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 10 August 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 13 10
Rank change year-on-year -13 -3 0
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 247 220 275
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 6.55% 9.96% 11.60%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.21% 10.84% 12.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 151 184 211
10th Percentile £350 £313 £308
25th Percentile £407 £366 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £430 £450
Median % change year-on-year +10.47% -4.44% -10.00%
75th Percentile £575 £535 £525
90th Percentile £650 £575 £575
England median daily rate £515 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 1 2
10th Percentile £25.49 - £40.70
25th Percentile £37.25 - £47.75
Median hourly rate £41.06 £47.12 £59.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.87% -20.81% +19.00%
75th Percentile £46.18 - £71.25
90th Percentile - - £78.30
England median hourly rate £55.00 £53.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +3.77% -18.46% +8.62%

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 3,427 2,029 2,235
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.85% 91.89% 94.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,934 1,305 1,366
10th Percentile £280 £256 £265
25th Percentile £400 £364 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £493
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -8.72% -1.40%
75th Percentile £600 £559 £587
90th Percentile £685 £656 £675
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 404 159 199
10th Percentile £16.91 £13.00 £11.07
25th Percentile £25.38 £17.30 £16.58
Median hourly rate £45.56 £27.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.72% -22.86% +14.60%
75th Percentile £71.91 £50.00 £55.79
90th Percentile £83.75 £73.75 £71.90
England median hourly rate £42.65 £25.30 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.58% -43.78% +5.88%

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 10 August 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 10 August 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 10 August 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 -3 187 £475 +11.76% 151
Cheshire -38 21 £408 +8.67% 19
Merseyside -26 16 £437 -17.64% 12
Lancashire -9 12 £500 +0.50% 40
Cumbria -4 7 £875 - 7
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 10 August 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 79 (31.98%) Java
2 77 (31.17%) Agile
3 52 (21.05%) CI/CD
4 50 (20.24%) Microservices
5 42 (17.00%) DevOps
6 40 (16.19%) SQL
7 39 (15.79%) Azure
7 39 (15.79%) Security Cleared
7 39 (15.79%) TDD
8 36 (14.57%) AWS
9 34 (13.77%) Problem-Solving
9 34 (13.77%) Test Automation
10 31 (12.55%) C#
10 31 (12.55%) React
11 30 (12.15%) SC Cleared
12 29 (11.74%) AI
12 29 (11.74%) JavaScript
13 28 (11.34%) Spring
14 27 (10.93%) Microsoft
14 27 (10.93%) Power Platform
15 26 (10.53%) Business Intelligence
16 25 (10.12%) BDD
16 25 (10.12%) Data Modelling
16 25 (10.12%) Mentoring
16 25 (10.12%) Node.js
16 25 (10.12%) Spring Boot
17 24 (9.72%) .NET
17 24 (9.72%) Kafka
18 23 (9.31%) MongoDB
19 22 (8.91%) Continuous Improvement

