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 12 November 2025.

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

6 months to
12 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 322 349 322
Rank change year-on-year +27 -27 +55
Contract jobs requiring a Backend Developer 50 31 94
As % of all contract jobs in London 0.36% 0.20% 0.47%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.39% 0.21% 0.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 30 23 61
10th Percentile £362 £340 £425
25th Percentile £431 £400 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £409 £650
Median % change year-on-year +28.36% -37.08% +7.79%
75th Percentile £581 £523 £700
90th Percentile £708 £595 £825
England median daily rate £525 £402 £575
% change year-on-year +30.52% -30.04% -0.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 2
10th Percentile £57.65 - -
25th Percentile £61.63 - £56.25
Median hourly rate £73.50 - £57.50
75th Percentile £78.75 - £58.75
90th Percentile - - -
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 12,919 14,569 18,894
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.49% 93.93% 93.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,577 9,421 13,716
10th Percentile £334 £338 £341
25th Percentile £425 £450 £452
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £543 £550 £569
Median % change year-on-year -1.36% -3.38% -1.00%
75th Percentile £663 £675 £688
90th Percentile £775 £788 £794
England median daily rate £510 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -2.86% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 234 155 224
10th Percentile £17.50 £17.25 £18.21
25th Percentile £22.13 £23.80 £21.69
Median hourly rate £26.89 £36.80 £38.08
Median % change year-on-year -26.93% -3.35% +18.99%
75th Percentile £49.13 £57.38 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £80.75 £73.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -37.13% -11.11% +50.00%

