Developer Contract Job Trends in Cheshire

Developer
North West > Cheshire

The median Developer daily rate in Cheshire is £358, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 30 March 2026.

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

6 months to
30 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 20 23
Rank change year-on-year -11 +3 -14
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 44 34 37
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 6.22% 8.29% 7.20%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.83% 9.39% 7.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 40 20 29
10th Percentile £310 £347 £286
25th Percentile £348 £356 £297
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £358 £455 £320
Median % change year-on-year -21.32% +42.19% -41.82%
75th Percentile £402 £544 £488
90th Percentile £450 £584 £545
North West median daily rate £450 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -10.00% +5.26% -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 0
Median hourly rate - £86.00 -
North West median hourly rate £51.03 £86.00 £81.50
% change year-on-year -40.67% +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 644 362 475
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.09% 88.29% 92.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 429 249 333
10th Percentile £313 £288 £276
25th Percentile £375 £356 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £465 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.15% -7.00% +3.15%
75th Percentile £579 £575 £550
90th Percentile £653 £646 £615
North West median daily rate £456 £467 £498
% change year-on-year -2.25% -6.18% -0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 26 39
10th Percentile £14.69 £20.02 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.33 £24.05 £16.67
Median hourly rate £30.50 £35.20 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.35% +56.44% -1.23%
75th Percentile £81.00 £85.81 £38.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £86.00 £43.75
North West median hourly rate £45.00 £31.50 £26.39
% change year-on-year +42.86% +19.36% -13.11%

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 30 March 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 30 March 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 -8 39 £358 +0.56%
Crewe +4 1 - - 2
Warrington -1 1 - - 12
Chester -13 1 £400 -2.44% 10
Developer
North West

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

For the 6 months to 30 March 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 31 (70.45%) CI/CD
2 29 (65.91%) Java
3 28 (63.64%) Agile
4 21 (47.73%) Problem-Solving
4 21 (47.73%) RESTful
4 21 (47.73%) Test Automation
5 17 (38.64%) Git
5 17 (38.64%) Spring
5 17 (38.64%) Spring Boot
6 16 (36.36%) API Design
6 16 (36.36%) AWS
6 16 (36.36%) JIRA
7 15 (34.09%) Code Quality
7 15 (34.09%) Docker
7 15 (34.09%) Unit Testing
8 14 (31.82%) Kubernetes
9 13 (29.55%) GitLab
10 11 (25.00%) Microservices
10 11 (25.00%) Oracle
10 11 (25.00%) React
10 11 (25.00%) REST
11 10 (22.73%) Azure
11 10 (22.73%) Containerisation
11 10 (22.73%) Degree
11 10 (22.73%) JavaScript
11 10 (22.73%) React Native
11 10 (22.73%) TDD
11 10 (22.73%) TypeScript
12 9 (20.45%) BPSS Clearance
12 9 (20.45%) Relational Database

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 (13.64%) Confluence
2 1 (2.27%) Apache Spark
2 1 (2.27%) Camunda
2 1 (2.27%) JBoss
2 1 (2.27%) OpenStack
2 1 (2.27%) SharePoint
2 1 (2.27%) Tomcat
Cloud Services
1 16 (36.36%) AWS
2 10 (22.73%) Azure
3 4 (9.09%) Apigee
3 4 (9.09%) GCP
3 4 (9.09%) GitHub
3 4 (9.09%) GitHub Copilot
4 3 (6.82%) npm
5 2 (4.55%) OpenShift
5 2 (4.55%) Power Platform
6 1 (2.27%) AWS Lambda
6 1 (2.27%) AWS Step Functions
6 1 (2.27%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (2.27%) Power Automate
6 1 (2.27%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 4 (9.09%) HTTP
1 4 (9.09%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (20.45%) Relational Database
2 4 (9.09%) MySQL
2 4 (9.09%) NoSQL
2 4 (9.09%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (4.55%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (4.55%) SQL Server
4 1 (2.27%) Big Data
4 1 (2.27%) DataStage
4 1 (2.27%) Hadoop
4 1 (2.27%) Power BI
4 1 (2.27%) Power Query
4 1 (2.27%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 17 (38.64%) Git
2 16 (36.36%) JIRA
3 13 (29.55%) GitLab
4 5 (11.36%) Jenkins
4 5 (11.36%) JUnit
5 4 (9.09%) Cypress.io
5 4 (9.09%) ESLint
5 4 (9.09%) Postman
6 3 (6.82%) Mockito
7 2 (4.55%) SonarQube
8 1 (2.27%) Android Studio
8 1 (2.27%) Gradle
8 1 (2.27%) IntelliJ
8 1 (2.27%) Maven
8 1 (2.27%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (2.27%) Xcode
General
1 13 (29.55%) Finance
2 12 (27.27%) Banking
3 9 (20.45%) Public Sector
4 6 (13.64%) Social Skills
5 5 (11.36%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (9.09%) Publishing
7 1 (2.27%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (47.73%) RESTful
2 17 (38.64%) Spring
2 17 (38.64%) Spring Boot
3 11 (25.00%) React
3 11 (25.00%) REST
4 10 (22.73%) React Native
5 8 (18.18%) Hibernate
5 8 (18.18%) JSON
5 8 (18.18%) Redux
5 8 (18.18%) YAML
6 7 (15.91%) HTML
6 7 (15.91%) Jest
6 7 (15.91%) JMS
7 6 (13.64%) CSS
8 5 (11.36%) HTML5
8 5 (11.36%) OpenAPI
8 5 (11.36%) Swagger
9 4 (9.09%) Flutter
9 4 (9.09%) Lightning Web Components
9 4 (9.09%) Zustand
Miscellaneous
1 7 (15.91%) SWIFT Messaging Network
2 6 (13.64%) Cloud Native
3 4 (9.09%) Enterprise Software
3 4 (9.09%) Mobile App
4 3 (6.82%) Blog
5 2 (4.55%) Product Ownership
6 1 (2.27%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 5 (11.36%) Android
1 5 (11.36%) Unix
2 4 (9.09%) Apple iOS
2 4 (9.09%) Linux
3 3 (6.82%) Windows
3 3 (6.82%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (70.45%) CI/CD
2 28 (63.64%) Agile
3 21 (47.73%) Problem-Solving
3 21 (47.73%) Test Automation
4 16 (36.36%) API Design
5 15 (34.09%) Code Quality
5 15 (34.09%) Unit Testing
6 11 (25.00%) Microservices
7 10 (22.73%) Containerisation
7 10 (22.73%) TDD
8 8 (18.18%) Clean Code
8 8 (18.18%) Computer Science
8 8 (18.18%) Front End Development
8 8 (18.18%) SDLC
9 7 (15.91%) Anti-Money Laundering
9 7 (15.91%) API Development
9 7 (15.91%) Design Patterns
9 7 (15.91%) DevOps
9 7 (15.91%) Requirements Gathering
9 7 (15.91%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 29 (65.91%) Java
2 10 (22.73%) JavaScript
2 10 (22.73%) TypeScript
3 8 (18.18%) SQL
4 4 (9.09%) Apex Code
5 3 (6.82%) Python
6 2 (4.55%) Shell Script
7 1 (2.27%) SOQL
7 1 (2.27%) SOSL
7 1 (2.27%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 10 (22.73%) Degree
2 9 (20.45%) BPSS Clearance
2 9 (20.45%) Security Cleared
3 8 (18.18%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (18.18%) QA
2 7 (15.91%) ISO 20022
2 7 (15.91%) PSD2
2 7 (15.91%) SEPA
3 4 (9.09%) Accessibility
3 4 (9.09%) WCAG
System Software
1 15 (34.09%) Docker
Systems Management
1 14 (31.82%) Kubernetes
2 3 (6.82%) Ansible
2 3 (6.82%) Terraform
3 1 (2.27%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 11 (25.00%) Oracle
2 5 (11.36%) Salesforce
3 4 (9.09%) Splunk
3 4 (9.09%) Xamarin
4 2 (4.55%) Microsoft
4 2 (4.55%) Veracode
5 1 (2.27%) Ab Initio
5 1 (2.27%) Informatica
5 1 (2.27%) Sage
5 1 (2.27%) SAP