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 18 February 2026.

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

6 months to
18 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 2,126 2,241 2,915
As % of all contract jobs in London 13.69% 16.62% 15.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 14.77% 17.75% 17.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,486 1,534 2,226
10th Percentile £382 £381 £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 £838 £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 £60.00 £65.00 £68.05
% change year-on-year -7.69% -4.48% +8.88%

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 14,392 12,625 17,083
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.65% 93.62% 93.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,609 8,146 12,315
10th Percentile £350 £332 £325
25th Percentile £425 £437 £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 £780
England median daily rate £501 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.67% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 228 142 336
10th Percentile £18.25 £21.02 £16.00
25th Percentile £24.02 £24.66 £19.05
Median hourly rate £34.75 £37.25 £29.36
Median % change year-on-year -6.72% +26.87% -16.11%
75th Percentile £59.79 £53.75 £49.91
90th Percentile £76.58 £78.72 £66.50
England median hourly rate £31.93 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -8.77% - -12.50%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -9 268 £525 -8.70% 196
South London -2 45 £508 -45.11% 14
West London -26 15 £509 +24.45% 34
East London -4 11 £1,000 +150.00% 28
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 18 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.

1 532 (25.02%) Java
2 527 (24.79%) Python
3 512 (24.08%) Agile
4 510 (23.99%) SQL
5 494 (23.24%) CI/CD
6 442 (20.79%) Azure
7 428 (20.13%) AWS
8 383 (18.02%) C#
8 383 (18.02%) JavaScript
9 361 (16.98%) Problem-Solving
10 341 (16.04%) Security Cleared
11 328 (15.43%) React
12 324 (15.24%) DevOps
13 291 (13.69%) .NET
13 291 (13.69%) Full-Stack Development
14 287 (13.50%) Docker
15 283 (13.31%) Microservices
16 277 (13.03%) SC Cleared
17 272 (12.79%) Kubernetes
18 245 (11.52%) TypeScript
19 244 (11.48%) Microsoft
19 244 (11.48%) REST
20 234 (11.01%) Analytics
21 224 (10.54%) Git
22 220 (10.35%) Software Engineering
23 204 (9.60%) Kafka
24 199 (9.36%) Power Platform
25 189 (8.89%) Node.js
25 189 (8.89%) RESTful
26 184 (8.65%) 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 65 (3.06%) SharePoint
2 41 (1.93%) Confluence
3 18 (0.85%) IIS
4 17 (0.80%) CMS
5 15 (0.71%) HCL Notes
5 15 (0.71%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 12 (0.56%) Mendix
7 11 (0.52%) Ethereum
8 10 (0.47%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 10 (0.47%) MQSeries
9 9 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
9 9 (0.42%) Microsoft Exchange
10 8 (0.38%) Apache
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
12 6 (0.28%) WebSphere
Applications
1 55 (2.59%) 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
8 4 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.19%) Oracle Financials
8 4 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.19%) ProductWriter
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
9 3 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
10 2 (0.094%) Magento
10 2 (0.094%) Oracle Cash Management
10 2 (0.094%) Oracle Receivables
10 2 (0.094%) Orchestrade
Cloud Services
1 442 (20.79%) Azure
2 428 (20.13%) AWS
3 199 (9.36%) Power Platform
4 165 (7.76%) GitHub
5 130 (6.11%) Azure DevOps
