Senior Developer Contract Job Trends

Senior Developer
UK

The median Senior Developer daily rate in the UK is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 29 November 2025.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 184 127 178
Rank change year-on-year -57 +51 -70
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 574 721 680
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.59% 1.98% 1.48%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.75% 2.13% 1.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 420 479 491
10th Percentile £400 £393 £425
25th Percentile £450 £475 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year - -8.33% -5.88%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £720
90th Percentile £790 £813 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £550
% change year-on-year - -9.09% -7.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 7
10th Percentile - - £53.25
25th Percentile - - £56.25
Median hourly rate - £61.43 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year - +2.38% -
75th Percentile - - £68.13
90th Percentile - - £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £52.50

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides 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 32,783 33,839 42,964
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.95% 92.83% 93.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,795 20,464 29,004
10th Percentile £281 £300 £290
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £649
90th Percentile £725 £738 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £494 £500
% change year-on-year -3.85% -1.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,905 1,235 1,530
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.22 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.89 £20.63 £19.08
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +48.33%
75th Percentile £57.50 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £33.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -23.79% -25.84% +78.00%

Senior Developer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Senior Developer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Senior Developer job vacancy trend in the UK

Senior Developer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Senior Developer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Senior Developer job vacancies in the UK

Senior Developer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Senior Developer over the 6 months to 29 November 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Senior Developer in the UK

Senior Developer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Senior Developer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Senior Developer job vacancies in the UK

Senior Developer
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Senior Developer within the UK over the 6 months to 29 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 -45 518 £550 - 216
London -33 298 £631 +5.21% 77
UK excluding London -31 221 £500 - 194
Work from Home -26 217 £588 +6.82% 142
North of England -46 64 £550 +10.00% 37
South West +43 59 £475 -11.63% 11
South East +3 46 £500 -4.76% 87
Yorkshire -17 36 £638 +18.60% 9
Midlands -32 24 £513 +2.50% 21
North West -36 24 £510 +2.00% 24
East of England -14 16 £535 +38.06% 13
West Midlands -27 16 £525 +5.00% 13
Scotland -25 11 £481 -3.17% 9
North East -5 8 £544 +27.94% 4
East Midlands -9 8 £510 +11.78% 8
Wales -3 3 £638 +21.43% 16
Northern Ireland -3 3 £544 -1.14% 5

Senior Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 29 November 2025, Senior Developer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Senior Developer in the job title.

1 235 (40.94%) Agile
2 201 (35.02%) Java
3 171 (29.79%) AWS
3 171 (29.79%) SQL
4 169 (29.44%) Azure
5 164 (28.57%) DevOps
6 158 (27.53%) Microservices
7 157 (27.35%) CI/CD
8 137 (23.87%) Python
9 136 (23.69%) Problem-Solving
10 122 (21.25%) Kafka
11 117 (20.38%) Security Cleared
12 110 (19.16%) Docker
13 103 (17.94%) Kubernetes
14 102 (17.77%) JavaScript
15 100 (17.42%) SC Cleared
16 97 (16.90%) C#
17 94 (16.38%) Spring
18 83 (14.46%) RESTful
19 82 (14.29%) .NET
20 81 (14.11%) Scrum
21 75 (13.07%) Git
22 74 (12.89%) Spring Boot
23 73 (12.72%) Software Engineering
24 72 (12.54%) TDD
25 71 (12.37%) React
26 70 (12.20%) Azure DevOps
27 68 (11.85%) Analytics
28 67 (11.67%) Containerisation
29 66 (11.50%) PostgreSQL

