Developer Contract Job Trends in the North West

Developer
England > North West

The median Developer daily rate in the North West is £425, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 November 2025.

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

6 months to
16 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 15 10 9
Rank change year-on-year -5 -1 -4
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 242 252 340
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 10.01% 10.70% 12.25%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.98% 11.48% 13.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 199 163 283
10th Percentile £313 £308 £325
25th Percentile £363 £380 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £438 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -7.89% -5.00%
75th Percentile £500 £508 £582
90th Percentile £550 £575 £679
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -6.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 4
10th Percentile £49.83 £41.80 £56.38
25th Percentile £53.91 £50.50 £65.94
Median hourly rate £60.69 £65.00 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.63% -13.33% +93.55%
75th Percentile £67.48 - £79.69
90th Percentile £71.55 - £81.38
England median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% +8.33% +1.73%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 2,204 2,195 2,559
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.15% 93.17% 92.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,451 1,168 1,779
10th Percentile £214 £263 £275
25th Percentile £363 £388 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £591
90th Percentile £678 £650 £674
England median daily rate £508 £525 £534
% change year-on-year -3.33% -1.69% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 215 156 174
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.56 £15.83
25th Percentile £19.18 £18.00 £17.75
Median hourly rate £29.60 £32.00 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% +1.59% +57.50%
75th Percentile £48.56 £51.22 £46.18
90th Percentile £70.16 £70.90 £63.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -37.13% -11.11% +50.00%

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 16 November 2025.

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 16 November 2025.

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 16 November 2025. 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 -4 129 £425 -5.56% 208
Cheshire -3 69 £373 -1.59% 44
Merseyside -7 21 £500 +29.03% 15
Lancashire -7 19 £528 +19.89% 94
Cumbria - 1 £470 -
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 16 November 2025, 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 78 (32.23%) Java
2 73 (30.17%) Agile
3 65 (26.86%) SQL
4 57 (23.55%) CI/CD
5 52 (21.49%) Problem-Solving
6 51 (21.07%) Git
6 51 (21.07%) JavaScript
7 50 (20.66%) DevOps
8 49 (20.25%) AWS
8 49 (20.25%) Azure
9 44 (18.18%) Microsoft
9 44 (18.18%) Spring Boot
10 43 (17.77%) Microservices
11 42 (17.36%) Spring
12 41 (16.94%) HTML
13 40 (16.53%) React
14 38 (15.70%) Security Cleared
15 37 (15.29%) REST
16 34 (14.05%) TDD
17 33 (13.64%) Accessibility
17 33 (13.64%) Docker
18 32 (13.22%) CSS
19 31 (12.81%) Test Automation
20 30 (12.40%) JIRA
21 28 (11.57%) Full-Stack Development
21 28 (11.57%) Jenkins
21 28 (11.57%) Kubernetes
21 28 (11.57%) Python
22 27 (11.16%) Business Intelligence
22 27 (11.16%) Power Platform

