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 5 May 2026.

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

6 months to
5 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 24 12
Rank change year-on-year -2 -12 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 376 233 516
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.42% 7.76% 9.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.98% 8.46% 10.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 257 170 397
10th Percentile £335 £325 £340
25th Percentile £413 £407 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year +8.05% -7.45% -4.31%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £626 £638 £675
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 6 27
10th Percentile £25.90 £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 £55.00 £61.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -9.84% -6.15% +6.12%

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 5,383 2,754 5,095
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.86% 91.77% 92.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,347 1,821 3,078
10th Percentile £300 £248 £213
25th Percentile £413 £400 £397
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% - -
75th Percentile £613 £600 £618
90th Percentile £711 £665 £688
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 510 164 480
10th Percentile £15.23 £14.20 £12.78
25th Percentile £24.30 £20.09 £18.32
Median hourly rate £55.00 £32.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +69.23% -31.58% -1.86%
75th Percentile £81.76 £63.75 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.04
England median hourly rate £47.00 £30.62 £36.50
% change year-on-year +53.52% -16.12% -18.03%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -13 159 £514 +2.75% 70
Hampshire 0 112 £500 +12.36% 38
Berkshire -29 83 £475 -5.09% 32
Buckinghamshire +5 75 £525 +10.53% 18
Surrey -2 42 £505 +6.32% 34
West Sussex -3 29 £475 +23.38% 15
East Sussex +2 13 £525 -4.55% 17
Sussex - 12 £475 - 5
Kent -4 7 - - 32
Middlesex - 2 £552 - 7
Oxfordshire -27 1 £301 -3.84% 20
Home Counties - 1 - -
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 5 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.

1 154 (40.96%) Security Cleared
2 138 (36.70%) SC Cleared
3 90 (23.94%) Java
4 84 (22.34%) CI/CD
5 75 (19.95%) Azure
6 72 (19.15%) SQL
7 70 (18.62%) Agile
8 63 (16.76%) Python
9 62 (16.49%) .NET
10 59 (15.69%) Oracle
11 51 (13.56%) DevOps
11 51 (13.56%) Software Engineering
12 50 (13.30%) AWS
12 50 (13.30%) C#
13 49 (13.03%) Git
13 49 (13.03%) JavaScript
14 46 (12.23%) Microservices
15 44 (11.70%) Full-Stack Development
16 40 (10.64%) React
16 40 (10.64%) REST
17 39 (10.37%) Problem-Solving
18 37 (9.84%) Kubernetes
19 35 (9.31%) Data Modelling
19 35 (9.31%) PostgreSQL
20 34 (9.04%) Test Automation
21 33 (8.78%) Analytics
21 33 (8.78%) Business Intelligence
21 33 (8.78%) RESTful
21 33 (8.78%) Spring
21 33 (8.78%) Unit Testing

