Code Quality Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Code Quality (Software Quality)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Code Quality skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 251 214 214
Rank change year-on-year -37 0 +140
Contract jobs citing Code Quality 163 143 209
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.90% 0.95% 1.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.04% 1.09% 1.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 123 86 72
10th Percentile £353 £350 £400
25th Percentile £402 £406 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £470 £490
Median % change year-on-year +1.17% -4.18% +0.20%
75th Percentile £550 £537 £591
90th Percentile £605 £575 £649
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -3.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 5 7
10th Percentile - - £64.25
25th Percentile £50.00 £61.25 £67.75
Median hourly rate £60.00 £62.50 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -16.67% +25.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £78.13
90th Percentile - - £80.25
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £62.50 £75.00
% change year-on-year -20.00% -16.67% +25.00%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Code Quality falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 15,617 13,063 17,273
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 86.08% 86.86% 88.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,544 7,687 11,140
10th Percentile £220 £235 £250
25th Percentile £375 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,761 773 1,215
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.50 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.00 £32.28 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.75% -27.46% +39.06%
75th Percentile £47.50 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £71.77 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.84
% change year-on-year -22.62% -25.86% +25.25%

Code Quality
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Code Quality relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Code Quality job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Code Quality
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Code Quality.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Code Quality

Code Quality
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Code Quality in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 17 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Code Quality in the UK excluding London

Code Quality
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Code Quality.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Code Quality

Code Quality
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Code Quality in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 17 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Code Quality in the UK excluding London

Code Quality
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Code Quality within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 17 December 2025. 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
North of England -4 73 £440 -12.00% 30
North West -9 33 £360 -10.00% 14
Yorkshire -17 33 £500 - 14
South East -8 27 £500 +5.26% 46
Midlands -22 20 £451 -5.00% 11
Scotland -21 18 £543 +20.68% 29
East Midlands -15 11 £412 +15.59% 4
South West -15 10 £630 +20.05% 22
North East -7 9 £565 +2.73% 2
West Midlands -33 9 £495 +4.21% 7
Wales +9 8 £475 +26.67%
East of England -15 5 £500 +56.99% 20
Northern Ireland -7 2 £463 +68.18%
Code Quality
UK