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 (4.13%) Confluence
2 9 (3.72%) Tomcat
3 6 (2.48%) JBoss
3 6 (2.48%) SharePoint
4 4 (1.65%) Apache
4 4 (1.65%) nginx
5 3 (1.24%) SAS
6 2 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.83%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.41%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.41%) CMS
Applications
1 4 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.83%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 9 (3.72%) Advent Geneva
2 2 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.41%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.41%) IBM Planning Analytics
3 1 (0.41%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.41%) SAP PSCD
3 1 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 49 (20.25%) AWS
1 49 (20.25%) Azure
2 27 (11.16%) Power Platform
3 22 (9.09%) GitHub
4 18 (7.44%) Azure DevOps
5 14 (5.79%) Power Automate
6 13 (5.37%) PowerApps
7 10 (4.13%) npm
8 8 (3.31%) Serverless
9 7 (2.89%) Figma
9 7 (2.89%) GCP
10 6 (2.48%) AWS Lambda
10 6 (2.48%) OpenShift
10 6 (2.48%) SaaS
11 5 (2.07%) Azure AKS
12 4 (1.65%) Amazon SQS
12 4 (1.65%) Azure Service Bus
12 4 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
13 3 (1.24%) Amazon S3
13 3 (1.24%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 8 (3.31%) HTTPS
2 3 (1.24%) HTTP
3 2 (0.83%) Intranet
3 2 (0.83%) SSL
4 1 (0.41%) Internet
4 1 (0.41%) PABX
4 1 (0.41%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (8.26%) MySQL
1 20 (8.26%) Power BI
1 20 (8.26%) SQL Server
2 14 (5.79%) Relational Database
3 13 (5.37%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (4.55%) DB2
4 11 (4.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 9 (3.72%) NoSQL
6 7 (2.89%) MongoDB
6 7 (2.89%) Redis
7 6 (2.48%) Data Warehouse
8 5 (2.07%) Apache Cassandra
9 3 (1.24%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (1.24%) Cognos Framework Manager
9 3 (1.24%) Cognos Report Studio
9 3 (1.24%) Metadata
9 3 (1.24%) Snowflake Schema
9 3 (1.24%) WebFOCUS
10 2 (0.83%) Data Vault
10 2 (0.83%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 51 (21.07%) Git
2 30 (12.40%) JIRA
3 28 (11.57%) Jenkins
4 24 (9.92%) JUnit
5 23 (9.50%) GitLab
6 21 (8.68%) Gradle
7 14 (5.79%) Xcode
8 13 (5.37%) Cypress.io
9 11 (4.55%) SonarQube
10 9 (3.72%) Cucumber
10 9 (3.72%) Maven
10 9 (3.72%) Sonatype Nexus
11 8 (3.31%) Postman
12 7 (2.89%) Mockito
13 6 (2.48%) Grunt
13 6 (2.48%) gulp
13 6 (2.48%) Storybook
14 5 (2.07%) Bitbucket
15 3 (1.24%) Android Studio
15 3 (1.24%) Gerrit
General
1 40 (16.53%) Social Skills
2 39 (16.12%) Public Sector
3 38 (15.70%) Finance
4 35 (14.46%) Banking
5 21 (8.68%) Analytical Skills
6 8 (3.31%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (2.07%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (1.24%) Publishing
9 2 (0.83%) Military
9 2 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (0.83%) Private Banking
9 2 (0.83%) Retail
10 1 (0.41%) Digital Healthcare
10 1 (0.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.41%) Law
10 1 (0.41%) Local Government
10 1 (0.41%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.41%) Marketing
10 1 (0.41%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (18.18%) Spring Boot
2 42 (17.36%) Spring
3 41 (16.94%) HTML
4 40 (16.53%) React
5 37 (15.29%) REST
6 32 (13.22%) CSS
7 26 (10.74%) JSON
7 26 (10.74%) Node.js
8 24 (9.92%) RESTful
9 20 (8.26%) .NET
10 18 (7.44%) Jest
11 17 (7.02%) React Native
11 17 (7.02%) SOAP
12 15 (6.20%) Kafka
13 14 (5.79%) OAuth
14 13 (5.37%) AngularJS
14 13 (5.37%) JMS
14 13 (5.37%) Redux
15 12 (4.96%) XML
16 11 (4.55%) jQuery
Miscellaneous
1 23 (9.50%) Mobile App
2 10 (4.13%) Data Protection Act
3 9 (3.72%) Cloud Native
3 9 (3.72%) Low-Code
3 9 (3.72%) Virtual Team
4 8 (3.31%) Mobile Banking
5 7 (2.89%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 6 (2.48%) Distributed Systems
6 6 (2.48%) Enterprise Software
6 6 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (2.07%) Data Structures
8 4 (1.65%) Greenfield Project
8 4 (1.65%) Product Ownership
9 3 (1.24%) Onboarding
9 3 (1.24%) Shadow IT
10 2 (0.83%) Algorithms
10 2 (0.83%) Blog
10 2 (0.83%) FMCG
10 2 (0.83%) IVR
10 2 (0.83%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 20 (8.26%) Android
2 18 (7.44%) Apple iOS
3 16 (6.61%) Linux
4 9 (3.72%) Unix
5 2 (0.83%) Mac OS X
5 2 (0.83%) MVS
5 2 (0.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.41%) VME
6 1 (0.41%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (30.17%) Agile
2 57 (23.55%) CI/CD
3 52 (21.49%) Problem-Solving
4 50 (20.66%) DevOps
5 43 (17.77%) Microservices
6 34 (14.05%) TDD
7 31 (12.81%) Test Automation
8 28 (11.57%) Full-Stack Development
9 27 (11.16%) Business Intelligence
10 25 (10.33%) Performance Optimisation
10 25 (10.33%) Unit Testing
11 24 (9.92%) Migration
12 23 (9.50%) Scrum
13 21 (8.68%) Containerisation
13 21 (8.68%) User Experience
14 19 (7.85%) Data Modelling
15 17 (7.02%) Front End Development
16 16 (6.61%) User Acceptance Testing
17 15 (6.20%) API Development
17 15 (6.20%) Clean Code
Programming Languages
1 78 (32.23%) Java
2 65 (26.86%) SQL
3 51 (21.07%) JavaScript
4 28 (11.57%) Python
5 26 (10.74%) TypeScript
6 16 (6.61%) C#
7 10 (4.13%) Kotlin
8 8 (3.31%) C
8 8 (3.31%) C++
8 8 (3.31%) Ruby
8 8 (3.31%) T-SQL
9 7 (2.89%) Objective-C
9 7 (2.89%) Scala
9 7 (2.89%) Swift
10 6 (2.48%) PHP
10 6 (2.48%) Shell Script
11 4 (1.65%) ABAP
11 4 (1.65%) Apex Code
11 4 (1.65%) Bash
12 3 (1.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 38 (15.70%) Security Cleared
2 23 (9.50%) BPSS Clearance
3 20 (8.26%) SC Cleared
4 13 (5.37%) Degree
5 10 (4.13%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (2.07%) CTC Cleared
7 2 (0.83%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.41%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.41%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.41%) MCSA
8 1 (0.41%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (13.64%) Accessibility
2 16 (6.61%) QA
3 8 (3.31%) WCAG
4 7 (2.89%) Data Quality
4 7 (2.89%) ISO 20022
4 7 (2.89%) PSD2
4 7 (2.89%) SEPA
System Software
1 33 (13.64%) Docker
2 2 (0.83%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 28 (11.57%) Kubernetes
2 7 (2.89%) Terraform
3 3 (1.24%) Ansible
4 2 (0.83%) CA Endevor
4 2 (0.83%) Grafana
5 1 (0.41%) Argo
5 1 (0.41%) Progress Chef
5 1 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 44 (18.18%) Microsoft
2 18 (7.44%) Oracle
3 9 (3.72%) Advent
3 9 (3.72%) Salesforce
3 9 (3.72%) ServiceNow
4 7 (2.89%) SAP
5 6 (2.48%) IBM
5 6 (2.48%) Perforce
6 4 (1.65%) Cognos
6 4 (1.65%) webMethods
7 3 (1.24%) Google
7 3 (1.24%) Nintex
7 3 (1.24%) Software AG
7 3 (1.24%) Splunk
7 3 (1.24%) Veracode
7 3 (1.24%) Virgin Media
7 3 (1.24%) Xamarin
8 2 (0.83%) Axway
8 2 (0.83%) Red Hat
8 2 (0.83%) Syncsort