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 7 March 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 5 4
Rank change year-on-year -5 -1 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 2,213 2,257 3,003
As % of all contract jobs in London 13.61% 16.83% 16.31%
As % of the Job Titles category 14.70% 17.97% 17.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,561 1,568 2,288
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% - -8.00%
75th Percentile £650 £713 £750
90th Percentile £800 £850 £850
England median daily rate £500 £537 £525
% change year-on-year -6.89% +2.29% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 8 13
10th Percentile £33.54 £35.53 £33.03
25th Percentile £35.00 £36.50 £56.25
Median hourly rate £46.00 £40.25 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% -32.92% +4.35%
75th Percentile £57.50 £55.25 £72.50
90th Percentile £95.00 £57.13 £73.42
England median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -2.87% +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 15,057 12,561 17,151
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.58% 93.67% 93.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,096 8,303 12,379
10th Percentile £350 £338 £325
25th Percentile £425 £435 £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 231 146 341
10th Percentile £18.07 £21.11 £16.00
25th Percentile £22.71 £24.66 £19.05
Median hourly rate £34.50 £35.00 £29.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.44% +20.69% -17.14%
75th Percentile £59.72 £53.75 £48.56
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.95 £65.00
England median hourly rate £35.71 £36.00 £32.90
% change year-on-year -0.81% +9.44% -20.73%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 -7 280 £525 -8.70% 182
South London -4 46 £513 -30.51% 26
West London -18 19 £455 +11.12% 42
East London -5 6 £625 +56.25% 36
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 7 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.

1 557 (25.17%) Java
2 545 (24.63%) Python
3 541 (24.45%) Agile
4 531 (23.99%) SQL
5 508 (22.96%) CI/CD
6 493 (22.28%) Azure
7 454 (20.52%) AWS
8 412 (18.62%) JavaScript
9 393 (17.76%) C#
10 383 (17.31%) Security Cleared
11 360 (16.27%) React
12 354 (16.00%) DevOps
13 351 (15.86%) Problem-Solving
14 313 (14.14%) .NET
15 308 (13.92%) SC Cleared
16 294 (13.29%) Docker
17 292 (13.19%) Full-Stack Development
18 289 (13.06%) Microservices
19 278 (12.56%) Kubernetes
20 273 (12.34%) TypeScript
21 251 (11.34%) Microsoft
22 239 (10.80%) Software Engineering
23 237 (10.71%) REST
24 236 (10.66%) Analytics
25 222 (10.03%) Git
25 222 (10.03%) Kafka
26 219 (9.90%) Node.js
27 214 (9.67%) Power Platform
28 199 (8.99%) HTML
29 196 (8.86%) AI

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 71 (3.21%) SharePoint
2 40 (1.81%) Confluence
3 19 (0.86%) CMS
4 18 (0.81%) IIS
5 16 (0.72%) Microsoft Exchange
6 15 (0.68%) HCL Notes
6 15 (0.68%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 13 (0.59%) Mendix
8 11 (0.50%) Apache
8 11 (0.50%) Ethereum
9 10 (0.45%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 10 (0.45%) MQSeries
10 9 (0.41%) Headless CMS
11 8 (0.36%) Apache Spark
11 8 (0.36%) Hyperledger
12 7 (0.32%) JBoss
12 7 (0.32%) WebLogic
13 6 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
13 6 (0.27%) Camunda
13 6 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 49 (2.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (0.41%) 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 (2.03%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.81%) Endur
3 13 (0.59%) Fidessa
4 11 (0.50%) Oracle ERP
5 7 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
6 6 (0.27%) BusinessWorks
6 6 (0.27%) Temenos T24
7 5 (0.23%) BASE24
7 5 (0.23%) Oracle Financials
7 5 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle 11i
8 4 (0.18%) ProductWriter
9 3 (0.14%) Aladdin
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
10 2 (0.090%) Adobe Campaign
10 2 (0.090%) Magento
10 2 (0.090%) Oracle General Ledger
10 2 (0.090%) Oracle Receivables
10 2 (0.090%) Orchestrade
Cloud Services
1 493 (22.28%) Azure
2 454 (20.52%) AWS
3 214 (9.67%) Power Platform
4 166 (7.50%) GitHub
5 145 (6.55%) Azure DevOps
6 120 (5.42%) Serverless
7 118 (5.33%) GCP
8 111 (5.02%) Power Automate
9 99 (4.47%) PowerApps
10 83 (3.75%) Dynamics 365
11 75 (3.39%) GitHub Actions
12 57 (2.58%) Azure Functions
13 56 (2.53%) AWS Lambda
14 55 (2.49%) Azure Logic Apps
14 55 (2.49%) Microsoft 365
15 53 (2.39%) Amazon S3
15 53 (2.39%) Entra ID
16 49 (2.21%) Azure Service Bus
17 38 (1.72%) Azure AKS
18 37 (1.67%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.04%) HTTP
2 13 (0.59%) FIX Connectivity
3 12 (0.54%) Internet
4 8 (0.36%) Network Security
5 7 (0.32%) SSL
5 7 (0.32%) TCP/IP
6 6 (0.27%) HTTPS
7 5 (0.23%) CTI
7 5 (0.23%) Firewall
7 5 (0.23%) SMS
7 5 (0.23%) VoIP
8 4 (0.18%) DNS
9 3 (0.14%) 3GPP
9 3 (0.14%) Multicast
9 3 (0.14%) MVNO
9 3 (0.14%) SMPP
10 2 (0.090%) DHCP
10 2 (0.090%) RTMP
10 2 (0.090%) SSH
11 1 (0.045%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 174 (7.86%) SQL Server
2 153 (6.91%) PostgreSQL
3 138 (6.24%) Power BI
4 119 (5.38%) Relational Database
5 89 (4.02%) NoSQL
6 72 (3.25%) Oracle Database
7 66 (2.98%) MongoDB
8 40 (1.81%) Apache Cassandra
9 38 (1.72%) Data Warehouse
10 36 (1.63%) MySQL
11 26 (1.17%) Data Lake
12 25 (1.13%) KDB
12 25 (1.13%) RDBMS
13 24 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
13 24 (1.08%) DB2
13 24 (1.08%) Kdb+
14 23 (1.04%) DynamoDB
15 21 (0.95%) Azure SQL Database
15 21 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 20 (0.90%) Redis
Development Applications
1 222 (10.03%) Git
2 103 (4.65%) Jenkins
3 100 (4.52%) JIRA
4 65 (2.94%) GitLab
5 57 (2.58%) JUnit
6 30 (1.36%) Maven
6 30 (1.36%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.99%) Mockito
8 21 (0.95%) Gradle
9 19 (0.86%) Bitbucket
10 16 (0.72%) TeamCity
11 15 (0.68%) Cucumber
11 15 (0.68%) webpack
12 14 (0.63%) SonarQube
12 14 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
13 13 (0.59%) Android Studio
13 13 (0.59%) Cypress.io
13 13 (0.59%) Selenium
14 12 (0.54%) Octopus Deploy
15 11 (0.50%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 626 (28.29%) Finance
2 430 (19.43%) Social Skills
3 326 (14.73%) Banking
4 232 (10.48%) Front Office
5 213 (9.62%) Public Sector
6 159 (7.18%) Analytical Skills
7 126 (5.69%) Investment Banking
8 55 (2.49%) Financial Institution
9 20 (0.90%) Documentation Skills
10 19 (0.86%) Marketing
11 18 (0.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 17 (0.77%) Law
13 12 (0.54%) Back Office
14 11 (0.50%) Local Government
14 11 (0.50%) Telecoms
15 9 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
16 8 (0.36%) Billing
16 8 (0.36%) Private Banking
16 8 (0.36%) Retail
17 7 (0.32%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 360 (16.27%) React
2 313 (14.14%) .NET
3 237 (10.71%) REST
4 222 (10.03%) Kafka
5 219 (9.90%) Node.js
6 199 (8.99%) HTML
7 194 (8.77%) RESTful
8 179 (8.09%) Spring
9 178 (8.04%) AngularJS
10 175 (7.91%) CSS
11 132 (5.96%) Spring Boot
12 85 (3.84%) Web Services
13 84 (3.80%) .NET Framework
14 80 (3.62%) SOAP
15 79 (3.57%) Redux
16 76 (3.43%) GraphQL
17 69 (3.12%) JSON
18 68 (3.07%) Vue
19 64 (2.89%) XML
20 50 (2.26%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 128 (5.78%) Equities
2 115 (5.20%) Derivative
3 102 (4.61%) Fixed Income
4 101 (4.56%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 86 (3.89%) Algorithms
6 84 (3.80%) Cloud Native
7 77 (3.48%) Distributed Systems
8 75 (3.39%) Data Structures
9 63 (2.85%) Product Ownership
10 44 (1.99%) Greenfield Project
11 42 (1.90%) Mobile App
12 39 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
12 39 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
12 39 (1.76%) Management Information System
13 37 (1.67%) AI Agents
14 30 (1.36%) Hedge funds
14 30 (1.36%) Low-Code
15 28 (1.27%) Equity Derivative
16 27 (1.22%) Market Risk
17 26 (1.17%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 128 (5.78%) Linux
2 71 (3.21%) Windows
3 49 (2.21%) Unix
4 35 (1.58%) Android
