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 25 February 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 5 4
Rank change year-on-year -5 -1 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 2,127 2,229 2,919
As % of all contract jobs in London 13.46% 16.67% 16.05%
As % of the Job Titles category 14.54% 17.81% 17.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,487 1,533 2,224
10th Percentile £382 £382 £400
25th Percentile £425 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £565 £575
Median % change year-on-year -7.08% -1.74% -8.00%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £750
90th Percentile £800 £850 £850
England median daily rate £500 £538 £525
% change year-on-year -6.98% +2.38% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 7 15
10th Percentile £34.27 £35.45 £36.33
25th Percentile £35.00 £36.25 £56.25
Median hourly rate £50.50 £39.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +29.49% -37.60% +8.70%
75th Percentile £73.44 £48.50 £72.25
90th Percentile £95.00 £57.75 £73.19
England median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £67.00
% change year-on-year -2.87% -2.99% +11.67%

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 14,630 12,515 16,949
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.57% 93.61% 93.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,791 8,168 12,244
10th Percentile £350 £337 £325
25th Percentile £425 £435 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -5.17%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £788
England median daily rate £503 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.29% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 226 146 335
10th Percentile £18.07 £21.23 £15.97
25th Percentile £23.14 £24.68 £19.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £35.75 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.10% +25.44% -18.57%
75th Percentile £60.19 £53.75 £47.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £78.58 £65.00
England median hourly rate £33.50 £36.50 £34.25
% change year-on-year -8.22% +6.57% -14.38%

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 25 February 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 25 February 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 25 February 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 -8 265 £525 -8.70% 159
South London -4 45 £508 -39.37% 9
West London -23 18 £400 -2.20% 26
East London -5 9 £813 +103.13% 22
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 25 February 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.

1 537 (25.25%) Java
2 529 (24.87%) Python
3 518 (24.35%) Agile
4 513 (24.12%) SQL
5 491 (23.08%) CI/CD
6 449 (21.11%) Azure
7 441 (20.73%) AWS
8 395 (18.57%) JavaScript
9 381 (17.91%) C#
10 355 (16.69%) Problem-Solving
11 344 (16.17%) Security Cleared
12 343 (16.13%) React
13 328 (15.42%) DevOps
14 294 (13.82%) Full-Stack Development
15 292 (13.73%) .NET
16 289 (13.59%) Docker
17 285 (13.40%) Microservices
18 278 (13.07%) SC Cleared
19 268 (12.60%) Kubernetes
20 256 (12.04%) TypeScript
21 243 (11.42%) REST
22 239 (11.24%) Microsoft
23 233 (10.95%) Analytics
24 223 (10.48%) Software Engineering
25 219 (10.30%) Git
26 214 (10.06%) Kafka
27 202 (9.50%) Power Platform
28 201 (9.45%) Node.js
29 190 (8.93%) RESTful
30 188 (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 63 (2.96%) SharePoint
2 41 (1.93%) Confluence
3 19 (0.89%) CMS
4 18 (0.85%) IIS
5 15 (0.71%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 14 (0.66%) HCL Notes
7 12 (0.56%) Mendix
8 11 (0.52%) Ethereum
9 10 (0.47%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 10 (0.47%) Apache
9 10 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
9 10 (0.47%) MQSeries
10 8 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
10 8 (0.38%) Headless CMS
10 8 (0.38%) Hyperledger
11 7 (0.33%) Apache Spark
11 7 (0.33%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.28%) Camunda
12 6 (0.28%) JBoss
12 6 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 51 (2.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.47%) Chatbot
3 6 (0.28%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.14%) Adobe XD
5 3 (0.14%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.047%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.047%) Trello
Business Applications
1 41 (1.93%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.85%) Endur
3 13 (0.61%) Fidessa
4 11 (0.52%) Oracle ERP
5 7 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
6 6 (0.28%) BusinessWorks
6 6 (0.28%) Temenos T24
7 5 (0.24%) BASE24
7 5 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.19%) Oracle 11i
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.14%) ProductWriter
10 2 (0.094%) Adobe Campaign
10 2 (0.094%) Magento
10 2 (0.094%) Oracle Cash Management
10 2 (0.094%) Oracle General Ledger
10 2 (0.094%) Oracle Receivables
10 2 (0.094%) Orchestrade
Cloud Services
1 449 (21.11%) Azure
2 441 (20.73%) AWS
3 202 (9.50%) Power Platform
4 166 (7.80%) GitHub
5 132 (6.21%) Azure DevOps
6 113 (5.31%) GCP
6 113 (5.31%) Serverless
7 100 (4.70%) Power Automate
8 91 (4.28%) PowerApps
9 79 (3.71%) Dynamics 365
10 70 (3.29%) GitHub Actions
11 58 (2.73%) Azure Logic Apps
12 55 (2.59%) Azure Functions
13 53 (2.49%) AWS Lambda
14 50 (2.35%) Amazon S3
15 47 (2.21%) Azure Service Bus
15 47 (2.21%) Entra ID
16 44 (2.07%) Microsoft 365
17 36 (1.69%) Microsoft Copilot
18 34 (1.60%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.08%) HTTP
2 13 (0.61%) Internet
3 11 (0.52%) FIX Connectivity
4 9 (0.42%) HTTPS
5 8 (0.38%) Network Security
5 8 (0.38%) SSL
6 7 (0.33%) TCP/IP
7 5 (0.24%) CTI
7 5 (0.24%) Firewall
7 5 (0.24%) SMS
7 5 (0.24%) VoIP
8 4 (0.19%) DNS
9 3 (0.14%) 3GPP
9 3 (0.14%) Multicast
9 3 (0.14%) MVNO
9 3 (0.14%) SMPP
10 2 (0.094%) DHCP
10 2 (0.094%) RTMP
10 2 (0.094%) SSH
11 1 (0.047%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 175 (8.23%) SQL Server
2 151 (7.10%) PostgreSQL
3 131 (6.16%) Power BI
4 120 (5.64%) Relational Database
5 81 (3.81%) NoSQL
6 71 (3.34%) Oracle Database
7 63 (2.96%) MongoDB
8 40 (1.88%) Apache Cassandra
9 37 (1.74%) MySQL
10 35 (1.65%) Data Warehouse
11 27 (1.27%) Data Lake
12 25 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
12 25 (1.18%) DB2
12 25 (1.18%) KDB
12 25 (1.18%) RDBMS
13 24 (1.13%) Kdb+
13 24 (1.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 23 (1.08%) DynamoDB
15 19 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
16 18 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 219 (10.30%) Git
2 98 (4.61%) JIRA
3 96 (4.51%) Jenkins
4 62 (2.91%) GitLab
5 57 (2.68%) JUnit
6 33 (1.55%) Maven
7 31 (1.46%) Visual Studio
8 22 (1.03%) Gradle
9 20 (0.94%) Mockito
10 19 (0.89%) Bitbucket
11 16 (0.75%) Sonatype Nexus
12 15 (0.71%) webpack
13 14 (0.66%) SonarQube
14 13 (0.61%) Cucumber
14 13 (0.61%) SpecFlow
15 12 (0.56%) Cypress.io
15 12 (0.56%) Selenium
15 12 (0.56%) TeamCity
16 11 (0.52%) Android Studio
16 11 (0.52%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 601 (28.26%) Finance
2 424 (19.93%) Social Skills
3 318 (14.95%) Banking
4 217 (10.20%) Front Office
5 190 (8.93%) Public Sector
6 150 (7.05%) Analytical Skills
7 123 (5.78%) Investment Banking
8 58 (2.73%) Financial Institution
9 21 (0.99%) Documentation Skills
10 20 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 19 (0.89%) Marketing
12 18 (0.85%) Law
13 12 (0.56%) Back Office
14 11 (0.52%) Telecoms
15 9 (0.42%) Presentation Skills
16 8 (0.38%) Billing
16 8 (0.38%) Private Banking
16 8 (0.38%) Retail
17 7 (0.33%) Local Government
17 7 (0.33%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 343 (16.13%) React
2 292 (13.73%) .NET
3 243 (11.42%) REST
4 214 (10.06%) Kafka
5 201 (9.45%) Node.js
6 190 (8.93%) RESTful
7 188 (8.84%) HTML
8 177 (8.32%) CSS
9 174 (8.18%) Spring
10 168 (7.90%) AngularJS
11 131 (6.16%) Spring Boot
12 83 (3.90%) .NET Framework
13 81 (3.81%) SOAP
13 81 (3.81%) Web Services
14 75 (3.53%) JSON
15 71 (3.34%) XML
16 66 (3.10%) GraphQL
16 66 (3.10%) Vue
17 65 (3.06%) Redux
18 49 (2.30%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 124 (5.83%) Equities
2 107 (5.03%) Derivative
2 107 (5.03%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 92 (4.33%) Fixed Income
4 86 (4.04%) Cloud Native
5 83 (3.90%) Algorithms
6 80 (3.76%) Distributed Systems
7 71 (3.34%) Data Structures
8 62 (2.91%) Product Ownership
9 43 (2.02%) Greenfield Project
10 42 (1.97%) Legacy Systems
10 42 (1.97%) Management Information System
11 40 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
12 39 (1.83%) Mobile App
13 36 (1.69%) AI Agents
14 29 (1.36%) Hedge funds
14 29 (1.36%) Low-Code
15 28 (1.32%) Equity Derivative
16 27 (1.27%) Market Risk
17 25 (1.18%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 137 (6.44%) Linux
2 71 (3.34%) Windows
3 52 (2.44%) Unix
4 34 (1.60%) Android
5 31 (1.46%) Apple iOS
6 20 (0.94%) Windows Server
7 6 (0.28%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.24%) AIX
8 5 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.19%) CentOS
9 4 (0.19%) zOS
10 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.047%) VMS
11 1 (0.047%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 518 (24.35%) Agile
2 491 (23.08%) CI/CD
3 355 (16.69%) Problem-Solving
4 328 (15.42%) DevOps
5 294 (13.82%) Full-Stack Development
6 285 (13.40%) Microservices
7 233 (10.95%) Analytics
8 223 (10.48%) Software Engineering
9 187 (8.79%) AI
10 184 (8.65%) Business Intelligence
11 177 (8.32%) Containerisation
12 175 (8.23%) Test Automation
13 138 (6.49%) TDD
14 137 (6.44%) Scrum
15 136 (6.39%) Data Modelling
16 128 (6.02%) Front End Development
17 118 (5.55%) Design Patterns
17 118 (5.55%) Unit Testing
18 110 (5.17%) Low Latency
19 105 (4.94%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 537 (25.25%) Java
2 529 (24.87%) Python
3 513 (24.12%) SQL
4 395 (18.57%) JavaScript
5 381 (17.91%) C#
6 256 (12.04%) TypeScript
7 108 (5.08%) C++
8 82 (3.86%) Go
9 80 (3.76%) PL/SQL
10 51 (2.40%) T-SQL
11 48 (2.26%) Kotlin
12 38 (1.79%) Apex Code
13 37 (1.74%) PowerShell
14 36 (1.69%) Shell Script
15 34 (1.60%) Ruby
15 34 (1.60%) VB
16 33 (1.55%) VBA
17 27 (1.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 23 (1.08%) C
19 21 (0.99%) PHP
Qualifications
1 344 (16.17%) Security Cleared
2 278 (13.07%) SC Cleared
3 118 (5.55%) Degree
4 49 (2.30%) Computer Science Degree
5 27 (1.27%) DV Cleared
6 25 (1.18%) BPSS Clearance
7 22 (1.03%) Master's Degree
8 12 (0.56%) Numerate Degree
9 6 (0.28%) AWS Certification
9 6 (0.28%) Microsoft Certification
10 5 (0.24%) Azure Certification
10 5 (0.24%) PhD
11 4 (0.19%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.14%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.14%) CTC Cleared
13 2 (0.094%) AWS Certified Developer
13 2 (0.094%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 2 (0.094%) OCP
13 2 (0.094%) Postgraduate
14 1 (0.047%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (4.51%) QA
2 66 (3.10%) Accessibility
3 34 (1.60%) Data Quality
4 30 (1.41%) WCAG
5 14 (0.66%) GDPR
6 7 (0.33%) ISO 8583
6 7 (0.33%) SLA
7 6 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 5 (0.24%) SEPA
9 4 (0.19%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.14%) GRC
10 3 (0.14%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.14%) PSD2
11 2 (0.094%) HL7
11 2 (0.094%) PMO
12 1 (0.047%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.047%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.047%) MiFID
System Software
1 289 (13.59%) Docker
2 29 (1.36%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.19%) HDFS
3 4 (0.19%) zsh
4 3 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.094%) GridGain
5 2 (0.094%) OpenAM
5 2 (0.094%) OpenDJ
5 2 (0.094%) OpenIDM
5 2 (0.094%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.094%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.047%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.047%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 268 (12.60%) Kubernetes
2 83 (3.90%) Terraform
3 30 (1.41%) Ansible
4 22 (1.03%) Grafana
5 17 (0.80%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.56%) Argo
8 7 (0.33%) Control-M
9 6 (0.28%) TIBCO Hawk
10 5 (0.24%) SCCM
11 3 (0.14%) Podman
12 2 (0.094%) CloudHub
12 2 (0.094%) Docker Swarm
12 2 (0.094%) Kibana
12 2 (0.094%) Progress Chef
12 2 (0.094%) rkt
13 1 (0.047%) IBM Guardium
13 1 (0.047%) Istio
13 1 (0.047%) Nessus
13 1 (0.047%) Oracle Identity Management
Vendors
1 239 (11.24%) Microsoft
2 181 (8.51%) Oracle
3 66 (3.10%) Salesforce
4 62 (2.91%) ServiceNow
5 37 (1.74%) IBM
6 36 (1.69%) Databricks
6 36 (1.69%) SAP
7 35 (1.65%) Google
8 33 (1.55%) Citrix
9 30 (1.41%) OpenAI
10 26 (1.22%) Adobe
11 22 (1.03%) Guidewire
12 20 (0.94%) MuleSoft
13 18 (0.85%) Red Hat
14 17 (0.80%) Sybase
15 14 (0.66%) Lotus
16 13 (0.61%) Foundry
16 13 (0.61%) Solace
17 12 (0.56%) OpenLink
18 11 (0.52%) VMware