Developer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Developer
England > South East

The median Developer daily rate in the South East is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 4 August 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 18 12
Rank change year-on-year -3 -6 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 488 267 468
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 7.37% 7.66% 9.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.98% 8.45% 10.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 312 198 335
10th Percentile £325 £320 £354
25th Percentile £437 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £668 £625 £650
England median daily rate £515 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 15 12
10th Percentile £32.06 - £36.98
25th Percentile £38.25 £32.94 £54.85
Median hourly rate £55.00 £33.89 £63.75
Median % change year-on-year +62.31% -46.85% -5.56%
75th Percentile £67.50 £54.38 £65.94
90th Percentile £70.00 £55.00 £76.63
England median hourly rate £55.00 £52.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.76% -19.23% +4.84%

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 6,116 3,159 4,566
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.34% 90.59% 91.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,598 2,044 2,783
10th Percentile £303 £208 £250
25th Percentile £425 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £638
90th Percentile £714 £663 £697
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 720 259 379
10th Percentile £16.24 £13.83 £15.96
25th Percentile £26.25 £15.50 £26.25
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -56.15% +14.70%
75th Percentile £74.95 £58.72 £72.33
90th Percentile £87.23 £75.00 £80.00
England median hourly rate £45.00 £25.32 £45.00
% change year-on-year +77.73% -43.73% +5.88%

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 4 August 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 4 August 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 4 August 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 -20 169 £525 - 70
Hampshire +10 161 £525 +7.14% 38
Berkshire -26 93 £488 -11.36% 39
Surrey +4 83 £513 -6.82% 31
Buckinghamshire -6 71 £525 +18.24% 18
West Sussex +6 40 £425 +38.66% 16
Sussex - 11 £475 - 10
Kent +6 10 £450 +20.00% 28
East Sussex -2 8 £525 +16.67% 20
Oxfordshire -18 5 £625 +29.87% 13
Middlesex -15 1 - - 6
Home Counties - 1 - -
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 4 August 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.

1 218 (44.67%) Security Cleared
2 175 (35.86%) SC Cleared
3 104 (21.31%) Agile
4 100 (20.49%) SQL
5 94 (19.26%) Azure
6 88 (18.03%) Oracle
7 87 (17.83%) CI/CD
8 77 (15.78%) .NET
8 77 (15.78%) DevOps
9 70 (14.34%) Java
10 64 (13.11%) Python
11 62 (12.70%) Git
11 62 (12.70%) Software Engineering
12 61 (12.50%) DV Cleared
13 60 (12.30%) C#
14 59 (12.09%) REST
15 55 (11.27%) JavaScript
16 52 (10.66%) Full-Stack Development
16 52 (10.66%) Scrum
17 51 (10.45%) Analytics
17 51 (10.45%) RESTful
18 50 (10.25%) ServiceNow
19 49 (10.04%) Microservices
20 48 (9.84%) Azure DevOps
20 48 (9.84%) Data Modelling
20 48 (9.84%) Problem-Solving
21 46 (9.43%) ETL
22 44 (9.02%) Data Warehouse
22 44 (9.02%) Microsoft
23 43 (8.81%) 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 21 (4.30%) Oracle Application Server
2 11 (2.25%) Confluence
3 6 (1.23%) Apache Spark
3 6 (1.23%) Oracle Workflow
4 5 (1.02%) CMS
4 5 (1.02%) Documentum
