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 14 June 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 162 155 127
Rank change year-on-year -7 -28 +10
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 811 529 773
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.62% 1.79% 1.77%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.75% 1.94% 1.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 508 374 568
10th Percentile £406 £400 £409
25th Percentile £480 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.61% +4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £718 £725 £725
90th Percentile £938 £825 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £525 £494
% change year-on-year -0.48% +6.33% -10.23%
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 46,278 27,307 40,582
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.39% 92.32% 92.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,166 17,569 26,038
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.80% -4.76% -2.42%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,090 1,147 2,946
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.79 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.30 £27.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.46% -26.67% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £62.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -1.45%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -9 691 £575 -4.17% 140
London -2 443 £625 -3.85% 51
UK excluding London -22 270 £523 -0.48% 130
Work from Home -44 213 £550 -5.17% 82
North of England -1 101 £575 +9.52% 33
Yorkshire -11 52 £575 +9.52% 3
North West -16 44 £510 +2.00% 24
Midlands -32 44 £513 -6.82% 8
South East -55 40 £560 +5.96% 42
West Midlands -33 37 £513 -6.82% 6
South West -12 36 £513 -14.58% 10
Scotland -26 27 £413 -11.58% 18
East of England -21 16 £500 -23.08% 11
East Midlands -20 6 £525 +28.05% 2
North East -29 5 £875 +133.33% 7
Northern Ireland +1 4 £650 +30.00% 1
Wales -17 2 £525 +61.54% 9

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

For the 6 months to 14 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.

1 260 (32.06%) Java
2 219 (27.00%) CI/CD
3 207 (25.52%) AWS
4 206 (25.40%) Agile
5 178 (21.95%) Python
6 168 (20.72%) Azure
7 155 (19.11%) Microservices
8 144 (17.76%) SQL
9 135 (16.65%) JavaScript
10 131 (16.15%) React
11 127 (15.66%) DevOps
12 124 (15.29%) C#
12 124 (15.29%) Security Cleared
13 120 (14.80%) Docker
14 117 (14.43%) TypeScript
15 115 (14.18%) SC Cleared
16 108 (13.32%) Kubernetes
17 101 (12.45%) .NET
18 96 (11.84%) Full-Stack Development
19 94 (11.59%) Spring
20 92 (11.34%) Git
21 88 (10.85%) Software Engineering
22 87 (10.73%) RESTful
23 85 (10.48%) REST
24 84 (10.36%) Kafka
24 84 (10.36%) Spring Boot
25 83 (10.23%) Containerisation
26 81 (9.99%) Test Automation
27 79 (9.74%) TDD
28 72 (8.88%) Problem-Solving

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 (1.23%) Apache Spark
2 8 (0.99%) Apache
2 8 (0.99%) Confluence
3 7 (0.86%) Ethereum
3 7 (0.86%) Hyperledger
4 6 (0.74%) CMS
5 5 (0.62%) Mendix
6 4 (0.49%) Headless CMS
6 4 (0.49%) Oracle Workflow
7 3 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.37%) IIS
7 3 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 3 (0.37%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.25%) Appian
8 2 (0.25%) Cloud Foundry
8 2 (0.25%) Moodle
8 2 (0.25%) SharePoint
8 2 (0.25%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 1 (0.12%) Umbraco
Applications
1 8 (0.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 17 (2.10%) Teamcenter
2 5 (0.62%) Endur
3 4 (0.49%) R3 Corda
4 3 (0.37%) Aladdin
4 3 (0.37%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
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%) Orchestrade
6 1 (0.12%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.12%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle General Ledger
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.12%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.12%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.12%) SDL Web 8
Cloud Services
1 207 (25.52%) AWS
2 168 (20.72%) Azure
3 62 (7.64%) GitHub
4 45 (5.55%) Serverless
5 44 (5.43%) Power Platform
6 39 (4.81%) Azure DevOps
7 37 (4.56%) GCP
7 37 (4.56%) GitHub Actions
8 27 (3.33%) Power Automate
9 24 (2.96%) AWS Lambda
10 22 (2.71%) Amazon SQS
11 21 (2.59%) PowerApps
12 20 (2.47%) Amazon S3
13 19 (2.34%) Azure Service Bus
14 17 (2.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 16 (1.97%) Amazon ECS
15 16 (1.97%) Dynamics 365
16 15 (1.85%) Amazon EC2
17 14 (1.73%) Copilot Studio
18 13 (1.60%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 8 (0.99%) HTTP
2 6 (0.74%) Multicast
3 2 (0.25%) Ethernet
3 2 (0.25%) NFC
3 2 (0.25%) RTP
4 1 (0.12%) CTI
4 1 (0.12%) DNS
4 1 (0.12%) Firewall
4 1 (0.12%) MQTT
4 1 (0.12%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (7.40%) PostgreSQL
2 48 (5.92%) SQL Server
3 44 (5.43%) Relational Database
4 37 (4.56%) Power BI
5 31 (3.82%) MongoDB
6 28 (3.45%) NoSQL
7 21 (2.59%) Apache Cassandra
8 20 (2.47%) DynamoDB
9 18 (2.22%) MySQL
10 15 (1.85%) Amazon RDS
11 14 (1.73%) Data Warehouse
12 10 (1.23%) KDB
13 8 (0.99%) 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%) Oracle Database
15 6 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 5 (0.62%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 92 (11.34%) Git
2 45 (5.55%) Jenkins
3 25 (3.08%) Maven
4 23 (2.84%) JIRA
4 23 (2.84%) JUnit
5 21 (2.59%) GitLab
6 18 (2.22%) Mockito
6 18 (2.22%) SonarQube
7 13 (1.60%) Gradle
8 5 (0.62%) Snyk
8 5 (0.62%) 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%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 3 (0.37%) Cucumber
10 3 (0.37%) jMock
10 3 (0.37%) TeamCity
General
1 176 (21.70%) Finance
2 128 (15.78%) Banking
3 118 (14.55%) Public Sector
4 110 (13.56%) Social Skills
5 67 (8.26%) Investment Banking
6 62 (7.64%) Front Office
7 45 (5.55%) Analytical Skills
8 20 (2.47%) Financial Institution
9 19 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 16 (1.97%) Retail
11 10 (1.23%) Legal
11 10 (1.23%) Military
12 8 (0.99%) Law
13 7 (0.86%) Manufacturing
14 5 (0.62%) Telecoms
15 4 (0.49%) Documentation Skills
15 4 (0.49%) Games
15 4 (0.49%) Health Technology
16 3 (0.37%) Organisational Skills
16 3 (0.37%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (16.15%) React
2 101 (12.45%) .NET
3 94 (11.59%) Spring
4 87 (10.73%) RESTful
5 85 (10.48%) REST
6 84 (10.36%) Kafka
6 84 (10.36%) Spring Boot
7 57 (7.03%) Redux
8 56 (6.91%) AngularJS
9 53 (6.54%) HTML
10 52 (6.41%) Node.js
11 47 (5.80%) CSS
12 34 (4.19%) Web Services
13 26 (3.21%) Django
13 26 (3.21%) SOAP
14 25 (3.08%) .NET Core
15 20 (2.47%) RabbitMQ
16 19 (2.34%) gRPC
16 19 (2.34%) OAuth
17 18 (2.22%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 60 (7.40%) Distributed Systems
2 52 (6.41%) Cloud Native
3 49 (6.04%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 49 (6.04%) Greenfield Project
4 44 (5.43%) Fixed Income
5 42 (5.18%) Equities
