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 19 March 2026.

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

6 months to
19 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 2,200 2,112 2,996
As % of all contract jobs in London 13.38% 16.52% 16.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 14.46% 17.64% 17.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,543 1,507 2,295
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% - -7.07%
75th Percentile £650 £719 £750
90th Percentile £800 £850 £850
England median daily rate £500 £534 £525
% change year-on-year -6.28% +1.62% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 6 12
10th Percentile £34.27 £35.19 £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 £63.00 £62.00
% change year-on-year +0.21% +1.61% -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 15,211 11,974 16,956
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 93.69% 93.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,192 8,088 12,251
10th Percentile £350 £338 £325
25th Percentile £425 £431 £450
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 242 143 337
10th Percentile £18.25 £21.04 £15.98
25th Percentile £22.00 £24.66 £19.57
Median hourly rate £34.75 £35.00 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -0.72% +22.81% -18.57%
75th Percentile £60.12 £53.75 £47.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £78.22 £64.72
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 19 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 19 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 19 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% 197
South London -1 41 £511 -44.73% 12
West London -21 17 £509 +24.45% 26
East London -10 5 £416 +4.00% 25
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 19 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.

1 542 (24.64%) Python
2 537 (24.41%) Java
3 535 (24.32%) Agile
4 517 (23.50%) SQL
5 502 (22.82%) CI/CD
6 490 (22.27%) Azure
7 451 (20.50%) AWS
8 397 (18.05%) JavaScript
9 392 (17.82%) Security Cleared
10 379 (17.23%) C#
11 357 (16.23%) React
12 356 (16.18%) DevOps
13 325 (14.77%) Problem-Solving
14 316 (14.36%) SC Cleared
15 306 (13.91%) .NET
16 292 (13.27%) Docker
17 285 (12.95%) Full-Stack Development
18 282 (12.82%) Microservices
19 279 (12.68%) TypeScript
20 265 (12.05%) Kubernetes
21 248 (11.27%) Microsoft
22 244 (11.09%) REST
23 236 (10.73%) Analytics
24 233 (10.59%) Software Engineering
25 226 (10.27%) Git
26 221 (10.05%) Kafka
27 213 (9.68%) Power Platform
28 208 (9.45%) Node.js
29 203 (9.23%) AI
30 191 (8.68%) 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 80 (3.64%) SharePoint
2 45 (2.05%) Confluence
3 20 (0.91%) CMS
4 18 (0.82%) IIS
5 16 (0.73%) Microsoft Exchange
6 15 (0.68%) Apache
6 15 (0.68%) HCL Notes
7 13 (0.59%) Mendix
8 12 (0.55%) Apache Spark
9 11 (0.50%) Ethereum
10 10 (0.45%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 9 (0.41%) Headless CMS
11 9 (0.41%) JBoss
11 9 (0.41%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 8 (0.36%) Hyperledger
13 7 (0.32%) WebLogic
14 6 (0.27%) Anypoint
14 6 (0.27%) CICS
14 6 (0.27%) MQSeries
14 6 (0.27%) WebSphere
Applications
1 44 (2.00%) 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 46 (2.09%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.82%) Endur
3 13 (0.59%) Fidessa
4 12 (0.55%) 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
1 490 (22.27%) Azure
2 451 (20.50%) AWS
3 213 (9.68%) Power Platform
4 159 (7.23%) GitHub
5 146 (6.64%) Azure DevOps
6 125 (5.68%) Serverless
7 113 (5.14%) Power Automate
8 108 (4.91%) GCP
9 101 (4.59%) PowerApps
10 84 (3.82%) Dynamics 365
11 71 (3.23%) GitHub Actions
12 60 (2.73%) AWS Lambda
13 58 (2.64%) Azure Logic Apps
14 57 (2.59%) Azure Functions
14 57 (2.59%) Microsoft 365
15 55 (2.50%) Amazon S3
16 49 (2.23%) Entra ID
17 48 (2.18%) Azure Service Bus
18 38 (1.73%) Microsoft Copilot
19 35 (1.59%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.05%) HTTP
2 14 (0.64%) FIX Connectivity
3 12 (0.55%) 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
7 4 (0.18%) Multicast
8 3 (0.14%) 3GPP
8 3 (0.14%) DNS
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
1 166 (7.55%) SQL Server
2 143 (6.50%) PostgreSQL
3 133 (6.05%) Power BI
4 119 (5.41%) Relational Database
5 80 (3.64%) NoSQL
6 68 (3.09%) Oracle Database
7 63 (2.86%) MongoDB
8 40 (1.82%) Apache Cassandra
9 39 (1.77%) Data Warehouse
10 31 (1.41%) MySQL
11 27 (1.23%) KDB
12 26 (1.18%) RDBMS
13 25 (1.14%) Kdb+
14 24 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
14 24 (1.09%) DynamoDB
15 23 (1.05%) Data Lake
16 22 (1.00%) DB2
17 19 (0.86%) Metadata
17 19 (0.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 18 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 226 (10.27%) Git
2 105 (4.77%) Jenkins
3 103 (4.68%) JIRA
4 62 (2.82%) GitLab
5 56 (2.55%) JUnit
6 32 (1.45%) Maven
7 30 (1.36%) Visual Studio
8 25 (1.14%) Mockito
9 21 (0.95%) Bitbucket
9 21 (0.95%) Gradle
10 16 (0.73%) TeamCity
10 16 (0.73%) webpack
11 15 (0.68%) Cucumber
11 15 (0.68%) Sonatype Nexus
12 14 (0.64%) Cypress.io
13 13 (0.59%) Selenium
13 13 (0.59%) SonarQube
14 12 (0.55%) Android Studio
15 11 (0.50%) Octopus Deploy
15 11 (0.50%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 602 (27.36%) Finance
2 396 (18.00%) Social Skills
3 322 (14.64%) Banking
4 230 (10.45%) Front Office
5 224 (10.18%) Public Sector
6 154 (7.00%) Analytical Skills
7 120 (5.45%) Investment Banking
8 49 (2.23%) Financial Institution
9 21 (0.95%) Documentation Skills
10 18 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 18 (0.82%) Marketing
11 15 (0.68%) Law
12 12 (0.55%) Back Office
12 12 (0.55%) Local Government
13 10 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
14 9 (0.41%) Publishing
14 9 (0.41%) Telecoms
15 7 (0.32%) Military
15 7 (0.32%) Pharmaceutical
15 7 (0.32%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 357 (16.23%) React
2 306 (13.91%) .NET
3 244 (11.09%) REST
4 221 (10.05%) Kafka
5 208 (9.45%) Node.js
6 191 (8.68%) RESTful
7 188 (8.55%) HTML
8 178 (8.09%) AngularJS
9 175 (7.95%) Spring
10 168 (7.64%) CSS
11 133 (6.05%) Spring Boot
12 83 (3.77%) Web Services
13 81 (3.68%) Redux
14 80 (3.64%) .NET Framework
15 75 (3.41%) SOAP
16 74 (3.36%) GraphQL
17 71 (3.23%) JSON
18 66 (3.00%) Vue
19 58 (2.64%) XML
20 48 (2.18%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 129 (5.86%) Equities
2 113 (5.14%) Derivative
3 102 (4.64%) Fixed Income
4 94 (4.27%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 87 (3.95%) Cloud Native
6 82 (3.73%) Distributed Systems
7 79 (3.59%) Algorithms
8 69 (3.14%) Data Structures
9 60 (2.73%) Product Ownership
10 45 (2.05%) Greenfield Project
11 40 (1.82%) Data Protection Act
12 39 (1.77%) Mobile App
13 38 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
14 37 (1.68%) Management Information System
15 36 (1.64%) AI Agents
16 33 (1.50%) Hedge funds
17 30 (1.36%) Equity Derivative
18 28 (1.27%) Low-Code
19 26 (1.18%) Market Risk
20 25 (1.14%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 124 (5.64%) Linux
2 65 (2.95%) Windows
3 56 (2.55%) Unix
4 33 (1.50%) Android
5 29 (1.32%) 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
10 1 (0.045%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 535 (24.32%) Agile
2 502 (22.82%) CI/CD
3 356 (16.18%) DevOps
4 325 (14.77%) Problem-Solving
5 285 (12.95%) Full-Stack Development
6 282 (12.82%) Microservices
7 236 (10.73%) Analytics
8 233 (10.59%) Software Engineering
9 203 (9.23%) AI
10 185 (8.41%) Business Intelligence
11 176 (8.00%) Containerisation
11 176 (8.00%) Test Automation
12 158 (7.18%) Data Modelling
13 143 (6.50%) TDD
14 137 (6.23%) Front End Development
15 130 (5.91%) Unit Testing
16 124 (5.64%) Scrum
17 119 (5.41%) Low Latency
18 117 (5.32%) Design Patterns
19 108 (4.91%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 542 (24.64%) Python
2 537 (24.41%) Java
3 517 (23.50%) SQL
4 397 (18.05%) JavaScript
5 379 (17.23%) C#
6 279 (12.68%) TypeScript
7 95 (4.32%) C++
8 91 (4.14%) Go
9 74 (3.36%) PL/SQL
10 52 (2.36%) T-SQL
11 49 (2.23%) Kotlin
12 43 (1.95%) Apex Code
13 39 (1.77%) Shell Script
14 38 (1.73%) Ruby
15 31 (1.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 31 (1.41%) PowerShell
16 27 (1.23%) VB
17 26 (1.18%) VBA
18 19 (0.86%) C
19 17 (0.77%) Swift
Qualifications
1 392 (17.82%) Security Cleared
2 316 (14.36%) SC Cleared
3 114 (5.18%) Degree
4 48 (2.18%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (1.41%) DV Cleared
6 28 (1.27%) BPSS Clearance
7 22 (1.00%) Master's Degree
8 12 (0.55%) Numerate Degree
9 7 (0.32%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (0.27%) Azure Certification
11 5 (0.23%) AWS Certification
11 5 (0.23%) PhD
12 4 (0.18%) Oracle Certification
13 3 (0.14%) CTC Cleared
14 2 (0.091%) AWS Certified Developer
14 2 (0.091%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 2 (0.091%) OCP
14 2 (0.091%) Postgraduate
15 1 (0.045%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 1 (0.045%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (4.45%) QA
2 78 (3.55%) Accessibility
3 38 (1.73%) 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
1 292 (13.27%) Docker
2 26 (1.18%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.14%) GridGain
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
1 265 (12.05%) Kubernetes
2 82 (3.73%) Terraform
3 31 (1.41%) Ansible
4 26 (1.18%) Grafana
5 17 (0.77%) Prometheus
6 12 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (0.50%) Argo
8 6 (0.27%) TIBCO Hawk
9 5 (0.23%) SCCM
10 3 (0.14%) 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%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 248 (11.27%) Microsoft
2 176 (8.00%) Oracle
3 76 (3.45%) Salesforce
4 66 (3.00%) ServiceNow
5 39 (1.77%) 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 25 (1.14%) MuleSoft
11 20 (0.91%) Guidewire
12 18 (0.82%) Sybase
13 15 (0.68%) Foundry
13 15 (0.68%) Lotus
14 14 (0.64%) Solace
15 13 (0.59%) Pega
15 13 (0.59%) Red Hat
16 12 (0.55%) OpenLink