Developer Contract Job Trends in Cheshire

Developer
North West > Cheshire

The median Developer daily rate in Cheshire is £373, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 November 2025.

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

6 months to
17 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 15 39
Rank change year-on-year -5 +24 -21
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 69 52 18
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 10.04% 10.57% 4.50%
As % of the Job Titles category 11.24% 11.71% 5.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 62 34 14
10th Percentile £313 £308 £425
25th Percentile £351 £325 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £373 £379 £487
Median % change year-on-year -1.59% -22.28% -21.92%
75th Percentile £445 £519 £532
90th Percentile £486 £551 £540
North West median daily rate £425 £438 £475
% change year-on-year -2.86% -7.89% -5.00%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 614 444 350
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.37% 90.24% 87.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 467 257 225
10th Percentile £272 £323 £256
25th Percentile £358 £379 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £486 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% -2.80% +11.11%
75th Percentile £551 £571 £553
90th Percentile £688 £639 £595
North West median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 26 26
10th Percentile £15.50 £13.49 £17.14
25th Percentile £18.87 £15.36 £20.07
Median hourly rate £22.85 £22.09 £28.31
Median % change year-on-year +3.44% -21.96% +39.78%
75th Percentile £36.75 £35.00 £35.00
90th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £42.50
North West median hourly rate £29.60 £31.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year -6.03% -4.55% +65.00%

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 17 November 2025.

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 17 November 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
Knutsford +3 60 £370 +4.96% 3
Warrington -12 4 £410 - 9
Chester -10 2 £475 -15.90% 8
Crewe - 1 £355 - 8
Developer
North West

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

For the 6 months to 17 November 2025, 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 40 (57.97%) Git
2 37 (53.62%) Java
3 32 (46.38%) Agile
4 26 (37.68%) Spring Boot
5 25 (36.23%) CI/CD
5 25 (36.23%) JavaScript
5 25 (36.23%) Jenkins
5 25 (36.23%) REST
6 23 (33.33%) JIRA
6 23 (33.33%) React
6 23 (33.33%) Spring
6 23 (33.33%) TDD
7 22 (31.88%) Problem-Solving
8 21 (30.43%) CSS
8 21 (30.43%) HTML
9 20 (28.99%) Test Automation
9 20 (28.99%) Unit Testing
10 19 (27.54%) AWS
10 19 (27.54%) Microservices
11 18 (26.09%) SQL
12 17 (24.64%) DevOps
13 16 (23.19%) Gradle
13 16 (23.19%) Scrum
14 15 (21.74%) Android
14 15 (21.74%) Apple iOS
15 14 (20.29%) Accessibility
15 14 (20.29%) Front End Development
15 14 (20.29%) JUnit
15 14 (20.29%) Oracle
15 14 (20.29%) Performance Optimisation

