UK Contractor Rates

It should be noted that these figures are derived from contracts advertised on job boards and is best used as a good indicator of the overall health of the contract market, since many ads do not include contract rates. Job Data supplied by ITJobsWatch

Top Ten Contracting Skills

Rank	IT Skill	IT Jobs Proportion	Average Hourly Rates	Average Daily Rates
1	Analyst	21.62 %	£21.78	£398
2	Developer	20.53 %	£31.97	£403
3	Business Analyst	8.58 %	£36.20	£456
4	Project Manager	8.01 %	£40.72	£445
5	Consultant	7.92 %	£35.57	£438
6	.NET Developer	3.51 %	£31.82	£351
7	Architect	3.25 %	£43.06	£493
8	Administrator	3.21 %	£19.78	£304
9	Support Analyst	3.19 %	£19.05	£342
10	Java Developer	2.98 %	£38.27	£466

Top Ten Operating Systems for Contracting

Rank	IT Skill	IT Jobs Proportion	Average Hourly Rates	Average Daily Rates
1	Windows	11.80 %	£20.95	£352
2	UNIX	7.13 %	£31.43	£410
3	Windows Server 2003	3.85 %	£22.51	£323
4	Linux	3.79 %	£32.00	£390
5	Windows XP	2.92 %	£17.32	£267
6	Solaris	2.60 %	£32.12	£392
7	Windows 2000	1.94 %	£18.05	£293
8	AIX	1.23 %	£33.92	£369
9	Windows 2000 Server	0.81 %	£23.74	£323
10	Red Hat Linux	0.79 %	£36.95	£385

Top Ten Programming Languages for Contracting

Rank	IT Skill	IT Jobs Proportion	Average Hourly Rates	Average Daily Rates
1	SQL	12.82 %	£29.71	£392
2	Java	7.98 %	£36.25	£455
3	C#	7.50 %	£33.12	£421
4	JavaScript	3.80 %	£29.44	£324
5	C++	3.39 %	£36.00	£484
6	C	2.57 %	£33.64	£390
7	VB	2.13 %	£31.19	£354
8	PL/SQL	2.07 %	£30.80	£394
9	Perl	1.97 %	£36.68	£399
10	VB.NET	1.60 %	£31.52	£315

Top Ten Communication and Networking Skills for Contracting

Rank	IT Skill	IT Jobs Proportion	Average Hourly Rates	Average Daily Rates
1	Internet	2.12 %	£23.38	£360
2	Firewall	2.08 %	£26.48	£371
3	TCP/IP	1.95 %	£23.97	£340
4	SAN	1.76 %	£30.29	£372
5	LAN	1.73 %	£21.18	£361
6	WAN	1.61 %	£21.77	£356
7	DNS	1.12 %	£24.54	£368
8	Intranet	1.09 %	£28.43	£354
9	VPN	0.87 %	£22.02	£369
10	3G	0.64 %	£26.85	£319