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 11 January 2026.

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

6 months to
11 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 1,947 2,376 2,888
As % of all contract jobs in London 13.80% 16.92% 15.91%
As % of the Job Titles category 14.91% 18.09% 17.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,345 1,618 2,237
10th Percentile £378 £375 £400
25th Percentile £425 £450 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £565 £600
Median % change year-on-year -7.08% -5.83% -4.00%
75th Percentile £675 £700 £750
90th Percentile £800 £850 £850
England median daily rate £500 £534 £550
% change year-on-year -6.28% -3.00% -6.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 8 13
10th Percentile £35.00 £35.53 £33.03
25th Percentile £40.50 £36.50 £56.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £40.25 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.65% -32.92% +4.35%
75th Percentile £75.38 £80.50 £72.50
90th Percentile £78.75 £137.50 £73.73
England median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% - +8.33%

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 13,055 13,132 16,961
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.54% 93.51% 93.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,650 8,462 12,244
10th Percentile £350 £338 £325
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £560
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -1.79% -3.45%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £799 £788
England median daily rate £501 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.67% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 221 143 236
10th Percentile £17.50 £20.00 £16.25
25th Percentile £23.33 £23.80 £20.69
Median hourly rate £32.45 £35.00 £32.60
Median % change year-on-year -7.29% +7.38% -4.13%
75th Percentile £60.00 £53.75 £53.75
90th Percentile £76.58 £80.75 £72.00
England median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £43.33
% change year-on-year -21.43% -19.22% +23.80%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -7 263 £525 -9.87% 155
South London -18 21 £510 -30.81% 28
West London -25 14 £437 +6.85% 23
East London -5 12 £1,000 +150.00% 22
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 513 (26.35%) SQL
2 509 (26.14%) Agile
3 497 (25.53%) Java
4 465 (23.88%) Python
5 462 (23.73%) CI/CD
6 425 (21.83%) Azure
7 398 (20.44%) AWS
8 378 (19.41%) Problem-Solving
9 376 (19.31%) C#
10 353 (18.13%) JavaScript
11 328 (16.85%) DevOps
12 310 (15.92%) Security Cleared
13 291 (14.95%) .NET
14 284 (14.59%) Microservices
15 279 (14.33%) React
16 269 (13.82%) Docker
17 268 (13.76%) Kubernetes
18 254 (13.05%) Full-Stack Development
19 253 (12.99%) SC Cleared
20 243 (12.48%) Microsoft
21 238 (12.22%) REST
22 231 (11.86%) Analytics
23 224 (11.50%) Git
24 209 (10.73%) Power Platform
25 201 (10.32%) TypeScript
26 197 (10.12%) Software Engineering
27 181 (9.30%) Business Intelligence
28 178 (9.14%) Kafka
29 174 (8.94%) HTML
30 172 (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 (3.13%) SharePoint
2 37 (1.90%) Confluence
3 20 (1.03%) CMS
4 19 (0.98%) HCL Notes
5 15 (0.77%) IIS
6 14 (0.72%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 13 (0.67%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 13 (0.67%) Apache Airflow
8 11 (0.56%) Oracle Workflow
9 10 (0.51%) Apache
9 10 (0.51%) Mendix
9 10 (0.51%) MQSeries
10 9 (0.46%) Apache Spark
11 8 (0.41%) Microsoft Exchange
12 6 (0.31%) Ethereum
12 6 (0.31%) Headless CMS
12 6 (0.31%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.31%) WebSphere
13 5 (0.26%) Tomcat
14 4 (0.21%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 57 (2.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.51%) Chatbot
3 7 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.31%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.21%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.051%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.051%) Oracle Smart View
6 1 (0.051%) Trello
Business Applications
1 39 (2.00%) Dynamics CRM
2 17 (0.87%) Endur
3 13 (0.67%) Oracle EBS
4 11 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
