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 24 December 2025.

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

6 months to
24 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 10 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 -2
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 2,005 2,537 3,005
As % of all contract jobs in London 13.92% 16.91% 16.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 15.08% 18.09% 17.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,392 1,726 2,311
10th Percentile £375 £375 £400
25th Percentile £425 £450 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £568 £600
Median % change year-on-year -7.49% -5.42% -4.00%
75th Percentile £675 £700 £750
90th Percentile £800 £850 £850
England median daily rate £500 £535 £550
% change year-on-year -6.54% -2.73% -6.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 8 14
10th Percentile £42.34 £35.53 £34.68
25th Percentile £52.50 £36.50 £56.25
Median hourly rate £57.50 £40.25 £64.55
Median % change year-on-year +42.86% -37.65% +12.26%
75th Percentile £78.75 £80.50 £73.36
90th Percentile £79.80 £137.50 £74.63
England median hourly rate £57.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -11.54% - +6.12%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 13,298 14,027 17,250
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 93.50% 93.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,806 9,073 12,454
10th Percentile £344 £338 £325
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £534 £550 £560
Median % change year-on-year -2.95% -1.79% -3.45%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £760 £800 £788
England median daily rate £510 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -2.86% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 154 210
10th Percentile £17.50 £18.65 £17.23
25th Percentile £22.00 £23.80 £21.56
Median hourly rate £28.13 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.64% - -
75th Percentile £57.00 £54.69 £58.75
90th Percentile £76.58 £80.75 £72.50
England median hourly rate £26.40 £35.00 £45.21
% change year-on-year -24.57% -22.58% +39.02%

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 24 December 2025.

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 24 December 2025.

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 24 December 2025. 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 -5 262 £534 -8.76% 229
South London -19 21 £510 -30.81% 23
West London -23 19 £428 +4.52% 34
East London +3 14 £625 +56.25% 23
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 24 December 2025, 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.

1 557 (27.78%) Agile
2 546 (27.23%) SQL
3 529 (26.38%) Java
4 491 (24.49%) Python
5 476 (23.74%) CI/CD
6 437 (21.80%) Azure
7 425 (21.20%) AWS
8 407 (20.30%) Problem-Solving
9 386 (19.25%) C#
10 373 (18.60%) JavaScript
11 343 (17.11%) DevOps
12 304 (15.16%) Microservices
13 299 (14.91%) .NET
14 297 (14.81%) React
15 295 (14.71%) Security Cleared
16 278 (13.87%) Docker
17 275 (13.72%) Kubernetes
18 273 (13.62%) Full-Stack Development
19 247 (12.32%) Microsoft
20 245 (12.22%) REST
21 241 (12.02%) SC Cleared
22 240 (11.97%) Git
23 229 (11.42%) Analytics
24 226 (11.27%) TypeScript
25 216 (10.77%) Software Engineering
26 203 (10.12%) Kafka
27 201 (10.02%) Power Platform
28 186 (9.28%) RESTful
29 178 (8.88%) Oracle
30 176 (8.78%) SQL Server