4 5 (1.02%) SharePoint
5 4 (0.82%) Umbraco
6 2 (0.41%) IIS
6 2 (0.41%) SAS
7 1 (0.20%) Apache
7 1 (0.20%) Kentico
7 1 (0.20%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.20%) WordPress
Applications
1 9 (1.84%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.41%) Oracle Smart View
2 2 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.20%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 15 (3.07%) Siebel CRM
2 10 (2.05%) Oracle ERP
3 5 (1.02%) Oracle 11i
3 5 (1.02%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.41%) ProductWriter
5 1 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.20%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.20%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 94 (19.26%) Azure
2 48 (9.84%) Azure DevOps
3 41 (8.40%) AWS
4 30 (6.15%) Power Platform
5 20 (4.10%) Dynamics 365
5 20 (4.10%) GCP
5 20 (4.10%) Serverless
6 18 (3.69%) OpenShift
6 18 (3.69%) Power Automate
7 17 (3.48%) GitHub
8 15 (3.07%) OCI
9 13 (2.66%) Azure Functions
9 13 (2.66%) PowerApps
10 11 (2.25%) Azure Logic Apps
10 11 (2.25%) GitHub Actions
11 10 (2.05%) Azure Monitor
11 10 (2.05%) Entra ID
12 9 (1.84%) Amazon S3
12 9 (1.84%) SaaS
13 8 (1.64%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 12 (2.46%) BGP
1 12 (2.46%) IPsec
1 12 (2.46%) LAN
1 12 (2.46%) MPLS
1 12 (2.46%) WAN
2 6 (1.23%) HTTPS
3 2 (0.41%) Firewall
3 2 (0.41%) Software-Defined Radio
3 2 (0.41%) Wireless
4 1 (0.20%) Broadband
4 1 (0.20%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (9.02%) Data Warehouse
2 38 (7.79%) Oracle Reports
3 31 (6.35%) PostgreSQL
4 26 (5.33%) Oracle ODI
5 25 (5.12%) NoSQL
6 22 (4.51%) SQL Server
7 20 (4.10%) Power BI
8 15 (3.07%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 14 (2.87%) Relational Database
10 13 (2.66%) MongoDB
11 11 (2.25%) Siebel EIM
12 8 (1.64%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (1.43%) DynamoDB
14 6 (1.23%) Big Data
14 6 (1.23%) DataStage
14 6 (1.23%) Oracle Database
15 4 (0.82%) DocumentDB
15 4 (0.82%) GIS
15 4 (0.82%) MySQL
16 3 (0.61%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 62 (12.70%) Git
2 22 (4.51%) JIRA
3 15 (3.07%) Jenkins
4 12 (2.46%) SonarQube
5 10 (2.05%) GitLab
6 8 (1.64%) Maven
6 8 (1.64%) Visual Studio
7 6 (1.23%) JUnit
8 5 (1.02%) Bitbucket
8 5 (1.02%) Subversion
9 4 (0.82%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.82%) Gradle
9 4 (0.82%) NUnit
10 3 (0.61%) Mockito
10 3 (0.61%) Postman
11 2 (0.41%) fastlane
11 2 (0.41%) Team Foundation Server
12 1 (0.20%) Artifactory
12 1 (0.20%) Cucumber
12 1 (0.20%) SpecFlow
General
1 42 (8.61%) Social Skills
2 35 (7.17%) Finance
3 29 (5.94%) Public Sector
4 20 (4.10%) Aerospace
5 18 (3.69%) Analytical Skills
6 12 (2.46%) Manufacturing
7 9 (1.84%) Law
7 9 (1.84%) Local Government
7 9 (1.84%) Telecoms
8 7 (1.43%) Automotive
8 7 (1.43%) Billing
9 5 (1.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 5 (1.02%) Legal
10 4 (0.82%) Police
11 3 (0.61%) Publishing
12 2 (0.41%) Aviation
12 2 (0.41%) Banking
12 2 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.41%) Retail
13 1 (0.20%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (15.78%) .NET
2 59 (12.09%) REST
3 51 (10.45%) RESTful
4 38 (7.79%) React
5 29 (5.94%) AngularJS
5 29 (5.94%) Kafka
6 27 (5.53%) JSON
7 25 (5.12%) .NET Framework
8 21 (4.30%) OAuth
9 20 (4.10%) .NET Core
9 20 (4.10%) SOAP
9 20 (4.10%) Spring
10 19 (3.89%) Entity Framework
11 16 (3.28%) CSS
11 16 (3.28%) Spring Boot
12 13 (2.66%) ASP.NET
