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 21 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 392 329 315
Rank change year-on-year -63 -14 +31
Contract jobs citing PHP 166 235 356
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.50% 0.63% 0.74%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.52% 1.98% 2.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 109 167 290
10th Percentile £300 £313 £300
25th Percentile £355 £325 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £413 £400 £450
Median % change year-on-year +3.13% -11.11% -3.74%
75th Percentile £488 £538 £575
90th Percentile £570 £600 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £400 £422
% change year-on-year +3.13% -5.10% -0.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 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% -41.35%
75th Percentile £35.75 £48.58 £29.66
90th Percentile £41.87 £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 10,910 11,880 15,228
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.61% 32.06% 31.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,138 7,737 10,860
10th Percentile £344 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £625 £649 £663
90th Percentile £732 £765 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.96% -2.10% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 301 314 440
10th Percentile £29.00 £25.26 £32.32
25th Percentile £41.60 £40.75 £47.75
Median hourly rate £57.50 £63.25 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +1.20% +4.17%
75th Percentile £67.25 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £78.25 £75.00 £79.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year - - +2.77%

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 21 October 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 21 October 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 -58 139 £400 - 327
UK excluding London -41 65 £413 +3.13% 288
London -44 60 £400 - 86
Work from Home -30 54 £413 +3.13% 210
North of England -24 22 £359 -20.22% 101
East of England +2 17 £438 +21.53% 25
North West -20 15 £354 -14.18% 62
Midlands -19 14 £510 +27.50% 46
East Midlands -5 8 £515 +28.75% 18
South East -19 7 £600 +19.40% 77
West Midlands -22 6 £419 +11.67% 28
Yorkshire -26 4 £389 -23.21% 31
North East - 3 - - 8
Scotland -3 2 £69 -80.29% 6
Wales -9 2 £425 -20.93% 6
South West +8 1 £300 -14.29% 28

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 (9.04%) WebLogic
1 15 (9.04%) WebSphere
2 14 (8.43%) WordPress
3 13 (7.83%) SugarCRM
4 12 (7.23%) Drupal
5 7 (4.22%) Apache
6 5 (3.01%) Confluence
7 3 (1.81%) CMS
7 3 (1.81%) SAS
8 2 (1.20%) FileNet
9 1 (0.60%) Moodle
9 1 (0.60%) nginx
Business Applications
1 3 (1.81%) Magento
2 1 (0.60%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 50 (30.12%) AWS
2 26 (15.66%) Azure
3 16 (9.64%) GitHub
4 15 (9.04%) SaaS
5 10 (6.02%) IaaS
5 10 (6.02%) OpenShift
5 10 (6.02%) PaaS
6 5 (3.01%) ChatGPT
6 5 (3.01%) GCP
6 5 (3.01%) GitHub Copilot
7 3 (1.81%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (1.20%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 2 (1.20%) Amazon EC2
8 2 (1.20%) Amazon S3
8 2 (1.20%) Intacct
9 1 (0.60%) Amazon SQS
9 1 (0.60%) AWS CloudFormation
9 1 (0.60%) Datadog
9 1 (0.60%) DigitalOcean
9 1 (0.60%) Sumo Logic
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.81%) TCP/IP
2 2 (1.20%) Firewall
2 2 (1.20%) HTTP
3 1 (0.60%) DNS
3 1 (0.60%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (25.90%) MySQL
2 18 (10.84%) PostgreSQL
3 16 (9.64%) Relational Database
4 6 (3.61%) SQL Server
5 3 (1.81%) MariaDB
5 3 (1.81%) Redis
6 2 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (1.20%) Elasticsearch
6 2 (1.20%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.60%) Amazon Aurora
7 1 (0.60%) BigQuery
7 1 (0.60%) CouchDB
7 1 (0.60%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.60%) Power BI
7 1 (0.60%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 33 (19.88%) Git
2 20 (12.05%) JIRA
3 7 (4.22%) Bitbucket
4 6 (3.61%) PHPUnit
5 5 (3.01%) Cypress.io
6 4 (2.41%) Jenkins
6 4 (2.41%) MSI
6 4 (2.41%) Robot Framework
6 4 (2.41%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (1.81%) JUnit
7 3 (1.81%) Postman
7 3 (1.81%) Subversion
8 2 (1.20%) JMeter
8 2 (1.20%) Mercurial
8 2 (1.20%) Vagrant
9 1 (0.60%) GitLab
9 1 (0.60%) Selenium
General
1 36 (21.69%) Social Skills
2 21 (12.65%) Public Sector
3 18 (10.84%) Marketing
4 17 (10.24%) Finance
5 6 (3.61%) Games
6 4 (2.41%) Presentation Skills
6 4 (2.41%) Telecoms
