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 13 June 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 13 6
Rank change year-on-year -3 -7 +2
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 300 225 358
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 8.68% 11.30% 12.82%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.49% 12.16% 13.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 177 188 265
10th Percentile £350 £334 £306
25th Percentile £402 £375 £374
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £454 £450
Median % change year-on-year +4.63% +0.89% -10.00%
75th Percentile £518 £545 £525
90th Percentile £578 £629 £575
England median daily rate £515 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -1.90% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 1 2
10th Percentile £25.49 - £78.05
25th Percentile £36.32 - £78.88
Median hourly rate £41.06 £47.12 £81.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.87% -42.18% -
75th Percentile £46.18 - £82.88
90th Percentile - - £82.95
England median hourly rate £50.00 £40.59 £65.00
% change year-on-year +23.18% -37.55% -

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 3,161 1,851 2,637
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.46% 92.92% 94.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,777 1,241 1,626
10th Percentile £300 £268 £268
25th Percentile £400 £375 £382
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £453 £488
Median % change year-on-year +4.86% -7.08% -2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £550 £576
90th Percentile £675 £663 £670
England median daily rate £520 £514 £525
% change year-on-year +1.17% -2.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 317 118 314
10th Percentile £18.34 £13.00 £11.77
25th Percentile £25.49 £14.13 £14.17
Median hourly rate £46.80 £28.75 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +62.78% -12.60% +16.07%
75th Percentile £73.75 £59.98 £47.88
90th Percentile £85.00 £79.43 £71.32
England median hourly rate £45.00 £29.04 £39.50
% change year-on-year +54.99% -26.49% -12.22%

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 13 June 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 13 June 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 13 June 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 +2 226 £475 +4.11% 86
Cheshire -28 28 £397 +10.86% 19
Lancashire +4 21 £463 -11.90% 42
Merseyside -18 17 £435 -20.91% 21
Cumbria -2 7 £875 - 4
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 13 June 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 (38.00%) Java
2 93 (31.00%) Agile
3 74 (24.67%) CI/CD
4 61 (20.33%) Microservices
5 59 (19.67%) AWS
6 56 (18.67%) Azure
7 53 (17.67%) Spring
8 52 (17.33%) DevOps
9 49 (16.33%) Spring Boot
10 47 (15.67%) SQL
11 46 (15.33%) Full-Stack Development
12 45 (15.00%) Test Automation
13 43 (14.33%) JavaScript
14 42 (14.00%) Problem-Solving
14 42 (14.00%) React
15 38 (12.67%) TDD
16 33 (11.00%) C#
16 33 (11.00%) Node.js
16 33 (11.00%) REST
17 32 (10.67%) Docker
17 32 (10.67%) Microsoft
17 32 (10.67%) Security Cleared
17 32 (10.67%) TypeScript
18 31 (10.33%) RESTful
19 29 (9.67%) Kubernetes
20 28 (9.33%) .NET
20 28 (9.33%) Data Modelling
20 28 (9.33%) Front End Development
20 28 (9.33%) Power Platform
21 26 (8.67%) Business Intelligence

