Developer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Developer
England > South East

The median Developer daily rate in the South East is £491, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 28 November 2025.

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

6 months to
28 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 26 20 21
Rank change year-on-year -6 +1 -11
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 279 342 402
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.71% 8.41% 7.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.46% 9.05% 8.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 198 219 283
10th Percentile £313 £375 £350
25th Percentile £382 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £491 £505 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.72% +1.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £634 £575
90th Percentile £625 £650 £650
England median daily rate £500 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -5.66% -3.64% -7.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 2 13
10th Percentile £33.01 £27.38 -
25th Percentile £52.50 £36.56 -
Median hourly rate £55.00 £53.75 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.33% +7.50% -25.65%
75th Percentile £57.50 £71.56 £70.00
90th Percentile - £81.13 -
England median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% +8.33% +3.64%

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 3,742 3,777 4,947
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.97% 92.87% 94.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,391 2,285 3,232
10th Percentile £210 £243 £208
25th Percentile £393 £400 £389
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £513
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -0.49% +2.50%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £613
90th Percentile £675 £688 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £534
% change year-on-year -3.81% -1.69% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 378 196 251
10th Percentile £13.75 £18.06 £16.00
25th Percentile £16.17 £25.93 £24.00
Median hourly rate £25.00 £56.75 £51.42
Median % change year-on-year -55.94% +10.36% +37.12%
75th Percentile £57.50 £71.25 £66.25
90th Percentile £81.00 £75.16 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -37.13% -11.11% +38.46%

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 28 November 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 28 November 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 28 November 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 -15 123 £500 -4.76% 147
Berkshire -19 88 £540 +2.86% 69
Hampshire +11 74 £462 -25.38% 65
Surrey +21 50 £550 -5.58% 28
Buckinghamshire +1 28 £431 -10.39% 40
Kent +2 12 £338 -15.63% 28
East Sussex -6 10 £450 +12.50% 34
West Sussex -17 8 £475 +5.56% 14
Oxfordshire -17 7 £406 -9.72% 42
Middlesex - 2 £615 - 13
Sussex -3 1 £525 - 18
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 28 November 2025, 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.

1 104 (37.28%) Agile
2 82 (29.39%) CI/CD
3 75 (26.88%) SQL
4 67 (24.01%) Java
5 57 (20.43%) AWS
5 57 (20.43%) Problem-Solving
6 55 (19.71%) Azure
6 55 (19.71%) DevOps
7 49 (17.56%) REST
8 48 (17.20%) Security Cleared
9 44 (15.77%) Full-Stack Development
9 44 (15.77%) Python
10 38 (13.62%) C#
10 38 (13.62%) React
11 37 (13.26%) .NET
11 37 (13.26%) GitHub
11 37 (13.26%) JavaScript
11 37 (13.26%) PostgreSQL
11 37 (13.26%) RESTful
12 36 (12.90%) Microservices
13 35 (12.54%) Kubernetes
13 35 (12.54%) SC Cleared
13 35 (12.54%) Scrum
13 35 (12.54%) TDD
14 34 (12.19%) Software Engineering
15 32 (11.47%) Spring
16 31 (11.11%) Jenkins
17 30 (10.75%) Data Modelling
18 29 (10.39%) Git
19 27 (9.68%) AI

