Developer Contract Job Trends in the North West

Developer
England > North West

The median Developer daily rate in the North West is £449, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 January 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 9 3
Rank change year-on-year -1 -6 +4
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 293 228 423
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 11.53% 11.02% 15.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.53% 11.86% 16.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 210 145 326
10th Percentile £344 £375 £325
25th Percentile £386 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £449 £460 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% -3.16% -2.56%
75th Percentile £500 £538 £575
90th Percentile £538 £588 £650
England median daily rate £500 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -6.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 4 4
10th Percentile £45.19 - £72.75
25th Percentile £58.50 £65.00 £75.00
Median hourly rate £61.00 £75.50 £78.75
Median % change year-on-year -19.21% -4.13% +112.84%
75th Percentile £70.00 £86.00 £82.50
90th Percentile £72.56 - -
England median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% - +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 2,338 1,923 2,549
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.97% 92.94% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,510 1,098 1,735
10th Percentile £213 £257 £306
25th Percentile £358 £380 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £554 £567 £600
90th Percentile £650 £656 £675
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 96 194
10th Percentile £17.30 £15.42 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.72 £18.13 £17.72
Median hourly rate £40.00 £29.12 £37.34
Median % change year-on-year +37.39% -22.03% +44.67%
75th Percentile £56.69 £46.18 £46.91
90th Percentile £69.33 £70.87 £73.75
England median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £41.91
% change year-on-year -21.43% -16.48% +19.73%

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 17 January 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 17 January 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 17 January 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 +4 198 £450 - 138
Cheshire -8 51 £370 -26.00% 46
Lancashire -2 21 £628 +17.23% 76
Merseyside -15 20 £488 +46.62% 29
Cumbria - 1 £470 - 4
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 17 January 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.

1 101 (34.47%) Java
2 77 (26.28%) Agile
3 76 (25.94%) AWS
4 72 (24.57%) CI/CD
5 69 (23.55%) SQL
6 65 (22.18%) Azure
7 63 (21.50%) Spring
8 62 (21.16%) Spring Boot
9 61 (20.82%) Microservices
10 60 (20.48%) Problem-Solving
11 57 (19.45%) DevOps
12 53 (18.09%) Full-Stack Development
13 49 (16.72%) Docker
13 49 (16.72%) Test Automation
14 45 (15.36%) Git
14 45 (15.36%) JavaScript
15 42 (14.33%) React
16 41 (13.99%) Security Cleared
17 40 (13.65%) Kubernetes
18 39 (13.31%) REST
18 39 (13.31%) TypeScript
19 38 (12.97%) Node.js
20 34 (11.60%) Accessibility
21 33 (11.26%) Containerisation
22 32 (10.92%) Python
22 32 (10.92%) TDD
23 31 (10.58%) Microsoft
24 28 (9.56%) JSON
24 28 (9.56%) Unit Testing
25 27 (9.22%) Oracle

