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 30 December 2025.

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

6 months to
30 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 168 147 178
Rank change year-on-year -21 +31 -70
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 624 588 630
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.69% 1.77% 1.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.85% 1.90% 1.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 460 371 452
10th Percentile £400 £413 £425
25th Percentile £450 £500 £492
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% - -10.16%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £700
90th Percentile £788 £825 £825
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 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 33,741 30,870 40,353
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.20% 92.72% 93.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,345 18,959 27,051
10th Percentile £298 £300 £281
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £616 £638 £640
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,972 954 1,548
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.51 £14.50
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.05 £19.25
Median hourly rate £25.47 £32.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.63% -27.78% +40.82%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.41 £73.75 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -22.62% -29.62% +77.62%

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 30 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 30 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 -23 532 £550 -5.98% 1,416
London -27 314 £625 +4.17% 271
Work from Home +7 225 £588 -2.08% 1,092
UK excluding London -17 218 £500 - 1,283
North of England -28 69 £550 +8.91% 318
South West +37 55 £475 -13.64% 131
Yorkshire -22 38 £631 +21.98% 129
South East -16 36 £473 +2.27% 328
North West -21 28 £500 - 161
Midlands -31 25 £513 +2.50% 218
East of England -12 22 £500 -5.66% 177
West Midlands -19 18 £525 +5.00% 108
Scotland -18 12 £513 +13.89% 81
North East 0 9 £488 -17.37% 28
East Midlands -16 7 £510 +11.78% 95
Northern Ireland - 4 £544 - 13
Wales -1 3 £638 +27.50% 37

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

For the 6 months to 30 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.

1 215 (34.46%) Java
2 208 (33.33%) Agile
3 204 (32.69%) AWS
4 165 (26.44%) CI/CD
5 164 (26.28%) DevOps
6 162 (25.96%) Azure
7 156 (25.00%) Microservices
8 153 (24.52%) SQL
9 146 (23.40%) Python
10 135 (21.63%) Security Cleared
11 129 (20.67%) Problem-Solving
12 127 (20.35%) Kafka
13 125 (20.03%) Docker
14 121 (19.39%) Kubernetes
15 117 (18.75%) JavaScript
15 117 (18.75%) SC Cleared
16 97 (15.54%) Spring
17 85 (13.62%) C#
18 84 (13.46%) React
19 81 (12.98%) Containerisation
20 80 (12.82%) Git
21 78 (12.50%) .NET
22 77 (12.34%) Spring Boot
23 75 (12.02%) Full-Stack Development
24 74 (11.86%) RESTful
25 73 (11.70%) Software Engineering
25 73 (11.70%) TDD
26 72 (11.54%) Scrum
27 71 (11.38%) Azure DevOps
28 69 (11.06%) Test Automation

