Developer Contract Job Trends in London

Developer
England > London

The median Developer daily rate in London is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 28 January 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -6 0 -2
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 2,061 2,319 2,879
As % of all contract jobs in London 13.96% 16.79% 15.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 15.07% 17.94% 16.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,428 1,574 2,212
10th Percentile £381 £381 £400
25th Percentile £425 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% - -8.00%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £738
90th Percentile £800 £838 £850
England median daily rate £500 £540 £525
% change year-on-year -7.41% +2.86% -9.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 6 14
10th Percentile - £35.38 £34.68
25th Percentile £35.00 £36.00 £56.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £38.75 £61.25
Median % change year-on-year +41.94% -36.73% +6.52%
75th Percentile £78.75 £41.38 £72.38
90th Percentile £91.75 £51.63 £73.72
England median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -15.38% +4.00% -

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 13,672 12,929 17,107
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.60% 93.59% 93.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,072 8,296 12,356
10th Percentile £350 £338 £325
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -6.38%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £775
England median daily rate £503 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.29% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 217 140 307
10th Percentile £18.25 £20.68 £16.02
25th Percentile £23.55 £24.09 £19.05
Median hourly rate £34.00 £35.00 £29.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% +18.64% -13.24%
75th Percentile £63.10 £51.50 £50.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £78.95 £66.80
England median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -14.29% -6.67% +7.14%

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 28 January 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 28 January 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 28 January 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 -6 272 £525 -8.70% 170
South London -9 32 £505 -34.84% 28
West London -26 15 £509 +24.45% 29
East London -2 12 £1,000 +150.00% 25
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 28 January 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.

