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 8 May 2026.

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

6 months to
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 6 4
Rank change year-on-year -4 -2 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 2,216 2,063 3,055
As % of all contract jobs in London 12.46% 16.56% 17.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 13.44% 17.73% 18.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,556 1,500 2,352
10th Percentile £381 £385 £385
25th Percentile £425 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% - -4.17%
75th Percentile £650 £750 £750
90th Percentile £800 £863 £850
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 4 7
10th Percentile - £39.76 £41.00
25th Percentile £35.00 £47.47 £60.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £53.50 £67.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.87% -20.15% +16.52%
75th Percentile £65.63 £56.81 £72.50
90th Percentile £95.00 £59.63 £73.50
England median hourly rate £55.00 £59.88 £65.00
% change year-on-year -8.14% -7.88% +4.00%

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 16,488 11,637 16,516
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.72% 93.41% 93.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,954 7,971 11,960
10th Percentile £350 £346 £325
25th Percentile £425 £430 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £650 £676 £681
90th Percentile £750 £800 £800
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 270 145 331
10th Percentile £18.75 £20.33 £16.00
25th Percentile £24.03 £24.00 £20.02
Median hourly rate £37.50 £34.65 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.23% +26.00% -22.54%
75th Percentile £63.32 £50.75 £44.25
90th Percentile £76.58 £64.50 £65.00
England median hourly rate £47.00 £30.40 £36.58
% change year-on-year +54.61% -16.88% -17.86%

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 8 May 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 8 May 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 8 May 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 -5 294 £525 -10.26% 150
South London -2 46 £513 -44.59% 6
West London -23 18 £497 -0.60% 19
East London -8 7 £416 -6.53% 18
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 8 May 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.

1 530 (23.92%) Agile
2 521 (23.51%) Java
3 505 (22.79%) Python
4 487 (21.98%) CI/CD
5 478 (21.57%) SQL
6 464 (20.94%) Azure
7 430 (19.40%) AWS
8 409 (18.46%) Security Cleared
9 395 (17.82%) C#
10 374 (16.88%) JavaScript
11 339 (15.30%) DevOps
11 339 (15.30%) SC Cleared
12 324 (14.62%) React
13 312 (14.08%) .NET
14 281 (12.68%) Docker
15 276 (12.45%) Microservices
16 271 (12.23%) Full-Stack Development
17 258 (11.64%) TypeScript
18 254 (11.46%) Problem-Solving
19 242 (10.92%) Kubernetes
20 235 (10.60%) Software Engineering
21 234 (10.56%) REST
22 233 (10.51%) Microsoft
23 211 (9.52%) AI
24 209 (9.43%) Power Platform
25 196 (8.84%) Kafka
26 195 (8.80%) Oracle
27 191 (8.62%) RESTful
28 187 (8.44%) Containerisation
29 186 (8.39%) Analytics

