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 16 August 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 170 170 109
Rank change year-on-year 0 -61 +37
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 872 532 817
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.62% 1.61% 2.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.75% 1.76% 2.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 561 386 578
10th Percentile £400 £400 £400
25th Percentile £456 £449 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - -12.00%
75th Percentile £700 £700 £700
90th Percentile £938 £809 £833
UK excluding London median daily rate £518 £514 £500
% change year-on-year +0.68% +2.80% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 9
10th Percentile £37.25 - £39.00
25th Percentile £43.01 - £54.85
Median hourly rate £45.56 - £58.91
75th Percentile £46.18 - £62.96
90th Percentile - - £83.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.56 - £58.91

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 49,690 30,209 36,033
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.54% 91.30% 92.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,849 19,090 23,214
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,486 1,544 2,018
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.23
25th Percentile £20.62 £17.29 £20.12
Median hourly rate £41.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.84% -41.51% +2.38%
75th Percentile £67.96 £53.89 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +21.62%

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 16 August 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 16 August 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 -3 718 £575 +2.68% 163
London -7 431 £625 -3.85% 62
UK excluding London +24 329 £518 +0.68% 130
Work from Home -36 234 £525 -5.75% 94
North of England +2 122 £575 +9.52% 39
Yorkshire -1 63 £550 - 11
Midlands -8 56 £506 +1.25% 22
North West -6 52 £625 +25.00% 21
Scotland +15 48 £410 +1.49% 11
West Midlands -16 45 £513 -6.82% 11
South West -30 44 £513 -6.61% 11
South East -65 44 £494 -6.26% 39
East Midlands -14 10 £500 +9.89% 11
East of England -23 10 £500 - 7
North East -32 9 £875 +79.49% 7
Northern Ireland +4 4 £650 +30.00%
Wales -16 2 £469 +44.23% 3

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

For the 6 months to 16 August 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.

1 284 (32.57%) CI/CD
2 271 (31.08%) Agile
3 262 (30.05%) Java
4 185 (21.22%) Azure
5 179 (20.53%) AWS
6 178 (20.41%) Python
7 174 (19.95%) SQL
8 168 (19.27%) Microservices
9 160 (18.35%) C#
10 158 (18.12%) DevOps
11 153 (17.55%) JavaScript
12 148 (16.97%) Security Cleared
13 140 (16.06%) TypeScript
14 138 (15.83%) React
15 136 (15.60%) SC Cleared
16 134 (15.37%) REST
17 125 (14.33%) .NET
18 121 (13.88%) Docker
18 121 (13.88%) Git
19 119 (13.65%) Full-Stack Development
20 115 (13.19%) RESTful
21 105 (12.04%) Spring
21 105 (12.04%) Test Automation
22 103 (11.81%) Kubernetes
23 100 (11.47%) Software Engineering
24 87 (9.98%) Problem-Solving
25 86 (9.86%) AI
25 86 (9.86%) Spring Boot
26 85 (9.75%) Containerisation
27 80 (9.17%) Continuous Improvement

