Developer Contracts

Developer
UK

The median Developer daily rate in the UK is £523, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 April 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
2 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 5 4
Rank change year-on-year -3 -1 0
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 4,061 6,146 10,895
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 13.97% 13.90% 17.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 15.05% 14.98% 18.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,847 4,450 8,166
10th Percentile £360 £325 £400
25th Percentile £413 £413 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.95% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £700
90th Percentile £788 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £460 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +2.22% -10.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 69 117
10th Percentile £25.25 £35.00 £35.00
25th Percentile £35.14 £46.25 £51.25
Median hourly rate £56.13 £60.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.46% -4.00% +19.05%
75th Percentile £73.44 £82.50 £73.75
90th Percentile £87.06 £90.00 £78.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £60.70 £60.00
% change year-on-year +7.08% +1.17% +11.63%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 26,982 41,031 59,665
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.80% 92.82% 94.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,741 26,885 41,699
10th Percentile £300 £275 £310
25th Percentile £406 £408 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -1.05% -3.58% +3.71%
75th Percentile £628 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 945 2,527 1,683
10th Percentile £15.07 £12.86 £14.30
25th Percentile £20.85 £16.25 £19.06
Median hourly rate £32.50 £32.90 £43.86
Median % change year-on-year -1.20% -25.00% +93.69%
75th Percentile £64.50 £60.00 £65.75
90th Percentile £76.25 £71.87 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.76 £33.00 £41.91
% change year-on-year -3.76% -21.25% +115.12%

Developer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Developer in the UK

Developer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Developer in the UK

Developer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Developer over the 6 months to 2 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Developer in the UK

Developer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Developer in the UK

Developer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Developer over the 6 months to 2 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Developer in the UK

Developer
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Developer within the UK over the 6 months to 2 April 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 -5 3,204 £525 - 2,454
London -2 2,094 £575 - 1,319
Work from Home -2 1,648 £521 +4.20% 1,601
UK excluding London -4 1,352 £460 +2.22% 1,405
North of England -9 364 £473 +2.16% 411
Scotland +1 334 £450 -3.64% 103
South East -8 238 £450 -5.26% 434
North West -4 226 £500 +5.26% 255
Midlands -8 149 £458 +7.65% 179
South West -11 125 £450 - 128
West Midlands -11 102 £469 +10.35% 107
Yorkshire -12 97 £460 -3.16% 112
East of England +2 84 £488 +12.83% 117
East Midlands -5 47 £425 +9.68% 69
North East -5 46 £460 +2.22% 47
Northern Ireland +8 39 £425 -17.07% 20
Wales -13 30 £475 +8.57% 33

Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 2 April 2025, 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 featuring Developer in the job title.

1 1,128 (27.78%) Agile
2 1,037 (25.54%) SQL
3 1,011 (24.90%) Java
4 976 (24.03%) Finance
5 951 (23.42%) Python
6 902 (22.21%) AWS
7 846 (20.83%) JavaScript
8 809 (19.92%) Social Skills
9 755 (18.59%) Azure
10 711 (17.51%) CI/CD
11 678 (16.70%) DevOps
12 670 (16.50%) React
13 668 (16.45%) Problem-Solving
14 629 (15.49%) C#
15 585 (14.41%) .NET
16 583 (14.36%) Security Cleared
17 563 (13.86%) Banking
18 530 (13.05%) Full-Stack Development
19 521 (12.83%) TypeScript
20 498 (12.26%) SC Cleared
21 486 (11.97%) HTML
22 464 (11.43%) Microservices
23 456 (11.23%) CSS
24 445 (10.96%) Kubernetes
25 440 (10.83%) Software Engineering
26 439 (10.81%) Docker
27 430 (10.59%) Git
28 384 (9.46%) Public Sector
29 379 (9.33%) Microsoft
30 376 (9.26%) Analytical Skills

