Senior Contract Job Trends in Reading

Senior
Berkshire > Reading

The median Senior daily rate in Reading is £613, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 September 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 20 16
Rank change year-on-year -6 -4 +7
Contract jobs requiring a Senior 81 48 106
As % of all contract jobs in Reading 7.49% 8.18% 9.58%
As % of the Job Titles category 8.08% 8.73% 10.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 50 28 48
10th Percentile £425 £400 £457
25th Percentile £481 £473 £519
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £613 £573 £572
Median % change year-on-year +6.89% +0.26% +3.91%
75th Percentile £638 £610 £675
90th Percentile £701 £749 £720
Berkshire median daily rate £570 £550 £550
% change year-on-year +3.55% - -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 2 5
10th Percentile £66.38 - £56.85
25th Percentile £66.58 £66.25 £58.49
Median hourly rate £71.22 £67.50 £61.06
Median % change year-on-year +5.50% +10.55% -12.46%
75th Percentile £76.56 £68.75 £64.73
90th Percentile £85.88 - £72.08
Berkshire median hourly rate £71.22 £67.50 £62.38
% change year-on-year +5.50% +8.22% -5.49%

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 1,003 550 987
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.70% 93.70% 89.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 568 349 555
10th Percentile £379 £350 £337
25th Percentile £500 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £583
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -5.66% +6.00%
75th Percentile £656 £625 £650
90th Percentile £775 £688 £719
Berkshire median daily rate £550 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +4.76% -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 148 20 41
10th Percentile £24.46 - £49.00
25th Percentile £41.25 £14.75 £58.49
Median hourly rate £83.00 £28.00 £69.38
Median % change year-on-year +196.43% -59.64% +5.11%
75th Percentile £88.00 £58.44 £87.46
90th Percentile £104.50 £70.00 £100.00
Berkshire median hourly rate £77.00 £32.31 £61.75
% change year-on-year +138.32% -47.68% +6.80%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 35 (43.21%) Security Cleared
2 30 (37.04%) Azure
3 27 (33.33%) DevOps
4 24 (29.63%) Agile
5 22 (27.16%) SC Cleared
6 21 (25.93%) Python
7 18 (22.22%) CI/CD
8 15 (18.52%) Oracle
9 14 (17.28%) Ansible
9 14 (17.28%) Infrastructure as Code
9 14 (17.28%) Stakeholder Management
10 13 (16.05%) AWS
10 13 (16.05%) Azure DevOps
10 13 (16.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 13 (16.05%) Terraform
11 12 (14.81%) Microsoft
11 12 (14.81%) SQL
12 11 (13.58%) Analytics
12 11 (13.58%) Data Pipeline
12 11 (13.58%) Migration
13 10 (12.35%) DV Cleared
13 10 (12.35%) Test Automation
13 10 (12.35%) Validation
14 9 (11.11%) Bash
14 9 (11.11%) Data Science
14 9 (11.11%) GitHub
14 9 (11.11%) Kubernetes
14 9 (11.11%) Platform Engineering
14 9 (11.11%) PowerShell
14 9 (11.11%) VMware

