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 24 March 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 22 14
Rank change year-on-year -9 -8 -4
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 324 251 484
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 5.99% 8.53% 8.60%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.57% 9.18% 9.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 230 174 361
10th Percentile £327 £350 £365
25th Percentile £413 £406 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year +8.11% -2.63% -9.52%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £575
90th Percentile £638 £638 £675
England median daily rate £500 £533 £525
% change year-on-year -6.15% +1.48% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 4 24
10th Percentile £34.01 £25.93 £38.38
25th Percentile £37.01 £33.56 £46.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £46.55 £58.45
Median % change year-on-year +18.17% -20.37% -14.98%
75th Percentile £60.00 £59.61 £71.88
90th Percentile £67.50 £70.16 £83.12
England median hourly rate £61.00 £61.00 £62.00
% change year-on-year - -1.61% +3.33%

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 4,933 2,733 5,211
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.23% 92.90% 92.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,119 1,803 3,157
10th Percentile £285 £246 £213
25th Percentile £413 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £509 £503 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.29% +0.50% -
75th Percentile £610 £613 £610
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 442 142 438
10th Percentile £15.25 £16.95 £12.85
25th Percentile £19.09 £23.50 £18.23
Median hourly rate £40.00 £42.50 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% -3.41% -2.22%
75th Percentile £81.75 £63.56 £62.47
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £75.16
England median hourly rate £39.75 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +13.57% +7.69% -23.53%

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 24 March 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 24 March 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 24 March 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 -22 137 £513 -6.39% 89
Hampshire -3 97 £500 +15.94% 65
Berkshire -37 76 £513 -6.82% 46
Buckinghamshire +7 58 £515 -5.50% 21
Surrey +6 33 £505 +12.22% 42
West Sussex -6 28 £475 +12.35% 9
East Sussex +2 12 £500 -9.09% 13
Kent -2 10 £575 +53.33% 32
Sussex +4 9 £475 - 4
Oxfordshire -14 3 £288 -13.13% 22
Middlesex - 2 £552 - 4
Home Counties -2 1 - -
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 24 March 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.

1 114 (35.19%) Security Cleared
2 103 (31.79%) Java
3 95 (29.32%) SC Cleared
4 87 (26.85%) CI/CD
5 77 (23.77%) SQL
6 71 (21.91%) Agile
7 65 (20.06%) Azure
8 59 (18.21%) AWS
9 52 (16.05%) Microservices
9 52 (16.05%) Problem-Solving
10 50 (15.43%) DevOps
11 47 (14.51%) Full-Stack Development
11 47 (14.51%) JavaScript
11 47 (14.51%) Spring
12 46 (14.20%) Python
13 45 (13.89%) Git
13 45 (13.89%) REST
14 44 (13.58%) .NET
14 44 (13.58%) Oracle
14 44 (13.58%) PostgreSQL
15 43 (13.27%) Business Intelligence
16 42 (12.96%) Kubernetes
17 41 (12.65%) React
17 41 (12.65%) Software Engineering
18 39 (12.04%) Spring Boot
18 39 (12.04%) Test Automation
19 36 (11.11%) GitHub
20 35 (10.80%) C#
20 35 (10.80%) Jenkins
21 33 (10.19%) Scrum

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 8 (2.47%) Confluence
2 7 (2.16%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.54%) Apache Spark
4 4 (1.23%) Apache
4 4 (1.23%) IIS
5 3 (0.93%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.62%) CMS
7 1 (0.31%) Appian
7 1 (0.31%) BizTalk Server
7 1 (0.31%) JBoss
7 1 (0.31%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.31%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.31%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.31%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.31%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.31%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.31%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (0.93%) CPLEX
1 3 (0.93%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.62%) Oracle Smart View
3 1 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 8 (2.47%) Oracle ERP
2 4 (1.23%) Oracle 11i
2 4 (1.23%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (0.93%) Oracle Assets
3 3 (0.93%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.93%) Oracle General Ledger
3 3 (0.93%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.93%) Oracle Receivables
3 3 (0.93%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 3 (0.93%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.62%) Maximo
4 2 (0.62%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.31%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.31%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 65 (20.06%) Azure
2 59 (18.21%) AWS
3 36 (11.11%) GitHub
4 24 (7.41%) GCP
5 20 (6.17%) Azure DevOps
5 20 (6.17%) GitHub Actions
6 19 (5.86%) OpenShift
7 17 (5.25%) Power Platform
8 13 (4.01%) Serverless
9 12 (3.70%) Amazon S3
10 11 (3.40%) OCI
11 8 (2.47%) AWS Lambda
11 8 (2.47%) Datadog
11 8 (2.47%) Dynamics 365
12 7 (2.16%) Azure Service Bus
13 6 (1.85%) Azure Functions
13 6 (1.85%) Azure Key Vault
13 6 (1.85%) Boomi
13 6 (1.85%) Snowflake
14 5 (1.54%) AtomSphere
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.54%) Kerberos
2 2 (0.62%) Bluetooth
2 2 (0.62%) HTTP
2 2 (0.62%) HTTPS
2 2 (0.62%) Tactical Data Link
3 1 (0.31%) Asterisk PBX
3 1 (0.31%) SAN
3 1 (0.31%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.31%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (13.58%) PostgreSQL
2 24 (7.41%) NoSQL
2 24 (7.41%) Oracle BI Publisher
2 24 (7.41%) Oracle Reports
3 22 (6.79%) Relational Database
4 17 (5.25%) MongoDB
5 16 (4.94%) SQL Server
6 11 (3.40%) MySQL
6 11 (3.40%) Power BI
7 9 (2.78%) DynamoDB
8 8 (2.47%) HBase
9 7 (2.16%) Azure SQL Database
10 6 (1.85%) Oracle Database
11 5 (1.54%) Data Warehouse
12 4 (1.23%) Big Data
12 4 (1.23%) Couchbase
12 4 (1.23%) Oracle ODI
12 4 (1.23%) RDBMS
12 4 (1.23%) SAP HANA
12 4 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 45 (13.89%) Git
2 35 (10.80%) Jenkins
3 26 (8.02%) JUnit
4 23 (7.10%) Gradle
5 21 (6.48%) Cucumber
6 14 (4.32%) Sonatype Nexus
7 13 (4.01%) Maven
8 10 (3.09%) GitLab
8 10 (3.09%) Visual Studio
9 9 (2.78%) JIRA
9 9 (2.78%) JMeter
10 8 (2.47%) Android Studio
10 8 (2.47%) Artifactory
10 8 (2.47%) Bitbucket
11 7 (2.16%) Subversion
12 5 (1.54%) Selenium
12 5 (1.54%) SonarQube
13 4 (1.23%) Eclipse
13 4 (1.23%) Storybook
14 3 (0.93%) Postman
General
1 61 (18.83%) Social Skills
2 43 (13.27%) Finance
3 29 (8.95%) Public Sector
4 24 (7.41%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (1.85%) Telecoms
6 4 (1.23%) Electronics
6 4 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 4 (1.23%) Manufacturing
6 4 (1.23%) Marketing
7 3 (0.93%) Aviation
7 3 (0.93%) Banking
8 2 (0.62%) Aerospace
8 2 (0.62%) Automotive
8 2 (0.62%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (0.62%) General Ledger
8 2 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (0.31%) Billing
9 1 (0.31%) Health Technology
9 1 (0.31%) Legal
9 1 (0.31%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (14.51%) Spring
2 45 (13.89%) REST
3 44 (13.58%) .NET
4 41 (12.65%) React
5 39 (12.04%) Spring Boot
6 32 (9.88%) Kafka
7 31 (9.57%) RESTful
8 21 (6.48%) CSS
