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 22 May 2026.

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

6 months to
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 22 12
Rank change year-on-year 0 -10 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 402 230 515
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.75% 7.85% 9.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.35% 8.60% 10.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 280 173 393
10th Percentile £335 £322 £325
25th Percentile £413 £401 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £465 £490
Median % change year-on-year +7.53% -5.10% -6.00%
75th Percentile £576 £575 £575
90th Percentile £638 £634 £675
England median daily rate £510 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.86% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 6 27
10th Percentile £25.00 £29.32 £41.75
25th Percentile £34.01 £40.85 £50.55
Median hourly rate £45.00 £51.25 £58.91
Median % change year-on-year -12.20% -13.00% -15.85%
75th Percentile £60.00 £54.69 £70.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £66.10 £81.78
England median hourly rate £50.75 £53.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -5.14% -17.69% +1.56%

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 5,470 2,675 5,045
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.84% 91.27% 92.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,394 1,791 3,031
10th Percentile £300 £220 £215
25th Percentile £413 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% - -
75th Percentile £613 £600 £619
90th Percentile £700 £660 £688
England median daily rate £514 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -1.15% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 518 159 488
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.20 £12.81
25th Percentile £24.30 £19.24 £18.20
Median hourly rate £52.43 £32.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.31% -31.58% -2.46%
75th Percentile £81.05 £63.38 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.14
England median hourly rate £45.00 £30.00 £36.65
% change year-on-year +50.00% -18.14% -18.13%

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 22 May 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 22 May 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 22 May 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 -12 171 £515 +3.00% 66
Hampshire +1 109 £500 +6.38% 26
Buckinghamshire +1 85 £525 +10.53% 24
Berkshire -16 84 £475 -5.09% 26
Surrey +7 50 £513 +7.89% 36
West Sussex +1 33 £473 +35.00% 18
East Sussex +5 13 £525 +44.83% 16
Sussex - 13 £475 - 6
Kent -1 8 - - 24
Oxfordshire -23 2 £463 +48.08% 16
Middlesex - 1 £509 - 4
Home Counties - 1 - - 1
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 22 May 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.

1 171 (42.54%) Security Cleared
2 150 (37.31%) SC Cleared
3 84 (20.90%) Azure
4 78 (19.40%) CI/CD
5 75 (18.66%) Agile
5 75 (18.66%) Java
5 75 (18.66%) SQL
6 71 (17.66%) Oracle
7 70 (17.41%) .NET
8 59 (14.68%) DevOps
8 59 (14.68%) Python
9 54 (13.43%) C#
9 54 (13.43%) Software Engineering
10 51 (12.69%) Git
11 50 (12.44%) JavaScript
12 45 (11.19%) Full-Stack Development
13 44 (10.95%) Microservices
14 43 (10.70%) REST
15 41 (10.20%) AWS
16 40 (9.95%) React
17 38 (9.45%) Data Modelling
18 37 (9.20%) Problem-Solving
19 36 (8.96%) RESTful
19 36 (8.96%) Scrum
20 34 (8.46%) Kubernetes
20 34 (8.46%) Unit Testing
21 33 (8.21%) Microsoft
22 32 (7.96%) Azure DevOps
22 32 (7.96%) Performance Tuning
23 31 (7.71%) Business Intelligence