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 (1.95%) Confluence
2 12 (1.38%) Apache Spark
3 9 (1.03%) Apache
3 9 (1.03%) CMS
3 9 (1.03%) Oracle Workflow
4 8 (0.92%) WordPress
5 5 (0.57%) SharePoint
6 4 (0.46%) Headless CMS
7 3 (0.34%) Ethereum
7 3 (0.34%) Hyperledger
7 3 (0.34%) Moodle
8 2 (0.23%) Appian
8 2 (0.23%) Cloud Foundry
8 2 (0.23%) IIS
8 2 (0.23%) Mendix
8 2 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
8 2 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 2 (0.23%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.11%) HCL Domino
9 1 (0.11%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 5 (0.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 17 (1.95%) Teamcenter
2 11 (1.26%) Oracle EBS
3 8 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.80%) NetSuite
5 6 (0.69%) Endur
6 5 (0.57%) Oracle Financials
6 5 (0.57%) Oracle General Ledger
6 5 (0.57%) Oracle Payables
6 5 (0.57%) Oracle Receivables
7 4 (0.46%) Oracle FAH
8 3 (0.34%) Aladdin
8 3 (0.34%) Oracle Applications
8 3 (0.34%) Oracle Assets
8 3 (0.34%) Quorum
8 3 (0.34%) R3 Corda
8 3 (0.34%) Ripple
8 3 (0.34%) Shopify
8 3 (0.34%) SimCorp Dimension
9 2 (0.23%) Oracle iProcurement
9 2 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 185 (21.22%) Azure
2 179 (20.53%) AWS
3 79 (9.06%) GitHub
4 52 (5.96%) GitHub Actions
5 51 (5.85%) Power Platform
6 46 (5.28%) GCP
7 45 (5.16%) Azure DevOps
8 44 (5.05%) Serverless
9 34 (3.90%) Power Automate
10 21 (2.41%) PowerApps
11 20 (2.29%) Amazon S3
11 20 (2.29%) Amazon SQS
12 18 (2.06%) AWS Lambda
12 18 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
13 13 (1.49%) Azure Service Bus
13 13 (1.49%) GitHub Copilot
14 12 (1.38%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 12 (1.38%) Amazon EC2
14 12 (1.38%) OpenShift
15 11 (1.26%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 6 (0.69%) Multicast
2 3 (0.34%) Broadband
2 3 (0.34%) HTTP
2 3 (0.34%) NFC
3 2 (0.23%) RTP
4 1 (0.11%) CTI
4 1 (0.11%) Ethernet
4 1 (0.11%) MQTT
4 1 (0.11%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (7.91%) PostgreSQL
2 61 (7.00%) SQL Server
3 53 (6.08%) Relational Database
4 43 (4.93%) Power BI
5 35 (4.01%) MongoDB
6 28 (3.21%) NoSQL
7 19 (2.18%) DynamoDB
7 19 (2.18%) Oracle Database
8 15 (1.72%) Data Warehouse
9 14 (1.61%) MySQL
10 12 (1.38%) Amazon RDS
10 12 (1.38%) Redis
11 11 (1.26%) Azure SQL Database
11 11 (1.26%) RDBMS
12 10 (1.15%) Apache Cassandra
12 10 (1.15%) KDB
13 8 (0.92%) Amazon Aurora
13 8 (0.92%) Geospatial Data
13 8 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
14 7 (0.80%) Kdb+
Development Applications
1 121 (13.88%) Git
2 62 (7.11%) Jenkins
3 31 (3.56%) JIRA
3 31 (3.56%) Maven
4 29 (3.33%) GitLab
5 28 (3.21%) Mockito
6 27 (3.10%) JUnit
7 16 (1.83%) SonarQube
8 14 (1.61%) Gradle
9 9 (1.03%) Oracle Forms
10 7 (0.80%) Bitbucket
10 7 (0.80%) Claude Code
11 5 (0.57%) Cucumber
11 5 (0.57%) MSI
11 5 (0.57%) Visual Studio Code
11 5 (0.57%) Xcode
12 4 (0.46%) Cypress.io
12 4 (0.46%) Snyk
12 4 (0.46%) Vite
12 4 (0.46%) XCUITest
General
1 182 (20.87%) Finance
2 158 (18.12%) Social Skills
3 140 (16.06%) Public Sector
4 125 (14.33%) Banking
5 66 (7.57%) Front Office
6 64 (7.34%) Analytical Skills
7 61 (7.00%) Investment Banking
8 37 (4.24%) Retail
9 25 (2.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 14 (1.61%) Financial Institution
10 14 (1.61%) Military
11 10 (1.15%) Games
12 9 (1.03%) Back Office
13 8 (0.92%) Legal
14 7 (0.80%) Law
15 6 (0.69%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.69%) Telecoms
16 5 (0.57%) Local Government
17 3 (0.34%) Organisational Skills
17 3 (0.34%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 138 (15.83%) React
2 134 (15.37%) REST
3 125 (14.33%) .NET
4 115 (13.19%) RESTful
5 105 (12.04%) Spring
6 86 (9.86%) Spring Boot
7 70 (8.03%) Kafka
8 61 (7.00%) Node.js
9 58 (6.65%) HTML
10 57 (6.54%) Redux
11 50 (5.73%) CSS
12 49 (5.62%) AngularJS
13 42 (4.82%) SOAP
14 34 (3.90%) Django
14 34 (3.90%) Web Services
15 32 (3.67%) HTML5
16 30 (3.44%) JSON
17 29 (3.33%) .NET Core
18 27 (3.10%) RabbitMQ
19 26 (2.98%) CSS3
Miscellaneous
1 62 (7.11%) Cloud Native
2 60 (6.88%) Distributed Systems
3 49 (5.62%) Fixed Income
3 49 (5.62%) Product Ownership
4 48 (5.50%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 40 (4.59%) Equities
6 36 (4.13%) Greenfield Project
7 24 (2.75%) Enterprise Software
8 17 (1.95%) Data Structures
9 16 (1.83%) CMDB
10 14 (1.61%) AI Agents
10 14 (1.61%) Mobile App
10 14 (1.61%) Onboarding
11 13 (1.49%) Derivative
11 13 (1.49%) Legacy Systems
12 12 (1.38%) Algorithms
13 7 (0.80%) Market Risk
14 5 (0.57%) Low-Code
14 5 (0.57%) Spread Betting
14 5 (0.57%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 49 (5.62%) Linux
2 44 (5.05%) Unix
3 21 (2.41%) Windows
4 12 (1.38%) Android
5 11 (1.26%) Apple iOS
6 6 (0.69%) AIX
6 6 (0.69%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.57%) Windows Server
8 4 (0.46%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 284 (32.57%) CI/CD
2 271 (31.08%) Agile
3 168 (19.27%) Microservices
4 158 (18.12%) DevOps
5 119 (13.65%) Full-Stack Development
6 105 (12.04%) Test Automation
7 100 (11.47%) Software Engineering
8 87 (9.98%) Problem-Solving
9 86 (9.86%) AI
10 85 (9.75%) Containerisation
11 80 (9.17%) Continuous Improvement
12 77 (8.83%) TDD
13 76 (8.72%) Data Modelling
14 74 (8.49%) Mentoring
15 72 (8.26%) Event-Driven
16 70 (8.03%) Scrum
17 67 (7.68%) Code Quality
18 66 (7.57%) Business Intelligence
19 62 (7.11%) Migration
20 57 (6.54%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 262 (30.05%) Java
2 178 (20.41%) Python
3 174 (19.95%) SQL
4 160 (18.35%) C#
5 153 (17.55%) JavaScript
6 140 (16.06%) TypeScript
7 24 (2.75%) Ruby
8 23 (2.64%) Apex Code
9 22 (2.52%) PL/SQL
10 19 (2.18%) C++
10 19 (2.18%) Shell Script
11 15 (1.72%) Kotlin
12 14 (1.61%) Go
13 13 (1.49%) SOQL
14 10 (1.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 9 (1.03%) PHP
15 9 (1.03%) Swift
16 8 (0.92%) C
16 8 (0.92%) Scala
16 8 (0.92%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 148 (16.97%) Security Cleared
2 136 (15.60%) SC Cleared
3 33 (3.78%) Degree
4 18 (2.06%) Computer Science Degree
5 16 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (0.80%) DV Cleared
7 5 (0.57%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (0.34%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.34%) AWS Certified Developer
8 3 (0.34%) Master's Degree
8 3 (0.34%) Numerate Degree
9 2 (0.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.11%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 1 (0.11%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.11%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (5.85%) Accessibility
2 48 (5.50%) QA
3 27 (3.10%) WCAG
4 23 (2.64%) Data Quality
5 7 (0.80%) GDPR
6 5 (0.57%) NCSC
7 2 (0.23%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.23%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.11%) Basel III
8 1 (0.11%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.11%) GRC
8 1 (0.11%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.11%) SEPA
8 1 (0.11%) Solvency II
System Software
1 121 (13.88%) Docker
2 7 (0.80%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.23%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 2 (0.23%) GridGain
4 2 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
4 2 (0.23%) Postfix
5 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 103 (11.81%) Kubernetes
2 60 (6.88%) Terraform
3 20 (2.29%) Grafana
4 15 (1.72%) Ansible
4 15 (1.72%) Prometheus
5 4 (0.46%) Argo
6 3 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.23%) Bosun
7 2 (0.23%) Consul
7 2 (0.23%) Zipkin
8 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.11%) SELinux
8 1 (0.11%) systemd
Vendors
1 78 (8.94%) Microsoft
2 63 (7.22%) Oracle
3 39 (4.47%) Salesforce
4 30 (3.44%) ServiceNow
5 20 (2.29%) Databricks
6 16 (1.83%) Avaloq
6 16 (1.83%) Google
7 14 (1.61%) MuleSoft
8 10 (1.15%) Blue Prism
9 9 (1.03%) IBM
9 9 (1.03%) SAP
10 6 (0.69%) Jaspersoft
10 6 (0.69%) Solace
11 5 (0.57%) BeyondTrust
11 5 (0.57%) Bomgar
11 5 (0.57%) Sybase
11 5 (0.57%) VMware
12 4 (0.46%) ForgeRock
13 3 (0.34%) Citrix
13 3 (0.34%) Okta