Developer Contract Job Trends in Cheshire

Developer
North West > Cheshire

The median Developer daily rate in Cheshire is £401, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 May 2026.

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

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 24 22
Rank change year-on-year -9 -2 -15
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 35 37 38
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 5.12% 7.82% 7.36%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.65% 8.67% 7.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 32 24 31
10th Percentile £315 £337 £281
25th Percentile £356 £350 £297
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £401 £395 £320
Median % change year-on-year +1.52% +23.44% -41.82%
75th Percentile £452 £523 £430
90th Percentile £579 £581 £534
North West median daily rate £455 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -9.00% +11.11% -8.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 0
Median hourly rate - £86.00 -
North West median hourly rate £41.06 £86.00 £81.50
% change year-on-year -52.26% +5.52% +103.75%

All Contract IT Job Roles
Cheshire

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in Cheshire. 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 Cheshire with a recognized job title 619 427 492
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.63% 90.27% 95.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 370 300 334
10th Percentile £313 £312 £275
25th Percentile £394 £358 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £456 £447 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.90% -5.89% -3.06%
75th Percentile £585 £550 £580
90th Percentile £652 £650 £638
North West median daily rate £472 £475 £493
% change year-on-year -0.58% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 24 36
10th Percentile £15.93 £13.77 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.00 £24.73 £16.47
Median hourly rate £32.23 £42.25 £24.25
Median % change year-on-year -23.73% +74.23% -13.33%
75th Percentile £83.75 £86.00 £38.00
90th Percentile £85.00 - £43.75
North West median hourly rate £50.00 £28.99 £27.50
% change year-on-year +72.47% +5.42% -9.95%

Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in Cheshire

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Developer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire.

Developer job vacancy trend in Cheshire

Developer
Daily Rate Trend in Cheshire

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in Cheshire.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in Cheshire

Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in Cheshire

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Developer in Cheshire over the 6 months to 18 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Developer in Cheshire

Developer
Hourly Rate Trend in Cheshire

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in Cheshire.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in Cheshire

Developer
Contract Job Locations in Cheshire

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Developer within the Cheshire region over the 6 months to 18 May 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
Knutsford -4 28 £380 +8.26%
Chester -12 3 £550 +34.15% 3
Crewe -1 1 - - 1
Winsford - 1 £575 -
Developer
North West

Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Cheshire

For the 6 months to 18 May 2026, 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 across the Cheshire region featuring Developer in the job title.

1 25 (71.43%) Java
2 22 (62.86%) Agile
2 22 (62.86%) CI/CD
3 19 (54.29%) Problem-Solving
4 16 (45.71%) JIRA
5 15 (42.86%) RESTful
5 15 (42.86%) Test Automation
5 15 (42.86%) Unit Testing
6 13 (37.14%) AWS
7 12 (34.29%) Azure
8 11 (31.43%) Git
8 11 (31.43%) Spring
9 10 (28.57%) API Design
9 10 (28.57%) GitLab
9 10 (28.57%) JavaScript
9 10 (28.57%) REST
9 10 (28.57%) Spring Boot
10 9 (25.71%) Code Quality
10 9 (25.71%) Docker
10 9 (25.71%) Oracle
10 9 (25.71%) SQL
11 8 (22.86%) BPSS Clearance
11 8 (22.86%) Full-Stack Development
11 8 (22.86%) Kubernetes
11 8 (22.86%) SDLC
11 8 (22.86%) YAML
12 7 (20.00%) Containerisation
12 7 (20.00%) Front End Development
12 7 (20.00%) HTML
12 7 (20.00%) QA

