Developer Contract Job Trends in London

Developer
England > London

The median Developer daily rate in London is £535, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 October 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 9 4
Rank change year-on-year -9 -5 0
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 2,202 1,906 3,021
As % of all contract jobs in London 10.74% 14.25% 18.79%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.55% 15.40% 19.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,491 1,336 2,099
10th Percentile £400 £375 £375
25th Percentile £435 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.73% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £675 £700 £713
90th Percentile £788 £850 £850
England median daily rate £520 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +2.46% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 9 9
10th Percentile £41.08 £33.06 £35.60
25th Percentile £50.00 £55.00 £36.75
Median hourly rate £53.75 £70.00 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.21% +68.67% -27.83%
75th Percentile £60.25 £78.75 £75.00
90th Percentile £78.63 £84.70 £137.50
England median hourly rate £55.00 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year - -15.38% +8.33%

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 19,071 12,380 15,128
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.99% 92.53% 94.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,335 8,269 9,868
10th Percentile £363 £335 £343
25th Percentile £450 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £545 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.92% -0.91% -4.35%
75th Percentile £663 £664 £675
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 425 210 174
10th Percentile £16.82 £17.00 £17.33
25th Percentile £21.93 £22.50 £24.16
Median hourly rate £41.00 £26.89 £35.75
Median % change year-on-year +52.47% -24.78% -11.73%
75th Percentile £64.25 £49.00 £59.69
90th Percentile £81.25 £67.75 £79.63
England median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -6.89%

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 15 October 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 15 October 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 15 October 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 -10 232 £538 -6.52% 89
South London -1 38 £550 -2.72% 7
East London -3 11 £875 +62.04% 13
West London -36 8 £380 -6.07% 15
North London - 3 £600 - 3
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 15 October 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.

