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 18 March 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 6 4
Rank change year-on-year -4 -2 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 2,204 2,120 2,998
As % of all contract jobs in London 13.42% 16.54% 16.44%
As % of the Job Titles category 14.49% 17.65% 17.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,547 1,511 2,294
10th Percentile £381 £385 £400
25th Percentile £425 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% - -7.26%
75th Percentile £650 £713 £750
90th Percentile £800 £850 £850
England median daily rate £500 £533 £525
% change year-on-year -6.20% +1.54% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 6 12
10th Percentile £34.27 £35.38 £31.37
25th Percentile £35.00 £36.44 £53.75
Median hourly rate £49.25 £46.25 £58.75
Median % change year-on-year +6.49% -21.28% +2.17%
75th Percentile £57.50 £55.25 £68.38
90th Percentile £95.00 £58.38 £72.50
England median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £62.00
% change year-on-year -2.87% +4.84% -0.80%

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 15,206 12,012 16,987
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.56% 93.71% 93.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,176 8,111 12,274
10th Percentile £350 £338 £325
25th Percentile £425 £431 £449
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £788
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 242 143 336
10th Percentile £18.25 £21.04 £15.97
25th Percentile £22.05 £24.66 £19.45
Median hourly rate £35.00 £35.00 £28.25
Median % change year-on-year - +23.89% -19.29%
75th Percentile £61.00 £53.75 £47.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £78.22 £64.77
England median hourly rate £37.50 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +7.14% +7.69% -23.53%

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 18 March 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 18 March 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 18 March 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 -5 289 £525 -8.70% 201
South London -1 41 £511 -44.73% 12
West London -21 17 £509 +24.45% 25
East London -10 5 £416 +4.00% 24
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 18 March 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.

1 540 (24.50%) Python
2 539 (24.46%) Agile
3 534 (24.23%) Java
4 519 (23.55%) SQL
5 502 (22.78%) CI/CD
6 486 (22.05%) Azure
7 449 (20.37%) AWS
8 401 (18.19%) JavaScript
9 399 (18.10%) Security Cleared
10 379 (17.20%) C#
11 358 (16.24%) React
12 352 (15.97%) DevOps
13 334 (15.15%) Problem-Solving
14 323 (14.66%) SC Cleared
15 307 (13.93%) .NET
16 290 (13.16%) Docker
17 287 (13.02%) Full-Stack Development
18 283 (12.84%) Microservices
19 277 (12.57%) TypeScript
20 263 (11.93%) Kubernetes
21 246 (11.16%) Microsoft
22 244 (11.07%) REST
23 237 (10.75%) Analytics
24 235 (10.66%) Software Engineering
25 226 (10.25%) Git
26 220 (9.98%) Kafka
27 210 (9.53%) Power Platform
28 207 (9.39%) Node.js
29 200 (9.07%) AI
30 193 (8.76%) RESTful

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 77 (3.49%) SharePoint
2 45 (2.04%) Confluence
3 20 (0.91%) CMS
4 18 (0.82%) IIS
5 16 (0.73%) Microsoft Exchange
6 15 (0.68%) HCL Notes
7 14 (0.64%) Apache
8 13 (0.59%) Mendix
9 12 (0.54%) Apache Spark
10 11 (0.50%) Ethereum
11 10 (0.45%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 9 (0.41%) Headless CMS
12 9 (0.41%) JBoss
12 9 (0.41%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 8 (0.36%) Hyperledger
14 7 (0.32%) WebLogic
15 6 (0.27%) Anypoint
15 6 (0.27%) CICS
15 6 (0.27%) MQSeries
15 6 (0.27%) WebSphere
Applications
1 46 (2.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.36%) Chatbot
3 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.14%) Adobe XD
4 3 (0.14%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.045%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 45 (2.04%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.82%) Endur
3 13 (0.59%) Fidessa
4 12 (0.54%) Temenos T24
