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 4 July 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 13 6
Rank change year-on-year -7 -7 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 283 224 340
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 7.88% 10.73% 12.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 8.62% 11.56% 13.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 170 192 249
10th Percentile £340 £313 £300
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £455 £450
Median % change year-on-year +4.45% +1.06% -10.00%
75th Percentile £534 £545 £525
90th Percentile £600 £625 £575
England median daily rate £515 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -1.90% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 1 3
10th Percentile £25.49 - £44.30
25th Percentile £36.32 - £56.75
Median hourly rate £41.06 £47.12 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.87% -41.10% +60.00%
75th Percentile £46.18 - £82.75
90th Percentile - - £82.90
England median hourly rate £46.18 £40.30 £65.00
% change year-on-year +14.60% -38.01% +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 3,284 1,937 2,615
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.40% 92.77% 94.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,827 1,281 1,616
10th Percentile £304 £268 £268
25th Percentile £400 £375 £382
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +6.94% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £588 £553 £575
90th Percentile £675 £665 £669
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 360 140 305
10th Percentile £17.86 £13.00 £11.77
25th Percentile £25.38 £14.73 £15.00
Median hourly rate £45.56 £29.01 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +57.03% -11.81% +12.27%
75th Percentile £73.37 £58.91 £48.00
90th Percentile £83.88 £77.63 £71.72
England median hourly rate £45.00 £28.08 £40.00
% change year-on-year +60.28% -29.81% -8.45%

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 4 July 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 4 July 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 4 July 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 0 205 £475 - 83
Cheshire -27 33 £394 +6.42% 22
Merseyside -14 20 £437 -20.64% 24
Lancashire +2 16 £463 -11.90% 40
Cumbria -6 7 £875 - 4
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 4 July 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.

1 114 (40.28%) Java
2 99 (34.98%) Agile
3 73 (25.80%) CI/CD
4 66 (23.32%) Microservices
5 57 (20.14%) DevOps
6 55 (19.43%) AWS
7 53 (18.73%) Azure
8 47 (16.61%) Spring
9 46 (16.25%) SQL
10 45 (15.90%) Test Automation
11 44 (15.55%) Security Cleared
12 43 (15.19%) Spring Boot
13 42 (14.84%) TDD
14 41 (14.49%) Problem-Solving
15 38 (13.43%) JavaScript
16 36 (12.72%) React
17 35 (12.37%) C#
18 33 (11.66%) Full-Stack Development
19 32 (11.31%) Microsoft
19 32 (11.31%) Node.js
20 30 (10.60%) Docker
20 30 (10.60%) SC Cleared
21 29 (10.25%) Git
21 29 (10.25%) Kubernetes
22 28 (9.89%) Data Modelling
22 28 (9.89%) Mentoring
22 28 (9.89%) TypeScript
23 27 (9.54%) .NET
23 27 (9.54%) Business Intelligence
23 27 (9.54%) Power Platform

