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 12 March 2026.

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

6 months to
12 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 2,204 2,139 2,994
As % of all contract jobs in London 13.61% 16.57% 16.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 14.70% 17.69% 17.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,549 1,510 2,280
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 £538 £525
% change year-on-year -6.98% +2.38% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 8 13
10th Percentile £33.54 £35.53 £33.03
25th Percentile £35.00 £36.50 £56.25
Median hourly rate £46.00 £40.25 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% -32.92% +4.35%
75th Percentile £57.50 £55.25 £72.50
90th Percentile £95.00 £57.13 £73.42
England median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £62.25
% change year-on-year -2.87% +4.42% -2.73%

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 14,998 12,094 17,012
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.61% 93.68% 93.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,058 8,110 12,281
10th Percentile £350 £338 £325
25th Percentile £425 £434 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -4.35%
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 232 142 343
10th Percentile £18.09 £21.02 £16.00
25th Percentile £22.16 £24.66 £19.31
Median hourly rate £35.00 £35.45 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.26% +24.37% -18.57%
75th Percentile £60.50 £53.75 £47.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £78.31 £65.00
England median hourly rate £37.00 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +5.71% +7.69% -23.29%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 -7 283 £525 -8.70% 205
South London 0 43 £511 -44.73% 18
West London -16 18 £455 +11.12% 33
East London -8 5 £521 +30.13% 33
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 12 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 (24.82%) Java
2 541 (24.55%) Python
3 535 (24.27%) Agile
4 529 (24.00%) SQL
5 500 (22.69%) CI/CD
6 489 (22.19%) Azure
7 451 (20.46%) AWS
8 405 (18.38%) JavaScript
9 389 (17.65%) C#
10 385 (17.47%) Security Cleared
11 358 (16.24%) React
12 351 (15.93%) DevOps
13 341 (15.47%) Problem-Solving
14 316 (14.34%) .NET
15 312 (14.16%) SC Cleared
16 291 (13.20%) Docker
17 289 (13.11%) Full-Stack Development
18 282 (12.79%) Microservices
19 271 (12.30%) TypeScript
20 268 (12.16%) Kubernetes
21 245 (11.12%) Microsoft
22 241 (10.93%) REST
23 237 (10.75%) Analytics
24 229 (10.39%) Software Engineering
25 225 (10.21%) Git
26 222 (10.07%) Kafka
27 212 (9.62%) Node.js
28 211 (9.57%) Power Platform
29 198 (8.98%) AI
30 194 (8.80%) 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 73 (3.31%) SharePoint
2 43 (1.95%) Confluence
3 20 (0.91%) CMS
4 18 (0.82%) IIS
5 16 (0.73%) Microsoft Exchange
6 15 (0.68%) HCL Notes
7 13 (0.59%) Apache
7 13 (0.59%) Mendix
8 11 (0.50%) Apache Spark
8 11 (0.50%) Ethereum
9 10 (0.45%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 10 (0.45%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 9 (0.41%) Headless CMS
11 8 (0.36%) Hyperledger
11 8 (0.36%) JBoss
12 7 (0.32%) MQSeries
12 7 (0.32%) WebLogic
13 6 (0.27%) Camunda
13 6 (0.27%) WebSphere
14 5 (0.23%) Appian
Applications
1 48 (2.18%) 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 (2.04%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.82%) Endur
3 13 (0.59%) Fidessa
4 8 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
4 8 (0.36%) Temenos T24
5 7 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
6 6 (0.27%) BusinessWorks
6 6 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
7 5 (0.23%) BASE24
