106
As % of all contract jobs in Reading 7.48% 8.09% 9.61%
As % of the Job Titles category 8.01% 8.58% 10.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 53 25 47
10th Percentile £356 £400 £462
25th Percentile £475 £450 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% +9.09%
75th Percentile £638 £600 £675
90th Percentile £700 £653 £723
Berkshire median daily rate £557 £530 £568
% change year-on-year +5.09% -6.69% -1.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 2 5
10th Percentile £66.53 - £53.21
25th Percentile £71.00 £66.25 £55.75
Median hourly rate £71.43 £67.50 £58.49
Median % change year-on-year +5.82% +15.40% -16.14%
75th Percentile £78.89 £68.75 £61.06
90th Percentile £86.73 - £70.62
Berkshire median hourly rate £71.43 £86.50 £61.06
% change year-on-year -17.42% +41.66% -7.48%

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 1,061 571 990
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.40% 94.22% 89.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 588 361 555
10th Percentile £363 £350 £331
25th Percentile £491 £450 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £568 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year +3.18% -8.33% +9.59%
75th Percentile £650 £625 £650
90th Percentile £775 £700 £716
Berkshire median daily rate £546 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +4.05% -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 20 42
10th Percentile £30.00 - £48.26
25th Percentile £66.55 £14.75 £56.56
Median hourly rate £83.00 £28.00 £65.49
Median % change year-on-year +196.43% -57.24% -0.78%
75th Percentile £88.00 £58.44 £87.46
90th Percentile £104.00 £70.00 £100.00
Berkshire median hourly rate £82.50 £34.80 £61.60
% change year-on-year +137.10% -43.51% +8.29%

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 18 August 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 18 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Senior in Reading

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

For the 6 months to 18 August 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 38 (44.71%) Security Cleared
2 29 (34.12%) Azure
3 25 (29.41%) DevOps
4 23 (27.06%) Agile
4 23 (27.06%) SC Cleared
5 21 (24.71%) Python
6 16 (18.82%) Stakeholder Management
7 15 (17.65%) CI/CD
7 15 (17.65%) Oracle
8 13 (15.29%) AWS
8 13 (15.29%) Azure DevOps
8 13 (15.29%) Infrastructure as Code
8 13 (15.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 12 (14.12%) SQL
9 12 (14.12%) Terraform
10 11 (12.94%) Ansible
10 11 (12.94%) DV Cleared
10 11 (12.94%) Juniper
10 11 (12.94%) Microsoft
11 10 (11.76%) Analytics
11 10 (11.76%) Data Pipeline
11 10 (11.76%) Firewall
11 10 (11.76%) Validation
12 9 (10.59%) Data Science
12 9 (10.59%) GitHub
12 9 (10.59%) Observability
12 9 (10.59%) PowerShell
12 9 (10.59%) Problem-Solving
12 9 (10.59%) Test Automation
13 8 (9.41%) Identity Access Management

