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 £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 July 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 180 126 169
Rank change year-on-year -54 +43 +4
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 42 35 27
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.64% 1.02% 0.50%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.69% 1.13% 0.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 25 24 18
10th Percentile £275 £417 £426
25th Percentile £406 £438 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £529 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% +0.81% +5.00%
75th Percentile £598 £600 £638
90th Percentile £634 £618 £688
England median daily rate £575 £580 £550
% change year-on-year -0.86% +5.45% -15.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 3
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £54.85
Median hourly rate - - £58.91
75th Percentile - - £75.23
90th Percentile - - £82.59
England median hourly rate £45.56 - £58.91
% change year-on-year - - -21.46%

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 6,066 3,090 4,956
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.16% 90.40% 92.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,621 1,998 2,978
10th Percentile £303 £212 £255
25th Percentile £425 £375 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £519
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -3.71% +3.85%
75th Percentile £624 £600 £630
90th Percentile £713 £663 £689
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 668 244 449
10th Percentile £16.35 £14.20 £13.25
25th Percentile £26.25 £15.50 £20.75
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.90 £55.80
Median % change year-on-year +102.70% -53.58% +11.60%
75th Percentile £77.75 £60.56 £70.39
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
England median hourly rate £45.57 £27.21 £42.50
% change year-on-year +67.48% -35.98% -3.65%

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 22 July 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 22 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 -50 20 £560 -6.67% 10
Buckinghamshire -26 16 £560 +5.96% 2
Hampshire -31 10 £300 -49.37% 4
Surrey -27 7 £413 -19.83% 4
Berkshire -37 4 £525 -12.50% 5
West Sussex -24 2 £531 +63.46% 2
East Sussex -2 1 £655 +45.56%
Sussex - 1 £600 - 1
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 22 July 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 26 (61.90%) CI/CD
2 18 (42.86%) Security Cleared
3 17 (40.48%) .NET
3 17 (40.48%) SC Cleared
4 16 (38.10%) Agile
5 15 (35.71%) Azure
6 14 (33.33%) C#
6 14 (33.33%) DevOps
7 13 (30.95%) Microservices
8 12 (28.57%) Python
8 12 (28.57%) Software Engineering
9 11 (26.19%) RESTful
10 10 (23.81%) AWS
10 10 (23.81%) Git
10 10 (23.81%) Java
11 8 (19.05%) Full-Stack Development
11 8 (19.05%) Go
11 8 (19.05%) JavaScript
11 8 (19.05%) SQL
12 7 (16.67%) GitHub
12 7 (16.67%) Mentoring
12 7 (16.67%) QA
12 7 (16.67%) Test Automation
13 6 (14.29%) Case Management
13 6 (14.29%) Jenkins
13 6 (14.29%) React
13 6 (14.29%) Scrum
14 5 (11.90%) AI
14 5 (11.90%) AngularJS
14 5 (11.90%) Azure DevOps

