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 7 April 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 22 12
Rank change year-on-year -8 -10 -2
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 353 243 503
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.27% 8.14% 8.96%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.83% 8.79% 9.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 245 174 383
10th Percentile £330 £350 £350
25th Percentile £413 £407 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £459 £475
Median % change year-on-year +8.99% -3.42% -9.52%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £556
90th Percentile £638 £638 £679
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -6.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 4 24
10th Percentile - £25.93 £38.38
25th Percentile £34.01 £33.56 £46.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £46.55 £58.45
Median % change year-on-year +12.79% -20.37% -13.40%
75th Percentile £60.00 £59.61 £71.88
90th Percentile £67.50 £70.16 £83.12
England median hourly rate £60.00 £63.00 £59.45
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.97% -0.91%

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 5,168 2,763 5,201
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.86% 92.53% 92.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,235 1,826 3,137
10th Percentile £300 £246 £213
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% - -
75th Percentile £613 £600 £613
90th Percentile £700 £664 £688
England median daily rate £508 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.33% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 480 149 470
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.38 £12.82
25th Percentile £19.54 £21.00 £18.33
Median hourly rate £47.50 £34.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +37.68% -27.37% +5.56%
75th Percentile £81.05 £63.75 £62.49
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.10 £76.56
England median hourly rate £42.50 £33.00 £33.00
% change year-on-year +28.79% - -24.25%

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 7 April 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 7 April 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 7 April 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 -14 149 £515 +5.64% 98
Hampshire +2 108 £500 +13.96% 58
Berkshire -32 84 £506 +9.16% 55
Buckinghamshire +5 64 £517 -1.05% 20
Surrey +6 40 £505 -1.75% 41
West Sussex 0 28 £475 +12.56% 9
East Sussex +1 11 £450 -18.18% 12
Sussex - 10 £475 - 4
Kent -3 8 £525 +40.00% 30
Middlesex - 2 £552 - 5
Home Counties -2 1 - -
Oxfordshire -20 1 £301 -3.84% 23
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 7 April 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.

1 130 (36.83%) Security Cleared
2 110 (31.16%) SC Cleared
3 104 (29.46%) Java
4 87 (24.65%) CI/CD
5 85 (24.08%) SQL
6 75 (21.25%) Agile
7 70 (19.83%) Azure
8 58 (16.43%) AWS
9 55 (15.58%) Oracle
10 52 (14.73%) .NET
11 51 (14.45%) DevOps
12 50 (14.16%) Microservices
13 48 (13.60%) Python
14 47 (13.31%) JavaScript
15 46 (13.03%) Business Intelligence
15 46 (13.03%) Full-Stack Development
15 46 (13.03%) Software Engineering
16 45 (12.75%) Problem-Solving
17 43 (12.18%) Git
17 43 (12.18%) Spring
18 42 (11.90%) REST
19 41 (11.61%) Kubernetes
19 41 (11.61%) PostgreSQL
19 41 (11.61%) React
20 40 (11.33%) C#
21 37 (10.48%) Data Modelling
21 37 (10.48%) Test Automation
22 34 (9.63%) Kafka
22 34 (9.63%) Scrum
22 34 (9.63%) 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 9 (2.55%) Apache Spark
2 7 (1.98%) SharePoint
3 6 (1.70%) Confluence
3 6 (1.70%) Oracle Application Server
4 4 (1.13%) Apache
4 4 (1.13%) IIS
5 3 (0.85%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.57%) CMS
7 1 (0.28%) Appian
7 1 (0.28%) BizTalk Server
7 1 (0.28%) JBoss
