Developer Contract Job Trends in Cheshire

Developer
North West > Cheshire

The median Developer daily rate in Cheshire is £397, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 2 July 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 16 17
Rank change year-on-year -26 +1 -6
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 32 62 54
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 4.29% 11.09% 9.76%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.77% 12.13% 10.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 28 53 45
10th Percentile £246 £313 £291
25th Percentile £348 £350 £308
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £397 £370 £345
Median % change year-on-year +7.26% +7.25% -37.27%
75th Percentile £466 £460 £396
90th Percentile £591 £534 £469
North West median daily rate £475 £455 £450
% change year-on-year +4.45% +1.06% -10.00%

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 671 511 530
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.95% 91.41% 95.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 388 379 358
10th Percentile £313 £313 £294
25th Percentile £402 £358 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £437 £475
Median % change year-on-year +8.01% -8.00% -6.31%
75th Percentile £588 £537 £575
90th Percentile £650 £642 £638
North West median daily rate £480 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +6.67% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 26 38
10th Percentile £15.93 £12.82 £13.49
25th Percentile £17.25 £20.54 £16.39
Median hourly rate £32.23 £35.20 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.45% +0.57% +25.09%
75th Percentile £83.75 £50.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £86.00 -
North West median hourly rate £45.56 £28.75 £32.90
% change year-on-year +58.45% -12.60% +12.27%

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 2 July 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 2 July 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 -19 23 £365 +1.82% 2
Chester -7 5 £550 - 7
Winsford - 1 £575 -
Developer
North West

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

For the 6 months to 2 July 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 19 (59.38%) Java
2 18 (56.25%) Agile
2 18 (56.25%) CI/CD
3 12 (37.50%) GitLab
3 12 (37.50%) Problem-Solving
4 11 (34.38%) Test Automation
4 11 (34.38%) Unit Testing
5 10 (31.25%) Git
5 10 (31.25%) RESTful
6 9 (28.13%) Ansible
6 9 (28.13%) JIRA
7 8 (25.00%) API Design
7 8 (25.00%) Azure
7 8 (25.00%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (25.00%) Full-Stack Development
7 8 (25.00%) JavaScript
7 8 (25.00%) JSON
7 8 (25.00%) REST
7 8 (25.00%) SQL
7 8 (25.00%) YAML
8 7 (21.88%) AWS
8 7 (21.88%) Confluence
8 7 (21.88%) Relational Database
8 7 (21.88%) SDLC
9 6 (18.75%) DevOps
9 6 (18.75%) Linux
9 6 (18.75%) Python
9 6 (18.75%) TDD
10 5 (15.63%) Clean Code
10 5 (15.63%) Code Quality

