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 26 July 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 12 10
Rank change year-on-year -14 -2 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 250 221 287
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 6.72% 10.07% 11.47%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.40% 10.94% 12.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 148 188 219
10th Percentile £350 £313 £305
25th Percentile £405 £366 £359
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £452 £440
Median % change year-on-year +5.20% +2.61% -15.79%
75th Percentile £564 £546 £510
90th Percentile £650 £629 £575
England median daily rate £515 £518 £525
% change year-on-year -0.48% -1.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 1 2
10th Percentile £25.49 - £40.70
25th Percentile £37.25 - £47.75
Median hourly rate £41.06 £47.12 £59.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.87% -20.81% +19.00%
75th Percentile £46.18 - £71.25
90th Percentile - - £78.30
England median hourly rate £55.00 £50.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +10.00% -23.08% +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 3,380 2,020 2,361
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.88% 92.07% 94.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,906 1,304 1,461
10th Percentile £300 £251 £263
25th Percentile £400 £363 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £450 £489
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -7.98% -2.20%
75th Percentile £594 £553 £585
90th Percentile £675 £664 £670
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 382 154 239
10th Percentile £17.25 £13.00 £11.07
25th Percentile £25.49 £17.30 £16.25
Median hourly rate £50.00 £27.25 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +83.49% -17.16% +19.18%
75th Percentile £73.75 £50.00 £51.91
90th Percentile £85.00 £73.60 £71.57
England median hourly rate £45.50 £26.30 £43.00
% change year-on-year +73.00% -38.84% -1.96%

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 26 July 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 26 July 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 26 July 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 -4 189 £475 - 75
Cheshire -35 22 £400 +7.38% 14
Merseyside -20 16 £437 -20.64% 8
Lancashire -3 12 £463 -7.50% 26
Cumbria 0 7 £875 -
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 26 July 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 88 (35.20%) Java
2 83 (33.20%) Agile
3 58 (23.20%) CI/CD
4 57 (22.80%) Microservices
5 49 (19.60%) DevOps
6 48 (19.20%) AWS
7 46 (18.40%) Azure
8 43 (17.20%) Security Cleared
9 41 (16.40%) SQL
10 40 (16.00%) TDD
11 37 (14.80%) Test Automation
12 36 (14.40%) Problem-Solving
13 35 (14.00%) Spring
14 33 (13.20%) React
15 32 (12.80%) C#
15 32 (12.80%) Spring Boot
16 31 (12.40%) SC Cleared
17 30 (12.00%) JavaScript
17 30 (12.00%) Mentoring
17 30 (12.00%) Node.js
18 28 (11.20%) Microsoft
19 27 (10.80%) AI
19 27 (10.80%) Business Intelligence
19 27 (10.80%) Data Modelling
20 26 (10.40%) Full-Stack Development
20 26 (10.40%) Power Platform
21 25 (10.00%) .NET
21 25 (10.00%) BDD
21 25 (10.00%) Kafka
22 24 (9.60%) Docker

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 12 (4.80%) Confluence
2 4 (1.60%) Apache Spark
3 3 (1.20%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.20%) WordPress
4 2 (0.80%) CMS
4 2 (0.80%) SharePoint 2013
5 1 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.40%) Apache
5 1 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.40%) Appian
5 1 (0.40%) Camunda
5 1 (0.40%) Drupal
5 1 (0.40%) JBoss
5 1 (0.40%) Mule
5 1 (0.40%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.40%) SAS
5 1 (0.40%) Umbraco
5 1 (0.40%) WebLogic
Applications
1 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.40%) Odoo
1 1 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 48 (19.20%) AWS
2 46 (18.40%) Azure
3 26 (10.40%) Power Platform
4 15 (6.00%) Serverless
5 12 (4.80%) Azure DevOps
6 7 (2.80%) AWS Lambda
6 7 (2.80%) Copilot Studio
6 7 (2.80%) GitHub
6 7 (2.80%) Microsoft Copilot
7 6 (2.40%) GitHub Actions
7 6 (2.40%) OpenShift
7 6 (2.40%) Power Automate
8 5 (2.00%) Amazon S3
8 5 (2.00%) Dynamics 365
8 5 (2.00%) Google Gemini
9 4 (1.60%) Amazon EC2
9 4 (1.60%) Amazon ECR
9 4 (1.60%) Amazon SQS
9 4 (1.60%) Azure Service Bus
9 4 (1.60%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.80%) Network Security
1 2 (0.80%) SD-WAN
1 2 (0.80%) TCP/IP
1 2 (0.80%) WAN
1 2 (0.80%) Wireless
2 1 (0.40%) IPsec
2 1 (0.40%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (9.60%) MongoDB
2 22 (8.80%) Power BI
3 18 (7.20%) SQL Server
4 14 (5.60%) Power Query
5 12 (4.80%) Relational Database
6 11 (4.40%) Data Warehouse
7 10 (4.00%) PostgreSQL
8 9 (3.60%) NoSQL
9 6 (2.40%) MySQL
10 4 (1.60%) DataStage
10 4 (1.60%) Db2
10 4 (1.60%) DocumentDB