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 3 (7.14%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 1 (2.38%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 15 (35.71%) Azure
2 10 (23.81%) AWS
3 7 (16.67%) GitHub
4 5 (11.90%) Azure DevOps
4 5 (11.90%) GCP
4 5 (11.90%) GitHub Actions
5 4 (9.52%) Amazon S3
5 4 (9.52%) AWS Lambda
5 4 (9.52%) Serverless
6 3 (7.14%) OpenShift
7 2 (4.76%) Amazon ECS
7 2 (4.76%) Amazon OpenSearch
7 2 (4.76%) AWS CodePipeline
7 2 (4.76%) Firebase
7 2 (4.76%) Salesforce Service Cloud
7 2 (4.76%) Snowflake
8 1 (2.38%) Azure Logic Apps
8 1 (2.38%) Azure Service Bus
8 1 (2.38%) Dynamics 365
8 1 (2.38%) Power Platform
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (9.52%) DynamoDB
1 4 (9.52%) NoSQL
1 4 (9.52%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (7.14%) Big Data
2 3 (7.14%) Relational Database
2 3 (7.14%) SQL Server
3 2 (4.76%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (4.76%) MySQL
4 1 (2.38%) Apache Cassandra
4 1 (2.38%) Couchbase
4 1 (2.38%) Data Lake
4 1 (2.38%) Power BI
4 1 (2.38%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 10 (23.81%) Git
2 6 (14.29%) Jenkins
3 2 (4.76%) fastlane
3 2 (4.76%) JUnit
4 1 (2.38%) Android Studio
4 1 (2.38%) Crashlytics
4 1 (2.38%) Cucumber
4 1 (2.38%) GitLab
4 1 (2.38%) Gradle
4 1 (2.38%) Mockito
4 1 (2.38%) Selenium
4 1 (2.38%) SpecFlow
4 1 (2.38%) Xcode
General
1 7 (16.67%) Public Sector
2 4 (9.52%) Legal
3 3 (7.14%) Finance
3 3 (7.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 3 (7.14%) Social Skills
4 1 (2.38%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (2.38%) Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (40.48%) .NET
2 11 (26.19%) RESTful
3 6 (14.29%) React
4 5 (11.90%) AngularJS
4 5 (11.90%) REST
4 5 (11.90%) SOAP
5 4 (9.52%) LDAP
5 4 (9.52%) Spring
5 4 (9.52%) Spring Boot
6 3 (7.14%) .NET Core
6 3 (7.14%) CSS
6 3 (7.14%) HTML
6 3 (7.14%) JWT
6 3 (7.14%) OAuth
7 2 (4.76%) .NET Framework
7 2 (4.76%) CSS3
7 2 (4.76%) GraphQL
7 2 (4.76%) HTML5
7 2 (4.76%) Lightning Web Components
7 2 (4.76%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 7 (16.67%) Product Ownership
2 4 (9.52%) Cloud Native
2 4 (9.52%) Distributed Systems
3 2 (4.76%) AI Agents
3 2 (4.76%) Enterprise Software
3 2 (4.76%) Mobile App
4 1 (2.38%) Algorithms
4 1 (2.38%) CMDB
4 1 (2.38%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 4 (9.52%) Linux
2 2 (4.76%) Unix
3 1 (2.38%) Android
3 1 (2.38%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (61.90%) CI/CD
2 16 (38.10%) Agile
3 14 (33.33%) DevOps
4 13 (30.95%) Microservices
5 12 (28.57%) Software Engineering
6 8 (19.05%) Full-Stack Development
7 7 (16.67%) Mentoring
7 7 (16.67%) Test Automation
8 6 (14.29%) Case Management
8 6 (14.29%) Scrum
9 5 (11.90%) AI
9 5 (11.90%) Clean Code
9 5 (11.90%) Continuous Improvement
10 4 (9.52%) API Development
10 4 (9.52%) Data Management
10 4 (9.52%) Event-Driven
10 4 (9.52%) User Experience
11 3 (7.14%) Analytics
11 3 (7.14%) API Integration
11 3 (7.14%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 14 (33.33%) C#
2 12 (28.57%) Python
3 10 (23.81%) Java
4 8 (19.05%) Go
4 8 (19.05%) JavaScript
4 8 (19.05%) SQL
5 4 (9.52%) C
6 3 (7.14%) TypeScript
7 2 (4.76%) Apex Code
8 1 (2.38%) Kotlin
8 1 (2.38%) PL/SQL
8 1 (2.38%) Shell Script
8 1 (2.38%) Swift
Qualifications
1 18 (42.86%) Security Cleared
2 17 (40.48%) SC Cleared
3 5 (11.90%) DV Cleared
4 2 (4.76%) Computer Science Degree
4 2 (4.76%) Degree
5 1 (2.38%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (16.67%) QA
2 2 (4.76%) Accessibility
2 2 (4.76%) WCAG
3 1 (2.38%) Data Quality
System Software
1 4 (9.52%) Active Directory
1 4 (9.52%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (9.52%) Kubernetes
1 4 (9.52%) Terraform
Vendors
1 5 (11.90%) Microsoft
2 4 (9.52%) ServiceNow
3 2 (4.76%) Dynatrace
3 2 (4.76%) Google
3 2 (4.76%) Salesforce
4 1 (2.38%) Ab Initio
4 1 (2.38%) Apple
4 1 (2.38%) Databricks
4 1 (2.38%) OpenAI
4 1 (2.38%) Oracle
4 1 (2.38%) Teradata