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 5 April 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 328 308 319
Rank change year-on-year -20 +11 +12
Contract jobs requiring a Backend Developer 75 41 63
As % of all contract jobs in London 0.44% 0.32% 0.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.47% 0.35% 0.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 59 32 35
10th Percentile £393 - £420
25th Percentile £420 £400 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £409 £525
Median % change year-on-year +28.36% -22.10% -19.23%
75th Percentile £594 £688 £594
90th Percentile £714 £749 £663
England median daily rate £518 £460 £500
% change year-on-year +12.50% -8.00% -20.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 5
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £56.25
Median hourly rate - - £60.00
75th Percentile - - £72.50
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate - - £58.75

All Contract IT Job Roles
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 15,897 11,873 16,820
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.68% 93.61% 93.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,631 8,134 12,136
10th Percentile £350 £338 £325
25th Percentile £425 £430 £441
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £755 £800 £788
England median daily rate £507 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.52% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 248 148 336
10th Percentile £18.07 £21.15 £16.00
25th Percentile £22.00 £24.66 £19.57
Median hourly rate £35.71 £35.00 £27.81
Median % change year-on-year +2.03% +25.85% -21.66%
75th Percentile £59.85 £51.39 £46.59
90th Percentile £76.58 £65.00 £64.14
England median hourly rate £42.50 £33.00 £33.00
% change year-on-year +28.79% - -24.36%

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 5 April 2026.

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
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 5 April 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
Central London - 21 £600 - 9
South London - 8 £525 - 1
Backend Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 5 April 2026, 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 36 (48.00%) Java
2 30 (40.00%) Microservices
3 29 (38.67%) Agile
3 29 (38.67%) CI/CD
4 22 (29.33%) DevOps
5 21 (28.00%) Docker
5 21 (28.00%) Python
6 19 (25.33%) AI
7 18 (24.00%) Azure
7 18 (24.00%) Kubernetes
8 17 (22.67%) Containerisation
8 17 (22.67%) RESTful
8 17 (22.67%) TypeScript
9 15 (20.00%) JavaScript
10 14 (18.67%) AngularJS
10 14 (18.67%) Problem-Solving
10 14 (18.67%) Spring
11 13 (17.33%) React
11 13 (17.33%) SQL
12 12 (16.00%) C#
12 12 (16.00%) Continuous Improvement
12 12 (16.00%) Event-Driven
12 12 (16.00%) Security Cleared
13 11 (14.67%) AWS
13 11 (14.67%) Machine Learning
13 11 (14.67%) Node.js
13 11 (14.67%) SC Cleared
13 11 (14.67%) Software Engineering
14 10 (13.33%) Clean Code
14 10 (13.33%) Code Quality

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 3 (4.00%) Ethereum
1 3 (4.00%) Hyperledger
2 2 (2.67%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (1.33%) Apache
3 1 (1.33%) Apache Airflow
Business Applications
1 1 (1.33%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 18 (24.00%) Azure
2 11 (14.67%) AWS
3 9 (12.00%) GCP
3 9 (12.00%) Serverless
4 8 (10.67%) Azure AKS
4 8 (10.67%) GitHub
5 7 (9.33%) Azure DevOps
6 6 (8.00%) Entra ID
7 5 (6.67%) Azure App Service
7 5 (6.67%) Azure Functions
7 5 (6.67%) Azure Key Vault
8 4 (5.33%) AWS Lambda
8 4 (5.33%) Azure API Management
8 4 (5.33%) Azure Data Factory
8 4 (5.33%) Azure Logic Apps
8 4 (5.33%) Azure Monitor
8 4 (5.33%) Azure Service Bus
8 4 (5.33%) Azure Storage
8 4 (5.33%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (4.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 3 (4.00%) HTTP
2 1 (1.33%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (12.00%) NoSQL
2 6 (8.00%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (6.67%) MongoDB
4 3 (4.00%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (2.67%) Data Lake
5 2 (2.67%) Elasticsearch
5 2 (2.67%) Relational Database
6 1 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (1.33%) Apache Hudi
6 1 (1.33%) Apache Iceberg
6 1 (1.33%) Big Data
6 1 (1.33%) Bigtable
6 1 (1.33%) Delta Lake
6 1 (1.33%) DynamoDB
6 1 (1.33%) MySQL
6 1 (1.33%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 10 (13.33%) Git
2 5 (6.67%) JIRA
2 5 (6.67%) JUnit
3 3 (4.00%) Jenkins
4 2 (2.67%) IntelliJ
4 2 (2.67%) Liquibase
4 2 (2.67%) Mockito
5 1 (1.33%) Claude Code
5 1 (1.33%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 10 (13.33%) Social Skills
2 8 (10.67%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (9.33%) Finance
3 7 (9.33%) Public Sector
4 5 (6.67%) Banking
4 5 (6.67%) Pharmaceutical
5 2 (2.67%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (2.67%) Front Office
5 2 (2.67%) Investment Banking
5 2 (2.67%) Legal
5 2 (2.67%) Police
6 1 (1.33%) Health Technology
6 1 (1.33%) Law
6 1 (1.33%) Marketing
6 1 (1.33%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (22.67%) RESTful
2 14 (18.67%) AngularJS
2 14 (18.67%) Spring
3 13 (17.33%) React
4 11 (14.67%) Node.js
5 9 (12.00%) Spring Boot
6 8 (10.67%) HTML
6 8 (10.67%) Kafka
7 7 (9.33%) CSS
7 7 (9.33%) FastAPI
7 7 (9.33%) OSGi
7 7 (9.33%) REST
8 5 (6.67%) .NET
8 5 (6.67%) .NET Core
9 4 (5.33%) Hibernate
9 4 (5.33%) PyTorch
9 4 (5.33%) TensorFlow
9 4 (5.33%) Web Services
9 4 (5.33%) WireMock
10 3 (4.00%) gRPC
Miscellaneous
1 17 (22.67%) Cloud Native
2 7 (9.33%) Analytical Mindset
3 6 (8.00%) Distributed Systems
4 4 (5.33%) AI Agents
4 4 (5.33%) Product Ownership
5 3 (4.00%) Data Protection Act
5 3 (4.00%) Life Science
6 2 (2.67%) Algorithms
6 2 (2.67%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (2.67%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (2.67%) Virtual Team
7 1 (1.33%) Blockchain
7 1 (1.33%) Distributed Architecture
7 1 (1.33%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (1.33%) Fixed Income
7 1 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (1.33%) Genomics
7 1 (1.33%) Legacy Code
7 1 (1.33%) NHS
7 1 (1.33%) Onboarding
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (40.00%) Microservices
2 29 (38.67%) Agile
2 29 (38.67%) CI/CD
3 22 (29.33%) DevOps
4 19 (25.33%) AI
5 17 (22.67%) Containerisation
6 14 (18.67%) Problem-Solving
7 12 (16.00%) Continuous Improvement
7 12 (16.00%) Event-Driven
8 11 (14.67%) Machine Learning
8 11 (14.67%) Software Engineering
9 10 (13.33%) Clean Code
9 10 (13.33%) Code Quality
9 10 (13.33%) LLM
10 8 (10.67%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
10 8 (10.67%) Test Automation
11 7 (9.33%) Event-Driven Architecture
11 7 (9.33%) Mentoring
11 7 (9.33%) Unit Testing
11 7 (9.33%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 36 (48.00%) Java
2 21 (28.00%) Python
3 17 (22.67%) TypeScript
4 15 (20.00%) JavaScript
5 13 (17.33%) SQL
6 12 (16.00%) C#
7 4 (5.33%) Bicep
8 3 (4.00%) Kotlin
9 2 (2.67%) Elixir
9 2 (2.67%) Ruby
10 1 (1.33%) Go
10 1 (1.33%) PHP
10 1 (1.33%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 12 (16.00%) Security Cleared
2 11 (14.67%) SC Cleared
3 3 (4.00%) BPSS Clearance
4 1 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (1.33%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (5.33%) Accessibility
1 4 (5.33%) QA
2 2 (2.67%) WCAG
System Software
1 21 (28.00%) Docker
2 2 (2.67%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 18 (24.00%) Kubernetes
2 5 (6.67%) Terraform
Vendors
1 10 (13.33%) Microsoft
2 7 (9.33%) Google
3 5 (6.67%) Databricks
4 3 (4.00%) OpenAI
5 2 (2.67%) Adobe
5 2 (2.67%) ForgeRock
5 2 (2.67%) Okta
6 1 (1.33%) Oracle