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 15 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 66 44 41
Rank change year-on-year -22 -3 +19
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 13 11 22
As % of all contract jobs in Cheshire 1.86% 2.57% 4.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.12% 2.71% 4.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 6 6 19
10th Percentile £331 £328 £482
25th Percentile £350 £365 £505
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £376 £433 £525
Median % change year-on-year -13.16% -17.52% -22.79%
75th Percentile £423 £488 £597
90th Percentile £484 £519 £614
North West median daily rate £515 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -6.36% - -8.33%
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 £57.50 £85.00 £48.00
% change year-on-year -32.35% +77.08% +18.26%

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 613 406 458
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Cheshire 87.70% 94.86% 86.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 455 259 309
10th Percentile £313 £300 £305
25th Percentile £367 £356 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £579 £564 £560
90th Percentile £692 £638 £616
North West median daily rate £456 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 34 34
10th Percentile £14.89 £19.61 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.16 £24.18 £16.61
Median hourly rate £22.85 £32.95 £21.84
Median % change year-on-year -30.65% +50.87% +1.23%
75th Percentile £40.75 £83.31 £38.00
90th Percentile £80.58 £86.00 £43.75
North West median hourly rate £45.00 £31.88 £23.45
% change year-on-year +41.15% +35.95% -37.47%

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 15 March 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 15 March 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 -29 4 £376 +0.67%
Warrington +3 3 - - 9
Ellesmere Port - 3 - - 1
Chester - 1 £525 - 4
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 (7.69%) Confluence
Cloud Services
1 4 (30.77%) Azure
2 3 (23.08%) AWS
2 3 (23.08%) GCP
3 1 (7.69%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (7.69%) Azure Service Bus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (7.69%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (7.69%) Git
1 1 (7.69%) GitLab
1 1 (7.69%) JIRA
1 1 (7.69%) Selenium
1 1 (7.69%) SonarQube
General
1 4 (30.77%) Finance
1 4 (30.77%) Social Skills
2 3 (23.08%) Banking
3 2 (15.38%) Influencing Skills
3 2 (15.38%) Retail
Job Titles
1 8 (61.54%) Software Engineer
2 3 (23.08%) Applications Architect
2 3 (23.08%) Architect
3 1 (7.69%) Cloud Architect
3 1 (7.69%) Developer
3 1 (7.69%) Digital Architect
3 1 (7.69%) Java Applications Architect
3 1 (7.69%) Java Architect
3 1 (7.69%) Lead
3 1 (7.69%) React Developer
3 1 (7.69%) Senior
3 1 (7.69%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (23.08%) REST
2 2 (15.38%) RESTful
2 2 (15.38%) YAML
3 1 (7.69%) .NET
3 1 (7.69%) .NET Core
3 1 (7.69%) .NET Framework
3 1 (7.69%) Entity Framework
3 1 (7.69%) OAuth
3 1 (7.69%) OpenAPI
3 1 (7.69%) React
3 1 (7.69%) React Native
3 1 (7.69%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 3 (23.08%) Cloud Native
1 3 (23.08%) Distributed Systems
1 3 (23.08%) Product Ownership
2 2 (15.38%) Mobile Banking
3 1 (7.69%) Enterprise Software
3 1 (7.69%) Online Banking
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (46.15%) Agile
2 3 (23.08%) Full-Stack Development
2 3 (23.08%) Integration Patterns
2 3 (23.08%) Microservices
2 3 (23.08%) Migration
2 3 (23.08%) Problem-Solving
2 3 (23.08%) Regulatory Compliance
2 3 (23.08%) Roadmaps
2 3 (23.08%) Technical Debt
2 3 (23.08%) Technology Roadmap
3 2 (15.38%) CI/CD
3 2 (15.38%) Code Quality
3 2 (15.38%) Customer Experience
3 2 (15.38%) DevOps
3 2 (15.38%) Mentoring
3 2 (15.38%) Stakeholder Management
3 2 (15.38%) Translating Business Requirements
4 1 (7.69%) Pair Programming
4 1 (7.69%) Scrum
4 1 (7.69%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 4 (30.77%) Java
2 3 (23.08%) Python
3 1 (7.69%) C#
3 1 (7.69%) SQL
Qualifications
1 2 (15.38%) BPSS Clearance
Systems Management
1 1 (7.69%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 2 (15.38%) Google
2 1 (7.69%) Microsoft
2 1 (7.69%) Veracode