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 March 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 20 20
Rank change year-on-year -11 0 -10
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 316 266 427
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.20% 8.58% 7.70%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.82% 9.27% 8.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 234 176 310
10th Percentile £323 £350 £357
25th Percentile £408 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £468 £475
Median % change year-on-year +6.95% -1.58% -9.52%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £575
90th Percentile £608 £638 £688
England median daily rate £500 £536 £525
% change year-on-year -6.63% +2.00% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 1 23
10th Percentile £35.21 - £46.25
25th Percentile £40.00 - £50.55
Median hourly rate £55.00 £77.19 £58.91
Median % change year-on-year -28.75% +31.04% -14.32%
75th Percentile £60.00 - £73.75
90th Percentile £67.50 - £83.56
England median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -2.87% +4.00% -

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 4,635 2,870 5,151
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.90% 92.61% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,950 1,828 3,162
10th Percentile £275 £239 £205
25th Percentile £406 £400 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £600 £607 £608
90th Percentile £694 £675 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 401 120 413
10th Percentile £14.50 £18.47 £12.83
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.18 £18.00
Median hourly rate £36.71 £46.30 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -20.71% +8.94% -5.56%
75th Percentile £79.85 £62.76 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £75.16
England median hourly rate £35.00 £35.89 £33.78
% change year-on-year -2.48% +6.26% -19.20%

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 March 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 March 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 March 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 -21 138 £500 -9.09% 79
Hampshire +1 92 £475 +11.76% 63
Berkshire -29 80 £500 -9.09% 34
Buckinghamshire +12 55 £508 -6.88% 23
Surrey +7 29 £505 +12.22% 40
West Sussex -7 26 £475 +12.35% 13
East Sussex -1 14 £450 -18.18% 28
Sussex +2 9 £475 - 4
Kent -1 9 £431 +15.00% 24
Oxfordshire -15 3 £338 +1.89% 22
Middlesex - 2 £552 - 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 March 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.

1 108 (34.18%) Security Cleared
2 99 (31.33%) Java
3 92 (29.11%) SC Cleared
4 84 (26.58%) CI/CD
5 75 (23.73%) Agile
6 70 (22.15%) SQL
7 60 (18.99%) Azure
8 59 (18.67%) AWS
9 56 (17.72%) Problem-Solving
10 51 (16.14%) REST
11 49 (15.51%) Microservices
11 49 (15.51%) Python
12 47 (14.87%) JavaScript
12 47 (14.87%) Spring
13 46 (14.56%) Full-Stack Development
14 45 (14.24%) DevOps
14 45 (14.24%) Git
15 43 (13.61%) Kubernetes
16 42 (13.29%) PostgreSQL
17 40 (12.66%) React
17 40 (12.66%) Test Automation
18 39 (12.34%) .NET
18 39 (12.34%) Business Intelligence
18 39 (12.34%) Software Engineering
19 38 (12.03%) GitHub
19 38 (12.03%) Spring Boot
20 35 (11.08%) Jenkins
21 34 (10.76%) Oracle
22 33 (10.44%) Scrum
23 32 (10.13%) 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 10 (3.16%) Confluence
2 7 (2.22%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.58%) Apache Spark
4 4 (1.27%) Apache
4 4 (1.27%) IIS
5 3 (0.95%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.63%) CMS
7 1 (0.32%) Appian
7 1 (0.32%) BizTalk Server
7 1 (0.32%) JBoss
