Senior Developer Contract Job Trends

Senior Developer
UK

The median Senior Developer daily rate in the UK is £535, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 May 2026.

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

6 months to
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 173 161 136
Rank change year-on-year -12 -25 -7
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 735 513 720
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.54% 1.76% 1.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.67% 1.90% 1.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 469 373 522
10th Percentile £406 £408 £410
25th Percentile £469 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -10.83% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £675 £738 £725
90th Percentile £888 £838 £861
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -2.95% +5.00% -13.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 1 12
10th Percentile £37.25 - £40.00
25th Percentile £39.17 - £51.14
Median hourly rate £45.56 £77.19 £58.91
Median % change year-on-year -40.98% +31.04% -5.75%
75th Percentile £82.79 - £72.50
90th Percentile £95.00 - £81.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.53 £77.19 £58.91
% change year-on-year -44.91% +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 44,026 26,985 39,997
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 92.51% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,063 17,602 26,016
10th Percentile £319 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.46% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.68% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,846 1,048 2,675
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.28
Median hourly rate £44.00 £28.68 £36.65
Median % change year-on-year +53.44% -21.76% -18.56%
75th Percentile £67.25 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.74
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.68 £27.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +66.12% -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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -17 617 £563 -6.25% 267
London -6 404 £625 -3.85% 101
UK excluding London -37 226 £510 -2.95% 199
Work from Home -18 205 £576 -3.96% 127
North of England -25 81 £538 -9.66% 61
Yorkshire -26 42 £575 +2.22% 17
Midlands -35 42 £513 -6.82% 22
North West -20 39 £500 -16.67% 32
South East -56 36 £560 +8.74% 60
West Midlands -38 34 £513 -6.82% 15
South West -18 27 £475 -20.83% 19
East of England -32 21 £500 -23.08% 23
Scotland -20 17 £413 -2.94% 11
East Midlands -27 7 £525 +14.13% 7
Northern Ireland +3 4 - - 6
North East -18 2 £538 +11.40% 13
Wales -12 1 - - 2

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

For the 6 months to 9 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 (31.84%) Java
2 213 (28.98%) AWS
3 189 (25.71%) CI/CD
4 182 (24.76%) Agile
5 160 (21.77%) Python
6 145 (19.73%) Microservices
7 140 (19.05%) Azure
8 129 (17.55%) SQL
9 127 (17.28%) Security Cleared
10 121 (16.46%) DevOps
11 120 (16.33%) Docker
11 120 (16.33%) SC Cleared
12 114 (15.51%) Kubernetes
13 106 (14.42%) JavaScript
14 101 (13.74%) React
15 99 (13.47%) Kafka
16 94 (12.79%) Spring
17 89 (12.11%) Containerisation
18 87 (11.84%) .NET
19 83 (11.29%) Spring Boot
20 79 (10.75%) C#
20 79 (10.75%) Test Automation
21 76 (10.34%) Problem-Solving
21 76 (10.34%) TypeScript
22 74 (10.07%) Software Engineering
22 74 (10.07%) TDD
23 73 (9.93%) Full-Stack Development
24 72 (9.80%) Git
25 67 (9.12%) RESTful
26 61 (8.30%) 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 (1.36%) Confluence
2 8 (1.09%) Apache Spark
3 7 (0.95%) Apache
4 6 (0.82%) CMS
4 6 (0.82%) nginx
5 4 (0.54%) Ethereum
5 4 (0.54%) Headless CMS
5 4 (0.54%) Hyperledger
5 4 (0.54%) SharePoint
6 3 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.41%) IIS
6 3 (0.41%) Mendix
6 3 (0.41%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 3 (0.41%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.41%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.27%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.27%) SAS
7 2 (0.27%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.27%) WordPress
8 1 (0.14%) LiveCycle
Applications
1 9 (1.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 17 (2.31%) Teamcenter
2 5 (0.68%) Endur
3 3 (0.41%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.27%) Aladdin
4 2 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.27%) SimCorp Dimension
5 1 (0.14%) FLEXCUBE
5 1 (0.14%) IBM Planning Analytics
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle Retail
5 1 (0.14%) R3 Corda
5 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.14%) SAP BRIM
5 1 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.14%) SDL Web 8
Cloud Services
1 213 (28.98%) AWS
2 140 (19.05%) Azure
3 55 (7.48%) GitHub
4 44 (5.99%) Azure DevOps
5 41 (5.58%) Serverless
6 39 (5.31%) Power Platform
7 33 (4.49%) GitHub Actions
8 27 (3.67%) GCP
9 26 (3.54%) Amazon SQS
10 25 (3.40%) Power Automate
11 23 (3.13%) AWS Lambda
12 19 (2.59%) PowerApps
13 18 (2.45%) Azure Service Bus
14 17 (2.31%) Amazon EC2
15 15 (2.04%) Amazon S3
16 14 (1.90%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 14 (1.90%) Copilot Studio
17 13 (1.77%) Amazon EKS
17 13 (1.77%) Microsoft Copilot
18 12 (1.63%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.09%) HTTP
2 5 (0.68%) Multicast
3 4 (0.54%) Reverse Proxy
4 2 (0.27%) Ethernet
4 2 (0.27%) Firewall
4 2 (0.27%) NFC
4 2 (0.27%) RTP
4 2 (0.27%) SSL
4 2 (0.27%) VPN
5 1 (0.14%) DNS
5 1 (0.14%) FTP
5 1 (0.14%) Kerberos
5 1 (0.14%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (7.07%) PostgreSQL
2 40 (5.44%) SQL Server
3 38 (5.17%) MongoDB
4 34 (4.63%) Relational Database
5 33 (4.49%) Power BI
6 32 (4.35%) NoSQL
7 26 (3.54%) Apache Cassandra
8 19 (2.59%) DynamoDB
9 17 (2.31%) MySQL
10 14 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
11 10 (1.36%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (1.36%) KDB
12 8 (1.09%) Data Hub
13 7 (0.95%) Kdb+
13 7 (0.95%) Oracle BI EE
14 6 (0.82%) Oracle Database
15 5 (0.68%) Amazon Aurora
15 5 (0.68%) Big Data
15 5 (0.68%) Redis
16 4 (0.54%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 72 (9.80%) Git
2 34 (4.63%) Jenkins
3 26 (3.54%) GitLab
4 24 (3.27%) Maven
5 22 (2.99%) JIRA
6 21 (2.86%) JUnit
7 17 (2.31%) Mockito
8 15 (2.04%) SonarQube
9 13 (1.77%) Gradle
10 8 (1.09%) Oracle APEX
11 5 (0.68%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.54%) Cypress.io
12 4 (0.54%) Snyk
13 3 (0.41%) Sonatype Nexus
13 3 (0.41%) TeamCity
13 3 (0.41%) webpack
14 2 (0.27%) Bitbucket Server
14 2 (0.27%) Cucumber
14 2 (0.27%) fastlane
14 2 (0.27%) git-flow
General
1 130 (17.69%) Finance
2 115 (15.65%) Public Sector
3 106 (14.42%) Social Skills
4 95 (12.93%) Banking
5 39 (5.31%) Investment Banking
6 35 (4.76%) Front Office
7 34 (4.63%) Analytical Skills
8 19 (2.59%) Financial Institution
9 9 (1.22%) Retail
10 8 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (0.82%) Military
11 6 (0.82%) Telecoms
12 4 (0.54%) Games
12 4 (0.54%) Manufacturing
12 4 (0.54%) Organisational Skills
13 3 (0.41%) Health Technology
13 3 (0.41%) Law
13 3 (0.41%) Legal
13 3 (0.41%) Police
14 2 (0.27%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (13.74%) React
2 99 (13.47%) Kafka
3 94 (12.79%) Spring
4 87 (11.84%) .NET
5 83 (11.29%) Spring Boot
6 67 (9.12%) RESTful
7 58 (7.89%) REST
8 56 (7.62%) Node.js
9 50 (6.80%) AngularJS
9 50 (6.80%) HTML
10 45 (6.12%) CSS
11 31 (4.22%) Redux
12 26 (3.54%) Web Services
13 25 (3.40%) gRPC
14 21 (2.86%) .NET Core
14 21 (2.86%) Django
15 20 (2.72%) .NET Framework
16 17 (2.31%) SOAP
17 16 (2.18%) OAuth
18 15 (2.04%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 61 (8.30%) Distributed Systems
2 55 (7.48%) Cloud Native
3 26 (3.54%) Product Ownership
4 22 (2.99%) Derivative
5 20 (2.72%) Fixed Income
5 20 (2.72%) Greenfield Project
6 18 (2.45%) Equities
6 18 (2.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 14 (1.90%) Algorithms
8 11 (1.50%) Management Information System
8 11 (1.50%) Market Risk
9 10 (1.36%) Mobile App
10 9 (1.22%) Onboarding
11 8 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
12 7 (0.95%) Data Structures
12 7 (0.95%) Equity Derivative
13 6 (0.82%) AI Agents
14 5 (0.68%) NHS
15 4 (0.54%) Legacy Applications
15 4 (0.54%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 44 (5.99%) Linux
2 27 (3.67%) Unix
3 18 (2.45%) Windows
4 10 (1.36%) Android
5 9 (1.22%) Mac OS
6 5 (0.68%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.68%) Mac OS X
7 2 (0.27%) Windows Server
8 1 (0.14%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 189 (25.71%) CI/CD
2 182 (24.76%) Agile
3 145 (19.73%) Microservices
4 121 (16.46%) DevOps
5 89 (12.11%) Containerisation
6 79 (10.75%) Test Automation
7 76 (10.34%) Problem-Solving
8 74 (10.07%) Software Engineering
8 74 (10.07%) TDD
9 73 (9.93%) Full-Stack Development
10 61 (8.30%) Code Quality
11 54 (7.35%) Data Modelling
12 50 (6.80%) Analytics
12 50 (6.80%) Infrastructure as Code
12 50 (6.80%) Mentoring
13 48 (6.53%) Front End Development
14 47 (6.39%) Event-Driven
15 45 (6.12%) Business Intelligence
15 45 (6.12%) Migration
15 45 (6.12%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 234 (31.84%) Java
2 160 (21.77%) Python
3 129 (17.55%) SQL
4 106 (14.42%) JavaScript
5 79 (10.75%) C#
6 76 (10.34%) TypeScript
7 39 (5.31%) Go
8 23 (3.13%) Kotlin
9 22 (2.99%) Ruby
10 17 (2.31%) C++
11 13 (1.77%) PL/SQL
12 9 (1.22%) PowerShell
12 9 (1.22%) Shell Script
13 8 (1.09%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 7 (0.95%) Bash
15 6 (0.82%) Apex Code
16 4 (0.54%) PHP
16 4 (0.54%) R
16 4 (0.54%) T-SQL
16 4 (0.54%) VBA
Qualifications
1 127 (17.28%) Security Cleared
2 120 (16.33%) SC Cleared
3 23 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
3 23 (3.13%) Degree
4 9 (1.22%) Computer Science Degree
5 6 (0.82%) DV Cleared
6 4 (0.54%) AWS Certification
6 4 (0.54%) Numerate Degree
7 3 (0.41%) AWS Certified Developer
8 2 (0.27%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.14%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 1 (0.14%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.14%) CISSP
9 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.14%) OCP
9 1 (0.14%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (4.08%) Accessibility
2 27 (3.67%) QA
3 18 (2.45%) WCAG
4 11 (1.50%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.27%) GDPR
5 2 (0.27%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 120 (16.33%) Docker
2 3 (0.41%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.27%) GridGain
3 2 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
3 2 (0.27%) Postfix
4 1 (0.14%) OpenAM
4 1 (0.14%) OpenDJ
4 1 (0.14%) OpenIDM
4 1 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 114 (15.51%) Kubernetes
2 53 (7.21%) Terraform
3 22 (2.99%) Grafana
4 16 (2.18%) Prometheus
5 14 (1.90%) Ansible
6 8 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.41%) Argo
8 1 (0.14%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.14%) Control-M
8 1 (0.14%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.14%) Kibana
8 1 (0.14%) SELinux
8 1 (0.14%) Sysdig
8 1 (0.14%) systemd
Vendors
1 46 (6.26%) Microsoft
2 37 (5.03%) Oracle
3 16 (2.18%) ServiceNow
4 15 (2.04%) Salesforce
5 11 (1.50%) Google
6 10 (1.36%) Databricks
7 9 (1.22%) Avaloq
7 9 (1.22%) SAP
8 6 (0.82%) Guidewire
8 6 (0.82%) Sybase
9 5 (0.68%) ForgeRock
10 4 (0.54%) Jaspersoft
10 4 (0.54%) Okta
10 4 (0.54%) Pega
11 3 (0.41%) Apple
11 3 (0.41%) Cognizant
11 3 (0.41%) New Relic
11 3 (0.41%) Splunk
12 2 (0.27%) Dynatrace
12 2 (0.27%) IBM