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 (3.58%) Confluence
2 5 (1.79%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.43%) Apache Spark
4 3 (1.08%) Apache
4 3 (1.08%) CMS
4 3 (1.08%) nginx
5 2 (0.72%) SharePoint Server
5 2 (0.72%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.36%) Anypoint
6 1 (0.36%) ArcGIS
6 1 (0.36%) Camunda
6 1 (0.36%) Documentum
6 1 (0.36%) Gunicorn
6 1 (0.36%) HCL Domino
6 1 (0.36%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.36%) Hyperledger
6 1 (0.36%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.36%) Smallworld
6 1 (0.36%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.36%) WordPress
Applications
1 4 (1.43%) Adobe Illustrator
1 4 (1.43%) Photoshop
2 2 (0.72%) 3ds Max
2 2 (0.72%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (1.08%) Oracle Assets
1 3 (1.08%) Oracle General Ledger
1 3 (1.08%) Oracle Payables
1 3 (1.08%) Oracle Receivables
1 3 (1.08%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
2 2 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.72%) Maximo
2 2 (0.72%) Oracle Cash Management
2 2 (0.72%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.36%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 57 (20.43%) AWS
2 55 (19.71%) Azure
3 37 (13.26%) GitHub
4 23 (8.24%) GitHub Actions
5 19 (6.81%) Azure DevOps
6 17 (6.09%) GCP
7 13 (4.66%) OpenShift
8 12 (4.30%) Power Platform
9 11 (3.94%) Serverless
10 10 (3.58%) Amazon S3
11 9 (3.23%) AWS Lambda
11 9 (3.23%) Dynamics 365
12 8 (2.87%) Datadog
13 7 (2.51%) Azure Logic Apps
13 7 (2.51%) OCI
14 6 (2.15%) Amazon EC2
14 6 (2.15%) Boomi
15 5 (1.79%) AtomSphere
15 5 (1.79%) AWS CloudFormation
16 3 (1.08%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.79%) Kerberos
1 5 (1.79%) SAN
2 4 (1.43%) TCP/IP
3 3 (1.08%) VPN
4 2 (0.72%) Bluetooth
4 2 (0.72%) Firewall
4 2 (0.72%) HTTP
4 2 (0.72%) HTTPS
4 2 (0.72%) VoIP
5 1 (0.36%) Asterisk PBX
5 1 (0.36%) BGP
5 1 (0.36%) Ethernet VPN
5 1 (0.36%) MPLS
5 1 (0.36%) MQTT
5 1 (0.36%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (13.26%) PostgreSQL
2 19 (6.81%) NoSQL
3 17 (6.09%) Relational Database
4 14 (5.02%) Oracle Reports
5 13 (4.66%) MongoDB
6 12 (4.30%) MySQL
6 12 (4.30%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 8 (2.87%) SQL Server
8 7 (2.51%) HBase
9 6 (2.15%) DynamoDB
10 5 (1.79%) Apache Cassandra
10 5 (1.79%) Couchbase
10 5 (1.79%) Data Warehouse
10 5 (1.79%) Power BI
11 4 (1.43%) Oracle Database
11 4 (1.43%) SAP HANA
12 3 (1.08%) Azure SQL Database
12 3 (1.08%) Oracle BI EE
12 3 (1.08%) Redis
13 2 (0.72%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 31 (11.11%) Jenkins
2 29 (10.39%) Git
3 21 (7.53%) Cucumber
4 19 (6.81%) JUnit
5 18 (6.45%) Gradle
6 14 (5.02%) JIRA
6 14 (5.02%) Sonatype Nexus
7 10 (3.58%) GitLab
8 9 (3.23%) JMeter
9 8 (2.87%) Maven
10 7 (2.51%) Artifactory
11 6 (2.15%) Bitbucket
12 5 (1.79%) Android Studio
13 4 (1.43%) Subversion
13 4 (1.43%) Visual Studio
14 3 (1.08%) Storybook
15 2 (0.72%) Gatling
15 2 (0.72%) Oracle Forms
15 2 (0.72%) Vite
15 2 (0.72%) webpack
General
1 70 (25.09%) Social Skills
2 39 (13.98%) Finance
3 36 (12.90%) Analytical Skills
4 20 (7.17%) Public Sector
5 7 (2.51%) Telecoms
6 6 (2.15%) Manufacturing
7 5 (1.79%) Banking
7 5 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (1.43%) Aerospace
8 4 (1.43%) Electronics
8 4 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (1.08%) Billing
9 3 (1.08%) Marketing
9 3 (1.08%) Military
10 2 (0.72%) Automotive
10 2 (0.72%) General Ledger
10 2 (0.72%) Legal
10 2 (0.72%) Retail
11 1 (0.36%) Aviation
11 1 (0.36%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (17.56%) REST
2 38 (13.62%) React
3 37 (13.26%) .NET
3 37 (13.26%) RESTful
4 32 (11.47%) Spring
5 25 (8.96%) Spring Boot
6 24 (8.60%) HTML
6 24 (8.60%) Kafka
7 23 (8.24%) CSS
8 22 (7.89%) AngularJS
8 22 (7.89%) SOAP
9 16 (5.73%) Oracle Fusion
9 16 (5.73%) Web Services
10 14 (5.02%) Node.js
11 13 (4.66%) RabbitMQ
12 12 (4.30%) Lightning Web Components
13 10 (3.58%) .NET Core
13 10 (3.58%) Hibernate
14 9 (3.23%) JSON
15 8 (2.87%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 9 (3.23%) Mobile App
2 8 (2.87%) Algorithms
3 7 (2.51%) Cloud Native
3 7 (2.51%) Onboarding
4 5 (1.79%) Data Structures
5 4 (1.43%) 3D Graphics
5 4 (1.43%) Client/Server
5 4 (1.43%) Vector Graphics
6 3 (1.08%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (0.72%) Animation
7 2 (0.72%) Distributed Systems
7 2 (0.72%) e-Learning
7 2 (0.72%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (0.72%) Greenfield Project
7 2 (0.72%) IoT
7 2 (0.72%) Renewable Energy
7 2 (0.72%) Robotics
8 1 (0.36%) Blockchain
8 1 (0.36%) Cyber Threat
8 1 (0.36%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 19 (6.81%) Linux
2 15 (5.38%) Android
3 12 (4.30%) Windows
4 10 (3.58%) Apple iOS
5 7 (2.51%) Unix
6 5 (1.79%) Debian
6 5 (1.79%) Ubuntu
6 5 (1.79%) Windows Server
6 5 (1.79%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (0.72%) CentOS
8 1 (0.36%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (37.28%) Agile
2 82 (29.39%) CI/CD
3 57 (20.43%) Problem-Solving
4 55 (19.71%) DevOps
5 44 (15.77%) Full-Stack Development
6 36 (12.90%) Microservices
7 35 (12.54%) Scrum
7 35 (12.54%) TDD
8 34 (12.19%) Software Engineering
9 30 (10.75%) Data Modelling
10 27 (9.68%) AI
11 25 (8.96%) Business Intelligence
11 25 (8.96%) Data Integration
12 24 (8.60%) Test Automation
13 23 (8.24%) Workflow
14 22 (7.89%) Computer Science
14 22 (7.89%) Containerisation
15 19 (6.81%) Acceptance Criteria
15 19 (6.81%) Test Strategy
16 18 (6.45%) CAFM
Programming Languages
1 75 (26.88%) SQL
2 67 (24.01%) Java
3 44 (15.77%) Python
4 38 (13.62%) C#
5 37 (13.26%) JavaScript
6 18 (6.45%) VB
7 13 (4.66%) Apex Code
8 11 (3.94%) TypeScript
9 9 (3.23%) Go
9 9 (3.23%) PL/SQL
10 7 (2.51%) Shell Script
11 6 (2.15%) C++
12 5 (1.79%) C
12 5 (1.79%) PowerShell
12 5 (1.79%) X++
13 4 (1.43%) ABAP
13 4 (1.43%) Kotlin
13 4 (1.43%) Swift
14 3 (1.08%) Objective-C
14 3 (1.08%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 48 (17.20%) Security Cleared
2 35 (12.54%) SC Cleared
3 22 (7.89%) Degree
4 19 (6.81%) Computer Science Degree
5 9 (3.23%) OCP
5 9 (3.23%) Oracle Certification
6 8 (2.87%) DV Cleared
7 6 (2.15%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.36%) CEH
8 1 (0.36%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.36%) ECSA
8 1 (0.36%) GCFA
8 1 (0.36%) GCIA
8 1 (0.36%) GCIH
8 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.36%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (5.02%) QA
2 7 (2.51%) Data Quality
3 4 (1.43%) GDPR
4 3 (1.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (1.08%) NIST
4 3 (1.08%) SLA
5 2 (0.72%) COBIT
6 1 (0.36%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.36%) Def Stans
6 1 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 17025
System Software
1 23 (8.24%) Docker
2 4 (1.43%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 35 (12.54%) Kubernetes
2 11 (3.94%) Ansible
3 9 (3.23%) Grafana
4 7 (2.51%) Progress Chef
5 5 (1.79%) Terraform
6 3 (1.08%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.72%) Argo
7 2 (0.72%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 1 (0.36%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.36%) Rsyslog
8 1 (0.36%) SCOM
8 1 (0.36%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 27 (9.68%) Oracle
2 26 (9.32%) Microsoft
3 21 (7.53%) Salesforce
4 13 (4.66%) VMware
5 11 (3.94%) SAP
6 10 (3.58%) Virgin Media
7 9 (3.23%) Databricks
8 7 (2.51%) Atlassian
9 6 (2.15%) MuleSoft
9 6 (2.15%) Red Hat
10 4 (1.43%) Adobe
10 4 (1.43%) Apple
10 4 (1.43%) Autodesk
10 4 (1.43%) Informatica
11 3 (1.08%) Google
11 3 (1.08%) IBM
11 3 (1.08%) Splunk
12 2 (0.72%) Blue Prism
12 2 (0.72%) CA Agile Central
12 2 (0.72%) Teradata