PHP Contracts

PHP
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring PHP skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited PHP over the 6 months leading up to 3 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 379 312 345
Rank change year-on-year -67 +33 -32
Contract jobs citing PHP 161 306 377
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.51% 0.70% 0.68%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.53% 2.30% 2.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 96 235 285
10th Percentile £295 £274 £313
25th Percentile £347 £323 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £411 £400 £450
Median % change year-on-year +2.81% -11.11% -
75th Percentile £501 £508 £563
90th Percentile £600 £551 £621
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £413 £423
% change year-on-year +3.03% -2.37% -3.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 10 6
10th Percentile - £22.50 £20.38
25th Percentile £33.25 £27.96 £28.19
Median hourly rate £34.50 £52.50 £58.50
Median % change year-on-year -34.29% -10.26% +67.14%
75th Percentile £35.75 £72.34 £85.00
90th Percentile - £72.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £35.00 £48.00
% change year-on-year - -27.08% -

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 10,540 13,285 18,753
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.64% 30.56% 33.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,109 9,334 13,427
10th Percentile £350 £350 £375
25th Percentile £413 £425 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.60% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £675
90th Percentile £750 £775 £790
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £489 £500
% change year-on-year -2.86% -2.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 254 537 447
10th Percentile £26.52 £31.25 £28.84
25th Percentile £34.55 £46.25 £50.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% - +19.05%
75th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £70.30
90th Percentile £79.61 £75.00 £79.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -4.62% +4.00% +18.42%

PHP
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for PHP in the UK

PHP
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for PHP in the UK

PHP
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing PHP over the 6 months to 3 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for PHP in the UK

PHP
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for PHP in the UK

PHP
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 PHP within the UK over the 6 months to 3 July 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 -61 134 £400 - 768
Work from Home -30 72 £435 -3.33% 505
UK excluding London -42 66 £425 +3.03% 554
London -32 61 £375 -6.25% 260
Midlands +12 16 £435 +28.89% 61
East of England +37 15 £450 +2.86% 57
South East +10 15 £575 +21.05% 110
North of England -17 15 £358 -7.61% 240
West Midlands +7 11 £435 +216.36% 33
North West -17 9 £354 -14.18% 158
Yorkshire +5 5 £358 +11.88% 74
East Midlands +2 5 £400 +14.29% 28
South West +23 3 £515 +47.14% 63
Wales -8 2 £356 -30.83% 20
North East +1 1 - - 11

