Senior Developer Contract Job Trends in England

Senior Developer
UK > England

The median Senior Developer daily rate in England is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 January 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 160 143 170
Rank change year-on-year -17 +27 -67
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 526 481 528
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.69% 1.79% 1.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.85% 1.92% 1.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 380 317 382
10th Percentile £409 £425 £425
25th Percentile £450 £505 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £590 £590
Median % change year-on-year -6.78% - -9.23%
75th Percentile £695 £725 £700
90th Percentile £851 £850 £850
UK median daily rate £525 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -8.70% - -11.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 8
10th Percentile - - £40.95
25th Percentile - - £54.38
Median hourly rate - - £58.75
75th Percentile - - £65.00
90th Percentile - - £72.88
UK median hourly rate - - £58.75
% change year-on-year - - -26.56%

All Contract IT Job Roles
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 28,488 25,027 33,935
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.52% 92.90% 93.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,175 15,498 23,097
10th Percentile £300 £300 £275
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,738 757 1,541
10th Percentile £14.41 £15.91 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.45 £21.25 £19.06
Median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £43.33
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% -19.22% +23.80%
75th Percentile £61.25 £64.73 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £75.00 £76.25
UK median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -18.46% -23.53% +28.79%

Senior Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Senior Developer job vacancy trend in England

Senior Developer
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Senior Developer job vacancies in England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Senior Developer job vacancies in England

Senior Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Senior Developer in England over the 6 months to 11 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Senior Developer in England

Senior Developer
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Senior Developer job vacancies in England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Senior Developer job vacancies in England

Senior 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 Senior Developer within the England region over the 6 months to 11 January 2026. 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 -17 314 £625 +0.81% 113
North of England -11 72 £550 +6.28% 93
South West +23 55 £475 -13.64% 52
Yorkshire -23 38 £631 +20.24% 34
South East -15 32 £473 +2.27% 142
North West -19 31 £500 - 40
Midlands -26 26 £513 +2.50% 42
West Midlands -19 19 £525 +5.00% 16
East of England -19 17 £500 -13.42% 52
North East -2 9 £488 -17.37% 19
East Midlands -19 7 £510 +11.78% 25
Senior Developer
UK

Senior Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 11 January 2026, Senior 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 England region featuring Senior Developer in the job title.

1 188 (35.74%) Java
2 172 (32.70%) Agile
2 172 (32.70%) AWS
3 144 (27.38%) Microservices
4 137 (26.05%) SQL
5 135 (25.67%) CI/CD
6 134 (25.48%) Azure
7 129 (24.52%) DevOps
8 127 (24.14%) Python
9 126 (23.95%) Security Cleared
10 115 (21.86%) Kafka
11 111 (21.10%) Docker
11 111 (21.10%) Problem-Solving
12 110 (20.91%) SC Cleared
13 106 (20.15%) Kubernetes
14 100 (19.01%) JavaScript
15 78 (14.83%) Spring
16 71 (13.50%) React
17 69 (13.12%) Software Engineering
18 68 (12.93%) TDD
19 65 (12.36%) Containerisation
19 65 (12.36%) Git
20 64 (12.17%) C#
21 63 (11.98%) Scrum
21 63 (11.98%) Spring Boot
22 62 (11.79%) Test Automation
23 61 (11.60%) PostgreSQL
24 60 (11.41%) Analytics
25 59 (11.22%) .NET
25 59 (11.22%) Azure DevOps

Senior Developer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 14 (2.66%) Confluence
2 5 (0.95%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.76%) CMS
3 4 (0.76%) Jupyter
4 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.19%) Anypoint
5 1 (0.19%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.19%) nginx
5 1 (0.19%) Oracle Application Server
5 1 (0.19%) SAS
5 1 (0.19%) Smallworld
5 1 (0.19%) Tomcat
Applications
1 10 (1.90%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (0.57%) Endur
2 2 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.19%) FLEXCUBE
3 1 (0.19%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 1 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.19%) Oracle Retail
3 1 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 172 (32.70%) AWS
2 134 (25.48%) Azure
3 59 (11.22%) Azure DevOps
4 49 (9.32%) GitHub
5 31 (5.89%) GCP
6 24 (4.56%) Serverless
7 21 (3.99%) Power Platform
8 15 (2.85%) GitHub Actions
9 13 (2.47%) Azure AKS
10 12 (2.28%) AWS Lambda
10 12 (2.28%) Azure Service Bus
10 12 (2.28%) Dynamics 365
11 11 (2.09%) Power Automate
12 10 (1.90%) Amazon S3
13 9 (1.71%) Amazon EC2
13 9 (1.71%) Amazon SQS
13 9 (1.71%) AWS CloudFormation
13 9 (1.71%) Datadog
13 9 (1.71%) SaaS
14 8 (1.52%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.95%) Kerberos
2 2 (0.38%) Firewall
2 2 (0.38%) HTTP
2 2 (0.38%) SSL
3 1 (0.19%) Internet
3 1 (0.19%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (11.60%) PostgreSQL
2 45 (8.56%) MongoDB
3 38 (7.22%) Relational Database
4 37 (7.03%) SQL Server
5 31 (5.89%) NoSQL
6 28 (5.32%) Apache Cassandra
7 14 (2.66%) DynamoDB
8 13 (2.47%) Power BI
9 12 (2.28%) DB2
10 11 (2.09%) MySQL
11 10 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
11 10 (1.90%) Redis
12 8 (1.52%) Data Hub
12 8 (1.52%) Data Lake
13 7 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
13 7 (1.33%) Oracle BI EE
13 7 (1.33%) RDBMS
14 6 (1.14%) HBase
15 5 (0.95%) Delta Lake
15 5 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 65 (12.36%) Git
2 35 (6.65%) Jenkins
2 35 (6.65%) Oracle APEX
3 33 (6.27%) JUnit
4 24 (4.56%) GitLab
5 23 (4.37%) JIRA
6 21 (3.99%) Mockito
7 13 (2.47%) Maven
8 12 (2.28%) Gradle
9 9 (1.71%) Artifactory
9 9 (1.71%) Cucumber
10 8 (1.52%) Postman
11 7 (1.33%) Sonatype Nexus
11 7 (1.33%) SpecFlow
12 6 (1.14%) Mocha
13 5 (0.95%) Bitbucket
13 5 (0.95%) SonarQube
14 4 (0.76%) TeamCity
15 3 (0.57%) QUnit
15 3 (0.57%) webpack
General
1 138 (26.24%) Finance
1 138 (26.24%) Social Skills
2 85 (16.16%) Banking
3 58 (11.03%) Public Sector
4 46 (8.75%) Analytical Skills
5 36 (6.84%) Investment Banking
6 24 (4.56%) Front Office
7 13 (2.47%) Financial Institution
8 5 (0.95%) Presentation Skills
9 4 (0.76%) Law
9 4 (0.76%) Military
9 4 (0.76%) Pharmaceutical
10 3 (0.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.57%) Manufacturing
10 3 (0.57%) Marketing
10 3 (0.57%) Retail Banking
11 2 (0.38%) Documentation Skills
11 2 (0.38%) Retail
11 2 (0.38%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.19%) Automotive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (21.86%) Kafka
2 78 (14.83%) Spring
3 71 (13.50%) React
4 63 (11.98%) Spring Boot
5 59 (11.22%) .NET
6 51 (9.70%) RESTful
7 45 (8.56%) AngularJS
7 45 (8.56%) HTML
7 45 (8.56%) REST
8 43 (8.17%) Node.js
9 39 (7.41%) CSS
10 25 (4.75%) Web Services
11 23 (4.37%) gRPC
12 22 (4.18%) JSON
13 19 (3.61%) RabbitMQ
14 18 (3.42%) .NET Framework
15 17 (3.23%) .NET Core
16 16 (3.04%) Playwright
17 15 (2.85%) Next.js
18 14 (2.66%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 46 (8.75%) Distributed Systems
2 36 (6.84%) Cloud Native
3 31 (5.89%) Derivative
4 28 (5.32%) Equities
5 19 (3.61%) Algorithms
5 19 (3.61%) Market Risk
6 18 (3.42%) Management Information System
7 16 (3.04%) Data Structures
7 16 (3.04%) Fixed Income
8 14 (2.66%) Greenfield Project
9 13 (2.47%) Product Ownership
10 11 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
11 10 (1.90%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 9 (1.71%) Mobile App
13 8 (1.52%) Equity Derivative
14 6 (1.14%) Linux Command Line
14 6 (1.14%) NHS
14 6 (1.14%) Onboarding
15 5 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
15 5 (0.95%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 48 (9.13%) Linux
2 23 (4.37%) Unix
3 16 (3.04%) Android
4 13 (2.47%) Mac OS X
5 8 (1.52%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.38%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 172 (32.70%) Agile
2 144 (27.38%) Microservices
3 135 (25.67%) CI/CD
4 129 (24.52%) DevOps
5 111 (21.10%) Problem-Solving
6 69 (13.12%) Software Engineering
7 68 (12.93%) TDD
8 65 (12.36%) Containerisation
9 63 (11.98%) Scrum
10 62 (11.79%) Test Automation
11 60 (11.41%) Analytics
12 57 (10.84%) Full-Stack Development
13 56 (10.65%) Open Source
14 44 (8.37%) Event-Driven
14 44 (8.37%) SDLC
15 38 (7.22%) Risk Management
16 35 (6.65%) Collaborative Working
16 35 (6.65%) Unit Testing
16 35 (6.65%) Validation
17 34 (6.46%) Software Delivery
Programming Languages
1 188 (35.74%) Java
2 137 (26.05%) SQL
3 127 (24.14%) Python
4 100 (19.01%) JavaScript
5 64 (12.17%) C#
6 42 (7.98%) PL/SQL
7 41 (7.79%) TypeScript
8 33 (6.27%) Go
9 22 (4.18%) Kotlin
10 15 (2.85%) C++
11 13 (2.47%) Ruby
11 13 (2.47%) Shell Script
12 9 (1.71%) PHP
12 9 (1.71%) PowerShell
13 8 (1.52%) Bash
14 3 (0.57%) Objective-C
14 3 (0.57%) Swift
15 2 (0.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 2 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
16 1 (0.19%) R
Qualifications
1 126 (23.95%) Security Cleared
2 110 (20.91%) SC Cleared
3 40 (7.60%) Degree
4 20 (3.80%) Computer Science Degree
5 17 (3.23%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (1.52%) Numerate Degree
7 6 (1.14%) Master's Degree
7 6 (1.14%) OCP
7 6 (1.14%) Oracle Certification
8 5 (0.95%) AWS Certification
9 3 (0.57%) AWS Certified Developer
9 3 (0.57%) MCP
10 2 (0.38%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 2 (0.38%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.38%) DV Cleared
11 1 (0.19%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.19%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (4.56%) Accessibility
2 14 (2.66%) QA
3 12 (2.28%) WCAG
4 9 (1.71%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.57%) EU AI Act
5 3 (0.57%) NIST
6 1 (0.19%) GDPR
6 1 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 111 (21.10%) Docker
2 5 (0.95%) zsh
3 1 (0.19%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.19%) GridGain
3 1 (0.19%) Lustre
3 1 (0.19%) OpenAM
3 1 (0.19%) OpenDJ
3 1 (0.19%) OpenIDM
3 1 (0.19%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 106 (20.15%) Kubernetes
2 24 (4.56%) Terraform
3 15 (2.85%) Grafana
4 8 (1.52%) Single Sign-On
5 6 (1.14%) Ansible
6 4 (0.76%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.57%) Kibana
8 1 (0.19%) Argo
8 1 (0.19%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.19%) Control-M
8 1 (0.19%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.19%) Packer
8 1 (0.19%) Rundeck
Vendors
1 58 (11.03%) Oracle
2 23 (4.37%) Microsoft
3 21 (3.99%) Google
4 13 (2.47%) Sybase
5 12 (2.28%) ServiceNow
6 10 (1.90%) Databricks
7 5 (0.95%) Atlassian
8 4 (0.76%) Guidewire
8 4 (0.76%) Salesforce
9 3 (0.57%) Apple
9 3 (0.57%) BMC
9 3 (0.57%) Dataiku
9 3 (0.57%) Foundry
10 2 (0.38%) CA Agile Central
10 2 (0.38%) Cognizant
10 2 (0.38%) Computacenter
10 2 (0.38%) IBM
10 2 (0.38%) Ivanti
10 2 (0.38%) Pega
10 2 (0.38%) Red Hat