6 114 (5.36%) Serverless
7 109 (5.13%) GCP
8 101 (4.75%) Power Automate
9 90 (4.23%) PowerApps
10 79 (3.72%) Dynamics 365
11 71 (3.34%) GitHub Actions
12 60 (2.82%) Azure Logic Apps
13 55 (2.59%) Azure Functions
14 54 (2.54%) AWS Lambda
15 48 (2.26%) Amazon S3
15 48 (2.26%) Entra ID
16 47 (2.21%) Azure Service Bus
17 43 (2.02%) Microsoft 365
18 36 (1.69%) Azure Monitor
19 34 (1.60%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.08%) HTTP
2 13 (0.61%) Internet
3 11 (0.52%) FIX Connectivity
3 11 (0.52%) HTTPS
4 10 (0.47%) SSL
5 8 (0.38%) Network Security
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
8 4 (0.19%) Multicast
9 3 (0.14%) 3GPP
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
10 2 (0.094%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 173 (8.14%) SQL Server
2 148 (6.96%) PostgreSQL
3 129 (6.07%) Power BI
4 121 (5.69%) Relational Database
5 82 (3.86%) NoSQL
6 69 (3.25%) Oracle Database
7 63 (2.96%) MongoDB
8 39 (1.83%) Apache Cassandra
8 39 (1.83%) Data Warehouse
9 35 (1.65%) MySQL
10 26 (1.22%) Data Lake
10 26 (1.22%) KDB
11 25 (1.18%) Kdb+
11 25 (1.18%) RDBMS
12 23 (1.08%) DB2
13 22 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 21 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
14 21 (0.99%) DynamoDB
15 20 (0.94%) Power Query
16 19 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 224 (10.54%) Git
2 99 (4.66%) JIRA
3 93 (4.37%) Jenkins
4 64 (3.01%) GitLab
5 55 (2.59%) JUnit
6 32 (1.51%) Maven
6 32 (1.51%) Visual Studio
7 23 (1.08%) Gradle
8 19 (0.89%) Bitbucket
9 18 (0.85%) Mockito
10 16 (0.75%) Sonatype Nexus
11 14 (0.66%) webpack
12 13 (0.61%) Cucumber
12 13 (0.61%) SonarQube
13 12 (0.56%) Cypress.io
13 12 (0.56%) Selenium
13 12 (0.56%) SpecFlow
14 11 (0.52%) Android Studio
14 11 (0.52%) TeamCity
15 10 (0.47%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 604 (28.41%) Finance
2 431 (20.27%) Social Skills
3 326 (15.33%) Banking
4 209 (9.83%) Front Office
5 187 (8.80%) Public Sector
6 154 (7.24%) Analytical Skills
7 126 (5.93%) Investment Banking
8 61 (2.87%) Financial Institution
9 21 (0.99%) Marketing
10 20 (0.94%) Documentation Skills
10 20 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 19 (0.89%) Law
12 11 (0.52%) Back Office
12 11 (0.52%) Telecoms
13 9 (0.42%) Presentation Skills
14 8 (0.38%) Billing
14 8 (0.38%) Private Banking
14 8 (0.38%) Retail
15 7 (0.33%) Local Government
15 7 (0.33%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 328 (15.43%) React
2 291 (13.69%) .NET
3 244 (11.48%) REST
4 204 (9.60%) Kafka
5 189 (8.89%) Node.js
5 189 (8.89%) RESTful
6 184 (8.65%) HTML
7 175 (8.23%) CSS
8 171 (8.04%) Spring
9 164 (7.71%) AngularJS
10 126 (5.93%) Spring Boot
11 83 (3.90%) .NET Framework
12 82 (3.86%) SOAP
12 82 (3.86%) Web Services
13 77 (3.62%) JSON
14 73 (3.43%) XML
15 67 (3.15%) Vue
16 59 (2.78%) GraphQL
17 53 (2.49%) Redux
18 51 (2.40%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 125 (5.88%) Equities
2 115 (5.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 108 (5.08%) Derivative
4 87 (4.09%) Cloud Native
5 85 (4.00%) Algorithms
6 82 (3.86%) Fixed Income
7 78 (3.67%) Distributed Systems
8 70 (3.29%) Data Structures
9 63 (2.96%) Product Ownership
10 42 (1.98%) Data Protection Act
10 42 (1.98%) Greenfield Project
10 42 (1.98%) Management Information System
10 42 (1.98%) Mobile App
11 38 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
12 35 (1.65%) AI Agents
13 31 (1.46%) Equity Derivative
13 31 (1.46%) Hedge funds
14 29 (1.36%) Low-Code
15 28 (1.32%) Market Risk
16 26 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 148 (6.96%) Linux
