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 10 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 488 330 299
Rank change year-on-year -158 -31 +55
Contract jobs citing PHP 124 193 335
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.29% 0.65% 0.75%
As % of the Programming Languages category 0.99% 1.91% 2.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 97 133 258
10th Percentile £320 £300 £257
25th Percentile £381 £350 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £425 £400
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% +6.25% -9.09%
75th Percentile £523 £550 £523
90th Percentile £595 £600 £615
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £375
% change year-on-year - +20.00% -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 14
10th Percentile - £33.43 £19.00
25th Percentile - £33.69 £23.44
Median hourly rate - £34.75 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year - -20.57% -45.31%
75th Percentile - £35.56 £71.87
90th Percentile - £35.68 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year - - -28.18%

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 12,479 10,127 13,016
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 29.41% 34.25% 29.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,312 6,671 9,165
10th Percentile £352 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -5.75%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £650
90th Percentile £719 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £477 £488 £488
% change year-on-year -2.15% - -3.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 482 244 512
10th Percentile £41.94 £21.25 £30.69
25th Percentile £54.14 £35.00 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -6.80%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £62.00
% change year-on-year +1.97% +2.81% -4.62%

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 10 March 2026.

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 15 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 10 March 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 -138 103 £450 +11.80% 183
UK excluding London -110 60 £450 - 172
Work from Home -69 43 £425 +1.92% 90
London -87 32 £431 +7.81% 25
North of England -47 28 £450 -9.09% 47
Yorkshire -46 19 £450 -10.00% 22
South West -19 12 £545 +53.74% 36
South East -53 11 £413 +6.45% 33
Midlands -73 7 £515 +28.75% 28
North West -33 6 £358 -27.68% 18
West Midlands -64 4 £506 -7.95% 20
North East - 3 - - 7
East Midlands -35 2 £513 +28.13% 8
Scotland +2 1 £475 +13.91% 6
East of England -38 1 - - 16

