Three offshore agencies later, your WordPress site is still slow, broken, and full of plugins nobody can name
Most WordPress development engagements fail at the seniority layer. Junior offshore at $15/hour is fine for templated installs; senior WordPress for real custom theme + plugin development needs to actually have shipped serious sites. 12 years and 12,000+ sites is the floor; what fits your specific brief is the conversation.
BOOK A 30-MIN CALL12 years of WordPress development 12,000+ sites shipped at Seahawk Media Custom themes, plugins, headless, migrations
What I take on
Custom theme development
Real custom themes — not "child themes of a multi-purpose parent". Hand-coded WordPress themes built against your design system, with proper template hierarchy, ACF / Block Editor integration, and component-level documentation. PageSpeed 85+ on mobile is the floor.
Custom plugin development
Plugins for the workflows your business actually has — wholesale pricing logic, custom post types with bespoke admin UX, third-party API integrations (Stripe, Salesforce, custom ERP), real-time data displays. WordPress.org publication when appropriate; private install when not.
Headless WordPress + Next.js / Astro
WordPress as the editorial back-end, Next.js or Astro as the front-end via WPGraphQL. The pattern that lets your editorial team keep wp-admin while your visitors get modern-stack performance. Migration from classic WordPress to headless without losing SEO. See /headless-wordpress-development/ for the deeper brief.
Performance + security audits
Standalone audit engagements (1-3 weeks, 1,500-5,500 USD) that produce a prioritised punch-list with engineering effort estimates. The deliverable is a written report your in-house team can execute against, or that I can ship under a fixed-price follow-on.
Migrations
Drupal to WordPress, Joomla to WordPress, Webflow to WordPress, custom CMS to WordPress, classic WordPress to headless WordPress, WordPress to Next.js. The boring redirect-map work plus the metadata transport plus the schema preservation that determines whether you keep your SEO or lose 30% for six months.
If the project is Next.js-led rather than WordPress-led
This page is the right destination when WordPress is the primary stack. If the engagement is Next.js-led with WordPress as the headless CMS (or no WordPress at all), the conversation shape changes — fewer plugin questions, more Server Components and server-action questions. For direct senior Next.js hire, see hire a Next.js developer. For a team or agency engagement see Next.js development agency London. If the project is Vue-aligned, see hire a Nuxt.js developer. Still picking between frameworks? Astro vs Next.js walks the decision tree.
What I will not take
Page-builder rebuilds where the brief is "make it look like that other site I saw" — page builders are why your previous agency could charge you custom-build prices for templated work. Sub-1,000 USD jobs (the discovery alone takes longer than the budget allows). Engagements where the timeline is "before the trade show in 4 weeks" for a real build. Sites that are about to be re-platformed off WordPress (different conversation, see /wordpress-to-nextjs-migration/).
Frequently asked questions
How much does a WordPress developer for hire cost in 2026?
Junior offshore developer: 15-30 USD/hour, fine for templated theme installs and small bug fixes. Mid-level US/UK developer: 75-150 USD/hour. Senior WordPress developer with custom theme + plugin development capability: 150-300 USD/hour. Senior agency engagement (architecture, performance, complex builds): 200-400 USD/hour or fixed-price project (typically 12,000-90,000 USD).
Hourly vs fixed-price for WordPress development?
Fixed-price for clear-scope work (theme rebuild, plugin development, migration, performance optimisation). Hourly for retainer maintenance and unpredictable iterative work. The agencies that quote you "10 hours of work" without scoping the deliverable are setting up the open-ended-billing relationship — get a fixed-price quote on anything with a defined outcome.
Should I hire freelance, agency, or in-house WordPress developer?
Freelance for projects under 8 weeks with one clear deliverable. Agency for projects over 8 weeks, multi-stakeholder, or anything requiring senior architecture. In-house when you have continuous WordPress development demand (10+ hours/week sustained for 6+ months) and the business depends on the site enough to justify a full-time engineer at 80-150k USD/year.
How do I evaluate a WordPress developer before I hire?
Three things. (1) Code review — ask to see a recent custom theme they shipped; the structure tells you everything. (2) Performance review — ask what their last project hit on PageSpeed; if they say "we use a caching plugin" that is the wrong answer. (3) Deliverables review — ask for a written project breakdown (what they will deliver, what they will not, when). Cannot answer all three? Skip.
When you are ready
Bring your site URL, the specific brief (custom theme? plugin? performance? migration?), and your real budget. By the end of 30 minutes you will know whether the engagement is the right shape, what the price is, and the realistic timeline.