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 3 April 2026.

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

6 months to
3 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 9 5
Rank change year-on-year -2 -4 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 338 224 398
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 10.84% 11.52% 14.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.76% 12.38% 15.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 220 172 293
10th Percentile £349 £380 £311
25th Percentile £398 £404 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% -2.56%
75th Percentile £500 £563 £538
90th Percentile £570 £625 £625
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -7.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 2 2
10th Percentile £36.32 - £78.05
25th Percentile £40.53 - £78.88
Median hourly rate £51.03 £86.00 £81.50
Median % change year-on-year -40.67% +5.52% +103.75%
75th Percentile £68.38 - £82.88
90th Percentile £74.93 - £82.95
England median hourly rate £60.00 £61.00 £59.45
% change year-on-year -1.64% +2.60% -0.91%

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 2,875 1,810 2,634
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.18% 93.06% 94.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,712 1,212 1,752
10th Percentile £230 £254 £285
25th Percentile £375 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £474 £495
Median % change year-on-year -2.90% -4.29% -1.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £582
90th Percentile £653 £651 £675
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 297 105 271
10th Percentile £18.83 £14.18 £11.07
25th Percentile £25.38 £19.25 £13.50
Median hourly rate £45.00 £31.52 £26.39
Median % change year-on-year +42.77% +19.44% -14.17%
75th Percentile £69.45 £58.58 £46.18
90th Percentile £78.75 £82.28 £60.00
England median hourly rate £42.00 £33.40 £32.50
% change year-on-year +25.75% +2.77% -24.42%

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 3 April 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 3 April 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 3 April 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 +2 256 £455 -2.41% 123
Cheshire -8 44 £358 -21.32% 38
Lancashire -11 19 £463 -13.59% 52
Merseyside -19 16 £481 -12.50% 21
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 3 April 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.

1 134 (39.64%) Java
2 111 (32.84%) Agile
3 89 (26.33%) CI/CD
4 82 (24.26%) Microservices
5 81 (23.96%) AWS
6 72 (21.30%) Spring
7 71 (21.01%) Problem-Solving
8 70 (20.71%) Spring Boot
9 67 (19.82%) Azure
10 61 (18.05%) Test Automation
11 60 (17.75%) SQL
12 57 (16.86%) DevOps
13 55 (16.27%) Full-Stack Development
14 53 (15.68%) Security Cleared
15 50 (14.79%) TDD
16 49 (14.50%) React
17 47 (13.91%) JavaScript
18 43 (12.72%) Docker
18 43 (12.72%) RESTful
19 41 (12.13%) Git
20 40 (11.83%) REST
21 39 (11.54%) Kubernetes
21 39 (11.54%) Node.js
22 38 (11.24%) TypeScript
23 36 (10.65%) GitLab
23 36 (10.65%) Microsoft
23 36 (10.65%) Python
24 32 (9.47%) API Design
25 30 (8.88%) .NET
26 29 (8.58%) C#

