SDLC Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Systems or Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
Central London > City of London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the City of London requiring SDLC skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 31 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 58 52 56
Rank change year-on-year -6 +4 +5
Contract jobs citing SDLC 63 84 98
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 3.71% 3.99% 3.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.94% 4.36% 3.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 40 57 48
10th Percentile £412 £358 £461
25th Percentile £453 £500 £514
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £650 £640 £685
Median % change year-on-year +1.56% -6.57% +5.18%
75th Percentile £756 £713 £800
90th Percentile £838 £750 £833
Central London median daily rate £647 £619 £650
% change year-on-year +4.57% -4.81% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 1
10th Percentile £32.25 - -
25th Percentile £41.25 - £72.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 - £75.00
75th Percentile £73.75 - £77.50
90th Percentile £82.75 - -
Central London median hourly rate £57.50 £35.00 £75.00
% change year-on-year +64.29% -53.33% -7.98%

All Process and Methodology Skills
City of London

SDLC falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the City of London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,601 1,928 2,530
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 94.29% 91.63% 89.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,112 1,184 1,769
10th Percentile £325 £363 £363
25th Percentile £420 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £585
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% -1.71% +1.74%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £695
90th Percentile £763 £786 £800
Central London median daily rate £550 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -4.35% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 17 18
10th Percentile £16.90 £16.70 £14.25
25th Percentile £21.07 £23.13 £17.00
Median hourly rate £27.75 £42.50 £31.25
Median % change year-on-year -34.71% +36.00% -33.33%
75th Percentile £44.63 £112.00 £51.06
90th Percentile £63.75 £137.50 £70.25
Central London median hourly rate £27.75 £35.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year -20.71% +27.27% -36.22%

SDLC
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SDLC relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

SDLC job vacancy trend in the City of London

SDLC
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing SDLC.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing SDLC

SDLC
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SDLC in the City of London over the 6 months to 31 October 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SDLC in the City of London

SDLC
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing SDLC.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing SDLC

SDLC
Hourly Rate Histogram in the City of London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SDLC in the City of London over the 6 months to 31 October 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for SDLC in the City of London

SDLC
Contract Job Locations in the City of London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SDLC within the City of London region over the 6 months to 31 October 2025. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London Bridge - 1 - -
SDLC
Central London

SDLC
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 6 (9.52%) Confluence
2 4 (6.35%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (4.76%) SharePoint
4 1 (1.59%) Apache
4 1 (1.59%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (1.59%) Apache Spark
4 1 (1.59%) IIS
4 1 (1.59%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 8 (12.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (4.76%) MS Visio
3 2 (3.17%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (3.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (1.59%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (4.76%) Salesforce CRM
1 3 (4.76%) Workday HCM
2 1 (1.59%) Endur
2 1 (1.59%) Exchequer
2 1 (1.59%) Loan IQ
2 1 (1.59%) Oracle Assets
2 1 (1.59%) Oracle Cash Management
2 1 (1.59%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (1.59%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (1.59%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 19 (30.16%) Azure
2 10 (15.87%) Power Platform
3 9 (14.29%) GCP
4 8 (12.70%) AWS
5 7 (11.11%) SaaS
6 4 (6.35%) Azure DevOps
6 4 (6.35%) Entra ID
6 4 (6.35%) Microsoft 365
6 4 (6.35%) PaaS
7 2 (3.17%) GitHub
7 2 (3.17%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (3.17%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 2 (3.17%) Serverless
8 1 (1.59%) Azure Logic Apps
8 1 (1.59%) Azure Monitor
8 1 (1.59%) Cloud Run
8 1 (1.59%) Collibra
8 1 (1.59%) Nutanix
8 1 (1.59%) Snowflake
8 1 (1.59%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 2 (3.17%) DNS
1 2 (3.17%) HTTP
1 2 (3.17%) SSL
1 2 (3.17%) TCP/IP
2 1 (1.59%) Firewall
2 1 (1.59%) SAN
2 1 (1.59%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (15.87%) Power BI
2 5 (7.94%) Big Data
2 5 (7.94%) Data Mining
2 5 (7.94%) SQL Server
3 3 (4.76%) NoSQL
3 3 (4.76%) Tableau
4 2 (3.17%) BigQuery
4 2 (3.17%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (3.17%) KDB
4 2 (3.17%) Kdb+
4 2 (3.17%) MongoDB
4 2 (3.17%) Relational Database
5 1 (1.59%) DB2
5 1 (1.59%) Delta Lake
5 1 (1.59%) DynamoDB
5 1 (1.59%) MemSQL
5 1 (1.59%) MySQL
5 1 (1.59%) RDBMS
5 1 (1.59%) Snowflake Schema
5 1 (1.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 11 (17.46%) JIRA
2 3 (4.76%) Selenium
3 2 (3.17%) Git
3 2 (3.17%) Robot Framework
3 2 (3.17%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (1.59%) Ant
4 1 (1.59%) Gradle
4 1 (1.59%) Jenkins
4 1 (1.59%) JUnit
4 1 (1.59%) ScriptRunner
4 1 (1.59%) Snyk
4 1 (1.59%) Zephyr
General
1 32 (50.79%) Finance
2 27 (42.86%) Social Skills
3 14 (22.22%) Banking
4 8 (12.70%) Analytical Skills
4 8 (12.70%) Investment Banking
5 7 (11.11%) Influencing Skills
6 6 (9.52%) Financial Institution
6 6 (9.52%) Front Office
7 4 (6.35%) Legal
7 4 (6.35%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (1.59%) Back Office
8 1 (1.59%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.59%) General Ledger
8 1 (1.59%) International Banking
8 1 (1.59%) Law
8 1 (1.59%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 13 (20.63%) Architect
2 10 (15.87%) Senior
2 10 (15.87%) Solutions Architect
3 8 (12.70%) Analyst
3 8 (12.70%) Consultant
3 8 (12.70%) Developer
4 7 (11.11%) Business Analyst
5 5 (7.94%) Risk Consultant
5 5 (7.94%) Senior Consultant
6 4 (6.35%) Java Developer
6 4 (6.35%) Technical Analyst
7 3 (4.76%) Python Engineer
7 3 (4.76%) Technical Business Analyst
8 2 (3.17%) GCP Architect
8 2 (3.17%) GCP Data Architect
8 2 (3.17%) GCP Engineer
8 2 (3.17%) KDB Developer
8 2 (3.17%) Lead
8 2 (3.17%) Low Latency Java Developer
8 2 (3.17%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (11.11%) .NET