Senior Developer Skill Set
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 17 (2.96%) Confluence
2 8 (1.39%) CMS
2 8 (1.39%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.70%) Jupyter
4 3 (0.52%) Anypoint
5 2 (0.35%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.35%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.17%) Alfresco
6 1 (0.17%) Apache
6 1 (0.17%) Camunda
6 1 (0.17%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.17%) SAS
6 1 (0.17%) Smallworld
Applications
1 9 (1.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
1 4 (0.70%) Endur
2 2 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.35%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.17%) Oracle Retail
3 1 (0.17%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
3 1 (0.17%) SAP FI
3 1 (0.17%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 171 (29.79%) AWS
2 169 (29.44%) Azure
3 70 (12.20%) Azure DevOps
4 51 (8.89%) GitHub
5 40 (6.97%) GCP
6 35 (6.10%) Serverless
7 33 (5.75%) Power Platform
8 21 (3.66%) AWS Lambda
8 21 (3.66%) GitHub Actions
9 17 (2.96%) Power Automate
10 16 (2.79%) Amazon S3
10 16 (2.79%) PowerApps
11 15 (2.61%) SaaS
12 14 (2.44%) Azure AKS
13 13 (2.26%) Amazon SQS
13 13 (2.26%) Azure Service Bus
13 13 (2.26%) Dynamics 365
14 12 (2.09%) Amazon EC2
14 12 (2.09%) Amazon ECS
15 10 (1.74%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.87%) Kerberos
2 4 (0.70%) SAN
2 4 (0.70%) SSL
2 4 (0.70%) TCP/IP
2 4 (0.70%) VPN
3 2 (0.35%) Firewall
3 2 (0.35%) HTTP
4 1 (0.17%) BGP
4 1 (0.17%) Ethernet VPN
4 1 (0.17%) FTP
4 1 (0.17%) Internet
4 1 (0.17%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (11.50%) PostgreSQL
2 54 (9.41%) MongoDB
3 53 (9.23%) Relational Database
4 39 (6.79%) SQL Server
5 36 (6.27%) NoSQL
6 21 (3.66%) Apache Cassandra
7 19 (3.31%) DB2
7 19 (3.31%) Power BI
8 16 (2.79%) DynamoDB
9 15 (2.61%) Redis
10 12 (2.09%) MySQL
11 11 (1.92%) Data Hub
11 11 (1.92%) Data Lake
11 11 (1.92%) RDBMS
12 10 (1.74%) Amazon RDS
12 10 (1.74%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (1.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 6 (1.05%) Big Data
14 6 (1.05%) HBase
15 5 (0.87%) Couchbase
Development Applications
1 75 (13.07%) Git
2 49 (8.54%) JUnit
3 42 (7.32%) Jenkins
4 34 (5.92%) Oracle APEX
5 31 (5.40%) JIRA
6 30 (5.23%) GitLab
7 24 (4.18%) Mockito
8 14 (2.44%) Gradle
8 14 (2.44%) Maven
9 10 (1.74%) Cucumber
10 9 (1.57%) Artifactory
10 9 (1.57%) SpecFlow
11 8 (1.39%) Postman
12 7 (1.22%) Bitbucket
12 7 (1.22%) Sonatype Nexus
13 6 (1.05%) Mocha
14 5 (0.87%) Cypress.io
15 4 (0.70%) Liquibase
15 4 (0.70%) TeamCity
15 4 (0.70%) webpack
General
1 165 (28.75%) Finance
2 160 (27.87%) Social Skills
3 91 (15.85%) Banking
4 68 (11.85%) Public Sector
5 65 (11.32%) Analytical Skills
6 48 (8.36%) Investment Banking
7 34 (5.92%) Front Office
8 7 (1.22%) Marketing
9 6 (1.05%) Manufacturing
10 5 (0.87%) Military
10 5 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (0.70%) Back Office
11 4 (0.70%) Financial Institution
12 3 (0.52%) Automotive
12 3 (0.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.52%) Law
12 3 (0.52%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.52%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.35%) Retail
13 2 (0.35%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 122 (21.25%) Kafka
2 94 (16.38%) Spring
3 83 (14.46%) RESTful
4 82 (14.29%) .NET
5 74 (12.89%) Spring Boot
6 71 (12.37%) React
7 59 (10.28%) REST
8 48 (8.36%) Node.js
9 44 (7.67%) AngularJS
10 38 (6.62%) HTML
11 32 (5.57%) Web Services
12 30 (5.23%) CSS
13 26 (4.53%) .NET Core
14 25 (4.36%) JSON
15 23 (4.01%) .NET Framework
15 23 (4.01%) RabbitMQ
16 19 (3.31%) JMS
17 18 (3.14%) Playwright
18 17 (2.96%) Jest
19 15 (2.61%) gRPC
Miscellaneous
1 38 (6.62%) Cloud Native
2 37 (6.45%) Distributed Systems
3 33 (5.75%) Derivative
4 29 (5.05%) Equities
5 23 (4.01%) Data Structures
6 21 (3.66%) Greenfield Project
6 21 (3.66%) Market Risk
6 21 (3.66%) Product Ownership
7 19 (3.31%) Fixed Income
