Developer Contract Job Trends

Developer
UK

The median Developer daily rate in the UK is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 12 December 2025.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 14 6 6
Rank change year-on-year -8 0 -2
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 4,025 5,015 6,347
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.09% 14.04% 13.96%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.20% 15.14% 14.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,816 3,363 4,565
10th Percentile £350 £350 £358
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £543
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -3.23% -5.65%
75th Percentile £603 £638 £670
90th Percentile £729 £775 £798
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £460 £475
% change year-on-year +3.26% -3.16% -7.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 38 77
10th Percentile £40.00 £30.00 £28.54
25th Percentile £52.50 £39.19 £50.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% +8.33% -2.04%
75th Percentile £67.00 £67.81 £70.00
90th Percentile £71.17 £98.25 £81.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £60.92
% change year-on-year -15.38% +6.70% -0.54%

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 32,988 33,120 42,501
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.93% 92.74% 93.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,924 20,243 28,641
10th Percentile £285 £300 £294
25th Percentile £403 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £645
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,924 1,136 1,517
10th Percentile £14.22 £15.36 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.75 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.75 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.63% -21.02% +40.98%
75th Percentile £56.81 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.75 £73.66 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +78.00%

Developer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Developer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Developer job vacancy trend in the UK

Developer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the UK

Developer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Developer over the 6 months to 12 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Developer in the UK

Developer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the UK

Developer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Developer over the 6 months to 12 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Developer in the UK

Developer
Top 17 Contract Job 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 12 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
England -8 3,383 £500 -5.84% 3,127
London -6 1,982 £525 -6.25% 726
UK excluding London -8 1,493 £475 +3.26% 2,800
Work from Home -5 1,377 £500 - 1,888
North of England -7 497 £450 -2.17% 703
South East -12 263 £500 -4.76% 787
North West -4 253 £425 -5.56% 379
Midlands -8 217 £475 +1.28% 489
Yorkshire -8 214 £500 +4.71% 247
South West -3 195 £475 -5.00% 286
Scotland -12 174 £455 +1.00% 122
West Midlands -16 132 £500 +5.26% 267
East of England -19 86 £525 +36.36% 322
East Midlands -1 85 £450 +5.88% 204
Wales +2 52 £475 +5.56% 75
North East -4 34 £488 +11.43% 81
Northern Ireland -5 25 £500 +5.26% 46

Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 12 December 2025, Developer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Developer in the job title.

1 1,284 (31.90%) Agile
2 1,088 (27.03%) Java
3 1,055 (26.21%) SQL
4 1,005 (24.97%) CI/CD
5 899 (22.34%) Azure
6 874 (21.71%) AWS
6 874 (21.71%) Python
7 840 (20.87%) Problem-Solving
8 799 (19.85%) DevOps
9 776 (19.28%) Security Cleared
10 743 (18.46%) JavaScript
11 635 (15.78%) Microservices
12 604 (15.01%) SC Cleared
13 602 (14.96%) C#
14 568 (14.11%) React
15 538 (13.37%) Git
16 528 (13.12%) Full-Stack Development
17 523 (12.99%) Kubernetes
18 520 (12.92%) Docker
19 511 (12.70%) .NET
20 484 (12.02%) Microsoft
21 478 (11.88%) REST
22 458 (11.38%) TypeScript
23 420 (10.43%) RESTful
24 413 (10.26%) Spring
25 385 (9.57%) Software Engineering
26 380 (9.44%) Scrum
26 380 (9.44%) Test Automation
27 360 (8.94%) Kafka
27 360 (8.94%) Node.js

Developer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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
1 109 (2.71%) SharePoint
2 72 (1.79%) Confluence
3 64 (1.59%) CMS
4 34 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
5 31 (0.77%) Apache Spark
6 28 (0.70%) Apache
7 20 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
8 18 (0.45%) IIS
9 17 (0.42%) CICS
10 16 (0.40%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 15 (0.37%) HCL Notes
12 13 (0.32%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 13 (0.32%) Headless CMS
12 13 (0.32%) SugarCRM
13 12 (0.30%) WordPress
14 10 (0.25%) Moodle
14 10 (0.25%) MQSeries
14 10 (0.25%) nginx
14 10 (0.25%) SAS
14 10 (0.25%) Tomcat
Applications
1 99 (2.46%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (0.62%) Chatbot
3 12 (0.30%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.15%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.050%) Adobe Illustrator
7 2 (0.050%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.025%) 3ds Max
8 1 (0.025%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.025%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.025%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.025%) Simulink
8 1 (0.025%) Sketch
8 1 (0.025%) Stateflow
8 1 (0.025%) Trello
Business Applications
1 59 (1.47%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.35%) Endur
3 14 (0.35%) Oracle Payables
3 14 (0.35%) VisionPLUS
4 13 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
4 13 (0.32%) Oracle EBS R12
5 12 (0.30%) SAP S/4HANA
6 11 (0.27%) Fidessa
6 11 (0.27%) Oracle General Ledger
7 10 (0.25%) Aladdin
7 10 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.22%) Advent Geneva
8 9 (0.22%) Magento
9 7 (0.17%) Oracle BPM
9 7 (0.17%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.15%) Oracle Receivables
10 6 (0.15%) SAP PM
11 5 (0.12%) Dynamics AX
11 5 (0.12%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 899 (22.34%) Azure
2 874 (21.71%) AWS
3 357 (8.87%) Power Platform
4 300 (7.45%) Azure DevOps
5 289 (7.18%) GitHub
6 257 (6.39%) Serverless
7 210 (5.22%) GCP
8 183 (4.55%) Power Automate
9 178 (4.42%) PowerApps
10 146 (3.63%) GitHub Actions
11 123 (3.06%) AWS Lambda
12 117 (2.91%) Dynamics 365
13 95 (2.36%) Amazon S3
14 89 (2.21%) Azure Functions
15 83 (2.06%) Azure Logic Apps
16 72 (1.79%) Microsoft 365
17 71 (1.76%) Azure AKS
18 69 (1.71%) Azure Service Bus
19 54 (1.34%) Azure Monitor
20 52 (1.29%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 54 (1.34%) HTTP
2 34 (0.84%) HTTPS
3 28 (0.70%) SSL
4 26 (0.65%) TCP/IP
5 18 (0.45%) DNS
6 13 (0.32%) Internet
6 13 (0.32%) VPN
7 12 (0.30%) Firewall
7 12 (0.30%) SSH
8 8 (0.20%) DHCP
8 8 (0.20%) Multicast
8 8 (0.20%) VoIP
9 6 (0.15%) Network Security
9 6 (0.15%) SAN
10 5 (0.12%) CTI
10 5 (0.12%) Kerberos
11 4 (0.099%) FIX Connectivity
11 4 (0.099%) FTP
11 4 (0.099%) SMTP
12 3 (0.075%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 322 (8.00%) PostgreSQL
2 275 (6.83%) SQL Server
3 247 (6.14%) Relational Database
4 229 (5.69%) Power BI
5 192 (4.77%) MongoDB
6 188 (4.67%) NoSQL
7 125 (3.11%) MySQL
8 82 (2.04%) Oracle Database
9 80 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
10 64 (1.59%) DB2
11 56 (1.39%) Redis
12 55 (1.37%) Apache Cassandra
13 51 (1.27%) Azure SQL Database
14 47 (1.17%) DynamoDB
15 41 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
15 41 (1.02%) Oracle Reports
15 41 (1.02%) Power Query
15 41 (1.02%) RDBMS
15 41 (1.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 39 (0.97%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 538 (13.37%) Git
2 233 (5.79%) JIRA
3 218 (5.42%) Jenkins
4 168 (4.17%) GitLab
5 159 (3.95%) JUnit
6 79 (1.96%) Cucumber
7 72 (1.79%) Mockito
8 65 (1.61%) Gradle
9 64 (1.59%) Maven
10 55 (1.37%) Bitbucket
11 47 (1.17%) Oracle APEX
12 46 (1.14%) Cypress.io
13 44 (1.09%) SonarQube
14 43 (1.07%) Visual Studio
15 37 (0.92%) Sonatype Nexus
16 32 (0.80%) Selenium
17 29 (0.72%) webpack
18 25 (0.62%) Xcode
19 24 (0.60%) JMeter
20 23 (0.57%) Postman
General
1 908 (22.56%) Social Skills
2 896 (22.26%) Finance
3 474 (11.78%) Banking
4 471 (11.70%) Public Sector
5 330 (8.20%) Analytical Skills
6 228 (5.66%) Front Office
7 173 (4.30%) Investment Banking
8 60 (1.49%) Financial Institution
9 51 (1.27%) Marketing
10 47 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 39 (0.97%) Documentation Skills
12 31 (0.77%) Manufacturing
13 30 (0.75%) Military
14 24 (0.60%) Retail
15 22 (0.55%) Pharmaceutical
15 22 (0.55%) Telecoms
16 21 (0.52%) Law
16 21 (0.52%) Legal
17 19 (0.47%) Back Office
18 18 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 568 (14.11%) React
2 511 (12.70%) .NET
3 478 (11.88%) REST
4 420 (10.43%) RESTful
5 413 (10.26%) Spring
6 360 (8.94%) Kafka
6 360 (8.94%) Node.js
7 351 (8.72%) HTML
8 327 (8.12%) Spring Boot
9 325 (8.07%) CSS
10 312 (7.75%) AngularJS
11 200 (4.97%) SOAP
12 194 (4.82%) JSON
13 140 (3.48%) XML
14 131 (3.25%) .NET Framework
15 130 (3.23%) Web Services
16 114 (2.83%) Vue
17 111 (2.76%) OAuth
18 99 (2.46%) GraphQL
19 94 (2.34%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 195 (4.84%) Cloud Native
2 140 (3.48%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 132 (3.28%) Data Structures
4 130 (3.23%) Mobile App
5 120 (2.98%) Equities
6 116 (2.88%) Distributed Systems
7 110 (2.73%) Algorithms
8 108 (2.68%) Product Ownership
9 98 (2.43%) Derivative
10 90 (2.24%) Fixed Income
11 85 (2.11%) Greenfield Project
12 79 (1.96%) Onboarding
13 76 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
14 73 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
15 52 (1.29%) Management Information System
16 49 (1.22%) Hedge funds
17 46 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
18 43 (1.07%) Linux Command Line
19 41 (1.02%) Low-Code
19 41 (1.02%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 329 (8.17%) Linux
2 130 (3.23%) Android
3 124 (3.08%) Unix
4 111 (2.76%) Windows
5 89 (2.21%) Apple iOS
6 22 (0.55%) Mac OS X
6 22 (0.55%) Windows Server
7 11 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 8 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (0.17%) CentOS
10 6 (0.15%) Debian
10 6 (0.15%) Mac OS
10 6 (0.15%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.12%) AIX
12 4 (0.099%) VME
13 3 (0.075%) zOS
14 2 (0.050%) MVS
14 2 (0.050%) VMS
15 1 (0.025%) Solaris
15 1 (0.025%) watchOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,284 (31.90%) Agile
2 1,005 (24.97%) CI/CD
3 840 (20.87%) Problem-Solving
4 799 (19.85%) DevOps
5 635 (15.78%) Microservices
6 528 (13.12%) Full-Stack Development
7 385 (9.57%) Software Engineering
8 380 (9.44%) Scrum
8 380 (9.44%) Test Automation
9 344 (8.55%) Containerisation
10 327 (8.12%) TDD
11 318 (7.90%) Analytics
12 306 (7.60%) Business Intelligence
13 258 (6.41%) AI
14 248 (6.16%) Front End Development
15 244 (6.06%) Clean Code
16 234 (5.81%) SDLC
