Developer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Developer
England > South East

The median Developer daily rate in the South East is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 29 July 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 20 13
Rank change year-on-year -1 -7 0
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 486 263 479
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 7.40% 7.59% 9.34%
As % of the Job Titles category 8.00% 8.39% 10.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 317 195 345
10th Percentile £324 £319 £358
25th Percentile £425 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £655 £625 £651
England median daily rate £518 £515 £525
% change year-on-year +0.49% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 15 12
10th Percentile £32.06 - £36.98
25th Percentile £37.19 £32.94 £54.85
Median hourly rate £55.00 £33.89 £63.75
Median % change year-on-year +62.31% -46.85% -5.56%
75th Percentile £68.13 £54.38 £65.94
90th Percentile £72.63 £55.00 £76.63
England median hourly rate £55.00 £51.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year +7.32% -21.15% +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 6,074 3,136 4,720
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.48% 90.51% 92.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,603 2,036 2,862
10th Percentile £305 £213 £255
25th Percentile £425 £376 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £634
90th Percentile £713 £663 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 691 249 411
10th Percentile £16.35 £14.00 £15.38
25th Percentile £26.81 £15.50 £22.50
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -56.15% +14.70%
75th Percentile £77.50 £60.00 £71.82
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
England median hourly rate £45.56 £26.02 £43.00
% change year-on-year +75.08% -39.49% -1.58%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -16 171 £525 - 55
Hampshire +8 157 £525 +7.14% 37
Berkshire -25 95 £500 -9.09% 33
Surrey +10 81 £513 -0.39% 25
Buckinghamshire -5 71 £525 +18.24% 12
West Sussex +7 44 £425 +38.66% 11
Sussex - 11 £475 - 7
Kent +6 10 £450 +20.00% 24
East Sussex -3 8 £525 +16.67% 12
Oxfordshire -21 5 £625 +29.87% 10
Home Counties - 1 - -
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 29 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.

1 221 (45.47%) Security Cleared
2 177 (36.42%) SC Cleared
3 104 (21.40%) Agile
4 99 (20.37%) SQL
5 94 (19.34%) Azure
6 89 (18.31%) CI/CD
7 86 (17.70%) Oracle
8 78 (16.05%) DevOps
9 74 (15.23%) .NET
9 74 (15.23%) Java
10 66 (13.58%) Python
11 64 (13.17%) Git
12 61 (12.55%) DV Cleared
12 61 (12.55%) Software Engineering
13 59 (12.14%) REST
14 57 (11.73%) C#
15 54 (11.11%) JavaScript
15 54 (11.11%) Microservices
15 54 (11.11%) RESTful
16 52 (10.70%) Scrum
17 51 (10.49%) Full-Stack Development
18 50 (10.29%) Analytics
18 50 (10.29%) Problem-Solving
19 49 (10.08%) ServiceNow
20 47 (9.67%) Azure DevOps
21 45 (9.26%) Data Modelling
21 45 (9.26%) Kubernetes
22 44 (9.05%) ETL
23 43 (8.85%) AWS
24 42 (8.64%) Data Warehouse

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 20 (4.12%) Oracle Application Server
2 11 (2.26%) Confluence
3 6 (1.23%) Apache Spark
3 6 (1.23%) Oracle Workflow
4 5 (1.03%) CMS
4 5 (1.03%) Documentum
5 4 (0.82%) SharePoint
5 4 (0.82%) Umbraco
6 2 (0.41%) Apache
