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 7 March 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 9 4
Rank change year-on-year -1 -5 +4
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 328 237 407
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 11.40% 11.16% 14.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.39% 12.10% 15.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 222 165 301
10th Percentile £343 £380 £313
25th Percentile £386 £405 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £478 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.86% +0.63% -5.00%
75th Percentile £500 £549 £538
90th Percentile £572 £633 £625
England median daily rate £500 £537 £525
% change year-on-year -6.89% +2.29% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 4 5
10th Percentile £36.32 - £73.25
25th Percentile £40.53 £65.00 £76.25
Median hourly rate £61.00 £75.50 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.21% -5.63% +105.13%
75th Percentile £70.00 £86.00 £82.50
90th Percentile £75.61 - £82.80
England median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -2.87% +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 2,647 1,958 2,659
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.97% 92.18% 93.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,614 1,220 1,780
10th Percentile £213 £250 £270
25th Percentile £369 £375 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year -4.21% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £584
90th Percentile £650 £656 £674
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 257 104 270
10th Percentile £18.26 £15.07 £11.77
25th Percentile £22.68 £21.03 £14.06
Median hourly rate £42.69 £32.25 £24.15
Median % change year-on-year +32.36% +33.57% -19.52%
75th Percentile £63.50 £56.51 £46.18
90th Percentile £77.50 £82.56 £63.88
England median hourly rate £35.71 £36.00 £32.90
% change year-on-year -0.81% +9.44% -20.73%

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 March 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 March 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 March 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 +3 243 £450 -2.70% 145
Cheshire -12 46 £358 -29.28% 36
Lancashire -13 20 £548 +2.29% 45
Merseyside -12 16 £475 +15.15% 20
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 7 March 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.

1 125 (38.11%) Java
2 104 (31.71%) Agile
3 89 (27.13%) CI/CD
4 80 (24.39%) AWS
5 77 (23.48%) Microservices
6 71 (21.65%) Azure
7 68 (20.73%) Spring Boot
8 67 (20.43%) Problem-Solving
8 67 (20.43%) Spring
9 63 (19.21%) SQL
10 62 (18.90%) Test Automation
11 61 (18.60%) DevOps
12 56 (17.07%) Full-Stack Development
13 52 (15.85%) Security Cleared
14 45 (13.72%) Docker
14 45 (13.72%) JavaScript
14 45 (13.72%) React
14 45 (13.72%) TDD
15 43 (13.11%) Node.js
16 42 (12.80%) TypeScript
17 41 (12.50%) Kubernetes
17 41 (12.50%) Microsoft
17 41 (12.50%) REST
18 40 (12.20%) Git
18 40 (12.20%) GitLab
19 36 (10.98%) Python
19 36 (10.98%) RESTful
20 31 (9.45%) Containerisation
21 30 (9.15%) .NET
21 30 (9.15%) BPSS Clearance