1 526 (25.52%) SQL
2 516 (25.04%) Agile
2 516 (25.04%) Java
3 497 (24.11%) Python
4 486 (23.58%) CI/CD
5 441 (21.40%) Azure
6 397 (19.26%) AWS
7 388 (18.83%) C#
8 384 (18.63%) Problem-Solving
9 361 (17.52%) JavaScript
10 348 (16.89%) Security Cleared
11 333 (16.16%) DevOps
12 298 (14.46%) .NET
12 298 (14.46%) React
13 294 (14.26%) Microservices
14 291 (14.12%) Docker
15 285 (13.83%) SC Cleared
16 274 (13.29%) Kubernetes
17 270 (13.10%) Full-Stack Development
18 249 (12.08%) REST
19 243 (11.79%) Microsoft
20 235 (11.40%) Analytics
21 227 (11.01%) Git
22 214 (10.38%) TypeScript
23 210 (10.19%) Power Platform
24 195 (9.46%) Software Engineering
25 191 (9.27%) RESTful
26 190 (9.22%) Kafka
27 189 (9.17%) Business Intelligence
28 182 (8.83%) 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 61 (2.96%) SharePoint
2 40 (1.94%) Confluence
3 20 (0.97%) CMS
4 16 (0.78%) HCL Notes
4 16 (0.78%) IIS
5 15 (0.73%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 13 (0.63%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 10 (0.49%) Ethereum
7 10 (0.49%) Mendix
7 10 (0.49%) MQSeries
8 9 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
9 8 (0.39%) Apache
9 8 (0.39%) Apache Spark
9 8 (0.39%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.34%) Hyperledger
10 7 (0.34%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.29%) Camunda
11 6 (0.29%) Headless CMS
11 6 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
11 6 (0.29%) WebSphere
Applications
1 52 (2.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.49%) Chatbot
3 6 (0.29%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.19%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.097%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.049%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.049%) Oracle Smart View
6 1 (0.049%) Trello
Business Applications
1 42 (2.04%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.87%) Endur
3 13 (0.63%) Fidessa
4 11 (0.53%) Oracle ERP
5 10 (0.49%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.39%) Oracle Payables
7 7 (0.34%) Oracle Assets
7 7 (0.34%) Oracle Financials
8 6 (0.29%) BusinessWorks
8 6 (0.29%) Oracle General Ledger
8 6 (0.29%) SAP S/4HANA
8 6 (0.29%) Temenos T24
9 5 (0.24%) BASE24
9 5 (0.24%) Oracle EBS R12
9 5 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
10 4 (0.19%) Oracle 11i
10 4 (0.19%) ProductWriter
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle E-Business Tax
12 2 (0.097%) Oracle Cash Management
12 2 (0.097%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 441 (21.40%) Azure
2 397 (19.26%) AWS
3 210 (10.19%) Power Platform
4 163 (7.91%) GitHub
5 136 (6.60%) Azure DevOps
6 125 (6.07%) Serverless
7 105 (5.09%) Power Automate
8 97 (4.71%) GCP
9 93 (4.51%) PowerApps
10 80 (3.88%) Dynamics 365
11 72 (3.49%) GitHub Actions
12 68 (3.30%) Azure Logic Apps
13 64 (3.11%) Azure Functions
14 55 (2.67%) AWS Lambda
15 48 (2.33%) Azure Service Bus
15 48 (2.33%) Microsoft 365
16 44 (2.13%) Amazon S3
17 43 (2.09%) Entra ID
18 40 (1.94%) Azure Monitor
19 33 (1.60%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.07%) HTTP
2 11 (0.53%) HTTPS
2 11 (0.53%) Internet
3 10 (0.49%) SSL
4 9 (0.44%) FIX Connectivity
5 8 (0.39%) Network Security
5 8 (0.39%) TCP/IP
6 5 (0.24%) CTI
6 5 (0.24%) Firewall
6 5 (0.24%) SMS
6 5 (0.24%) VoIP
7 4 (0.19%) DNS
7 4 (0.19%) Multicast
8 3 (0.15%) 3GPP
8 3 (0.15%) MVNO
8 3 (0.15%) SMPP
9 2 (0.097%) DHCP
9 2 (0.097%) SSH
9 2 (0.097%) tcpdump
9 2 (0.097%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 167 (8.10%) SQL Server
2 137 (6.65%) PostgreSQL
3 133 (6.45%) Power BI
4 121 (5.87%) Relational Database
5 86 (4.17%) NoSQL
6 68 (3.30%) MongoDB
7 67 (3.25%) Oracle Database
8 42 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
9 39 (1.89%) Apache Cassandra
10 34 (1.65%) MySQL
11 27 (1.31%) KDB
12 26 (1.26%) Data Lake
12 26 (1.26%) Kdb+
13 25 (1.21%) RDBMS
14 23 (1.12%) DB2
15 22 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
15 22 (1.07%) Oracle Reports
15 22 (1.07%) Power Query
15 22 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 21 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 227 (11.01%) Git
2 98 (4.75%) JIRA
3 95 (4.61%) Jenkins
4 64 (3.11%) GitLab
5 55 (2.67%) JUnit
6 33 (1.60%) Maven
7 31 (1.50%) Visual Studio
8 25 (1.21%) Gradle
9 22 (1.07%) Bitbucket
10 17 (0.82%) Mockito
11 16 (0.78%) Cucumber
11 16 (0.78%) Sonatype Nexus
12 14 (0.68%) Selenium
12 14 (0.68%) SpecFlow
13 12 (0.58%) Cypress.io
13 12 (0.58%) webpack
14 11 (0.53%) Android Studio
14 11 (0.53%) TeamCity
15 10 (0.49%) Octopus Deploy
15 10 (0.49%) Xcode
General
1 581 (28.19%) Finance
2 448 (21.74%) Social Skills
3 338 (16.40%) Banking
4 184 (8.93%) Front Office
5 180 (8.73%) Public Sector
6 159 (7.71%) Analytical Skills
7 129 (6.26%) Investment Banking
8 62 (3.01%) Financial Institution
9 22 (1.07%) Marketing
10 19 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 18 (0.87%) Law
12 14 (0.68%) Documentation Skills
13 11 (0.53%) Telecoms
14 10 (0.49%) General Ledger
15 9 (0.44%) Back Office
15 9 (0.44%) Presentation Skills
15 9 (0.44%) Retail
16 8 (0.39%) Billing
16 8 (0.39%) Private Banking
17 7 (0.34%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 298 (14.46%) .NET
