Developer Contract Job Trends

Developer
UK

The median Developer daily rate in the UK is £510, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 October 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 12 5
Rank change year-on-year -5 -7 +1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 5,324 3,867 5,503
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 9.63% 11.66% 14.68%
As % of the Job Titles category 10.47% 12.83% 15.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,522 2,688 3,754
10th Percentile £366 £350 £340
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £763 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £463
% change year-on-year +2.63% +2.70% -2.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 141 57 40
10th Percentile £25.00 £32.94 £35.00
25th Percentile £37.25 £42.50 £48.75
Median hourly rate £50.00 £55.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -15.38% +8.33%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £68.75
90th Percentile £71.50 £69.00 £70.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -13.64% -15.38% +8.33%

All Contract IT Job Roles
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 50,840 30,143 34,861
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.99% 90.86% 93.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,838 19,043 21,029
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £737 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,127 1,648 1,435
10th Percentile £14.36 £13.75 £15.00
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £41.27
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -39.05% -8.30%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.08 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £25.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +66.84% -41.18% -4.49%

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 14 October 2026.

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 14 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Developer in the UK

Developer
Top 18 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 14 October 2026. 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 4,232 £522 +3.11% 2,672
UK excluding London +1 2,269 £488 +2.63% 1,487
London -10 2,203 £535 -2.73% 1,311
Work from Home -11 1,490 £500 -1.48% 1,289
North of England -1 738 £475 +5.56% 452
South East -6 395 £500 +5.26% 294
Yorkshire 0 337 £475 -5.00% 150
Midlands -4 331 £460 -0.65% 254
South West +5 310 £525 +5.00% 139
Scotland +3 303 £450 -3.74% 109
North West -8 295 £492 +17.20% 231
West Midlands +4 250 £450 -10.00% 162
East of England +4 162 £530 +0.95% 131
North East -1 108 £450 -10.00% 81
East Midlands -15 79 £485 +16.52% 90
Northern Ireland +17 34 £650 +18.18% 73
Wales -13 28 £425 -10.53% 46
Channel Islands - 1 £450 - 1

Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 14 October 2026, 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 1,499 (28.16%) Agile
2 1,390 (26.11%) CI/CD
3 1,236 (23.22%) Security Cleared
4 1,219 (22.90%) Java
5 1,156 (21.71%) SQL
6 1,051 (19.74%) SC Cleared
7 1,026 (19.27%) Azure
8 947 (17.79%) DevOps
9 940 (17.66%) AWS
10 899 (16.89%) Python
11 868 (16.30%) REST
12 776 (14.58%) Microservices
13 769 (14.44%) JavaScript
14 756 (14.20%) Problem-Solving
15 694 (13.04%) C#
16 672 (12.62%) Git
17 661 (12.42%) Microsoft
18 639 (12.00%) Software Engineering
19 603 (11.33%) .NET
20 597 (11.21%) Test Automation
21 596 (11.19%) React
22 569 (10.69%) Full-Stack Development
23 558 (10.48%) Docker
24 547 (10.27%) Kubernetes
25 528 (9.92%) Oracle
26 513 (9.64%) Power Platform
26 513 (9.64%) Spring
27 507 (9.52%) RESTful
27 507 (9.52%) TypeScript
28 472 (8.87%) Continuous Improvement