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 (4.71%) Apache Spark
2 1 (1.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
2 1 (1.18%) CMS
2 1 (1.18%) Confluence
2 1 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.18%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (3.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.18%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (5.88%) Teamcenter
2 2 (2.35%) Primavera
3 1 (1.18%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (1.18%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (1.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 29 (34.12%) Azure
2 13 (15.29%) AWS
2 13 (15.29%) Azure DevOps
3 9 (10.59%) GitHub
4 7 (8.24%) GitHub Actions
5 6 (7.06%) GCP
6 3 (3.53%) Entra ID
6 3 (3.53%) OpenShift
6 3 (3.53%) SaaS
7 2 (2.35%) Amazon S3
7 2 (2.35%) AWS Lambda
7 2 (2.35%) AWS Step Functions
7 2 (2.35%) Azure Monitor
7 2 (2.35%) IaaS
7 2 (2.35%) Microsoft 365
7 2 (2.35%) Power Platform
7 2 (2.35%) Salesforce Service Cloud
7 2 (2.35%) Serverless
8 1 (1.18%) Azure Key Vault
8 1 (1.18%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 10 (11.76%) Firewall
2 7 (8.24%) BGP
2 7 (8.24%) VXLAN
3 6 (7.06%) DHCP
3 6 (7.06%) DNS
3 6 (7.06%) Ethernet VPN
3 6 (7.06%) Junos
4 5 (5.88%) LAN
4 5 (5.88%) WAN
5 4 (4.71%) BIG-IP
5 4 (4.71%) OSPF
5 4 (4.71%) VPN
6 3 (3.53%) Cisco ISE
6 3 (3.53%) TCP/IP
7 2 (2.35%) Network Security
7 2 (2.35%) SD-WAN
7 2 (2.35%) Software-Defined Networking
8 1 (1.18%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
8 1 (1.18%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 1 (1.18%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (5.88%) Oracle Database
2 4 (4.71%) Big Data
3 3 (3.53%) Amazon Redshift
3 3 (3.53%) NoSQL
4 2 (2.35%) Amazon Athena
4 2 (2.35%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (2.35%) Hadoop
4 2 (2.35%) Power BI
4 2 (2.35%) Spark SQL
5 1 (1.18%) BigQuery
5 1 (1.18%) Data Lake
5 1 (1.18%) Metadata
5 1 (1.18%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 5 (5.88%) GitLab
1 5 (5.88%) Jenkins
2 4 (4.71%) Git
2 4 (4.71%) JIRA
3 2 (2.35%) Postman
4 1 (1.18%) Cucumber
4 1 (1.18%) REST Assured
General
1 17 (20.00%) Social Skills
2 15 (17.65%) Finance
3 11 (12.94%) Aerospace
4 6 (7.06%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (7.06%) Telecoms
5 5 (5.88%) Public Sector
6 3 (3.53%) Military
6 3 (3.53%) Police
7 2 (2.35%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (1.18%) Advertising
8 1 (1.18%) Billing
8 1 (1.18%) Legal
8 1 (1.18%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.88%) ARM Templates
2 4 (4.71%) 802.1X
3 3 (3.53%) ADO
3 3 (3.53%) Middleware
3 3 (3.53%) PySpark
3 3 (3.53%) REST
4 2 (2.35%) .NET
4 2 (2.35%) Apache NiFi
4 2 (2.35%) Lightning Web Components
4 2 (2.35%) SOAP
5 1 (1.18%) JSON
5 1 (1.18%) Microsoft Graph
5 1 (1.18%) OAuth
5 1 (1.18%) Playwright
5 1 (1.18%) React
5 1 (1.18%) RESTful
5 1 (1.18%) SAML
5 1 (1.18%) Streamlit
5 1 (1.18%) XML
5 1 (1.18%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (10.59%) Hybrid Cloud
2 5 (5.88%) Data Centre
3 4 (4.71%) Onboarding
3 4 (4.71%) Product Ownership
4 3 (3.53%) Clustering
4 3 (3.53%) Data Protection Act
4 3 (3.53%) PKI
5 2 (2.35%) AI Agents
5 2 (2.35%) Cloud Native
5 2 (2.35%) Distributed Architecture
5 2 (2.35%) Enterprise Cloud
6 1 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.18%) Distributed Computing
6 1 (1.18%) Distributed Systems
6 1 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (1.18%) Management Information System
6 1 (1.18%) Marketing Technology
Operating Systems
1 6 (7.06%) Windows
2 3 (3.53%) Linux
2 3 (3.53%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (29.41%) DevOps
2 23 (27.06%) Agile
3 16 (18.82%) Stakeholder Management
4 15 (17.65%) CI/CD
5 13 (15.29%) Infrastructure as Code
5 13 (15.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 10 (11.76%) Analytics
6 10 (11.76%) Data Pipeline
6 10 (11.76%) Validation
7 9 (10.59%) Data Science
7 9 (10.59%) Observability
7 9 (10.59%) Problem-Solving
7 9 (10.59%) Test Automation
8 8 (9.41%) Identity Access Management
8 8 (9.41%) Migration
8 8 (9.41%) Platform Engineering
8 8 (9.41%) Zero Trust
9 7 (8.24%) Data Engineering
9 7 (8.24%) Machine Learning
10 6 (7.06%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 21 (24.71%) Python
2 12 (14.12%) SQL
3 9 (10.59%) PowerShell
4 6 (7.06%) Bash
4 6 (7.06%) Bicep
5 4 (4.71%) Java
6 3 (3.53%) Apex Code
7 2 (2.35%) C#
8 1 (1.18%) JavaScript
8 1 (1.18%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (1.18%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 38 (44.71%) Security Cleared
2 23 (27.06%) SC Cleared
3 11 (12.94%) DV Cleared
4 7 (8.24%) Cisco Certification
5 3 (3.53%) (ISC)2 CCSP
5 3 (3.53%) CEH
5 3 (3.53%) CISSP
5 3 (3.53%) CompTIA Security+
5 3 (3.53%) JNCIA
5 3 (3.53%) JNCIP
5 3 (3.53%) JNCIS
6 2 (2.35%) Azure Certification
6 2 (2.35%) Degree
6 2 (2.35%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (2.35%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 1 (1.18%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
7 1 (1.18%) CCNP
7 1 (1.18%) PMI Certification
7 1 (1.18%) PMP
7 1 (1.18%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (9.41%) PMO
2 7 (8.24%) Data Quality
2 7 (8.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (7.06%) NIST
4 4 (4.71%) GDPR
4 4 (4.71%) QA
5 3 (3.53%) Cyber Essentials
5 3 (3.53%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 3 (3.53%) NCSC
5 3 (3.53%) SOC 2
6 2 (2.35%) GRC
System Software
1 4 (4.71%) Docker
1 4 (4.71%) Hyper-V
2 3 (3.53%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (2.35%) Active Directory
4 1 (1.18%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (1.18%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 12 (14.12%) Terraform
2 11 (12.94%) Ansible
3 8 (9.41%) Kubernetes
4 4 (4.71%) FortiGate
5 3 (3.53%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (2.35%) Istio
6 2 (2.35%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 15 (17.65%) Oracle
2 11 (12.94%) Juniper
2 11 (12.94%) Microsoft
3 5 (5.88%) Cisco
3 5 (5.88%) SAP
3 5 (5.88%) Splunk
4 4 (4.71%) Databricks
4 4 (4.71%) F5
4 4 (4.71%) ServiceNow
4 4 (4.71%) VMware
5 3 (3.53%) Arista
5 3 (3.53%) Extreme Networks
5 3 (3.53%) Salesforce
5 3 (3.53%) SolarWinds
6 2 (2.35%) Fortinet
6 2 (2.35%) Red Hat
7 1 (1.18%) Adobe
7 1 (1.18%) Ariba
7 1 (1.18%) Avaya
7 1 (1.18%) IBM