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 17 (2.72%) Confluence
2 6 (0.96%) CMS
2 6 (0.96%) nginx
2 6 (0.96%) SharePoint
3 4 (0.64%) Jupyter
4 3 (0.48%) SAS
5 2 (0.32%) Anypoint
5 2 (0.32%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.16%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.16%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.16%) Mendix
6 1 (0.16%) Oracle Application Server
6 1 (0.16%) Smallworld
6 1 (0.16%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.16%) WordPress
Applications
1 9 (1.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (0.64%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.48%) Endur
3 2 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.16%) FLEXCUBE
4 1 (0.16%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.16%) Oracle Retail
4 1 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
4 1 (0.16%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.16%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 204 (32.69%) AWS
2 162 (25.96%) Azure
3 71 (11.38%) Azure DevOps
4 56 (8.97%) GitHub
5 39 (6.25%) GCP
6 37 (5.93%) Serverless
7 30 (4.81%) Power Platform
8 20 (3.21%) GitHub Actions
9 18 (2.88%) AWS Lambda
10 17 (2.72%) Power Automate
11 16 (2.56%) Amazon SQS
12 15 (2.40%) Amazon EC2
12 15 (2.40%) Amazon EKS
12 15 (2.40%) SaaS
13 14 (2.24%) Azure AKS
14 13 (2.08%) Amazon S3
15 12 (1.92%) Azure Service Bus
15 12 (1.92%) Dynamics 365
15 12 (1.92%) PowerApps
16 10 (1.60%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.80%) Kerberos
1 5 (0.80%) SSL
2 3 (0.48%) Reverse Proxy
3 2 (0.32%) Firewall
3 2 (0.32%) HTTP
3 2 (0.32%) VPN
4 1 (0.16%) FTP
4 1 (0.16%) Internet
4 1 (0.16%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (10.74%) PostgreSQL
2 53 (8.49%) MongoDB
3 45 (7.21%) Relational Database
4 38 (6.09%) SQL Server
5 35 (5.61%) NoSQL
6 26 (4.17%) Apache Cassandra
7 17 (2.72%) Power BI
8 15 (2.40%) DynamoDB
9 14 (2.24%) Data Hub
9 14 (2.24%) DB2
10 13 (2.08%) Redis
11 12 (1.92%) MySQL
12 11 (1.76%) Data Warehouse
13 9 (1.44%) Data Lake
13 9 (1.44%) RDBMS
14 8 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
15 6 (0.96%) Big Data
15 6 (0.96%) HBase
16 5 (0.80%) Couchbase
16 5 (0.80%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 80 (12.82%) Git
2 40 (6.41%) Jenkins
2 40 (6.41%) JUnit
3 35 (5.61%) Oracle APEX
4 34 (5.45%) GitLab
5 30 (4.81%) JIRA
6 24 (3.85%) Mockito
7 13 (2.08%) Maven
8 12 (1.92%) Gradle
9 9 (1.44%) Artifactory
9 9 (1.44%) Cucumber
10 8 (1.28%) Postman
11 7 (1.12%) Sonatype Nexus
11 7 (1.12%) SpecFlow
12 6 (0.96%) Bitbucket
12 6 (0.96%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.96%) Mocha
13 5 (0.80%) webpack
14 4 (0.64%) TeamCity
15 3 (0.48%) QUnit
General
1 158 (25.32%) Finance
2 155 (24.84%) Social Skills
3 93 (14.90%) Banking
4 85 (13.62%) Public Sector
5 54 (8.65%) Analytical Skills
6 43 (6.89%) Investment Banking
7 26 (4.17%) Front Office
8 10 (1.60%) Financial Institution
9 6 (0.96%) Manufacturing
10 5 (0.80%) Military
10 5 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (0.64%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (0.64%) Law
11 4 (0.64%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.48%) Automotive
12 3 (0.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.48%) Marketing
12 3 (0.48%) Retail Banking
12 3 (0.48%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.32%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 127 (20.35%) Kafka
2 97 (15.54%) Spring
3 84 (13.46%) React
4 78 (12.50%) .NET
5 77 (12.34%) Spring Boot
6 74 (11.86%) RESTful
7 58 (9.29%) Node.js
8 52 (8.33%) REST
9 50 (8.01%) HTML
10 48 (7.69%) AngularJS
11 41 (6.57%) CSS
12 32 (5.13%) Web Services
13 26 (4.17%) JSON
14 23 (3.69%) RabbitMQ
15 21 (3.37%) .NET Core
15 21 (3.37%) .NET Framework
15 21 (3.37%) gRPC
16 19 (3.04%) Next.js
17 17 (2.72%) Jest
18 16 (2.56%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 48 (7.69%) Cloud Native
2 46 (7.37%) Distributed Systems
3 34 (5.45%) Derivative
4 30 (4.81%) Equities
5 23 (3.69%) Greenfield Project
6 21 (3.37%) Product Ownership
7 20 (3.21%) Data Structures
7 20 (3.21%) Market Risk
8 19 (3.04%) Management Information System
9 18 (2.88%) Algorithms
10 17 (2.72%) Fixed Income
11 14 (2.24%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 11 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
13 7 (1.12%) Equity Derivative
13 7 (1.12%) Legacy Applications
14 6 (0.96%) Linux Command Line
14 6 (0.96%) Mobile App
14 6 (0.96%) NHS
14 6 (0.96%) Onboarding
15 5 (0.80%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 54 (8.65%) Linux
2 26 (4.17%) Unix
3 16 (2.56%) Android
4 14 (2.24%) Mac OS X
5 10 (1.60%) Apple iOS
6 4 (0.64%) Windows
7 2 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.16%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.16%) tvOS
8 1 (0.16%) watchOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 208 (33.33%) Agile
2 165 (26.44%) CI/CD
3 164 (26.28%) DevOps
4 156 (25.00%) Microservices
5 129 (20.67%) Problem-Solving
6 81 (12.98%) Containerisation
7 75 (12.02%) Full-Stack Development
8 73 (11.70%) Software Engineering
8 73 (11.70%) TDD
9 72 (11.54%) Scrum
10 69 (11.06%) Test Automation
11 66 (10.58%) Analytics
12 58 (9.29%) Open Source
13 48 (7.69%) Infrastructure as Code
14 47 (7.53%) Event-Driven
15 46 (7.37%) SDLC
16 45 (7.21%) Mentoring
17 43 (6.89%) Performance Tuning
18 42 (6.73%) Front End Development
19 41 (6.57%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 215 (34.46%) Java
2 153 (24.52%) SQL
3 146 (23.40%) Python
4 117 (18.75%) JavaScript
5 85 (13.62%) C#
6 55 (8.81%) TypeScript
7 42 (6.73%) PL/SQL
8 31 (4.97%) Go
9 18 (2.88%) Kotlin
10 17 (2.72%) Ruby
11 16 (2.56%) Shell Script
12 15 (2.40%) C++
13 13 (2.08%) Bash
14 11 (1.76%) PowerShell
15 10 (1.60%) PHP
16 4 (0.64%) Objective-C
16 4 (0.64%) Swift
16 4 (0.64%) T-SQL
17 3 (0.48%) ABAP
17 3 (0.48%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 135 (21.63%) Security Cleared
2 117 (18.75%) SC Cleared
3 43 (6.89%) Degree
4 30 (4.81%) BPSS Clearance
5 23 (3.69%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (1.12%) Numerate Degree
7 6 (0.96%) AWS Certification
7 6 (0.96%) Master's Degree
7 6 (0.96%) OCP
7 6 (0.96%) Oracle Certification
8 3 (0.48%) AWS Certified Developer
8 3 (0.48%) DBS Check
8 3 (0.48%) MCP
8 3 (0.48%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 2 (0.32%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.32%) DV Cleared
10 1 (0.16%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 1 (0.16%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (4.97%) Accessibility
2 23 (3.69%) QA
3 13 (2.08%) Data Quality
4 12 (1.92%) WCAG
5 4 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.48%) EU AI Act
6 3 (0.48%) NIST
7 1 (0.16%) GDPR
7 1 (0.16%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.16%) ISO 22301
7 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 125 (20.03%) Docker
2 5 (0.80%) zsh
3 1 (0.16%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.16%) GridGain
3 1 (0.16%) Lustre
3 1 (0.16%) OpenAM
3 1 (0.16%) OpenDJ
3 1 (0.16%) OpenIDM
3 1 (0.16%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 121 (19.39%) Kubernetes
2 42 (6.73%) Terraform
3 20 (3.21%) Grafana
4 15 (2.40%) Ansible
5 9 (1.44%) Prometheus
6 7 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.48%) Kibana
8 1 (0.16%) Argo
8 1 (0.16%) CloudHub
8 1 (0.16%) Control-M
8 1 (0.16%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.16%) Packer
8 1 (0.16%) Rundeck
8 1 (0.16%) Sysdig
Vendors
1 59 (9.46%) Oracle
2 31 (4.97%) Microsoft
3 22 (3.53%) Google
4 15 (2.40%) Databricks
4 15 (2.40%) Sybase
5 12 (1.92%) ServiceNow
6 8 (1.28%) Atlassian
7 6 (0.96%) Apple
7 6 (0.96%) Salesforce
8 5 (0.80%) SAP
9 4 (0.64%) IBM
10 3 (0.48%) BMC
10 3 (0.48%) Dataiku
10 3 (0.48%) Foundry
10 3 (0.48%) Virgin Media
11 2 (0.32%) CA Agile Central
11 2 (0.32%) Computacenter
11 2 (0.32%) Confluent
11 2 (0.32%) Guidewire
11 2 (0.32%) MuleSoft