Senior Developer Contract Job Trends

Senior Developer
UK

The median Senior Developer daily rate in the UK is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 September 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 168 176 113
Rank change year-on-year +8 -63 +36
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 882 529 796
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.63% 1.62% 2.07%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.76% 1.77% 2.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 578 379 561
10th Percentile £400 £400 £400
25th Percentile £456 £462 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - -12.00%
75th Percentile £701 £700 £700
90th Percentile £938 £808 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -1.90% +5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 0 3
10th Percentile £37.25 - £40.29
25th Percentile £44.93 - £48.22
Median hourly rate £45.56 - £61.43
75th Percentile £46.18 - £74.47
90th Percentile £47.69 - £82.29
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.56 - £60.00

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 50,015 29,838 35,858
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.41% 91.17% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,814 18,799 22,503
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,645 1,551 1,794
10th Percentile £14.85 £13.60 £14.50
25th Percentile £20.48 £16.95 £20.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.89 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.60 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +12.50%

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 7 September 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 7 September 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 7 September 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 -7 716 £588 +2.17% 399
London -9 423 £650 - 210
UK excluding London +15 336 £515 -1.90% 249
Work from Home -46 231 £525 -5.83% 212
North of England +2 137 £588 +6.82% 92
Yorkshire -3 70 £550 -8.33% 24
Midlands -5 67 £470 -7.84% 37
North West -17 58 £625 +25.00% 47
West Midlands -2 54 £470 -18.26% 22
Scotland +1 48 £410 +0.49% 24
South West -25 45 £525 -4.55% 21
South East -73 33 £425 -19.58% 50
East Midlands -11 12 £500 +9.89% 14
North East -31 11 £625 +28.21% 21
East of England -23 6 - - 13
Northern Ireland +1 3 £650 +30.00% 12
Wales -16 2 £469 +44.23% 4

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

For the 6 months to 7 September 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.

1 291 (32.99%) CI/CD
2 281 (31.86%) Agile
3 265 (30.05%) Java
4 191 (21.66%) Python
5 181 (20.52%) AWS
5 181 (20.52%) Azure
6 180 (20.41%) SQL
7 162 (18.37%) C#
8 159 (18.03%) DevOps
8 159 (18.03%) Microservices
9 149 (16.89%) Security Cleared
10 148 (16.78%) JavaScript
11 141 (15.99%) TypeScript
12 135 (15.31%) REST
13 134 (15.19%) SC Cleared
14 131 (14.85%) React
15 130 (14.74%) Git
16 123 (13.95%) .NET
17 117 (13.27%) Docker
17 117 (13.27%) Full-Stack Development
17 117 (13.27%) Test Automation
18 111 (12.59%) Software Engineering
18 111 (12.59%) Spring
19 109 (12.36%) RESTful
20 95 (10.77%) Kubernetes
21 92 (10.43%) AI
21 92 (10.43%) Problem-Solving
22 90 (10.20%) Spring Boot
23 88 (9.98%) Continuous Improvement
23 88 (9.98%) GitHub

