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 2 March 2026.

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

6 months to
2 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 2,135 2,199 2,989
As % of all contract jobs in London 13.55% 16.59% 16.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 14.64% 17.73% 17.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,493 1,527 2,271
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 £538 £525
% change year-on-year -6.98% +2.38% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 7 15
10th Percentile £34.27 £35.45 £36.33
25th Percentile £35.00 £36.25 £56.25
Median hourly rate £50.50 £39.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +29.49% -37.60% +8.70%
75th Percentile £73.44 £48.50 £72.25
90th Percentile £95.00 £57.75 £73.19
England median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £67.00
% change year-on-year -2.87% -2.99% +11.67%

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 14,583 12,403 17,108
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.53% 93.60% 93.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,778 8,134 12,341
10th Percentile £350 £335 £325
25th Percentile £425 £435 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -5.17%
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 226 142 339
10th Percentile £18.07 £21.21 £15.99
25th Percentile £23.14 £24.66 £19.03
Median hourly rate £35.00 £35.00 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year - +22.81% -18.57%
75th Percentile £60.12 £53.31 £48.03
90th Percentile £76.58 £78.72 £65.15
England median hourly rate £35.00 £35.00 £34.21
% change year-on-year - +2.31% -15.53%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -7 270 £525 -8.70% 171
South London -5 44 £510 -30.85% 29
West London -22 18 £455 +11.12% 30
East London -4 8 £625 +56.25% 24
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 2 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.

1 544 (25.48%) Java
2 523 (24.50%) Python
3 522 (24.45%) Agile
4 510 (23.89%) SQL
5 497 (23.28%) CI/CD
6 462 (21.64%) Azure
7 438 (20.52%) AWS
8 395 (18.50%) JavaScript
9 377 (17.66%) C#
10 364 (17.05%) Security Cleared
11 348 (16.30%) Problem-Solving
12 340 (15.93%) React
13 337 (15.78%) DevOps
14 299 (14.00%) .NET
15 294 (13.77%) SC Cleared
16 288 (13.49%) Full-Stack Development
17 286 (13.40%) Docker
18 283 (13.26%) Microservices
19 270 (12.65%) Kubernetes
20 256 (11.99%) TypeScript
21 237 (11.10%) Microsoft
22 234 (10.96%) REST
23 230 (10.77%) Analytics
24 228 (10.68%) Software Engineering
25 218 (10.21%) Git
26 212 (9.93%) Kafka
27 202 (9.46%) Node.js
28 201 (9.41%) Power Platform
29 196 (9.18%) HTML
30 189 (8.85%) 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 67 (3.14%) SharePoint
2 42 (1.97%) Confluence
3 19 (0.89%) CMS
4 18 (0.84%) IIS
5 15 (0.70%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 14 (0.66%) HCL Notes
7 12 (0.56%) Mendix
8 11 (0.52%) Apache
8 11 (0.52%) Ethereum
8 11 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
9 10 (0.47%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 10 (0.47%) MQSeries
10 8 (0.37%) Headless CMS
10 8 (0.37%) Hyperledger
11 7 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
11 7 (0.33%) Apache Spark
11 7 (0.33%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.28%) JBoss
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
12 6 (0.28%) WebSphere
Applications
1 49 (2.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.47%) 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 (0.047%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 40 (1.87%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.84%) Endur
3 13 (0.61%) Fidessa
4 11 (0.52%) Oracle ERP
5 7 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
6 6 (0.28%) BusinessWorks
6 6 (0.28%) Temenos T24
7 5 (0.23%) BASE24
7 5 (0.23%) Oracle Financials
7 5 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.19%) Oracle 11i
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.14%) ProductWriter
10 2 (0.094%) Adobe Campaign
10 2 (0.094%) Magento
10 2 (0.094%) Oracle Assets
10 2 (0.094%) Oracle Cash Management
10 2 (0.094%) Oracle General Ledger
10 2 (0.094%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 462 (21.64%) Azure
2 438 (20.52%) AWS
3 201 (9.41%) Power Platform
4 163 (7.63%) GitHub
5 133 (6.23%) Azure DevOps
6 114 (5.34%) Serverless
7 112 (5.25%) GCP
8 99 (4.64%) Power Automate
9 90 (4.22%) PowerApps
10 75 (3.51%) Dynamics 365
11 71 (3.33%) GitHub Actions
12 56 (2.62%) AWS Lambda
13 52 (2.44%) Azure Functions
13 52 (2.44%) Azure Logic Apps
14 51 (2.39%) Amazon S3
15 50 (2.34%) Entra ID
16 48 (2.25%) Microsoft 365
17 44 (2.06%) Azure Service Bus
18 36 (1.69%) Azure AKS
18 36 (1.69%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.08%) HTTP
2 12 (0.56%) FIX Connectivity
2 12 (0.56%) Internet
3 8 (0.37%) Network Security
4 7 (0.33%) SSL
4 7 (0.33%) TCP/IP
5 6 (0.28%) HTTPS
6 5 (0.23%) CTI
6 5 (0.23%) Firewall
6 5 (0.23%) SMS
6 5 (0.23%) VoIP
7 4 (0.19%) DNS
8 3 (0.14%) 3GPP
8 3 (0.14%) Multicast
8 3 (0.14%) MVNO
8 3 (0.14%) SMPP
9 2 (0.094%) DHCP
9 2 (0.094%) RTMP
9 2 (0.094%) SSH
10 1 (0.047%) DKIM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 171 (8.01%) SQL Server
2 150 (7.03%) PostgreSQL
3 133 (6.23%) Power BI
4 118 (5.53%) Relational Database
5 83 (3.89%) NoSQL
6 68 (3.19%) Oracle Database
7 64 (3.00%) MongoDB
8 38 (1.78%) Apache Cassandra
8 38 (1.78%) MySQL
9 36 (1.69%) Data Warehouse
10 27 (1.26%) Data Lake
11 25 (1.17%) Amazon RDS
11 25 (1.17%) KDB
11 25 (1.17%) RDBMS
12 24 (1.12%) DB2
12 24 (1.12%) Kdb+
13 23 (1.08%) DynamoDB
14 22 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 19 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
15 19 (0.89%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 218 (10.21%) Git
2 101 (4.73%) JIRA
3 100 (4.68%) Jenkins
4 61 (2.86%) GitLab
5 56 (2.62%) JUnit
6 33 (1.55%) Maven
7 30 (1.41%) Visual Studio
8 22 (1.03%) Gradle
9 21 (0.98%) Mockito
10 18 (0.84%) Bitbucket
11 16 (0.75%) Sonatype Nexus
12 15 (0.70%) webpack
13 14 (0.66%) Cucumber
13 14 (0.66%) SonarQube
14 13 (0.61%) Android Studio
14 13 (0.61%) SpecFlow
15 12 (0.56%) Cypress.io
15 12 (0.56%) Selenium
15 12 (0.56%) TeamCity
16 11 (0.52%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 604 (28.29%) Finance
2 420 (19.67%) Social Skills
3 321 (15.04%) Banking
4 217 (10.16%) Front Office
5 197 (9.23%) Public Sector
6 153 (7.17%) Analytical Skills
7 122 (5.71%) Investment Banking
8 56 (2.62%) Financial Institution
9 20 (0.94%) Documentation Skills
10 19 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 17 (0.80%) Law
11 17 (0.80%) Marketing
12 12 (0.56%) Back Office
13 10 (0.47%) Telecoms
14 9 (0.42%) Local Government
14 9 (0.42%) Presentation Skills
15 8 (0.37%) Billing
15 8 (0.37%) Private Banking
15 8 (0.37%) Retail
16 7 (0.33%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 340 (15.93%) React
2 299 (14.00%) .NET
3 234 (10.96%) REST
4 212 (9.93%) Kafka
5 202 (9.46%) Node.js
6 196 (9.18%) HTML
7 189 (8.85%) RESTful
8 177 (8.29%) AngularJS
9 176 (8.24%) Spring
10 174 (8.15%) CSS
11 132 (6.18%) Spring Boot
12 82 (3.84%) .NET Framework
13 79 (3.70%) Web Services
14 77 (3.61%) SOAP
15 69 (3.23%) JSON
16 67 (3.14%) GraphQL
17 65 (3.04%) Redux
17 65 (3.04%) XML
18 64 (3.00%) Vue
19 49 (2.30%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 122 (5.71%) Equities
2 106 (4.96%) Derivative
3 103 (4.82%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 91 (4.26%) Fixed Income
5 83 (3.89%) Algorithms
6 81 (3.79%) Cloud Native
7 76 (3.56%) Distributed Systems
8 72 (3.37%) Data Structures
9 64 (3.00%) Product Ownership
10 42 (1.97%) Greenfield Project
10 42 (1.97%) Management Information System
10 42 (1.97%) Mobile App
11 40 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
11 40 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
12 37 (1.73%) AI Agents
13 28 (1.31%) Hedge funds
14 27 (1.26%) Equity Derivative
15 26 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
15 26 (1.22%) Low-Code
15 26 (1.22%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 131 (6.14%) Linux
2 69 (3.23%) Windows
3 51 (2.39%) Unix
4 36 (1.69%) Android
5 31 (1.45%) Apple iOS
6 20 (0.94%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.23%) AIX
7 5 (0.23%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (0.19%) zOS
9 3 (0.14%) CentOS
9 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.047%) VMS
10 1 (0.047%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 522 (24.45%) Agile
2 497 (23.28%) CI/CD
3 348 (16.30%) Problem-Solving
4 337 (15.78%) DevOps
5 288 (13.49%) Full-Stack Development
6 283 (13.26%) Microservices
7 230 (10.77%) Analytics
8 228 (10.68%) Software Engineering
9 189 (8.85%) AI
10 188 (8.81%) Business Intelligence
11 177 (8.29%) Containerisation
12 168 (7.87%) Test Automation
13 141 (6.60%) Data Modelling
14 138 (6.46%) TDD
15 132 (6.18%) Front End Development
16 130 (6.09%) Scrum
17 124 (5.81%) Unit Testing
18 119 (5.57%) Design Patterns
19 111 (5.20%) Low Latency
20 105 (4.92%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 544 (25.48%) Java
2 523 (24.50%) Python
3 510 (23.89%) SQL
4 395 (18.50%) JavaScript
5 377 (17.66%) C#
6 256 (11.99%) TypeScript
7 104 (4.87%) C++
8 80 (3.75%) Go
9 78 (3.65%) PL/SQL
10 52 (2.44%) Kotlin
11 50 (2.34%) T-SQL
12 37 (1.73%) Apex Code
13 36 (1.69%) Shell Script
14 35 (1.64%) Ruby
15 33 (1.55%) PowerShell
16 31 (1.45%) VB
17 30 (1.41%) VBA
18 29 (1.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 22 (1.03%) C
20 21 (0.98%) PHP
Qualifications
1 364 (17.05%) Security Cleared
2 294 (13.77%) SC Cleared
3 116 (5.43%) Degree
4 48 (2.25%) Computer Science Degree
5 27 (1.26%) DV Cleared
6 25 (1.17%) BPSS Clearance
7 22 (1.03%) Master's Degree
8 12 (0.56%) Numerate Degree
9 6 (0.28%) AWS Certification
10 5 (0.23%) Azure Certification
10 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Certification
10 5 (0.23%) PhD
11 4 (0.19%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.14%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.14%) CTC Cleared
13 2 (0.094%) AWS Certified Developer
13 2 (0.094%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 2 (0.094%) OCP
13 2 (0.094%) Postgraduate
14 1 (0.047%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (4.54%) QA
2 66 (3.09%) Accessibility
3 34 (1.59%) Data Quality
4 31 (1.45%) WCAG
5 13 (0.61%) GDPR
6 7 (0.33%) ISO 8583
6 7 (0.33%) SLA
7 6 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 5 (0.23%) SEPA
9 4 (0.19%) GRC
9 4 (0.19%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.14%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.14%) PSD2
11 2 (0.094%) HL7
11 2 (0.094%) PMO
12 1 (0.047%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.047%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.047%) MiFID
System Software
1 286 (13.40%) Docker
2 28 (1.31%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.19%) HDFS
4 3 (0.14%) zsh
5 2 (0.094%) GridGain
5 2 (0.094%) OpenAM
5 2 (0.094%) OpenDJ
5 2 (0.094%) OpenIDM
5 2 (0.094%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.094%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.094%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.047%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.047%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 270 (12.65%) Kubernetes
2 82 (3.84%) Terraform
3 32 (1.50%) Ansible
4 24 (1.12%) Grafana
5 18 (0.84%) Prometheus
6 12 (0.56%) Argo
6 12 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (0.33%) Control-M
8 6 (0.28%) TIBCO Hawk
9 5 (0.23%) SCCM
10 3 (0.14%) Podman
11 2 (0.094%) CloudHub
11 2 (0.094%) Docker Swarm
11 2 (0.094%) Kibana
11 2 (0.094%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.094%) rkt
12 1 (0.047%) CA Endevor
12 1 (0.047%) Istio
12 1 (0.047%) Nessus
12 1 (0.047%) Oracle Identity Management
Vendors
1 237 (11.10%) Microsoft
2 180 (8.43%) Oracle
3 64 (3.00%) Salesforce
4 63 (2.95%) ServiceNow
5 36 (1.69%) Databricks
6 35 (1.64%) IBM
7 32 (1.50%) Citrix
7 32 (1.50%) Google
8 31 (1.45%) OpenAI
8 31 (1.45%) SAP
9 26 (1.22%) Adobe
10 21 (0.98%) Guidewire
11 20 (0.94%) MuleSoft
12 17 (0.80%) Red Hat
13 16 (0.75%) Sybase
14 14 (0.66%) Foundry
14 14 (0.66%) Lotus
15 13 (0.61%) Solace
16 11 (0.52%) OpenLink
16 11 (0.52%) VMware