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 5 (1.71%) SAS
2 4 (1.37%) Confluence
3 3 (1.02%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 3 (1.02%) Apache
3 3 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (1.02%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.68%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.34%) CMS
5 1 (0.34%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.34%) JBoss
5 1 (0.34%) nginx
5 1 (0.34%) Tomcat
Applications
1 4 (1.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (3.07%) Advent Geneva
2 7 (2.39%) Maximo
3 2 (0.68%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.68%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.34%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.34%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.34%) SAP PSCD
4 1 (0.34%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 76 (25.94%) AWS
2 65 (22.18%) Azure
3 25 (8.53%) Power Platform
4 20 (6.83%) Azure DevOps
4 20 (6.83%) GitHub
5 17 (5.80%) Serverless
6 13 (4.44%) Power Automate
7 10 (3.41%) PowerApps
8 9 (3.07%) AWS Lambda
9 8 (2.73%) npm
10 7 (2.39%) Amazon SQS
10 7 (2.39%) Dynamics 365
10 7 (2.39%) Figma
10 7 (2.39%) GCP
11 6 (2.05%) Amazon S3
11 6 (2.05%) GitHub Actions
12 5 (1.71%) AWS Step Functions
12 5 (1.71%) Azure AKS
12 5 (1.71%) Azure Logic Apps
13 4 (1.37%) Apigee
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.07%) HTTPS
2 4 (1.37%) HTTP
3 2 (0.68%) SSL
4 1 (0.34%) Internet
4 1 (0.34%) PABX
4 1 (0.34%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (6.48%) NoSQL
1 19 (6.48%) Relational Database
2 18 (6.14%) MySQL
3 17 (5.80%) SQL Server
4 16 (5.46%) PostgreSQL
4 16 (5.46%) Power BI
5 10 (3.41%) Data Warehouse
5 10 (3.41%) MongoDB
5 10 (3.41%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 9 (3.07%) DB2
6 9 (3.07%) Redis
7 7 (2.39%) OLTP
8 5 (1.71%) Apache Cassandra
8 5 (1.71%) DocumentDB
8 5 (1.71%) DynamoDB
9 4 (1.37%) Cognos Framework Manager
9 4 (1.37%) Cognos Report Studio
10 3 (1.02%) Cognos Transformer
10 3 (1.02%) OLAP
10 3 (1.02%) OLAP Cube
Development Applications
1 45 (15.36%) Git
2 25 (8.53%) GitLab
3 20 (6.83%) JIRA
4 17 (5.80%) Cypress.io
5 14 (4.78%) Gradle
6 12 (4.10%) JUnit
7 11 (3.75%) Xcode
8 9 (3.07%) Jenkins
8 9 (3.07%) Postman
9 8 (2.73%) SonarQube
10 6 (2.05%) Storybook
11 5 (1.71%) Mockito
12 4 (1.37%) CircleCI
12 4 (1.37%) ESLint
12 4 (1.37%) Mocha
13 3 (1.02%) Grunt
13 3 (1.02%) gulp
13 3 (1.02%) Jasmine
14 2 (0.68%) Android Studio
14 2 (0.68%) git-flow
General
1 58 (19.80%) Public Sector
2 42 (14.33%) Finance
3 33 (11.26%) Social Skills
4 22 (7.51%) Banking
5 18 (6.14%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (2.39%) Aviation
6 7 (2.39%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.37%) Publishing
8 3 (1.02%) Law
8 3 (1.02%) Local Government
8 3 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (0.68%) Private Banking
10 1 (0.34%) Games
10 1 (0.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.34%) Legal
10 1 (0.34%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.34%) Marketing
10 1 (0.34%) Military
10 1 (0.34%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.34%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (21.50%) Spring
2 62 (21.16%) Spring Boot
3 42 (14.33%) React
4 39 (13.31%) REST
5 38 (12.97%) Node.js
6 28 (9.56%) JSON
7 26 (8.87%) RESTful
8 23 (7.85%) HTML
9 21 (7.17%) Jest
10 20 (6.83%) .NET
11 19 (6.48%) AngularJS
11 19 (6.48%) OAuth
12 16 (5.46%) React Native
13 15 (5.12%) CSS
13 15 (5.12%) JMS
14 14 (4.78%) Vue
14 14 (4.78%) XML
15 13 (4.44%) Hibernate
16 12 (4.10%) Kafka
17 11 (3.75%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 23 (7.85%) Mobile App
2 16 (5.46%) Cloud Native
3 14 (4.78%) Onboarding
4 12 (4.10%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 10 (3.41%) Data Protection Act
6 7 (2.39%) Product Ownership
6 7 (2.39%) Virtual Team
7 6 (2.05%) Data Structures
7 6 (2.05%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (1.71%) Low-Code
9 4 (1.37%) Legacy Code
9 4 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
10 3 (1.02%) Blog
10 3 (1.02%) Enterprise Software
10 3 (1.02%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (1.02%) Mobile Banking
11 2 (0.68%) Algorithms
11 2 (0.68%) FMCG
11 2 (0.68%) IVR
12 1 (0.34%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 17 (5.80%) Android
1 17 (5.80%) Apple iOS
2 13 (4.44%) Linux
3 8 (2.73%) Unix
4 3 (1.02%) Mac OS X
5 2 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.68%) Windows
5 2 (0.68%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.34%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 77 (26.28%) Agile
2 72 (24.57%) CI/CD
3 61 (20.82%) Microservices
4 60 (20.48%) Problem-Solving
5 57 (19.45%) DevOps
6 53 (18.09%) Full-Stack Development
7 49 (16.72%) Test Automation
8 33 (11.26%) Containerisation
9 32 (10.92%) TDD
10 28 (9.56%) Unit Testing
11 23 (7.85%) Front End Development
12 22 (7.51%) User Experience
13 21 (7.17%) Business Intelligence
13 21 (7.17%) Continuous Improvement
14 20 (6.83%) Data Modelling
14 20 (6.83%) Performance Optimisation
15 19 (6.48%) Analytics
15 19 (6.48%) API Development
16 18 (6.14%) User Acceptance Testing
17 17 (5.80%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 101 (34.47%) Java
2 69 (23.55%) SQL
3 45 (15.36%) JavaScript
4 39 (13.31%) TypeScript
5 32 (10.92%) Python
6 17 (5.80%) C#
7 16 (5.46%) Kotlin
8 6 (2.05%) Ruby
8 6 (2.05%) Swift
8 6 (2.05%) T-SQL
9 5 (1.71%) C++
9 5 (1.71%) Objective-C
9 5 (1.71%) PL/SQL
9 5 (1.71%) Shell Script
10 4 (1.37%) ABAP
10 4 (1.37%) Bash
10 4 (1.37%) C
11 3 (1.02%) PHP
11 3 (1.02%) ProC
11 3 (1.02%) Scala
Qualifications
1 41 (13.99%) Security Cleared
2 21 (7.17%) BPSS Clearance
3 20 (6.83%) SC Cleared
4 18 (6.14%) Degree
5 14 (4.78%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (1.71%) CTC Cleared
7 2 (0.68%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (11.60%) Accessibility
2 17 (5.80%) QA
3 13 (4.44%) WCAG
4 12 (4.10%) ISO 20022
4 12 (4.10%) PSD2
4 12 (4.10%) SEPA
5 4 (1.37%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.34%) GDPR
System Software
1 49 (16.72%) Docker
2 3 (1.02%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 40 (13.65%) Kubernetes
2 10 (3.41%) Terraform
3 5 (1.71%) Ansible
3 5 (1.71%) Grafana
4 4 (1.37%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.34%) Argo
5 1 (0.34%) Progress Chef
5 1 (0.34%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 31 (10.58%) Microsoft
2 27 (9.22%) Oracle
3 10 (3.41%) Virgin Media
4 9 (3.07%) Advent
4 9 (3.07%) SAP
5 7 (2.39%) ServiceNow
5 7 (2.39%) Splunk
6 6 (2.05%) Automation Anywhere
7 5 (1.71%) Adobe
7 5 (1.71%) IBM
8 4 (1.37%) Cognos
8 4 (1.37%) IFS
8 4 (1.37%) Salesforce
8 4 (1.37%) webMethods
8 4 (1.37%) Xamarin
9 3 (1.02%) Dynatrace
9 3 (1.02%) Perforce
9 3 (1.02%) Software AG
10 2 (0.68%) Google
10 2 (0.68%) Red Hat