Backend Developer Contract Job Trends in London

Backend Developer
England > London

The median Backend Developer daily rate in London is £540, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 19 December 2025.

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

6 months to
19 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 330 335 321
Rank change year-on-year +5 -14 +39
Contract jobs requiring a Backend Developer 50 34 84
As % of all contract jobs in London 0.35% 0.23% 0.44%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.38% 0.24% 0.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 31 26 51
10th Percentile £363 £322 £413
25th Percentile £481 £400 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £430 £650
Median % change year-on-year +25.73% -33.92% +4.00%
75th Percentile £663 £523 £700
90th Percentile £788 £600 £825
England median daily rate £540 £405 £516
% change year-on-year +33.42% -21.60% -12.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 4
10th Percentile £57.65 - -
25th Percentile £61.63 - £56.25
Median hourly rate £73.50 - £58.75
75th Percentile £78.75 - £65.00
90th Percentile - - £69.50
England median hourly rate £73.50 - £58.75

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 13,283 14,093 17,699
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 93.53% 93.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,798 9,130 12,805
10th Percentile £343 £335 £330
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £550 £563
Median % change year-on-year -3.18% -2.22% -3.02%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £684
90th Percentile £760 £799 £788
England median daily rate £510 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -2.86% -1.50% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 231 153 211
10th Percentile £17.50 £18.47 £17.75
25th Percentile £22.25 £23.80 £21.50
Median hourly rate £29.65 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.30% - -
75th Percentile £56.98 £53.75 £58.75
90th Percentile £76.58 £80.75 £72.50
England median hourly rate £26.78 £36.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -25.61% -20.00% +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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +8 10 £625 +25.00% 4
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 19 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 29 (58.00%) CI/CD
2 28 (56.00%) Java
3 24 (48.00%) DevOps
3 24 (48.00%) Docker
3 24 (48.00%) Microservices
4 21 (42.00%) Kubernetes
5 20 (40.00%) SQL
6 19 (38.00%) Problem-Solving
7 18 (36.00%) Agile
7 18 (36.00%) Containerisation
8 17 (34.00%) Python
9 16 (32.00%) Azure
10 13 (26.00%) JavaScript
10 13 (26.00%) Node.js
10 13 (26.00%) RESTful
11 11 (22.00%) AI
11 11 (22.00%) Git
11 11 (22.00%) Test Automation
12 10 (20.00%) AWS
12 10 (20.00%) GitHub
12 10 (20.00%) Machine Learning
12 10 (20.00%) Spring
13 9 (18.00%) Data Pipeline
13 9 (18.00%) React
13 9 (18.00%) Software Engineering
13 9 (18.00%) TypeScript
14 8 (16.00%) AngularJS
14 8 (16.00%) Azure DevOps
14 8 (16.00%) GitHub Actions
14 8 (16.00%) Microsoft

