Developer Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Developer
Central London > City of London

The median Developer daily rate in the City of London is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 March 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 5 7
Rank change year-on-year -5 +2 -4
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 273 286 318
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 13.23% 15.81% 13.60%
As % of the Job Titles category 14.05% 17.02% 14.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 193 188 218
10th Percentile £350 £413 £407
25th Percentile £454 £479 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £585 £575
Median % change year-on-year -10.26% +1.74% -11.54%
75th Percentile £625 £701 £750
90th Percentile £749 £829 £841
Central London median daily rate £525 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -8.70% - -11.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £46.25
Median hourly rate - - £47.50
75th Percentile - - £48.75
90th Percentile - - -
Central London median hourly rate - £41.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year - -12.63% -17.39%

All Contract IT Job Roles
City of London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the City of London. 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 the City of London with a recognized job title 1,943 1,680 2,215
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 94.14% 92.87% 94.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,332 1,060 1,584
10th Percentile £350 £360 £340
25th Percentile £439 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £575 £556
Median % change year-on-year -6.09% +3.51% -6.05%
75th Percentile £671 £688 £685
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
Central London median daily rate £550 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 9 18
10th Percentile £18.75 £22.00 £15.73
25th Percentile £19.11 £24.66 £19.18
Median hourly rate £34.25 £32.50 £23.25
Median % change year-on-year +5.38% +39.78% -33.57%
75th Percentile £51.00 £112.00 £40.00
90th Percentile £59.72 £127.10 £49.20
Central London median hourly rate £26.11 £32.50 £27.81
% change year-on-year -19.66% +16.86% -20.54%

Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

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

Developer job vacancy trend in the City of London

Developer
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the City of London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the City of London

Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Developer in the City of London over the 6 months to 15 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Developer in the City of London

Developer
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the City of London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the City of London

Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London

For the 6 months to 15 March 2026, Developer 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 City of London region featuring Developer in the job title.

1 75 (27.47%) Java
2 60 (21.98%) Agile
3 56 (20.51%) SQL
4 52 (19.05%) Python
5 45 (16.48%) JavaScript
6 43 (15.75%) Security Cleared
7 42 (15.38%) SC Cleared
8 38 (13.92%) C#
9 37 (13.55%) AWS
9 37 (13.55%) Azure
9 37 (13.55%) CI/CD
10 35 (12.82%) React
11 32 (11.72%) Git
11 32 (11.72%) Problem-Solving
12 31 (11.36%) Microsoft
13 30 (10.99%) .NET
13 30 (10.99%) Full-Stack Development
14 28 (10.26%) Microservices
15 27 (9.89%) HTML
15 27 (9.89%) Power Platform
15 27 (9.89%) REST
15 27 (9.89%) Scrum
16 26 (9.52%) Analytics
16 26 (9.52%) Test Automation
17 25 (9.16%) TDD
18 24 (8.79%) AngularJS
18 24 (8.79%) CSS
18 24 (8.79%) DevOps
18 24 (8.79%) TypeScript
19 22 (8.06%) AI

