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 19 June 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 12 5
Rank change year-on-year -5 -7 +4
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 295 229 364
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 8.44% 11.51% 12.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.24% 12.39% 13.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 174 195 271
10th Percentile £350 £322 £306
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £455 £450
Median % change year-on-year +4.51% +1.00% -10.00%
75th Percentile £523 £545 £525
90th Percentile £588 £625 £575
England median daily rate £515 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -1.90% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 1 3
10th Percentile £25.49 - £44.30
25th Percentile £36.32 - £56.75
Median hourly rate £41.06 £47.12 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.87% -41.10% -
75th Percentile £46.18 - £82.75
90th Percentile - - £82.90
England median hourly rate £50.00 £40.59 £65.00
% change year-on-year +23.18% -37.55% -

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 3,192 1,848 2,678
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.30% 92.91% 94.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,775 1,240 1,650
10th Percentile £300 £275 £268
25th Percentile £400 £375 £382
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £476
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -5.51% -4.75%
75th Percentile £588 £550 £575
90th Percentile £675 £662 £666
England median daily rate £521 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +1.56% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 331 121 315
10th Percentile £18.00 £13.00 £11.77
25th Percentile £25.49 £14.13 £15.00
Median hourly rate £50.00 £28.75 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +73.91% -12.60% +16.07%
75th Percentile £74.01 £60.00 £47.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.00 £71.87
England median hourly rate £45.50 £28.75 £39.55
% change year-on-year +58.26% -27.31% -12.11%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +3 220 £475 +5.56% 68
Cheshire -29 29 £394 +5.70% 16
Lancashire +6 20 £463 -9.76% 42
Merseyside -14 18 £435 -20.91% 24
Cumbria -2 7 £875 - 2
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 19 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.

1 113 (38.31%) Java
2 98 (33.22%) Agile
3 72 (24.41%) CI/CD
4 64 (21.69%) Microservices
5 59 (20.00%) AWS
6 56 (18.98%) Azure
7 54 (18.31%) DevOps
8 52 (17.63%) Spring
9 48 (16.27%) Spring Boot
10 46 (15.59%) Full-Stack Development
11 45 (15.25%) SQL
12 44 (14.92%) Test Automation
13 42 (14.24%) JavaScript
14 41 (13.90%) Problem-Solving
15 40 (13.56%) React
15 40 (13.56%) TDD
16 37 (12.54%) Security Cleared
17 34 (11.53%) C#
17 34 (11.53%) Node.js
18 33 (11.19%) Docker
19 32 (10.85%) Microsoft
20 31 (10.51%) RESTful
21 30 (10.17%) Kubernetes
22 29 (9.83%) .NET
22 29 (9.83%) REST
23 28 (9.49%) Data Modelling
23 28 (9.49%) Power Platform
23 28 (9.49%) TypeScript
24 26 (8.81%) Business Intelligence
24 26 (8.81%) Mentoring

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 14 (4.75%) Confluence
2 4 (1.36%) Apache Spark
3 3 (1.02%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.68%) Apache
4 2 (0.68%) CMS
4 2 (0.68%) SharePoint 2013
5 1 (0.34%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.34%) Appian
5 1 (0.34%) Camunda
5 1 (0.34%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.34%) JBoss
5 1 (0.34%) Mule
5 1 (0.34%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.34%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.34%) SAS
5 1 (0.34%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.34%) WordPress
Applications
1 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 7 (2.37%) Maximo
2 1 (0.34%) NEC Housing
2 1 (0.34%) Odoo
Cloud Services
1 59 (20.00%) AWS
2 56 (18.98%) Azure
3 28 (9.49%) Power Platform
4 19 (6.44%) Serverless
5 15 (5.08%) Azure DevOps
6 10 (3.39%) AWS Lambda
6 10 (3.39%) GitHub
7 9 (3.05%) Dynamics 365
7 9 (3.05%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (2.71%) Amazon S3
9 7 (2.37%) Power Automate
10 5 (1.69%) Amazon EC2
10 5 (1.69%) Amazon ECR
10 5 (1.69%) Amazon SQS
10 5 (1.69%) OpenShift
10 5 (1.69%) PowerApps
11 4 (1.36%) Azure AKS
11 4 (1.36%) Azure Service Bus
11 4 (1.36%) Copilot Studio
11 4 (1.36%) Microsoft Copilot
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (7.12%) Power BI
2 16 (5.42%) SQL Server
3 15 (5.08%) PostgreSQL
4 14 (4.75%) MongoDB
5 13 (4.41%) Power Query
6 11 (3.73%) NoSQL
6 11 (3.73%) Relational Database
7 10 (3.39%) Data Warehouse
8 5 (1.69%) DocumentDB
8 5 (1.69%) MySQL
9 4 (1.36%) Elasticsearch
9 4 (1.36%) Hadoop
9 4 (1.36%) OLTP
10 3 (1.02%) DataStage
10 3 (1.02%) Db2
10 3 (1.02%) Oracle Database
10 3 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 2 (0.68%) DynamoDB
11 2 (0.68%) Metadata
11 2 (0.68%) WebFOCUS
Development Applications
1 25 (8.47%) Git
2 24 (8.14%) GitLab
3 21 (7.12%) JIRA
4 11 (3.73%) Mockito
5 10 (3.39%) JUnit
6 7 (2.37%) Cypress.io
6 7 (2.37%) Jenkins
7 6 (2.03%) Mocha
8 5 (1.69%) SonarQube
9 4 (1.36%) CircleCI
10 3 (1.02%) Claude Code
10 3 (1.02%) ClearCase
11 2 (0.68%) Cucumber
12 1 (0.34%) Eclipse
12 1 (0.34%) Hudson
12 1 (0.34%) IntelliJ
12 1 (0.34%) Rational Robot
12 1 (0.34%) SoapUI
12 1 (0.34%) Team Foundation Server
12 1 (0.34%) Visual Studio
General
1 69 (23.39%) Public Sector
2 50 (16.95%) Social Skills
3 37 (12.54%) Finance
4 22 (7.46%) Banking
5 16 (5.42%) Analytical Skills
6 8 (2.71%) Military
7 7 (2.37%) Aviation
7 7 (2.37%) Manufacturing
8 6 (2.03%) Aerospace
9 3 (1.02%) Retail
10 2 (0.68%) Front Office
10 2 (0.68%) Investment Banking
11 1 (0.34%) Advertising
11 1 (0.34%) Automotive
11 1 (0.34%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.34%) Games
11 1 (0.34%) Law
11 1 (0.34%) Legal
11 1 (0.34%) Local Government
11 1 (0.34%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (17.63%) Spring
2 48 (16.27%) Spring Boot
3 40 (13.56%) React
4 34 (11.53%) Node.js
5 31 (10.51%) RESTful
6 29 (9.83%) .NET
6 29 (9.83%) REST
7 22 (7.46%) AngularJS
8 18 (6.10%) HTML
9 17 (5.76%) Kafka
10 14 (4.75%) CSS
11 13 (4.41%) Vue
11 13 (4.41%) YAML
12 11 (3.73%) Jest
13 8 (2.71%) JSON
14 7 (2.37%) ActiveMQ
14 7 (2.37%) JAX-RS
14 7 (2.37%) React Native
14 7 (2.37%) Redux
14 7 (2.37%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (8.47%) Cloud Native
2 11 (3.73%) Enterprise Software
2 11 (3.73%) Mobile App
2 11 (3.73%) Product Ownership
3 9 (3.05%) NHS
4 7 (2.37%) Data Structures
5 5 (1.69%) Onboarding
5 5 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (1.36%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (1.02%) Algorithms
7 3 (1.02%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 2 (0.68%) AI Agents
8 2 (0.68%) Equities
8 2 (0.68%) Fixed Income
8 2 (0.68%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 2 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
8 2 (0.68%) IoT
9 1 (0.34%) Blog
9 1 (0.34%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 15 (5.08%) Unix
2 14 (4.75%) Linux
3 7 (2.37%) Mac OS X
4 4 (1.36%) Windows
5 3 (1.02%) VMS
5 3 (1.02%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.68%) Android
6 2 (0.68%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.68%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (33.22%) Agile
2 72 (24.41%) CI/CD
3 64 (21.69%) Microservices
4 54 (18.31%) DevOps
5 46 (15.59%) Full-Stack Development
6 44 (14.92%) Test Automation
7 41 (13.90%) Problem-Solving
8 40 (13.56%) TDD
9 28 (9.49%) Data Modelling
10 26 (8.81%) Business Intelligence
10 26 (8.81%) Mentoring
11 24 (8.14%) Front End Development
12 22 (7.46%) Code Quality
12 22 (7.46%) User Experience
13 21 (7.12%) SDLC
14 20 (6.78%) API Design
14 20 (6.78%) ETL
15 19 (6.44%) AI
15 19 (6.44%) BDD
15 19 (6.44%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 113 (38.31%) Java
2 45 (15.25%) SQL
3 42 (14.24%) JavaScript
4 34 (11.53%) C#
5 28 (9.49%) TypeScript
6 22 (7.46%) Python
7 15 (5.08%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 11 (3.73%) Kotlin
9 6 (2.03%) Apex Code
9 6 (2.03%) Go
10 4 (1.36%) PL/SQL
10 4 (1.36%) PowerShell
11 3 (1.02%) Shell Script
11 3 (1.02%) VB
11 3 (1.02%) VB6
12 2 (0.68%) C++
12 2 (0.68%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.34%) Groovy
13 1 (0.34%) PHP
13 1 (0.34%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 37 (12.54%) Security Cleared
2 24 (8.14%) SC Cleared
3 22 (7.46%) BPSS Clearance
4 8 (2.71%) Degree
5 4 (1.36%) DV Cleared
6 1 (0.34%) CTC Cleared
6 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (5.76%) Accessibility
2 14 (4.75%) QA
3 8 (2.71%) Data Quality
3 8 (2.71%) WCAG
4 4 (1.36%) GRC
5 3 (1.02%) ISO 20022
5 3 (1.02%) PSD2
5 3 (1.02%) SEPA
System Software
1 33 (11.19%) Docker
Systems Management
1 30 (10.17%) Kubernetes
2 20 (6.78%) Terraform
3 5 (1.69%) Ansible
4 4 (1.36%) Grafana
5 1 (0.34%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 32 (10.85%) Microsoft
2 18 (6.10%) Oracle
3 16 (5.42%) Salesforce
4 9 (3.05%) ServiceNow
5 5 (1.69%) Pega
6 4 (1.36%) Atlassian
7 3 (1.02%) Automation Anywhere
7 3 (1.02%) IBM
7 3 (1.02%) Teradata
7 3 (1.02%) Veracode
8 2 (0.68%) SAP
9 1 (0.34%) Adobe
9 1 (0.34%) Dell
9 1 (0.34%) Foundry
9 1 (0.34%) Google
9 1 (0.34%) NEC
9 1 (0.34%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.34%) Sage
9 1 (0.34%) Sitecore
9 1 (0.34%) Virgin Media