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 17 January 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -6 0 -2
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 2,006 2,384 2,907
As % of all contract jobs in London 13.89% 17.00% 15.97%
As % of the Job Titles category 15.02% 18.17% 17.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,397 1,625 2,239
10th Percentile £381 £380 £400
25th Percentile £425 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% -4.17% -4.00%
75th Percentile £675 £700 £750
90th Percentile £800 £850 £850
England median daily rate £500 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -6.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 7 13
10th Percentile - £35.45 £33.03
25th Percentile £35.00 £36.25 £56.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £39.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.03% -35.00% +4.35%
75th Percentile £73.69 £51.63 £72.50
90th Percentile £78.75 £91.90 £73.73
England median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% - +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 13,358 13,119 16,963
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.51% 93.56% 93.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,859 8,445 12,227
10th Percentile £350 £338 £325
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £558
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -1.43% -4.62%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £788
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 219 143 257
10th Percentile £18.25 £20.00 £16.25
25th Percentile £23.55 £23.80 £19.25
Median hourly rate £32.45 £35.00 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.29% +11.11% -7.35%
75th Percentile £62.63 £52.25 £53.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £80.35 £68.80
England median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £41.91
% change year-on-year -21.43% -16.48% +19.73%

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 17 January 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 17 January 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 17 January 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 -7 268 £525 -9.48% 176
South London -12 28 £510 -33.11% 26
West London -25 16 £455 +11.12% 25
East London -4 12 £1,000 +150.00% 17
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 17 January 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.

1 524 (26.12%) SQL
2 517 (25.77%) Agile
3 511 (25.47%) Java
4 484 (24.13%) CI/CD
5 481 (23.98%) Python
6 435 (21.68%) Azure
7 402 (20.04%) AWS
8 386 (19.24%) C#
9 382 (19.04%) Problem-Solving
10 366 (18.25%) JavaScript
11 335 (16.70%) DevOps
12 333 (16.60%) Security Cleared
13 300 (14.96%) .NET
14 294 (14.66%) React
15 290 (14.46%) Microservices
16 284 (14.16%) Docker
17 274 (13.66%) Kubernetes
18 271 (13.51%) SC Cleared
19 265 (13.21%) Full-Stack Development
20 247 (12.31%) Microsoft
21 241 (12.01%) REST
22 235 (11.71%) Analytics
23 224 (11.17%) Git
24 212 (10.57%) Power Platform
25 206 (10.27%) TypeScript
26 195 (9.72%) Software Engineering
27 188 (9.37%) Business Intelligence
28 184 (9.17%) RESTful
29 183 (9.12%) Kafka
30 182 (9.07%) HTML

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 62 (3.09%) SharePoint
2 42 (2.09%) Confluence
3 21 (1.05%) HCL Notes
4 20 (1.00%) CMS
5 14 (0.70%) IIS
5 14 (0.70%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 13 (0.65%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 11 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
7 11 (0.55%) Mendix
8 10 (0.50%) Apache
8 10 (0.50%) MQSeries
9 9 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
10 8 (0.40%) Apache Spark
11 7 (0.35%) Microsoft Exchange
12 6 (0.30%) Ethereum
12 6 (0.30%) Headless CMS
12 6 (0.30%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.30%) WebSphere
13 5 (0.25%) Tomcat
14 4 (0.20%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 54 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.55%) Chatbot
3 7 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.30%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.20%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.100%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.050%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.050%) Oracle Smart View
7 1 (0.050%) Trello
Business Applications
1 39 (1.94%) Dynamics CRM
2 17 (0.85%) Endur
3 14 (0.70%) Fidessa
4 11 (0.55%) Oracle EBS
4 11 (0.55%) Oracle ERP
5 9 (0.45%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (0.40%) Oracle Assets
6 8 (0.40%) Oracle Financials
7 7 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
8 6 (0.30%) BusinessWorks
8 6 (0.30%) Oracle EBS R12
8 6 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
8 6 (0.30%) Temenos T24
9 5 (0.25%) BASE24
10 4 (0.20%) Aladdin
10 4 (0.20%) Oracle 11i
10 4 (0.20%) ProductWriter
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle Receivables
11 3 (0.15%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 435 (21.68%) Azure
2 402 (20.04%) AWS
3 212 (10.57%) Power Platform
4 159 (7.93%) GitHub
5 135 (6.73%) Azure DevOps
6 129 (6.43%) Serverless
7 105 (5.23%) Power Automate
8 100 (4.99%) GCP
8 100 (4.99%) PowerApps
9 76 (3.79%) Dynamics 365
10 73 (3.64%) GitHub Actions
11 68 (3.39%) Azure Logic Apps
12 66 (3.29%) Azure Functions
13 57 (2.84%) AWS Lambda
14 50 (2.49%) Azure Service Bus
14 50 (2.49%) Microsoft 365
15 45 (2.24%) Amazon S3
16 43 (2.14%) Entra ID
17 40 (1.99%) Azure Monitor
18 35 (1.74%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 20 (1.00%) HTTP
2 12 (0.60%) SSL
3 11 (0.55%) HTTPS
4 10 (0.50%) Internet
5 8 (0.40%) FIX Connectivity
5 8 (0.40%) Network Security
6 7 (0.35%) TCP/IP
7 5 (0.25%) CTI
7 5 (0.25%) Firewall
7 5 (0.25%) SMS
7 5 (0.25%) VoIP
8 4 (0.20%) DNS
8 4 (0.20%) Multicast
9 3 (0.15%) 3GPP
9 3 (0.15%) MVNO
9 3 (0.15%) SMPP
10 2 (0.100%) DHCP
10 2 (0.100%) SSH
10 2 (0.100%) tcpdump
10 2 (0.100%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (8.18%) SQL Server
2 135 (6.73%) Power BI
3 134 (6.68%) PostgreSQL
4 121 (6.03%) Relational Database
5 84 (4.19%) NoSQL
6 66 (3.29%) Oracle Database
7 63 (3.14%) MongoDB
8 42 (2.09%) Data Warehouse
9 38 (1.89%) Apache Cassandra
10 33 (1.65%) MySQL
11 26 (1.30%) Data Lake
12 25 (1.25%) Amazon RDS
12 25 (1.25%) DB2
12 25 (1.25%) RDBMS
13 23 (1.15%) KDB
14 22 (1.10%) Azure SQL Database
14 22 (1.10%) Oracle Reports
15 21 (1.05%) DynamoDB
15 21 (1.05%) Kdb+
15 21 (1.05%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 224 (11.17%) Git
2 94 (4.69%) Jenkins
2 94 (4.69%) JIRA
3 65 (3.24%) GitLab
4 51 (2.54%) JUnit
5 30 (1.50%) Maven
5 30 (1.50%) Visual Studio
6 24 (1.20%) Bitbucket
7 21 (1.05%) Gradle
8 17 (0.85%) Cucumber
9 16 (0.80%) Mockito
9 16 (0.80%) Sonatype Nexus
10 15 (0.75%) Selenium
11 14 (0.70%) SpecFlow
12 13 (0.65%) Cypress.io
12 13 (0.65%) TeamCity
13 12 (0.60%) webpack
14 10 (0.50%) Android Studio
14 10 (0.50%) Octopus Deploy
14 10 (0.50%) SonarQube
General
1 581 (28.96%) Finance
2 447 (22.28%) Social Skills
3 335 (16.70%) Banking
4 183 (9.12%) Front Office
5 176 (8.77%) Public Sector
6 158 (7.88%) Analytical Skills
7 129 (6.43%) Investment Banking
8 62 (3.09%) Financial Institution
9 23 (1.15%) Marketing
10 18 (0.90%) Law
11 17 (0.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 16 (0.80%) Documentation Skills
13 13 (0.65%) Back Office
14 10 (0.50%) General Ledger
15 9 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
15 9 (0.45%) Telecoms
16 8 (0.40%) Billing
16 8 (0.40%) Military
16 8 (0.40%) Private Banking
16 8 (0.40%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 300 (14.96%) .NET
2 294 (14.66%) React
3 241 (12.01%) REST
4 184 (9.17%) RESTful
5 183 (9.12%) Kafka
6 182 (9.07%) HTML
7 172 (8.57%) CSS
8 162 (8.08%) AngularJS
8 162 (8.08%) Node.js
8 162 (8.08%) Spring
9 123 (6.13%) Spring Boot
10 87 (4.34%) SOAP
11 86 (4.29%) JSON
12 74 (3.69%) Web Services
13 72 (3.59%) .NET Framework
13 72 (3.59%) XML
14 64 (3.19%) Vue
15 52 (2.59%) NumPy
16 51 (2.54%) FastAPI
16 51 (2.54%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 112 (5.58%) Equities
2 109 (5.43%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 104 (5.18%) Derivative
4 99 (4.94%) Cloud Native
5 83 (4.14%) Distributed Systems
6 80 (3.99%) Algorithms
7 70 (3.49%) Data Structures
8 62 (3.09%) Fixed Income
9 58 (2.89%) Product Ownership
10 46 (2.29%) Data Protection Act
11 42 (2.09%) Mobile App
12 41 (2.04%) Management Information System
13 40 (1.99%) Greenfield Project
14 35 (1.74%) Hedge funds
15 29 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
15 29 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
15 29 (1.45%) Low-Code
16 28 (1.40%) Equity Derivative
16 28 (1.40%) Market Risk
17 24 (1.20%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 150 (7.48%) Linux
2 69 (3.44%) Windows
3 51 (2.54%) Unix
4 40 (1.99%) Android
5 34 (1.69%) Apple iOS
6 17 (0.85%) Windows Server
7 7 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.25%) AIX
8 5 (0.25%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.20%) CentOS
10 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.050%) VMS
11 1 (0.050%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.050%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 517 (25.77%) Agile
2 484 (24.13%) CI/CD
3 382 (19.04%) Problem-Solving
4 335 (16.70%) DevOps
5 290 (14.46%) Microservices
6 265 (13.21%) Full-Stack Development
7 235 (11.71%) Analytics
8 195 (9.72%) Software Engineering
9 188 (9.37%) Business Intelligence
10 174 (8.67%) Containerisation
11 168 (8.37%) Test Automation
12 154 (7.68%) Scrum
13 144 (7.18%) AI
14 131 (6.53%) TDD
15 124 (6.18%) Front End Development
16 115 (5.73%) Design Patterns
17 114 (5.68%) Computer Science
18 112 (5.58%) Data Modelling
19 110 (5.48%) Clean Code
20 106 (5.28%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 524 (26.12%) SQL
2 511 (25.47%) Java
3 481 (23.98%) Python
4 386 (19.24%) C#
5 366 (18.25%) JavaScript
6 206 (10.27%) TypeScript
7 120 (5.98%) C++
8 81 (4.04%) PL/SQL
9 61 (3.04%) Go
10 51 (2.54%) Kotlin
11 47 (2.34%) T-SQL
12 37 (1.84%) Apex Code
13 36 (1.79%) PowerShell
13 36 (1.79%) VB
14 32 (1.60%) Ruby
15 31 (1.55%) VBA
16 30 (1.50%) Shell Script
17 29 (1.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 21 (1.05%) C
19 20 (1.00%) PHP
Qualifications
1 333 (16.60%) Security Cleared
2 271 (13.51%) SC Cleared
3 126 (6.28%) Degree
4 62 (3.09%) Computer Science Degree
5 26 (1.30%) Master's Degree
6 20 (1.00%) BPSS Clearance
6 20 (1.00%) DV Cleared
7 13 (0.65%) Numerate Degree
8 9 (0.45%) AWS Certification
9 6 (0.30%) MCP
10 5 (0.25%) AWS Certified Developer
10 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Certification
10 5 (0.25%) PhD
11 4 (0.20%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 4 (0.20%) Oracle Certification
12 2 (0.100%) Azure Certification
12 2 (0.100%) OCP
12 2 (0.100%) Tableau Certification
13 1 (0.050%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 1 (0.050%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 85 (4.24%) QA
2 59 (2.94%) Accessibility
3 31 (1.55%) Data Quality
4 26 (1.30%) WCAG
5 13 (0.65%) GDPR
6 7 (0.35%) ISO 8583
7 6 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 6 (0.30%) SLA
8 5 (0.25%) SEPA
9 4 (0.20%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.15%) GRC
10 3 (0.15%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.15%) MiFID
10 3 (0.15%) PSD2
11 2 (0.100%) EMIR
11 2 (0.100%) HL7
12 1 (0.050%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.050%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.050%) PMO
System Software
1 284 (14.16%) Docker
2 31 (1.55%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.35%) zsh
4 5 (0.25%) HDFS
5 3 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.100%) GridGain
6 2 (0.100%) OpenAM
6 2 (0.100%) OpenDJ
6 2 (0.100%) OpenIDM
6 2 (0.100%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.100%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.050%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 274 (13.66%) Kubernetes
2 82 (4.09%) Terraform
3 33 (1.65%) Ansible
4 19 (0.95%) Grafana
5 18 (0.90%) Prometheus
6 15 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.60%) Argo
8 8 (0.40%) Control-M
9 6 (0.30%) TIBCO Hawk
10 3 (0.15%) Kibana
10 3 (0.15%) Podman
11 2 (0.100%) CloudHub
11 2 (0.100%) Docker Swarm
11 2 (0.100%) Istio
11 2 (0.100%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.100%) Puppet
11 2 (0.100%) rkt
12 1 (0.050%) ITRS Geneos
12 1 (0.050%) Microsoft Intune
12 1 (0.050%) Oracle Identity Management
Vendors
1 247 (12.31%) Microsoft
2 171 (8.52%) Oracle
3 66 (3.29%) Salesforce
4 53 (2.64%) ServiceNow
5 39 (1.94%) Google
6 38 (1.89%) Databricks
7 36 (1.79%) IBM
8 28 (1.40%) Adobe
9 26 (1.30%) Citrix
9 26 (1.30%) OpenAI
9 26 (1.30%) SAP
10 22 (1.10%) MuleSoft
11 21 (1.05%) Lotus
12 20 (1.00%) Red Hat
13 19 (0.95%) Sybase
14 14 (0.70%) Solace
15 13 (0.65%) Guidewire
15 13 (0.65%) OpenLink
16 11 (0.55%) ION Trading
17 10 (0.50%) Axway