Software Developer Contracts in the UK excluding London

Software Developer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Software Developer 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 263 140 223
Rank change year-on-year -123 +83 +38
Contract jobs requiring a Software Developer 73 324 269
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 0.57% 1.56% 1.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.62% 1.68% 1.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 49 67 198
10th Percentile £400 £343 £375
25th Percentile £425 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £488
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £550 £544 £600
90th Percentile £615 £638 £671
UK median daily rate £508 £523 £525
% change year-on-year -2.87% -0.48% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 12 14
10th Percentile - - £48.95
25th Percentile - £46.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £58.91 £57.42
Median % change year-on-year -6.63% +2.59% +5.36%
75th Percentile - £65.00 £66.63
90th Percentile - £78.50 £73.85
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £58.91 £57.50
% change year-on-year -6.63% +2.44% +16.76%

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%

Software Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Job vacancy trend for Software Developer in the UK excluding London

Software Developer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Daily rate trend for Software Developer in the UK excluding London

Software Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

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

Daily rate histogram for Software Developer in the UK excluding London

Software Developer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Hourly rate trend for Software Developer in the UK excluding London

Software Developer
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 Software Developer 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
North of England -70 32 £475 +5.56% 112
North West -19 27 £475 +13.10% 72
East of England +29 12 £531 +9.54% 40
Scotland -19 9 £472 +2.05% 17
South East +23 7 £575 +39.39% 85
West Midlands -5 6 £425 +13.33% 43
Midlands -23 6 £425 +6.25% 79
North East -19 5 £470 - 15
South West +9 4 £550 +12.82% 32
Northern Ireland - 4 £364 - 2
Yorkshire -41 3 £470 +4.44% 27
Wales -4 2 £190 -63.47% 10
Software Developer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Software Developer 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 Software Developer in the job title.

1 33 (45.21%) JavaScript
2 25 (34.25%) AWS
3 24 (32.88%) React
3 24 (32.88%) HTML
4 23 (31.51%) Python
5 22 (30.14%) SQL
6 20 (27.40%) Agile
6 20 (27.40%) Public Sector
7 18 (24.66%) CSS
8 17 (23.29%) Security Cleared
9 16 (21.92%) Java
9 16 (21.92%) C#
9 16 (21.92%) Social Skills
9 16 (21.92%) CI/CD
10 15 (20.55%) Microsoft
10 15 (20.55%) TypeScript
11 14 (19.18%) Node.js
12 13 (17.81%) Serverless
12 13 (17.81%) .NET
12 13 (17.81%) PowerShell
12 13 (17.81%) Web Development
13 12 (16.44%) Degree
13 12 (16.44%) SharePoint
13 12 (16.44%) Docker
13 12 (16.44%) DevOps
13 12 (16.44%) Microservices
13 12 (16.44%) Microsoft 365
13 12 (16.44%) Power Platform
14 11 (15.07%) PowerApps
14 11 (15.07%) Power Automate

