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 4 June 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 162 159 138
Rank change year-on-year -3 -21 -2
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 790 512 728
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.61% 1.78% 1.70%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.75% 1.92% 1.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 501 362 532
10th Percentile £406 £400 £408
25th Percentile £475 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £700 £725 £725
90th Percentile £894 £825 £863
UK excluding London median daily rate £514 £525 £475
% change year-on-year -2.14% +10.53% -14.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 1 14
10th Percentile £37.25 - £36.50
25th Percentile £44.93 - £43.71
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 - £82.85
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 45,181 26,628 39,798
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.36% 92.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,497 17,201 25,733
10th Percentile £325 £287 £280
25th Percentile £413 £404 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £504 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.69% -4.00% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £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 3,016 1,081 2,844
10th Percentile £15.03 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.80 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.70 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.48% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.75 £61.60
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% -5.88%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -9 667 £575 -4.17% 217
London +5 434 £625 -3.85% 89
UK excluding London -28 248 £514 -2.14% 179
Work from Home -31 203 £560 -6.67% 253
North of England -10 97 £538 +2.38% 41
Yorkshire -21 51 £575 +9.52% 7
North West -5 44 £494 -1.25% 25
Midlands -39 42 £513 -6.82% 15
South East -48 39 £560 +8.74% 53
West Midlands -42 34 £513 -6.82% 10
South West -25 28 £475 -13.64% 18
East of England -23 19 £500 -23.08% 16
Scotland -27 19 £411 -3.24% 25
East Midlands -21 7 £525 +28.05% 5
Northern Ireland +6 5 £650 +30.00% 3
North East -25 4 £750 +100.00% 9
Wales -17 2 £525 +61.54% 10

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

For the 6 months to 4 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.

1 251 (31.77%) Java
2 214 (27.09%) AWS
3 203 (25.70%) CI/CD
4 192 (24.30%) Agile
5 168 (21.27%) Python
6 158 (20.00%) Azure
7 145 (18.35%) Microservices
8 142 (17.97%) SQL
9 121 (15.32%) Security Cleared
10 120 (15.19%) DevOps
10 120 (15.19%) JavaScript
11 117 (14.81%) Docker
12 115 (14.56%) React
13 113 (14.30%) SC Cleared
14 106 (13.42%) Kubernetes
15 103 (13.04%) C#
16 97 (12.28%) Spring
17 96 (12.15%) TypeScript
18 92 (11.65%) .NET
19 88 (11.14%) Kafka
20 85 (10.76%) Spring Boot
21 84 (10.63%) Full-Stack Development
22 83 (10.51%) Containerisation
22 83 (10.51%) Git
23 80 (10.13%) RESTful
24 79 (10.00%) Software Engineering
24 79 (10.00%) TDD
25 78 (9.87%) Test Automation
26 73 (9.24%) REST
27 67 (8.48%) 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 (1.27%) Apache Spark
2 8 (1.01%) Apache
2 8 (1.01%) Confluence
3 7 (0.89%) Ethereum
3 7 (0.89%) Hyperledger
4 6 (0.76%) CMS
5 5 (0.63%) Mendix
5 5 (0.63%) nginx
6 4 (0.51%) Headless CMS
6 4 (0.51%) Oracle Workflow
7 3 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.38%) IIS
7 3 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 3 (0.38%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.25%) Cloud Foundry
8 2 (0.25%) Moodle
8 2 (0.25%) SAS
8 2 (0.25%) SharePoint
8 2 (0.25%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.13%) JBoss
Applications
1 9 (1.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 17 (2.15%) Teamcenter
2 5 (0.63%) Endur
3 4 (0.51%) R3 Corda
4 3 (0.38%) Aladdin
4 3 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.38%) Quorum
4 3 (0.38%) Ripple
4 3 (0.38%) SimCorp Dimension
5 2 (0.25%) Shopify
6 1 (0.13%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.13%) FLEXCUBE
6 1 (0.13%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.13%) SDL Web 8
Cloud Services
1 214 (27.09%) AWS
2 158 (20.00%) Azure
3 60 (7.59%) GitHub
4 44 (5.57%) Serverless
5 41 (5.19%) Power Platform
6 38 (4.81%) Azure DevOps
7 34 (4.30%) GitHub Actions
8 33 (4.18%) GCP
9 27 (3.42%) Amazon SQS
9 27 (3.42%) Power Automate
10 24 (3.04%) AWS Lambda
11 21 (2.66%) PowerApps
12 20 (2.53%) Azure Service Bus
13 19 (2.41%) Amazon EC2
13 19 (2.41%) Amazon S3
14 16 (2.03%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 16 (2.03%) Dynamics 365
15 15 (1.90%) Amazon ECS
16 14 (1.77%) Copilot Studio
17 13 (1.65%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.01%) HTTP
2 6 (0.76%) Multicast
3 3 (0.38%) Reverse Proxy
4 2 (0.25%) Ethernet
4 2 (0.25%) NFC
4 2 (0.25%) RTP
5 1 (0.13%) DNS
5 1 (0.13%) Firewall
5 1 (0.13%) SSL
5 1 (0.13%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (7.09%) PostgreSQL
2 44 (5.57%) SQL Server
3 41 (5.19%) Relational Database
4 35 (4.43%) MongoDB
5 34 (4.30%) Power BI
6 30 (3.80%) NoSQL
7 22 (2.78%) Apache Cassandra
8 20 (2.53%) DynamoDB
9 17 (2.15%) MySQL
10 15 (1.90%) Amazon RDS
10 15 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
11 10 (1.27%) KDB
12 7 (0.89%) Amazon Aurora
12 7 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
12 7 (0.89%) Kdb+
12 7 (0.89%) Oracle BI EE
13 6 (0.76%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 5 (0.63%) Big Data
14 5 (0.63%) Redis
Development Applications
1 83 (10.51%) Git
2 41 (5.19%) Jenkins
3 25 (3.16%) Maven
4 23 (2.91%) GitLab
4 23 (2.91%) JUnit
5 21 (2.66%) JIRA
6 20 (2.53%) Mockito
7 18 (2.28%) SonarQube
8 13 (1.65%) Gradle
9 5 (0.63%) Snyk
9 5 (0.63%) Xcode
10 4 (0.51%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.51%) git-flow
10 4 (0.51%) XCTest
10 4 (0.51%) XCUITest
11 3 (0.38%) Bitbucket Server
11 3 (0.38%) Cucumber
11 3 (0.38%) Cypress.io
11 3 (0.38%) DbUnit
11 3 (0.38%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 158 (20.00%) Finance
2 116 (14.68%) Banking
2 116 (14.68%) Public Sector
3 112 (14.18%) Social Skills
4 51 (6.46%) Investment Banking
5 46 (5.82%) Front Office
6 39 (4.94%) Analytical Skills
7 22 (2.78%) Financial Institution
8 16 (2.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 12 (1.52%) Retail
10 10 (1.27%) Military
11 8 (1.01%) Legal
12 7 (0.89%) Manufacturing
13 6 (0.76%) Law
14 5 (0.63%) Telecoms
15 4 (0.51%) Documentation Skills
15 4 (0.51%) Games
15 4 (0.51%) Health Technology
16 3 (0.38%) Organisational Skills
16 3 (0.38%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (14.56%) React
2 97 (12.28%) Spring
3 92 (11.65%) .NET
4 88 (11.14%) Kafka
5 85 (10.76%) Spring Boot
6 80 (10.13%) RESTful
7 73 (9.24%) REST
8 56 (7.09%) AngularJS
9 55 (6.96%) Node.js
10 50 (6.33%) HTML
11 45 (5.70%) CSS
12 42 (5.32%) Redux
13 30 (3.80%) Web Services
14 25 (3.16%) Django
15 23 (2.91%) SOAP
16 21 (2.66%) .NET Core
17 20 (2.53%) gRPC
18 19 (2.41%) OAuth
19 17 (2.15%) RabbitMQ
20 15 (1.90%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 60 (7.59%) Distributed Systems
2 56 (7.09%) Cloud Native
3 35 (4.43%) Greenfield Project
4 34 (4.30%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 34 (4.30%) Product Ownership
5 31 (3.92%) Fixed Income
6 30 (3.80%) Equities
7 19 (2.41%) Derivative
7 19 (2.41%) Mobile App
8 16 (2.03%) Algorithms
9 10 (1.27%) Onboarding
10 8 (1.01%) AI Agents
10 8 (1.01%) Management Information System
11 7 (0.89%) Data Structures
11 7 (0.89%) Equity Derivative
11 7 (0.89%) Legacy Systems
11 7 (0.89%) Market Risk
12 5 (0.63%) Blockchain
12 5 (0.63%) CMDB
12 5 (0.63%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 45 (5.70%) Linux
2 28 (3.54%) Unix
3 17 (2.15%) Windows
4 12 (1.52%) Apple iOS
5 10 (1.27%) Android
6 9 (1.14%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.63%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.25%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.13%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 203 (25.70%) CI/CD
2 192 (24.30%) Agile
3 145 (18.35%) Microservices
4 120 (15.19%) DevOps
5 84 (10.63%) Full-Stack Development
6 83 (10.51%) Containerisation
7 79 (10.00%) Software Engineering
7 79 (10.00%) TDD
8 78 (9.87%) Test Automation
9 67 (8.48%) Problem-Solving
10 63 (7.97%) Data Modelling
11 57 (7.22%) Code Quality
11 57 (7.22%) Event-Driven
12 56 (7.09%) Mentoring
13 52 (6.58%) Scrum
14 50 (6.33%) Front End Development
15 49 (6.20%) Business Intelligence
16 48 (6.08%) AI
17 47 (5.95%) Design Patterns
17 47 (5.95%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 251 (31.77%) Java
2 168 (21.27%) Python
3 142 (17.97%) SQL
4 120 (15.19%) JavaScript
5 103 (13.04%) C#
6 96 (12.15%) TypeScript
7 33 (4.18%) Go
8 25 (3.16%) Ruby
9 23 (2.91%) C++
9 23 (2.91%) Kotlin
10 11 (1.39%) Apex Code
11 10 (1.27%) Swift
12 9 (1.14%) PL/SQL
12 9 (1.14%) PowerShell
12 9 (1.14%) Shell Script
13 7 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 6 (0.76%) Bash
15 5 (0.63%) R
15 5 (0.63%) SOQL
15 5 (0.63%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 121 (15.32%) Security Cleared
2 113 (14.30%) SC Cleared
3 27 (3.42%) Degree
4 22 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (0.89%) DV Cleared
7 5 (0.63%) AWS Certification
8 4 (0.51%) AWS Certified Developer
8 4 (0.51%) Numerate Degree
9 3 (0.38%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (0.25%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 1 (0.13%) Azure Certification
11 1 (0.13%) CISSP
11 1 (0.13%) Master's Degree
11 1 (0.13%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (3.80%) Accessibility
2 28 (3.54%) QA
3 18 (2.28%) WCAG
4 12 (1.52%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.25%) GDPR
5 2 (0.25%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.13%) Basel III
6 1 (0.13%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.13%) Solvency II
System Software
1 117 (14.81%) Docker
2 3 (0.38%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.25%) GridGain
3 2 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
3 2 (0.25%) Postfix
4 1 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 106 (13.42%) Kubernetes
2 52 (6.58%) Terraform
3 23 (2.91%) Grafana
4 17 (2.15%) Prometheus
5 14 (1.77%) Ansible
6 8 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.51%) Argo
8 2 (0.25%) Consul
8 2 (0.25%) Zipkin
9 1 (0.13%) HAProxy
9 1 (0.13%) SELinux
9 1 (0.13%) Sysdig
9 1 (0.13%) systemd
Vendors
1 53 (6.71%) Microsoft
2 32 (4.05%) Oracle
3 19 (2.41%) Salesforce
4 17 (2.15%) ServiceNow
5 12 (1.52%) Avaloq
6 10 (1.27%) Databricks
6 10 (1.27%) Google
7 9 (1.14%) SAP
8 6 (0.76%) Guidewire
8 6 (0.76%) Jaspersoft
8 6 (0.76%) Sybase
9 4 (0.51%) ForgeRock
9 4 (0.51%) Okta
9 4 (0.51%) Pega
9 4 (0.51%) Solace
10 3 (0.38%) Atlassian
10 3 (0.38%) Cognizant
10 3 (0.38%) New Relic
10 3 (0.38%) SimCorp
10 3 (0.38%) Splunk