7 1 (0.28%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.28%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.28%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.28%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.28%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.28%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (0.85%) CPLEX
1 3 (0.85%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.57%) Oracle Smart View
3 1 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (2.83%) Oracle ERP
2 5 (1.42%) Oracle 11i
2 5 (1.42%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (0.85%) Oracle Assets
3 3 (0.85%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.85%) Oracle General Ledger
3 3 (0.85%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.85%) Oracle Receivables
3 3 (0.85%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 3 (0.85%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.57%) Maximo
4 2 (0.57%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.28%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.28%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 70 (19.83%) Azure
2 58 (16.43%) AWS
3 31 (8.78%) GitHub
4 23 (6.52%) Azure DevOps
5 22 (6.23%) GCP
5 22 (6.23%) OpenShift
6 19 (5.38%) Power Platform
7 18 (5.10%) GitHub Actions
8 17 (4.82%) Serverless
9 11 (3.12%) Amazon S3
9 11 (3.12%) AWS Lambda
9 11 (3.12%) Dynamics 365
9 11 (3.12%) OCI
10 7 (1.98%) Azure Functions
10 7 (1.98%) Azure Service Bus
11 6 (1.70%) Azure Key Vault
11 6 (1.70%) PowerApps
11 6 (1.70%) Snowflake
12 5 (1.42%) Microsoft 365
12 5 (1.42%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.57%) Bluetooth
1 2 (0.57%) HTTP
1 2 (0.57%) HTTPS
1 2 (0.57%) Kerberos
1 2 (0.57%) Tactical Data Link
2 1 (0.28%) Asterisk PBX
2 1 (0.28%) SAN
2 1 (0.28%) Software-Defined Radio
2 1 (0.28%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.28%) VoIP
2 1 (0.28%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (11.61%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (8.78%) Oracle Reports
3 25 (7.08%) Oracle BI Publisher
4 24 (6.80%) Relational Database
5 23 (6.52%) NoSQL
6 18 (5.10%) SQL Server
7 13 (3.68%) Data Warehouse
7 13 (3.68%) MongoDB
8 12 (3.40%) Power BI
9 11 (3.12%) Oracle ODI
10 10 (2.83%) MySQL
11 9 (2.55%) DynamoDB
12 8 (2.27%) Big Data
13 7 (1.98%) Azure SQL Database
14 6 (1.70%) Oracle Database
15 5 (1.42%) HBase
16 4 (1.13%) RDBMS
16 4 (1.13%) SAP HANA
16 4 (1.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 3 (0.85%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 43 (12.18%) Git
2 29 (8.22%) Jenkins
3 22 (6.23%) JUnit
4 20 (5.67%) Gradle
5 13 (3.68%) Cucumber
6 12 (3.40%) Maven
7 11 (3.12%) Sonatype Nexus
8 10 (2.83%) Visual Studio
9 9 (2.55%) JMeter
10 8 (2.27%) Android Studio
10 8 (2.27%) Bitbucket
10 8 (2.27%) GitLab
10 8 (2.27%) SonarQube
11 7 (1.98%) JIRA
11 7 (1.98%) Subversion
12 5 (1.42%) Artifactory
12 5 (1.42%) Selenium
13 4 (1.13%) Eclipse
13 4 (1.13%) Storybook
14 3 (0.85%) CircleCI
General
1 57 (16.15%) Social Skills
2 46 (13.03%) Finance
3 29 (8.22%) Public Sector
4 20 (5.67%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (2.27%) Telecoms
6 6 (1.70%) Aerospace
6 6 (1.70%) Automotive
7 5 (1.42%) Manufacturing
8 4 (1.13%) Electronics
8 4 (1.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (1.13%) Marketing
9 3 (0.85%) Aviation
9 3 (0.85%) Banking
10 2 (0.57%) Billing
10 2 (0.57%) Documentation Skills
10 2 (0.57%) General Ledger
10 2 (0.57%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.28%) Advertising
11 1 (0.28%) Legal
11 1 (0.28%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (14.73%) .NET
2 43 (12.18%) Spring
3 42 (11.90%) REST
4 41 (11.61%) React
5 34 (9.63%) Kafka
6 33 (9.35%) Spring Boot
7 31 (8.78%) RESTful
8 21 (5.95%) Oracle Fusion
9 20 (5.67%) AngularJS
10 19 (5.38%) CSS
11 18 (5.10%) SOAP
12 16 (4.53%) JSON
13 13 (3.68%) HTML
13 13 (3.68%) Web Services
14 12 (3.40%) Hibernate
14 12 (3.40%) Node.js
14 12 (3.40%) OAuth
15 11 (3.12%) .NET Framework
16 10 (2.83%) Entity Framework
17 9 (2.55%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (5.10%) Data Structures
2 15 (4.25%) Distributed Systems
3 11 (3.12%) Mobile App
4 9 (2.55%) Algorithms
5 8 (2.27%) Cloud Native
5 8 (2.27%) Data Centre
5 8 (2.27%) Product Ownership
6 6 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.42%) Client/Server
7 5 (1.42%) Distributed Architecture
8 4 (1.13%) CMDB
8 4 (1.13%) Virtual Team
9 3 (0.85%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (0.85%) Legacy Code
9 3 (0.85%) Onboarding
10 2 (0.57%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.57%) Management Information System
11 1 (0.28%) AI Agents
11 1 (0.28%) Linux Command Line
11 1 (0.28%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 23 (6.52%) Android
2 20 (5.67%) Linux
3 12 (3.40%) Windows
4 7 (1.98%) Apple iOS
5 6 (1.70%) Unix
6 1 (0.28%) CentOS
6 1 (0.28%) Debian
6 1 (0.28%) Embedded Linux
6 1 (0.28%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 87 (24.65%) CI/CD
2 75 (21.25%) Agile
3 51 (14.45%) DevOps
4 50 (14.16%) Microservices
5 46 (13.03%) Business Intelligence
5 46 (13.03%) Full-Stack Development
5 46 (13.03%) Software Engineering
6 45 (12.75%) Problem-Solving
7 37 (10.48%) Data Modelling
7 37 (10.48%) Test Automation
8 34 (9.63%) Scrum
8 34 (9.63%) Unit Testing
9 31 (8.78%) Performance Tuning
10 27 (7.65%) Containerisation
11 25 (7.08%) Front End Development
12 24 (6.80%) Analytics
13 23 (6.52%) ETL
13 23 (6.52%) Migration
14 21 (5.95%) Android Development
15 18 (5.10%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 104 (29.46%) Java
2 85 (24.08%) SQL
3 48 (13.60%) Python
4 47 (13.31%) JavaScript
5 40 (11.33%) C#
6 19 (5.38%) TypeScript
7 17 (4.82%) Go
8 13 (3.68%) C++
8 13 (3.68%) PL/SQL
9 12 (3.40%) Kotlin
10 7 (1.98%) C
11 5 (1.42%) ABAP
11 5 (1.42%) PHP
12 4 (1.13%) PowerShell
12 4 (1.13%) Swift
12 4 (1.13%) T-SQL
13 3 (0.85%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.85%) X++
14 2 (0.57%) Groovy
14 2 (0.57%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 130 (36.83%) Security Cleared
2 110 (31.16%) SC Cleared
3 12 (3.40%) DV Cleared
4 11 (3.12%) Degree
5 10 (2.83%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (1.70%) OCP
6 6 (1.70%) Oracle Certification
7 4 (1.13%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (0.57%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.28%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.28%) AWS Certified Developer
9 1 (0.28%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (3.97%) QA
2 7 (1.98%) Accessibility
3 3 (0.85%) Data Quality
3 3 (0.85%) GDPR
3 3 (0.85%) SLA
3 3 (0.85%) WCAG
4 2 (0.57%) COBIT
4 2 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.57%) NIST
System Software
1 26 (7.37%) Docker
2 5 (1.42%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.28%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 41 (11.61%) Kubernetes
2 11 (3.12%) Terraform
3 9 (2.55%) Ansible
4 8 (2.27%) Argo
5 6 (1.70%) Progress Chef
6 4 (1.13%) Grafana
7 3 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.85%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
8 1 (0.28%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 1 (0.28%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 55 (15.58%) Oracle
2 31 (8.78%) Microsoft
3 18 (5.10%) ServiceNow
4 10 (2.83%) Salesforce
5 8 (2.27%) Atlassian
5 8 (2.27%) Red Hat
5 8 (2.27%) SAP
6 7 (1.98%) VMware
7 5 (1.42%) Blue Prism
7 5 (1.42%) Databricks
7 5 (1.42%) Siebel
7 5 (1.42%) Splunk
7 5 (1.42%) Teradata
8 4 (1.13%) Ab Initio
8 4 (1.13%) Google
9 3 (0.85%) Coverity
9 3 (0.85%) Informatica
9 3 (0.85%) Thales
10 2 (0.57%) IFS
10 2 (0.57%) OpenAI