PHP Contract Job Trends

PHP
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring PHP skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 400 324 316
Rank change year-on-year -76 -8 +30
Contract jobs citing PHP 167 244 353
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.47% 0.66% 0.76%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.46% 2.07% 2.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 109 175 284
10th Percentile £300 £313 £291
25th Percentile £353 £339 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £403 £425 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.29% -5.56% -
75th Percentile £475 £550 £575
90th Percentile £570 £600 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £425 £405
% change year-on-year -5.88% +4.94% -3.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 6
10th Percentile - £34.89 £16.31
25th Percentile £33.25 £37.62 £17.22
Median hourly rate £34.50 £42.79 £22.14
Median % change year-on-year -19.36% +93.25% -50.80%
75th Percentile £40.85 £48.58 £29.66
90th Percentile £43.91 £51.68 £43.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £17.50

All Programming Languages
UK

PHP falls under the Programming Languages category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring coding skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 11,456 11,781 14,546
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.24% 32.11% 31.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,545 7,594 10,368
10th Percentile £348 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £623 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 337 285 446
10th Percentile £29.00 £22.00 £31.75
25th Percentile £45.75 £37.55 £47.50
Median hourly rate £62.50 £61.50 £60.11
Median % change year-on-year +1.63% +2.32% +0.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.25 £75.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

PHP
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing PHP relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

PHP job vacancy trend in the UK

PHP
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing PHP.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing PHP

PHP
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing PHP over the 6 months to 14 November 2025.

Daily rate histogram for PHP in the UK

PHP
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing PHP.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing PHP

PHP
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing PHP within the UK over the 6 months to 14 November 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 -82 144 £400 - 426
UK excluding London -66 70 £400 -5.88% 346
London -34 59 £400 - 101
Work from Home -43 53 £411 +2.81% 253
North of England -41 25 £358 -27.68% 106
North West -17 19 £358 -13.21% 63
East of England -12 17 £438 +21.53% 37
Midlands -26 14 £510 +27.50% 65
South East -19 10 £575 +4.55% 78
East Midlands -8 8 £515 +28.75% 22
West Midlands -33 6 £419 +4.69% 43
Yorkshire -40 3 £388 -26.19% 39
North East - 3 - - 5
Scotland -13 2 £69 -80.29% 11
South West -6 1 £300 -14.89% 45
Wales -13 1 £425 -20.93% 6

PHP
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 15 (8.98%) WebLogic
1 15 (8.98%) WebSphere
2 13 (7.78%) SugarCRM
3 10 (5.99%) WordPress
4 9 (5.39%) Drupal
5 7 (4.19%) Apache
6 5 (2.99%) Confluence
7 4 (2.40%) CMS
8 3 (1.80%) SAS
9 2 (1.20%) FileNet
10 1 (0.60%) Moodle
10 1 (0.60%) nginx
Business Applications
1 4 (2.40%) Magento
2 2 (1.20%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 51 (30.54%) AWS
2 29 (17.37%) Azure
3 19 (11.38%) GitHub
4 16 (9.58%) SaaS
5 10 (5.99%) IaaS
5 10 (5.99%) OpenShift
5 10 (5.99%) PaaS
6 6 (3.59%) GCP
6 6 (3.59%) GitHub Actions
7 5 (2.99%) ChatGPT
7 5 (2.99%) GitHub Copilot
8 4 (2.40%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (2.40%) Serverless
9 3 (1.80%) Azure API Management
9 3 (1.80%) Azure Functions
9 3 (1.80%) Azure Monitor
9 3 (1.80%) Entra ID
10 2 (1.20%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 2 (1.20%) Amazon EC2
10 2 (1.20%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.80%) TCP/IP
2 2 (1.20%) Firewall
2 2 (1.20%) HTTP
2 2 (1.20%) SSL
3 1 (0.60%) DNS
3 1 (0.60%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (26.95%) MySQL
2 19 (11.38%) PostgreSQL
3 17 (10.18%) Relational Database
4 6 (3.59%) SQL Server
5 5 (2.99%) Redis
6 3 (1.80%) Elasticsearch
6 3 (1.80%) MariaDB
7 2 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (1.20%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.60%) Amazon Aurora
8 1 (0.60%) BigQuery
8 1 (0.60%) CouchDB
8 1 (0.60%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.60%) Power BI
8 1 (0.60%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 31 (18.56%) Git
2 21 (12.57%) JIRA
3 7 (4.19%) Bitbucket
3 7 (4.19%) Jenkins
4 6 (3.59%) PHPUnit
5 4 (2.40%) MSI
5 4 (2.40%) Robot Framework
5 4 (2.40%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (1.80%) JUnit
6 3 (1.80%) Postman
6 3 (1.80%) Subversion
7 2 (1.20%) Cypress.io
7 2 (1.20%) JMeter
7 2 (1.20%) Mercurial
7 2 (1.20%) Vagrant
8 1 (0.60%) GitLab
8 1 (0.60%) Selenium
General
1 39 (23.35%) Social Skills
2 20 (11.98%) Finance
3 19 (11.38%) Public Sector
4 16 (9.58%) Marketing
5 6 (3.59%) Analytical Skills
6 5 (2.99%) Games
7 4 (2.40%) Presentation Skills
7 4 (2.40%) Telecoms
8 3 (1.80%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.80%) Military
9 2 (1.20%) Billing
9 2 (1.20%) Electronics
9 2 (1.20%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.20%) Retail
10 1 (0.60%) Automotive
10 1 (0.60%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.60%) Law
10 1 (0.60%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 82 (49.10%) Developer
2 34 (20.36%) PHP Developer
3 17 (10.18%) Senior
4 14 (8.38%) Consultant
5 12 (7.19%) Software Engineer
6 11 (6.59%) Lead
7 9 (5.39%) Senior Developer
8 7 (4.19%) .NET Developer
8 7 (4.19%) Full-Stack Developer
9 5 (2.99%) Backend Developer
9 5 (2.99%) C# Developer
10 4 (2.40%) 3rd Line Engineer
10 4 (2.40%) C# .NET Developer
10 4 (2.40%) DevOps Engineer
10 4 (2.40%) Integration Engineer
10 4 (2.40%) Java Developer
10 4 (2.40%) Oracle Developer
10 4 (2.40%) Principal Engineer
10 4 (2.40%) Senior .NET Developer
10 4 (2.40%) Senior C# Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (29.94%) HTML
2 42 (25.15%) Node.js
3 39 (23.35%) .NET
4 34 (20.36%) CSS
5 30 (17.96%) REST
6 21 (12.57%) Laravel
7 16 (9.58%) Vue
8 15 (8.98%) Middleware
9 14 (8.38%) GraphQL
9 14 (8.38%) SOAP
10 12 (7.19%) React
11 10 (5.99%) AngularJS
11 10 (5.99%) Web Services
12 9 (5.39%) Symfony
13 7 (4.19%) HTML5
13 7 (4.19%) RESTful
13 7 (4.19%) Ruby on Rails
14 6 (3.59%) CSS3
15 5 (2.99%) Bazel
15 5 (2.99%) Unity (Game Engine)
Miscellaneous
1 9 (5.39%) Legacy Systems
2 7 (4.19%) Mobile App
3 5 (2.99%) Data Protection Act
3 5 (2.99%) Linux Command Line
4 4 (2.40%) Enterprise Software
4 4 (2.40%) PKI
4 4 (2.40%) Virtual Reality
4 4 (2.40%) Virtual Team
4 4 (2.40%) Web Conferencing
5 3 (1.80%) Blog
5 3 (1.80%) Cloud Native
5 3 (1.80%) e-Learning
5 3 (1.80%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.20%) 3D Graphics
6 2 (1.20%) Legacy Code
6 2 (1.20%) Mixed Reality
6 2 (1.20%) Product Ownership
7 1 (0.60%) Low-Code
7 1 (0.60%) Marketing Technology
7 1 (0.60%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 28 (16.77%) Linux
2 20 (11.98%) Windows
3 7 (4.19%) CentOS
3 7 (4.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (2.99%) Unix
5 4 (2.40%) Android
5 4 (2.40%) Windows Server
5 4 (2.40%) Windows Server 2019
6 3 (1.80%) Apple iOS
7 2 (1.20%) Debian
7 2 (1.20%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (28.14%) CI/CD
2 43 (25.75%) Agile
3 33 (19.76%) Problem-Solving
4 27 (16.17%) DevOps
5 22 (13.17%) Containerisation
6 19 (11.38%) API Integration
6 19 (11.38%) User Experience
7 18 (10.78%) AI
7 18 (10.78%) Migration
8 17 (10.18%) CRM
8 17 (10.18%) MVC
8 17 (10.18%) Requirements Gathering
8 17 (10.18%) Software Engineering
9 16 (9.58%) Microservices
9 16 (9.58%) Observability
10 15 (8.98%) Full-Stack Development
11 13 (7.78%) Test Automation
12 12 (7.19%) ETL
12 12 (7.19%) Web Development
13 11 (6.59%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 59 (35.33%) Python
2 54 (32.34%) JavaScript
3 35 (20.96%) Java
4 32 (19.16%) SQL
5 24 (14.37%) C#
5 24 (14.37%) C++
6 15 (8.98%) C
7 10 (5.99%) Bash
7 10 (5.99%) PowerShell
7 10 (5.99%) Ruby
8 8 (4.79%) PL/SQL
9 6 (3.59%) TypeScript
10 4 (2.40%) Go
11 3 (1.80%) VB
12 2 (1.20%) Kotlin
12 2 (1.20%) Perl
13 1 (0.60%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 18 (10.78%) Security Cleared
2 10 (5.99%) BPSS Clearance
3 7 (4.19%) Degree
3 7 (4.19%) SC Cleared
4 5 (2.99%) Cisco Certification
4 5 (2.99%) DV Cleared
5 3 (1.80%) CCNA
5 3 (1.80%) CCNP
5 3 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (1.80%) Master's Degree
6 2 (1.20%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 2 (1.20%) AWS Certification
6 2 (1.20%) CEH
6 2 (1.20%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (13.77%) QA
2 7 (4.19%) Accessibility
3 3 (1.80%) Data Quality
3 3 (1.80%) GDPR
4 2 (1.20%) HIPAA
4 2 (1.20%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.60%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 1 (0.60%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.60%) WCAG
System Software
1 33 (19.76%) Docker
2 9 (5.39%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (4.19%) Active Directory
4 3 (1.80%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (1.20%) Varnish
5 2 (1.20%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (1.20%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 27 (16.17%) Kubernetes
2 16 (9.58%) Terraform
3 15 (8.98%) Grafana
4 11 (6.59%) Ansible
5 5 (2.99%) Puppet
6 4 (2.40%) WMI
7 3 (1.80%) vCenter Server
8 2 (1.20%) Icinga
8 2 (1.20%) Kibana
8 2 (1.20%) logstash
8 2 (1.20%) Nagios
8 2 (1.20%) Progress Chef
8 2 (1.20%) Salt
9 1 (0.60%) Bitnami
9 1 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 22 (13.17%) Oracle
2 15 (8.98%) Dynatrace
3 14 (8.38%) Microsoft
4 10 (5.99%) AppDynamics
5 9 (5.39%) VMware
6 6 (3.59%) Salesforce
7 4 (2.40%) Google
7 4 (2.40%) YouTube
7 4 (2.40%) Zend
8 3 (1.80%) SAP
9 2 (1.20%) Cisco
9 2 (1.20%) Genesys
9 2 (1.20%) KANA
9 2 (1.20%) New Relic
9 2 (1.20%) Rackspace
10 1 (0.60%) Adobe
10 1 (0.60%) Atlassian
10 1 (0.60%) Sage
10 1 (0.60%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
10 1 (0.60%) Sitecore