Contractor pay calculator: Contract Rate Benchmark
The median published figure in the Contract Rate Benchmark is 515 GBP across 4 sources' own pages (range 500 to 550 GBP), read 26 September 2026.
4 of the 16 named sources read in full publish a figure; 12 publish none, read 26 September 2026.
The median is unchanged since 25 September 2026 (was 515 GBP across 4).
Every figure, with its source
One row per source: the figure the source's own page publishes, the page, and the day it was read. A figure that is not on a page we read is not on this one.
| Source | Figure | Read |
|---|---|---|
| IT Jobs Watch, consultant contract rates in London | 550 GBP | 2026-09-11 |
| IT Jobs Watch, IT manager contract rates | 525 GBP | 2026-09-11 |
| IT Jobs Watch, developer contract rates | 505 GBP | 2026-09-11 |
| ContractorUK, market rates | 500 GBP | 2026-09-11 |
The sentence each figure was read from (4)
- IT Jobs Watch, consultant contract rates in London, read 2026-09-11:
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £550
- IT Jobs Watch, IT manager contract rates, read 2026-09-11:
The median IT Manager daily rate in the UK is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 September 2026.
- IT Jobs Watch, developer contract rates, read 2026-09-11:
The median Developer daily rate in the UK is £505, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 September 2026.
- ContractorUK, market rates, read 2026-09-11:
MARKET MEDIAN £500
Read in full, publishes no figure
12 named sources were read in full on the dates shown and print no usable figure. They are counted, never filled in.
- ONS, employee earnings in the UK (ASHE) 2025 bulletin, read 2026-09-12: every candidate on the page was refused
- ONS, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings landing, read 2026-09-12: every candidate on the page was refused
- ONS, ASHE table 2: earnings by two-digit occupation, read 2026-09-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- ONS, ASHE table 29: earnings by industry and occupation, read 2026-09-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- ONS, ASHE table 1: all employees, read 2026-09-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- ONS, UK labour market overview (self-employment level), read 2026-09-11: every candidate on the page was refused
- ONS, summary of labour market statistics, read 2026-09-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- ONS, ASHE previous releases (the back series), read 2026-09-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- HMRC, measuring tax gaps (the self-employment and small-company population), read 2026-09-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- IPSE, average day rates, read 2026-09-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- IT Contracting, rate checker, read 2026-09-11: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- ons.gov.uk, read 2026-09-12: every candidate on the page was refused
Methodology
Every row is a verbatim sentence read from the named source's own page through the estate's fetch service on the date shown, hash-pinned to the stored read (the sha of the page's visible text; the raw page is mirrored to R2).
4 of the 16 named sources that could be read published a usable figure; 12 published none and are recorded as not published, never filled in; 0 could not be read (blocked, dead or unreachable) and count nowhere.
The headline figures (median, minimum, maximum, quartiles) are over ONE figure per source in GBP (a source's median where its page yielded several accepted sentences), so N counts sources, never sentences; 91 candidate sentence(s) were refused by a reviewer with the reason recorded.
Derivation as chartered: the official earnings distribution per occupation and region from ONS ASHE, converted to a comparable day rate on a stated working-day assumption, set beside the advert-derived contract medians published by the job-advert indices with each attributed to its publisher.
Derived across them, which neither side publishes: the contract premium - the gap between the advertised contract day rate for an occupation and the ASHE full-time equivalent for the same occupation, per region, per year - and the direction that premium moved, which is the number a contractor uses to argue a rate.
91 candidate sentences on these pages were refused by a reviewer; each refusal and its reason is recorded in the review ledger.
Sources (16)
- ONS, employee earnings in the UK (ASHE) 2025 bulletin (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- ONS, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings landing (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- ONS, ASHE table 2: earnings by two-digit occupation (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- ONS, ASHE table 29: earnings by industry and occupation (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- ONS, ASHE table 1: all employees (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- ONS, UK labour market overview (self-employment level) (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- ONS, summary of labour market statistics (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- ONS, ASHE previous releases (the back series) (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- HMRC, measuring tax gaps (the self-employment and small-company population) (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- IT Jobs Watch, developer contract rates (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- IT Jobs Watch, IT manager contract rates (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- IT Jobs Watch, consultant contract rates in London (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- ContractorUK, market rates (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- IPSE, average day rates (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- IT Contracting, rate checker (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- ons.gov.uk (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
Cite or embed this figure
The median published figure in the Contract Rate Benchmark is 515 GBP across 4 sources' own pages (range 500 to 550 GBP), read 26 September 2026.
4 of the 16 named sources read in full publish a figure; 12 publish none, read 26 September 2026.
The median is unchanged since 25 September 2026 (was 515 GBP across 4).
Cite as: "contractorpaycalculator.co.uk Contract Rate Benchmark", updated 2026-09-26, https://contractorpaycalculator.co.uk/datasets/contract-rate-benchmark/.
Download the CSV (4 rows, computed 2026-09-26)