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 12 (3.19%) Oracle Application Server
2 8 (2.13%) Apache Spark
3 7 (1.86%) SharePoint
4 5 (1.33%) Confluence
5 4 (1.06%) CMS
5 4 (1.06%) IIS
6 3 (0.80%) Apache
6 3 (0.80%) ArcGIS
6 3 (0.80%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.27%) Appian
7 1 (0.27%) BizTalk Server
7 1 (0.27%) JBoss
7 1 (0.27%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.27%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.27%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.27%) WordPress
Applications
1 4 (1.06%) CPLEX
2 3 (0.80%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.53%) Oracle Smart View
4 1 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (2.66%) Oracle ERP
2 5 (1.33%) Oracle 11i
2 5 (1.33%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (0.80%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.53%) SAP HR
4 2 (0.53%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.27%) Maximo
5 1 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.27%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 75 (19.95%) Azure
2 50 (13.30%) AWS
3 28 (7.45%) Azure DevOps
4 22 (5.85%) GitHub
5 21 (5.59%) Power Platform
6 19 (5.05%) GCP
6 19 (5.05%) OpenShift
7 16 (4.26%) Serverless
8 13 (3.46%) Dynamics 365
9 12 (3.19%) GitHub Actions
10 10 (2.66%) Amazon S3
10 10 (2.66%) AWS Lambda
11 7 (1.86%) Azure Functions
11 7 (1.86%) Azure Service Bus
11 7 (1.86%) OCI
11 7 (1.86%) Power Automate
12 6 (1.60%) Azure Key Vault
12 6 (1.60%) PowerApps
12 6 (1.60%) Snowflake
13 5 (1.33%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.53%) Bluetooth
1 2 (0.53%) Firewall
1 2 (0.53%) HTTPS
1 2 (0.53%) Software-Defined Radio
1 2 (0.53%) Tactical Data Link
1 2 (0.53%) Wireless
2 1 (0.27%) HTTP
2 1 (0.27%) Kerberos
2 1 (0.27%) SAN
2 1 (0.27%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (9.31%) PostgreSQL
2 29 (7.71%) Oracle Reports
3 26 (6.91%) Data Warehouse
4 22 (5.85%) SQL Server
5 19 (5.05%) NoSQL
5 19 (5.05%) Relational Database
6 17 (4.52%) Oracle ODI
7 16 (4.26%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 13 (3.46%) MongoDB
8 13 (3.46%) Power BI
9 7 (1.86%) Azure SQL Database
9 7 (1.86%) Big Data
9 7 (1.86%) DynamoDB
9 7 (1.86%) MySQL
10 4 (1.06%) Oracle Database
10 4 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 3 (0.80%) GIS
11 3 (0.80%) HBase
11 3 (0.80%) RDBMS
12 2 (0.53%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 49 (13.03%) Git
2 20 (5.32%) Jenkins
3 18 (4.79%) Gradle
4 14 (3.72%) JUnit
5 12 (3.19%) Maven
6 10 (2.66%) Visual Studio
7 9 (2.39%) Bitbucket
8 8 (2.13%) Android Studio
8 8 (2.13%) Cucumber
9 7 (1.86%) GitLab
9 7 (1.86%) SonarQube
9 7 (1.86%) Sonatype Nexus
9 7 (1.86%) Subversion
10 6 (1.60%) JIRA
10 6 (1.60%) JMeter
11 4 (1.06%) Eclipse
11 4 (1.06%) Selenium
12 3 (0.80%) Artifactory
12 3 (0.80%) CircleCI
12 3 (0.80%) Postman
General
1 48 (12.77%) Social Skills
2 41 (10.90%) Finance
3 28 (7.45%) Public Sector
4 16 (4.26%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (2.39%) Aerospace
6 6 (1.60%) Automotive
6 6 (1.60%) Telecoms
7 4 (1.06%) Billing
7 4 (1.06%) Manufacturing
8 3 (0.80%) Aviation
8 3 (0.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (0.80%) Law
9 2 (0.53%) Banking
9 2 (0.53%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.27%) Advertising
10 1 (0.27%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.27%) Electronics
10 1 (0.27%) Legal
10 1 (0.27%) Marketing
10 1 (0.27%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (16.49%) .NET
2 40 (10.64%) React
2 40 (10.64%) REST
3 33 (8.78%) RESTful
3 33 (8.78%) Spring
4 30 (7.98%) Kafka
5 24 (6.38%) Spring Boot
6 18 (4.79%) AngularJS
6 18 (4.79%) CSS
7 16 (4.26%) JSON
7 16 (4.26%) SOAP
