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 20 June 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 162 157 128
Rank change year-on-year -5 -29 +11
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 814 541 788
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.61% 1.81% 1.80%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.74% 1.96% 1.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 508 387 577
10th Percentile £405 £400 £401
25th Percentile £473 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.61% +4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £718 £723 £700
90th Percentile £938 £825 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £525 £475
% change year-on-year -2.38% +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 46,784 27,533 40,775
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.37% 92.21% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,447 17,712 26,117
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £414 £402 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,114 1,185 2,993
10th Percentile £15.25 £13.91 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.50 £16.37
Median hourly rate £44.94 £27.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.40% -26.67% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -3.61%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -9 693 £575 -4.17% 143
London +1 440 £625 -3.85% 53
UK excluding London -14 283 £513 -2.38% 137
Work from Home -40 214 £560 -2.61% 103
North of England -8 103 £575 +9.52% 28
Yorkshire -17 54 £575 +9.52% 7
Midlands -32 46 £513 -6.82% 15
North West -20 44 £510 +2.00% 18
South East -55 41 £560 +5.96% 46
West Midlands -37 39 £513 -6.82% 11
South West -14 38 £500 -16.67% 11
Scotland -8 34 £410 -12.11% 16
East of England -27 15 £500 -23.08% 8
East Midlands -14 6 £525 +28.05% 4
North East -31 5 £875 +133.33% 4
Northern Ireland 0 4 £650 +30.00% 6
Wales -15 2 £525 +61.54% 8

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

For the 6 months to 20 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.

1 257 (31.57%) Java
2 222 (27.27%) CI/CD
3 217 (26.66%) Agile
4 199 (24.45%) AWS
5 172 (21.13%) Python
6 166 (20.39%) Azure
7 158 (19.41%) Microservices
8 148 (18.18%) SQL
9 136 (16.71%) JavaScript
10 134 (16.46%) React
11 130 (15.97%) DevOps
12 128 (15.72%) C#
12 128 (15.72%) Security Cleared
13 119 (14.62%) Docker
13 119 (14.62%) SC Cleared
13 119 (14.62%) TypeScript
14 106 (13.02%) Kubernetes
15 101 (12.41%) .NET
16 99 (12.16%) Full-Stack Development
17 98 (12.04%) Git
18 93 (11.43%) REST
18 93 (11.43%) RESTful
18 93 (11.43%) Spring
19 90 (11.06%) Software Engineering
20 84 (10.32%) Test Automation
21 83 (10.20%) Containerisation
21 83 (10.20%) Kafka
21 83 (10.20%) Spring Boot
22 75 (9.21%) Problem-Solving
22 75 (9.21%) TDD

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 (1.47%) Confluence
2 10 (1.23%) Apache Spark
3 8 (0.98%) Apache
4 7 (0.86%) Ethereum
4 7 (0.86%) Hyperledger
5 6 (0.74%) CMS
6 5 (0.61%) Mendix
6 5 (0.61%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.49%) Headless CMS
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%) SAS
10 1 (0.12%) Umbraco
Applications
1 8 (0.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 17 (2.09%) Teamcenter
2 5 (0.61%) Endur
3 4 (0.49%) 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 Assets
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
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
1 199 (24.45%) AWS
2 166 (20.39%) Azure
3 60 (7.37%) GitHub
4 45 (5.53%) Serverless
5 41 (5.04%) Power Platform
6 38 (4.67%) GCP
6 38 (4.67%) GitHub Actions
7 35 (4.30%) Azure DevOps
8 27 (3.32%) Power Automate
9 24 (2.95%) AWS Lambda
10 21 (2.58%) Amazon SQS
10 21 (2.58%) PowerApps
11 20 (2.46%) Amazon S3
12 19 (2.33%) Azure Service Bus
13 17 (2.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 16 (1.97%) Amazon ECS
14 16 (1.97%) Dynamics 365
15 14 (1.72%) Amazon EC2
15 14 (1.72%) Copilot Studio
16 13 (1.60%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.98%) HTTP
2 6 (0.74%) 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 (6.88%) PostgreSQL
2 47 (5.77%) Relational Database
3 45 (5.53%) SQL Server
4 36 (4.42%) Power BI
5 32 (3.93%) MongoDB
6 29 (3.56%) NoSQL
7 20 (2.46%) Apache Cassandra
7 20 (2.46%) DynamoDB
8 17 (2.09%) MySQL
9 14 (1.72%) Amazon RDS
10 13 (1.60%) Data Warehouse
11 11 (1.35%) Oracle Database
12 10 (1.23%) KDB
13 8 (0.98%) Redis
14 7 (0.86%) Amazon Aurora
14 7 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.86%) Kdb+
15 6 (0.74%) Data Lake
15 6 (0.74%) RDBMS
15 6 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 98 (12.04%) Git
2 48 (5.90%) Jenkins
3 25 (3.07%) JIRA
3 25 (3.07%) JUnit
3 25 (3.07%) Maven
4 22 (2.70%) GitLab
5 19 (2.33%) Mockito
6 18 (2.21%) SonarQube
7 13 (1.60%) Gradle
8 5 (0.61%) Snyk
8 5 (0.61%) Xcode
9 4 (0.49%) Ant
9 4 (0.49%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.49%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.49%) XCTest
9 4 (0.49%) XCUITest
10 3 (0.37%) Bitbucket Server
10 3 (0.37%) git-flow
10 3 (0.37%) Visual Studio Code
10 3 (0.37%) Vite
General
1 179 (21.99%) Finance
2 130 (15.97%) Banking
3 122 (14.99%) Public Sector
4 117 (14.37%) Social Skills
5 66 (8.11%) Investment Banking
6 63 (7.74%) Front Office
7 46 (5.65%) Analytical Skills
8 19 (2.33%) Financial Institution
8 19 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 16 (1.97%) Retail
10 11 (1.35%) Military
11 10 (1.23%) Legal
12 8 (0.98%) Law
13 6 (0.74%) Manufacturing
14 5 (0.61%) Telecoms
15 4 (0.49%) Back Office
15 4 (0.49%) Games
15 4 (0.49%) Health Technology
16 3 (0.37%) Documentation Skills
16 3 (0.37%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 134 (16.46%) React
2 101 (12.41%) .NET
3 93 (11.43%) REST
3 93 (11.43%) RESTful
3 93 (11.43%) Spring
4 83 (10.20%) Kafka
4 83 (10.20%) Spring Boot
5 60 (7.37%) Redux
6 57 (7.00%) AngularJS
7 53 (6.51%) HTML
8 52 (6.39%) Node.js
9 47 (5.77%) CSS
10 36 (4.42%) Web Services
11 29 (3.56%) SOAP
12 26 (3.19%) .NET Core
13 24 (2.95%) Django
14 21 (2.58%) RabbitMQ
15 20 (2.46%) OAuth
16 19 (2.33%) .NET Framework
16 19 (2.33%) HTML5
Miscellaneous
1 57 (7.00%) Distributed Systems
2 53 (6.51%) Cloud Native
3 49 (6.02%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 46 (5.65%) Fixed Income
5 42 (5.16%) Greenfield Project
6 41 (5.04%) Equities
7 38 (4.67%) Product Ownership
8 20 (2.46%) Mobile App
9 17 (2.09%) Algorithms
9 17 (2.09%) Derivative
10 13 (1.60%) CMDB
11 12 (1.47%) Onboarding
12 11 (1.35%) AI Agents
13 10 (1.23%) Data Structures
13 10 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
15 7 (0.86%) Management Information System
16 6 (0.74%) Market Risk
17 5 (0.61%) Equity Derivative
17 5 (0.61%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 43 (5.28%) Linux
2 28 (3.44%) Unix
3 21 (2.58%) Windows
4 12 (1.47%) Apple iOS
5 11 (1.35%) Android
6 9 (1.11%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.61%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.25%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.12%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 222 (27.27%) CI/CD
2 217 (26.66%) Agile
3 158 (19.41%) Microservices
4 130 (15.97%) DevOps
5 99 (12.16%) Full-Stack Development
6 90 (11.06%) Software Engineering
7 84 (10.32%) Test Automation
8 83 (10.20%) Containerisation
9 75 (9.21%) Problem-Solving
9 75 (9.21%) TDD
10 73 (8.97%) Data Modelling
11 62 (7.62%) Mentoring
12 60 (7.37%) Code Quality
12 60 (7.37%) Event-Driven
13 59 (7.25%) AI
13 59 (7.25%) Scrum
14 52 (6.39%) Design Patterns
15 51 (6.27%) Analytics
15 51 (6.27%) Low Latency
16 50 (6.14%) Electronic Trading
Programming Languages
1 257 (31.57%) Java
2 172 (21.13%) Python
3 148 (18.18%) SQL
4 136 (16.71%) JavaScript
5 128 (15.72%) C#
6 119 (14.62%) TypeScript
7 28 (3.44%) Go
8 24 (2.95%) Kotlin
9 23 (2.83%) Ruby
10 21 (2.58%) C++
11 13 (1.60%) Apex Code
12 10 (1.23%) Swift
13 9 (1.11%) PowerShell
14 8 (0.98%) PL/SQL
14 8 (0.98%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.86%) SOQL
15 7 (0.86%) SOSL
16 6 (0.74%) C
17 5 (0.61%) R
Qualifications
1 128 (15.72%) Security Cleared
2 119 (14.62%) SC Cleared
3 24 (2.95%) Degree
4 11 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (1.23%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (0.86%) DV Cleared
7 5 (0.61%) AWS Certification
8 4 (0.49%) 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 35 (4.30%) Accessibility
2 32 (3.93%) QA
3 23 (2.83%) WCAG
4 15 (1.84%) 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 (14.62%) Docker
2 5 (0.61%) 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
1 106 (13.02%) Kubernetes
2 53 (6.51%) Terraform
3 18 (2.21%) Grafana
4 13 (1.60%) Prometheus
5 11 (1.35%) Ansible
6 7 (0.86%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.49%) Argo
8 2 (0.25%) Consul
8 2 (0.25%) Zipkin
9 1 (0.12%) SELinux
9 1 (0.12%) systemd
Vendors
1 58 (7.13%) Microsoft
2 33 (4.05%) Oracle
3 27 (3.32%) ServiceNow
4 24 (2.95%) Salesforce
5 13 (1.60%) SAP
6 12 (1.47%) Avaloq
7 11 (1.35%) Databricks
7 11 (1.35%) Google
8 6 (0.74%) Guidewire
8 6 (0.74%) Jaspersoft
8 6 (0.74%) MuleSoft
8 6 (0.74%) Sybase
9 4 (0.49%) Blue Prism
9 4 (0.49%) ForgeRock
9 4 (0.49%) OpenAI
9 4 (0.49%) Pega
9 4 (0.49%) Solace
10 3 (0.37%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.37%) Okta
10 3 (0.37%) Splunk