Developer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Developer
England > South East

The median Developer daily rate in the South East is £513, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 June 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 17 12
Rank change year-on-year -3 -5 0
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 443 260 531
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 7.12% 8.49% 9.32%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.77% 9.34% 10.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 303 190 399
10th Percentile £325 £325 £350
25th Percentile £413 £408 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% - -
75th Percentile £590 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £626 £675
England median daily rate £520 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -0.95% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 16 21
10th Percentile £25.00 - £35.00
25th Percentile £34.01 £32.94 £46.25
Median hourly rate £38.25 £37.24 £58.91
Median % change year-on-year +2.72% -36.78% -14.32%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £67.50 £66.10 £84.45
England median hourly rate £46.18 £40.30 £65.00
% change year-on-year +14.60% -38.01% +4.00%

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 5,701 2,784 5,260
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.66% 90.95% 92.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,434 1,814 3,092
10th Percentile £303 £216 £250
25th Percentile £417 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.06% +2.10%
75th Percentile £614 £600 £625
90th Percentile £701 £660 £688
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 594 205 545
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.20 £12.88
25th Percentile £25.37 £15.50 £18.50
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.93% -39.00% -
75th Percentile £78.75 £62.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
England median hourly rate £45.00 £28.18 £39.78
% change year-on-year +59.69% -29.15% -8.17%

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 26 June 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 26 June 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 26 June 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 -18 174 £525 - 52
Hampshire -2 126 £525 +8.25% 39
Berkshire -24 89 £475 -13.64% 29
Buckinghamshire -6 80 £525 +10.53% 13
Surrey +4 62 £513 -0.29% 28
West Sussex +6 41 £459 +41.23% 14
Sussex - 15 £475 - 3
East Sussex +1 12 £525 +40.00% 11
Kent +7 9 £450 -5.26% 19
Oxfordshire -30 5 £625 +51.52% 10
Home Counties - 1 - -
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 26 June 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.

1 195 (44.02%) Security Cleared
2 163 (36.79%) SC Cleared
3 95 (21.44%) Azure
4 90 (20.32%) SQL
5 86 (19.41%) Agile
6 79 (17.83%) Java
7 78 (17.61%) Oracle
8 77 (17.38%) CI/CD
9 75 (16.93%) .NET
10 73 (16.48%) DevOps
11 62 (14.00%) Python
12 58 (13.09%) JavaScript
13 57 (12.87%) C#
14 55 (12.42%) Git
15 53 (11.96%) Software Engineering
16 50 (11.29%) Microservices
17 49 (11.06%) Full-Stack Development
17 49 (11.06%) REST
18 48 (10.84%) Problem-Solving
19 47 (10.61%) RESTful
20 42 (9.48%) AWS
20 42 (9.48%) React
21 40 (9.03%) Azure DevOps
22 39 (8.80%) Kubernetes
22 39 (8.80%) Scrum
23 38 (8.58%) Data Modelling
24 37 (8.35%) Analytics
24 37 (8.35%) Business Intelligence
25 36 (8.13%) DV Cleared
26 35 (7.90%) Microsoft

