Developer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Developer
England > South East

The median Developer daily rate in the South East is £515, 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 22 20 12
Rank change year-on-year -2 -8 +2
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 481 261 487
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 7.27% 7.55% 9.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.87% 8.34% 10.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 317 193 354
10th Percentile £324 £319 £358
25th Percentile £420 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% - -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £654 £625 £651
England median daily rate £515 £518 £525
% change year-on-year -0.48% -1.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 15 13
10th Percentile £32.06 - £35.00
25th Percentile £34.01 £32.94 £54.85
Median hourly rate £55.00 £33.89 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +62.31% -45.78% -9.09%
75th Percentile £67.50 £54.38 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £55.00 £75.75
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
South East

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South East. 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 South East with a recognized job title 6,108 3,129 4,789
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.27% 90.51% 92.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,634 2,036 2,897
10th Percentile £303 £213 £255
25th Percentile £425 £375 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -3.85% +4.00%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £634
90th Percentile £713 £663 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 684 245 425
10th Percentile £16.35 £14.00 £14.66
25th Percentile £26.25 £15.50 £21.89
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.30 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +107.51% -55.88% +14.70%
75th Percentile £77.50 £62.24 £71.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
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 South East

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 South East.

Developer job vacancy trend in the South East

Developer
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the South East

Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Developer in the South East over the 6 months to 26 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Developer in the South East

Developer
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the South East

Developer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Developer in the South East over the 6 months to 26 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Developer in the South East

Developer
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Developer within the South East 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
Thames Valley -22 174 £525 - 40
Hampshire +3 151 £525 +7.14% 37
Berkshire -24 95 £500 -9.09% 25
Surrey +11 78 £513 -0.29% 15
Buckinghamshire -7 74 £525 +18.24% 7
West Sussex +4 44 £425 +38.66% 9
Sussex - 12 £475 - 9
Kent +7 10 £450 +20.00% 17
East Sussex -3 8 £525 +16.67% 9
Oxfordshire -21 5 £625 +29.87% 8
Home Counties - 1 - -
Developer
England

Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East

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 South East region featuring Developer in the job title.

1 217 (45.11%) Security Cleared
2 174 (36.17%) SC Cleared
3 102 (21.21%) Agile
4 98 (20.37%) SQL
5 95 (19.75%) Azure
6 89 (18.50%) CI/CD
7 84 (17.46%) Oracle
8 78 (16.22%) DevOps
9 75 (15.59%) .NET
10 73 (15.18%) Java
11 66 (13.72%) Python
12 64 (13.31%) Git
13 59 (12.27%) REST
13 59 (12.27%) Software Engineering
14 58 (12.06%) C#
14 58 (12.06%) DV Cleared
15 55 (11.43%) Microservices
15 55 (11.43%) RESTful
16 54 (11.23%) JavaScript
17 53 (11.02%) Full-Stack Development
18 50 (10.40%) Problem-Solving
18 50 (10.40%) Scrum
19 48 (9.98%) Analytics
20 47 (9.77%) Azure DevOps
21 46 (9.56%) ServiceNow
22 43 (8.94%) AWS
22 43 (8.94%) Data Modelling
22 43 (8.94%) Kubernetes
23 42 (8.73%) ETL
24 40 (8.32%) Data Warehouse

Developer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 18 (3.74%) Oracle Application Server
2 11 (2.29%) Confluence
3 6 (1.25%) Apache Spark
3 6 (1.25%) Oracle Workflow
4 5 (1.04%) CMS
4 5 (1.04%) Documentum
5 4 (0.83%) SharePoint
5 4 (0.83%) Umbraco
6 2 (0.42%) Apache
6 2 (0.42%) IIS
6 2 (0.42%) SAS
7 1 (0.21%) Kentico
7 1 (0.21%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.21%) WordPress
Applications
1 9 (1.87%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.42%) Oracle Smart View
2 2 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.21%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 15 (3.12%) Siebel CRM
2 10 (2.08%) Oracle ERP
3 5 (1.04%) Oracle 11i
3 5 (1.04%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.42%) ProductWriter
5 1 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.21%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.21%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 95 (19.75%) Azure
2 47 (9.77%) Azure DevOps
3 43 (8.94%) AWS
4 26 (5.41%) Power Platform
5 22 (4.57%) GCP
6 19 (3.95%) Dynamics 365
7 18 (3.74%) Serverless
8 17 (3.53%) GitHub
9 16 (3.33%) OpenShift
10 15 (3.12%) OCI
10 15 (3.12%) Power Automate
11 11 (2.29%) Azure Functions
11 11 (2.29%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (2.08%) Azure Monitor
12 10 (2.08%) Entra ID
12 10 (2.08%) PowerApps
13 9 (1.87%) Amazon S3
13 9 (1.87%) Azure Logic Apps
14 8 (1.66%) Azure Key Vault
14 8 (1.66%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 11 (2.29%) BGP
1 11 (2.29%) IPsec
1 11 (2.29%) LAN
1 11 (2.29%) MPLS
1 11 (2.29%) WAN
2 7 (1.46%) HTTPS
3 2 (0.42%) Firewall
3 2 (0.42%) Software-Defined Radio
3 2 (0.42%) Wireless
4 1 (0.21%) HTTP
4 1 (0.21%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (8.32%) Data Warehouse
2 35 (7.28%) Oracle Reports
3 32 (6.65%) PostgreSQL
4 26 (5.41%) NoSQL
5 23 (4.78%) Oracle ODI
6 22 (4.57%) SQL Server
7 17 (3.53%) Power BI
8 15 (3.12%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 14 (2.91%) Relational Database
10 13 (2.70%) MongoDB
11 11 (2.29%) Siebel EIM
12 8 (1.66%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (1.46%) DynamoDB
14 6 (1.25%) Big Data
14 6 (1.25%) DataStage
14 6 (1.25%) Oracle Database
15 5 (1.04%) MySQL
16 4 (0.83%) DocumentDB
16 4 (0.83%) GIS
17 3 (0.62%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 64 (13.31%) Git
2 23 (4.78%) JIRA
3 15 (3.12%) Jenkins
4 10 (2.08%) GitLab
4 10 (2.08%) SonarQube
5 9 (1.87%) Maven
5 9 (1.87%) Visual Studio
6 6 (1.25%) Bitbucket
6 6 (1.25%) JUnit
7 5 (1.04%) Gradle
7 5 (1.04%) Subversion
8 4 (0.83%) Eclipse
8 4 (0.83%) NUnit
9 3 (0.62%) Mockito
9 3 (0.62%) Postman
10 2 (0.42%) fastlane
10 2 (0.42%) Team Foundation Server
11 1 (0.21%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.21%) Cucumber
11 1 (0.21%) SpecFlow
General
1 39 (8.11%) Social Skills
2 35 (7.28%) Finance
3 29 (6.03%) Public Sector
4 19 (3.95%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (3.74%) Aerospace
6 11 (2.29%) Manufacturing
7 9 (1.87%) Law
7 9 (1.87%) Telecoms
8 7 (1.46%) Automotive
8 7 (1.46%) Billing
8 7 (1.46%) Local Government
9 5 (1.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 5 (1.04%) Legal
10 4 (0.83%) Police
11 3 (0.62%) Publishing
12 2 (0.42%) Banking
12 2 (0.42%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.42%) Retail
13 1 (0.21%) Aviation
13 1 (0.21%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (15.59%) .NET
2 59 (12.27%) REST
3 55 (11.43%) RESTful
4 40 (8.32%) React
5 30 (6.24%) Kafka
6 28 (5.82%) JSON
7 27 (5.61%) AngularJS
8 26 (5.41%) .NET Framework
9 24 (4.99%) Spring
10 21 (4.37%) OAuth
10 21 (4.37%) Spring Boot
