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

6 months to
22 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 395 328 301
Rank change year-on-year -67 -27 +44
Contract jobs citing PHP 180 237 352
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.50% 0.65% 0.76%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.56% 2.01% 2.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 122 169 279
10th Percentile £308 £313 £273
25th Percentile £356 £340 £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £413 £425 £445
Median % change year-on-year -2.94% -4.49% -1.11%
75th Percentile £475 £550 £575
90th Percentile £565 £600 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £419 £450 £400
% change year-on-year -6.94% +12.50% -
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 11,522 11,774 14,428
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.07% 32.05% 30.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,597 7,554 10,267
10th Percentile £350 £350 £360
25th Percentile £413 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £506 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.62% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £621 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £756 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -3.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 344 293 446
10th Percentile £29.53 £21.37 £32.16
25th Percentile £48.44 £37.55 £47.50
Median hourly rate £63.07 £62.50 £60.36
Median % change year-on-year +0.91% +3.55% -0.24%
75th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £78.38
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 22 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 22 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 -63 156 £413 +1.54% 394
UK excluding London -73 77 £419 -6.94% 318
London -36 64 £400 - 99
Work from Home -39 59 £414 +3.44% 213
North of England -32 28 £360 -27.27% 79
North West -20 20 £358 -15.76% 49
East of England -9 17 £438 +21.53% 31
South East -17 14 £425 -22.73% 80
Midlands -33 14 £510 +27.50% 67
East Midlands -7 8 £515 +28.75% 22
West Midlands -28 6 £419 +4.69% 45
Yorkshire -42 5 £390 -23.90% 28
North East - 3 - - 3
Scotland -8 2 £69 -80.29% 9
South West -7 1 £300 -14.89% 52
Wales -16 1 £425 -20.93% 4

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 (8.33%) WebLogic
1 15 (8.33%) WebSphere
2 13 (7.22%) SugarCRM
3 10 (5.56%) WordPress
4 9 (5.00%) Drupal
5 7 (3.89%) Apache
6 5 (2.78%) Confluence
7 4 (2.22%) CMS
7 4 (2.22%) SharePoint
8 3 (1.67%) SAS
9 2 (1.11%) FileNet
10 1 (0.56%) Moodle
10 1 (0.56%) nginx
Applications
1 4 (2.22%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (2.22%) Microsoft Office
1 4 (2.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (2.22%) Magento
2 2 (1.11%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 57 (31.67%) AWS
2 31 (17.22%) Azure
3 21 (11.67%) GitHub
4 17 (9.44%) SaaS
5 11 (6.11%) PaaS
6 10 (5.56%) IaaS
6 10 (5.56%) OpenShift
7 8 (4.44%) GitHub Actions
8 6 (3.33%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (3.33%) GCP
8 6 (3.33%) Serverless
9 5 (2.78%) Azure Functions
9 5 (2.78%) ChatGPT
9 5 (2.78%) GitHub Copilot
10 3 (1.67%) Azure API Management
10 3 (1.67%) Azure Monitor
10 3 (1.67%) Entra ID
11 2 (1.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 2 (1.11%) Azure AKS
11 2 (1.11%) Intacct
