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 1 June 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 13 7
Rank change year-on-year -3 -6 +1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 302 211 345
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 9.02% 10.74% 12.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.85% 11.58% 13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 172 171 262
10th Percentile £350 £358 £306
25th Percentile £411 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £510 £550 £523
90th Percentile £575 £638 £575
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 1 2
10th Percentile £25.49 - £78.05
25th Percentile £36.55 - £78.88
Median hourly rate £41.06 £86.00 £81.50
Median % change year-on-year -52.26% +5.52% -
75th Percentile £46.18 - £82.88
90th Percentile £63.50 - £82.95
England median hourly rate £50.75 £53.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -5.14% -17.69% -

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 3,067 1,822 2,580
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.63% 92.72% 94.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,718 1,211 1,639
10th Percentile £300 £263 £272
25th Percentile £400 £380 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £465 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.15% -4.62% -2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £550 £580
90th Percentile £675 £653 £675
England median daily rate £518 £518 £525
% change year-on-year - -1.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 317 111 294
10th Percentile £18.57 £13.00 £11.13
25th Percentile £25.49 £14.16 £14.03
Median hourly rate £50.00 £28.75 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +73.91% -12.60% +7.71%
75th Percentile £71.91 £60.00 £47.88
90th Percentile £83.75 £83.41 £71.32
England median hourly rate £45.00 £29.80 £37.63
% change year-on-year +51.01% -20.80% -16.39%

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 1 June 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 1 June 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 1 June 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 +2 231 £475 +2.43% 96
Cheshire -20 28 £397 +5.83% 22
Lancashire +4 22 £463 -11.90% 39
Merseyside -25 13 £450 -18.18% 11
Cumbria -5 6 £875 - 3
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 1 June 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.

1 119 (39.40%) Java
2 94 (31.13%) Agile
3 72 (23.84%) CI/CD
4 65 (21.52%) Microservices
5 61 (20.20%) AWS
6 59 (19.54%) Azure
7 56 (18.54%) Spring
8 52 (17.22%) DevOps
8 52 (17.22%) Full-Stack Development
8 52 (17.22%) Spring Boot
9 49 (16.23%) SQL
10 48 (15.89%) Test Automation
11 45 (14.90%) JavaScript
12 43 (14.24%) Problem-Solving
13 42 (13.91%) React
13 42 (13.91%) TDD
14 37 (12.25%) Node.js
15 36 (11.92%) TypeScript
16 35 (11.59%) REST
17 33 (10.93%) RESTful
18 32 (10.60%) C#
18 32 (10.60%) Docker
19 31 (10.26%) Security Cleared
20 30 (9.93%) GitLab
21 29 (9.60%) Front End Development
21 29 (9.60%) Kubernetes
22 27 (8.94%) Microsoft
23 26 (8.61%) .NET
23 26 (8.61%) Git
24 25 (8.28%) Data Modelling

