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 7 August 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 13 10
Rank change year-on-year -14 -3 0
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 245 216 276
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 6.48% 9.83% 11.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.13% 10.69% 12.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 150 181 212
10th Percentile £346 £313 £308
25th Percentile £413 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £430 £450
Median % change year-on-year +10.47% -4.44% -10.00%
75th Percentile £574 £535 £525
90th Percentile £653 £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 £52.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.76% -19.23% +4.84%

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 3,437 2,020 2,237
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.97% 91.94% 94.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,936 1,304 1,366
10th Percentile £282 £259 £263
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 £557 £588
90th Percentile £680 £656 £675
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 406 158 206
10th Percentile £17.13 £13.00 £11.07
25th Percentile £25.38 £17.30 £16.58
Median hourly rate £45.56 £27.00 £34.61
Median % change year-on-year +68.72% -21.98% +16.71%
75th Percentile £71.91 £50.00 £55.65
90th Percentile £83.75 £73.75 £71.88
England median hourly rate £43.56 £26.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +67.54% -42.22% +4.65%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 -3 185 £475 +11.76% 109
Cheshire -38 21 £408 +8.67% 15
Merseyside -23 16 £437 -20.64% 11
Lancashire -5 12 £500 - 41
Cumbria -5 7 £875 - 4
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 7 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 (32.24%) Java
2 77 (31.43%) Agile
3 54 (22.04%) CI/CD
4 52 (21.22%) Microservices
5 45 (18.37%) DevOps
6 41 (16.73%) Azure
6 41 (16.73%) SQL
7 40 (16.33%) Security Cleared
7 40 (16.33%) TDD
8 37 (15.10%) AWS
9 35 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
10 34 (13.88%) Test Automation
11 31 (12.65%) C#
11 31 (12.65%) React
11 31 (12.65%) SC Cleared
12 29 (11.84%) AI
12 29 (11.84%) JavaScript
13 28 (11.43%) Microsoft
13 28 (11.43%) Spring
14 27 (11.02%) Mentoring
14 27 (11.02%) Power Platform
15 26 (10.61%) Business Intelligence
16 25 (10.20%) BDD
16 25 (10.20%) Data Modelling
16 25 (10.20%) Node.js
16 25 (10.20%) Spring Boot
17 24 (9.80%) .NET
17 24 (9.80%) Kafka
17 24 (9.80%) MongoDB
18 22 (8.98%) 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 (4.49%) Confluence
2 5 (2.04%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.22%) Apache Spark
3 3 (1.22%) WordPress
4 2 (0.82%) CMS
4 2 (0.82%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.82%) SharePoint 2013
4 2 (0.82%) SharePoint Server
5 1 (0.41%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.41%) Apache
5 1 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.41%) Appian
5 1 (0.41%) Camunda
5 1 (0.41%) Drupal
5 1 (0.41%) JBoss
5 1 (0.41%) Mule
5 1 (0.41%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.41%) SAS
5 1 (0.41%) Umbraco
5 1 (0.41%) WebLogic
Applications
1 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.41%) Odoo
1 1 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 41 (16.73%) Azure
2 37 (15.10%) AWS
3 27 (11.02%) Power Platform
4 12 (4.90%) Azure DevOps
5 11 (4.49%) Serverless
6 9 (3.67%) Microsoft Copilot
7 8 (3.27%) Power Automate
8 7 (2.86%) Copilot Studio
9 6 (2.45%) GitHub
9 6 (2.45%) Google Gemini
9 6 (2.45%) PowerApps
10 5 (2.04%) GitHub Actions
10 5 (2.04%) OpenShift
11 4 (1.63%) Anthropic Claude
11 4 (1.63%) Azure Service Bus
11 4 (1.63%) Dynamics 365
11 4 (1.63%) GitHub Copilot
12 3 (1.22%) AWS Lambda
12 3 (1.22%) Azure AI
12 3 (1.22%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.82%) Network Security
1 2 (0.82%) SD-WAN
1 2 (0.82%) TCP/IP
1 2 (0.82%) WAN
1 2 (0.82%) Wireless
2 1 (0.41%) Firewall
2 1 (0.41%) IPsec
2 1 (0.41%) SSL
2 1 (0.41%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (9.80%) MongoDB
2 21 (8.57%) Power BI
3 20 (8.16%) SQL Server
4 14 (5.71%) Power Query
5 11 (4.49%) Relational Database
6 10 (4.08%) Data Warehouse
6 10 (4.08%) NoSQL
6 10 (4.08%) PostgreSQL
7 6 (2.45%) MySQL
8 4 (1.63%) DataStage
8 4 (1.63%) Db2
9 3 (1.22%) Elasticsearch
9 3 (1.22%) Hadoop
9 3 (1.22%) Oracle Database
9 3 (1.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 2 (0.82%) DocumentDB
10 2 (0.82%) RDBMS
11 1 (0.41%) SAP BW
11 1 (0.41%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 1 (0.41%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 22 (8.98%) Git
