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 23 July 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 12 10
Rank change year-on-year -12 -2 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 253 219 292
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 6.86% 10.19% 11.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.53% 11.06% 12.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 150 188 224
10th Percentile £350 £313 £302
25th Percentile £402 £369 £361
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £455 £438
Median % change year-on-year +4.45% +3.94% -15.87%
75th Percentile £548 £546 £509
90th Percentile £650 £629 £575
England median daily rate £515 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -0.96% -0.95% -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 £48.56 £65.00
% change year-on-year +13.26% -25.29% +8.33%

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 3,360 1,981 2,414
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.08% 92.18% 94.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,887 1,283 1,502
10th Percentile £300 £251 £263
25th Percentile £400 £363 £382
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £450 £488
Median % change year-on-year +9.33% -7.69% -2.50%
75th Percentile £594 £554 £576
90th Percentile £675 £665 £669
England median daily rate £525 £512 £525
% change year-on-year +2.54% -2.48% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 378 153 256
10th Percentile £17.25 £13.00 £11.45
25th Percentile £25.49 £17.30 £15.92
Median hourly rate £50.00 £28.75 £32.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.91% -10.16% +20.75%
75th Percentile £73.75 £55.49 £51.91
90th Percentile £85.00 £73.65 £71.69
England median hourly rate £45.56 £27.29 £42.50
% change year-on-year +66.91% -35.78% -3.53%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -7 189 £475 - 66
Cheshire -35 24 £400 +7.38% 12
Merseyside -19 17 £435 -20.91% 10
Lancashire -3 12 £463 -7.50% 20
Cumbria -1 7 £875 - 2
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 23 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 93 (36.76%) Java
2 83 (32.81%) Agile
3 59 (23.32%) CI/CD
4 57 (22.53%) Microservices
5 49 (19.37%) AWS
5 49 (19.37%) DevOps
6 46 (18.18%) Azure
7 42 (16.60%) Security Cleared
8 41 (16.21%) SQL
9 40 (15.81%) TDD
10 38 (15.02%) Test Automation
11 36 (14.23%) Problem-Solving
11 36 (14.23%) Spring
12 33 (13.04%) React
12 33 (13.04%) Spring Boot
13 32 (12.65%) C#
14 31 (12.25%) JavaScript
14 31 (12.25%) SC Cleared
15 29 (11.46%) Mentoring
15 29 (11.46%) Node.js
16 28 (11.07%) Full-Stack Development
16 28 (11.07%) Microsoft
17 27 (10.67%) Business Intelligence
17 27 (10.67%) Data Modelling
18 26 (10.28%) Power Platform
19 25 (9.88%) .NET
19 25 (9.88%) AI
19 25 (9.88%) Kafka
20 24 (9.49%) BDD
20 24 (9.49%) MongoDB

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 12 (4.74%) Confluence
2 4 (1.58%) Apache Spark
3 3 (1.19%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.19%) WordPress
4 2 (0.79%) CMS
4 2 (0.79%) SharePoint 2013
5 1 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.40%) Apache
5 1 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.40%) Appian
5 1 (0.40%) Camunda
5 1 (0.40%) Drupal
5 1 (0.40%) JBoss
5 1 (0.40%) Mule
5 1 (0.40%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.40%) SAS
5 1 (0.40%) Umbraco
5 1 (0.40%) WebLogic
Applications
1 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.40%) Odoo
1 1 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 49 (19.37%) AWS
2 46 (18.18%) Azure
3 26 (10.28%) Power Platform
4 15 (5.93%) Serverless
5 12 (4.74%) Azure DevOps
6 7 (2.77%) AWS Lambda
6 7 (2.77%) Copilot Studio
6 7 (2.77%) GitHub
6 7 (2.77%) Microsoft Copilot
7 6 (2.37%) GitHub Actions
7 6 (2.37%) OpenShift
7 6 (2.37%) Power Automate
8 5 (1.98%) Amazon S3
8 5 (1.98%) Dynamics 365
9 4 (1.58%) Amazon EC2
9 4 (1.58%) Amazon ECR
9 4 (1.58%) Amazon SQS
9 4 (1.58%) Azure Service Bus
9 4 (1.58%) Google Gemini
9 4 (1.58%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.79%) Network Security
1 2 (0.79%) SD-WAN
1 2 (0.79%) TCP/IP
1 2 (0.79%) WAN
1 2 (0.79%) Wireless
2 1 (0.40%) IPsec
2 1 (0.40%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (9.49%) MongoDB
2 22 (8.70%) Power BI
3 18 (7.11%) SQL Server
4 14 (5.53%) Power Query
5 13 (5.14%) Relational Database
6 11 (4.35%) Data Warehouse
7 10 (3.95%) PostgreSQL
8 9 (3.56%) NoSQL
9 6 (2.37%) MySQL
10 4 (1.58%) DataStage
10 4 (1.58%) Db2
10 4 (1.58%) DocumentDB
10 4 (1.58%) Elasticsearch
10 4 (1.58%) Hadoop
11 3 (1.19%) Oracle Database
11 3 (1.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 2 (0.79%) Metadata
