Senior Developer Contract Job Trends

Senior Developer
UK

The median Senior Developer daily rate in the UK is £537, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 August 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 167 178 113
Rank change year-on-year +11 -65 +29
Contract jobs requiring a Senior Developer 877 525 790
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.64% 1.60% 2.02%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.77% 1.75% 2.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 557 381 557
10th Percentile £400 £400 £400
25th Percentile £456 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.36% - -12.00%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £700
90th Percentile £938 £813 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £524 £520 £500
% change year-on-year +0.72% +4.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 9
10th Percentile £37.25 - £39.00
25th Percentile £43.01 - £54.85
Median hourly rate £45.56 - £58.91
75th Percentile £46.18 - £62.96
90th Percentile - - £83.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.56 - £58.91

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 49,463 30,049 36,264
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.60% 91.45% 92.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,748 19,085 23,408
10th Percentile £329 £283 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.02%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,453 1,494 2,053
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.62 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £42.25 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.99% -41.51% -
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.83 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.10 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.95
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.78% +15.89%

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 August 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 7 August 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 +1 724 £575 - 324
London -4 433 £625 -3.85% 176
UK excluding London +31 333 £524 +0.72% 173
Work from Home -29 238 £525 -8.70% 158
North of England +14 126 £575 +9.52% 51
Yorkshire +9 66 £550 +4.76% 14
Midlands -19 56 £513 -6.82% 24
North West -5 53 £625 +31.58% 32
Scotland +18 49 £410 +2.50% 13
West Midlands -31 44 £513 -10.87% 9
South East -59 44 £525 -0.80% 53
South West -18 42 £500 -9.09% 16
East of England -18 12 £500 - 13
East Midlands -8 11 £525 +5.00% 15
North East - 9 £875 - 5
Northern Ireland +4 4 £650 +30.00% 2
Wales -12 1 £525 +61.54% 3

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

For the 6 months to 7 August 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.

1 280 (31.93%) CI/CD
2 267 (30.44%) Agile
3 266 (30.33%) Java
4 183 (20.87%) Azure
5 180 (20.52%) AWS
5 180 (20.52%) Python
6 175 (19.95%) Microservices
7 171 (19.50%) SQL
8 158 (18.02%) JavaScript
9 156 (17.79%) C#
10 151 (17.22%) DevOps
11 148 (16.88%) Security Cleared
12 141 (16.08%) TypeScript
13 139 (15.85%) React
14 135 (15.39%) SC Cleared
15 132 (15.05%) REST
16 126 (14.37%) Docker
17 125 (14.25%) .NET
18 122 (13.91%) Full-Stack Development
19 117 (13.34%) Git
20 113 (12.88%) RESTful
21 111 (12.66%) Test Automation
22 106 (12.09%) Kubernetes
23 101 (11.52%) Spring
24 100 (11.40%) Software Engineering
25 91 (10.38%) Problem-Solving
26 90 (10.26%) Containerisation
27 87 (9.92%) AI
28 86 (9.81%) TDD
29 83 (9.46%) Spring Boot

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 (1.94%) Confluence
2 12 (1.37%) Apache Spark
3 9 (1.03%) Apache
3 9 (1.03%) CMS
3 9 (1.03%) Oracle Workflow
4 8 (0.91%) WordPress
5 6 (0.68%) SharePoint
6 4 (0.46%) Headless CMS
7 3 (0.34%) Ethereum
7 3 (0.34%) Hyperledger
7 3 (0.34%) Moodle
8 2 (0.23%) Apache Airflow
8 2 (0.23%) Appian
8 2 (0.23%) Cloud Foundry
8 2 (0.23%) IIS
8 2 (0.23%) Mendix
8 2 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
8 2 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 2 (0.23%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.11%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 7 (0.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 17 (1.94%) Teamcenter
2 11 (1.25%) Oracle EBS
3 8 (0.91%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.80%) 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 (0.46%) Oracle FAH
8 3 (0.34%) Aladdin
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
8 3 (0.34%) SimCorp Dimension
9 2 (0.23%) Oracle iProcurement
9 2 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 183 (20.87%) Azure
2 180 (20.52%) AWS
3 76 (8.67%) GitHub
4 48 (5.47%) GitHub Actions
4 48 (5.47%) Power Platform
5 46 (5.25%) GCP
6 44 (5.02%) Serverless
7 42 (4.79%) Azure DevOps
8 33 (3.76%) Power Automate
9 21 (2.39%) PowerApps
10 20 (2.28%) Amazon S3
10 20 (2.28%) Amazon SQS
11 19 (2.17%) AWS Lambda
12 18 (2.05%) Dynamics 365
13 13 (1.48%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 13 (1.48%) Azure Service Bus
14 12 (1.37%) Amazon EC2
14 12 (1.37%) Amazon ECS
15 11 (1.25%) GitHub Copilot
15 11 (1.25%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 6 (0.68%) Multicast
2 3 (0.34%) Broadband
2 3 (0.34%) HTTP
2 3 (0.34%) NFC
3 2 (0.23%) RTP
4 1 (0.11%) CTI
4 1 (0.11%) Ethernet
4 1 (0.11%) MQTT
4 1 (0.11%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (7.75%) PostgreSQL
2 59 (6.73%) SQL Server
3 50 (5.70%) Relational Database
4 41 (4.68%) Power BI
5 37 (4.22%) MongoDB
6 27 (3.08%) NoSQL
7 19 (2.17%) DynamoDB
7 19 (2.17%) Oracle Database
8 15 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
9 13 (1.48%) MySQL
10 12 (1.37%) Amazon RDS
11 11 (1.25%) Apache Cassandra
11 11 (1.25%) Azure SQL Database
11 11 (1.25%) Redis
12 10 (1.14%) KDB
12 10 (1.14%) RDBMS
13 8 (0.91%) Amazon Aurora
13 8 (0.91%) Geospatial Data
13 8 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
14 7 (0.80%) Kdb+
Development Applications
1 117 (13.34%) Git
2 62 (7.07%) Jenkins
3 31 (3.53%) JIRA
3 31 (3.53%) Maven
4 30 (3.42%) Mockito
5 29 (3.31%) GitLab
6 25 (2.85%) JUnit
7 16 (1.82%) SonarQube
8 14 (1.60%) Gradle
9 9 (1.03%) Oracle Forms
10 7 (0.80%) Bitbucket
10 7 (0.80%) Claude Code
11 5 (0.57%) MSI
11 5 (0.57%) Visual Studio Code
11 5 (0.57%) Xcode
12 4 (0.46%) Cucumber
12 4 (0.46%) REST Assured
12 4 (0.46%) Snyk
12 4 (0.46%) Vite
12 4 (0.46%) XCUITest
General
1 190 (21.66%) Finance
2 156 (17.79%) Social Skills
3 139 (15.85%) Public Sector
4 127 (14.48%) Banking
5 66 (7.53%) Front Office
6 63 (7.18%) Analytical Skills
6 63 (7.18%) Investment Banking
7 36 (4.10%) Retail
8 23 (2.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 15 (1.71%) Financial Institution
10 14 (1.60%) Military
11 10 (1.14%) Games
12 8 (0.91%) Back Office
12 8 (0.91%) Legal
13 6 (0.68%) Law
13 6 (0.68%) Manufacturing
13 6 (0.68%) Telecoms
14 5 (0.57%) Local Government
15 3 (0.34%) Organisational Skills
15 3 (0.34%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 139 (15.85%) React
2 132 (15.05%) REST
3 125 (14.25%) .NET
4 113 (12.88%) RESTful
5 101 (11.52%) Spring
6 83 (9.46%) Spring Boot
7 74 (8.44%) Kafka
8 64 (7.30%) Node.js
9 60 (6.84%) HTML
10 58 (6.61%) Redux
11 53 (6.04%) CSS
12 48 (5.47%) AngularJS
13 41 (4.68%) SOAP
14 35 (3.99%) Django
15 34 (3.88%) Web Services
16 33 (3.76%) HTML5
17 29 (3.31%) .NET Core
18 28 (3.19%) JSON
19 27 (3.08%) CSS3
20 26 (2.96%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 61 (6.96%) Cloud Native
2 60 (6.84%) Distributed Systems
3 49 (5.59%) Fixed Income
3 49 (5.59%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 47 (5.36%) Product Ownership
5 40 (4.56%) Equities
6 36 (4.10%) Greenfield Project
7 23 (2.62%) Enterprise Software
8 18 (2.05%) Data Structures
9 16 (1.82%) CMDB
10 15 (1.71%) Mobile App
10 15 (1.71%) Onboarding
11 14 (1.60%) Algorithms
11 14 (1.60%) Derivative
12 13 (1.48%) AI Agents
13 12 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
14 8 (0.91%) Market Risk
15 5 (0.57%) Low-Code
15 5 (0.57%) Spread Betting
15 5 (0.57%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 56 (6.39%) Linux
2 47 (5.36%) Unix
3 23 (2.62%) Windows
4 12 (1.37%) Android
4 12 (1.37%) Apple iOS
5 9 (1.03%) Mac OS
6 7 (0.80%) Mac OS X
7 4 (0.46%) AIX
7 4 (0.46%) Windows Server
8 1 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 280 (31.93%) CI/CD
2 267 (30.44%) Agile
3 175 (19.95%) Microservices
4 151 (17.22%) DevOps
5 122 (13.91%) Full-Stack Development
6 111 (12.66%) Test Automation
7 100 (11.40%) Software Engineering
8 91 (10.38%) Problem-Solving
9 90 (10.26%) Containerisation
10 87 (9.92%) AI
11 86 (9.81%) TDD
12 77 (8.78%) Continuous Improvement
13 74 (8.44%) Mentoring
14 73 (8.32%) Data Modelling
15 70 (7.98%) Event-Driven
16 68 (7.75%) Scrum
17 66 (7.53%) Code Quality
18 62 (7.07%) Business Intelligence
18 62 (7.07%) Migration
19 58 (6.61%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 266 (30.33%) Java
2 180 (20.52%) Python
3 171 (19.50%) SQL
4 158 (18.02%) JavaScript
5 156 (17.79%) C#
6 141 (16.08%) TypeScript
7 23 (2.62%) Ruby
8 22 (2.51%) PL/SQL
9 21 (2.39%) Apex Code
10 20 (2.28%) C++
11 17 (1.94%) Shell Script
12 16 (1.82%) Go
12 16 (1.82%) Kotlin
13 12 (1.37%) SOQL
14 9 (1.03%) PHP
14 9 (1.03%) Swift
15 8 (0.91%) C
15 8 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 8 (0.91%) Scala
16 7 (0.80%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 148 (16.88%) Security Cleared
2 135 (15.39%) SC Cleared
3 31 (3.53%) Degree
4 18 (2.05%) Computer Science Degree
5 16 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (0.80%) DV Cleared
7 4 (0.46%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (0.34%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.34%) AWS Certified Developer
8 3 (0.34%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 2 (0.23%) Numerate Degree
10 1 (0.11%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 1 (0.11%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.11%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (5.93%) Accessibility
2 46 (5.25%) QA
3 28 (3.19%) WCAG
4 23 (2.62%) Data Quality
5 6 (0.68%) GDPR
6 5 (0.57%) NCSC
7 2 (0.23%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.23%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.11%) Basel III
8 1 (0.11%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.11%) GRC
8 1 (0.11%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.11%) SEPA
8 1 (0.11%) Solvency II
System Software
1 126 (14.37%) Docker
2 7 (0.80%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.46%) 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
1 106 (12.09%) Kubernetes
2 61 (6.96%) Terraform
3 20 (2.28%) Grafana
4 15 (1.71%) Ansible
4 15 (1.71%) Prometheus
5 4 (0.46%) Argo
6 3 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.23%) Bosun
7 2 (0.23%) Consul
7 2 (0.23%) Zipkin
8 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.11%) SELinux
8 1 (0.11%) systemd
Vendors
1 75 (8.55%) Microsoft
2 59 (6.73%) Oracle
3 37 (4.22%) Salesforce
4 30 (3.42%) ServiceNow
5 19 (2.17%) Databricks
6 16 (1.82%) Avaloq
6 16 (1.82%) Google
7 13 (1.48%) MuleSoft
8 9 (1.03%) SAP
9 8 (0.91%) Blue Prism
10 7 (0.80%) IBM
11 6 (0.68%) Jaspersoft
11 6 (0.68%) Solace
12 4 (0.46%) BeyondTrust
12 4 (0.46%) Bomgar
12 4 (0.46%) ForgeRock
12 4 (0.46%) Sybase
12 4 (0.46%) VMware
13 3 (0.34%) Okta
13 3 (0.34%) OpenAI