Developer Contract Job Trends in London

Developer
England > London

The median Developer daily rate in London is £535, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 October 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 9 4
Rank change year-on-year -8 -5 0
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 2,178 1,916 3,046
As % of all contract jobs in London 10.76% 14.39% 19.00%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.55% 15.54% 20.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,472 1,355 2,130
10th Percentile £400 £375 £375
25th Percentile £435 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £550 £552
Median % change year-on-year -2.73% -0.32% -8.04%
75th Percentile £675 £700 £713
90th Percentile £800 £850 £850
England median daily rate £525 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 9 9
10th Percentile £41.10 £33.06 £35.60
25th Percentile £50.00 £55.00 £36.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £70.00 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% +68.67% -41.18%
75th Percentile £62.25 £78.75 £75.00
90th Percentile £80.50 £84.70 £137.50
England median hourly rate £55.00 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year - -15.38% +5.11%

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 18,855 12,329 15,074
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.13% 92.62% 94.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,181 8,231 9,873
10th Percentile £363 £331 £340
25th Percentile £450 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £543 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.38% -1.36% -4.35%
75th Percentile £663 £663 £675
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 414 202 178
10th Percentile £17.01 £17.00 £17.43
25th Percentile £21.95 £22.56 £24.16
Median hourly rate £41.00 £27.81 £35.75
Median % change year-on-year +47.42% -22.20% -7.65%
75th Percentile £64.81 £49.69 £57.50
90th Percentile £81.25 £67.31 £78.75
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -6.40%

Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in London

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

Developer job vacancy trend in London

Developer
Daily Rate Trend in London

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in London

Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Developer in London over the 6 months to 6 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Developer in London

Developer
Hourly Rate Trend in London

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in London

Developer
Hourly Rate Histogram in London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Developer in London over the 6 months to 6 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Developer in London

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 Developer within the London region over the 6 months to 6 October 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 -8 234 £545 -5.22% 154
South London +2 38 £550 -2.72% 21
East London -4 10 £875 +62.04% 11
West London -39 7 £380 -6.07% 23
North London - 2 £550 - 6
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 6 October 2026, 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 Developer in the job title.

1 592 (27.18%) Agile
2 580 (26.63%) CI/CD
3 555 (25.48%) SQL
4 486 (22.31%) Java
5 451 (20.71%) Python
6 423 (19.42%) Azure
7 405 (18.60%) Security Cleared
8 383 (17.58%) DevOps
9 379 (17.40%) C#
10 364 (16.71%) REST
11 347 (15.93%) SC Cleared
12 339 (15.56%) AWS
12 339 (15.56%) JavaScript
13 316 (14.51%) .NET
14 303 (13.91%) Problem-Solving
15 290 (13.31%) Microservices
16 282 (12.95%) React
17 272 (12.49%) Microsoft
18 270 (12.40%) Full-Stack Development
19 266 (12.21%) AI
20 258 (11.85%) TypeScript
21 245 (11.25%) Git
22 239 (10.97%) Power Platform
23 228 (10.47%) Software Engineering
24 216 (9.92%) Docker
25 214 (9.83%) Spring
26 207 (9.50%) RESTful
27 204 (9.37%) Test Automation
28 200 (9.18%) Kubernetes
29 195 (8.95%) Oracle