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 8 (11.59%) Tomcat
2 6 (8.70%) Confluence
3 5 (7.25%) JBoss
4 4 (5.80%) Apache
5 3 (4.35%) nginx
6 1 (1.45%) Apache Spark
6 1 (1.45%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 1 (1.45%) Dynamics NAV
1 1 (1.45%) IBM Planning Analytics
Cloud Services
1 19 (27.54%) AWS
2 13 (18.84%) Azure
2 13 (18.84%) GitHub
3 8 (11.59%) npm
4 5 (7.25%) OpenShift
5 4 (5.80%) Azure DevOps
5 4 (5.80%) Figma
6 3 (4.35%) Apigee
6 3 (4.35%) GCP
6 3 (4.35%) Power Platform
7 2 (2.90%) Azure API Management
7 2 (2.90%) Azure Cosmos DB
7 2 (2.90%) Azure Service Bus
8 1 (1.45%) GitHub Copilot
8 1 (1.45%) Power Automate
8 1 (1.45%) PowerApps
8 1 (1.45%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 3 (4.35%) HTTP
1 3 (4.35%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (5.80%) SQL Server
2 3 (4.35%) MySQL
3 2 (2.90%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (2.90%) Relational Database
4 1 (1.45%) Apache Hive
4 1 (1.45%) Big Data
4 1 (1.45%) Hadoop
4 1 (1.45%) Oracle Database
4 1 (1.45%) Power BI
4 1 (1.45%) Power Query
4 1 (1.45%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 40 (57.97%) Git
2 25 (36.23%) Jenkins
3 23 (33.33%) JIRA
4 16 (23.19%) Gradle
5 14 (20.29%) JUnit
6 12 (17.39%) Xcode
7 10 (14.49%) GitLab
8 9 (13.04%) Cucumber
8 9 (13.04%) Cypress.io
8 9 (13.04%) SonarQube
9 8 (11.59%) Maven
9 8 (11.59%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (8.70%) Grunt
10 6 (8.70%) gulp
11 4 (5.80%) Storybook
12 3 (4.35%) Bitbucket
12 3 (4.35%) ESLint
12 3 (4.35%) Mockito
12 3 (4.35%) Postman
12 3 (4.35%) Subversion
General
1 24 (34.78%) Banking
2 17 (24.64%) Finance
3 10 (14.49%) Analytical Skills
4 8 (11.59%) Social Skills
5 3 (4.35%) Organisational Skills
5 3 (4.35%) Publishing
6 2 (2.90%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (37.68%) Spring Boot
2 25 (36.23%) REST
3 23 (33.33%) React
3 23 (33.33%) Spring
4 21 (30.43%) CSS
4 21 (30.43%) HTML
5 13 (18.84%) Jest
5 13 (18.84%) React Native
6 12 (17.39%) Redux
6 12 (17.39%) RESTful
7 11 (15.94%) Node.js
8 9 (13.04%) JSON
9 7 (10.14%) CSS3
9 7 (10.14%) Hibernate
9 7 (10.14%) HTML5
9 7 (10.14%) JMS
9 7 (10.14%) Kafka
9 7 (10.14%) OAuth
10 6 (8.70%) LESS
10 6 (8.70%) Sass
Miscellaneous
1 18 (26.09%) Mobile App
2 8 (11.59%) Mobile Banking
3 7 (10.14%) SWIFT Messaging Network
4 6 (8.70%) Cloud Native
5 5 (7.25%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (2.90%) Blog
6 2 (2.90%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (1.45%) Management Information System
7 1 (1.45%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 15 (21.74%) Android
1 15 (21.74%) Apple iOS
2 5 (7.25%) Linux
2 5 (7.25%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (46.38%) Agile
2 25 (36.23%) CI/CD
3 23 (33.33%) TDD
4 22 (31.88%) Problem-Solving
5 20 (28.99%) Test Automation
5 20 (28.99%) Unit Testing
6 19 (27.54%) Microservices
7 17 (24.64%) DevOps
8 16 (23.19%) Scrum
9 14 (20.29%) Front End Development
9 14 (20.29%) Performance Optimisation
9 14 (20.29%) User Acceptance Testing
10 10 (14.49%) Code Quality
11 9 (13.04%) Design Patterns
11 9 (13.04%) Migration
11 9 (13.04%) SDLC
12 8 (11.59%) BDD
12 8 (11.59%) iOS Development
12 8 (11.59%) User Experience
12 8 (11.59%) UX Design
Programming Languages
1 37 (53.62%) Java
2 25 (36.23%) JavaScript
3 18 (26.09%) SQL
4 12 (17.39%) Python
5 9 (13.04%) TypeScript
6 7 (10.14%) C
6 7 (10.14%) C++
6 7 (10.14%) Kotlin
6 7 (10.14%) Objective-C
6 7 (10.14%) Ruby
6 7 (10.14%) Scala
6 7 (10.14%) Swift
7 5 (7.25%) Shell Script
8 3 (4.35%) Apex Code
9 1 (1.45%) C#
9 1 (1.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 9 (13.04%) BPSS Clearance
2 7 (10.14%) Degree
3 5 (7.25%) Computer Science Degree
3 5 (7.25%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (20.29%) Accessibility
2 13 (18.84%) QA
3 7 (10.14%) ISO 20022
3 7 (10.14%) PSD2
3 7 (10.14%) SEPA
4 3 (4.35%) Data Quality
4 3 (4.35%) WCAG
System Software
1 11 (15.94%) Docker
Systems Management
1 11 (15.94%) Kubernetes
2 1 (1.45%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 14 (20.29%) Oracle
2 10 (14.49%) Microsoft
3 6 (8.70%) Perforce
4 4 (5.80%) Salesforce
5 3 (4.35%) Splunk
5 3 (4.35%) Veracode
5 3 (4.35%) Xamarin
6 2 (2.90%) ServiceNow
7 1 (1.45%) Cloudera
7 1 (1.45%) Cognos