Developer Contract Job Trends in the North West

Developer
England > North West

The median Developer daily rate in the North West is £446, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 January 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 9 4
Rank change year-on-year -3 -5 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 282 231 385
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 11.27% 11.02% 14.52%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.31% 11.89% 15.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 206 147 310
10th Percentile £348 £370 £325
25th Percentile £389 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £446 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.89% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £500 £532 £575
90th Percentile £549 £588 £652
England median daily rate £500 £533 £550
% change year-on-year -6.10% -3.18% -6.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 4 3
10th Percentile - - £72.25
25th Percentile £58.50 £65.00 £73.75
Median hourly rate £65.50 £75.50 £77.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.25% -2.58% +121.43%
75th Percentile £71.07 £86.00 £80.63
90th Percentile £72.98 - £81.75
England median hourly rate £58.75 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -9.62% - +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 2,291 1,942 2,461
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.53% 92.65% 92.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,481 1,103 1,687
10th Percentile £213 £250 £306
25th Percentile £358 £380 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +2.56%
75th Percentile £555 £563 £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 205 103 178
10th Percentile £17.30 £15.39 £14.51
25th Percentile £21.00 £18.02 £17.75
Median hourly rate £40.00 £24.50 £37.34
Median % change year-on-year +63.27% -34.39% +60.88%
75th Percentile £56.69 £40.75 £46.91
90th Percentile £69.78 £65.00 £65.38
England median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -21.43% -22.22% +28.57%

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 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
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 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 +1 192 £450 - 119
Cheshire -10 47 £373 -25.50% 28
Lancashire -7 21 £573 +10.68% 66
Merseyside -8 19 £500 +50.38% 10
Cumbria - 1 £470 - 1
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 7 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 93 (32.98%) Java
2 73 (25.89%) Agile
2 73 (25.89%) AWS
3 69 (24.47%) CI/CD
4 66 (23.40%) SQL
5 62 (21.99%) Azure
6 59 (20.92%) Problem-Solving
7 58 (20.57%) Spring
7 58 (20.57%) Spring Boot
8 56 (19.86%) Microservices
9 55 (19.50%) DevOps
10 51 (18.09%) Full-Stack Development
11 45 (15.96%) Docker
12 44 (15.60%) Test Automation
13 43 (15.25%) Git
13 43 (15.25%) JavaScript
14 41 (14.54%) Security Cleared
15 39 (13.83%) React
16 38 (13.48%) Node.js
17 37 (13.12%) Kubernetes
17 37 (13.12%) TypeScript
18 36 (12.77%) REST
19 34 (12.06%) TDD
20 32 (11.35%) Accessibility
20 32 (11.35%) Containerisation
21 30 (10.64%) Microsoft
22 29 (10.28%) Python
23 28 (9.93%) JSON
24 27 (9.57%) Unit Testing
25 26 (9.22%) HTML