2 12 (4.90%) Mockito
3 11 (4.49%) JIRA
4 9 (3.67%) Claude Code
4 9 (3.67%) GitLab
5 7 (2.86%) Jenkins
6 3 (1.22%) ClearCase
6 3 (1.22%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.82%) JUnit
7 2 (0.82%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.41%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.41%) Hudson
8 1 (0.41%) IntelliJ
8 1 (0.41%) Postman
8 1 (0.41%) Rational Robot
8 1 (0.41%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.41%) Team Foundation Server
8 1 (0.41%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.41%) Visual Studio Code
8 1 (0.41%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 51 (20.82%) Public Sector
2 45 (18.37%) Social Skills
3 24 (9.80%) Finance
4 16 (6.53%) Banking
5 14 (5.71%) Analytical Skills
6 11 (4.49%) Military
7 7 (2.86%) Manufacturing
8 6 (2.45%) Aerospace
9 4 (1.63%) Retail
10 3 (1.22%) Legal
10 3 (1.22%) Legal Technology
11 2 (0.82%) Front Office
11 2 (0.82%) Investment Banking
12 1 (0.41%) Advertising
12 1 (0.41%) Automotive
12 1 (0.41%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.41%) Law
12 1 (0.41%) Local Government
12 1 (0.41%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (12.65%) React
2 28 (11.43%) Spring
3 25 (10.20%) Node.js
3 25 (10.20%) Spring Boot
4 24 (9.80%) .NET
4 24 (9.80%) Kafka
5 19 (7.76%) REST
6 15 (6.12%) AngularJS
6 15 (6.12%) RESTful
7 12 (4.90%) ActiveMQ
7 12 (4.90%) JAX-RS
8 10 (4.08%) HTML
8 10 (4.08%) JSON
9 8 (3.27%) XML
10 7 (2.86%) CSS
11 6 (2.45%) Nunjucks
12 5 (2.04%) .NET Core
13 4 (1.63%) Lightning Web Components
13 4 (1.63%) Next.js
13 4 (1.63%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 10 (4.08%) Cloud Native
1 10 (4.08%) Enterprise Software
2 9 (3.67%) Data Structures
3 8 (3.27%) NHS
4 7 (2.86%) AI Agents
5 6 (2.45%) Algorithms
5 6 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (2.45%) Product Ownership
6 5 (2.04%) Onboarding
6 5 (2.04%) Self-Motivation
7 4 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (1.63%) Distributed Systems
7 4 (1.63%) Mobile App
8 2 (0.82%) Equities
8 2 (0.82%) Fixed Income
8 2 (0.82%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 2 (0.82%) Greenfield Project
9 1 (0.41%) CSOC
9 1 (0.41%) IoT
9 1 (0.41%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 20 (8.16%) Linux
2 19 (7.76%) Unix
3 7 (2.86%) Mac OS X
4 3 (1.22%) Windows
5 2 (0.82%) Mac OS
5 2 (0.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.82%) VMS
5 2 (0.82%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.41%) Android
6 1 (0.41%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 77 (31.43%) Agile
2 54 (22.04%) CI/CD
3 52 (21.22%) Microservices
4 45 (18.37%) DevOps
5 40 (16.33%) TDD
6 35 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
7 34 (13.88%) Test Automation
8 29 (11.84%) AI
9 27 (11.02%) Mentoring
10 26 (10.61%) Business Intelligence
11 25 (10.20%) BDD
11 25 (10.20%) Data Modelling
12 22 (8.98%) Continuous Improvement
12 22 (8.98%) Full-Stack Development
12 22 (8.98%) SDLC
13 21 (8.57%) ETL
14 18 (7.35%) Software Engineering
15 17 (6.94%) Code Quality
16 16 (6.53%) Analytics
16 16 (6.53%) Pair Programming
Programming Languages
1 79 (32.24%) Java
2 41 (16.73%) SQL
3 31 (12.65%) C#
4 29 (11.84%) JavaScript
5 18 (7.35%) TypeScript
6 16 (6.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 15 (6.12%) Python
8 7 (2.86%) PowerShell
9 6 (2.45%) Go
10 5 (2.04%) Kotlin
10 5 (2.04%) PL/SQL
11 4 (1.63%) Apex Code
11 4 (1.63%) Shell Script
12 3 (1.22%) PHP
12 3 (1.22%) T-SQL
12 3 (1.22%) VB
12 3 (1.22%) VB6
13 1 (0.41%) ABAP
13 1 (0.41%) C++
13 1 (0.41%) Scala
Qualifications
1 40 (16.33%) Security Cleared
2 31 (12.65%) SC Cleared
3 12 (4.90%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (4.49%) Degree
5 3 (1.22%) DV Cleared
6 2 (0.82%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.41%) CTC Cleared
7 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (4.90%) QA
2 10 (4.08%) Accessibility
3 9 (3.67%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.63%) GRC
5 2 (0.82%) WCAG
6 1 (0.41%) NCSC
6 1 (0.41%) NIST
System Software
1 18 (7.35%) Docker
Systems Management
1 18 (7.35%) Kubernetes
2 15 (6.12%) Terraform
3 10 (4.08%) Ansible
4 2 (0.82%) Grafana
5 1 (0.41%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 28 (11.43%) Microsoft
2 15 (6.12%) Salesforce
3 13 (5.31%) ServiceNow
4 11 (4.49%) Oracle
5 5 (2.04%) Pega
6 4 (1.63%) Atlassian
6 4 (1.63%) IBM
6 4 (1.63%) OpenAI
6 4 (1.63%) Teradata
7 3 (1.22%) Google
7 3 (1.22%) SAP
8 2 (0.82%) Adobe
8 2 (0.82%) Cisco
9 1 (0.41%) Databricks
9 1 (0.41%) Dell
9 1 (0.41%) Foundry
9 1 (0.41%) MuleSoft
9 1 (0.41%) Sage
9 1 (0.41%) Virgin Media