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 17 December 2025.

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

6 months to
17 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 175 148 172
Rank change year-on-year -27 +24 -64
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 602 618 648
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.64% 1.80% 1.48%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.80% 1.94% 1.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 442 395 469
10th Percentile £400 £394 £425
25th Percentile £450 £483 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £590
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% -2.54% -9.23%
75th Percentile £675 £700 £700
90th Percentile £788 £825 £828
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% -8.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 7
10th Percentile - - £53.25
25th Percentile - - £56.25
Median hourly rate - - £60.00
75th Percentile - - £67.50
90th Percentile - - £73.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £52.50
% change year-on-year - - -34.38%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 33,474 31,919 40,968
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.98% 92.77% 93.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,192 19,646 27,547
10th Percentile £290 £300 £288
25th Percentile £404 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £644
90th Percentile £720 £738 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,966 1,020 1,459
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.48 £15.16
25th Percentile £18.00 £21.00 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £33.52 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.97% -25.51% +50.00%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.59 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £72.53 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -22.62% -27.78% +80.00%

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 17 December 2025.

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 17 December 2025. 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 -25 518 £550 -4.35% 318
London -30 302 £625 +4.17% 130
Work from Home -11 219 £591 +5.02% 195
UK excluding London -29 217 £500 - 267
North of England -27 68 £550 +10.00% 73
South West +35 55 £475 -13.64% 15
Yorkshire -24 38 £631 +23.77% 22
South East -17 37 £487 +5.19% 103
North West -27 27 £505 +1.00% 36
Midlands -21 25 £510 +7.94% 12
East of England -8 22 £500 +7.53% 22
West Midlands -29 16 £525 +11.11% 6
Scotland -19 11 £475 +5.56% 42
North East -1 9 £488 -17.37% 15
East Midlands -18 9 £505 +10.68% 6
Northern Ireland -4 4 £544 +40.32%
Wales 0 3 £638 +27.50% 6

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

For the 6 months to 17 December 2025, 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.

1 214 (35.55%) Agile
2 208 (34.55%) Java
3 192 (31.89%) AWS
4 161 (26.74%) CI/CD
5 158 (26.25%) DevOps
5 158 (26.25%) Microservices
5 158 (26.25%) SQL
6 156 (25.91%) Azure
7 137 (22.76%) Python
8 132 (21.93%) Problem-Solving
9 127 (21.10%) Kafka
9 127 (21.10%) Security Cleared
10 117 (19.44%) Docker
11 113 (18.77%) JavaScript
12 112 (18.60%) Kubernetes
13 110 (18.27%) SC Cleared
14 96 (15.95%) Spring
15 87 (14.45%) C#
16 77 (12.79%) .NET
16 77 (12.79%) RESTful
16 77 (12.79%) Scrum
17 76 (12.62%) Git
17 76 (12.62%) React
17 76 (12.62%) Spring Boot
18 74 (12.29%) Containerisation
19 72 (11.96%) Software Engineering
20 70 (11.63%) Azure DevOps
21 69 (11.46%) Full-Stack Development
22 68 (11.30%) TDD
23 67 (11.13%) Analytics

