Senior Developer Contract Job Trends

Senior Developer
UK

The median Senior Developer daily rate in the UK is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 4 January 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 162 147 176
Rank change year-on-year -15 +29 -68
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 624 577 618
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.70% 1.78% 1.44%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.86% 1.92% 1.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 455 366 444
10th Percentile £400 £419 £425
25th Percentile £450 £500 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% - -11.54%
75th Percentile £651 £700 £700
90th Percentile £845 £831 £821
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £550
% change year-on-year - -9.09% -6.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 7
10th Percentile - - £53.25
25th Percentile - - £56.25
Median hourly rate - - £60.00
75th Percentile - - £67.50
90th Percentile - - £73.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £52.50
% change year-on-year - - -34.38%

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 33,575 30,034 40,144
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.24% 92.68% 93.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,287 18,380 26,866
10th Percentile £300 £291 £281
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,949 935 1,589
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.51 £14.18
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.05 £19.06
Median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.46% -26.97% +36.92%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £73.75 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.16% -30.00% +73.08%

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 4 January 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
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 4 January 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 -22 531 £548 -7.01% 740
London -21 318 £625 +1.42% 182
Work from Home +6 218 £588 -2.08% 581
UK excluding London -16 214 £500 - 679
North of England -24 68 £550 +6.28% 146
South West +33 56 £475 -13.64% 70
Yorkshire -22 38 £631 +20.24% 64
South East -26 33 £473 +2.27% 219
North West -19 27 £500 - 62
Midlands -30 26 £513 +2.50% 100
East of England -11 20 £500 -5.66% 93
West Midlands -33 19 £525 +5.00% 49
Scotland -20 12 £513 +13.89% 44
North East -5 9 £488 -17.37% 20
East Midlands -20 7 £510 +11.78% 45
Northern Ireland - 4 £544 - 6
Wales -4 3 £638 +27.50% 14

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

For the 6 months to 4 January 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.

1 213 (34.13%) Java
2 205 (32.85%) Agile
3 203 (32.53%) AWS
4 161 (25.80%) CI/CD
5 160 (25.64%) Azure
6 159 (25.48%) DevOps
7 155 (24.84%) Microservices
8 150 (24.04%) SQL
9 147 (23.56%) Python
10 142 (22.76%) Security Cleared
11 127 (20.35%) Kafka
12 125 (20.03%) Problem-Solving
13 124 (19.87%) SC Cleared
14 123 (19.71%) Docker
15 120 (19.23%) Kubernetes
16 116 (18.59%) JavaScript
17 95 (15.22%) Spring
18 84 (13.46%) React
19 82 (13.14%) C#
20 81 (12.98%) Containerisation
21 78 (12.50%) Git
22 77 (12.34%) Spring Boot
23 76 (12.18%) .NET
24 74 (11.86%) Full-Stack Development
24 74 (11.86%) Software Engineering
24 74 (11.86%) TDD
25 72 (11.54%) Scrum
26 69 (11.06%) RESTful
26 69 (11.06%) Test Automation
27 68 (10.90%) Azure DevOps

