Programmer Contracts

Programmer
UK

The median Programmer daily rate in the UK is £550 according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 10 December 2023.

The first table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
10 Dec 2023
Same period 2022 Same period 2021
Rank 574 713 761
Rank change year-on-year +139 +48 -256
Contract jobs requiring a Programmer 31 111 101
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.070% 0.14% 0.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.075% 0.15% 0.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 23 72 65
10th Percentile £380 £378 £338
25th Percentile £456 £463 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +15.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £625 £575
90th Percentile £620 £688 £681
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £450
% change year-on-year +5.26% +5.56% +40.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 5
10th Percentile - - £16.30
25th Percentile - £52.50 £24.75
Median hourly rate £32.00 £55.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -41.82% +10.00% -6.18%
75th Percentile - £57.50 £53.75
90th Percentile - - £56.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.00 - £18.08
% change year-on-year - - -44.37%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes 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 41,552 73,114 85,514
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.42% 95.16% 95.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,976 50,959 59,881
10th Percentile £293 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +7.32% +8.47%
75th Percentile £644 £650 £613
90th Percentile £740 £750 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £450
% change year-on-year - +11.11% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,473 1,721 2,216
10th Percentile £15.16 £13.25 £12.00
25th Percentile £19.06 £17.00 £14.00
Median hourly rate £44.50 £30.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +48.33% +50.00% -16.67%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £45.89
90th Percentile £77.50 £72.50 £63.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.73 £17.50
% change year-on-year +79.98% +41.29% -14.29%

Programmer
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Programmer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Programmer in the UK

Programmer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Programmer in the UK

Programmer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Programmer over the 6 months to 10 December 2023.

Daily rate histogram for Programmer in the UK

Programmer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Programmer in the UK

Programmer
Top 14 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Programmer within the UK over the 6 months to 10 December 2023. 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 +94 24 £563 -2.17% 159
UK excluding London +71 17 £500 +5.26% 132
Work from Home +141 11 £450 -16.28% 56
London +116 10 £600 +4.35% 32
North of England +41 8 £575 -4.17% 41
Yorkshire +35 6 £575 +9.52% 23
South East +38 3 £450 -21.74% 37
Midlands +60 2 £500 +48.15% 29
Scotland +38 2 - - 2
North West +32 2 £500 -28.57% 15
West Midlands +53 1 £500 +48.15% 26
South West +29 1 £550 +57.14% 12
East Midlands +25 1 - - 3
Northern Ireland +12 1 £400 -

Programmer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 10 December 2023, Programmer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Programmer in the job title.

1 12 (38.71%) Social Skills
2 7 (22.58%) SQL
3 6 (19.35%) IBM
3 6 (19.35%) zOS
3 6 (19.35%) Mainframe
4 5 (16.13%) ISPF
4 5 (16.13%) Home Automation
4 5 (16.13%) Time Sharing Option
4 5 (16.13%) Smart Home
4 5 (16.13%) JCL
4 5 (16.13%) Finance
4 5 (16.13%) Electronics
4 5 (16.13%) Customer Service
5 4 (12.90%) Problem-Solving
5 4 (12.90%) Agile
5 4 (12.90%) REXX
5 4 (12.90%) SAS
6 3 (9.68%) Performance Monitoring
6 3 (9.68%) Risk Management
6 3 (9.68%) OMEGAMON
6 3 (9.68%) C++
6 3 (9.68%) CA
6 3 (9.68%) Stakeholder Management
7 2 (6.45%) Software Testing
7 2 (6.45%) Public Sector
7 2 (6.45%) Aerospace
7 2 (6.45%) Games
7 2 (6.45%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (6.45%) Web Services
7 2 (6.45%) XML

