Backend Developer Contract Job Trends in London

Backend Developer
England > London

The median Backend Developer daily rate in London is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 3 December 2025.

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

6 months to
3 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 337 339 329
Rank change year-on-year +2 -10 +41
Contract jobs requiring a Backend Developer 43 31 85
As % of all contract jobs in London 0.30% 0.20% 0.44%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.33% 0.21% 0.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 25 24 53
10th Percentile £295 £318 £415
25th Percentile £463 £400 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £409 £650
Median % change year-on-year +28.36% -37.08% +4.00%
75th Percentile £675 £523 £700
90th Percentile £783 £610 £825
England median daily rate £540 £402 £533
% change year-on-year +34.24% -24.46% -9.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 3
10th Percentile £57.65 - -
25th Percentile £61.63 - £56.25
Median hourly rate £73.50 - £57.50
75th Percentile £78.75 - £60.63
90th Percentile - - £61.75
England median hourly rate £73.50 - £57.50

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in London. 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 London with a recognized job title 13,154 14,645 18,088
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.27% 93.65% 93.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,738 9,514 13,071
10th Percentile £338 £338 £338
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £550 £563
Median % change year-on-year -3.64% -2.22% -2.60%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £688
90th Percentile £761 £800 £788
England median daily rate £504 £525 £534
% change year-on-year -4.05% -1.69% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 232 154 210
10th Percentile £17.50 £17.25 £18.15
25th Percentile £21.35 £23.80 £21.81
Median hourly rate £27.86 £35.75 £36.31
Median % change year-on-year -22.08% -1.53% +3.73%
75th Percentile £54.06 £53.75 £59.69
90th Percentile £74.75 £80.75 £73.66
England median hourly rate £25.74 £37.25 £45.00
% change year-on-year -30.91% -17.22% +38.46%

Backend Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in London

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

Backend Developer job vacancy trend in London

Backend Developer
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Backend Developer job vacancies in London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Backend Developer job vacancies in London

Backend Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Backend Developer in London over the 6 months to 3 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Backend Developer in London

Backend Developer
Hourly Rate Trend in London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Backend Developer job vacancies in London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Backend Developer job vacancies in London

Backend Developer
Hourly Rate Histogram in London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Backend Developer in London over the 6 months to 3 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Backend Developer in London

Backend Developer
Contract Job Locations in London

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 London region over the 6 months to 3 December 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
Central London +9 7 £750 +50.00% 1
East London - 4 £540 -
South London - 3 £525 - 1
Backend Developer
England

Backend Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London

For the 6 months to 3 December 2025, Backend 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 London region featuring Backend Developer in the job title.

1 27 (62.79%) CI/CD
2 23 (53.49%) DevOps
2 23 (53.49%) Docker
3 22 (51.16%) Java
3 22 (51.16%) Microservices
4 21 (48.84%) Kubernetes
5 19 (44.19%) Problem-Solving
5 19 (44.19%) SQL
6 18 (41.86%) Agile
7 17 (39.53%) Containerisation
7 17 (39.53%) Python
8 16 (37.21%) Azure
9 14 (32.56%) RESTful
10 13 (30.23%) Node.js
11 12 (27.91%) Git
12 10 (23.26%) AI
12 10 (23.26%) GitHub
12 10 (23.26%) Spring
12 10 (23.26%) Test Automation
13 9 (20.93%) AWS
13 9 (20.93%) Data Pipeline
13 9 (20.93%) JavaScript
13 9 (20.93%) Machine Learning
13 9 (20.93%) Software Engineering
14 8 (18.60%) Azure DevOps
14 8 (18.60%) GitHub Actions
14 8 (18.60%) Microsoft
14 8 (18.60%) Spring Boot
14 8 (18.60%) TypeScript
15 7 (16.28%) Azure AKS