7 5 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.18%) Oracle 11i
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.14%) ProductWriter
10 2 (0.091%) Adobe Campaign
10 2 (0.091%) Magento
10 2 (0.091%) Oracle Cash Management
10 2 (0.091%) Oracle General Ledger
10 2 (0.091%) Oracle Receivables
10 2 (0.091%) Orchestrade
Cloud Services
1 489 (22.19%) Azure
2 451 (20.46%) AWS
3 211 (9.57%) Power Platform
4 163 (7.40%) GitHub
5 142 (6.44%) Azure DevOps
6 121 (5.49%) Serverless
7 113 (5.13%) GCP
8 110 (4.99%) Power Automate
9 97 (4.40%) PowerApps
10 82 (3.72%) Dynamics 365
11 76 (3.45%) GitHub Actions
12 57 (2.59%) AWS Lambda
13 56 (2.54%) Azure Functions
14 55 (2.50%) Azure Logic Apps
14 55 (2.50%) Microsoft 365
15 54 (2.45%) Amazon S3
16 51 (2.31%) Entra ID
17 48 (2.18%) Azure Service Bus
18 37 (1.68%) Microsoft Copilot
19 36 (1.63%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.09%) HTTP
2 13 (0.59%) 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 (0.091%) DHCP
9 2 (0.091%) RTMP
9 2 (0.091%) RTP
9 2 (0.091%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 171 (7.76%) SQL Server
2 148 (6.72%) PostgreSQL
3 134 (6.08%) Power BI
4 120 (5.44%) Relational Database
5 82 (3.72%) NoSQL
6 72 (3.27%) Oracle Database
7 64 (2.90%) MongoDB
8 41 (1.86%) Apache Cassandra
9 39 (1.77%) Data Warehouse
10 34 (1.54%) MySQL
11 26 (1.18%) RDBMS
12 25 (1.13%) Data Lake
12 25 (1.13%) KDB
13 24 (1.09%) DynamoDB
13 24 (1.09%) Kdb+
14 23 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
15 22 (1.00%) DB2
16 21 (0.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 19 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
17 19 (0.86%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 225 (10.21%) Git
2 102 (4.63%) Jenkins
2 102 (4.63%) JIRA
3 64 (2.90%) GitLab
4 58 (2.63%) JUnit
5 30 (1.36%) Maven
5 30 (1.36%) Visual Studio
6 23 (1.04%) Mockito
7 21 (0.95%) Gradle
8 19 (0.86%) Bitbucket
9 16 (0.73%) TeamCity
10 15 (0.68%) Cucumber
10 15 (0.68%) webpack
11 14 (0.64%) Cypress.io
11 14 (0.64%) SonarQube
11 14 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.59%) Android Studio
12 13 (0.59%) Selenium
13 11 (0.50%) Octopus Deploy
13 11 (0.50%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 616 (27.95%) Finance
2 416 (18.87%) Social Skills
3 322 (14.61%) Banking
4 231 (10.48%) Front Office
5 217 (9.85%) Public Sector
6 158 (7.17%) Analytical Skills
7 122 (5.54%) Investment Banking
8 54 (2.45%) Financial Institution
9 22 (1.00%) Documentation Skills
10 18 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 17 (0.77%) Marketing
12 16 (0.73%) 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%) Agriculture
17 7 (0.32%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 358 (16.24%) React
2 316 (14.34%) .NET
3 241 (10.93%) REST
4 222 (10.07%) Kafka
5 212 (9.62%) Node.js
6 194 (8.80%) HTML
7 192 (8.71%) RESTful
8 180 (8.17%) AngularJS
9 178 (8.08%) Spring
10 172 (7.80%) CSS
11 131 (5.94%) Spring Boot
12 87 (3.95%) Web Services
13 83 (3.77%) .NET Framework
14 79 (3.58%) Redux
15 77 (3.49%) SOAP
16 76 (3.45%) GraphQL
17 74 (3.36%) JSON
18 68 (3.09%) Vue
19 61 (2.77%) XML
20 47 (2.13%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 128 (5.81%) Equities
2 114 (5.17%) Derivative
3 102 (4.63%) Fixed Income
4 98 (4.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 82 (3.72%) Cloud Native
6 80 (3.63%) Algorithms
7 78 (3.54%) Distributed Systems
8 71 (3.22%) Data Structures
9 61 (2.77%) Product Ownership
10 46 (2.09%) Greenfield Project
11 41 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
11 41 (1.86%) Mobile App
12 38 (1.72%) Management Information System
13 37 (1.68%) AI Agents
13 37 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
14 33 (1.50%) Hedge funds
15 31 (1.41%) Low-Code