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 (4.94%) Apache Spark
2 1 (1.23%) Confluence
2 1 (1.23%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.23%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (3.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (6.17%) Teamcenter
2 2 (2.47%) Primavera
3 1 (1.23%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (1.23%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (1.23%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 30 (37.04%) Azure
2 13 (16.05%) AWS
2 13 (16.05%) Azure DevOps
3 9 (11.11%) GitHub
4 7 (8.64%) GitHub Actions
5 6 (7.41%) GCP
6 4 (4.94%) OpenShift
7 3 (3.70%) Entra ID
8 2 (2.47%) Amazon S3
8 2 (2.47%) AWS Lambda
8 2 (2.47%) AWS Step Functions
8 2 (2.47%) Azure Monitor
8 2 (2.47%) IaaS
8 2 (2.47%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (2.47%) Power Platform
8 2 (2.47%) SaaS
8 2 (2.47%) Salesforce Service Cloud
8 2 (2.47%) Serverless
9 1 (1.23%) SAP Fieldglass
9 1 (1.23%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 8 (9.88%) Firewall
2 5 (6.17%) BGP
2 5 (6.17%) DHCP
2 5 (6.17%) DNS
2 5 (6.17%) VPN
2 5 (6.17%) VXLAN
3 4 (4.94%) Ethernet VPN
3 4 (4.94%) TCP/IP
4 3 (3.70%) Junos
4 3 (3.70%) LAN
4 3 (3.70%) Software-Defined Networking
4 3 (3.70%) WAN
5 2 (2.47%) BIG-IP
5 2 (2.47%) Network Security
5 2 (2.47%) OSPF
5 2 (2.47%) SD-WAN
5 2 (2.47%) VSAN
6 1 (1.23%) SSL
6 1 (1.23%) TETRA
6 1 (1.23%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (6.17%) Oracle Database
2 4 (4.94%) Big Data
3 3 (3.70%) Amazon Redshift
3 3 (3.70%) NoSQL
4 2 (2.47%) Amazon Athena
4 2 (2.47%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (2.47%) Hadoop
4 2 (2.47%) Metadata
4 2 (2.47%) Power BI
4 2 (2.47%) Spark SQL
5 1 (1.23%) BigQuery
5 1 (1.23%) Data Lake
5 1 (1.23%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 5 (6.17%) GitLab
1 5 (6.17%) Jenkins
2 4 (4.94%) Git
2 4 (4.94%) JIRA
3 2 (2.47%) Postman
4 1 (1.23%) Cucumber
4 1 (1.23%) REST Assured
General
1 18 (22.22%) Social Skills
2 14 (17.28%) Finance
3 11 (13.58%) Aerospace
4 6 (7.41%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (7.41%) Telecoms
5 5 (6.17%) Public Sector
6 3 (3.70%) Military
6 3 (3.70%) Police
7 2 (2.47%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (1.23%) Advertising
8 1 (1.23%) Billing
8 1 (1.23%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (16.05%) Terraform
2 6 (7.41%) ARM Templates
3 3 (3.70%) ADO
3 3 (3.70%) Middleware
3 3 (3.70%) PySpark
3 3 (3.70%) REST
4 2 (2.47%) .NET
4 2 (2.47%) 802.1X
4 2 (2.47%) Apache NiFi
4 2 (2.47%) Lightning Web Components
4 2 (2.47%) SOAP
5 1 (1.23%) Microsoft Graph
5 1 (1.23%) OAuth
5 1 (1.23%) Playwright
5 1 (1.23%) React
5 1 (1.23%) RESTful
5 1 (1.23%) SAML
5 1 (1.23%) Streamlit
5 1 (1.23%) XML
5 1 (1.23%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 11 (13.58%) Hybrid Cloud
2 5 (6.17%) Onboarding
3 4 (4.94%) Product Ownership
4 3 (3.70%) Cloud Native
4 3 (3.70%) Data Centre
4 3 (3.70%) Data Protection Act
4 3 (3.70%) Distributed Architecture
4 3 (3.70%) Management Information System
5 2 (2.47%) AI Agents
5 2 (2.47%) Distributed Computing
5 2 (2.47%) Enterprise Cloud
6 1 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.23%) Clustering
6 1 (1.23%) Distributed Systems
6 1 (1.23%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (1.23%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 6 (7.41%) Linux
1 6 (7.41%) Windows
2 5 (6.17%) Windows Server
3 2 (2.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (2.47%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (33.33%) DevOps
2 24 (29.63%) Agile
3 18 (22.22%) CI/CD
4 14 (17.28%) Infrastructure as Code
4 14 (17.28%) Stakeholder Management
5 13 (16.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 11 (13.58%) Analytics
6 11 (13.58%) Data Pipeline
6 11 (13.58%) Migration
7 10 (12.35%) Test Automation
7 10 (12.35%) Validation
8 9 (11.11%) Data Science
8 9 (11.11%) Platform Engineering
9 8 (9.88%) Continuous Improvement
9 8 (9.88%) Data Engineering
9 8 (9.88%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 8 (9.88%) Observability
9 8 (9.88%) Problem-Solving
9 8 (9.88%) Zero Trust
10 7 (8.64%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 21 (25.93%) Python
2 12 (14.81%) SQL
3 9 (11.11%) Bash
3 9 (11.11%) PowerShell
4 7 (8.64%) Bicep
5 4 (4.94%) Java
6 3 (3.70%) Apex Code
7 2 (2.47%) C#
7 2 (2.47%) Shell Script
8 1 (1.23%) JavaScript
8 1 (1.23%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 35 (43.21%) Security Cleared
2 22 (27.16%) SC Cleared
3 10 (12.35%) DV Cleared
4 5 (6.17%) Cisco Certification
5 4 (4.94%) Degree
6 3 (3.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 3 (3.70%) Azure Certification
6 3 (3.70%) CEH
6 3 (3.70%) CISSP
6 3 (3.70%) CompTIA Security+
6 3 (3.70%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (3.70%) Microsoft Certification
6 3 (3.70%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 1 (1.23%) AWS Certification
7 1 (1.23%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
7 1 (1.23%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (1.23%) CCNP
7 1 (1.23%) PMI Certification
7 1 (1.23%) PMP
7 1 (1.23%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (9.88%) Data Quality
2 7 (8.64%) PMO
3 6 (7.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (6.17%) NIST
5 4 (4.94%) QA
6 3 (3.70%) Cyber Essentials
6 3 (3.70%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 3 (3.70%) GDPR
6 3 (3.70%) NCSC
7 2 (2.47%) GRC
7 2 (2.47%) SOC 2
System Software
1 6 (7.41%) Docker
1 6 (7.41%) VMware Infrastructure
2 5 (6.17%) Hyper-V
3 4 (4.94%) VMware ESXi
3 4 (4.94%) vSphere
4 2 (2.47%) Active Directory
4 2 (2.47%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (2.47%) VMware NSX
5 1 (1.23%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 14 (17.28%) Ansible
2 9 (11.11%) Kubernetes
3 3 (3.70%) Istio
4 2 (2.47%) FortiGate
4 2 (2.47%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (2.47%) Podman
4 2 (2.47%) Single Sign-On
4 2 (2.47%) vCenter Server
5 1 (1.23%) Check_MK
5 1 (1.23%) Grafana
5 1 (1.23%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 15 (18.52%) Oracle
2 12 (14.81%) Microsoft
3 9 (11.11%) VMware
4 5 (6.17%) Juniper
4 5 (6.17%) SAP
5 4 (4.94%) Databricks
5 4 (4.94%) ServiceNow
6 3 (3.70%) Arista
6 3 (3.70%) Cisco
6 3 (3.70%) Red Hat
6 3 (3.70%) Salesforce
6 3 (3.70%) Splunk
7 2 (2.47%) F5
7 2 (2.47%) Fortinet
8 1 (1.23%) Ariba
8 1 (1.23%) Avaya
8 1 (1.23%) Ceridian
8 1 (1.23%) Google
8 1 (1.23%) NGA Human Resources
8 1 (1.23%) SolarWinds