Code Quality
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 6 (3.68%) Apache Spark
2 5 (3.07%) Confluence
3 4 (2.45%) Apache
3 4 (2.45%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (2.45%) CMS
3 4 (2.45%) JBoss
4 2 (1.23%) Mule
5 1 (0.61%) Appian
5 1 (0.61%) Drupal
Applications
1 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (2.45%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 55 (33.74%) AWS
2 48 (29.45%) Azure
3 31 (19.02%) GitHub
4 26 (15.95%) Serverless
5 24 (14.72%) Azure DevOps
6 19 (11.66%) GCP
7 16 (9.82%) AWS Lambda
7 16 (9.82%) GitHub Actions
8 9 (5.52%) Amazon SQS
8 9 (5.52%) OpenShift
9 8 (4.91%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (4.29%) Amazon ECS
10 7 (4.29%) Amazon EKS
10 7 (4.29%) Amazon S3
11 6 (3.68%) npm
12 5 (3.07%) AWS CloudFormation
12 5 (3.07%) Azure AKS
12 5 (3.07%) Azure Service Bus
12 5 (3.07%) GitHub Copilot
13 4 (2.45%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.45%) HTTP
2 1 (0.61%) DNS
2 1 (0.61%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (14.72%) PostgreSQL
2 22 (13.50%) Relational Database
3 14 (8.59%) MongoDB
4 12 (7.36%) MySQL
5 11 (6.75%) NoSQL
6 5 (3.07%) DocumentDB
6 5 (3.07%) RDBMS
6 5 (3.07%) Redis
7 4 (2.45%) Metadata
8 3 (1.84%) Aerospike
8 3 (1.84%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (1.84%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (1.84%) DynamoDB
8 3 (1.84%) Elasticsearch
8 3 (1.84%) SQL Server
9 2 (1.23%) BigQuery
9 2 (1.23%) Data Lake
9 2 (1.23%) Impala
9 2 (1.23%) Spark SQL
9 2 (1.23%) Sqoop
Development Applications
1 65 (39.88%) Git
2 22 (13.50%) Jenkins
3 21 (12.88%) GitLab
4 18 (11.04%) SonarQube
5 17 (10.43%) JIRA
6 13 (7.98%) Cypress.io
7 11 (6.75%) Bitbucket
8 10 (6.13%) Selenium
9 6 (3.68%) Cucumber
9 6 (3.68%) Visual Studio Code
10 5 (3.07%) Bitbucket Server
10 5 (3.07%) Visual Studio
11 4 (2.45%) ESLint
11 4 (2.45%) IntelliJ
11 4 (2.45%) JMeter
11 4 (2.45%) JUnit
11 4 (2.45%) Postman
11 4 (2.45%) PyCharm
11 4 (2.45%) Storybook
11 4 (2.45%) TeamCity
General
1 42 (25.77%) Social Skills
2 32 (19.63%) Public Sector
3 23 (14.11%) Finance
4 8 (4.91%) Analytical Skills
4 8 (4.91%) Banking
5 5 (3.07%) Presentation Skills
6 4 (2.45%) Publishing
6 4 (2.45%) Retail
7 3 (1.84%) Aerospace
8 2 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.23%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.61%) Automotive
9 1 (0.61%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.61%) Military
9 1 (0.61%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 69 (42.33%) Developer
2 24 (14.72%) Senior
3 19 (11.66%) Java Developer
4 18 (11.04%) Lead
5 16 (9.82%) Software Engineer
6 14 (8.59%) Full-Stack Developer
7 9 (5.52%) AWS Engineer
7 9 (5.52%) Senior Developer
7 9 (5.52%) Technical Leader
8 8 (4.91%) React Developer
9 7 (4.29%) Python Engineer
10 6 (3.68%) .NET Developer
10 6 (3.68%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 6 (3.68%) DevOps Engineer
11 5 (3.07%) Data Engineer
11 5 (3.07%) Lead Developer
11 5 (3.07%) Node.js Developer
11 5 (3.07%) Senior Software Engineer
11 5 (3.07%) Test Engineer
11 5 (3.07%) Test Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (21.47%) React
2 31 (19.02%) Node.js
3 29 (17.79%) REST
4 27 (16.56%) RESTful
5 26 (15.95%) .NET
6 24 (14.72%) CSS
6 24 (14.72%) HTML
7 23 (14.11%) Spring
8 21 (12.88%) Spring Boot
9 18 (11.04%) Jest
10 13 (7.98%) Kafka
11 11 (6.75%) HTML5
11 11 (6.75%) OAuth
11 11 (6.75%) Redux
12 10 (6.13%) CSS3
12 10 (6.13%) Next.js
13 8 (4.91%) AngularJS
13 8 (4.91%) Hugging Face
13 8 (4.91%) OpenCV
13 8 (4.91%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 15 (9.20%) Product Ownership
2 13 (7.98%) Cloud Native
3 9 (5.52%) Distributed Systems