Developer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London 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 9 (3.30%) SharePoint
2 7 (2.56%) Confluence
3 4 (1.47%) CMS
4 3 (1.10%) Ethereum
4 3 (1.10%) Hyperledger
5 2 (0.73%) Apache
5 2 (0.73%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.73%) Headless CMS
5 2 (0.73%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.37%) Anypoint
6 1 (0.37%) Appian
6 1 (0.37%) Cloud Foundry
6 1 (0.37%) govService
6 1 (0.37%) JBoss
6 1 (0.37%) Mendix
6 1 (0.37%) Mule
Applications
1 4 (1.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.73%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 12 (4.40%) Endur
2 8 (2.93%) Fidessa
3 5 (1.83%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.73%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.37%) BASE24
5 1 (0.37%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.37%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.37%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.37%) R3 Corda
5 1 (0.37%) SAP MDG
5 1 (0.37%) Shopify
5 1 (0.37%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 37 (13.55%) AWS
1 37 (13.55%) Azure
2 27 (9.89%) Power Platform
3 22 (8.06%) GitHub
4 16 (5.86%) GCP
5 9 (3.30%) Serverless
6 8 (2.93%) AWS Lambda
6 8 (2.93%) Azure DevOps
6 8 (2.93%) Dynamics 365
7 7 (2.56%) Amazon S3
7 7 (2.56%) Microsoft Copilot
7 7 (2.56%) OpenShift
7 7 (2.56%) Power Automate
7 7 (2.56%) PowerApps
8 6 (2.20%) GitHub Actions
8 6 (2.20%) Microsoft 365
9 5 (1.83%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 5 (1.83%) Copilot Studio
10 4 (1.47%) Amazon ECS
10 4 (1.47%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.73%) HTTP
2 1 (0.37%) Firewall
2 1 (0.37%) HTTPS
2 1 (0.37%) RTP
2 1 (0.37%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (6.23%) Power BI
2 14 (5.13%) SQL Server
3 13 (4.76%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (4.40%) Relational Database
5 8 (2.93%) MySQL
6 7 (2.56%) MongoDB
6 7 (2.56%) NoSQL
7 6 (2.20%) KDB
7 6 (2.20%) Kdb+
7 6 (2.20%) Redis
7 6 (2.20%) Tick Data
8 5 (1.83%) Data Warehouse
8 5 (1.83%) DynamoDB
8 5 (1.83%) Tableau
9 4 (1.47%) Metadata
9 4 (1.47%) Oracle Database
10 3 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (1.10%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 3 (1.10%) Power Query
11 2 (0.73%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 32 (11.72%) Git
2 14 (5.13%) Jenkins
2 14 (5.13%) JIRA
3 8 (2.93%) JUnit
4 5 (1.83%) Bitbucket
4 5 (1.83%) Cucumber
4 5 (1.83%) Cypress.io
4 5 (1.83%) GitLab
4 5 (1.83%) Maven
5 4 (1.47%) Octopus Deploy
5 4 (1.47%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (1.10%) Mockito
6 3 (1.10%) webpack
7 2 (0.73%) CircleCI
7 2 (0.73%) CocoaPods
7 2 (0.73%) Gatling
7 2 (0.73%) Mocha
7 2 (0.73%) Selenium
7 2 (0.73%) Toad
7 2 (0.73%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 80 (29.30%) Finance
2 39 (14.29%) Social Skills
3 30 (10.99%) Banking
4 27 (9.89%) Front Office
5 21 (7.69%) Analytical Skills
6 13 (4.76%) Public Sector
7 7 (2.56%) Financial Institution
7 7 (2.56%) Investment Banking
8 4 (1.47%) Back Office
8 4 (1.47%) Legal
8 4 (1.47%) Pharmaceutical
9 3 (1.10%) Law
9 3 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (0.73%) Advertising
10 2 (0.73%) Automotive
10 2 (0.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.73%) Local Government
11 1 (0.37%) Documentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (12.82%) React
2 30 (10.99%) .NET
3 27 (9.89%) HTML
3 27 (9.89%) REST
4 24 (8.79%) AngularJS
4 24 (8.79%) CSS
5 20 (7.33%) Spring
6 16 (5.86%) Spring Boot