PHP
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 18 (11.18%) WordPress
2 17 (10.56%) Apache
3 13 (8.07%) CMS
3 13 (8.07%) Drupal
4 7 (4.35%) WebLogic
4 7 (4.35%) WebSphere
5 6 (3.73%) Confluence
5 6 (3.73%) Moodle
6 2 (1.24%) IIS
6 2 (1.24%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.62%) Apache Solr
7 1 (0.62%) Joomla!
Applications
1 2 (1.24%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.62%) Trello
Business Applications
1 4 (2.48%) Magento
2 3 (1.86%) Sage 200
3 2 (1.24%) Shopify
4 1 (0.62%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 42 (26.09%) AWS
2 18 (11.18%) Azure
3 16 (9.94%) SaaS
4 9 (5.59%) IaaS
4 9 (5.59%) PaaS
5 8 (4.97%) OpenShift
6 6 (3.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 6 (3.73%) Amazon ECS
6 6 (3.73%) Amazon Lightsail
6 6 (3.73%) AWS Fargate
6 6 (3.73%) GitHub
7 5 (3.11%) Amazon Bedrock
7 5 (3.11%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (2.48%) GCP
8 4 (2.48%) Serverless
9 2 (1.24%) Amazon SQS
9 2 (1.24%) BigCommerce
9 2 (1.24%) Copilot Studio
9 2 (1.24%) Microsoft 365
9 2 (1.24%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 6 (3.73%) Firewall
2 5 (3.11%) TCP/IP
3 4 (2.48%) HTTP
3 4 (2.48%) Internet
4 1 (0.62%) DNS
4 1 (0.62%) Intrusion Detection
4 1 (0.62%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (26.71%) MySQL
2 14 (8.70%) MongoDB
3 11 (6.83%) Relational Database
4 8 (4.97%) SQL Server
5 7 (4.35%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (1.24%) MariaDB
7 1 (0.62%) Apache Cassandra
7 1 (0.62%) GIS
7 1 (0.62%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.62%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.62%) RDBMS
7 1 (0.62%) Redis
7 1 (0.62%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 33 (20.50%) Git
2 9 (5.59%) Jenkins
3 8 (4.97%) JIRA
3 8 (4.97%) PHPUnit
4 7 (4.35%) GitLab
5 6 (3.73%) Cypress.io
6 5 (3.11%) Postman
6 5 (3.11%) Subversion
7 4 (2.48%) Appium
7 4 (2.48%) Bitbucket Server
7 4 (2.48%) CircleCI
7 4 (2.48%) Gatling
7 4 (2.48%) JMeter
7 4 (2.48%) MSI
7 4 (2.48%) NeoLoad
7 4 (2.48%) Robot Framework
7 4 (2.48%) Selenium
7 4 (2.48%) Sonatype Nexus
7 4 (2.48%) SpecFlow
8 3 (1.86%) Bitbucket
General
1 49 (30.43%) Social Skills
2 21 (13.04%) Finance
3 8 (4.97%) Marketing
3 8 (4.97%) Public Sector
4 7 (4.35%) Advertising
5 4 (2.48%) Retail
6 3 (1.86%) Analytical Skills
6 3 (1.86%) Presentation Skills
6 3 (1.86%) Telecoms
7 2 (1.24%) Automotive
7 2 (1.24%) Banking
7 2 (1.24%) Electronics
7 2 (1.24%) Investment Banking
7 2 (1.24%) Korean Language
7 2 (1.24%) Law
7 2 (1.24%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.62%) Financial Institution
8 1 (0.62%) Games
8 1 (0.62%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 79 (49.07%) Developer
2 31 (19.25%) PHP Developer
3 17 (10.56%) Full-Stack Developer
4 15 (9.32%) Software Developer
5 14 (8.70%) Software Engineer
6 12 (7.45%) Support Engineer
7 11 (6.83%) Senior
8 10 (6.21%) Lead
9 9 (5.59%) Symfony Developer
10 8 (4.97%) Architect
10 8 (4.97%) PHP Software Engineer
10 8 (4.97%) PHP Symfony Developer
10 8 (4.97%) Senior Developer
11 7 (4.35%) Consultant
12 6 (3.73%) React Developer
13 5 (3.11%) DevOps Engineer
13 5 (3.11%) Java Developer
13 5 (3.11%) JavaScript Engineer
13 5 (3.11%) Moodle Developer
14 4 (2.48%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (22.36%) HTML
2 35 (21.74%) Node.js
2 35 (21.74%) React
3 34 (21.12%) CSS
4 32 (19.88%) .NET
5 24 (14.91%) Laravel
6 22 (13.66%) Symfony
7 18 (11.18%) REST
8 17 (10.56%) AngularJS
9 14 (8.70%) Vue
10 12 (7.45%) Web Services
11 11 (6.83%) LAMP
12 9 (5.59%) RESTful
13 7 (4.35%) GraphQL
13 7 (4.35%) Middleware
13 7 (4.35%) Tailwind CSS
14 6 (3.73%) Alpine.js
14 6 (3.73%) Ruby on Rails
15 5 (3.11%) HTML5
