IT freelance day rates (TJM) in 2026: seven sources compared, and where Luxembourg stands

Every autumn, recruitment firms and freelance platforms publish their day rate (TJM) grids. Taken one at a time, these benchmarks contradict each other: for the same experienced developer, one shows €410, another €580. Taken together, they tell a more useful story. We put seven sources published between May 2025 and September 2026 side by side, including the job listings and profiles on freelancers.lu, to read the IT freelance market in France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg.

The starting point of this article is simple: none of these sources measures the same thing. A recruitment firm records the rates it has actually placed. A platform shows the prices freelancers ask for. A self-reported benchmark aggregates what independents say they charge. Before comparing figures, you therefore need to understand what each one counts.

Seven sources, seven ways of measuring a day rate

Two notes on reading these figures. Hays's grids reflect Île-de-France practices and give, for each job family, an average regional gap ranging from -5% (project management) to -10% (development, ERP). At Free-Work, the averages mix all levels of experience, from beginners to profiles with more than fifteen years, which mechanically pulls the figures down compared with firms that only place experienced profiles.

France: four benchmarks, three price levels

The table below lines up the four French sources on comparable roles. For Hays, we use the 5 to 8 years of experience column. For Malt, the average day rate of experienced profiles. For Free-Work, the average for direct engagements. For Silkhom, the senior range (more than five years) in Paris.

Three price levels emerge. The recruitment firms, Hays and Silkhom, form the top of the range: they record negotiated rates for placed profiles, in Île-de-France, excluding juniors. Malt sits in the middle: these are prices displayed by experienced freelancers, not signed prices. Free-Work is consistently lower, by 15 to 30% on development, because it aggregates all experience levels and all regions. For scarce roles, the gap narrows: a cloud architect is at €700 with Hays and €725 with Free-Work, a cybersecurity engineer at €620 and €622.

Experience: the big jump happens between three and eight years

All four sources draw the same curve. At Malt, a developer goes from an average of €317 with less than two years of experience to €435 between three and seven years, €575 between eight and fifteen years, then €672 beyond that. At Hays, a full-stack developer ranges from €450 to €650 between early career and more than eight years. At Free-Work, in Île-de-France, a full-stack developer goes from €401 at three to four years to €536 at five to ten years. Growth is strong up to eight years, then slows markedly, except for profiles who move into architecture, security or project leadership.

Region: between -5% and -20% depending on the method

Here too, the method drives the figure. Hays's grids indicate an average gap of 5 to 10% between Paris and the regions. Malt records €591 for a back-end developer in Paris against €512 in Marseille, or -13%. Free-Work measures -22% for a full-stack developer with five to ten years outside Île-de-France (€419 against €536). Silkhom puts a senior Java developer between €450 and €600 in Paris and between €400 and €500 in the regions. Remote work reduces the gap for freelancers working remotely for Paris-based clients, but it has not erased it.

What the French market says about 2026

Hays describes a two-speed tech market: "traditional" roles such as back-end development or systems administration are seeing their pay dynamics stabilise, with increases often limited to inflation, while AI, cloud, advanced data and cybersecurity remain under strong pressure. Malt's Tech Trends 2026 report points the same way: demand for AI skills rose by 60% in one year and 22% of project requests now require AI expertise. Hays also notes that certification (CEH, CISSP, ISO 27001) is becoming a selection criterion in its own right for security assignments.

Germany: the first stagnation since the survey began

freelancermap's Freelancer-Kompass 2026, the largest survey of German-speaking independents, provides a signal about the economic cycle that the French benchmarks lack. For the first time since the study was launched, the average freelance hourly rate did not rise: €103 an hour in 2026 against €104 in 2025. Six freelancers in ten plan no rate increase this year, 9% are considering a cut, and average reported monthly income fell by 21%, from €8,432 to €6,653. One respondent in four billed fewer than 50 days in the year.

IT freelancers remain above average, with a median hourly rate of €95. By specialism: €120 for SAP and ERP, €100 for data, €95 for infrastructure, €90 for software and web development. Converted to an eight-hour day, these rates are equivalent to €720 to €960 per day, a level above the French grids. The comparison has its limits: German independents most often bill by the hour, and a billed day is not always eight hours.

Belgium: a market that pays well but is poorly measured

Belgium has no institutional day-rate benchmark comparable to those of Hays or Malt. The most recent reference is community-driven: dailyrate.be aggregates 905 anonymously reported day rates, across all roles with a strong presence of tech jobs, for a median of €700 and an average of €710 as of 23 March 2026. The latest study by a professional organisation, UCM's in 2022, put the median freelance rate between €71 and €90 an hour excluding VAT, with 30% of respondents above €90. On the employer side, Robert Half's 2026 guide indicates that 38% of Belgian companies plan to expand their IT and digital teams and that 55% of hiring managers raise pay when a profile is scarce.

Luxembourg: what 139 listings and 42 profiles show

Luxembourg has no public day-rate benchmark either. The salary guides from Hays Luxembourg and Robert Half Luxembourg cover permanent employment and do not publish day rates. We therefore use our own data, with its limits: the freelance job listings published or imported on freelancers.lu over the last twelve months, and the desired rates of freelancers whose profile is published.