7 15 (5.49%) RESTful
8 12 (4.40%) JSON
8 12 (4.40%) Web Services
9 11 (4.03%) SOAP
10 10 (3.66%) Node.js
11 8 (2.93%) Kafka
12 7 (2.56%) Lightning Web Components
12 7 (2.56%) XML
13 6 (2.20%) OSGi
14 5 (1.83%) HTML5
14 5 (1.83%) OAuth
15 4 (1.47%) FIX Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 20 (7.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 13 (4.76%) Equities
3 10 (3.66%) Cloud Native
4 9 (3.30%) Data Structures
4 9 (3.30%) Derivative
5 7 (2.56%) Algorithms
6 5 (1.83%) Distributed Systems
6 5 (1.83%) Fixed Income
6 5 (1.83%) Mobile App
7 4 (1.47%) Analytical Mindset
7 4 (1.47%) Low-Code
7 4 (1.47%) Product Ownership
8 3 (1.10%) Life Science
8 3 (1.10%) NHS
9 2 (0.73%) Animation
9 2 (0.73%) Blockchain
9 2 (0.73%) CMDB
9 2 (0.73%) Legacy Code
9 2 (0.73%) Market Risk
10 1 (0.37%) Data Fabric
Operating Systems
1 13 (4.76%) Linux
2 11 (4.03%) Unix
3 7 (2.56%) Apple iOS
4 4 (1.47%) Android
4 4 (1.47%) Windows
5 1 (0.37%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 60 (21.98%) Agile
2 37 (13.55%) CI/CD
3 32 (11.72%) Problem-Solving
4 30 (10.99%) Full-Stack Development
5 28 (10.26%) Microservices
6 27 (9.89%) Scrum
7 26 (9.52%) Analytics
7 26 (9.52%) Test Automation
8 25 (9.16%) TDD
9 24 (8.79%) DevOps
10 22 (8.06%) AI
11 21 (7.69%) Business Intelligence
11 21 (7.69%) Low Latency
11 21 (7.69%) Unit Testing
12 18 (6.59%) Containerisation
13 16 (5.86%) User Experience
14 15 (5.49%) API Development
14 15 (5.49%) Performance Tuning
14 15 (5.49%) Software Engineering
15 14 (5.13%) Kanban
Programming Languages
1 75 (27.47%) Java
2 56 (20.51%) SQL
3 52 (19.05%) Python
4 45 (16.48%) JavaScript
5 38 (13.92%) C#
6 24 (8.79%) TypeScript
7 7 (2.56%) Kotlin
8 6 (2.20%) Apex Code
8 6 (2.20%) C++
8 6 (2.20%) PL/SQL
9 5 (1.83%) Go
9 5 (1.83%) Swift
10 4 (1.47%) PHP
10 4 (1.47%) Ruby
11 3 (1.10%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (1.10%) Objective-C
11 3 (1.10%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.73%) Elixir
12 2 (0.73%) R
12 2 (0.73%) Scala
Qualifications
1 43 (15.75%) Security Cleared
2 42 (15.38%) SC Cleared
3 10 (3.66%) Degree
4 6 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (1.47%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (0.73%) AWS Certification
6 2 (0.73%) CTC Cleared
7 1 (0.37%) AWS Certified Developer
7 1 (0.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.37%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.37%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.37%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.37%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (3.30%) Accessibility
1 9 (3.30%) QA
2 6 (2.20%) WCAG
3 3 (1.10%) ISO 8583
4 2 (0.73%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.73%) GDPR
4 2 (0.73%) ISO 20022
4 2 (0.73%) PSD2
4 2 (0.73%) SEPA
5 1 (0.37%) SLA
System Software
1 22 (8.06%) Docker
2 1 (0.37%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 19 (6.96%) Kubernetes
2 13 (4.76%) Ansible
3 12 (4.40%) Terraform
4 3 (1.10%) Grafana
4 3 (1.10%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.73%) Argo
5 2 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.37%) Control-M
Vendors
1 31 (11.36%) Microsoft
2 20 (7.33%) Oracle
3 17 (6.23%) Salesforce
4 9 (3.30%) Google
4 9 (3.30%) ServiceNow
5 8 (2.93%) OpenLink
6 4 (1.47%) Axway
6 4 (1.47%) Solace
7 3 (1.10%) Databricks
7 3 (1.10%) Foundry
7 3 (1.10%) Qualtrics
7 3 (1.10%) SAP
8 2 (0.73%) Adobe
8 2 (0.73%) Apple
8 2 (0.73%) Confluent
8 2 (0.73%) ION Trading
8 2 (0.73%) MuleSoft
8 2 (0.73%) OpenAI
8 2 (0.73%) Sybase
8 2 (0.73%) Temenos