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 26 June 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 172 159 126
Rank change year-on-year -13 -33 +10
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 791 545 786
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.55% 1.80% 1.81%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.68% 1.96% 1.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 489 391 576
10th Percentile £401 £400 £401
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 £728 £723 £714
90th Percentile £938 £825 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -2.38% +5.00% -9.09%
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 47,008 27,876 40,382
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.38% 92.16% 92.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,552 17,889 25,942
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £415 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -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% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,155 1,223 2,887
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.76 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.08 £17.31 £16.58
Median hourly rate £43.61 £26.45 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.86% -29.47% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £55.37 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.65 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -13 676 £575 -4.17% 154
London -2 423 £625 -3.85% 62
UK excluding London -20 283 £513 -2.38% 147
Work from Home -55 207 £560 -4.27% 97
North of England +1 103 £575 +9.52% 20
Yorkshire -5 54 £575 +9.52% 5
Midlands -39 45 £513 -4.21% 21
North West -19 44 £510 +2.00% 11
South East -50 42 £560 +4.67% 50
South West -19 38 £500 -16.67% 12
West Midlands -37 37 £513 -6.82% 15
Scotland -10 34 £410 -12.11% 23
East of England -23 15 £500 -23.08% 9
East Midlands -7 7 £525 +15.38% 6
North East -27 5 £875 +133.33% 4
Northern Ireland +2 4 £650 +30.00% 3
Wales -15 2 £525 +61.54% 10

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

For the 6 months to 26 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.

1 250 (31.61%) Java
2 219 (27.69%) CI/CD
3 217 (27.43%) Agile
4 190 (24.02%) AWS
5 167 (21.11%) Python
6 163 (20.61%) Azure
7 159 (20.10%) Microservices
8 152 (19.22%) SQL
9 134 (16.94%) JavaScript
10 129 (16.31%) DevOps
11 127 (16.06%) C#
11 127 (16.06%) React
12 124 (15.68%) Security Cleared
13 119 (15.04%) TypeScript
14 116 (14.66%) Docker
14 116 (14.66%) SC Cleared
15 103 (13.02%) Kubernetes
16 102 (12.90%) .NET
17 96 (12.14%) Git
18 95 (12.01%) Full-Stack Development
19 92 (11.63%) REST
19 92 (11.63%) RESTful
20 91 (11.50%) Spring
21 89 (11.25%) Software Engineering
22 86 (10.87%) Test Automation
23 81 (10.24%) Kafka
23 81 (10.24%) Spring Boot
24 78 (9.86%) Containerisation
25 74 (9.36%) Problem-Solving
25 74 (9.36%) 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 (1.52%) Confluence
2 10 (1.26%) Apache Spark
3 8 (1.01%) Apache
4 7 (0.88%) Ethereum
4 7 (0.88%) Hyperledger
5 6 (0.76%) CMS
6 5 (0.63%) Oracle Workflow
7 4 (0.51%) Headless CMS
7 4 (0.51%) Mendix
8 3 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.38%) Appian
8 3 (0.38%) IIS
8 3 (0.38%) 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 (0.13%) Umbraco
10 1 (0.13%) WordPress
Applications
1 7 (0.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 17 (2.15%) Teamcenter
2 5 (0.63%) Endur
3 4 (0.51%) R3 Corda
4 3 (0.38%) Aladdin
4 3 (0.38%) NetSuite
4 3 (0.38%) Quorum
4 3 (0.38%) Ripple
4 3 (0.38%) Shopify
4 3 (0.38%) SimCorp Dimension
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.25%) Orchestrade
6 1 (0.13%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.13%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 190 (24.02%) AWS
2 163 (20.61%) Azure
3 59 (7.46%) GitHub
4 44 (5.56%) Serverless
5 40 (5.06%) Power Platform
6 38 (4.80%) GCP
6 38 (4.80%) GitHub Actions
7 36 (4.55%) Azure DevOps
8 25 (3.16%) Power Automate
9 24 (3.03%) AWS Lambda
10 21 (2.65%) Amazon SQS
10 21 (2.65%) PowerApps
11 20 (2.53%) Amazon S3
12 17 (2.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 17 (2.15%) Azure Service Bus
13 16 (2.02%) Amazon ECS
14 14 (1.77%) Amazon EC2
14 14 (1.77%) Copilot Studio
14 14 (1.77%) Dynamics 365
15 13 (1.64%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.01%) HTTP
2 6 (0.76%) Multicast
3 3 (0.38%) NFC
4 2 (0.25%) Ethernet
4 2 (0.25%) RTP
5 1 (0.13%) CTI
5 1 (0.13%) DNS
5 1 (0.13%) MQTT
5 1 (0.13%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (7.08%) PostgreSQL
2 45 (5.69%) Relational Database
2 45 (5.69%) SQL Server
3 35 (4.42%) Power BI
4 32 (4.05%) MongoDB
5 30 (3.79%) NoSQL
6 20 (2.53%) DynamoDB
7 19 (2.40%) Apache Cassandra
8 16 (2.02%) MySQL
9 14 (1.77%) Amazon RDS
10 12 (1.52%) Data Warehouse
10 12 (1.52%) Oracle Database
11 10 (1.26%) KDB
12 8 (1.01%) Redis
13 7 (0.88%) Amazon Aurora
13 7 (0.88%) Azure SQL Database
13 7 (0.88%) Kdb+
14 6 (0.76%) Data Lake
14 6 (0.76%) RDBMS
14 6 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 96 (12.14%) Git
2 49 (6.19%) Jenkins
3 25 (3.16%) JIRA
3 25 (3.16%) JUnit
3 25 (3.16%) Maven
4 22 (2.78%) GitLab
5 20 (2.53%) Mockito
6 16 (2.02%) SonarQube
7 13 (1.64%) Gradle
8 5 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
8 5 (0.63%) Snyk
8 5 (0.63%) Xcode
9 4 (0.51%) Ant
9 4 (0.51%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.51%) Cucumber
9 4 (0.51%) Eclipse
9 4 (0.51%) XCTest
9 4 (0.51%) XCUITest
10 3 (0.38%) DbUnit
10 3 (0.38%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 172 (21.74%) Finance
2 127 (16.06%) Banking
3 116 (14.66%) Public Sector
4 113 (14.29%) Social Skills
5 65 (8.22%) Investment Banking
6 62 (7.84%) Front Office
7 47 (5.94%) Analytical Skills
8 19 (2.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 19 (2.40%) Retail
9 16 (2.02%) Financial Institution
10 11 (1.39%) Military
11 10 (1.26%) Legal
12 7 (0.88%) Law
13 6 (0.76%) Manufacturing
14 5 (0.63%) Games
15 4 (0.51%) Back Office
15 4 (0.51%) Health Technology
15 4 (0.51%) Telecoms
16 3 (0.38%) Organisational Skills
16 3 (0.38%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 127 (16.06%) React
2 102 (12.90%) .NET
3 92 (11.63%) REST
3 92 (11.63%) RESTful
4 91 (11.50%) Spring
5 81 (10.24%) Kafka
5 81 (10.24%) Spring Boot
6 59 (7.46%) Redux
7 52 (6.57%) AngularJS
8 49 (6.19%) HTML
9 48 (6.07%) Node.js
10 43 (5.44%) CSS
11 34 (4.30%) Web Services
12 29 (3.67%) SOAP
13 27 (3.41%) .NET Core
13 27 (3.41%) Django
14 22 (2.78%) RabbitMQ
15 20 (2.53%) HTML5
15 20 (2.53%) OAuth
16 19 (2.40%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 56 (7.08%) Distributed Systems
2 53 (6.70%) Cloud Native
3 49 (6.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 45 (5.69%) Fixed Income
5 41 (5.18%) Greenfield Project
6 40 (5.06%) Equities
7 39 (4.93%) Product Ownership
8 20 (2.53%) Mobile App
9 16 (2.02%) Algorithms
10 15 (1.90%) Derivative
11 13 (1.64%) CMDB
12 11 (1.39%) AI Agents