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 (2.72%) Confluence
2 6 (0.96%) nginx
2 6 (0.96%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.80%) CMS
4 4 (0.64%) Jupyter
5 3 (0.48%) SAS
6 2 (0.32%) Anypoint
6 2 (0.32%) Mendix
6 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.16%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.16%) Oracle Application Server
7 1 (0.16%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.16%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.16%) WordPress
Applications
1 10 (1.60%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 4 (0.64%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.48%) Endur
3 2 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.16%) FLEXCUBE
4 1 (0.16%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
4 1 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
4 1 (0.16%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.16%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 203 (32.53%) AWS
2 160 (25.64%) Azure
3 68 (10.90%) Azure DevOps
4 55 (8.81%) GitHub
5 37 (5.93%) GCP
6 36 (5.77%) Serverless
7 29 (4.65%) Power Platform
8 18 (2.88%) AWS Lambda
8 18 (2.88%) GitHub Actions
9 16 (2.56%) Amazon SQS
9 16 (2.56%) Power Automate
10 15 (2.40%) Amazon EC2
10 15 (2.40%) Amazon EKS
11 14 (2.24%) Azure AKS
11 14 (2.24%) Azure Service Bus
11 14 (2.24%) Dynamics 365
12 13 (2.08%) SaaS
13 12 (1.92%) Amazon S3
13 12 (1.92%) PowerApps
14 10 (1.60%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.80%) Kerberos
1 5 (0.80%) SSL
2 3 (0.48%) Reverse Proxy
3 2 (0.32%) Firewall
3 2 (0.32%) HTTP
3 2 (0.32%) VPN
4 1 (0.16%) FTP
4 1 (0.16%) Internet
4 1 (0.16%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (10.42%) PostgreSQL
2 52 (8.33%) MongoDB
3 43 (6.89%) Relational Database
4 37 (5.93%) SQL Server
5 35 (5.61%) NoSQL
6 28 (4.49%) Apache Cassandra
7 17 (2.72%) Power BI
8 15 (2.40%) DynamoDB
9 14 (2.24%) Data Hub
10 13 (2.08%) DB2
11 12 (1.92%) MySQL
11 12 (1.92%) Redis
12 11 (1.76%) Data Warehouse
13 8 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
13 8 (1.28%) Data Lake
13 8 (1.28%) RDBMS
14 6 (0.96%) HBase
14 6 (0.96%) Oracle BI EE
15 5 (0.80%) Big Data
15 5 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 78 (12.50%) Git
2 40 (6.41%) Jenkins
3 37 (5.93%) JUnit
4 35 (5.61%) Oracle APEX
5 34 (5.45%) GitLab
6 30 (4.81%) JIRA
7 23 (3.69%) Mockito
8 13 (2.08%) Maven
9 12 (1.92%) Gradle
10 9 (1.44%) Artifactory
10 9 (1.44%) Cucumber
11 8 (1.28%) Postman
12 7 (1.12%) Sonatype Nexus
12 7 (1.12%) SpecFlow
13 6 (0.96%) Bitbucket
13 6 (0.96%) Cypress.io
13 6 (0.96%) Mocha
14 5 (0.80%) SonarQube
15 4 (0.64%) TeamCity
15 4 (0.64%) webpack
General
1 156 (25.00%) Finance
2 151 (24.20%) Social Skills
3 93 (14.90%) Banking
4 85 (13.62%) Public Sector
5 51 (8.17%) Analytical Skills
6 41 (6.57%) Investment Banking
7 25 (4.01%) Front Office
8 12 (1.92%) Financial Institution
9 6 (0.96%) Manufacturing
10 5 (0.80%) Military
10 5 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (0.64%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (0.64%) Law
11 4 (0.64%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.48%) Marketing
12 3 (0.48%) Retail Banking
12 3 (0.48%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.32%) Local Government
13 2 (0.32%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 127 (20.35%) Kafka
2 95 (15.22%) Spring
3 84 (13.46%) React
4 77 (12.34%) Spring Boot
5 76 (12.18%) .NET
6 69 (11.06%) RESTful
7 57 (9.13%) Node.js
8 52 (8.33%) REST
9 51 (8.17%) HTML
10 50 (8.01%) AngularJS
11 43 (6.89%) CSS
12 32 (5.13%) Web Services
13 25 (4.01%) JSON
14 23 (3.69%) RabbitMQ
15 22 (3.53%) gRPC
16 21 (3.37%) .NET Framework
17 19 (3.04%) .NET Core
17 19 (3.04%) Next.js
18 17 (2.72%) Jest
19 16 (2.56%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 47 (7.53%) Distributed Systems
2 45 (7.21%) Cloud Native
3 34 (5.45%) Derivative
4 30 (4.81%) Equities