7 1 (0.32%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.32%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.32%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.32%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.32%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.32%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.32%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (0.95%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.32%) CPLEX
3 1 (0.32%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 4 (1.27%) Oracle ERP
2 3 (0.95%) Oracle Assets
2 3 (0.95%) Oracle General Ledger
2 3 (0.95%) Oracle Payables
2 3 (0.95%) Oracle Receivables
2 3 (0.95%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
2 3 (0.95%) Payment Gateway
3 2 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.63%) Maximo
3 2 (0.63%) Oracle 11i
3 2 (0.63%) Oracle Cash Management
3 2 (0.63%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.63%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.32%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.32%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 60 (18.99%) Azure
2 59 (18.67%) AWS
3 38 (12.03%) GitHub
4 25 (7.91%) GCP
5 22 (6.96%) GitHub Actions
6 20 (6.33%) OpenShift
7 17 (5.38%) Azure DevOps
8 16 (5.06%) Power Platform
9 13 (4.11%) Amazon S3
10 12 (3.80%) Serverless
11 10 (3.16%) OCI
12 8 (2.53%) AWS Lambda
12 8 (2.53%) Datadog
12 8 (2.53%) Dynamics 365
13 7 (2.22%) Azure Service Bus
14 6 (1.90%) Azure Key Vault
14 6 (1.90%) Boomi
14 6 (1.90%) Snowflake
15 5 (1.58%) AtomSphere
15 5 (1.58%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.58%) Kerberos
2 2 (0.63%) Bluetooth
2 2 (0.63%) HTTP
2 2 (0.63%) HTTPS
2 2 (0.63%) Tactical Data Link
2 2 (0.63%) VoIP
3 1 (0.32%) Asterisk PBX
3 1 (0.32%) SAN
3 1 (0.32%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (13.29%) PostgreSQL
2 23 (7.28%) NoSQL
3 21 (6.65%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 21 (6.65%) Oracle Reports
4 17 (5.38%) Relational Database
5 14 (4.43%) MongoDB
6 13 (4.11%) SQL Server
7 11 (3.48%) MySQL
8 10 (3.16%) Power BI
9 9 (2.85%) DynamoDB
10 8 (2.53%) HBase
11 7 (2.22%) Azure SQL Database
11 7 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
12 5 (1.58%) Apache Cassandra
12 5 (1.58%) Big Data
12 5 (1.58%) Couchbase
12 5 (1.58%) Oracle Database
13 4 (1.27%) SAP HANA
13 4 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 3 (0.95%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 45 (14.24%) Git
2 35 (11.08%) Jenkins
3 26 (8.23%) JUnit
4 22 (6.96%) Cucumber
4 22 (6.96%) Gradle
5 15 (4.75%) Sonatype Nexus
6 13 (4.11%) GitLab
6 13 (4.11%) Maven
7 11 (3.48%) JIRA
8 9 (2.85%) JMeter
8 9 (2.85%) Visual Studio
9 8 (2.53%) Artifactory
9 8 (2.53%) Bitbucket
10 7 (2.22%) Android Studio
10 7 (2.22%) Subversion
11 5 (1.58%) Selenium
11 5 (1.58%) SonarQube
12 4 (1.27%) Eclipse
12 4 (1.27%) Storybook
13 3 (0.95%) CircleCI
General
1 68 (21.52%) Social Skills
2 43 (13.61%) Finance
3 26 (8.23%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (7.59%) Public Sector
5 6 (1.90%) Telecoms
6 4 (1.27%) Banking
6 4 (1.27%) Electronics
6 4 (1.27%) Manufacturing
6 4 (1.27%) Marketing
7 3 (0.95%) Aviation
8 2 (0.63%) Aerospace
8 2 (0.63%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (0.63%) General Ledger
8 2 (0.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.63%) Legal
9 1 (0.32%) Billing
9 1 (0.32%) Health Technology
9 1 (0.32%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.32%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (16.14%) REST
2 47 (14.87%) Spring
3 40 (12.66%) React
4 39 (12.34%) .NET
5 38 (12.03%) Spring Boot
6 31 (9.81%) Kafka
7 26 (8.23%) RESTful
7 26 (8.23%) SOAP
8 22 (6.96%) CSS
9 21 (6.65%) Oracle Fusion
10 20 (6.33%) AngularJS
11 18 (5.70%) HTML
12 15 (4.75%) JSON
13 14 (4.43%) Node.js
13 14 (4.43%) RabbitMQ
13 14 (4.43%) Web Services
14 13 (4.11%) Hibernate
15 11 (3.48%) OAuth
16 9 (2.85%) .NET Framework
17 8 (2.53%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 14 (4.43%) Data Structures
2 13 (4.11%) Distributed Systems
3 10 (3.16%) Mobile App
4 8 (2.53%) Data Centre
5 6 (1.90%) Cloud Native
5 6 (1.90%) Product Ownership
6 5 (1.58%) Client/Server
7 4 (1.27%) Algorithms
7 4 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (0.95%) CMDB
8 3 (0.95%) Distributed Architecture
8 3 (0.95%) Legacy Code
8 3 (0.95%) Onboarding
8 3 (0.95%) Virtual Team
9 2 (0.63%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (0.63%) Management Information System
10 1 (0.32%) EMV
10 1 (0.32%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 1 (0.32%) Java Card
10 1 (0.32%) N-Tier
Operating Systems
1 24 (7.59%) Android
2 19 (6.01%) Linux
3 10 (3.16%) Apple iOS
3 10 (3.16%) Windows
4 6 (1.90%) Unix
5 1 (0.32%) CentOS
5 1 (0.32%) Debian
5 1 (0.32%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (26.58%) CI/CD
2 75 (23.73%) Agile
3 56 (17.72%) Problem-Solving
4 49 (15.51%) Microservices
5 46 (14.56%) Full-Stack Development
6 45 (14.24%) DevOps
7 40 (12.66%) Test Automation
8 39 (12.34%) Business Intelligence
8 39 (12.34%) Software Engineering
9 33 (10.44%) Scrum
10 32 (10.13%) Data Modelling
11 26 (8.23%) Unit Testing
12 25 (7.91%) Containerisation
13 24 (7.59%) Front End Development
14 22 (6.96%) Performance Tuning
15 19 (6.01%) Android Development
16 18 (5.70%) AI
16 18 (5.70%) Computer Science
17 17 (5.38%) Migration
17 17 (5.38%) Software Testing
Programming Languages
1 99 (31.33%) Java
2 70 (22.15%) SQL
3 49 (15.51%) Python
4 47 (14.87%) JavaScript
5 30 (9.49%) C#
6 18 (5.70%) Go
7 14 (4.43%) TypeScript
8 11 (3.48%) C++
9 8 (2.53%) Kotlin
9 8 (2.53%) PL/SQL
10 6 (1.90%) Apex Code
10 6 (1.90%) C
11 5 (1.58%) ABAP
11 5 (1.58%) Shell Script
12 4 (1.27%) PHP
12 4 (1.27%) PowerShell
12 4 (1.27%) T-SQL
13 3 (0.95%) Swift
14 2 (0.63%) Groovy
14 2 (0.63%) Perl
Qualifications
1 108 (34.18%) Security Cleared
2 92 (29.11%) SC Cleared
3 18 (5.70%) Degree
4 17 (5.38%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (3.48%) DV Cleared
6 10 (3.16%) OCP
6 10 (3.16%) Oracle Certification
7 3 (0.95%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (0.63%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.32%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified Developer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (3.48%) QA
2 5 (1.58%) Accessibility
2 5 (1.58%) Data Quality
2 5 (1.58%) GDPR
3 3 (0.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (0.95%) NIST
3 3 (0.95%) SLA
4 2 (0.63%) COBIT
5 1 (0.32%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.32%) WCAG
System Software
1 26 (8.23%) Docker
2 5 (1.58%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.27%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 43 (13.61%) Kubernetes
2 10 (3.16%) Ansible
3 9 (2.85%) Grafana
3 9 (2.85%) Terraform
4 7 (2.22%) Progress Chef
5 6 (1.90%) Argo
6 3 (0.95%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.95%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
7 1 (0.32%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
Vendors
1 34 (10.76%) Oracle
2 27 (8.54%) Microsoft
3 16 (5.06%) ServiceNow
4 12 (3.80%) Atlassian
4 12 (3.80%) Salesforce
5 9 (2.85%) VMware
6 8 (2.53%) SAP
7 6 (1.90%) Informatica
7 6 (1.90%) Red Hat
8 5 (1.58%) Databricks
9 4 (1.27%) Google
9 4 (1.27%) Splunk
10 3 (0.95%) Blue Prism
10 3 (0.95%) Coverity
10 3 (0.95%) Teradata
10 3 (0.95%) Thales
11 2 (0.63%) Ab Initio
11 2 (0.63%) Cognos
11 2 (0.63%) IFS
11 2 (0.63%) OpenAI