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 (1.77%) SAS
2 4 (1.42%) Confluence
3 3 (1.06%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 3 (1.06%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (1.06%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.71%) Apache
4 2 (0.71%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.35%) CMS
5 1 (0.35%) JBoss
5 1 (0.35%) nginx
5 1 (0.35%) Tomcat
Applications
1 4 (1.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (3.19%) Advent Geneva
2 5 (1.77%) Maximo
3 2 (0.71%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.71%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.35%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.35%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.35%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.35%) SAP PSCD
4 1 (0.35%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 73 (25.89%) AWS
2 62 (21.99%) Azure
3 24 (8.51%) Power Platform
4 20 (7.09%) GitHub
5 19 (6.74%) Azure DevOps
6 17 (6.03%) Serverless
7 12 (4.26%) Power Automate
8 10 (3.55%) AWS Lambda
9 9 (3.19%) PowerApps
10 8 (2.84%) GCP
11 7 (2.48%) Amazon S3
11 7 (2.48%) Amazon SQS
11 7 (2.48%) Figma
11 7 (2.48%) npm
12 6 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
12 6 (2.13%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (1.77%) AWS Step Functions
13 5 (1.77%) Azure AKS
13 5 (1.77%) SaaS
14 4 (1.42%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.19%) HTTPS
2 4 (1.42%) HTTP
3 2 (0.71%) SSL
4 1 (0.35%) Internet
4 1 (0.35%) PABX
4 1 (0.35%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (7.80%) MySQL
2 20 (7.09%) Relational Database
3 18 (6.38%) PostgreSQL
4 17 (6.03%) SQL Server
5 16 (5.67%) NoSQL
5 16 (5.67%) Power BI
6 11 (3.90%) DB2
7 10 (3.55%) Data Warehouse
7 10 (3.55%) MongoDB
7 10 (3.55%) Redis
7 10 (3.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 6 (2.13%) DynamoDB
8 6 (2.13%) OLTP
9 5 (1.77%) Apache Cassandra
9 5 (1.77%) DocumentDB
10 4 (1.42%) Amazon RDS
10 4 (1.42%) Cognos Framework Manager
10 4 (1.42%) Cognos Report Studio
11 3 (1.06%) Cognos Transformer
11 3 (1.06%) OLAP Cube
Development Applications
1 43 (15.25%) Git
2 24 (8.51%) GitLab
3 18 (6.38%) JIRA
4 14 (4.96%) Cypress.io
4 14 (4.96%) Gradle
5 11 (3.90%) JUnit
5 11 (3.90%) Xcode
6 10 (3.55%) Jenkins
7 9 (3.19%) Postman
8 8 (2.84%) SonarQube
9 6 (2.13%) Storybook
10 5 (1.77%) Mockito
11 3 (1.06%) CircleCI
11 3 (1.06%) ESLint
11 3 (1.06%) Grunt
11 3 (1.06%) gulp
11 3 (1.06%) Jasmine
11 3 (1.06%) Mocha
12 2 (0.71%) fastlane
12 2 (0.71%) XCTest
General
1 57 (20.21%) Public Sector
2 43 (15.25%) Finance
3 33 (11.70%) Social Skills
4 20 (7.09%) Banking
5 19 (6.74%) Analytical Skills
6 8 (2.84%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (1.77%) Aviation
8 3 (1.06%) Law
8 3 (1.06%) Local Government
8 3 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
8 3 (1.06%) Publishing
9 2 (0.71%) Manufacturing
9 2 (0.71%) Private Banking
10 1 (0.35%) Digital Healthcare
10 1 (0.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.35%) Legal
10 1 (0.35%) Marketing
10 1 (0.35%) Military
10 1 (0.35%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.35%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (20.57%) Spring
1 58 (20.57%) Spring Boot
2 39 (13.83%) React
3 38 (13.48%) Node.js
4 36 (12.77%) REST
5 28 (9.93%) JSON
6 26 (9.22%) HTML
6 26 (9.22%) RESTful
7 21 (7.45%) .NET
8 19 (6.74%) AngularJS
8 19 (6.74%) OAuth
9 18 (6.38%) Jest
10 17 (6.03%) CSS
11 14 (4.96%) React Native
11 14 (4.96%) Vue
11 14 (4.96%) XML
12 13 (4.61%) JMS
13 12 (4.26%) Hibernate
13 12 (4.26%) Kafka
14 11 (3.90%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 20 (7.09%) Mobile App
2 13 (4.61%) Onboarding
3 12 (4.26%) Cloud Native
4 10 (3.55%) Data Protection Act
4 10 (3.55%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 7 (2.48%) Product Ownership
5 7 (2.48%) Virtual Team
6 6 (2.13%) Data Structures
6 6 (2.13%) Distributed Systems
7 5 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.77%) Low-Code
8 4 (1.42%) Legacy Code
9 3 (1.06%) Greenfield Project
9 3 (1.06%) Mobile Banking
10 2 (0.71%) Algorithms
10 2 (0.71%) Blog
10 2 (0.71%) FMCG
10 2 (0.71%) IVR
10 2 (0.71%) Mainframe
11 1 (0.35%) IBM Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 16 (5.67%) Android
1 16 (5.67%) Apple iOS
2 11 (3.90%) Linux
3 6 (2.13%) Unix
4 3 (1.06%) Mac OS X
5 2 (0.71%) MVS
5 2 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.35%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (25.89%) Agile
2 69 (24.47%) CI/CD
3 59 (20.92%) Problem-Solving
4 56 (19.86%) Microservices
5 55 (19.50%) DevOps
6 51 (18.09%) Full-Stack Development
7 44 (15.60%) Test Automation
8 34 (12.06%) TDD
9 32 (11.35%) Containerisation
10 27 (9.57%) Unit Testing
11 21 (7.45%) Business Intelligence
11 21 (7.45%) Front End Development
11 21 (7.45%) User Experience
12 20 (7.09%) Continuous Improvement
12 20 (7.09%) Performance Optimisation
13 19 (6.74%) Analytics
13 19 (6.74%) API Development
13 19 (6.74%) Data Modelling
14 16 (5.67%) Code Quality
14 16 (5.67%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 93 (32.98%) Java
2 66 (23.40%) SQL
3 43 (15.25%) JavaScript
4 37 (13.12%) TypeScript
5 29 (10.28%) Python
6 18 (6.38%) C#
7 14 (4.96%) Kotlin
8 6 (2.13%) PHP
8 6 (2.13%) Swift
8 6 (2.13%) T-SQL
9 5 (1.77%) C++
9 5 (1.77%) Objective-C
9 5 (1.77%) PL/SQL
9 5 (1.77%) Ruby
9 5 (1.77%) Shell Script
10 4 (1.42%) ABAP
10 4 (1.42%) Bash
10 4 (1.42%) C
11 3 (1.06%) ProC
11 3 (1.06%) Scala
Qualifications
1 41 (14.54%) Security Cleared
2 20 (7.09%) SC Cleared
3 18 (6.38%) BPSS Clearance
3 18 (6.38%) Degree
4 14 (4.96%) Computer Science Degree
5 5 (1.77%) CTC Cleared
6 2 (0.71%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (11.35%) Accessibility
2 17 (6.03%) QA
3 11 (3.90%) WCAG
4 10 (3.55%) ISO 20022
4 10 (3.55%) PSD2
4 10 (3.55%) SEPA
5 4 (1.42%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.35%) GDPR
System Software
1 45 (15.96%) Docker
2 3 (1.06%) ISA Server
3 2 (0.71%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 37 (13.12%) Kubernetes
2 8 (2.84%) Terraform
3 5 (1.77%) Grafana
4 4 (1.42%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.06%) Ansible
6 2 (0.71%) CA Endevor
7 1 (0.35%) Argo
7 1 (0.35%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.35%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 30 (10.64%) Microsoft
2 25 (8.87%) Oracle
3 10 (3.55%) Virgin Media
4 9 (3.19%) Advent
4 9 (3.19%) SAP
5 7 (2.48%) IBM
5 7 (2.48%) ServiceNow
5 7 (2.48%) Splunk
6 5 (1.77%) Adobe
6 5 (1.77%) Automation Anywhere
7 4 (1.42%) Cognos
7 4 (1.42%) IFS
7 4 (1.42%) Salesforce
7 4 (1.42%) webMethods
8 3 (1.06%) Dynatrace
8 3 (1.06%) Google
8 3 (1.06%) Perforce
8 3 (1.06%) Software AG
8 3 (1.06%) Xamarin
9 2 (0.71%) Axway