API Design Contracts

API Design
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring API Design skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited API Design over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 394 439 484
Rank change year-on-year +45 +45 -37
Contract jobs citing API Design 127 143 237
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.43% 0.33% 0.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.48% 0.38% 0.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 87 106 154
10th Percentile £379 £429 £425
25th Percentile £433 £500 £466
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £629
Median % change year-on-year - -12.56% +4.83%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £725
90th Percentile £719 £750 £875
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £550 £563
% change year-on-year -15.91% -2.22% +2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 3
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £67.50 £64.25 -
Median hourly rate £70.00 £65.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.87% +87.14% -46.78%
75th Percentile £72.50 £66.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 - £35.00
% change year-on-year - - -46.78%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

API Design 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 26,594 37,597 53,655
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.84% 86.31% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,149 24,227 37,238
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £743 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,443 1,746
10th Percentile £14.41 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.21 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%
75th Percentile £60.38 £59.98 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
% change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%

API Design
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing API Design as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for API Design in the UK

API Design
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing API Design.

Daily rate trend for API Design in the UK

API Design
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing API Design over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for API Design in the UK

API Design
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing API Design.

Hourly rate trend for API Design in the UK

API Design
Top 15 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing API Design within the UK 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
England +43 107 £563 -2.17% 165
London +28 68 £580 +0.87% 89
UK excluding London +69 45 £463 -15.91% 98
Work from Home +12 42 £548 -0.45% 78
North of England +23 17 £488 +9.55% 24
South East +44 13 £432 -28.00% 38
North West +17 8 £463 -7.04% 17
Yorkshire +11 8 £765 +91.25% 7
Midlands +21 7 £503 +4.69% 17
Scotland +14 5 £210 -54.59% 3
South West +48 4 £700 - 9
West Midlands - 4 £700 - 9
East Midlands +5 3 £465 -3.13% 6
East of England - 1 £675 - 8
North East - 1 £430 -

API Design
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 24 (18.90%) Confluence
2 4 (3.15%) Anypoint
3 3 (2.36%) Mule
3 3 (2.36%) Mule ESB
4 2 (1.57%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.79%) Apache
5 1 (0.79%) BizTalk Server
5 1 (0.79%) nginx
Applications
1 1 (0.79%) Trello
Business Applications
1 1 (0.79%) Oracle Retail
1 1 (0.79%) Payment Gateway
1 1 (0.79%) SAP ERP
1 1 (0.79%) SAP S/4HANA
1 1 (0.79%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 47 (37.01%) AWS
2 36 (28.35%) Azure
3 19 (14.96%) GCP
3 19 (14.96%) Serverless
4 17 (13.39%) Slack
5 15 (11.81%) Cloud Computing
6 8 (6.30%) Azure Functions
7 7 (5.51%) GitHub
8 6 (4.72%) AWS Lambda
9 5 (3.94%) Amazon EKS
9 5 (3.94%) Apigee
10 4 (3.15%) Amazon ECS
10 4 (3.15%) Azure AKS
10 4 (3.15%) Azure API Management
10 4 (3.15%) Azure Logic Apps
10 4 (3.15%) Azure Service Bus
10 4 (3.15%) iPaaS
10 4 (3.15%) SaaS
11 3 (2.36%) Azure Monitor
11 3 (2.36%) Google Compute Engine
Communications & Networking
1 12 (9.45%) HTTP
2 1 (0.79%) Firewall
2 1 (0.79%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (25.20%) PostgreSQL
2 26 (20.47%) MongoDB
3 23 (18.11%) MySQL
4 17 (13.39%) Apache Cassandra
5 7 (5.51%) Redis
6 6 (4.72%) NoSQL
6 6 (4.72%) Relational Database
7 5 (3.94%) CockroachDB
8 4 (3.15%) Elasticsearch
9 3 (2.36%) Metadata
9 3 (2.36%) SQL Server
10 2 (1.57%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (1.57%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (1.57%) ObjectStore
11 1 (0.79%) Apache Ignite
11 1 (0.79%) Big Data
11 1 (0.79%) Couchbase
11 1 (0.79%) DynamoDB
11 1 (0.79%) RDBMS
11 1 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 39 (30.71%) Git
2 26 (20.47%) JIRA
3 20 (15.75%) JUnit
4 19 (14.96%) Cucumber
5 17 (13.39%) Jasmine
6 12 (9.45%) Jenkins
7 7 (5.51%) GitLab
8 5 (3.94%) Maven
9 4 (3.15%) Bitbucket
10 3 (2.36%) Eclipse
10 3 (2.36%) Gradle
10 3 (2.36%) IntelliJ
10 3 (2.36%) Mockito
10 3 (2.36%) TestNG
11 2 (1.57%) MLflow
11 2 (1.57%) Postman
12 1 (0.79%) REST Assured
12 1 (0.79%) webpack
General
1 28 (22.05%) Social Skills
2 18 (14.17%) Finance
3 17 (13.39%) Public Sector
4 13 (10.24%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (5.51%) Banking
6 6 (4.72%) Telecoms
7 4 (3.15%) Retail
8 3 (2.36%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.79%) Law
10 1 (0.79%) Legal
10 1 (0.79%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.79%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.79%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.79%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 69 (54.33%) Developer
2 33 (25.98%) Senior
3 27 (21.26%) Java Developer
4 25 (19.69%) Architect
4 25 (19.69%) Senior Developer
5 17 (13.39%) Lead
6 16 (12.60%) Senior Java Developer
7 11 (8.66%) Full-Stack Developer
7 11 (8.66%) Lead Developer
8 9 (7.09%) Solutions Architect
9 7 (5.51%) Java Engineer
9 7 (5.51%) Lead Java Developer
9 7 (5.51%) Python Developer
9 7 (5.51%) Software Engineer
10 6 (4.72%) Lead Java Engineer
11 5 (3.94%) AWS Developer
11 5 (3.94%) Web Developer
12 4 (3.15%) Analyst
12 4 (3.15%) Applications Developer
12 4 (3.15%) Web Applications Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 60 (47.24%) RESTful
2 35 (27.56%) Spring
3 34 (26.77%) Spring Boot
4 27 (21.26%) Swagger
5 23 (18.11%) OpenAPI
5 23 (18.11%) Spring Security
6 22 (17.32%) REST
7 19 (14.96%) React
8 15 (11.81%) Spring Batch
9 14 (11.02%) OAuth
10 13 (10.24%) AngularJS
11 12 (9.45%) Node.js
12 10 (7.87%) HTML
12 10 (7.87%) JWT
13 8 (6.30%) CSS
13 8 (6.30%) FastAPI
13 8 (6.30%) JSON
13 8 (6.30%) SOAP
14 7 (5.51%) Django
14 7 (5.51%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 16 (12.60%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
2 9 (7.09%) Product Ownership
3 7 (5.51%) Distributed Systems
4 5 (3.94%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (1.57%) Analytical Mindset
5 2 (1.57%) Enterprise Cloud
5 2 (1.57%) Public Cloud
6 1 (0.79%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (0.79%) IoT
6 1 (0.79%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.79%) Mobile Wallet
6 1 (0.79%) Reinsurance
6 1 (0.79%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 1 (0.79%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 22 (17.32%) Linux
2 17 (13.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (1.57%) Unix
4 1 (0.79%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (44.09%) CI/CD
2 51 (40.16%) Microservices
3 41 (32.28%) Agile
4 38 (29.92%) Problem-Solving
5 36 (28.35%) Containerisation
6 35 (27.56%) DevOps
7 31 (24.41%) Test Automation
8 29 (22.83%) API Development
9 27 (21.26%) Continuous Integration
10 24 (18.90%) TDD
11 21 (16.54%) OWASP
12 20 (15.75%) Full-Stack Development
13 18 (14.17%) Software Engineering
14 17 (13.39%) BDD
14 17 (13.39%) Continuous Delivery
15 16 (12.60%) API Management
15 16 (12.60%) Kernel Tuning
16 15 (11.81%) Technical Leadership
17 14 (11.02%) API Integration
18 13 (10.24%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 52 (40.94%) Java
2 37 (29.13%) SQL
3 28 (22.05%) Python
4 17 (13.39%) Bash
5 16 (12.60%) JavaScript
6 10 (7.87%) TypeScript
7 6 (4.72%) C#
7 6 (4.72%) Kotlin
8 4 (3.15%) Go
9 3 (2.36%) Apex Code
9 3 (2.36%) DataWeave
10 2 (1.57%) Bicep
10 2 (1.57%) Ruby
10 2 (1.57%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.79%) Clojure
11 1 (0.79%) Elixir
11 1 (0.79%) Haskell
11 1 (0.79%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.79%) Rust
11 1 (0.79%) Scala
Qualifications
1 32 (25.20%) Security Cleared
2 28 (22.05%) SC Cleared
3 12 (9.45%) Degree
4 6 (4.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (2.36%) AWS Certification
6 2 (1.57%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 2 (1.57%) Azure Certification
6 2 (1.57%) DV Cleared
6 2 (1.57%) TOGAF Certification
7 1 (0.79%) AWS Certified Developer
7 1 (0.79%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (4.72%) Accessibility
2 5 (3.94%) QA
3 1 (0.79%) Government Security Classifications
3 1 (0.79%) NCSC
3 1 (0.79%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 40 (31.50%) Docker
2 1 (0.79%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 38 (29.92%) Kubernetes
2 15 (11.81%) Terraform
3 5 (3.94%) Ansible
4 4 (3.15%) CloudHub
5 3 (2.36%) Grafana
5 3 (2.36%) Prometheus
5 3 (2.36%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 11 (8.66%) Google
1 11 (8.66%) Oracle
2 9 (7.09%) Microsoft
3 7 (5.51%) MuleSoft
4 6 (4.72%) Salesforce
5 4 (3.15%) IBM
6 3 (2.36%) SAP
7 2 (1.57%) Foundry
8 1 (0.79%) Adobe
8 1 (0.79%) Apple
8 1 (0.79%) Axway
8 1 (0.79%) Databricks
8 1 (0.79%) Jitterbit
8 1 (0.79%) Okta
8 1 (0.79%) Pardot
8 1 (0.79%) Red Hat
8 1 (0.79%) Sitecore
8 1 (0.79%) SnapLogic
8 1 (0.79%) Splunk
8 1 (0.79%) Workday