Developer Contract Job Trends in Cheshire

Developer
North West > Cheshire

The median Developer daily rate in Cheshire is £513, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 25 September 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 19 14
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +17
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 41 68 53
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 5.26% 10.26% 9.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 5.85% 11.39% 10.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 28 59 40
10th Percentile £285 £313 £308
25th Percentile £401 £350 £322
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £375 £373
Median % change year-on-year +36.67% +0.54% -21.47%
75th Percentile £550 £445 £470
90th Percentile £561 £474 £548
North West median daily rate £500 £425 £438
% change year-on-year +17.65% -2.86% -12.50%

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 701 597 500
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.87% 90.05% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 380 452 290
10th Percentile £281 £273 £318
25th Percentile £401 £358 £382
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £447 £473
Median % change year-on-year +6.04% -5.40% -3.37%
75th Percentile £575 £538 £575
90th Percentile £621 £688 £638
North West median daily rate £500 £450 £490
% change year-on-year +11.11% -8.16% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 29 23
10th Percentile £15.93 £12.82 £13.49
25th Percentile £17.25 £15.50 £15.36
Median hourly rate £35.82 £29.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +23.52% -17.14% +14.60%
75th Percentile £83.75 £36.75 £43.75
90th Percentile £97.50 £67.25 £47.50
North West median hourly rate £45.56 £25.15 £37.00
% change year-on-year +81.15% -32.03% +21.15%

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 25 September 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 25 September 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
Chester +14 21 £550 +15.79% 13
Knutsford -17 13 £425 +13.33% 3
Winsford - 2 £513 - 2
Warrington -11 1 - - 9
Developer
North West

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

For the 6 months to 25 September 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 17 (41.46%) CI/CD
2 14 (34.15%) SQL
3 13 (31.71%) Agile
3 13 (31.71%) Git
4 12 (29.27%) JSON
4 12 (29.27%) Observability
4 12 (29.27%) Python
5 11 (26.83%) Incident Response
6 10 (24.39%) GitLab
6 10 (24.39%) Java
6 10 (24.39%) SQL Server
7 9 (21.95%) DevOps
7 9 (21.95%) Kafka
8 8 (19.51%) Jenkins
8 8 (19.51%) REST
8 8 (19.51%) SD-WAN
8 8 (19.51%) WAN
8 8 (19.51%) Wireless
9 7 (17.07%) Ansible
9 7 (17.07%) Confluence
9 7 (17.07%) JavaScript
9 7 (17.07%) Linux
9 7 (17.07%) Microservices
9 7 (17.07%) Test Automation
10 6 (14.63%) Clean Code
10 6 (14.63%) Degree
10 6 (14.63%) Django
10 6 (14.63%) HTML
10 6 (14.63%) Infrastructure as Code
10 6 (14.63%) JIRA

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 7 (17.07%) Confluence
2 5 (12.20%) Camunda
3 1 (2.44%) JBoss
3 1 (2.44%) Mule
3 1 (2.44%) Mule ESB
3 1 (2.44%) WebLogic
Business Applications
1 1 (2.44%) Sage 200
Cloud Services
1 6 (14.63%) OpenShift
2 4 (9.76%) Azure
3 3 (7.32%) AWS
4 1 (2.44%) Anthropic Claude
4 1 (2.44%) AWS KMS
4 1 (2.44%) AWS Lambda
4 1 (2.44%) AWS Step Functions
4 1 (2.44%) Azure Key Vault
4 1 (2.44%) GCP
4 1 (2.44%) GitHub
4 1 (2.44%) GitHub Actions
4 1 (2.44%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 8 (19.51%) SD-WAN
1 8 (19.51%) WAN
1 8 (19.51%) Wireless
2 2 (4.88%) Network Security
2 2 (4.88%) SNMP
2 2 (4.88%) TCP/IP
3 1 (2.44%) IPsec
3 1 (2.44%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (24.39%) SQL Server
2 6 (14.63%) Relational Database
3 4 (9.76%) MongoDB
4 2 (4.88%) RDBMS
5 1 (2.44%) Amazon Redshift
5 1 (2.44%) NoSQL
5 1 (2.44%) PostgreSQL
5 1 (2.44%) Power BI
5 1 (2.44%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 13 (31.71%) Git
2 10 (24.39%) GitLab
3 8 (19.51%) Jenkins
4 6 (14.63%) JIRA
4 6 (14.63%) JUnit
5 5 (12.20%) Claude Code
5 5 (12.20%) Maven
5 5 (12.20%) SonarQube
6 4 (9.76%) Bitbucket Server
6 4 (9.76%) Gradle
6 4 (9.76%) Mockito
6 4 (9.76%) REST Assured
6 4 (9.76%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (2.44%) Cucumber
7 1 (2.44%) Eclipse
7 1 (2.44%) IntelliJ
General
1 11 (26.83%) Social Skills
2 10 (24.39%) Finance
3 6 (14.63%) Banking
4 5 (12.20%) Analytical Skills
5 1 (2.44%) Automotive
5 1 (2.44%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (29.27%) JSON
2 9 (21.95%) Kafka
3 8 (19.51%) REST
4 6 (14.63%) Django
4 6 (14.63%) HTML
4 6 (14.63%) JPA
4 6 (14.63%) React
4 6 (14.63%) Spring Boot
5 4 (9.76%) CSS
5 4 (9.76%) Flask
5 4 (9.76%) Hibernate
5 4 (9.76%) Redux
5 4 (9.76%) XML
6 3 (7.32%) Spring
7 2 (4.88%) Middleware
7 2 (4.88%) Terraform
8 1 (2.44%) .NET Core
8 1 (2.44%) FastAPI
8 1 (2.44%) Jest
8 1 (2.44%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 8 (19.51%) Data Structures
2 5 (12.20%) Enterprise Software
3 4 (9.76%) Algorithms
4 3 (7.32%) Onboarding
5 1 (2.44%) AI Agents
5 1 (2.44%) Cloud Native
5 1 (2.44%) CSOC
5 1 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (2.44%) PKI
5 1 (2.44%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 7 (17.07%) Linux
2 1 (2.44%) Unix
2 1 (2.44%) Windows
2 1 (2.44%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (41.46%) CI/CD
2 13 (31.71%) Agile
3 12 (29.27%) Observability
4 11 (26.83%) Incident Response
5 9 (21.95%) DevOps
6 7 (17.07%) Microservices
6 7 (17.07%) Test Automation
7 6 (14.63%) Clean Code
7 6 (14.63%) Infrastructure as Code
7 6 (14.63%) Problem-Solving
7 6 (14.63%) TDD
8 5 (12.20%) AI
8 5 (12.20%) OO
8 5 (12.20%) OOD
8 5 (12.20%) Scrum
9 4 (9.76%) Computer Science
9 4 (9.76%) Continuous Improvement
9 4 (9.76%) Problem Management
9 4 (9.76%) User Acceptance Testing
9 4 (9.76%) User Stories
Programming Languages
1 14 (34.15%) SQL
2 12 (29.27%) Python
3 10 (24.39%) Java
4 7 (17.07%) JavaScript
5 4 (9.76%) C#
6 3 (7.32%) PowerShell
7 2 (4.88%) Search Processing Language
8 1 (2.44%) PL/SQL
8 1 (2.44%) T-SQL
8 1 (2.44%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 6 (14.63%) Degree
2 4 (9.76%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (2.44%) SC Cleared
3 1 (2.44%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (4.88%) Data Quality
2 1 (2.44%) NCSC
2 1 (2.44%) NIST
System Software
1 2 (4.88%) Docker
Systems Management
1 7 (17.07%) Ansible
2 1 (2.44%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 6 (14.63%) Splunk
2 4 (9.76%) IBM
2 4 (9.76%) Veracode
3 3 (7.32%) Microsoft
3 3 (7.32%) ServiceNow
4 2 (4.88%) Cisco
4 2 (4.88%) Oracle
5 1 (2.44%) Sage