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.67%) TCP/IP
2 2 (1.11%) Firewall
2 2 (1.11%) HTTP
2 2 (1.11%) SSL
3 1 (0.56%) DNS
3 1 (0.56%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (25.56%) MySQL
2 25 (13.89%) PostgreSQL
3 22 (12.22%) Relational Database
4 10 (5.56%) SQL Server
5 5 (2.78%) Oracle Database
5 5 (2.78%) Redis
6 4 (2.22%) RDBMS
6 4 (2.22%) SQLPlus
7 3 (1.67%) Elasticsearch
7 3 (1.67%) MariaDB
8 2 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (1.11%) ImageNet
8 2 (1.11%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
9 1 (0.56%) BigQuery
9 1 (0.56%) CouchDB
9 1 (0.56%) Power BI
9 1 (0.56%) SQLite
Development Applications
1 33 (18.33%) Git
2 21 (11.67%) JIRA
3 9 (5.00%) Jenkins
4 7 (3.89%) Bitbucket
5 6 (3.33%) PHPUnit
6 4 (2.22%) MSI
6 4 (2.22%) Robot Framework
6 4 (2.22%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (2.22%) Toad
7 3 (1.67%) JUnit
7 3 (1.67%) Postman
7 3 (1.67%) Subversion
8 2 (1.11%) Cypress.io
8 2 (1.11%) JMeter
8 2 (1.11%) Mercurial
8 2 (1.11%) Vagrant
9 1 (0.56%) GitLab
9 1 (0.56%) Selenium
General
1 44 (24.44%) Social Skills
2 21 (11.67%) Finance
3 20 (11.11%) Public Sector
4 15 (8.33%) Marketing
5 7 (3.89%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (3.33%) Telecoms
7 5 (2.78%) Games
8 4 (2.22%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (1.67%) Billing
9 3 (1.67%) Manufacturing
9 3 (1.67%) Military
10 2 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
10 2 (1.11%) Electronics
10 2 (1.11%) Retail
11 1 (0.56%) Automotive
11 1 (0.56%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.56%) Law
11 1 (0.56%) Legal
11 1 (0.56%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 85 (47.22%) Developer
2 33 (18.33%) PHP Developer
3 20 (11.11%) Senior
4 16 (8.89%) Software Engineer
5 14 (7.78%) Consultant
6 11 (6.11%) Lead
7 9 (5.00%) Senior Developer
8 8 (4.44%) Oracle Developer
9 7 (3.89%) .NET Developer
9 7 (3.89%) Full-Stack Developer
10 6 (3.33%) Architect
10 6 (3.33%) DevOps Engineer
11 5 (2.78%) Backend Developer
11 5 (2.78%) C# Developer
11 5 (2.78%) Senior DevOps
12 4 (2.22%) 3rd Line Engineer
12 4 (2.22%) AWS Engineer
12 4 (2.22%) C# .NET Developer
12 4 (2.22%) PHP Software Engineer
12 4 (2.22%) Senior C# .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (27.22%) HTML
2 46 (25.56%) .NET
3 42 (23.33%) Node.js
4 34 (18.89%) REST
5 33 (18.33%) CSS
6 20 (11.11%) Laravel
7 16 (8.89%) GraphQL
8 15 (8.33%) Middleware
8 15 (8.33%) Vue
9 14 (7.78%) SOAP
10 12 (6.67%) React
11 10 (5.56%) AngularJS
11 10 (5.56%) Web Services
12 9 (5.00%) Symfony
13 7 (3.89%) HTML5
13 7 (3.89%) RESTful
13 7 (3.89%) Ruby on Rails
14 6 (3.33%) CSS3
15 5 (2.78%) .NET Core
15 5 (2.78%) Unity (Game Engine)
Miscellaneous
1 9 (5.00%) Legacy Systems
2 7 (3.89%) Linux Command Line
2 7 (3.89%) Mobile App
3 5 (2.78%) Virtual Team
4 4 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
4 4 (2.22%) Enterprise Software
4 4 (2.22%) Legacy Code
4 4 (2.22%) PKI
4 4 (2.22%) Virtual Reality
4 4 (2.22%) Web Conferencing
5 3 (1.67%) Blog
5 3 (1.67%) Cloud Native
5 3 (1.67%) e-Learning
6 2 (1.11%) 3D Graphics
6 2 (1.11%) Mixed Reality
6 2 (1.11%) NHS
6 2 (1.11%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.11%) PACS
6 2 (1.11%) Product Ownership
6 2 (1.11%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 34 (18.89%) Linux
