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 31 May 2026.

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

6 months to
31 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 8 6
Rank change year-on-year -6 -2 -3
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 264 282 322
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 11.30% 16.61% 14.96%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.97% 17.75% 15.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 197 184 216
10th Percentile £350 £413 £400
25th Percentile £450 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £585 £550
Median % change year-on-year -10.26% +6.36% -15.38%
75th Percentile £638 £689 £725
90th Percentile £738 £813 £838
Central London median daily rate £530 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -7.83% +4.55% -13.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £34.65 -
Central London median hourly rate - £34.65 -

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 2,206 1,589 2,048
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 94.43% 93.58% 95.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,492 1,005 1,430
10th Percentile £350 £352 £343
25th Percentile £450 £453 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -0.05% -8.29%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £688
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 15 13
10th Percentile £17.45 £18.70 £14.18
25th Percentile £18.75 £24.21 £20.22
Median hourly rate £27.50 £28.50 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.51% +26.67% -35.71%
75th Percentile £53.12 £46.25 £29.38
90th Percentile £65.00 £85.50 £40.00
Central London median hourly rate £26.11 £28.15 £27.00
% change year-on-year -7.25% +4.26% -22.86%

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 31 May 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 31 May 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 72 (27.27%) Java
2 46 (17.42%) Python
3 45 (17.05%) C#
4 42 (15.91%) Security Cleared
4 42 (15.91%) SQL
5 41 (15.53%) SC Cleared
6 38 (14.39%) Agile
7 37 (14.02%) AWS
8 35 (13.26%) CI/CD
9 34 (12.88%) Azure
10 33 (12.50%) JavaScript
11 32 (12.12%) TypeScript
12 31 (11.74%) React
13 30 (11.36%) Full-Stack Development
14 28 (10.61%) Power Platform
15 25 (9.47%) Microsoft
16 24 (9.09%) Microservices
17 23 (8.71%) .NET
17 23 (8.71%) Docker
17 23 (8.71%) Test Automation
18 22 (8.33%) Containerisation
19 21 (7.95%) AI
19 21 (7.95%) Low Latency
19 21 (7.95%) REST
19 21 (7.95%) Spring
20 19 (7.20%) Business Intelligence
20 19 (7.20%) GitHub
20 19 (7.20%) Kubernetes
21 18 (6.82%) DevOps
21 18 (6.82%) Software Engineering

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 7 (2.65%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.89%) CMS
2 5 (1.89%) Confluence
3 3 (1.14%) Apache
4 2 (0.76%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.76%) Ethereum
4 2 (0.76%) Hyperledger
5 1 (0.38%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.38%) Appian
5 1 (0.38%) Camunda
5 1 (0.38%) govService
5 1 (0.38%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.38%) IIS
5 1 (0.38%) JBoss
5 1 (0.38%) Mendix
5 1 (0.38%) nginx
5 1 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.38%) Umbraco
Business Applications
1 8 (3.03%) Endur
2 5 (1.89%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (1.14%) Fidessa
4 2 (0.76%) Magento
4 2 (0.76%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.76%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.38%) BASE24
5 1 (0.38%) Oracle Applications
5 1 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.38%) Orchestrade
5 1 (0.38%) R3 Corda
5 1 (0.38%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.38%) Shopify
5 1 (0.38%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 37 (14.02%) AWS
2 34 (12.88%) Azure
3 28 (10.61%) Power Platform
4 19 (7.20%) GitHub
5 13 (4.92%) Dynamics 365
6 10 (3.79%) GCP
7 9 (3.41%) GitHub Actions
7 9 (3.41%) Power Automate
7 9 (3.41%) PowerApps
8 8 (3.03%) Microsoft Copilot
9 7 (2.65%) AWS Lambda
9 7 (2.65%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (2.65%) Serverless
10 6 (2.27%) Amazon S3
10 6 (2.27%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 6 (2.27%) GitHub Copilot
10 6 (2.27%) OpenShift
11 5 (1.89%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 5 (1.89%) Amazon SQS
11 5 (1.89%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.14%) Multicast
2 2 (0.76%) FTP
2 2 (0.76%) HTTP
3 1 (0.38%) HTTPS
3 1 (0.38%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (6.06%) Power BI
2 14 (5.30%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (3.79%) NoSQL
3 10 (3.79%) SQL Server
4 9 (3.41%) DynamoDB
5 8 (3.03%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
6 5 (1.89%) MongoDB
6 5 (1.89%) MySQL
6 5 (1.89%) Redis
7 3 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (1.14%) Apache Cassandra
7 3 (1.14%) Oracle Database
7 3 (1.14%) Tableau
7 3 (1.14%) Tick Data
8 2 (0.76%) Amazon Aurora
8 2 (0.76%) BigQuery
8 2 (0.76%) Hazelcast
8 2 (0.76%) Kdb+
8 2 (0.76%) OLTP
Development Applications
1 16 (6.06%) Git
2 12 (4.55%) JIRA
3 10 (3.79%) Jenkins
4 5 (1.89%) JUnit
4 5 (1.89%) Maven
5 4 (1.52%) GitLab
5 4 (1.52%) Gradle
6 3 (1.14%) Cucumber
6 3 (1.14%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.76%) CircleCI
7 2 (0.76%) Claude Code
7 2 (0.76%) Gatling
7 2 (0.76%) Mocha
7 2 (0.76%) Octopus Deploy
7 2 (0.76%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.76%) TeamCity
7 2 (0.76%) webpack
8 1 (0.38%) Appium
8 1 (0.38%) Liquibase
8 1 (0.38%) Mockito
General
1 63 (23.86%) Finance
2 40 (15.15%) Banking
3 28 (10.61%) Front Office
3 28 (10.61%) Social Skills
4 18 (6.82%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (4.92%) Public Sector
6 11 (4.17%) Investment Banking
7 6 (2.27%) Back Office
7 6 (2.27%) Financial Institution
8 4 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (1.52%) Law
8 4 (1.52%) Legal
9 2 (0.76%) Advertising
9 2 (0.76%) Automotive
9 2 (0.76%) Local Government
9 2 (0.76%) Marketing
10 1 (0.38%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.38%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.38%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.38%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (11.74%) React
2 23 (8.71%) .NET
3 21 (7.95%) REST
3 21 (7.95%) Spring
4 17 (6.44%) Spring Boot
5 16 (6.06%) Kafka
5 16 (6.06%) RESTful
6 15 (5.68%) AngularJS
6 15 (5.68%) HTML
7 13 (4.92%) CSS
8 11 (4.17%) JSON
8 11 (4.17%) Web Services
9 9 (3.41%) SOAP
10 6 (2.27%) Lightning Web Components
10 6 (2.27%) OSGi
10 6 (2.27%) Redux
10 6 (2.27%) XML
11 5 (1.89%) .NET Framework
11 5 (1.89%) Node.js
11 5 (1.89%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 22 (8.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 15 (5.68%) Cloud Native
3 13 (4.92%) Distributed Systems
4 11 (4.17%) Equities
5 9 (3.41%) Derivative
6 8 (3.03%) Fixed Income
7 7 (2.65%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (1.89%) Greenfield Project
9 4 (1.52%) Product Ownership
10 3 (1.14%) Algorithms
10 3 (1.14%) Low-Code
10 3 (1.14%) NHS
11 2 (0.76%) CMDB
11 2 (0.76%) Data Structures
11 2 (0.76%) Legacy Code
11 2 (0.76%) Mobile App
12 1 (0.38%) AI Agents
12 1 (0.38%) Distributed Architecture
12 1 (0.38%) IoT
12 1 (0.38%) Mobile Banking
Operating Systems
1 11 (4.17%) Linux
2 6 (2.27%) Unix
3 5 (1.89%) Apple iOS
4 3 (1.14%) Windows
4 3 (1.14%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.38%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (14.39%) Agile
2 35 (13.26%) CI/CD
3 30 (11.36%) Full-Stack Development
4 24 (9.09%) Microservices
5 23 (8.71%) Test Automation
6 22 (8.33%) Containerisation
7 21 (7.95%) AI
7 21 (7.95%) Low Latency
8 19 (7.20%) Business Intelligence
9 18 (6.82%) DevOps
9 18 (6.82%) Software Engineering
9 18 (6.82%) TDD
10 16 (6.06%) Event-Driven
11 15 (5.68%) Performance Tuning
12 14 (5.30%) Code Quality
12 14 (5.30%) Problem-Solving
12 14 (5.30%) User Experience
13 13 (4.92%) Clean Code
13 13 (4.92%) Infrastructure as Code
13 13 (4.92%) LLM
Programming Languages
1 72 (27.27%) Java
2 46 (17.42%) Python
3 45 (17.05%) C#
4 42 (15.91%) SQL
5 33 (12.50%) JavaScript
6 32 (12.12%) TypeScript
7 7 (2.65%) Apex Code
8 6 (2.27%) C++
9 5 (1.89%) PL/SQL
10 3 (1.14%) Go
10 3 (1.14%) Kotlin
10 3 (1.14%) Scala
10 3 (1.14%) Shell Script
10 3 (1.14%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.76%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 2 (0.76%) Elixir
11 2 (0.76%) Korn
11 2 (0.76%) PowerShell
11 2 (0.76%) R
11 2 (0.76%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 42 (15.91%) Security Cleared
2 41 (15.53%) SC Cleared
3 5 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
3 5 (1.89%) Degree
4 2 (0.76%) CTC Cleared
5 1 (0.38%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.38%) AWS Certified Developer
5 1 (0.38%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 1 (0.38%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (6.44%) QA
2 4 (1.52%) Accessibility
3 3 (1.14%) ISO 8583
4 2 (0.76%) GDPR
4 2 (0.76%) ISO 20022
4 2 (0.76%) PSD2
4 2 (0.76%) SEPA
4 2 (0.76%) WCAG
5 1 (0.38%) GRC
5 1 (0.38%) SLA
System Software
1 23 (8.71%) Docker
2 1 (0.38%) GridGain
2 1 (0.38%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 19 (7.20%) Kubernetes
2 13 (4.92%) Terraform
3 10 (3.79%) Ansible
4 6 (2.27%) Prometheus
5 5 (1.89%) Grafana
6 2 (0.76%) Argo
7 1 (0.38%) Control-M
Vendors
1 25 (9.47%) Microsoft
2 17 (6.44%) Salesforce
3 16 (6.06%) Oracle
4 11 (4.17%) ServiceNow
5 4 (1.52%) Databricks
5 4 (1.52%) OpenLink
5 4 (1.52%) Talend
6 3 (1.14%) Citrix
6 3 (1.14%) Google
6 3 (1.14%) IBM
6 3 (1.14%) Qualtrics
6 3 (1.14%) webMethods
7 2 (0.76%) Adobe
7 2 (0.76%) Confluent
7 2 (0.76%) MuleSoft
7 2 (0.76%) Solace
7 2 (0.76%) Sybase
7 2 (0.76%) Temenos
7 2 (0.76%) UiPath
8 1 (0.38%) OpenAI