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 10 (3.31%) Confluence
2 4 (1.32%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.99%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 2 (0.66%) Apache
4 2 (0.66%) CMS
4 2 (0.66%) JBoss
5 1 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.33%) Appian
5 1 (0.33%) Camunda
5 1 (0.33%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.33%) Mule
5 1 (0.33%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.33%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.33%) SAS
5 1 (0.33%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.33%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.33%) WebLogic
Applications
1 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 7 (2.32%) Maximo
2 2 (0.66%) NEC Housing
2 2 (0.66%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.33%) Odoo
Cloud Services
1 61 (20.20%) AWS
2 59 (19.54%) Azure
3 21 (6.95%) Power Platform
3 21 (6.95%) Serverless
4 14 (4.64%) Azure DevOps
5 13 (4.30%) GitHub
6 11 (3.64%) GitHub Actions
7 10 (3.31%) Amazon S3
7 10 (3.31%) AWS Lambda
7 10 (3.31%) Dynamics 365
8 6 (1.99%) Azure Logic Apps
8 6 (1.99%) OpenShift
8 6 (1.99%) Power Automate
9 5 (1.66%) Amazon EC2
9 5 (1.66%) Amazon ECR
9 5 (1.66%) Amazon SQS
9 5 (1.66%) AWS Step Functions
10 4 (1.32%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (1.32%) Azure AKS
10 4 (1.32%) Azure Service Bus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (5.30%) PostgreSQL
2 15 (4.97%) Power BI
3 13 (4.30%) MongoDB
3 13 (4.30%) NoSQL
4 12 (3.97%) SQL Server
5 9 (2.98%) Data Warehouse
5 9 (2.98%) Relational Database
6 8 (2.65%) OLTP
7 7 (2.32%) Power Query
8 5 (1.66%) DocumentDB
8 5 (1.66%) MySQL
9 4 (1.32%) DynamoDB
9 4 (1.32%) Elasticsearch
9 4 (1.32%) Hadoop
9 4 (1.32%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.66%) DB2
10 2 (0.66%) Metadata
10 2 (0.66%) RDBMS
10 2 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 2 (0.66%) WebFOCUS
Development Applications
1 30 (9.93%) GitLab
2 26 (8.61%) Git
3 20 (6.62%) JIRA
4 13 (4.30%) JUnit
5 11 (3.64%) Mockito
6 10 (3.31%) Cypress.io
7 8 (2.65%) Mocha
8 6 (1.99%) CircleCI
8 6 (1.99%) Jenkins
9 5 (1.66%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.99%) ClearCase
10 3 (0.99%) Gradle
11 2 (0.66%) fastlane
11 2 (0.66%) IntelliJ
11 2 (0.66%) Jasmine
11 2 (0.66%) Maven
11 2 (0.66%) XCTest
12 1 (0.33%) Claude Code
12 1 (0.33%) ESLint
12 1 (0.33%) Vite
General
1 71 (23.51%) Public Sector
2 44 (14.57%) Social Skills
3 36 (11.92%) Finance
4 20 (6.62%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (5.96%) Banking
6 7 (2.32%) Aviation
7 6 (1.99%) Aerospace
7 6 (1.99%) Manufacturing
7 6 (1.99%) Military
8 3 (0.99%) Law
8 3 (0.99%) Local Government
9 2 (0.66%) Legal
9 2 (0.66%) Retail
10 1 (0.33%) Advertising
10 1 (0.33%) Automotive
10 1 (0.33%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.33%) Front Office
10 1 (0.33%) Games
10 1 (0.33%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.33%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (18.54%) Spring
2 52 (17.22%) Spring Boot
3 42 (13.91%) React
4 37 (12.25%) Node.js
5 35 (11.59%) REST
6 33 (10.93%) RESTful
7 26 (8.61%) .NET
8 23 (7.62%) AngularJS
9 21 (6.95%) HTML
10 17 (5.63%) Vue
11 16 (5.30%) CSS
12 15 (4.97%) Jest
12 15 (4.97%) Kafka
13 13 (4.30%) YAML
14 10 (3.31%) Playwright
15 9 (2.98%) XML
16 8 (2.65%) GraphQL
16 8 (2.65%) JSON
17 7 (2.32%) JAX-RS
17 7 (2.32%) React Native
Miscellaneous
1 24 (7.95%) Cloud Native
2 14 (4.64%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.97%) Mobile App
3 12 (3.97%) Onboarding
4 9 (2.98%) Enterprise Software
5 7 (2.32%) NHS
6 5 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (1.66%) Data Structures
6 5 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (0.99%) IoT
7 3 (0.99%) Legacy Code
7 3 (0.99%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (0.99%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 2 (0.66%) AI Agents
9 1 (0.33%) Blog
9 1 (0.33%) Distributed Systems
9 1 (0.33%) Equities
9 1 (0.33%) FMCG
9 1 (0.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 1 (0.33%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 15 (4.97%) Unix
2 14 (4.64%) Linux
3 7 (2.32%) Mac OS X
4 5 (1.66%) Apple iOS
5 4 (1.32%) Android
5 4 (1.32%) Windows
6 3 (0.99%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.66%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.66%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (31.13%) Agile
2 72 (23.84%) CI/CD
3 65 (21.52%) Microservices
4 52 (17.22%) DevOps
4 52 (17.22%) Full-Stack Development
5 48 (15.89%) Test Automation
6 43 (14.24%) Problem-Solving
7 42 (13.91%) TDD
8 29 (9.60%) Front End Development
9 25 (8.28%) Data Modelling
10 23 (7.62%) User Experience
11 22 (7.28%) Code Quality
11 22 (7.28%) Mentoring
12 20 (6.62%) Analytics
12 20 (6.62%) API Design
12 20 (6.62%) API Development
12 20 (6.62%) Business Intelligence
12 20 (6.62%) Unit Testing
13 19 (6.29%) Continuous Improvement
13 19 (6.29%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 119 (39.40%) Java
2 49 (16.23%) SQL
3 45 (14.90%) JavaScript
4 36 (11.92%) TypeScript
5 32 (10.60%) C#
6 24 (7.95%) Python
7 15 (4.97%) Kotlin
8 9 (2.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 7 (2.32%) PL/SQL
10 6 (1.99%) Apex Code
10 6 (1.99%) Shell Script
11 5 (1.66%) Go
12 3 (0.99%) C++
12 3 (0.99%) ProC
12 3 (0.99%) Swift
12 3 (0.99%) VB
12 3 (0.99%) VB6
13 2 (0.66%) Objective-C
13 2 (0.66%) PowerShell
13 2 (0.66%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 31 (10.26%) Security Cleared
2 20 (6.62%) BPSS Clearance
3 19 (6.29%) SC Cleared
4 10 (3.31%) Degree
5 4 (1.32%) DV Cleared
6 1 (0.33%) CTC Cleared
6 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (6.29%) Accessibility
2 14 (4.64%) QA
3 10 (3.31%) WCAG
4 8 (2.65%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.99%) GRC
5 3 (0.99%) ISO 20022
5 3 (0.99%) PSD2
5 3 (0.99%) SEPA
6 1 (0.33%) GDPR
System Software
1 32 (10.60%) Docker
2 2 (0.66%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 29 (9.60%) Kubernetes
2 19 (6.29%) Terraform
3 6 (1.99%) Grafana
4 4 (1.32%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.99%) Ansible
Vendors
1 27 (8.94%) Microsoft
2 25 (8.28%) Oracle
3 16 (5.30%) Salesforce
4 6 (1.99%) ServiceNow
4 6 (1.99%) Virgin Media
5 5 (1.66%) Automation Anywhere
5 5 (1.66%) Pega
6 4 (1.32%) Adobe
7 3 (0.99%) Atlassian
7 3 (0.99%) Dynatrace
7 3 (0.99%) Veracode
8 2 (0.66%) IBM
8 2 (0.66%) NEC
8 2 (0.66%) SAP
8 2 (0.66%) Splunk
8 2 (0.66%) Teradata
9 1 (0.33%) Dell
9 1 (0.33%) Foundry
9 1 (0.33%) Sage
9 1 (0.33%) Sitecore