1 298 (14.46%) React
2 249 (12.08%) REST
3 191 (9.27%) RESTful
4 190 (9.22%) Kafka
5 181 (8.78%) HTML
6 168 (8.15%) Spring
7 167 (8.10%) CSS
8 165 (8.01%) AngularJS
9 159 (7.71%) Node.js
10 125 (6.07%) Spring Boot
11 85 (4.12%) SOAP
12 78 (3.78%) .NET Framework
13 77 (3.74%) JSON
14 75 (3.64%) Web Services
15 72 (3.49%) XML
16 62 (3.01%) Vue
17 51 (2.47%) FastAPI
18 50 (2.43%) OAuth
18 50 (2.43%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 116 (5.63%) Equities
2 111 (5.39%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 104 (5.05%) Derivative
4 96 (4.66%) Cloud Native
5 85 (4.12%) Distributed Systems
6 82 (3.98%) Algorithms
7 70 (3.40%) Data Structures
8 63 (3.06%) Product Ownership
9 58 (2.81%) Fixed Income
10 46 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
11 44 (2.13%) Management Information System
12 42 (2.04%) Greenfield Project
13 40 (1.94%) Mobile App
14 33 (1.60%) Hedge funds
15 31 (1.50%) Equity Derivative
15 31 (1.50%) Legacy Systems
16 30 (1.46%) AI Agents
17 28 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
17 28 (1.36%) Market Risk
18 27 (1.31%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 154 (7.47%) Linux
2 70 (3.40%) Windows
3 60 (2.91%) Unix
4 42 (2.04%) Android
5 37 (1.80%) Apple iOS
6 19 (0.92%) Windows Server
7 6 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.24%) AIX
8 5 (0.24%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.19%) CentOS
10 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.049%) VMS
11 1 (0.049%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.049%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 516 (25.04%) Agile
2 486 (23.58%) CI/CD
3 384 (18.63%) Problem-Solving
4 333 (16.16%) DevOps
5 294 (14.26%) Microservices
6 270 (13.10%) Full-Stack Development
7 235 (11.40%) Analytics
8 195 (9.46%) Software Engineering
9 189 (9.17%) Business Intelligence
10 172 (8.35%) Containerisation
10 172 (8.35%) Test Automation
11 160 (7.76%) AI
12 153 (7.42%) Scrum
13 131 (6.36%) TDD
14 127 (6.16%) Front End Development
15 120 (5.82%) Computer Science
15 120 (5.82%) Data Modelling
16 114 (5.53%) Design Patterns
16 114 (5.53%) Unit Testing
17 112 (5.43%) Low Latency
Programming Languages
1 526 (25.52%) SQL
2 516 (25.04%) Java
3 497 (24.11%) Python
4 388 (18.83%) C#
5 361 (17.52%) JavaScript
6 214 (10.38%) TypeScript
7 120 (5.82%) C++
8 82 (3.98%) PL/SQL
9 64 (3.11%) Go
10 51 (2.47%) Kotlin
11 48 (2.33%) T-SQL
12 41 (1.99%) Apex Code
13 36 (1.75%) PowerShell
13 36 (1.75%) VB
14 34 (1.65%) Ruby
15 33 (1.60%) Shell Script
16 31 (1.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 30 (1.46%) VBA
18 22 (1.07%) Swift
19 21 (1.02%) C
Qualifications
1 348 (16.89%) Security Cleared
2 285 (13.83%) SC Cleared
3 132 (6.40%) Degree
4 63 (3.06%) Computer Science Degree
5 25 (1.21%) Master's Degree
6 22 (1.07%) BPSS Clearance
7 20 (0.97%) DV Cleared
8 13 (0.63%) Numerate Degree
9 7 (0.34%) MCP
10 6 (0.29%) AWS Certification
10 6 (0.29%) Microsoft Certification
11 5 (0.24%) PhD
12 4 (0.19%) Azure Certification
12 4 (0.19%) Oracle Certification
13 3 (0.15%) AWS Certified Developer
14 2 (0.097%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 2 (0.097%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 2 (0.097%) OCP
14 2 (0.097%) Tableau Certification
15 1 (0.049%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (4.32%) QA
2 56 (2.72%) Accessibility
3 32 (1.55%) Data Quality
4 22 (1.07%) WCAG
5 15 (0.73%) GDPR
6 7 (0.34%) ISO 8583
7 6 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 6 (0.29%) SLA
8 5 (0.24%) SEPA
9 4 (0.19%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.15%) GRC
10 3 (0.15%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.15%) PSD2
11 2 (0.097%) HL7
12 1 (0.049%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.049%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.049%) MiFID
12 1 (0.049%) PMO
System Software
1 291 (14.12%) Docker
2 31 (1.50%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.29%) zsh
4 5 (0.24%) HDFS
5 3 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.097%) GridGain
6 2 (0.097%) OpenAM
6 2 (0.097%) OpenDJ
6 2 (0.097%) OpenIDM
6 2 (0.097%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.097%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.049%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 274 (13.29%) Kubernetes
2 79 (3.83%) Terraform
3 32 (1.55%) Ansible
4 20 (0.97%) Grafana
5 19 (0.92%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.58%) Argo
8 7 (0.34%) Control-M
9 6 (0.29%) TIBCO Hawk
10 3 (0.15%) Kibana
10 3 (0.15%) Podman
11 2 (0.097%) CloudHub
11 2 (0.097%) Docker Swarm
11 2 (0.097%) Istio
11 2 (0.097%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.097%) rkt
12 1 (0.049%) CA Endevor
12 1 (0.049%) ITRS Geneos
12 1 (0.049%) Nessus
12 1 (0.049%) Puppet
Vendors
1 243 (11.79%) Microsoft
2 182 (8.83%) Oracle
3 72 (3.49%) Salesforce
4 55 (2.67%) ServiceNow
5 40 (1.94%) Google
6 37 (1.80%) Databricks
7 36 (1.75%) IBM
8 32 (1.55%) SAP
9 29 (1.41%) Citrix
10 28 (1.36%) Adobe
11 27 (1.31%) OpenAI
12 21 (1.02%) MuleSoft
13 19 (0.92%) Red Hat
14 18 (0.87%) Sybase
15 16 (0.78%) Lotus
16 14 (0.68%) Solace
17 13 (0.63%) Guidewire
18 12 (0.58%) OpenLink
19 11 (0.53%) Foundry
19 11 (0.53%) ION Trading