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 (3.25%) Confluence
2 5 (1.48%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.89%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 3 (0.89%) Apache
3 3 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.89%) SAS
3 3 (0.89%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.30%) Appian
4 1 (0.30%) Camunda
4 1 (0.30%) CMS
4 1 (0.30%) Headless CMS
4 1 (0.30%) JBoss
4 1 (0.30%) OpenStack
4 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 8 (2.37%) Advent Geneva
2 7 (2.07%) Maximo
3 2 (0.59%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.59%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.30%) Odoo
4 1 (0.30%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.30%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 81 (23.96%) AWS
2 67 (19.82%) Azure
3 24 (7.10%) Serverless
4 21 (6.21%) Power Platform
5 15 (4.44%) Azure DevOps
5 15 (4.44%) GitHub
6 13 (3.85%) Power Automate
7 12 (3.55%) AWS Lambda
7 12 (3.55%) Dynamics 365
8 9 (2.66%) Amazon S3
8 9 (2.66%) GitHub Actions
8 9 (2.66%) PowerApps
9 7 (2.07%) Amazon SQS
9 7 (2.07%) Azure Logic Apps
10 6 (1.78%) AWS Step Functions
10 6 (1.78%) GCP
10 6 (1.78%) OpenShift
11 5 (1.48%) Azure Functions
11 5 (1.48%) GitHub Copilot
12 4 (1.18%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.48%) HTTPS
2 4 (1.18%) HTTP
3 1 (0.30%) Internet
3 1 (0.30%) PABX
3 1 (0.30%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (6.51%) PostgreSQL
2 20 (5.92%) Relational Database
2 20 (5.92%) SQL Server
3 17 (5.03%) MySQL
3 17 (5.03%) NoSQL
4 15 (4.44%) MongoDB
5 11 (3.25%) Power BI
6 10 (2.96%) Data Warehouse
7 9 (2.66%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 8 (2.37%) DB2
8 8 (2.37%) OLTP
9 7 (2.07%) DocumentDB
10 5 (1.48%) DynamoDB
10 5 (1.48%) Hadoop
10 5 (1.48%) Redis
11 4 (1.18%) Elasticsearch
11 4 (1.18%) Power Query
12 2 (0.59%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
12 2 (0.59%) Data Vault
12 2 (0.59%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 41 (12.13%) Git
2 36 (10.65%) GitLab
3 25 (7.40%) JIRA
4 13 (3.85%) Cypress.io
4 13 (3.85%) JUnit
5 12 (3.55%) Mockito
6 8 (2.37%) Jenkins
6 8 (2.37%) Mocha
6 8 (2.37%) SonarQube
7 6 (1.78%) CircleCI
8 5 (1.48%) Postman
9 4 (1.18%) ESLint
10 3 (0.89%) Gradle
10 3 (0.89%) Jasmine
11 2 (0.59%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.59%) fastlane
11 2 (0.59%) IntelliJ
11 2 (0.59%) Xcode
11 2 (0.59%) XCTest
12 1 (0.30%) Maven
General
1 84 (24.85%) Public Sector
2 51 (15.09%) Social Skills
3 43 (12.72%) Finance
4 21 (6.21%) Analytical Skills
5 17 (5.03%) Banking
6 7 (2.07%) Aviation
6 7 (2.07%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.18%) Law
7 4 (1.18%) Manufacturing
7 4 (1.18%) Publishing
8 3 (0.89%) Aerospace
8 3 (0.89%) Local Government
9 2 (0.59%) Legal
9 2 (0.59%) Retail
10 1 (0.30%) Advertising
10 1 (0.30%) Games
10 1 (0.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.30%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (21.30%) Spring
2 70 (20.71%) Spring Boot
3 49 (14.50%) React
4 43 (12.72%) RESTful
5 40 (11.83%) REST
6 39 (11.54%) Node.js
7 30 (8.88%) .NET
8 26 (7.69%) AngularJS
9 23 (6.80%) HTML
10 21 (6.21%) Jest
11 18 (5.33%) CSS
11 18 (5.33%) Kafka
12 16 (4.73%) Vue
13 15 (4.44%) JSON
14 13 (3.85%) OAuth
14 13 (3.85%) React Native
14 13 (3.85%) YAML
15 12 (3.55%) JAX-RS
15 12 (3.55%) OAuth2
15 12 (3.55%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 23 (6.80%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.62%) Mobile App
3 16 (4.73%) Onboarding
4 15 (4.44%) Product Ownership
5 9 (2.66%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (2.37%) Data Structures
7 7 (2.07%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 6 (1.78%) Virtual Team
9 5 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.18%) Legacy Code
11 3 (0.89%) Blog
11 3 (0.89%) IoT
12 2 (0.59%) AI Agents
12 2 (0.59%) Algorithms
12 2 (0.59%) Distributed Systems
12 2 (0.59%) FMCG
12 2 (0.59%) IVR
12 2 (0.59%) Legacy Systems
12 2 (0.59%) Low-Code
12 2 (0.59%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 16 (4.73%) Linux
2 15 (4.44%) Unix
3 8 (2.37%) Android
3 8 (2.37%) Apple iOS
3 8 (2.37%) Mac OS X
4 4 (1.18%) Windows
5 3 (0.89%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.59%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.59%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 111 (32.84%) Agile
2 89 (26.33%) CI/CD
3 82 (24.26%) Microservices
4 71 (21.01%) Problem-Solving
5 61 (18.05%) Test Automation
6 57 (16.86%) DevOps
7 55 (16.27%) Full-Stack Development
8 50 (14.79%) TDD
9 32 (9.47%) API Design
10 29 (8.58%) Continuous Improvement
11 28 (8.28%) Containerisation
11 28 (8.28%) Data Modelling
12 26 (7.69%) User Experience
13 25 (7.40%) Code Quality
13 25 (7.40%) Front End Development
13 25 (7.40%) Unit Testing
14 24 (7.10%) SDLC
15 23 (6.80%) API Development
15 23 (6.80%) Design Patterns
16 22 (6.51%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 134 (39.64%) Java
2 60 (17.75%) SQL
3 47 (13.91%) JavaScript
4 38 (11.24%) TypeScript
5 36 (10.65%) Python
6 29 (8.58%) C#
7 19 (5.62%) Kotlin
8 6 (1.78%) Apex Code
9 5 (1.48%) Shell Script
9 5 (1.48%) T-SQL
10 4 (1.18%) C++
10 4 (1.18%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 4 (1.18%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.89%) Groovy
11 3 (0.89%) ProC
11 3 (0.89%) Ruby
11 3 (0.89%) Swift
12 2 (0.59%) ABAP
12 2 (0.59%) Objective-C
12 2 (0.59%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 53 (15.68%) Security Cleared
2 26 (7.69%) SC Cleared
3 23 (6.80%) BPSS Clearance
4 19 (5.62%) Degree
5 10 (2.96%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (1.48%) CTC Cleared
7 4 (1.18%) DV Cleared
8 1 (0.30%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (6.21%) Accessibility
2 17 (5.03%) QA
3 13 (3.85%) WCAG
4 7 (2.07%) ISO 20022
4 7 (2.07%) PSD2
4 7 (2.07%) SEPA
5 5 (1.48%) Data Quality
6 3 (0.89%) GRC
7 1 (0.30%) GDPR
System Software
1 43 (12.72%) Docker
2 3 (0.89%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 39 (11.54%) Kubernetes
2 18 (5.33%) Terraform
3 7 (2.07%) Grafana
4 5 (1.48%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.89%) Ansible
6 1 (0.30%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 36 (10.65%) Microsoft
2 26 (7.69%) Oracle
3 11 (3.25%) Salesforce
4 10 (2.96%) ServiceNow
4 10 (2.96%) Virgin Media
5 8 (2.37%) Advent
6 7 (2.07%) Splunk
7 6 (1.78%) Automation Anywhere
7 6 (1.78%) SAP
8 5 (1.48%) Adobe
9 4 (1.18%) IFS
9 4 (1.18%) Xamarin
10 3 (0.89%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.89%) Dynatrace
10 3 (0.89%) Pega
10 3 (0.89%) Veracode
11 2 (0.59%) IBM
11 2 (0.59%) NEC
11 2 (0.59%) Sage
12 1 (0.30%) Ab Initio