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 23 June 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 169 162 126
Rank change year-on-year -7 -36 +10
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 802 544 789
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.58% 1.82% 1.81%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.71% 1.97% 1.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 497 388 578
10th Percentile £404 £400 £404
25th Percentile £475 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.61% +4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £738 £721 £700
90th Percentile £938 £825 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £525 £481
% change year-on-year -2.38% +9.09% -12.50%
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 46,904 27,610 40,551
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 92.14% 92.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,521 17,729 25,983
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £414 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.60% -1.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,134 1,203 2,979
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.85 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.44 £16.37
Median hourly rate £43.25 £27.38 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.99% -27.00% -14.77%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -1.23%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -8 685 £575 -4.17% 136
London -3 434 £625 -3.85% 56
UK excluding London -9 281 £513 -2.38% 136
Work from Home -41 208 £560 -3.45% 98
North of England -6 102 £575 +9.52% 27
Yorkshire -11 53 £550 +4.76% 8
Midlands -27 46 £513 -4.21% 14
North West -17 44 £510 +2.00% 16
South East -54 40 £560 +5.96% 44
West Midlands -35 39 £513 -6.82% 10
South West -18 38 £500 -16.67% 9
Scotland -14 34 £410 -12.11% 20
East of England -21 15 £500 -23.08% 6
East Midlands -16 6 £525 +15.38% 4
North East -31 5 £875 +133.33% 4
Northern Ireland -1 4 £650 +30.00% 8
Wales -16 2 £525 +61.54% 9

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

For the 6 months to 23 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.

1 255 (31.80%) Java
2 219 (27.31%) CI/CD
3 216 (26.93%) Agile
4 197 (24.56%) AWS
5 168 (20.95%) Python
6 163 (20.32%) Azure
7 159 (19.83%) Microservices
8 148 (18.45%) SQL
9 134 (16.71%) JavaScript
10 132 (16.46%) React
11 128 (15.96%) DevOps
12 126 (15.71%) C#
12 126 (15.71%) Security Cleared
13 118 (14.71%) SC Cleared
13 118 (14.71%) TypeScript
14 116 (14.46%) Docker
15 103 (12.84%) Kubernetes
16 101 (12.59%) .NET
17 98 (12.22%) Full-Stack Development
18 96 (11.97%) Git
19 93 (11.60%) REST
19 93 (11.60%) RESTful
20 92 (11.47%) Spring
21 89 (11.10%) Software Engineering
22 85 (10.60%) Test Automation
23 83 (10.35%) Spring Boot
24 82 (10.22%) Containerisation
24 82 (10.22%) Kafka
25 76 (9.48%) TDD
26 74 (9.23%) Problem-Solving

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 12 (1.50%) Confluence
2 10 (1.25%) Apache Spark
3 8 (1.00%) Apache
4 7 (0.87%) Ethereum
4 7 (0.87%) Hyperledger
5 6 (0.75%) CMS
6 5 (0.62%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.50%) Headless CMS
7 4 (0.50%) Mendix
8 3 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.37%) Appian
8 3 (0.37%) IIS
8 3 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.25%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.25%) Moodle
9 2 (0.25%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.25%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.25%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.12%) Umbraco
10 1 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 8 (1.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 17 (2.12%) Teamcenter
2 5 (0.62%) Endur
3 4 (0.50%) R3 Corda
4 3 (0.37%) Aladdin
4 3 (0.37%) NetSuite
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%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.25%) Orchestrade
6 1 (0.12%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.12%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 197 (24.56%) AWS
2 163 (20.32%) Azure
3 59 (7.36%) GitHub
4 44 (5.49%) Serverless
5 40 (4.99%) Power Platform
6 38 (4.74%) GCP
6 38 (4.74%) GitHub Actions
7 35 (4.36%) Azure DevOps
8 25 (3.12%) Power Automate
9 24 (2.99%) AWS Lambda
10 21 (2.62%) Amazon SQS
10 21 (2.62%) PowerApps
11 20 (2.49%) Amazon S3
12 17 (2.12%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 17 (2.12%) Azure Service Bus
13 16 (2.00%) Amazon ECS
14 14 (1.75%) Amazon EC2
14 14 (1.75%) Copilot Studio
14 14 (1.75%) Dynamics 365
15 13 (1.62%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.00%) HTTP
2 6 (0.75%) Multicast
3 3 (0.37%) NFC
4 2 (0.25%) Ethernet
4 2 (0.25%) RTP
5 1 (0.12%) CTI
5 1 (0.12%) DNS
5 1 (0.12%) MQTT
5 1 (0.12%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (6.98%) PostgreSQL
2 47 (5.86%) Relational Database
3 45 (5.61%) SQL Server
4 35 (4.36%) Power BI
5 32 (3.99%) MongoDB
6 29 (3.62%) NoSQL
7 20 (2.49%) Apache Cassandra
7 20 (2.49%) DynamoDB
8 17 (2.12%) MySQL
9 14 (1.75%) Amazon RDS
10 12 (1.50%) Data Warehouse
11 11 (1.37%) Oracle Database
12 10 (1.25%) KDB
13 8 (1.00%) Redis
14 7 (0.87%) Amazon Aurora
14 7 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.87%) Kdb+
15 6 (0.75%) Data Lake
15 6 (0.75%) RDBMS
15 6 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 96 (11.97%) Git
2 48 (5.99%) Jenkins
3 25 (3.12%) JIRA
3 25 (3.12%) JUnit
3 25 (3.12%) Maven
4 22 (2.74%) GitLab
5 19 (2.37%) Mockito
6 18 (2.24%) SonarQube
7 13 (1.62%) Gradle
8 5 (0.62%) Snyk
8 5 (0.62%) Xcode
9 4 (0.50%) Ant
9 4 (0.50%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.50%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.50%) XCTest
9 4 (0.50%) XCUITest
10 3 (0.37%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 3 (0.37%) Cucumber
10 3 (0.37%) jMock
10 3 (0.37%) TeamCity
General
1 177 (22.07%) Finance
2 129 (16.08%) Banking
3 118 (14.71%) Public Sector
4 114 (14.21%) Social Skills
5 66 (8.23%) Investment Banking
6 63 (7.86%) Front Office
7 45 (5.61%) Analytical Skills
8 19 (2.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 18 (2.24%) Financial Institution
10 16 (2.00%) Retail
11 11 (1.37%) Military
12 10 (1.25%) Legal
13 7 (0.87%) Law
14 6 (0.75%) Manufacturing
15 5 (0.62%) Telecoms
16 4 (0.50%) Back Office
16 4 (0.50%) Games
16 4 (0.50%) Health Technology
17 3 (0.37%) Organisational Skills
17 3 (0.37%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 132 (16.46%) React
2 101 (12.59%) .NET
3 93 (11.60%) REST
3 93 (11.60%) RESTful
4 92 (11.47%) Spring
5 83 (10.35%) Spring Boot
6 82 (10.22%) Kafka
7 59 (7.36%) Redux
8 57 (7.11%) AngularJS
9 52 (6.48%) HTML
10 49 (6.11%) Node.js
11 46 (5.74%) CSS
12 35 (4.36%) Web Services
13 29 (3.62%) SOAP
14 26 (3.24%) .NET Core
15 25 (3.12%) Django