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 71 (3.26%) SharePoint
2 39 (1.79%) Confluence
3 24 (1.10%) IIS
4 23 (1.06%) CMS
5 19 (0.87%) Camunda
6 15 (0.69%) Oracle Workflow
7 14 (0.64%) Anypoint
7 14 (0.64%) Mule
8 12 (0.55%) Ethereum
9 11 (0.51%) SAS
10 10 (0.46%) Apache Spark
11 9 (0.41%) Apache
12 8 (0.37%) nginx
12 8 (0.37%) WebLogic
13 6 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
13 6 (0.28%) Appian
14 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 4 (0.18%) Hyperledger
14 4 (0.18%) Solana
14 4 (0.18%) WordPress
Applications
1 36 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
3 5 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (0.14%) Windchill
5 2 (0.092%) Adobe XD
5 2 (0.092%) CPLEX
5 2 (0.092%) Sketch
6 1 (0.046%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.046%) Oracle Smart View
6 1 (0.046%) Simulink
6 1 (0.046%) S-PLUS
6 1 (0.046%) Trello
Business Applications
1 39 (1.79%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.83%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.69%) NetSuite
4 9 (0.41%) Oracle Financials
4 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
4 9 (0.41%) Oracle Payables
4 9 (0.41%) Oracle Receivables
5 7 (0.32%) Endur
5 7 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
5 7 (0.32%) Oracle Internet Expenses
5 7 (0.32%) Oracle iProcurement
6 6 (0.28%) Aladdin
6 6 (0.28%) Oracle FAH
6 6 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
7 5 (0.23%) OpenText MBPM
7 5 (0.23%) Oracle BPM
7 5 (0.23%) Orchestrade
8 4 (0.18%) IBM Planning Analytics
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle EBS R12
8 4 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 423 (19.42%) Azure
2 339 (15.56%) AWS
3 239 (10.97%) Power Platform
4 140 (6.43%) GitHub
5 123 (5.65%) PowerApps
6 120 (5.51%) Azure DevOps
6 120 (5.51%) Power Automate
7 109 (5.00%) Dynamics 365
8 100 (4.59%) GCP
9 99 (4.55%) Serverless
10 74 (3.40%) GitHub Actions
11 53 (2.43%) Microsoft Copilot
12 52 (2.39%) Azure Service Bus
13 46 (2.11%) Amazon S3
14 43 (1.97%) Azure Functions
15 42 (1.93%) Copilot Studio
16 41 (1.88%) Azure Logic Apps
17 36 (1.65%) AWS Lambda
18 34 (1.56%) Salesforce Service Cloud
19 32 (1.47%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 19 (0.87%) HTTP
2 13 (0.60%) Internet
3 12 (0.55%) FIX Connectivity
4 5 (0.23%) Multicast
5 4 (0.18%) SMS
5 4 (0.18%) SSL
6 3 (0.14%) FTP
7 2 (0.092%) 4G
7 2 (0.092%) 5G
7 2 (0.092%) CTI
7 2 (0.092%) DNS
7 2 (0.092%) HTTPS
7 2 (0.092%) Intranet
7 2 (0.092%) NFC
7 2 (0.092%) SSH
7 2 (0.092%) TCP/IP
8 1 (0.046%) Bluetooth
8 1 (0.046%) OpenLDAP
8 1 (0.046%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 192 (8.82%) SQL Server
2 158 (7.25%) Power BI
3 140 (6.43%) PostgreSQL
4 118 (5.42%) Relational Database
5 66 (3.03%) NoSQL
6 58 (2.66%) MongoDB
7 57 (2.62%) Data Warehouse
8 54 (2.48%) Oracle Database
9 41 (1.88%) MySQL
10 36 (1.65%) Redis
11 33 (1.52%) Azure SQL Database
12 31 (1.42%) Power Query
13 26 (1.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 25 (1.15%) KDB
15 22 (1.01%) Elasticsearch
15 22 (1.01%) Star Schema
16 20 (0.92%) DynamoDB
17 18 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
17 18 (0.83%) Data Lake
17 18 (0.83%) Kdb+
Development Applications
1 245 (11.25%) Git
2 135 (6.20%) Jenkins
3 96 (4.41%) JIRA
4 84 (3.86%) GitLab
5 50 (2.30%) Gradle
6 47 (2.16%) JUnit
6 47 (2.16%) Maven
7 34 (1.56%) Visual Studio
8 26 (1.19%) Mockito
9 24 (1.10%) SonarQube
10 18 (0.83%) Cypress.io
10 18 (0.83%) REST Assured
11 17 (0.78%) Bitbucket
12 15 (0.69%) Vite
13 14 (0.64%) Claude Code
14 11 (0.51%) Cucumber
14 11 (0.51%) Storybook
14 11 (0.51%) TeamCity
15 10 (0.46%) Selenium
16 9 (0.41%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 646 (29.66%) Finance
2 407 (18.69%) Social Skills
3 384 (17.63%) Banking
4 184 (8.45%) Public Sector
5 183 (8.40%) Analytical Skills
5 183 (8.40%) Front Office
6 170 (7.81%) Investment Banking
7 56 (2.57%) Marketing
8 48 (2.20%) Financial Institution
9 47 (2.16%) Retail
10 40 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 33 (1.52%) Back Office
12 21 (0.96%) Law
13 17 (0.78%) Publishing
14 15 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
15 12 (0.55%) Private Banking
16 11 (0.51%) Documentation Skills
16 11 (0.51%) Manufacturing
17 10 (0.46%) Games
17 10 (0.46%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 364 (16.71%) REST
2 316 (14.51%) .NET
3 282 (12.95%) React
4 214 (9.83%) Spring
5 207 (9.50%) RESTful
6 172 (7.90%) Spring Boot
7 155 (7.12%) HTML
7 155 (7.12%) Kafka
8 149 (6.84%) CSS
9 110 (5.05%) Node.js
10 108 (4.96%) SOAP
11 99 (4.55%) AngularJS
