Backend Developer Contracts in England

Backend Developer
UK > England

The median Backend Developer daily rate in England is £502, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 422 434 449
Rank change year-on-year +12 +15 +58
Contract jobs requiring a Backend Developer 63 108 207
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.26% 0.29% 0.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.28% 0.31% 0.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 49 65 163
10th Percentile £395 £413 £419
25th Percentile £409 £430 £504
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £502 £500 £606
Median % change year-on-year +0.30% -17.49% +10.18%
75th Percentile £650 £556 £688
90th Percentile £750 £633 £800
UK median daily rate £525 £488 £606
% change year-on-year +7.69% -19.55% +15.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 6 0
Median hourly rate - £58.75 -
UK median hourly rate - £58.75 -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in England. 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 England with a recognized job title 22,549 34,488 47,741
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.59% 92.73% 94.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,007 22,894 33,903
10th Percentile £300 £275 £313
25th Percentile £409 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £638 £643 £663
90th Percentile £750 £750 £763
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 900 2,432 1,409
10th Percentile £14.20 £13.00 £14.35
25th Percentile £18.51 £16.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £30.62 £36.31 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.67% -19.32% +100.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £61.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £76.60
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%

Backend Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings that featured Backend Developer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Backend Developer in England

Backend Developer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Backend Developer in England.

Daily rate trend for Backend Developer in England

Backend Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Backend Developer in England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Backend Developer in England

Backend Developer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Backend Developer in England.

Hourly rate trend for Backend Developer in England

Backend Developer
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Backend Developer within the England region over the 6 months to 1 May 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 -4 44 £450 -10.00% 33
North West +18 5 £502 +18.00% 13
North of England +17 5 £502 +5.58% 16
South West +48 4 £550 +29.41% 11
East of England - 4 £490 - 7
South East +42 3 £409 -25.64% 12
Backend Developer
UK

Backend Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Backend Developer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the England region featuring Backend Developer in the job title.

1 27 (42.86%) Python
2 24 (38.10%) Kubernetes
3 23 (36.51%) TypeScript
3 23 (36.51%) Docker
4 20 (31.75%) Node.js
5 19 (30.16%) DevOps
5 19 (30.16%) CI/CD
6 18 (28.57%) Containerisation
6 18 (28.57%) Full-Stack Development
6 18 (28.57%) AWS
7 17 (26.98%) Agile
7 17 (26.98%) Microservices
8 16 (25.40%) Serverless
8 16 (25.40%) Java
8 16 (25.40%) Azure
9 15 (23.81%) JavaScript
10 14 (22.22%) PostgreSQL
11 13 (20.63%) RESTful
12 12 (19.05%) Terraform
12 12 (19.05%) Test Automation
13 11 (17.46%) C#
13 11 (17.46%) React
14 9 (14.29%) Mentoring
14 9 (14.29%) AWS Lambda
14 9 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
14 9 (14.29%) Event-Driven
14 9 (14.29%) Banking
15 8 (12.70%) Git
15 8 (12.70%) FastAPI
16 7 (11.11%) API Development

