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 £613, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 3 October 2026.

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

 6 months to
3 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 121 96 105
Rank change year-on-year -25 +9 +16
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 18 24 22
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 0.82% 1.38% 1.04%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.87% 1.46% 1.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 10 17 8
10th Percentile £409 £476 £464
25th Percentile £496 £575 £495
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £613 £800 £530
Median % change year-on-year -23.44% +50.94% -16.86%
75th Percentile £766 £838 £675
90th Percentile £775 £917 £735
Central London median daily rate £600 £800 £530
% change year-on-year -25.00% +50.94% -15.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £65.00 £26.25 -
Median hourly rate £70.00 £27.50 -
Median % change year-on-year +154.55% - -
75th Percentile £75.00 £28.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
Central London median hourly rate £70.00 £27.50 -
% change year-on-year +154.55% - -

All Contract IT Job Roles
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 2,075 1,640 1,984
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 94.10% 94.25% 93.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,407 1,108 1,231
10th Percentile £363 £325 £363
25th Percentile £456 £424 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -2.95%
75th Percentile £675 £675 £688
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £575
% change year-on-year - -4.35% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 20 16
10th Percentile £17.06 £17.02 £17.25
25th Percentile £17.60 £21.54 £22.84
Median hourly rate £21.75 £27.83 £48.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.83% -42.03% +33.33%
75th Percentile £39.81 £47.00 £112.00
90th Percentile £63.95 £67.89 £137.50
Central London median hourly rate £28.07 £27.83 £35.00
% change year-on-year +0.86% -20.50% -1.41%

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 3 October 2026.

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 3 October 2026, 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 17 (94.44%) Software Engineering
2 11 (61.11%) CI/CD
3 7 (38.89%) Agile
3 7 (38.89%) TypeScript
4 6 (33.33%) React
5 5 (27.78%) Full-Stack Development
5 5 (27.78%) Java
6 4 (22.22%) Docker
6 4 (22.22%) Microservices
6 4 (22.22%) Observability
6 4 (22.22%) Python
6 4 (22.22%) REST
6 4 (22.22%) Spring
6 4 (22.22%) Test Automation
7 3 (16.67%) AI
7 3 (16.67%) AWS
7 3 (16.67%) Azure
7 3 (16.67%) Clean Code
7 3 (16.67%) Containerisation
7 3 (16.67%) Continuous Integration
7 3 (16.67%) DevOps
7 3 (16.67%) Git
7 3 (16.67%) GitHub
7 3 (16.67%) GraphQL
7 3 (16.67%) JavaScript
7 3 (16.67%) PostgreSQL
7 3 (16.67%) SC Cleared
7 3 (16.67%) Security Cleared
7 3 (16.67%) Spring Boot
7 3 (16.67%) SQL

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:

Cloud Services
1 3 (16.67%) AWS
1 3 (16.67%) Azure
1 3 (16.67%) GitHub
2 2 (11.11%) Amazon S3
2 2 (11.11%) AWS Lambda
2 2 (11.11%) GCP
2 2 (11.11%) GitHub Actions
2 2 (11.11%) Serverless
3 1 (5.56%) Amazon ECS
3 1 (5.56%) Amazon EventBridge
3 1 (5.56%) Amazon SQS
3 1 (5.56%) AWS CloudFormation
3 1 (5.56%) Azure Cosmos DB
3 1 (5.56%) Azure Data Factory
3 1 (5.56%) Azure Databricks
3 1 (5.56%) Cloud Run
3 1 (5.56%) CloudFront
3 1 (5.56%) Figma
3 1 (5.56%) Kong
3 1 (5.56%) Power Platform
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (16.67%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (11.11%) DynamoDB
3 1 (5.56%) Amazon Aurora
3 1 (5.56%) Elasticsearch
3 1 (5.56%) NoSQL
3 1 (5.56%) Relational Database
3 1 (5.56%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 3 (16.67%) Git
2 1 (5.56%) Cypress.io
2 1 (5.56%) Gradle
2 1 (5.56%) Jenkins
2 1 (5.56%) JUnit
2 1 (5.56%) Liquibase
2 1 (5.56%) Mockito
2 1 (5.56%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
2 1 (5.56%) Visual Studio
General
1 6 (33.33%) Finance
2 3 (16.67%) Back Office
2 3 (16.67%) Banking
2 3 (16.67%) Front Office
3 2 (11.11%) Social Skills
4 1 (5.56%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (5.56%) Corporate Banking
4 1 (5.56%) Investment Banking
4 1 (5.56%) Legal
4 1 (5.56%) Military
4 1 (5.56%) Pharmaceutical
4 1 (5.56%) Public Sector
4 1 (5.56%) Retail
4 1 (5.56%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (33.33%) React
2 4 (22.22%) REST
2 4 (22.22%) Spring
3 3 (16.67%) GraphQL
3 3 (16.67%) Spring Boot
4 2 (11.11%) .NET
4 2 (11.11%) Jest
4 2 (11.11%) Node.js
5 1 (5.56%) .NET Core
5 1 (5.56%) AngularJS
5 1 (5.56%) Drools
5 1 (5.56%) Express.js
5 1 (5.56%) Hibernate
5 1 (5.56%) JMS
5 1 (5.56%) JPA
5 1 (5.56%) Kafka
5 1 (5.56%) OAuth
5 1 (5.56%) OAuth2
5 1 (5.56%) RESTful
5 1 (5.56%) TIBCO EMS
Miscellaneous
1 2 (11.11%) Cloud Native
1 2 (11.11%) Distributed Systems
2 1 (5.56%) AI Agents
2 1 (5.56%) Credit Risk
2 1 (5.56%) Derivative
2 1 (5.56%) Fixed Income
2 1 (5.56%) Genomics
2 1 (5.56%) Life Science
2 1 (5.56%) Onboarding
2 1 (5.56%) Self-Motivation
2 1 (5.56%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 1 (5.56%) Android
1 1 (5.56%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (94.44%) Software Engineering
2 11 (61.11%) CI/CD
3 7 (38.89%) Agile
4 5 (27.78%) Full-Stack Development
5 4 (22.22%) Microservices
5 4 (22.22%) Observability
5 4 (22.22%) Test Automation
6 3 (16.67%) AI
6 3 (16.67%) Clean Code
6 3 (16.67%) Containerisation
6 3 (16.67%) Continuous Integration
6 3 (16.67%) DevOps
7 2 (11.11%) Machine Learning
7 2 (11.11%) Mentoring
7 2 (11.11%) Pair Programming
7 2 (11.11%) Performance Optimisation
7 2 (11.11%) Problem-Solving
7 2 (11.11%) Software Testing
7 2 (11.11%) TDD
8 1 (5.56%) Fintech
Programming Languages
1 7 (38.89%) TypeScript
2 5 (27.78%) Java
3 4 (22.22%) Python
4 3 (16.67%) JavaScript
4 3 (16.67%) SQL
5 2 (11.11%) C#
6 1 (5.56%) Korn
6 1 (5.56%) Kotlin
6 1 (5.56%) Scala
6 1 (5.56%) VBA
Qualifications
1 3 (16.67%) SC Cleared
1 3 (16.67%) Security Cleared
2 1 (5.56%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (5.56%) QA
System Software
1 4 (22.22%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (11.11%) Kubernetes
2 1 (5.56%) Grafana
Vendors
1 2 (11.11%) Google
2 1 (5.56%) Databricks
2 1 (5.56%) TIBCO
86 Software Engineer jobs in the City of London