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 26 January 2026.

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

6 months to
26 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 2,029 2,328 2,901
As % of all contract jobs in London 13.97% 16.88% 15.70%
As % of the Job Titles category 15.09% 18.04% 16.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,409 1,581 2,233
10th Percentile £381 £382 £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 £700 £738
90th Percentile £800 £838 £850
England median daily rate £500 £540 £525
% change year-on-year -7.41% +2.86% -9.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 6 14
10th Percentile - £35.38 £34.68
25th Percentile £35.00 £36.00 £56.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £38.75 £61.25
Median % change year-on-year +41.94% -36.73% +6.52%
75th Percentile £78.75 £41.38 £72.38
90th Percentile £91.75 £51.63 £73.72
England median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £63.75
% change year-on-year -15.38% +1.96% +2.00%

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 13,448 12,904 17,194
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.61% 93.56% 93.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,933 8,274 12,424
10th Percentile £350 £338 £325
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -6.14%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £778
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 216 140 302
10th Percentile £18.25 £20.68 £16.02
25th Percentile £23.55 £24.09 £19.05
Median hourly rate £33.73 £35.00 £29.61
Median % change year-on-year -3.63% +18.20% -8.89%
75th Percentile £63.10 £51.50 £50.63
90th Percentile £76.58 £78.95 £65.98
England median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -14.29% -6.67% +7.14%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -7 269 £525 -8.70% 192
South London -8 32 £505 -36.88% 28
West London -23 15 £509 +24.45% 29
East London -4 12 £1,000 +150.00% 25
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 26 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.

1 519 (25.58%) SQL
2 514 (25.33%) Agile
3 509 (25.09%) Java
4 487 (24.00%) Python
5 480 (23.66%) CI/CD
6 434 (21.39%) Azure
7 391 (19.27%) AWS
8 382 (18.83%) Problem-Solving
9 380 (18.73%) C#
10 357 (17.59%) JavaScript
11 344 (16.95%) Security Cleared
12 329 (16.21%) DevOps
13 293 (14.44%) React
14 292 (14.39%) .NET
15 288 (14.19%) Microservices
16 286 (14.10%) Docker
17 282 (13.90%) SC Cleared
18 271 (13.36%) Kubernetes
19 268 (13.21%) Full-Stack Development
20 247 (12.17%) REST
21 241 (11.88%) Microsoft
22 232 (11.43%) Analytics
23 223 (10.99%) Git
24 211 (10.40%) TypeScript
25 208 (10.25%) Power Platform
26 191 (9.41%) Software Engineering
27 187 (9.22%) RESTful
28 186 (9.17%) Business Intelligence
28 186 (9.17%) Kafka
29 179 (8.82%) 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 61 (3.01%) SharePoint
2 40 (1.97%) Confluence
3 20 (0.99%) CMS
4 16 (0.79%) HCL Notes
4 16 (0.79%) IIS
5 15 (0.74%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 13 (0.64%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 10 (0.49%) Ethereum
7 10 (0.49%) Mendix
7 10 (0.49%) MQSeries
8 9 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
9 8 (0.39%) Apache
9 8 (0.39%) Apache Spark
9 8 (0.39%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.34%) Hyperledger
10 7 (0.34%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.30%) Camunda
11 6 (0.30%) Headless CMS
11 6 (0.30%) Microsoft Exchange
11 6 (0.30%) WebSphere
Applications
1 52 (2.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.49%) Chatbot
3 6 (0.30%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.20%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.099%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.049%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.049%) Oracle Smart View
6 1 (0.049%) Trello
Business Applications
1 42 (2.07%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.89%) Endur
3 13 (0.64%) Fidessa
4 11 (0.54%) Oracle ERP
5 10 (0.49%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.39%) Oracle Payables
7 7 (0.34%) Oracle Assets
7 7 (0.34%) Oracle Financials
8 6 (0.30%) BusinessWorks
8 6 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
8 6 (0.30%) SAP S/4HANA
8 6 (0.30%) Temenos T24
9 5 (0.25%) BASE24
9 5 (0.25%) Oracle EBS R12
9 5 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
10 4 (0.20%) Oracle 11i
10 4 (0.20%) ProductWriter
11 3 (0.15%) Oracle E-Business Tax
12 2 (0.099%) Oracle Cash Management
12 2 (0.099%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 434 (21.39%) Azure
2 391 (19.27%) AWS
3 208 (10.25%) Power Platform
4 160 (7.89%) GitHub
5 134 (6.60%) Azure DevOps
6 124 (6.11%) Serverless
7 104 (5.13%) Power Automate
8 96 (4.73%) GCP
9 92 (4.53%) PowerApps
10 79 (3.89%) Dynamics 365
11 71 (3.50%) GitHub Actions
12 68 (3.35%) Azure Logic Apps
13 64 (3.15%) Azure Functions
14 54 (2.66%) AWS Lambda
15 48 (2.37%) Azure Service Bus
15 48 (2.37%) Microsoft 365
16 43 (2.12%) Amazon S3
16 43 (2.12%) Entra ID
17 40 (1.97%) Azure Monitor
18 33 (1.63%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.08%) HTTP
2 11 (0.54%) HTTPS
2 11 (0.54%) Internet
3 10 (0.49%) SSL
4 8 (0.39%) FIX Connectivity
4 8 (0.39%) Network Security
4 8 (0.39%) TCP/IP
5 5 (0.25%) CTI
5 5 (0.25%) Firewall
5 5 (0.25%) SMS
5 5 (0.25%) VoIP
6 4 (0.20%) DNS
6 4 (0.20%) Multicast
7 3 (0.15%) 3GPP
7 3 (0.15%) MVNO
7 3 (0.15%) SMPP
8 2 (0.099%) DHCP
8 2 (0.099%) SSH
8 2 (0.099%) tcpdump
8 2 (0.099%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (8.08%) SQL Server
2 134 (6.60%) PostgreSQL
3 131 (6.46%) Power BI
4 119 (5.86%) Relational Database
5 85 (4.19%) NoSQL
6 66 (3.25%) MongoDB
6 66 (3.25%) Oracle Database
7 42 (2.07%) Data Warehouse
8 38 (1.87%) Apache Cassandra
9 33 (1.63%) MySQL
10 25 (1.23%) RDBMS
11 24 (1.18%) Data Lake
11 24 (1.18%) KDB
12 23 (1.13%) DB2
12 23 (1.13%) Kdb+
13 22 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
13 22 (1.08%) Oracle Reports
13 22 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 21 (1.03%) Power Query
15 20 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 223 (10.99%) Git
2 97 (4.78%) JIRA
3 94 (4.63%) Jenkins
4 64 (3.15%) GitLab
5 55 (2.71%) JUnit
6 32 (1.58%) Maven
7 30 (1.48%) Visual Studio
8 24 (1.18%) Gradle
9 22 (1.08%) Bitbucket
10 17 (0.84%) Cucumber
11 16 (0.79%) Mockito
11 16 (0.79%) Sonatype Nexus
12 15 (0.74%) Selenium
13 14 (0.69%) SpecFlow
14 12 (0.59%) Cypress.io
15 11 (0.54%) Android Studio
15 11 (0.54%) TeamCity
15 11 (0.54%) webpack
16 10 (0.49%) Octopus Deploy
16 10 (0.49%) SonarQube
General
1 570 (28.09%) Finance
2 442 (21.78%) Social Skills
3 334 (16.46%) Banking
4 181 (8.92%) Front Office
5 179 (8.82%) Public Sector
6 159 (7.84%) Analytical Skills
7 126 (6.21%) Investment Banking
8 61 (3.01%) Financial Institution
9 22 (1.08%) Marketing
10 18 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 18 (0.89%) Law
11 14 (0.69%) Documentation Skills
12 11 (0.54%) Telecoms
13 10 (0.49%) General Ledger
14 9 (0.44%) Back Office
14 9 (0.44%) Presentation Skills
14 9 (0.44%) Retail
15 8 (0.39%) Billing
15 8 (0.39%) Private Banking
16 7 (0.34%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 293 (14.44%) React
2 292 (14.39%) .NET
3 247 (12.17%) REST
4 187 (9.22%) RESTful
5 186 (9.17%) Kafka
6 179 (8.82%) HTML
7 166 (8.18%) Spring
8 165 (8.13%) CSS
9 162 (7.98%) AngularJS
10 158 (7.79%) Node.js
11 124 (6.11%) Spring Boot
12 85 (4.19%) SOAP
13 77 (3.79%) JSON
14 75 (3.70%) .NET Framework
14 75 (3.70%) Web Services
15 71 (3.50%) XML
16 62 (3.06%) Vue
17 50 (2.46%) FastAPI
18 49 (2.41%) NumPy
18 49 (2.41%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 112 (5.52%) Equities
2 106 (5.22%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 102 (5.03%) Derivative
4 95 (4.68%) Cloud Native
5 82 (4.04%) Distributed Systems
6 81 (3.99%) Algorithms
7 68 (3.35%) Data Structures
8 62 (3.06%) Product Ownership
9 58 (2.86%) Fixed Income
10 46 (2.27%) Data Protection Act
11 42 (2.07%) Management Information System
12 40 (1.97%) Greenfield Project
12 40 (1.97%) Mobile App
13 33 (1.63%) Hedge funds
14 31 (1.53%) Equity Derivative
15 30 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