16 234 (5.81%) User Experience
17 228 (5.66%) Computer Science
18 226 (5.61%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 1,088 (27.03%) Java
2 1,055 (26.21%) SQL
3 874 (21.71%) Python
4 743 (18.46%) JavaScript
5 602 (14.96%) C#
6 458 (11.38%) TypeScript
7 151 (3.75%) PL/SQL
8 150 (3.73%) C++
9 122 (3.03%) Kotlin
10 114 (2.83%) Go
11 87 (2.16%) PHP
12 83 (2.06%) T-SQL
13 81 (2.01%) Shell Script
14 72 (1.79%) Apex Code
15 65 (1.61%) Ruby
15 65 (1.61%) VB
16 61 (1.52%) PowerShell
17 55 (1.37%) VBA
18 54 (1.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 50 (1.24%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 776 (19.28%) Security Cleared
2 604 (15.01%) SC Cleared
3 237 (5.89%) Degree
4 148 (3.68%) Computer Science Degree
5 111 (2.76%) BPSS Clearance
6 56 (1.39%) DV Cleared
7 37 (0.92%) Master's Degree
8 21 (0.52%) AWS Certification
9 18 (0.45%) Microsoft Certification
10 15 (0.37%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.35%) Oracle Certification
12 13 (0.32%) CTC Cleared
12 13 (0.32%) OCP
13 12 (0.30%) Numerate Degree
14 9 (0.22%) PhD
15 8 (0.20%) MCP
16 6 (0.15%) DBS Check
17 5 (0.12%) AWS Certified Developer
17 5 (0.12%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 2 (0.050%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 201 (4.99%) QA
2 159 (3.95%) Accessibility
3 73 (1.81%) Data Quality
4 56 (1.39%) WCAG
5 20 (0.50%) GDPR
6 16 (0.40%) SLA
7 15 (0.37%) PSD2
8 13 (0.32%) SEPA
9 11 (0.27%) Disclosure Scotland
9 11 (0.27%) ISO 20022
10 7 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 7 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.15%) HL7
12 5 (0.12%) EMIR
12 5 (0.12%) MiFID
12 5 (0.12%) NIST
13 3 (0.075%) Actionable Recommendations
13 3 (0.075%) EU AI Act
13 3 (0.075%) PMO
14 2 (0.050%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 520 (12.92%) Docker
2 38 (0.94%) Active Directory
3 12 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.25%) HDFS
5 8 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.20%) zsh
6 3 (0.075%) OpenAM
6 3 (0.075%) OpenDJ
6 3 (0.075%) OpenIDM
6 3 (0.075%) Time Sharing Option
6 3 (0.075%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.050%) GridGain
7 2 (0.050%) ISA Server
7 2 (0.050%) vSphere
8 1 (0.025%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.025%) Lustre
8 1 (0.025%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.025%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.025%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 523 (12.99%) Kubernetes
2 212 (5.27%) Terraform
3 84 (2.09%) Ansible
4 63 (1.57%) Grafana
5 45 (1.12%) Prometheus
6 20 (0.50%) Control-M
6 20 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
7 19 (0.47%) Argo
8 15 (0.37%) Kibana
9 11 (0.27%) Progress Chef
10 10 (0.25%) CA Endevor
11 7 (0.17%) IBM Guardium
11 7 (0.17%) Nessus
12 6 (0.15%) Puppet
13 5 (0.12%) TIBCO Hawk
13 5 (0.12%) vCenter Server
14 4 (0.099%) Hadoop YARN
14 4 (0.099%) Podman
15 3 (0.075%) Consul
15 3 (0.075%) Oozie
Vendors
1 484 (12.02%) Microsoft
2 314 (7.80%) Oracle
3 146 (3.63%) Salesforce
4 127 (3.16%) SAP
5 125 (3.11%) ServiceNow
6 95 (2.36%) Google
7 67 (1.66%) IBM
8 64 (1.59%) Databricks
9 38 (0.94%) Sybase
10 37 (0.92%) MuleSoft
11 35 (0.87%) Red Hat
11 35 (0.87%) webMethods
12 34 (0.84%) VMware
13 32 (0.80%) Adobe
14 30 (0.75%) OpenAI
15 29 (0.72%) IFS
15 29 (0.72%) Splunk
16 24 (0.60%) Axway
16 24 (0.60%) Citrix
17 23 (0.57%) Blue Prism