Developer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Developer
England > South East

The median Developer daily rate in the South East is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 June 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 18 12
Rank change year-on-year -6 -6 +1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 401 244 533
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.72% 8.23% 9.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.34% 9.03% 10.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 280 178 396
10th Percentile £335 £343 £325
25th Percentile £413 £403 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -5.94%
75th Percentile £576 £575 £575
90th Percentile £638 £636 £675
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 11 28
10th Percentile £25.00 £32.94 £42.88
25th Percentile £34.01 £35.42 £52.70
Median hourly rate £50.00 £52.50 £60.70
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -13.51% -13.28%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.00 £71.88
90th Percentile £67.50 £77.19 £84.45
England median hourly rate £50.75 £53.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -5.14% -17.69% -

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 5,465 2,701 5,190
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.62% 91.16% 92.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,359 1,812 3,078
10th Percentile £300 £226 £234
25th Percentile £413 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - -
75th Percentile £610 £600 £625
90th Percentile £700 £650 £688
England median daily rate £518 £518 £525
% change year-on-year - -1.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 538 167 519
10th Percentile £15.20 £14.20 £12.87
25th Percentile £24.25 £16.95 £18.34
Median hourly rate £50.24 £33.05 £48.00
Median % change year-on-year +52.02% -31.15% -4.00%
75th Percentile £80.17 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.20 £80.00
England median hourly rate £45.00 £29.80 £37.63
% change year-on-year +51.01% -20.80% -16.39%

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 1 June 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 1 June 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 1 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
Thames Valley -14 170 £525 +4.90% 54
Hampshire -2 106 £500 +5.26% 30
Buckinghamshire +2 83 £525 +10.53% 19
Berkshire -23 83 £475 -9.52% 23
Surrey 0 47 £513 +13.89% 39
West Sussex +4 38 £465 +32.71% 20
Sussex - 15 £475 - 7
East Sussex +3 13 £525 +44.83% 13
Kent +4 8 - - 21
Oxfordshire -27 4 £625 +72.41% 12
Home Counties - 1 - - 1
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 1 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 South East region featuring Developer in the job title.

1 173 (43.14%) Security Cleared
2 148 (36.91%) SC Cleared
3 87 (21.70%) Azure
4 80 (19.95%) Agile
5 79 (19.70%) SQL
6 76 (18.95%) CI/CD
7 74 (18.45%) Java
8 73 (18.20%) .NET
9 69 (17.21%) Oracle
10 61 (15.21%) DevOps
11 57 (14.21%) Python
12 56 (13.97%) C#
13 51 (12.72%) JavaScript
13 51 (12.72%) Software Engineering
14 50 (12.47%) Git
15 46 (11.47%) Microservices
16 43 (10.72%) Full-Stack Development
16 43 (10.72%) REST
17 42 (10.47%) AWS
18 41 (10.22%) React
19 40 (9.98%) RESTful
20 38 (9.48%) Data Modelling
21 37 (9.23%) Scrum
22 35 (8.73%) Problem-Solving
23 34 (8.48%) Kubernetes
24 33 (8.23%) Unit Testing
25 32 (7.98%) Azure DevOps
25 32 (7.98%) Microsoft
25 32 (7.98%) Performance Tuning
26 30 (7.48%) Analytics

