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 1 May 2026.

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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 9 6
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 340 225 388
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 10.67% 11.43% 14.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.60% 12.35% 14.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 215 174 282
10th Percentile £343 £375 £310
25th Percentile £400 £405 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £470
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +6.38% -2.06%
75th Percentile £501 £551 £538
90th Percentile £572 £625 £625
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 2 2
10th Percentile £25.49 - £78.05
25th Percentile £36.55 - £78.88
Median hourly rate £41.06 £86.00 £81.50
Median % change year-on-year -52.26% +5.52% +91.76%
75th Percentile £46.64 - £82.88
90th Percentile £65.45 - £82.95
England median hourly rate £55.00 £61.00 £63.75
% change year-on-year -9.84% -4.31% +4.08%

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 2,930 1,822 2,603
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.58% 94.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,716 1,206 1,698
10th Percentile £263 £250 £281
25th Percentile £375 £378 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £464 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year -2.24% -3.65% -1.40%
75th Percentile £575 £563 £588
90th Percentile £668 £652 £675
England median daily rate £510 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.86% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 291 111 266
10th Percentile £19.00 £13.00 £11.07
25th Percentile £25.62 £17.44 £13.50
Median hourly rate £50.00 £29.23 £26.53
Median % change year-on-year +71.06% +10.20% -13.15%
75th Percentile £71.91 £59.24 £46.18
90th Percentile £85.00 £83.41 £63.75
England median hourly rate £47.00 £30.78 £36.31
% change year-on-year +52.70% -15.22% -19.32%

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 1 May 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 1 May 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 1 May 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 +1 258 £475 +1.06% 91
Cheshire -1 43 £358 -12.68% 19
Lancashire -6 19 £548 +2.29% 52
Merseyside -22 14 £475 -13.64% 19
Cumbria +2 3 - - 5
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 1 May 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.

1 139 (40.88%) Java
2 108 (31.76%) Agile
3 85 (25.00%) CI/CD
3 85 (25.00%) Microservices
4 82 (24.12%) AWS
5 74 (21.76%) Spring
6 71 (20.88%) Spring Boot
7 66 (19.41%) Problem-Solving
8 64 (18.82%) Test Automation
9 62 (18.24%) Azure
10 58 (17.06%) Full-Stack Development
10 58 (17.06%) SQL
11 55 (16.18%) DevOps
12 52 (15.29%) Security Cleared
12 52 (15.29%) TDD
13 49 (14.41%) JavaScript
13 49 (14.41%) React
14 46 (13.53%) Docker
15 45 (13.24%) Node.js
16 43 (12.65%) RESTful
17 40 (11.76%) Git
17 40 (11.76%) Kubernetes
18 38 (11.18%) REST
18 38 (11.18%) TypeScript
19 35 (10.29%) GitLab
20 32 (9.41%) API Design
21 31 (9.12%) Python
22 30 (8.82%) Oracle
23 29 (8.53%) .NET
23 29 (8.53%) Code Quality