7 3 (1.81%) Analytical Skills
7 3 (1.81%) Manufacturing
7 3 (1.81%) Military
8 2 (1.20%) Electronics
8 2 (1.20%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.60%) Automotive
9 1 (0.60%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.60%) Law
9 1 (0.60%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 84 (50.60%) Developer
2 37 (22.29%) PHP Developer
3 15 (9.04%) Software Engineer
4 14 (8.43%) Consultant
5 13 (7.83%) Senior
6 11 (6.63%) Lead
7 8 (4.82%) Senior Developer
8 7 (4.22%) .NET Developer
8 7 (4.22%) Full-Stack Developer
9 5 (3.01%) Backend Developer
9 5 (3.01%) C# Developer
10 4 (2.41%) 3rd Line Engineer
10 4 (2.41%) AWS Engineer
10 4 (2.41%) C# .NET Developer
10 4 (2.41%) Integration Engineer
10 4 (2.41%) Java Developer
10 4 (2.41%) Oracle Developer
10 4 (2.41%) Principal Engineer
10 4 (2.41%) Senior .NET Developer
10 4 (2.41%) Senior C# Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (33.73%) HTML
2 46 (27.71%) Node.js
3 40 (24.10%) CSS
4 36 (21.69%) .NET
5 27 (16.27%) REST
6 19 (11.45%) Laravel
7 16 (9.64%) Vue
8 15 (9.04%) Middleware
9 14 (8.43%) SOAP
10 10 (6.02%) AngularJS
10 10 (6.02%) GraphQL
10 10 (6.02%) React
10 10 (6.02%) Web Services
11 7 (4.22%) Ruby on Rails
11 7 (4.22%) Symfony
12 6 (3.61%) Bazel
12 6 (3.61%) HTML5
12 6 (3.61%) RESTful
12 6 (3.61%) Unity (Game Engine)
13 5 (3.01%) CSS3
Miscellaneous
1 9 (5.42%) Legacy Systems
2 7 (4.22%) Mobile App
3 5 (3.01%) Data Protection Act
3 5 (3.01%) Onboarding
4 4 (2.41%) Enterprise Software
4 4 (2.41%) PKI
4 4 (2.41%) Virtual Reality
4 4 (2.41%) Virtual Team
4 4 (2.41%) Web Conferencing
5 3 (1.81%) Blog
5 3 (1.81%) Cloud Native
5 3 (1.81%) e-Learning
6 2 (1.20%) 3D Graphics
6 2 (1.20%) Legacy Code
6 2 (1.20%) Linux Command Line
6 2 (1.20%) Mixed Reality
6 2 (1.20%) Product Ownership
7 1 (0.60%) AI Agents
7 1 (0.60%) Marketing Technology
7 1 (0.60%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 25 (15.06%) Linux
2 20 (12.05%) Windows
3 7 (4.22%) CentOS
3 7 (4.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (3.01%) Android
5 4 (2.41%) Windows Server
5 4 (2.41%) Windows Server 2019
6 3 (1.81%) Apple iOS
7 2 (1.20%) Debian
7 2 (1.20%) Ubuntu
7 2 (1.20%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (28.31%) CI/CD
2 43 (25.90%) Agile
3 29 (17.47%) Problem-Solving
4 26 (15.66%) DevOps
5 21 (12.65%) Containerisation
6 20 (12.05%) Software Engineering
7 19 (11.45%) API Integration
8 17 (10.24%) Migration
8 17 (10.24%) MVC
8 17 (10.24%) Requirements Gathering
8 17 (10.24%) User Experience
9 15 (9.04%) AI
9 15 (9.04%) CRM
9 15 (9.04%) Full-Stack Development
9 15 (9.04%) Microservices
10 14 (8.43%) Observability
10 14 (8.43%) Test Automation
11 12 (7.23%) ETL
12 11 (6.63%) Continuous Improvement
12 11 (6.63%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 59 (35.54%) JavaScript
2 54 (32.53%) Python
3 33 (19.88%) Java
4 32 (19.28%) SQL
5 25 (15.06%) C++
6 22 (13.25%) C#
7 15 (9.04%) C
8 10 (6.02%) Ruby
8 10 (6.02%) TypeScript
9 8 (4.82%) PL/SQL
10 7 (4.22%) Bash
10 7 (4.22%) PowerShell
11 4 (2.41%) Go
12 3 (1.81%) VB
13 2 (1.20%) Kotlin
13 2 (1.20%) Perl
14 1 (0.60%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 20 (12.05%) Security Cleared
2 9 (5.42%) BPSS Clearance
2 9 (5.42%) SC Cleared
3 7 (4.22%) Degree
4 5 (3.01%) Cisco Certification
4 5 (3.01%) DV Cleared
5 3 (1.81%) CCNA
5 3 (1.81%) CCNP
5 3 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (1.81%) 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 (13.86%) QA
2 10 (6.02%) Accessibility
3 3 (1.81%) 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 34 (20.48%) Docker
2 9 (5.42%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (3.01%) Active Directory
4 4 (2.41%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (1.81%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (1.20%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 28 (16.87%) Kubernetes
2 13 (7.83%) Terraform
3 12 (7.23%) Grafana
4 11 (6.63%) Ansible
5 5 (3.01%) Puppet
6 4 (2.41%) WMI
7 3 (1.81%) 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 (13.25%) Oracle
2 15 (9.04%) Dynatrace
3 11 (6.63%) Microsoft
4 10 (6.02%) AppDynamics
5 9 (5.42%) VMware
6 5 (3.01%) Salesforce
7 4 (2.41%) Google
7 4 (2.41%) YouTube
7 4 (2.41%) Zend
8 2 (1.20%) Cisco
8 2 (1.20%) Genesys
8 2 (1.20%) KANA
8 2 (1.20%) New Relic
8 2 (1.20%) Rackspace
8 2 (1.20%) SAP
9 1 (0.60%) Atlassian
9 1 (0.60%) mParticle
9 1 (0.60%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.60%) Sage
9 1 (0.60%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud