Developer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Developer
England > South East

The median Developer daily rate in the South East is £473, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 30 January 2026.

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

6 months to
30 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -9 -3 -9
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 273 279 415
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 5.96% 8.66% 7.73%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.63% 9.32% 8.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 191 183 301
10th Percentile £313 £353 £350
25th Percentile £389 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year -0.42% -3.06% -9.47%
75th Percentile £550 £603 £575
90th Percentile £638 £638 £688
England median daily rate £500 £545 £525
% change year-on-year -8.17% +3.71% -9.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 1 22
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £52.50 - £46.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £77.19 £58.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.75% +33.09% -13.91%
75th Percentile £57.50 - £70.00
90th Percentile £59.25 - £84.01
England median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £63.75
% change year-on-year -15.38% +1.96% +2.00%

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 4,118 2,995 5,028
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.97% 92.93% 93.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,666 1,854 3,158
10th Percentile £255 £233 £205
25th Percentile £400 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £600 £613 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 356 105 373
10th Percentile £13.88 £18.58 £13.00
25th Percentile £16.93 £24.18 £19.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -40.82% -10.53% +7.34%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £62.54
90th Percentile £83.25 £69.75 £76.01
England median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year -14.29% -4.11% +4.29%

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 30 January 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 30 January 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 30 January 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 -24 105 £438 -20.45% 118
Hampshire +6 81 £463 +9.00% 65
Berkshire -32 65 £435 -20.91% 71
Surrey +17 45 £505 +1.51% 60
Buckinghamshire +10 36 £450 -17.81% 27
West Sussex -12 15 £475 +12.35% 50
East Sussex +1 14 £375 -31.82% 45
Kent -5 8 £338 -15.63% 35
Sussex -1 5 £475 - 17
Oxfordshire -16 4 £400 +28.00% 20
Middlesex - 2 £552 - 11
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 30 January 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 87 (31.87%) Agile
2 86 (31.50%) Java
3 74 (27.11%) SQL
4 69 (25.27%) CI/CD
5 66 (24.18%) Security Cleared
6 56 (20.51%) Problem-Solving
7 52 (19.05%) AWS
7 52 (19.05%) SC Cleared
8 45 (16.48%) Azure
8 45 (16.48%) Software Engineering
9 43 (15.75%) REST
10 42 (15.38%) Full-Stack Development
11 40 (14.65%) JavaScript
12 39 (14.29%) GitHub
12 39 (14.29%) Spring
13 36 (13.19%) DevOps
14 35 (12.82%) Kubernetes
14 35 (12.82%) PostgreSQL
14 35 (12.82%) React
14 35 (12.82%) Scrum
15 34 (12.45%) Test Automation
16 33 (12.09%) Microservices
16 33 (12.09%) Python
17 32 (11.72%) .NET
17 32 (11.72%) Jenkins
18 31 (11.36%) C#
19 30 (10.99%) TDD
20 29 (10.62%) Spring Boot
21 28 (10.26%) Business Intelligence
21 28 (10.26%) Microsoft

