Software Engineering Contract Job Trends in Cambridgeshire

Software Engineering
East of England > Cambridgeshire

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Cambridgeshire requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 31 16
Rank change year-on-year +17 -15 +16
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 29 12 41
As % of all contract jobs in Cambridgeshire 7.49% 4.00% 8.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.21% 4.44% 10.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 16 7 12
10th Percentile - £313 £448
25th Percentile £265 £375 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £454 £500
Median % change year-on-year -8.59% -9.20% -6.98%
75th Percentile £519 £513 £541
90th Percentile £601 £559 £561
East of England median daily rate £475 £452 £500
% change year-on-year +5.09% -9.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 15
10th Percentile £43.38 £39.50 £35.51
25th Percentile £45.08 £42.50 £44.01
Median hourly rate £49.10 £50.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.80% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £53.08 £55.00 £66.50
90th Percentile £54.74 £56.50 £73.50
East of England median hourly rate £68.21 £58.75 £65.00
% change year-on-year +16.10% -9.62% -

All Process & Methodology Skills
Cambridgeshire

Software Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in Cambridgeshire.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 315 270 409
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cambridgeshire 81.40% 90.00% 84.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 143 135 155
10th Percentile £211 £305 £235
25th Percentile £335 £413 £344
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £478
Median % change year-on-year - -0.63% +0.63%
75th Percentile £575 £558 £566
90th Percentile £675 £645 £675
East of England median daily rate £475 £500 £495
% change year-on-year -5.00% +1.01% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 93 47 183
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.26 £14.00
25th Percentile £14.38 £15.62 £14.16
Median hourly rate £16.00 £16.23 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.42% +8.20% -3.23%
75th Percentile £23.71 £21.46 £20.00
90th Percentile £34.83 £33.05 £36.55
East of England median hourly rate £20.23 £40.75 £32.75
% change year-on-year -50.36% +24.43% +27.18%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in Cambridgeshire

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Software Engineering relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Cambridgeshire.

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in Cambridgeshire

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in Cambridgeshire

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Cambridgeshire citing Software Engineering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Cambridgeshire citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in Cambridgeshire

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in Cambridgeshire over the 6 months to 18 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineering in Cambridgeshire

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in Cambridgeshire

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Cambridgeshire citing Software Engineering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Cambridgeshire citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Contract Job Locations in Cambridgeshire

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Software Engineering within the Cambridgeshire region over the 6 months to 18 February 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Cambridge +11 28 £405 -7.43% 41
Software Engineering
East of England

