Developer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Developer
England > South East

The median Developer daily rate in the South East is £478, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 September 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 21 14 15
Rank change year-on-year -7 +1 -3
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 262 411 496
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 7.51% 8.89% 8.93%
As % of the Job Titles category 8.34% 9.62% 9.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 180 284 348
10th Percentile £313 £327 £350
25th Percentile £380 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.50% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £553 £619 £600
90th Percentile £625 £650 £673
England median daily rate £506 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -3.71% -4.55% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 6 22
10th Percentile £32.94 £43.13 -
25th Percentile £50.63 - £50.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £58.59
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% +10.94% -7.37%
75th Percentile £57.50 - £70.00
90th Percentile - £76.25 £75.00
England median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £59.84
% change year-on-year -15.38% +8.62% -5.39%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 3,142 4,271 5,267
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.08% 92.37% 94.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,034 2,548 3,570
10th Percentile £204 £245 £213
25th Percentile £363 £400 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -
75th Percentile £598 £625 £613
90th Percentile £650 £688 £700
England median daily rate £508 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -3.33% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 278 317 246
10th Percentile £13.43 £16.00 £16.00
25th Percentile £15.50 £30.41 £21.01
Median hourly rate £25.15 £57.50 £50.71
Median % change year-on-year -56.26% +13.39% +111.29%
75th Percentile £57.50 £75.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £71.95 £80.00 £75.67
England median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £45.00
% change year-on-year -45.54% +2.62% +73.08%

Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Job postings that featured Developer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Job vacancy trend for Developer 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 18 September 2025.

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 18 September 2025.

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 18 September 2025. 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 -3 134 £500 -4.76% 129
Berkshire -3 104 £528 -4.09% 65
Hampshire -7 55 £475 -7.59% 67
Surrey +2 46 £550 +8.91% 63
Buckinghamshire +4 25 £450 +4.35% 35
East Sussex -8 9 £375 -6.25% 22
Kent -4 8 £331 -24.72% 41
West Sussex -7 8 £288 -21.74% 9
Oxfordshire -19 5 £413 -8.33% 31
Middlesex 0 1 £635 - 19
Developer
England

Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East

For the 6 months to 18 September 2025, Developer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the South East region featuring Developer in the job title.

1 105 (40.08%) Agile
2 71 (27.10%) Azure
3 69 (26.34%) SQL
4 63 (24.05%) DevOps
5 60 (22.90%) CI/CD
6 59 (22.52%) Social Skills
7 46 (17.56%) React
7 46 (17.56%) REST
7 46 (17.56%) C#
8 45 (17.18%) .NET
9 44 (16.79%) AWS
10 42 (16.03%) RESTful
11 41 (15.65%) Problem-Solving
12 40 (15.27%) JavaScript
12 40 (15.27%) Security Cleared
13 39 (14.89%) Scrum
13 39 (14.89%) Java
14 36 (13.74%) TDD
15 34 (12.98%) Python
15 34 (12.98%) SC Cleared
15 34 (12.98%) Git
16 33 (12.60%) Software Engineering
17 32 (12.21%) HTML
18 31 (11.83%) CSS
18 31 (11.83%) Workflow
18 31 (11.83%) Microservices
19 26 (9.92%) Microsoft
20 25 (9.54%) Salesforce
20 25 (9.54%) JIRA
20 25 (9.54%) Docker

