Programmer Contracts in the UK excluding London

Programmer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Programmer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 306 276 414
Rank change year-on-year -30 +138 +71
Contract jobs requiring a Programmer 30 124 48
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.23% 0.60% 0.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.25% 0.64% 0.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 9 64 20
10th Percentile £302 £389 £424
25th Percentile £400 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £528 £488
Median % change year-on-year -9.95% +8.21% +8.33%
75th Percentile £488 £538 £580
90th Percentile £579 £588 £688
UK median daily rate £410 £534 £500
% change year-on-year -23.26% +6.85% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 37 1
10th Percentile £14.42 £15.00 -
25th Percentile £15.52 £16.25 £39.25
Median hourly rate £18.15 £19.00 £42.16
Median % change year-on-year -4.47% -54.93% +133.16%
75th Percentile £19.81 £20.00 £45.06
90th Percentile £45.00 £35.00 -
UK median hourly rate £18.15 £19.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -4.47% -70.77% +16.07%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. 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 UK excluding London with a recognized job title 11,767 19,240 22,667
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.17% 92.63% 94.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,552 11,748 15,893
10th Percentile £213 £213 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £395
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.46% -1.60% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £598 £595
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 829 2,243 1,165
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.50 £13.45
25th Percentile £17.61 £15.75 £18.09
Median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -29.20% -6.94% +117.95%
75th Percentile £64.50 £61.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%

Programmer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings that featured Programmer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Programmer in the UK excluding London

Programmer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Programmer in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Programmer in the UK excluding London

Programmer
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Programmer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Programmer in the UK excluding London

Programmer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Programmer in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Programmer in the UK excluding London

Programmer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Programmer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Programmer in the UK excluding London

Programmer
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 Programmer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 May 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
Scotland - 13 £493 - 7
North of England -2 6 £483 +1.58% 35
Midlands -45 6 £475 -11.21% 17
Yorkshire -9 5 £483 +2.12% 9
West Midlands -47 4 £475 -11.21% 10
East of England +20 2 £485 +61.67% 15
East Midlands +4 2 - - 7
South West - 2 £70 - 18
South East +36 1 - - 22
North West +15 1 - - 24
Programmer
UK

Programmer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Programmer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Programmer in the job title.

1 12 (40.00%) Linux
1 12 (40.00%) OO
1 12 (40.00%) Python
1 12 (40.00%) Capacity Management
2 11 (36.67%) Unix
2 11 (36.67%) Perl
2 11 (36.67%) Management Information System
2 11 (36.67%) Technical Analysis
2 11 (36.67%) Storage Management
3 5 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
4 4 (13.33%) Social Skills
4 4 (13.33%) REXX
4 4 (13.33%) Mainframe
5 3 (10.00%) zOS
5 3 (10.00%) JCL
5 3 (10.00%) IBM
5 3 (10.00%) Agile
5 3 (10.00%) ISPF
5 3 (10.00%) QA
5 3 (10.00%) Time Sharing Option
6 2 (6.67%) Matrix Organization
6 2 (6.67%) Collaborative Working
6 2 (6.67%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (6.67%) CLIST
6 2 (6.67%) Performance Monitoring
6 2 (6.67%) Siemens NX
6 2 (6.67%) Robotics
6 2 (6.67%) OMEGAMON
6 2 (6.67%) Software Engineering
6 2 (6.67%) RESTful

Programmer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 2 (6.67%) SAS
2 1 (3.33%) CICS
2 1 (3.33%) CMS
2 1 (3.33%) OpenEdge
Applications
1 2 (6.67%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 1 (3.33%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 1 (3.33%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.33%) Wireless
General
1 4 (13.33%) Social Skills
2 2 (6.67%) Aerospace
3 1 (3.33%) Finance
3 1 (3.33%) Local Government
3 1 (3.33%) Manufacturing
3 1 (3.33%) Organisational Skills
3 1 (3.33%) Pharmaceutical
3 1 (3.33%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (10.00%) ISPF
2 2 (6.67%) RESTful
2 2 (6.67%) Web Services
3 1 (3.33%) Akka
3 1 (3.33%) Middleware
3 1 (3.33%) Play Framework
3 1 (3.33%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 11 (36.67%) Management Information System
2 4 (13.33%) Mainframe
3 2 (6.67%) Device Driver
3 2 (6.67%) Robotics
3 2 (6.67%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (3.33%) AS400
4 1 (3.33%) iSeries
4 1 (3.33%) N-Tier
4 1 (3.33%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 12 (40.00%) Linux
2 11 (36.67%) Unix
3 3 (10.00%) zOS
4 2 (6.67%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (40.00%) Capacity Management
1 12 (40.00%) OO
2 11 (36.67%) Storage Management
2 11 (36.67%) Technical Analysis
3 5 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
4 3 (10.00%) Agile
5 2 (6.67%) Collaborative Working
5 2 (6.67%) Matrix Organization
5 2 (6.67%) Performance Monitoring
5 2 (6.67%) Programme Management
5 2 (6.67%) Software Engineering
5 2 (6.67%) TDD
6 1 (3.33%) Clean Code
6 1 (3.33%) Community of Practice
6 1 (3.33%) Containerisation
6 1 (3.33%) Continuous Improvement
6 1 (3.33%) Error Analysis
6 1 (3.33%) Housing Management
6 1 (3.33%) Task Automation
6 1 (3.33%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 12 (40.00%) Python
2 11 (36.67%) Perl
3 4 (13.33%) REXX
4 3 (10.00%) JCL
5 2 (6.67%) Assembly Language
5 2 (6.67%) CLIST
5 2 (6.67%) Java
6 1 (3.33%) C#
6 1 (3.33%) C++
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (10.00%) QA
System Software
1 3 (10.00%) Time Sharing Option
2 1 (3.33%) ACF2
2 1 (3.33%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (6.67%) OMEGAMON
2 1 (3.33%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 3 (10.00%) IBM
2 2 (6.67%) Cisco
2 2 (6.67%) Siemens
3 1 (3.33%) Google
3 1 (3.33%) Progress