Software Developer 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 12 (16.44%) SharePoint
2 2 (2.74%) CMS
3 1 (1.37%) GeoServer
3 1 (1.37%) Headless CMS
3 1 (1.37%) JBoss
3 1 (1.37%) OpenEdge
3 1 (1.37%) OpenROAD
3 1 (1.37%) SAS
3 1 (1.37%) WordPress
Applications
1 6 (8.22%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (1.37%) BusinessWorks
Cloud Services
1 25 (34.25%) AWS
2 13 (17.81%) Serverless
3 12 (16.44%) Microsoft 365
3 12 (16.44%) Power Platform
4 11 (15.07%) Power Automate
4 11 (15.07%) PowerApps
5 10 (13.70%) AWS Lambda
5 10 (13.70%) Azure
6 8 (10.96%) Amazon S3
7 5 (6.85%) GitHub
8 3 (4.11%) AWS CodePipeline
8 3 (4.11%) GitHub Actions
8 3 (4.11%) OpenShift
9 2 (2.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 2 (2.74%) Amazon SQS
9 2 (2.74%) AWS CloudFormation
9 2 (2.74%) AWS CodeBuild
9 2 (2.74%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (2.74%) GCP
9 2 (2.74%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.74%) 3GPP
1 2 (2.74%) 4G
1 2 (2.74%) 5G
1 2 (2.74%) Wireless
2 1 (1.37%) Fibre Channel
2 1 (1.37%) HTTPS
2 1 (1.37%) iSCSI
2 1 (1.37%) SAN
2 1 (1.37%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (8.22%) PostgreSQL
2 4 (5.48%) MongoDB
2 4 (5.48%) SQL Server
3 3 (4.11%) Amazon RDS
3 3 (4.11%) DynamoDB
3 3 (4.11%) Elasticsearch
3 3 (4.11%) MySQL
3 3 (4.11%) Relational Database
4 2 (2.74%) GIS
4 2 (2.74%) ObjectStore
4 2 (2.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (1.37%) Amazon Aurora
5 1 (1.37%) CockroachDB
5 1 (1.37%) DB2
5 1 (1.37%) Geospatial Data
5 1 (1.37%) Metadata
5 1 (1.37%) NoSQL
5 1 (1.37%) Oracle Database
5 1 (1.37%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 11 (15.07%) Git
2 3 (4.11%) GitLab
3 2 (2.74%) Jenkins
3 2 (2.74%) JIRA
4 1 (1.37%) Artifactory
4 1 (1.37%) Cypress.io
4 1 (1.37%) gulp
4 1 (1.37%) Jasmine
4 1 (1.37%) Maven
4 1 (1.37%) Mocha
4 1 (1.37%) SonarQube
4 1 (1.37%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (1.37%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 1 (1.37%) Subversion
4 1 (1.37%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (1.37%) tSQLt
4 1 (1.37%) Visual Studio
General
1 20 (27.40%) Public Sector
2 16 (21.92%) Social Skills
3 7 (9.59%) Finance
4 3 (4.11%) Banking
4 3 (4.11%) Retail
5 2 (2.74%) Telecoms
5 2 (2.74%) Wholesale Banking
6 1 (1.37%) Aerospace
6 1 (1.37%) Aviation
6 1 (1.37%) Financial Institution
6 1 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.37%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (32.88%) HTML
1 24 (32.88%) React
2 18 (24.66%) CSS
3 14 (19.18%) Node.js
4 13 (17.81%) .NET
5 10 (13.70%) AngularJS
5 10 (13.70%) RESTful
6 9 (12.33%) Spring
7 8 (10.96%) REST
7 8 (10.96%) SPFx
8 6 (8.22%) AWS CDK
8 6 (8.22%) Spring Boot
9 5 (6.85%) Web Services
10 3 (4.11%) ASP.NET Web API
10 3 (4.11%) Kafka
10 3 (4.11%) XML
11 2 (2.74%) .NET Core
11 2 (2.74%) Apache Avro
11 2 (2.74%) Express.js
11 2 (2.74%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 4 (5.48%) Distributed Systems
2 3 (4.11%) Derivative
2 3 (4.11%) Equities
2 3 (4.11%) Equity Derivative
2 3 (4.11%) Mobile App
3 2 (2.74%) Cloud Native
3 2 (2.74%) Greenfield Project
3 2 (2.74%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (1.37%) Client/Server
4 1 (1.37%) Clustering
4 1 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (1.37%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 1 (1.37%) Management Information System
4 1 (1.37%) NHS
4 1 (1.37%) NVMe
4 1 (1.37%) Product Ownership
4 1 (1.37%) Replication
4 1 (1.37%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (1.37%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 4 (5.48%) Linux
2 2 (2.74%) Unix
2 2 (2.74%) Windows
3 1 (1.37%) Data ONTAP
3 1 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (1.37%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (27.40%) Agile
2 16 (21.92%) CI/CD
3 13 (17.81%) Web Development
4 12 (16.44%) DevOps
4 12 (16.44%) Microservices
5 11 (15.07%) Full-Stack Development
6 10 (13.70%) Artificial Intelligence
6 10 (13.70%) Code Quality
7 9 (12.33%) Containerisation
7 9 (12.33%) Problem-Solving
7 9 (12.33%) Scrum
7 9 (12.33%) Software Engineering
7 9 (12.33%) Task Automation
8 7 (9.59%) Continuous Integration
8 7 (9.59%) Unit Testing
9 6 (8.22%) Conversational UI
9 6 (8.22%) Integration Testing
9 6 (8.22%) Test Automation
10 5 (6.85%) SDLC
11 4 (5.48%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 33 (45.21%) JavaScript
2 23 (31.51%) Python
3 22 (30.14%) SQL
4 16 (21.92%) C#
4 16 (21.92%) Java
5 15 (20.55%) TypeScript
6 13 (17.81%) PowerShell
7 10 (13.70%) C++
8 4 (5.48%) Go
8 4 (5.48%) T-SQL
9 2 (2.74%) Kotlin
9 2 (2.74%) PHP
9 2 (2.74%) Ruby
9 2 (2.74%) Scala
10 1 (1.37%) Bash
10 1 (1.37%) Perl
10 1 (1.37%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 17 (23.29%) Security Cleared
2 12 (16.44%) Degree
3 10 (13.70%) SC Cleared
4 3 (4.11%) DV Cleared
5 2 (2.74%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (2.74%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (6.85%) QA
2 2 (2.74%) Accessibility
3 1 (1.37%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (1.37%) GDPR
3 1 (1.37%) HL7
3 1 (1.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 1 (1.37%) WCAG
System Software
1 12 (16.44%) Docker
2 1 (1.37%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.37%) GPFS
2 1 (1.37%) NFS
Systems Management
1 10 (13.70%) Kubernetes
2 6 (8.22%) Terraform
3 2 (2.74%) Ansible
3 2 (2.74%) logstash
3 2 (2.74%) Prometheus
4 1 (1.37%) Grafana
4 1 (1.37%) SCCM
4 1 (1.37%) Veritas Storage Foundation
Vendors
1 15 (20.55%) Microsoft
2 6 (8.22%) Google
2 6 (8.22%) PayPal
3 3 (4.11%) Oracle
4 2 (2.74%) OpenAI
5 1 (1.37%) Brocade
5 1 (1.37%) EMC
5 1 (1.37%) IBM
5 1 (1.37%) NetApp
5 1 (1.37%) RedGate
5 1 (1.37%) ServiceNow
5 1 (1.37%) Sybase
5 1 (1.37%) TIBCO
5 1 (1.37%) Veritas