Developer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 8 (3.05%) Anypoint
2 7 (2.67%) Confluence
3 4 (1.53%) SharePoint
4 3 (1.15%) CMS
4 3 (1.15%) Mule
4 3 (1.15%) nginx
5 2 (0.76%) Gunicorn
5 2 (0.76%) Mule ESB
5 2 (0.76%) SharePoint Server
5 2 (0.76%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.38%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.38%) Camunda
6 1 (0.38%) Documentum
6 1 (0.38%) HCL Domino
6 1 (0.38%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.38%) Hyperledger
6 1 (0.38%) Moodle
6 1 (0.38%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.38%) WordPress
Applications
1 6 (2.29%) Adobe Illustrator
1 6 (2.29%) Photoshop
2 3 (1.15%) 3ds Max
3 2 (0.76%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.38%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (1.15%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.38%) Oracle EBS R12
2 1 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (0.38%) Remedy AR System
2 1 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.38%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 71 (27.10%) Azure
2 44 (16.79%) AWS
3 24 (9.16%) Azure DevOps
4 15 (5.73%) GitHub
5 12 (4.58%) Power Platform
6 10 (3.82%) GCP
6 10 (3.82%) Serverless
7 8 (3.05%) Azure Logic Apps
8 6 (2.29%) Amazon EC2
8 6 (2.29%) Dynamics 365
8 6 (2.29%) Figma
8 6 (2.29%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (1.91%) Amazon S3
10 4 (1.53%) AWS Lambda
11 3 (1.15%) Azure Data Factory
11 3 (1.15%) SaaS
11 3 (1.15%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
11 3 (1.15%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 2 (0.76%) Azure Functions
12 2 (0.76%) npm
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.91%) HTTPS
1 5 (1.91%) SAN
2 4 (1.53%) TCP/IP
3 3 (1.15%) HTTP
3 3 (1.15%) VPN
4 2 (0.76%) Firewall
5 1 (0.38%) BGP
5 1 (0.38%) Ethernet VPN
5 1 (0.38%) MPLS
5 1 (0.38%) MQTT
5 1 (0.38%) Network Security
5 1 (0.38%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (7.25%) PostgreSQL
2 16 (6.11%) Relational Database
3 10 (3.82%) MySQL
4 9 (3.44%) SQL Server
5 8 (3.05%) MongoDB
6 7 (2.67%) Oracle Reports
7 5 (1.91%) NoSQL
7 5 (1.91%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 5 (1.91%) Power BI
8 4 (1.53%) Redis
9 3 (1.15%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (1.15%) Data Lake
9 3 (1.15%) Data Warehouse
9 3 (1.15%) RDBMS
10 2 (0.76%) Oracle Database
11 1 (0.38%) Azure SQL Database
11 1 (0.38%) DB2
11 1 (0.38%) DynamoDB
11 1 (0.38%) Elasticsearch
11 1 (0.38%) GIS
Development Applications
1 34 (12.98%) Git
2 25 (9.54%) JIRA
3 15 (5.73%) Jenkins
4 10 (3.82%) GitLab
5 7 (2.67%) Subversion
5 7 (2.67%) Visual Studio
6 5 (1.91%) Cucumber
6 5 (1.91%) Maven
6 5 (1.91%) SonarQube
6 5 (1.91%) Vite
7 4 (1.53%) JUnit
7 4 (1.53%) REST Assured
7 4 (1.53%) Selenium
8 3 (1.15%) Bitbucket
8 3 (1.15%) Browser DevTools
8 3 (1.15%) Gradle
8 3 (1.15%) JMeter
8 3 (1.15%) Mockito
8 3 (1.15%) Visual Studio Code
9 2 (0.76%) webpack
General
1 59 (22.52%) Social Skills
2 24 (9.16%) Analytical Skills
3 23 (8.78%) Finance
4 13 (4.96%) Public Sector
5 9 (3.44%) Aerospace
5 9 (3.44%) Telecoms
6 5 (1.91%) Law
6 5 (1.91%) Manufacturing
7 4 (1.53%) Automotive
7 4 (1.53%) Military
8 3 (1.15%) Documentation Skills
9 2 (0.76%) Banking
9 2 (0.76%) Billing
9 2 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (0.76%) Retail
10 1 (0.38%) Digital Healthcare
10 1 (0.38%) Legal
10 1 (0.38%) Marketing
10 1 (0.38%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (17.56%) React
1 46 (17.56%) REST
2 45 (17.18%) .NET
3 42 (16.03%) RESTful
4 32 (12.21%) HTML
5 31 (11.83%) CSS
6 21 (8.02%) Web Services
7 20 (7.63%) SOAP
8 19 (7.25%) Lightning Web Components
9 16 (6.11%) AngularJS
10 14 (5.34%) .NET Core
10 14 (5.34%) GraphQL
10 14 (5.34%) JSON
10 14 (5.34%) Node.js
11 12 (4.58%) Spring
11 12 (4.58%) XML