16 28 (1.38%) AI Agents
16 28 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
17 27 (1.33%) Low-Code
17 27 (1.33%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 150 (7.39%) Linux
2 69 (3.40%) Windows
3 57 (2.81%) Unix
4 42 (2.07%) Android
5 37 (1.82%) Apple iOS
6 18 (0.89%) Windows Server
7 6 (0.30%) 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 (0.049%) VMS
11 1 (0.049%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.049%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 514 (25.33%) Agile
2 480 (23.66%) CI/CD
3 382 (18.83%) Problem-Solving
4 329 (16.21%) DevOps
5 288 (14.19%) Microservices
6 268 (13.21%) Full-Stack Development
7 232 (11.43%) Analytics
8 191 (9.41%) Software Engineering
9 186 (9.17%) Business Intelligence
10 171 (8.43%) Containerisation
11 170 (8.38%) Test Automation
12 156 (7.69%) AI
13 152 (7.49%) Scrum
14 127 (6.26%) TDD
15 125 (6.16%) Front End Development
16 118 (5.82%) Data Modelling
17 115 (5.67%) Computer Science
18 112 (5.52%) Unit Testing
19 110 (5.42%) Design Patterns
19 110 (5.42%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 519 (25.58%) SQL
2 509 (25.09%) Java
3 487 (24.00%) Python
4 380 (18.73%) C#
5 357 (17.59%) JavaScript
6 211 (10.40%) TypeScript
7 119 (5.86%) C++
8 81 (3.99%) PL/SQL
9 62 (3.06%) Go
10 51 (2.51%) Kotlin
11 47 (2.32%) T-SQL
12 40 (1.97%) Apex Code
13 36 (1.77%) PowerShell
13 36 (1.77%) VB
14 33 (1.63%) Ruby
14 33 (1.63%) Shell Script
15 30 (1.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 30 (1.48%) VBA
16 22 (1.08%) Swift
17 21 (1.03%) C
Qualifications
1 344 (16.95%) Security Cleared
2 282 (13.90%) SC Cleared
3 130 (6.41%) Degree
4 62 (3.06%) Computer Science Degree
5 24 (1.18%) Master's Degree
6 22 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
7 20 (0.99%) DV Cleared
8 13 (0.64%) Numerate Degree
9 6 (0.30%) AWS Certification
9 6 (0.30%) MCP
9 6 (0.30%) Microsoft Certification
10 5 (0.25%) PhD
11 4 (0.20%) Azure Certification
11 4 (0.20%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.15%) AWS Certified Developer
13 2 (0.099%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 2 (0.099%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 2 (0.099%) OCP
13 2 (0.099%) Tableau Certification
14 1 (0.049%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 89 (4.39%) QA
2 56 (2.76%) Accessibility
3 31 (1.53%) Data Quality
4 22 (1.08%) WCAG
5 15 (0.74%) GDPR
6 7 (0.34%) 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%) PSD2
11 2 (0.099%) HL7
12 1 (0.049%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.049%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.049%) MiFID
12 1 (0.049%) PMO
System Software
1 286 (14.10%) Docker
2 31 (1.53%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.30%) zsh
4 5 (0.25%) HDFS
5 3 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.099%) GridGain
6 2 (0.099%) OpenAM
6 2 (0.099%) OpenDJ
6 2 (0.099%) OpenIDM
6 2 (0.099%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.099%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.049%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 271 (13.36%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.84%) Terraform
3 32 (1.58%) Ansible
4 20 (0.99%) Grafana
5 19 (0.94%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.59%) Argo
8 7 (0.34%) Control-M
9 6 (0.30%) TIBCO Hawk
10 3 (0.15%) Kibana
10 3 (0.15%) Podman
11 2 (0.099%) CloudHub
11 2 (0.099%) Docker Swarm
11 2 (0.099%) Istio
11 2 (0.099%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.099%) rkt
12 1 (0.049%) ITRS Geneos
12 1 (0.049%) Oracle Identity Management
12 1 (0.049%) Puppet
12 1 (0.049%) Rundeck
Vendors
1 241 (11.88%) Microsoft
2 178 (8.77%) Oracle
3 71 (3.50%) Salesforce
4 54 (2.66%) ServiceNow
5 40 (1.97%) Google
6 37 (1.82%) Databricks
7 36 (1.77%) IBM
8 30 (1.48%) SAP
9 28 (1.38%) Adobe
9 28 (1.38%) Citrix
10 27 (1.33%) OpenAI
11 21 (1.03%) MuleSoft
12 19 (0.94%) Red Hat
13 18 (0.89%) Sybase
14 16 (0.79%) Lotus
15 14 (0.69%) Solace
16 13 (0.64%) Guidewire
17 12 (0.59%) OpenLink
18 11 (0.54%) Foundry
18 11 (0.54%) ION Trading