PHP Contracts

PHP
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring PHP skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited PHP over the 6 months leading up to 15 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 389 314 352
Rank change year-on-year -75 +38 -29
Contract jobs citing PHP 174 304 376
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.54% 0.71% 0.67%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.62% 2.31% 1.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 102 228 295
10th Percentile £300 £294 £311
25th Percentile £350 £325 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £430 £440
Median % change year-on-year -1.16% -2.27% -2.22%
75th Percentile £523 £525 £559
90th Percentile £598 £575 £614
UK excluding London median daily rate £435 £450 £416
% change year-on-year -3.33% +8.11% -4.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 10 3
10th Percentile - £22.50 £17.45
25th Percentile £33.25 £27.96 £20.38
Median hourly rate £34.50 £52.50 £26.50
Median % change year-on-year -34.29% +98.11% -24.29%
75th Percentile £35.75 £72.34 £32.38
90th Percentile - £72.50 £35.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £35.00 £16.00
% change year-on-year - +118.75% -

All Programming Languages
UK

PHP falls under the Programming Languages category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring coding skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 10,766 13,141 18,859
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.12% 30.74% 33.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,257 9,267 13,492
10th Percentile £350 £350 £375
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £675
90th Percentile £750 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 266 519 457
10th Percentile £27.45 £31.25 £26.96
25th Percentile £35.25 £46.25 £50.00
Median hourly rate £56.75 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.20% - +18.92%
75th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £70.25
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £79.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £63.25 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -2.69% +4.00% +15.74%

PHP
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing PHP as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for PHP in the UK

PHP
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing PHP.

Daily rate trend for PHP in the UK

PHP
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing PHP over the 6 months to 15 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for PHP in the UK

PHP
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing PHP.

Hourly rate trend for PHP in the UK

PHP
Top 15 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing PHP within the UK over the 6 months to 15 July 2025. 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
England -66 146 £425 +3.03% 470
UK excluding London -35 78 £435 -3.33% 360
Work from Home -14 74 £435 -3.33% 279
London -49 60 £375 -6.25% 147
East of England +36 21 £450 +2.86% 39
Midlands +8 19 £475 +245.45% 59
North of England -21 17 £356 -13.70% 111
South East +3 15 £575 +21.05% 96
West Midlands +6 11 £435 +216.36% 25
North West -11 11 £350 -17.65% 54
East Midlands 0 8 £515 +24.85% 34
Yorkshire +2 5 £358 +5.29% 51
South West +31 3 £515 +47.14% 44
Wales -8 3 £425 -17.48% 10
North East -1 1 - - 7

