Senior Developer Contract Job Trends

Senior Developer
UK

The median Senior Developer daily rate in the UK is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 25 April 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 170 157 150
Rank change year-on-year -13 -7 -26
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 739 519 704
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.58% 1.76% 1.61%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.72% 1.90% 1.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 484 381 501
10th Percentile £407 £409 £410
25th Percentile £459 £483 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £650 £735 £725
90th Percentile £850 £838 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £530 £500
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -13.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 14
10th Percentile £39.55 - £40.00
25th Percentile £43.01 - £54.85
Median hourly rate £67.78 £77.19 £58.20
Median % change year-on-year -12.19% +32.62% -6.88%
75th Percentile £95.00 - £70.12
90th Percentile - - £79.50
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 43,041 27,334 40,483
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.61% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,619 17,888 26,425
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £408 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £517 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.29% -1.52% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,759 1,027 2,641
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.51 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £29.07 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year +46.84% -18.11% -21.11%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £28.75 £37.50
% change year-on-year +56.52% -23.33% -11.76%

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 25 April 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 25 April 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 25 April 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 -15 623 £555 -7.50% 248
London -5 388 £625 -3.85% 85
UK excluding London -19 250 £500 -5.66% 209
Work from Home -3 209 £600 - 204
North of England -38 75 £538 -8.90% 72
South West -1 49 £475 -20.83% 14
Midlands -33 44 £500 -9.09% 26
South East -53 39 £560 +5.66% 54
North West -26 38 £505 -15.83% 42
Yorkshire -37 38 £575 -4.17% 18
West Midlands -37 36 £485 -11.82% 18
East of England -34 21 £500 -23.08% 23
Scotland -12 18 £475 +11.76% 17
East Midlands -29 7 £525 +0.96% 8
Northern Ireland +3 5 £638 +27.50% 4
Wales -8 2 £638 +6.25% 6
North East -20 1 £450 -23.73% 14

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

For the 6 months to 25 April 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.

1 233 (31.53%) Java
2 210 (28.42%) AWS
3 192 (25.98%) Agile
4 175 (23.68%) CI/CD
5 158 (21.38%) Python
6 155 (20.97%) Security Cleared
7 149 (20.16%) SC Cleared
8 145 (19.62%) Azure
9 143 (19.35%) Microservices
10 137 (18.54%) SQL
11 133 (18.00%) DevOps
12 121 (16.37%) JavaScript
13 119 (16.10%) Docker
14 112 (15.16%) Kubernetes
15 99 (13.40%) Kafka
16 92 (12.45%) React
16 92 (12.45%) Spring
17 84 (11.37%) Containerisation
18 83 (11.23%) Spring Boot
19 78 (10.55%) .NET
20 77 (10.42%) Problem-Solving
21 71 (9.61%) TDD
21 71 (9.61%) Test Automation
22 70 (9.47%) Git
22 70 (9.47%) Software Engineering
23 69 (9.34%) Full-Stack Development
24 66 (8.93%) TypeScript
25 65 (8.80%) C#
26 63 (8.53%) RESTful
27 61 (8.25%) Scrum

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 9 (1.22%) Confluence
2 6 (0.81%) Apache Spark
2 6 (0.81%) CMS
2 6 (0.81%) nginx
3 5 (0.68%) Apache
3 5 (0.68%) SharePoint
4 4 (0.54%) Ethereum
4 4 (0.54%) Headless CMS
4 4 (0.54%) Hyperledger
5 3 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.41%) IIS
5 3 (0.41%) Mendix
5 3 (0.41%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 3 (0.41%) Oracle Workflow
5 3 (0.41%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.27%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.27%) SAS
6 2 (0.27%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.27%) WordPress
7 1 (0.14%) JBoss
Applications
1 10 (1.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 14 (1.89%) Teamcenter
2 5 (0.68%) Endur
3 2 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.14%) Aladdin
4 1 (0.14%) FLEXCUBE
4 1 (0.14%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle Retail
4 1 (0.14%) R3 Corda
4 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.14%) SAP BRIM
4 1 (0.14%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.14%) SDL Web 8
4 1 (0.14%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 210 (28.42%) AWS
2 145 (19.62%) Azure
3 59 (7.98%) Azure DevOps
4 47 (6.36%) GitHub
5 38 (5.14%) Serverless
6 34 (4.60%) Power Platform
7 24 (3.25%) GCP
7 24 (3.25%) GitHub Actions
8 23 (3.11%) Amazon SQS
8 23 (3.11%) Power Automate
9 21 (2.84%) AWS Lambda
10 17 (2.30%) PowerApps
11 16 (2.17%) Amazon EC2
11 16 (2.17%) Azure Service Bus
12 14 (1.89%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 14 (1.89%) Amazon S3
13 13 (1.76%) Amazon EKS
13 13 (1.76%) Copilot Studio
14 12 (1.62%) Dynamics 365
14 12 (1.62%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.08%) HTTP
2 4 (0.54%) Reverse Proxy
3 3 (0.41%) Multicast
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 51 (6.90%) PostgreSQL
2 38 (5.14%) MongoDB
3 36 (4.87%) SQL Server
4 31 (4.19%) NoSQL
5 29 (3.92%) Apache Cassandra
6 28 (3.79%) Power BI
6 28 (3.79%) Relational Database
7 19 (2.57%) DynamoDB
8 17 (2.30%) MySQL
9 16 (2.17%) Data Hub
10 14 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
11 10 (1.35%) Amazon RDS
12 7 (0.95%) Oracle BI EE
13 6 (0.81%) Big Data
13 6 (0.81%) KDB
14 5 (0.68%) Amazon Aurora
14 5 (0.68%) Oracle Database
15 4 (0.54%) DB2
15 4 (0.54%) Kdb+
16 3 (0.41%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 70 (9.47%) Git
2 32 (4.33%) Jenkins
3 29 (3.92%) Oracle APEX
4 24 (3.25%) JUnit
5 20 (2.71%) JIRA
6 19 (2.57%) Maven
7 18 (2.44%) GitLab
8 17 (2.30%) Mockito
9 13 (1.76%) SonarQube
10 10 (1.35%) Gradle
11 6 (0.81%) Cypress.io
12 5 (0.68%) Bitbucket
13 4 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
14 3 (0.41%) Cucumber
14 3 (0.41%) TeamCity
14 3 (0.41%) webpack
15 2 (0.27%) Artifactory
15 2 (0.27%) DbUnit
15 2 (0.27%) jMock
15 2 (0.27%) SpecFlow
General
1 125 (16.91%) Finance
2 121 (16.37%) Social Skills
3 118 (15.97%) Public Sector
4 98 (13.26%) Banking
5 38 (5.14%) Investment Banking
6 30 (4.06%) Analytical Skills
7 29 (3.92%) Front Office
8 15 (2.03%) Financial Institution
9 7 (0.95%) Retail
10 6 (0.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (0.68%) Telecoms
12 4 (0.54%) Military
12 4 (0.54%) Organisational Skills
13 3 (0.41%) Games
13 3 (0.41%) Health Technology
13 3 (0.41%) Law
13 3 (0.41%) Legal
13 3 (0.41%) Police
13 3 (0.41%) Retail Banking
14 2 (0.27%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (13.40%) Kafka
2 92 (12.45%) React
2 92 (12.45%) Spring
3 83 (11.23%) Spring Boot
4 78 (10.55%) .NET
5 63 (8.53%) RESTful
6 56 (7.58%) Node.js
7 53 (7.17%) REST
8 51 (6.90%) AngularJS
9 48 (6.50%) HTML
10 44 (5.95%) CSS
11 28 (3.79%) gRPC
11 28 (3.79%) Web Services
12 25 (3.38%) Redux
13 17 (2.30%) .NET Core
13 17 (2.30%) .NET Framework
13 17 (2.30%) SOAP
14 16 (2.17%) Django
