Software Engineering Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Software Engineering
Central London > City of London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the City of London requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 44 53 53
Rank change year-on-year +9 0 -14
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 89 81 96
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 4.95% 3.79% 3.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.41% 4.13% 4.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 66 40 50
10th Percentile £400 £462 £502
25th Percentile £513 £483 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £619 £566 £650
Median % change year-on-year +9.27% -12.88% -
75th Percentile £708 £656 £775
90th Percentile £819 £813 £878
Central London median daily rate £613 £566 £675
% change year-on-year +8.17% -16.11% +6.30%
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 Process and Methodology Skills
City of London

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 the City of London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,644 1,961 2,365
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 91.49% 91.81% 89.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,155 1,209 1,674
10th Percentile £330 £370 £363
25th Percentile £419 £474 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £578 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +0.43% -
75th Percentile £675 £688 £694
90th Percentile £754 £788 £813
Central London median daily rate £550 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -4.35% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 16 11
10th Percentile £20.06 £16.25 £17.00
25th Percentile £25.88 £22.00 £17.97
Median hourly rate £34.00 £40.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.05% +62.00% -51.46%
75th Percentile £52.19 £97.38 £42.38
90th Percentile £63.75 £124.75 £73.75
Central London median hourly rate £31.00 £35.00 £25.50
% change year-on-year -11.43% +37.25% -49.50%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

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

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in the City of London

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Software Engineering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in the City of London over the 6 months to 11 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineering in the City of London

