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 21 December 2025.

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

6 months to
21 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 1,979 2,541 3,063
As % of all contract jobs in London 13.83% 16.93% 16.33%
As % of the Job Titles category 14.98% 18.11% 17.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,375 1,732 2,359
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 £804 £850 £850
England median daily rate £500 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -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 £55.00 £65.00 £63.50
% change year-on-year -15.38% +2.36% +5.83%

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 13,213 14,032 17,548
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 93.52% 93.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,756 9,076 12,684
10th Percentile £344 £338 £325
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £550 £563
Median % change year-on-year -3.64% -2.22% -3.02%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £680
90th Percentile £757 £800 £788
England median daily rate £510 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -2.86% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 154 209
10th Percentile £17.50 £18.65 £17.20
25th Percentile £22.00 £23.80 £21.50
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 £26.30 £35.00 £45.21
% change year-on-year -24.86% -22.58% +39.11%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -6 260 £538 -8.12% 138
South London -17 21 £510 -30.81% 13
West London -23 20 £400 -2.20% 31
East London +2 14 £625 +56.25% 21
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 21 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.

1 547 (27.64%) Agile
2 543 (27.44%) SQL
3 527 (26.63%) Java
4 485 (24.51%) Python
5 473 (23.90%) CI/CD
6 434 (21.93%) Azure
7 421 (21.27%) AWS
8 402 (20.31%) Problem-Solving
9 379 (19.15%) C#
10 365 (18.44%) JavaScript
11 342 (17.28%) DevOps
12 305 (15.41%) Microservices
13 296 (14.96%) .NET
14 292 (14.75%) React
15 288 (14.55%) Security Cleared
16 274 (13.85%) Docker
17 272 (13.74%) Kubernetes
18 267 (13.49%) Full-Stack Development
19 245 (12.38%) Microsoft
20 238 (12.03%) Git
20 238 (12.03%) REST
21 234 (11.82%) SC Cleared
22 225 (11.37%) TypeScript
23 224 (11.32%) Analytics
24 213 (10.76%) Software Engineering
25 201 (10.16%) Kafka
26 199 (10.06%) Power Platform
27 185 (9.35%) RESTful
28 175 (8.84%) Oracle
28 175 (8.84%) 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 (3.18%) SharePoint
2 37 (1.87%) Confluence
3 22 (1.11%) CMS
4 19 (0.96%) HCL Notes
5 16 (0.81%) IIS
6 15 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
7 13 (0.66%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 12 (0.61%) Oracle Workflow
9 11 (0.56%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 10 (0.51%) 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
15 5 (0.25%) Anypoint
15 5 (0.25%) WebLogic
15 5 (0.25%) WebSphere
16 4 (0.20%) Ethereum
Applications
1 68 (3.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.51%) Chatbot
3 7 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.30%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.20%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.051%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.051%) Oracle Smart View
6 1 (0.051%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.051%) Trello
Business Applications
1 28 (1.41%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.76%) Endur
2 15 (0.76%) Oracle EBS
3 11 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
4 10 (0.51%) Fidessa
4 10 (0.51%) Oracle Assets
4 10 (0.51%) Oracle EBS R12
4 10 (0.51%) Oracle ERP
5 9 (0.45%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.40%) Magento
6 8 (0.40%) Oracle Financials
7 5 (0.25%) Aladdin
7 5 (0.25%) BusinessWorks
8 4 (0.20%) Oracle 11i
8 4 (0.20%) Oracle E-Business Tax
8 4 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.20%) ProductWriter
9 3 (0.15%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 3 (0.15%) Shopify
9 3 (0.15%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 434 (21.93%) Azure
2 421 (21.27%) AWS
3 199 (10.06%) Power Platform
4 145 (7.33%) GitHub
5 136 (6.87%) Azure DevOps
6 112 (5.66%) Serverless
7 111 (5.61%) GCP
8 98 (4.95%) Power Automate
9 96 (4.85%) PowerApps
10 70 (3.54%) GitHub Actions
11 60 (3.03%) Azure Functions
12 58 (2.93%) Azure Logic Apps
12 58 (2.93%) Dynamics 365
13 52 (2.63%) Microsoft 365
14 46 (2.32%) AWS Lambda
15 42 (2.12%) Entra ID
16 39 (1.97%) Amazon S3
16 39 (1.97%) Azure Service Bus
17 38 (1.92%) Azure Monitor
18 37 (1.87%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (0.96%) HTTP
2 13 (0.66%) SSL
3 11 (0.56%) HTTPS
4 10 (0.51%) Internet
5 8 (0.40%) TCP/IP
6 7 (0.35%) Multicast
7 6 (0.30%) Firewall
8 5 (0.25%) CTI
8 5 (0.25%) FIX Connectivity
8 5 (0.25%) Network Security
8 5 (0.25%) VoIP
9 4 (0.20%) DNS
10 3 (0.15%) VPN
11 2 (0.10%) DHCP
11 2 (0.10%) SMS
11 2 (0.10%) SSH
11 2 (0.10%) tcpdump
12 1 (0.051%) 5G
12 1 (0.051%) Intranet
12 1 (0.051%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 175 (8.84%) SQL Server
2 144 (7.28%) PostgreSQL
3 123 (6.22%) Power BI
4 121 (6.11%) Relational Database
5 86 (4.35%) NoSQL
6 68 (3.44%) MongoDB
6 68 (3.44%) Oracle Database
7 38 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
8 36 (1.82%) Apache Cassandra
9 32 (1.62%) MySQL
10 28 (1.41%) DB2
11 27 (1.36%) RDBMS
12 26 (1.31%) KDB
13 25 (1.26%) Oracle Reports
14 24 (1.21%) Data Lake
15 23 (1.16%) Azure SQL Database
15 23 (1.16%) Kdb+
15 23 (1.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 21 (1.06%) Power Query
17 20 (1.01%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 238 (12.03%) Git
2 96 (4.85%) JIRA
3 87 (4.40%) Jenkins
4 57 (2.88%) GitLab
5 55 (2.78%) JUnit
6 32 (1.62%) Maven
7 23 (1.16%) Bitbucket
7 23 (1.16%) Gradle
8 22 (1.11%) Visual Studio
9 20 (1.01%) Mockito
10 16 (0.81%) SpecFlow
11 15 (0.76%) Cucumber
11 15 (0.76%) Selenium
11 15 (0.76%) TeamCity
11 15 (0.76%) webpack
12 13 (0.66%) Sonatype Nexus
13 12 (0.61%) Cypress.io
13 12 (0.61%) Xcode
14 10 (0.51%) Android Studio
14 10 (0.51%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 616 (31.13%) Finance
2 464 (23.45%) Social Skills
3 341 (17.23%) Banking
4 193 (9.75%) Front Office
5 164 (8.29%) Analytical Skills
6 159 (8.03%) Public Sector
7 135 (6.82%) Investment Banking
8 54 (2.73%) Financial Institution
9 26 (1.31%) Marketing
10 21 (1.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 17 (0.86%) Documentation Skills
12 16 (0.81%) Back Office
12 16 (0.81%) Law
13 12 (0.61%) General Ledger
14 10 (0.51%) Retail
15 8 (0.40%) Military
15 8 (0.40%) Private Banking
16 7 (0.35%) Pharmaceutical
16 7 (0.35%) Publishing
16 7 (0.35%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 296 (14.96%) .NET
2 292 (14.75%) React
3 238 (12.03%) REST
4 201 (10.16%) Kafka
5 185 (9.35%) RESTful
6 171 (8.64%) Node.js
7 166 (8.39%) HTML
8 161 (8.14%) AngularJS
9 160 (8.08%) CSS
9 160 (8.08%) Spring
10 126 (6.37%) Spring Boot
11 87 (4.40%) JSON
12 84 (4.24%) SOAP
13 74 (3.74%) .NET Framework
14 72 (3.64%) XML
15 71 (3.59%) Vue
16 68 (3.44%) Web Services
17 62 (3.13%) GraphQL
18 55 (2.78%) NumPy
19 54 (2.73%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 121 (6.11%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 100 (5.05%) Equities
3 96 (4.85%) Cloud Native
4 95 (4.80%) Derivative
5 86 (4.35%) Distributed Systems
6 79 (3.99%) Algorithms
7 75 (3.79%) Fixed Income
8 74 (3.74%) Data Structures
9 60 (3.03%) Product Ownership
10 48 (2.43%) Data Protection Act
11 44 (2.22%) Greenfield Project
11 44 (2.22%) Hedge funds
12 42 (2.12%) Mobile App
13 38 (1.92%) Management Information System
14 32 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
15 28 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
16 27 (1.36%) Low-Code
16 27 (1.36%) Onboarding
17 26 (1.31%) Market Risk
18 23 (1.16%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 161 (8.14%) Linux
2 69 (3.49%) Windows
3 60 (3.03%) Unix
4 41 (2.07%) Android
5 35 (1.77%) Apple iOS
6 14 (0.71%) 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 (0.051%) tvOS
12 1 (0.051%) VMS
12 1 (0.051%) watchOS
12 1 (0.051%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 547 (27.64%) Agile
2 473 (23.90%) CI/CD
3 402 (20.31%) Problem-Solving
4 342 (17.28%) DevOps
5 305 (15.41%) Microservices
6 267 (13.49%) Full-Stack Development
7 224 (11.32%) Analytics
8 213 (10.76%) Software Engineering
9 169 (8.54%) Business Intelligence
10 162 (8.19%) Test Automation
11 161 (8.14%) Scrum
12 151 (7.63%) Containerisation
13 128 (6.47%) AI
14 126 (6.37%) TDD
15 124 (6.27%) Clean Code
16 123 (6.22%) Computer Science
16 123 (6.22%) Front End Development
17 107 (5.41%) Low Latency
18 105 (5.31%) SDLC
18 105 (5.31%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 543 (27.44%) SQL
2 527 (26.63%) Java
3 485 (24.51%) Python
4 379 (19.15%) C#
5 365 (18.44%) JavaScript
6 225 (11.37%) TypeScript
7 120 (6.06%) C++
8 86 (4.35%) PL/SQL
9 69 (3.49%) Go
10 58 (2.93%) Kotlin
11 49 (2.48%) T-SQL
12 46 (2.32%) VBA
13 40 (2.02%) VB
14 39 (1.97%) Apex Code
15 33 (1.67%) Shell Script
16 31 (1.57%) PowerShell
16 31 (1.57%) Ruby
17 26 (1.31%) PHP
18 25 (1.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 22 (1.11%) Swift
Qualifications
1 288 (14.55%) Security Cleared
2 234 (11.82%) SC Cleared
3 129 (6.52%) Degree
4 68 (3.44%) Computer Science Degree
5 28 (1.41%) Master's Degree
6 20 (1.01%) BPSS Clearance
7 16 (0.81%) DV Cleared
8 14 (0.71%) 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 (0.10%) Tableau Certification
14 1 (0.051%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 1 (0.051%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 81 (4.09%) QA
2 57 (2.88%) Accessibility
3 35 (1.77%) Data Quality
4 23 (1.16%) WCAG
5 8 (0.40%) 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 (0.10%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.10%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.10%) PMO
10 1 (0.051%) GRC
10 1 (0.051%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.051%) ISO 20022
10 1 (0.051%) PSD2
System Software
1 274 (13.85%) Docker
2 28 (1.41%) 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 (0.10%) GridGain
7 2 (0.10%) OpenAM
7 2 (0.10%) OpenDJ
7 2 (0.10%) OpenIDM
7 2 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.051%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 272 (13.74%) Kubernetes
2 83 (4.19%) Terraform
3 28 (1.41%) Ansible
4 19 (0.96%) Prometheus
5 18 (0.91%) Grafana
6 12 (0.61%) Control-M
6 12 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
7 10 (0.51%) Argo
8 5 (0.25%) TIBCO Hawk
8 5 (0.25%) vCenter Server
9 4 (0.20%) Kibana
10 3 (0.15%) Podman
11 2 (0.10%) CloudHub
11 2 (0.10%) Docker Swarm
11 2 (0.10%) Istio
11 2 (0.10%) ITRS Geneos
11 2 (0.10%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.10%) Puppet
11 2 (0.10%) rkt
12 1 (0.051%) Oracle Identity Management
Vendors
1 245 (12.38%) Microsoft
2 175 (8.84%) Oracle
3 66 (3.34%) Salesforce
4 48 (2.43%) ServiceNow
5 44 (2.22%) Google
6 42 (2.12%) Databricks
7 36 (1.82%) IBM
8 26 (1.31%) SAP
9 24 (1.21%) OpenAI
10 23 (1.16%) Citrix
11 22 (1.11%) MuleSoft
12 21 (1.06%) Adobe
13 20 (1.01%) Red Hat
13 20 (1.01%) Sybase
14 19 (0.96%) Lotus
15 16 (0.81%) Solace
16 13 (0.66%) OpenLink
17 12 (0.61%) Bloomberg
17 12 (0.61%) VMware
17 12 (0.61%) webMethods