12 2 (0.79%) RDBMS
12 2 (0.79%) WebFOCUS
13 1 (0.40%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 23 (9.09%) Git
2 17 (6.72%) GitLab
3 14 (5.53%) JIRA
4 13 (5.14%) Mockito
5 9 (3.56%) Jenkins
6 7 (2.77%) Claude Code
7 5 (1.98%) JUnit
8 3 (1.19%) ClearCase
8 3 (1.19%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.79%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.79%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.79%) Mocha
10 1 (0.40%) Eclipse
10 1 (0.40%) Hudson
10 1 (0.40%) IntelliJ
10 1 (0.40%) Maven
10 1 (0.40%) Rational Robot
10 1 (0.40%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.40%) Team Foundation Server
10 1 (0.40%) Visual Studio
General
1 59 (23.32%) Public Sector
2 45 (17.79%) Social Skills
3 30 (11.86%) Finance
4 18 (7.11%) Banking
5 16 (6.32%) Analytical Skills
6 10 (3.95%) Military
7 7 (2.77%) Manufacturing
8 6 (2.37%) Aerospace
9 4 (1.58%) Retail
10 2 (0.79%) Front Office
10 2 (0.79%) Investment Banking
11 1 (0.40%) Advertising
11 1 (0.40%) Automotive
11 1 (0.40%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.40%) Law
11 1 (0.40%) Legal
11 1 (0.40%) Legal Technology
11 1 (0.40%) Local Government
11 1 (0.40%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (14.23%) Spring
2 33 (13.04%) React
2 33 (13.04%) Spring Boot
3 29 (11.46%) Node.js
4 25 (9.88%) .NET
4 25 (9.88%) Kafka
5 20 (7.91%) RESTful
6 19 (7.51%) AngularJS
6 19 (7.51%) REST
7 13 (5.14%) HTML
8 11 (4.35%) ActiveMQ
8 11 (4.35%) JAX-RS
8 11 (4.35%) JSON
9 10 (3.95%) CSS
10 8 (3.16%) XML
11 7 (2.77%) YAML
12 6 (2.37%) .NET Core
12 6 (2.37%) Nunjucks
13 5 (1.98%) Vue
14 4 (1.58%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 16 (6.32%) Cloud Native
2 10 (3.95%) Data Structures
2 10 (3.95%) Enterprise Software
2 10 (3.95%) Product Ownership
3 9 (3.56%) NHS
4 6 (2.37%) AI Agents
4 6 (2.37%) Algorithms
4 6 (2.37%) Legacy Systems
4 6 (2.37%) Mobile App
4 6 (2.37%) Onboarding
5 5 (1.98%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.19%) Distributed Systems
8 2 (0.79%) Equities
8 2 (0.79%) Fixed Income
8 2 (0.79%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 2 (0.79%) Greenfield Project
9 1 (0.40%) FMCG
9 1 (0.40%) PKI
9 1 (0.40%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 19 (7.51%) Linux
1 19 (7.51%) Unix
2 8 (3.16%) Mac OS X
3 3 (1.19%) Windows
4 2 (0.79%) Mac OS
4 2 (0.79%) VMS
4 2 (0.79%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.40%) Android
5 1 (0.40%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (32.81%) Agile
2 59 (23.32%) CI/CD
3 57 (22.53%) Microservices
4 49 (19.37%) DevOps
5 40 (15.81%) TDD
6 38 (15.02%) Test Automation
7 36 (14.23%) Problem-Solving
8 29 (11.46%) Mentoring
9 28 (11.07%) Full-Stack Development
10 27 (10.67%) Business Intelligence
10 27 (10.67%) Data Modelling
11 25 (9.88%) AI
12 24 (9.49%) BDD
13 23 (9.09%) SDLC
14 21 (8.30%) ETL
15 20 (7.91%) Continuous Improvement
16 19 (7.51%) Code Quality
17 18 (7.11%) Analytics
17 18 (7.11%) Software Engineering
18 16 (6.32%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 93 (36.76%) Java
2 41 (16.21%) SQL
3 32 (12.65%) C#
4 31 (12.25%) JavaScript
5 22 (8.70%) TypeScript
6 16 (6.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 16 (6.32%) Python
7 7 (2.77%) Kotlin
7 7 (2.77%) PowerShell
8 6 (2.37%) Go
9 5 (1.98%) PL/SQL
10 4 (1.58%) Apex Code
10 4 (1.58%) Shell Script
11 3 (1.19%) PHP
11 3 (1.19%) VB
11 3 (1.19%) VB6
12 2 (0.79%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.40%) ABAP
13 1 (0.40%) C++
13 1 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 42 (16.60%) Security Cleared
2 31 (12.25%) SC Cleared
3 18 (7.11%) BPSS Clearance
4 7 (2.77%) Degree
5 4 (1.58%) DV Cleared
6 1 (0.40%) CTC Cleared
6 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (5.14%) Accessibility
2 12 (4.74%) QA
3 9 (3.56%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.58%) GRC
4 4 (1.58%) WCAG
5 1 (0.40%) ISO 20022
5 1 (0.40%) NCSC
5 1 (0.40%) NIST
5 1 (0.40%) PSD2
5 1 (0.40%) SEPA
System Software
1 23 (9.09%) Docker
Systems Management
1 23 (9.09%) Kubernetes
2 17 (6.72%) Terraform
3 10 (3.95%) Ansible
4 3 (1.19%) Grafana
5 1 (0.40%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 28 (11.07%) Microsoft
2 13 (5.14%) Oracle
2 13 (5.14%) Salesforce
3 12 (4.74%) ServiceNow
4 5 (1.98%) Pega
5 4 (1.58%) Atlassian
5 4 (1.58%) Google
5 4 (1.58%) IBM
5 4 (1.58%) OpenAI
5 4 (1.58%) Teradata
6 3 (1.19%) SAP
7 2 (0.79%) Adobe
7 2 (0.79%) Cisco
8 1 (0.40%) Databricks
8 1 (0.40%) Dell
8 1 (0.40%) Foundry
8 1 (0.40%) MuleSoft
8 1 (0.40%) Sage
8 1 (0.40%) Sitecore
8 1 (0.40%) Veracode