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 13 February 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 167 144 178
Rank change year-on-year -23 +34 -64
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 676 562 591
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.69% 1.81% 1.33%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.85% 1.95% 1.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 473 364 422
10th Percentile £400 £423 £413
25th Percentile £450 £500 £487
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £709
90th Percentile £850 £838 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 11
10th Percentile - - £40.00
25th Percentile £85.00 - £52.50
Median hourly rate £90.00 £77.19 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.60% +28.65% -4.00%
75th Percentile £95.00 - £72.50
90th Percentile - - £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £77.19 £52.50
% change year-on-year - +47.03% -16.00%

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 36,628 28,781 41,506
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.57% 92.94% 93.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,025 17,777 27,347
10th Percentile £300 £290 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £476 £477 £490
% change year-on-year -0.21% -2.65% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,228 824 2,299
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.94 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.86 £21.25 £16.40
Median hourly rate £30.00 £33.52 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.50% -4.23% -2.23%
75th Percentile £61.94 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £72.51 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.60 £31.76 £35.00
% change year-on-year -6.80% -9.26% -

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 13 February 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
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 13 February 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 -23 576 £550 -8.33% 315
London -10 359 £625 - 123
Work from Home +16 242 £600 - 175
UK excluding London -30 223 £500 -4.76% 230
North of England -35 73 £575 +9.52% 82
South West +22 55 £475 -13.64% 29
Yorkshire -36 40 £631 +3.06% 33
South East -42 34 £500 +11.11% 69
North West -36 30 £500 -4.76% 40
Midlands -41 27 £520 - 25
East of England -21 20 £500 -23.08% 11
West Midlands -38 20 £525 +1.45% 16
Scotland -18 14 £413 -8.33% 10
North East -8 9 £488 +1.04% 10
East Midlands -26 7 £515 -0.96% 9
Wales -2 4 £638 +27.50% 5
Northern Ireland -1 3 £638 +6.25% 1

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

For the 6 months to 13 February 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.

1 229 (33.88%) Java
2 217 (32.10%) AWS
3 204 (30.18%) Agile
4 169 (25.00%) Microservices
5 160 (23.67%) CI/CD
6 159 (23.52%) Azure
7 156 (23.08%) SQL
8 152 (22.49%) Python
9 147 (21.75%) Security Cleared
10 145 (21.45%) DevOps
11 135 (19.97%) Kafka
12 129 (19.08%) SC Cleared
13 126 (18.64%) JavaScript
14 123 (18.20%) Docker
15 120 (17.75%) Problem-Solving
16 118 (17.46%) Kubernetes
17 97 (14.35%) Spring
18 88 (13.02%) React
18 88 (13.02%) TDD
19 83 (12.28%) Spring Boot
19 83 (12.28%) Test Automation
20 80 (11.83%) Containerisation
20 80 (11.83%) Software Engineering
21 74 (10.95%) .NET
21 74 (10.95%) Git
22 72 (10.65%) C#
22 72 (10.65%) Scrum
23 68 (10.06%) Full-Stack Development
24 65 (9.62%) Analytics
25 62 (9.17%) Azure DevOps

