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 25 January 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 9 3
Rank change year-on-year -2 -6 +4
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 315 226 418
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 12.20% 10.84% 14.78%
As % of the Job Titles category 13.26% 11.64% 15.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 228 143 321
10th Percentile £343 £378 £325
25th Percentile £384 £403 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £470 £475
Median % change year-on-year -4.26% -1.05% -2.56%
75th Percentile £500 £538 £550
90th Percentile £540 £588 £638
England median daily rate £500 £545 £533
% change year-on-year -8.17% +2.25% -8.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 4 4
10th Percentile £36.32 - £72.75
25th Percentile £41.87 £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 £68.38 £86.00 £82.50
90th Percentile £72.13 - -
England median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% - +4.00%

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 2,376 1,942 2,629
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.02% 93.14% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,536 1,129 1,785
10th Percentile £213 £259 £300
25th Percentile £359 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +3.09%
75th Percentile £569 £563 £588
90th Percentile £650 £650 £675
England median daily rate £504 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.05% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 213 100 226
10th Percentile £17.30 £15.47 £12.87
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.78 £17.12
Median hourly rate £41.86 £29.52 £35.95
Median % change year-on-year +41.81% -17.90% +39.29%
75th Percentile £57.50 £46.18 £46.18
90th Percentile £69.41 £73.68 £65.63
England median hourly rate £29.65 £35.00 £37.75
% change year-on-year -15.30% -7.28% +7.86%

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 25 January 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 25 January 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 25 January 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 +4 208 £450 - 138
Cheshire -2 59 £373 -25.50% 51
Merseyside -6 23 £488 +33.56% 28
Lancashire -5 21 £660 +23.31% 79
Cumbria - 1 £470 - 5
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 25 January 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.

1 115 (36.51%) Java
2 90 (28.57%) Agile
2 90 (28.57%) CI/CD
3 79 (25.08%) AWS
4 72 (22.86%) Azure
5 69 (21.90%) SQL
6 68 (21.59%) Spring
6 68 (21.59%) Spring Boot
7 67 (21.27%) Microservices
8 65 (20.63%) DevOps
9 64 (20.32%) Problem-Solving
10 59 (18.73%) Full-Stack Development
11 57 (18.10%) Test Automation
12 52 (16.51%) Docker
13 51 (16.19%) JavaScript
14 49 (15.56%) Git
15 46 (14.60%) React
15 46 (14.60%) REST
16 45 (14.29%) Security Cleared
16 45 (14.29%) TypeScript
17 43 (13.65%) Kubernetes
18 42 (13.33%) Node.js
19 38 (12.06%) Accessibility
20 37 (11.75%) Microsoft
20 37 (11.75%) Python
21 36 (11.43%) Containerisation
21 36 (11.43%) GitLab
21 36 (11.43%) RESTful
21 36 (11.43%) TDD
21 36 (11.43%) 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 8 (2.54%) Confluence
2 5 (1.59%) SAS
3 3 (0.95%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 3 (0.95%) Apache
3 3 (0.95%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.95%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.63%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.32%) CMS
5 1 (0.32%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.32%) JBoss
5 1 (0.32%) nginx
5 1 (0.32%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.32%) Tomcat
Applications
1 4 (1.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (2.86%) Advent Geneva
2 7 (2.22%) Maximo
3 2 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.63%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.63%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.32%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.32%) SAP PSCD
4 1 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 79 (25.08%) AWS
2 72 (22.86%) Azure
3 25 (7.94%) Power Platform
4 23 (7.30%) GitHub
5 22 (6.98%) Azure DevOps
6 18 (5.71%) Serverless
7 13 (4.13%) Power Automate
8 10 (3.17%) AWS Lambda
8 10 (3.17%) PowerApps
9 9 (2.86%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (2.54%) Amazon SQS
10 8 (2.54%) Dynamics 365
10 8 (2.54%) npm
11 7 (2.22%) Amazon S3
11 7 (2.22%) Azure AKS
11 7 (2.22%) Figma
11 7 (2.22%) GCP
12 5 (1.59%) AWS Step Functions
12 5 (1.59%) Azure Logic Apps
13 4 (1.27%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.86%) HTTPS
2 4 (1.27%) HTTP
3 2 (0.63%) SSL
4 1 (0.32%) Internet
4 1 (0.32%) PABX
4 1 (0.32%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (6.67%) Relational Database
2 18 (5.71%) MySQL
2 18 (5.71%) PostgreSQL
3 17 (5.40%) NoSQL
3 17 (5.40%) SQL Server
4 16 (5.08%) Power BI
5 10 (3.17%) Data Warehouse
5 10 (3.17%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 9 (2.86%) DB2
6 9 (2.86%) MongoDB
6 9 (2.86%) Redis
7 8 (2.54%) OLTP
8 6 (1.90%) DocumentDB
9 5 (1.59%) Apache Cassandra
9 5 (1.59%) DynamoDB
10 4 (1.27%) Cognos Framework Manager
10 4 (1.27%) Cognos Report Studio
11 3 (0.95%) Cognos Transformer
11 3 (0.95%) OLAP
11 3 (0.95%) OLAP Cube
Development Applications
1 49 (15.56%) Git
2 36 (11.43%) GitLab
3 24 (7.62%) JIRA
4 19 (6.03%) Cypress.io
5 16 (5.08%) JUnit
6 13 (4.13%) Gradle
7 11 (3.49%) SonarQube
7 11 (3.49%) Xcode
8 9 (2.86%) Jenkins
8 9 (2.86%) Postman
9 7 (2.22%) Mocha
9 7 (2.22%) Mockito
10 6 (1.90%) CircleCI
10 6 (1.90%) Storybook
11 4 (1.27%) ESLint
12 3 (0.95%) Grunt
12 3 (0.95%) gulp
12 3 (0.95%) Jasmine
13 2 (0.63%) Android Studio
13 2 (0.63%) git-flow
General
1 68 (21.59%) Public Sector
2 45 (14.29%) Finance
3 37 (11.75%) Social Skills
4 24 (7.62%) Banking
5 21 (6.67%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (2.22%) Aviation
6 7 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.27%) Publishing
8 3 (0.95%) Law
8 3 (0.95%) Local Government
8 3 (0.95%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (0.63%) Private Banking
10 1 (0.32%) Digital Healthcare
10 1 (0.32%) Games
10 1 (0.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.32%) Legal
10 1 (0.32%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.32%) Marketing
10 1 (0.32%) Military
10 1 (0.32%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (21.59%) Spring
1 68 (21.59%) Spring Boot
2 46 (14.60%) React
2 46 (14.60%) REST
3 42 (13.33%) Node.js
4 36 (11.43%) RESTful
5 29 (9.21%) JSON
6 28 (8.89%) HTML
7 25 (7.94%) Jest
8 23 (7.30%) .NET
9 21 (6.67%) AngularJS
10 19 (6.03%) CSS
10 19 (6.03%) OAuth
10 19 (6.03%) React Native
11 15 (4.76%) JMS
11 15 (4.76%) Vue
11 15 (4.76%) XML
12 13 (4.13%) Hibernate
12 13 (4.13%) Playwright
13 12 (3.81%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 23 (7.30%) Mobile App
2 21 (6.67%) Cloud Native
3 14 (4.44%) Onboarding
4 12 (3.81%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 9 (2.86%) Data Protection Act
5 9 (2.86%) Product Ownership
6 7 (2.22%) Virtual Team
7 6 (1.90%) Data Structures
7 6 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.59%) Low-Code
9 4 (1.27%) Legacy Code
9 4 (1.27%) Legacy Systems
10 3 (0.95%) Blog
10 3 (0.95%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (0.95%) Mobile Banking
11 2 (0.63%) Algorithms
11 2 (0.63%) FMCG
11 2 (0.63%) IoT
11 2 (0.63%) IVR
Operating Systems
1 17 (5.40%) Android
1 17 (5.40%) Apple iOS
2 12 (3.81%) Linux
3 8 (2.54%) Unix
4 3 (0.95%) Mac OS X
5 2 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.63%) Windows
5 2 (0.63%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.32%) VME
6 1 (0.32%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (28.57%) Agile
1 90 (28.57%) CI/CD
2 67 (21.27%) Microservices
3 65 (20.63%) DevOps
4 64 (20.32%) Problem-Solving
5 59 (18.73%) Full-Stack Development
6 57 (18.10%) Test Automation
7 36 (11.43%) Containerisation
7 36 (11.43%) TDD
7 36 (11.43%) Unit Testing
8 26 (8.25%) API Design
9 25 (7.94%) Front End Development
9 25 (7.94%) User Experience
10 24 (7.62%) Performance Optimisation
11 23 (7.30%) API Development
11 23 (7.30%) Continuous Improvement
12 22 (6.98%) Data Modelling
13 21 (6.67%) Business Intelligence
14 20 (6.35%) Analytics
14 20 (6.35%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 115 (36.51%) Java
2 69 (21.90%) SQL
3 51 (16.19%) JavaScript
4 45 (14.29%) TypeScript
5 37 (11.75%) Python
6 21 (6.67%) C#
7 16 (5.08%) Kotlin
8 6 (1.90%) C++
8 6 (1.90%) Ruby
8 6 (1.90%) Swift
8 6 (1.90%) T-SQL
9 5 (1.59%) Objective-C
9 5 (1.59%) Shell Script
10 4 (1.27%) ABAP
10 4 (1.27%) Bash
10 4 (1.27%) C
10 4 (1.27%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.95%) Apex Code
11 3 (0.95%) PHP
11 3 (0.95%) Scala
Qualifications
1 45 (14.29%) Security Cleared
2 24 (7.62%) BPSS Clearance
3 21 (6.67%) SC Cleared
4 18 (5.71%) Degree
5 13 (4.13%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (1.59%) CTC Cleared
7 2 (0.63%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (12.06%) Accessibility
2 17 (5.40%) QA
3 16 (5.08%) WCAG
4 12 (3.81%) ISO 20022
4 12 (3.81%) PSD2
4 12 (3.81%) SEPA
5 4 (1.27%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.32%) GDPR
System Software
1 52 (16.51%) Docker
2 3 (0.95%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 43 (13.65%) Kubernetes
2 11 (3.49%) Terraform
3 6 (1.90%) Grafana
4 4 (1.27%) Ansible
4 4 (1.27%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.32%) Argo
5 1 (0.32%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 37 (11.75%) Microsoft
2 28 (8.89%) Oracle
3 10 (3.17%) Virgin Media
4 9 (2.86%) Advent
4 9 (2.86%) SAP
5 8 (2.54%) Salesforce
6 7 (2.22%) ServiceNow
6 7 (2.22%) Splunk
7 6 (1.90%) Automation Anywhere
8 5 (1.59%) Adobe
8 5 (1.59%) IBM
9 4 (1.27%) Cognos
9 4 (1.27%) IFS
9 4 (1.27%) webMethods
9 4 (1.27%) Xamarin
10 3 (0.95%) Dynatrace
10 3 (0.95%) Perforce
10 3 (0.95%) Software AG
10 3 (0.95%) Veracode
11 2 (0.63%) Red Hat