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 10 (2.94%) Confluence
2 5 (1.47%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.88%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 3 (0.88%) Apache
3 3 (0.88%) SAS
4 2 (0.59%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.59%) JBoss
5 1 (0.29%) Appian
5 1 (0.29%) Camunda
5 1 (0.29%) CMS
5 1 (0.29%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.29%) Mule
5 1 (0.29%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.29%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.29%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.29%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.29%) WebLogic
Applications
1 2 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 7 (2.06%) Maximo
2 6 (1.76%) Advent Geneva
3 2 (0.59%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.59%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.29%) Odoo
4 1 (0.29%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.29%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 82 (24.12%) AWS
2 62 (18.24%) Azure
3 24 (7.06%) Serverless
4 17 (5.00%) Power Platform
5 16 (4.71%) GitHub
6 14 (4.12%) Azure DevOps
7 12 (3.53%) AWS Lambda
8 10 (2.94%) Dynamics 365
8 10 (2.94%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (2.65%) Amazon S3
10 7 (2.06%) Amazon SQS
11 6 (1.76%) AWS Step Functions
11 6 (1.76%) Azure Logic Apps
11 6 (1.76%) GCP
11 6 (1.76%) OpenShift
11 6 (1.76%) Power Automate
12 5 (1.47%) GitHub Copilot
13 4 (1.18%) Amazon EKS
13 4 (1.18%) Azure AKS
13 4 (1.18%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.47%) HTTPS
2 4 (1.18%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (6.18%) PostgreSQL
2 19 (5.59%) Relational Database
3 18 (5.29%) SQL Server
4 16 (4.71%) NoSQL
5 15 (4.41%) MongoDB
5 15 (4.41%) MySQL
6 12 (3.53%) Data Warehouse
7 11 (3.24%) Power BI
8 8 (2.35%) DB2
8 8 (2.35%) OLTP
9 7 (2.06%) DocumentDB
9 7 (2.06%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 5 (1.47%) DynamoDB
10 5 (1.47%) Hadoop
10 5 (1.47%) Redis
11 4 (1.18%) Elasticsearch
11 4 (1.18%) Power Query
12 3 (0.88%) DataStage
12 3 (0.88%) Oracle Database
13 2 (0.59%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 40 (11.76%) Git
2 35 (10.29%) GitLab
3 24 (7.06%) JIRA
4 14 (4.12%) JUnit
5 13 (3.82%) Cypress.io
6 12 (3.53%) Mockito
7 9 (2.65%) Jenkins
7 9 (2.65%) SonarQube
8 8 (2.35%) Mocha
9 6 (1.76%) CircleCI
10 5 (1.47%) Postman
11 4 (1.18%) ESLint
12 3 (0.88%) Gradle
12 3 (0.88%) Jasmine
13 2 (0.59%) ClearCase
13 2 (0.59%) fastlane
13 2 (0.59%) IntelliJ
13 2 (0.59%) XCTest
14 1 (0.29%) Claude Code
14 1 (0.29%) Vite
General
1 87 (25.59%) Public Sector
2 49 (14.41%) Social Skills
3 45 (13.24%) Finance
4 24 (7.06%) Analytical Skills
5 20 (5.88%) Banking
6 7 (2.06%) Aviation
6 7 (2.06%) Manufacturing
7 6 (1.76%) Aerospace
8 5 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (1.18%) Publishing
10 3 (0.88%) Law
10 3 (0.88%) Local Government
11 2 (0.59%) Legal
11 2 (0.59%) Retail
12 1 (0.29%) Advertising
12 1 (0.29%) Games
12 1 (0.29%) Military
12 1 (0.29%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (21.76%) Spring
2 71 (20.88%) Spring Boot
3 49 (14.41%) React
4 45 (13.24%) Node.js
5 43 (12.65%) RESTful
6 38 (11.18%) REST
7 29 (8.53%) .NET
8 28 (8.24%) AngularJS
9 23 (6.76%) HTML
10 20 (5.88%) Jest
11 18 (5.29%) CSS
11 18 (5.29%) Kafka
12 17 (5.00%) Vue
13 13 (3.82%) JSON
13 13 (3.82%) XML
13 13 (3.82%) YAML
14 12 (3.53%) JAX-RS
14 12 (3.53%) OAuth
14 12 (3.53%) React Native
15 11 (3.24%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 24 (7.06%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.59%) Mobile App
3 15 (4.41%) Onboarding
4 13 (3.82%) Product Ownership
5 9 (2.65%) Enterprise Software
6 7 (2.06%) Data Structures
7 6 (1.76%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 5 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.18%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.88%) Blog
10 3 (0.88%) IoT
10 3 (0.88%) Legacy Code
10 3 (0.88%) NHS
10 3 (0.88%) Self-Motivation
11 2 (0.59%) AI Agents
11 2 (0.59%) FMCG
11 2 (0.59%) Legacy Systems
12 1 (0.29%) Algorithms
12 1 (0.29%) Reinsurance
12 1 (0.29%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 17 (5.00%) Unix
2 16 (4.71%) Linux
3 8 (2.35%) Apple iOS
3 8 (2.35%) Mac OS X
4 7 (2.06%) Android
5 4 (1.18%) Windows
6 3 (0.88%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.59%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.59%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (31.76%) Agile
2 85 (25.00%) CI/CD
2 85 (25.00%) Microservices
3 66 (19.41%) Problem-Solving
4 64 (18.82%) Test Automation
5 58 (17.06%) Full-Stack Development
6 55 (16.18%) DevOps
7 52 (15.29%) TDD
8 32 (9.41%) API Design
9 29 (8.53%) Code Quality
9 29 (8.53%) Containerisation
10 28 (8.24%) Continuous Improvement
10 28 (8.24%) Front End Development
11 27 (7.94%) SDLC
12 26 (7.65%) Data Modelling
13 25 (7.35%) Unit Testing
14 24 (7.06%) Design Patterns
15 23 (6.76%) User Experience
16 22 (6.47%) API Development
16 22 (6.47%) BDD
Programming Languages
1 139 (40.88%) Java
2 58 (17.06%) SQL
3 49 (14.41%) JavaScript
4 38 (11.18%) TypeScript
5 31 (9.12%) Python
6 26 (7.65%) C#
7 19 (5.59%) Kotlin
8 7 (2.06%) PL/SQL
8 7 (2.06%) Shell Script
9 6 (1.76%) Apex Code
10 5 (1.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.88%) C++
11 3 (0.88%) ProC
11 3 (0.88%) Ruby
11 3 (0.88%) Swift
12 2 (0.59%) ABAP
12 2 (0.59%) Objective-C
12 2 (0.59%) T-SQL
12 2 (0.59%) VB
12 2 (0.59%) VB6
Qualifications
1 52 (15.29%) Security Cleared
2 28 (8.24%) SC Cleared
3 25 (7.35%) BPSS Clearance
4 19 (5.59%) Degree
5 10 (2.94%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.18%) CTC Cleared
6 4 (1.18%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.29%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (6.47%) Accessibility
2 19 (5.59%) QA
3 13 (3.82%) WCAG
4 7 (2.06%) Data Quality
5 6 (1.76%) ISO 20022
5 6 (1.76%) PSD2
5 6 (1.76%) SEPA
6 3 (0.88%) GRC
7 1 (0.29%) GDPR
System Software
1 46 (13.53%) Docker
2 3 (0.88%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 40 (11.76%) Kubernetes
2 18 (5.29%) Terraform
3 7 (2.06%) Grafana
4 5 (1.47%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.88%) Ansible
6 1 (0.29%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 30 (8.82%) Oracle
2 29 (8.53%) Microsoft
3 13 (3.82%) Salesforce
4 9 (2.65%) ServiceNow
5 8 (2.35%) Virgin Media
6 7 (2.06%) Splunk
7 6 (1.76%) Advent
7 6 (1.76%) Automation Anywhere
7 6 (1.76%) SAP
8 5 (1.47%) Adobe
8 5 (1.47%) Pega
9 4 (1.18%) IBM
9 4 (1.18%) IFS
9 4 (1.18%) Xamarin
10 3 (0.88%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.88%) Dynatrace
10 3 (0.88%) Veracode
11 2 (0.59%) NEC
11 2 (0.59%) Sage
11 2 (0.59%) Teradata