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 15 May 2026.

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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 168 160 144
Rank change year-on-year -8 -16 -9
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 743 516 708
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.56% 1.78% 1.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.69% 1.92% 1.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 467 370 513
10th Percentile £406 £405 £410
25th Percentile £475 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £675 £733 £725
90th Percentile £888 £838 £863
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -2.38% +5.00% -11.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 12
10th Percentile £37.25 - £40.00
25th Percentile £41.09 - £51.14
Median hourly rate £45.56 £77.19 £58.91
Median % change year-on-year -40.98% +31.04% -5.75%
75th Percentile £70.59 - £72.50
90th Percentile £95.00 - £81.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.56 £77.19 £58.91
% change year-on-year -40.98% +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 44,018 26,871 39,592
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 92.45% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,969 17,507 25,749
10th Percentile £320 £296 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £614 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +4.21% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,868 1,042 2,669
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.20 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.09 £28.60 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +50.66% -23.08% -17.38%
75th Percentile £66.50 £62.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.02
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £27.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +63.64% -31.25% -5.88%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -28 619 £575 -4.17% 275
London -2 411 £625 -3.85% 88
UK excluding London -35 223 £513 -2.38% 207
Work from Home -17 204 £560 -6.67% 267
North of England -20 85 £525 -6.67% 73
Yorkshire -28 45 £575 +2.22% 28
North West -18 40 £494 -17.71% 34
Midlands -45 40 £513 -6.82% 27
South East -48 34 £560 +2.75% 59
West Midlands -45 32 £513 -6.82% 18
South West -21 22 £410 -31.67% 22
East of England -24 21 £500 -23.08% 21
Scotland -19 18 £411 -3.24% 4
East Midlands -24 7 £525 +28.05% 9
Northern Ireland -1 5 £650 +30.00% 3
North East -18 2 £538 +43.33% 12
Wales -8 1 - - 2

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

For the 6 months to 15 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.

1 234 (31.49%) Java
2 211 (28.40%) AWS
3 187 (25.17%) CI/CD
4 180 (24.23%) Agile
5 161 (21.67%) Python
6 143 (19.25%) Microservices
7 136 (18.30%) Azure
8 126 (16.96%) Security Cleared
9 125 (16.82%) SQL
10 119 (16.02%) Docker
10 119 (16.02%) SC Cleared
11 114 (15.34%) DevOps
12 113 (15.21%) Kubernetes
13 102 (13.73%) JavaScript
14 100 (13.46%) React
15 96 (12.92%) Kafka
15 96 (12.92%) Spring
16 89 (11.98%) Containerisation
17 85 (11.44%) .NET
17 85 (11.44%) Spring Boot
18 79 (10.63%) Test Automation
19 77 (10.36%) C#
19 77 (10.36%) TypeScript
20 75 (10.09%) Full-Stack Development
20 75 (10.09%) TDD
21 74 (9.96%) Software Engineering
22 73 (9.83%) Problem-Solving
23 72 (9.69%) Git
24 67 (9.02%) RESTful
25 60 (8.08%) 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 (1.35%) Confluence
