Senior Developer Contract Job Trends in the South East

Senior Developer
England > South East

The median Senior Developer daily rate in the South East is £560, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 June 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 178 117 177
Rank change year-on-year -61 +60 +1
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 39 31 23
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.65% 1.04% 0.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.71% 1.14% 0.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 22 16 14
10th Percentile £406 £379 £445
25th Percentile £429 £473 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £527 £588
Median % change year-on-year +6.31% -10.34% +12.98%
75th Percentile £608 £591 £650
90th Percentile £650 £613 £688
England median daily rate £575 £600 £555
% change year-on-year -4.17% +8.11% -14.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 3
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £54.85
Median hourly rate - £77.19 £58.91
Median % change year-on-year - +31.04% -
75th Percentile - - £75.23
90th Percentile - - £82.59
England median hourly rate £45.56 £77.19 £60.17
% change year-on-year -40.98% +28.29% -3.73%

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 5,513 2,720 5,294
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.52% 91.03% 92.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,356 1,811 3,116
10th Percentile £303 £225 £243
25th Percentile £416 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -
75th Percentile £613 £600 £625
90th Percentile £700 £655 £688
England median daily rate £520 £514 £525
% change year-on-year +1.17% -2.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 556 179 552
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.20 £12.88
25th Percentile £24.25 £16.95 £18.82
Median hourly rate £50.00 £32.05 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +56.01% -35.90% -
75th Percentile £80.41 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
England median hourly rate £45.00 £29.07 £38.50
% change year-on-year +54.80% -24.49% -14.44%

Senior Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Senior Developer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Senior Developer job vacancy trend in the South East

Senior Developer
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Senior Developer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Senior Developer job vacancies in the South East

Senior Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Senior Developer in the South East over the 6 months to 10 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Senior Developer in the South East

Senior Developer
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Senior Developer job vacancies in the South East.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Senior Developer job vacancies in the South East

Senior 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 Senior Developer within the South East region over the 6 months to 10 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 -44 21 £560 +4.67% 7
Buckinghamshire -25 17 £560 +5.96% 2
Surrey -22 7 £413 -19.75% 5
Hampshire -26 5 £600 - 9
Berkshire -38 4 £513 -13.50% 5
West Sussex -18 3 £600 +84.62%
East Sussex - 1 £655 - 1
Sussex - 1 £600 -
Home Counties - 1 - -
Senior Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 10 June 2026, Senior 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 Senior Developer in the job title.

1 25 (64.10%) CI/CD
2 19 (48.72%) Security Cleared
3 18 (46.15%) .NET
3 18 (46.15%) SC Cleared
4 15 (38.46%) Azure
4 15 (38.46%) C#
5 14 (35.90%) Agile
5 14 (35.90%) DevOps
6 13 (33.33%) Python
7 12 (30.77%) Microservices
8 11 (28.21%) Git
8 11 (28.21%) RESTful
9 9 (23.08%) AWS
9 9 (23.08%) Java
10 8 (20.51%) Go
10 8 (20.51%) JavaScript
10 8 (20.51%) Software Engineering
11 7 (17.95%) Full-Stack Development
11 7 (17.95%) SQL
12 6 (15.38%) AngularJS
12 6 (15.38%) GitHub
12 6 (15.38%) Mentoring
12 6 (15.38%) React
13 5 (12.82%) Azure DevOps
13 5 (12.82%) Clean Code
13 5 (12.82%) DV Cleared
13 5 (12.82%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (12.82%) Jenkins
13 5 (12.82%) Microsoft
13 5 (12.82%) Test Automation

