Software Engineering Contract Job Trends in Cheshire

Software Engineering
North West > Cheshire

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Cheshire requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 2 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 68 42 35
Rank change year-on-year -26 -7 +23
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 9 13 29
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 1.38% 2.89% 5.59%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.54% 3.20% 6.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 7 6 26
10th Percentile £314 £328 £425
25th Percentile £333 £365 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £350 £433 £510
Median % change year-on-year -19.17% -15.10% -25.00%
75th Percentile £416 £488 £590
90th Percentile £473 £519 £614
North West median daily rate £503 £502 £544
% change year-on-year +0.20% -7.81% -9.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 2
Median hourly rate - £85.00 £38.00
Median % change year-on-year - +123.68% -
North West median hourly rate £55.00 £49.00 £46.91
% change year-on-year +12.24% +4.46% +4.99%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Cheshire

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 Cheshire.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 585 406 456
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 89.45% 90.22% 87.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 423 235 301
10th Percentile £300 £300 £313
25th Percentile £356 £356 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.89% -5.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £538 £571 £560
90th Percentile £661 £651 £614
North West median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 27 34
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.80 £14.60
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.05 £17.37
Median hourly rate £22.85 £27.39 £25.14
Median % change year-on-year -16.56% +8.95% +29.50%
75th Percentile £43.00 £81.75 £39.50
90th Percentile £76.05 £86.00 £43.75
North West median hourly rate £41.94 £31.51 £30.00
% change year-on-year +33.10% +5.03% -19.57%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in Cheshire

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

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in Cheshire

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in Cheshire

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

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

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in Cheshire

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in Cheshire over the 6 months to 2 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineering in Cheshire

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in Cheshire

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

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

Software Engineering
Contract Job Locations in Cheshire

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 Cheshire region over the 6 months to 2 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
Knutsford -31 5 £350 -6.29% 3
Chester - 1 £525 - 11
Software Engineering
North West

Software Engineering
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Cheshire 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 (11.11%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 5 (55.56%) Azure
2 4 (44.44%) AWS
3 3 (33.33%) GCP
4 2 (22.22%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (22.22%) Azure Service Bus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (22.22%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 2 (22.22%) Git
2 1 (11.11%) GitLab
2 1 (11.11%) JIRA
2 1 (11.11%) Selenium
2 1 (11.11%) SonarQube
General
1 4 (44.44%) Finance
1 4 (44.44%) Social Skills
2 3 (33.33%) Banking
3 2 (22.22%) Influencing Skills
3 2 (22.22%) Retail
Job Titles
1 3 (33.33%) Applications Architect
1 3 (33.33%) Architect
1 3 (33.33%) Software Engineer
2 2 (22.22%) Developer
2 2 (22.22%) Senior
2 2 (22.22%) Senior Software Engineer
3 1 (11.11%) Cloud Architect
3 1 (11.11%) Digital Architect
3 1 (11.11%) Full-Stack Developer
3 1 (11.11%) Java Applications Architect
3 1 (11.11%) Java Architect
3 1 (11.11%) Lead
3 1 (11.11%) React Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (33.33%) REST
1 3 (33.33%) RESTful
1 3 (33.33%) YAML
2 2 (22.22%) .NET
2 2 (22.22%) .NET Core
2 2 (22.22%) .NET Framework
2 2 (22.22%) Entity Framework
2 2 (22.22%) OAuth
2 2 (22.22%) React
3 1 (11.11%) ASP.NET
3 1 (11.11%) ASP.NET MVC
3 1 (11.11%) CSS
3 1 (11.11%) HTML
3 1 (11.11%) HTML5
3 1 (11.11%) OpenAPI
3 1 (11.11%) React Native
3 1 (11.11%) Swagger
3 1 (11.11%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 4 (44.44%) Distributed Systems
1 4 (44.44%) Product Ownership
2 3 (33.33%) Cloud Native
3 2 (22.22%) Mobile Banking
4 1 (11.11%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (11.11%) Online Banking
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (77.78%) Agile
2 5 (55.56%) Full-Stack Development
3 4 (44.44%) CI/CD
3 4 (44.44%) Problem-Solving
3 4 (44.44%) Technical Debt
4 3 (33.33%) Code Quality
4 3 (33.33%) DevOps
4 3 (33.33%) Integration Patterns
4 3 (33.33%) Mentoring
4 3 (33.33%) Microservices
4 3 (33.33%) Migration
4 3 (33.33%) Roadmaps
4 3 (33.33%) Technology Roadmap
5 2 (22.22%) Application Security
5 2 (22.22%) Clean Code
5 2 (22.22%) Customer Experience
5 2 (22.22%) Design Patterns
5 2 (22.22%) OOP
5 2 (22.22%) Project Delivery
5 2 (22.22%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 5 (55.56%) Java
2 3 (33.33%) Python
3 2 (22.22%) C#
3 2 (22.22%) SQL
Qualifications
1 2 (22.22%) BPSS Clearance
System Software
1 1 (11.11%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (22.22%) Single Sign-On
2 1 (11.11%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 2 (22.22%) Google
1 2 (22.22%) Microsoft
2 1 (11.11%) Veracode