5 7 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
5 7 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
6 6 (0.27%) BusinessWorks
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
7 5 (0.23%) BASE24
7 5 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle 11i
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.14%) ProductWriter
10 2 (0.091%) Magento
10 2 (0.091%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 486 (22.05%) Azure
2 449 (20.37%) AWS
3 210 (9.53%) Power Platform
4 160 (7.26%) GitHub
5 145 (6.58%) Azure DevOps
6 124 (5.63%) Serverless
7 110 (4.99%) Power Automate
8 107 (4.85%) GCP
9 98 (4.45%) PowerApps
10 83 (3.77%) Dynamics 365
11 72 (3.27%) GitHub Actions
12 59 (2.68%) AWS Lambda
13 57 (2.59%) Azure Functions
14 55 (2.50%) Amazon S3
14 55 (2.50%) Azure Logic Apps
14 55 (2.50%) Microsoft 365
15 49 (2.22%) Entra ID
16 48 (2.18%) Azure Service Bus
17 38 (1.72%) Microsoft Copilot
18 36 (1.63%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.04%) HTTP
2 14 (0.64%) FIX Connectivity
3 12 (0.54%) Internet
4 8 (0.36%) Network Security
5 6 (0.27%) SSL
5 6 (0.27%) TCP/IP
6 5 (0.23%) CTI
6 5 (0.23%) Firewall
6 5 (0.23%) SMS
6 5 (0.23%) VoIP
7 4 (0.18%) HTTPS
8 3 (0.14%) 3GPP
8 3 (0.14%) DNS
8 3 (0.14%) Multicast
8 3 (0.14%) MVNO
8 3 (0.14%) RTP
8 3 (0.14%) SMPP
9 2 (0.091%) DHCP
9 2 (0.091%) RTMP
9 2 (0.091%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (7.40%) SQL Server
2 145 (6.58%) PostgreSQL
3 133 (6.03%) Power BI
4 117 (5.31%) Relational Database
5 80 (3.63%) NoSQL
6 71 (3.22%) Oracle Database
7 62 (2.81%) MongoDB
8 40 (1.81%) Apache Cassandra
9 39 (1.77%) Data Warehouse
10 32 (1.45%) MySQL
11 26 (1.18%) KDB
11 26 (1.18%) RDBMS
12 24 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
12 24 (1.09%) DynamoDB
12 24 (1.09%) Kdb+
13 23 (1.04%) Data Lake
14 22 (1.00%) DB2
15 19 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
15 19 (0.86%) Metadata
15 19 (0.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 226 (10.25%) Git
2 103 (4.67%) JIRA
3 102 (4.63%) Jenkins
4 64 (2.90%) GitLab
5 56 (2.54%) JUnit
6 30 (1.36%) Visual Studio
7 29 (1.32%) Maven
8 25 (1.13%) Mockito
9 21 (0.95%) Bitbucket
9 21 (0.95%) Gradle
10 16 (0.73%) TeamCity
10 16 (0.73%) webpack
11 14 (0.64%) Cucumber
11 14 (0.64%) Cypress.io
12 13 (0.59%) Selenium
12 13 (0.59%) SonarQube
13 12 (0.54%) Android Studio
13 12 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
14 11 (0.50%) Octopus Deploy
14 11 (0.50%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 602 (27.31%) Finance
2 401 (18.19%) Social Skills
3 320 (14.52%) Banking
4 228 (10.34%) Front Office
5 227 (10.30%) Public Sector
6 155 (7.03%) Analytical Skills
7 119 (5.40%) Investment Banking
8 48 (2.18%) Financial Institution
9 22 (1.00%) Documentation Skills
10 19 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 18 (0.82%) Marketing
12 15 (0.68%) Law
13 12 (0.54%) Back Office
13 12 (0.54%) Local Government
14 11 (0.50%) Presentation Skills
15 9 (0.41%) Telecoms
16 8 (0.36%) Publishing
17 7 (0.32%) Military
17 7 (0.32%) Pharmaceutical
17 7 (0.32%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 358 (16.24%) React
2 307 (13.93%) .NET
3 244 (11.07%) REST
4 220 (9.98%) Kafka
5 207 (9.39%) Node.js
6 193 (8.76%) RESTful
7 192 (8.71%) HTML
8 178 (8.08%) AngularJS
9 176 (7.99%) Spring
10 173 (7.85%) CSS
11 133 (6.03%) Spring Boot
12 83 (3.77%) Web Services
13 81 (3.68%) Redux
14 79 (3.58%) .NET Framework
15 75 (3.40%) SOAP
16 74 (3.36%) GraphQL
17 72 (3.27%) JSON
18 66 (2.99%) Vue
19 58 (2.63%) XML
20 48 (2.18%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 129 (5.85%) Equities
2 114 (5.17%) Derivative
3 101 (4.58%) Fixed Income
4 96 (4.36%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 88 (3.99%) Cloud Native
6 80 (3.63%) Distributed Systems
7 78 (3.54%) Algorithms
8 68 (3.09%) Data Structures
9 61 (2.77%) Product Ownership
10 45 (2.04%) Greenfield Project
11 39 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
11 39 (1.77%) Mobile App
12 38 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