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 13 (3.24%) Oracle Application Server
2 8 (2.00%) Confluence
3 6 (1.50%) Apache Spark
3 6 (1.50%) CMS
4 5 (1.25%) Umbraco
5 4 (1.00%) IIS
5 4 (1.00%) Oracle Workflow
5 4 (1.00%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.50%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.50%) SAS
6 2 (0.50%) WordPress
7 1 (0.25%) Apache
7 1 (0.25%) Appian
7 1 (0.25%) BizTalk Server
7 1 (0.25%) JBoss
7 1 (0.25%) Kentico
7 1 (0.25%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.25%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.25%) WebLogic
Applications
1 5 (1.25%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.50%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.50%) Oracle Smart View
3 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (2.49%) Oracle ERP
2 8 (2.00%) Siebel CRM
3 5 (1.25%) Oracle 11i
3 5 (1.25%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.50%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.50%) ProductWriter
4 2 (0.50%) SAP HR
4 2 (0.50%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 87 (21.70%) Azure
2 42 (10.47%) AWS
3 32 (7.98%) Azure DevOps
4 20 (4.99%) Power Platform
5 19 (4.74%) GCP
6 17 (4.24%) Serverless
7 16 (3.99%) GitHub
8 14 (3.49%) OpenShift
9 13 (3.24%) Dynamics 365
10 11 (2.74%) GitHub Actions
11 10 (2.49%) Amazon S3
11 10 (2.49%) OCI
12 9 (2.24%) Azure Functions
13 7 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
13 7 (1.75%) Azure Service Bus
13 7 (1.75%) Power Automate
14 6 (1.50%) Google App Engine
14 6 (1.50%) Oracle CX
14 6 (1.50%) Snowflake
15 5 (1.25%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.75%) BGP
1 7 (1.75%) IPsec
1 7 (1.75%) LAN
1 7 (1.75%) MPLS
1 7 (1.75%) WAN
2 4 (1.00%) HTTPS
3 2 (0.50%) Firewall
3 2 (0.50%) Software-Defined Radio
3 2 (0.50%) Tactical Data Link
3 2 (0.50%) Wireless
4 1 (0.25%) HTTP
4 1 (0.25%) SAN
4 1 (0.25%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (6.98%) Data Warehouse
1 28 (6.98%) Oracle Reports
2 26 (6.48%) PostgreSQL
3 24 (5.99%) SQL Server
4 19 (4.74%) NoSQL
5 18 (4.49%) Oracle ODI
6 15 (3.74%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 14 (3.49%) Relational Database
8 13 (3.24%) Power BI
9 10 (2.49%) MongoDB
10 8 (2.00%) DynamoDB
10 8 (2.00%) Siebel EIM
11 7 (1.75%) Big Data
11 7 (1.75%) Oracle Database
12 6 (1.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 5 (1.25%) Azure SQL Database
13 5 (1.25%) GIS
14 4 (1.00%) MySQL
15 3 (0.75%) DocumentDB
16 2 (0.50%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 50 (12.47%) Git
2 12 (2.99%) Jenkins
3 11 (2.74%) GitLab
3 11 (2.74%) JIRA
4 10 (2.49%) Maven
4 10 (2.49%) Visual Studio
5 8 (2.00%) Gradle
6 7 (1.75%) Bitbucket
6 7 (1.75%) JUnit
6 7 (1.75%) SonarQube
7 6 (1.50%) Subversion
8 4 (1.00%) Eclipse
8 4 (1.00%) NUnit
8 4 (1.00%) Postman
8 4 (1.00%) Selenium
9 3 (0.75%) Android Studio
9 3 (0.75%) CircleCI
10 2 (0.50%) Mockito
10 2 (0.50%) SpecFlow
10 2 (0.50%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 39 (9.73%) Social Skills
2 35 (8.73%) Finance
3 27 (6.73%) Public Sector
4 16 (3.99%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (2.49%) Aerospace
6 9 (2.24%) Telecoms
7 8 (2.00%) Law
7 8 (2.00%) Manufacturing
8 7 (1.75%) Automotive
9 6 (1.50%) Billing
10 5 (1.25%) Legal
11 4 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.50%) Aviation
12 2 (0.50%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.50%) Retail
13 1 (0.25%) Advertising
13 1 (0.25%) Marketing
13 1 (0.25%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (18.20%) .NET
2 43 (10.72%) REST
3 41 (10.22%) React
4 40 (9.98%) RESTful
5 27 (6.73%) Kafka
6 24 (5.99%) Spring
7 23 (5.74%) AngularJS
8 21 (5.24%) CSS
9 20 (4.99%) .NET Framework
9 20 (4.99%) JSON