Backend Developer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in 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 1 (2.33%) Apache
Cloud Services
1 16 (37.21%) Azure
2 10 (23.26%) GitHub
3 9 (20.93%) AWS
4 8 (18.60%) Azure DevOps
4 8 (18.60%) GitHub Actions
5 7 (16.28%) Azure AKS
6 6 (13.95%) Serverless
7 5 (11.63%) Azure App Service
7 5 (11.63%) Azure Functions
7 5 (11.63%) GCP
8 4 (9.30%) Azure API Management
8 4 (9.30%) Azure Data Factory
8 4 (9.30%) Azure Key Vault
8 4 (9.30%) Azure Logic Apps
8 4 (9.30%) Azure Monitor
8 4 (9.30%) Azure Storage
8 4 (9.30%) Entra ID
9 3 (6.98%) Azure Cognitive Services
9 3 (6.98%) Azure Event Grid
9 3 (6.98%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.33%) Network Security
1 1 (2.33%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (16.28%) NoSQL
1 7 (16.28%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (6.98%) Amazon RDS
3 2 (4.65%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (4.65%) Data Lake
3 2 (4.65%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (4.65%) MySQL
3 2 (4.65%) SQL Server
4 1 (2.33%) Apache Cassandra
4 1 (2.33%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (2.33%) Hadoop
4 1 (2.33%) MongoDB
4 1 (2.33%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 12 (27.91%) Git
2 4 (9.30%) Jenkins
3 3 (6.98%) JUnit
3 3 (6.98%) Mockito
4 2 (4.65%) Gradle
4 2 (4.65%) Liquibase
4 2 (4.65%) Maven
5 1 (2.33%) Bitbucket
5 1 (2.33%) Eclipse
5 1 (2.33%) IntelliJ
5 1 (2.33%) JIRA
5 1 (2.33%) JMeter
5 1 (2.33%) NeoLoad
5 1 (2.33%) Postman
5 1 (2.33%) Selenium
5 1 (2.33%) SoapUI
5 1 (2.33%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 10 (23.26%) Finance
2 8 (18.60%) Social Skills
3 7 (16.28%) Banking
4 4 (9.30%) Pharmaceutical
5 3 (6.98%) Analytical Skills
5 3 (6.98%) Public Sector
6 2 (4.65%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (4.65%) Front Office
7 1 (2.33%) Financial Institution
7 1 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (2.33%) Marketing
7 1 (2.33%) Military
7 1 (2.33%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (32.56%) RESTful
2 13 (30.23%) Node.js
3 10 (23.26%) Spring
4 8 (18.60%) Spring Boot
5 7 (16.28%) GraphQL
6 6 (13.95%) FastAPI
6 6 (13.95%) Hibernate
6 6 (13.95%) REST
7 5 (11.63%) .NET
7 5 (11.63%) React
8 4 (9.30%) .NET Core
8 4 (9.30%) ActiveMQ
8 4 (9.30%) AngularJS
8 4 (9.30%) Kafka
8 4 (9.30%) PyTorch
8 4 (9.30%) TensorFlow
9 3 (6.98%) JPA
9 3 (6.98%) JSON
9 3 (6.98%) WireMock
9 3 (6.98%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 14 (32.56%) Cloud Native
2 4 (9.30%) AI Agents
2 4 (9.30%) Distributed Systems
3 3 (6.98%) Legacy Systems
4 2 (4.65%) Life Science
4 2 (4.65%) Onboarding
4 2 (4.65%) Virtual Team
5 1 (2.33%) Algorithms
5 1 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (2.33%) Genomics
5 1 (2.33%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (2.33%) Linux Command Line
5 1 (2.33%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.33%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (62.79%) CI/CD
2 23 (53.49%) DevOps
3 22 (51.16%) Microservices
4 19 (44.19%) Problem-Solving
5 18 (41.86%) Agile
6 17 (39.53%) Containerisation
7 10 (23.26%) AI
7 10 (23.26%) Test Automation
8 9 (20.93%) Data Pipeline
8 9 (20.93%) Machine Learning
8 9 (20.93%) Software Engineering
9 6 (13.95%) Mentoring
9 6 (13.95%) TDD
10 5 (11.63%) Analytics
10 5 (11.63%) API Integration
10 5 (11.63%) Event-Driven
10 5 (11.63%) RBAC
11 4 (9.30%) API Design
11 4 (9.30%) Continuous Improvement
11 4 (9.30%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 22 (51.16%) Java
2 19 (44.19%) SQL
3 17 (39.53%) Python
4 9 (20.93%) JavaScript
5 8 (18.60%) TypeScript
6 5 (11.63%) C#
7 3 (6.98%) Bicep
8 2 (4.65%) Kotlin
8 2 (4.65%) PL/SQL
9 1 (2.33%) Bash
9 1 (2.33%) Go
9 1 (2.33%) PHP
Qualifications
1 4 (9.30%) Security Cleared
2 3 (6.98%) BPSS Clearance
2 3 (6.98%) Computer Science Degree
2 3 (6.98%) Degree
3 2 (4.65%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (4.65%) Accessibility
1 2 (4.65%) QA
System Software
1 23 (53.49%) Docker
2 2 (4.65%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 21 (48.84%) Kubernetes
2 3 (6.98%) Terraform
3 2 (4.65%) Grafana
3 2 (4.65%) Prometheus
4 1 (2.33%) Ansible
4 1 (2.33%) Kibana
4 1 (2.33%) logstash
Vendors
1 8 (18.60%) Microsoft
2 6 (13.95%) Databricks
3 4 (9.30%) Google
4 3 (6.98%) OpenAI
4 3 (6.98%) Oracle