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 14 March 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 6 4
Rank change year-on-year -4 -2 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 2,218 2,147 2,986
As % of all contract jobs in London 13.56% 16.59% 16.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 14.65% 17.71% 17.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,561 1,518 2,283
10th Percentile £382 £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 £533 £525
% change year-on-year -6.27% +1.61% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 7 12
10th Percentile £34.27 £35.45 £31.37
25th Percentile £35.00 £37.13 £53.75
Median hourly rate £50.50 £41.50 £58.75
Median % change year-on-year +21.69% -29.36% +2.17%
75th Percentile £57.50 £55.25 £68.38
90th Percentile £95.00 £57.75 £72.50
England median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £62.00
% change year-on-year -2.87% +4.84% -3.88%

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 15,145 12,121 16,994
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.59% 93.66% 93.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,152 8,142 12,272
10th Percentile £350 £338 £325
25th Percentile £425 £431 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -4.80%
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 238 142 340
10th Percentile £18.20 £21.02 £15.99
25th Percentile £22.26 £24.66 £19.20
Median hourly rate £35.00 £35.45 £27.91
Median % change year-on-year -1.26% +27.02% -20.27%
75th Percentile £61.00 £53.75 £47.02
90th Percentile £76.58 £78.31 £64.58
England median hourly rate £37.00 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +5.71% +7.69% -23.53%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -6 289 £525 -8.70% 204
South London -1 43 £511 -44.73% 13
West London -17 18 £455 +11.12% 30
East London -8 5 £521 +30.13% 24
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 14 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.

1 547 (24.66%) Python
2 544 (24.53%) Java
3 537 (24.21%) Agile
4 530 (23.90%) SQL
5 495 (22.32%) CI/CD
6 489 (22.05%) Azure
7 451 (20.33%) AWS
8 406 (18.30%) JavaScript
9 391 (17.63%) Security Cleared
10 389 (17.54%) C#
11 359 (16.19%) React
12 350 (15.78%) DevOps
13 337 (15.19%) Problem-Solving
14 317 (14.29%) SC Cleared
15 315 (14.20%) .NET
16 289 (13.03%) Docker
17 288 (12.98%) Full-Stack Development
18 280 (12.62%) Microservices
19 271 (12.22%) TypeScript
20 264 (11.90%) Kubernetes
21 248 (11.18%) Microsoft
22 243 (10.96%) REST
23 239 (10.78%) Analytics
24 232 (10.46%) Software Engineering
25 227 (10.23%) Git
26 220 (9.92%) Kafka
27 213 (9.60%) Power Platform
28 210 (9.47%) Node.js
29 196 (8.84%) AI
29 196 (8.84%) 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 75 (3.38%) SharePoint
2 45 (2.03%) Confluence
3 20 (0.90%) CMS
4 18 (0.81%) IIS
5 16 (0.72%) Microsoft Exchange
6 15 (0.68%) HCL Notes
7 14 (0.63%) Apache
8 13 (0.59%) Mendix
9 12 (0.54%) Apache Spark
10 11 (0.50%) Ethereum
11 10 (0.45%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 10 (0.45%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 9 (0.41%) Headless CMS
12 9 (0.41%) JBoss
13 8 (0.36%) Hyperledger
14 7 (0.32%) MQSeries
14 7 (0.32%) WebLogic
15 6 (0.27%) Anypoint
15 6 (0.27%) Camunda
15 6 (0.27%) WebSphere
Applications
1 48 (2.16%) 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%) Temenos T24
5 8 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
7 6 (0.27%) BusinessWorks
7 6 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
8 5 (0.23%) BASE24
8 5 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle 11i
9 4 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
10 3 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
10 3 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
10 3 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
10 3 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