1 608 (27.61%) Agile
2 585 (26.57%) CI/CD
3 568 (25.79%) SQL
4 485 (22.03%) Java
5 456 (20.71%) Python
6 433 (19.66%) Azure
7 419 (19.03%) Security Cleared
8 396 (17.98%) DevOps
9 387 (17.57%) C#
10 375 (17.03%) REST
11 361 (16.39%) SC Cleared
12 352 (15.99%) JavaScript
13 341 (15.49%) AWS
14 325 (14.76%) .NET
15 308 (13.99%) Problem-Solving
16 287 (13.03%) Microsoft
17 286 (12.99%) Microservices
18 278 (12.62%) React
19 269 (12.22%) Full-Stack Development
20 264 (11.99%) AI
21 259 (11.76%) TypeScript
22 249 (11.31%) Power Platform
23 246 (11.17%) Git
24 236 (10.72%) Software Engineering
25 216 (9.81%) Test Automation
26 212 (9.63%) Spring
27 210 (9.54%) Docker
28 204 (9.26%) RESTful
29 202 (9.17%) Oracle
30 201 (9.13%) 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 73 (3.32%) SharePoint
2 37 (1.68%) Confluence
3 23 (1.04%) CMS
3 23 (1.04%) IIS
4 18 (0.82%) Camunda
5 15 (0.68%) Oracle Workflow
6 14 (0.64%) Anypoint
6 14 (0.64%) Mule
7 12 (0.54%) Ethereum
8 10 (0.45%) Apache Spark
8 10 (0.45%) SAS
9 9 (0.41%) Apache
10 8 (0.36%) nginx
10 8 (0.36%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
11 6 (0.27%) Appian
12 4 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.18%) Hyperledger
12 4 (0.18%) Solana
12 4 (0.18%) WordPress
Applications
1 33 (1.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
3 5 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (0.14%) Windchill
5 2 (0.091%) Adobe XD
5 2 (0.091%) CPLEX
5 2 (0.091%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.091%) Sketch
6 1 (0.045%) Oracle Smart View
6 1 (0.045%) Simulink
6 1 (0.045%) S-PLUS
6 1 (0.045%) Trello
Business Applications
1 39 (1.77%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.82%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.64%) NetSuite
4 9 (0.41%) Oracle Financials
4 9 (0.41%) Oracle General Ledger
4 9 (0.41%) Oracle Payables
4 9 (0.41%) Oracle Receivables
5 7 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
5 7 (0.32%) Oracle Internet Expenses
5 7 (0.32%) Oracle iProcurement
6 6 (0.27%) Aladdin
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle FAH
6 6 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
7 5 (0.23%) Endur
7 5 (0.23%) OpenText MBPM
7 5 (0.23%) Oracle BPM
8 4 (0.18%) Findur
8 4 (0.18%) IBM Planning Analytics
8 4 (0.18%) Shopify
8 4 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 433 (19.66%) Azure
2 341 (15.49%) AWS
3 249 (11.31%) Power Platform
4 137 (6.22%) GitHub
5 129 (5.86%) PowerApps
6 125 (5.68%) Azure DevOps
7 124 (5.63%) Power Automate
8 113 (5.13%) Dynamics 365
9 102 (4.63%) GCP
10 101 (4.59%) Serverless
11 73 (3.32%) GitHub Actions
12 57 (2.59%) Microsoft Copilot
13 54 (2.45%) Azure Service Bus
14 46 (2.09%) Copilot Studio
15 45 (2.04%) Azure Functions
15 45 (2.04%) Azure Logic Apps
16 44 (2.00%) Amazon S3
17 36 (1.63%) AWS Lambda
18 34 (1.54%) Microsoft 365
19 33 (1.50%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 21 (0.95%) HTTP
2 12 (0.54%) Internet
3 11 (0.50%) FIX Connectivity
4 6 (0.27%) Multicast
5 4 (0.18%) SMS
5 4 (0.18%) SSL
6 2 (0.091%) 4G
6 2 (0.091%) 5G
6 2 (0.091%) CTI
6 2 (0.091%) DNS
6 2 (0.091%) FTP
6 2 (0.091%) HTTPS
6 2 (0.091%) Intranet
6 2 (0.091%) NFC
6 2 (0.091%) SSH
6 2 (0.091%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.045%) Bluetooth
7 1 (0.045%) OpenLDAP
7 1 (0.045%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 201 (9.13%) SQL Server
2 160 (7.27%) Power BI
3 140 (6.36%) PostgreSQL
4 123 (5.59%) Relational Database
5 65 (2.95%) NoSQL
6 60 (2.72%) Data Warehouse
7 59 (2.68%) MongoDB
8 58 (2.63%) Oracle Database
9 42 (1.91%) MySQL
10 38 (1.73%) Redis
11 33 (1.50%) Azure SQL Database
12 32 (1.45%) Power Query
13 27 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 26 (1.18%) KDB
15 23 (1.04%) Star Schema
16 22 (1.00%) Elasticsearch
17 20 (0.91%) DynamoDB
18 19 (0.86%) Data Lake
18 19 (0.86%) Kdb+
19 18 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 246 (11.17%) Git
2 132 (5.99%) Jenkins
3 97 (4.41%) JIRA
4 84 (3.81%) GitLab
5 52 (2.36%) Gradle
6 49 (2.23%) JUnit
6 49 (2.23%) Maven
7 35 (1.59%) Visual Studio
8 28 (1.27%) Mockito
9 25 (1.14%) SonarQube
10 19 (0.86%) Cypress.io
11 18 (0.82%) REST Assured
12 17 (0.77%) Bitbucket
13 15 (0.68%) Claude Code
13 15 (0.68%) Vite
14 13 (0.59%) Cucumber
15 12 (0.54%) TeamCity
16 11 (0.50%) Storybook
17 10 (0.45%) Selenium
17 10 (0.45%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 655 (29.75%) Finance
2 415 (18.85%) Social Skills
3 394 (17.89%) Banking
4 191 (8.67%) Analytical Skills
5 189 (8.58%) Public Sector
6 181 (8.22%) Front Office
7 174 (7.90%) Investment Banking
8 56 (2.54%) Marketing
9 52 (2.36%) Financial Institution
10 48 (2.18%) Retail
11 40 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 34 (1.54%) Back Office
13 22 (1.00%) Law
14 16 (0.73%) Publishing
15 15 (0.68%) Local Government
16 14 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
17 12 (0.54%) Documentation Skills
17 12 (0.54%) Private Banking
18 11 (0.50%) Manufacturing