12 10 (3.82%) FastAPI
12 10 (3.82%) jQuery
12 10 (3.82%) Spring Boot
12 10 (3.82%) Visualforce
Miscellaneous
1 7 (2.67%) Algorithms
1 7 (2.67%) Distributed Systems
2 6 (2.29%) 3D Graphics
2 6 (2.29%) Vector Graphics
3 5 (1.91%) Cloud Native
3 5 (1.91%) Mobile App
3 5 (1.91%) Onboarding
4 3 (1.15%) Animation
4 3 (1.15%) CMDB
4 3 (1.15%) e-Learning
4 3 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
5 2 (0.76%) CSOC
5 2 (0.76%) Cyber Kill Chain
5 2 (0.76%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (0.76%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (0.76%) IoT
5 2 (0.76%) Product Ownership
5 2 (0.76%) Renewable Energy
5 2 (0.76%) Robotics
6 1 (0.38%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 14 (5.34%) Linux
2 12 (4.58%) Windows
3 6 (2.29%) Android
3 6 (2.29%) Apple iOS
4 5 (1.91%) Debian
4 5 (1.91%) Ubuntu
4 5 (1.91%) Unix
4 5 (1.91%) Windows Server
4 5 (1.91%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (0.38%) CentOS
5 1 (0.38%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 105 (40.08%) Agile
2 63 (24.05%) DevOps
3 60 (22.90%) CI/CD
4 41 (15.65%) Problem-Solving
5 39 (14.89%) Scrum
6 36 (13.74%) TDD
7 33 (12.60%) Software Engineering
8 31 (11.83%) Microservices
8 31 (11.83%) Workflow
9 24 (9.16%) Full-Stack Development
10 22 (8.40%) Data Modelling
10 22 (8.40%) Front End Development
11 21 (8.02%) Data Integration
11 21 (8.02%) Test Strategy
12 20 (7.63%) Acceptance Criteria
12 20 (7.63%) API Development
12 20 (7.63%) Containerisation
12 20 (7.63%) User Experience
13 19 (7.25%) CAFM
14 18 (6.87%) Continuous Integration
Programming Languages
1 69 (26.34%) SQL
2 46 (17.56%) C#
3 40 (15.27%) JavaScript
4 39 (14.89%) Java
5 34 (12.98%) Python
6 19 (7.25%) Apex Code
7 18 (6.87%) VB
8 16 (6.11%) TypeScript
9 7 (2.67%) Go
10 6 (2.29%) PL/SQL
11 5 (1.91%) ABAP
11 5 (1.91%) Shell Script
11 5 (1.91%) X++
12 4 (1.53%) C
12 4 (1.53%) Perl
12 4 (1.53%) Ruby
13 3 (1.15%) Kotlin
13 3 (1.15%) Objective-C
13 3 (1.15%) SOQL
13 3 (1.15%) Swift
Qualifications
1 40 (15.27%) Security Cleared
2 34 (12.98%) SC Cleared
3 15 (5.73%) Degree
4 11 (4.20%) Computer Science Degree
5 9 (3.44%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (1.15%) DV Cleared
7 2 (0.76%) CEH
7 2 (0.76%) ECSA
7 2 (0.76%) GCFA
7 2 (0.76%) GCIA
7 2 (0.76%) GCIH
7 2 (0.76%) OCP
7 2 (0.76%) Oracle Certification
8 1 (0.38%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.38%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.38%) CTC Cleared
8 1 (0.38%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.38%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (4.96%) QA
2 5 (1.91%) COBIT
2 5 (1.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (1.91%) NIST
3 4 (1.53%) Accessibility
3 4 (1.53%) WCAG
4 3 (1.15%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.38%) HL7
5 1 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 17025
5 1 (0.38%) SLA
System Software
1 25 (9.54%) Docker
2 1 (0.38%) Postfix
2 1 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 19 (7.25%) Kubernetes
2 7 (2.67%) Ansible
2 7 (2.67%) Terraform
3 4 (1.53%) Docker Swarm
3 4 (1.53%) Podman
4 3 (1.15%) CloudHub
4 3 (1.15%) Grafana
4 3 (1.15%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.76%) Kibana
6 1 (0.38%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 1 (0.38%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.38%) Rsyslog
6 1 (0.38%) SCOM
Vendors
1 26 (9.92%) Microsoft
2 25 (9.54%) Salesforce
3 20 (7.63%) Oracle
4 13 (4.96%) MuleSoft
5 11 (4.20%) Adobe
6 10 (3.82%) Virgin Media
7 9 (3.44%) Databricks
8 8 (3.05%) SAP
9 7 (2.67%) Splunk
10 6 (2.29%) Autodesk
10 6 (2.29%) Red Hat
10 6 (2.29%) VMware
11 5 (1.91%) CA Agile Central
11 5 (1.91%) IBM
12 4 (1.53%) Apple
13 3 (1.15%) Atlassian
13 3 (1.15%) Blue Prism
13 3 (1.15%) ServiceNow
14 2 (0.76%) Dynatrace
14 2 (0.76%) Jaspersoft