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 11 (4.45%) Confluence
2 5 (2.02%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.21%) Apache Spark
3 3 (1.21%) WordPress
4 2 (0.81%) CMS
4 2 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.81%) SharePoint 2013
4 2 (0.81%) SharePoint Server
5 1 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.40%) Apache
5 1 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.40%) Appian
5 1 (0.40%) Camunda
5 1 (0.40%) Drupal
5 1 (0.40%) JBoss
5 1 (0.40%) Mule
5 1 (0.40%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.40%) SAS
5 1 (0.40%) Umbraco
5 1 (0.40%) WebLogic
Applications
1 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.40%) MIS ActiveH
1 1 (0.40%) Odoo
1 1 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 39 (15.79%) Azure
2 36 (14.57%) AWS
3 27 (10.93%) Power Platform
4 11 (4.45%) Azure DevOps
4 11 (4.45%) Serverless
5 9 (3.64%) Microsoft Copilot
6 8 (3.24%) Power Automate
7 7 (2.83%) Copilot Studio
8 6 (2.43%) GitHub
8 6 (2.43%) Google Gemini
8 6 (2.43%) PowerApps
9 5 (2.02%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (2.02%) OpenShift
10 4 (1.62%) Anthropic Claude
10 4 (1.62%) Azure Service Bus
10 4 (1.62%) Dynamics 365
10 4 (1.62%) GitHub Copilot
11 3 (1.21%) AWS Lambda
11 3 (1.21%) Azure Functions
11 3 (1.21%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.81%) Network Security
1 2 (0.81%) SD-WAN
1 2 (0.81%) TCP/IP
1 2 (0.81%) WAN
1 2 (0.81%) Wireless
2 1 (0.40%) Firewall
2 1 (0.40%) IPsec
2 1 (0.40%) SSL
2 1 (0.40%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (9.31%) MongoDB
2 21 (8.50%) Power BI
3 20 (8.10%) SQL Server
4 14 (5.67%) Power Query
5 11 (4.45%) Relational Database
6 10 (4.05%) Data Warehouse
7 9 (3.64%) NoSQL
7 9 (3.64%) PostgreSQL
8 5 (2.02%) MySQL
9 4 (1.62%) DataStage
9 4 (1.62%) Db2
10 3 (1.21%) Elasticsearch
10 3 (1.21%) Hadoop
10 3 (1.21%) Oracle Database
10 3 (1.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 2 (0.81%) DocumentDB
11 2 (0.81%) RDBMS
12 1 (0.40%) Amazon Redshift
12 1 (0.40%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
12 1 (0.40%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 22 (8.91%) Git
2 12 (4.86%) Mockito
3 11 (4.45%) JIRA
4 9 (3.64%) Claude Code
4 9 (3.64%) GitLab
5 7 (2.83%) Jenkins
6 3 (1.21%) ClearCase
6 3 (1.21%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.81%) JUnit
7 2 (0.81%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.40%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.40%) Hudson
8 1 (0.40%) IntelliJ
8 1 (0.40%) Maven
8 1 (0.40%) Postman
8 1 (0.40%) Rational Robot
8 1 (0.40%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.40%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.40%) Visual Studio Code
8 1 (0.40%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 50 (20.24%) Public Sector
2 47 (19.03%) Social Skills
3 24 (9.72%) Finance
4 16 (6.48%) Banking
5 13 (5.26%) Analytical Skills
6 11 (4.45%) Military
7 7 (2.83%) Manufacturing
8 6 (2.43%) Aerospace
9 4 (1.62%) Retail
10 3 (1.21%) Legal
10 3 (1.21%) Legal Technology
11 2 (0.81%) Front Office
11 2 (0.81%) Investment Banking
12 1 (0.40%) Advertising
12 1 (0.40%) Automotive
12 1 (0.40%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.40%) Law
12 1 (0.40%) Local Government
12 1 (0.40%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (12.55%) React
2 28 (11.34%) Spring
3 25 (10.12%) Node.js
3 25 (10.12%) Spring Boot
4 24 (9.72%) .NET
4 24 (9.72%) Kafka
5 22 (8.91%) REST
6 15 (6.07%) AngularJS
7 13 (5.26%) RESTful
8 12 (4.86%) ActiveMQ
8 12 (4.86%) JAX-RS
9 10 (4.05%) HTML
9 10 (4.05%) JSON
10 8 (3.24%) XML
11 7 (2.83%) CSS
12 6 (2.43%) Nunjucks
13 5 (2.02%) .NET Core
13 5 (2.02%) Lightning Web Components
14 4 (1.62%) Next.js
14 4 (1.62%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 11 (4.45%) Enterprise Software
2 9 (3.64%) Cloud Native
2 9 (3.64%) Data Structures
3 8 (3.24%) NHS
4 7 (2.83%) AI Agents
5 6 (2.43%) Algorithms
5 6 (2.43%) Mobile App
6 5 (2.02%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (2.02%) Onboarding
6 5 (2.02%) Product Ownership
6 5 (2.02%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.21%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (1.21%) IoT
9 2 (0.81%) Equities
9 2 (0.81%) Fixed Income
9 2 (0.81%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 2 (0.81%) Greenfield Project
10 1 (0.40%) PKI
10 1 (0.40%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 20 (8.10%) Linux
2 19 (7.69%) Unix
3 7 (2.83%) Mac OS X
4 3 (1.21%) Android
4 3 (1.21%) Apple iOS
4 3 (1.21%) Windows
5 2 (0.81%) Mac OS
5 2 (0.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.81%) VMS
5 2 (0.81%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 77 (31.17%) Agile
2 52 (21.05%) CI/CD
3 50 (20.24%) Microservices
4 42 (17.00%) DevOps
5 39 (15.79%) TDD
6 34 (13.77%) Problem-Solving
6 34 (13.77%) Test Automation
7 29 (11.74%) AI
8 26 (10.53%) Business Intelligence
9 25 (10.12%) BDD
9 25 (10.12%) Data Modelling
9 25 (10.12%) Mentoring
10 22 (8.91%) Continuous Improvement
10 22 (8.91%) SDLC
11 21 (8.50%) Full-Stack Development
12 20 (8.10%) ETL
13 18 (7.29%) Software Engineering
14 16 (6.48%) Code Quality
14 16 (6.48%) Pair Programming
15 15 (6.07%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 79 (31.98%) Java
2 40 (16.19%) SQL
3 31 (12.55%) C#
4 29 (11.74%) JavaScript
5 17 (6.88%) TypeScript
6 16 (6.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 15 (6.07%) Python
8 7 (2.83%) Kotlin
8 7 (2.83%) PowerShell
9 6 (2.43%) Go
10 5 (2.02%) Apex Code
10 5 (2.02%) PL/SQL
11 4 (1.62%) Shell Script
12 3 (1.21%) PHP
12 3 (1.21%) T-SQL
12 3 (1.21%) VB
12 3 (1.21%) VB6
13 2 (0.81%) Swift
14 1 (0.40%) ABAP
14 1 (0.40%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 39 (15.79%) Security Cleared
2 30 (12.15%) SC Cleared
3 12 (4.86%) Degree
4 11 (4.45%) BPSS Clearance
5 3 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (1.21%) DV Cleared
6 1 (0.40%) CTC Cleared
6 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (5.26%) QA
2 10 (4.05%) Accessibility
3 9 (3.64%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.62%) GRC
5 2 (0.81%) WCAG
6 1 (0.40%) NCSC
6 1 (0.40%) NIST
System Software
1 17 (6.88%) Docker
2 2 (0.81%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 17 (6.88%) Kubernetes
2 14 (5.67%) Terraform
3 10 (4.05%) Ansible
4 1 (0.40%) Grafana
4 1 (0.40%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 27 (10.93%) Microsoft
2 17 (6.88%) Salesforce
3 13 (5.26%) ServiceNow
4 11 (4.45%) Oracle
5 5 (2.02%) Pega
6 4 (1.62%) Atlassian
6 4 (1.62%) IBM
6 4 (1.62%) OpenAI
6 4 (1.62%) Teradata
7 3 (1.21%) Google
7 3 (1.21%) SAP
8 2 (0.81%) Adobe
8 2 (0.81%) Cisco
9 1 (0.40%) Dell
9 1 (0.40%) Foundry
9 1 (0.40%) MuleSoft
9 1 (0.40%) Sage
9 1 (0.40%) Virgin Media