Developer Contract Job Trends in the North West

Developer
England > North West

The median Developer daily rate in the North West is £449, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 February 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 9 3
Rank change year-on-year -2 -6 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 320 234 417
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 12.11% 11.11% 14.54%
As % of the Job Titles category 13.16% 11.98% 15.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 226 153 314
10th Percentile £343 £378 £325
25th Percentile £381 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £449 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.58% - -2.56%
75th Percentile £500 £549 £550
90th Percentile £550 £638 £646
England median daily rate £500 £545 £525
% change year-on-year -8.17% +3.71% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 4 4
10th Percentile £36.32 - £72.75
25th Percentile £47.41 £65.00 £75.00
Median hourly rate £61.00 £75.50 £78.75
Median % change year-on-year -19.21% -4.13% +112.84%
75th Percentile £72.13 £86.00 £82.50
90th Percentile £76.96 - -
England median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% - +8.33%

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 2,432 1,953 2,685
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.05% 92.74% 93.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,547 1,159 1,812
10th Percentile £213 £250 £285
25th Percentile £361 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £570 £567 £588
90th Percentile £650 £656 £675
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 221 97 247
10th Percentile £17.30 £15.44 £12.50
25th Percentile £21.75 £19.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £41.94 £29.23 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +43.48% -2.57% +12.49%
75th Percentile £58.75 £46.18 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.26 £74.04 £61.75
England median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -14.29% - -2.78%

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 6 February 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 6 February 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 6 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
Manchester +5 216 £450 - 147
Cheshire 0 59 £370 -22.11% 43
Lancashire -5 22 £628 +17.23% 60
Merseyside -12 19 £475 +30.14% 26
Cumbria - 1 £470 - 4
Developer
England

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

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

1 118 (36.88%) Java
2 91 (28.44%) Agile
2 91 (28.44%) CI/CD
3 83 (25.94%) AWS
4 71 (22.19%) Azure
5 70 (21.88%) Spring
5 70 (21.88%) Spring Boot
6 69 (21.56%) Microservices
7 66 (20.63%) SQL
8 63 (19.69%) DevOps
8 63 (19.69%) Problem-Solving
9 60 (18.75%) Test Automation
10 59 (18.44%) Full-Stack Development
11 50 (15.63%) Docker
11 50 (15.63%) JavaScript
12 49 (15.31%) Git
12 49 (15.31%) Security Cleared
13 47 (14.69%) TypeScript
14 45 (14.06%) Node.js
14 45 (14.06%) REST
15 44 (13.75%) Kubernetes
16 42 (13.13%) React
17 41 (12.81%) GitLab
18 38 (11.88%) Microsoft
18 38 (11.88%) TDD
19 37 (11.56%) Python
20 35 (10.94%) Accessibility
21 34 (10.63%) Containerisation
21 34 (10.63%) RESTful
21 34 (10.63%) Unit Testing

