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 21 April 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 20 13
Rank change year-on-year -8 -7 -2
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 370 241 510
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.47% 8.05% 9.16%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.04% 8.71% 9.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 258 173 388
10th Percentile £326 £350 £350
25th Percentile £413 £409 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £455 £475
Median % change year-on-year +9.89% -4.21% -9.52%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £560
90th Percentile £638 £638 £682
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -5.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 5 26
10th Percentile - £27.63 £40.63
25th Percentile £34.01 £37.80 £48.40
Median hourly rate £52.50 £52.50 £58.91
Median % change year-on-year - -10.87% -15.85%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £68.31 £82.23
England median hourly rate £60.00 £61.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -1.64% -2.40% +4.17%

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 5,254 2,766 5,153
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.80% 92.38% 92.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,286 1,823 3,097
10th Percentile £300 £245 £213
25th Percentile £413 £400 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% - -
75th Percentile £613 £600 £615
90th Percentile £713 £663 £688
England median daily rate £508 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.24% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 489 158 473
10th Percentile £15.22 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £21.00 £20.43 £18.32
Median hourly rate £49.00 £32.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +50.77% -31.58% -0.61%
75th Percentile £81.05 £63.75 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.15 £76.86
England median hourly rate £45.00 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year +38.46% -7.14% -22.22%

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 21 April 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 21 April 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 21 April 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 -19 155 £515 +9.57% 78
Hampshire -1 114 £500 +13.19% 45
Berkshire -30 82 £488 +5.12% 38
Buckinghamshire +13 72 £525 +7.69% 19
Surrey +1 38 £505 +6.32% 30
West Sussex +3 30 £475 +17.72% 12
East Sussex +4 13 £525 -4.55% 25
Sussex - 11 £475 - 11
Kent -1 7 - - 16
Middlesex - 2 £552 - 5
Oxfordshire -22 1 £301 -3.84% 21
Home Counties - 1 - -
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 21 April 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.

1 147 (39.73%) Security Cleared
2 130 (35.14%) SC Cleared
3 101 (27.30%) Java
4 92 (24.86%) CI/CD
5 79 (21.35%) SQL
6 76 (20.54%) Azure
7 74 (20.00%) Agile
8 59 (15.95%) .NET
8 59 (15.95%) Python
9 58 (15.68%) AWS
10 54 (14.59%) Oracle
11 53 (14.32%) DevOps
11 53 (14.32%) Microservices
12 51 (13.78%) JavaScript
13 50 (13.51%) Software Engineering
14 49 (13.24%) Git
15 48 (12.97%) Full-Stack Development
16 46 (12.43%) C#
17 44 (11.89%) React
18 43 (11.62%) Spring
19 42 (11.35%) Kubernetes
20 41 (11.08%) PostgreSQL
20 41 (11.08%) Problem-Solving
20 41 (11.08%) REST
21 38 (10.27%) Business Intelligence
21 38 (10.27%) RESTful
22 37 (10.00%) Test Automation
23 35 (9.46%) Data Modelling
24 34 (9.19%) Kafka
24 34 (9.19%) Unit Testing

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 9 (2.43%) Apache Spark
1 9 (2.43%) Oracle Application Server
2 7 (1.89%) SharePoint
3 6 (1.62%) Confluence