16 21 (2.62%) RabbitMQ
17 20 (2.49%) OAuth
18 19 (2.37%) .NET Framework
18 19 (2.37%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 58 (7.23%) Distributed Systems
2 52 (6.48%) Cloud Native
3 48 (5.99%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 45 (5.61%) Fixed Income
5 42 (5.24%) Greenfield Project
6 40 (4.99%) Equities
7 38 (4.74%) Product Ownership
8 20 (2.49%) Mobile App
9 17 (2.12%) Algorithms
9 17 (2.12%) Derivative
10 13 (1.62%) CMDB
11 11 (1.37%) AI Agents
11 11 (1.37%) Onboarding
12 10 (1.25%) Data Structures
13 9 (1.12%) Enterprise Software
13 9 (1.12%) Legacy Systems
14 7 (0.87%) Management Information System
15 6 (0.75%) Market Risk
16 5 (0.62%) Blockchain
16 5 (0.62%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 43 (5.36%) Linux
2 28 (3.49%) Unix
3 21 (2.62%) Windows
4 12 (1.50%) Apple iOS
5 11 (1.37%) Android
6 9 (1.12%) 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 (27.31%) CI/CD
2 216 (26.93%) Agile
3 159 (19.83%) Microservices
4 128 (15.96%) DevOps
5 98 (12.22%) Full-Stack Development
6 89 (11.10%) Software Engineering
7 85 (10.60%) Test Automation
8 82 (10.22%) Containerisation
9 76 (9.48%) TDD
10 74 (9.23%) Problem-Solving
11 72 (8.98%) Data Modelling
12 62 (7.73%) Mentoring
13 60 (7.48%) Event-Driven
14 59 (7.36%) AI
14 59 (7.36%) Scrum
15 58 (7.23%) Code Quality
16 51 (6.36%) Design Patterns
17 50 (6.23%) Analytics
17 50 (6.23%) Low Latency
18 49 (6.11%) Electronic Trading
Programming Languages
1 255 (31.80%) Java
2 168 (20.95%) Python
3 148 (18.45%) SQL
4 134 (16.71%) JavaScript
5 126 (15.71%) C#
6 118 (14.71%) TypeScript
7 28 (3.49%) Go
8 24 (2.99%) Kotlin
9 22 (2.74%) Ruby
10 21 (2.62%) C++
11 13 (1.62%) Apex Code
12 10 (1.25%) Swift
13 8 (1.00%) PL/SQL
13 8 (1.00%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.87%) PowerShell
14 7 (0.87%) SOQL
14 7 (0.87%) SOSL
15 6 (0.75%) C
15 6 (0.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 5 (0.62%) R
Qualifications
1 126 (15.71%) Security Cleared
2 118 (14.71%) SC Cleared
3 24 (2.99%) Degree
4 11 (1.37%) Computer Science Degree
5 9 (1.12%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (0.87%) DV Cleared
7 5 (0.62%) AWS Certification
8 4 (0.50%) AWS Certified Developer
9 3 (0.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (0.25%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (0.25%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.25%) Numerate Degree
11 1 (0.12%) Azure Certification
11 1 (0.12%) CISSP
11 1 (0.12%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (4.24%) Accessibility
2 32 (3.99%) QA
3 22 (2.74%) WCAG
4 15 (1.87%) 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
1 116 (14.46%) Docker
2 5 (0.62%) 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
1 103 (12.84%) Kubernetes
2 51 (6.36%) Terraform
3 18 (2.24%) Grafana
4 13 (1.62%) Prometheus
5 11 (1.37%) 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%) SELinux
9 1 (0.12%) systemd
Vendors
1 55 (6.86%) Microsoft
2 33 (4.11%) Oracle
3 28 (3.49%) ServiceNow
4 24 (2.99%) Salesforce
5 13 (1.62%) SAP
6 12 (1.50%) Avaloq
7 11 (1.37%) Databricks
7 11 (1.37%) Google
8 6 (0.75%) Guidewire
8 6 (0.75%) Jaspersoft
8 6 (0.75%) MuleSoft
8 6 (0.75%) Sybase
9 4 (0.50%) Blue Prism
9 4 (0.50%) ForgeRock
9 4 (0.50%) OpenAI
9 4 (0.50%) Pega
9 4 (0.50%) Solace
10 3 (0.37%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.37%) Okta
10 3 (0.37%) Splunk