PHP Contract Job Trends

PHP
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring PHP skills. It covers vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 382 325 316
Rank change year-on-year -57 -9 +17
Contract jobs citing PHP 178 258 360
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.54% 0.67% 0.73%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.65% 2.11% 2.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 110 190 295
10th Percentile £307 £300 £313
25th Percentile £357 £325 £366
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £421 £406 £450
Median % change year-on-year +3.69% -9.72% -
75th Percentile £524 £536 £575
90th Percentile £578 £575 £633
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £406 £416
% change year-on-year +4.62% -2.34% -2.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 2 4
10th Percentile - £34.89 £15.99
25th Percentile £33.25 £37.62 £16.72
Median hourly rate £34.50 £42.79 £17.38
Median % change year-on-year -19.36% +146.24% -48.52%
75th Percentile £35.75 £48.58 £19.82
90th Percentile £41.87 £51.68 £24.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £17.38

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 10,791 12,230 15,905
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.76% 31.98% 32.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,144 8,276 11,274
10th Percentile £343 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% -4.55% -2.22%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £675
90th Percentile £738 £775 £779
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 293 341 452
10th Percentile £29.00 £27.00 £34.25
25th Percentile £37.77 £46.18 £48.32
Median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% +4.00% +11.61%
75th Percentile £67.25 £70.00 £70.06
90th Percentile £80.00 £78.75 £82.03
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.50 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -0.77% - +13.04%

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
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 17 September 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 17 September 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 -43 144 £413 +3.13% 281
UK excluding London -44 69 £425 +4.62% 236
Work from Home -40 61 £425 +6.25% 144
London -37 60 £400 - 71
North of England -6 26 £359 -7.35% 76
North West -13 18 £354 -8.65% 37
East of England +8 17 £438 +21.53% 30
Midlands -9 13 £476 +31.38% 45
West Midlands -13 7 £435 +24.29% 24
South East -17 7 £600 +20.00% 59
East Midlands 0 6 £520 +26.06% 21
North East 0 4 - - 10
Yorkshire -9 4 £389 -20.26% 30
South West +23 2 £515 +47.14% 28
Wales -6 2 £425 -18.66% 4
Scotland -12 2 £69 -80.29% 3

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 20 (11.24%) WordPress
2 15 (8.43%) WebLogic
2 15 (8.43%) WebSphere
3 11 (6.18%) Apache
4 10 (5.62%) Drupal
5 9 (5.06%) CMS
5 9 (5.06%) SugarCRM
6 4 (2.25%) Confluence
6 4 (2.25%) Moodle
7 3 (1.69%) SAS
8 2 (1.12%) FileNet
9 1 (0.56%) nginx
Business Applications
1 6 (3.37%) Magento
2 3 (1.69%) Sage 200
Cloud Services
1 51 (28.65%) AWS
2 24 (13.48%) Azure
3 15 (8.43%) SaaS
4 13 (7.30%) GitHub
4 13 (7.30%) OpenShift
5 10 (5.62%) IaaS
5 10 (5.62%) PaaS
6 7 (3.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 6 (3.37%) Amazon ECS
7 6 (3.37%) Amazon Lightsail