10 3 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.14%) ProductWriter
11 2 (0.090%) Magento
11 2 (0.090%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 489 (22.05%) Azure
2 451 (20.33%) AWS
3 213 (9.60%) Power Platform
4 160 (7.21%) GitHub
5 143 (6.45%) Azure DevOps
6 121 (5.46%) Serverless
7 112 (5.05%) GCP
8 110 (4.96%) Power Automate
9 98 (4.42%) PowerApps
10 83 (3.74%) Dynamics 365
11 72 (3.25%) GitHub Actions
12 57 (2.57%) Azure Functions
13 56 (2.52%) AWS Lambda
14 55 (2.48%) Azure Logic Apps
14 55 (2.48%) Microsoft 365
15 53 (2.39%) Amazon S3
16 51 (2.30%) Entra ID
17 48 (2.16%) Azure Service Bus
18 37 (1.67%) Microsoft Copilot
19 36 (1.62%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.08%) HTTP
2 14 (0.63%) FIX Connectivity
3 12 (0.54%) Internet
4 8 (0.36%) Network Security
5 7 (0.32%) SSL
6 6 (0.27%) HTTPS
6 6 (0.27%) TCP/IP
7 5 (0.23%) CTI
7 5 (0.23%) Firewall
7 5 (0.23%) SMS
7 5 (0.23%) VoIP
8 3 (0.14%) 3GPP
8 3 (0.14%) DNS
8 3 (0.14%) Multicast
8 3 (0.14%) MVNO
8 3 (0.14%) SMPP
9 2 (0.090%) DHCP
9 2 (0.090%) RTMP
9 2 (0.090%) RTP
9 2 (0.090%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (7.66%) SQL Server
2 148 (6.67%) PostgreSQL
3 135 (6.09%) Power BI
4 118 (5.32%) Relational Database
5 81 (3.65%) NoSQL
6 72 (3.25%) Oracle Database
7 64 (2.89%) MongoDB
8 41 (1.85%) Apache Cassandra
9 38 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
10 33 (1.49%) MySQL
11 26 (1.17%) RDBMS
12 25 (1.13%) Data Lake
12 25 (1.13%) KDB
13 24 (1.08%) Kdb+
14 23 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
14 23 (1.04%) DynamoDB
15 22 (0.99%) DB2
16 21 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 20 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
18 19 (0.86%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 227 (10.23%) Git
2 104 (4.69%) JIRA
3 101 (4.55%) Jenkins
4 64 (2.89%) GitLab
5 56 (2.52%) JUnit
6 30 (1.35%) Visual Studio
7 29 (1.31%) Maven
8 23 (1.04%) Mockito
9 20 (0.90%) Bitbucket
9 20 (0.90%) Gradle
10 16 (0.72%) TeamCity
10 16 (0.72%) webpack
11 15 (0.68%) Cypress.io
12 14 (0.63%) Cucumber
12 14 (0.63%) SonarQube
13 13 (0.59%) Android Studio
13 13 (0.59%) Selenium
13 13 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
14 11 (0.50%) Octopus Deploy
14 11 (0.50%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 621 (28.00%) Finance
2 415 (18.71%) Social Skills
3 324 (14.61%) Banking
4 234 (10.55%) Front Office
5 219 (9.87%) Public Sector
6 158 (7.12%) Analytical Skills
7 123 (5.55%) Investment Banking
8 54 (2.43%) Financial Institution
9 22 (0.99%) Documentation Skills
10 19 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 17 (0.77%) Marketing
12 16 (0.72%) Law
13 12 (0.54%) Back Office
13 12 (0.54%) Local Government
14 11 (0.50%) Presentation Skills
15 10 (0.45%) Telecoms
16 8 (0.36%) Publishing
16 8 (0.36%) Retail
17 7 (0.32%) Legal
17 7 (0.32%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 359 (16.19%) React
2 315 (14.20%) .NET
3 243 (10.96%) REST
4 220 (9.92%) Kafka
5 210 (9.47%) Node.js
6 196 (8.84%) HTML
7 194 (8.75%) RESTful
8 181 (8.16%) AngularJS
9 176 (7.94%) Spring
10 174 (7.84%) CSS
11 132 (5.95%) Spring Boot
12 87 (3.92%) Web Services
13 83 (3.74%) .NET Framework
14 80 (3.61%) Redux
15 76 (3.43%) SOAP
16 75 (3.38%) JSON
17 73 (3.29%) GraphQL
18 67 (3.02%) Vue
19 62 (2.80%) XML
20 48 (2.16%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 130 (5.86%) Equities
2 116 (5.23%) Derivative
3 102 (4.60%) Fixed Income
4 99 (4.46%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 85 (3.83%) Cloud Native
6 80 (3.61%) Algorithms
7 79 (3.56%) Distributed Systems
8 71 (3.20%) Data Structures
9 61 (2.75%) Product Ownership
10 46 (2.07%) Greenfield Project
11 41 (1.85%) Mobile App
12 40 (1.80%) Legacy Systems
13 37 (1.67%) Management Information System
14 36 (1.62%) AI Agents
14 36 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