5 24 (3.85%) Greenfield Project
6 21 (3.37%) Product Ownership
7 20 (3.21%) Market Risk
8 19 (3.04%) Algorithms
8 19 (3.04%) Data Structures
8 19 (3.04%) Management Information System
9 17 (2.72%) Fixed Income
10 12 (1.92%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 11 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
12 8 (1.28%) Equity Derivative
13 7 (1.12%) Legacy Applications
13 7 (1.12%) Onboarding
14 6 (0.96%) Linux Command Line
14 6 (0.96%) NHS
15 5 (0.80%) Hedge funds
15 5 (0.80%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 53 (8.49%) Linux
2 26 (4.17%) Unix
3 16 (2.56%) Android
4 14 (2.24%) Mac OS X
5 10 (1.60%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.48%) Windows
7 2 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.16%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.16%) tvOS
8 1 (0.16%) watchOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 205 (32.85%) Agile
2 161 (25.80%) CI/CD
3 159 (25.48%) DevOps
4 155 (24.84%) Microservices
5 125 (20.03%) Problem-Solving
6 81 (12.98%) Containerisation
7 74 (11.86%) Full-Stack Development
7 74 (11.86%) Software Engineering
7 74 (11.86%) TDD
8 72 (11.54%) Scrum
9 69 (11.06%) Test Automation
10 65 (10.42%) Analytics
11 57 (9.13%) Open Source
12 48 (7.69%) Infrastructure as Code
12 48 (7.69%) SDLC
13 46 (7.37%) Event-Driven
14 42 (6.73%) Front End Development
14 42 (6.73%) Mentoring
15 41 (6.57%) Performance Tuning
15 41 (6.57%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 213 (34.13%) Java
2 150 (24.04%) SQL
3 147 (23.56%) Python
4 116 (18.59%) JavaScript
5 82 (13.14%) C#
6 50 (8.01%) TypeScript
7 42 (6.73%) PL/SQL
8 34 (5.45%) Go
9 18 (2.88%) Kotlin
10 16 (2.56%) C++
11 15 (2.40%) Ruby
11 15 (2.40%) Shell Script
12 13 (2.08%) Bash
13 11 (1.76%) PowerShell
14 10 (1.60%) PHP
15 4 (0.64%) Objective-C
15 4 (0.64%) Swift
15 4 (0.64%) T-SQL
16 3 (0.48%) ABAP
16 3 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 142 (22.76%) Security Cleared
2 124 (19.87%) SC Cleared
3 42 (6.73%) Degree
4 30 (4.81%) BPSS Clearance
5 22 (3.53%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (1.28%) Numerate Degree
7 6 (0.96%) AWS Certification
7 6 (0.96%) Master's Degree
7 6 (0.96%) OCP
7 6 (0.96%) Oracle Certification
8 3 (0.48%) AWS Certified Developer
8 3 (0.48%) MCP
9 2 (0.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 2 (0.32%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.32%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.32%) DV Cleared
9 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.16%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 1 (0.16%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (4.97%) Accessibility
2 22 (3.53%) QA
3 12 (1.92%) Data Quality
3 12 (1.92%) WCAG
4 3 (0.48%) EU AI Act
4 3 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (0.48%) NIST
5 1 (0.16%) GDPR
System Software
1 123 (19.71%) Docker
2 5 (0.80%) zsh
3 1 (0.16%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.16%) GridGain
3 1 (0.16%) Lustre
3 1 (0.16%) OpenAM
3 1 (0.16%) OpenDJ
3 1 (0.16%) OpenIDM
3 1 (0.16%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 120 (19.23%) Kubernetes
2 41 (6.57%) Terraform
3 20 (3.21%) Grafana
4 15 (2.40%) Ansible
5 9 (1.44%) Prometheus
6 8 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.48%) Kibana
8 1 (0.16%) Argo
8 1 (0.16%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.16%) Control-M
8 1 (0.16%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.16%) Packer
8 1 (0.16%) Rundeck
8 1 (0.16%) Sysdig
Vendors
1 59 (9.46%) Oracle
2 28 (4.49%) Microsoft
3 22 (3.53%) Google
4 14 (2.24%) Sybase
5 12 (1.92%) Databricks
5 12 (1.92%) ServiceNow
6 7 (1.12%) Atlassian
7 6 (0.96%) Apple
8 5 (0.80%) Salesforce
8 5 (0.80%) SAP
9 4 (0.64%) Guidewire
9 4 (0.64%) IBM
10 3 (0.48%) BMC
10 3 (0.48%) Dataiku
10 3 (0.48%) Foundry
11 2 (0.32%) Cognizant
11 2 (0.32%) Computacenter
11 2 (0.32%) HP
11 2 (0.32%) Informatica
11 2 (0.32%) Red Hat