Developer Contract Job Trends in the North West

Developer
England > North West

The median Developer daily rate in the North West is £450, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 March 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 8 4
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 +5
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 326 238 400
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 10.93% 11.72% 14.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.91% 12.63% 15.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 220 171 296
10th Percentile £350 £378 £313
25th Percentile £400 £405 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £495 £473
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +4.71% -5.45%
75th Percentile £500 £551 £538
90th Percentile £570 £625 £625
England median daily rate £500 £533 £525
% change year-on-year -6.27% +1.61% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 4 3
10th Percentile £36.32 - £76.50
25th Percentile £40.53 £65.00 £76.88
Median hourly rate £61.00 £75.50 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.21% -5.63% +102.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £86.00 £82.75
90th Percentile £75.61 - £82.90
England median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £62.00
% change year-on-year -2.87% +4.84% -3.88%

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 2,738 1,885 2,661
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.82% 92.81% 93.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,661 1,202 1,775
10th Percentile £223 £250 £275
25th Percentile £375 £375 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £474 £495
Median % change year-on-year -2.90% -4.29% -1.00%
75th Percentile £576 £570 £582
90th Percentile £670 £650 £675
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 267 107 280
10th Percentile £18.57 £15.00 £11.07
25th Percentile £22.85 £21.02 £13.68
Median hourly rate £42.69 £31.76 £25.80
Median % change year-on-year +34.40% +23.10% -14.00%
75th Percentile £63.63 £59.08 £46.18
90th Percentile £76.60 £81.72 £63.75
England median hourly rate £37.00 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +5.71% +7.69% -23.53%

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 14 March 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 14 March 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 14 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
Manchester 0 242 £455 -2.41% 131
Cheshire -16 44 £358 -28.40% 40
Lancashire -9 20 £548 +2.29% 51
Merseyside -14 17 £481 +1.32% 15
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 14 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 North West region featuring Developer in the job title.

1 126 (38.65%) Java
2 105 (32.21%) Agile
3 88 (26.99%) CI/CD
4 82 (25.15%) AWS
5 76 (23.31%) Microservices
6 70 (21.47%) Spring Boot
7 69 (21.17%) Azure
7 69 (21.17%) Spring
8 66 (20.25%) Problem-Solving
9 65 (19.94%) Test Automation
10 61 (18.71%) DevOps
11 59 (18.10%) SQL
12 54 (16.56%) Full-Stack Development
13 53 (16.26%) Security Cleared
14 46 (14.11%) TDD
15 44 (13.50%) Docker
16 43 (13.19%) JavaScript
16 43 (13.19%) React
17 42 (12.88%) Node.js
18 41 (12.58%) REST
19 40 (12.27%) GitLab
19 40 (12.27%) Kubernetes
20 39 (11.96%) TypeScript
21 38 (11.66%) Git
21 38 (11.66%) Microsoft
22 37 (11.35%) Python
22 37 (11.35%) RESTful
23 31 (9.51%) API Design
24 30 (9.20%) Containerisation
25 29 (8.90%) .NET

