Developer Contract Job Trends in the North West

Developer
England > North West

The median Developer daily rate in the North West is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 29 May 2026.

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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 7
Rank change year-on-year -4 -5 +2
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 305 206 338
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 9.16% 10.59% 12.55%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.00% 11.43% 13.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 172 167 257
10th Percentile £350 £361 £306
25th Percentile £411 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £510 £549 £519
90th Percentile £572 £630 £575
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 1 2
10th Percentile £25.49 - £78.05
25th Percentile £36.55 - £78.88
Median hourly rate £41.06 £86.00 £81.50
Median % change year-on-year -52.26% +5.52% -
75th Percentile £46.18 - £82.88
90th Percentile £63.50 - £82.95
England median hourly rate £50.00 £52.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -4.76% -19.23% -

All Contract IT Job Roles
North West

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the North West. 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 the North West with a recognized job title 3,051 1,802 2,548
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.65% 92.65% 94.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,710 1,197 1,638
10th Percentile £300 £268 £269
25th Percentile £400 £381 £382
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year - -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £550 £580
90th Percentile £675 £656 £675
England median daily rate £515 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -0.91% -1.00% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 312 110 289
10th Percentile £18.57 £13.00 £11.11
25th Percentile £25.49 £14.38 £14.00
Median hourly rate £50.00 £28.75 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year +73.91% -8.73% +3.14%
75th Percentile £71.91 £60.00 £47.50
90th Percentile £83.75 £83.52 £71.02
England median hourly rate £45.00 £29.07 £37.50
% change year-on-year +54.80% -22.48% -16.67%

Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

Developer job vacancy trend in the North West

Developer
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the North West.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the North West

Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Developer in the North West over the 6 months to 29 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Developer in the North West

Developer
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the North West.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the North West

Developer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Developer in the North West over the 6 months to 29 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Developer in the North West

Developer
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Developer within the North West region over the 6 months to 29 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
Manchester +2 234 £475 +2.70% 74
Cheshire -19 28 £397 +3.76% 14
Lancashire +5 22 £463 -11.90% 46
Merseyside -25 14 £450 -18.18% 11
Cumbria -5 5 - - 2
Developer
England

Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West

For the 6 months to 29 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 North West region featuring Developer in the job title.

1 120 (39.34%) Java
2 95 (31.15%) Agile
3 73 (23.93%) CI/CD
4 68 (22.30%) Microservices
5 63 (20.66%) AWS
6 59 (19.34%) Azure
7 58 (19.02%) Spring
8 54 (17.70%) Spring Boot
9 53 (17.38%) DevOps
9 53 (17.38%) Full-Stack Development
10 50 (16.39%) Test Automation
11 48 (15.74%) SQL
12 47 (15.41%) Problem-Solving
13 44 (14.43%) JavaScript
13 44 (14.43%) TDD
14 42 (13.77%) React
15 38 (12.46%) Node.js
16 36 (11.80%) TypeScript
17 35 (11.48%) REST
18 33 (10.82%) Docker
18 33 (10.82%) RESTful
19 31 (10.16%) C#
19 31 (10.16%) Security Cleared
20 30 (9.84%) GitLab
21 29 (9.51%) Front End Development
21 29 (9.51%) Kubernetes
22 27 (8.85%) Microsoft
23 26 (8.52%) .NET
23 26 (8.52%) Git
24 25 (8.20%) Oracle

