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 6 June 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 19 12
Rank change year-on-year -4 -7 0
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 406 246 530
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.75% 8.33% 9.39%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.37% 9.14% 10.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 281 178 396
10th Percentile £335 £343 £325
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £563
90th Percentile £638 £629 £675
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 14 26
10th Percentile £25.00 £32.94 £40.63
25th Percentile £34.01 £32.97 £48.40
Median hourly rate £50.00 £45.30 £58.91
Median % change year-on-year +10.39% -23.10% -15.85%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.00 £75.31
90th Percentile £67.50 £70.53 £84.45
England median hourly rate £52.50 £51.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year +2.44% -21.15% -

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 5,508 2,690 5,199
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.62% 91.12% 92.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,365 1,796 3,066
10th Percentile £303 £223 £234
25th Percentile £413 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - -
75th Percentile £610 £600 £625
90th Percentile £700 £656 £688
England median daily rate £519 £515 £525
% change year-on-year +0.78% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 549 173 532
10th Percentile £15.08 £14.20 £12.88
25th Percentile £24.25 £16.95 £18.35
Median hourly rate £50.49 £32.50 £48.20
Median % change year-on-year +55.34% -32.57% -3.60%
75th Percentile £80.20 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
England median hourly rate £45.78 £29.33 £38.00
% change year-on-year +56.09% -22.82% -15.56%

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 6 June 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 6 June 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 6 June 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 -16 168 £525 +5.00% 54
Hampshire -4 109 £500 +5.26% 37
Buckinghamshire -1 82 £525 +13.39% 14
Berkshire -27 82 £488 -7.14% 27
Surrey +5 48 £513 +13.89% 36
West Sussex +4 41 £463 +25.85% 20
Sussex - 15 £475 - 7
East Sussex +2 13 £525 +44.83% 9
Kent +6 8 - - 21
Oxfordshire -32 4 £625 +72.41% 13
Home Counties - 1 - - 1
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 6 June 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.

1 176 (43.35%) Security Cleared
2 149 (36.70%) SC Cleared
3 90 (22.17%) Azure
4 81 (19.95%) Agile
4 81 (19.95%) SQL
5 78 (19.21%) CI/CD
6 77 (18.97%) Java
7 74 (18.23%) .NET
8 70 (17.24%) Oracle
9 64 (15.76%) DevOps
10 59 (14.53%) Python
11 56 (13.79%) C#
12 53 (13.05%) Git
12 53 (13.05%) Software Engineering
13 52 (12.81%) JavaScript
14 48 (11.82%) Microservices
15 45 (11.08%) Full-Stack Development
16 44 (10.84%) REST
17 42 (10.34%) AWS
17 42 (10.34%) React
18 41 (10.10%) RESTful
19 38 (9.36%) Scrum
20 37 (9.11%) Data Modelling
20 37 (9.11%) Problem-Solving
21 35 (8.62%) Kubernetes
22 34 (8.37%) Azure DevOps
23 33 (8.13%) Microsoft
23 33 (8.13%) Unit Testing
24 32 (7.88%) Analytics
24 32 (7.88%) 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 (3.20%) Oracle Application Server
2 8 (1.97%) Confluence
3 6 (1.48%) Apache Spark
3 6 (1.48%) CMS
4 5 (1.23%) SharePoint
4 5 (1.23%) Umbraco
5 4 (0.99%) IIS
5 4 (0.99%) Oracle Workflow
6 2 (0.49%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.49%) SAS
6 2 (0.49%) WordPress
7 1 (0.25%) Apache