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 63 (3.14%) SharePoint
2 37 (1.85%) Confluence
3 22 (1.10%) CMS
4 19 (0.95%) HCL Notes
5 16 (0.80%) IIS
6 15 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
7 14 (0.70%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 12 (0.60%) Oracle Workflow
9 11 (0.55%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 10 (0.50%) MQSeries
11 9 (0.45%) Apache Spark
12 8 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
13 7 (0.35%) Apache
13 7 (0.35%) Mendix
14 6 (0.30%) Headless CMS
14 6 (0.30%) Tomcat
14 6 (0.30%) WebLogic
14 6 (0.30%) WebSphere
15 5 (0.25%) Anypoint
15 5 (0.25%) Ethereum
Applications
1 68 (3.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.50%) Chatbot
3 7 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.30%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.20%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.050%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.050%) Oracle Smart View
6 1 (0.050%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.050%) Trello
Business Applications
1 28 (1.40%) Dynamics CRM
2 16 (0.80%) Endur
3 15 (0.75%) Oracle EBS
4 11 (0.55%) Oracle Payables
5 10 (0.50%) Fidessa
5 10 (0.50%) Oracle Assets
5 10 (0.50%) Oracle EBS R12
5 10 (0.50%) Oracle ERP
6 9 (0.45%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.40%) Oracle Financials
8 7 (0.35%) Magento
9 6 (0.30%) BusinessWorks
10 5 (0.25%) Aladdin
11 4 (0.20%) Oracle 11i
11 4 (0.20%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 4 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
11 4 (0.20%) ProductWriter
12 3 (0.15%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 3 (0.15%) Shopify
12 3 (0.15%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 437 (21.80%) Azure
2 425 (21.20%) AWS
3 201 (10.02%) Power Platform
4 145 (7.23%) GitHub
5 136 (6.78%) Azure DevOps
6 114 (5.69%) Serverless
7 109 (5.44%) GCP
8 99 (4.94%) Power Automate
9 96 (4.79%) PowerApps
10 70 (3.49%) GitHub Actions
11 60 (2.99%) Azure Functions
12 59 (2.94%) Azure Logic Apps
12 59 (2.94%) Dynamics 365
13 53 (2.64%) Microsoft 365
14 48 (2.39%) AWS Lambda
15 42 (2.09%) Entra ID
16 41 (2.04%) Amazon S3
17 40 (2.00%) Azure Service Bus
18 39 (1.95%) Azure Monitor
19 37 (1.85%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (0.95%) HTTP
2 13 (0.65%) SSL
3 11 (0.55%) HTTPS
4 10 (0.50%) Internet
5 8 (0.40%) TCP/IP
6 7 (0.35%) Multicast
7 6 (0.30%) Firewall
7 6 (0.30%) Network Security
8 5 (0.25%) CTI
8 5 (0.25%) FIX Connectivity
8 5 (0.25%) VoIP
9 4 (0.20%) DNS
10 3 (0.15%) SMS
10 3 (0.15%) VPN
11 2 (0.100%) DHCP
11 2 (0.100%) SSH
11 2 (0.100%) tcpdump
12 1 (0.050%) 3GPP
12 1 (0.050%) MQTT
12 1 (0.050%) MVNO
Database & Business Intelligence
1 176 (8.78%) SQL Server
2 145 (7.23%) PostgreSQL
3 125 (6.23%) Power BI
4 123 (6.13%) Relational Database
5 87 (4.34%) NoSQL
6 70 (3.49%) MongoDB
7 68 (3.39%) Oracle Database
8 38 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
9 37 (1.85%) Apache Cassandra
10 33 (1.65%) MySQL
11 29 (1.45%) DB2
12 27 (1.35%) RDBMS
13 26 (1.30%) KDB
14 25 (1.25%) Oracle Reports
15 24 (1.20%) Data Lake
15 24 (1.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 23 (1.15%) Azure SQL Database
16 23 (1.15%) Kdb+
17 21 (1.05%) Power Query
18 20 (1.00%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 240 (11.97%) Git
2 96 (4.79%) JIRA
3 87 (4.34%) Jenkins
4 57 (2.84%) GitLab
5 55 (2.74%) JUnit
6 32 (1.60%) Maven
7 23 (1.15%) Bitbucket
7 23 (1.15%) Visual Studio
8 21 (1.05%) Gradle
9 20 (1.00%) Mockito
10 16 (0.80%) Cucumber
10 16 (0.80%) Selenium
11 15 (0.75%) SpecFlow
11 15 (0.75%) TeamCity
11 15 (0.75%) webpack
12 13 (0.65%) Sonatype Nexus
13 12 (0.60%) Cypress.io
13 12 (0.60%) Xcode
14 10 (0.50%) Octopus Deploy
14 10 (0.50%) Oracle Forms
General
1 623 (31.07%) Finance
2 468 (23.34%) Social Skills
3 342 (17.06%) Banking
4 193 (9.63%) Front Office
5 166 (8.28%) Public Sector
6 165 (8.23%) Analytical Skills
7 136 (6.78%) Investment Banking
8 54 (2.69%) Financial Institution
9 26 (1.30%) Marketing
10 19 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 18 (0.90%) Documentation Skills
12 17 (0.85%) Law
13 16 (0.80%) Back Office
14 12 (0.60%) General Ledger
15 10 (0.50%) Retail
16 8 (0.40%) Military
16 8 (0.40%) Private Banking
16 8 (0.40%) Telecoms
17 7 (0.35%) Automotive
17 7 (0.35%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 299 (14.91%) .NET
2 297 (14.81%) React
3 245 (12.22%) REST
4 203 (10.12%) Kafka
5 186 (9.28%) RESTful
6 174 (8.68%) Node.js
7 171 (8.53%) HTML
8 166 (8.28%) AngularJS
9 165 (8.23%) CSS
10 162 (8.08%) Spring
11 128 (6.38%) Spring Boot
12 90 (4.49%) JSON
13 87 (4.34%) SOAP
14 74 (3.69%) .NET Framework
14 74 (3.69%) XML
15 73 (3.64%) Web Services
16 72 (3.59%) Vue
17 62 (3.09%) GraphQL
18 55 (2.74%) NumPy