Backend Developer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 2 (3.17%) CMS
1 2 (3.17%) Jupyter
2 1 (1.59%) Headless CMS
2 1 (1.59%) Umbraco
Cloud Services
1 18 (28.57%) AWS
2 16 (25.40%) Azure
2 16 (25.40%) Serverless
3 9 (14.29%) AWS Lambda
4 7 (11.11%) GitHub
5 6 (9.52%) Azure AKS
6 5 (7.94%) AWS CloudFormation
7 4 (6.35%) Amazon S3
7 4 (6.35%) Amazon SQS
7 4 (6.35%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (6.35%) Azure Functions
8 3 (4.76%) Amazon ECS
8 3 (4.76%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (3.17%) Amazon Bedrock
9 2 (3.17%) Amazon SageMaker
9 2 (3.17%) Mailgun
10 1 (1.59%) Amazon ECR
10 1 (1.59%) Azure API Management
10 1 (1.59%) Cloudflare
10 1 (1.59%) Fastly
Communications & Networking
1 4 (6.35%) Wireless
2 3 (4.76%) HTTP
3 1 (1.59%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (22.22%) PostgreSQL
2 6 (9.52%) DynamoDB
3 5 (7.94%) Redis
4 3 (4.76%) MySQL
4 3 (4.76%) NoSQL
4 3 (4.76%) SQL Server
5 2 (3.17%) MongoDB
6 1 (1.59%) Amazon Athena
6 1 (1.59%) Elasticsearch
6 1 (1.59%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 8 (12.70%) Git
2 3 (4.76%) git-flow
2 3 (4.76%) Terragrunt
3 2 (3.17%) Bitbucket
3 2 (3.17%) Jenkins
3 2 (3.17%) MLflow
4 1 (1.59%) GitLab
4 1 (1.59%) Postman
General
1 9 (14.29%) Banking
2 7 (11.11%) Public Sector
3 5 (7.94%) Finance
3 5 (7.94%) Telecoms
4 4 (6.35%) Investment Banking
4 4 (6.35%) Social Skills
5 3 (4.76%) Marketing
6 2 (3.17%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (3.17%) Front Office
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (31.75%) Node.js
2 13 (20.63%) RESTful
3 11 (17.46%) React
4 8 (12.70%) FastAPI
5 7 (11.11%) .NET
5 7 (11.11%) GraphQL
6 5 (7.94%) ASP.NET
6 5 (7.94%) ASP.NET Core
6 5 (7.94%) AWS CDK
6 5 (7.94%) REST
6 5 (7.94%) Spring
6 5 (7.94%) Web Services
7 4 (6.35%) CSS
7 4 (6.35%) HTML
7 4 (6.35%) Next.js
7 4 (6.35%) Prisma
7 4 (6.35%) WebSockets
8 3 (4.76%) Kafka
8 3 (4.76%) LESS
8 3 (4.76%) Sass
Miscellaneous
1 3 (4.76%) Algorithms
1 3 (4.76%) Derivative
1 3 (4.76%) Hedge funds
2 2 (3.17%) Data Protection Act
2 2 (3.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 2 (3.17%) Onboarding
3 1 (1.59%) Acoustics
3 1 (1.59%) Data Structures
3 1 (1.59%) Distributed Systems
3 1 (1.59%) Linux Command Line
3 1 (1.59%) MPEG
3 1 (1.59%) Product Ownership
3 1 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (1.59%) Video on Demand
3 1 (1.59%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 5 (7.94%) Linux
2 1 (1.59%) Android
2 1 (1.59%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 19 (30.16%) CI/CD
1 19 (30.16%) DevOps
2 18 (28.57%) Containerisation
2 18 (28.57%) Full-Stack Development
3 17 (26.98%) Agile
3 17 (26.98%) Microservices
4 12 (19.05%) Test Automation
5 9 (14.29%) Event-Driven
5 9 (14.29%) Mentoring
5 9 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
6 7 (11.11%) API Development
6 7 (11.11%) Artificial Intelligence
6 7 (11.11%) B2C
6 7 (11.11%) Clean Code
6 7 (11.11%) OO
6 7 (11.11%) TDD
7 6 (9.52%) Event-Driven Architecture
7 6 (9.52%) Software Engineering
8 5 (7.94%) Machine Learning
8 5 (7.94%) Open Source
Programming Languages
1 27 (42.86%) Python
2 23 (36.51%) TypeScript
3 16 (25.40%) Java
4 15 (23.81%) JavaScript
5 11 (17.46%) C#
6 5 (7.94%) C++
6 5 (7.94%) SQL
7 4 (6.35%) Shell Script
8 3 (4.76%) Ruby
8 3 (4.76%) T-SQL
9 1 (1.59%) Bash
9 1 (1.59%) Bicep
9 1 (1.59%) Go
9 1 (1.59%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 4 (6.35%) AWS Certification
1 4 (6.35%) Security Cleared
2 3 (4.76%) BPSS Clearance
2 3 (4.76%) SC Cleared
3 2 (3.17%) Degree
3 2 (3.17%) DV Cleared
4 1 (1.59%) AWS Certified Developer
4 1 (1.59%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (1.59%) DBS Check
4 1 (1.59%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (3.17%) QA
2 1 (1.59%) GDPR
System Software
1 23 (36.51%) Docker
2 1 (1.59%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 24 (38.10%) Kubernetes
2 12 (19.05%) Terraform
3 3 (4.76%) Ansible
4 1 (1.59%) Grafana
4 1 (1.59%) Prometheus
4 1 (1.59%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 5 (7.94%) Google
2 4 (6.35%) Microsoft
3 2 (3.17%) Dataiku
3 2 (3.17%) DataRobot
3 2 (3.17%) Oracle
3 2 (3.17%) SendGrid
4 1 (1.59%) Splunk
4 1 (1.59%) Virgin Media