Software Developer Contracts in England

Software Developer
UK > England

The median Software Developer daily rate in England is £544, 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 321 178 300
Rank change year-on-year -143 +122 +56
Contract jobs requiring a Software Developer 167 487 417
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 0.69% 1.31% 0.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.74% 1.41% 0.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 116 181 294
10th Percentile £402 £400 £377
25th Percentile £431 £449 £442
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £544 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +3.52% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £699 £703 £675
90th Percentile £875 £888 £738
UK median daily rate £508 £523 £525
% change year-on-year -2.87% -0.48% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 13 28
10th Percentile - - £49.54
25th Percentile - £46.25 £52.09
Median hourly rate £55.00 £58.91 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.63% +2.44% +21.05%
75th Percentile - £65.00 £68.42
90th Percentile - £77.00 £85.00
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £58.91 £57.50
% change year-on-year -6.63% +2.44% +16.76%

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%

Software Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Job vacancy trend for Software Developer in England

Software Developer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

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

Daily rate trend for Software Developer in England

Software Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in England

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

Daily rate histogram for Software Developer in England

Software Developer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

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

Hourly rate trend for Software Developer in England

Software 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 Software 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 -60 96 £600 +9.09% 63
North of England -70 32 £475 +5.56% 112
North West -19 27 £475 +13.10% 72
East of England +29 12 £531 +9.54% 40
South East +23 7 £575 +39.39% 85
West Midlands -5 6 £425 +13.33% 43
Midlands -23 6 £425 +6.25% 79
North East -19 5 £470 - 15
South West +9 4 £550 +12.82% 32
Yorkshire -41 3 £470 +4.44% 27
Software Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Software 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 Software Developer in the job title.

1 75 (44.91%) AWS
2 71 (42.51%) Python
3 59 (35.33%) Security Cleared
4 56 (33.53%) Software Engineering
5 51 (30.54%) Agile
5 51 (30.54%) JavaScript
6 49 (29.34%) Java
7 48 (28.74%) SC Cleared
8 43 (25.75%) DevOps
9 41 (24.55%) SQL
10 40 (23.95%) CI/CD
11 39 (23.35%) HTML
12 38 (22.75%) Full-Stack Development
13 34 (20.36%) CSS
13 34 (20.36%) Finance
14 32 (19.16%) C#
14 32 (19.16%) TypeScript
14 32 (19.16%) React
15 30 (17.96%) Integration Testing
16 29 (17.37%) Unit Testing
16 29 (17.37%) Social Skills
17 26 (15.57%) Problem-Solving
18 25 (14.97%) DV Cleared
19 24 (14.37%) Azure
19 24 (14.37%) .NET
20 23 (13.77%) Microsoft
20 23 (13.77%) Node.js
21 22 (13.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
21 22 (13.17%) Banking
21 22 (13.17%) Docker

Software 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 18 (10.78%) Apache Airflow
2 17 (10.18%) Apache
3 16 (9.58%) SharePoint
4 12 (7.19%) SAS
5 3 (1.80%) CMS
6 2 (1.20%) Confluence
6 2 (1.20%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.60%) Drupal
7 1 (0.60%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.60%) nginx
7 1 (0.60%) OpenEdge
7 1 (0.60%) WordPress
Applications
1 6 (3.59%) Chatbot
2 2 (1.20%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.60%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.60%) Siemens NX
3 1 (0.60%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 1 (0.60%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 75 (44.91%) AWS
2 24 (14.37%) Azure
3 18 (10.78%) Power Platform
4 17 (10.18%) Power Automate
4 17 (10.18%) PowerApps
5 16 (9.58%) dbt
5 16 (9.58%) Microsoft 365
5 16 (9.58%) Snowflake
6 15 (8.98%) Serverless
7 11 (6.59%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (5.99%) AWS Lambda
9 9 (5.39%) GitHub
10 7 (4.19%) Amazon S3
11 5 (2.99%) GCP
12 4 (2.40%) AWS CodePipeline
13 3 (1.80%) AWS Step Functions
13 3 (1.80%) GitHub Actions
14 2 (1.20%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 2 (1.20%) AWS CloudFormation
14 2 (1.20%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.20%) 3GPP
1 2 (1.20%) 4G
1 2 (1.20%) 5G
1 2 (1.20%) TCP/IP
1 2 (1.20%) Wireless
2 1 (0.60%) HTTP
2 1 (0.60%) HTTPS
2 1 (0.60%) Modbus
2 1 (0.60%) POP3
2 1 (0.60%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (9.58%) Amazon Athena
1 16 (9.58%) Apache Arrow
1 16 (9.58%) Apache Iceberg
1 16 (9.58%) Dremio
2 12 (7.19%) Oracle Database
3 10 (5.99%) Relational Database
4 7 (4.19%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (4.19%) SQL Server
5 6 (3.59%) RDBMS
6 5 (2.99%) GIS
6 5 (2.99%) MongoDB
6 5 (2.99%) MySQL
6 5 (2.99%) NoSQL
7 4 (2.40%) DynamoDB
7 4 (2.40%) Redis
8 2 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (1.20%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (1.20%) ObjectStore
8 2 (1.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (1.20%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 16 (9.58%) Git
2 14 (8.38%) Jenkins
3 9 (5.39%) GitLab
3 9 (5.39%) Selenium
4 8 (4.79%) JIRA
5 6 (3.59%) JMeter
6 4 (2.40%) Appium
6 4 (2.40%) CircleCI
6 4 (2.40%) Gatling
6 4 (2.40%) NeoLoad
6 4 (2.40%) SonarQube
6 4 (2.40%) SpecFlow
7 3 (1.80%) Artifactory
7 3 (1.80%) Cucumber
7 3 (1.80%) Maven
7 3 (1.80%) WebDriver
8 2 (1.20%) Bitbucket
8 2 (1.20%) Mocha
8 2 (1.20%) Visual Studio
8 2 (1.20%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 34 (20.36%) Finance
2 29 (17.37%) Social Skills
3 22 (13.17%) Banking
4 21 (12.57%) Public Sector
5 19 (11.38%) Investment Banking
6 18 (10.78%) Front Office
7 4 (2.40%) Financial Institution
7 4 (2.40%) Telecoms
8 3 (1.80%) Military
8 3 (1.80%) Retail
9 2 (1.20%) Analytical Skills
9 2 (1.20%) Electronics
9 2 (1.20%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.20%) Marketing
10 1 (0.60%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.60%) Aviation
10 1 (0.60%) Back Office
10 1 (0.60%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (23.35%) HTML
2 34 (20.36%) CSS
3 32 (19.16%) React
4 24 (14.37%) .NET
5 23 (13.77%) Node.js
6 16 (9.58%) PySpark
7 12 (7.19%) AngularJS
7 12 (7.19%) SPFx
8 10 (5.99%) REST
9 9 (5.39%) RESTful
10 8 (4.79%) .NET Core
10 8 (4.79%) Spring Boot
11 7 (4.19%) Kafka
11 7 (4.19%) Spring
11 7 (4.19%) Web Services
12 5 (2.99%) ASP.NET
12 5 (2.99%) FastAPI
12 5 (2.99%) GraphQL
13 4 (2.40%) JSON
13 4 (2.40%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 22 (13.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 18 (10.78%) Derivative
3 17 (10.18%) Equities
3 17 (10.18%) Fixed Income
3 17 (10.18%) Hedge funds
4 5 (2.99%) Distributed Systems
5 3 (1.80%) Data Structures
5 3 (1.80%) Greenfield Project
5 3 (1.80%) Mobile App
6 2 (1.20%) Algorithms
6 2 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (1.20%) Product Ownership
7 1 (0.60%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.60%) Low-Code
7 1 (0.60%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.60%) Reference Data
7 1 (0.60%) Reinsurance
7 1 (0.60%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.60%) Virtual Team
7 1 (0.60%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 10 (5.99%) Linux
2 2 (1.20%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (33.53%) Software Engineering
2 51 (30.54%) Agile
3 43 (25.75%) DevOps
4 40 (23.95%) CI/CD
5 38 (22.75%) Full-Stack Development
6 30 (17.96%) Integration Testing
7 29 (17.37%) Unit Testing
8 26 (15.57%) Problem-Solving
9 21 (12.57%) Microservices
10 17 (10.18%) Test Automation
10 17 (10.18%) Web Development
11 16 (9.58%) Asset Management
11 16 (9.58%) Data Management
12 15 (8.98%) Containerisation
12 15 (8.98%) Mentoring
12 15 (8.98%) Software Testing
13 13 (7.78%) Artificial Intelligence
13 13 (7.78%) SDET
14 12 (7.19%) Task Automation
15 11 (6.59%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 71 (42.51%) Python
2 51 (30.54%) JavaScript
3 49 (29.34%) Java
4 41 (24.55%) SQL
5 32 (19.16%) C#
5 32 (19.16%) TypeScript
6 19 (11.38%) C++
6 19 (11.38%) PowerShell
7 8 (4.79%) PHP
8 7 (4.19%) Ruby
8 7 (4.19%) Scala
9 4 (2.40%) Go
9 4 (2.40%) T-SQL
10 2 (1.20%) Groovy
10 2 (1.20%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 59 (35.33%) Security Cleared
2 48 (28.74%) SC Cleared
3 25 (14.97%) DV Cleared
4 14 (8.38%) Degree
5 6 (3.59%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (2.99%) AWS Certification
6 5 (2.99%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (1.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (7.19%) QA
2 1 (0.60%) Accessibility
2 1 (0.60%) EMIR
2 1 (0.60%) GDPR
2 1 (0.60%) MiFID
2 1 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
2 1 (0.60%) WCAG
System Software
1 22 (13.17%) Docker
2 2 (1.20%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 19 (11.38%) Kubernetes
2 9 (5.39%) Terraform
3 5 (2.99%) Ansible
4 4 (2.40%) Prometheus
5 2 (1.20%) logstash
6 1 (0.60%) Argo
6 1 (0.60%) Grafana
6 1 (0.60%) Istio
6 1 (0.60%) SCCM
6 1 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.60%) Sysdig
Vendors
1 23 (13.77%) Microsoft
2 13 (7.78%) Oracle
3 6 (3.59%) Google
3 6 (3.59%) PayPal
4 2 (1.20%) OpenAI
4 2 (1.20%) SAP
4 2 (1.20%) ServiceNow
5 1 (0.60%) Bloomberg
5 1 (0.60%) CQG
5 1 (0.60%) ForgeRock
5 1 (0.60%) GoCardless
5 1 (0.60%) ION Trading
5 1 (0.60%) Reuters
5 1 (0.60%) Snow