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 16 March 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 172 158 166
Rank change year-on-year -14 +8 -48
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 588 433 541
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.60% 1.75% 1.43%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.74% 1.88% 1.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 402 313 391
10th Percentile £400 £422 £410
25th Percentile £456 £500 £491
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -11.54%
75th Percentile £657 £738 £725
90th Percentile £888 £850 £850
UK median daily rate £525 £600 £575
% change year-on-year -12.50% +4.35% -8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 14
10th Percentile - - £50.58
25th Percentile £85.00 - £55.20
Median hourly rate £90.00 £77.19 £58.91
Median % change year-on-year +16.60% +31.04% -5.75%
75th Percentile £95.00 - £72.50
90th Percentile - - £79.88
UK median hourly rate £90.00 £77.19 £58.20
% change year-on-year +16.60% +32.62% -6.88%

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 33,839 23,023 35,138
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.01% 93.06% 92.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,337 15,200 23,523
10th Percentile £310 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £408 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,233 778 2,274
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.22 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.34 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £37.20 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +6.29% +7.69% -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.50 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £35.71 £32.81 £32.90
% change year-on-year +8.84% -0.26% -22.60%

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 16 March 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 16 March 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 -2 374 £600 -4.38% 103
North of England -49 60 £525 +1.45% 71
South West +15 52 £475 -20.94% 19
South East -34 42 £511 +13.50% 55
Midlands -40 31 £515 -1.20% 20
North West -43 31 £505 +1.00% 38
Yorkshire -43 27 £525 +1.45% 24
East of England -20 23 £500 -23.08% 12
West Midlands -51 21 £505 -8.18% 15
East Midlands -22 10 £515 -0.96% 5
North East -9 5 £525 -11.02% 9
Senior Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 16 March 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.

1 182 (30.95%) AWS
2 178 (30.27%) Java
3 173 (29.42%) Agile
4 144 (24.49%) SQL
5 134 (22.79%) Azure
5 134 (22.79%) CI/CD
6 131 (22.28%) Microservices
7 127 (21.60%) Python
8 123 (20.92%) Security Cleared
9 119 (20.24%) DevOps
10 114 (19.39%) SC Cleared
11 112 (19.05%) Kafka
12 111 (18.88%) JavaScript
13 110 (18.71%) Docker
14 104 (17.69%) Kubernetes
15 83 (14.12%) Problem-Solving
16 73 (12.41%) React
16 73 (12.41%) Spring
17 72 (12.24%) Software Engineering
18 70 (11.90%) TDD
19 64 (10.88%) Spring Boot
20 63 (10.71%) Containerisation
20 63 (10.71%) Git
20 63 (10.71%) Scrum
21 60 (10.20%) .NET
22 58 (9.86%) Test Automation
23 57 (9.69%) Open Source
24 56 (9.52%) Oracle
25 55 (9.35%) TypeScript
26 54 (9.18%) 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 8 (1.36%) Confluence
2 7 (1.19%) CMS
3 6 (1.02%) SharePoint
4 4 (0.68%) Ethereum
4 4 (0.68%) Headless CMS
4 4 (0.68%) Hyperledger
4 4 (0.68%) Jupyter
5 3 (0.51%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.17%) IIS
7 1 (0.17%) JBoss
7 1 (0.17%) Mendix
7 1 (0.17%) nginx
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle Application Server
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle Self-Service HR
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.17%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.17%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.17%) WebLogic
Applications
1 13 (2.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (0.51%) Endur
2 2 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.17%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.17%) FLEXCUBE
3 1 (0.17%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle Retail
3 1 (0.17%) R3 Corda
3 1 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.17%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 182 (30.95%) AWS
2 134 (22.79%) Azure
3 54 (9.18%) Azure DevOps
4 41 (6.97%) GitHub
5 32 (5.44%) Power Platform
6 25 (4.25%) GCP
7 24 (4.08%) Serverless
8 18 (3.06%) Power Automate
9 15 (2.55%) GitHub Actions
9 15 (2.55%) PowerApps
10 13 (2.21%) Amazon EC2
10 13 (2.21%) Azure Service Bus
11 12 (2.04%) Amazon SQS
12 11 (1.87%) AWS Lambda
12 11 (1.87%) Copilot Studio
12 11 (1.87%) Dynamics 365
13 10 (1.70%) Amazon S3
13 10 (1.70%) AWS CloudFormation
13 10 (1.70%) Microsoft Copilot
13 10 (1.70%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.02%) HTTP
2 5 (0.85%) Kerberos
3 2 (0.34%) Firewall
4 1 (0.17%) DNS
4 1 (0.17%) Ethernet
4 1 (0.17%) Internet
4 1 (0.17%) RTP
4 1 (0.17%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (9.18%) PostgreSQL
2 38 (6.46%) NoSQL
3 35 (5.95%) Apache Cassandra
4 34 (5.78%) Relational Database
5 33 (5.61%) SQL Server
6 31 (5.27%) MongoDB
7 26 (4.42%) Power BI
8 14 (2.38%) DynamoDB
9 11 (1.87%) DB2
10 10 (1.70%) Amazon RDS
10 10 (1.70%) Data Warehouse
11 9 (1.53%) Data Hub
11 9 (1.53%) MySQL
12 7 (1.19%) Oracle BI EE
13 6 (1.02%) HBase
13 6 (1.02%) Redis
14 5 (0.85%) Data Lake
14 5 (0.85%) Oracle Database
15 4 (0.68%) Big Data
15 4 (0.68%) Kdb+
Development Applications
1 63 (10.71%) Git
2 33 (5.61%) Oracle APEX
3 31 (5.27%) Jenkins
3 31 (5.27%) JUnit
4 21 (3.57%) GitLab
5 18 (3.06%) JIRA
6 14 (2.38%) Maven
7 12 (2.04%) Mockito
8 9 (1.53%) Cucumber
8 9 (1.53%) Gradle
8 9 (1.53%) SonarQube
9 7 (1.19%) Artifactory
10 6 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
11 5 (0.85%) Mocha
12 4 (0.68%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.68%) SpecFlow
13 3 (0.51%) Lerna
13 3 (0.51%) Selenium
13 3 (0.51%) webpack
14 2 (0.34%) Postman
General
1 128 (21.77%) Social Skills
2 117 (19.90%) Finance
3 84 (14.29%) Banking
4 71 (12.07%) Public Sector
5 38 (6.46%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (6.46%) Investment Banking
6 22 (3.74%) Front Office
7 13 (2.21%) Financial Institution
8 5 (0.85%) Law
9 4 (0.68%) Health Technology
9 4 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (0.68%) Military
9 4 (0.68%) Presentation Skills
9 4 (0.68%) Retail
9 4 (0.68%) Retail Banking
10 3 (0.51%) Legal
10 3 (0.51%) Pharmaceutical
10 3 (0.51%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.34%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.17%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (19.05%) Kafka
2 73 (12.41%) React
2 73 (12.41%) Spring
3 64 (10.88%) Spring Boot
4 60 (10.20%) .NET
5 51 (8.67%) REST
6 46 (7.82%) AngularJS
6 46 (7.82%) HTML
6 46 (7.82%) Node.js
6 46 (7.82%) RESTful
7 43 (7.31%) CSS
8 33 (5.61%) gRPC
9 25 (4.25%) Web Services
10 18 (3.06%) RabbitMQ
11 17 (2.89%) .NET Core
12 15 (2.55%) .NET Framework
13 14 (2.38%) Jest
13 14 (2.38%) Pandas
13 14 (2.38%) Redux
14 13 (2.21%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 48 (8.16%) Distributed Systems
2 32 (5.44%) Cloud Native
3 29 (4.93%) Derivative
4 24 (4.08%) Equities
5 21 (3.57%) Product Ownership
6 19 (3.23%) Algorithms
7 18 (3.06%) Market Risk