7 6 (3.37%) AWS Fargate
8 3 (1.69%) ChatGPT
8 3 (1.69%) GCP
8 3 (1.69%) GitHub Copilot
8 3 (1.69%) Serverless
9 2 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (1.12%) Intacct
10 1 (0.56%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.56%) OVHcloud
10 1 (0.56%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.25%) Firewall
1 4 (2.25%) HTTP
2 3 (1.69%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.56%) Intrusion Detection
3 1 (0.56%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (24.72%) MySQL
2 15 (8.43%) Relational Database
3 14 (7.87%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (3.37%) SQL Server
5 2 (1.12%) Elasticsearch
5 2 (1.12%) MariaDB
5 2 (1.12%) Oracle Database
5 2 (1.12%) Redis
6 1 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.56%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.56%) GIS
6 1 (0.56%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.56%) Power BI
6 1 (0.56%) RDBMS
6 1 (0.56%) SQLite
6 1 (0.56%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 29 (16.29%) Git
2 15 (8.43%) JIRA
3 9 (5.06%) PHPUnit
4 6 (3.37%) Bitbucket
4 6 (3.37%) Postman
5 5 (2.81%) Cypress.io
6 4 (2.25%) MSI
6 4 (2.25%) Robot Framework
6 4 (2.25%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (1.69%) Jenkins
7 3 (1.69%) JUnit
7 3 (1.69%) Subversion
8 2 (1.12%) GitLab
8 2 (1.12%) JMeter
8 2 (1.12%) Mercurial
8 2 (1.12%) Vagrant
9 1 (0.56%) Selenium
9 1 (0.56%) Toad
General
1 32 (17.98%) Social Skills
2 19 (10.67%) Finance
2 19 (10.67%) Public Sector
3 16 (8.99%) Marketing
4 6 (3.37%) Games
5 4 (2.25%) Telecoms
6 3 (1.69%) Manufacturing
6 3 (1.69%) Military
7 2 (1.12%) Advertising
7 2 (1.12%) Analytical Skills
7 2 (1.12%) Electronics
7 2 (1.12%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.12%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (0.56%) Automotive
8 1 (0.56%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.56%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 86 (48.31%) Developer
2 39 (21.91%) PHP Developer
3 16 (8.99%) Software Engineer
4 14 (7.87%) Consultant
5 13 (7.30%) Senior
6 12 (6.74%) Lead
7 8 (4.49%) Architect
7 8 (4.49%) Senior Developer
8 7 (3.93%) Full-Stack Developer
8 7 (3.93%) Software Developer
9 5 (2.81%) .NET Developer
9 5 (2.81%) Java Developer
9 5 (2.81%) Oracle Developer
10 4 (2.25%) Applications Architect
10 4 (2.25%) DevOps Engineer
10 4 (2.25%) Integration Engineer
10 4 (2.25%) Principal Engineer
10 4 (2.25%) Python Developer
10 4 (2.25%) Security Architect
10 4 (2.25%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (29.21%) HTML
2 50 (28.09%) Node.js
3 39 (21.91%) .NET
4 36 (20.22%) CSS
5 22 (12.36%) REST
6 15 (8.43%) Laravel
6 15 (8.43%) Middleware
6 15 (8.43%) React
6 15 (8.43%) Vue
7 11 (6.18%) AngularJS
8 10 (5.62%) SOAP
9 8 (4.49%) Symfony
10 7 (3.93%) GraphQL
10 7 (3.93%) Ruby on Rails
11 6 (3.37%) Bazel
11 6 (3.37%) Unity (Game Engine)
11 6 (3.37%) Web Services
12 5 (2.81%) JSON
12 5 (2.81%) LAMP
12 5 (2.81%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 7 (3.93%) Legacy Systems
1 7 (3.93%) Mobile App
2 6 (3.37%) Data Protection Act
3 5 (2.81%) e-Learning
3 5 (2.81%) Onboarding
4 4 (2.25%) PKI
4 4 (2.25%) Virtual Reality
5 3 (1.69%) Blog
5 3 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.69%) Virtual Team
5 3 (1.69%) VLE
6 2 (1.12%) 3D Graphics
6 2 (1.12%) Cloud Native
6 2 (1.12%) Legacy Code
6 2 (1.12%) Mixed Reality
7 1 (0.56%) AI Agents
7 1 (0.56%) Augmented Reality
7 1 (0.56%) Learning Management System
7 1 (0.56%) Low-Code
7 1 (0.56%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 27 (15.17%) Linux
2 20 (11.24%) Windows
3 11 (6.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 8 (4.49%) CentOS
5 5 (2.81%) Android
6 4 (2.25%) Windows Server
6 4 (2.25%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (1.69%) Apple iOS
7 3 (1.69%) Unix
8 2 (1.12%) Debian
8 2 (1.12%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (26.40%) CI/CD
2 41 (23.03%) Agile
3 36 (20.22%) DevOps
4 27 (15.17%) Problem-Solving
5 21 (11.80%) Software Engineering
6 20 (11.24%) Containerisation
7 19 (10.67%) Requirements Gathering
8 17 (9.55%) Full-Stack Development
9 15 (8.43%) API Integration
9 15 (8.43%) Migration
10 14 (7.87%) Microservices
10 14 (7.87%) Observability
11 13 (7.30%) ETL
11 13 (7.30%) MVC
11 13 (7.30%) Test Automation
11 13 (7.30%) User Experience
12 12 (6.74%) Roadmaps
13 11 (6.18%) Code Quality
13 11 (6.18%) Performance Optimisation
13 11 (6.18%) Web Development
Programming Languages
1 61 (34.27%) JavaScript
2 54 (30.34%) Python
3 34 (19.10%) Java
4 33 (18.54%) SQL
5 25 (14.04%) C++
6 22 (12.36%) C#
7 15 (8.43%) C
8 12 (6.74%) TypeScript
9 10 (5.62%) Ruby
10 9 (5.06%) PowerShell
11 8 (4.49%) Bash
12 7 (3.93%) PL/SQL
13 4 (2.25%) Go
14 3 (1.69%) Perl
14 3 (1.69%) VB
15 2 (1.12%) Kotlin
16 1 (0.56%) Apex Code
16 1 (0.56%) Rust
Qualifications
1 30 (16.85%) Security Cleared
2 19 (10.67%) SC Cleared
3 8 (4.49%) BPSS Clearance
3 8 (4.49%) Degree
4 7 (3.93%) Cisco Certification
5 5 (2.81%) DV Cleared
6 4 (2.25%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 4 (2.25%) CEH
6 4 (2.25%) CISSP
6 4 (2.25%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (1.69%) CCNA
7 3 (1.69%) CCNP
7 3 (1.69%) Master's Degree
8 2 (1.12%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (11.80%) QA
2 10 (5.62%) Accessibility
3 5 (2.81%) GDPR
4 4 (2.25%) HIPAA
4 4 (2.25%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.56%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 1 (0.56%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.56%) WCAG
System Software
1 32 (17.98%) Docker
2 9 (5.06%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (2.81%) Active Directory
4 4 (2.25%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (1.69%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (1.12%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 28 (15.73%) Kubernetes
2 13 (7.30%) Grafana
3 12 (6.74%) Terraform
4 11 (6.18%) Ansible
5 5 (2.81%) Puppet
6 4 (2.25%) WMI
7 3 (1.69%) vCenter Server
8 2 (1.12%) Icinga
8 2 (1.12%) Kibana
8 2 (1.12%) logstash
8 2 (1.12%) Nagios
8 2 (1.12%) Progress Chef
8 2 (1.12%) Salt
9 1 (0.56%) Bitnami
9 1 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 21 (11.80%) Oracle
2 15 (8.43%) Dynatrace
3 13 (7.30%) Microsoft
4 10 (5.62%) AppDynamics
5 9 (5.06%) VMware
6 4 (2.25%) Salesforce
6 4 (2.25%) YouTube
6 4 (2.25%) Zend
7 2 (1.12%) Cisco
7 2 (1.12%) Genesys
7 2 (1.12%) Google
7 2 (1.12%) KANA
7 2 (1.12%) New Relic
7 2 (1.12%) Rackspace
7 2 (1.12%) SAP
8 1 (0.56%) mParticle
8 1 (0.56%) OneLogin
8 1 (0.56%) Red Hat
8 1 (0.56%) Sage
8 1 (0.56%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud