What does app development actually cost per hour in the UK? Day rates explained

October 29th, 2026 at 04:49 pm

By Ronak Shah, Nordstone  |  Last updated: October 2026

TL;DR

• Headline range: Nordstone’s UK cost guide puts team rates at £40 to £150 or more an hour, depending on whether you hire a freelancer, a small local agency or a large development house. The agency range is sourced separately from Nordstone’s London vs Manchester vs offshore app development costs guide; it is not the same evidence base as the contractor day rates below.
• Contractor day rates: iOS developers have a median of £401 a day, Android £425, React Native £500 and Flutter £513 (19 quoted rates), per IT Jobs Watch for the six months to late October 2026. Re-check Android on publication day: it was £450 on 1 October.
• Day rate to hourly: divide by eight for a rough hourly figure, so £401 a day is about £50 an hour. That is the developer’s time only, not an agency price.
• Why agencies cost more: their rate also pays for management, design, testing, cover for leave and sickness, overheads and profit.
• Quotes: rates are normally quoted before 20% VAT. Ask for a breakdown by role, days and rate.
• Budget check: £30,000 buys roughly 200 to 750 hours across the £40 to £150-plus range, so hourly rate alone tells you little.
• Data currency: contractor medians were checked on 29 October 2026. IT Jobs Watch refreshes continuously, so re-check every figure on publication day.

How much does app development cost per hour in the UK?

Nordstone’s published guide puts UK development team rates at £40 to £150 or more an hour. Where you land in that range depends mostly on who you hire. A freelancer sits towards the lower end, a small local agency in the middle, and a large development house at the top. The full cost picture, from simple apps at £15,000 to £30,000 up to complex ones at £70,000 or more, is in our guide to how much it costs to build an app in the UK.

The £40–£150+ range refers to what clients may pay an agency or development team. It is separate from the contractor day rates below, which describe an individual contractor’s advertised rate. For agency-rate context, see our London vs Manchester vs offshore app development costs guide and our offshore app development costs guide.

An hourly rate answers a narrow question: what does one person’s time cost? It says nothing about how many hours your app needs, who is doing them, or what is included. So treat the number as one input. It is useful for comparing like with like, and misleading when it is the only thing on the page.

This guide uses real UK data to show what contractors ask for, explains why agencies charge more, and walks through turning rates into a budget.

What are UK contractor day rates for app developers?

IT Jobs Watch tracks the rates quoted in UK contract job adverts. In the six months to late October 2026, the median for mobile developers ranged from £401 a day for iOS to £513 for Flutter. The chart and table show the figures by role, with an hourly equivalent based on an eight-hour day.

iOS, Android, UX, test analyst and project manager figures come from IT Jobs Watch job-title pages. React Native and Flutter figures come from IT Jobs Watch skill pages, which include adverts citing the skill—such as architect, lead and full-stack roles—not only developers whose primary role is React Native or Flutter. For that reason, do not read the React Native and Flutter medians as a direct like-for-like comparison with the iOS and Android developer medians.

Source: IT Jobs Watch pages for iOS developer, Android developer, React Native, Flutter, UX designer, test analyst and project manager, updated 24 to 26 October 2026. Hourly figures are the day rate divided by eight and rounded.

Mobile rates sit below the wider IT market. The mobile-related medians above range from £401 for iOS to £513 for Flutter, below IT Jobs Watch’s all-IT UK contract median of £525 a day. That does not mean mobile developers are underpaid: the comparison mixes job-title and skill pages, and project management has a much larger sample. But it is a useful reminder that mobile development is one part of a broader contract market.

Three cautions apply. First, these are advertised contractor rates, not what anyone actually paid, and the pages refresh frequently. Second, sample sizes differ: the Flutter median rests on only 19 quoted rates, so read it as a rough signal. Third, the project manager figure covers IT contracts generally, not mobile projects in particular.

Why does an agency charge more than a contractor’s day rate divided by eight?

Because the two prices cover different things. A contractor’s day rate pays for one person’s time, and the contractor carries the costs of being self-employed: no paid holiday, no sick pay, their own equipment and insurance. An agency’s rate pays for a managed team.

That means project management so nobody has to chase, design and testing so the developer isn’t also doing both, cover when someone is ill or leaves, tools and licences, insurance, premises and a margin to stay in business. Agencies also don’t bill every hour of every working day, because staff spend time on training, sales and gaps between projects, so the billed rate has to cover the unbilled time too.

Put simply, a £100 hourly rate at an agency and a £56 hourly equivalent for a contractor aren’t a like-for-like comparison. What you are buying is different: with the contractor you manage the work, with the agency they do. If you are choosing between the two, our comparison of in-house vs agency vs freelancer covers the trade-offs in more depth.

For context on what clients may pay agencies rather than individual contractors, see our London vs Manchester vs offshore app development costs guide, which sets out agency rate ranges, and our offshore app development costs guide, which explains how location affects supplier pricing.

What affects the hourly rate you are quoted?

Seniority is likely to be a major factor, but IT Jobs Watch’s lead-level data is too thin to quantify it reliably. Its lead-level pages often rest on only one or two quoted rates, so we cannot use them to rank seniority against specialism, location or sector. In practice, a senior engineer who has shipped comparable apps will usually command a higher rate and may need fewer hours.

Platform signals are less clear-cut. React Native and Flutter have higher medians in the data above, but those are IT Jobs Watch skill-page figures and can include architect, lead and full-stack adverts. They should not be treated as a direct comparison with the iOS and Android developer job-title pages.

Location may matter less than seniority or specialism, but the evidence here is limited. IT Jobs Watch showed a UK median of £401 for iOS contractors and £400 in London in our 7 August snapshot, based on 19 London rates; the prior-year London figure was £400. That suggests little obvious London premium for iOS, but the sample is too small to treat it as a firm conclusion. Flutter’s apparent gap—£400 outside London against £513 nationally—rests on an even smaller sample.

Sector can raise rates, especially in regulated fields such as fintech or health, where compliance experience is part of what you are paying for. Urgency and contract length shift prices as well.

If you hire a freelancer through their own limited company, check how the off-payroll working rules, known as IR35, apply to your business. It can affect how you engage and pay them.

Should you pay hourly, by day rate or a fixed price?

Each model suits a different situation. A fixed price gives certainty and suits a clearly defined scope, such as a well-written brief for a defined MVP. Changes after sign-off are priced separately, so the brief matters. Our app development brief template helps you write one, and our guide to briefing a design-only or MVP-only project covers the narrower cases.

Time and materials, billed hourly or by the day, suits work where the scope will change as you learn, but it needs guard rails: an agreed estimate, a cap, and regular reporting on hours used. Many projects combine the two, with a fixed-price discovery phase and then time and materials for the build. Whatever you choose, ask how change requests are priced before you sign.

How do you turn rates into a budget?

Multiply days by rate for each role, then add what the rates leave out. Here is an illustration for a small single-platform build, using the contractor medians above.

An iOS developer for 40 days at £401 comes to £16,040. A UX designer for 15 days at £447 adds £6,705, a test analyst for 10 days at £382 adds £3,820, and a project manager for 8 days at £538 adds £4,304. The total is £30,869. That is the cost of those people’s time at contractor rates, and it excludes VAT, back-end development, hosting, app-store fees, an agency’s overheads and post-launch support.

It does land in the same territory as Nordstone’s published bands, where a medium-complexity single-platform app costs £30,000 to £70,000, which is a useful sense-check. The days are assumptions made for illustration; your project could need far more, and cost climbs fast once you add a second platform, integrations or complex back-end work. Another way to sense-check: across the £40 to £150-plus hourly range, £30,000 buys roughly 200 to 750 hours of billed time.

If you are building a two-sided product, see our marketplace app cost guide, where the buyer, seller and admin experiences add to the number of days.

What should a good quote show?

Look for a breakdown by role, with days and rate for each, so you can see where the money goes. It should list assumptions, such as the number of screens and integrations, and name what is excluded. It should explain how change requests are priced, what support follows launch, and who owns what at the end. Our list of questions to ask an agency before signing covers the follow-ups, and our guide on who owns the code explains the ownership clauses.

Finally, compare totals, not rates. A supplier with a lower hourly rate and a long list of exclusions may cost more in the end than one with a higher rate and a full scope. When your app is ready for the stores, our App Store and Google Play launch guide covers the next step.

Frequently asked questions

Want a second opinion on a quote?

If you have proposals in hand and want to know whether the rates, days and exclusions look sensible, send them over. Start with our app development brief template if you are still writing the brief, or get in touch with Nordstone and we will give you a straight view.