8 17 (2.89%) Management Information System
9 16 (2.72%) Greenfield Project
10 14 (2.38%) Data Structures
10 14 (2.38%) Fixed Income
11 12 (2.04%) Legacy Systems
11 12 (2.04%) Mobile App
12 9 (1.53%) Equity Derivative
13 8 (1.36%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 7 (1.19%) Onboarding
15 6 (1.02%) AI Agents
16 5 (0.85%) Animation
17 4 (0.68%) Enterprise Software
17 4 (0.68%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 32 (5.44%) Linux
2 14 (2.38%) Android
3 13 (2.21%) Windows
4 12 (2.04%) Unix
5 8 (1.36%) Apple iOS
6 6 (1.02%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.51%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.34%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.17%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 173 (29.42%) Agile
2 134 (22.79%) CI/CD
3 131 (22.28%) Microservices
4 119 (20.24%) DevOps
5 83 (14.12%) Problem-Solving
6 72 (12.24%) Software Engineering
7 70 (11.90%) TDD
8 63 (10.71%) Containerisation
8 63 (10.71%) Scrum
9 58 (9.86%) Test Automation
10 57 (9.69%) Open Source
11 53 (9.01%) Analytics
12 50 (8.50%) Full-Stack Development
13 45 (7.65%) SDLC
14 43 (7.31%) Code Quality
15 41 (6.97%) Design Patterns
16 40 (6.80%) Mentoring
17 36 (6.12%) Validation
18 35 (5.95%) AI
18 35 (5.95%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 178 (30.27%) Java
2 144 (24.49%) SQL
3 127 (21.60%) Python
4 111 (18.88%) JavaScript
5 55 (9.35%) TypeScript
6 54 (9.18%) C#
7 47 (7.99%) Go
8 40 (6.80%) PL/SQL
9 23 (3.91%) Kotlin
10 22 (3.74%) Ruby
11 14 (2.38%) C++
12 9 (1.53%) Shell Script
13 6 (1.02%) PowerShell
14 5 (0.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 5 (0.85%) PHP
15 4 (0.68%) Apex Code
15 4 (0.68%) VBA
16 3 (0.51%) Swift
17 2 (0.34%) Elixir
17 2 (0.34%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 123 (20.92%) Security Cleared
2 114 (19.39%) SC Cleared
3 25 (4.25%) Degree
4 12 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (1.87%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (1.36%) Numerate Degree
7 6 (1.02%) OCP
7 6 (1.02%) Oracle Certification
8 4 (0.68%) DV Cleared
9 3 (0.51%) AWS Certification
9 3 (0.51%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 2 (0.34%) AWS Certified Developer
10 2 (0.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 2 (0.34%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.17%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 1 (0.17%) CISSP
11 1 (0.17%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (5.27%) Accessibility
2 19 (3.23%) WCAG
3 13 (2.21%) QA
4 12 (2.04%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.51%) EU AI Act
5 3 (0.51%) GDPR
5 3 (0.51%) NIST
6 1 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 110 (18.71%) Docker
2 2 (0.34%) Active Directory
2 2 (0.34%) zsh
3 1 (0.17%) OpenAM
3 1 (0.17%) OpenDJ
3 1 (0.17%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 104 (17.69%) Kubernetes
2 24 (4.08%) Terraform
3 17 (2.89%) Grafana
4 9 (1.53%) Single Sign-On
5 6 (1.02%) Ansible
6 4 (0.68%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.51%) Kibana
8 1 (0.17%) Argo
8 1 (0.17%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.17%) Control-M
8 1 (0.17%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 56 (9.52%) Oracle
2 32 (5.44%) Microsoft
3 17 (2.89%) ServiceNow
4 15 (2.55%) Google
5 11 (1.87%) Sybase
6 9 (1.53%) Salesforce
7 7 (1.19%) Databricks
7 7 (1.19%) SAP
8 6 (1.02%) Guidewire
9 4 (0.68%) Atlassian
9 4 (0.68%) Pega
10 3 (0.51%) Cognizant
10 3 (0.51%) Dataiku
10 3 (0.51%) Foundry
11 2 (0.34%) Apple
11 2 (0.34%) CA Agile Central
11 2 (0.34%) ForgeRock
11 2 (0.34%) IBM
11 2 (0.34%) New Relic
12 1 (0.17%) Splunk