2 6 (9.52%) RESTful
3 4 (6.35%) React
3 4 (6.35%) Spring
4 3 (4.76%) CSS
4 3 (4.76%) HTML
4 3 (4.76%) Kafka
4 3 (4.76%) Lightning Web Components
4 3 (4.76%) REST
4 3 (4.76%) Spring Boot
4 3 (4.76%) Web Services
5 2 (3.17%) AngularJS
5 2 (3.17%) GraphQL
5 2 (3.17%) HTML5
5 2 (3.17%) Middleware
5 2 (3.17%) OAuth
5 2 (3.17%) OAuth2
5 2 (3.17%) XML
6 1 (1.59%) Redux
6 1 (1.59%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 6 (9.52%) Market Risk
2 5 (7.94%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 5 (7.94%) Product Ownership
3 4 (6.35%) Derivative
4 3 (4.76%) Distributed Systems
4 3 (4.76%) Public Cloud
5 2 (3.17%) Algorithms
5 2 (3.17%) Cloud Native
5 2 (3.17%) CMDB
5 2 (3.17%) Distributed Computing
5 2 (3.17%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (3.17%) Private Cloud
5 2 (3.17%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (1.59%) Credit Risk
6 1 (1.59%) e-Learning
6 1 (1.59%) Equities
6 1 (1.59%) Fixed Income
6 1 (1.59%) iSeries
6 1 (1.59%) PACS
6 1 (1.59%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 5 (7.94%) Unix
2 4 (6.35%) Linux
3 1 (1.59%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (47.62%) Agile
2 19 (30.16%) Problem-Solving
3 17 (26.98%) Scrum
4 16 (25.40%) DevOps
5 14 (22.22%) Business Intelligence
6 13 (20.63%) Analytics
6 13 (20.63%) CI/CD
7 11 (17.46%) Continuous Improvement
8 10 (15.87%) Scenario Testing
8 10 (15.87%) Service Management
9 9 (14.29%) Computer Science
9 9 (14.29%) Roadmaps
9 9 (14.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 8 (12.70%) ETL
11 7 (11.11%) Containerisation
11 7 (11.11%) Low Latency
11 7 (11.11%) Migration
11 7 (11.11%) Project Delivery
12 6 (9.52%) Requirements Gathering
12 6 (9.52%) Service Delivery
Programming Languages
1 22 (34.92%) SQL
2 18 (28.57%) Python
3 17 (26.98%) Java
4 7 (11.11%) C#
5 5 (7.94%) JavaScript
6 2 (3.17%) C++
6 2 (3.17%) Perl
7 1 (1.59%) COBOL
7 1 (1.59%) Fortran
7 1 (1.59%) Go
7 1 (1.59%) Groovy
7 1 (1.59%) MATLAB
7 1 (1.59%) PL/SQL
7 1 (1.59%) R
7 1 (1.59%) RPG
7 1 (1.59%) T-SQL
7 1 (1.59%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 15 (23.81%) Degree
2 5 (7.94%) Computer Science Degree
3 2 (3.17%) CBAP
3 2 (3.17%) CFA
3 2 (3.17%) CISSP
3 2 (3.17%) ISEB
3 2 (3.17%) SC Cleared
3 2 (3.17%) Security Cleared
4 1 (1.59%) Azure Certification
4 1 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
4 1 (1.59%) CCNA
4 1 (1.59%) Cisco Certification
4 1 (1.59%) IIBA
4 1 (1.59%) Master's Degree
4 1 (1.59%) Postgraduate
4 1 (1.59%) Six Sigma Green Belt
4 1 (1.59%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (11.11%) QA
2 6 (9.52%) GDPR
3 5 (7.94%) Basel II
4 3 (4.76%) COBIT
5 1 (1.59%) Data Quality
5 1 (1.59%) GAAP
5 1 (1.59%) IFRS
5 1 (1.59%) ISO 20022
5 1 (1.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (1.59%) PMO
5 1 (1.59%) SEPA
System Software
1 4 (6.35%) Docker
2 1 (1.59%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.59%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 7 (11.11%) Terraform
2 3 (4.76%) Kubernetes
3 2 (3.17%) Ansible
3 2 (3.17%) Progress Chef
4 1 (1.59%) Opsgenie
4 1 (1.59%) Prometheus
4 1 (1.59%) WMI
Vendors
1 14 (22.22%) Microsoft
2 5 (7.94%) IFS
3 4 (6.35%) Databricks
3 4 (6.35%) Oracle
3 4 (6.35%) Workday
4 3 (4.76%) Google
4 3 (4.76%) Salesforce
4 3 (4.76%) ServiceNow
5 2 (3.17%) Atlassian
5 2 (3.17%) F5
6 1 (1.59%) Alteryx
6 1 (1.59%) Avaloq
6 1 (1.59%) Cisco
6 1 (1.59%) Citrix
6 1 (1.59%) FNZ
6 1 (1.59%) IBM
6 1 (1.59%) MuleSoft
6 1 (1.59%) OpenLink
6 1 (1.59%) Remedy
6 1 (1.59%) Spotify