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 2 (4.00%) Adobe Experience Manager
2 1 (2.00%) Apache
Cloud Services
1 16 (32.00%) Azure
2 10 (20.00%) AWS
2 10 (20.00%) GitHub
3 8 (16.00%) Azure DevOps
3 8 (16.00%) GitHub Actions
4 7 (14.00%) Azure AKS
5 6 (12.00%) GCP
5 6 (12.00%) Serverless
6 5 (10.00%) Azure App Service
6 5 (10.00%) Azure Functions
6 5 (10.00%) Azure Key Vault
7 4 (8.00%) Azure API Management
7 4 (8.00%) Azure Data Factory
7 4 (8.00%) Azure Logic Apps
7 4 (8.00%) Azure Monitor
7 4 (8.00%) Azure Service Bus
7 4 (8.00%) Azure Storage
7 4 (8.00%) Entra ID
8 3 (6.00%) Azure Cognitive Services
8 3 (6.00%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.00%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (14.00%) NoSQL
1 7 (14.00%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (6.00%) Amazon RDS
2 3 (6.00%) Azure SQL Database
2 3 (6.00%) SQL Server
3 2 (4.00%) Data Lake
3 2 (4.00%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (4.00%) MySQL
4 1 (2.00%) Apache Cassandra
4 1 (2.00%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (2.00%) Hadoop
4 1 (2.00%) MongoDB
4 1 (2.00%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 11 (22.00%) Git
2 3 (6.00%) Jenkins
2 3 (6.00%) JUnit
2 3 (6.00%) Mockito
3 2 (4.00%) Gradle
3 2 (4.00%) IntelliJ
3 2 (4.00%) Liquibase
3 2 (4.00%) Maven
4 1 (2.00%) Eclipse
4 1 (2.00%) JIRA
4 1 (2.00%) JMeter
4 1 (2.00%) NeoLoad
4 1 (2.00%) Postman
4 1 (2.00%) Selenium
4 1 (2.00%) SoapUI
4 1 (2.00%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 9 (18.00%) Banking
1 9 (18.00%) Finance
2 8 (16.00%) Social Skills
3 5 (10.00%) Pharmaceutical
4 3 (6.00%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (6.00%) Public Sector
5 2 (4.00%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (2.00%) Financial Institution
6 1 (2.00%) Front Office
6 1 (2.00%) Investment Banking
6 1 (2.00%) Marketing
6 1 (2.00%) Military
6 1 (2.00%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (26.00%) Node.js
1 13 (26.00%) RESTful
2 10 (20.00%) Spring
3 9 (18.00%) React
4 8 (16.00%) AngularJS
4 8 (16.00%) Spring Boot
5 7 (14.00%) FastAPI
5 7 (14.00%) GraphQL
6 6 (12.00%) Hibernate
6 6 (12.00%) HTML
6 6 (12.00%) REST
7 5 (10.00%) .NET
7 5 (10.00%) .NET Core
7 5 (10.00%) CSS
8 4 (8.00%) ActiveMQ
8 4 (8.00%) Kafka
8 4 (8.00%) OSGi
8 4 (8.00%) PyTorch
8 4 (8.00%) TensorFlow
9 3 (6.00%) JPA
Miscellaneous
1 15 (30.00%) Cloud Native
2 5 (10.00%) Distributed Systems
3 4 (8.00%) AI Agents
4 3 (6.00%) Life Science
5 2 (4.00%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (4.00%) Onboarding
5 2 (4.00%) Virtual Team
6 1 (2.00%) Algorithms
6 1 (2.00%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (2.00%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (2.00%) Genomics
6 1 (2.00%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (2.00%) NHS
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (58.00%) CI/CD
2 24 (48.00%) DevOps
2 24 (48.00%) Microservices
3 19 (38.00%) Problem-Solving
4 18 (36.00%) Agile
4 18 (36.00%) Containerisation
5 11 (22.00%) AI
5 11 (22.00%) Test Automation
6 10 (20.00%) Machine Learning
7 9 (18.00%) Data Pipeline
7 9 (18.00%) Software Engineering
8 6 (12.00%) Analytics
8 6 (12.00%) Event-Driven
8 6 (12.00%) Mentoring
8 6 (12.00%) TDD
9 5 (10.00%) API Design
9 5 (10.00%) API Integration
9 5 (10.00%) Continuous Improvement
9 5 (10.00%) Front End Development
9 5 (10.00%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 28 (56.00%) Java
2 20 (40.00%) SQL
3 17 (34.00%) Python
4 13 (26.00%) JavaScript
5 9 (18.00%) TypeScript
6 5 (10.00%) C#
7 4 (8.00%) Bicep
8 2 (4.00%) Kotlin
8 2 (4.00%) PL/SQL
9 1 (2.00%) Bash
9 1 (2.00%) Go
9 1 (2.00%) PHP
Qualifications
1 4 (8.00%) Computer Science Degree
1 4 (8.00%) Degree
1 4 (8.00%) Security Cleared
2 3 (6.00%) BPSS Clearance
3 2 (4.00%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (6.00%) QA
2 2 (4.00%) Accessibility
System Software
1 24 (48.00%) Docker
2 2 (4.00%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 21 (42.00%) Kubernetes
2 4 (8.00%) Terraform
3 2 (4.00%) Grafana
3 2 (4.00%) Prometheus
4 1 (2.00%) Kibana
4 1 (2.00%) logstash
Vendors
1 8 (16.00%) Microsoft
2 5 (10.00%) Databricks
2 5 (10.00%) Google
3 3 (6.00%) OpenAI
3 3 (6.00%) Oracle
4 2 (4.00%) Adobe