7 19 (3.31%) Management Information System
8 18 (3.14%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 16 (2.79%) Algorithms
10 12 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
11 8 (1.39%) Mobile App
12 6 (1.05%) Legacy Applications
12 6 (1.05%) Linux Command Line
13 5 (0.87%) Enterprise Software
13 5 (0.87%) Hedge funds
14 4 (0.70%) Equity Derivative
14 4 (0.70%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 58 (10.10%) Linux
2 27 (4.70%) Unix
3 18 (3.14%) Android
4 14 (2.44%) Mac OS X
5 13 (2.26%) Apple iOS
6 8 (1.39%) Windows
7 4 (0.70%) Debian
7 4 (0.70%) Ubuntu
7 4 (0.70%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.70%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.17%) CentOS
9 1 (0.17%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.17%) tvOS
9 1 (0.17%) watchOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 235 (40.94%) Agile
2 164 (28.57%) DevOps
3 158 (27.53%) Microservices
4 157 (27.35%) CI/CD
5 136 (23.69%) Problem-Solving
6 81 (14.11%) Scrum
7 73 (12.72%) Software Engineering
8 72 (12.54%) TDD
9 68 (11.85%) Analytics
10 67 (11.67%) Containerisation
11 63 (10.98%) Full-Stack Development
12 61 (10.63%) Test Automation
13 52 (9.06%) Open Source
14 51 (8.89%) Mentoring
15 49 (8.54%) Event-Driven
16 45 (7.84%) Clean Code
16 45 (7.84%) SDLC
17 42 (7.32%) Infrastructure as Code
17 42 (7.32%) Performance Tuning
18 41 (7.14%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 201 (35.02%) Java
2 171 (29.79%) SQL
3 137 (23.87%) Python
4 102 (17.77%) JavaScript
5 97 (16.90%) C#
6 57 (9.93%) TypeScript
7 39 (6.79%) PL/SQL
8 23 (4.01%) Go
9 20 (3.48%) Kotlin
10 18 (3.14%) Shell Script
11 16 (2.79%) Ruby
12 14 (2.44%) C++
13 9 (1.57%) PHP
13 9 (1.57%) PowerShell
14 8 (1.39%) Bash
15 6 (1.05%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.87%) Swift
17 4 (0.70%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 4 (0.70%) Objective-C
18 3 (0.52%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 117 (20.38%) Security Cleared
2 100 (17.42%) SC Cleared
3 45 (7.84%) Degree
4 26 (4.53%) Computer Science Degree
5 16 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (1.22%) AWS Certification
7 6 (1.05%) Master's Degree
7 6 (1.05%) OCP
7 6 (1.05%) Oracle Certification
8 4 (0.70%) Numerate Degree
9 3 (0.52%) AWS Certified Developer
9 3 (0.52%) DBS Check
9 3 (0.52%) DV Cleared
9 3 (0.52%) MCP
9 3 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (0.35%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 2 (0.35%) Azure Certification
11 1 (0.17%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 1 (0.17%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (4.88%) Accessibility
2 27 (4.70%) QA
3 13 (2.26%) Data Quality
4 11 (1.92%) WCAG
5 4 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.52%) EU AI Act
6 3 (0.52%) NIST
7 1 (0.17%) GDPR
7 1 (0.17%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.17%) ISO 22301
7 1 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 110 (19.16%) Docker
2 5 (0.87%) zsh
3 1 (0.17%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.17%) GridGain
3 1 (0.17%) Lustre
3 1 (0.17%) OpenAM
3 1 (0.17%) OpenDJ
3 1 (0.17%) OpenIDM
3 1 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 103 (17.94%) Kubernetes
2 39 (6.79%) Terraform
3 15 (2.61%) Grafana
4 9 (1.57%) Ansible
5 5 (0.87%) Prometheus
5 5 (0.87%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.70%) Kibana
7 2 (0.35%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.17%) Argo
8 1 (0.17%) Control-M
8 1 (0.17%) Packer
8 1 (0.17%) Rundeck
Vendors
1 52 (9.06%) Oracle
2 33 (5.75%) Microsoft
3 22 (3.83%) Google
4 20 (3.48%) Databricks
4 20 (3.48%) Sybase
5 15 (2.61%) ServiceNow
6 14 (2.44%) Salesforce
7 9 (1.57%) Atlassian
8 6 (1.05%) Red Hat
8 6 (1.05%) SAP
9 5 (0.87%) Apple
9 5 (0.87%) Dataiku
9 5 (0.87%) Virgin Media
10 4 (0.70%) CA Agile Central
10 4 (0.70%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
10 4 (0.70%) VMware
11 3 (0.52%) BMC
11 3 (0.52%) Foundry
11 3 (0.52%) HP
11 3 (0.52%) Remedy