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 12 November 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 12 November 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 12 November 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 +11 9 £525 +5.00% 17
East London - 4 £540 - 1
South London - 2 £513 - 2
Backend Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 12 November 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 25 (50.00%) CI/CD
2 24 (48.00%) Microservices
3 23 (46.00%) Java
3 23 (46.00%) Kubernetes
4 22 (44.00%) Agile
4 22 (44.00%) DevOps
4 22 (44.00%) Docker
4 22 (44.00%) Problem-Solving
5 20 (40.00%) SQL
6 18 (36.00%) Azure
6 18 (36.00%) Python
7 16 (32.00%) RESTful
8 15 (30.00%) AWS
8 15 (30.00%) Containerisation
8 15 (30.00%) Node.js
9 14 (28.00%) Git
10 13 (26.00%) TypeScript
11 11 (22.00%) GitHub
11 11 (22.00%) Serverless
11 11 (22.00%) Software Engineering
11 11 (22.00%) Spring
12 10 (20.00%) JavaScript
13 9 (18.00%) Data Pipeline
13 9 (18.00%) GitHub Actions
13 9 (18.00%) GraphQL
13 9 (18.00%) Spring Boot
14 8 (16.00%) AI
14 8 (16.00%) Azure DevOps
14 8 (16.00%) Hibernate
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 1 (2.00%) Apache
1 1 (2.00%) Jupyter
Cloud Services
1 18 (36.00%) Azure
2 15 (30.00%) AWS
3 11 (22.00%) GitHub
3 11 (22.00%) Serverless
4 9 (18.00%) GitHub Actions
5 8 (16.00%) Azure DevOps
6 6 (12.00%) Azure AKS
7 5 (10.00%) Azure App Service
7 5 (10.00%) Azure Functions
8 4 (8.00%) Amazon EC2
8 4 (8.00%) Azure Storage
8 4 (8.00%) Entra ID
8 4 (8.00%) GCP
9 3 (6.00%) Azure API Management
9 3 (6.00%) Azure Data Factory
9 3 (6.00%) Azure Key Vault
9 3 (6.00%) Azure Logic Apps
9 3 (6.00%) Azure Monitor
9 3 (6.00%) Azure Service Bus
10 2 (4.00%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.00%) Network Security
1 1 (2.00%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (16.00%) NoSQL
1 8 (16.00%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (6.00%) Amazon RDS
2 3 (6.00%) MySQL
2 3 (6.00%) SQL Server
3 2 (4.00%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (4.00%) Data Lake
3 2 (4.00%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (4.00%) DynamoDB
3 2 (4.00%) MongoDB
4 1 (2.00%) Apache Cassandra
4 1 (2.00%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (2.00%) Hadoop
4 1 (2.00%) Redis
4 1 (2.00%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 14 (28.00%) Git
2 7 (14.00%) Jenkins
3 3 (6.00%) JUnit
3 3 (6.00%) Mockito
4 2 (4.00%) Gradle
4 2 (4.00%) Liquibase
4 2 (4.00%) Maven
5 1 (2.00%) Bitbucket
5 1 (2.00%) Eclipse
5 1 (2.00%) IntelliJ
5 1 (2.00%) JIRA
5 1 (2.00%) JMeter
5 1 (2.00%) MLflow
5 1 (2.00%) NeoLoad
5 1 (2.00%) Postman
5 1 (2.00%) Selenium
5 1 (2.00%) SoapUI
5 1 (2.00%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 13 (26.00%) Social Skills
2 10 (20.00%) Finance
3 7 (14.00%) Banking
4 5 (10.00%) Public Sector
5 2 (4.00%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (4.00%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (4.00%) Front Office
5 2 (4.00%) Pharmaceutical
6 1 (2.00%) Financial Institution
6 1 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (2.00%) Legal
6 1 (2.00%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (32.00%) RESTful
2 15 (30.00%) Node.js
3 11 (22.00%) Spring
4 9 (18.00%) GraphQL
4 9 (18.00%) Spring Boot
5 8 (16.00%) Hibernate
6 5 (10.00%) .NET
6 5 (10.00%) React
7 4 (8.00%) .NET Core
7 4 (8.00%) ActiveMQ
7 4 (8.00%) FastAPI
7 4 (8.00%) PyTorch
7 4 (8.00%) REST
7 4 (8.00%) TensorFlow
7 4 (8.00%) XML
8 3 (6.00%) JPA
8 3 (6.00%) JSON
8 3 (6.00%) Kafka
8 3 (6.00%) pytest
8 3 (6.00%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 11 (22.00%) Cloud Native
2 4 (8.00%) Distributed Systems
3 3 (6.00%) AI Agents
3 3 (6.00%) Legacy Systems
4 2 (4.00%) Onboarding
4 2 (4.00%) Virtual Team
5 1 (2.00%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (2.00%) Genomics
5 1 (2.00%) Life Science
5 1 (2.00%) Linux Command Line
5 1 (2.00%) Mobile App
5 1 (2.00%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.00%) Android
1 1 (2.00%) Apple iOS
1 1 (2.00%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (50.00%) CI/CD
2 24 (48.00%) Microservices
3 22 (44.00%) Agile
3 22 (44.00%) DevOps
3 22 (44.00%) Problem-Solving
4 15 (30.00%) Containerisation
5 11 (22.00%) Software Engineering
6 9 (18.00%) Data Pipeline
7 8 (16.00%) AI
7 8 (16.00%) Test Automation
8 7 (14.00%) Machine Learning
8 7 (14.00%) TDD
9 6 (12.00%) Analytics
9 6 (12.00%) Continuous Improvement
9 6 (12.00%) Front End Development
9 6 (12.00%) Mentoring
10 5 (10.00%) API Design
10 5 (10.00%) API Integration
10 5 (10.00%) Full-Stack Development
10 5 (10.00%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 23 (46.00%) Java
2 20 (40.00%) SQL
3 18 (36.00%) Python
4 13 (26.00%) TypeScript
5 10 (20.00%) JavaScript
6 5 (10.00%) C#
7 3 (6.00%) Bicep
8 2 (4.00%) Go
8 2 (4.00%) PL/SQL
9 1 (2.00%) Bash
9 1 (2.00%) Kotlin
9 1 (2.00%) PHP
9 1 (2.00%) PowerShell
9 1 (2.00%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 4 (8.00%) Security Cleared
2 3 (6.00%) BPSS Clearance
2 3 (6.00%) Computer Science Degree
2 3 (6.00%) Degree
3 2 (4.00%) Azure Certification
3 2 (4.00%) DBS Check
3 2 (4.00%) SC Cleared
4 1 (2.00%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (8.00%) QA
2 2 (4.00%) Accessibility
System Software
1 22 (44.00%) Docker
2 3 (6.00%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 23 (46.00%) Kubernetes
2 3 (6.00%) Terraform
3 2 (4.00%) Grafana
3 2 (4.00%) Prometheus
4 1 (2.00%) Ansible
4 1 (2.00%) Kibana
4 1 (2.00%) logstash
Vendors
1 8 (16.00%) Microsoft
2 5 (10.00%) Databricks
3 3 (6.00%) Google
3 3 (6.00%) Oracle
4 2 (4.00%) OpenAI
5 1 (2.00%) Dataiku
5 1 (2.00%) DataRobot