7 1 (0.25%) BizTalk Server
7 1 (0.25%) Documentum
7 1 (0.25%) JBoss
7 1 (0.25%) Kentico
7 1 (0.25%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.25%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.25%) WebLogic
Applications
1 6 (1.48%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.49%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.49%) Oracle Smart View
3 1 (0.25%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (2.46%) Oracle ERP
2 8 (1.97%) Siebel CRM
3 5 (1.23%) Oracle 11i
3 5 (1.23%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.49%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.49%) ProductWriter
4 2 (0.49%) SAP HR
4 2 (0.49%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 90 (22.17%) Azure
2 42 (10.34%) AWS
3 34 (8.37%) Azure DevOps
4 22 (5.42%) Power Platform
5 20 (4.93%) GCP
6 17 (4.19%) Serverless
7 16 (3.94%) GitHub
8 14 (3.45%) Dynamics 365
8 14 (3.45%) OpenShift
9 11 (2.71%) GitHub Actions
10 10 (2.46%) Amazon S3
10 10 (2.46%) OCI
11 9 (2.22%) Azure Functions
12 8 (1.97%) Power Automate
13 7 (1.72%) AWS Lambda
13 7 (1.72%) Azure Service Bus
14 6 (1.48%) Azure Logic Apps
14 6 (1.48%) Google App Engine
14 6 (1.48%) Oracle CX
14 6 (1.48%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.72%) BGP
1 7 (1.72%) IPsec
1 7 (1.72%) LAN
1 7 (1.72%) MPLS
1 7 (1.72%) WAN
2 4 (0.99%) HTTPS
3 2 (0.49%) Firewall
3 2 (0.49%) Software-Defined Radio
3 2 (0.49%) Wireless
4 1 (0.25%) HTTP
4 1 (0.25%) Tactical Data Link
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (6.90%) Data Warehouse
1 28 (6.90%) Oracle Reports
1 28 (6.90%) PostgreSQL
2 25 (6.16%) SQL Server
3 20 (4.93%) NoSQL
4 18 (4.43%) Oracle ODI
5 15 (3.69%) Oracle BI Publisher
5 15 (3.69%) Power BI
5 15 (3.69%) Relational Database
6 11 (2.71%) MongoDB
7 8 (1.97%) DynamoDB
7 8 (1.97%) Siebel EIM
8 7 (1.72%) Big Data
8 7 (1.72%) Oracle Database
9 6 (1.48%) MySQL
9 6 (1.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 5 (1.23%) Azure SQL Database
10 5 (1.23%) GIS
11 3 (0.74%) Data Lake
11 3 (0.74%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 53 (13.05%) Git
2 13 (3.20%) Jenkins
3 12 (2.96%) JIRA
4 11 (2.71%) GitLab
5 10 (2.46%) Maven
5 10 (2.46%) Visual Studio
6 8 (1.97%) Gradle
6 8 (1.97%) JUnit
7 7 (1.72%) Bitbucket
7 7 (1.72%) SonarQube
8 6 (1.48%) Subversion
9 4 (0.99%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.99%) NUnit
9 4 (0.99%) Postman
9 4 (0.99%) Selenium
10 3 (0.74%) Android Studio
10 3 (0.74%) CircleCI
11 2 (0.49%) Mockito
11 2 (0.49%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.49%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 40 (9.85%) Social Skills
2 36 (8.87%) Finance
3 27 (6.65%) Public Sector
4 18 (4.43%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (2.46%) Aerospace
6 9 (2.22%) Law
7 8 (1.97%) Manufacturing
7 8 (1.97%) Telecoms
8 7 (1.72%) Automotive
9 6 (1.48%) Billing
10 5 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 5 (1.23%) Legal
11 2 (0.49%) Aviation
11 2 (0.49%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (0.49%) Retail
12 1 (0.25%) Advertising
12 1 (0.25%) Banking
12 1 (0.25%) Marketing
12 1 (0.25%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (18.23%) .NET
2 44 (10.84%) REST
3 42 (10.34%) React
4 41 (10.10%) RESTful
5 28 (6.90%) Kafka
6 25 (6.16%) Spring
7 24 (5.91%) AngularJS
8 23 (5.67%) CSS
9 22 (5.42%) JSON
10 21 (5.17%) .NET Framework
11 20 (4.93%) Spring Boot
12 18 (4.43%) SOAP
13 17 (4.19%) HTML
14 15 (3.69%) Entity Framework
15 14 (3.45%) .NET Core
16 13 (3.20%) OAuth
17 12 (2.96%) ASP.NET