PHP
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 19 (10.92%) WordPress
2 17 (9.77%) Apache
3 14 (8.05%) Drupal
4 13 (7.47%) CMS
4 13 (7.47%) WebLogic
4 13 (7.47%) WebSphere
5 6 (3.45%) Confluence
5 6 (3.45%) Moodle
6 2 (1.15%) IIS
6 2 (1.15%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.57%) Apache Solr
7 1 (0.57%) Joomla!
Applications
1 2 (1.15%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 5 (2.87%) Magento
2 3 (1.72%) Sage 200
3 2 (1.15%) Shopify
4 1 (0.57%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 40 (22.99%) AWS
2 19 (10.92%) Azure
3 16 (9.20%) SaaS
4 9 (5.17%) IaaS
4 9 (5.17%) PaaS
5 8 (4.60%) GitHub
5 8 (4.60%) OpenShift
6 6 (3.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 6 (3.45%) Amazon ECS
6 6 (3.45%) Amazon Lightsail
6 6 (3.45%) AWS Fargate
7 5 (2.87%) Amazon Bedrock
7 5 (2.87%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (2.30%) GCP
9 3 (1.72%) Serverless
10 2 (1.15%) BigCommerce
10 2 (1.15%) ChatGPT
10 2 (1.15%) Copilot Studio
10 2 (1.15%) GitHub Copilot
10 2 (1.15%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 6 (3.45%) Firewall
2 5 (2.87%) TCP/IP
3 4 (2.30%) HTTP
3 4 (2.30%) Internet
4 1 (0.57%) Intrusion Detection
4 1 (0.57%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (27.01%) MySQL
2 14 (8.05%) MongoDB
3 13 (7.47%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (6.90%) Relational Database
5 9 (5.17%) SQL Server
6 2 (1.15%) MariaDB
6 2 (1.15%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.57%) Apache Cassandra
7 1 (0.57%) GIS
7 1 (0.57%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.57%) RDBMS
7 1 (0.57%) Redis
7 1 (0.57%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 35 (20.11%) Git
2 9 (5.17%) Jenkins
2 9 (5.17%) JIRA
3 7 (4.02%) GitLab
3 7 (4.02%) PHPUnit
4 6 (3.45%) Cypress.io
5 5 (2.87%) Postman
5 5 (2.87%) Subversion
6 4 (2.30%) Appium
6 4 (2.30%) Bitbucket
6 4 (2.30%) Bitbucket Server
6 4 (2.30%) CircleCI
6 4 (2.30%) Gatling
6 4 (2.30%) JMeter
6 4 (2.30%) MSI
6 4 (2.30%) NeoLoad
6 4 (2.30%) Robot Framework
6 4 (2.30%) Selenium
6 4 (2.30%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (2.30%) SpecFlow
General
1 49 (28.16%) Social Skills
2 23 (13.22%) Finance
3 10 (5.75%) Public Sector
4 8 (4.60%) Marketing
5 7 (4.02%) Advertising
6 4 (2.30%) Retail
7 3 (1.72%) Analytical Skills
7 3 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
7 3 (1.72%) Telecoms
8 2 (1.15%) Automotive
8 2 (1.15%) Electronics
8 2 (1.15%) Financial Institution
8 2 (1.15%) Korean Language
8 2 (1.15%) Law
8 2 (1.15%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.15%) Military
9 1 (0.57%) Banking
9 1 (0.57%) Games
9 1 (0.57%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.57%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 87 (50.00%) Developer
2 33 (18.97%) PHP Developer
3 17 (9.77%) Full-Stack Developer
4 15 (8.62%) Software Developer
5 14 (8.05%) Software Engineer
6 13 (7.47%) Consultant
6 13 (7.47%) Senior
7 12 (6.90%) Support Engineer
8 10 (5.75%) Lead
8 10 (5.75%) Senior Developer
9 8 (4.60%) Architect
9 8 (4.60%) PHP Software Engineer
9 8 (4.60%) Symfony Developer
10 7 (4.02%) PHP Symfony Developer
11 6 (3.45%) React Developer
12 5 (2.87%) Java Developer
12 5 (2.87%) JavaScript Engineer
12 5 (2.87%) Moodle Developer
13 4 (2.30%) Software Test Engineer
13 4 (2.30%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (26.44%) HTML
2 42 (24.14%) .NET
2 42 (24.14%) Node.js
3 37 (21.26%) CSS
4 35 (20.11%) React
5 23 (13.22%) Laravel
6 20 (11.49%) Symfony
7 17 (9.77%) AngularJS
7 17 (9.77%) REST
8 14 (8.05%) Vue
9 13 (7.47%) Middleware
10 12 (6.90%) Web Services
11 11 (6.32%) LAMP
12 9 (5.17%) RESTful
13 7 (4.02%) GraphQL
13 7 (4.02%) Ruby on Rails
14 6 (3.45%) CSS3
14 6 (3.45%) HTML5
15 5 (2.87%) JSON