15 5 (3.11%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 7 (4.35%) e-Learning
2 6 (3.73%) Data Protection Act
2 6 (3.73%) Mobile App
3 5 (3.11%) Legacy Code
3 5 (3.11%) Onboarding
3 5 (3.11%) VLE
4 4 (2.48%) PKI
4 4 (2.48%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (1.86%) Blog
5 3 (1.86%) Cloud Native
6 2 (1.24%) Public Cloud
6 2 (1.24%) Team-Oriented Environment
7 1 (0.62%) Data Centre
7 1 (0.62%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.62%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.62%) Learning Management System
7 1 (0.62%) Product Ownership
7 1 (0.62%) PropTech
7 1 (0.62%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 27 (16.77%) Linux
2 13 (8.07%) Windows
3 11 (6.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 8 (4.97%) CentOS
5 7 (4.35%) Unix
6 4 (2.48%) Windows Server
6 4 (2.48%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (1.24%) Android
7 2 (1.24%) Debian
7 2 (1.24%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.62%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (29.19%) Agile
2 39 (24.22%) DevOps
3 35 (21.74%) Problem-Solving
4 32 (19.88%) CI/CD
5 27 (16.77%) Full-Stack Development
6 22 (13.66%) Software Engineering
7 19 (11.80%) Project Management
7 19 (11.80%) Stakeholder Management
8 16 (9.94%) API Development
8 16 (9.94%) Computer Science
9 15 (9.32%) Containerisation
10 14 (8.70%) Design Patterns
10 14 (8.70%) Test Automation
11 12 (7.45%) Web Development
12 11 (6.83%) E-Commerce
12 11 (6.83%) Fintech
12 11 (6.83%) OO
12 11 (6.83%) Requirements Gathering
12 11 (6.83%) Roadmaps
12 11 (6.83%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 62 (38.51%) JavaScript
2 53 (32.92%) Python
3 38 (23.60%) Java
4 26 (16.15%) SQL
5 24 (14.91%) TypeScript
6 19 (11.80%) Ruby
7 16 (9.94%) C++
8 14 (8.70%) C#
9 9 (5.59%) PowerShell
10 8 (4.97%) Bash
11 7 (4.35%) C
12 5 (3.11%) Go
12 5 (3.11%) Perl
13 4 (2.48%) Scala
14 3 (1.86%) VB
15 1 (0.62%) Dart
15 1 (0.62%) Kotlin
15 1 (0.62%) PL/SQL
15 1 (0.62%) Rust
15 1 (0.62%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 24 (14.91%) Security Cleared
2 18 (11.18%) Degree
3 17 (10.56%) SC Cleared
4 11 (6.83%) Computer Science Degree
5 7 (4.35%) Cisco Certification
6 5 (3.11%) CISSP
6 5 (3.11%) DV Cleared
7 4 (2.48%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 4 (2.48%) AWS Certification
7 4 (2.48%) Azure Certification
7 4 (2.48%) CEH
8 3 (1.86%) CCNA
8 3 (1.86%) CCNP
8 3 (1.86%) Master's Degree
9 2 (1.24%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (0.62%) CISA
10 1 (0.62%) CISM
10 1 (0.62%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.83%) Accessibility
2 10 (6.21%) QA
3 5 (3.11%) PCI DSS
4 4 (2.48%) GDPR
4 4 (2.48%) HIPAA
5 2 (1.24%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.62%) SOC 2
System Software
1 30 (18.63%) Docker
2 9 (5.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (3.11%) Active Directory
4 4 (2.48%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (1.86%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (1.24%) VirtualBox
7 1 (0.62%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.62%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 19 (11.80%) Kubernetes
2 15 (9.32%) Terraform
3 11 (6.83%) Ansible
4 6 (3.73%) Grafana
5 5 (3.11%) Puppet
6 4 (2.48%) WMI
7 3 (1.86%) vCenter Server
8 2 (1.24%) Icinga
8 2 (1.24%) Nagios
8 2 (1.24%) Progress Chef
8 2 (1.24%) Salt
9 1 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 15 (9.32%) Microsoft
2 12 (7.45%) Oracle
3 9 (5.59%) VMware
4 8 (4.97%) Zend
5 7 (4.35%) Dynatrace
6 5 (3.11%) AppDynamics
7 4 (2.48%) SAP
7 4 (2.48%) YouTube
8 2 (1.24%) Adobe
8 2 (1.24%) Cisco
8 2 (1.24%) New Relic
8 2 (1.24%) Rackspace
8 2 (1.24%) Salesforce
8 2 (1.24%) Sitecore
9 1 (0.62%) Google
9 1 (0.62%) Red Hat
9 1 (0.62%) Sage