Developer Contract Job Trends in Cheshire

Developer
North West > Cheshire

The median Developer daily rate in Cheshire is £363, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 12 February 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 19 35
Rank change year-on-year -5 +16 -21
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 56 38 27
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 8.40% 8.64% 5.33%
As % of the Job Titles category 9.30% 9.72% 5.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 50 15 21
10th Percentile £310 £306 £281
25th Percentile £353 £356 £306
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £363 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -27.50% +5.26% -12.84%
75th Percentile £443 £538 £538
90th Percentile £493 £557 £567
North West median daily rate £450 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -5.26% - -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 0
Median hourly rate - £86.00 -
North West median hourly rate £61.00 £75.50 £78.75
% change year-on-year -19.21% -4.13% +112.84%

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 602 391 472
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.25% 88.86% 93.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 423 228 315
10th Percentile £312 £286 £265
25th Percentile £358 £356 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £474 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.01% -5.25% +5.26%
75th Percentile £577 £571 £560
90th Percentile £688 £650 £614
North West median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 25 43
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.36 £14.40
25th Percentile £18.94 £19.00 £17.43
Median hourly rate £22.85 £24.18 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -5.50% +7.47% +19.55%
75th Percentile £36.87 £86.00 £37.63
90th Percentile £82.90 - £43.75
North West median hourly rate £42.69 £29.52 £26.53
% change year-on-year +44.62% +11.27% -7.58%

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 12 February 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 12 February 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 +3 49 £360 +1.12% 5
Warrington -6 3 - - 11
Chester -18 1 £475 +15.85% 4
Crewe - 1 - - 5
Developer
North West

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

For the 6 months to 12 February 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 37 (66.07%) CI/CD
2 32 (57.14%) Java
3 31 (55.36%) Agile
4 25 (44.64%) Git
4 25 (44.64%) Test Automation
5 24 (42.86%) Problem-Solving
6 21 (37.50%) RESTful
7 20 (35.71%) Azure
7 20 (35.71%) Spring
7 20 (35.71%) Spring Boot
7 20 (35.71%) Unit Testing
8 19 (33.93%) AWS
8 19 (33.93%) JIRA
9 18 (32.14%) Code Quality
9 18 (32.14%) Docker
9 18 (32.14%) Kubernetes
10 17 (30.36%) REST
11 16 (28.57%) API Design
12 15 (26.79%) JavaScript
12 15 (26.79%) Oracle
13 14 (25.00%) Containerisation
13 14 (25.00%) DevOps
13 14 (25.00%) TypeScript
14 13 (23.21%) React
14 13 (23.21%) React Native
15 12 (21.43%) BPSS Clearance
15 12 (21.43%) GitLab
15 12 (21.43%) QA
15 12 (21.43%) SQL
16 11 (19.64%) Anti-Money Laundering

