Backend Developer Contract Job Trends in Manchester

Backend Developer
North West > Manchester

The median Backend Developer daily rate in Manchester is £423, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 December 2025.

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

6 months to
13 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 83 - 98
Rank change year-on-year - - +16
Contract jobs requiring a Backend Developer 8 0 8
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 0.71% - 0.50%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.77% - 0.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 0 7
10th Percentile £415 - £320
25th Percentile £418 - -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £423 - £325
Median % change year-on-year - - -32.99%
75th Percentile £481 - £450
90th Percentile £560 - £478
North West median daily rate £425 £388 £325
% change year-on-year +9.68% +19.23% -30.67%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
Manchester

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in Manchester. 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 Manchester with a recognized job title 1,038 1,074 1,497
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.70% 93.96% 93.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 688 633 1,097
10th Percentile £302 £313 £300
25th Percentile £375 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £580 £575 £584
90th Percentile £664 £675 £675
North West median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 43 58
10th Percentile £17.17 £15.92 £15.42
25th Percentile £19.07 £21.25 £17.20
Median hourly rate £22.32 £32.50 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year -31.34% +66.67% -2.50%
75th Percentile £30.07 £44.38 £49.75
90th Percentile £53.30 £65.00 £68.50
North West median hourly rate £29.60 £25.30 £35.00
% change year-on-year +17.00% -27.71% +74.43%

Backend Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Backend Developer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester.

Backend Developer job vacancy trend in Manchester

Backend Developer
Daily Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Backend Developer job vacancies in Manchester.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Backend Developer job vacancies in Manchester

Backend Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in Manchester

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Backend Developer in Manchester over the 6 months to 13 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Backend Developer in Manchester

Backend Developer
Contract Job Locations in Manchester

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Backend Developer within the Manchester region over the 6 months to 13 December 2025. 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
Bolton - 1 £425 -
Backend Developer
North West

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

For the 6 months to 13 December 2025, Backend 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 Manchester region featuring Backend Developer in the job title.

1 7 (87.50%) Java
2 5 (62.50%) AWS
2 5 (62.50%) Microservices
2 5 (62.50%) Spring Boot
3 4 (50.00%) API Design
3 4 (50.00%) BDD
3 4 (50.00%) CI/CD
3 4 (50.00%) Continuous Improvement
3 4 (50.00%) Design Patterns
3 4 (50.00%) Event-Driven
3 4 (50.00%) Event-Driven Architecture
3 4 (50.00%) Information Security
3 4 (50.00%) Kotlin
3 4 (50.00%) Mentoring
3 4 (50.00%) OAuth
3 4 (50.00%) OAuth2
3 4 (50.00%) Problem-Solving
3 4 (50.00%) Requirements Gathering
3 4 (50.00%) SDLC
3 4 (50.00%) Spring
3 4 (50.00%) TDD
3 4 (50.00%) Test Automation
4 3 (37.50%) Docker
4 3 (37.50%) Node.js
4 3 (37.50%) Redis
5 2 (25.00%) Accessibility
5 2 (25.00%) Cypress.io
5 2 (25.00%) End-to-End Testing
5 2 (25.00%) Express.js
5 2 (25.00%) Full-Stack Development

Backend Developer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester 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:

Cloud Services
1 5 (62.50%) AWS
2 2 (25.00%) npm
3 1 (12.50%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 1 (12.50%) Amazon EC2
3 1 (12.50%) Amazon S3
3 1 (12.50%) Azure
3 1 (12.50%) GCP
3 1 (12.50%) GitHub
3 1 (12.50%) GitHub Actions
3 1 (12.50%) SaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (37.50%) Redis
2 1 (12.50%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (12.50%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 2 (25.00%) Cypress.io
1 2 (25.00%) GitLab
2 1 (12.50%) Git
2 1 (12.50%) Gradle
2 1 (12.50%) Jenkins
General
1 5 (62.50%) Finance
2 3 (37.50%) Public Sector
3 1 (12.50%) Banking
3 1 (12.50%) Manufacturing
3 1 (12.50%) Private Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (62.50%) Spring Boot
2 4 (50.00%) OAuth
2 4 (50.00%) OAuth2
2 4 (50.00%) Spring
3 3 (37.50%) Node.js
4 2 (25.00%) Express.js
4 2 (25.00%) Jest
4 2 (25.00%) Middleware
4 2 (25.00%) Nunjucks
4 2 (25.00%) REST
4 2 (25.00%) YAML
5 1 (12.50%) Bootstrap
5 1 (12.50%) HTML
5 1 (12.50%) Laravel
5 1 (12.50%) RabbitMQ
5 1 (12.50%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 4 (50.00%) Mobile App
2 1 (12.50%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (12.50%) Greenfield Project
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (62.50%) Microservices
2 4 (50.00%) API Design
2 4 (50.00%) BDD
2 4 (50.00%) CI/CD
2 4 (50.00%) Continuous Improvement
2 4 (50.00%) Design Patterns
2 4 (50.00%) Event-Driven
2 4 (50.00%) Event-Driven Architecture
2 4 (50.00%) Information Security
2 4 (50.00%) Mentoring
2 4 (50.00%) Problem-Solving
2 4 (50.00%) Requirements Gathering
2 4 (50.00%) SDLC
2 4 (50.00%) TDD
2 4 (50.00%) Test Automation
3 2 (25.00%) End-to-End Testing
3 2 (25.00%) Full-Stack Development
4 1 (12.50%) Architectural Design
4 1 (12.50%) Continuous Deployment
4 1 (12.50%) Thought Leadership
Programming Languages
1 7 (87.50%) Java
2 4 (50.00%) Kotlin
3 2 (25.00%) SQL
4 1 (12.50%) PHP
Qualifications
1 1 (12.50%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (25.00%) Accessibility
1 2 (25.00%) WCAG
2 1 (12.50%) QA
System Software
1 3 (37.50%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (12.50%) Argo
1 1 (12.50%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 1 (12.50%) Google