13 36 (1.63%) AI Agents
13 36 (1.63%) Management Information System
14 32 (1.45%) Hedge funds
15 30 (1.36%) Equity Derivative
16 28 (1.27%) Low-Code
17 26 (1.18%) Market Risk
18 25 (1.13%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 121 (5.49%) Linux
2 66 (2.99%) Windows
3 52 (2.36%) Unix
4 33 (1.50%) Android
5 30 (1.36%) Apple iOS
6 22 (1.00%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.23%) AIX
7 5 (0.23%) zOS
8 4 (0.18%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.045%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 539 (24.46%) Agile
2 502 (22.78%) CI/CD
3 352 (15.97%) DevOps
4 334 (15.15%) Problem-Solving
5 287 (13.02%) Full-Stack Development
6 283 (12.84%) Microservices
7 237 (10.75%) Analytics
8 235 (10.66%) Software Engineering
9 200 (9.07%) AI
10 186 (8.44%) Business Intelligence
11 177 (8.03%) Test Automation
12 176 (7.99%) Containerisation
13 155 (7.03%) Data Modelling
14 143 (6.49%) TDD
15 137 (6.22%) Front End Development
16 130 (5.90%) Unit Testing
17 126 (5.72%) Scrum
18 118 (5.35%) Design Patterns
19 114 (5.17%) Low Latency
20 106 (4.81%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 540 (24.50%) Python
2 534 (24.23%) Java
3 519 (23.55%) SQL
4 401 (18.19%) JavaScript
5 379 (17.20%) C#
6 277 (12.57%) TypeScript
7 95 (4.31%) C++
8 91 (4.13%) Go
9 74 (3.36%) PL/SQL
10 52 (2.36%) T-SQL
11 47 (2.13%) Kotlin
12 44 (2.00%) Apex Code
13 38 (1.72%) Ruby
14 35 (1.59%) Shell Script
15 32 (1.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 31 (1.41%) PowerShell
17 27 (1.23%) VB
17 27 (1.23%) VBA
18 19 (0.86%) C
19 18 (0.82%) Swift
Qualifications
1 399 (18.10%) Security Cleared
2 323 (14.66%) SC Cleared
3 112 (5.08%) Degree
4 48 (2.18%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (1.41%) DV Cleared
6 28 (1.27%) BPSS Clearance
7 23 (1.04%) Master's Degree
8 13 (0.59%) Numerate Degree
9 6 (0.27%) Microsoft Certification
10 5 (0.23%) AWS Certification
10 5 (0.23%) Azure Certification
10 5 (0.23%) PhD
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.14%) CTC Cleared
13 2 (0.091%) AWS Certified Developer
13 2 (0.091%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 2 (0.091%) OCP
13 2 (0.091%) Postgraduate
14 1 (0.045%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 1 (0.045%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (4.40%) QA
2 78 (3.54%) Accessibility
3 38 (1.72%) WCAG
4 33 (1.50%) Data Quality
5 15 (0.68%) GDPR
6 8 (0.36%) SLA
7 7 (0.32%) ISO 8583
8 6 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 5 (0.23%) SEPA
10 4 (0.18%) GRC
10 4 (0.18%) PCI DSS
10 4 (0.18%) PMO
11 3 (0.14%) ISO 20022
11 3 (0.14%) PSD2
12 2 (0.091%) HL7
13 1 (0.045%) HIPAA
13 1 (0.045%) MiFID
System Software
1 290 (13.16%) Docker
2 26 (1.18%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.14%) HDFS
4 2 (0.091%) OpenAM
4 2 (0.091%) OpenDJ
4 2 (0.091%) OpenIDM
4 2 (0.091%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.091%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.045%) FreeRADIUS
5 1 (0.045%) Oracle RAC
5 1 (0.045%) Postfix
5 1 (0.045%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.045%) zsh
Systems Management
1 263 (11.93%) Kubernetes
2 82 (3.72%) Terraform
3 31 (1.41%) Ansible
4 26 (1.18%) Grafana
5 18 (0.82%) Prometheus
6 12 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (0.50%) Argo
8 6 (0.27%) TIBCO Hawk
9 5 (0.23%) SCCM
10 4 (0.18%) Control-M
11 2 (0.091%) CA Endevor
11 2 (0.091%) CloudHub
11 2 (0.091%) Podman
11 2 (0.091%) rkt
12 1 (0.045%) IBM Guardium
12 1 (0.045%) Nessus
12 1 (0.045%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 246 (11.16%) Microsoft
2 174 (7.89%) Oracle
3 77 (3.49%) Salesforce
4 66 (2.99%) ServiceNow
5 38 (1.72%) SAP
6 35 (1.59%) Citrix
6 35 (1.59%) IBM
7 32 (1.45%) Databricks
8 31 (1.41%) Google
8 31 (1.41%) OpenAI
9 27 (1.23%) Adobe
10 24 (1.09%) MuleSoft
11 20 (0.91%) Guidewire
12 15 (0.68%) Foundry
12 15 (0.68%) Lotus
12 15 (0.68%) Sybase
13 13 (0.59%) Pega
13 13 (0.59%) Red Hat
14 12 (0.54%) Temenos
15 11 (0.50%) OpenLink