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 10 October 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -6 -5 +4
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 394 256 379
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.04% 7.17% 8.76%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.63% 8.02% 9.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 176 247
10th Percentile £310 £313 £355
25th Percentile £413 £373 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £505
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.94% -1.56%
75th Percentile £601 £569 £638
90th Percentile £675 £613 £650
England median daily rate £525 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 30 4
10th Percentile £33.30 £32.94 £34.38
25th Percentile £43.75 £50.63 £54.06
Median hourly rate £55.00 £55.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year - -15.38% +1.96%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £70.63
90th Percentile - - £80.75
England median hourly rate £55.00 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year - -15.38% +6.70%

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 5,943 3,191 3,991
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.18% 89.36% 92.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,333 2,063 2,374
10th Percentile £295 £204 £243
25th Percentile £425 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £503
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -0.50% +0.50%
75th Percentile £625 £598 £625
90th Percentile £725 £663 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 827 299 242
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.10 £16.00
25th Percentile £20.43 £15.53 £27.00
Median hourly rate £48.46 £24.00 £59.25
Median % change year-on-year +101.90% -59.49% +14.68%
75th Percentile £70.00 £55.00 £74.97
90th Percentile £87.83 £71.30 £78.75
England median hourly rate £42.15 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.59% -41.51% -6.52%

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 10 October 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 10 October 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 10 October 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
Hampshire +14 144 £525 +11.94% 41
Thames Valley -39 108 £475 -5.00% 134
Surrey +4 75 £580 +5.45% 40
Berkshire -34 66 £460 -16.36% 78
West Sussex +2 39 £422 +46.35% 24
Buckinghamshire -19 36 £525 +28.68% 42
East Sussex 0 10 £325 -27.78% 23
Sussex - 7 £625 - 5
Oxfordshire -26 6 £525 +29.23% 15
Kent -12 4 £500 +48.15% 26
Middlesex -19 1 - -
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 10 October 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.

1 155 (39.34%) Security Cleared
2 121 (30.71%) SC Cleared
3 85 (21.57%) Agile
4 77 (19.54%) SQL
5 73 (18.53%) Azure
6 63 (15.99%) Oracle
7 58 (14.72%) DevOps
8 54 (13.71%) CI/CD
8 54 (13.71%) DV Cleared
8 54 (13.71%) Software Engineering
9 53 (13.45%) Microsoft
10 51 (12.94%) .NET
10 51 (12.94%) Full-Stack Development
11 49 (12.44%) Java
11 49 (12.44%) REST
12 45 (11.42%) JavaScript
12 45 (11.42%) Python
13 44 (11.17%) Problem-Solving
14 42 (10.66%) Analytics
14 42 (10.66%) C#
14 42 (10.66%) Test Automation
15 41 (10.41%) Data Warehouse
15 41 (10.41%) RESTful
15 41 (10.41%) ServiceNow
16 39 (9.90%) Git
16 39 (9.90%) Scrum
17 36 (9.14%) Power Platform
17 36 (9.14%) QA
18 35 (8.88%) Azure DevOps
18 35 (8.88%) Data Modelling

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 16 (4.06%) Oracle Application Server
2 11 (2.79%) Confluence
3 6 (1.52%) CMS
3 6 (1.52%) Oracle Workflow
4 5 (1.27%) Documentum
5 4 (1.02%) SharePoint
5 4 (1.02%) Umbraco
6 2 (0.51%) SAS
7 1 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.25%) Apache
7 1 (0.25%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.25%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.25%) Kentico
7 1 (0.25%) WordPress
Applications
1 6 (1.52%) CPLEX
2 4 (1.02%) Adobe After Effects
3 2 (0.51%) Adobe Illustrator
3 2 (0.51%) Adobe Premiere
3 2 (0.51%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.51%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 15 (3.81%) Siebel CRM
2 2 (0.51%) ProductWriter
2 2 (0.51%) Workday HCM
3 1 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 73 (18.53%) Azure
2 36 (9.14%) Power Platform
3 35 (8.88%) Azure DevOps
4 25 (6.35%) AWS
5 20 (5.08%) Power Automate
6 18 (4.57%) PowerApps
7 17 (4.31%) GCP
8 16 (4.06%) Dynamics 365
8 16 (4.06%) Serverless
9 15 (3.81%) GitHub
10 13 (3.30%) OCI
11 12 (3.05%) Azure Functions
11 12 (3.05%) OpenShift
12 10 (2.54%) Azure Logic Apps
12 10 (2.54%) Azure Monitor
12 10 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
13 9 (2.28%) SaaS
14 8 (2.03%) Azure App Service
14 8 (2.03%) Azure Key Vault
14 8 (2.03%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 12 (3.05%) BGP
1 12 (3.05%) IPsec
1 12 (3.05%) LAN
1 12 (3.05%) MPLS
1 12 (3.05%) WAN
2 6 (1.52%) HTTPS
3 2 (0.51%) Firewall
3 2 (0.51%) X.509
4 1 (0.25%) Broadband
4 1 (0.25%) Network Security
4 1 (0.25%) Software-Defined Radio
4 1 (0.25%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (10.41%) Data Warehouse
2 23 (5.84%) Power BI
3 20 (5.08%) NoSQL
3 20 (5.08%) Oracle ODI
4 18 (4.57%) Oracle Reports
4 18 (4.57%) SQL Server
5 17 (4.31%) PostgreSQL
6 11 (2.79%) Siebel EIM
7 9 (2.28%) Azure SQL Database
7 9 (2.28%) Relational Database
8 8 (2.03%) MongoDB
9 6 (1.52%) DataStage
9 6 (1.52%) MySQL
9 6 (1.52%) Oracle Database
10 4 (1.02%) BusinessObjects
10 4 (1.02%) Couchbase
10 4 (1.02%) DynamoDB
10 4 (1.02%) GIS
11 3 (0.76%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
11 3 (0.76%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 39 (9.90%) Git
2 21 (5.33%) JIRA
3 11 (2.79%) SonarQube
4 10 (2.54%) Jenkins
5 6 (1.52%) GitLab
6 4 (1.02%) JUnit
7 3 (0.76%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.76%) NUnit
8 2 (0.51%) Gradle
8 2 (0.51%) Maven
8 2 (0.51%) SpecFlow
8 2 (0.51%) Team Foundation Server
9 1 (0.25%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.25%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.25%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.25%) Mockito
9 1 (0.25%) Postman
9 1 (0.25%) PowerBuilder
9 1 (0.25%) Subversion
9 1 (0.25%) Visual Studio
General
1 33 (8.38%) Finance
2 27 (6.85%) Social Skills
3 23 (5.84%) Aerospace
4 18 (4.57%) Manufacturing
4 18 (4.57%) Public Sector
5 13 (3.30%) Analytical Skills
6 9 (2.28%) Law
6 9 (2.28%) Local Government
7 6 (1.52%) Telecoms
8 5 (1.27%) Legal
9 4 (1.02%) Banking
9 4 (1.02%) Billing
9 4 (1.02%) Police
10 3 (0.76%) Aviation
10 3 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.76%) Publishing
11 2 (0.51%) Marketing
11 2 (0.51%) Retail
12 1 (0.25%) Automotive
12 1 (0.25%) Multimedia
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (12.94%) .NET
2 49 (12.44%) REST
3 41 (10.41%) RESTful
4 31 (7.87%) React
5 27 (6.85%) AngularJS
5 27 (6.85%) JSON
6 24 (6.09%) .NET Core
7 21 (5.33%) Terraform
8 19 (4.82%) SOAP
9 18 (4.57%) .NET Framework
9 18 (4.57%) OAuth
10 16 (4.06%) Kafka
11 15 (3.81%) Entity Framework
11 15 (3.81%) Web Services
12 14 (3.55%) CSS
12 14 (3.55%) HTML
13 12 (3.05%) Spring
13 12 (3.05%) Spring Boot
14 11 (2.79%) Quarkus
14 11 (2.79%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.31%) Product Ownership
2 16 (4.06%) Enterprise Software
3 15 (3.81%) Data Structures
4 14 (3.55%) Cloud Native
5 11 (2.79%) Distributed Systems
6 10 (2.54%) Algorithms
7 6 (1.52%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.27%) Mobile App
9 4 (1.02%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.02%) Motion Graphics
10 3 (0.76%) FMCG
10 3 (0.76%) Wiki
11 2 (0.51%) AI Agents
11 2 (0.51%) Animation
12 1 (0.25%) Legacy Code
12 1 (0.25%) Legacy Systems
12 1 (0.25%) MicroBlaze
12 1 (0.25%) RISC-V
12 1 (0.25%) Self-Motivation
12 1 (0.25%) YARA
Operating Systems
1 17 (4.31%) Linux
2 10 (2.54%) Unix
3 5 (1.27%) Windows
4 4 (1.02%) Android
5 3 (0.76%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.25%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 85 (21.57%) Agile
2 58 (14.72%) DevOps
3 54 (13.71%) CI/CD
3 54 (13.71%) Software Engineering
4 51 (12.94%) Full-Stack Development
5 44 (11.17%) Problem-Solving
6 42 (10.66%) Analytics
6 42 (10.66%) Test Automation
7 39 (9.90%) Scrum
8 35 (8.88%) Data Modelling
9 34 (8.63%) ETL
10 31 (7.87%) Business Intelligence
11 28 (7.11%) Microservices
12 26 (6.60%) Performance Tuning
13 24 (6.09%) Unit Testing
13 24 (6.09%) Workflow
14 22 (5.58%) SDLC
15 21 (5.33%) CRM
15 21 (5.33%) Front End Development
15 21 (5.33%) Sprint Planning
Programming Languages
1 77 (19.54%) SQL
2 49 (12.44%) Java
3 45 (11.42%) JavaScript
3 45 (11.42%) Python
4 42 (10.66%) C#
5 19 (4.82%) TypeScript
6 11 (2.79%) PL/SQL
7 10 (2.54%) C
8 8 (2.03%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 8 (2.03%) PowerShell
9 7 (1.78%) X++
10 5 (1.27%) Apex Code
10 5 (1.27%) Bicep
11 4 (1.02%) Bash
11 4 (1.02%) Go
12 3 (0.76%) C++
13 2 (0.51%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.51%) XPath
14 1 (0.25%) Groovy
14 1 (0.25%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 155 (39.34%) Security Cleared
2 121 (30.71%) SC Cleared
3 54 (13.71%) DV Cleared
4 11 (2.79%) Degree
5 6 (1.52%) Azure Certification
5 6 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (1.27%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (0.51%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.25%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.25%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (9.14%) QA
2 13 (3.30%) Data Quality
3 4 (1.02%) GDPR
4 3 (0.76%) Accessibility
5 2 (0.51%) WCAG
6 1 (0.25%) GRC
System Software
1 22 (5.58%) Docker
2 15 (3.81%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.51%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.25%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.25%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 34 (8.63%) Kubernetes
2 11 (2.79%) Argo
3 1 (0.25%) Ansible
3 1 (0.25%) ArcSight ESM
3 1 (0.25%) Grafana
3 1 (0.25%) Podman
3 1 (0.25%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 63 (15.99%) Oracle
2 53 (13.45%) Microsoft
3 41 (10.41%) ServiceNow
4 23 (5.84%) Siebel
5 13 (3.30%) Salesforce
6 11 (2.79%) Red Hat
7 9 (2.28%) Google
8 7 (1.78%) MuleSoft
8 7 (1.78%) SAP
9 6 (1.52%) IBM
10 5 (1.27%) Adobe
11 4 (1.02%) ESRI
12 2 (0.51%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
12 2 (0.51%) Splunk
12 2 (0.51%) Talend
12 2 (0.51%) Virgin Media
12 2 (0.51%) Workday
13 1 (0.25%) ArcSight
13 1 (0.25%) Databricks
13 1 (0.25%) Snow