12 13 (2.66%) HTML
12 13 (2.66%) Swagger
13 12 (2.46%) Quarkus
13 12 (2.46%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 23 (4.71%) Data Structures
2 22 (4.51%) Distributed Systems
3 19 (3.89%) Algorithms
3 19 (3.89%) Cloud Native
4 17 (3.48%) Product Ownership
5 16 (3.28%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (1.64%) Data Centre
7 6 (1.23%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.23%) Mobile App
8 5 (1.02%) Onboarding
9 4 (0.82%) AI Agents
9 4 (0.82%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (0.61%) FMCG
11 2 (0.41%) CMDB
11 2 (0.41%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (0.41%) Device Driver
11 2 (0.41%) Embedded Systems
11 2 (0.41%) MicroBlaze
11 2 (0.41%) RISC-V
11 2 (0.41%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 21 (4.30%) Linux
2 13 (2.66%) Unix
3 12 (2.46%) Windows
4 5 (1.02%) Android
5 2 (0.41%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.41%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (21.31%) Agile
2 87 (17.83%) CI/CD
3 77 (15.78%) DevOps
4 62 (12.70%) Software Engineering
5 52 (10.66%) Full-Stack Development
5 52 (10.66%) Scrum
6 51 (10.45%) Analytics
7 49 (10.04%) Microservices
8 48 (9.84%) Data Modelling
8 48 (9.84%) Problem-Solving
9 46 (9.43%) ETL
10 43 (8.81%) Business Intelligence
11 42 (8.61%) Performance Tuning
12 40 (8.20%) Unit Testing
13 39 (7.99%) Test Automation
14 28 (5.74%) Containerisation
15 27 (5.53%) Workflow
16 26 (5.33%) SDLC
16 26 (5.33%) TDD
17 25 (5.12%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 100 (20.49%) SQL
2 70 (14.34%) Java
3 64 (13.11%) Python
4 60 (12.30%) C#
5 55 (11.27%) JavaScript
6 26 (5.33%) TypeScript
7 21 (4.30%) Go
8 15 (3.07%) PL/SQL
9 11 (2.25%) C
10 9 (1.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 9 (1.84%) X++
11 8 (1.64%) C++
12 7 (1.43%) Kotlin
12 7 (1.43%) PowerShell
13 6 (1.23%) Apex Code
14 4 (0.82%) Bash
14 4 (0.82%) Bicep
15 3 (0.61%) Shell Script
15 3 (0.61%) VB
16 2 (0.41%) PHP
Qualifications
1 218 (44.67%) Security Cleared
2 175 (35.86%) SC Cleared
3 61 (12.50%) DV Cleared
4 12 (2.46%) Degree
5 8 (1.64%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (1.02%) Azure Certification
6 5 (1.02%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (0.41%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.20%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.20%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (6.35%) QA
2 9 (1.84%) Data Quality
3 4 (0.82%) Accessibility
3 4 (0.82%) GDPR
3 4 (0.82%) WCAG
4 2 (0.41%) COBIT
4 2 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.41%) NIST
5 1 (0.20%) GRC
System Software
1 33 (6.76%) Docker
2 13 (2.66%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.41%) Embedded Firmware
3 2 (0.41%) Firmware
3 2 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 43 (8.81%) Kubernetes
2 18 (3.69%) Terraform
3 12 (2.46%) Argo
4 2 (0.41%) Grafana
4 2 (0.41%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.20%) Ansible
5 1 (0.20%) Podman
5 1 (0.20%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 88 (18.03%) Oracle
2 50 (10.25%) ServiceNow
3 44 (9.02%) Microsoft
4 28 (5.74%) Siebel
5 16 (3.28%) Salesforce
6 11 (2.25%) Red Hat
7 8 (1.64%) Google
7 8 (1.64%) SAP
8 6 (1.23%) IBM
9 5 (1.02%) Atlassian
9 5 (1.02%) Splunk
10 4 (0.82%) ESRI
11 3 (0.61%) Ab Initio
11 3 (0.61%) MuleSoft
11 3 (0.61%) Teradata
12 2 (0.41%) Blue Prism
12 2 (0.41%) CA Agile Central
12 2 (0.41%) Dynatrace
12 2 (0.41%) HP
12 2 (0.41%) Talend