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 (21.88%) Confluence
2 1 (3.13%) Camunda
2 1 (3.13%) JBoss
2 1 (3.13%) Mule
2 1 (3.13%) Mule ESB
2 1 (3.13%) OpenStack
2 1 (3.13%) WebLogic
Cloud Services
1 8 (25.00%) Azure
2 7 (21.88%) AWS
3 1 (3.13%) Anthropic Claude
3 1 (3.13%) AWS KMS
3 1 (3.13%) AWS Lambda
3 1 (3.13%) AWS Step Functions
3 1 (3.13%) Azure Key Vault
3 1 (3.13%) Dynamics 365
3 1 (3.13%) GitHub
3 1 (3.13%) GitHub Actions
3 1 (3.13%) npm
3 1 (3.13%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 2 (6.25%) Network Security
1 2 (6.25%) SD-WAN
1 2 (6.25%) TCP/IP
1 2 (6.25%) WAN
1 2 (6.25%) Wireless
2 1 (3.13%) IPsec
2 1 (3.13%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (21.88%) Relational Database
2 4 (12.50%) NoSQL
2 4 (12.50%) SQL Server
3 3 (9.38%) MongoDB
4 1 (3.13%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 12 (37.50%) GitLab
2 10 (31.25%) Git
3 9 (28.13%) JIRA
4 5 (15.63%) JUnit
5 4 (12.50%) Claude Code
6 3 (9.38%) Jenkins
6 3 (9.38%) Mockito
7 2 (6.25%) SonarQube
8 1 (3.13%) Cucumber
8 1 (3.13%) Cypress.io
8 1 (3.13%) Eclipse
8 1 (3.13%) ESLint
8 1 (3.13%) IntelliJ
General
1 10 (31.25%) Finance
2 6 (18.75%) Banking
3 5 (15.63%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (15.63%) Social Skills
4 4 (12.50%) Public Sector
5 1 (3.13%) Automotive
5 1 (3.13%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (31.25%) RESTful
2 8 (25.00%) JSON
2 8 (25.00%) REST
2 8 (25.00%) YAML
3 5 (15.63%) HTML
3 5 (15.63%) OpenAPI
3 5 (15.63%) React
3 5 (15.63%) Spring
3 5 (15.63%) Swagger
4 4 (12.50%) CSS
4 4 (12.50%) Kafka
4 4 (12.50%) Lightning Web Components
4 4 (12.50%) Middleware
4 4 (12.50%) React Native
4 4 (12.50%) Spring Boot
4 4 (12.50%) Visualforce
5 3 (9.38%) HTML5
5 3 (9.38%) Jest
5 3 (9.38%) JMS
5 3 (9.38%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 6 (18.75%) Enterprise Software
2 3 (9.38%) Algorithms
2 3 (9.38%) Cloud Native
2 3 (9.38%) Data Structures
2 3 (9.38%) SWIFT Messaging Network
3 2 (6.25%) Product Ownership
4 1 (3.13%) Blog
4 1 (3.13%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (3.13%) Mobile App
4 1 (3.13%) Onboarding
4 1 (3.13%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 6 (18.75%) Linux
2 4 (12.50%) Unix
2 4 (12.50%) Windows
2 4 (12.50%) Windows Server
3 1 (3.13%) Android
3 1 (3.13%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (56.25%) Agile
1 18 (56.25%) CI/CD
2 12 (37.50%) Problem-Solving
3 11 (34.38%) Test Automation
3 11 (34.38%) Unit Testing
4 8 (25.00%) API Design
4 8 (25.00%) Full-Stack Development
5 7 (21.88%) SDLC
6 6 (18.75%) DevOps
6 6 (18.75%) TDD
7 5 (15.63%) Clean Code
7 5 (15.63%) Code Quality
7 5 (15.63%) Deployment Automation
7 5 (15.63%) Front End Development
8 4 (12.50%) API Development
8 4 (12.50%) Integration Patterns
8 4 (12.50%) Performance Optimisation
8 4 (12.50%) Scrum
9 3 (9.38%) AI
9 3 (9.38%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 19 (59.38%) Java
2 8 (25.00%) JavaScript
2 8 (25.00%) SQL
3 6 (18.75%) Python
4 5 (15.63%) TypeScript
5 4 (12.50%) Apex Code
6 3 (9.38%) C#
6 3 (9.38%) PowerShell
7 1 (3.13%) PL/SQL
7 1 (3.13%) SOQL
7 1 (3.13%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 8 (25.00%) BPSS Clearance
2 4 (12.50%) Security Cleared
3 2 (6.25%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (9.38%) ISO 20022
1 3 (9.38%) PSD2
1 3 (9.38%) QA
1 3 (9.38%) SEPA
2 1 (3.13%) Accessibility
2 1 (3.13%) NIST
2 1 (3.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 4 (12.50%) Docker
Systems Management
1 9 (28.13%) Ansible
2 5 (15.63%) Terraform
3 3 (9.38%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 5 (15.63%) Salesforce
2 4 (12.50%) Oracle
3 3 (9.38%) Microsoft
4 2 (6.25%) Cisco
4 2 (6.25%) ServiceNow
4 2 (6.25%) Veracode
5 1 (3.13%) Xamarin