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 15 (5.30%) Confluence
2 4 (1.41%) Apache Spark
3 3 (1.06%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.71%) Apache
4 2 (0.71%) CMS
4 2 (0.71%) SharePoint 2013
5 1 (0.35%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.35%) Appian
5 1 (0.35%) Camunda
5 1 (0.35%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.35%) JBoss
5 1 (0.35%) Mule
5 1 (0.35%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.35%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.35%) SAS
5 1 (0.35%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.35%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 4 (1.41%) Maximo
2 1 (0.35%) NEC Housing
2 1 (0.35%) Odoo
2 1 (0.35%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 55 (19.43%) AWS
2 53 (18.73%) Azure
3 27 (9.54%) Power Platform
4 17 (6.01%) Serverless
5 15 (5.30%) Azure DevOps
6 9 (3.18%) GitHub
7 8 (2.83%) AWS Lambda
7 8 (2.83%) GitHub Actions
8 7 (2.47%) Dynamics 365
8 7 (2.47%) Power Automate
9 6 (2.12%) Amazon S3
10 5 (1.77%) Amazon EC2
10 5 (1.77%) Amazon ECR
10 5 (1.77%) Amazon SQS
10 5 (1.77%) OpenShift
10 5 (1.77%) PowerApps
11 4 (1.41%) Azure AKS
11 4 (1.41%) Azure Functions
11 4 (1.41%) Copilot Studio
11 4 (1.41%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.71%) Network Security
1 2 (0.71%) SD-WAN
1 2 (0.71%) TCP/IP
1 2 (0.71%) WAN
1 2 (0.71%) Wireless
2 1 (0.35%) IPsec
2 1 (0.35%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (7.77%) Power BI
2 21 (7.42%) MongoDB
3 18 (6.36%) SQL Server
4 14 (4.95%) Power Query
5 13 (4.59%) PostgreSQL
6 12 (4.24%) Relational Database
7 10 (3.53%) Data Warehouse
7 10 (3.53%) NoSQL
8 5 (1.77%) DocumentDB
8 5 (1.77%) MySQL
9 4 (1.41%) Elasticsearch
9 4 (1.41%) Hadoop
10 3 (1.06%) DataStage
10 3 (1.06%) Db2
10 3 (1.06%) Oracle Database
10 3 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 2 (0.71%) Metadata
11 2 (0.71%) OLTP
11 2 (0.71%) WebFOCUS
12 1 (0.35%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 29 (10.25%) Git
2 25 (8.83%) GitLab
3 19 (6.71%) JIRA
4 13 (4.59%) Mockito
5 10 (3.53%) Jenkins
6 9 (3.18%) JUnit
7 6 (2.12%) Cypress.io
8 5 (1.77%) Mocha
8 5 (1.77%) SonarQube
9 4 (1.41%) Claude Code
10 3 (1.06%) CircleCI
10 3 (1.06%) ClearCase
11 2 (0.71%) Cucumber
12 1 (0.35%) Eclipse
12 1 (0.35%) ESLint
12 1 (0.35%) Hudson
12 1 (0.35%) Postman
12 1 (0.35%) SoapUI
12 1 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
12 1 (0.35%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 71 (25.09%) Public Sector
2 46 (16.25%) Social Skills
3 32 (11.31%) Finance
4 21 (7.42%) Banking
5 17 (6.01%) Analytical Skills
6 9 (3.18%) Military
7 7 (2.47%) Manufacturing
8 6 (2.12%) Aerospace
9 4 (1.41%) Aviation
10 3 (1.06%) Retail
11 2 (0.71%) Front Office
11 2 (0.71%) Investment Banking
12 1 (0.35%) Advertising
12 1 (0.35%) Automotive
12 1 (0.35%) Games
12 1 (0.35%) Law
12 1 (0.35%) Legal
12 1 (0.35%) Legal Technology
12 1 (0.35%) Local Government
12 1 (0.35%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (16.61%) Spring
2 43 (15.19%) Spring Boot
3 36 (12.72%) React
4 32 (11.31%) Node.js
5 27 (9.54%) .NET
5 27 (9.54%) RESTful
6 26 (9.19%) REST
7 22 (7.77%) Kafka
8 19 (6.71%) AngularJS
9 16 (5.65%) HTML
10 13 (4.59%) YAML
11 12 (4.24%) CSS
12 11 (3.89%) JSON
13 10 (3.53%) Jest
14 9 (3.18%) ActiveMQ
14 9 (3.18%) JAX-RS
14 9 (3.18%) XML
15 8 (2.83%) Vue
16 7 (2.47%) .NET Core
16 7 (2.47%) React Native
Miscellaneous
1 25 (8.83%) Cloud Native
2 14 (4.95%) Enterprise Software
3 11 (3.89%) Mobile App
3 11 (3.89%) Product Ownership
4 9 (3.18%) Data Structures
4 9 (3.18%) NHS
5 6 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (2.12%) Onboarding
6 5 (1.77%) Algorithms
6 5 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (1.06%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 2 (0.71%) AI Agents
9 2 (0.71%) Equities
9 2 (0.71%) Fixed Income
9 2 (0.71%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 2 (0.71%) Greenfield Project
9 2 (0.71%) IoT
10 1 (0.35%) Distributed Systems
10 1 (0.35%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 19 (6.71%) Linux
2 18 (6.36%) Unix
3 8 (2.83%) Mac OS X
4 5 (1.77%) Windows
5 4 (1.41%) Windows Server
6 3 (1.06%) VMS
7 2 (0.71%) Android
7 2 (0.71%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.71%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (34.98%) Agile
2 73 (25.80%) CI/CD
3 66 (23.32%) Microservices
4 57 (20.14%) DevOps
5 45 (15.90%) Test Automation
6 42 (14.84%) TDD
7 41 (14.49%) Problem-Solving
8 33 (11.66%) Full-Stack Development
9 28 (9.89%) Data Modelling
9 28 (9.89%) Mentoring
10 27 (9.54%) Business Intelligence
11 24 (8.48%) SDLC
12 23 (8.13%) BDD
13 21 (7.42%) Code Quality
14 20 (7.07%) AI
14 20 (7.07%) API Design
14 20 (7.07%) ETL
14 20 (7.07%) Front End Development
14 20 (7.07%) Software Engineering
14 20 (7.07%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 114 (40.28%) Java
2 46 (16.25%) SQL
3 38 (13.43%) JavaScript
4 35 (12.37%) C#
5 28 (9.89%) TypeScript
6 22 (7.77%) Python
7 16 (5.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 11 (3.89%) Kotlin
9 7 (2.47%) PowerShell
10 6 (2.12%) Apex Code
10 6 (2.12%) Go
11 4 (1.41%) PL/SQL
12 3 (1.06%) Shell Script
12 3 (1.06%) VB
12 3 (1.06%) VB6
13 2 (0.71%) C++
13 2 (0.71%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.35%) ABAP
14 1 (0.35%) PHP
14 1 (0.35%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 44 (15.55%) Security Cleared
2 30 (10.60%) SC Cleared
3 23 (8.13%) BPSS Clearance
4 8 (2.83%) Degree
5 4 (1.41%) DV Cleared
6 1 (0.35%) CTC Cleared
6 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (5.65%) Accessibility
2 14 (4.95%) QA
3 8 (2.83%) Data Quality
4 7 (2.47%) WCAG
5 4 (1.41%) GRC
6 3 (1.06%) ISO 20022
6 3 (1.06%) PSD2
6 3 (1.06%) SEPA
7 1 (0.35%) NIST
System Software
1 30 (10.60%) Docker
Systems Management
1 29 (10.25%) Kubernetes
2 19 (6.71%) Terraform
3 11 (3.89%) Ansible
4 4 (1.41%) Grafana
5 1 (0.35%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 32 (11.31%) Microsoft
2 16 (5.65%) Oracle
2 16 (5.65%) Salesforce
3 11 (3.89%) ServiceNow
4 5 (1.77%) Pega
5 4 (1.41%) Atlassian
6 3 (1.06%) IBM
6 3 (1.06%) SAP
6 3 (1.06%) Teradata
6 3 (1.06%) Veracode
7 2 (0.71%) Adobe
7 2 (0.71%) Cisco
8 1 (0.35%) Dell
8 1 (0.35%) Foundry
8 1 (0.35%) Google
8 1 (0.35%) NEC
8 1 (0.35%) Sage
8 1 (0.35%) Sitecore
8 1 (0.35%) Virgin Media
8 1 (0.35%) Xamarin