Developer Skill Set
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
1 121 (2.98%) SharePoint
2 96 (2.36%) Confluence
3 71 (1.75%) Apache
4 51 (1.26%) Apache Spark
5 49 (1.21%) CMS
6 48 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
7 22 (0.54%) SAS
8 20 (0.49%) Anypoint
9 18 (0.44%) Headless CMS
9 18 (0.44%) IIS
10 16 (0.39%) Camunda
11 15 (0.37%) Moodle
12 14 (0.34%) Umbraco
13 13 (0.32%) Oracle Coherence
13 13 (0.32%) Tomcat
14 12 (0.30%) Jupyter
14 12 (0.30%) Mule
15 11 (0.27%) nginx
15 11 (0.27%) WebLogic
16 10 (0.25%) Drupal
Applications
1 82 (2.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.25%) Chatbot
4 7 (0.17%) Adobe XD
5 6 (0.15%) Sketch
6 5 (0.12%) Camtasia
6 5 (0.12%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.12%) Trello
7 4 (0.098%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 4 (0.098%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.049%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.025%) FileZilla
9 1 (0.025%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.025%) Photoshop
9 1 (0.025%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.025%) SOLIDWORKS
9 1 (0.025%) Zeplin
Business Applications
1 45 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
2 28 (0.69%) SAP S/4HANA
3 20 (0.49%) Endur
4 13 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
4 13 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
5 12 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
5 12 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
6 11 (0.27%) Oracle Cash Management
7 9 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
7 9 (0.22%) SAP HR
8 7 (0.17%) SAP CO
8 7 (0.17%) SAP FI
8 7 (0.17%) SAP FI/CO
8 7 (0.17%) SAP Payroll
9 6 (0.15%) BASE24
10 5 (0.12%) Oracle Applications
10 5 (0.12%) Oracle EBS R12
11 4 (0.098%) Cognos Business Intelligence
11 4 (0.098%) Oracle Financials
11 4 (0.098%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 902 (22.21%) AWS
2 755 (18.59%) Azure
3 331 (8.15%) Power Platform
4 207 (5.10%) GCP
5 203 (5.00%) Serverless
6 182 (4.48%) PowerApps
7 181 (4.46%) Power Automate
8 172 (4.24%) Azure DevOps
9 154 (3.79%) GitHub
10 123 (3.03%) Dynamics 365
11 104 (2.56%) Amazon S3
12 103 (2.54%) AWS Lambda
13 76 (1.87%) Microsoft 365
14 72 (1.77%) Azure Functions
15 69 (1.70%) Azure Logic Apps
16 60 (1.48%) SaaS
17 55 (1.35%) Amazon SQS
18 52 (1.28%) GitHub Actions
19 51 (1.26%) dbt
20 45 (1.11%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 51 (1.26%) HTTP
2 15 (0.37%) Firewall
2 15 (0.37%) Internet
3 14 (0.34%) FIX Connectivity
4 12 (0.30%) SSL
5 11 (0.27%) Wireless
6 9 (0.22%) DNS
6 9 (0.22%) Intranet
6 9 (0.22%) SMTP
7 7 (0.17%) POP3
7 7 (0.17%) TCP/IP
8 5 (0.12%) ATM
8 5 (0.12%) VPN
9 4 (0.098%) 5G
9 4 (0.098%) FTP
9 4 (0.098%) HTTPS
9 4 (0.098%) Multicast
9 4 (0.098%) RFID
9 4 (0.098%) SMS
10 3 (0.074%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 344 (8.47%) PostgreSQL
2 254 (6.25%) SQL Server
3 242 (5.96%) Relational Database
4 227 (5.59%) MongoDB
5 185 (4.56%) Power BI
6 149 (3.67%) NoSQL
7 141 (3.47%) MySQL
8 104 (2.56%) Oracle Database
9 81 (1.99%) Redis
10 60 (1.48%) Amazon Athena
10 60 (1.48%) DynamoDB
11 56 (1.38%) Data Warehouse
11 56 (1.38%) DB2
12 55 (1.35%) Big Data
13 49 (1.21%) Tableau
14 48 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
14 48 (1.18%) Apache Cassandra
