Senior Developer Contract Job Trends

Senior Developer
UK

The median Senior Developer daily rate in the UK is £560, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 June 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 164 158 127
Rank change year-on-year -6 -31 +10
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 808 541 783
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.61% 1.82% 1.80%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.74% 1.98% 1.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 507 385 574
10th Percentile £406 £400 £400
25th Percentile £478 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.61% +4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £714 £725 £723
90th Percentile £938 £825 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £525 £475
% change year-on-year -1.90% +10.53% -13.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 1 13
10th Percentile £37.25 - £36.00
25th Percentile £44.93 - £40.00
Median hourly rate £45.56 £77.19 £58.91
Median % change year-on-year -40.98% +31.04% -5.75%
75th Percentile £46.18 - £72.50
90th Percentile £95.00 - £82.90
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 46,477 27,381 40,501
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.25% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,258 17,617 25,961
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £624 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,104 1,172 2,957
10th Percentile £15.25 £13.87 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.86 £17.75 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.61 £27.45 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.85% -26.80% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -1.45%

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 17 June 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 17 June 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 17 June 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 -17 691 £575 -4.17% 554
London 0 440 £625 -3.85% 67
UK excluding London -9 276 £515 -1.90% 684
Work from Home -48 209 £560 -4.27% 651
North of England -3 102 £575 +9.52% 131
Yorkshire -14 53 £575 +9.52% 49
Midlands -32 45 £513 -6.82% 84
North West -14 44 £510 +2.00% 58
South East -51 40 £560 +5.96% 161
South West -13 38 £500 -16.67% 52
West Midlands -33 38 £513 -6.82% 37
Scotland -16 30 £410 -12.11% 82
East of England -21 15 £500 -23.08% 84
East Midlands -17 6 £525 +28.05% 47
North East -28 5 £875 +133.33% 25
Northern Ireland +2 4 £650 +30.00% 45
Wales -13 2 £525 +61.54% 51

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

For the 6 months to 17 June 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.

1 259 (32.05%) Java
2 219 (27.10%) CI/CD
3 210 (25.99%) Agile
4 203 (25.12%) AWS
5 174 (21.53%) Python
6 168 (20.79%) Azure
7 156 (19.31%) Microservices
8 144 (17.82%) SQL
9 133 (16.46%) JavaScript
10 132 (16.34%) React
11 127 (15.72%) DevOps
12 126 (15.59%) C#
12 126 (15.59%) Security Cleared
13 120 (14.85%) TypeScript
14 119 (14.73%) Docker
15 117 (14.48%) SC Cleared
16 107 (13.24%) Kubernetes
17 103 (12.75%) .NET
18 98 (12.13%) Full-Stack Development
19 94 (11.63%) Git
20 93 (11.51%) Spring
21 90 (11.14%) RESTful
22 88 (10.89%) REST
23 87 (10.77%) Software Engineering
24 84 (10.40%) Containerisation
25 83 (10.27%) Kafka
25 83 (10.27%) Spring Boot
26 82 (10.15%) Test Automation
27 77 (9.53%) TDD
28 72 (8.91%) Data Modelling