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 15 (2.22%) Confluence
2 6 (0.89%) CMS
2 6 (0.89%) nginx
3 5 (0.74%) SharePoint
4 4 (0.59%) Ethereum
4 4 (0.59%) Hyperledger
4 4 (0.59%) Jupyter
5 3 (0.44%) Mendix
5 3 (0.44%) SAS
5 3 (0.44%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.30%) Headless CMS
6 2 (0.30%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.15%) Anypoint
7 1 (0.15%) Appian
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle Application Server
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.15%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.15%) Umbraco
7 1 (0.15%) WordPress
Applications
1 14 (2.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (0.74%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.44%) Endur
3 2 (0.30%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.15%) FLEXCUBE
4 1 (0.15%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 1 (0.15%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.15%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.15%) Oracle Retail
4 1 (0.15%) R3 Corda
4 1 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
4 1 (0.15%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.15%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 217 (32.10%) AWS
2 159 (23.52%) Azure
3 62 (9.17%) Azure DevOps
4 46 (6.80%) GitHub
5 41 (6.07%) Serverless
6 34 (5.03%) Power Platform
7 31 (4.59%) GCP
8 23 (3.40%) AWS Lambda
9 22 (3.25%) Power Automate
10 18 (2.66%) Dynamics 365
10 18 (2.66%) PowerApps
11 17 (2.51%) Amazon SQS
12 16 (2.37%) Amazon EC2
12 16 (2.37%) Amazon EKS
12 16 (2.37%) Azure Service Bus
13 14 (2.07%) Amazon ECS
14 13 (1.92%) SaaS
15 12 (1.78%) GitHub Actions
16 10 (1.48%) Amazon S3
16 10 (1.48%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 6 (0.89%) HTTP
2 5 (0.74%) Kerberos
3 3 (0.44%) Reverse Proxy
4 2 (0.30%) Firewall
4 2 (0.30%) SSL
4 2 (0.30%) VPN
5 1 (0.15%) DNS
5 1 (0.15%) Ethernet
5 1 (0.15%) FTP
5 1 (0.15%) Internet
5 1 (0.15%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (8.43%) PostgreSQL
2 54 (7.99%) MongoDB
3 40 (5.92%) NoSQL
3 40 (5.92%) Relational Database
4 38 (5.62%) SQL Server
5 33 (4.88%) Apache Cassandra
6 22 (3.25%) Power BI
7 16 (2.37%) Data Hub
8 15 (2.22%) DynamoDB
9 13 (1.92%) MySQL
10 12 (1.78%) Data Warehouse
11 11 (1.63%) DB2
12 9 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
12 9 (1.33%) Data Lake
13 8 (1.18%) Redis
14 7 (1.04%) Oracle BI EE
15 6 (0.89%) HBase
15 6 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 5 (0.74%) Couchbase
16 5 (0.74%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 74 (10.95%) Git
2 38 (5.62%) Jenkins
3 35 (5.18%) JUnit
4 34 (5.03%) Oracle APEX
5 32 (4.73%) GitLab
6 29 (4.29%) JIRA
7 26 (3.85%) Mockito
8 14 (2.07%) Maven
9 12 (1.78%) Gradle
10 9 (1.33%) Cucumber
11 8 (1.18%) Artifactory
12 7 (1.04%) SonarQube
12 7 (1.04%) Sonatype Nexus
13 6 (0.89%) Mocha
14 5 (0.74%) Cypress.io
14 5 (0.74%) SpecFlow
15 4 (0.59%) Bitbucket
16 3 (0.44%) Lerna
16 3 (0.44%) Postman
16 3 (0.44%) webpack
General
1 145 (21.45%) Social Skills
2 143 (21.15%) Finance
3 99 (14.64%) Public Sector
4 97 (14.35%) Banking
5 49 (7.25%) Analytical Skills
6 41 (6.07%) Investment Banking
7 23 (3.40%) Front Office
8 12 (1.78%) Financial Institution
9 5 (0.74%) Law
9 5 (0.74%) Military
9 5 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (0.59%) Health Technology
10 4 (0.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (0.59%) Retail Banking
10 4 (0.59%) Telecoms
11 3 (0.44%) Legal
11 3 (0.44%) Manufacturing
11 3 (0.44%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (0.44%) Police
12 2 (0.30%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (19.97%) Kafka
2 97 (14.35%) Spring
3 88 (13.02%) React
4 83 (12.28%) Spring Boot
5 74 (10.95%) .NET
6 58 (8.58%) Node.js
7 56 (8.28%) RESTful
8 54 (7.99%) HTML
9 53 (7.84%) REST
10 52 (7.69%) AngularJS
11 49 (7.25%) CSS
12 32 (4.73%) Web Services
13 30 (4.44%) gRPC
14 20 (2.96%) .NET Framework
14 20 (2.96%) Jest
15 18 (2.66%) JAX-RS