19 54 (2.69%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 120 (5.99%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 101 (5.04%) Equities
3 98 (4.89%) Cloud Native
4 94 (4.69%) Derivative
5 86 (4.29%) Distributed Systems
6 79 (3.94%) Algorithms
7 76 (3.79%) Fixed Income
8 73 (3.64%) Data Structures
9 60 (2.99%) Product Ownership
10 50 (2.49%) Data Protection Act
11 44 (2.19%) Greenfield Project
11 44 (2.19%) Hedge funds
12 41 (2.04%) Mobile App
13 38 (1.90%) Management Information System
14 32 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
15 29 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
16 28 (1.40%) Onboarding
17 27 (1.35%) Low-Code
18 26 (1.30%) Market Risk
19 23 (1.15%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 160 (7.98%) Linux
2 70 (3.49%) Windows
3 58 (2.89%) Unix
4 41 (2.04%) Android
5 35 (1.75%) Apple iOS
6 15 (0.75%) Windows Server
7 7 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 6 (0.30%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.25%) AIX
10 4 (0.20%) CentOS
11 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.050%) tvOS
12 1 (0.050%) VMS
12 1 (0.050%) watchOS
12 1 (0.050%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 557 (27.78%) Agile
2 476 (23.74%) CI/CD
3 407 (20.30%) Problem-Solving
4 343 (17.11%) DevOps
5 304 (15.16%) Microservices
6 273 (13.62%) Full-Stack Development
7 229 (11.42%) Analytics
8 216 (10.77%) Software Engineering
9 172 (8.58%) Business Intelligence
10 164 (8.18%) Test Automation
11 161 (8.03%) Scrum
12 156 (7.78%) Containerisation
13 131 (6.53%) AI
14 127 (6.33%) TDD
15 124 (6.18%) Front End Development
16 123 (6.13%) Clean Code
17 122 (6.08%) Computer Science
18 107 (5.34%) Design Patterns
18 107 (5.34%) SDLC
18 107 (5.34%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 546 (27.23%) SQL
2 529 (26.38%) Java
3 491 (24.49%) Python
4 386 (19.25%) C#
5 373 (18.60%) JavaScript
6 226 (11.27%) TypeScript
7 121 (6.03%) C++
8 86 (4.29%) PL/SQL
9 70 (3.49%) Go
10 58 (2.89%) Kotlin
11 50 (2.49%) T-SQL
12 46 (2.29%) VBA
13 41 (2.04%) Apex Code
14 40 (2.00%) VB
15 33 (1.65%) PowerShell
15 33 (1.65%) Ruby
15 33 (1.65%) Shell Script
16 26 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 26 (1.30%) PHP
17 22 (1.10%) Swift
Qualifications
1 295 (14.71%) Security Cleared
2 241 (12.02%) SC Cleared
3 129 (6.43%) Degree
4 68 (3.39%) Computer Science Degree
5 28 (1.40%) Master's Degree
6 19 (0.95%) BPSS Clearance
7 18 (0.90%) DV Cleared
8 14 (0.70%) Numerate Degree
9 9 (0.45%) AWS Certification
10 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Certification
10 5 (0.25%) Oracle Certification
10 5 (0.25%) PhD
11 4 (0.20%) AWS Certified Developer
11 4 (0.20%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 4 (0.20%) MCP
12 3 (0.15%) Azure Certification
12 3 (0.15%) OCP
13 2 (0.100%) Tableau Certification
14 1 (0.050%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 1 (0.050%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (4.14%) QA
2 57 (2.84%) Accessibility
3 35 (1.75%) Data Quality
4 24 (1.20%) WCAG
5 9 (0.45%) GDPR
6 6 (0.30%) SLA
7 4 (0.20%) EMIR
7 4 (0.20%) MiFID
7 4 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.15%) HL7
8 3 (0.15%) ISO 8583
8 3 (0.15%) SEPA
9 2 (0.100%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.100%) GRC
9 2 (0.100%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.100%) PMO
10 1 (0.050%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.050%) ISO 20022
10 1 (0.050%) PSD2
System Software
1 278 (13.87%) Docker
2 28 (1.40%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.40%) zsh
4 5 (0.25%) HDFS
5 4 (0.20%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.100%) GridGain
7 2 (0.100%) OpenAM
7 2 (0.100%) OpenDJ
7 2 (0.100%) OpenIDM
7 2 (0.100%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.050%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 275 (13.72%) Kubernetes
2 86 (4.29%) Terraform
3 29 (1.45%) Ansible
4 19 (0.95%) Prometheus
5 18 (0.90%) Grafana
6 12 (0.60%) Control-M
6 12 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
7 10 (0.50%) Argo
8 6 (0.30%) TIBCO Hawk
9 5 (0.25%) vCenter Server
10 4 (0.20%) Kibana
11 3 (0.15%) Podman
12 2 (0.100%) CloudHub
12 2 (0.100%) Docker Swarm
12 2 (0.100%) Istio
12 2 (0.100%) ITRS Geneos
12 2 (0.100%) Progress Chef
12 2 (0.100%) Puppet
12 2 (0.100%) rkt
13 1 (0.050%) Oracle Identity Management
Vendors
1 247 (12.32%) Microsoft
2 178 (8.88%) Oracle
3 69 (3.44%) Salesforce
4 50 (2.49%) ServiceNow
5 44 (2.19%) Google
6 42 (2.09%) Databricks
7 37 (1.85%) IBM
8 26 (1.30%) SAP
9 24 (1.20%) Citrix
9 24 (1.20%) OpenAI
10 23 (1.15%) MuleSoft
11 22 (1.10%) Adobe
12 20 (1.00%) Red Hat
12 20 (1.00%) Sybase
13 19 (0.95%) Lotus
14 16 (0.80%) Solace
15 13 (0.65%) OpenLink
16 12 (0.60%) Bloomberg
16 12 (0.60%) VMware
16 12 (0.60%) webMethods