Developer Contract Job Trends in the North West

Developer
England > North West

The median Developer daily rate in the North West is £455, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 28 April 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 9 5
Rank change year-on-year -2 -4 +4
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 347 227 391
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 10.81% 11.71% 14.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.73% 12.63% 15.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 219 176 285
10th Percentile £343 £375 £310
25th Percentile £400 £405 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £500 £470
Median % change year-on-year -9.00% +6.38% -1.05%
75th Percentile £505 £550 £538
90th Percentile £572 £625 £625
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 2 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% +91.76%
75th Percentile £46.64 - £82.88
90th Percentile £65.45 - £82.95
England median hourly rate £55.00 £61.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -9.84% -2.40% +4.17%

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 2,959 1,797 2,607
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.18% 92.68% 94.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,733 1,187 1,702
10th Percentile £256 £250 £280
25th Percentile £375 £379 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year -2.11% -3.65% -1.40%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £585
90th Percentile £665 £658 £675
England median daily rate £510 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.86% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 306 110 265
10th Percentile £19.00 £13.00 £11.07
25th Percentile £25.76 £18.03 £13.50
Median hourly rate £45.46 £30.10 £26.39
Median % change year-on-year +51.03% +14.06% -13.59%
75th Percentile £71.50 £59.57 £46.18
90th Percentile £82.63 £83.59 £64.00
England median hourly rate £45.59 £31.76 £35.65
% change year-on-year +43.53% -10.91% -20.78%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +2 263 £475 +1.06% 104
Cheshire -8 44 £358 -12.68% 24
Lancashire -6 19 £548 +2.29% 55
Merseyside -19 15 £475 -13.64% 23
Cumbria +3 3 - - 3
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 28 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.

1 139 (40.06%) Java
2 108 (31.12%) Agile
3 87 (25.07%) CI/CD
4 85 (24.50%) Microservices
5 84 (24.21%) AWS
6 74 (21.33%) Spring
7 71 (20.46%) Spring Boot
8 66 (19.02%) Problem-Solving
9 65 (18.73%) Test Automation
10 63 (18.16%) Azure
11 58 (16.71%) Full-Stack Development
11 58 (16.71%) SQL
12 56 (16.14%) DevOps
13 55 (15.85%) Security Cleared
14 52 (14.99%) TDD
15 50 (14.41%) React
16 49 (14.12%) JavaScript
17 47 (13.54%) Docker
18 45 (12.97%) Node.js
19 43 (12.39%) RESTful
20 41 (11.82%) Kubernetes
21 40 (11.53%) Git
22 38 (10.95%) REST
22 38 (10.95%) TypeScript
23 36 (10.37%) GitLab
24 34 (9.80%) Python
25 32 (9.22%) API Design
26 30 (8.65%) Containerisation
26 30 (8.65%) Oracle
27 29 (8.36%) .NET

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 (2.88%) Confluence
2 5 (1.44%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.86%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 3 (0.86%) Apache
3 3 (0.86%) SAS
4 2 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.58%) JBoss
5 1 (0.29%) Appian
5 1 (0.29%) Camunda
5 1 (0.29%) CMS
5 1 (0.29%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.29%) Mule
5 1 (0.29%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.29%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.29%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.29%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.29%) WebLogic
Applications
1 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 7 (2.02%) Maximo
2 6 (1.73%) Advent Geneva
3 2 (0.58%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.58%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.29%) Odoo
4 1 (0.29%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.29%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 84 (24.21%) AWS
2 63 (18.16%) Azure
3 24 (6.92%) Serverless
4 16 (4.61%) GitHub
4 16 (4.61%) Power Platform
5 14 (4.03%) Azure DevOps
6 12 (3.46%) AWS Lambda
7 10 (2.88%) Dynamics 365
7 10 (2.88%) GitHub Actions
8 9 (2.59%) Amazon S3
9 7 (2.02%) Amazon SQS
9 7 (2.02%) GCP
10 6 (1.73%) AWS Step Functions
10 6 (1.73%) Azure Logic Apps
10 6 (1.73%) OpenShift
10 6 (1.73%) Power Automate
11 5 (1.44%) GitHub Copilot
12 4 (1.15%) Amazon EKS
12 4 (1.15%) Azure AKS
12 4 (1.15%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.44%) HTTPS
2 4 (1.15%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (6.34%) PostgreSQL
2 19 (5.48%) Relational Database
3 18 (5.19%) SQL Server
4 16 (4.61%) NoSQL
5 15 (4.32%) MongoDB
5 15 (4.32%) MySQL
6 12 (3.46%) Data Warehouse
7 10 (2.88%) Power BI
8 8 (2.31%) DB2
8 8 (2.31%) OLTP
9 7 (2.02%) DocumentDB
9 7 (2.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 5 (1.44%) DynamoDB
10 5 (1.44%) Hadoop
10 5 (1.44%) Redis
11 4 (1.15%) Elasticsearch
11 4 (1.15%) Power Query
12 3 (0.86%) DataStage
12 3 (0.86%) Oracle Database
13 2 (0.58%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 40 (11.53%) Git
2 36 (10.37%) GitLab
3 24 (6.92%) JIRA
4 14 (4.03%) JUnit
5 13 (3.75%) Cypress.io
6 12 (3.46%) Mockito
7 9 (2.59%) Jenkins
7 9 (2.59%) SonarQube
8 8 (2.31%) Mocha
9 6 (1.73%) CircleCI
10 5 (1.44%) Postman
11 4 (1.15%) ESLint
12 3 (0.86%) Gradle
12 3 (0.86%) Jasmine
13 2 (0.58%) Android Studio
13 2 (0.58%) ClearCase
13 2 (0.58%) fastlane
13 2 (0.58%) IntelliJ
13 2 (0.58%) Xcode
13 2 (0.58%) XCTest
General
1 88 (25.36%) Public Sector
2 49 (14.12%) Social Skills
3 45 (12.97%) Finance
4 24 (6.92%) Analytical Skills
5 20 (5.76%) Banking
6 7 (2.02%) Aviation
6 7 (2.02%) Manufacturing
7 6 (1.73%) Aerospace
8 5 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (1.15%) Publishing
10 3 (0.86%) Law
10 3 (0.86%) Local Government
11 2 (0.58%) Legal
11 2 (0.58%) Retail
12 1 (0.29%) Advertising
12 1 (0.29%) Games
12 1 (0.29%) Military
12 1 (0.29%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (21.33%) Spring
2 71 (20.46%) Spring Boot
3 50 (14.41%) React
4 45 (12.97%) Node.js
5 43 (12.39%) RESTful
6 38 (10.95%) REST
7 29 (8.36%) .NET
8 28 (8.07%) AngularJS
9 23 (6.63%) HTML
10 21 (6.05%) Jest
11 18 (5.19%) CSS
11 18 (5.19%) Kafka
12 17 (4.90%) Vue
13 13 (3.75%) JSON
13 13 (3.75%) React Native
13 13 (3.75%) XML
13 13 (3.75%) YAML
14 12 (3.46%) JAX-RS
14 12 (3.46%) OAuth
15 11 (3.17%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 24 (6.92%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.48%) Mobile App
3 15 (4.32%) Onboarding
4 14 (4.03%) Product Ownership
5 9 (2.59%) Enterprise Software
6 7 (2.02%) Data Structures
7 6 (1.73%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 5 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.15%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.86%) Blog
10 3 (0.86%) IoT
10 3 (0.86%) Legacy Code
10 3 (0.86%) NHS
10 3 (0.86%) Self-Motivation
11 2 (0.58%) AI Agents
11 2 (0.58%) FMCG
11 2 (0.58%) Legacy Systems
12 1 (0.29%) Algorithms
12 1 (0.29%) IVR
12 1 (0.29%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 17 (4.90%) Unix
2 16 (4.61%) Linux
3 8 (2.31%) Android
3 8 (2.31%) Apple iOS
3 8 (2.31%) Mac OS X
4 4 (1.15%) Windows
5 3 (0.86%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.58%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.58%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 108 (31.12%) Agile
2 87 (25.07%) CI/CD
3 85 (24.50%) Microservices
4 66 (19.02%) Problem-Solving
5 65 (18.73%) Test Automation
6 58 (16.71%) Full-Stack Development
7 56 (16.14%) DevOps
8 52 (14.99%) TDD
9 32 (9.22%) API Design
10 30 (8.65%) Containerisation
11 29 (8.36%) Code Quality
12 28 (8.07%) Continuous Improvement
12 28 (8.07%) Front End Development
13 27 (7.78%) Data Modelling
13 27 (7.78%) SDLC
14 26 (7.49%) Unit Testing
15 24 (6.92%) Design Patterns
16 23 (6.63%) User Experience
17 22 (6.34%) API Development
17 22 (6.34%) BDD
Programming Languages
1 139 (40.06%) Java
2 58 (16.71%) SQL
3 49 (14.12%) JavaScript
4 38 (10.95%) TypeScript
5 34 (9.80%) Python
6 26 (7.49%) C#
7 19 (5.48%) Kotlin
8 7 (2.02%) PL/SQL
8 7 (2.02%) Shell Script
9 6 (1.73%) Apex Code
10 5 (1.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 4 (1.15%) C++
12 3 (0.86%) ProC
12 3 (0.86%) Ruby
12 3 (0.86%) Swift
13 2 (0.58%) Objective-C
13 2 (0.58%) PowerShell
13 2 (0.58%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.58%) VB
13 2 (0.58%) VB6
Qualifications
1 55 (15.85%) Security Cleared
2 29 (8.36%) SC Cleared
3 25 (7.20%) BPSS Clearance
4 19 (5.48%) Degree
5 10 (2.88%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.15%) CTC Cleared
6 4 (1.15%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.29%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (6.34%) Accessibility
2 19 (5.48%) QA
3 13 (3.75%) WCAG
4 6 (1.73%) Data Quality
4 6 (1.73%) ISO 20022
4 6 (1.73%) PSD2
4 6 (1.73%) SEPA
5 3 (0.86%) GRC
6 1 (0.29%) GDPR
System Software
1 47 (13.54%) Docker
2 3 (0.86%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 41 (11.82%) Kubernetes
2 19 (5.48%) Terraform
3 7 (2.02%) Grafana
4 5 (1.44%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.86%) Ansible
6 1 (0.29%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 30 (8.65%) Oracle
2 29 (8.36%) Microsoft
3 15 (4.32%) Salesforce
4 9 (2.59%) ServiceNow
5 8 (2.31%) Virgin Media
6 7 (2.02%) Splunk
7 6 (1.73%) Advent
7 6 (1.73%) Automation Anywhere
7 6 (1.73%) SAP
8 5 (1.44%) Adobe
8 5 (1.44%) Pega
9 4 (1.15%) IBM
9 4 (1.15%) IFS
9 4 (1.15%) Xamarin
10 3 (0.86%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.86%) Dynatrace
10 3 (0.86%) Veracode
11 2 (0.58%) NEC
11 2 (0.58%) Sage
11 2 (0.58%) Teradata