2 9 (1.21%) Apache Spark
3 8 (1.08%) Apache
4 6 (0.81%) CMS
4 6 (0.81%) nginx
5 4 (0.54%) Ethereum
5 4 (0.54%) Headless CMS
5 4 (0.54%) Hyperledger
5 4 (0.54%) Mendix
5 4 (0.54%) Oracle Workflow
5 4 (0.54%) SharePoint
6 3 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.40%) IIS
6 3 (0.40%) Oracle SOA Suite
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 (1.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 17 (2.29%) Teamcenter
2 5 (0.67%) Endur
3 3 (0.40%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.27%) Aladdin
4 2 (0.27%) SimCorp Dimension
5 1 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
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
Cloud Services
1 211 (28.40%) AWS
2 136 (18.30%) Azure
3 56 (7.54%) GitHub
4 41 (5.52%) Serverless
5 39 (5.25%) Azure DevOps
6 38 (5.11%) Power Platform
7 34 (4.58%) GitHub Actions
8 30 (4.04%) GCP
9 27 (3.63%) Amazon SQS
10 24 (3.23%) Power Automate
11 23 (3.10%) AWS Lambda
12 19 (2.56%) Azure Service Bus
12 19 (2.56%) PowerApps
13 17 (2.29%) Amazon EC2
14 15 (2.02%) Amazon S3
15 14 (1.88%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 14 (1.88%) Copilot Studio
16 13 (1.75%) Amazon EKS
16 13 (1.75%) Microsoft Copilot
17 12 (1.62%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 7 (0.94%) HTTP
2 6 (0.81%) Multicast
3 4 (0.54%) Reverse Proxy
4 2 (0.27%) Ethernet
4 2 (0.27%) NFC
4 2 (0.27%) RTP
4 2 (0.27%) SSL
5 1 (0.13%) DNS
5 1 (0.13%) Firewall
5 1 (0.13%) FTP
5 1 (0.13%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.13%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (6.73%) PostgreSQL
2 39 (5.25%) SQL Server
3 38 (5.11%) MongoDB
4 35 (4.71%) Relational Database
5 33 (4.44%) Power BI
6 31 (4.17%) NoSQL
7 25 (3.36%) Apache Cassandra
8 18 (2.42%) DynamoDB
9 17 (2.29%) MySQL
10 14 (1.88%) Data Warehouse
11 10 (1.35%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (1.35%) KDB
12 7 (0.94%) Data Hub
12 7 (0.94%) Kdb+
12 7 (0.94%) Oracle BI EE
13 6 (0.81%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.81%) Redis
14 5 (0.67%) Amazon Aurora
14 5 (0.67%) Big Data
15 4 (0.54%) Flink
Development Applications
1 72 (9.69%) Git
2 33 (4.44%) Jenkins
3 27 (3.63%) GitLab
4 25 (3.36%) Maven
5 24 (3.23%) JIRA
6 20 (2.69%) JUnit
7 17 (2.29%) Mockito
8 16 (2.15%) SonarQube
9 14 (1.88%) Gradle
10 5 (0.67%) Snyk
11 4 (0.54%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.54%) Cypress.io
12 3 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 2 (0.27%) ClearCase
13 2 (0.27%) DbUnit
13 2 (0.27%) fastlane
13 2 (0.27%) jMock
13 2 (0.27%) Oracle APEX
13 2 (0.27%) SpecFlow
13 2 (0.27%) Xcode
General
1 125 (16.82%) Finance
2 118 (15.88%) Public Sector
3 103 (13.86%) Social Skills
4 97 (13.06%) Banking
5 38 (5.11%) Investment Banking
6 37 (4.98%) Front Office
7 33 (4.44%) Analytical Skills
8 20 (2.69%) Financial Institution
9 10 (1.35%) Retail
10 8 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (0.94%) Military
12 6 (0.81%) Telecoms
13 4 (0.54%) Games
13 4 (0.54%) Manufacturing
13 4 (0.54%) Organisational Skills
14 3 (0.40%) Back Office
14 3 (0.40%) Health Technology
14 3 (0.40%) Law
14 3 (0.40%) Legal
14 3 (0.40%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (13.46%) React
2 96 (12.92%) Kafka
2 96 (12.92%) Spring
3 85 (11.44%) .NET
3 85 (11.44%) Spring Boot
4 67 (9.02%) RESTful
5 58 (7.81%) Node.js
6 57 (7.67%) REST
7 50 (6.73%) HTML
8 49 (6.59%) AngularJS
9 45 (6.06%) CSS
10 30 (4.04%) Redux
11 26 (3.50%) Web Services
12 24 (3.23%) Django
12 24 (3.23%) gRPC
13 18 (2.42%) .NET Core
13 18 (2.42%) .NET Framework
14 17 (2.29%) OAuth
14 17 (2.29%) SOAP
15 15 (2.02%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 61 (8.21%) Distributed Systems
2 53 (7.13%) Cloud Native
3 25 (3.36%) Product Ownership
4 23 (3.10%) Greenfield Project
5 21 (2.83%) Fixed Income
6 20 (2.69%) Derivative
6 20 (2.69%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 18 (2.42%) Equities
8 15 (2.02%) Algorithms
9 12 (1.62%) Mobile App
10 10 (1.35%) Management Information System
11 9 (1.21%) Onboarding
12 8 (1.08%) Market Risk
13 7 (0.94%) Data Structures
13 7 (0.94%) Equity Derivative
13 7 (0.94%) Legacy Systems
14 6 (0.81%) AI Agents
15 5 (0.67%) NHS
16 4 (0.54%) Legacy Applications
16 4 (0.54%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 44 (5.92%) Linux
2 27 (3.63%) Unix
3 17 (2.29%) Windows
4 9 (1.21%) Android
4 9 (1.21%) Mac OS
5 7 (0.94%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.67%) Mac OS X
7 2 (0.27%) Windows Server
8 1 (0.13%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 187 (25.17%) CI/CD
2 180 (24.23%) Agile
3 143 (19.25%) Microservices
4 114 (15.34%) DevOps
5 89 (11.98%) Containerisation
6 79 (10.63%) Test Automation
7 75 (10.09%) Full-Stack Development
7 75 (10.09%) TDD
8 74 (9.96%) Software Engineering
9 73 (9.83%) Problem-Solving
10 60 (8.08%) Code Quality
11 57 (7.67%) Data Modelling
12 51 (6.86%) Infrastructure as Code
12 51 (6.86%) Mentoring
13 49 (6.59%) Analytics
13 49 (6.59%) Front End Development
14 47 (6.33%) Event-Driven
15 46 (6.19%) Business Intelligence
16 45 (6.06%) Migration
17 41 (5.52%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 234 (31.49%) Java
2 161 (21.67%) Python
3 125 (16.82%) SQL
4 102 (13.73%) JavaScript
5 77 (10.36%) C#
5 77 (10.36%) TypeScript
6 38 (5.11%) Go
7 26 (3.50%) Ruby
8 21 (2.83%) Kotlin
9 17 (2.29%) C++
10 9 (1.21%) PL/SQL
10 9 (1.21%) PowerShell
10 9 (1.21%) Shell Script
11 8 (1.08%) Apex Code
11 8 (1.08%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 7 (0.94%) Bash
13 4 (0.54%) PHP
13 4 (0.54%) R
13 4 (0.54%) Swift
13 4 (0.54%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 126 (16.96%) Security Cleared
2 119 (16.02%) SC Cleared
3 23 (3.10%) BPSS Clearance
3 23 (3.10%) Degree
4 10 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
5 6 (0.81%) DV Cleared
6 4 (0.54%) AWS Certification
6 4 (0.54%) Numerate Degree
7 3 (0.40%) AWS Certified Developer
8 2 (0.27%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.13%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 1 (0.13%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.13%) CISSP
9 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (4.04%) Accessibility
2 27 (3.63%) QA
3 18 (2.42%) WCAG
4 11 (1.48%) 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
1 119 (16.02%) 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
1 113 (15.21%) Kubernetes
2 54 (7.27%) Terraform
3 22 (2.96%) Grafana
4 17 (2.29%) Prometheus
5 14 (1.88%) Ansible
6 8 (1.08%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.54%) Argo
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 45 (6.06%) Microsoft
2 32 (4.31%) Oracle
3 16 (2.15%) Salesforce
4 15 (2.02%) ServiceNow
5 10 (1.35%) Avaloq
5 10 (1.35%) Databricks
5 10 (1.35%) Google
6 9 (1.21%) SAP
7 6 (0.81%) Guidewire
7 6 (0.81%) Sybase
8 5 (0.67%) ForgeRock
9 4 (0.54%) Jaspersoft
9 4 (0.54%) Okta
9 4 (0.54%) 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%) IBM
11 2 (0.27%) Solace