6 2 (0.41%) IIS
6 2 (0.41%) SAS
7 1 (0.21%) Kentico
7 1 (0.21%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.21%) WordPress
Applications
1 9 (1.85%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.41%) Oracle Smart View
2 2 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.21%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 15 (3.09%) Siebel CRM
2 10 (2.06%) Oracle ERP
3 5 (1.03%) Oracle 11i
3 5 (1.03%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.41%) ProductWriter
5 1 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.21%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.21%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 94 (19.34%) Azure
2 47 (9.67%) Azure DevOps
3 43 (8.85%) AWS
4 26 (5.35%) Power Platform
5 22 (4.53%) GCP
6 19 (3.91%) Dynamics 365
7 18 (3.70%) OpenShift
7 18 (3.70%) Serverless
8 17 (3.50%) GitHub
9 15 (3.09%) OCI
9 15 (3.09%) Power Automate
10 11 (2.26%) Azure Functions
10 11 (2.26%) GitHub Actions
11 10 (2.06%) Azure Monitor
11 10 (2.06%) Entra ID
11 10 (2.06%) PowerApps
12 9 (1.85%) Amazon S3
12 9 (1.85%) Azure Logic Apps
13 8 (1.65%) Azure Key Vault
13 8 (1.65%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 12 (2.47%) BGP
1 12 (2.47%) IPsec
1 12 (2.47%) LAN
1 12 (2.47%) MPLS
1 12 (2.47%) WAN
2 7 (1.44%) HTTPS
3 2 (0.41%) Firewall
3 2 (0.41%) Software-Defined Radio
3 2 (0.41%) Wireless
4 1 (0.21%) HTTP
4 1 (0.21%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (8.64%) Data Warehouse
2 37 (7.61%) Oracle Reports
3 32 (6.58%) PostgreSQL
4 26 (5.35%) NoSQL
5 25 (5.14%) Oracle ODI
6 21 (4.32%) SQL Server
7 17 (3.50%) Power BI
8 15 (3.09%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 14 (2.88%) Relational Database
10 13 (2.67%) MongoDB
11 11 (2.26%) Siebel EIM
12 8 (1.65%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (1.44%) DynamoDB
14 6 (1.23%) Big Data
14 6 (1.23%) DataStage
14 6 (1.23%) Oracle Database
15 5 (1.03%) MySQL
16 4 (0.82%) DocumentDB
16 4 (0.82%) GIS
17 3 (0.62%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 64 (13.17%) Git
2 23 (4.73%) JIRA
3 15 (3.09%) Jenkins
4 12 (2.47%) SonarQube
5 10 (2.06%) GitLab
6 9 (1.85%) Maven
7 8 (1.65%) Visual Studio
8 6 (1.23%) Bitbucket
8 6 (1.23%) JUnit
9 5 (1.03%) Gradle
9 5 (1.03%) Subversion
10 4 (0.82%) Eclipse
10 4 (0.82%) NUnit
11 3 (0.62%) Mockito
11 3 (0.62%) Postman
12 2 (0.41%) fastlane
12 2 (0.41%) Team Foundation Server
13 1 (0.21%) Artifactory
13 1 (0.21%) Cucumber
13 1 (0.21%) SpecFlow
General
1 39 (8.02%) Social Skills
2 36 (7.41%) Finance
3 29 (5.97%) Public Sector
4 19 (3.91%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (3.70%) Aerospace
6 11 (2.26%) Manufacturing
7 9 (1.85%) Law
7 9 (1.85%) Telecoms
8 8 (1.65%) Local Government
9 7 (1.44%) Automotive
9 7 (1.44%) Billing
10 5 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 5 (1.03%) Legal
11 4 (0.82%) Police
12 3 (0.62%) Publishing
13 2 (0.41%) Banking
13 2 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.41%) Retail
14 1 (0.21%) Aviation
14 1 (0.21%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (15.23%) .NET
2 59 (12.14%) REST
3 54 (11.11%) RESTful
4 39 (8.02%) React
5 30 (6.17%) Kafka
6 29 (5.97%) AngularJS
7 28 (5.76%) JSON
8 25 (5.14%) .NET Framework
9 24 (4.94%) Spring
10 21 (4.32%) OAuth
10 21 (4.32%) Spring Boot
11 20 (4.12%) SOAP
12 19 (3.91%) .NET Core
12 19 (3.91%) Entity Framework
13 15 (3.09%) CSS
14 13 (2.67%) ASP.NET
14 13 (2.67%) Swagger
14 13 (2.67%) Web Services
15 12 (2.47%) HTML
15 12 (2.47%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 24 (4.94%) Data Structures
2 22 (4.53%) Distributed Systems
3 19 (3.91%) Algorithms
3 19 (3.91%) Cloud Native
4 18 (3.70%) Product Ownership
5 16 (3.29%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (1.65%) Data Centre
7 7 (1.44%) Mobile App
8 6 (1.23%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (1.03%) Distributed Architecture
10 4 (0.82%) AI Agents
10 4 (0.82%) Onboarding
11 3 (0.62%) FMCG
12 2 (0.41%) CMDB
12 2 (0.41%) Data Protection Act
12 2 (0.41%) Device Driver
12 2 (0.41%) Embedded Systems
12 2 (0.41%) MicroBlaze
12 2 (0.41%) RISC-V
12 2 (0.41%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 22 (4.53%) Linux
2 13 (2.67%) Unix
3 12 (2.47%) Windows
4 8 (1.65%) Android
5 3 (0.62%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.41%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (21.40%) Agile
2 89 (18.31%) CI/CD
3 78 (16.05%) DevOps
4 61 (12.55%) Software Engineering
5 54 (11.11%) Microservices
6 52 (10.70%) Scrum
7 51 (10.49%) Full-Stack Development
8 50 (10.29%) Analytics
8 50 (10.29%) Problem-Solving
9 45 (9.26%) Data Modelling
10 44 (9.05%) ETL
11 40 (8.23%) Performance Tuning
12 39 (8.02%) Business Intelligence
12 39 (8.02%) Unit Testing
13 38 (7.82%) Test Automation
14 29 (5.97%) Containerisation
15 27 (5.56%) TDD
16 26 (5.35%) Workflow
17 25 (5.14%) SDLC
18 24 (4.94%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 99 (20.37%) SQL
2 74 (15.23%) Java
3 66 (13.58%) Python
4 57 (11.73%) C#
5 54 (11.11%) JavaScript
6 26 (5.35%) TypeScript
7 23 (4.73%) Go
8 15 (3.09%) PL/SQL
9 11 (2.26%) C
10 9 (1.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 9 (1.85%) Kotlin
10 9 (1.85%) X++
11 8 (1.65%) C++
12 7 (1.44%) PowerShell
13 6 (1.23%) Apex Code
14 4 (0.82%) Bash
14 4 (0.82%) Bicep
15 3 (0.62%) PHP
15 3 (0.62%) Shell Script
15 3 (0.62%) VB
Qualifications
1 221 (45.47%) Security Cleared
2 177 (36.42%) SC Cleared
3 61 (12.55%) DV Cleared
4 10 (2.06%) Degree
5 7 (1.44%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (1.23%) Azure Certification
7 4 (0.82%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.41%) 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 32 (6.58%) QA
2 9 (1.85%) Data Quality
3 4 (0.82%) Accessibility
3 4 (0.82%) GDPR
3 4 (0.82%) WCAG
4 2 (0.41%) COBIT
4 2 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.41%) NIST
5 1 (0.21%) GRC
System Software
1 35 (7.20%) Docker
2 13 (2.67%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.41%) Embedded Firmware
3 2 (0.41%) Firmware
3 2 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 45 (9.26%) Kubernetes
2 18 (3.70%) Terraform
3 12 (2.47%) Argo
4 2 (0.41%) Grafana
4 2 (0.41%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.21%) Ansible
5 1 (0.21%) Podman
5 1 (0.21%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 86 (17.70%) Oracle
2 49 (10.08%) ServiceNow
3 40 (8.23%) Microsoft
4 28 (5.76%) Siebel
5 15 (3.09%) Salesforce
6 11 (2.26%) Red Hat
7 8 (1.65%) Google
7 8 (1.65%) SAP
8 6 (1.23%) IBM
9 5 (1.03%) Atlassian
9 5 (1.03%) Splunk
10 4 (0.82%) ESRI
11 3 (0.62%) Ab Initio
11 3 (0.62%) MuleSoft
11 3 (0.62%) Teradata
12 2 (0.41%) Blue Prism
12 2 (0.41%) CA Agile Central
12 2 (0.41%) Dynatrace
12 2 (0.41%) HP
12 2 (0.41%) Talend