First finding: of 511 freelance listings recorded over twelve months, only 139 show a rate, a little more than one in four. Almost all of these listings come from IT services companies (ESN) and recruitment firms hiring for end clients. The figures below are therefore rates offered to the freelancer by an intermediary, not client rates.

The client's sector matters little at this stage: a median of €540 for banking, €525 for insurance, €550 for the public sector. The ranking of roles, however, is the same as in France: data and cybersecurity at the top, development and business analysis at the bottom of the grid.

Second finding: freelancers ask for considerably more than the listings offer. The 42 profiles published on freelancers.lu show a median desired day rate of €665, with a quarter of profiles below €600 and a quarter above €700. By experience, the median rises from €501 at three to four years to €600 at five to seven years, then €700 beyond eight years. The €140-a-day gap between listings and profiles comes down to two factors: the intermediary's margin, which we had estimated at 10 to 20% of the client rate, and the seniority of registered profiles, six in ten of whom have more than eight years of experience.

Does Luxembourg pay better than France?

Going by the listings, no: a developer is offered €520 in Luxembourg, compared with €550 to €580 in the Hays grid for Île-de-France and €561 at Malt. Data (€650 against €660) and cybersecurity (€615 against €620) are at the same level. Going by the profiles, yes: the €665 median asked by Luxembourg freelancers exceeds most of Hays's 5 to 8 years columns. Reality lies somewhere in between, and that is precisely what the freelancer negotiates.

The salary context explains this tension. According to Statec, the average gross salary in Luxembourg reached €75,919 a year in 2022, with a median of €58,126, far above neighbouring countries. Hays Luxembourg observed in 2024 that tech salaries tended to stagnate while remaining among the highest in the market, up to €250,000 for a chief information officer. Robert Half Luxembourg notes in its 2026 guide that 67% of employers are willing to pay more for specialised expertise and that 64% rely on market benchmarks to set pay.

Five takeaways from reading the sources together

• An experienced developer is worth €550 to €650 a day in Paris according to the sources that record negotiated rates, €410 to €460 in a self-reported benchmark covering all experience levels, and €520 in Luxembourg listings placed through an intermediary. The figure that applies to you depends on your channel as much as on your role.
• Data and cybersecurity keep a 10 to 30% premium over development everywhere: at Hays, Malt and Silkhom, in Luxembourg listings and in German hourly rates.
• Experience pays up to eight years, then the role takes over. Beyond that threshold, increases come from a change of role: architecture, security, project leadership, interim management.
• 2026 is a year of stabilisation, not growth. Hays describes stabilising pay dynamics for mainstream roles; freelancermap records the first stagnation in hourly rates since its survey began. Increases are concentrated in AI, cloud and security.
• The channel sets the price. Free-Work records gaps of 4 to 8%, in either direction depending on the role, between a direct engagement and one through an intermediary. In Luxembourg, where most large clients go through IT services companies, the gap between the rate offered in listings and the rate freelancers want reaches 27%.

How to use these figures to set your day rate

Don't look for the "right" benchmark: look for the one that measures your situation. If you respond to listings from IT services companies in Luxembourg, the listings grid above is your starting point, and the client rate sits 10 to 20% higher. If you approach clients directly, the Hays and Silkhom grids are closer to what gets negotiated. If you position yourself on a platform, compare yourself with the prices displayed by your peers, not with all-experience averages.

Next, check that the market rate covers your floor. A Luxembourg day rate is calculated from 210 to 220 billable days, CCSS contributions and your tax class: our Luxembourg day rate calculator does this calculation, and our guide to day rates in Luxembourg explains the method in detail. Finally, look at what is actually on offer right now in the open freelance assignments: it is the only benchmark that answers you in real time.

Sources and method

• Hays France, 2026 Salary Survey (Étude de rémunérations 2026), chapter "Technology - Prestation de services": average day rates observed on the French market, excluding VAT, Île-de-France practices, experience counted within the role.
• Malt, freelance developer rate barometer and overview page of roles: average day rates of freelancers active over the last three months, readings of 28 August and 13 September 2026; Tech Trends 2026 report for demand trends.
• Free-Work, IT day rate and salary barometer, role pages consulted on 18 September 2026: full-stack developer, Java developer, DevOps cloud engineer, cybersecurity engineer, data engineer, cloud architect, IT project manager, scrum master, network administrator.
• Silkhom, 2025 Day-Rate Barometer for IT, digital and electronics freelancers (Baromètre TJM 2025), May 2025, ranges by geographical area and experience.
• freelancermap, Freelancer-Kompass 2026, press release of 17 March 2026 and analysis of IT hourly rates.
• dailyrate.be, community benchmark of day rates in Belgium, 905 submissions as of 23 March 2026; UCM, Étude freelancing 2022; Robert Half, IT and digital salary guide Belgium 2026.
• Statec, Regards 09/24, Salaires au Luxembourg; Hays Luxembourg, Salary Guide 2024; Robert Half Luxembourg, Salary Guide 2026.
• freelancers.lu: 139 freelance job listings with a displayed rate, published or imported between 18 September 2025 and 18 September 2026, day rate taken at the midpoint of the advertised range, AI estimates excluded; 42 published freelancer profiles with a day rate filled in. Roles are classified from the title of the listing or profile; categories with fewer than ten listings are indicative.

The figures in this article are those published by each source on the date indicated. They will be updated when the next editions of the studies cited are released.