Senior 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 2 (5.13%) Apache Spark
2 1 (2.56%) Appian
2 1 (2.56%) CMS
2 1 (2.56%) IIS
2 1 (2.56%) JBoss
2 1 (2.56%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 1 (2.56%) Tomcat
2 1 (2.56%) Umbraco
2 1 (2.56%) WebLogic
Applications
1 1 (2.56%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 15 (38.46%) Azure
2 9 (23.08%) AWS
3 6 (15.38%) GitHub
4 5 (12.82%) Azure DevOps
4 5 (12.82%) GitHub Actions
5 4 (10.26%) Amazon S3
5 4 (10.26%) AWS Lambda
5 4 (10.26%) GCP
5 4 (10.26%) Serverless
6 2 (5.13%) Amazon ECS
6 2 (5.13%) Amazon OpenSearch
6 2 (5.13%) AWS CodePipeline
6 2 (5.13%) Firebase
6 2 (5.13%) OpenShift
6 2 (5.13%) Snowflake
7 1 (2.56%) Azure AI
7 1 (2.56%) Azure Logic Apps
7 1 (2.56%) Azure Service Bus
7 1 (2.56%) Dialogflow
7 1 (2.56%) Power Platform
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (10.26%) DynamoDB
1 4 (10.26%) NoSQL
1 4 (10.26%) Relational Database
1 4 (10.26%) SQL Server
2 3 (7.69%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (5.13%) Big Data
3 2 (5.13%) MySQL
4 1 (2.56%) Apache Cassandra
4 1 (2.56%) Couchbase
4 1 (2.56%) Data Lake
4 1 (2.56%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (2.56%) GIS
4 1 (2.56%) Oracle Database
4 1 (2.56%) Power BI
4 1 (2.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 11 (28.21%) Git
2 5 (12.82%) Jenkins
3 2 (5.13%) fastlane
4 1 (2.56%) Android Studio
4 1 (2.56%) Crashlytics
4 1 (2.56%) GitLab
4 1 (2.56%) Gradle
4 1 (2.56%) JUnit
4 1 (2.56%) Selenium
4 1 (2.56%) SpecFlow
4 1 (2.56%) Xcode
General
1 7 (17.95%) Public Sector
2 4 (10.26%) Legal
2 4 (10.26%) Social Skills
3 3 (7.69%) Finance
3 3 (7.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 1 (2.56%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (2.56%) Banking
4 1 (2.56%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (46.15%) .NET
2 11 (28.21%) RESTful
3 6 (15.38%) AngularJS
3 6 (15.38%) React
4 4 (10.26%) .NET Core
4 4 (10.26%) SOAP
5 3 (7.69%) .NET Framework
5 3 (7.69%) CSS
5 3 (7.69%) HTML
5 3 (7.69%) OAuth
5 3 (7.69%) REST
5 3 (7.69%) Spring
5 3 (7.69%) Spring Boot
6 2 (5.13%) Entity Framework
6 2 (5.13%) GraphQL
6 2 (5.13%) JWT
6 2 (5.13%) Kafka
6 2 (5.13%) Node.js
6 2 (5.13%) OAuth2
6 2 (5.13%) UIKit
Miscellaneous
1 5 (12.82%) Product Ownership
2 4 (10.26%) Distributed Systems
3 3 (7.69%) Cloud Native
3 3 (7.69%) Mobile App
4 2 (5.13%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (2.56%) Algorithms
5 1 (2.56%) Client/Server
5 1 (2.56%) CMDB
5 1 (2.56%) Data Structures
5 1 (2.56%) N-Tier
5 1 (2.56%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 2 (5.13%) Apple iOS
1 2 (5.13%) Unix
2 1 (2.56%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (64.10%) CI/CD
2 14 (35.90%) Agile
2 14 (35.90%) DevOps
3 12 (30.77%) Microservices
4 8 (20.51%) Software Engineering
5 7 (17.95%) Full-Stack Development
6 6 (15.38%) Mentoring
7 5 (12.82%) Clean Code
7 5 (12.82%) Test Automation
7 5 (12.82%) User Experience
8 4 (10.26%) API Development
8 4 (10.26%) Case Management
8 4 (10.26%) OWASP
8 4 (10.26%) Scrum
9 3 (7.69%) Analytics
9 3 (7.69%) API Integration
9 3 (7.69%) Continuous Improvement
9 3 (7.69%) Deployment Automation
9 3 (7.69%) Secure Coding
9 3 (7.69%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
Programming Languages
1 15 (38.46%) C#
2 13 (33.33%) Python
3 9 (23.08%) Java
4 8 (20.51%) Go
4 8 (20.51%) JavaScript
5 7 (17.95%) SQL
6 3 (7.69%) TypeScript
7 2 (5.13%) Swift
8 1 (2.56%) Kotlin
8 1 (2.56%) PL/SQL
8 1 (2.56%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 19 (48.72%) Security Cleared
2 18 (46.15%) SC Cleared
3 5 (12.82%) DV Cleared
4 2 (5.13%) Computer Science Degree
4 2 (5.13%) Degree
5 1 (2.56%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (10.26%) QA
2 3 (7.69%) WCAG
3 2 (5.13%) Accessibility
System Software
1 3 (7.69%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (7.69%) Kubernetes
2 1 (2.56%) Terraform
Vendors
1 5 (12.82%) Microsoft
2 4 (10.26%) ServiceNow
3 2 (5.13%) Dynatrace
3 2 (5.13%) Google
3 2 (5.13%) Oracle
4 1 (2.56%) Ab Initio
4 1 (2.56%) Apple
4 1 (2.56%) ESRI
4 1 (2.56%) OpenAI
4 1 (2.56%) Teradata