PHP Contract Job Trends

PHP
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring PHP skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 424 329 315
Rank change year-on-year -95 -14 +23
Contract jobs citing PHP 168 238 351
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.47% 0.66% 0.76%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.46% 2.05% 2.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 111 171 278
10th Percentile £300 £313 £275
25th Percentile £354 £340 £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £425 £448
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% -5.03% -0.56%
75th Percentile £472 £550 £575
90th Percentile £563 £600 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £438 £400
% change year-on-year -8.57% +9.38% -1.84%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 2 6
10th Percentile £34.31 £34.89 £16.31
25th Percentile £35.90 £37.62 £17.22
Median hourly rate £39.70 £42.79 £22.14
Median % change year-on-year -7.22% +93.25% -70.18%
75th Percentile £43.40 £48.58 £29.66
90th Percentile £44.93 £51.68 £43.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £17.50

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 11,482 11,621 14,388
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.16% 32.06% 31.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,577 7,462 10,246
10th Percentile £350 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £623 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £751 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 342 281 443
10th Percentile £29.40 £22.00 £32.06
25th Percentile £46.25 £40.00 £47.50
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year - +3.31% +0.83%
75th Percentile £67.75 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

PHP
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing PHP relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

PHP job vacancy trend in the UK

PHP
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing PHP.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing PHP

PHP
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing PHP over the 6 months to 19 November 2025.

Daily rate histogram for PHP in the UK

PHP
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing PHP.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing PHP

PHP
Top 16 Contract Job 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 19 November 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 -82 145 £400 - 420
UK excluding London -71 72 £400 -8.57% 339
London -51 58 £400 - 110
Work from Home -44 55 £411 +2.81% 227
North of England -36 26 £358 -27.68% 83
North West -20 20 £358 -13.21% 46
East of England -14 17 £438 +21.53% 33
Midlands -32 14 £510 +27.50% 67
South East -14 11 £550 - 92
East Midlands -14 8 £515 +28.75% 24
West Midlands -29 6 £419 +4.69% 42
Yorkshire -45 3 £388 -26.19% 34
North East - 3 - - 4
Scotland -7 2 £69 -80.29% 12
South West -1 1 £300 -14.89% 50
Wales -11 1 £425 -20.93% 6