11 20 (4.16%) Entity Framework
11 20 (4.16%) SOAP
12 19 (3.95%) .NET Core
13 16 (3.33%) CSS
14 13 (2.70%) ASP.NET
14 13 (2.70%) Swagger
14 13 (2.70%) Web Services
15 12 (2.49%) HTML
15 12 (2.49%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 24 (4.99%) Data Structures
2 22 (4.57%) Distributed Systems
3 19 (3.95%) Algorithms
3 19 (3.95%) Cloud Native
4 18 (3.74%) Product Ownership
5 16 (3.33%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (1.66%) Data Centre
7 7 (1.46%) Mobile App
8 6 (1.25%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (1.04%) Distributed Architecture
10 4 (0.83%) AI Agents
10 4 (0.83%) Onboarding
11 3 (0.62%) FMCG
12 2 (0.42%) CMDB
12 2 (0.42%) Data Protection Act
12 2 (0.42%) Device Driver
12 2 (0.42%) Embedded Systems
12 2 (0.42%) MicroBlaze
12 2 (0.42%) RISC-V
12 2 (0.42%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 22 (4.57%) Linux
2 13 (2.70%) Unix
3 12 (2.49%) Windows
4 9 (1.87%) Android
5 3 (0.62%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.42%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (21.21%) Agile
2 89 (18.50%) CI/CD
3 78 (16.22%) DevOps
4 59 (12.27%) Software Engineering
5 55 (11.43%) Microservices
6 53 (11.02%) Full-Stack Development
7 50 (10.40%) Problem-Solving
7 50 (10.40%) Scrum
8 48 (9.98%) Analytics
9 43 (8.94%) Data Modelling
10 42 (8.73%) ETL
11 38 (7.90%) Performance Tuning
11 38 (7.90%) Unit Testing
12 37 (7.69%) Business Intelligence
13 36 (7.48%) Test Automation
14 29 (6.03%) Containerisation
15 27 (5.61%) TDD
16 26 (5.41%) Workflow
17 24 (4.99%) CRM
18 23 (4.78%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 98 (20.37%) SQL
2 73 (15.18%) Java
3 66 (13.72%) Python
4 58 (12.06%) C#
5 54 (11.23%) JavaScript
6 27 (5.61%) TypeScript
7 23 (4.78%) Go
8 13 (2.70%) PL/SQL
9 11 (2.29%) C
10 9 (1.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 9 (1.87%) Kotlin
10 9 (1.87%) X++
11 8 (1.66%) C++
12 7 (1.46%) PowerShell
13 6 (1.25%) Apex Code
14 4 (0.83%) Bash
14 4 (0.83%) Bicep
15 3 (0.62%) PHP
15 3 (0.62%) Shell Script
15 3 (0.62%) VB
Qualifications
1 217 (45.11%) Security Cleared
2 174 (36.17%) SC Cleared
3 58 (12.06%) DV Cleared
4 10 (2.08%) Degree
5 7 (1.46%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (1.25%) Azure Certification
7 4 (0.83%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.42%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.21%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.21%) AWS Certified Developer
9 1 (0.21%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.21%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (6.24%) QA
2 7 (1.46%) Data Quality
3 4 (0.83%) Accessibility
3 4 (0.83%) GDPR
3 4 (0.83%) WCAG
4 2 (0.42%) COBIT
4 2 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.42%) NIST
5 1 (0.21%) GRC
System Software
1 35 (7.28%) Docker
2 13 (2.70%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
3 2 (0.42%) Firmware
3 2 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 43 (8.94%) Kubernetes
2 18 (3.74%) Terraform
3 10 (2.08%) Argo
4 2 (0.42%) Grafana
4 2 (0.42%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.21%) Ansible
5 1 (0.21%) Podman
5 1 (0.21%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 84 (17.46%) Oracle
2 46 (9.56%) ServiceNow
3 40 (8.32%) Microsoft
4 28 (5.82%) Siebel
5 15 (3.12%) Salesforce
6 9 (1.87%) Red Hat
7 8 (1.66%) Google
7 8 (1.66%) SAP
8 6 (1.25%) IBM
9 5 (1.04%) Atlassian
9 5 (1.04%) Splunk
10 4 (0.83%) ESRI
11 3 (0.62%) Ab Initio
11 3 (0.62%) MuleSoft
11 3 (0.62%) Teradata
12 2 (0.42%) Blue Prism
12 2 (0.42%) CA Agile Central
12 2 (0.42%) Dynatrace
12 2 (0.42%) HP
12 2 (0.42%) Talend