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 5 (4.03%) Drupal
1 5 (4.03%) SugarCRM
1 5 (4.03%) WordPress
2 4 (3.23%) Apache
2 4 (3.23%) CMS
2 4 (3.23%) SharePoint
3 3 (2.42%) Confluence
3 3 (2.42%) Moodle
4 1 (0.81%) nginx
Applications
1 10 (8.06%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (3.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (3.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.81%) Adobe Illustrator
3 1 (0.81%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 5 (4.03%) Magento
2 3 (2.42%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 49 (39.52%) AWS
2 28 (22.58%) Azure
3 14 (11.29%) GitHub
4 12 (9.68%) GCP
5 9 (7.26%) SaaS
6 7 (5.65%) GitHub Actions
7 6 (4.84%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (4.84%) Serverless
8 5 (4.03%) Azure Functions
9 3 (2.42%) Azure API Management
9 3 (2.42%) Azure Monitor
9 3 (2.42%) Entra ID
9 3 (2.42%) GitHub Copilot
10 2 (1.61%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 2 (1.61%) Amazon ECS
10 2 (1.61%) Azure AKS
10 2 (1.61%) ChatGPT
10 2 (1.61%) Intacct
10 2 (1.61%) PaaS
10 2 (1.61%) Stripe
Communications & Networking
1 4 (3.23%) BGP
1 4 (3.23%) Cisco ASA
1 4 (3.23%) Cisco IOS
1 4 (3.23%) MPLS
1 4 (3.23%) Network Security
1 4 (3.23%) TACACS
1 4 (3.23%) VPN
2 2 (1.61%) SSL
3 1 (0.81%) DNS
3 1 (0.81%) Firewall
3 1 (0.81%) FTP
3 1 (0.81%) Internet
3 1 (0.81%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (29.84%) MySQL
2 16 (12.90%) PostgreSQL
3 15 (12.10%) Relational Database
4 14 (11.29%) SQL Server
5 7 (5.65%) Redis
6 5 (4.03%) Elasticsearch
6 5 (4.03%) Oracle Database
7 4 (3.23%) RDBMS
7 4 (3.23%) SQLPlus
8 3 (2.42%) MongoDB
9 2 (1.61%) Amazon Aurora
9 2 (1.61%) ImageNet
9 2 (1.61%) MariaDB
10 1 (0.81%) Amazon Athena
10 1 (0.81%) Amazon RDS
10 1 (0.81%) Apache Cassandra
10 1 (0.81%) CouchDB
10 1 (0.81%) DynamoDB
10 1 (0.81%) Neo4j
Development Applications
1 17 (13.71%) Git
2 15 (12.10%) JIRA
3 14 (11.29%) Jenkins
4 8 (6.45%) Postman
5 6 (4.84%) Cucumber
5 6 (4.84%) GitLab
5 6 (4.84%) PHPUnit
5 6 (4.84%) REST Assured
5 6 (4.84%) Selenium
5 6 (4.84%) TestRail
6 4 (3.23%) Toad
7 3 (2.42%) Bitbucket
8 2 (1.61%) JUnit
9 1 (0.81%) Vite
General
1 35 (28.23%) Social Skills
2 19 (15.32%) Public Sector
3 12 (9.68%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (7.26%) Finance
5 3 (2.42%) Billing
5 3 (2.42%) Marketing
5 3 (2.42%) Telecoms
6 2 (1.61%) Presentation Skills
6 2 (1.61%) Retail
7 1 (0.81%) Banking
7 1 (0.81%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.81%) Law
7 1 (0.81%) Legal
7 1 (0.81%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.81%) Military
7 1 (0.81%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 63 (50.81%) Developer
2 36 (29.03%) PHP Developer
3 14 (11.29%) Senior
4 9 (7.26%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 8 (6.45%) Architect
5 8 (6.45%) Software Engineer
6 6 (4.84%) Automation Engineer
6 6 (4.84%) DevOps Engineer
6 6 (4.84%) Senior Developer
7 5 (4.03%) Software Developer
7 5 (4.03%) Technical Architect
7 5 (4.03%) Test Automation Engineer
7 5 (4.03%) Test Engineer
8 4 (3.23%) Delphi Software Engineer
8 4 (3.23%) Lead
8 4 (3.23%) Oracle Developer
8 4 (3.23%) PHP Software Engineer
8 4 (3.23%) Security Engineer
8 4 (3.23%) Senior DevOps
8 4 (3.23%) Senior DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (25.00%) REST
2 26 (20.97%) .NET
3 20 (16.13%) CSS
4 18 (14.52%) HTML
5 13 (10.48%) Laravel
6 10 (8.06%) SOAP
7 9 (7.26%) GraphQL
7 9 (7.26%) LDAP
7 9 (7.26%) Vue
7 9 (7.26%) Web Services
8 8 (6.45%) Node.js
8 8 (6.45%) OpenID
9 7 (5.65%) Symfony
10 6 (4.84%) RabbitMQ
10 6 (4.84%) RESTful
11 5 (4.03%) .NET Core
11 5 (4.03%) LAMP
11 5 (4.03%) OAuth
11 5 (4.03%) SailPoint
11 5 (4.03%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 9 (7.26%) Linux Command Line
2 5 (4.03%) Client/Server
3 4 (3.23%) Data Protection Act
3 4 (3.23%) Legacy Code
3 4 (3.23%) PKI
4 3 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
4 3 (2.42%) NHS
4 3 (2.42%) Product Ownership
4 3 (2.42%) Virtual Team
5 2 (1.61%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (1.61%) Onboarding
5 2 (1.61%) PACS
5 2 (1.61%) Replication
5 2 (1.61%) TM Forum
6 1 (0.81%) AI Agents
6 1 (0.81%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.81%) Distributed Systems
6 1 (0.81%) FMCG
6 1 (0.81%) Legacy Applications
6 1 (0.81%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 24 (19.35%) Linux
2 9 (7.26%) Unix
3 7 (5.65%) Windows
4 4 (3.23%) Ubuntu
5 2 (1.61%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.81%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (26.61%) Agile
2 30 (24.19%) CI/CD
3 27 (21.77%) Problem-Solving
4 24 (19.35%) DevOps
5 22 (17.74%) Migration
6 18 (14.52%) Containerisation
7 15 (12.10%) Microservices
8 13 (10.48%) TDD
9 12 (9.68%) AI
9 12 (9.68%) Clean Code
9 12 (9.68%) Refactoring
9 12 (9.68%) Roadmaps
10 11 (8.87%) Code Quality
10 11 (8.87%) Software Engineering
10 11 (8.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 11 (8.87%) Test Automation
10 11 (8.87%) User Experience
11 10 (8.06%) Deployment Automation
11 10 (8.06%) ETL
12 9 (7.26%) Critical Thinking
Programming Languages
1 45 (36.29%) JavaScript
2 37 (29.84%) Python
3 29 (23.39%) SQL
4 17 (13.71%) C#
5 16 (12.90%) Java
6 10 (8.06%) Bash
7 7 (5.65%) Perl
7 7 (5.65%) PowerShell
8 6 (4.84%) PL/SQL
9 5 (4.03%) Delphi
10 4 (3.23%) TypeScript
11 3 (2.42%) Go
11 3 (2.42%) Shell Script
12 2 (1.61%) Ruby
13 1 (0.81%) Korn
13 1 (0.81%) Scala
Qualifications
1 18 (14.52%) Security Cleared
2 16 (12.90%) SC Cleared
3 5 (4.03%) AWS Certification
3 5 (4.03%) Degree
4 4 (3.23%) APMG
4 4 (3.23%) BPSS Clearance
4 4 (3.23%) CompTIA Security+
4 4 (3.23%) DV Cleared
4 4 (3.23%) GIAC
4 4 (3.23%) SSCP
5 3 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (2.42%) GSEC
6 2 (1.61%) AWS Certified Developer
7 1 (0.81%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
7 1 (0.81%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.81%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.81%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (11.29%) QA
2 4 (3.23%) Cyber Essentials
2 4 (3.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
2 4 (3.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (3.23%) NIST
3 3 (2.42%) Accessibility
3 3 (2.42%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.61%) GDPR
5 1 (0.81%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 1 (0.81%) HL7
5 1 (0.81%) HMG Security Policy Framework
5 1 (0.81%) WCAG
System Software
1 26 (20.97%) Docker
2 6 (4.84%) Varnish
3 5 (4.03%) Active Directory
4 4 (3.23%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (3.23%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (1.61%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (1.61%) Xen
Systems Management
1 16 (12.90%) Kubernetes
2 8 (6.45%) Terraform
3 5 (4.03%) Ansible
3 5 (4.03%) Grafana
4 4 (3.23%) vCenter Server
5 3 (2.42%) SCOM
6 1 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 14 (11.29%) Microsoft
2 9 (7.26%) Oracle
3 5 (4.03%) Adobe
3 5 (4.03%) Google
3 5 (4.03%) ServiceNow
4 4 (3.23%) Cisco
4 4 (3.23%) Salesforce
4 4 (3.23%) VMware
5 2 (1.61%) OpenAI
5 2 (1.61%) Percona
5 2 (1.61%) Zend
6 1 (0.81%) AppDynamics
6 1 (0.81%) Apple
6 1 (0.81%) Atlassian
6 1 (0.81%) Dynatrace
6 1 (0.81%) GoCardless
6 1 (0.81%) Sage
6 1 (0.81%) SAP
6 1 (0.81%) Sitecore
6 1 (0.81%) Virgin Media