Developer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Cheshire 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 6 (17.14%) Confluence
2 2 (5.71%) JBoss
3 1 (2.86%) Apache Spark
3 1 (2.86%) Camunda
3 1 (2.86%) Mule
3 1 (2.86%) Mule ESB
3 1 (2.86%) OpenStack
3 1 (2.86%) Tomcat
3 1 (2.86%) WebLogic
Cloud Services
1 13 (37.14%) AWS
2 12 (34.29%) Azure
3 2 (5.71%) GitHub
3 2 (5.71%) OpenShift
4 1 (2.86%) Anthropic Claude
4 1 (2.86%) Apigee
4 1 (2.86%) AWS Lambda
4 1 (2.86%) AWS Step Functions
4 1 (2.86%) Dynamics 365
4 1 (2.86%) GCP
4 1 (2.86%) GitHub Actions
4 1 (2.86%) GitHub Copilot
4 1 (2.86%) npm
4 1 (2.86%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.86%) HTTP
1 1 (2.86%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (17.14%) Relational Database
2 4 (11.43%) NoSQL
3 2 (5.71%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (5.71%) SQL Server
4 1 (2.86%) Big Data
4 1 (2.86%) DataStage
4 1 (2.86%) Hadoop
4 1 (2.86%) MySQL
4 1 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (2.86%) Power BI
4 1 (2.86%) Power Query
4 1 (2.86%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 16 (45.71%) JIRA
2 11 (31.43%) Git
3 10 (28.57%) GitLab
4 6 (17.14%) JUnit
5 3 (8.57%) Mockito
6 2 (5.71%) Jenkins
6 2 (5.71%) SonarQube
7 1 (2.86%) Claude Code
7 1 (2.86%) Cucumber
7 1 (2.86%) Cypress.io
7 1 (2.86%) Eclipse
7 1 (2.86%) ESLint
7 1 (2.86%) Gradle
7 1 (2.86%) IntelliJ
7 1 (2.86%) Maven
7 1 (2.86%) Postman
7 1 (2.86%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 15 (42.86%) Finance
2 10 (28.57%) Banking
3 8 (22.86%) Social Skills
4 6 (17.14%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (17.14%) Public Sector
5 1 (2.86%) Automotive
5 1 (2.86%) Manufacturing
5 1 (2.86%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (42.86%) RESTful
2 11 (31.43%) Spring
3 10 (28.57%) REST
3 10 (28.57%) Spring Boot
4 8 (22.86%) YAML
5 7 (20.00%) HTML
5 7 (20.00%) React
6 6 (17.14%) CSS
6 6 (17.14%) JMS
6 6 (17.14%) JSON
7 5 (14.29%) HTML5
7 5 (14.29%) OpenAPI
7 5 (14.29%) Redux
7 5 (14.29%) Swagger
8 4 (11.43%) CSS3
8 4 (11.43%) Lightning Web Components
8 4 (11.43%) Middleware
8 4 (11.43%) MobX
8 4 (11.43%) React Native
8 4 (11.43%) Visualforce
Miscellaneous
1 6 (17.14%) Cloud Native
1 6 (17.14%) SWIFT Messaging Network
2 4 (11.43%) Enterprise Software
3 2 (5.71%) Product Ownership
4 1 (2.86%) Blog
4 1 (2.86%) Data Structures
4 1 (2.86%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (2.86%) Mobile App
4 1 (2.86%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 5 (14.29%) Unix
2 4 (11.43%) Linux
3 3 (8.57%) Windows
3 3 (8.57%) Windows Server
4 1 (2.86%) Android
4 1 (2.86%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (62.86%) Agile
1 22 (62.86%) CI/CD
2 19 (54.29%) Problem-Solving
3 15 (42.86%) Test Automation
3 15 (42.86%) Unit Testing
4 10 (28.57%) API Design
5 9 (25.71%) Code Quality
6 8 (22.86%) Full-Stack Development
6 8 (22.86%) SDLC
7 7 (20.00%) Containerisation
7 7 (20.00%) Front End Development
7 7 (20.00%) Requirements Gathering
7 7 (20.00%) TDD
8 6 (17.14%) Anti-Money Laundering
8 6 (17.14%) DevOps
8 6 (17.14%) Integration Testing
8 6 (17.14%) Microservices
8 6 (17.14%) Performance Optimisation
8 6 (17.14%) User Acceptance Testing
9 5 (14.29%) UX Design
Programming Languages
1 25 (71.43%) Java
2 10 (28.57%) JavaScript
3 9 (25.71%) SQL
4 7 (20.00%) TypeScript
5 4 (11.43%) Apex Code
6 3 (8.57%) Python
7 2 (5.71%) Shell Script
8 1 (2.86%) PL/SQL
8 1 (2.86%) SOQL
8 1 (2.86%) SOSL
8 1 (2.86%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 8 (22.86%) BPSS Clearance
2 6 (17.14%) Security Cleared
3 4 (11.43%) Degree
4 2 (5.71%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (20.00%) QA
2 6 (17.14%) ISO 20022
2 6 (17.14%) PSD2
2 6 (17.14%) SEPA
3 1 (2.86%) Accessibility
3 1 (2.86%) WCAG
System Software
1 9 (25.71%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (22.86%) Kubernetes
2 4 (11.43%) Terraform
3 3 (8.57%) Ansible
4 1 (2.86%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 9 (25.71%) Oracle
2 5 (14.29%) Salesforce
3 3 (8.57%) Microsoft
4 2 (5.71%) Veracode
5 1 (2.86%) Ab Initio
5 1 (2.86%) Informatica
5 1 (2.86%) Sage
5 1 (2.86%) SAP
5 1 (2.86%) Splunk
5 1 (2.86%) Xamarin