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 20 May 2026.

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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 21 11
Rank change year-on-year -1 -10 -1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 396 230 516
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.68% 7.70% 9.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.27% 8.42% 10.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 275 171 395
10th Percentile £335 £321 £325
25th Percentile £413 £404 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -6.67%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £575
90th Percentile £638 £638 £675
England median daily rate £510 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.86% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 6 27
10th Percentile £25.00 £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 £51.50 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -6.36% -15.38% +1.56%

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 5,450 2,731 5,037
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.89% 91.43% 92.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,391 1,815 3,028
10th Percentile £300 £227 £213
25th Percentile £413 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% - -
75th Percentile £613 £600 £619
90th Percentile £700 £661 £688
England median daily rate £513 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -1.44% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 510 165 484
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £24.25 £18.50 £18.20
Median hourly rate £50.00 £32.05 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +56.01% -32.53% -2.46%
75th Percentile £78.75 £63.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £87.83 £75.00 £77.35
England median hourly rate £45.00 £30.00 £36.92
% change year-on-year +50.00% -18.73% -17.97%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -12 168 £515 +3.00% 71
Hampshire 0 110 £500 +6.38% 30
Buckinghamshire +2 83 £525 +10.53% 21
Berkshire -17 83 £475 -5.09% 26
Surrey +5 46 £513 +7.89% 34
West Sussex +1 33 £473 +35.00% 17
East Sussex +3 13 £525 +13.51% 14
Sussex - 13 £475 - 8
Kent +1 8 - - 22
Oxfordshire -23 2 £463 +48.08% 24
Middlesex - 2 £552 - 4
Home Counties - 1 - - 1
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 20 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.

1 168 (42.42%) Security Cleared
2 147 (37.12%) SC Cleared
3 81 (20.45%) Azure
4 79 (19.95%) CI/CD
5 77 (19.44%) Agile
6 76 (19.19%) Java
7 74 (18.69%) SQL
8 70 (17.68%) Oracle
9 67 (16.92%) .NET
10 59 (14.90%) Python
11 58 (14.65%) DevOps
12 55 (13.89%) Software Engineering
13 53 (13.38%) C#
13 53 (13.38%) Git
14 50 (12.63%) JavaScript
15 46 (11.62%) Microservices
16 43 (10.86%) Full-Stack Development
16 43 (10.86%) REST
17 42 (10.61%) AWS
18 40 (10.10%) React
19 38 (9.60%) Data Modelling
19 38 (9.60%) Problem-Solving
20 37 (9.34%) RESTful
21 36 (9.09%) Kubernetes
21 36 (9.09%) Scrum
22 35 (8.84%) Unit Testing
23 32 (8.08%) Performance Tuning
24 31 (7.83%) Azure DevOps
24 31 (7.83%) Business Intelligence
24 31 (7.83%) Microsoft

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 (3.28%) Oracle Application Server
2 7 (1.77%) Apache Spark
2 7 (1.77%) Confluence
3 6 (1.52%) CMS
3 6 (1.52%) SharePoint
4 4 (1.01%) IIS
4 4 (1.01%) Oracle Workflow
4 4 (1.01%) Umbraco
5 2 (0.51%) Apache
5 2 (0.51%) ArcGIS
5 2 (0.51%) WordPress
6 1 (0.25%) Appian
6 1 (0.25%) BizTalk Server
6 1 (0.25%) JBoss
6 1 (0.25%) Kentico
6 1 (0.25%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.25%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.25%) WebLogic
Applications
1 5 (1.26%) CPLEX
2 3 (0.76%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.51%) Oracle Smart View
4 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (2.53%) Oracle ERP
2 7 (1.77%) Siebel CRM
3 5 (1.26%) Oracle 11i
3 5 (1.26%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.51%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.51%) ProductWriter
4 2 (0.51%) SAP HR
4 2 (0.51%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 81 (20.45%) Azure
2 42 (10.61%) AWS
3 31 (7.83%) Azure DevOps
4 21 (5.30%) GCP
5 20 (5.05%) Power Platform
6 16 (4.04%) Serverless
7 15 (3.79%) GitHub
8 14 (3.54%) OpenShift
9 13 (3.28%) OCI
10 11 (2.78%) Dynamics 365
11 10 (2.53%) Amazon S3
12 9 (2.27%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (2.02%) Azure Functions
14 7 (1.77%) AWS Lambda
14 7 (1.77%) Azure Service Bus
14 7 (1.77%) Power Automate
15 6 (1.52%) Google App Engine
15 6 (1.52%) Oracle CX
15 6 (1.52%) PowerApps
15 6 (1.52%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.01%) BGP
1 4 (1.01%) IPsec
1 4 (1.01%) LAN
1 4 (1.01%) MPLS
1 4 (1.01%) WAN
2 3 (0.76%) HTTPS
3 2 (0.51%) Firewall
3 2 (0.51%) Software-Defined Radio
3 2 (0.51%) Tactical Data Link
3 2 (0.51%) Wireless
4 1 (0.25%) HTTP
4 1 (0.25%) SAN
4 1 (0.25%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (7.32%) Oracle Reports
2 28 (7.07%) Data Warehouse
3 27 (6.82%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (5.81%) SQL Server
5 19 (4.80%) NoSQL
6 18 (4.55%) Oracle ODI
7 16 (4.04%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 14 (3.54%) Relational Database
9 13 (3.28%) Power BI
10 10 (2.53%) MongoDB
11 7 (1.77%) Big Data
11 7 (1.77%) DynamoDB
11 7 (1.77%) Oracle Database
11 7 (1.77%) Siebel EIM
12 5 (1.26%) Azure SQL Database
12 5 (1.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (1.01%) GIS
13 4 (1.01%) MySQL
14 3 (0.76%) DocumentDB
15 2 (0.51%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 53 (13.38%) Git
2 14 (3.54%) Jenkins
3 11 (2.78%) Maven
4 10 (2.53%) Gradle
4 10 (2.53%) Visual Studio
5 9 (2.27%) Bitbucket
5 9 (2.27%) JIRA
6 8 (2.02%) GitLab
6 8 (2.02%) JUnit
7 7 (1.77%) SonarQube
7 7 (1.77%) Subversion
8 4 (1.01%) Android Studio
8 4 (1.01%) Eclipse
8 4 (1.01%) NUnit
8 4 (1.01%) Postman
8 4 (1.01%) Selenium
9 3 (0.76%) CircleCI
10 2 (0.51%) fastlane
10 2 (0.51%) SpecFlow
10 2 (0.51%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 41 (10.35%) Social Skills
2 37 (9.34%) Finance
3 26 (6.57%) Public Sector
4 16 (4.04%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (2.53%) Aerospace
6 8 (2.02%) Telecoms
7 7 (1.77%) Automotive
7 7 (1.77%) Manufacturing
8 6 (1.52%) Law
9 4 (1.01%) Billing
10 3 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.76%) Legal
11 2 (0.51%) Aviation
11 2 (0.51%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.25%) Advertising
12 1 (0.25%) Banking
12 1 (0.25%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.25%) Marketing
12 1 (0.25%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.25%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (16.92%) .NET
2 43 (10.86%) REST
3 40 (10.10%) React
4 37 (9.34%) RESTful
5 26 (6.57%) Kafka
6 25 (6.31%) Spring
7 21 (5.30%) AngularJS
8 20 (5.05%) CSS
8 20 (5.05%) SOAP
8 20 (5.05%) Spring Boot
9 18 (4.55%) .NET Framework
9 18 (4.55%) JSON
10 14 (3.54%) Entity Framework
10 14 (3.54%) HTML
11 12 (3.03%) .NET Core
11 12 (3.03%) OAuth
12 11 (2.78%) ASP.NET
13 9 (2.27%) Node.js
13 9 (2.27%) Oracle Fusion
13 9 (2.27%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (4.55%) Distributed Systems
2 17 (4.29%) Data Structures
3 14 (3.54%) Algorithms
4 12 (3.03%) Cloud Native
4 12 (3.03%) Mobile App
4 12 (3.03%) Product Ownership
5 9 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (2.02%) Data Centre
7 6 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (1.26%) Distributed Architecture
9 4 (1.01%) CMDB
9 4 (1.01%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.76%) AI Agents
10 3 (0.76%) Legacy Code
10 3 (0.76%) Onboarding
11 2 (0.51%) Client/Server
11 2 (0.51%) Embedded Systems
11 2 (0.51%) Management Information System
11 2 (0.51%) MicroBlaze
11 2 (0.51%) RISC-V
Operating Systems
1 18 (4.55%) Android
2 13 (3.28%) Linux
3 9 (2.27%) Windows
4 6 (1.52%) Apple iOS
5 5 (1.26%) Unix
6 2 (0.51%) Embedded Linux
7 1 (0.25%) Debian
7 1 (0.25%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (19.95%) CI/CD
2 77 (19.44%) Agile
3 58 (14.65%) DevOps
4 55 (13.89%) Software Engineering
5 46 (11.62%) Microservices
6 43 (10.86%) Full-Stack Development
7 38 (9.60%) Data Modelling
7 38 (9.60%) Problem-Solving
8 36 (9.09%) Scrum
9 35 (8.84%) Unit Testing
10 32 (8.08%) Performance Tuning
11 31 (7.83%) Business Intelligence
12 30 (7.58%) Analytics
13 29 (7.32%) Containerisation
13 29 (7.32%) ETL
13 29 (7.32%) Test Automation
14 27 (6.82%) Workflow
15 25 (6.31%) Front End Development
16 21 (5.30%) Migration
16 21 (5.30%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 76 (19.19%) Java
2 74 (18.69%) SQL
3 59 (14.90%) Python
4 53 (13.38%) C#
5 50 (12.63%) JavaScript
6 21 (5.30%) Go
7 20 (5.05%) TypeScript
8 12 (3.03%) Kotlin
9 10 (2.53%) C++
10 8 (2.02%) PL/SQL
11 7 (1.77%) C
12 5 (1.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 5 (1.26%) PHP
13 4 (1.01%) PowerShell
13 4 (1.01%) Swift
14 3 (0.76%) Apex Code
14 3 (0.76%) Bash
14 3 (0.76%) X++
15 2 (0.51%) Objective-C
15 2 (0.51%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 168 (42.42%) Security Cleared
2 147 (37.12%) SC Cleared
3 22 (5.56%) DV Cleared
4 9 (2.27%) Degree
5 8 (2.02%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.01%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (0.51%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.25%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.25%) AWS Certified Developer
8 1 (0.25%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.25%) OCP
8 1 (0.25%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (4.80%) QA
2 6 (1.52%) Accessibility
3 4 (1.01%) WCAG
4 3 (0.76%) GDPR
5 2 (0.51%) COBIT
5 2 (0.51%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.51%) NIST
6 1 (0.25%) GRC
System Software
1 30 (7.58%) Docker
2 5 (1.26%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.51%) Embedded Firmware
3 2 (0.51%) Firmware
3 2 (0.51%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 36 (9.09%) Kubernetes
2 11 (2.78%) Terraform
3 7 (1.77%) Argo
4 3 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (0.76%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
5 2 (0.51%) Ansible
6 1 (0.25%) Grafana
6 1 (0.25%) Podman
6 1 (0.25%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 70 (17.68%) Oracle
2 31 (7.83%) Microsoft
3 24 (6.06%) ServiceNow
4 14 (3.54%) Siebel
5 8 (2.02%) Salesforce
6 7 (1.77%) Atlassian
6 7 (1.77%) Red Hat
7 5 (1.26%) Blue Prism
7 5 (1.26%) Google
7 5 (1.26%) Splunk
8 4 (1.01%) Ab Initio
8 4 (1.01%) Databricks
8 4 (1.01%) ESRI
8 4 (1.01%) SAP
8 4 (1.01%) Teradata
9 3 (0.76%) Coverity
9 3 (0.76%) Thales
10 2 (0.51%) Dynatrace
10 2 (0.51%) IFS
10 2 (0.51%) Virgin Media