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 (1.24%) Apache Spark
1 10 (1.24%) Confluence
2 8 (0.99%) Apache
3 7 (0.87%) Ethereum
3 7 (0.87%) Hyperledger
4 6 (0.74%) CMS
5 5 (0.62%) Mendix
5 5 (0.62%) Oracle Workflow
6 4 (0.50%) Headless CMS
7 3 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.37%) IIS
7 3 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 3 (0.37%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.25%) Appian
8 2 (0.25%) Cloud Foundry
8 2 (0.25%) Moodle
8 2 (0.25%) SharePoint
8 2 (0.25%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 1 (0.12%) SAS
Applications
1 9 (1.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 17 (2.10%) Teamcenter
2 5 (0.62%) Endur
3 4 (0.50%) R3 Corda
4 3 (0.37%) Aladdin
4 3 (0.37%) Quorum
4 3 (0.37%) Ripple
4 3 (0.37%) Shopify
4 3 (0.37%) SimCorp Dimension
5 2 (0.25%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.25%) Orchestrade
6 1 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.12%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle General Ledger
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.12%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 203 (25.12%) AWS
2 168 (20.79%) Azure
3 62 (7.67%) GitHub
4 45 (5.57%) Serverless
5 43 (5.32%) Power Platform
6 38 (4.70%) Azure DevOps
6 38 (4.70%) GitHub Actions
7 37 (4.58%) GCP
8 27 (3.34%) Power Automate
9 24 (2.97%) AWS Lambda
10 21 (2.60%) Amazon SQS
10 21 (2.60%) PowerApps
11 20 (2.48%) Amazon S3
12 19 (2.35%) Azure Service Bus
13 17 (2.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 16 (1.98%) Amazon ECS
14 16 (1.98%) Dynamics 365
15 14 (1.73%) Amazon EC2
15 14 (1.73%) Copilot Studio
16 13 (1.61%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.99%) HTTP
2 6 (0.74%) Multicast
3 2 (0.25%) Ethernet
3 2 (0.25%) NFC
3 2 (0.25%) RTP
4 1 (0.12%) CTI
4 1 (0.12%) DNS
4 1 (0.12%) Firewall
4 1 (0.12%) MQTT
4 1 (0.12%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (7.18%) PostgreSQL
2 47 (5.82%) SQL Server
3 45 (5.57%) Relational Database
4 37 (4.58%) Power BI
5 32 (3.96%) MongoDB
6 29 (3.59%) NoSQL
7 20 (2.48%) Apache Cassandra
7 20 (2.48%) DynamoDB
8 18 (2.23%) MySQL
9 15 (1.86%) Amazon RDS
10 14 (1.73%) Data Warehouse
11 10 (1.24%) KDB
12 8 (0.99%) Oracle Database
12 8 (0.99%) Redis
13 7 (0.87%) Amazon Aurora
13 7 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (0.87%) Kdb+
14 6 (0.74%) Data Lake
14 6 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 5 (0.62%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 94 (11.63%) Git
2 46 (5.69%) Jenkins
3 25 (3.09%) Maven
4 24 (2.97%) JIRA
4 24 (2.97%) JUnit
5 21 (2.60%) GitLab
6 19 (2.35%) Mockito
7 18 (2.23%) SonarQube
8 13 (1.61%) Gradle
9 5 (0.62%) Snyk
9 5 (0.62%) Xcode
10 4 (0.50%) Ant
10 4 (0.50%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.50%) Eclipse
10 4 (0.50%) XCTest
10 4 (0.50%) XCUITest
11 3 (0.37%) Cucumber
11 3 (0.37%) git-flow
11 3 (0.37%) MSI
11 3 (0.37%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 175 (21.66%) Finance
2 128 (15.84%) Banking
3 124 (15.35%) Public Sector
4 114 (14.11%) Social Skills
5 67 (8.29%) Investment Banking
6 63 (7.80%) Front Office
7 45 (5.57%) Analytical Skills
8 19 (2.35%) Financial Institution
8 19 (2.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 16 (1.98%) Retail
10 10 (1.24%) Legal
10 10 (1.24%) Military
11 8 (0.99%) Law
12 6 (0.74%) Manufacturing
13 5 (0.62%) Telecoms
14 4 (0.50%) Back Office
14 4 (0.50%) Documentation Skills
14 4 (0.50%) Games
14 4 (0.50%) Health Technology
15 3 (0.37%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 132 (16.34%) React
2 103 (12.75%) .NET
3 93 (11.51%) Spring
4 90 (11.14%) RESTful
5 88 (10.89%) REST
6 83 (10.27%) Kafka
6 83 (10.27%) Spring Boot
7 59 (7.30%) Redux
8 55 (6.81%) AngularJS
9 54 (6.68%) HTML
10 51 (6.31%) Node.js
11 48 (5.94%) CSS
12 35 (4.33%) Web Services
13 28 (3.47%) SOAP
14 26 (3.22%) .NET Core
15 24 (2.97%) Django
16 21 (2.60%) RabbitMQ
17 19 (2.35%) .NET Framework