5 31 (1.40%) Apple iOS
6 22 (0.99%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.23%) AIX
7 5 (0.23%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (0.18%) zOS
9 3 (0.14%) CentOS
9 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.045%) VMS
10 1 (0.045%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 541 (24.45%) Agile
2 508 (22.96%) CI/CD
3 354 (16.00%) DevOps
4 351 (15.86%) Problem-Solving
5 292 (13.19%) Full-Stack Development
6 289 (13.06%) Microservices
7 239 (10.80%) Software Engineering
8 236 (10.66%) Analytics
9 196 (8.86%) AI
10 194 (8.77%) Business Intelligence
11 182 (8.22%) Containerisation
12 171 (7.73%) Test Automation
13 149 (6.73%) Data Modelling
14 141 (6.37%) TDD
15 133 (6.01%) Front End Development
16 132 (5.96%) Scrum
17 128 (5.78%) Unit Testing
18 121 (5.47%) Design Patterns
19 111 (5.02%) Low Latency
20 108 (4.88%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 557 (25.17%) Java
2 545 (24.63%) Python
3 531 (23.99%) SQL
4 412 (18.62%) JavaScript
5 393 (17.76%) C#
6 273 (12.34%) TypeScript
7 103 (4.65%) C++
8 90 (4.07%) Go
9 81 (3.66%) PL/SQL
10 54 (2.44%) T-SQL
11 51 (2.30%) Kotlin
12 41 (1.85%) Apex Code
13 36 (1.63%) PowerShell
14 35 (1.58%) Ruby
15 34 (1.54%) Shell Script
16 32 (1.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 30 (1.36%) VB
18 29 (1.31%) VBA
19 23 (1.04%) C
20 20 (0.90%) PHP
Qualifications
1 383 (17.31%) Security Cleared
2 308 (13.92%) SC Cleared
3 116 (5.24%) Degree
4 51 (2.30%) Computer Science Degree
5 29 (1.31%) DV Cleared
6 25 (1.13%) BPSS Clearance
7 24 (1.08%) Master's Degree
8 12 (0.54%) Numerate Degree
9 6 (0.27%) AWS Certification
9 6 (0.27%) Microsoft Certification
10 5 (0.23%) Azure Certification
10 5 (0.23%) PhD
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.14%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.14%) CTC Cleared
13 2 (0.090%) AWS Certified Developer
13 2 (0.090%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 2 (0.090%) OCP
13 2 (0.090%) Postgraduate
14 1 (0.045%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 99 (4.47%) QA
2 74 (3.34%) Accessibility
3 35 (1.58%) WCAG
4 34 (1.54%) Data Quality
5 14 (0.63%) GDPR
6 7 (0.32%) ISO 8583
6 7 (0.32%) SLA
7 6 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 5 (0.23%) SEPA
9 4 (0.18%) GRC
9 4 (0.18%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.14%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.14%) PSD2
11 2 (0.090%) HL7
11 2 (0.090%) PMO
12 1 (0.045%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.045%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.045%) MiFID
System Software
1 294 (13.29%) Docker
2 29 (1.31%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.18%) HDFS
4 2 (0.090%) OpenAM
4 2 (0.090%) OpenDJ
4 2 (0.090%) OpenIDM
4 2 (0.090%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.090%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (0.090%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.090%) zsh
5 1 (0.045%) FreeRADIUS
5 1 (0.045%) Oracle RAC
5 1 (0.045%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 278 (12.56%) Kubernetes
2 83 (3.75%) Terraform
3 34 (1.54%) Ansible
4 25 (1.13%) Grafana
5 19 (0.86%) Prometheus
6 12 (0.54%) Argo
6 12 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (0.32%) Control-M
8 6 (0.27%) TIBCO Hawk
9 5 (0.23%) SCCM
10 3 (0.14%) Podman
11 2 (0.090%) CloudHub
11 2 (0.090%) Docker Swarm
11 2 (0.090%) Kibana
11 2 (0.090%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.090%) rkt
12 1 (0.045%) IBM Guardium
12 1 (0.045%) Istio
12 1 (0.045%) Nessus
12 1 (0.045%) Oracle Identity Management
Vendors
1 251 (11.34%) Microsoft
2 181 (8.18%) Oracle
3 70 (3.16%) Salesforce
4 64 (2.89%) ServiceNow
5 36 (1.63%) Databricks
6 35 (1.58%) Citrix
6 35 (1.58%) IBM
7 32 (1.45%) OpenAI
7 32 (1.45%) SAP
8 31 (1.40%) Google
9 26 (1.17%) Adobe
10 21 (0.95%) Guidewire
10 21 (0.95%) MuleSoft
11 17 (0.77%) Red Hat
12 16 (0.72%) Sybase
13 15 (0.68%) Lotus
14 14 (0.63%) Foundry
15 11 (0.50%) OpenLink
15 11 (0.50%) Pega
15 11 (0.50%) VMware