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 8 December 2025.

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

6 months to
8 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 33 21 18
Rank change year-on-year -12 -3 -8
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 263 334 416
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.20% 8.43% 7.96%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.88% 9.08% 8.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 191 215 296
10th Percentile £313 £375 £350
25th Percentile £400 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £574 £638 £588
90th Percentile £613 £650 £656
England median daily rate £500 £531 £550
% change year-on-year -5.84% -3.45% -7.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 1 13
10th Percentile £40.00 - -
25th Percentile £52.50 £21.25 £50.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £22.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +144.44% -62.50% -10.78%
75th Percentile £57.50 £23.75 £70.00
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% +8.33% -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 3,822 3,679 4,920
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.10% 92.88% 94.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,456 2,271 3,215
10th Percentile £213 £238 £208
25th Percentile £400 £400 £389
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £513
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -0.49% +2.50%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £613
90th Percentile £675 £681 £688
England median daily rate £507 £525 £534
% change year-on-year -3.38% -1.69% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 375 169 245
10th Percentile £13.75 £18.50 £16.25
25th Percentile £16.17 £24.18 £24.00
Median hourly rate £25.00 £52.50 £51.42
Median % change year-on-year -52.38% +2.10% +38.49%
75th Percentile £57.50 £69.69 £66.25
90th Percentile £81.00 £75.00 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.15 £37.25 £45.00
% change year-on-year -32.48% -17.22% +36.36%

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 8 December 2025.

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 8 December 2025.

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 8 December 2025. 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 -19 113 £500 -4.76% 278
Berkshire -26 80 £525 -4.55% 126
Hampshire +4 67 £465 -24.82% 136
Surrey +23 51 £550 -11.29% 65
Buckinghamshire +6 28 £481 -6.78% 94
Kent +8 12 £338 -15.63% 76
East Sussex -4 10 £450 -18.18% 51
West Sussex -19 7 £488 +15.31% 43
Oxfordshire -18 5 £400 -5.88% 62
Middlesex - 3 £594 - 12
Sussex -3 1 £525 - 17
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 8 December 2025, 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 97 (36.88%) Agile
2 77 (29.28%) CI/CD
3 67 (25.48%) SQL
4 65 (24.71%) Java
5 58 (22.05%) Problem-Solving
6 54 (20.53%) AWS
7 52 (19.77%) Security Cleared
8 48 (18.25%) DevOps
8 48 (18.25%) REST
9 46 (17.49%) Azure
10 44 (16.73%) Python
11 40 (15.21%) Full-Stack Development
12 39 (14.83%) SC Cleared
13 38 (14.45%) GitHub
14 37 (14.07%) C#
15 36 (13.69%) PostgreSQL
15 36 (13.69%) Software Engineering
16 35 (13.31%) Kubernetes
16 35 (13.31%) Microservices
16 35 (13.31%) RESTful
16 35 (13.31%) TDD
17 34 (12.93%) .NET
17 34 (12.93%) JavaScript
17 34 (12.93%) Scrum
18 33 (12.55%) Jenkins
19 32 (12.17%) React
19 32 (12.17%) Spring
20 28 (10.65%) Data Modelling
20 28 (10.65%) Git
21 26 (9.89%) Oracle

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 10 (3.80%) Confluence
2 7 (2.66%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.52%) Apache Spark
4 3 (1.14%) Apache
4 3 (1.14%) CMS
5 2 (0.76%) nginx
5 2 (0.76%) SharePoint Server
5 2 (0.76%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.38%) Anypoint
6 1 (0.38%) ArcGIS
6 1 (0.38%) Camunda
6 1 (0.38%) Documentum
6 1 (0.38%) Gunicorn
6 1 (0.38%) HCL Domino
6 1 (0.38%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.38%) Hyperledger
6 1 (0.38%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.38%) Smallworld
6 1 (0.38%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.38%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (0.76%) Adobe Illustrator
1 2 (0.76%) Photoshop
2 1 (0.38%) 3ds Max
2 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (1.14%) Oracle Assets
1 3 (1.14%) Oracle General Ledger
1 3 (1.14%) Oracle Payables
1 3 (1.14%) Oracle Receivables
1 3 (1.14%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
2 2 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.76%) Maximo
2 2 (0.76%) Oracle Cash Management
2 2 (0.76%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.38%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.38%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 54 (20.53%) AWS
2 46 (17.49%) Azure
3 38 (14.45%) GitHub
4 23 (8.75%) GitHub Actions
5 19 (7.22%) GCP
6 18 (6.84%) Azure DevOps
7 13 (4.94%) OpenShift
8 11 (4.18%) Power Platform
9 10 (3.80%) Serverless
10 9 (3.42%) Amazon S3
10 9 (3.42%) OCI
11 8 (3.04%) AWS Lambda
11 8 (3.04%) Datadog
12 7 (2.66%) Azure Logic Apps
12 7 (2.66%) Dynamics 365
13 6 (2.28%) Boomi
14 5 (1.90%) Amazon EC2
14 5 (1.90%) AtomSphere
15 4 (1.52%) AWS CloudFormation
16 3 (1.14%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.28%) SAN
2 5 (1.90%) Kerberos
2 5 (1.90%) TCP/IP
3 3 (1.14%) VPN
4 2 (0.76%) Bluetooth
4 2 (0.76%) Firewall
4 2 (0.76%) HTTP
4 2 (0.76%) VoIP
5 1 (0.38%) Asterisk PBX
5 1 (0.38%) BGP
5 1 (0.38%) Ethernet VPN
5 1 (0.38%) HTTPS
5 1 (0.38%) MPLS
5 1 (0.38%) MQTT
5 1 (0.38%) Network Security
5 1 (0.38%) Tactical Data Link
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (13.69%) PostgreSQL
2 20 (7.60%) NoSQL
3 14 (5.32%) Relational Database
4 13 (4.94%) MongoDB
5 12 (4.56%) Oracle Reports
6 11 (4.18%) MySQL
7 10 (3.80%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 8 (3.04%) HBase
8 8 (3.04%) SQL Server
9 6 (2.28%) DynamoDB
10 5 (1.90%) Apache Cassandra
10 5 (1.90%) Couchbase
10 5 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
11 4 (1.52%) Oracle Database
11 4 (1.52%) SAP HANA
12 3 (1.14%) Azure SQL Database
12 3 (1.14%) BigQuery
12 3 (1.14%) Oracle BI EE
12 3 (1.14%) Power BI
13 2 (0.76%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 33 (12.55%) Jenkins
2 28 (10.65%) Git
3 22 (8.37%) Cucumber
4 20 (7.60%) JUnit
5 19 (7.22%) Gradle
6 15 (5.70%) Sonatype Nexus
7 13 (4.94%) JIRA
8 10 (3.80%) GitLab
9 9 (3.42%) JMeter
10 8 (3.04%) Artifactory
10 8 (3.04%) Maven
11 6 (2.28%) Bitbucket
12 5 (1.90%) Android Studio
13 4 (1.52%) Subversion
13 4 (1.52%) Visual Studio
14 3 (1.14%) Storybook
15 2 (0.76%) Gatling
15 2 (0.76%) Vite
15 2 (0.76%) webpack
15 2 (0.76%) WiX
General
1 62 (23.57%) Social Skills
2 34 (12.93%) Finance
3 33 (12.55%) Analytical Skills
4 20 (7.60%) Public Sector
5 6 (2.28%) Telecoms
6 5 (1.90%) Documentation Skills
6 5 (1.90%) Manufacturing
7 4 (1.52%) Banking
7 4 (1.52%) Electronics
7 4 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.14%) Aerospace
8 3 (1.14%) Billing
8 3 (1.14%) Marketing
9 2 (0.76%) Automotive
9 2 (0.76%) General Ledger
9 2 (0.76%) Legal
9 2 (0.76%) Military
10 1 (0.38%) Aviation
10 1 (0.38%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.38%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (18.25%) REST
2 35 (13.31%) RESTful
3 34 (12.93%) .NET
4 32 (12.17%) React
4 32 (12.17%) Spring
5 25 (9.51%) Kafka
