How to Hire a Software Developer in the UK: Your Options

You can hire a software developer as a contractor, through an agency or as an employee, and the right route depends on whether you are buying one person’s time or a finished result. In the six months to 23 October 2026, UK contract adverts for software developers quoted a median day rate of £525, and permanent adverts a median salary of £65,000 (ITJobsWatch). That buys one person, with no design, testing or project management around them.

Two costly mistakes happen before the first interview, hiring the wrong kind of developer or hiring the right one with nobody to direct them. This guide covers which kind you need, how the routes compare, what each costs, how to vet a candidate, how long hiring takes and what the contract must say about the code. We sell the agency and team routes, so we also say where a contractor or an employee is the better answer.

Key takeaways

• Name the kind of developer first: backend, front-end, full-stack or data engineer. A full-stack developer is the usual choice for a first version.
• Ask who will direct the work. A contractor or employee needs someone on your side to set priorities and judge the result. An agency or dedicated team runs the work and answers for delivery, while you set the priorities.
• Advertised UK pay differs by role: Software Developer medians were £525 a day on contract and £65,000 permanent, and Full-Stack Developer £500 and £60,000 (ITJobsWatch, six months to 23 October 2026).
• Vet with live work, a paid trial task, a technical review of their code and a reference call.
• A contractor or agency owns the code it writes until you hold a signed, written assignment. An employer is the first owner of an employee’s work.

Which kind of software developer do you need?

Start with the job the developer will do. Most briefs fit one of four roles, and a full-stack developer is the usual choice for a first version.

• Backend developer. Builds the parts users never see: the database, business rules, accounts, payments and connections to other systems. Hire one when the hard part is data, logic or integrations.
• Front-end developer. Builds what people see and touch in the browser, such as screens, forms and how they behave on a phone. Hire one when the engine exists and the interface needs work.
• Full-stack developer. Works across both halves. Suits a first version, a small team or an internal tool, where one person who can carry a feature from database to screen is worth more than two specialists. A larger product eventually needs depth on each side.
• Data engineer. Builds the pipelines and storage that bring data from your systems into one reliable place for reporting or models. Hire one when the problem is scattered or messy data.

AI work splits the same way. Many AI features call a hosted model from ordinary application code, which a backend or full-stack developer can build. Training or tuning your own model is a narrower skill, so hire for it only when you have the data and a clear use for it.

To tell which you need, describe the problem in one sentence. Words about what people see point to front-end. Words about rules, data or other systems point to backend. “A first working version” points to full-stack, and “our figures live in six places” points to a data engineer.

If you cannot write the sentence, you need a plan or technical direction before you need a developer. A fractional CTO or a scoping stage fills that gap before you hire anyone.

Contractor, agency or employee: which route fits?

Choose by what you are buying, and settle first who will direct the work. A contractor or employee needs someone on your side to set priorities and judge the result. An agency or dedicated team runs the work and answers for delivery, while you set the priorities.

Route	Fits when	Watch for
Contractor	A defined task or missing skill	You direct them; IR35 may apply
Embedded engineer	Your team has a technical lead	You manage them day to day
Agency or dedicated team	You want a result, no technical lead	Who writes the code
Employee	The software is your business	Time to hire; management load

Contractors are quick to engage and flexible for a short job. The work depends on one person, and you brief, direct and review them yourself.

Embedded engineers come through staff augmentation: vetted engineers who join your team and work under your management, from £4,000 per engineer per month, rolling. Our guide to what staff augmentation is explains how it differs from the other routes.

An agency or dedicated team takes responsibility for delivery. A dedicated team is engineers, a designer and a lead who work only on your product, managed by us and accountable to you for delivery. If you are choosing between firms, our guide to choosing a software development company lists the questions to ask.

Employees are the right answer when the software is your business and will change every week for years. Your first technical hire needs to be able to lead, because nobody else can judge their work.

Where to look for each

• Contractors. Referrals from founders and technical people you trust, recruiters who place contractors, and freelance marketplaces for smaller jobs.
• Agencies. Referrals first, then review sites such as Clutch for a longlist. Read the reviews, not only the score. We are rated 4.9 on Clutch from nine reviews, which is a small sample.
• Employees. Your own network, job boards, LinkedIn and specialist recruiters. An advert that describes the problem and what a good first three months looks like tells a candidate more than a list of technologies.

How much does it cost to hire a software developer?

On advertised UK pay, a Software Developer has a median day rate of £525 on contract and a median salary of £65,000 in a permanent role. Full-Stack Developers sit in a similar band.

Role (ITJobsWatch title)	Median contract day rate	Median permanent salary
Software Developer	£525	£65,000
Full-Stack Developer	£500	£60,000

These are advertised figures from job vacancies posted in the six months to 23 October 2026 (ITJobsWatch, checked 23 October 2026), not what anyone invoiced or was paid. The samples were 253 daily rates and 1,250 salaries for Software Developer (permanent), and 259 and 772 for Full-Stack Developer (permanent).

The spread is wide. For a Software Developer, the 10th to 90th percentile runs from £367 to £618 a day and from £41,175 to £95,000 a year.