8 21 (6.48%) Oracle Fusion
8 21 (6.48%) SOAP
9 18 (5.56%) AngularJS
10 16 (4.94%) HTML
10 16 (4.94%) JSON
11 13 (4.01%) Node.js
11 13 (4.01%) RabbitMQ
11 13 (4.01%) Web Services
12 12 (3.70%) Hibernate
13 11 (3.40%) OAuth
14 10 (3.09%) .NET Framework
15 9 (2.78%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 17 (5.25%) Data Structures
2 14 (4.32%) Distributed Systems
3 10 (3.09%) Mobile App
4 8 (2.47%) Data Centre
4 8 (2.47%) Product Ownership
5 6 (1.85%) Algorithms
5 6 (1.85%) Cloud Native
6 5 (1.54%) Client/Server
7 4 (1.23%) Distributed Architecture
8 3 (0.93%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (0.93%) CMDB
8 3 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
8 3 (0.93%) Legacy Code
8 3 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (0.93%) Onboarding
8 3 (0.93%) Virtual Team
9 2 (0.62%) Management Information System
10 1 (0.31%) Data Protection Act
10 1 (0.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 1 (0.31%) N-Tier
Operating Systems
1 22 (6.79%) Android
2 18 (5.56%) Linux
3 10 (3.09%) Windows
4 8 (2.47%) Apple iOS
5 5 (1.54%) Unix
6 1 (0.31%) CentOS
6 1 (0.31%) Debian
6 1 (0.31%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 87 (26.85%) CI/CD
2 71 (21.91%) Agile
3 52 (16.05%) Microservices
3 52 (16.05%) Problem-Solving
4 50 (15.43%) DevOps
5 47 (14.51%) Full-Stack Development
6 43 (13.27%) Business Intelligence
7 41 (12.65%) Software Engineering
8 39 (12.04%) Test Automation
9 33 (10.19%) Scrum
10 29 (8.95%) Data Modelling
10 29 (8.95%) Unit Testing
11 27 (8.33%) Containerisation
12 24 (7.41%) Performance Tuning
13 23 (7.10%) Front End Development
14 20 (6.17%) TDD
15 19 (5.86%) Analytics
15 19 (5.86%) Android Development
15 19 (5.86%) User Experience
16 18 (5.56%) AI
Programming Languages
1 103 (31.79%) Java
2 77 (23.77%) SQL
3 47 (14.51%) JavaScript
4 46 (14.20%) Python
5 35 (10.80%) C#
6 18 (5.56%) Go
7 16 (4.94%) TypeScript
8 12 (3.70%) C++
8 12 (3.70%) PL/SQL
9 11 (3.40%) Kotlin
10 6 (1.85%) C
11 5 (1.54%) ABAP
12 4 (1.23%) PHP
12 4 (1.23%) PowerShell
12 4 (1.23%) Swift
12 4 (1.23%) T-SQL
13 3 (0.93%) Shell Script
14 2 (0.62%) Groovy
14 2 (0.62%) Objective-C
14 2 (0.62%) Perl
Qualifications
1 114 (35.19%) Security Cleared
2 95 (29.32%) SC Cleared
3 12 (3.70%) Degree
4 11 (3.40%) Computer Science Degree
4 11 (3.40%) DV Cleared
5 10 (3.09%) OCP
5 10 (3.09%) Oracle Certification
6 4 (1.23%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (0.62%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.31%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.31%) AWS Certified Developer
8 1 (0.31%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (4.01%) QA
2 7 (2.16%) Accessibility
3 4 (1.23%) GDPR
4 3 (0.93%) Data Quality
4 3 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (0.93%) NIST
4 3 (0.93%) SLA
4 3 (0.93%) WCAG
5 2 (0.62%) COBIT
6 1 (0.31%) Def Stans
System Software
1 26 (8.02%) Docker
2 5 (1.54%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.93%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 42 (12.96%) Kubernetes
2 10 (3.09%) Terraform
3 9 (2.78%) Ansible
3 9 (2.78%) Grafana
4 6 (1.85%) Argo
4 6 (1.85%) Progress Chef
5 3 (0.93%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.93%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 1 (0.31%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
Vendors
1 44 (13.58%) Oracle
2 28 (8.64%) Microsoft
3 16 (4.94%) ServiceNow
4 10 (3.09%) Atlassian
5 9 (2.78%) Salesforce
6 8 (2.47%) SAP
6 8 (2.47%) VMware
7 6 (1.85%) Red Hat
8 5 (1.54%) Blue Prism
8 5 (1.54%) Databricks
9 4 (1.23%) Google
9 4 (1.23%) Splunk
10 3 (0.93%) Coverity
10 3 (0.93%) Informatica
10 3 (0.93%) Teradata
10 3 (0.93%) Thales
11 2 (0.62%) Ab Initio
11 2 (0.62%) Dynatrace
11 2 (0.62%) IFS
11 2 (0.62%) OpenAI