15 33 (1.49%) Hedge funds
16 31 (1.40%) Low-Code
17 30 (1.35%) Equity Derivative
18 27 (1.22%) Market Risk
19 25 (1.13%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 124 (5.59%) Linux
2 67 (3.02%) Windows
3 51 (2.30%) Unix
4 35 (1.58%) Android
5 30 (1.35%) Apple iOS
6 22 (0.99%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.23%) AIX
8 4 (0.18%) Mac OS
8 4 (0.18%) zOS
9 3 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.045%) CentOS
10 1 (0.045%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 537 (24.21%) Agile
2 495 (22.32%) CI/CD
3 350 (15.78%) DevOps
4 337 (15.19%) Problem-Solving
5 288 (12.98%) Full-Stack Development
6 280 (12.62%) Microservices
7 239 (10.78%) Analytics
8 232 (10.46%) Software Engineering
9 196 (8.84%) AI
10 188 (8.48%) Business Intelligence
11 177 (7.98%) Containerisation
12 173 (7.80%) Test Automation
13 155 (6.99%) Data Modelling
14 143 (6.45%) TDD
15 134 (6.04%) Front End Development
16 128 (5.77%) Scrum
16 128 (5.77%) Unit Testing
17 121 (5.46%) Design Patterns
18 112 (5.05%) Low Latency
19 107 (4.82%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 547 (24.66%) Python
2 544 (24.53%) Java
3 530 (23.90%) SQL
4 406 (18.30%) JavaScript
5 389 (17.54%) C#
6 271 (12.22%) TypeScript
7 99 (4.46%) C++
8 90 (4.06%) Go
9 76 (3.43%) PL/SQL
10 52 (2.34%) Kotlin
10 52 (2.34%) T-SQL
11 43 (1.94%) Apex Code
12 37 (1.67%) Ruby
13 35 (1.58%) Shell Script
14 33 (1.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 33 (1.49%) PowerShell
15 29 (1.31%) VB
16 28 (1.26%) VBA
17 20 (0.90%) C
18 19 (0.86%) Swift
Qualifications
1 391 (17.63%) Security Cleared
2 317 (14.29%) SC Cleared
3 116 (5.23%) Degree
4 51 (2.30%) Computer Science Degree
5 29 (1.31%) DV Cleared
6 27 (1.22%) BPSS Clearance
7 24 (1.08%) Master's Degree
8 12 (0.54%) Numerate Degree
9 6 (0.27%) Microsoft Certification
10 5 (0.23%) AWS Certification
10 5 (0.23%) Azure Certification
10 5 (0.23%) PhD
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.14%) CTC Cleared
13 2 (0.090%) AWS Certified Developer
13 2 (0.090%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 2 (0.090%) OCP
13 2 (0.090%) Postgraduate
14 1 (0.045%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 1 (0.045%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (4.42%) QA
2 79 (3.56%) Accessibility
3 39 (1.76%) WCAG
4 34 (1.53%) Data Quality
5 14 (0.63%) GDPR
6 8 (0.36%) SLA
7 7 (0.32%) ISO 8583
8 6 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 5 (0.23%) SEPA
10 4 (0.18%) GRC
10 4 (0.18%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.14%) ISO 20022
11 3 (0.14%) PMO
11 3 (0.14%) PSD2
12 2 (0.090%) HL7
13 1 (0.045%) HIPAA
13 1 (0.045%) MiFID
System Software
1 289 (13.03%) Docker
2 28 (1.26%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.14%) 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%) zsh
5 1 (0.045%) FreeRADIUS
5 1 (0.045%) Oracle RAC
5 1 (0.045%) Postfix
5 1 (0.045%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 264 (11.90%) Kubernetes
2 82 (3.70%) Terraform
3 31 (1.40%) Ansible
4 25 (1.13%) Grafana
5 18 (0.81%) Prometheus
6 12 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (0.50%) Argo
8 6 (0.27%) TIBCO Hawk
9 5 (0.23%) Control-M
9 5 (0.23%) SCCM
10 2 (0.090%) CloudHub
10 2 (0.090%) Podman
10 2 (0.090%) rkt
11 1 (0.045%) CA Endevor
11 1 (0.045%) IBM Guardium
11 1 (0.045%) Kibana
11 1 (0.045%) Nessus
11 1 (0.045%) Oracle Identity Management
11 1 (0.045%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 248 (11.18%) Microsoft
2 179 (8.07%) Oracle
3 76 (3.43%) Salesforce
4 63 (2.84%) ServiceNow
5 38 (1.71%) SAP
6 35 (1.58%) Citrix
6 35 (1.58%) Databricks
7 34 (1.53%) IBM
8 31 (1.40%) Google
8 31 (1.40%) OpenAI
9 26 (1.17%) Adobe
10 24 (1.08%) MuleSoft
11 21 (0.95%) Guidewire
12 16 (0.72%) Sybase
13 15 (0.68%) Foundry
13 15 (0.68%) Lotus
14 14 (0.63%) Red Hat
15 12 (0.54%) Pega
16 11 (0.50%) OpenLink
16 11 (0.50%) Solace