10 19 (4.74%) SOAP
10 19 (4.74%) Spring Boot
11 15 (3.74%) Entity Framework
11 15 (3.74%) HTML
12 14 (3.49%) .NET Core
13 13 (3.24%) OAuth
14 12 (2.99%) ASP.NET
15 10 (2.49%) Web Services
16 9 (2.24%) Oracle Fusion
17 8 (2.00%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.24%) Distributed Systems
2 16 (3.99%) Data Structures
3 15 (3.74%) Product Ownership
4 14 (3.49%) Algorithms
4 14 (3.49%) Cloud Native
5 10 (2.49%) Enterprise Software
5 10 (2.49%) Mobile App
6 8 (2.00%) Data Centre
7 6 (1.50%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (1.25%) Distributed Architecture
9 4 (1.00%) CMDB
9 4 (1.00%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.75%) Legacy Code
10 3 (0.75%) Onboarding
11 2 (0.50%) AI Agents
11 2 (0.50%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (0.50%) Device Driver
11 2 (0.50%) Management Information System
11 2 (0.50%) MicroBlaze
11 2 (0.50%) RISC-V
Operating Systems
1 15 (3.74%) Android
2 13 (3.24%) Linux
3 9 (2.24%) Windows
4 7 (1.75%) Unix
5 5 (1.25%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.50%) Embedded Linux
7 1 (0.25%) Debian
7 1 (0.25%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 80 (19.95%) Agile
2 76 (18.95%) CI/CD
3 61 (15.21%) DevOps
4 51 (12.72%) Software Engineering
5 46 (11.47%) Microservices
6 43 (10.72%) Full-Stack Development
7 38 (9.48%) Data Modelling
8 37 (9.23%) Scrum
9 35 (8.73%) Problem-Solving
10 33 (8.23%) Unit Testing
11 32 (7.98%) Performance Tuning
12 30 (7.48%) Analytics
12 30 (7.48%) Business Intelligence
13 29 (7.23%) ETL
13 29 (7.23%) Test Automation
14 27 (6.73%) Containerisation
15 26 (6.48%) Workflow
16 25 (6.23%) Front End Development
17 21 (5.24%) Migration
17 21 (5.24%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 79 (19.70%) SQL
2 74 (18.45%) Java
3 57 (14.21%) Python
4 56 (13.97%) C#
5 51 (12.72%) JavaScript
6 21 (5.24%) Go
6 21 (5.24%) TypeScript
7 11 (2.74%) Kotlin
8 10 (2.49%) C++
9 9 (2.24%) PL/SQL
10 7 (1.75%) C
11 5 (1.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 5 (1.25%) PHP
11 5 (1.25%) X++
12 4 (1.00%) PowerShell
13 3 (0.75%) Apex Code
13 3 (0.75%) Bash
13 3 (0.75%) Swift
14 2 (0.50%) Objective-C
14 2 (0.50%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 173 (43.14%) Security Cleared
2 148 (36.91%) SC Cleared
3 27 (6.73%) DV Cleared
4 9 (2.24%) Degree
5 7 (1.75%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (0.50%) Azure Certification
6 2 (0.50%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.25%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.25%) AWS Certified Developer
7 1 (0.25%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.24%) QA
2 6 (1.50%) Accessibility
3 5 (1.25%) WCAG
4 3 (0.75%) Data Quality
4 3 (0.75%) GDPR
5 2 (0.50%) COBIT
5 2 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.50%) NIST
6 1 (0.25%) GRC
System Software
1 28 (6.98%) Docker
2 5 (1.25%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.50%) Embedded Firmware
3 2 (0.50%) Firmware
3 2 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 34 (8.48%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.49%) Terraform
3 7 (1.75%) Argo
4 3 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.50%) Grafana
5 2 (0.50%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.50%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 1 (0.25%) Ansible
6 1 (0.25%) Podman
Vendors
1 69 (17.21%) Oracle
2 32 (7.98%) Microsoft
3 25 (6.23%) ServiceNow
4 17 (4.24%) Siebel
5 8 (2.00%) Salesforce
6 7 (1.75%) Red Hat
7 6 (1.50%) Atlassian
8 5 (1.25%) Blue Prism
8 5 (1.25%) ESRI
8 5 (1.25%) Splunk
9 4 (1.00%) Ab Initio
9 4 (1.00%) Databricks
9 4 (1.00%) SAP
9 4 (1.00%) Teradata
10 3 (0.75%) Google
10 3 (0.75%) Informatica
11 2 (0.50%) Adobe
11 2 (0.50%) Cognos
11 2 (0.50%) HP
11 2 (0.50%) Talend