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 (10.71%) Confluence
2 1 (1.79%) Apache Spark
2 1 (1.79%) JBoss
2 1 (1.79%) OpenStack
2 1 (1.79%) SharePoint
2 1 (1.79%) Tomcat
Business Applications
1 1 (1.79%) Dynamics NAV
Cloud Services
1 20 (35.71%) Azure
2 19 (33.93%) AWS
3 9 (16.07%) GitHub
4 6 (10.71%) npm
5 4 (7.14%) Apigee
5 4 (7.14%) GCP
5 4 (7.14%) GitHub Copilot
6 3 (5.36%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (5.36%) Figma
6 3 (5.36%) Power Platform
7 2 (3.57%) Azure API Management
7 2 (3.57%) Azure Cosmos DB
7 2 (3.57%) Azure Service Bus
8 1 (1.79%) OpenShift
8 1 (1.79%) Power Automate
8 1 (1.79%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 4 (7.14%) HTTP
1 4 (7.14%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (14.29%) Relational Database
2 4 (7.14%) MySQL
2 4 (7.14%) NoSQL
2 4 (7.14%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (3.57%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (3.57%) SQL Server
4 1 (1.79%) Big Data
4 1 (1.79%) DataStage
4 1 (1.79%) Hadoop
4 1 (1.79%) Power BI
4 1 (1.79%) Power Query
4 1 (1.79%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 25 (44.64%) Git
2 19 (33.93%) JIRA
3 12 (21.43%) GitLab
4 7 (12.50%) Cypress.io
5 5 (8.93%) Jenkins
5 5 (8.93%) SonarQube
6 4 (7.14%) ESLint
6 4 (7.14%) Gradle
6 4 (7.14%) JUnit
6 4 (7.14%) Postman
6 4 (7.14%) Xcode
7 3 (5.36%) Grunt
7 3 (5.36%) gulp
7 3 (5.36%) Mockito
7 3 (5.36%) Storybook
8 2 (3.57%) git-flow
9 1 (1.79%) Android Studio
9 1 (1.79%) Maven
9 1 (1.79%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 17 (30.36%) Finance
2 16 (28.57%) Banking
3 9 (16.07%) Public Sector
4 6 (10.71%) Social Skills
5 5 (8.93%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (7.14%) Publishing
7 1 (1.79%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (37.50%) RESTful
2 20 (35.71%) Spring
2 20 (35.71%) Spring Boot
3 17 (30.36%) REST
4 13 (23.21%) React
4 13 (23.21%) React Native
5 11 (19.64%) JMS
5 11 (19.64%) JSON
5 11 (19.64%) Redux
6 9 (16.07%) CSS
6 9 (16.07%) HTML
6 9 (16.07%) Jest
7 8 (14.29%) Hibernate
7 8 (14.29%) YAML
8 7 (12.50%) CSS3
8 7 (12.50%) HTML5
8 7 (12.50%) OAuth
9 5 (8.93%) Node.js
9 5 (8.93%) OpenAPI
9 5 (8.93%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 11 (19.64%) SWIFT Messaging Network
2 10 (17.86%) Cloud Native
3 7 (12.50%) Mobile App
4 4 (7.14%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (5.36%) Blog
6 2 (3.57%) Product Ownership
7 1 (1.79%) Data Structures
7 1 (1.79%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 8 (14.29%) Android
2 7 (12.50%) Apple iOS
3 5 (8.93%) Unix
4 4 (7.14%) Linux
5 3 (5.36%) Windows
5 3 (5.36%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (66.07%) CI/CD
2 31 (55.36%) Agile
3 25 (44.64%) Test Automation
4 24 (42.86%) Problem-Solving
5 20 (35.71%) Unit Testing
6 18 (32.14%) Code Quality
7 16 (28.57%) API Design
8 14 (25.00%) Containerisation
8 14 (25.00%) DevOps
9 11 (19.64%) Anti-Money Laundering
9 11 (19.64%) Performance Optimisation
9 11 (19.64%) SDLC
9 11 (19.64%) User Acceptance Testing
10 10 (17.86%) Clean Code
10 10 (17.86%) Front End Development
10 10 (17.86%) Microservices
10 10 (17.86%) TDD
11 9 (16.07%) Integration Testing
11 9 (16.07%) Requirements Gathering
12 8 (14.29%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 32 (57.14%) Java
2 15 (26.79%) JavaScript
3 14 (25.00%) TypeScript
4 12 (21.43%) SQL
5 4 (7.14%) Apex Code
6 3 (5.36%) Python
7 2 (3.57%) Shell Script
8 1 (1.79%) SOQL
8 1 (1.79%) SOSL
8 1 (1.79%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 12 (21.43%) BPSS Clearance
2 10 (17.86%) Security Cleared
3 9 (16.07%) Degree
4 8 (14.29%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (21.43%) QA
2 11 (19.64%) ISO 20022
2 11 (19.64%) PSD2
2 11 (19.64%) SEPA
3 10 (17.86%) Accessibility
4 4 (7.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 18 (32.14%) Docker
Systems Management
1 18 (32.14%) Kubernetes
2 3 (5.36%) Ansible
2 3 (5.36%) Terraform
3 1 (1.79%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 15 (26.79%) Oracle
2 5 (8.93%) Salesforce
3 4 (7.14%) Splunk
3 4 (7.14%) Xamarin
4 3 (5.36%) Perforce
5 2 (3.57%) Veracode
6 1 (1.79%) Ab Initio
6 1 (1.79%) Informatica
6 1 (1.79%) Microsoft
6 1 (1.79%) Sage
6 1 (1.79%) SAP