2 74 (3.48%) Windows
3 55 (2.59%) Unix
4 37 (1.74%) Android
5 32 (1.51%) Apple iOS
6 19 (0.89%) 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
10 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
10 3 (0.14%) zOS
11 1 (0.047%) VMS
11 1 (0.047%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 512 (24.08%) Agile
2 494 (23.24%) CI/CD
3 361 (16.98%) Problem-Solving
4 324 (15.24%) DevOps
5 291 (13.69%) Full-Stack Development
6 283 (13.31%) Microservices
7 234 (11.01%) Analytics
8 220 (10.35%) Software Engineering
9 183 (8.61%) AI
10 182 (8.56%) Business Intelligence
11 177 (8.33%) Test Automation
12 175 (8.23%) Containerisation
13 140 (6.59%) TDD
14 137 (6.44%) Scrum
15 127 (5.97%) Data Modelling
15 127 (5.97%) Front End Development
16 117 (5.50%) Unit Testing
17 116 (5.46%) Design Patterns
18 113 (5.32%) Low Latency
19 112 (5.27%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 532 (25.02%) Java
2 527 (24.79%) Python
3 510 (23.99%) SQL
4 383 (18.02%) C#
4 383 (18.02%) JavaScript
5 245 (11.52%) TypeScript
6 115 (5.41%) C++
7 80 (3.76%) PL/SQL
8 77 (3.62%) Go
9 51 (2.40%) T-SQL
10 49 (2.30%) Kotlin
11 41 (1.93%) Apex Code
12 37 (1.74%) PowerShell
13 36 (1.69%) Shell Script
14 35 (1.65%) VB
15 34 (1.60%) VBA
16 33 (1.55%) Ruby
17 28 (1.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 23 (1.08%) C
19 21 (0.99%) PHP
Qualifications
1 341 (16.04%) Security Cleared
2 277 (13.03%) SC Cleared
3 123 (5.79%) Degree
4 55 (2.59%) Computer Science Degree
5 27 (1.27%) DV Cleared
6 25 (1.18%) BPSS Clearance
7 23 (1.08%) Master's Degree
8 13 (0.61%) Numerate Degree
9 6 (0.28%) Microsoft Certification
10 5 (0.24%) AWS Certification
10 5 (0.24%) Azure Certification
10 5 (0.24%) PhD
11 4 (0.19%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.14%) CTC Cleared
13 2 (0.094%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 2 (0.094%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 2 (0.094%) OCP
14 1 (0.047%) AWS Certified Developer
14 1 (0.047%) CISSP
14 1 (0.047%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (4.56%) QA
2 65 (3.06%) Accessibility
3 38 (1.79%) Data Quality
4 28 (1.32%) WCAG
5 15 (0.71%) 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
12 1 (0.047%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.047%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.047%) MiFID
System Software
1 287 (13.50%) Docker
2 30 (1.41%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.28%) zsh
4 4 (0.19%) HDFS
5 3 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.094%) GridGain
6 2 (0.094%) OpenAM
6 2 (0.094%) OpenDJ
6 2 (0.094%) OpenIDM
6 2 (0.094%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.094%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.047%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 272 (12.79%) Kubernetes
2 81 (3.81%) Terraform
3 30 (1.41%) Ansible
4 21 (0.99%) Grafana
5 16 (0.75%) Prometheus
6 15 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (0.56%) Argo
8 7 (0.33%) Control-M
9 6 (0.28%) TIBCO Hawk
10 4 (0.19%) SCCM
11 3 (0.14%) Kibana
11 3 (0.14%) Podman
12 2 (0.094%) CloudHub
12 2 (0.094%) Docker Swarm
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
1 244 (11.48%) Microsoft
2 181 (8.51%) Oracle
3 72 (3.39%) Salesforce
4 56 (2.63%) ServiceNow
5 37 (1.74%) Google
5 37 (1.74%) IBM
6 36 (1.69%) Databricks
6 36 (1.69%) SAP
7 32 (1.51%) Citrix
8 29 (1.36%) OpenAI
9 26 (1.22%) Adobe
10 22 (1.03%) MuleSoft
11 21 (0.99%) Guidewire
12 18 (0.85%) Red Hat
13 16 (0.75%) Sybase
14 15 (0.71%) Lotus
15 13 (0.61%) Foundry
15 13 (0.61%) Solace
16 12 (0.56%) OpenLink
17 11 (0.52%) ION Trading