19 10 (0.45%) Games
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 375 (17.03%) REST
2 325 (14.76%) .NET
3 278 (12.62%) React
4 212 (9.63%) Spring
5 204 (9.26%) RESTful
6 171 (7.77%) Spring Boot
7 158 (7.18%) HTML
8 157 (7.13%) Kafka
9 150 (6.81%) CSS
10 109 (4.95%) Node.js
10 109 (4.95%) SOAP
11 104 (4.72%) AngularJS
12 94 (4.27%) Web Services
13 88 (4.00%) JSON
14 85 (3.86%) Terraform
15 74 (3.36%) XML
16 67 (3.04%) Redux
17 65 (2.95%) OAuth
18 64 (2.91%) .NET Framework
18 64 (2.91%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 141 (6.40%) Cloud Native
2 107 (4.86%) Distributed Systems
3 104 (4.72%) Derivative
4 86 (3.91%) Product Ownership
5 84 (3.81%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 76 (3.45%) Enterprise Software
7 66 (3.00%) Equities
8 61 (2.77%) Fixed Income
9 55 (2.50%) Data Structures
10 47 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
11 39 (1.77%) AI Agents
11 39 (1.77%) Greenfield Project
11 39 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
12 32 (1.45%) Algorithms
12 32 (1.45%) Mobile App
13 31 (1.41%) Low-Code
14 28 (1.27%) Management Information System
15 23 (1.04%) Onboarding
16 22 (1.00%) CMDB
17 21 (0.95%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 106 (4.81%) Linux
2 73 (3.32%) Unix
3 47 (2.13%) Windows
4 36 (1.63%) Apple iOS
5 20 (0.91%) Android
6 10 (0.45%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.18%) macOS
8 2 (0.091%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.091%) zOS
9 1 (0.045%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.045%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 608 (27.61%) Agile
2 585 (26.57%) CI/CD
3 396 (17.98%) DevOps
4 308 (13.99%) Problem-Solving
5 286 (12.99%) Microservices
6 269 (12.22%) Full-Stack Development
7 264 (11.99%) AI
8 236 (10.72%) Software Engineering
9 216 (9.81%) Test Automation
10 193 (8.76%) Continuous Improvement
11 188 (8.54%) Business Intelligence
12 178 (8.08%) Event-Driven
13 170 (7.72%) Scrum
14 162 (7.36%) SDLC
15 160 (7.27%) Data Modelling
16 149 (6.77%) Analytics
17 147 (6.68%) Containerisation
18 140 (6.36%) Code Quality
19 138 (6.27%) TDD
20 130 (5.90%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 568 (25.79%) SQL
2 485 (22.03%) Java
3 456 (20.71%) Python
4 387 (17.57%) C#
5 352 (15.99%) JavaScript
6 259 (11.76%) TypeScript
7 95 (4.31%) PL/SQL
8 65 (2.95%) T-SQL
9 51 (2.32%) Apex Code
10 48 (2.18%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 45 (2.04%) Shell Script
12 43 (1.95%) C++
13 38 (1.73%) Kotlin
14 26 (1.18%) Scala
15 25 (1.14%) Bash
16 24 (1.09%) Swift
17 21 (0.95%) PowerShell
18 20 (0.91%) Ruby
19 18 (0.82%) Go
20 16 (0.73%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 419 (19.03%) Security Cleared
2 361 (16.39%) SC Cleared
3 115 (5.22%) Degree
4 63 (2.86%) Computer Science Degree
5 40 (1.82%) DV Cleared
6 31 (1.41%) BPSS Clearance
7 19 (0.86%) Master's Degree
8 16 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
9 10 (0.45%) Azure Certification
9 10 (0.45%) PhD
10 6 (0.27%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 5 (0.23%) Numerate Degree
12 4 (0.18%) AWS Certification
13 2 (0.091%) CTC Cleared
13 2 (0.091%) DBS Check
14 1 (0.045%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 1 (0.045%) ITIL Certification
14 1 (0.045%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 1 (0.045%) PMI Certification
14 1 (0.045%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 143 (6.49%) QA
2 66 (3.00%) Accessibility
3 57 (2.59%) Data Quality
4 23 (1.04%) WCAG
5 12 (0.54%) GDPR
6 5 (0.23%) ISO 20022
7 4 (0.18%) GRC
7 4 (0.18%) SEPA
7 4 (0.18%) SLA
8 3 (0.14%) Basel III
8 3 (0.14%) EMIR
8 3 (0.14%) HL7
8 3 (0.14%) MiFID
8 3 (0.14%) Solvency II
9 2 (0.091%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 2 (0.091%) GMP
9 2 (0.091%) GxP
9 2 (0.091%) ISO 13485
9 2 (0.091%) ISO 15022
9 2 (0.091%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 210 (9.54%) Docker
2 8 (0.36%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.18%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 2 (0.091%) Postfix
5 1 (0.045%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 193 (8.76%) Kubernetes
2 29 (1.32%) Ansible
2 29 (1.32%) Grafana
3 21 (0.95%) Prometheus
4 11 (0.50%) Control-M
5 10 (0.45%) Kibana
6 4 (0.18%) Argo
6 4 (0.18%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.14%) Bosun
7 3 (0.14%) Istio
8 2 (0.091%) CloudHub
9 1 (0.045%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.045%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 287 (13.03%) Microsoft
2 202 (9.17%) Oracle
3 122 (5.54%) Salesforce
4 94 (4.27%) ServiceNow
5 46 (2.09%) Google
6 45 (2.04%) Databricks
7 44 (2.00%) IBM
8 34 (1.54%) MuleSoft
9 31 (1.41%) Citrix
10 30 (1.36%) UiPath
11 24 (1.09%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
11 24 (1.09%) SAP
12 23 (1.04%) OpenAI
13 14 (0.64%) Splunk
14 13 (0.59%) Adobe
15 12 (0.54%) Sybase
16 11 (0.50%) ION Trading
16 11 (0.50%) webMethods
17 10 (0.45%) Avaloq
17 10 (0.45%) OutSystems