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 18 (2.99%) Confluence
2 7 (1.16%) SharePoint
3 6 (1.00%) CMS
4 5 (0.83%) nginx
5 4 (0.66%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.33%) Anypoint
6 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.33%) SAS
7 1 (0.17%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.17%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle Application Server
7 1 (0.17%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.17%) WordPress
Applications
1 8 (1.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.50%) Endur
3 2 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.17%) FLEXCUBE
4 1 (0.17%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.17%) Oracle Retail
4 1 (0.17%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
4 1 (0.17%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.17%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 192 (31.89%) AWS
2 156 (25.91%) Azure
3 70 (11.63%) Azure DevOps
4 54 (8.97%) GitHub
5 39 (6.48%) GCP
5 39 (6.48%) Serverless
6 29 (4.82%) Power Platform
7 21 (3.49%) AWS Lambda
7 21 (3.49%) GitHub Actions
8 19 (3.16%) Amazon SQS
9 17 (2.82%) Amazon EC2
10 16 (2.66%) Power Automate
11 15 (2.49%) Amazon EKS
11 15 (2.49%) Amazon S3
11 15 (2.49%) SaaS
12 14 (2.33%) Azure AKS
13 13 (2.16%) PowerApps
14 12 (1.99%) Amazon ECS
14 12 (1.99%) Dynamics 365
15 11 (1.83%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.83%) Kerberos
1 5 (0.83%) SSL
2 3 (0.50%) Reverse Proxy
3 2 (0.33%) HTTP
3 2 (0.33%) VPN
4 1 (0.17%) Firewall
4 1 (0.17%) FTP
4 1 (0.17%) Internet
4 1 (0.17%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (10.63%) PostgreSQL
2 53 (8.80%) MongoDB
3 45 (7.48%) Relational Database
4 36 (5.98%) SQL Server
5 35 (5.81%) NoSQL
6 24 (3.99%) Apache Cassandra
7 18 (2.99%) DynamoDB
8 17 (2.82%) DB2
9 16 (2.66%) Power BI
10 13 (2.16%) Data Hub
10 13 (2.16%) Redis
11 11 (1.83%) RDBMS
12 10 (1.66%) Data Lake
12 10 (1.66%) MySQL
13 9 (1.50%) Amazon RDS
14 8 (1.33%) Data Warehouse
15 6 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
15 6 (1.00%) Big Data
15 6 (1.00%) HBase
15 6 (1.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 76 (12.62%) Git
2 43 (7.14%) JUnit
3 40 (6.64%) Jenkins
4 35 (5.81%) Oracle APEX
5 34 (5.65%) GitLab
6 32 (5.32%) JIRA
7 24 (3.99%) Mockito
8 13 (2.16%) Maven
9 11 (1.83%) Gradle
10 10 (1.66%) Cucumber
11 9 (1.50%) Artifactory
11 9 (1.50%) SpecFlow
12 8 (1.33%) Postman
13 7 (1.16%) Sonatype Nexus
14 6 (1.00%) Bitbucket
14 6 (1.00%) Mocha
15 5 (0.83%) Cypress.io
15 5 (0.83%) webpack
16 4 (0.66%) TeamCity
17 3 (0.50%) QUnit
General
1 157 (26.08%) Social Skills
2 155 (25.75%) Finance
3 93 (15.45%) Banking
4 73 (12.13%) Public Sector
5 59 (9.80%) Analytical Skills
6 44 (7.31%) Investment Banking
7 28 (4.65%) Front Office
8 8 (1.33%) Financial Institution
9 6 (1.00%) Manufacturing
10 5 (0.83%) Military
10 5 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (0.66%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.50%) Automotive
12 3 (0.50%) Law
12 3 (0.50%) Marketing
12 3 (0.50%) Retail Banking
13 2 (0.33%) Back Office
13 2 (0.33%) Retail
13 2 (0.33%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 127 (21.10%) Kafka
2 96 (15.95%) Spring
3 77 (12.79%) .NET
3 77 (12.79%) RESTful
4 76 (12.62%) React
4 76 (12.62%) Spring Boot
5 55 (9.14%) Node.js
6 53 (8.80%) REST
7 44 (7.31%) AngularJS
8 42 (6.98%) HTML
9 34 (5.65%) CSS
10 29 (4.82%) Web Services
11 26 (4.32%) JSON
12 23 (3.82%) .NET Framework
12 23 (3.82%) RabbitMQ
13 22 (3.65%) .NET Core
14 19 (3.16%) gRPC
15 18 (2.99%) Next.js
15 18 (2.99%) Playwright
16 17 (2.82%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 46 (7.64%) Cloud Native
2 41 (6.81%) Distributed Systems
3 32 (5.32%) Derivative
4 28 (4.65%) Equities
5 22 (3.65%) Greenfield Project
5 22 (3.65%) Product Ownership
6 21 (3.49%) Data Structures
7 20 (3.32%) Market Risk
8 19 (3.16%) Management Information System
9 17 (2.82%) Fixed Income
10 16 (2.66%) Algorithms
11 14 (2.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 11 (1.83%) Legacy Systems
13 7 (1.16%) Legacy Applications
13 7 (1.16%) Mobile App
14 6 (1.00%) Linux Command Line
14 6 (1.00%) NHS
15 5 (0.83%) Equity Derivative
15 5 (0.83%) Hedge funds
16 4 (0.66%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 52 (8.64%) Linux
2 26 (4.32%) Unix
3 19 (3.16%) Android
4 14 (2.33%) Mac OS X
5 13 (2.16%) Apple iOS
6 4 (0.66%) Windows
7 2 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.17%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.17%) tvOS
8 1 (0.17%) watchOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 214 (35.55%) Agile
2 161 (26.74%) CI/CD
3 158 (26.25%) DevOps
3 158 (26.25%) Microservices
4 132 (21.93%) Problem-Solving
5 77 (12.79%) Scrum
6 74 (12.29%) Containerisation
7 72 (11.96%) Software Engineering
8 69 (11.46%) Full-Stack Development
9 68 (11.30%) TDD
10 67 (11.13%) Analytics
11 66 (10.96%) Test Automation
12 54 (8.97%) Open Source
13 48 (7.97%) Mentoring
14 46 (7.64%) Event-Driven
15 44 (7.31%) Clean Code
15 44 (7.31%) SDLC
16 43 (7.14%) Infrastructure as Code
16 43 (7.14%) Unit Testing
17 41 (6.81%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 208 (34.55%) Java
2 158 (26.25%) SQL
3 137 (22.76%) Python
4 113 (18.77%) JavaScript
5 87 (14.45%) C#
6 55 (9.14%) TypeScript
7 41 (6.81%) PL/SQL
8 29 (4.82%) Go
9 20 (3.32%) Kotlin
10 17 (2.82%) Shell Script
11 14 (2.33%) C++
11 14 (2.33%) Ruby
12 13 (2.16%) Bash
13 10 (1.66%) PHP
14 9 (1.50%) PowerShell
15 6 (1.00%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.83%) Swift
17 4 (0.66%) Objective-C
17 4 (0.66%) T-SQL
18 3 (0.50%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 127 (21.10%) Security Cleared
2 110 (18.27%) SC Cleared
3 44 (7.31%) Degree
4 28 (4.65%) BPSS Clearance
5 23 (3.82%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (1.00%) AWS Certification
6 6 (1.00%) Master's Degree
6 6 (1.00%) OCP
6 6 (1.00%) Oracle Certification
7 5 (0.83%) Numerate Degree
8 3 (0.50%) AWS Certified Developer
8 3 (0.50%) DBS Check
8 3 (0.50%) MCP
8 3 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 2 (0.33%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.33%) DV Cleared
10 1 (0.17%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 1 (0.17%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (4.65%) Accessibility
2 26 (4.32%) QA
3 13 (2.16%) Data Quality
4 11 (1.83%) WCAG
5 4 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.50%) EU AI Act
6 3 (0.50%) NIST
7 1 (0.17%) GDPR
7 1 (0.17%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.17%) ISO 22301
7 1 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 117 (19.44%) Docker
2 5 (0.83%) zsh
3 1 (0.17%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.17%) GridGain
3 1 (0.17%) Lustre
3 1 (0.17%) OpenAM
3 1 (0.17%) OpenDJ
3 1 (0.17%) OpenIDM
3 1 (0.17%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 112 (18.60%) Kubernetes
2 39 (6.48%) Terraform
3 20 (3.32%) Grafana
4 14 (2.33%) Ansible
5 9 (1.50%) Prometheus
6 6 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.50%) Kibana
8 1 (0.17%) Argo
8 1 (0.17%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.17%) Control-M
8 1 (0.17%) Packer
8 1 (0.17%) Rundeck
8 1 (0.17%) Sysdig
Vendors
1 56 (9.30%) Oracle
2 28 (4.65%) Microsoft
3 23 (3.82%) Google
4 18 (2.99%) Sybase
5 17 (2.82%) Databricks
6 15 (2.49%) ServiceNow
7 9 (1.50%) Salesforce
8 8 (1.33%) Atlassian
9 6 (1.00%) Apple
10 5 (0.83%) SAP
11 4 (0.66%) CA Agile Central
11 4 (0.66%) Dataiku
11 4 (0.66%) IBM
11 4 (0.66%) Virgin Media
12 3 (0.50%) BMC
12 3 (0.50%) Foundry
12 3 (0.50%) HP
13 2 (0.33%) Ab Initio
13 2 (0.33%) Ivanti
13 2 (0.33%) Remedy