12 94 (4.32%) Web Services
13 86 (3.95%) JSON
14 82 (3.76%) Terraform
15 72 (3.31%) XML
16 68 (3.12%) .NET Framework
16 68 (3.12%) Redux
17 62 (2.85%) OAuth
18 61 (2.80%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 137 (6.29%) Cloud Native
2 107 (4.91%) Derivative
3 105 (4.82%) Distributed Systems
4 85 (3.90%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 83 (3.81%) Product Ownership
6 69 (3.17%) Enterprise Software
7 67 (3.08%) Equities
8 59 (2.71%) Fixed Income
9 54 (2.48%) Data Structures
10 44 (2.02%) Legacy Systems
11 42 (1.93%) Greenfield Project
12 40 (1.84%) AI Agents
13 36 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
14 34 (1.56%) Algorithms
15 31 (1.42%) Mobile App
16 30 (1.38%) Low-Code
17 28 (1.29%) Management Information System
18 26 (1.19%) Onboarding
19 22 (1.01%) CMDB
19 22 (1.01%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 106 (4.87%) Linux
2 73 (3.35%) Unix
3 47 (2.16%) Windows
4 34 (1.56%) Apple iOS
5 20 (0.92%) Android
6 10 (0.46%) Windows Server
7 3 (0.14%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.092%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.092%) zOS
9 1 (0.046%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.046%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 592 (27.18%) Agile
2 580 (26.63%) CI/CD
3 383 (17.58%) DevOps
4 303 (13.91%) Problem-Solving
5 290 (13.31%) Microservices
6 270 (12.40%) Full-Stack Development
7 266 (12.21%) AI
8 228 (10.47%) Software Engineering
9 204 (9.37%) Test Automation
10 184 (8.45%) Business Intelligence
11 183 (8.40%) Continuous Improvement
12 175 (8.03%) Event-Driven
13 169 (7.76%) Scrum
14 155 (7.12%) Data Modelling
15 151 (6.93%) Containerisation
16 147 (6.75%) SDLC
17 142 (6.52%) Analytics
18 138 (6.34%) Code Quality
19 135 (6.20%) TDD
20 131 (6.01%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 555 (25.48%) SQL
2 486 (22.31%) Java
3 451 (20.71%) Python
4 379 (17.40%) C#
5 339 (15.56%) JavaScript
6 258 (11.85%) TypeScript
7 95 (4.36%) PL/SQL
8 65 (2.98%) T-SQL
9 53 (2.43%) Apex Code
10 48 (2.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 45 (2.07%) Shell Script
12 40 (1.84%) C++
13 39 (1.79%) Kotlin
14 26 (1.19%) Bash
15 25 (1.15%) Scala
16 23 (1.06%) Swift
17 20 (0.92%) PowerShell
18 17 (0.78%) PHP
19 16 (0.73%) Groovy
20 15 (0.69%) VBA
Qualifications
1 405 (18.60%) Security Cleared
2 347 (15.93%) SC Cleared
3 111 (5.10%) Degree
4 62 (2.85%) Computer Science Degree
5 40 (1.84%) DV Cleared
6 31 (1.42%) BPSS Clearance
7 19 (0.87%) Master's Degree
8 16 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
9 10 (0.46%) PhD
10 9 (0.41%) Azure Certification
11 6 (0.28%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 5 (0.23%) Numerate Degree
13 3 (0.14%) AWS Certification
14 2 (0.092%) CTC Cleared
14 2 (0.092%) DBS Check
15 1 (0.046%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 1 (0.046%) CISSP
15 1 (0.046%) ITIL Certification
15 1 (0.046%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 1 (0.046%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (6.52%) QA
2 68 (3.12%) Accessibility
3 54 (2.48%) Data Quality
4 24 (1.10%) WCAG
5 11 (0.51%) GDPR
6 6 (0.28%) GRC
7 5 (0.23%) ISO 20022
8 4 (0.18%) HL7
8 4 (0.18%) SEPA
9 3 (0.14%) Basel III
9 3 (0.14%) EMIR
9 3 (0.14%) MiFID
9 3 (0.14%) SLA
9 3 (0.14%) Solvency II
10 2 (0.092%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 2 (0.092%) IEC 62304
10 2 (0.092%) ISO 13485
10 2 (0.092%) ISO 15022
10 2 (0.092%) ISO/IEC 17025
10 2 (0.092%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 216 (9.92%) Docker
2 7 (0.32%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.18%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 2 (0.092%) Postfix
5 1 (0.046%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 200 (9.18%) Kubernetes
2 28 (1.29%) Ansible
2 28 (1.29%) Grafana
3 21 (0.96%) Prometheus
4 11 (0.51%) Control-M
4 11 (0.51%) Kibana
5 4 (0.18%) Argo
5 4 (0.18%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.14%) Bosun
6 3 (0.14%) Istio
7 2 (0.092%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.046%) HP Fortify
8 1 (0.046%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 272 (12.49%) Microsoft
2 195 (8.95%) Oracle
3 126 (5.79%) Salesforce
4 96 (4.41%) ServiceNow
5 45 (2.07%) IBM
6 43 (1.97%) Databricks
7 42 (1.93%) Google
8 34 (1.56%) MuleSoft
9 32 (1.47%) Citrix
10 27 (1.24%) UiPath
11 26 (1.19%) SAP
12 24 (1.10%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
13 23 (1.06%) OpenAI
14 13 (0.60%) Adobe
14 13 (0.60%) Splunk
15 12 (0.55%) Sybase
16 11 (0.51%) webMethods
17 10 (0.46%) Avaloq
17 10 (0.46%) ION Trading
17 10 (0.46%) OutSystems