15 5 (2.87%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 7 (4.02%) e-Learning
2 6 (3.45%) Data Protection Act
2 6 (3.45%) Mobile App
3 5 (2.87%) Legacy Code
3 5 (2.87%) Onboarding
3 5 (2.87%) VLE
4 4 (2.30%) PKI
4 4 (2.30%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (1.72%) Blog
5 3 (1.72%) Cloud Native
5 3 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (1.15%) Public Cloud
6 2 (1.15%) Team-Oriented Environment
7 1 (0.57%) Data Centre
7 1 (0.57%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.57%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.57%) Learning Management System
7 1 (0.57%) Product Ownership
7 1 (0.57%) PropTech
7 1 (0.57%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 27 (15.52%) Linux
2 13 (7.47%) Windows
3 11 (6.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 8 (4.60%) CentOS
5 7 (4.02%) Unix
6 4 (2.30%) Windows Server
6 4 (2.30%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (1.15%) Android
7 2 (1.15%) Debian
7 2 (1.15%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.57%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (28.16%) Agile
2 39 (22.41%) DevOps
3 38 (21.84%) Problem-Solving
4 34 (19.54%) CI/CD
5 27 (15.52%) Full-Stack Development
6 22 (12.64%) Software Engineering
7 19 (10.92%) Stakeholder Management
8 18 (10.34%) Project Management
9 17 (9.77%) Requirements Gathering
10 16 (9.20%) Computer Science
11 15 (8.62%) API Development
11 15 (8.62%) Containerisation
12 14 (8.05%) Design Patterns
12 14 (8.05%) Web Development
13 13 (7.47%) Test Automation
14 12 (6.90%) Artificial Intelligence
14 12 (6.90%) E-Commerce
14 12 (6.90%) Microservices
15 11 (6.32%) Mentoring
15 11 (6.32%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 65 (37.36%) JavaScript
2 54 (31.03%) Python
3 44 (25.29%) Java
4 29 (16.67%) SQL
5 22 (12.64%) C++
5 22 (12.64%) TypeScript
6 20 (11.49%) Ruby
7 19 (10.92%) C#
8 13 (7.47%) C
9 9 (5.17%) PowerShell
10 8 (4.60%) Bash
11 5 (2.87%) Perl
12 4 (2.30%) Go
12 4 (2.30%) PL/SQL
12 4 (2.30%) Scala
13 3 (1.72%) VB
14 1 (0.57%) Dart
14 1 (0.57%) Kotlin
14 1 (0.57%) Rust
14 1 (0.57%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 26 (14.94%) Security Cleared
2 18 (10.34%) Degree
3 17 (9.77%) SC Cleared
4 11 (6.32%) Computer Science Degree
5 7 (4.02%) Cisco Certification
6 5 (2.87%) CISSP
6 5 (2.87%) DV Cleared
7 4 (2.30%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 4 (2.30%) AWS Certification
7 4 (2.30%) Azure Certification
7 4 (2.30%) CEH
8 3 (1.72%) CCNA
8 3 (1.72%) CCNP
8 3 (1.72%) Master's Degree
9 2 (1.15%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (0.57%) CISA
10 1 (0.57%) CISM
10 1 (0.57%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.32%) Accessibility
1 11 (6.32%) QA
2 5 (2.87%) PCI DSS
3 4 (2.30%) GDPR
3 4 (2.30%) HIPAA
4 2 (1.15%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.57%) SOC 2
System Software
1 32 (18.39%) Docker
2 9 (5.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (2.87%) Active Directory
4 4 (2.30%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (1.72%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (1.15%) VirtualBox
7 1 (0.57%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.57%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 21 (12.07%) Kubernetes
2 15 (8.62%) Terraform
3 11 (6.32%) Ansible
4 6 (3.45%) Grafana
5 5 (2.87%) Puppet
6 4 (2.30%) WMI
7 3 (1.72%) vCenter Server
8 2 (1.15%) Icinga
8 2 (1.15%) Nagios
8 2 (1.15%) Progress Chef
8 2 (1.15%) Salt
9 1 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 16 (9.20%) Microsoft
1 16 (9.20%) Oracle
2 13 (7.47%) Dynatrace
3 9 (5.17%) VMware
4 8 (4.60%) Zend
5 5 (2.87%) AppDynamics
6 4 (2.30%) SAP
6 4 (2.30%) YouTube
7 2 (1.15%) Adobe
7 2 (1.15%) Cisco
7 2 (1.15%) New Relic
7 2 (1.15%) Rackspace
7 2 (1.15%) Salesforce
7 2 (1.15%) Sitecore
8 1 (0.57%) Red Hat