3 9 (5.52%) Onboarding
4 7 (4.29%) Algorithms
5 6 (3.68%) Mobile App
6 5 (3.07%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (3.07%) Data Structures
6 5 (3.07%) Greenfield Project
6 5 (3.07%) Legacy Applications
6 5 (3.07%) Management Information System
6 5 (3.07%) Wiki
7 4 (2.45%) Public Cloud
7 4 (2.45%) Self-Motivation
8 3 (1.84%) Client/Server
8 3 (1.84%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (1.23%) Blog
9 2 (1.23%) Data Centre
9 2 (1.23%) Synthetic Data
10 1 (0.61%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 11 (6.75%) Linux
2 10 (6.13%) Windows
3 6 (3.68%) Android
3 6 (3.68%) Apple iOS
4 4 (2.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (1.23%) Unix
6 1 (0.61%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.61%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (55.21%) Agile
2 80 (49.08%) CI/CD
3 55 (33.74%) DevOps
4 52 (31.90%) Test Automation
5 49 (30.06%) Microservices
5 49 (30.06%) Problem-Solving
6 36 (22.09%) Software Engineering
7 30 (18.40%) Unit Testing
8 27 (16.56%) Containerisation
9 24 (14.72%) Continuous Integration
9 24 (14.72%) Full-Stack Development
10 23 (14.11%) Scrum
11 22 (13.50%) Front End Development
12 20 (12.27%) Continuous Improvement
13 19 (11.66%) AI
13 19 (11.66%) OOP
14 18 (11.04%) API Development
14 18 (11.04%) Clean Code
14 18 (11.04%) Mentoring
15 17 (10.43%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 48 (29.45%) Java
2 47 (28.83%) Python
3 33 (20.25%) TypeScript
4 32 (19.63%) JavaScript
5 26 (15.95%) SQL
6 21 (12.88%) C#
7 5 (3.07%) Apex Code
8 4 (2.45%) Perl
8 4 (2.45%) Ruby
8 4 (2.45%) Shell Script
9 3 (1.84%) Bash
9 3 (1.84%) C
9 3 (1.84%) C++
9 3 (1.84%) Kotlin
9 3 (1.84%) Objective-C
9 3 (1.84%) PowerShell
9 3 (1.84%) SOQL
9 3 (1.84%) Swift
10 2 (1.23%) PHP
10 2 (1.23%) Scala
Qualifications
1 30 (18.40%) Security Cleared
2 19 (11.66%) SC Cleared
3 17 (10.43%) Degree
4 13 (7.98%) Computer Science Degree
5 5 (3.07%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (1.23%) AWS Certification
6 2 (1.23%) Azure Certification
6 2 (1.23%) ISTQB
7 1 (0.61%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 1 (0.61%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (0.61%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.61%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (17.18%) QA
2 18 (11.04%) Accessibility
3 8 (4.91%) WCAG
4 6 (3.68%) Software Quality Assurance
5 4 (2.45%) Disclosure Scotland
6 3 (1.84%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.61%) Def Stans
7 1 (0.61%) GDPR
7 1 (0.61%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 38 (23.31%) Docker
2 4 (2.45%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.23%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 45 (27.61%) Kubernetes
2 17 (10.43%) Terraform
3 11 (6.75%) Grafana
4 9 (5.52%) Ansible
5 6 (3.68%) Kibana
6 5 (3.07%) Prometheus
7 4 (2.45%) Progress Chef
7 4 (2.45%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (1.84%) Argo
9 1 (0.61%) Consul
9 1 (0.61%) Istio
9 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.61%) Puppet
9 1 (0.61%) Rsyslog
9 1 (0.61%) SCCM
9 1 (0.61%) SCOM
9 1 (0.61%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 1 (0.61%) Tivoli
9 1 (0.61%) vRealize
9 1 (0.61%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 21 (12.88%) Microsoft
2 12 (7.36%) Google
3 11 (6.75%) Salesforce
4 8 (4.91%) Red Hat
5 7 (4.29%) GoldenSource
6 6 (3.68%) Oracle
7 5 (3.07%) Databricks
7 5 (3.07%) SAP
7 5 (3.07%) Splunk
8 4 (2.45%) AppDynamics
9 3 (1.84%) Cloudera
9 3 (1.84%) Perforce
9 3 (1.84%) Xamarin
10 2 (1.23%) Checkmarx
10 2 (1.23%) Ping Identity
10 2 (1.23%) VMware
11 1 (0.61%) Ab Initio
11 1 (0.61%) Adobe
11 1 (0.61%) Ariba
11 1 (0.61%) Informatica