Programmer Skill Set
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 4 (12.90%) SAS
2 1 (3.23%) CICS
Applications
1 1 (3.23%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (3.23%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (3.23%) SAP FSCM
Cloud Services
1 1 (3.23%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.23%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (6.45%) PostgreSQL
1 2 (6.45%) SQL Server
2 1 (3.23%) Adabas
2 1 (3.23%) DB2
2 1 (3.23%) RDBMS
2 1 (3.23%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 1 (3.23%) Git
1 1 (3.23%) Subversion
General
1 12 (38.71%) Social Skills
2 5 (16.13%) Electronics
2 5 (16.13%) Finance
3 2 (6.45%) Aerospace
3 2 (6.45%) Games
3 2 (6.45%) Public Sector
4 1 (3.23%) Advertising
4 1 (3.23%) Automotive
4 1 (3.23%) Banking
4 1 (3.23%) French Language
4 1 (3.23%) German Language
4 1 (3.23%) Influencing Skills
4 1 (3.23%) Manufacturing
4 1 (3.23%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (16.13%) ISPF
2 2 (6.45%) HTML
2 2 (6.45%) HTML5
2 2 (6.45%) JSON
2 2 (6.45%) REST
2 2 (6.45%) Web Services
2 2 (6.45%) XML
3 1 (3.23%) .NET
3 1 (3.23%) .NET Framework
3 1 (3.23%) ADO.NET
3 1 (3.23%) Ajax
3 1 (3.23%) ASP.NET
3 1 (3.23%) CSS
3 1 (3.23%) CSS3
3 1 (3.23%) Entity Framework
3 1 (3.23%) Node.js
3 1 (3.23%) Tidyverse
3 1 (3.23%) Unreal Engine
3 1 (3.23%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 6 (19.35%) Mainframe
2 5 (16.13%) Home Automation
2 5 (16.13%) Smart Home
3 1 (3.23%) AS400
3 1 (3.23%) Credit Risk
3 1 (3.23%) Data Centre
3 1 (3.23%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (3.23%) Device Driver
3 1 (3.23%) Interactive Media
3 1 (3.23%) iSeries
3 1 (3.23%) Over-the-Top Content
3 1 (3.23%) Self-Motivation
3 1 (3.23%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 6 (19.35%) zOS
2 2 (6.45%) Windows
3 1 (3.23%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (16.13%) Customer Service
2 4 (12.90%) Agile
2 4 (12.90%) Problem-Solving
3 3 (9.68%) Performance Monitoring
3 3 (9.68%) Risk Management
3 3 (9.68%) Stakeholder Management
4 2 (6.45%) Data Analysis
4 2 (6.45%) Software Testing
4 2 (6.45%) Statistical Analysis
4 2 (6.45%) Stress Testing
5 1 (3.23%) Analytics
5 1 (3.23%) BPMN
5 1 (3.23%) Capacity Planning
5 1 (3.23%) Data Protection
5 1 (3.23%) Integration Testing
5 1 (3.23%) Portfolio Management
5 1 (3.23%) Process Improvement
5 1 (3.23%) Test Strategy
5 1 (3.23%) Time Management
5 1 (3.23%) V-Model
Programming Languages
1 7 (22.58%) SQL
2 5 (16.13%) JCL
3 4 (12.90%) REXX
4 3 (9.68%) C++
5 2 (6.45%) C#
5 2 (6.45%) Python
6 1 (3.23%) ABAP
6 1 (3.23%) Ada
6 1 (3.23%) Assembly Language
6 1 (3.23%) COBOL
6 1 (3.23%) Delphi
6 1 (3.23%) Java
6 1 (3.23%) JavaScript
6 1 (3.23%) R
6 1 (3.23%) RPG
6 1 (3.23%) RPG IV
6 1 (3.23%) RPG/400
6 1 (3.23%) VB.NET
6 1 (3.23%) VBScript
6 1 (3.23%) XAML
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (3.23%) QA
System Software
1 5 (16.13%) Time Sharing Option
2 1 (3.23%) ACF2
2 1 (3.23%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 3 (9.68%) OMEGAMON
2 1 (3.23%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 6 (19.35%) IBM
2 3 (9.68%) CA
3 2 (6.45%) Broadcom
3 2 (6.45%) Cisco
3 2 (6.45%) Microsoft
3 2 (6.45%) Splunk
4 1 (3.23%) Ariba
4 1 (3.23%) Dataiku
4 1 (3.23%) Dell
4 1 (3.23%) MAPICS
4 1 (3.23%) Palo Alto
4 1 (3.23%) SAP