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
1 146 (2.74%) SharePoint
2 128 (2.40%) Confluence
3 46 (0.86%) CMS
4 36 (0.68%) Apache
5 35 (0.66%) IIS
6 34 (0.64%) Apache Spark
7 30 (0.56%) Oracle Workflow
8 25 (0.47%) Camunda
9 23 (0.43%) SAS
9 23 (0.43%) WebLogic
10 20 (0.38%) Anypoint
10 20 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
10 20 (0.38%) Mule
11 18 (0.34%) Jupyter
12 17 (0.32%) Oracle Application Server
12 17 (0.32%) WordPress
13 15 (0.28%) nginx
14 14 (0.26%) SharePoint Server
15 12 (0.23%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 12 (0.23%) Ethereum
Applications
1 52 (0.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
3 18 (0.34%) Microsoft Office
4 10 (0.19%) Chatbot
5 8 (0.15%) CPLEX
6 5 (0.094%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.094%) Windchill
7 4 (0.075%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.038%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.038%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.038%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.038%) Sketch
9 1 (0.019%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.019%) Blender
9 1 (0.019%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.019%) Simulink
9 1 (0.019%) S-PLUS
9 1 (0.019%) Trello
Business Applications
1 79 (1.48%) Dynamics CRM
2 24 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
3 17 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
3 17 (0.32%) Teamcenter
4 16 (0.30%) NetSuite
4 16 (0.30%) Oracle Payroll
4 16 (0.30%) Siebel CRM
5 12 (0.23%) SAP CRM
6 11 (0.21%) IBM Planning Analytics
7 10 (0.19%) Oracle Financials
7 10 (0.19%) Remedy ITSM
8 9 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
8 9 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
9 7 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
9 7 (0.13%) Oracle Internet Expenses
9 7 (0.13%) Oracle iProcurement
9 7 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.11%) Oracle FAH
10 6 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 1,026 (19.27%) Azure
2 940 (17.66%) AWS
3 513 (9.64%) Power Platform
4 360 (6.76%) GitHub
5 308 (5.79%) Azure DevOps
6 299 (5.62%) GCP
7 256 (4.81%) PowerApps
8 253 (4.75%) Power Automate
9 239 (4.49%) Serverless
10 220 (4.13%) Dynamics 365
11 193 (3.63%) GitHub Actions
12 113 (2.12%) Microsoft Copilot
13 111 (2.08%) Amazon S3
14 107 (2.01%) AWS Lambda
15 97 (1.82%) Microsoft 365
16 86 (1.62%) OpenShift
17 83 (1.56%) Azure Functions
18 78 (1.47%) Copilot Studio
19 77 (1.45%) Azure Service Bus
20 70 (1.31%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 50 (0.94%) HTTP
2 26 (0.49%) WAN
3 19 (0.36%) IPsec
4 17 (0.32%) BGP
4 17 (0.32%) LAN
4 17 (0.32%) MPLS
5 15 (0.28%) Firewall
6 14 (0.26%) TCP/IP
6 14 (0.26%) VPN
7 13 (0.24%) HTTPS
7 13 (0.24%) Internet
8 11 (0.21%) FIX Connectivity
8 11 (0.21%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (0.17%) SSL
9 9 (0.17%) Wireless
10 8 (0.15%) DNS
10 8 (0.15%) SD-WAN
11 7 (0.13%) Reverse Proxy
12 6 (0.11%) Multicast
12 6 (0.11%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 373 (7.01%) SQL Server
2 321 (6.03%) PostgreSQL
3 302 (5.67%) Power BI
4 275 (5.17%) Relational Database
5 205 (3.85%) MongoDB
6 161 (3.02%) Data Warehouse
7 159 (2.99%) NoSQL
8 96 (1.80%) Oracle Database
9 93 (1.75%) MySQL
10 77 (1.45%) Redis
11 63 (1.18%) Azure SQL Database
12 61 (1.15%) Power Query
13 58 (1.09%) DynamoDB