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 14 (3.16%) Oracle Application Server
2 7 (1.58%) Confluence
3 6 (1.35%) Apache Spark
3 6 (1.35%) CMS
3 6 (1.35%) Oracle Workflow
4 5 (1.13%) Umbraco
5 4 (0.90%) IIS
6 3 (0.68%) Documentum
6 3 (0.68%) SharePoint
7 2 (0.45%) SAS
7 2 (0.45%) WordPress
8 1 (0.23%) Apache
8 1 (0.23%) Appian
8 1 (0.23%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.23%) BizTalk Server
8 1 (0.23%) JBoss
8 1 (0.23%) Kentico
8 1 (0.23%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 1 (0.23%) Tomcat
Applications
1 9 (2.03%) CPLEX
2 2 (0.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.45%) Oracle Smart View
2 2 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.23%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 15 (3.39%) Siebel CRM
2 10 (2.26%) Oracle ERP
3 5 (1.13%) Oracle 11i
3 5 (1.13%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.45%) ProductWriter
4 2 (0.45%) SAP HR
4 2 (0.45%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 95 (21.44%) Azure
2 42 (9.48%) AWS
3 40 (9.03%) Azure DevOps
4 27 (6.09%) Power Platform
5 21 (4.74%) GCP
6 18 (4.06%) Serverless
7 17 (3.84%) Dynamics 365
8 16 (3.61%) OpenShift
9 15 (3.39%) GitHub
9 15 (3.39%) OCI
10 12 (2.71%) Power Automate
11 11 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (2.26%) Amazon S3
12 10 (2.26%) Azure Functions
13 8 (1.81%) Azure Logic Apps
14 7 (1.58%) AWS Lambda
14 7 (1.58%) PowerApps
14 7 (1.58%) SaaS
15 6 (1.35%) Google App Engine
15 6 (1.35%) Oracle CX
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.58%) BGP
1 7 (1.58%) IPsec
1 7 (1.58%) LAN
1 7 (1.58%) MPLS
1 7 (1.58%) WAN
2 4 (0.90%) HTTPS
3 2 (0.45%) Firewall
3 2 (0.45%) Software-Defined Radio
3 2 (0.45%) Wireless
4 1 (0.23%) HTTP
4 1 (0.23%) Tactical Data Link
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (7.45%) PostgreSQL
2 30 (6.77%) Data Warehouse
2 30 (6.77%) Oracle Reports
3 24 (5.42%) SQL Server
4 22 (4.97%) NoSQL
5 19 (4.29%) Oracle ODI
5 19 (4.29%) Power BI
6 17 (3.84%) Relational Database
7 15 (3.39%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 13 (2.93%) MongoDB
9 11 (2.48%) Siebel EIM
10 8 (1.81%) DynamoDB
11 7 (1.58%) Big Data
11 7 (1.58%) MySQL
11 7 (1.58%) Oracle Database
12 5 (1.13%) GIS
12 5 (1.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 4 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
14 3 (0.68%) DocumentDB
14 3 (0.68%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 55 (12.42%) Git
2 14 (3.16%) Jenkins
3 12 (2.71%) JIRA
4 10 (2.26%) GitLab
4 10 (2.26%) Visual Studio
5 9 (2.03%) Maven
6 8 (1.81%) JUnit
6 8 (1.81%) SonarQube
7 6 (1.35%) Bitbucket
7 6 (1.35%) Gradle
8 5 (1.13%) Subversion
9 4 (0.90%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.90%) NUnit
9 4 (0.90%) Postman
9 4 (0.90%) Selenium
10 3 (0.68%) Mockito
11 2 (0.45%) Android Studio
11 2 (0.45%) CircleCI
11 2 (0.45%) SpecFlow
11 2 (0.45%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 43 (9.71%) Social Skills
2 39 (8.80%) Finance
3 32 (7.22%) Public Sector
4 19 (4.29%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (2.93%) Aerospace
6 10 (2.26%) Manufacturing
7 9 (2.03%) Law
7 9 (2.03%) Telecoms
8 7 (1.58%) Automotive
8 7 (1.58%) Billing
9 5 (1.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 5 (1.13%) Legal
10 2 (0.45%) Local Government
10 2 (0.45%) Police
10 2 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.45%) Retail
11 1 (0.23%) Advertising
11 1 (0.23%) Aviation
11 1 (0.23%) Marketing
11 1 (0.23%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 75 (16.93%) .NET
2 49 (11.06%) REST
3 47 (10.61%) RESTful
4 42 (9.48%) React
5 30 (6.77%) Kafka
6 27 (6.09%) AngularJS
7 26 (5.87%) JSON
8 25 (5.64%) Spring
9 24 (5.42%) CSS
10 21 (4.74%) .NET Framework