5 10 (0.51%) Oracle Assets
5 10 (0.51%) Oracle ERP
6 9 (0.46%) Fidessa
6 9 (0.46%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.41%) Oracle EBS R12
7 8 (0.41%) Oracle Financials
8 6 (0.31%) BusinessWorks
8 6 (0.31%) Temenos T24
9 5 (0.26%) Magento
10 4 (0.21%) Aladdin
10 4 (0.21%) Oracle 11i
10 4 (0.21%) Oracle E-Business Tax
10 4 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
10 4 (0.21%) ProductWriter
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle Receivables
11 3 (0.15%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 425 (21.83%) Azure
2 398 (20.44%) AWS
3 209 (10.73%) Power Platform
4 153 (7.86%) GitHub
5 133 (6.83%) Azure DevOps
6 125 (6.42%) Serverless
7 104 (5.34%) Power Automate
8 103 (5.29%) GCP
9 99 (5.08%) PowerApps
10 74 (3.80%) Dynamics 365
11 72 (3.70%) GitHub Actions
12 66 (3.39%) Azure Logic Apps
13 64 (3.29%) Azure Functions
14 55 (2.82%) AWS Lambda
15 52 (2.67%) Microsoft 365
16 47 (2.41%) Azure Service Bus
17 44 (2.26%) Entra ID
18 43 (2.21%) Amazon S3
19 40 (2.05%) Azure Monitor
20 36 (1.85%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 20 (1.03%) HTTP
2 11 (0.56%) HTTPS
2 11 (0.56%) SSL
3 9 (0.46%) Internet
4 8 (0.41%) Network Security
5 7 (0.36%) FIX Connectivity
5 7 (0.36%) TCP/IP
6 5 (0.26%) CTI
6 5 (0.26%) Firewall
6 5 (0.26%) SMS
6 5 (0.26%) VoIP
7 4 (0.21%) Multicast
8 3 (0.15%) 3GPP
8 3 (0.15%) DNS
8 3 (0.15%) MVNO
8 3 (0.15%) SMPP
9 2 (0.10%) DHCP
9 2 (0.10%) SSH
9 2 (0.10%) tcpdump
9 2 (0.10%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (8.37%) SQL Server
2 133 (6.83%) PostgreSQL
3 129 (6.63%) Power BI
4 116 (5.96%) Relational Database
5 82 (4.21%) NoSQL
6 66 (3.39%) MongoDB
6 66 (3.39%) Oracle Database
7 40 (2.05%) Data Warehouse
8 39 (2.00%) Apache Cassandra
9 30 (1.54%) MySQL
10 26 (1.34%) Data Lake
10 26 (1.34%) DB2
10 26 (1.34%) RDBMS
11 24 (1.23%) Oracle Reports
12 23 (1.18%) KDB
13 22 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
13 22 (1.13%) Azure SQL Database
14 21 (1.08%) Kdb+
15 20 (1.03%) DynamoDB
15 20 (1.03%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 224 (11.50%) Git
2 93 (4.78%) JIRA
3 84 (4.31%) Jenkins
4 58 (2.98%) GitLab
5 48 (2.47%) JUnit
6 28 (1.44%) Maven
6 28 (1.44%) Visual Studio
7 26 (1.34%) Bitbucket
8 20 (1.03%) Gradle
9 18 (0.92%) Cucumber
10 16 (0.82%) Mockito
11 15 (0.77%) Selenium
12 14 (0.72%) SpecFlow
12 14 (0.72%) TeamCity
13 13 (0.67%) Sonatype Nexus
14 12 (0.62%) webpack
15 11 (0.56%) Cypress.io
15 11 (0.56%) Xcode
16 10 (0.51%) Android Studio
16 10 (0.51%) SonarQube
General
1 582 (29.89%) Finance
2 443 (22.75%) Social Skills
3 321 (16.49%) Banking
4 178 (9.14%) Front Office
5 166 (8.53%) Public Sector
6 154 (7.91%) Analytical Skills
7 121 (6.21%) Investment Banking
8 61 (3.13%) Financial Institution
9 24 (1.23%) Marketing
10 17 (0.87%) Law
11 16 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 14 (0.72%) Documentation Skills
13 13 (0.67%) Back Office
14 12 (0.62%) General Ledger
15 10 (0.51%) Telecoms
16 8 (0.41%) Billing
16 8 (0.41%) Military
16 8 (0.41%) Private Banking
16 8 (0.41%) Retail
17 7 (0.36%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 291 (14.95%) .NET
2 279 (14.33%) React
3 238 (12.22%) REST
4 178 (9.14%) Kafka
5 174 (8.94%) HTML
6 170 (8.73%) RESTful
7 165 (8.47%) CSS
8 158 (8.12%) AngularJS
9 153 (7.86%) Node.js
10 148 (7.60%) Spring
11 119 (6.11%) Spring Boot
12 88 (4.52%) JSON
13 86 (4.42%) SOAP
14 74 (3.80%) XML
15 71 (3.65%) Web Services
16 69 (3.54%) .NET Framework
17 66 (3.39%) Vue
18 52 (2.67%) FastAPI
18 52 (2.67%) NumPy
19 51 (2.62%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 107 (5.50%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 104 (5.34%) Equities
3 98 (5.03%) Derivative
4 93 (4.78%) Cloud Native
5 85 (4.37%) Distributed Systems
6 81 (4.16%) Algorithms
7 72 (3.70%) Data Structures
8 60 (3.08%) Fixed Income
9 54 (2.77%) Product Ownership
10 44 (2.26%) Data Protection Act
11 41 (2.11%) Mobile App
12 40 (2.05%) Management Information System
13 38 (1.95%) Greenfield Project
14 36 (1.85%) Hedge funds
15 29 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
15 29 (1.49%) Legacy Systems
16 28 (1.44%) Low-Code
17 27 (1.39%) Market Risk
18 26 (1.34%) Equity Derivative