16 30 (1.36%) Equity Derivative
17 27 (1.23%) Market Risk
18 25 (1.13%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 125 (5.67%) Linux
2 67 (3.04%) Windows
3 51 (2.31%) Unix
4 35 (1.59%) Android
5 31 (1.41%) Apple iOS
6 22 (1.00%) 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
1 535 (24.27%) Agile
2 500 (22.69%) CI/CD
3 351 (15.93%) DevOps
4 341 (15.47%) Problem-Solving
5 289 (13.11%) Full-Stack Development
6 282 (12.79%) Microservices
7 237 (10.75%) Analytics
8 229 (10.39%) Software Engineering
9 198 (8.98%) AI
10 186 (8.44%) Business Intelligence
11 180 (8.17%) Containerisation
12 171 (7.76%) Test Automation
13 154 (6.99%) Data Modelling
14 141 (6.40%) TDD
15 130 (5.90%) Front End Development
16 129 (5.85%) Unit Testing
17 127 (5.76%) Scrum
18 121 (5.49%) Design Patterns
19 111 (5.04%) Low Latency
20 108 (4.90%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 547 (24.82%) Java
2 541 (24.55%) Python
3 529 (24.00%) SQL
4 405 (18.38%) JavaScript
5 389 (17.65%) C#
6 271 (12.30%) TypeScript
7 99 (4.49%) C++
8 90 (4.08%) Go
9 75 (3.40%) PL/SQL
10 52 (2.36%) Kotlin
10 52 (2.36%) T-SQL
11 43 (1.95%) Apex Code
12 36 (1.63%) Ruby
13 35 (1.59%) Shell Script
14 33 (1.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 33 (1.50%) PowerShell
15 29 (1.32%) VB
16 28 (1.27%) VBA
17 20 (0.91%) C
17 20 (0.91%) Swift
Qualifications
1 385 (17.47%) Security Cleared
2 312 (14.16%) SC Cleared
3 116 (5.26%) Degree
4 51 (2.31%) Computer Science Degree
5 28 (1.27%) DV Cleared
6 26 (1.18%) BPSS Clearance
7 24 (1.09%) Master's Degree
8 12 (0.54%) Numerate Degree
9 6 (0.27%) AWS Certification
9 6 (0.27%) Microsoft Certification
10 5 (0.23%) Azure Certification
10 5 (0.23%) PhD
11 4 (0.18%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.14%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.14%) CTC Cleared
13 2 (0.091%) AWS Certified Developer
13 2 (0.091%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 2 (0.091%) OCP
13 2 (0.091%) Postgraduate
14 1 (0.045%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (4.40%) QA
2 77 (3.49%) Accessibility
3 36 (1.63%) WCAG
4 34 (1.54%) Data Quality
5 14 (0.64%) GDPR
6 7 (0.32%) ISO 8583
6 7 (0.32%) SLA
7 6 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 5 (0.23%) SEPA
9 4 (0.18%) GRC
9 4 (0.18%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.14%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.14%) PMO
10 3 (0.14%) PSD2
11 2 (0.091%) HL7
12 1 (0.045%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.045%) MiFID
System Software
1 291 (13.20%) Docker
2 28 (1.27%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.14%) HDFS
4 2 (0.091%) OpenAM
4 2 (0.091%) OpenDJ
4 2 (0.091%) OpenIDM
4 2 (0.091%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.091%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (0.091%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.091%) zsh
5 1 (0.045%) FreeRADIUS
5 1 (0.045%) Oracle RAC
5 1 (0.045%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 268 (12.16%) Kubernetes
2 82 (3.72%) Terraform
3 32 (1.45%) Ansible
4 25 (1.13%) Grafana
5 18 (0.82%) 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 (0.091%) CloudHub
10 2 (0.091%) Podman
10 2 (0.091%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.091%) 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
Vendors
1 245 (11.12%) Microsoft
2 179 (8.12%) Oracle
3 75 (3.40%) Salesforce
4 63 (2.86%) ServiceNow
5 37 (1.68%) SAP
6 35 (1.59%) Citrix
6 35 (1.59%) Databricks
7 33 (1.50%) IBM
8 32 (1.45%) OpenAI
9 30 (1.36%) Google
10 26 (1.18%) Adobe
11 23 (1.04%) MuleSoft
12 21 (0.95%) Guidewire
13 16 (0.73%) Sybase
14 15 (0.68%) Foundry
14 15 (0.68%) Lotus
15 14 (0.64%) Red Hat
16 12 (0.54%) Pega
17 11 (0.50%) ION Trading
17 11 (0.50%) OpenLink