17 19 (2.35%) OAuth
18 18 (2.23%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 59 (7.30%) Distributed Systems
2 53 (6.56%) Cloud Native
3 49 (6.06%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 45 (5.57%) Fixed Income
5 44 (5.45%) Greenfield Project
6 42 (5.20%) Equities
7 35 (4.33%) Product Ownership
8 20 (2.48%) Mobile App
9 18 (2.23%) Derivative
10 17 (2.10%) Algorithms
11 12 (1.49%) Onboarding
12 11 (1.36%) AI Agents
13 10 (1.24%) CMDB
14 9 (1.11%) Data Structures
14 9 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
15 8 (0.99%) Enterprise Software
16 7 (0.87%) Management Information System
17 6 (0.74%) Equity Derivative
17 6 (0.74%) Market Risk
18 5 (0.62%) Blockchain
Operating Systems
1 46 (5.69%) Linux
2 29 (3.59%) Unix
3 21 (2.60%) Windows
4 12 (1.49%) Apple iOS
5 10 (1.24%) Android
6 9 (1.11%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.62%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.25%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.12%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 219 (27.10%) CI/CD
2 210 (25.99%) Agile
3 156 (19.31%) Microservices
4 127 (15.72%) DevOps
5 98 (12.13%) Full-Stack Development
6 87 (10.77%) Software Engineering
7 84 (10.40%) Containerisation
8 82 (10.15%) Test Automation
9 77 (9.53%) TDD
10 72 (8.91%) Data Modelling
10 72 (8.91%) Problem-Solving
11 60 (7.43%) Event-Driven
12 59 (7.30%) AI
12 59 (7.30%) Code Quality
12 59 (7.30%) Mentoring
13 57 (7.05%) Scrum
14 52 (6.44%) Design Patterns
14 52 (6.44%) Low Latency
15 51 (6.31%) Analytics
15 51 (6.31%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 259 (32.05%) Java
2 174 (21.53%) Python
3 144 (17.82%) SQL
4 133 (16.46%) JavaScript
5 126 (15.59%) C#
6 120 (14.85%) TypeScript
7 28 (3.47%) Go
8 25 (3.09%) Ruby
9 23 (2.85%) Kotlin
10 22 (2.72%) C++
11 13 (1.61%) Apex Code
12 10 (1.24%) Swift
13 9 (1.11%) PL/SQL
14 8 (0.99%) PowerShell
14 8 (0.99%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.87%) SOQL
15 7 (0.87%) SOSL
16 5 (0.62%) Bicep
16 5 (0.62%) R
Qualifications
1 126 (15.59%) Security Cleared
2 117 (14.48%) SC Cleared
3 25 (3.09%) Degree
4 11 (1.36%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
5 7 (0.87%) DV Cleared
6 5 (0.62%) AWS Certification
7 4 (0.50%) AWS Certified Developer
8 3 (0.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (0.37%) Numerate Degree
9 2 (0.25%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 2 (0.25%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.12%) Azure Certification
10 1 (0.12%) CISSP
10 1 (0.12%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (4.46%) Accessibility
2 31 (3.84%) QA
3 23 (2.85%) WCAG
4 15 (1.86%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.37%) NCSC
6 2 (0.25%) GDPR
6 2 (0.25%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.12%) Basel III
7 1 (0.12%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.12%) GRC
7 1 (0.12%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.12%) Solvency II
System Software
1 119 (14.73%) Docker
2 4 (0.50%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.25%) Apache ZooKeeper
3 2 (0.25%) GridGain
3 2 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
3 2 (0.25%) Postfix
4 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 107 (13.24%) Kubernetes
2 51 (6.31%) Terraform
3 18 (2.23%) Grafana
4 13 (1.61%) Prometheus
5 9 (1.11%) Ansible
6 7 (0.87%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.50%) Argo
8 2 (0.25%) Consul
8 2 (0.25%) Zipkin
9 1 (0.12%) HAProxy
9 1 (0.12%) SELinux
9 1 (0.12%) systemd
Vendors
1 58 (7.18%) Microsoft
2 33 (4.08%) Oracle
3 24 (2.97%) ServiceNow
4 23 (2.85%) Salesforce
5 13 (1.61%) SAP
6 12 (1.49%) Avaloq
7 11 (1.36%) Databricks
8 10 (1.24%) Google
9 6 (0.74%) Guidewire
9 6 (0.74%) Jaspersoft
9 6 (0.74%) Sybase
10 4 (0.50%) Blue Prism
10 4 (0.50%) ForgeRock
10 4 (0.50%) MuleSoft
10 4 (0.50%) OpenAI
10 4 (0.50%) Pega
10 4 (0.50%) Solace
11 3 (0.37%) Atlassian
11 3 (0.37%) Okta
11 3 (0.37%) Splunk