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 7 May 2026.

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

6 months to
7 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 170 159 142
Rank change year-on-year -11 -17 -9
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 751 518 722
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.57% 1.77% 1.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.71% 1.91% 1.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 484 376 521
10th Percentile £407 £409 £410
25th Percentile £468 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £664 £738 £725
90th Percentile £884 £838 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £528 £500
% change year-on-year -3.32% +5.50% -13.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 1 12
10th Percentile £37.25 - £40.00
25th Percentile £39.17 - £51.14
Median hourly rate £45.56 £77.19 £58.91
Median % change year-on-year -40.98% +31.04% -5.75%
75th Percentile £82.79 - £72.50
90th Percentile £95.00 - £81.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.53 £77.19 £58.91
% change year-on-year -44.91% +31.04% -5.75%

All Contract IT Job Roles
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 43,991 27,101 40,252
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.23% 92.53% 92.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,021 17,685 26,221
10th Percentile £316 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.46% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,853 1,051 2,676
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.69 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +50.66% -20.55% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.50 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £28.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +60.71% -30.00% -5.11%

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 7 May 2026.

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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Senior Developer over the 6 months to 7 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Senior Developer 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 7 May 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 -13 630 £560 -6.67% 291
London -6 406 £625 -3.85% 99
UK excluding London -33 239 £510 -3.32% 227
Work from Home -11 213 £600 - 138
North of England -16 83 £575 -2.54% 71
Midlands -47 45 £513 -6.82% 25
Yorkshire -23 44 £575 +2.22% 24
North West -22 39 £500 -16.67% 35
South East -34 37 £560 +8.74% 62
West Midlands -39 37 £513 -6.82% 16
South West -9 31 £475 -20.83% 21
East of England -27 21 £500 -23.08% 29
Scotland -20 18 £431 +1.47% 15
East Midlands -26 7 £525 +14.13% 9
Northern Ireland +2 5 £638 +27.50% 5
Wales -14 2 £638 +6.25% 3
North East -17 2 £538 -8.90% 13

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

For the 6 months to 7 May 2026, 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.

1 237 (31.56%) Java
2 213 (28.36%) AWS
3 188 (25.03%) CI/CD
4 187 (24.90%) Agile
5 171 (22.77%) Python
6 145 (19.31%) Microservices
7 142 (18.91%) Azure
8 139 (18.51%) Security Cleared
9 132 (17.58%) SC Cleared
10 131 (17.44%) SQL
11 124 (16.51%) DevOps
12 121 (16.11%) Docker
13 115 (15.31%) Kubernetes
14 110 (14.65%) JavaScript
15 102 (13.58%) Kafka
16 101 (13.45%) React
17 95 (12.65%) Spring
18 89 (11.85%) Containerisation
19 87 (11.58%) .NET
20 84 (11.19%) Spring Boot
21 79 (10.52%) Test Automation
22 78 (10.39%) C#
23 76 (10.12%) Problem-Solving
23 76 (10.12%) TypeScript
24 74 (9.85%) Full-Stack Development
24 74 (9.85%) Git
24 74 (9.85%) Software Engineering
25 73 (9.72%) TDD
26 68 (9.05%) RESTful
27 62 (8.26%) Code Quality

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 10 (1.33%) Confluence
2 7 (0.93%) Apache Spark
3 6 (0.80%) Apache
3 6 (0.80%) CMS
3 6 (0.80%) nginx
4 5 (0.67%) SharePoint
5 4 (0.53%) Ethereum
5 4 (0.53%) Headless CMS
5 4 (0.53%) Hyperledger
6 3 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.40%) IIS
6 3 (0.40%) Mendix
6 3 (0.40%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 3 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.40%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.27%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.27%) SAS
7 2 (0.27%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.27%) WordPress
8 1 (0.13%) LiveCycle
Applications
1 9 (1.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 17 (2.26%) Teamcenter
2 5 (0.67%) Endur
3 3 (0.40%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.13%) Aladdin
5 1 (0.13%) FLEXCUBE
5 1 (0.13%) IBM Planning Analytics
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.13%) Oracle Retail
5 1 (0.13%) R3 Corda
5 1 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.13%) SAP BRIM
5 1 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.13%) SDL Web 8
5 1 (0.13%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 213 (28.36%) AWS
2 142 (18.91%) Azure
3 55 (7.32%) GitHub
4 47 (6.26%) Azure DevOps
5 40 (5.33%) Power Platform
5 40 (5.33%) Serverless
6 33 (4.39%) GitHub Actions
7 27 (3.60%) GCP
8 26 (3.46%) Power Automate
9 25 (3.33%) Amazon SQS
10 22 (2.93%) AWS Lambda
11 19 (2.53%) PowerApps
12 18 (2.40%) Azure Service Bus
13 16 (2.13%) Amazon EC2
14 14 (1.86%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 14 (1.86%) Amazon S3
14 14 (1.86%) Copilot Studio
15 13 (1.73%) Amazon EKS
15 13 (1.73%) Microsoft Copilot
16 12 (1.60%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.07%) HTTP
2 4 (0.53%) Multicast
2 4 (0.53%) Reverse Proxy
3 2 (0.27%) Ethernet
3 2 (0.27%) Firewall
3 2 (0.27%) NFC
3 2 (0.27%) RTP
3 2 (0.27%) SSL
3 2 (0.27%) VPN
4 1 (0.13%) DNS
4 1 (0.13%) FTP
4 1 (0.13%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.13%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (7.19%) PostgreSQL
2 40 (5.33%) SQL Server
3 39 (5.19%) MongoDB
4 34 (4.53%) Power BI
4 34 (4.53%) Relational Database
5 32 (4.26%) NoSQL
6 26 (3.46%) Apache Cassandra
7 19 (2.53%) DynamoDB
8 17 (2.26%) MySQL
9 16 (2.13%) Data Hub
10 14 (1.86%) Data Warehouse
11 10 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (1.33%) KDB
12 7 (0.93%) Kdb+
12 7 (0.93%) Oracle BI EE
13 6 (0.80%) Oracle Database
14 5 (0.67%) Amazon Aurora
14 5 (0.67%) Big Data
14 5 (0.67%) Redis
15 4 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 74 (9.85%) Git
2 34 (4.53%) Jenkins
3 25 (3.33%) GitLab
4 23 (3.06%) Maven
5 22 (2.93%) JIRA
6 21 (2.80%) JUnit
7 17 (2.26%) Mockito
8 14 (1.86%) SonarQube
9 12 (1.60%) Gradle
10 11 (1.46%) Oracle APEX
11 5 (0.67%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.53%) Cypress.io
12 4 (0.53%) Snyk
13 3 (0.40%) Sonatype Nexus
13 3 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 3 (0.40%) webpack
14 2 (0.27%) Cucumber
14 2 (0.27%) fastlane
14 2 (0.27%) git-flow
14 2 (0.27%) SpecFlow
General
1 132 (17.58%) Finance
2 122 (16.25%) Public Sector
3 109 (14.51%) Social Skills
4 98 (13.05%) Banking
5 39 (5.19%) Investment Banking
6 36 (4.79%) Front Office
7 33 (4.39%) Analytical Skills
8 19 (2.53%) Financial Institution
9 9 (1.20%) Retail
10 7 (0.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (0.80%) Military
12 5 (0.67%) Telecoms
13 4 (0.53%) Games
13 4 (0.53%) Organisational Skills
14 3 (0.40%) Health Technology
14 3 (0.40%) Law
14 3 (0.40%) Legal
14 3 (0.40%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.40%) Police
14 3 (0.40%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (13.58%) Kafka
2 101 (13.45%) React
3 95 (12.65%) Spring
4 87 (11.58%) .NET
5 84 (11.19%) Spring Boot
6 68 (9.05%) RESTful
7 58 (7.72%) REST
8 55 (7.32%) Node.js
9 50 (6.66%) AngularJS
9 50 (6.66%) HTML
10 45 (5.99%) CSS
11 31 (4.13%) Redux
12 27 (3.60%) Web Services
13 25 (3.33%) gRPC
14 21 (2.80%) .NET Core
14 21 (2.80%) Django
15 20 (2.66%) .NET Framework
16 17 (2.26%) SOAP
17 16 (2.13%) OAuth
18 15 (2.00%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 59 (7.86%) Distributed Systems
2 54 (7.19%) Cloud Native
3 25 (3.33%) Product Ownership
4 23 (3.06%) Derivative
5 21 (2.80%) Fixed Income
6 20 (2.66%) Greenfield Project
7 18 (2.40%) Equities
8 17 (2.26%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 13 (1.73%) Algorithms
10 12 (1.60%) Management Information System
10 12 (1.60%) Market Risk
11 11 (1.46%) Mobile App
12 9 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
12 9 (1.20%) Onboarding
13 7 (0.93%) Equity Derivative
14 6 (0.80%) AI Agents
14 6 (0.80%) Data Structures
15 4 (0.53%) Legacy Applications
15 4 (0.53%) Low-Code
15 4 (0.53%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 43 (5.73%) Linux
2 26 (3.46%) Unix
3 18 (2.40%) Windows
4 12 (1.60%) Android
5 9 (1.20%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.80%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.67%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.27%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.13%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 188 (25.03%) CI/CD
2 187 (24.90%) Agile
3 145 (19.31%) Microservices
4 124 (16.51%) DevOps
5 89 (11.85%) Containerisation
6 79 (10.52%) Test Automation
7 76 (10.12%) Problem-Solving
8 74 (9.85%) Full-Stack Development
8 74 (9.85%) Software Engineering
9 73 (9.72%) TDD
10 62 (8.26%) Code Quality
11 52 (6.92%) Analytics
11 52 (6.92%) Data Modelling
12 49 (6.52%) Infrastructure as Code
12 49 (6.52%) Mentoring
13 48 (6.39%) Front End Development
13 48 (6.39%) Scrum
14 46 (6.13%) Business Intelligence
15 45 (5.99%) Event-Driven
15 45 (5.99%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 237 (31.56%) Java
2 171 (22.77%) Python
3 131 (17.44%) SQL
4 110 (14.65%) JavaScript
5 78 (10.39%) C#
6 76 (10.12%) TypeScript
7 39 (5.19%) Go
8 26 (3.46%) Kotlin
9 24 (3.20%) Ruby
10 16 (2.13%) PL/SQL
11 15 (2.00%) C++
12 9 (1.20%) PowerShell
12 9 (1.20%) Shell Script
13 8 (1.07%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 7 (0.93%) Bash
15 6 (0.80%) Apex Code
16 4 (0.53%) PHP
16 4 (0.53%) T-SQL
16 4 (0.53%) VBA
17 3 (0.40%) C
Qualifications
1 139 (18.51%) Security Cleared
2 132 (17.58%) SC Cleared
3 24 (3.20%) BPSS Clearance
4 21 (2.80%) Degree
5 8 (1.07%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (0.80%) DV Cleared
7 4 (0.53%) AWS Certification
7 4 (0.53%) Numerate Degree
8 3 (0.40%) AWS Certified Developer
9 2 (0.27%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.13%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 1 (0.13%) Azure Certification
10 1 (0.13%) CISSP
10 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.13%) OCP
10 1 (0.13%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (3.86%) Accessibility
2 28 (3.73%) QA
3 18 (2.40%) WCAG
4 11 (1.46%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.27%) GDPR
5 2 (0.27%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.13%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 121 (16.11%) Docker
2 3 (0.40%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.27%) GridGain
3 2 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
3 2 (0.27%) Postfix
4 1 (0.13%) OpenAM
4 1 (0.13%) OpenDJ
4 1 (0.13%) OpenIDM
4 1 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 115 (15.31%) Kubernetes
2 52 (6.92%) Terraform
3 22 (2.93%) Grafana
4 16 (2.13%) Prometheus
5 14 (1.86%) Ansible
6 8 (1.07%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.40%) Argo
8 1 (0.13%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.13%) Control-M
8 1 (0.13%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.13%) Kibana
8 1 (0.13%) SELinux
8 1 (0.13%) Sysdig
8 1 (0.13%) systemd
Vendors
1 44 (5.86%) Microsoft
2 40 (5.33%) Oracle
3 17 (2.26%) ServiceNow
4 15 (2.00%) Salesforce
5 12 (1.60%) Google
6 9 (1.20%) Avaloq
6 9 (1.20%) Databricks
6 9 (1.20%) SAP
7 6 (0.80%) Guidewire
7 6 (0.80%) Sybase
8 5 (0.67%) ForgeRock
9 4 (0.53%) Jaspersoft
9 4 (0.53%) Okta
9 4 (0.53%) Pega
10 3 (0.40%) Apple
10 3 (0.40%) Cognizant
10 3 (0.40%) New Relic
10 3 (0.40%) Splunk
11 2 (0.27%) Dynatrace
11 2 (0.27%) IBM