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 20 May 2026.

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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 7 6
Rank change year-on-year -3 -1 -3
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 268 282 322
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 11.59% 16.24% 14.87%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.27% 17.44% 15.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 200 180 219
10th Percentile £350 £419 £400
25th Percentile £459 £475 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £585 £551
Median % change year-on-year -10.26% +6.17% -15.23%
75th Percentile £625 £700 £725
90th Percentile £738 £825 £838
Central London median daily rate £525 £585 £550
% change year-on-year -10.26% +6.36% -14.60%
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 2,184 1,617 2,059
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 94.46% 93.15% 95.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,467 1,008 1,447
10th Percentile £356 £350 £350
25th Percentile £451 £463 £448
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £551
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +4.45% -8.25%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £688
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
Central London median daily rate £550 £573 £550
% change year-on-year -3.93% +4.09% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 14 15
10th Percentile £17.99 £22.00 £15.62
25th Percentile £18.75 £23.98 £20.22
Median hourly rate £29.78 £29.58 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.70% +28.59% -34.29%
75th Percentile £52.41 £47.50 £28.44
90th Percentile £62.36 £89.13 £40.00
Central London median hourly rate £26.56 £28.61 £26.41
% change year-on-year -7.18% +8.35% -24.56%

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 20 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 20 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 71 (26.49%) Java
2 46 (17.16%) Python
3 42 (15.67%) Security Cleared
4 41 (15.30%) C#
4 41 (15.30%) SC Cleared
4 41 (15.30%) SQL
5 39 (14.55%) Agile
6 37 (13.81%) AWS
7 36 (13.43%) Azure
8 34 (12.69%) CI/CD
9 32 (11.94%) JavaScript
10 30 (11.19%) Full-Stack Development
11 29 (10.82%) React
12 28 (10.45%) TypeScript
13 27 (10.07%) Power Platform
14 26 (9.70%) Microsoft
15 25 (9.33%) Microservices
16 24 (8.96%) .NET
17 23 (8.58%) Docker
17 23 (8.58%) Test Automation
18 22 (8.21%) Containerisation
18 22 (8.21%) Spring
19 21 (7.84%) REST
20 20 (7.46%) AI
20 20 (7.46%) Salesforce
21 19 (7.09%) DevOps
21 19 (7.09%) GitHub
21 19 (7.09%) Kubernetes
21 19 (7.09%) Low Latency
22 18 (6.72%) Performance Tuning

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 8 (2.99%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.87%) CMS
2 5 (1.87%) Confluence
3 3 (1.12%) Apache
4 2 (0.75%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.75%) Ethereum
4 2 (0.75%) Hyperledger
5 1 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.37%) Appian
5 1 (0.37%) Camunda
5 1 (0.37%) govService
5 1 (0.37%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.37%) IIS
5 1 (0.37%) JBoss
5 1 (0.37%) Mendix
5 1 (0.37%) nginx
5 1 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.37%) Umbraco
Applications
1 2 (0.75%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.75%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 11 (4.10%) Endur
2 6 (2.24%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (1.12%) Fidessa
4 2 (0.75%) Magento
4 2 (0.75%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.75%) 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%) Orchestrade
5 1 (0.37%) R3 Corda
5 1 (0.37%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.37%) Shopify
5 1 (0.37%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 37 (13.81%) AWS
2 36 (13.43%) Azure
3 27 (10.07%) Power Platform
4 19 (7.09%) GitHub
5 14 (5.22%) Dynamics 365
6 10 (3.73%) GCP
6 10 (3.73%) Power Automate
7 9 (3.36%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (2.99%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 8 (2.99%) Microsoft Copilot
8 8 (2.99%) PowerApps
9 7 (2.61%) AWS Lambda
9 7 (2.61%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (2.61%) Serverless
10 6 (2.24%) Amazon S3
10 6 (2.24%) GitHub Copilot
10 6 (2.24%) OpenShift
11 5 (1.87%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 5 (1.87%) Amazon SQS
11 5 (1.87%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.12%) Multicast
2 2 (0.75%) FTP
2 2 (0.75%) HTTP
3 1 (0.37%) HTTPS
3 1 (0.37%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (5.97%) Power BI
2 14 (5.22%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (3.73%) NoSQL
3 10 (3.73%) Relational Database
4 9 (3.36%) DynamoDB
4 9 (3.36%) SQL Server
5 5 (1.87%) MongoDB
5 5 (1.87%) MySQL
5 5 (1.87%) Redis
6 4 (1.49%) Oracle Database
7 3 (1.12%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (1.12%) Apache Cassandra
7 3 (1.12%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (1.12%) Tableau
7 3 (1.12%) Tick Data
8 2 (0.75%) BigQuery
8 2 (0.75%) Kdb+
8 2 (0.75%) OLTP
8 2 (0.75%) RDBMS
8 2 (0.75%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 16 (5.97%) Git
2 12 (4.48%) JIRA
3 10 (3.73%) Jenkins
4 6 (2.24%) JUnit
5 5 (1.87%) Maven
6 4 (1.49%) GitLab
6 4 (1.49%) Gradle
7 3 (1.12%) Cucumber
7 3 (1.12%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.75%) CircleCI
8 2 (0.75%) Claude Code
8 2 (0.75%) Gatling
8 2 (0.75%) Mocha
8 2 (0.75%) Octopus Deploy
8 2 (0.75%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.75%) TeamCity
8 2 (0.75%) Toad
8 2 (0.75%) webpack
9 1 (0.37%) Appium
9 1 (0.37%) Liquibase
General
1 62 (23.13%) Finance
2 35 (13.06%) Banking
3 26 (9.70%) Front Office
3 26 (9.70%) Social Skills
4 16 (5.97%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (4.85%) Public Sector
6 9 (3.36%) Investment Banking
7 6 (2.24%) Back Office
7 6 (2.24%) Financial Institution
8 4 (1.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (1.49%) Legal
9 3 (1.12%) Law
10 2 (0.75%) Advertising
10 2 (0.75%) Automotive
10 2 (0.75%) Local Government
11 1 (0.37%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.37%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.37%) Marketing
11 1 (0.37%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.37%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (10.82%) React
2 24 (8.96%) .NET
3 22 (8.21%) Spring
4 21 (7.84%) REST
5 18 (6.72%) Spring Boot
6 16 (5.97%) HTML
6 16 (5.97%) Kafka
6 16 (5.97%) RESTful
7 15 (5.60%) AngularJS
8 14 (5.22%) CSS
9 11 (4.10%) JSON
10 10 (3.73%) SOAP
10 10 (3.73%) Web Services
11 7 (2.61%) Lightning Web Components
12 6 (2.24%) OSGi
13 5 (1.87%) Django
13 5 (1.87%) Node.js
13 5 (1.87%) OpenTelemetry
13 5 (1.87%) XML
14 4 (1.49%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 19 (7.09%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 15 (5.60%) Cloud Native
3 13 (4.85%) Distributed Systems
4 9 (3.36%) Derivative
5 8 (2.99%) Equities
6 7 (2.61%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (2.24%) Fixed Income
8 4 (1.49%) Product Ownership
9 3 (1.12%) Algorithms
9 3 (1.12%) Greenfield Project
9 3 (1.12%) Low-Code
9 3 (1.12%) NHS
10 2 (0.75%) CMDB
10 2 (0.75%) Data Structures
10 2 (0.75%) Legacy Code
10 2 (0.75%) Mobile App
11 1 (0.37%) AI Agents
11 1 (0.37%) Distributed Architecture
11 1 (0.37%) Market Risk
11 1 (0.37%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 11 (4.10%) Linux
2 8 (2.99%) Unix
3 4 (1.49%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.75%) Windows
4 2 (0.75%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.37%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (14.55%) Agile
2 34 (12.69%) CI/CD
3 30 (11.19%) Full-Stack Development
4 25 (9.33%) Microservices
5 23 (8.58%) Test Automation
6 22 (8.21%) Containerisation
7 20 (7.46%) AI
8 19 (7.09%) DevOps
8 19 (7.09%) Low Latency
9 18 (6.72%) Performance Tuning
10 17 (6.34%) Business Intelligence
10 17 (6.34%) TDD
11 16 (5.97%) Event-Driven
11 16 (5.97%) Software Engineering
12 14 (5.22%) Problem-Solving
12 14 (5.22%) User Experience
13 13 (4.85%) Clean Code
13 13 (4.85%) Data Modelling
13 13 (4.85%) Infrastructure as Code
13 13 (4.85%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 71 (26.49%) Java
2 46 (17.16%) Python
3 41 (15.30%) C#
3 41 (15.30%) SQL
4 32 (11.94%) JavaScript
5 28 (10.45%) TypeScript
6 8 (2.99%) Apex Code
7 6 (2.24%) PL/SQL
8 5 (1.87%) C++
8 5 (1.87%) Shell Script
9 4 (1.49%) PHP
10 3 (1.12%) Go
10 3 (1.12%) Scala
11 2 (0.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 2 (0.75%) Elixir
11 2 (0.75%) Kotlin
11 2 (0.75%) PowerShell
11 2 (0.75%) R
11 2 (0.75%) Ruby
11 2 (0.75%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 42 (15.67%) Security Cleared
2 41 (15.30%) SC Cleared
3 5 (1.87%) BPSS Clearance
4 4 (1.49%) Degree
5 2 (0.75%) CTC Cleared
6 1 (0.37%) AWS Certification
6 1 (0.37%) AWS Certified Developer
6 1 (0.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 1 (0.37%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (5.60%) QA
2 3 (1.12%) Accessibility
2 3 (1.12%) ISO 8583
2 3 (1.12%) WCAG
3 2 (0.75%) GDPR
3 2 (0.75%) ISO 20022
3 2 (0.75%) PSD2
3 2 (0.75%) SEPA
4 1 (0.37%) GRC
4 1 (0.37%) SLA
System Software
1 23 (8.58%) Docker
2 1 (0.37%) GridGain
2 1 (0.37%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 19 (7.09%) Kubernetes
2 13 (4.85%) Terraform
3 10 (3.73%) Ansible
4 6 (2.24%) Prometheus
5 5 (1.87%) Grafana
6 2 (0.75%) Argo
7 1 (0.37%) Control-M
Vendors
1 26 (9.70%) Microsoft
2 20 (7.46%) Salesforce
3 16 (5.97%) Oracle
4 13 (4.85%) ServiceNow
5 7 (2.61%) OpenLink
6 4 (1.49%) Databricks
6 4 (1.49%) Talend
7 3 (1.12%) Google
7 3 (1.12%) Qualtrics
7 3 (1.12%) webMethods
8 2 (0.75%) Adobe
8 2 (0.75%) Citrix
8 2 (0.75%) Confluent
8 2 (0.75%) IBM
8 2 (0.75%) MuleSoft
8 2 (0.75%) Solace
8 2 (0.75%) Sybase
8 2 (0.75%) Temenos
9 1 (0.37%) Granicus
9 1 (0.37%) OpenAI