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 77 (3.47%) SharePoint
2 45 (2.03%) Confluence
3 23 (1.04%) IIS
4 22 (0.99%) Apache
5 18 (0.81%) CMS
6 17 (0.77%) Apache Spark
7 16 (0.72%) HCL Notes
8 15 (0.68%) Mendix
9 13 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
10 9 (0.41%) Ethereum
10 9 (0.41%) JBoss
11 8 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 8 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 7 (0.32%) Camunda
13 6 (0.27%) Anypoint
13 6 (0.27%) CICS
13 6 (0.27%) SAS
14 5 (0.23%) Headless CMS
14 5 (0.23%) Hyperledger
14 5 (0.23%) Tomcat
Applications
1 40 (1.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.14%) Adobe XD
3 3 (0.14%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.090%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.045%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 45 (2.03%) Dynamics CRM
2 20 (0.90%) Endur
3 11 (0.50%) Temenos T24
4 7 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
4 7 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
5 6 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
5 6 (0.27%) ProductWriter
6 5 (0.23%) BASE24
6 5 (0.23%) Fidessa
6 5 (0.23%) Findur
6 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
7 4 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
7 4 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
8 3 (0.14%) BusinessWorks
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle 11i
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 3 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 464 (20.94%) Azure
2 430 (19.40%) AWS
3 209 (9.43%) Power Platform
4 142 (6.41%) GitHub
5 128 (5.78%) Azure DevOps
6 120 (5.42%) Power Automate
6 120 (5.42%) Serverless
7 107 (4.83%) PowerApps
8 102 (4.60%) GCP
9 94 (4.24%) Dynamics 365
10 72 (3.25%) GitHub Actions
11 67 (3.02%) AWS Lambda
12 64 (2.89%) Amazon S3
13 53 (2.39%) Microsoft 365
14 47 (2.12%) Azure Logic Apps
15 44 (1.99%) Azure Service Bus
16 41 (1.85%) Azure AKS
16 41 (1.85%) Azure Functions
17 40 (1.81%) Entra ID
18 36 (1.62%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.31%) HTTP
2 19 (0.86%) FIX Connectivity
3 13 (0.59%) Internet
4 6 (0.27%) Network Security
5 5 (0.23%) Multicast
5 5 (0.23%) SMS
6 3 (0.14%) 3GPP
6 3 (0.14%) MVNO
6 3 (0.14%) RTP
6 3 (0.14%) SMPP
6 3 (0.14%) SSL
6 3 (0.14%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.090%) DNS
7 2 (0.090%) Ethernet
7 2 (0.090%) Firewall
7 2 (0.090%) FTP
7 2 (0.090%) HTTPS
7 2 (0.090%) RTMP
8 1 (0.045%) 5G
8 1 (0.045%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (7.40%) SQL Server
2 133 (6.00%) PostgreSQL
3 120 (5.42%) Power BI
4 112 (5.05%) Relational Database
5 71 (3.20%) Oracle Database
6 66 (2.98%) NoSQL
7 58 (2.62%) MongoDB
8 41 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
9 31 (1.40%) Apache Cassandra
10 30 (1.35%) KDB
11 29 (1.31%) DynamoDB
12 28 (1.26%) MySQL
13 22 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
14 21 (0.95%) Data Lake
15 20 (0.90%) RDBMS
16 19 (0.86%) Kdb+
16 19 (0.86%) Metadata
16 19 (0.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 18 (0.81%) Redis
18 17 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 177 (7.99%) Git
2 108 (4.87%) Jenkins
3 99 (4.47%) JIRA
4 58 (2.62%) GitLab
5 49 (2.21%) JUnit
6 26 (1.17%) Mockito
6 26 (1.17%) Visual Studio
7 23 (1.04%) Maven
8 22 (0.99%) Gradle
9 19 (0.86%) TeamCity
10 16 (0.72%) Bitbucket
11 14 (0.63%) Cypress.io
12 13 (0.59%) Selenium
12 13 (0.59%) SonarQube
13 11 (0.50%) Cucumber
13 11 (0.50%) Vite
14 10 (0.45%) Octopus Deploy
14 10 (0.45%) Team Foundation Server
14 10 (0.45%) webpack
15 9 (0.41%) Claude Code
General
1 593 (26.76%) Finance
2 349 (15.75%) Social Skills
3 308 (13.90%) Banking
4 238 (10.74%) Public Sector
5 222 (10.02%) Front Office
6 131 (5.91%) Analytical Skills
7 121 (5.46%) Investment Banking
8 53 (2.39%) Financial Institution
9 25 (1.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 22 (0.99%) Documentation Skills
11 20 (0.90%) Publishing
12 16 (0.72%) Marketing
13 14 (0.63%) Local Government
14 13 (0.59%) Back Office
15 12 (0.54%) Law
16 11 (0.50%) Telecoms
17 9 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
18 8 (0.36%) Retail
19 7 (0.32%) Agriculture
20 6 (0.27%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 324 (14.62%) React
2 312 (14.08%) .NET
3 234 (10.56%) REST
4 196 (8.84%) Kafka
5 191 (8.62%) RESTful
6 184 (8.30%) Node.js
7 181 (8.17%) HTML
8 172 (7.76%) Spring
9 157 (7.08%) CSS
10 152 (6.86%) AngularJS
11 144 (6.50%) Spring Boot
12 93 (4.20%) Redux
13 89 (4.02%) .NET Framework
14 78 (3.52%) Web Services
15 70 (3.16%) SOAP
16 69 (3.11%) GraphQL
17 64 (2.89%) JSON
18 53 (2.39%) Django