A day rate and a salary are different costs. A contractor bills the days they work. An employee’s salary carries employer National Insurance and pension on top, plus holiday cover, recruitment and management time. As an illustration, 20 contractor days a month at the £525 median is £10,500 (20 × £525). Our software development cost guide works through the employer costs on the £65,000 median salary.

Neither figure includes the people around the developer. Design, testing and project management come with a team and not with one hire. Our embedded engineers start from £4,000 per engineer per month and an engineering squad from £12,000 a month, both rolling. A compact dedicated team starts from £10,000 a month, and a full product team, with engineers, design and a delivery lead, from £15,000 a month. Compare these on experience, hours and location as well as price, because our engineers come from a remote, global team led from London.

If you want a defined system and not ongoing capacity, a fixed-price build is a different purchase. A bespoke software build with us starts from £15,000, after discovery and design from £4,000.

How do you vet a developer before you commit?

Check four things, in this order: live work, a paid trial task, a technical review of their code and a reference. Do it for a developer who comes recommended too.

1. Live work. Ask to see something they built that real people use, and which part was theirs. Screenshots show a design and say little about who built it. For a team or agency, ask for the names of the people who will work on your project.
2. A paid trial task. Give them a small piece of real work with a clear finish, paid at their normal rate, with the IP assignment signed first. A short trial shows how they communicate, estimate and finish. For a would-be employee, keep any unpaid exercise short and pay for anything longer. GOV.UK’s minimum wage guidance says that, in the government’s view, someone doing a work trial lasting longer than one day is likely to be entitled to the minimum wage in all but very exceptional circumstances. This is not legal advice.
3. A technical review of their code. If nobody on your side writes code, ask someone who does to read a sample of their work, or to sit in on the technical interview. Good signs are tests that run, readable names, sensible handling of errors, a README that explains how to run the project and no passwords committed to the repository.
4. A reference. Speak to someone they built for. Ask whether they met their estimates, how they dealt with something that went wrong and whether another developer could pick up the code afterwards.

Ask the candidate to walk through a past project, and put these questions to them:

• What would you leave out of version one, and why?
• How would you split this into stages I can see and test?
• What have you shipped that broke in use, and what did you change?
• What do you need from me each week?
• If you left tomorrow, how would someone else take over your code?

An estimate with no scope behind it, reluctance to show any code, and a firm date offered before they have asked who the users are all deserve a pause.

How long does it take to hire a software developer?

An employee takes longest, because they must be found, interviewed, checked and released by their current employer. Contractors and team routes start sooner.

For an employee, the steps are an advert, interviews, an offer, a right-to-work check and their notice period. GOV.UK says you must check that a job applicant is allowed to work for you in the UK before you employ them. The rules differ for contractors and other people who are not employees.

On notice, the statutory minimum is a week for someone who has been in their job for more than a month. That is a floor, and a candidate’s employment contract may require longer, so ask what theirs says before you plan a start date.

A contractor’s start date is agreed in the contract, so it depends on their current commitments and not on an employer’s notice period. Embedded engineers can start in weeks rather than a hiring quarter, and a dedicated team is assembled and managed by us.

What should the contract say about the code?

It should say in writing that the code is yours, because the default depends on how you hire. According to GOV.UK’s copyright guidance, for commissioned work the first legal owner is the person or organisation that created it, not the commissioner, unless you agree otherwise in writing. For an employee, the employer is the first owner, subject to any agreement to the contrary. A transfer of copyright is only effective if it is in writing and signed by the person assigning it (Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, section 90).

With a contractor or agency, ask for these terms:

• A signed, written assignment of the code and IP to you, with a clear point when it takes effect. Our guide to who owns the code explains what a technical review checks.
• Access from day one. The code in a repository you own or can reach, and hosting, domains and paid services in your company’s name.
• Named people. Who will do the work, and what happens, including a handover, if they leave or become unavailable.
• Payment against delivery. Stages as work is delivered, not a large sum up front.
• Confidentiality for your data and plans.

A contractor working through their own company can bring IR35 duties, and an app has its own account-ownership questions. Our guide to hiring an app developer covers both. This is not legal advice, and for a larger engagement a solicitor should read the contract.

Where we fit, and where we do not

We are a UK software, AI and automation studio, led from London and founded in 2019, with a remote, global team. We have delivered more than 50 projects since 2019.

A contractor is the better answer for a defined task when you already have a technical lead, and we would not suggest a team for a two-day fix. An employee is the better answer when the software is your product and someone in the company can lead them.

Our embedded engineers fit when you have people to direct them and need capacity faster than recruiting. A dedicated team fits when you have no technical lead and want a team accountable for delivery, with a planned handover to your own hires when you are ready. With a full product team, all code and IP are yours as you go.

For a bespoke build, scope and price are fixed and agreed before work starts. You pay in milestones as each stage is delivered. You can cancel within the first 21 days of a build and get your money back in full. All code and IP are yours once the work is delivered and paid for.

Your next step: write the one-page brief

Write one page covering the problem, who will use the result, what version one leaves out, your budget range and who on your side will direct the work. Then find your row in the route table.

If you have a technical lead and need capacity, staff augmentation puts an embedded engineer in your team from £4,000 a month. If you need a team accountable for delivery, a dedicated team starts from £10,000 a month. Book the free consultation below and bring the brief. We will tell you which route fits, including when it is a contractor or a hire and not us.