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 17 March 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 22 14
Rank change year-on-year -9 -8 -4
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 321 257 466
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.09% 8.66% 8.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.69% 9.33% 8.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 232 175 348
10th Percentile £325 £350 £367
25th Percentile £410 £406 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £465 £475
Median % change year-on-year +7.53% -2.11% -9.52%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £560
90th Percentile £609 £638 £675
England median daily rate £500 £531 £525
% change year-on-year -5.88% +1.19% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 3 24
10th Percentile £35.21 £24.24 £38.38
25th Percentile £40.00 £29.32 £46.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £40.59 £58.45
Median % change year-on-year +35.50% -30.56% -14.98%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.29 £71.88
90th Percentile £67.50 £70.43 £83.12
England median hourly rate £62.07 £63.00 £62.00
% change year-on-year -1.48% +1.61% -0.80%

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 4,797 2,754 5,217
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.02% 92.82% 92.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,029 1,795 3,180
10th Percentile £280 £243 £210
25th Percentile £410 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £503 £500
Median % change year-on-year - +0.50% -
75th Percentile £600 £613 £608
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 429 136 424
10th Percentile £15.05 £16.95 £12.82
25th Percentile £19.00 £23.50 £18.00
Median hourly rate £38.63 £45.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.16% +12.50% -11.11%
75th Percentile £81.00 £63.75 £62.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £73.36
England median hourly rate £37.44 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +6.97% +7.69% -23.53%

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 17 March 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 17 March 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 17 March 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 -21 141 £500 -9.09% 71
Hampshire +1 93 £475 +11.76% 47
Berkshire -36 77 £519 -5.68% 32
Buckinghamshire +10 60 £508 -7.31% 22
Surrey +5 30 £505 +12.22% 44
West Sussex -6 27 £475 +12.35% 8
East Sussex +3 14 £450 -18.18% 18
Sussex +3 9 £475 - 5
Kent -6 9 £550 +46.67% 27
Oxfordshire -15 4 £301 -9.28% 17
Middlesex - 2 £552 - 6
Home Counties -2 1 - -
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 17 March 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.

1 111 (34.58%) Security Cleared
2 99 (30.84%) Java
3 94 (29.28%) SC Cleared
4 84 (26.17%) CI/CD
5 75 (23.36%) SQL
6 72 (22.43%) Agile
7 62 (19.31%) Azure
8 57 (17.76%) AWS
8 57 (17.76%) Problem-Solving
9 52 (16.20%) Microservices
10 50 (15.58%) Python
11 49 (15.26%) REST
12 47 (14.64%) DevOps
12 47 (14.64%) Git
12 47 (14.64%) JavaScript
13 46 (14.33%) Full-Stack Development
13 46 (14.33%) Spring
14 45 (14.02%) Kubernetes
15 43 (13.40%) .NET
15 43 (13.40%) PostgreSQL
16 41 (12.77%) React
16 41 (12.77%) Software Engineering
17 40 (12.46%) Business Intelligence
17 40 (12.46%) Test Automation
18 38 (11.84%) Oracle
18 38 (11.84%) Spring Boot
19 37 (11.53%) GitHub
20 35 (10.90%) Jenkins
21 34 (10.59%) C#
22 31 (9.66%) Data Modelling

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 (3.12%) Confluence
2 7 (2.18%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.56%) Apache Spark
4 4 (1.25%) Apache
4 4 (1.25%) IIS
5 3 (0.93%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.62%) CMS
7 1 (0.31%) Appian