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Software Engineering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
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 3 (3.37%) Confluence
2 2 (2.25%) Apache Spark
3 1 (1.12%) Apache
3 1 (1.12%) Cloud Foundry
3 1 (1.12%) JBoss
3 1 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (1.12%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (1.12%) Smallworld
Business Applications
1 1 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (1.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
1 1 (1.12%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 31 (34.83%) AWS
2 20 (22.47%) Azure
3 10 (11.24%) GCP
4 8 (8.99%) AWS Lambda
4 8 (8.99%) Serverless
5 7 (7.87%) Amazon S3
6 6 (6.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 6 (6.74%) Power Platform
7 3 (3.37%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (3.37%) Dynamics 365
7 3 (3.37%) GitHub
7 3 (3.37%) Google Gemini
7 3 (3.37%) Snowflake
8 2 (2.25%) Amazon ECS
8 2 (2.25%) AWS Step Functions
8 2 (2.25%) OpenShift
8 2 (2.25%) PaaS
8 2 (2.25%) Power Automate
8 2 (2.25%) PowerApps
9 1 (1.12%) Cloud Run
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.25%) tcpdump
2 1 (1.12%) DNS
2 1 (1.12%) Firewall
2 1 (1.12%) MPLS
2 1 (1.12%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (8.99%) Relational Database
2 6 (6.74%) MongoDB
3 4 (4.49%) Hadoop
3 4 (4.49%) NoSQL
4 3 (3.37%) DB2
4 3 (3.37%) DynamoDB
4 3 (3.37%) MemSQL
4 3 (3.37%) Power BI
4 3 (3.37%) Sybase IQ
5 2 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
6 1 (1.12%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (1.12%) Apache Cassandra
6 1 (1.12%) Big Data
6 1 (1.12%) Data Lake
6 1 (1.12%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (1.12%) Delta Lake
6 1 (1.12%) KDB
6 1 (1.12%) Metadata
6 1 (1.12%) MySQL
6 1 (1.12%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 6 (6.74%) Git
1 6 (6.74%) GitLab
1 6 (6.74%) Jenkins
2 4 (4.49%) Gradle
3 3 (3.37%) JIRA
3 3 (3.37%) SonarQube
4 2 (2.25%) Cypress.io
4 2 (2.25%) JUnit
4 2 (2.25%) Postman
4 2 (2.25%) TeamCity
5 1 (1.12%) Bitbucket
5 1 (1.12%) Cucumber
5 1 (1.12%) Hamcrest
5 1 (1.12%) Jaeger
5 1 (1.12%) Mockito
5 1 (1.12%) MSTest
5 1 (1.12%) Selenium
5 1 (1.12%) Serenity BDD
5 1 (1.12%) SpecFlow
5 1 (1.12%) Vite
General
1 29 (32.58%) Social Skills
2 28 (31.46%) Finance
3 16 (17.98%) Banking
4 12 (13.48%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (10.11%) Front Office
6 5 (5.62%) Retail Banking
7 4 (4.49%) Investment Banking
8 3 (3.37%) Games
8 3 (3.37%) Pharmaceutical
8 3 (3.37%) Public Sector
9 2 (2.25%) Back Office
9 2 (2.25%) Financial Institution
10 1 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (1.12%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (1.12%) Legal
Job Titles
1 25 (28.09%) Software Engineer
2 19 (21.35%) Senior
3 16 (17.98%) Developer
4 11 (12.36%) Lead
5 10 (11.24%) Python Engineer
6 7 (7.87%) Java Developer
7 5 (5.62%) Architect
7 5 (5.62%) Python Developer
8 4 (4.49%) Data Engineer
8 4 (4.49%) Data Scientist
8 4 (4.49%) Senior Software Engineer
9 3 (3.37%) AWS Engineer
9 3 (3.37%) Backend Developer
9 3 (3.37%) C++ Software Engineer
9 3 (3.37%) DevOps Engineer
9 3 (3.37%) Principal Engineer
9 3 (3.37%) Python Software Engineer
9 3 (3.37%) Senior Developer
10 2 (2.25%) Engineering Manager
10 2 (2.25%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (15.73%) .NET
2 10 (11.24%) React
2 10 (11.24%) RESTful
3 9 (10.11%) Node.js
4 7 (7.87%) AngularJS
5 4 (4.49%) CSS
5 4 (4.49%) FIX Protocol
5 4 (4.49%) HTML
5 4 (4.49%) Kafka
5 4 (4.49%) Spring
6 3 (3.37%) FastAPI
6 3 (3.37%) LangGraph
6 3 (3.37%) OpenTelemetry
7 2 (2.25%) Blazor
7 2 (2.25%) LangChain
7 2 (2.25%) Playwright
7 2 (2.25%) PyTorch
7 2 (2.25%) scikit-learn
7 2 (2.25%) Spring Boot
7 2 (2.25%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 12 (13.48%) Cloud Native
2 8 (8.99%) Virtual Team
3 5 (5.62%) Algorithms
3 5 (5.62%) Data Structures
3 5 (5.62%) Distributed Systems
4 4 (4.49%) Enterprise Software
4 4 (4.49%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 4 (4.49%) Hedge funds
4 4 (4.49%) Legacy Systems
5 3 (3.37%) AI Agents
5 3 (3.37%) Derivative
5 3 (3.37%) Linux Command Line
6 2 (2.25%) 3D Graphics
6 2 (2.25%) Distributed Computing
6 2 (2.25%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (2.25%) Life Science
6 2 (2.25%) Onboarding
6 2 (2.25%) Product Ownership
6 2 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (2.25%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 11 (12.36%) Linux
2 4 (4.49%) Windows
3 3 (3.37%) Unix
4 2 (2.25%) Windows Server
5 1 (1.12%) Android
5 1 (1.12%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (31.46%) CI/CD
2 24 (26.97%) Agile
3 20 (22.47%) DevOps
4 18 (20.22%) Problem-Solving
5 15 (16.85%) Code Quality
6 14 (15.73%) Test Automation
7 13 (14.61%) AI
7 13 (14.61%) Design Patterns
8 12 (13.48%) Microservices
9 10 (11.24%) Computer Science
9 10 (11.24%) Event-Driven
9 10 (11.24%) Mentoring
10 9 (10.11%) Machine Learning
10 9 (10.11%) SDLC
11 8 (8.99%) Data Science
11 8 (8.99%) Event-Driven Architecture
11 8 (8.99%) Full-Stack Development
11 8 (8.99%) Infrastructure as Code
11 8 (8.99%) Scrum
12 7 (7.87%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 43 (48.31%) Python
2 28 (31.46%) Java
3 18 (20.22%) SQL
4 13 (14.61%) C#
5 9 (10.11%) C++
6 7 (7.87%) JavaScript
7 5 (5.62%) TypeScript
8 4 (4.49%) Go
9 2 (2.25%) PHP
9 2 (2.25%) PowerShell
9 2 (2.25%) R
9 2 (2.25%) Rust
10 1 (1.12%) Fortran
10 1 (1.12%) MATLAB
10 1 (1.12%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 13 (14.61%) Degree
2 8 (8.99%) Security Cleared
3 7 (7.87%) SC Cleared
4 5 (5.62%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (2.25%) AWS Certification
5 2 (2.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 2 (2.25%) Postgraduate
6 1 (1.12%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (1.12%) DV Cleared
6 1 (1.12%) Master's Degree
6 1 (1.12%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (3.37%) Data Quality
2 1 (1.12%) EMIR
2 1 (1.12%) GDPR
2 1 (1.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (1.12%) MiFID
2 1 (1.12%) QA
2 1 (1.12%) SOC 2
System Software
1 14 (15.73%) Docker
2 1 (1.12%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 15 (16.85%) Kubernetes
2 6 (6.74%) Terraform
3 5 (5.62%) Ansible
4 2 (2.25%) Grafana
4 2 (2.25%) Prometheus
5 1 (1.12%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 10 (11.24%) Microsoft
2 7 (7.87%) Oracle
3 5 (5.62%) Google
4 3 (3.37%) Databricks
5 2 (2.25%) DevExpress
5 2 (2.25%) DocuSign
5 2 (2.25%) Splunk
6 1 (1.12%) Alteryx
6 1 (1.12%) ForgeRock
6 1 (1.12%) Foundry
6 1 (1.12%) ION Trading
6 1 (1.12%) Ping Identity
6 1 (1.12%) Temenos