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 (3.67%) Confluence
2 4 (1.33%) Apache Spark
3 3 (1.00%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.67%) Apache
4 2 (0.67%) CMS
4 2 (0.67%) JBoss
4 2 (0.67%) SharePoint 2013
5 1 (0.33%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.33%) Appian
5 1 (0.33%) Camunda
5 1 (0.33%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.33%) Mule
5 1 (0.33%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.33%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.33%) SAS
5 1 (0.33%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.33%) WebLogic
Applications
1 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 7 (2.33%) Maximo
2 2 (0.67%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.33%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.33%) Odoo
Cloud Services
1 59 (19.67%) AWS
2 56 (18.67%) Azure
3 28 (9.33%) Power Platform
4 19 (6.33%) Serverless
5 15 (5.00%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (3.67%) GitHub
7 10 (3.33%) AWS Lambda
7 10 (3.33%) GitHub Actions
8 9 (3.00%) Dynamics 365
9 8 (2.67%) Amazon S3
10 7 (2.33%) Power Automate
11 6 (2.00%) OpenShift
12 5 (1.67%) Amazon EC2
12 5 (1.67%) Amazon ECR
12 5 (1.67%) Amazon SQS
12 5 (1.67%) PowerApps
13 4 (1.33%) Azure AKS
13 4 (1.33%) Azure Logic Apps
13 4 (1.33%) Copilot Studio
13 4 (1.33%) Microsoft Copilot
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (7.00%) Power BI
2 15 (5.00%) PostgreSQL
3 13 (4.33%) Power Query
3 13 (4.33%) SQL Server
4 11 (3.67%) MongoDB
4 11 (3.67%) NoSQL
5 10 (3.33%) Data Warehouse
6 9 (3.00%) Relational Database
7 7 (2.33%) OLTP
8 5 (1.67%) DocumentDB
8 5 (1.67%) MySQL
9 4 (1.33%) Elasticsearch
9 4 (1.33%) Hadoop
10 3 (1.00%) DataStage
10 3 (1.00%) Db2
10 3 (1.00%) Oracle Database
10 3 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 2 (0.67%) DynamoDB
11 2 (0.67%) Metadata
11 2 (0.67%) WebFOCUS
Development Applications
1 25 (8.33%) GitLab
2 24 (8.00%) Git
3 21 (7.00%) JIRA
4 12 (4.00%) JUnit
5 11 (3.67%) Mockito
6 9 (3.00%) Cypress.io
7 7 (2.33%) Mocha
8 6 (2.00%) Jenkins
9 5 (1.67%) CircleCI
9 5 (1.67%) SonarQube
10 3 (1.00%) ClearCase
11 2 (0.67%) Maven
12 1 (0.33%) Cucumber
12 1 (0.33%) Eclipse
12 1 (0.33%) IntelliJ
12 1 (0.33%) Rational Robot
12 1 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
12 1 (0.33%) Team Foundation Server
12 1 (0.33%) Visual Studio
12 1 (0.33%) webpack
General
1 66 (22.00%) Public Sector
2 50 (16.67%) Social Skills
3 36 (12.00%) Finance
4 21 (7.00%) Banking
5 19 (6.33%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (2.33%) Aviation
6 7 (2.33%) Manufacturing
7 6 (2.00%) Aerospace
7 6 (2.00%) Military
8 3 (1.00%) Local Government
8 3 (1.00%) Retail
9 2 (0.67%) Front Office
9 2 (0.67%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.33%) Advertising
10 1 (0.33%) Automotive
10 1 (0.33%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.33%) Law
10 1 (0.33%) Legal
10 1 (0.33%) Legal Technology
10 1 (0.33%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (17.67%) Spring
2 49 (16.33%) Spring Boot
3 42 (14.00%) React
4 33 (11.00%) Node.js
4 33 (11.00%) REST
5 31 (10.33%) RESTful
6 28 (9.33%) .NET
7 22 (7.33%) AngularJS
8 18 (6.00%) HTML
9 17 (5.67%) Vue
10 15 (5.00%) Kafka
11 14 (4.67%) CSS
12 13 (4.33%) YAML
13 12 (4.00%) Jest
14 7 (2.33%) .NET Core
14 7 (2.33%) ActiveMQ
14 7 (2.33%) JAX-RS
14 7 (2.33%) Playwright
14 7 (2.33%) React Native
14 7 (2.33%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 24 (8.00%) Cloud Native
2 11 (3.67%) Enterprise Software
2 11 (3.67%) Mobile App
2 11 (3.67%) Product Ownership
3 8 (2.67%) NHS
4 6 (2.00%) Onboarding
5 5 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
5 5 (1.67%) Data Structures
5 5 (1.67%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (1.00%) Legacy Systems
6 3 (1.00%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 2 (0.67%) AI Agents
7 2 (0.67%) Equities
7 2 (0.67%) Fixed Income
7 2 (0.67%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 2 (0.67%) Greenfield Project
7 2 (0.67%) IoT
7 2 (0.67%) Legacy Code
8 1 (0.33%) Algorithms
8 1 (0.33%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 16 (5.33%) Unix
2 14 (4.67%) Linux
3 7 (2.33%) Mac OS X
4 4 (1.33%) Windows
5 3 (1.00%) VMS
5 3 (1.00%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.67%) Android
6 2 (0.67%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.67%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (31.00%) Agile
2 74 (24.67%) CI/CD
3 61 (20.33%) Microservices
4 52 (17.33%) DevOps
5 46 (15.33%) Full-Stack Development
6 45 (15.00%) Test Automation
7 42 (14.00%) Problem-Solving
8 38 (12.67%) TDD
9 28 (9.33%) Data Modelling
9 28 (9.33%) Front End Development
10 26 (8.67%) Business Intelligence
11 24 (8.00%) Mentoring
12 22 (7.33%) Analytics
12 22 (7.33%) Code Quality
13 21 (7.00%) User Experience
14 20 (6.67%) API Design
14 20 (6.67%) ETL
15 19 (6.33%) SDLC
16 18 (6.00%) Scrum
16 18 (6.00%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 114 (38.00%) Java
2 47 (15.67%) SQL
3 43 (14.33%) JavaScript
4 33 (11.00%) C#
5 32 (10.67%) TypeScript
6 22 (7.33%) Python
7 15 (5.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 13 (4.33%) Kotlin
9 6 (2.00%) Apex Code
9 6 (2.00%) Go
9 6 (2.00%) PL/SQL
9 6 (2.00%) Shell Script
10 3 (1.00%) VB
10 3 (1.00%) VB6
11 2 (0.67%) C++
11 2 (0.67%) PowerShell
11 2 (0.67%) ProC
11 2 (0.67%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.33%) Ruby
12 1 (0.33%) Scala
Qualifications
1 32 (10.67%) Security Cleared
2 21 (7.00%) BPSS Clearance
2 21 (7.00%) SC Cleared
3 8 (2.67%) Degree
4 4 (1.33%) DV Cleared
5 1 (0.33%) CTC Cleared
5 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (5.67%) Accessibility
2 13 (4.33%) QA
3 9 (3.00%) WCAG
4 8 (2.67%) Data Quality
5 4 (1.33%) GRC
6 3 (1.00%) ISO 20022
6 3 (1.00%) PSD2
6 3 (1.00%) SEPA
System Software
1 32 (10.67%) Docker
Systems Management
1 29 (9.67%) Kubernetes
2 20 (6.67%) Terraform
3 4 (1.33%) Grafana
4 3 (1.00%) Ansible
4 3 (1.00%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 32 (10.67%) Microsoft
2 22 (7.33%) Oracle
3 16 (5.33%) Salesforce
4 8 (2.67%) ServiceNow
5 5 (1.67%) Pega
6 4 (1.33%) Atlassian
6 4 (1.33%) Automation Anywhere
7 3 (1.00%) IBM
7 3 (1.00%) Teradata
7 3 (1.00%) Veracode
8 2 (0.67%) Adobe
8 2 (0.67%) Dynatrace
8 2 (0.67%) SAP
8 2 (0.67%) Virgin Media
9 1 (0.33%) Databricks
9 1 (0.33%) Dell
9 1 (0.33%) Google
9 1 (0.33%) NEC
9 1 (0.33%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.33%) Sage