8 14 (3.72%) .NET Framework
9 12 (3.19%) HTML
9 12 (3.19%) Node.js
9 12 (3.19%) OAuth
10 11 (2.93%) Entity Framework
11 10 (2.66%) Web Services
12 9 (2.39%) .NET Core
12 9 (2.39%) Oracle Fusion
13 8 (2.13%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 18 (4.79%) Distributed Systems
2 15 (3.99%) Data Structures
3 13 (3.46%) Mobile App
4 12 (3.19%) Algorithms
5 9 (2.39%) Cloud Native
5 9 (2.39%) Product Ownership
6 8 (2.13%) Data Centre
7 6 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (1.33%) Distributed Architecture
9 4 (1.06%) CMDB
9 4 (1.06%) Enterprise Software
9 4 (1.06%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.80%) AI Agents
10 3 (0.80%) Client/Server
10 3 (0.80%) Legacy Code
11 2 (0.53%) Device Driver
11 2 (0.53%) Management Information System
11 2 (0.53%) MicroBlaze
11 2 (0.53%) Onboarding
11 2 (0.53%) RISC-V
Operating Systems
1 23 (6.12%) Android
2 17 (4.52%) Linux
3 11 (2.93%) Windows
4 7 (1.86%) Apple iOS
5 5 (1.33%) Unix
6 2 (0.53%) Embedded Linux
7 1 (0.27%) Debian
7 1 (0.27%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (22.34%) CI/CD
2 70 (18.62%) Agile
3 51 (13.56%) DevOps
3 51 (13.56%) Software Engineering
4 46 (12.23%) Microservices
5 44 (11.70%) Full-Stack Development
6 39 (10.37%) Problem-Solving
7 35 (9.31%) Data Modelling
8 34 (9.04%) Test Automation
9 33 (8.78%) Analytics
9 33 (8.78%) Business Intelligence
9 33 (8.78%) Unit Testing
10 32 (8.51%) Performance Tuning
11 30 (7.98%) Scrum
12 29 (7.71%) Containerisation
12 29 (7.71%) ETL
13 24 (6.38%) Front End Development
14 21 (5.59%) Android Development
15 19 (5.05%) AI
15 19 (5.05%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 90 (23.94%) Java
2 72 (19.15%) SQL
3 63 (16.76%) Python
4 50 (13.30%) C#
5 49 (13.03%) JavaScript
6 21 (5.59%) Go
7 18 (4.79%) TypeScript
8 12 (3.19%) C++
8 12 (3.19%) Kotlin
9 8 (2.13%) PL/SQL
10 7 (1.86%) C
11 6 (1.60%) PowerShell
12 5 (1.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 5 (1.33%) PHP
13 4 (1.06%) Swift
14 3 (0.80%) ABAP
14 3 (0.80%) Bash
14 3 (0.80%) X++
15 2 (0.53%) Objective-C
15 2 (0.53%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 154 (40.96%) Security Cleared
2 138 (36.70%) SC Cleared
3 13 (3.46%) DV Cleared
4 9 (2.39%) Degree
5 8 (2.13%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.06%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (1.06%) OCP
6 4 (1.06%) Oracle Certification
7 2 (0.53%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.27%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.27%) AWS Certified Developer
8 1 (0.27%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (3.99%) QA
2 7 (1.86%) Accessibility
3 3 (0.80%) GDPR
3 3 (0.80%) WCAG
4 2 (0.53%) COBIT
4 2 (0.53%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.53%) NIST
5 1 (0.27%) GRC
System Software
1 29 (7.71%) Docker
2 5 (1.33%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.53%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.53%) Firmware
4 2 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 37 (9.84%) Kubernetes
2 11 (2.93%) Terraform
3 7 (1.86%) Ansible
3 7 (1.86%) Argo
4 4 (1.06%) Progress Chef
5 3 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.80%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 2 (0.53%) Grafana
7 1 (0.27%) Podman
7 1 (0.27%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 59 (15.69%) Oracle
2 32 (8.51%) Microsoft
3 19 (5.05%) ServiceNow
4 7 (1.86%) Atlassian
4 7 (1.86%) Red Hat
4 7 (1.86%) Salesforce
5 6 (1.60%) Google
5 6 (1.60%) Siebel
6 5 (1.33%) Blue Prism
6 5 (1.33%) SAP
6 5 (1.33%) Splunk
6 5 (1.33%) VMware
7 4 (1.06%) Ab Initio
7 4 (1.06%) Databricks
7 4 (1.06%) Teradata
8 3 (0.80%) Coverity
8 3 (0.80%) ESRI
8 3 (0.80%) Thales
9 2 (0.53%) Adobe
9 2 (0.53%) Dynatrace