15 15 (2.03%) HTML5
16 13 (1.76%) CSS3
Miscellaneous
1 55 (7.44%) Distributed Systems
2 50 (6.77%) Cloud Native
3 24 (3.25%) Derivative
3 24 (3.25%) Product Ownership
4 21 (2.84%) Fixed Income
5 19 (2.57%) Equities
5 19 (2.57%) Greenfield Project
6 14 (1.89%) Algorithms
7 13 (1.76%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 13 (1.76%) Market Risk
8 12 (1.62%) Management Information System
9 11 (1.49%) Mobile App
10 9 (1.22%) Onboarding
11 8 (1.08%) Equity Derivative
11 8 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
12 6 (0.81%) AI Agents
12 6 (0.81%) Data Structures
13 4 (0.54%) Legacy Applications
13 4 (0.54%) NHS
14 3 (0.41%) Animation
Operating Systems
1 41 (5.55%) Linux
2 25 (3.38%) Unix
3 18 (2.44%) Windows
4 14 (1.89%) Android
5 9 (1.22%) Mac OS
6 6 (0.81%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.68%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.27%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.14%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 192 (25.98%) Agile
2 175 (23.68%) CI/CD
3 143 (19.35%) Microservices
4 133 (18.00%) DevOps
5 84 (11.37%) Containerisation
6 77 (10.42%) Problem-Solving
7 71 (9.61%) TDD
7 71 (9.61%) Test Automation
8 70 (9.47%) Software Engineering
9 69 (9.34%) Full-Stack Development
10 61 (8.25%) Scrum
11 55 (7.44%) Code Quality
12 51 (6.90%) Analytics
13 45 (6.09%) Infrastructure as Code
13 45 (6.09%) Mentoring
14 44 (5.95%) Front End Development
15 43 (5.82%) Data Modelling
16 42 (5.68%) Technical Leadership
17 41 (5.55%) Migration
17 41 (5.55%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 233 (31.53%) Java
2 158 (21.38%) Python
3 137 (18.54%) SQL
4 121 (16.37%) JavaScript
5 66 (8.93%) TypeScript
6 65 (8.80%) C#
7 43 (5.82%) Go
8 33 (4.47%) PL/SQL
9 28 (3.79%) Kotlin
10 26 (3.52%) Ruby
11 14 (1.89%) C++
12 9 (1.22%) PowerShell
13 8 (1.08%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.95%) Bash
15 6 (0.81%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 5 (0.68%) Apex Code
17 4 (0.54%) PHP
17 4 (0.54%) VBA
18 3 (0.41%) R
18 3 (0.41%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 155 (20.97%) Security Cleared
2 149 (20.16%) SC Cleared
3 25 (3.38%) BPSS Clearance
4 19 (2.57%) Degree
5 7 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (0.81%) DV Cleared
7 5 (0.68%) Numerate Degree
8 4 (0.54%) AWS Certification
9 3 (0.41%) AWS Certified Developer
10 2 (0.27%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 2 (0.27%) OCP
10 2 (0.27%) Oracle Certification
11 1 (0.14%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 1 (0.14%) Azure Certification
11 1 (0.14%) CISSP
11 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (4.06%) Accessibility
2 27 (3.65%) QA
3 17 (2.30%) WCAG
4 11 (1.49%) 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
1 119 (16.10%) Docker
2 2 (0.27%) Active Directory
2 2 (0.27%) GridGain
2 2 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
2 2 (0.27%) Postfix
3 1 (0.14%) OpenAM
3 1 (0.14%) OpenDJ
3 1 (0.14%) OpenIDM
3 1 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 112 (15.16%) Kubernetes
2 47 (6.36%) Terraform
3 21 (2.84%) Grafana
4 15 (2.03%) Ansible
5 14 (1.89%) Prometheus
6 8 (1.08%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.14%) Argo
7 1 (0.14%) CloudHub
7 1 (0.14%) Control-M
7 1 (0.14%) HAProxy
7 1 (0.14%) Kibana
7 1 (0.14%) SELinux
7 1 (0.14%) Sysdig
7 1 (0.14%) systemd
Vendors
1 56 (7.58%) Oracle
2 41 (5.55%) Microsoft
3 19 (2.57%) ServiceNow
4 14 (1.89%) Google
4 14 (1.89%) Salesforce
5 9 (1.22%) Databricks
5 9 (1.22%) SAP
6 8 (1.08%) Avaloq
7 6 (0.81%) Guidewire
7 6 (0.81%) Sybase
8 4 (0.54%) ForgeRock
8 4 (0.54%) Jaspersoft
8 4 (0.54%) Pega
9 3 (0.41%) Apple
9 3 (0.41%) Cognizant
9 3 (0.41%) New Relic
9 3 (0.41%) Okta
9 3 (0.41%) Splunk
10 2 (0.27%) GoCardless
10 2 (0.27%) OpenAI