6 35 (4.32%) Product Ownership
7 20 (2.47%) Mobile App
8 18 (2.22%) Derivative
9 17 (2.10%) Algorithms
10 11 (1.36%) AI Agents
10 11 (1.36%) Onboarding
11 10 (1.23%) CMDB
12 9 (1.11%) Data Structures
12 9 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
13 7 (0.86%) Enterprise Software
13 7 (0.86%) Management Information System
14 6 (0.74%) Equity Derivative
14 6 (0.74%) Market Risk
14 6 (0.74%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 48 (5.92%) Linux
2 29 (3.58%) Unix
3 19 (2.34%) Windows
4 12 (1.48%) Apple iOS
5 10 (1.23%) Android
6 9 (1.11%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.62%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.25%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.12%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 219 (27.00%) CI/CD
2 206 (25.40%) Agile
3 155 (19.11%) Microservices
4 127 (15.66%) DevOps
5 96 (11.84%) Full-Stack Development
6 88 (10.85%) Software Engineering
7 83 (10.23%) Containerisation
8 81 (9.99%) Test Automation
9 79 (9.74%) TDD
10 72 (8.88%) Problem-Solving
11 69 (8.51%) Data Modelling
12 60 (7.40%) Event-Driven
13 58 (7.15%) AI
13 58 (7.15%) Code Quality
13 58 (7.15%) Mentoring
14 57 (7.03%) Scrum
15 52 (6.41%) Low Latency
16 51 (6.29%) Design Patterns
16 51 (6.29%) Front End Development
17 50 (6.17%) Electronic Trading
Programming Languages
1 260 (32.06%) Java
2 178 (21.95%) Python
3 144 (17.76%) SQL
4 135 (16.65%) JavaScript
5 124 (15.29%) C#
6 117 (14.43%) TypeScript
7 30 (3.70%) Go
8 25 (3.08%) Ruby
9 23 (2.84%) C++
9 23 (2.84%) Kotlin
10 13 (1.60%) Apex Code
11 10 (1.23%) Swift
12 8 (0.99%) PL/SQL
12 8 (0.99%) PowerShell
12 8 (0.99%) Shell Script
13 7 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 7 (0.86%) SOQL
13 7 (0.86%) SOSL
14 5 (0.62%) R
15 4 (0.49%) VBA
Qualifications
1 124 (15.29%) Security Cleared
2 115 (14.18%) SC Cleared
3 25 (3.08%) Degree
4 13 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (0.86%) DV Cleared
7 5 (0.62%) AWS Certification
8 4 (0.49%) AWS Certified Developer
9 3 (0.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (0.37%) Microsoft Certification
9 3 (0.37%) Numerate Degree
10 2 (0.25%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (0.25%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.12%) Azure Certification
11 1 (0.12%) CISSP
11 1 (0.12%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (4.19%) Accessibility
2 29 (3.58%) QA
3 21 (2.59%) WCAG
4 15 (1.85%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.25%) GDPR
5 2 (0.25%) NCSC
5 2 (0.25%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.12%) Basel III
6 1 (0.12%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.12%) GRC
6 1 (0.12%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.12%) Solvency II
System Software
1 120 (14.80%) Docker
2 4 (0.49%) 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
1 108 (13.32%) Kubernetes
2 50 (6.17%) Terraform
3 18 (2.22%) Grafana
4 13 (1.60%) Prometheus
5 10 (1.23%) 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%) HAProxy
9 1 (0.12%) SELinux
9 1 (0.12%) systemd
Vendors
1 57 (7.03%) Microsoft
2 31 (3.82%) Oracle
3 24 (2.96%) ServiceNow
4 22 (2.71%) Salesforce
5 12 (1.48%) Avaloq
6 11 (1.36%) Databricks
6 11 (1.36%) SAP
7 9 (1.11%) Google
8 6 (0.74%) Guidewire
8 6 (0.74%) Jaspersoft
8 6 (0.74%) Sybase
9 4 (0.49%) ForgeRock
9 4 (0.49%) MuleSoft
9 4 (0.49%) OpenAI
9 4 (0.49%) Pega
9 4 (0.49%) Solace
10 3 (0.37%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.37%) Blue Prism
10 3 (0.37%) Okta
10 3 (0.37%) Splunk