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 8 (2.45%) Confluence
2 5 (1.53%) Apache Spark
3 4 (1.23%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.92%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 3 (0.92%) Apache
4 3 (0.92%) SAS
4 3 (0.92%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.31%) Appian
5 1 (0.31%) CMS
5 1 (0.31%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.31%) JBoss
5 1 (0.31%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.31%) Tomcat
Applications
1 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 8 (2.45%) Advent Geneva
2 7 (2.15%) Maximo
3 2 (0.61%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.61%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.31%) Odoo
4 1 (0.31%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.31%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 82 (25.15%) AWS
2 69 (21.17%) Azure
3 24 (7.36%) Serverless
4 23 (7.06%) Power Platform
5 16 (4.91%) Azure DevOps
6 14 (4.29%) GitHub
7 13 (3.99%) Power Automate
8 12 (3.68%) AWS Lambda
9 11 (3.37%) Dynamics 365
9 11 (3.37%) PowerApps
10 9 (2.76%) Amazon S3
10 9 (2.76%) Amazon SQS
10 9 (2.76%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (2.15%) Azure Logic Apps
12 6 (1.84%) GCP
13 5 (1.53%) AWS Step Functions
13 5 (1.53%) npm
13 5 (1.53%) OpenShift
14 4 (1.23%) Azure Data Factory
14 4 (1.23%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.15%) HTTPS
2 4 (1.23%) HTTP
3 1 (0.31%) Internet
3 1 (0.31%) PABX
3 1 (0.31%) SSL
3 1 (0.31%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (6.13%) Relational Database
2 17 (5.21%) PostgreSQL
2 17 (5.21%) SQL Server
3 16 (4.91%) MongoDB
4 15 (4.60%) NoSQL
5 14 (4.29%) MySQL
6 12 (3.68%) Power BI
7 9 (2.76%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 8 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
8 8 (2.45%) DB2
8 8 (2.45%) DocumentDB
8 8 (2.45%) OLTP
8 8 (2.45%) Redis
9 5 (1.53%) DynamoDB
9 5 (1.53%) Hadoop
10 4 (1.23%) Elasticsearch
11 2 (0.61%) Amazon RDS
11 2 (0.61%) Apache Cassandra
11 2 (0.61%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.61%) WebFOCUS
Development Applications
1 40 (12.27%) GitLab
2 38 (11.66%) Git
3 19 (5.83%) JIRA
4 15 (4.60%) Cypress.io
5 12 (3.68%) JUnit
5 12 (3.68%) Mockito
6 9 (2.76%) SonarQube
7 8 (2.45%) Jenkins
7 8 (2.45%) Mocha
8 6 (1.84%) CircleCI
9 5 (1.53%) Postman
10 4 (1.23%) ESLint
10 4 (1.23%) Gradle
11 3 (0.92%) Jasmine
12 2 (0.61%) Android Studio
12 2 (0.61%) fastlane
12 2 (0.61%) Xcode
12 2 (0.61%) XCTest
13 1 (0.31%) IntelliJ
13 1 (0.31%) Vite
General
1 87 (26.69%) Public Sector
2 45 (13.80%) Social Skills
3 44 (13.50%) Finance
4 20 (6.13%) Analytical Skills
5 17 (5.21%) Banking
6 7 (2.15%) Aviation
6 7 (2.15%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.23%) Law
7 4 (1.23%) Publishing
8 3 (0.92%) Manufacturing
9 2 (0.61%) Aerospace
9 2 (0.61%) Legal
9 2 (0.61%) Local Government
9 2 (0.61%) Private Banking
9 2 (0.61%) Retail
10 1 (0.31%) Advertising
10 1 (0.31%) Games
10 1 (0.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.31%) Military
10 1 (0.31%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (21.47%) Spring Boot
2 69 (21.17%) Spring
3 43 (13.19%) React
4 42 (12.88%) Node.js
5 41 (12.58%) REST
6 37 (11.35%) RESTful
7 29 (8.90%) .NET
8 22 (6.75%) Jest
9 20 (6.13%) AngularJS
9 20 (6.13%) HTML
10 19 (5.83%) JSON
11 17 (5.21%) Kafka
12 15 (4.60%) Vue
13 14 (4.29%) CSS
13 14 (4.29%) OAuth
13 14 (4.29%) XML
13 14 (4.29%) YAML
14 13 (3.99%) React Native
15 12 (3.68%) JAX-RS
15 12 (3.68%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 24 (7.36%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.83%) Mobile App
3 16 (4.91%) Onboarding
4 12 (3.68%) Product Ownership
5 9 (2.76%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (2.45%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 6 (1.84%) Data Structures
7 6 (1.84%) Virtual Team
8 5 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.23%) Legacy Code
9 4 (1.23%) Low-Code
10 3 (0.92%) Blog
10 3 (0.92%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (0.92%) IoT
10 3 (0.92%) Legacy Systems
11 2 (0.61%) Distributed Systems
11 2 (0.61%) FMCG
11 2 (0.61%) IVR
11 2 (0.61%) NHS
12 1 (0.31%) CUDA
Operating Systems
1 18 (5.52%) Linux
2 16 (4.91%) Unix
3 9 (2.76%) Mac OS X
4 8 (2.45%) Android
4 8 (2.45%) Apple iOS
5 4 (1.23%) Windows
6 3 (0.92%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.31%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.31%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 105 (32.21%) Agile
2 88 (26.99%) CI/CD
3 76 (23.31%) Microservices
4 66 (20.25%) Problem-Solving
5 65 (19.94%) Test Automation
6 61 (18.71%) DevOps
7 54 (16.56%) Full-Stack Development
8 46 (14.11%) TDD
9 31 (9.51%) API Design
10 30 (9.20%) Containerisation
11 29 (8.90%) Continuous Improvement
12 27 (8.28%) User Experience
13 25 (7.67%) Data Modelling
14 24 (7.36%) Unit Testing
15 23 (7.06%) Front End Development
16 22 (6.75%) Design Patterns
17 21 (6.44%) API Development
17 21 (6.44%) Code Quality
17 21 (6.44%) Performance Optimisation
17 21 (6.44%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 126 (38.65%) Java
2 59 (18.10%) SQL
3 43 (13.19%) JavaScript
4 39 (11.96%) TypeScript
5 37 (11.35%) Python
6 28 (8.59%) C#
7 17 (5.21%) Kotlin
8 6 (1.84%) T-SQL
9 5 (1.53%) Shell Script
10 4 (1.23%) Apex Code
10 4 (1.23%) C++
10 4 (1.23%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.92%) ABAP
11 3 (0.92%) Groovy
11 3 (0.92%) ProC
11 3 (0.92%) Ruby
11 3 (0.92%) Swift
12 2 (0.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 2 (0.61%) Objective-C
13 1 (0.31%) PHP
Qualifications
1 53 (16.26%) Security Cleared
2 29 (8.90%) BPSS Clearance
3 27 (8.28%) SC Cleared
4 17 (5.21%) Degree
5 10 (3.07%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.23%) CTC Cleared
6 4 (1.23%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.31%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (8.28%) Accessibility
2 16 (4.91%) WCAG
3 15 (4.60%) QA
4 8 (2.45%) ISO 20022
4 8 (2.45%) PSD2
4 8 (2.45%) SEPA
5 4 (1.23%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.31%) GDPR
System Software
1 44 (13.50%) Docker
2 3 (0.92%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 40 (12.27%) Kubernetes
2 19 (5.83%) Terraform
3 7 (2.15%) Grafana
4 4 (1.23%) Ansible
4 4 (1.23%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.31%) Argo
5 1 (0.31%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 38 (11.66%) Microsoft
2 27 (8.28%) Oracle
3 11 (3.37%) Virgin Media
4 8 (2.45%) Advent
4 8 (2.45%) Salesforce
5 7 (2.15%) SAP
5 7 (2.15%) Splunk
6 6 (1.84%) Automation Anywhere
6 6 (1.84%) ServiceNow
7 5 (1.53%) Adobe
8 4 (1.23%) IFS
8 4 (1.23%) Xamarin
9 3 (0.92%) Dynatrace
9 3 (0.92%) IBM
9 3 (0.92%) Veracode
10 2 (0.61%) NEC
10 2 (0.61%) Sage
10 2 (0.61%) Software AG
10 2 (0.61%) webMethods
11 1 (0.31%) BT