19 52 (2.35%) Vue
20 50 (2.26%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 113 (5.10%) Derivative
2 110 (4.96%) Equities
3 106 (4.78%) Fixed Income
4 98 (4.42%) Distributed Systems
5 88 (3.97%) Cloud Native
6 87 (3.93%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 54 (2.44%) Algorithms
8 53 (2.39%) Data Structures
9 46 (2.08%) Greenfield Project
9 46 (2.08%) Product Ownership
10 40 (1.81%) Data Protection Act
11 38 (1.71%) Low-Code
11 38 (1.71%) Management Information System
12 35 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
13 34 (1.53%) AI Agents
14 31 (1.40%) Hedge funds
14 31 (1.40%) Onboarding
15 27 (1.22%) Equity Derivative
16 25 (1.13%) Enterprise Software
17 24 (1.08%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 107 (4.83%) Linux
2 61 (2.75%) Windows
3 52 (2.35%) Unix
4 24 (1.08%) Android
5 22 (0.99%) Apple iOS
6 20 (0.90%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.23%) AIX
7 5 (0.23%) zOS
8 4 (0.18%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.090%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.045%) Solaris
10 1 (0.045%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.045%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 530 (23.92%) Agile
2 487 (21.98%) CI/CD
3 339 (15.30%) DevOps
4 276 (12.45%) Microservices
5 271 (12.23%) Full-Stack Development
6 254 (11.46%) Problem-Solving
7 235 (10.60%) Software Engineering
8 211 (9.52%) AI
9 187 (8.44%) Containerisation
10 186 (8.39%) Analytics
11 180 (8.12%) Test Automation
12 171 (7.72%) Data Modelling
13 165 (7.45%) Business Intelligence
14 132 (5.96%) TDD
15 115 (5.19%) Code Quality
15 115 (5.19%) Scrum
16 113 (5.10%) Front End Development
17 109 (4.92%) Mentoring
17 109 (4.92%) Unit Testing
18 107 (4.83%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 521 (23.51%) Java
2 505 (22.79%) Python
3 478 (21.57%) SQL
4 395 (17.82%) C#
5 374 (16.88%) JavaScript
6 258 (11.64%) TypeScript
7 79 (3.56%) PL/SQL
8 77 (3.47%) Go
9 67 (3.02%) C++
10 57 (2.57%) T-SQL
11 55 (2.48%) Apex Code
12 43 (1.94%) Shell Script
13 35 (1.58%) Kotlin
14 33 (1.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 28 (1.26%) PowerShell
15 28 (1.26%) Ruby
16 20 (0.90%) VBA
17 18 (0.81%) C
18 17 (0.77%) PHP
19 13 (0.59%) VB
Qualifications
1 409 (18.46%) Security Cleared
2 339 (15.30%) SC Cleared
3 100 (4.51%) Degree
4 38 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
5 35 (1.58%) DV Cleared
6 29 (1.31%) BPSS Clearance
7 11 (0.50%) Master's Degree
8 8 (0.36%) Numerate Degree
9 7 (0.32%) AWS Certification
9 7 (0.32%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (0.27%) Azure Certification
11 4 (0.18%) AWS Certified Developer
11 4 (0.18%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 4 (0.18%) PhD
12 3 (0.14%) Oracle Certification
13 2 (0.090%) CTC Cleared
13 2 (0.090%) Postgraduate
14 1 (0.045%) DBS Check
14 1 (0.045%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 1 (0.045%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 112 (5.05%) QA
2 59 (2.66%) Accessibility
3 34 (1.53%) Data Quality
4 32 (1.44%) WCAG
5 15 (0.68%) GDPR
6 7 (0.32%) ISO 8583
6 7 (0.32%) SLA
7 6 (0.27%) GRC
8 5 (0.23%) HL7
8 5 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 4 (0.18%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.18%) PMO
9 4 (0.18%) SEPA
10 2 (0.090%) ISO 20022
10 2 (0.090%) PSD2
11 1 (0.045%) DICOM
11 1 (0.045%) GAAP
11 1 (0.045%) HIPAA
System Software
1 281 (12.68%) Docker
2 13 (0.59%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.14%) GridGain
4 2 (0.090%) OpenAM
4 2 (0.090%) OpenDJ
4 2 (0.090%) OpenIDM
4 2 (0.090%) Oracle RAC
4 2 (0.090%) Postfix
4 2 (0.090%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.045%) FreeRADIUS
5 1 (0.045%) HDFS
5 1 (0.045%) Varnish
5 1 (0.045%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 242 (10.92%) Kubernetes
2 90 (4.06%) Terraform
3 30 (1.35%) Grafana
4 29 (1.31%) Ansible
5 21 (0.95%) Prometheus
6 9 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (0.23%) SCCM
8 3 (0.14%) Argo
8 3 (0.14%) CloudHub
8 3 (0.14%) TIBCO Hawk
9 2 (0.090%) CA Endevor
9 2 (0.090%) Control-M
9 2 (0.090%) Podman
10 1 (0.045%) HP ALM
10 1 (0.045%) Kibana
10 1 (0.045%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 233 (10.51%) Microsoft
2 195 (8.80%) Oracle
3 87 (3.93%) Salesforce
4 76 (3.43%) ServiceNow
5 39 (1.76%) Citrix
5 39 (1.76%) SAP
6 31 (1.40%) Databricks
7 29 (1.31%) IBM
8 26 (1.17%) MuleSoft
9 22 (0.99%) OpenAI
10 21 (0.95%) Adobe
11 20 (0.90%) Guidewire
12 19 (0.86%) Google
13 17 (0.77%) Pega
14 16 (0.72%) Lotus
15 15 (0.68%) Foundry
16 14 (0.63%) UiPath
17 13 (0.59%) ForgeRock
18 12 (0.54%) Kofax
18 12 (0.54%) OpenLink