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 11 (4.03%) Confluence
2 8 (2.93%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.47%) Apache Spark
4 3 (1.10%) Apache
4 3 (1.10%) ArcGIS
4 3 (1.10%) CMS
5 2 (0.73%) IIS
5 2 (0.73%) nginx
5 2 (0.73%) SharePoint Server
6 1 (0.37%) Appian
6 1 (0.37%) Camunda
6 1 (0.37%) Gunicorn
6 1 (0.37%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.37%) JBoss
6 1 (0.37%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.37%) Smallworld
6 1 (0.37%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.37%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.37%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (1.10%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (1.10%) Oracle Assets
1 3 (1.10%) Oracle General Ledger
1 3 (1.10%) Oracle Payables
1 3 (1.10%) Oracle Receivables
1 3 (1.10%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
1 3 (1.10%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.73%) Maximo
2 2 (0.73%) Oracle Cash Management
2 2 (0.73%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.37%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.37%) SAP PSCD
3 1 (0.37%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 52 (19.05%) AWS
2 45 (16.48%) Azure
3 39 (14.29%) GitHub
4 22 (8.06%) GitHub Actions
5 19 (6.96%) GCP
5 19 (6.96%) Power Platform
6 18 (6.59%) OpenShift
7 10 (3.66%) Amazon S3
7 10 (3.66%) Azure DevOps
7 10 (3.66%) Serverless
8 9 (3.30%) OCI
9 8 (2.93%) AWS Lambda
9 8 (2.93%) Datadog
9 8 (2.93%) Dynamics 365
10 6 (2.20%) Azure Service Bus
10 6 (2.20%) Boomi
11 5 (1.83%) AtomSphere
11 5 (1.83%) AWS CloudFormation
11 5 (1.83%) Snowflake
12 4 (1.47%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.83%) Kerberos
2 2 (0.73%) Bluetooth
2 2 (0.73%) Tactical Data Link
2 2 (0.73%) VoIP
3 1 (0.37%) Asterisk PBX
3 1 (0.37%) HTTP
3 1 (0.37%) Network Security
3 1 (0.37%) SAN
3 1 (0.37%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (12.82%) PostgreSQL
2 19 (6.96%) NoSQL
3 16 (5.86%) Relational Database
4 14 (5.13%) SQL Server
5 11 (4.03%) MongoDB
6 10 (3.66%) MySQL
6 10 (3.66%) Oracle BI Publisher
6 10 (3.66%) Oracle Reports
6 10 (3.66%) Power BI
7 8 (2.93%) HBase
8 7 (2.56%) DynamoDB
9 6 (2.20%) Data Warehouse
10 5 (1.83%) Apache Cassandra
10 5 (1.83%) Couchbase
10 5 (1.83%) Oracle Database
11 4 (1.47%) Azure SQL Database
11 4 (1.47%) Big Data
11 4 (1.47%) SAP HANA
11 4 (1.47%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 3 (1.10%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 32 (11.72%) Jenkins
2 27 (9.89%) Git
3 25 (9.16%) JUnit
4 22 (8.06%) Cucumber
4 22 (8.06%) Gradle
5 15 (5.49%) Sonatype Nexus
6 10 (3.66%) GitLab
7 9 (3.30%) JIRA
7 9 (3.30%) JMeter
8 8 (2.93%) Artifactory
8 8 (2.93%) Maven
9 7 (2.56%) Android Studio
9 7 (2.56%) Bitbucket
10 5 (1.83%) Visual Studio
11 4 (1.47%) Selenium
11 4 (1.47%) SonarQube
11 4 (1.47%) Storybook
11 4 (1.47%) Subversion
12 3 (1.10%) CircleCI
13 2 (0.73%) Gatling
General
1 64 (23.44%) Social Skills
2 44 (16.12%) Finance
3 30 (10.99%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (7.69%) Public Sector
5 6 (2.20%) Telecoms
6 5 (1.83%) Manufacturing
7 4 (1.47%) Banking
7 4 (1.47%) Electronics
7 4 (1.47%) Marketing
8 3 (1.10%) Aerospace
8 3 (1.10%) Aviation
8 3 (1.10%) Billing
8 3 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (0.73%) General Ledger
9 2 (0.73%) Legal
10 1 (0.37%) Digital Healthcare
10 1 (0.37%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.37%) Military
10 1 (0.37%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (15.75%) REST
2 39 (14.29%) Spring
3 35 (12.82%) React
4 32 (11.72%) .NET
5 29 (10.62%) Spring Boot
