Developer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Developer
England > South East

The median Developer daily rate in the South East is £515, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 July 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 19 13
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 477 261 499
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 7.25% 7.64% 9.35%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.87% 8.45% 10.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 317 191 365
10th Percentile £324 £319 £358
25th Percentile £420 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% - -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £654 £625 £656
England median daily rate £515 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 15 14
10th Percentile £32.06 - £35.00
25th Percentile £34.01 £32.94 £48.40
Median hourly rate £55.00 £33.89 £60.70
Median % change year-on-year +62.31% -44.18% -11.71%
75th Percentile £67.50 £54.38 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £55.00 £74.88
England median hourly rate £55.00 £48.56 £65.00
% change year-on-year +13.26% -25.29% +8.33%

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 6,062 3,089 4,926
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.18% 90.43% 92.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,611 2,002 2,965
10th Percentile £303 £213 £255
25th Percentile £425 £375 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £519
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -3.57% +3.70%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £630
90th Percentile £713 £660 £688
England median daily rate £525 £512 £525
% change year-on-year +2.54% -2.48% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 671 243 448
10th Percentile £16.35 £14.20 £13.84
25th Percentile £26.25 £15.50 £20.75
Median hourly rate £52.50 £26.50 £56.69
Median % change year-on-year +98.11% -53.26% +13.39%
75th Percentile £77.50 £61.12 £70.40
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
England median hourly rate £45.56 £27.29 £42.50
% change year-on-year +66.91% -35.78% -3.53%

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 23 July 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 23 July 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 23 July 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 -19 175 £525 - 38
Hampshire +2 147 £525 +7.14% 42
Berkshire -20 96 £500 -9.09% 24
Surrey +6 77 £513 -0.29% 17
Buckinghamshire -5 74 £525 +13.39% 8
West Sussex +6 44 £425 +38.66% 9
Sussex - 12 £475 - 7
Kent +6 10 £450 +20.00% 21
East Sussex -3 8 £525 +16.67% 7
Oxfordshire -19 5 £625 +29.87% 6
Home Counties - 1 - -
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 23 July 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.

1 216 (45.28%) Security Cleared
2 173 (36.27%) SC Cleared
3 99 (20.75%) Agile
4 96 (20.13%) SQL
5 95 (19.92%) Azure
6 88 (18.45%) CI/CD
7 83 (17.40%) Oracle
8 77 (16.14%) DevOps
9 73 (15.30%) .NET
9 73 (15.30%) Java
10 67 (14.05%) Python
11 63 (13.21%) Git
12 58 (12.16%) REST
12 58 (12.16%) Software Engineering
13 57 (11.95%) DV Cleared
14 56 (11.74%) C#
15 55 (11.53%) Microservices
15 55 (11.53%) RESTful
16 53 (11.11%) Full-Stack Development
16 53 (11.11%) JavaScript
17 51 (10.69%) Problem-Solving
18 48 (10.06%) Analytics
18 48 (10.06%) Scrum
19 46 (9.64%) Azure DevOps
20 45 (9.43%) ServiceNow
21 43 (9.01%) AWS
21 43 (9.01%) Data Modelling
22 42 (8.81%) ETL
22 42 (8.81%) Kubernetes
23 40 (8.39%) React

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 18 (3.77%) Oracle Application Server
2 11 (2.31%) Confluence
3 6 (1.26%) Apache Spark
3 6 (1.26%) Oracle Workflow
4 5 (1.05%) CMS
4 5 (1.05%) Documentum
5 4 (0.84%) SharePoint
5 4 (0.84%) Umbraco
6 2 (0.42%) Apache
6 2 (0.42%) IIS
6 2 (0.42%) SAS
7 1 (0.21%) Kentico
7 1 (0.21%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.21%) WordPress
Applications
1 9 (1.89%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.42%) Oracle Smart View
2 2 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.21%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 15 (3.14%) Siebel CRM
2 10 (2.10%) Oracle ERP
3 5 (1.05%) Oracle 11i
3 5 (1.05%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.42%) ProductWriter
5 1 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.21%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.21%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 95 (19.92%) Azure
2 46 (9.64%) Azure DevOps
3 43 (9.01%) AWS
4 25 (5.24%) Power Platform
5 23 (4.82%) GCP
6 18 (3.77%) Dynamics 365
6 18 (3.77%) GitHub
7 17 (3.56%) Serverless
8 16 (3.35%) OpenShift
9 15 (3.14%) OCI
10 14 (2.94%) Power Automate
11 12 (2.52%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (2.10%) Azure Functions
12 10 (2.10%) Azure Monitor
12 10 (2.10%) Entra ID
13 9 (1.89%) Amazon S3
13 9 (1.89%) PowerApps
14 8 (1.68%) Azure Key Vault
14 8 (1.68%) Azure Logic Apps
14 8 (1.68%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 11 (2.31%) BGP
1 11 (2.31%) IPsec
1 11 (2.31%) LAN
1 11 (2.31%) MPLS
1 11 (2.31%) WAN
2 7 (1.47%) HTTPS
3 2 (0.42%) Firewall
3 2 (0.42%) Software-Defined Radio
3 2 (0.42%) Wireless
4 1 (0.21%) HTTP
4 1 (0.21%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (8.18%) Data Warehouse
2 35 (7.34%) Oracle Reports
3 33 (6.92%) PostgreSQL
4 26 (5.45%) NoSQL
5 23 (4.82%) Oracle ODI
6 22 (4.61%) SQL Server
7 16 (3.35%) Power BI
8 15 (3.14%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 15 (3.14%) Relational Database
9 13 (2.73%) MongoDB
10 11 (2.31%) Siebel EIM
11 8 (1.68%) Azure SQL Database
12 7 (1.47%) DynamoDB
13 6 (1.26%) Big Data
13 6 (1.26%) DataStage
13 6 (1.26%) Oracle Database
14 5 (1.05%) MySQL
15 4 (0.84%) GIS
16 3 (0.63%) DocumentDB
16 3 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 63 (13.21%) Git
2 23 (4.82%) JIRA
3 16 (3.35%) Jenkins
4 10 (2.10%) GitLab
4 10 (2.10%) SonarQube
5 9 (1.89%) Maven
5 9 (1.89%) Visual Studio
6 7 (1.47%) JUnit
7 6 (1.26%) Bitbucket
8 5 (1.05%) Gradle
8 5 (1.05%) Subversion
9 4 (0.84%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.84%) NUnit
10 3 (0.63%) Mockito
10 3 (0.63%) Postman
11 2 (0.42%) fastlane
11 2 (0.42%) Team Foundation Server
12 1 (0.21%) Artifactory
12 1 (0.21%) Cucumber
12 1 (0.21%) SpecFlow
General
1 39 (8.18%) Social Skills
2 34 (7.13%) Finance
3 29 (6.08%) Public Sector
4 20 (4.19%) Analytical Skills
5 17 (3.56%) Aerospace
6 11 (2.31%) Manufacturing
7 9 (1.89%) Law
7 9 (1.89%) Telecoms
8 7 (1.47%) Automotive
8 7 (1.47%) Billing
9 6 (1.26%) Local Government
10 5 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 5 (1.05%) Legal
11 4 (0.84%) Police
12 3 (0.63%) Publishing
13 2 (0.42%) Banking
13 2 (0.42%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.42%) Retail
14 1 (0.21%) Aviation
14 1 (0.21%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (15.30%) .NET
2 58 (12.16%) REST
3 55 (11.53%) RESTful
4 40 (8.39%) React
5 30 (6.29%) Kafka
6 28 (5.87%) JSON
7 27 (5.66%) AngularJS
8 25 (5.24%) .NET Framework
8 25 (5.24%) Spring
9 22 (4.61%) Spring Boot
10 21 (4.40%) OAuth
11 20 (4.19%) SOAP