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 7 (2.19%) Confluence
2 5 (1.56%) SAS
3 3 (0.94%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 3 (0.94%) Apache
3 3 (0.94%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.94%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.63%) SharePoint
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 3 (0.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (2.81%) Advent Geneva
2 7 (2.19%) Maximo
3 2 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.63%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.63%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.31%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.31%) SAP PSCD
4 1 (0.31%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 83 (25.94%) AWS
2 71 (22.19%) Azure
3 25 (7.81%) Power Platform
4 22 (6.88%) GitHub
5 20 (6.25%) Serverless
6 18 (5.63%) Azure DevOps
7 13 (4.06%) Power Automate
8 12 (3.75%) AWS Lambda
9 10 (3.13%) GitHub Actions
9 10 (3.13%) PowerApps
10 9 (2.81%) Amazon S3
10 9 (2.81%) Amazon SQS
10 9 (2.81%) Dynamics 365
11 8 (2.50%) npm
12 6 (1.88%) Figma
12 6 (1.88%) GCP
13 5 (1.56%) AWS Step Functions
13 5 (1.56%) Azure AKS
13 5 (1.56%) Azure Logic Apps
14 4 (1.25%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.81%) HTTPS
2 4 (1.25%) HTTP
3 2 (0.63%) SSL
4 1 (0.31%) Internet
4 1 (0.31%) PABX
4 1 (0.31%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (6.56%) Relational Database
2 18 (5.63%) MySQL
3 16 (5.00%) NoSQL
3 16 (5.00%) PostgreSQL
3 16 (5.00%) Power BI
3 16 (5.00%) SQL Server
4 11 (3.44%) Data Warehouse
5 10 (3.13%) MongoDB
5 10 (3.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 9 (2.81%) DB2
7 8 (2.50%) DocumentDB
7 8 (2.50%) OLTP
7 8 (2.50%) Redis
8 5 (1.56%) Apache Cassandra
8 5 (1.56%) DynamoDB
9 4 (1.25%) Cognos Framework Manager
9 4 (1.25%) Cognos Report Studio
10 3 (0.94%) Cognos Transformer
10 3 (0.94%) Hadoop
10 3 (0.94%) OLAP Cube
Development Applications
1 49 (15.31%) Git
2 41 (12.81%) GitLab
3 20 (6.25%) JIRA
4 18 (5.63%) Cypress.io
5 14 (4.38%) JUnit
6 12 (3.75%) Gradle
7 11 (3.44%) Jenkins
7 11 (3.44%) SonarQube
8 10 (3.13%) Xcode
9 8 (2.50%) Mocha
9 8 (2.50%) Mockito
10 6 (1.88%) CircleCI
10 6 (1.88%) Postman
11 5 (1.56%) Storybook
12 4 (1.25%) ESLint
13 3 (0.94%) Grunt
13 3 (0.94%) gulp
13 3 (0.94%) Jasmine
14 2 (0.63%) Android Studio
14 2 (0.63%) fastlane
General
1 73 (22.81%) Public Sector
2 45 (14.06%) Finance
3 38 (11.88%) Social Skills
4 22 (6.88%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (6.88%) Banking
5 7 (2.19%) Aviation
5 7 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
6 4 (1.25%) Publishing
7 3 (0.94%) Law
7 3 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (0.63%) Local Government
8 2 (0.63%) Private Banking
9 1 (0.31%) Games
9 1 (0.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.31%) Legal
9 1 (0.31%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.31%) Marketing
9 1 (0.31%) Military
9 1 (0.31%) Retail
9 1 (0.31%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (21.88%) Spring
1 70 (21.88%) Spring Boot
2 45 (14.06%) Node.js
2 45 (14.06%) REST
3 42 (13.13%) React
4 34 (10.63%) RESTful
5 27 (8.44%) HTML
6 25 (7.81%) Jest
6 25 (7.81%) JSON
7 22 (6.88%) .NET
8 20 (6.25%) AngularJS
8 20 (6.25%) CSS
9 18 (5.63%) React Native
10 17 (5.31%) Vue
11 16 (5.00%) OAuth
12 14 (4.38%) JMS
12 14 (4.38%) XML
13 13 (4.06%) Hibernate
14 12 (3.75%) Kafka
14 12 (3.75%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 24 (7.50%) Cloud Native
2 23 (7.19%) Mobile App
3 15 (4.69%) Onboarding
4 12 (3.75%) Product Ownership
5 11 (3.44%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 7 (2.19%) Data Structures
6 7 (2.19%) Virtual Team
7 5 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
7 5 (1.56%) Low-Code
8 4 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.25%) Legacy Code
9 3 (0.94%) Blog
9 3 (0.94%) Distributed Systems
9 3 (0.94%) Greenfield Project
9 3 (0.94%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (0.94%) Mobile Banking
10 2 (0.63%) Algorithms
10 2 (0.63%) FMCG
10 2 (0.63%) IoT
10 2 (0.63%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 16 (5.00%) Android
1 16 (5.00%) Apple iOS
2 13 (4.06%) Linux
3 9 (2.81%) Unix
4 4 (1.25%) Mac OS X
5 2 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.63%) Windows
5 2 (0.63%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.31%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (28.44%) Agile
1 91 (28.44%) CI/CD
2 69 (21.56%) Microservices
3 63 (19.69%) DevOps
3 63 (19.69%) Problem-Solving
4 60 (18.75%) Test Automation
5 59 (18.44%) Full-Stack Development
6 38 (11.88%) TDD
7 34 (10.63%) Containerisation
7 34 (10.63%) Unit Testing
8 28 (8.75%) API Design
9 27 (8.44%) Front End Development
10 26 (8.13%) Performance Optimisation
10 26 (8.13%) User Experience
11 24 (7.50%) Data Modelling
12 23 (7.19%) Continuous Improvement
13 22 (6.88%) Analytics
13 22 (6.88%) Code Quality
14 21 (6.56%) API Development
14 21 (6.56%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 118 (36.88%) Java
2 66 (20.63%) SQL
3 50 (15.63%) JavaScript
4 47 (14.69%) TypeScript
5 37 (11.56%) Python
6 21 (6.56%) C#
7 17 (5.31%) Kotlin
8 6 (1.88%) C++
8 6 (1.88%) Ruby
8 6 (1.88%) Swift
8 6 (1.88%) T-SQL
9 5 (1.56%) Objective-C
9 5 (1.56%) Shell Script
10 4 (1.25%) ABAP
10 4 (1.25%) Apex Code
10 4 (1.25%) Bash
10 4 (1.25%) C
10 4 (1.25%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.94%) PHP
11 3 (0.94%) Scala
Qualifications
1 49 (15.31%) Security Cleared
2 27 (8.44%) BPSS Clearance
3 22 (6.88%) SC Cleared
4 16 (5.00%) Degree
5 11 (3.44%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (1.56%) CTC Cleared
7 2 (0.63%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.31%) DV Cleared
8 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (10.94%) Accessibility
2 16 (5.00%) QA
2 16 (5.00%) WCAG
3 11 (3.44%) ISO 20022
3 11 (3.44%) PSD2
3 11 (3.44%) SEPA
4 4 (1.25%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.31%) GDPR
System Software
1 50 (15.63%) Docker
2 3 (0.94%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 44 (13.75%) Kubernetes
2 14 (4.38%) Terraform
3 7 (2.19%) Grafana
4 4 (1.25%) Ansible
4 4 (1.25%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.31%) Argo
5 1 (0.31%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 38 (11.88%) Microsoft
2 27 (8.44%) Oracle
3 10 (3.13%) Virgin Media
4 9 (2.81%) Advent
4 9 (2.81%) Salesforce
4 9 (2.81%) SAP
5 7 (2.19%) ServiceNow
5 7 (2.19%) Splunk
6 6 (1.88%) Automation Anywhere
7 5 (1.56%) Adobe
7 5 (1.56%) IBM
8 4 (1.25%) Cognos
8 4 (1.25%) IFS
8 4 (1.25%) webMethods
8 4 (1.25%) Xamarin
9 3 (0.94%) Dynatrace
9 3 (0.94%) Perforce
9 3 (0.94%) Software AG
9 3 (0.94%) Veracode
10 2 (0.63%) Red Hat