6 24 (8.79%) AngularJS
6 24 (8.79%) RESTful
7 23 (8.42%) CSS
7 23 (8.42%) HTML
7 23 (8.42%) Kafka
8 21 (7.69%) SOAP
9 14 (5.13%) Node.js
10 12 (4.40%) Oracle Fusion
11 11 (4.03%) RabbitMQ
11 11 (4.03%) Web Services
12 9 (3.30%) Hibernate
13 7 (2.56%) .NET Framework
13 7 (2.56%) JSON
14 6 (2.20%) .NET Core
14 6 (2.20%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 11 (4.03%) Mobile App
2 6 (2.20%) Data Structures
3 5 (1.83%) Client/Server
4 4 (1.47%) Analytical Mindset
4 4 (1.47%) Distributed Systems
4 4 (1.47%) Product Ownership
5 3 (1.10%) Cloud Native
5 3 (1.10%) Legacy Code
5 3 (1.10%) Onboarding
5 3 (1.10%) Virtual Team
6 2 (0.73%) CMDB
6 2 (0.73%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (0.73%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.37%) Algorithms
7 1 (0.37%) EMV
7 1 (0.37%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.37%) FMCG
7 1 (0.37%) Java Card
7 1 (0.37%) N-Tier
Operating Systems
1 23 (8.42%) Android
2 15 (5.49%) Linux
3 11 (4.03%) Apple iOS
4 8 (2.93%) Windows
5 6 (2.20%) Unix
6 1 (0.37%) CentOS
6 1 (0.37%) Debian
6 1 (0.37%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 87 (31.87%) Agile
2 69 (25.27%) CI/CD
3 56 (20.51%) Problem-Solving
4 45 (16.48%) Software Engineering
5 42 (15.38%) Full-Stack Development
6 36 (13.19%) DevOps
7 35 (12.82%) Scrum
8 34 (12.45%) Test Automation
9 33 (12.09%) Microservices
10 30 (10.99%) TDD
11 28 (10.26%) Business Intelligence
12 26 (9.52%) Data Modelling
13 25 (9.16%) Workflow
14 24 (8.79%) Data Integration
15 23 (8.42%) Computer Science
16 22 (8.06%) Front End Development
17 19 (6.96%) Acceptance Criteria
17 19 (6.96%) Android Development
17 19 (6.96%) Containerisation
17 19 (6.96%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 86 (31.50%) Java
2 74 (27.11%) SQL
3 40 (14.65%) JavaScript
4 33 (12.09%) Python
5 31 (11.36%) C#
6 18 (6.59%) VB
7 10 (3.66%) TypeScript
8 8 (2.93%) C++
9 7 (2.56%) Go
9 7 (2.56%) PL/SQL
9 7 (2.56%) Shell Script
10 6 (2.20%) Kotlin
10 6 (2.20%) Swift
11 5 (1.83%) ABAP
11 5 (1.83%) Apex Code
11 5 (1.83%) PowerShell
12 4 (1.47%) C
12 4 (1.47%) Objective-C
13 3 (1.10%) PHP
13 3 (1.10%) X++
Qualifications
1 66 (24.18%) Security Cleared
2 52 (19.05%) SC Cleared
3 24 (8.79%) Degree
4 20 (7.33%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (3.66%) OCP
5 10 (3.66%) Oracle Certification
6 8 (2.93%) DV Cleared
7 3 (1.10%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.37%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (3.30%) QA
2 5 (1.83%) Data Quality
2 5 (1.83%) GDPR
3 3 (1.10%) Accessibility
3 3 (1.10%) SLA
4 1 (0.37%) Def Stans
4 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 17025
4 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.37%) NIST
4 1 (0.37%) WCAG
System Software
1 18 (6.59%) Docker
2 4 (1.47%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.37%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 35 (12.82%) Kubernetes
2 10 (3.66%) Ansible
3 8 (2.93%) Grafana
3 8 (2.93%) Terraform
4 7 (2.56%) Progress Chef
5 5 (1.83%) Argo
6 3 (1.10%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
7 2 (0.73%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 2 (0.73%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 28 (10.26%) Microsoft
2 23 (8.42%) Oracle
3 11 (4.03%) Salesforce
4 9 (3.30%) SAP
4 9 (3.30%) VMware
5 8 (2.93%) Atlassian
6 6 (2.20%) Informatica
6 6 (2.20%) ServiceNow
7 5 (1.83%) Blue Prism
7 5 (1.83%) Databricks
7 5 (1.83%) Red Hat
8 4 (1.47%) Apple
8 4 (1.47%) Google
9 3 (1.10%) Coverity
9 3 (1.10%) Teradata
9 3 (1.10%) Thales
10 2 (0.73%) Cognos
10 2 (0.73%) IFS
10 2 (0.73%) Splunk
11 1 (0.37%) Jaspersoft