4 4 (1.08%) Apache
4 4 (1.08%) CMS
4 4 (1.08%) IIS
5 3 (0.81%) ArcGIS
5 3 (0.81%) Umbraco
6 1 (0.27%) Appian
6 1 (0.27%) BizTalk Server
6 1 (0.27%) JBoss
6 1 (0.27%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.27%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.27%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.27%) WebLogic
6 1 (0.27%) WordPress
Applications
1 4 (1.08%) CPLEX
2 3 (0.81%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.54%) Oracle Smart View
4 1 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (2.70%) Oracle ERP
2 5 (1.35%) Oracle 11i
2 5 (1.35%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (0.81%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.54%) Maximo
4 2 (0.54%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.54%) SAP HR
4 2 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 76 (20.54%) Azure
2 58 (15.68%) AWS
3 32 (8.65%) GitHub
4 27 (7.30%) Azure DevOps
5 24 (6.49%) GCP
6 22 (5.95%) OpenShift
7 19 (5.14%) Power Platform
8 18 (4.86%) GitHub Actions
9 17 (4.59%) Serverless
10 11 (2.97%) Amazon S3
10 11 (2.97%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (2.70%) Dynamics 365
12 7 (1.89%) Azure Functions
12 7 (1.89%) Azure Service Bus
12 7 (1.89%) OCI
12 7 (1.89%) Power Automate
13 6 (1.62%) Azure Key Vault
13 6 (1.62%) PowerApps
13 6 (1.62%) Snowflake
14 5 (1.35%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.54%) Bluetooth
1 2 (0.54%) Firewall
1 2 (0.54%) HTTPS
1 2 (0.54%) Tactical Data Link
2 1 (0.27%) HTTP
2 1 (0.27%) Kerberos
2 1 (0.27%) SAN
2 1 (0.27%) Software-Defined Radio
2 1 (0.27%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.27%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (11.08%) PostgreSQL
2 28 (7.57%) Oracle Reports
3 23 (6.22%) NoSQL
3 23 (6.22%) Relational Database
4 21 (5.68%) SQL Server
5 20 (5.41%) Data Warehouse
6 19 (5.14%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 14 (3.78%) Oracle ODI
8 13 (3.51%) MongoDB
9 12 (3.24%) Power BI
10 10 (2.70%) MySQL
11 8 (2.16%) Big Data
11 8 (2.16%) DynamoDB
12 7 (1.89%) Azure SQL Database
13 5 (1.35%) Oracle Database
14 4 (1.08%) HBase
14 4 (1.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 3 (0.81%) RDBMS
15 3 (0.81%) SAP HANA
16 2 (0.54%) Couchbase
Development Applications
1 49 (13.24%) Git
2 27 (7.30%) Jenkins
3 21 (5.68%) JUnit
4 20 (5.41%) Gradle
5 13 (3.51%) Maven
6 11 (2.97%) Cucumber
7 10 (2.70%) Sonatype Nexus
7 10 (2.70%) Visual Studio
8 9 (2.43%) Bitbucket
8 9 (2.43%) JMeter
9 8 (2.16%) Android Studio
9 8 (2.16%) GitLab
9 8 (2.16%) SonarQube
10 7 (1.89%) JIRA
10 7 (1.89%) Subversion
11 5 (1.35%) Selenium
12 4 (1.08%) Artifactory
12 4 (1.08%) Eclipse
12 4 (1.08%) Storybook
13 3 (0.81%) Postman
General
1 53 (14.32%) Social Skills
2 45 (12.16%) Finance
3 30 (8.11%) Public Sector
4 21 (5.68%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (2.43%) Telecoms
6 6 (1.62%) Aerospace
6 6 (1.62%) Automotive
7 5 (1.35%) Manufacturing
8 4 (1.08%) Electronics
8 4 (1.08%) Marketing
9 3 (0.81%) Aviation
9 3 (0.81%) Billing
9 3 (0.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.54%) Banking
10 2 (0.54%) Law
10 2 (0.54%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.27%) Advertising
11 1 (0.27%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.27%) Legal
11 1 (0.27%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (15.95%) .NET
2 44 (11.89%) React
3 43 (11.62%) Spring
4 41 (11.08%) REST
5 38 (10.27%) RESTful
6 34 (9.19%) Kafka
7 32 (8.65%) Spring Boot
8 23 (6.22%) AngularJS
9 20 (5.41%) CSS
10 16 (4.32%) SOAP
11 15 (4.05%) JSON
12 14 (3.78%) HTML
13 13 (3.51%) .NET Framework
13 13 (3.51%) Web Services
14 12 (3.24%) Hibernate
14 12 (3.24%) Node.js
14 12 (3.24%) OAuth
14 12 (3.24%) Oracle Fusion
15 10 (2.70%) Entity Framework
16 8 (2.16%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 18 (4.86%) Distributed Systems
2 16 (4.32%) Data Structures
3 13 (3.51%) Mobile App
4 11 (2.97%) Algorithms
5 10 (2.70%) Cloud Native
6 8 (2.16%) Data Centre
6 8 (2.16%) Product Ownership
7 6 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (1.35%) Distributed Architecture
9 4 (1.08%) CMDB
9 4 (1.08%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.81%) AI Agents
10 3 (0.81%) Client/Server
10 3 (0.81%) Enterprise Software
10 3 (0.81%) Legacy Code
10 3 (0.81%) Onboarding
11 2 (0.54%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (0.54%) Management Information System
12 1 (0.27%) Device Driver
12 1 (0.27%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 23 (6.22%) Android
2 18 (4.86%) Linux
3 11 (2.97%) Windows
4 7 (1.89%) Apple iOS
5 6 (1.62%) Unix
6 1 (0.27%) Debian
6 1 (0.27%) Embedded Linux
6 1 (0.27%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (24.86%) CI/CD
2 74 (20.00%) Agile
3 53 (14.32%) DevOps
3 53 (14.32%) Microservices
4 50 (13.51%) Software Engineering
5 48 (12.97%) Full-Stack Development
6 41 (11.08%) Problem-Solving
7 38 (10.27%) Business Intelligence
8 37 (10.00%) Test Automation
9 35 (9.46%) Data Modelling
10 34 (9.19%) Unit Testing
11 33 (8.92%) Scrum
12 31 (8.38%) Performance Tuning
13 29 (7.84%) Containerisation
14 28 (7.57%) Analytics
14 28 (7.57%) Front End Development
15 25 (6.76%) ETL
16 21 (5.68%) Android Development
16 21 (5.68%) Migration
17 20 (5.41%) AI
Programming Languages
1 101 (27.30%) Java
2 79 (21.35%) SQL
3 59 (15.95%) Python
4 51 (13.78%) JavaScript
5 46 (12.43%) C#
6 22 (5.95%) Go
7 19 (5.14%) TypeScript
8 12 (3.24%) Kotlin
9 11 (2.97%) C++
10 9 (2.43%) PL/SQL
11 6 (1.62%) C
11 6 (1.62%) PowerShell
12 5 (1.35%) ABAP
12 5 (1.35%) PHP
13 4 (1.08%) Shell Script
13 4 (1.08%) Swift
14 3 (0.81%) Bash
14 3 (0.81%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 2 (0.54%) T-SQL
15 2 (0.54%) VB
Qualifications
1 147 (39.73%) Security Cleared
2 130 (35.14%) SC Cleared
3 15 (4.05%) DV Cleared
4 11 (2.97%) Degree
5 10 (2.70%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (1.35%) OCP
6 5 (1.35%) Oracle Certification
7 4 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (0.54%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.27%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.27%) AWS Certified Developer
9 1 (0.27%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (4.05%) QA
2 7 (1.89%) Accessibility
3 3 (0.81%) Data Quality
3 3 (0.81%) WCAG
4 2 (0.54%) COBIT
4 2 (0.54%) GDPR
4 2 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.54%) NIST
5 1 (0.27%) GRC
System Software
1 30 (8.11%) Docker
2 5 (1.35%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
5 1 (0.27%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 42 (11.35%) Kubernetes
2 11 (2.97%) Terraform
3 9 (2.43%) Ansible
4 8 (2.16%) Argo
5 6 (1.62%) Progress Chef
6 3 (0.81%) Grafana
6 3 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.81%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
7 1 (0.27%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 1 (0.27%) Podman
7 1 (0.27%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 54 (14.59%) Oracle
2 31 (8.38%) Microsoft
3 19 (5.14%) ServiceNow
4 9 (2.43%) Salesforce
5 8 (2.16%) Atlassian
5 8 (2.16%) Red Hat
5 8 (2.16%) SAP
6 7 (1.89%) VMware
7 6 (1.62%) Google
8 5 (1.35%) Blue Prism
8 5 (1.35%) Siebel
8 5 (1.35%) Splunk
8 5 (1.35%) Teradata
9 4 (1.08%) Ab Initio
9 4 (1.08%) Databricks
10 3 (0.81%) Coverity
10 3 (0.81%) Informatica
10 3 (0.81%) Thales
11 2 (0.54%) Cognos
11 2 (0.54%) Dynatrace