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 19 March 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 9 5
Rank change year-on-year -1 -4 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 328 232 407
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 10.88% 11.57% 14.44%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.86% 12.45% 15.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 219 169 302
10th Percentile £350 £380 £313
25th Percentile £400 £405 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £470
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +6.38% -5.76%
75th Percentile £500 £551 £538
90th Percentile £570 £638 £625
England median daily rate £500 £534 £525
% change year-on-year -6.28% +1.62% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 3 3
10th Percentile £36.32 £69.20 £76.50
25th Percentile £40.53 £75.50 £76.88
Median hourly rate £61.00 £86.00 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -29.07% +7.50% +102.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 - £82.75
90th Percentile £75.61 - £82.90
England median hourly rate £63.14 £63.00 £62.00
% change year-on-year +0.21% +1.61% -0.80%

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 2,765 1,864 2,647
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.74% 92.97% 93.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,677 1,202 1,768
10th Percentile £228 £250 £281
25th Percentile £375 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year -3.16% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £575 £570 £580
90th Percentile £650 £651 £675
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 267 104 280
10th Percentile £18.57 £15.00 £11.07
25th Percentile £22.85 £20.80 £13.68
Median hourly rate £45.00 £31.51 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +42.81% +21.19% -12.31%
75th Percentile £65.75 £56.51 £46.18
90th Percentile £77.50 £82.56 £61.38
England median hourly rate £37.50 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +7.14% +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 19 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 19 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 19 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 0 247 £455 -2.41% 118
Cheshire -10 43 £358 -29.28% 37
Lancashire -8 19 £500 -6.59% 49
Merseyside -14 16 £481 -12.50% 15
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 19 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.

1 128 (39.02%) Java
2 106 (32.32%) Agile
3 90 (27.44%) CI/CD
4 81 (24.70%) AWS
5 76 (23.17%) Microservices
6 70 (21.34%) Azure
7 69 (21.04%) Spring
7 69 (21.04%) Spring Boot
8 68 (20.73%) Problem-Solving
9 64 (19.51%) Test Automation
10 61 (18.60%) DevOps
11 59 (17.99%) SQL
12 53 (16.16%) Full-Stack Development
12 53 (16.16%) Security Cleared
13 47 (14.33%) TDD
14 44 (13.41%) Docker
14 44 (13.41%) React
15 42 (12.80%) JavaScript
16 41 (12.50%) Node.js
17 40 (12.20%) Kubernetes
18 39 (11.89%) GitLab
18 39 (11.89%) Microsoft
18 39 (11.89%) REST
18 39 (11.89%) TypeScript
19 38 (11.59%) Git
19 38 (11.59%) RESTful
20 36 (10.98%) Python
21 31 (9.45%) API Design
22 30 (9.15%) .NET
23 29 (8.84%) C#

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 9 (2.74%) Confluence
2 5 (1.52%) Apache Spark
3 4 (1.22%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.91%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 3 (0.91%) Apache
4 3 (0.91%) SAS
4 3 (0.91%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.30%) Appian
5 1 (0.30%) CMS
5 1 (0.30%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.30%) JBoss
5 1 (0.30%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.30%) Tomcat
Applications
1 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 8 (2.44%) Advent Geneva
2 7 (2.13%) Maximo
3 2 (0.61%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.61%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.30%) Odoo
4 1 (0.30%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.30%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 81 (24.70%) AWS
2 70 (21.34%) Azure
3 25 (7.62%) Serverless
4 24 (7.32%) Power Platform
5 17 (5.18%) Azure DevOps
6 15 (4.57%) GitHub
7 14 (4.27%) Power Automate
8 12 (3.66%) AWS Lambda
9 11 (3.35%) Dynamics 365
9 11 (3.35%) PowerApps
10 9 (2.74%) Amazon S3
10 9 (2.74%) Amazon SQS
10 9 (2.74%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (2.13%) Azure Logic Apps
12 6 (1.83%) GCP
13 5 (1.52%) AWS Step Functions
13 5 (1.52%) Azure Functions
13 5 (1.52%) GitHub Copilot
13 5 (1.52%) npm
13 5 (1.52%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.83%) HTTPS
2 4 (1.22%) HTTP
3 1 (0.30%) Internet
3 1 (0.30%) PABX
3 1 (0.30%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (6.10%) Relational Database
2 19 (5.79%) SQL Server
3 18 (5.49%) PostgreSQL
4 16 (4.88%) MongoDB
5 15 (4.57%) NoSQL
6 14 (4.27%) MySQL
7 13 (3.96%) Power BI
8 9 (2.74%) Data Warehouse
8 9 (2.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 8 (2.44%) DB2
9 8 (2.44%) DocumentDB
9 8 (2.44%) OLTP
9 8 (2.44%) Redis
10 5 (1.52%) DynamoDB
10 5 (1.52%) Hadoop
11 4 (1.22%) Elasticsearch
12 2 (0.61%) Amazon RDS
12 2 (0.61%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
12 2 (0.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 2 (0.61%) WebFOCUS
Development Applications
1 39 (11.89%) GitLab
2 38 (11.59%) Git
3 19 (5.79%) JIRA
4 15 (4.57%) Cypress.io
5 12 (3.66%) JUnit
5 12 (3.66%) Mockito
6 9 (2.74%) SonarQube
7 8 (2.44%) Jenkins
7 8 (2.44%) Mocha
8 6 (1.83%) CircleCI
9 5 (1.52%) Postman
10 4 (1.22%) ESLint
10 4 (1.22%) Gradle
11 3 (0.91%) Jasmine
12 2 (0.61%) Android Studio
12 2 (0.61%) fastlane
12 2 (0.61%) Xcode
12 2 (0.61%) XCTest
13 1 (0.30%) IntelliJ
13 1 (0.30%) Vite
General
1 88 (26.83%) Public Sector
2 47 (14.33%) Social Skills
3 43 (13.11%) Finance
4 21 (6.40%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (4.88%) Banking
6 7 (2.13%) Aviation
6 7 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.22%) Law
7 4 (1.22%) Publishing
8 3 (0.91%) 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 (0.30%) Advertising
10 1 (0.30%) Games
10 1 (0.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.30%) Military
10 1 (0.30%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (21.04%) Spring
1 69 (21.04%) Spring Boot
2 44 (13.41%) React
3 41 (12.50%) Node.js
4 39 (11.89%) REST
5 38 (11.59%) RESTful
6 30 (9.15%) .NET
7 22 (6.71%) Jest
8 21 (6.40%) AngularJS
9 20 (6.10%) HTML
10 18 (5.49%) JSON
11 17 (5.18%) Kafka
12 15 (4.57%) Vue
12 15 (4.57%) YAML
13 14 (4.27%) CSS
14 13 (3.96%) OAuth
14 13 (3.96%) React Native
14 13 (3.96%) XML
15 12 (3.66%) JAX-RS
15 12 (3.66%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 23 (7.01%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.79%) Mobile App
3 15 (4.57%) Onboarding
4 12 (3.66%) Product Ownership
5 9 (2.74%) Enterprise Software
6 7 (2.13%) Data Structures
6 7 (2.13%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 6 (1.83%) Data Protection Act
7 6 (1.83%) Virtual Team
8 4 (1.22%) Legacy Code
8 4 (1.22%) Low-Code
9 3 (0.91%) Blog
9 3 (0.91%) Greenfield Project
9 3 (0.91%) IoT
9 3 (0.91%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (0.61%) Distributed Systems
10 2 (0.61%) FMCG
10 2 (0.61%) IVR
10 2 (0.61%) NHS
11 1 (0.30%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 17 (5.18%) Linux
2 16 (4.88%) Unix
3 9 (2.74%) Mac OS X
4 8 (2.44%) Android
4 8 (2.44%) Apple iOS
5 4 (1.22%) Windows
6 3 (0.91%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.61%) VMS
8 1 (0.30%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 106 (32.32%) Agile
2 90 (27.44%) CI/CD
3 76 (23.17%) Microservices
4 68 (20.73%) Problem-Solving
5 64 (19.51%) Test Automation
6 61 (18.60%) DevOps
7 53 (16.16%) Full-Stack Development
8 47 (14.33%) TDD
9 31 (9.45%) API Design
10 29 (8.84%) Containerisation
10 29 (8.84%) Continuous Improvement
11 27 (8.23%) Data Modelling
11 27 (8.23%) User Experience
12 24 (7.32%) Unit Testing
13 23 (7.01%) Front End Development
14 22 (6.71%) Design Patterns
14 22 (6.71%) Performance Optimisation
15 21 (6.40%) API Development
15 21 (6.40%) Code Quality
15 21 (6.40%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 128 (39.02%) Java
2 59 (17.99%) SQL
3 42 (12.80%) JavaScript
4 39 (11.89%) TypeScript
5 36 (10.98%) Python
6 29 (8.84%) C#
7 18 (5.49%) Kotlin
8 6 (1.83%) T-SQL
9 5 (1.52%) Shell Script
10 4 (1.22%) Apex Code
10 4 (1.22%) C++
10 4 (1.22%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.91%) Groovy
11 3 (0.91%) ProC
11 3 (0.91%) Ruby
11 3 (0.91%) Swift
12 2 (0.61%) ABAP
12 2 (0.61%) Objective-C
13 1 (0.30%) PHP
Qualifications
1 53 (16.16%) Security Cleared
2 28 (8.54%) BPSS Clearance
3 27 (8.23%) SC Cleared
4 17 (5.18%) Degree
5 10 (3.05%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.22%) CTC Cleared
6 4 (1.22%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.30%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (8.23%) Accessibility
2 16 (4.88%) WCAG
3 15 (4.57%) QA
4 7 (2.13%) ISO 20022
4 7 (2.13%) PSD2
4 7 (2.13%) SEPA
5 5 (1.52%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.30%) GDPR
6 1 (0.30%) GRC
System Software
1 44 (13.41%) Docker
2 3 (0.91%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 40 (12.20%) Kubernetes
2 19 (5.79%) Terraform
3 6 (1.83%) Grafana
4 4 (1.22%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.91%) Ansible
6 1 (0.30%) Argo
6 1 (0.30%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 39 (11.89%) Microsoft
2 26 (7.93%) Oracle
3 10 (3.05%) Virgin Media
4 8 (2.44%) Advent
4 8 (2.44%) Salesforce
5 7 (2.13%) ServiceNow
5 7 (2.13%) Splunk
6 6 (1.83%) Automation Anywhere
6 6 (1.83%) SAP
7 5 (1.52%) Adobe
8 4 (1.22%) IFS
8 4 (1.22%) Xamarin
9 3 (0.91%) Dynatrace
9 3 (0.91%) IBM
9 3 (0.91%) Veracode
10 2 (0.61%) NEC
10 2 (0.61%) Sage
10 2 (0.61%) Software AG
10 2 (0.61%) webMethods
11 1 (0.30%) BT