5 25 (9.51%) Spring Boot
6 23 (8.75%) SOAP
7 21 (7.98%) HTML
8 20 (7.60%) AngularJS
8 20 (7.60%) CSS
9 14 (5.32%) Oracle Fusion
9 14 (5.32%) Web Services
10 13 (4.94%) RabbitMQ
11 12 (4.56%) Node.js
12 11 (4.18%) .NET Core
13 9 (3.42%) Hibernate
13 9 (3.42%) JSON
13 9 (3.42%) Lightning Web Components
14 7 (2.66%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 9 (3.42%) Mobile App
2 7 (2.66%) Cloud Native
2 7 (2.66%) Onboarding
3 6 (2.28%) Data Structures
4 4 (1.52%) Algorithms
4 4 (1.52%) Client/Server
5 3 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (0.76%) 3D Graphics
6 2 (0.76%) Distributed Systems
6 2 (0.76%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (0.76%) Vector Graphics
7 1 (0.38%) AI Agents
7 1 (0.38%) Animation
7 1 (0.38%) CMDB
7 1 (0.38%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.38%) e-Learning
7 1 (0.38%) FMCG
7 1 (0.38%) Java Card
7 1 (0.38%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 20 (7.60%) Linux
2 17 (6.46%) Android
3 11 (4.18%) Windows
4 10 (3.80%) Apple iOS
5 7 (2.66%) Unix
6 6 (2.28%) Debian
6 6 (2.28%) Ubuntu
7 5 (1.90%) Windows Server
7 5 (1.90%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.76%) CentOS
9 1 (0.38%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (36.88%) Agile
2 77 (29.28%) CI/CD
3 58 (22.05%) Problem-Solving
4 48 (18.25%) DevOps
5 40 (15.21%) Full-Stack Development
6 36 (13.69%) Software Engineering
7 35 (13.31%) Microservices
7 35 (13.31%) TDD
8 34 (12.93%) Scrum
9 28 (10.65%) Data Modelling
10 24 (9.13%) Data Integration
10 24 (9.13%) Test Automation
11 23 (8.75%) AI
12 22 (8.37%) Computer Science
12 22 (8.37%) Workflow
13 21 (7.98%) Business Intelligence
14 19 (7.22%) Acceptance Criteria
14 19 (7.22%) Test Strategy
15 18 (6.84%) CAFM
15 18 (6.84%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 67 (25.48%) SQL
2 65 (24.71%) Java
3 44 (16.73%) Python
4 37 (14.07%) C#
5 34 (12.93%) JavaScript
6 18 (6.84%) VB
7 10 (3.80%) TypeScript
8 9 (3.42%) Apex Code
8 9 (3.42%) Go
9 8 (3.04%) PL/SQL
10 7 (2.66%) C++
10 7 (2.66%) Shell Script
11 5 (1.90%) C
11 5 (1.90%) PowerShell
12 4 (1.52%) ABAP
12 4 (1.52%) Kotlin
12 4 (1.52%) Swift
13 3 (1.14%) Objective-C
13 3 (1.14%) X++
14 2 (0.76%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 52 (19.77%) Security Cleared
2 39 (14.83%) SC Cleared
3 22 (8.37%) Degree
4 19 (7.22%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (3.80%) OCP
5 10 (3.80%) Oracle Certification
6 9 (3.42%) DV Cleared
7 4 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.38%) CEH
8 1 (0.38%) ECSA
8 1 (0.38%) GCFA
8 1 (0.38%) GCIA
8 1 (0.38%) GCIH
8 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.38%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (5.32%) QA
2 6 (2.28%) Data Quality
3 4 (1.52%) GDPR
4 3 (1.14%) SLA
5 1 (0.38%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.38%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 17025
5 1 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.38%) NIST
System Software
1 22 (8.37%) Docker
2 4 (1.52%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 35 (13.31%) Kubernetes
2 11 (4.18%) Ansible
3 9 (3.42%) Grafana
4 7 (2.66%) Progress Chef
5 5 (1.90%) Terraform
6 3 (1.14%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.76%) Argo
7 2 (0.76%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 1 (0.38%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.38%) Rsyslog
8 1 (0.38%) SCOM
8 1 (0.38%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 26 (9.89%) Oracle
2 25 (9.51%) Microsoft
3 17 (6.46%) Salesforce
4 14 (5.32%) VMware
5 11 (4.18%) SAP
6 10 (3.80%) Virgin Media
7 9 (3.42%) Databricks
8 7 (2.66%) Red Hat
9 6 (2.28%) Atlassian
10 4 (1.52%) Apple
10 4 (1.52%) Google
10 4 (1.52%) Informatica
11 3 (1.14%) MuleSoft
11 3 (1.14%) ServiceNow
12 2 (0.76%) Blue Prism
12 2 (0.76%) CA Agile Central
12 2 (0.76%) IBM
12 2 (0.76%) IFS
12 2 (0.76%) Splunk
12 2 (0.76%) Teradata