19 24 (1.23%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 144 (7.40%) Linux
2 68 (3.49%) Windows
3 53 (2.72%) Unix
4 38 (1.95%) Android
5 32 (1.64%) Apple iOS
6 15 (0.77%) Windows Server
7 7 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.26%) AIX
8 5 (0.26%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.21%) CentOS
10 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.051%) VMS
11 1 (0.051%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 509 (26.14%) Agile
2 462 (23.73%) CI/CD
3 378 (19.41%) Problem-Solving
4 328 (16.85%) DevOps
5 284 (14.59%) Microservices
6 254 (13.05%) Full-Stack Development
7 231 (11.86%) Analytics
8 197 (10.12%) Software Engineering
9 181 (9.30%) Business Intelligence
10 160 (8.22%) Test Automation
11 159 (8.17%) Containerisation
12 146 (7.50%) Scrum
13 139 (7.14%) AI
14 121 (6.21%) TDD
15 119 (6.11%) Front End Development
16 116 (5.96%) Computer Science
17 110 (5.65%) Clean Code
18 108 (5.55%) Design Patterns
19 106 (5.44%) Data Modelling
20 105 (5.39%) Low Latency
Programming Languages
1 513 (26.35%) SQL
2 497 (25.53%) Java
3 465 (23.88%) Python
4 376 (19.31%) C#
5 353 (18.13%) JavaScript
6 201 (10.32%) TypeScript
7 117 (6.01%) C++
8 83 (4.26%) PL/SQL
9 59 (3.03%) Go
10 55 (2.82%) Kotlin
11 47 (2.41%) T-SQL
12 37 (1.90%) VB
13 36 (1.85%) Apex Code
14 35 (1.80%) PowerShell
15 32 (1.64%) VBA
16 30 (1.54%) Ruby
17 29 (1.49%) Shell Script
18 26 (1.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 24 (1.23%) PHP
20 20 (1.03%) Bash
Qualifications
1 310 (15.92%) Security Cleared
2 253 (12.99%) SC Cleared
3 125 (6.42%) Degree
4 64 (3.29%) Computer Science Degree
5 27 (1.39%) Master's Degree
6 18 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
6 18 (0.92%) DV Cleared
7 13 (0.67%) Numerate Degree
8 8 (0.41%) AWS Certification
9 5 (0.26%) MCP
9 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (0.26%) PhD
10 4 (0.21%) AWS Certified Developer
10 4 (0.21%) Oracle Certification
11 3 (0.15%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (0.10%) Azure Certification
12 2 (0.10%) OCP
12 2 (0.10%) Tableau Certification
13 1 (0.051%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 1 (0.051%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 86 (4.42%) QA
2 54 (2.77%) Accessibility
3 31 (1.59%) Data Quality
4 25 (1.28%) WCAG
5 12 (0.62%) GDPR
6 6 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 5 (0.26%) ISO 8583
7 5 (0.26%) SEPA
7 5 (0.26%) SLA
8 3 (0.15%) HL7
8 3 (0.15%) ISO 20022
8 3 (0.15%) MiFID
8 3 (0.15%) PSD2
9 2 (0.10%) EMIR
9 2 (0.10%) GRC
9 2 (0.10%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.051%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.051%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.051%) PMO
System Software
1 269 (13.82%) Docker
2 30 (1.54%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.41%) zsh
4 5 (0.26%) HDFS
5 3 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.10%) GridGain
6 2 (0.10%) OpenAM
6 2 (0.10%) OpenDJ
6 2 (0.10%) OpenIDM
6 2 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.10%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.051%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 268 (13.76%) Kubernetes
2 83 (4.26%) Terraform
3 32 (1.64%) Ansible
4 18 (0.92%) Grafana
4 18 (0.92%) Prometheus
5 14 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
6 12 (0.62%) Argo
7 10 (0.51%) Control-M
8 6 (0.31%) TIBCO Hawk
9 3 (0.15%) Kibana
9 3 (0.15%) Podman
10 2 (0.10%) CloudHub
10 2 (0.10%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.10%) Istio
10 2 (0.10%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.10%) Puppet
10 2 (0.10%) rkt
10 2 (0.10%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.051%) Microsoft Intune
11 1 (0.051%) Oracle Identity Management
Vendors
1 243 (12.48%) Microsoft
2 172 (8.83%) Oracle
3 64 (3.29%) Salesforce
4 47 (2.41%) ServiceNow
5 38 (1.95%) Google
6 37 (1.90%) Databricks
7 36 (1.85%) IBM
8 26 (1.34%) Adobe
8 26 (1.34%) Citrix
9 25 (1.28%) OpenAI
9 25 (1.28%) SAP
10 22 (1.13%) MuleSoft
11 20 (1.03%) Red Hat
12 19 (0.98%) Lotus
13 17 (0.87%) Sybase
14 13 (0.67%) OpenLink
15 12 (0.62%) Guidewire
15 12 (0.62%) Solace
16 11 (0.56%) ION Trading
16 11 (0.56%) Splunk