10 21 (4.74%) Spring Boot
11 19 (4.29%) SOAP
12 18 (4.06%) HTML
13 15 (3.39%) .NET Core
13 15 (3.39%) Entity Framework
14 14 (3.16%) OAuth
15 12 (2.71%) ASP.NET
15 12 (2.71%) Swagger
16 11 (2.48%) Web Services
17 10 (2.26%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 23 (5.19%) Data Structures
2 19 (4.29%) Distributed Systems
3 18 (4.06%) Algorithms
3 18 (4.06%) Cloud Native
3 18 (4.06%) Product Ownership
4 15 (3.39%) Enterprise Software
5 9 (2.03%) Mobile App
6 8 (1.81%) Data Centre
7 6 (1.35%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (1.13%) Distributed Architecture
9 4 (0.90%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.68%) CMDB
10 3 (0.68%) FMCG
10 3 (0.68%) Onboarding
11 2 (0.45%) AI Agents
11 2 (0.45%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (0.45%) Device Driver
11 2 (0.45%) Embedded Systems
11 2 (0.45%) Legacy Code
11 2 (0.45%) MicroBlaze
Operating Systems
1 16 (3.61%) Linux
2 12 (2.71%) Windows
3 10 (2.26%) Android
4 9 (2.03%) Unix
5 5 (1.13%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.45%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 86 (19.41%) Agile
2 77 (17.38%) CI/CD
3 73 (16.48%) DevOps
4 53 (11.96%) Software Engineering
5 50 (11.29%) Microservices
6 49 (11.06%) Full-Stack Development
7 48 (10.84%) Problem-Solving
8 39 (8.80%) Scrum
9 38 (8.58%) Data Modelling
10 37 (8.35%) Analytics
10 37 (8.35%) Business Intelligence
11 35 (7.90%) Performance Tuning
11 35 (7.90%) Unit Testing
12 31 (7.00%) Containerisation
12 31 (7.00%) ETL
12 31 (7.00%) Test Automation
13 29 (6.55%) Workflow
14 24 (5.42%) CRM
14 24 (5.42%) Front End Development
14 24 (5.42%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 90 (20.32%) SQL
2 79 (17.83%) Java
3 62 (14.00%) Python
4 58 (13.09%) JavaScript
5 57 (12.87%) C#
6 25 (5.64%) TypeScript
7 21 (4.74%) Go
8 12 (2.71%) PL/SQL
9 10 (2.26%) C
9 10 (2.26%) Kotlin
10 9 (2.03%) C++
11 8 (1.81%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 8 (1.81%) X++
12 5 (1.13%) PHP
13 4 (0.90%) PowerShell
14 3 (0.68%) Apex Code
14 3 (0.68%) Bash
14 3 (0.68%) Shell Script
14 3 (0.68%) Swift
15 2 (0.45%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 195 (44.02%) Security Cleared
2 163 (36.79%) SC Cleared
3 36 (8.13%) DV Cleared
4 12 (2.71%) Degree
5 9 (2.03%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (0.45%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.45%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.23%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.23%) AWS Certified Developer
8 1 (0.23%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.23%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (6.09%) QA
2 5 (1.13%) Accessibility
2 5 (1.13%) Data Quality
2 5 (1.13%) WCAG
3 4 (0.90%) GDPR
4 2 (0.45%) COBIT
4 2 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (0.45%) NIST
5 1 (0.23%) GRC
System Software
1 32 (7.22%) Docker
2 8 (1.81%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.45%) Embedded Firmware
3 2 (0.45%) Firmware
3 2 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 39 (8.80%) Kubernetes
2 12 (2.71%) Terraform
3 8 (1.81%) Argo
4 3 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.45%) Grafana
5 2 (0.45%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.23%) Ansible
6 1 (0.23%) Podman
6 1 (0.23%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 78 (17.61%) Oracle
2 35 (7.90%) Microsoft
3 30 (6.77%) ServiceNow
4 28 (6.32%) Siebel
5 9 (2.03%) Salesforce
6 7 (1.58%) Red Hat
6 7 (1.58%) SAP
7 5 (1.13%) Atlassian
7 5 (1.13%) Blue Prism
7 5 (1.13%) ESRI
7 5 (1.13%) Google
7 5 (1.13%) Splunk
8 4 (0.90%) Ab Initio
8 4 (0.90%) Teradata
9 3 (0.68%) Informatica
10 2 (0.45%) Adobe
10 2 (0.45%) Cognos
10 2 (0.45%) Databricks
10 2 (0.45%) Dynatrace
10 2 (0.45%) Talend