Luxembourg freelance day rate barometer, Q3 2026: 142 missions analysed

As of 30 September 2026, the median day rate (TJM) of freelance missions published on freelancers.lu in Q3 2026 stands at €525 per day. This figure is based on 142 job postings with a published rate, out of 342 mission postings in total. Half of these rates fall between €505 and €630. Hybrid missions are the majority (61%), and fully remote work remains marginal: 2 postings out of 342.

Luxembourg has no public barometer of freelance day rates. This first quarterly edition publishes the platform's data together with its method and limitations, so that the figures can be checked, compared and cited. It will be updated every quarter.

Key figures for the quarter

The day rate of a posting is the midpoint of the published range: a mission advertised at €500 to €550 counts as €525. The median is the value that splits the rates into two equal halves; the quartiles mark off the lowest quarter and the highest quarter.

Day rate distribution: a strong concentration between €505 and €525

Three points stand out from this distribution.

• Half of the rates fit within a €100 band. The €450 to €549 band accounts for 73 of the 142 postings (51%). The first quartile (€505) and the median (€525) are only €20 apart: a quarter of the published rates lie between these two values. The ranges offered by intermediaries are therefore very similar from one posting to the next.
• The upper half is more spread out. The gap between the median (€525) and the third quartile (€630) is €105. The €550 to €649 and €650 to €749 bands hold almost the same number of postings (28 and 27), which puts 39% of rates at €550 or more.
• Extremes are rare. 13 postings (9%) offer less than €450, the lowest being €320. Only one reaches €750 or more, with a maximum of €760.

Day rate by role

Each posting is assigned to one or more roles based on its title. A single posting can therefore count in several rows, and the rows add up to more than the total number of postings. A median is shown only from 5 published rates upwards; below 10 rates, it is indicative.

Among roles with at least 10 published rates, data and cybersecurity come out on top, with medians of €630 and €625, i.e. €100 to €105 above the overall median. Cybersecurity is also the most frequent role this quarter, with 47 postings. Finance, risk and compliance profiles follow at €565. For this role, as for data, the interquartile range is wide (€516 to €660 and €515 to €673): missions vary considerably in scope and seniority.

Development roles cluster around the overall median: €525 for Java, JavaScript and testing, €505 for .NET. Their ranges are narrow, meaning that postings for these roles offer very similar rates. Business analysts and product owners, the second most frequent role (40 postings), come in at €520 with an interquartile range of just €5.

Project managers show the highest median (€655), but on only 7 rates: this figure should be read as an indication. For AI and machine learning, 16 postings were published but only 4 state a rate, which is not enough to calculate a reliable median.

By sector

Nearly two postings in three (65%) do not specify the end client's sector. Where it is stated, banking and finance lead with 80 postings, ahead of insurance (35). Sector medians are very close: €520 for banking, €525 for insurance, €525 where the sector is not specified. This quarter, the sector makes no visible difference to the median rate offered; the differences lie between roles rather than sectors. With 5 postings, the public sector is too small a sample to draw a trend from: its €550 median is indicative only.

Remote work: hybrid is the norm

Six missions in ten combine on-site presence and remote work. Four in ten require full presence at the client's premises, and fully remote work is almost non-existent: 2 postings out of 342. For a freelancer considering working for the Luxembourg market from abroad without ever travelling, these figures call for caution. For cross-border workers, the number of remote working days also has tax and social security consequences, covered in our article on cross-border freelancing in Luxembourg.

Day rates displayed by freelancers vs mission day rates

The 59 freelancers whose profile is published on freelancers.lu can display their rate; 57 have done so. Their median displayed day rate is €650, with a first quartile of €550 and a third of €750. That is €125 more than the median mission rate (€525), a gap of about 24%.

This comparison should be read with caution, for two reasons.

• It is not the same measure. A profile's day rate is what the freelancer asks for. A posting's day rate is the rate offered by an intermediary, which takes its own margin on the rate billed to the end client.
• It is not the same set of roles. The mix of roles and experience levels among registered freelancers does not match that of the postings published this quarter.

Above all, the gap shows that there is room for negotiation between the rate offered in a posting and what an experienced freelancer asks for. To work out your own floor rate from your costs and billable days, use the day rate calculator.

Method and limitations

• Period. The barometer covers mission postings published on freelancers.lu between 1 July and 30 September 2026, whether still open or closed since. Since data collection only began in August, no postings date from July: in practice, this edition covers August (87 postings) and September (255 postings).
• Source of the rates. All 142 rates come from postings explicitly for freelancers, published by IT services companies and recruitment agencies in Luxembourg. None comes from an end client publishing its mission directly. These are therefore day rates offered by intermediaries, which are often lower than what a freelancer bills when working directly for an end client.
• Day rate definition. For each posting, the day rate used is the midpoint of the published range. Medians and quartiles are calculated on these values.
• Estimates excluded. 200 postings do not publish a rate. For 193 of them, freelancers.lu displays an estimate for information; these estimates are never counted in the barometer. Only rates published by the advertiser are taken into account.
• Role assignment. The role is determined by keywords in the posting title. A posting may fall under several roles, and an ambiguous title may be misclassified.
• Subgroup size. Some roles and sectors have few rates. Medians based on fewer than 10 rates are flagged as indicative; below 5, no median is published.
• First edition. As this is the first edition, it does not yet show any change from one quarter to the next. The next barometer, covering Q4 2026, will be published in early January 2027.

How to cite this barometer

If you use the figures in this article, please cite the source as follows:

Source: Freelancers.lu, Luxembourg Freelance Day Rate Barometer, Q3 2026. https://freelancers.lu/en/blog/barometre-tjm-freelance-luxembourg-t3-2026

Please also include the reference date (30 September 2026) and, where possible, the nature of the data: rates offered by intermediaries in freelance mission postings.

Further reading

• The day rate calculator works out your minimum day rate from your target income, social contributions and billable days.
• Our comparison of seven 2026 day rate studies sets freelancers.lu data against the barometers published in France, Germany and Belgium. It is based on an earlier snapshot (18 September 2026) covering a different period, so its figures are not directly comparable with those in this barometer.
• Our guide to day rates in Luxembourg in 2026 explains how to set and negotiate your rate.
• The role pages, linked from the table above, list the freelancers and missions for each specialism. Current missions are gathered on the missions page.