14 54 (1.01%) Oracle Reports
15 51 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 49 (0.92%) Elasticsearch
17 44 (0.83%) RDBMS
18 40 (0.75%) Metadata
19 37 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
20 34 (0.64%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 672 (12.62%) Git
2 338 (6.35%) Jenkins
3 249 (4.68%) JIRA
4 210 (3.94%) GitLab
5 124 (2.33%) Maven
6 116 (2.18%) JUnit
7 111 (2.08%) Gradle
8 85 (1.60%) Mockito
9 71 (1.33%) Visual Studio
10 68 (1.28%) SonarQube
11 43 (0.81%) Team Foundation Server
12 39 (0.73%) Cypress.io
13 36 (0.68%) Bitbucket
14 35 (0.66%) Claude Code
15 30 (0.56%) Cucumber
16 24 (0.45%) Oracle Forms
17 23 (0.43%) REST Assured
18 22 (0.41%) Selenium
19 20 (0.38%) Storybook
20 17 (0.32%) Vite
General
1 1,004 (18.86%) Finance
2 915 (17.19%) Social Skills
3 689 (12.94%) Public Sector
4 550 (10.33%) Banking
5 428 (8.04%) Analytical Skills
6 213 (4.00%) Front Office
7 201 (3.78%) Investment Banking
8 129 (2.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 86 (1.62%) Retail
10 75 (1.41%) Marketing
11 73 (1.37%) Manufacturing
12 58 (1.09%) Financial Institution
13 52 (0.98%) Law
14 39 (0.73%) Back Office
15 37 (0.69%) Telecoms
16 36 (0.68%) Aerospace
17 34 (0.64%) Local Government
17 34 (0.64%) Military
18 31 (0.58%) Publishing
19 30 (0.56%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 868 (16.30%) REST
2 603 (11.33%) .NET
3 596 (11.19%) React
4 513 (9.64%) Spring
5 507 (9.52%) RESTful
6 462 (8.68%) Spring Boot
7 349 (6.56%) HTML
8 344 (6.46%) Node.js
9 333 (6.25%) Kafka
10 310 (5.82%) CSS
11 281 (5.28%) Terraform
12 250 (4.70%) SOAP
13 248 (4.66%) AngularJS
14 214 (4.02%) JSON
15 211 (3.96%) Web Services
16 173 (3.25%) XML
17 166 (3.12%) OAuth
18 140 (2.63%) .NET Framework
19 125 (2.35%) .NET Core
20 122 (2.29%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 391 (7.34%) Cloud Native
2 219 (4.11%) Product Ownership
3 210 (3.94%) Distributed Systems
4 193 (3.63%) Enterprise Software
5 132 (2.48%) Data Structures
6 117 (2.20%) Derivative
7 109 (2.05%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 98 (1.84%) Legacy Systems
9 96 (1.80%) Mobile App
10 87 (1.63%) Equities
11 83 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
12 79 (1.48%) Fixed Income
13 76 (1.43%) AI Agents
14 75 (1.41%) Onboarding
15 71 (1.33%) CMDB
15 71 (1.33%) Greenfield Project
16 66 (1.24%) Low-Code
17 55 (1.03%) Algorithms
18 51 (0.96%) Data Protection Act
19 46 (0.86%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 215 (4.04%) Linux
2 133 (2.50%) Unix
3 109 (2.05%) Windows
4 82 (1.54%) Apple iOS
5 77 (1.45%) Android
6 30 (0.56%) Windows Server
7 17 (0.32%) AIX
8 10 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (0.15%) macOS
10 5 (0.094%) VMS
11 2 (0.038%) Embedded Linux
11 2 (0.038%) Solaris
11 2 (0.038%) zOS
12 1 (0.019%) Robot Operating System
12 1 (0.019%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,499 (28.16%) Agile
2 1,390 (26.11%) CI/CD
3 947 (17.79%) DevOps
4 776 (14.58%) Microservices
5 756 (14.20%) Problem-Solving
6 639 (12.00%) Software Engineering
7 597 (11.21%) Test Automation
8 569 (10.69%) Full-Stack Development
9 472 (8.87%) Continuous Improvement
10 471 (8.85%) AI
11 435 (8.17%) Scrum
12 415 (7.79%) Data Modelling
13 400 (7.51%) Containerisation
14 393 (7.38%) Business Intelligence
15 369 (6.93%) TDD
16 355 (6.67%) SDLC
17 349 (6.56%) Front End Development
18 344 (6.46%) Analytics
19 341 (6.40%) Event-Driven
20 294 (5.52%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 1,219 (22.90%) Java
2 1,156 (21.71%) SQL
3 899 (16.89%) Python
4 769 (14.44%) JavaScript
5 694 (13.04%) C#
6 507 (9.52%) TypeScript
7 194 (3.64%) PL/SQL
8 107 (2.01%) Apex Code
9 105 (1.97%) Scala
10 102 (1.92%) T-SQL
11 95 (1.78%) Kotlin
12 91 (1.71%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 79 (1.48%) Shell Script
14 74 (1.39%) C++
15 69 (1.30%) Go
16 55 (1.03%) Swift
17 53 (1.00%) PowerShell
18 47 (0.88%) Bash
18 47 (0.88%) Ruby
19 39 (0.73%) VBA
Qualifications
1 1,236 (23.22%) Security Cleared
2 1,051 (19.74%) SC Cleared
3 229 (4.30%) BPSS Clearance
4 210 (3.94%) Degree
5 154 (2.89%) DV Cleared
6 116 (2.18%) Computer Science Degree
7 46 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
8 34 (0.64%) Azure Certification
9 29 (0.54%) Master's Degree
10 14 (0.26%) PhD
11 13 (0.24%) DBS Check
12 12 (0.23%) AWS Certification
13 7 (0.13%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 5 (0.094%) Numerate Degree
15 3 (0.056%) AWS Certified Developer
15 3 (0.056%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 3 (0.056%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 3 (0.056%) Chartered Engineer
16 2 (0.038%) CTC Cleared
16 2 (0.038%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 310 (5.82%) QA
2 255 (4.79%) Accessibility
3 152 (2.85%) Data Quality
4 97 (1.82%) WCAG
5 36 (0.68%) GDPR
6 13 (0.24%) HL7
6 13 (0.24%) SLA
7 12 (0.23%) NCSC
8 11 (0.21%) GMP
8 11 (0.21%) GxP
9 10 (0.19%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 10 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 17025
10 8 (0.15%) ISO 20022
11 7 (0.13%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.11%) Basel III
12 6 (0.11%) GRC
12 6 (0.11%) SEPA
13 5 (0.094%) Disclosure Scotland
14 4 (0.075%) EMIR
14 4 (0.075%) SOC 2
System Software
1 558 (10.48%) Docker
2 38 (0.71%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.13%) Firmware
4 6 (0.11%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.075%) Apache ZooKeeper
5 4 (0.075%) Embedded Firmware
5 4 (0.075%) NFS
5 4 (0.075%) Virtual Servers
6 3 (0.056%) Ceph
6 3 (0.056%) Postfix
7 2 (0.038%) Apache Flume
7 2 (0.038%) GPFS
7 2 (0.038%) HDFS
7 2 (0.038%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.019%) Varnish
8 1 (0.019%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 547 (10.27%) Kubernetes
2 93 (1.75%) Grafana
3 91 (1.71%) Ansible
4 58 (1.09%) Prometheus
5 41 (0.77%) Argo
6 38 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
7 27 (0.51%) Control-M
8 25 (0.47%) Kibana
9 7 (0.13%) IBM Guardium
9 7 (0.13%) Istio
9 7 (0.13%) Nessus
10 4 (0.075%) Bosun
11 3 (0.056%) CloudHub
11 3 (0.056%) Podman
12 2 (0.038%) Consul
12 2 (0.038%) HAProxy
12 2 (0.038%) Zipkin
13 1 (0.019%) Docker Swarm
13 1 (0.019%) HP Fortify
13 1 (0.019%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 661 (12.42%) Microsoft
2 528 (9.92%) Oracle
3 243 (4.56%) Salesforce
4 240 (4.51%) ServiceNow
5 151 (2.84%) Google
6 92 (1.73%) SAP
7 91 (1.71%) Databricks
8 86 (1.62%) IBM
8 86 (1.62%) MuleSoft
9 48 (0.90%) UiPath
10 44 (0.83%) Splunk
11 35 (0.66%) OpenAI
12 32 (0.60%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
13 31 (0.58%) Citrix
13 31 (0.58%) Red Hat
14 30 (0.56%) Adobe
15 26 (0.49%) Blue Prism
15 26 (0.49%) Siebel
16 24 (0.45%) Informatica
17 23 (0.43%) Sybase