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 22 (2.49%) Confluence
2 12 (1.36%) Apache Spark
3 9 (1.02%) Apache
3 9 (1.02%) Oracle Workflow
4 8 (0.91%) WordPress
5 6 (0.68%) CMS
5 6 (0.68%) SharePoint
6 3 (0.34%) Camunda
6 3 (0.34%) Ethereum
6 3 (0.34%) Hyperledger
6 3 (0.34%) Moodle
7 2 (0.23%) Appian
7 2 (0.23%) Cloud Foundry
7 2 (0.23%) IIS
7 2 (0.23%) Mendix
7 2 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
7 2 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 2 (0.23%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.11%) HCL Domino
8 1 (0.11%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 7 (0.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 17 (1.93%) Teamcenter
2 12 (1.36%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (1.25%) Oracle EBS
4 7 (0.79%) NetSuite
5 6 (0.68%) Endur
6 5 (0.57%) Oracle Financials
6 5 (0.57%) Oracle General Ledger
6 5 (0.57%) Oracle Payables
6 5 (0.57%) Oracle Receivables
7 4 (0.45%) Oracle FAH
8 3 (0.34%) Oracle Applications
8 3 (0.34%) Oracle Assets
8 3 (0.34%) Quorum
8 3 (0.34%) R3 Corda
8 3 (0.34%) Ripple
8 3 (0.34%) Shopify
9 2 (0.23%) Aladdin
9 2 (0.23%) Oracle E-Business Tax
9 2 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 2 (0.23%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 181 (20.52%) AWS
1 181 (20.52%) Azure
2 88 (9.98%) GitHub
3 58 (6.58%) GitHub Actions
4 53 (6.01%) Power Platform
5 49 (5.56%) Azure DevOps
6 43 (4.88%) Serverless
7 40 (4.54%) GCP
8 36 (4.08%) Power Automate
9 21 (2.38%) Dynamics 365
10 20 (2.27%) PowerApps
11 18 (2.04%) Amazon S3
12 17 (1.93%) Amazon SQS
13 16 (1.81%) AWS Lambda
14 15 (1.70%) GitHub Copilot
15 13 (1.47%) OpenShift
16 11 (1.25%) Azure Functions
16 11 (1.25%) Azure Service Bus
17 10 (1.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 9 (1.02%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 6 (0.68%) Multicast
2 4 (0.45%) Broadband
3 3 (0.34%) HTTP
4 2 (0.23%) NFC
4 2 (0.23%) RTP
5 1 (0.11%) CTI
5 1 (0.11%) Ethernet
5 1 (0.11%) MQTT
5 1 (0.11%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (7.71%) PostgreSQL
2 65 (7.37%) SQL Server
3 59 (6.69%) Relational Database
4 39 (4.42%) Power BI
5 38 (4.31%) MongoDB
6 27 (3.06%) NoSQL
7 21 (2.38%) Oracle Database
8 17 (1.93%) Data Warehouse
8 17 (1.93%) DynamoDB
9 14 (1.59%) RDBMS
10 13 (1.47%) MySQL
11 12 (1.36%) Redis
12 11 (1.25%) Azure SQL Database
12 11 (1.25%) KDB
13 9 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
14 8 (0.91%) Geospatial Data
14 8 (0.91%) Kdb+
14 8 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
15 7 (0.79%) Amazon Aurora
15 7 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 130 (14.74%) Git
2 60 (6.80%) Jenkins
3 37 (4.20%) JIRA
4 32 (3.63%) Maven
5 29 (3.29%) Mockito
6 28 (3.17%) JUnit
7 27 (3.06%) GitLab
8 19 (2.15%) SonarQube
9 15 (1.70%) Gradle
10 9 (1.02%) Claude Code
10 9 (1.02%) Oracle Forms
11 7 (0.79%) Bitbucket
12 6 (0.68%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.68%) Visual Studio Code
13 5 (0.57%) Cucumber
13 5 (0.57%) Cypress.io
13 5 (0.57%) MSI
13 5 (0.57%) Vite
13 5 (0.57%) Xcode
14 4 (0.45%) XCUITest
General
1 194 (22.00%) Finance
2 173 (19.61%) Social Skills
3 149 (16.89%) Public Sector
4 123 (13.95%) Banking
5 76 (8.62%) Front Office
6 72 (8.16%) Analytical Skills
7 60 (6.80%) Investment Banking
8 36 (4.08%) Retail
9 30 (3.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 14 (1.59%) Financial Institution
10 14 (1.59%) Military
11 11 (1.25%) Back Office
11 11 (1.25%) Games
12 8 (0.91%) Law
12 8 (0.91%) Legal
13 7 (0.79%) Telecoms
14 6 (0.68%) Manufacturing
14 6 (0.68%) Organisational Skills
15 5 (0.57%) Local Government
16 3 (0.34%) Prime Brokerage
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (15.31%) REST
2 131 (14.85%) React
3 123 (13.95%) .NET
4 111 (12.59%) Spring
5 109 (12.36%) RESTful
6 90 (10.20%) Spring Boot
7 68 (7.71%) Kafka
8 57 (6.46%) HTML
8 57 (6.46%) Node.js
8 57 (6.46%) Redux
9 53 (6.01%) Terraform
10 49 (5.56%) CSS
11 47 (5.33%) AngularJS
11 47 (5.33%) SOAP
12 42 (4.76%) Django
13 37 (4.20%) Web Services
14 36 (4.08%) JSON
15 34 (3.85%) HTML5
16 28 (3.17%) CSS3
17 27 (3.06%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 65 (7.37%) Cloud Native
2 56 (6.35%) Product Ownership
3 55 (6.24%) Distributed Systems
4 50 (5.67%) Fixed Income
5 49 (5.56%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 41 (4.65%) Equities
7 37 (4.20%) Greenfield Project
8 26 (2.95%) Enterprise Software
9 16 (1.81%) CMDB
9 16 (1.81%) Data Structures
10 15 (1.70%) Onboarding
11 14 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
11 14 (1.59%) Mobile App
12 13 (1.47%) Algorithms
12 13 (1.47%) Derivative
13 12 (1.36%) AI Agents
14 7 (0.79%) Market Risk
15 6 (0.68%) Spread Betting
15 6 (0.68%) Virtual Team
16 5 (0.57%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 54 (6.12%) Linux
2 53 (6.01%) Unix
3 20 (2.27%) Windows
4 11 (1.25%) Android
4 11 (1.25%) Apple iOS
5 8 (0.91%) AIX
6 7 (0.79%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.45%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.45%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 291 (32.99%) CI/CD
2 281 (31.86%) Agile
3 159 (18.03%) DevOps
3 159 (18.03%) Microservices
4 117 (13.27%) Full-Stack Development
4 117 (13.27%) Test Automation
5 111 (12.59%) Software Engineering
6 92 (10.43%) AI
6 92 (10.43%) Problem-Solving
7 88 (9.98%) Continuous Improvement
8 86 (9.75%) Containerisation
9 81 (9.18%) TDD
10 78 (8.84%) Scrum
11 74 (8.39%) Data Modelling
12 73 (8.28%) Mentoring
13 71 (8.05%) Event-Driven
14 68 (7.71%) Business Intelligence
14 68 (7.71%) Code Quality
15 63 (7.14%) Migration
16 59 (6.69%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 265 (30.05%) Java
2 191 (21.66%) Python
3 180 (20.41%) SQL
4 162 (18.37%) C#
5 148 (16.78%) JavaScript
6 141 (15.99%) TypeScript
7 26 (2.95%) Apex Code
8 23 (2.61%) Ruby
8 23 (2.61%) Shell Script
9 22 (2.49%) PL/SQL
10 19 (2.15%) C++
11 16 (1.81%) Kotlin
12 13 (1.47%) SOQL
13 10 (1.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 10 (1.13%) Scala
14 9 (1.02%) C
14 9 (1.02%) PHP
14 9 (1.02%) Swift
15 8 (0.91%) Bicep
16 7 (0.79%) Go
Qualifications
1 149 (16.89%) Security Cleared
2 134 (15.19%) SC Cleared
3 37 (4.20%) Degree
4 20 (2.27%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (2.15%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (1.02%) Microsoft Certification
7 7 (0.79%) DV Cleared
8 4 (0.45%) Numerate Degree
9 3 (0.34%) Azure Certification
9 3 (0.34%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.23%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.23%) AWS Certified Developer
11 1 (0.11%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 1 (0.11%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.11%) DBS Check
11 1 (0.11%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (5.90%) Accessibility
2 50 (5.67%) QA
3 30 (3.40%) WCAG
4 22 (2.49%) Data Quality
5 8 (0.91%) GDPR
6 5 (0.57%) NCSC
7 2 (0.23%) Basel III
7 2 (0.23%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.11%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.11%) EMIR
8 1 (0.11%) GRC
8 1 (0.11%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.11%) MiFID
8 1 (0.11%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.11%) SEPA
8 1 (0.11%) Solvency II
System Software
1 117 (13.27%) Docker
2 6 (0.68%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.23%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 2 (0.23%) GridGain
4 2 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
4 2 (0.23%) Postfix
5 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 95 (10.77%) Kubernetes
2 25 (2.83%) Grafana
3 20 (2.27%) Prometheus
4 14 (1.59%) Ansible
5 4 (0.45%) Argo
6 2 (0.23%) Bosun
6 2 (0.23%) Consul
6 2 (0.23%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.23%) Zipkin
7 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.11%) SELinux
7 1 (0.11%) systemd
Vendors
1 87 (9.86%) Microsoft
2 75 (8.50%) Oracle
3 47 (5.33%) Salesforce
4 27 (3.06%) ServiceNow
5 23 (2.61%) Databricks
6 15 (1.70%) Google
7 14 (1.59%) MuleSoft
8 12 (1.36%) Avaloq
9 11 (1.25%) IBM
10 10 (1.13%) Blue Prism
11 7 (0.79%) SAP
11 7 (0.79%) Solace
12 5 (0.57%) BeyondTrust
12 5 (0.57%) Bomgar
12 5 (0.57%) Jaspersoft
12 5 (0.57%) VMware
13 4 (0.45%) Splunk
13 4 (0.45%) Sybase
14 3 (0.34%) Atlassian
14 3 (0.34%) New Relic