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 8 (2.44%) Confluence
2 5 (1.52%) Apache Spark
3 4 (1.22%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.91%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 3 (0.91%) Apache
4 3 (0.91%) SAS
5 2 (0.61%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.30%) Appian
6 1 (0.30%) CMS
6 1 (0.30%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.30%) JBoss
6 1 (0.30%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.30%) Tomcat
Applications
1 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (2.74%) Advent Geneva
2 7 (2.13%) Maximo
3 2 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.61%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.61%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.30%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.30%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 80 (24.39%) AWS
2 71 (21.65%) Azure
3 25 (7.62%) Power Platform
4 23 (7.01%) Serverless
5 16 (4.88%) Azure DevOps
5 16 (4.88%) GitHub
6 15 (4.57%) Power Automate
7 12 (3.66%) AWS Lambda
7 12 (3.66%) Dynamics 365
7 12 (3.66%) PowerApps
8 9 (2.74%) Amazon S3
8 9 (2.74%) Amazon SQS
8 9 (2.74%) GitHub Actions
9 7 (2.13%) Azure Logic Apps
10 6 (1.83%) GCP
11 5 (1.52%) AWS Step Functions
11 5 (1.52%) Azure AKS
11 5 (1.52%) Azure Service Bus
11 5 (1.52%) npm
11 5 (1.52%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.13%) HTTPS
2 4 (1.22%) HTTP
3 1 (0.30%) Internet
3 1 (0.30%) PABX
3 1 (0.30%) SSL
3 1 (0.30%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (6.40%) Relational Database
2 18 (5.49%) SQL Server
3 16 (4.88%) MongoDB
3 16 (4.88%) NoSQL
3 16 (4.88%) PostgreSQL
4 15 (4.57%) MySQL
5 14 (4.27%) Power BI
6 10 (3.05%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 9 (2.74%) DB2
8 8 (2.44%) Data Warehouse
8 8 (2.44%) DocumentDB
8 8 (2.44%) OLTP
8 8 (2.44%) Redis
9 5 (1.52%) DynamoDB
9 5 (1.52%) Hadoop
10 4 (1.22%) Elasticsearch
11 3 (0.91%) Apache Cassandra
12 2 (0.61%) RDBMS
12 2 (0.61%) Snowflake Schema
12 2 (0.61%) WebFOCUS
Development Applications
1 40 (12.20%) Git
1 40 (12.20%) GitLab
2 19 (5.79%) JIRA
3 15 (4.57%) Cypress.io
4 13 (3.96%) Mockito
5 12 (3.66%) JUnit
6 8 (2.44%) Jenkins
6 8 (2.44%) Mocha
6 8 (2.44%) SonarQube
7 6 (1.83%) CircleCI
8 5 (1.52%) Postman
9 4 (1.22%) ESLint
9 4 (1.22%) Gradle
10 3 (0.91%) Jasmine
11 2 (0.61%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.61%) fastlane
11 2 (0.61%) git-flow
11 2 (0.61%) Xcode
11 2 (0.61%) XCTest
12 1 (0.30%) webpack
General
1 86 (26.22%) Public Sector
2 44 (13.41%) Social Skills
3 42 (12.80%) Finance
4 21 (6.40%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (4.88%) Banking
6 8 (2.44%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (2.13%) Aviation
8 4 (1.22%) Publishing
9 3 (0.91%) Law
9 3 (0.91%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.61%) Aerospace
10 2 (0.61%) Local Government
10 2 (0.61%) Private Banking
10 2 (0.61%) Retail
11 1 (0.30%) Advertising
11 1 (0.30%) Games
11 1 (0.30%) Legal
11 1 (0.30%) Marketing
11 1 (0.30%) Military
11 1 (0.30%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (20.73%) Spring Boot
2 67 (20.43%) Spring
3 45 (13.72%) React
4 43 (13.11%) Node.js
5 41 (12.50%) REST
6 36 (10.98%) RESTful
7 30 (9.15%) .NET
8 23 (7.01%) HTML
9 22 (6.71%) AngularJS
9 22 (6.71%) Jest
10 20 (6.10%) JSON
11 19 (5.79%) Kafka
12 15 (4.57%) CSS
12 15 (4.57%) Vue
13 14 (4.27%) XML
13 14 (4.27%) YAML
14 13 (3.96%) Hibernate
14 13 (3.96%) JAX-RS
14 13 (3.96%) React Native
15 12 (3.66%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 23 (7.01%) Cloud Native
2 16 (4.88%) Mobile App
2 16 (4.88%) Onboarding
3 12 (3.66%) Product Ownership
4 9 (2.74%) Enterprise Software
5 8 (2.44%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 7 (2.13%) Data Structures
6 7 (2.13%) Virtual Team
7 5 (1.52%) Low-Code
8 4 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.22%) Legacy Code
9 3 (0.91%) Blog
9 3 (0.91%) Greenfield Project
9 3 (0.91%) IoT
9 3 (0.91%) Legacy Systems
10 2 (0.61%) Algorithms
10 2 (0.61%) Distributed Systems
10 2 (0.61%) FMCG
10 2 (0.61%) IVR
10 2 (0.61%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 19 (5.79%) Linux
2 17 (5.18%) Unix
3 10 (3.05%) Mac OS X
4 8 (2.44%) Android
4 8 (2.44%) Apple iOS
5 4 (1.22%) Windows
6 3 (0.91%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.30%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.30%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (31.71%) Agile
2 89 (27.13%) CI/CD
3 77 (23.48%) Microservices
4 67 (20.43%) Problem-Solving
5 62 (18.90%) Test Automation
6 61 (18.60%) DevOps
7 56 (17.07%) Full-Stack Development
8 45 (13.72%) TDD
9 31 (9.45%) Containerisation
10 28 (8.54%) API Design
11 26 (7.93%) Continuous Improvement
11 26 (7.93%) User Experience
12 25 (7.62%) Data Modelling
13 24 (7.32%) Unit Testing
14 23 (7.01%) Front End Development
15 22 (6.71%) Code Quality
15 22 (6.71%) Performance Optimisation
16 21 (6.40%) Design Patterns
17 20 (6.10%) Analytics
17 20 (6.10%) API Development
Programming Languages
1 125 (38.11%) Java
2 63 (19.21%) SQL
3 45 (13.72%) JavaScript
4 42 (12.80%) TypeScript
5 36 (10.98%) Python
6 29 (8.84%) C#
7 14 (4.27%) Kotlin
8 6 (1.83%) T-SQL
9 5 (1.52%) Shell Script
10 4 (1.22%) Apex Code
10 4 (1.22%) C++
10 4 (1.22%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.91%) ABAP
11 3 (0.91%) Groovy
11 3 (0.91%) ProC
11 3 (0.91%) Ruby
11 3 (0.91%) Swift
12 2 (0.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 2 (0.61%) Objective-C
12 2 (0.61%) PHP
Qualifications
1 52 (15.85%) Security Cleared
2 30 (9.15%) BPSS Clearance
3 27 (8.23%) SC Cleared
4 17 (5.18%) Degree
5 10 (3.05%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.22%) CTC Cleared
6 4 (1.22%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.30%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (7.93%) Accessibility
2 15 (4.57%) WCAG
3 14 (4.27%) QA
4 8 (2.44%) ISO 20022
4 8 (2.44%) PSD2
4 8 (2.44%) SEPA
5 4 (1.22%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.30%) GDPR
System Software
1 45 (13.72%) Docker
2 3 (0.91%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 41 (12.50%) Kubernetes
2 19 (5.79%) Terraform
3 7 (2.13%) Grafana
4 4 (1.22%) Ansible
4 4 (1.22%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.30%) Argo
5 1 (0.30%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 41 (12.50%) Microsoft
2 26 (7.93%) Oracle
3 11 (3.35%) Virgin Media
4 9 (2.74%) Advent
4 9 (2.74%) Salesforce
5 7 (2.13%) SAP
5 7 (2.13%) Splunk
6 6 (1.83%) Automation Anywhere
6 6 (1.83%) ServiceNow
7 5 (1.52%) Adobe
8 4 (1.22%) IFS
8 4 (1.22%) Xamarin
9 3 (0.91%) Dynatrace
9 3 (0.91%) IBM
9 3 (0.91%) Veracode
10 2 (0.61%) Google
10 2 (0.61%) NEC
10 2 (0.61%) Sage
10 2 (0.61%) Software AG
10 2 (0.61%) webMethods