Software Engineer Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Software Engineer
Central London > City of London

The median Software Engineer daily rate in the City of London is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 December 2025.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 98 93 118
Rank change year-on-year -5 +25 +16
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 25 35 23
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 1.39% 1.63% 0.88%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.48% 1.75% 0.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 17 13 18
10th Percentile £416 £415 £459
25th Percentile £525 £515 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £575 £641
Median % change year-on-year +8.70% -10.33% +9.15%
75th Percentile £725 £613 £744
90th Percentile £917 £663 £775
Central London median daily rate £625 £575 £629
% change year-on-year +8.70% -8.55% +7.02%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £26.25 - -
Median hourly rate £27.50 - -
75th Percentile £28.75 - -
90th Percentile - - -
Central London median hourly rate £27.50 - -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
City of London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the City of London. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the City of London with a recognized job title 1,685 2,000 2,464
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.40% 93.11% 93.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,181 1,236 1,753
10th Percentile £325 £359 £355
25th Percentile £420 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% - -
75th Percentile £675 £688 £688
90th Percentile £768 £775 £800
Central London median daily rate £550 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -4.35% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 14 14
10th Percentile £20.06 £16.40 £17.00
25th Percentile £25.88 £23.25 £19.51
Median hourly rate £34.00 £48.00 £24.50
Median % change year-on-year -29.17% +95.92% -42.35%
75th Percentile £52.19 £107.13 £44.56
90th Percentile £64.30 £129.85 £66.25
Central London median hourly rate £28.00 £35.00 £24.99
% change year-on-year -20.00% +40.08% -40.51%

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Software Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

Software Engineer job vacancy trend in the City of London

Software Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the City of London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the City of London

Software Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineer in the City of London over the 6 months to 6 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineer in the City of London

Software Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the City of London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the City of London

Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London

For the 6 months to 6 December 2025, Software Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the City of London region featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 25 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 9 (36.00%) Python
3 8 (32.00%) CI/CD
3 8 (32.00%) Java
4 7 (28.00%) AWS
4 7 (28.00%) SQL
5 6 (24.00%) Agile
6 5 (20.00%) C#
6 5 (20.00%) C++
6 5 (20.00%) DevOps
6 5 (20.00%) Linux
7 4 (16.00%) FIX Protocol
7 4 (16.00%) React
7 4 (16.00%) User Experience
8 3 (12.00%) AngularJS
8 3 (12.00%) Low Latency
8 3 (12.00%) Multithreading
8 3 (12.00%) Oracle
8 3 (12.00%) Performance Optimisation
8 3 (12.00%) Performance Tuning
8 3 (12.00%) Problem-Solving
8 3 (12.00%) Scrum
8 3 (12.00%) Windows
9 2 (8.00%) AWS Lambda
9 2 (8.00%) Azure
9 2 (8.00%) Code Quality
9 2 (8.00%) Data Ingestion
9 2 (8.00%) Data Management
9 2 (8.00%) Degree
9 2 (8.00%) Design Patterns

Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London 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 (4.00%) JBoss
1 1 (4.00%) Oracle Workflow
1 1 (4.00%) Smallworld
Business Applications
1 1 (4.00%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 7 (28.00%) AWS
2 2 (8.00%) AWS Lambda
2 2 (8.00%) Azure
2 2 (8.00%) Serverless
3 1 (4.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 1 (4.00%) Amazon Cognito
3 1 (4.00%) Amazon EventBridge
3 1 (4.00%) Amazon S3
3 1 (4.00%) Amazon SQS
3 1 (4.00%) AWS Step Functions
3 1 (4.00%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (4.00%) Datadog
3 1 (4.00%) OpenShift
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.00%) Data Warehouse
1 1 (4.00%) DynamoDB
1 1 (4.00%) MongoDB
1 1 (4.00%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 2 (8.00%) GitLab
2 1 (4.00%) Git
2 1 (4.00%) Jenkins
2 1 (4.00%) MSTest
2 1 (4.00%) Postman
General
1 7 (28.00%) Finance
2 5 (20.00%) Banking
2 5 (20.00%) Front Office
3 3 (12.00%) Social Skills
4 2 (8.00%) Analytical Skills
4 2 (8.00%) Games
5 1 (4.00%) Back Office
5 1 (4.00%) Financial Institution
5 1 (4.00%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (16.00%) FIX Protocol
1 4 (16.00%) React
2 3 (12.00%) AngularJS
3 2 (8.00%) Node.js
3 2 (8.00%) Unity (Game Engine)
4 1 (4.00%) .NET
4 1 (4.00%) .NET Framework
4 1 (4.00%) CSS
4 1 (4.00%) HTML
4 1 (4.00%) HTML5
4 1 (4.00%) JSON
4 1 (4.00%) Kafka
4 1 (4.00%) Middleware
4 1 (4.00%) Spring
4 1 (4.00%) Spring Boot
4 1 (4.00%) Spring MVC
4 1 (4.00%) Swagger
4 1 (4.00%) Swing
4 1 (4.00%) WebSockets
4 1 (4.00%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 3 (12.00%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 2 (8.00%) 3D Graphics
2 2 (8.00%) Derivative
2 2 (8.00%) Reference Data
2 2 (8.00%) Virtual Reality
3 1 (4.00%) AI Agents
3 1 (4.00%) Algorithms
3 1 (4.00%) Cloud Native
3 1 (4.00%) Distributed Computing
3 1 (4.00%) Equities
3 1 (4.00%) Greenfield Project
3 1 (4.00%) Hedge funds
3 1 (4.00%) Hybrid Cloud
3 1 (4.00%) TWAP
3 1 (4.00%) Virtual Team
3 1 (4.00%) VWAP
Operating Systems
1 5 (20.00%) Linux
2 3 (12.00%) Windows
3 1 (4.00%) Android
3 1 (4.00%) Apple iOS
3 1 (4.00%) Unix
3 1 (4.00%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 8 (32.00%) CI/CD
3 6 (24.00%) Agile
4 5 (20.00%) DevOps
5 4 (16.00%) User Experience
6 3 (12.00%) Low Latency
6 3 (12.00%) Multithreading
6 3 (12.00%) Performance Optimisation
6 3 (12.00%) Performance Tuning
6 3 (12.00%) Problem-Solving
6 3 (12.00%) Scrum
7 2 (8.00%) Data Ingestion
7 2 (8.00%) Data Management
7 2 (8.00%) Infrastructure as Code
7 2 (8.00%) Microservices
7 2 (8.00%) Order Management
7 2 (8.00%) Reference Data Management
7 2 (8.00%) Requirements Gathering
7 2 (8.00%) Test Automation
7 2 (8.00%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 9 (36.00%) Python
2 8 (32.00%) Java
3 7 (28.00%) SQL
4 5 (20.00%) C#
4 5 (20.00%) C++
5 2 (8.00%) PHP
5 2 (8.00%) PowerShell
6 1 (4.00%) Fortran
6 1 (4.00%) Go
6 1 (4.00%) JavaScript
6 1 (4.00%) MATLAB
6 1 (4.00%) R
Qualifications
1 2 (8.00%) Degree
1 2 (8.00%) Postgraduate
1 2 (8.00%) SC Cleared
1 2 (8.00%) Security Cleared
System Software
1 1 (4.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (8.00%) Terraform
2 1 (4.00%) Kubernetes
2 1 (4.00%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 3 (12.00%) Oracle
2 2 (8.00%) Microsoft
3 1 (4.00%) ForgeRock
3 1 (4.00%) Ping Identity
3 1 (4.00%) Temenos