15 45 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 44 (1.08%) Hadoop
17 41 (1.01%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 430 (10.59%) Git
2 236 (5.81%) Jenkins
3 224 (5.52%) JIRA
4 142 (3.50%) JUnit
5 81 (1.99%) GitLab
6 66 (1.63%) Maven
7 52 (1.28%) Cucumber
8 50 (1.23%) Bitbucket
9 47 (1.16%) Gradle
10 43 (1.06%) Subversion
11 42 (1.03%) webpack
12 40 (0.98%) Visual Studio
13 39 (0.96%) Mockito
13 39 (0.96%) Selenium
14 36 (0.89%) Cypress.io
15 35 (0.86%) TeamCity
16 31 (0.76%) Jasmine
17 28 (0.69%) SonarQube
18 24 (0.59%) Postman
19 20 (0.49%) Ant
General
1 976 (24.03%) Finance
2 809 (19.92%) Social Skills
3 563 (13.86%) Banking
4 384 (9.46%) Public Sector
5 376 (9.26%) Analytical Skills
6 308 (7.58%) Front Office
7 297 (7.31%) Investment Banking
8 89 (2.19%) Marketing
9 83 (2.04%) Telecoms
10 61 (1.50%) Retail
11 56 (1.38%) Manufacturing
12 48 (1.18%) Financial Institution
13 46 (1.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 35 (0.86%) Back Office
15 32 (0.79%) Pharmaceutical
16 30 (0.74%) Electronics
17 27 (0.66%) Organisational Skills
18 26 (0.64%) Documentation Skills
19 25 (0.62%) Legal
19 25 (0.62%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 670 (16.50%) React
2 585 (14.41%) .NET
3 486 (11.97%) HTML
4 456 (11.23%) CSS
5 370 (9.11%) AngularJS
6 354 (8.72%) RESTful
7 352 (8.67%) Spring
8 330 (8.13%) Node.js
9 283 (6.97%) REST
10 269 (6.62%) Kafka
10 269 (6.62%) Spring Boot
11 193 (4.75%) Web Services
12 154 (3.79%) SOAP
13 143 (3.52%) XML
14 135 (3.32%) JSON
15 133 (3.28%) HTML5
16 132 (3.25%) .NET Framework
17 128 (3.15%) Redux
18 122 (3.00%) Vue
19 118 (2.91%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 150 (3.69%) Derivative
2 132 (3.25%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 126 (3.10%) Fixed Income
4 125 (3.08%) Equities
5 109 (2.68%) Algorithms
6 97 (2.39%) Data Structures
7 90 (2.22%) Product Ownership
8 87 (2.14%) Mobile App
9 84 (2.07%) Greenfield Project
10 77 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
11 76 (1.87%) Onboarding
12 70 (1.72%) Hedge funds
13 58 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
14 50 (1.23%) Market Risk
15 46 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
16 45 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
17 40 (0.98%) CMDB
18 39 (0.96%) Cloud Native
18 39 (0.96%) Equity Derivative
19 36 (0.89%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 300 (7.39%) Linux
2 125 (3.08%) Windows
3 100 (2.46%) Unix
4 87 (2.14%) Android
5 59 (1.45%) Apple iOS
6 28 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (0.17%) Windows Server
8 5 (0.12%) Mac OS X
8 5 (0.12%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.098%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.074%) Embedded Linux
10 3 (0.074%) Solaris
11 2 (0.049%) CentOS
11 2 (0.049%) Debian
11 2 (0.049%) OpenVMS
11 2 (0.049%) zOS
12 1 (0.025%) AIX
12 1 (0.025%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,128 (27.78%) Agile
2 711 (17.51%) CI/CD
3 678 (16.70%) DevOps
4 668 (16.45%) Problem-Solving
5 530 (13.05%) Full-Stack Development
6 464 (11.43%) Microservices
7 440 (10.83%) Software Engineering
8 352 (8.67%) TDD
9 317 (7.81%) User Experience
10 303 (7.46%) Front End Development
11 259 (6.38%) SDLC
12 258 (6.35%) Test Automation
13 254 (6.25%) Business Intelligence
14 245 (6.03%) Unit Testing
15 238 (5.86%) Scrum
