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 8 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 414 323 309
Rank change year-on-year -91 -14 +44
Contract jobs citing PHP 168 234 355
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.64% 0.76%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.49% 1.99% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 110 167 287
10th Percentile £300 £313 £295
25th Percentile £355 £334 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £413 £425 £450
Median % change year-on-year -2.94% -5.56% -
75th Percentile £486 £550 £575
90th Percentile £569 £600 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £413 £450 £411
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.62% -0.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 2 6
10th Percentile - £34.89 £16.31
25th Percentile £33.25 £37.62 £17.22
Median hourly rate £34.50 £42.79 £22.14
Median % change year-on-year -19.36% +93.25% -50.80%
75th Percentile £38.30 £48.58 £29.66
90th Percentile £42.89 £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 11,301 11,753 14,731
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.30% 32.12% 31.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,439 7,592 10,502
10th Percentile £345 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £625 £644 £660
90th Percentile £725 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £476 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.96% -2.00% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 318 282 442
10th Percentile £29.00 £22.00 £32.32
25th Percentile £42.81 £38.88 £47.50
Median hourly rate £62.50 £62.50 £61.92
Median % change year-on-year - +0.94% +0.68%
75th Percentile £67.44 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £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 8 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 8 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 -70 141 £401 +0.31% 549
UK excluding London -67 68 £413 -8.33% 492
London -37 59 £400 - 144
Work from Home -37 55 £413 +3.13% 353
North of England -32 22 £359 -26.92% 129
East of England -6 17 £438 +21.53% 44
North West -18 16 £358 -13.21% 81
Midlands -27 14 £510 +27.50% 71
South East -17 10 £575 +4.55% 156
East Midlands -10 8 £515 +28.75% 26
West Midlands -33 6 £419 +4.69% 44
Yorkshire -35 3 £388 -30.02% 41
North East - 3 - - 8
Scotland +2 2 £69 -80.29% 23
Wales -12 2 £425 -20.93% 5
South West -2 1 £300 -14.29% 54

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 14 (8.33%) WordPress
3 13 (7.74%) SugarCRM
4 12 (7.14%) Drupal
5 7 (4.17%) Apache
6 5 (2.98%) Confluence
7 3 (1.79%) CMS
7 3 (1.79%) SAS
8 2 (1.19%) FileNet
9 1 (0.60%) Moodle
9 1 (0.60%) nginx
Business Applications
1 3 (1.79%) Magento
2 1 (0.60%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 51 (30.36%) AWS
2 29 (17.26%) Azure
3 19 (11.31%) GitHub
4 17 (10.12%) 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 43 (25.60%) MySQL
2 18 (10.71%) PostgreSQL
3 16 (9.52%) Relational Database
4 6 (3.57%) SQL Server
5 3 (1.79%) MariaDB
5 3 (1.79%) Redis
6 2 (1.19%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (1.19%) Elasticsearch
6 2 (1.19%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.60%) Amazon Aurora
7 1 (0.60%) BigQuery
7 1 (0.60%) CouchDB
7 1 (0.60%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.60%) Power BI
7 1 (0.60%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 33 (19.64%) Git
2 20 (11.90%) JIRA
3 7 (4.17%) Bitbucket
3 7 (4.17%) Jenkins
4 6 (3.57%) PHPUnit
5 5 (2.98%) Cypress.io
6 4 (2.38%) MSI
6 4 (2.38%) Robot Framework
6 4 (2.38%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (1.79%) JUnit
7 3 (1.79%) Postman
7 3 (1.79%) Subversion
8 2 (1.19%) JMeter
8 2 (1.19%) Mercurial
8 2 (1.19%) Vagrant
9 1 (0.60%) GitLab
9 1 (0.60%) Selenium
General
1 38 (22.62%) Social Skills
2 21 (12.50%) Public Sector
3 17 (10.12%) Finance
3 17 (10.12%) Marketing
4 6 (3.57%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (2.98%) Games
6 4 (2.38%) Presentation Skills
6 4 (2.38%) Telecoms
7 3 (1.79%) Manufacturing
7 3 (1.79%) Military
8 2 (1.19%) Billing
8 2 (1.19%) Electronics
8 2 (1.19%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.60%) Automotive
9 1 (0.60%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.60%) Law
9 1 (0.60%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.60%) Retail
Job Titles
1 84 (50.00%) Developer
2 37 (22.02%) PHP Developer
3 17 (10.12%) Senior
4 14 (8.33%) Consultant
4 14 (8.33%) Software Engineer
5 11 (6.55%) Lead
6 9 (5.36%) Senior Developer
7 7 (4.17%) .NET Developer
7 7 (4.17%) Full-Stack Developer
8 5 (2.98%) Backend Developer
8 5 (2.98%) C# Developer
9 4 (2.38%) 3rd Line Engineer
9 4 (2.38%) AWS Engineer
9 4 (2.38%) C# .NET Developer
9 4 (2.38%) Integration Engineer
9 4 (2.38%) Java Developer
9 4 (2.38%) Oracle Developer
9 4 (2.38%) Principal Engineer
9 4 (2.38%) Senior .NET Developer
9 4 (2.38%) Senior C# Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (32.14%) HTML
2 46 (27.38%) Node.js
3 39 (23.21%) .NET
4 38 (22.62%) CSS
5 30 (17.86%) REST
6 21 (12.50%) Laravel
7 16 (9.52%) Vue
8 15 (8.93%) Middleware
9 14 (8.33%) SOAP
10 13 (7.74%) GraphQL
11 11 (6.55%) React
12 10 (5.95%) AngularJS
12 10 (5.95%) Web Services
13 8 (4.76%) Symfony
14 7 (4.17%) Ruby on Rails
15 6 (3.57%) HTML5
15 6 (3.57%) RESTful
16 5 (2.98%) Bazel
16 5 (2.98%) CSS3
16 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%) Onboarding
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%) Product Ownership
7 1 (0.60%) AI Agents
7 1 (0.60%) Low-Code
7 1 (0.60%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 25 (14.88%) Linux
2 20 (11.90%) Windows
3 7 (4.17%) CentOS
3 7 (4.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (2.38%) Android
4 4 (2.38%) Windows Server
4 4 (2.38%) Windows Server 2019
5 3 (1.79%) Apple iOS
6 2 (1.19%) Debian
6 2 (1.19%) Ubuntu
6 2 (1.19%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (29.76%) CI/CD
2 44 (26.19%) Agile
3 32 (19.05%) Problem-Solving
4 30 (17.86%) DevOps
5 21 (12.50%) Containerisation
6 20 (11.90%) User Experience
7 19 (11.31%) API Integration
7 19 (11.31%) Software Engineering
8 18 (10.71%) AI
9 17 (10.12%) CRM
9 17 (10.12%) Migration
9 17 (10.12%) MVC
9 17 (10.12%) Requirements Gathering
10 16 (9.52%) Observability
10 16 (9.52%) Test Automation
11 15 (8.93%) Full-Stack Development
11 15 (8.93%) Microservices
12 12 (7.14%) ETL
13 11 (6.55%) Continuous Improvement
13 11 (6.55%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 59 (35.12%) JavaScript
2 56 (33.33%) Python
3 35 (20.83%) Java
4 32 (19.05%) 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
7 10 (5.95%) TypeScript
8 8 (4.76%) PL/SQL
9 4 (2.38%) Go
10 3 (1.79%) VB
11 2 (1.19%) Kotlin
11 2 (1.19%) Perl
12 1 (0.60%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 20 (11.90%) Security Cleared
2 9 (5.36%) BPSS Clearance
2 9 (5.36%) SC Cleared
3 7 (4.17%) Degree
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 9 (5.36%) 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%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (1.79%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (1.19%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 28 (16.67%) Kubernetes
2 16 (9.52%) Terraform
3 12 (7.14%) Grafana
4 11 (6.55%) Ansible
5 5 (2.98%) Puppet
6 4 (2.38%) WMI
7 3 (1.79%) vCenter Server
8 2 (1.19%) Icinga
8 2 (1.19%) Kibana
8 2 (1.19%) logstash
8 2 (1.19%) Nagios
8 2 (1.19%) Progress Chef
8 2 (1.19%) Salt
9 1 (0.60%) Bitnami
9 1 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 22 (13.10%) Oracle
2 15 (8.93%) Dynatrace
3 13 (7.74%) Microsoft
4 10 (5.95%) AppDynamics
5 9 (5.36%) VMware
6 5 (2.98%) Salesforce
7 4 (2.38%) Google
7 4 (2.38%) YouTube
7 4 (2.38%) Zend
8 2 (1.19%) Cisco
8 2 (1.19%) Genesys
8 2 (1.19%) KANA
8 2 (1.19%) New Relic
8 2 (1.19%) Rackspace
8 2 (1.19%) SAP
9 1 (0.60%) Atlassian
9 1 (0.60%) mParticle
9 1 (0.60%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.60%) Sage
9 1 (0.60%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud