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 24 April 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 26 23
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 -14
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 44 32 36
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 6.38% 7.44% 7.00%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.95% 8.51% 7.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 41 20 29
10th Percentile £310 £347 £286
25th Percentile £350 £356 £297
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £358 £410 £320
Median % change year-on-year -12.68% +28.13% -41.82%
75th Percentile £402 £544 £487
90th Percentile £481 £584 £543
North West median daily rate £455 £500 £453
% change year-on-year -9.00% +10.50% -4.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 0
Median hourly rate - £86.00 -
North West median hourly rate £41.06 £86.00 £81.50
% change year-on-year -52.26% +5.52% +91.76%

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 633 376 480
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.74% 87.44% 93.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 407 258 335
10th Percentile £313 £313 £275
25th Percentile £378 £358 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £456 £470 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.88% -6.10% +3.65%
75th Percentile £588 £560 £573
90th Percentile £653 £643 £626
North West median daily rate £465 £475 £495
% change year-on-year -2.11% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 22 37
10th Percentile £15.69 £19.45 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.68 £29.30 £16.54
Median hourly rate £31.84 £48.75 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -34.68% +116.67% -2.81%
75th Percentile £74.31 £86.00 £38.00
90th Percentile £85.00 - £44.25
North West median hourly rate £45.46 £29.80 £26.39
% change year-on-year +52.55% +12.92% -13.87%

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 24 April 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 24 April 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 38 £358 +0.56%
Chester -13 2 £525 +28.05% 2
Crewe +2 1 - - 2
Winsford - 1 £575 -
Developer
North West

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

For the 6 months to 24 April 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 27 (61.36%) Agile
4 21 (47.73%) Problem-Solving
4 21 (47.73%) RESTful
5 20 (45.45%) Test Automation
6 16 (36.36%) API Design
6 16 (36.36%) AWS
6 16 (36.36%) Git
6 16 (36.36%) JIRA
6 16 (36.36%) Spring
6 16 (36.36%) Spring Boot
6 16 (36.36%) Unit Testing
7 15 (34.09%) Code Quality
7 15 (34.09%) Docker
8 14 (31.82%) Kubernetes
9 13 (29.55%) GitLab
10 12 (27.27%) Microservices
11 11 (25.00%) Azure
11 11 (25.00%) JavaScript
11 11 (25.00%) Oracle
11 11 (25.00%) React
12 10 (22.73%) Containerisation
12 10 (22.73%) Degree
12 10 (22.73%) React Native
12 10 (22.73%) REST
12 10 (22.73%) TDD
12 10 (22.73%) TypeScript
13 9 (20.45%) BPSS Clearance
13 9 (20.45%) JSON

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 2 (4.55%) JBoss
3 1 (2.27%) Apache Spark
3 1 (2.27%) Camunda
3 1 (2.27%) Mule
3 1 (2.27%) Mule ESB
3 1 (2.27%) OpenStack
3 1 (2.27%) Tomcat
3 1 (2.27%) WebLogic
Cloud Services
1 16 (36.36%) AWS
2 11 (25.00%) 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
6 1 (2.27%) Anthropic Claude
6 1 (2.27%) AWS Lambda
6 1 (2.27%) AWS Step Functions
6 1 (2.27%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (2.27%) Power Platform
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 16 (36.36%) Git
1 16 (36.36%) JIRA
2 13 (29.55%) GitLab
3 6 (13.64%) JUnit
4 5 (11.36%) Jenkins
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%) Claude Code
8 1 (2.27%) Cucumber
8 1 (2.27%) Eclipse
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 11 (25.00%) Banking
3 9 (20.45%) Public Sector
4 7 (15.91%) Social Skills
5 6 (13.64%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (9.09%) Publishing
7 1 (2.27%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (47.73%) RESTful
2 16 (36.36%) Spring
2 16 (36.36%) Spring Boot
3 11 (25.00%) React
4 10 (22.73%) React Native
4 10 (22.73%) REST
5 9 (20.45%) JSON
6 8 (18.18%) Hibernate
6 8 (18.18%) Redux
6 8 (18.18%) YAML
7 7 (15.91%) HTML
7 7 (15.91%) Jest
8 6 (13.64%) CSS
8 6 (13.64%) JMS
9 5 (11.36%) HTML5
9 5 (11.36%) OpenAPI
9 5 (11.36%) Swagger
9 5 (11.36%) XML
10 4 (9.09%) JAX-RS
10 4 (9.09%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 6 (13.64%) Cloud Native
1 6 (13.64%) SWIFT Messaging Network
2 4 (9.09%) Enterprise Software
2 4 (9.09%) Mobile App
3 3 (6.82%) Blog
4 2 (4.55%) Product Ownership
5 1 (2.27%) Data Structures
5 1 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (2.27%) Onboarding
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 27 (61.36%) Agile
3 21 (47.73%) Problem-Solving
4 20 (45.45%) Test Automation
5 16 (36.36%) API Design
5 16 (36.36%) Unit Testing
6 15 (34.09%) Code Quality
7 12 (27.27%) Microservices
8 10 (22.73%) Containerisation
8 10 (22.73%) TDD
9 8 (18.18%) Computer Science
9 8 (18.18%) Front End Development
9 8 (18.18%) SDLC
10 7 (15.91%) API Development
10 7 (15.91%) Clean Code
10 7 (15.91%) Design Patterns
10 7 (15.91%) Requirements Gathering
11 6 (13.64%) Anti-Money Laundering
11 6 (13.64%) Deployment Automation
11 6 (13.64%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 29 (65.91%) Java
2 11 (25.00%) JavaScript
3 10 (22.73%) TypeScript
4 8 (18.18%) SQL
5 4 (9.09%) Apex Code
6 3 (6.82%) Python
7 2 (4.55%) Shell Script
8 1 (2.27%) PL/SQL
8 1 (2.27%) SOQL
8 1 (2.27%) SOSL
8 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 7 (15.91%) QA
2 6 (13.64%) ISO 20022
2 6 (13.64%) PSD2
2 6 (13.64%) 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