10 4 (1.60%) Elasticsearch
10 4 (1.60%) Hadoop
11 3 (1.20%) Oracle Database
11 3 (1.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 2 (0.80%) Metadata
12 2 (0.80%) RDBMS
12 2 (0.80%) WebFOCUS
13 1 (0.40%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
Development Applications
1 23 (9.20%) Git
2 14 (5.60%) GitLab
2 14 (5.60%) JIRA
3 12 (4.80%) Mockito
4 9 (3.60%) Jenkins
5 8 (3.20%) Claude Code
6 3 (1.20%) ClearCase
6 3 (1.20%) Cucumber
6 3 (1.20%) JUnit
7 2 (0.80%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.40%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.40%) Hudson
8 1 (0.40%) IntelliJ
8 1 (0.40%) Mocha
8 1 (0.40%) Postman
8 1 (0.40%) Rational Robot
8 1 (0.40%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.40%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.40%) Visual Studio Code
8 1 (0.40%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 60 (24.00%) Public Sector
2 47 (18.80%) Social Skills
3 29 (11.60%) Finance
4 18 (7.20%) Banking
5 15 (6.00%) Analytical Skills
6 11 (4.40%) Military
7 7 (2.80%) Manufacturing
8 6 (2.40%) Aerospace
9 5 (2.00%) Retail
10 2 (0.80%) Front Office
10 2 (0.80%) Investment Banking
11 1 (0.40%) Advertising
11 1 (0.40%) Automotive
11 1 (0.40%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.40%) Law
11 1 (0.40%) Legal
11 1 (0.40%) Legal Technology
11 1 (0.40%) Local Government
11 1 (0.40%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (14.00%) Spring
2 33 (13.20%) React
3 32 (12.80%) Spring Boot
4 30 (12.00%) Node.js
5 25 (10.00%) .NET
5 25 (10.00%) Kafka
6 20 (8.00%) REST
7 18 (7.20%) AngularJS
7 18 (7.20%) RESTful
8 12 (4.80%) HTML
9 11 (4.40%) ActiveMQ
9 11 (4.40%) JAX-RS
9 11 (4.40%) JSON
10 9 (3.60%) CSS
11 8 (3.20%) XML
12 6 (2.40%) .NET Core
12 6 (2.40%) Nunjucks
13 5 (2.00%) Vue
13 5 (2.00%) YAML
14 4 (1.60%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 16 (6.40%) Cloud Native
2 10 (4.00%) Data Structures
2 10 (4.00%) NHS
3 9 (3.60%) Enterprise Software
3 9 (3.60%) Product Ownership
4 6 (2.40%) AI Agents
4 6 (2.40%) Algorithms
4 6 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
4 6 (2.40%) Onboarding
5 5 (2.00%) Mobile App
5 5 (2.00%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.20%) Distributed Systems
8 2 (0.80%) Equities
8 2 (0.80%) Fixed Income
8 2 (0.80%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 2 (0.80%) Greenfield Project
9 1 (0.40%) FMCG
9 1 (0.40%) PKI
9 1 (0.40%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 20 (8.00%) Linux
2 19 (7.60%) Unix
3 8 (3.20%) Mac OS X
4 3 (1.20%) Windows
5 2 (0.80%) Mac OS
5 2 (0.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.80%) VMS
5 2 (0.80%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.40%) Android
6 1 (0.40%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (33.20%) Agile
2 58 (23.20%) CI/CD
3 57 (22.80%) Microservices
4 49 (19.60%) DevOps
5 40 (16.00%) TDD
6 37 (14.80%) Test Automation
7 36 (14.40%) Problem-Solving
8 30 (12.00%) Mentoring
9 27 (10.80%) AI
9 27 (10.80%) Business Intelligence
9 27 (10.80%) Data Modelling
10 26 (10.40%) Full-Stack Development
11 25 (10.00%) BDD
12 23 (9.20%) SDLC
13 21 (8.40%) ETL
14 20 (8.00%) Continuous Improvement
15 19 (7.60%) Code Quality
16 18 (7.20%) Analytics
16 18 (7.20%) Software Engineering
17 16 (6.40%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 88 (35.20%) Java
2 41 (16.40%) SQL
3 32 (12.80%) C#
4 30 (12.00%) JavaScript
5 22 (8.80%) TypeScript
6 16 (6.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 15 (6.00%) Python
8 7 (2.80%) PowerShell
9 6 (2.40%) Go
9 6 (2.40%) Kotlin
10 5 (2.00%) PL/SQL
11 4 (1.60%) Apex Code
11 4 (1.60%) Shell Script
12 3 (1.20%) PHP
12 3 (1.20%) VB
12 3 (1.20%) VB6
13 2 (0.80%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.40%) ABAP
14 1 (0.40%) C++
14 1 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 43 (17.20%) Security Cleared
2 31 (12.40%) SC Cleared
3 17 (6.80%) BPSS Clearance
4 8 (3.20%) Degree
5 4 (1.60%) DV Cleared
6 1 (0.40%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (0.40%) CTC Cleared
6 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (5.20%) QA
2 12 (4.80%) Accessibility
3 9 (3.60%) Data Quality
4 4 (1.60%) GRC
5 3 (1.20%) WCAG
6 1 (0.40%) ISO 20022
6 1 (0.40%) NCSC
6 1 (0.40%) NIST
6 1 (0.40%) PSD2
6 1 (0.40%) SEPA
System Software
1 24 (9.60%) Docker
Systems Management
1 24 (9.60%) Kubernetes
2 18 (7.20%) Terraform
3 10 (4.00%) Ansible
4 3 (1.20%) Grafana
5 1 (0.40%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 28 (11.20%) Microsoft
2 13 (5.20%) Salesforce
2 13 (5.20%) ServiceNow
3 12 (4.80%) Oracle
4 5 (2.00%) Pega
5 4 (1.60%) Atlassian
5 4 (1.60%) Google
5 4 (1.60%) IBM
5 4 (1.60%) OpenAI
5 4 (1.60%) Teradata
6 3 (1.20%) SAP
7 2 (0.80%) Adobe
7 2 (0.80%) Cisco
8 1 (0.40%) Databricks
8 1 (0.40%) Dell
8 1 (0.40%) Foundry
8 1 (0.40%) MuleSoft
8 1 (0.40%) Sage
8 1 (0.40%) Sitecore
8 1 (0.40%) Virgin Media