16 236 (5.81%) Analytics
17 224 (5.52%) Containerisation
18 205 (5.05%) Code Quality
19 204 (5.02%) Computer Science
20 197 (4.85%) Design Patterns
Programming Languages
1 1,037 (25.54%) SQL
2 1,011 (24.90%) Java
3 951 (23.42%) Python
4 846 (20.83%) JavaScript
5 629 (15.49%) C#
6 521 (12.83%) TypeScript
7 183 (4.51%) PL/SQL
8 169 (4.16%) C++
9 102 (2.51%) Kotlin
10 100 (2.46%) PHP
11 82 (2.02%) Scala
12 68 (1.67%) PowerShell
12 68 (1.67%) Shell Script
13 66 (1.63%) ABAP
13 66 (1.63%) Go
14 59 (1.45%) Apex Code
15 57 (1.40%) VBA
16 49 (1.21%) Ruby
17 45 (1.11%) Bash
18 43 (1.06%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 583 (14.36%) Security Cleared
2 498 (12.26%) SC Cleared
3 258 (6.35%) Degree
4 109 (2.68%) Computer Science Degree
5 53 (1.31%) BPSS Clearance
5 53 (1.31%) DV Cleared
6 35 (0.86%) AWS Certification
7 31 (0.76%) Numerate Degree
8 28 (0.69%) Master's Degree
9 25 (0.62%) AWS Certified Developer
10 15 (0.37%) Azure Certification
11 13 (0.32%) PhD
12 11 (0.27%) Microsoft Certification
13 6 (0.15%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 5 (0.12%) SAP Certification
15 4 (0.098%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 4 (0.098%) Sun Certification
16 3 (0.074%) CCNP
16 3 (0.074%) Cisco Certification
16 3 (0.074%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (3.10%) QA
2 107 (2.63%) Accessibility
3 43 (1.06%) Data Quality
4 40 (0.98%) WCAG
5 26 (0.64%) Disclosure Scotland
6 13 (0.32%) HL7
7 12 (0.30%) GRC
8 8 (0.20%) GDPR
9 6 (0.15%) EMIR
9 6 (0.15%) MiFID
10 5 (0.12%) PCI DSS
10 5 (0.12%) PMO
11 4 (0.098%) Cyber Essentials
11 4 (0.098%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 4 (0.098%) PERC
11 4 (0.098%) SEPA
12 3 (0.074%) Def Stans
12 3 (0.074%) IEC 61508
12 3 (0.074%) SLA
13 2 (0.049%) MISRA C
System Software
1 439 (10.81%) Docker
2 56 (1.38%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.20%) GridGain
3 8 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
4 6 (0.15%) Firmware
5 4 (0.098%) Apache ZooKeeper
5 4 (0.098%) OpenAM
5 4 (0.098%) OpenDJ
5 4 (0.098%) OpenIDM
6 3 (0.074%) HDFS
6 3 (0.074%) Postfix
6 3 (0.074%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.025%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.025%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
7 1 (0.025%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 445 (10.96%) Kubernetes
2 190 (4.68%) Terraform
3 97 (2.39%) Ansible
4 26 (0.64%) Prometheus
5 25 (0.62%) Grafana
6 23 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (0.39%) Kibana
8 12 (0.30%) CloudHub
9 8 (0.20%) Istio
9 8 (0.20%) MIIS
10 7 (0.17%) Argo
11 6 (0.15%) logstash
12 5 (0.12%) Puppet
13 4 (0.098%) Control-M
13 4 (0.098%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.049%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 2 (0.049%) Docker Swarm
14 2 (0.049%) Podman
14 2 (0.049%) Tivoli
14 2 (0.049%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 379 (9.33%) Microsoft
2 354 (8.72%) Oracle
3 181 (4.46%) ServiceNow
4 152 (3.74%) SAP
5 122 (3.00%) Salesforce
6 93 (2.29%) Google
7 55 (1.35%) Sybase
8 49 (1.21%) Virgin Media
9 44 (1.08%) Splunk
10 38 (0.94%) IBM
11 36 (0.89%) MuleSoft
12 35 (0.86%) Databricks
13 29 (0.71%) OutSystems
14 24 (0.59%) OpenAI
15 22 (0.54%) Adobe
16 20 (0.49%) TIBCO
17 18 (0.44%) Atlassian
18 17 (0.42%) OpenLink
18 17 (0.42%) Solace
19 13 (0.32%) Dynatrace