PHP
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 15 (8.93%) WebLogic
1 15 (8.93%) WebSphere
2 13 (7.74%) SugarCRM
3 10 (5.95%) WordPress
4 9 (5.36%) Drupal
5 7 (4.17%) Apache
6 5 (2.98%) Confluence
7 4 (2.38%) CMS
8 3 (1.79%) SAS
9 2 (1.19%) FileNet
10 1 (0.60%) Moodle
10 1 (0.60%) nginx
Business Applications
1 4 (2.38%) Magento
2 2 (1.19%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 52 (30.95%) AWS
2 29 (17.26%) Azure
3 19 (11.31%) GitHub
4 16 (9.52%) SaaS
5 10 (5.95%) IaaS
5 10 (5.95%) OpenShift
5 10 (5.95%) PaaS
6 6 (3.57%) GCP
6 6 (3.57%) GitHub Actions
7 5 (2.98%) ChatGPT
7 5 (2.98%) GitHub Copilot
8 4 (2.38%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (2.38%) Serverless
9 3 (1.79%) Azure API Management
9 3 (1.79%) Azure Functions
9 3 (1.79%) Azure Monitor
9 3 (1.79%) Entra ID
10 2 (1.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 2 (1.19%) Amazon EC2
10 2 (1.19%) Intacct
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.79%) TCP/IP
2 2 (1.19%) Firewall
2 2 (1.19%) HTTP
2 2 (1.19%) SSL
3 1 (0.60%) DNS
3 1 (0.60%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (26.79%) MySQL
2 19 (11.31%) PostgreSQL
3 17 (10.12%) Relational Database
4 6 (3.57%) SQL Server
5 5 (2.98%) Redis
6 3 (1.79%) Elasticsearch
6 3 (1.79%) MariaDB
7 2 (1.19%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (1.19%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.60%) Amazon Aurora
8 1 (0.60%) BigQuery
8 1 (0.60%) CouchDB
8 1 (0.60%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.60%) Power BI
8 1 (0.60%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 31 (18.45%) Git
2 21 (12.50%) JIRA
3 7 (4.17%) Bitbucket
3 7 (4.17%) Jenkins
4 6 (3.57%) PHPUnit
5 4 (2.38%) MSI
5 4 (2.38%) Robot Framework
5 4 (2.38%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (1.79%) JUnit
6 3 (1.79%) Postman
6 3 (1.79%) Subversion
7 2 (1.19%) Cypress.io
7 2 (1.19%) JMeter
7 2 (1.19%) Mercurial
7 2 (1.19%) Vagrant
8 1 (0.60%) GitLab
8 1 (0.60%) Selenium
General
1 38 (22.62%) Social Skills
2 21 (12.50%) Finance
3 19 (11.31%) Public Sector
4 15 (8.93%) Marketing
5 6 (3.57%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (3.57%) Telecoms
6 5 (2.98%) Games
7 4 (2.38%) Presentation Skills
8 3 (1.79%) Billing
8 3 (1.79%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.79%) Military
9 2 (1.19%) Electronics
9 2 (1.19%) Retail
10 1 (0.60%) Automotive
10 1 (0.60%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.60%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.60%) Law
10 1 (0.60%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 81 (48.21%) Developer
2 33 (19.64%) PHP Developer
3 17 (10.12%) Senior
4 14 (8.33%) Consultant
5 12 (7.14%) Software Engineer
6 11 (6.55%) Lead
7 9 (5.36%) Senior Developer
8 7 (4.17%) .NET Developer
8 7 (4.17%) Full-Stack Developer
9 6 (3.57%) Architect
10 5 (2.98%) Backend Developer
10 5 (2.98%) C# Developer
11 4 (2.38%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 4 (2.38%) AWS Engineer
11 4 (2.38%) C# .NET Developer
11 4 (2.38%) Integration Engineer
11 4 (2.38%) Java Developer
11 4 (2.38%) Oracle Developer
11 4 (2.38%) Senior C# .NET Developer
11 4 (2.38%) Senior C# Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (29.17%) HTML
2 42 (25.00%) Node.js
3 39 (23.21%) .NET
4 33 (19.64%) CSS
5 30 (17.86%) REST
6 20 (11.90%) Laravel
7 15 (8.93%) Middleware
7 15 (8.93%) Vue
8 14 (8.33%) GraphQL
8 14 (8.33%) SOAP
9 12 (7.14%) React
10 10 (5.95%) AngularJS
10 10 (5.95%) Web Services
11 9 (5.36%) Symfony
12 7 (4.17%) HTML5
12 7 (4.17%) RESTful
12 7 (4.17%) Ruby on Rails
13 6 (3.57%) CSS3
14 5 (2.98%) Bazel
14 5 (2.98%) Unity (Game Engine)
Miscellaneous
1 9 (5.36%) Legacy Systems
2 7 (4.17%) Mobile App
3 5 (2.98%) Data Protection Act
3 5 (2.98%) Linux Command Line
4 4 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
4 4 (2.38%) PKI
4 4 (2.38%) Virtual Reality
4 4 (2.38%) Virtual Team
4 4 (2.38%) Web Conferencing
5 3 (1.79%) Blog
5 3 (1.79%) Cloud Native
5 3 (1.79%) e-Learning
6 2 (1.19%) 3D Graphics
6 2 (1.19%) Legacy Code
6 2 (1.19%) Mixed Reality
6 2 (1.19%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.19%) Product Ownership
6 2 (1.19%) TM Forum
7 1 (0.60%) AI Agents
7 1 (0.60%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 29 (17.26%) Linux
2 20 (11.90%) Windows
3 7 (4.17%) CentOS
3 7 (4.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 6 (3.57%) Unix
5 4 (2.38%) Android
5 4 (2.38%) Windows Server
5 4 (2.38%) Windows Server 2019
6 3 (1.79%) Apple iOS
7 2 (1.19%) Debian
7 2 (1.19%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (27.98%) CI/CD
2 45 (26.79%) Agile
3 33 (19.64%) Problem-Solving
4 27 (16.07%) DevOps
5 23 (13.69%) Containerisation
6 19 (11.31%) API Integration
6 19 (11.31%) CRM
6 19 (11.31%) User Experience
7 18 (10.71%) AI
7 18 (10.71%) Migration
8 17 (10.12%) Requirements Gathering
9 16 (9.52%) Microservices
9 16 (9.52%) MVC
9 16 (9.52%) Observability
9 16 (9.52%) Software Engineering
10 15 (8.93%) Full-Stack Development
11 13 (7.74%) Test Automation
11 13 (7.74%) Web Development
12 12 (7.14%) ETL
13 11 (6.55%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 62 (36.90%) Python
2 54 (32.14%) JavaScript
3 35 (20.83%) Java
4 31 (18.45%) SQL
5 24 (14.29%) C#
5 24 (14.29%) C++
6 15 (8.93%) C
7 10 (5.95%) Bash
7 10 (5.95%) PowerShell
7 10 (5.95%) Ruby
8 8 (4.76%) PL/SQL
9 6 (3.57%) TypeScript
10 4 (2.38%) Go
11 3 (1.79%) VB
12 2 (1.19%) Kotlin
12 2 (1.19%) Perl
13 1 (0.60%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 18 (10.71%) Security Cleared
2 10 (5.95%) BPSS Clearance
3 7 (4.17%) Degree
3 7 (4.17%) SC Cleared
4 5 (2.98%) Cisco Certification
4 5 (2.98%) DV Cleared
5 3 (1.79%) CCNA
5 3 (1.79%) CCNP
5 3 (1.79%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (1.79%) Master's Degree
6 2 (1.19%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 2 (1.19%) AWS Certification
6 2 (1.19%) CEH
6 2 (1.19%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (13.69%) QA
2 6 (3.57%) Accessibility
3 3 (1.79%) Data Quality
3 3 (1.79%) GDPR
4 2 (1.19%) HIPAA
4 2 (1.19%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.60%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 1 (0.60%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.60%) WCAG
System Software
1 34 (20.24%) Docker
2 9 (5.36%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (4.17%) Active Directory
4 3 (1.79%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (1.19%) Varnish
5 2 (1.19%) VirtualBox
6 1 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 28 (16.67%) Kubernetes
2 16 (9.52%) Grafana
2 16 (9.52%) Terraform
3 11 (6.55%) Ansible
4 5 (2.98%) Puppet
5 4 (2.38%) WMI
6 3 (1.79%) vCenter Server
7 2 (1.19%) Icinga
7 2 (1.19%) Kibana
7 2 (1.19%) logstash
7 2 (1.19%) Nagios
7 2 (1.19%) Progress Chef
7 2 (1.19%) Salt
8 1 (0.60%) Bitnami
8 1 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 22 (13.10%) Oracle
2 15 (8.93%) Dynatrace
3 14 (8.33%) Microsoft
4 10 (5.95%) AppDynamics
5 9 (5.36%) VMware
6 6 (3.57%) Salesforce
7 4 (2.38%) Google
7 4 (2.38%) YouTube
7 4 (2.38%) Zend
8 3 (1.79%) SAP
9 2 (1.19%) Cisco
9 2 (1.19%) Genesys
9 2 (1.19%) KANA
9 2 (1.19%) New Relic
9 2 (1.19%) Rackspace
10 1 (0.60%) Adobe
10 1 (0.60%) Atlassian
10 1 (0.60%) Sage
10 1 (0.60%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
10 1 (0.60%) Sitecore