2 24 (13.33%) Windows
3 9 (5.00%) Unix
4 7 (3.89%) CentOS
4 7 (3.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (2.78%) Windows Server
6 4 (2.22%) Android
6 4 (2.22%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (1.67%) Apple iOS
8 2 (1.11%) Debian
8 2 (1.11%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.56%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (27.22%) CI/CD
2 48 (26.67%) Agile
3 36 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
4 30 (16.67%) DevOps
5 25 (13.89%) Containerisation
5 25 (13.89%) Migration
6 20 (11.11%) AI
6 20 (11.11%) API Integration
6 20 (11.11%) Software Engineering
7 19 (10.56%) CRM
7 19 (10.56%) User Experience
8 17 (9.44%) Microservices
8 17 (9.44%) Requirements Gathering
9 16 (8.89%) ETL
9 16 (8.89%) MVC
9 16 (8.89%) Observability
10 15 (8.33%) Full-Stack Development
11 13 (7.22%) Performance Optimisation
11 13 (7.22%) Test Automation
11 13 (7.22%) Web Development
Programming Languages
1 63 (35.00%) Python
2 56 (31.11%) JavaScript
3 39 (21.67%) SQL
4 38 (21.11%) Java
5 30 (16.67%) C#
6 24 (13.33%) C++
7 15 (8.33%) C
8 13 (7.22%) Bash
9 12 (6.67%) PL/SQL
9 12 (6.67%) PowerShell
10 10 (5.56%) Ruby
11 6 (3.33%) Perl
11 6 (3.33%) TypeScript
12 4 (2.22%) Delphi
12 4 (2.22%) Go
13 3 (1.67%) VB
14 2 (1.11%) Kotlin
14 2 (1.11%) Shell Script
15 1 (0.56%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 19 (10.56%) Security Cleared
2 10 (5.56%) BPSS Clearance
3 8 (4.44%) Degree
4 7 (3.89%) SC Cleared
5 5 (2.78%) Cisco Certification
5 5 (2.78%) DV Cleared
6 3 (1.67%) AWS Certification
6 3 (1.67%) CCNA
6 3 (1.67%) CCNP
6 3 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.67%) Master's Degree
7 2 (1.11%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 2 (1.11%) CEH
7 2 (1.11%) CISSP
8 1 (0.56%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 1 (0.56%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.56%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (13.33%) QA
2 6 (3.33%) Accessibility
3 4 (2.22%) GDPR
4 3 (1.67%) Data Quality
5 2 (1.11%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 2 (1.11%) HIPAA
5 2 (1.11%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.56%) Software Quality Assurance
6 1 (0.56%) WCAG
System Software
1 40 (22.22%) Docker
2 9 (5.00%) Active Directory
2 9 (5.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.67%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.67%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (1.11%) Varnish
4 2 (1.11%) VirtualBox
4 2 (1.11%) Xen
Systems Management
1 30 (16.67%) Kubernetes
2 16 (8.89%) Grafana
2 16 (8.89%) Terraform
3 13 (7.22%) Ansible
4 5 (2.78%) Puppet
5 4 (2.22%) WMI
6 3 (1.67%) vCenter Server
7 2 (1.11%) Icinga
7 2 (1.11%) Kibana
7 2 (1.11%) logstash
7 2 (1.11%) Nagios
7 2 (1.11%) Progress Chef
7 2 (1.11%) Salt
8 1 (0.56%) Bitnami
8 1 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 26 (14.44%) Oracle
2 20 (11.11%) Microsoft
3 15 (8.33%) Dynatrace
4 10 (5.56%) AppDynamics
5 9 (5.00%) VMware
6 6 (3.33%) Salesforce
7 4 (2.22%) Google
7 4 (2.22%) YouTube
7 4 (2.22%) Zend
8 3 (1.67%) SAP
9 2 (1.11%) Cisco
9 2 (1.11%) Genesys
9 2 (1.11%) KANA
9 2 (1.11%) New Relic
9 2 (1.11%) Rackspace
10 1 (0.56%) Atlassian
10 1 (0.56%) Percona
10 1 (0.56%) Sage
10 1 (0.56%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
10 1 (0.56%) Sitecore