7 1 (0.31%) BizTalk Server
7 1 (0.31%) JBoss
7 1 (0.31%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.31%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.31%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.31%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.31%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.31%) WebLogic
7 1 (0.31%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (0.93%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.62%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.62%) Oracle Smart View
3 1 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (1.87%) Oracle ERP
2 3 (0.93%) Oracle Assets
2 3 (0.93%) Oracle EBS
2 3 (0.93%) Oracle General Ledger
2 3 (0.93%) Oracle Payables
2 3 (0.93%) Oracle Receivables
2 3 (0.93%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
2 3 (0.93%) Payment Gateway
3 2 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.62%) Maximo
3 2 (0.62%) Oracle 11i
3 2 (0.62%) Oracle Cash Management
3 2 (0.62%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.31%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.31%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 62 (19.31%) Azure
2 57 (17.76%) AWS
3 37 (11.53%) GitHub
4 24 (7.48%) GCP
5 21 (6.54%) GitHub Actions
6 19 (5.92%) OpenShift
7 18 (5.61%) Azure DevOps
8 16 (4.98%) Power Platform
9 13 (4.05%) Amazon S3
9 13 (4.05%) Serverless
10 11 (3.43%) OCI
11 8 (2.49%) AWS Lambda
11 8 (2.49%) Datadog
11 8 (2.49%) Dynamics 365
12 7 (2.18%) Azure Service Bus
13 6 (1.87%) Azure Functions
13 6 (1.87%) Azure Key Vault
13 6 (1.87%) Boomi
13 6 (1.87%) Snowflake
14 5 (1.56%) AtomSphere
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.56%) Kerberos
2 2 (0.62%) Bluetooth
2 2 (0.62%) HTTP
2 2 (0.62%) HTTPS
2 2 (0.62%) Tactical Data Link
2 2 (0.62%) VoIP
3 1 (0.31%) Asterisk PBX
3 1 (0.31%) SAN
3 1 (0.31%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (13.40%) PostgreSQL
2 24 (7.48%) NoSQL
3 22 (6.85%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 22 (6.85%) Oracle Reports
4 19 (5.92%) Relational Database
5 16 (4.98%) SQL Server
6 15 (4.67%) MongoDB
7 11 (3.43%) MySQL
8 10 (3.12%) Power BI
9 9 (2.80%) DynamoDB
10 8 (2.49%) HBase
11 7 (2.18%) Azure SQL Database
11 7 (2.18%) Data Warehouse
12 6 (1.87%) Oracle Database
13 5 (1.56%) Apache Cassandra
13 5 (1.56%) Big Data
13 5 (1.56%) Couchbase
14 4 (1.25%) SAP HANA
14 4 (1.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 3 (0.93%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 47 (14.64%) Git
2 35 (10.90%) Jenkins
3 26 (8.10%) JUnit
4 22 (6.85%) Gradle
5 21 (6.54%) Cucumber
6 14 (4.36%) Sonatype Nexus
7 13 (4.05%) GitLab
7 13 (4.05%) Maven
8 11 (3.43%) JIRA
9 10 (3.12%) Visual Studio
10 8 (2.49%) Artifactory
10 8 (2.49%) Bitbucket
10 8 (2.49%) JMeter
11 7 (2.18%) Android Studio
11 7 (2.18%) Subversion
12 5 (1.56%) Selenium
12 5 (1.56%) SonarQube
13 4 (1.25%) Eclipse
13 4 (1.25%) Storybook
14 3 (0.93%) Oracle APEX
General
1 65 (20.25%) Social Skills
2 44 (13.71%) Finance
3 26 (8.10%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (7.79%) Public Sector
5 6 (1.87%) Telecoms
6 4 (1.25%) Electronics
6 4 (1.25%) Manufacturing
6 4 (1.25%) Marketing
7 3 (0.93%) Aviation
7 3 (0.93%) Banking
8 2 (0.62%) Aerospace
8 2 (0.62%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (0.62%) General Ledger
8 2 (0.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.62%) Legal
9 1 (0.31%) Billing
9 1 (0.31%) Health Technology
9 1 (0.31%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.31%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (15.26%) REST
2 46 (14.33%) Spring
3 43 (13.40%) .NET
4 41 (12.77%) React
5 38 (11.84%) Spring Boot
6 31 (9.66%) Kafka
7 28 (8.72%) RESTful
8 22 (6.85%) CSS
8 22 (6.85%) SOAP
9 21 (6.54%) Oracle Fusion
10 19 (5.92%) AngularJS
11 17 (5.30%) HTML
12 15 (4.67%) JSON
12 15 (4.67%) RabbitMQ
13 14 (4.36%) Node.js
14 12 (3.74%) Hibernate
14 12 (3.74%) Web Services
15 11 (3.43%) OAuth
16 10 (3.12%) .NET Framework
17 9 (2.80%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 15 (4.67%) Data Structures
2 14 (4.36%) Distributed Systems
3 9 (2.80%) Mobile App
4 8 (2.49%) Data Centre
5 7 (2.18%) Cloud Native
6 6 (1.87%) Product Ownership
7 5 (1.56%) Algorithms
7 5 (1.56%) Client/Server
8 4 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
8 4 (1.25%) Distributed Architecture
9 3 (0.93%) CMDB
9 3 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (0.93%) Legacy Code
9 3 (0.93%) Onboarding
9 3 (0.93%) Virtual Team
10 2 (0.62%) Management Information System
11 1 (0.31%) Data Protection Act
11 1 (0.31%) EMV
11 1 (0.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 1 (0.31%) N-Tier
Operating Systems
1 22 (6.85%) Android
2 18 (5.61%) Linux
3 10 (3.12%) Windows
4 8 (2.49%) Apple iOS
5 5 (1.56%) Unix
6 1 (0.31%) CentOS
6 1 (0.31%) Debian
6 1 (0.31%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (26.17%) CI/CD
2 72 (22.43%) Agile
3 57 (17.76%) Problem-Solving
4 52 (16.20%) Microservices
5 47 (14.64%) DevOps
6 46 (14.33%) Full-Stack Development
7 41 (12.77%) Software Engineering
8 40 (12.46%) Business Intelligence
8 40 (12.46%) Test Automation
9 31 (9.66%) Data Modelling
9 31 (9.66%) Scrum
10 29 (9.03%) Unit Testing
11 27 (8.41%) Containerisation
12 24 (7.48%) Front End Development
13 22 (6.85%) Performance Tuning
14 19 (5.92%) Android Development
14 19 (5.92%) Migration
14 19 (5.92%) TDD
15 18 (5.61%) Computer Science
16 17 (5.30%) AI
Programming Languages
1 99 (30.84%) Java
2 75 (23.36%) SQL
3 50 (15.58%) Python
4 47 (14.64%) JavaScript
5 34 (10.59%) C#
6 19 (5.92%) Go
7 17 (5.30%) TypeScript
8 11 (3.43%) C++
9 9 (2.80%) Kotlin
9 9 (2.80%) PL/SQL
10 6 (1.87%) C
11 5 (1.56%) ABAP
11 5 (1.56%) Shell Script
12 4 (1.25%) PHP
12 4 (1.25%) PowerShell
12 4 (1.25%) T-SQL
13 3 (0.93%) Swift
14 2 (0.62%) Apex Code
14 2 (0.62%) Groovy
14 2 (0.62%) Perl
Qualifications
1 111 (34.58%) Security Cleared
2 94 (29.28%) SC Cleared
3 18 (5.61%) Degree
4 17 (5.30%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (3.43%) DV Cleared
6 10 (3.12%) OCP
6 10 (3.12%) Oracle Certification
7 4 (1.25%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (0.62%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.31%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.31%) AWS Certified Developer
9 1 (0.31%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (3.74%) QA
2 5 (1.56%) Accessibility
2 5 (1.56%) Data Quality
2 5 (1.56%) GDPR
3 3 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (0.93%) NIST
3 3 (0.93%) SLA
4 2 (0.62%) COBIT
5 1 (0.31%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.31%) WCAG
System Software
1 29 (9.03%) Docker
2 5 (1.56%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.93%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 45 (14.02%) Kubernetes
2 10 (3.12%) Terraform
3 9 (2.80%) Ansible
3 9 (2.80%) Grafana
4 6 (1.87%) Argo
4 6 (1.87%) Progress Chef
5 3 (0.93%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.93%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 1 (0.31%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
Vendors
1 38 (11.84%) Oracle
2 28 (8.72%) Microsoft
3 16 (4.98%) ServiceNow
4 12 (3.74%) Atlassian
5 8 (2.49%) Salesforce
5 8 (2.49%) SAP
5 8 (2.49%) VMware
6 6 (1.87%) Informatica
6 6 (1.87%) Red Hat
7 5 (1.56%) Databricks
8 4 (1.25%) Blue Prism
8 4 (1.25%) Splunk
9 3 (0.93%) Coverity
9 3 (0.93%) Google
9 3 (0.93%) Teradata
9 3 (0.93%) Thales
10 2 (0.62%) Ab Initio
10 2 (0.62%) Cognos
10 2 (0.62%) IFS
10 2 (0.62%) OpenAI