13 10 (1.26%) Data Structures
13 10 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
13 10 (1.26%) Onboarding
14 9 (1.14%) Legacy Systems
15 6 (0.76%) Management Information System
16 5 (0.63%) Blockchain
16 5 (0.63%) Low-Code
16 5 (0.63%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 44 (5.56%) Linux
2 28 (3.54%) Unix
3 21 (2.65%) Windows
4 12 (1.52%) Apple iOS
5 11 (1.39%) Android
6 9 (1.14%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.63%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.25%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.13%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 219 (27.69%) CI/CD
2 217 (27.43%) Agile
3 159 (20.10%) Microservices
4 129 (16.31%) DevOps
5 95 (12.01%) Full-Stack Development
6 89 (11.25%) Software Engineering
7 86 (10.87%) Test Automation
8 78 (9.86%) Containerisation
9 74 (9.36%) Problem-Solving
9 74 (9.36%) TDD
10 68 (8.60%) Data Modelling
11 63 (7.96%) Mentoring
12 60 (7.59%) Scrum
13 58 (7.33%) AI
13 58 (7.33%) Code Quality
13 58 (7.33%) Event-Driven
14 51 (6.45%) Design Patterns
15 50 (6.32%) Low Latency
16 49 (6.19%) Analytics
16 49 (6.19%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 250 (31.61%) Java
2 167 (21.11%) Python
3 152 (19.22%) SQL
4 134 (16.94%) JavaScript
5 127 (16.06%) C#
6 119 (15.04%) TypeScript
7 27 (3.41%) Go
8 24 (3.03%) Kotlin
9 22 (2.78%) Ruby
10 21 (2.65%) C++
11 13 (1.64%) Apex Code
12 10 (1.26%) PL/SQL
12 10 (1.26%) Swift
13 8 (1.01%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.88%) C
14 7 (0.88%) PowerShell
14 7 (0.88%) SOQL
14 7 (0.88%) SOSL
15 6 (0.76%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 5 (0.63%) R
Qualifications
1 124 (15.68%) Security Cleared
2 116 (14.66%) SC Cleared
3 24 (3.03%) Degree
4 11 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
5 9 (1.14%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (0.88%) DV Cleared
7 5 (0.63%) AWS Certification
8 4 (0.51%) AWS Certified Developer
9 3 (0.38%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (0.25%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (0.25%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.13%) Azure Certification
11 1 (0.13%) CISSP
11 1 (0.13%) Numerate Degree
11 1 (0.13%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (4.17%) Accessibility
2 32 (4.05%) QA
3 22 (2.78%) WCAG
4 15 (1.90%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.38%) NCSC
6 2 (0.25%) GDPR
6 2 (0.25%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.13%) Basel III
7 1 (0.13%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.13%) GRC
7 1 (0.13%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.13%) Solvency II
System Software
1 116 (14.66%) Docker
2 6 (0.76%) 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 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 103 (13.02%) Kubernetes
2 50 (6.32%) Terraform
3 18 (2.28%) Grafana
4 13 (1.64%) Prometheus
5 10 (1.26%) Ansible
6 6 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.51%) Argo
8 2 (0.25%) Consul
8 2 (0.25%) Zipkin
9 1 (0.13%) SELinux
9 1 (0.13%) systemd
Vendors
1 55 (6.95%) Microsoft
2 36 (4.55%) Oracle
3 28 (3.54%) ServiceNow
4 24 (3.03%) Salesforce
5 13 (1.64%) SAP
6 12 (1.52%) Avaloq
7 11 (1.39%) Databricks
7 11 (1.39%) Google
8 6 (0.76%) Jaspersoft
8 6 (0.76%) MuleSoft
8 6 (0.76%) Sybase
9 5 (0.63%) Blue Prism
10 4 (0.51%) ForgeRock
10 4 (0.51%) Guidewire
10 4 (0.51%) IBM
10 4 (0.51%) OpenAI
10 4 (0.51%) Solace
11 3 (0.38%) Okta
11 3 (0.38%) Pega
11 3 (0.38%) Splunk