Software Engineering
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Cambridgeshire by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 1 (3.45%) Apache
1 1 (3.45%) Apache Airflow
1 1 (3.45%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (3.45%) Chatbot
1 1 (3.45%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (3.45%) OrCAD
1 1 (3.45%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 12 (41.38%) Azure
2 10 (34.48%) Azure AKS
2 10 (34.48%) Serverless
3 9 (31.03%) PaaS
4 8 (27.59%) Azure Functions
4 8 (27.59%) GitHub
4 8 (27.59%) GitHub Copilot
5 3 (10.34%) AWS
6 2 (6.90%) Amazon EC2
6 2 (6.90%) Amazon ECS
6 2 (6.90%) Amazon S3
6 2 (6.90%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (3.45%) Amazon EKS
7 1 (3.45%) Amazon SageMaker
7 1 (3.45%) AWS Fargate
7 1 (3.45%) Azure API Management
7 1 (3.45%) GCP
7 1 (3.45%) Google Ads
7 1 (3.45%) Power Platform
7 1 (3.45%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.45%) 3GPP
1 1 (3.45%) 5G
1 1 (3.45%) 5G NR
1 1 (3.45%) LTE
1 1 (3.45%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (20.69%) NoSQL
2 1 (3.45%) Amazon Aurora
2 1 (3.45%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (3.45%) DynamoDB
2 1 (3.45%) MS Access
2 1 (3.45%) MySQL
2 1 (3.45%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (3.45%) JIRA
General
1 4 (13.79%) Manufacturing
1 4 (13.79%) Social Skills
2 3 (10.34%) Multimedia
3 2 (6.90%) Wearables
4 1 (3.45%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (3.45%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (3.45%) Influencing Skills
4 1 (3.45%) Law
4 1 (3.45%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 13 (44.83%) Software Engineer
2 6 (20.69%) Senior
3 5 (17.24%) Developer
4 4 (13.79%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 3 (10.34%) Python Engineer
5 3 (10.34%) Senior Developer
6 2 (6.90%) .NET Developer
6 2 (6.90%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
6 2 (6.90%) Full-Stack Engineer
6 2 (6.90%) Python Software Engineer
6 2 (6.90%) Senior Software Developer
6 2 (6.90%) Software Developer
7 1 (3.45%) Architect
7 1 (3.45%) Data Scientist
7 1 (3.45%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
7 1 (3.45%) Hardware Architect
7 1 (3.45%) Platform Architect
7 1 (3.45%) Technical Leader
7 1 (3.45%) Technical Manager
7 1 (3.45%) Wireless Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (51.72%) RESTful
2 11 (37.93%) .NET
3 9 (31.03%) PyTorch
3 9 (31.03%) TensorFlow
4 8 (27.59%) A2A Protocol
4 8 (27.59%) Model Context Protocol
4 8 (27.59%) Semantic Kernel
5 6 (20.69%) React
6 3 (10.34%) FastAPI
7 2 (6.90%) Node.js
8 1 (3.45%) CSS
8 1 (3.45%) HTML
8 1 (3.45%) NumPy
8 1 (3.45%) Pandas
8 1 (3.45%) Redux
8 1 (3.45%) scikit-learn
8 1 (3.45%) SciPy
Miscellaneous
1 11 (37.93%) Cloud Native
2 8 (27.59%) Algorithms
3 4 (13.79%) Data Protection Act
3 4 (13.79%) Life Science
4 2 (6.90%) Augmented Reality
4 2 (6.90%) Robotics
4 2 (6.90%) Virtual Reality
5 1 (3.45%) Distributed Computing
5 1 (3.45%) FPGA
5 1 (3.45%) IoT
5 1 (3.45%) NB-IoT
5 1 (3.45%) PCIe
5 1 (3.45%) Product Ownership
5 1 (3.45%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 6 (20.69%) Linux
2 4 (13.79%) Windows
3 2 (6.90%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (51.72%) AI
2 14 (48.28%) Machine Learning
3 13 (44.83%) Problem-Solving
4 12 (41.38%) Agile
5 11 (37.93%) Data Privacy
6 10 (34.48%) API Management
6 10 (34.48%) LLM
6 10 (34.48%) Prompt Engineering
7 9 (31.03%) Deep Learning
7 9 (31.03%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
7 9 (31.03%) Test Automation
8 8 (27.59%) Validation
9 7 (24.14%) API Design
9 7 (24.14%) Data Pipeline
10 6 (20.69%) Data Collection
11 5 (17.24%) Prototyping
11 5 (17.24%) Robotic Control
11 5 (17.24%) Scrum
12 4 (13.79%) Data Protection
12 4 (13.79%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 23 (79.31%) Python
2 6 (20.69%) Shell Script
3 4 (13.79%) JavaScript
3 4 (13.79%) SQL
4 3 (10.34%) C#
4 3 (10.34%) C++
5 1 (3.45%) Bourne shell
5 1 (3.45%) C
5 1 (3.45%) Embedded C
5 1 (3.45%) Embedded C++
Qualifications
1 8 (27.59%) Microsoft Certified Professional
2 5 (17.24%) Degree
3 2 (6.90%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (27.59%) EU AI Act
2 7 (24.14%) NIST
3 1 (3.45%) Accessibility
System Software
1 1 (3.45%) Docker
1 1 (3.45%) Embedded Firmware
1 1 (3.45%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 4 (13.79%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 12 (41.38%) Microsoft
2 8 (27.59%) Foundry
3 1 (3.45%) Cadence
3 1 (3.45%) Google
3 1 (3.45%) OpenAI