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 (3.23%) Oracle Application Server
2 7 (1.74%) Confluence
3 6 (1.49%) Apache Spark
3 6 (1.49%) CMS
3 6 (1.49%) SharePoint
4 4 (1.00%) IIS
4 4 (1.00%) Oracle Workflow
4 4 (1.00%) Umbraco
5 2 (0.50%) ArcGIS
5 2 (0.50%) WordPress
6 1 (0.25%) Apache
6 1 (0.25%) Appian
6 1 (0.25%) BizTalk Server
6 1 (0.25%) JBoss
6 1 (0.25%) Kentico
6 1 (0.25%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.25%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.25%) WebLogic
Applications
1 5 (1.24%) CPLEX
2 3 (0.75%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.50%) Oracle Smart View
4 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (2.49%) Oracle ERP
2 8 (1.99%) Siebel CRM
3 5 (1.24%) Oracle 11i
3 5 (1.24%) 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 84 (20.90%) Azure
2 41 (10.20%) AWS
3 32 (7.96%) Azure DevOps
4 21 (5.22%) Power Platform
5 20 (4.98%) GCP
6 15 (3.73%) GitHub
6 15 (3.73%) Serverless
7 14 (3.48%) OCI
7 14 (3.48%) OpenShift
8 12 (2.99%) Dynamics 365
9 9 (2.24%) Amazon S3
9 9 (2.24%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (1.99%) Azure Functions
11 7 (1.74%) Azure Service Bus
11 7 (1.74%) Power Automate
12 6 (1.49%) AWS Lambda
12 6 (1.49%) Google App Engine
12 6 (1.49%) Oracle CX
12 6 (1.49%) PowerApps
12 6 (1.49%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.00%) BGP
1 4 (1.00%) IPsec
1 4 (1.00%) LAN
1 4 (1.00%) MPLS
1 4 (1.00%) WAN
2 3 (0.75%) 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 29 (7.21%) Oracle Reports
2 28 (6.97%) Data Warehouse
3 27 (6.72%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (5.72%) SQL Server
5 18 (4.48%) NoSQL
5 18 (4.48%) Oracle ODI
6 16 (3.98%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 14 (3.48%) Relational Database
8 13 (3.23%) Power BI
9 10 (2.49%) MongoDB
10 8 (1.99%) Siebel EIM
11 7 (1.74%) Big Data
11 7 (1.74%) DynamoDB
11 7 (1.74%) Oracle Database
12 5 (1.24%) Azure SQL Database
12 5 (1.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (1.00%) GIS
13 4 (1.00%) MySQL
14 3 (0.75%) DocumentDB
15 2 (0.50%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 51 (12.69%) Git
2 13 (3.23%) Jenkins
3 10 (2.49%) Maven
3 10 (2.49%) Visual Studio
4 9 (2.24%) Gradle
4 9 (2.24%) JIRA
5 8 (1.99%) Bitbucket
5 8 (1.99%) GitLab
5 8 (1.99%) JUnit
6 7 (1.74%) SonarQube
6 7 (1.74%) Subversion
7 4 (1.00%) Android Studio
7 4 (1.00%) Eclipse
7 4 (1.00%) NUnit
7 4 (1.00%) Postman
7 4 (1.00%) Selenium
8 3 (0.75%) CircleCI
9 2 (0.50%) Mockito
9 2 (0.50%) SpecFlow
9 2 (0.50%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 41 (10.20%) Social Skills
2 38 (9.45%) Finance
3 27 (6.72%) Public Sector
4 16 (3.98%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (2.49%) Aerospace
6 8 (1.99%) Telecoms
7 7 (1.74%) Automotive
7 7 (1.74%) Manufacturing
8 6 (1.49%) Law
9 5 (1.24%) Billing
9 5 (1.24%) Legal
10 3 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.50%) Aviation
11 2 (0.50%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.25%) Advertising
12 1 (0.25%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.25%) Electronics
12 1 (0.25%) Marketing
12 1 (0.25%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.25%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (17.41%) .NET
2 43 (10.70%) REST
3 40 (9.95%) React
4 36 (8.96%) RESTful
5 27 (6.72%) Kafka
6 24 (5.97%) Spring
7 22 (5.47%) AngularJS
8 20 (4.98%) CSS
8 20 (4.98%) SOAP
9 19 (4.73%) Spring Boot
10 18 (4.48%) .NET Framework
10 18 (4.48%) JSON
11 14 (3.48%) Entity Framework
11 14 (3.48%) HTML
12 12 (2.99%) .NET Core
12 12 (2.99%) OAuth
13 11 (2.74%) ASP.NET
14 9 (2.24%) Oracle Fusion
14 9 (2.24%) Web Services
14 9 (2.24%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.23%) Data Structures
1 17 (4.23%) Distributed Systems
2 14 (3.48%) Algorithms
3 12 (2.99%) Cloud Native
3 12 (2.99%) Mobile App
3 12 (2.99%) Product Ownership
4 10 (2.49%) Enterprise Software
5 8 (1.99%) Data Centre
6 6 (1.49%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.24%) Distributed Architecture
8 4 (1.00%) CMDB
8 4 (1.00%) Virtual Team
9 3 (0.75%) AI Agents
9 3 (0.75%) Legacy Code
9 3 (0.75%) Onboarding
10 2 (0.50%) Device Driver
10 2 (0.50%) Embedded Systems
10 2 (0.50%) Management Information System
10 2 (0.50%) MicroBlaze
10 2 (0.50%) RISC-V
Operating Systems
1 18 (4.48%) Android
2 13 (3.23%) Linux
3 9 (2.24%) Windows
4 6 (1.49%) Apple iOS
5 5 (1.24%) Unix
6 2 (0.50%) Embedded Linux
7 1 (0.25%) Debian
7 1 (0.25%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 78 (19.40%) CI/CD
2 75 (18.66%) Agile
3 59 (14.68%) DevOps
4 54 (13.43%) Software Engineering
5 45 (11.19%) Full-Stack Development
6 44 (10.95%) Microservices
7 38 (9.45%) Data Modelling
8 37 (9.20%) Problem-Solving
9 36 (8.96%) Scrum
10 34 (8.46%) Unit Testing
11 32 (7.96%) Performance Tuning
12 31 (7.71%) Business Intelligence
13 30 (7.46%) Analytics
14 29 (7.21%) ETL
15 28 (6.97%) Test Automation
16 27 (6.72%) Containerisation
16 27 (6.72%) Workflow
17 25 (6.22%) Front End Development
18 21 (5.22%) Migration
18 21 (5.22%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 75 (18.66%) Java
1 75 (18.66%) SQL
2 59 (14.68%) Python
3 54 (13.43%) C#
4 50 (12.44%) JavaScript
5 21 (5.22%) Go
6 20 (4.98%) TypeScript
7 12 (2.99%) Kotlin
8 10 (2.49%) C++
9 8 (1.99%) PL/SQL
10 7 (1.74%) C
11 5 (1.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 5 (1.24%) PHP
12 4 (1.00%) PowerShell
12 4 (1.00%) Swift
12 4 (1.00%) X++
13 3 (0.75%) Apex Code
13 3 (0.75%) Bash
14 2 (0.50%) Shell Script
14 2 (0.50%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 171 (42.54%) Security Cleared
2 150 (37.31%) SC Cleared
3 23 (5.72%) DV Cleared
4 9 (2.24%) Degree
5 8 (1.99%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.00%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (0.50%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.25%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.25%) AWS Certified Developer
8 1 (0.25%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.25%) OCP
8 1 (0.25%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (4.73%) QA
2 6 (1.49%) Accessibility
3 4 (1.00%) WCAG
4 3 (0.75%) GDPR
5 2 (0.50%) COBIT
5 2 (0.50%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.50%) NIST
6 1 (0.25%) GRC
System Software
1 28 (6.97%) Docker
2 5 (1.24%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.50%) Embedded Firmware
3 2 (0.50%) Firmware
3 2 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 34 (8.46%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.49%) Terraform
3 7 (1.74%) Argo
4 3 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (0.75%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 1 (0.25%) Ansible
5 1 (0.25%) Grafana
5 1 (0.25%) Podman
5 1 (0.25%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 71 (17.66%) Oracle
2 33 (8.21%) Microsoft
3 26 (6.47%) ServiceNow
4 16 (3.98%) Siebel
5 8 (1.99%) Salesforce
6 7 (1.74%) Atlassian
6 7 (1.74%) Red Hat
7 5 (1.24%) Blue Prism
7 5 (1.24%) Splunk
8 4 (1.00%) Ab Initio
8 4 (1.00%) Databricks
8 4 (1.00%) ESRI
8 4 (1.00%) Google
8 4 (1.00%) SAP
8 4 (1.00%) Teradata
9 3 (0.75%) Coverity
9 3 (0.75%) Thales
10 2 (0.50%) Dynatrace
10 2 (0.50%) IFS
10 2 (0.50%) Virgin Media