12 19 (3.98%) .NET Core
12 19 (3.98%) Entity Framework
13 17 (3.56%) CSS
14 13 (2.73%) HTML
14 13 (2.73%) Swagger
14 13 (2.73%) Web Services
15 12 (2.52%) ASP.NET
15 12 (2.52%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 23 (4.82%) Data Structures
2 22 (4.61%) Distributed Systems
3 19 (3.98%) Algorithms
3 19 (3.98%) Cloud Native
4 18 (3.77%) Product Ownership
5 16 (3.35%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (1.68%) Data Centre
7 7 (1.47%) Mobile App
8 6 (1.26%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (1.05%) Distributed Architecture
10 4 (0.84%) AI Agents
10 4 (0.84%) Onboarding
11 3 (0.63%) FMCG
12 2 (0.42%) CMDB
12 2 (0.42%) Data Protection Act
12 2 (0.42%) Device Driver
12 2 (0.42%) Embedded Systems
12 2 (0.42%) MicroBlaze
12 2 (0.42%) RISC-V
12 2 (0.42%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 23 (4.82%) Linux
2 13 (2.73%) Unix
2 13 (2.73%) Windows
3 9 (1.89%) Android
4 3 (0.63%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.42%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (20.75%) Agile
2 88 (18.45%) CI/CD
3 77 (16.14%) DevOps
4 58 (12.16%) Software Engineering
5 55 (11.53%) Microservices
6 53 (11.11%) Full-Stack Development
7 51 (10.69%) Problem-Solving
8 48 (10.06%) Analytics
8 48 (10.06%) Scrum
9 43 (9.01%) Data Modelling
10 42 (8.81%) ETL
11 37 (7.76%) Performance Tuning
11 37 (7.76%) Unit Testing
12 36 (7.55%) Business Intelligence
12 36 (7.55%) Test Automation
13 30 (6.29%) Containerisation
14 26 (5.45%) TDD
14 26 (5.45%) Workflow
15 24 (5.03%) CRM
16 23 (4.82%) AI
Programming Languages
1 96 (20.13%) SQL
2 73 (15.30%) Java
3 67 (14.05%) Python
4 56 (11.74%) C#
5 53 (11.11%) JavaScript
6 27 (5.66%) TypeScript
7 23 (4.82%) Go
8 13 (2.73%) PL/SQL
9 11 (2.31%) C
10 9 (1.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 9 (1.89%) Kotlin
11 8 (1.68%) C++
11 8 (1.68%) X++
12 7 (1.47%) PowerShell
13 6 (1.26%) Apex Code
14 4 (0.84%) Bash
14 4 (0.84%) Bicep
15 3 (0.63%) PHP
15 3 (0.63%) Shell Script
15 3 (0.63%) VB
Qualifications
1 216 (45.28%) Security Cleared
2 173 (36.27%) SC Cleared
3 57 (11.95%) DV Cleared
4 9 (1.89%) Degree
5 7 (1.47%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (1.26%) Azure Certification
7 3 (0.63%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.42%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.21%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.21%) AWS Certified Developer
9 1 (0.21%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.21%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (6.29%) QA
2 7 (1.47%) Data Quality
3 4 (0.84%) Accessibility
3 4 (0.84%) GDPR
3 4 (0.84%) WCAG
4 2 (0.42%) COBIT
4 2 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.42%) NIST
5 1 (0.21%) GRC
System Software
1 35 (7.34%) Docker
2 13 (2.73%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
3 2 (0.42%) Firmware
3 2 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 42 (8.81%) Kubernetes
2 17 (3.56%) Terraform
3 10 (2.10%) Argo
4 2 (0.42%) Grafana
4 2 (0.42%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.21%) Ansible
5 1 (0.21%) Podman
5 1 (0.21%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 83 (17.40%) Oracle
2 45 (9.43%) ServiceNow
3 39 (8.18%) Microsoft
4 28 (5.87%) Siebel
5 15 (3.14%) Salesforce
6 9 (1.89%) Red Hat
7 8 (1.68%) Google
7 8 (1.68%) SAP
8 6 (1.26%) IBM
9 5 (1.05%) Atlassian
9 5 (1.05%) Splunk
10 4 (0.84%) ESRI
11 3 (0.63%) Ab Initio
11 3 (0.63%) MuleSoft
11 3 (0.63%) Teradata
12 2 (0.42%) Blue Prism
12 2 (0.42%) CA Agile Central
12 2 (0.42%) Dynatrace
12 2 (0.42%) HP
12 2 (0.42%) Talend