15 18 (2.66%) Next.js
16 17 (2.51%) RabbitMQ
17 16 (2.37%) .NET Core
17 16 (2.37%) ActiveMQ
Miscellaneous
1 55 (8.14%) Cloud Native
2 45 (6.66%) Distributed Systems
3 30 (4.44%) Derivative
4 27 (3.99%) Product Ownership
5 26 (3.85%) Equities
5 26 (3.85%) Greenfield Project
6 24 (3.55%) Algorithms
7 20 (2.96%) Market Risk
8 19 (2.81%) Management Information System
9 17 (2.51%) Data Structures
10 13 (1.92%) Fixed Income
11 11 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
11 11 (1.63%) Mobile App
12 9 (1.33%) Onboarding
13 8 (1.18%) Equity Derivative
13 8 (1.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 8 (1.18%) Legacy Applications
14 6 (0.89%) Enterprise Software
14 6 (0.89%) Linux Command Line
15 4 (0.59%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 55 (8.14%) Linux
2 31 (4.59%) Unix
3 17 (2.51%) Mac OS X
4 15 (2.22%) Android
5 9 (1.33%) Windows
6 8 (1.18%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.44%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.30%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.15%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 204 (30.18%) Agile
2 169 (25.00%) Microservices
3 160 (23.67%) CI/CD
4 145 (21.45%) DevOps
5 120 (17.75%) Problem-Solving
6 88 (13.02%) TDD
7 83 (12.28%) Test Automation
8 80 (11.83%) Containerisation
8 80 (11.83%) Software Engineering
9 72 (10.65%) Scrum
10 68 (10.06%) Full-Stack Development
11 65 (9.62%) Analytics
12 58 (8.58%) Open Source
13 51 (7.54%) SDLC
14 47 (6.95%) Code Quality
14 47 (6.95%) Front End Development
14 47 (6.95%) Infrastructure as Code
14 47 (6.95%) Mentoring
15 40 (5.92%) Event-Driven
16 39 (5.77%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 229 (33.88%) Java
2 156 (23.08%) SQL
3 152 (22.49%) Python
4 126 (18.64%) JavaScript
5 72 (10.65%) C#
6 57 (8.43%) TypeScript
7 42 (6.21%) Go
8 39 (5.77%) PL/SQL
9 26 (3.85%) Kotlin
10 20 (2.96%) Ruby
11 17 (2.51%) C++
12 14 (2.07%) Bash
13 11 (1.63%) PowerShell
13 11 (1.63%) Shell Script
14 6 (0.89%) PHP
15 4 (0.59%) ABAP
15 4 (0.59%) VBA
16 3 (0.44%) Apex Code
16 3 (0.44%) Swift
16 3 (0.44%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 147 (21.75%) Security Cleared
2 129 (19.08%) SC Cleared
3 33 (4.88%) Degree
4 27 (3.99%) BPSS Clearance
5 16 (2.37%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (1.18%) Numerate Degree
7 6 (0.89%) OCP
7 6 (0.89%) Oracle Certification
8 5 (0.74%) AWS Certification
9 3 (0.44%) Azure Certification
9 3 (0.44%) Master's Degree
9 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 2 (0.30%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (0.30%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 2 (0.30%) DV Cleared
11 1 (0.15%) AWS Certified Developer
11 1 (0.15%) CISSP
11 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (4.29%) Accessibility
2 16 (2.37%) Data Quality
2 16 (2.37%) QA
2 16 (2.37%) WCAG
3 4 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 3 (0.44%) EU AI Act
4 3 (0.44%) NIST
5 2 (0.30%) GDPR
6 1 (0.15%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 123 (18.20%) Docker
2 5 (0.74%) zsh
3 1 (0.15%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.15%) GridGain
3 1 (0.15%) OpenAM
3 1 (0.15%) OpenDJ
3 1 (0.15%) OpenIDM
Systems Management
1 118 (17.46%) Kubernetes
2 35 (5.18%) Terraform
3 21 (3.11%) Grafana
4 13 (1.92%) Ansible
5 9 (1.33%) Prometheus
6 8 (1.18%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.44%) Kibana
8 1 (0.15%) Argo
8 1 (0.15%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.15%) Control-M
8 1 (0.15%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.15%) Sysdig
Vendors
1 59 (8.73%) Oracle
2 41 (6.07%) Microsoft
3 20 (2.96%) Google
4 12 (1.78%) Sybase
5 11 (1.63%) ServiceNow
6 10 (1.48%) Databricks
7 9 (1.33%) SAP
8 8 (1.18%) Salesforce
9 6 (0.89%) Guidewire
10 5 (0.74%) Atlassian
11 4 (0.59%) IBM
11 4 (0.59%) Pega
12 3 (0.44%) Apple
12 3 (0.44%) Cognizant
12 3 (0.44%) Dataiku
12 3 (0.44%) Foundry
13 2 (0.30%) CA Agile Central
13 2 (0.30%) Confluent
13 2 (0.30%) New Relic
13 2 (0.30%) OpenAI