18 10 (2.46%) Web Services
19 9 (2.22%) Node.js
19 9 (2.22%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.19%) Data Structures
1 17 (4.19%) Distributed Systems
2 15 (3.69%) Algorithms
2 15 (3.69%) Cloud Native
2 15 (3.69%) Product Ownership
3 11 (2.71%) Enterprise Software
4 10 (2.46%) Mobile App
5 8 (1.97%) Data Centre
6 6 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.23%) Distributed Architecture
8 4 (0.99%) Virtual Team
9 3 (0.74%) CMDB
9 3 (0.74%) Legacy Code
9 3 (0.74%) Onboarding
10 2 (0.49%) AI Agents
10 2 (0.49%) Data Protection Act
10 2 (0.49%) Device Driver
10 2 (0.49%) Embedded Systems
10 2 (0.49%) FMCG
10 2 (0.49%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 14 (3.45%) Android
2 13 (3.20%) Linux
3 10 (2.46%) Windows
4 9 (2.22%) Unix
5 5 (1.23%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.49%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 81 (19.95%) Agile
2 78 (19.21%) CI/CD
3 64 (15.76%) DevOps
4 53 (13.05%) Software Engineering
5 48 (11.82%) Microservices
6 45 (11.08%) Full-Stack Development
7 38 (9.36%) Scrum
8 37 (9.11%) Data Modelling
8 37 (9.11%) Problem-Solving
9 33 (8.13%) Unit Testing
10 32 (7.88%) Analytics
10 32 (7.88%) Business Intelligence
10 32 (7.88%) Performance Tuning
11 30 (7.39%) ETL
12 29 (7.14%) Test Automation
13 28 (6.90%) Containerisation
14 26 (6.40%) Workflow
15 24 (5.91%) Front End Development
16 22 (5.42%) TDD
17 21 (5.17%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 81 (19.95%) SQL
2 77 (18.97%) Java
3 59 (14.53%) Python
4 56 (13.79%) C#
5 52 (12.81%) JavaScript
6 21 (5.17%) Go
6 21 (5.17%) TypeScript
7 11 (2.71%) Kotlin
8 10 (2.46%) PL/SQL
9 9 (2.22%) C++
10 7 (1.72%) C
11 5 (1.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 5 (1.23%) PHP
11 5 (1.23%) X++
12 4 (0.99%) PowerShell
13 3 (0.74%) Apex Code
13 3 (0.74%) Bash
13 3 (0.74%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.74%) Swift
14 2 (0.49%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 176 (43.35%) Security Cleared
2 149 (36.70%) SC Cleared
3 27 (6.65%) DV Cleared
4 10 (2.46%) Degree
5 8 (1.97%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (0.49%) Azure Certification
6 2 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.25%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.25%) AWS Certified Developer
7 1 (0.25%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.25%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (5.42%) QA
2 6 (1.48%) Accessibility
3 5 (1.23%) WCAG
4 3 (0.74%) Data Quality
4 3 (0.74%) GDPR
5 2 (0.49%) COBIT
5 2 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.49%) NIST
6 1 (0.25%) GRC
System Software
1 30 (7.39%) Docker
2 5 (1.23%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.49%) Embedded Firmware
3 2 (0.49%) Firmware
3 2 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 35 (8.62%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.46%) Terraform
3 7 (1.72%) Argo
4 3 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.49%) Grafana
5 2 (0.49%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.49%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 1 (0.25%) Ansible
6 1 (0.25%) Podman
Vendors
1 70 (17.24%) Oracle
2 33 (8.13%) Microsoft
3 23 (5.67%) ServiceNow
4 17 (4.19%) Siebel
5 9 (2.22%) Salesforce
6 6 (1.48%) Atlassian
6 6 (1.48%) Red Hat
7 5 (1.23%) Blue Prism
7 5 (1.23%) ESRI
7 5 (1.23%) SAP
7 5 (1.23%) Splunk
8 4 (0.99%) Ab Initio
8 4 (0.99%) Databricks
8 4 (0.99%) Google
8 4 (0.99%) Teradata
9 3 (0.74%) Informatica
10 2 (0.49%) Adobe
10 2 (0.49%) Cognos
10 2 (0.49%) HP
10 2 (0.49%) Talend