Developer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 10 (3.28%) Confluence
2 4 (1.31%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.98%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 2 (0.66%) Apache
4 2 (0.66%) CMS
4 2 (0.66%) JBoss
5 1 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.33%) Appian
5 1 (0.33%) Camunda
5 1 (0.33%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.33%) Mule
5 1 (0.33%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.33%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.33%) SAS
5 1 (0.33%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.33%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.33%) WebLogic
Applications
1 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 7 (2.30%) Maximo
2 2 (0.66%) NEC Housing
2 2 (0.66%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.33%) Odoo
Cloud Services
1 63 (20.66%) AWS
2 59 (19.34%) Azure
3 21 (6.89%) Serverless
4 20 (6.56%) Power Platform
5 14 (4.59%) Azure DevOps
6 13 (4.26%) GitHub
7 11 (3.61%) GitHub Actions
8 10 (3.28%) Amazon S3
8 10 (3.28%) AWS Lambda
8 10 (3.28%) Dynamics 365
9 6 (1.97%) Azure Logic Apps
9 6 (1.97%) OpenShift
9 6 (1.97%) Power Automate
10 5 (1.64%) Amazon EC2
10 5 (1.64%) Amazon ECR
10 5 (1.64%) Amazon SQS
10 5 (1.64%) AWS Step Functions
11 4 (1.31%) Amazon EKS
11 4 (1.31%) Azure AKS
11 4 (1.31%) Azure Service Bus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (5.25%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (4.59%) Power BI
3 13 (4.26%) MongoDB
3 13 (4.26%) NoSQL
4 12 (3.93%) SQL Server
5 9 (2.95%) Relational Database
6 8 (2.62%) Data Warehouse
6 8 (2.62%) OLTP
7 7 (2.30%) Power Query
8 5 (1.64%) DocumentDB
8 5 (1.64%) MySQL
9 4 (1.31%) DynamoDB
9 4 (1.31%) Elasticsearch
9 4 (1.31%) Hadoop
9 4 (1.31%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.66%) DataStage
10 2 (0.66%) DB2
10 2 (0.66%) Metadata
10 2 (0.66%) RDBMS
10 2 (0.66%) WebFOCUS
Development Applications
1 30 (9.84%) GitLab
2 26 (8.52%) Git
3 20 (6.56%) JIRA
4 13 (4.26%) JUnit
5 11 (3.61%) Mockito
6 10 (3.28%) Cypress.io
7 8 (2.62%) Mocha
8 6 (1.97%) CircleCI
8 6 (1.97%) Jenkins
9 5 (1.64%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.98%) ClearCase
10 3 (0.98%) Gradle
11 2 (0.66%) fastlane
11 2 (0.66%) IntelliJ
11 2 (0.66%) Jasmine
11 2 (0.66%) Maven
11 2 (0.66%) XCTest
12 1 (0.33%) Claude Code
12 1 (0.33%) Visual Studio Coded UI
12 1 (0.33%) Vite
General
1 71 (23.28%) Public Sector
2 44 (14.43%) Social Skills
3 37 (12.13%) Finance
4 20 (6.56%) Analytical Skills
5 17 (5.57%) Banking
6 7 (2.30%) Aviation
7 6 (1.97%) Aerospace
7 6 (1.97%) Manufacturing
7 6 (1.97%) Military
8 3 (0.98%) Law
8 3 (0.98%) Local Government
9 2 (0.66%) Legal
9 2 (0.66%) Retail
10 1 (0.33%) Advertising
10 1 (0.33%) Automotive
10 1 (0.33%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.33%) Games
10 1 (0.33%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (19.02%) Spring
2 54 (17.70%) Spring Boot
3 42 (13.77%) React
4 38 (12.46%) Node.js
5 35 (11.48%) REST
6 33 (10.82%) RESTful
7 26 (8.52%) .NET
8 23 (7.54%) AngularJS
9 21 (6.89%) HTML
10 17 (5.57%) Vue
11 16 (5.25%) CSS
11 16 (5.25%) Jest
12 15 (4.92%) Kafka
13 13 (4.26%) YAML
14 10 (3.28%) Playwright
15 9 (2.95%) XML
16 8 (2.62%) GraphQL
16 8 (2.62%) JSON
17 7 (2.30%) JAX-RS
17 7 (2.30%) React Native
Miscellaneous
1 23 (7.54%) Cloud Native
2 14 (4.59%) Mobile App
2 14 (4.59%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.93%) Onboarding
4 9 (2.95%) Enterprise Software
5 7 (2.30%) NHS
6 5 (1.64%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (1.64%) Data Structures
6 5 (1.64%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (0.98%) IoT
7 3 (0.98%) Legacy Code
7 3 (0.98%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (0.98%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 2 (0.66%) AI Agents
9 1 (0.33%) Algorithms
9 1 (0.33%) Blog
9 1 (0.33%) Distributed Systems
9 1 (0.33%) FMCG
9 1 (0.33%) Reinsurance
9 1 (0.33%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 15 (4.92%) Unix
2 14 (4.59%) Linux
3 7 (2.30%) Mac OS X
4 5 (1.64%) Apple iOS
5 4 (1.31%) Android
5 4 (1.31%) Windows
6 3 (0.98%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.66%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.66%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (31.15%) Agile
2 73 (23.93%) CI/CD
3 68 (22.30%) Microservices
4 53 (17.38%) DevOps
4 53 (17.38%) Full-Stack Development
5 50 (16.39%) Test Automation
6 47 (15.41%) Problem-Solving
7 44 (14.43%) TDD
8 29 (9.51%) Front End Development
9 24 (7.87%) Data Modelling
10 23 (7.54%) Mentoring
10 23 (7.54%) User Experience
11 22 (7.21%) API Design
11 22 (7.21%) Code Quality
12 21 (6.89%) Continuous Improvement
12 21 (6.89%) Unit Testing
13 20 (6.56%) API Development
13 20 (6.56%) SDLC
14 19 (6.23%) Analytics
14 19 (6.23%) BDD
Programming Languages
1 120 (39.34%) Java
2 48 (15.74%) SQL
3 44 (14.43%) JavaScript
4 36 (11.80%) TypeScript
5 31 (10.16%) C#
6 24 (7.87%) Python
7 17 (5.57%) Kotlin
8 9 (2.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 7 (2.30%) PL/SQL
10 6 (1.97%) Apex Code
10 6 (1.97%) Shell Script
11 5 (1.64%) Go
12 3 (0.98%) C++
12 3 (0.98%) ProC
12 3 (0.98%) Swift
12 3 (0.98%) VB
12 3 (0.98%) VB6
13 2 (0.66%) Objective-C
13 2 (0.66%) PowerShell
13 2 (0.66%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 31 (10.16%) Security Cleared
2 20 (6.56%) BPSS Clearance
3 19 (6.23%) SC Cleared
4 10 (3.28%) Degree
5 4 (1.31%) DV Cleared
6 1 (0.33%) CTC Cleared
6 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (6.23%) Accessibility
2 14 (4.59%) QA
3 10 (3.28%) WCAG
4 8 (2.62%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.98%) GRC
5 3 (0.98%) ISO 20022
5 3 (0.98%) PSD2
5 3 (0.98%) SEPA
6 1 (0.33%) GDPR
System Software
1 33 (10.82%) Docker
2 2 (0.66%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 29 (9.51%) Kubernetes
2 19 (6.23%) Terraform
3 6 (1.97%) Grafana
4 4 (1.31%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.98%) Ansible
Vendors
1 27 (8.85%) Microsoft
2 25 (8.20%) Oracle
3 16 (5.25%) Salesforce
4 6 (1.97%) ServiceNow
4 6 (1.97%) Virgin Media
5 5 (1.64%) Automation Anywhere
5 5 (1.64%) Pega
6 4 (1.31%) Adobe
7 3 (0.98%) Atlassian
7 3 (0.98%) Dynatrace
7 3 (0.98%) Veracode
8 2 (0.66%) IBM
8 2 (0.66%) IFS
8 2 (0.66%) NEC
8 2 (0.66%) SAP
8 2 (0.66%) Splunk
8 2 (0.66%) Teradata
9 1 (0.33%) Dell
9 1 (0.33%) Sage
9 1 (0.33%) Sitecore