Software Engineering Contract Job Trends in the East Midlands

Software Engineering
England > East Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the East Midlands requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 8 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 59 31
Rank change year-on-year +16 -28 +18
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 43 14 34
As % of all contract jobs in the East Midlands 3.16% 1.68% 4.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.23% 1.93% 5.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 6 14 24
10th Percentile £350 £326 £310
25th Percentile £403 £359 £321
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £435 £421 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -11.47% -
75th Percentile £524 £514 £556
90th Percentile £600 £527 £609
England median daily rate £558 £575 £605
% change year-on-year -3.04% -4.96% -0.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 5
Median hourly rate - - £50.00
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.50
% change year-on-year - -0.76% +0.77%

All Process & Methodology Skills
East Midlands

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 East Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,016 724 649
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East Midlands 74.60% 86.71% 84.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 432 497 399
10th Percentile £232 £225 £265
25th Percentile £400 £350 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £415 £445
Median % change year-on-year +15.18% -6.74% -9.64%
75th Percentile £575 £523 £550
90th Percentile £663 £627 £613
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 67 29
10th Percentile £12.76 £16.17 £13.37
25th Percentile £13.50 £17.87 £15.10
Median hourly rate £17.87 £18.87 £21.59
Median % change year-on-year -5.30% -12.60% -5.10%
75th Percentile £25.75 £25.15 £50.00
90th Percentile £33.75 - £51.00
England median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.69
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.09% -4.07%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the East Midlands

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

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in the East Midlands

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in the East Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing Software Engineering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in the East Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in the East Midlands over the 6 months to 8 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineering in the East Midlands

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in the East Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing Software Engineering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Contract Job Locations in the East Midlands

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 East Midlands region over the 6 months to 8 October 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
Nottinghamshire +12 35 £425 -15.84% 105
Northamptonshire +13 4 - - 12
Derbyshire -8 4 £500 +11.11% 13
Leicestershire - 1 £400 - 25
Software Engineering
England

Software Engineering
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the East Midlands 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 (6.98%) AWS
1 3 (6.98%) Azure
2 1 (2.33%) Amazon S3
2 1 (2.33%) AWS IoT
2 1 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
2 1 (2.33%) Dynamics 365
2 1 (2.33%) GitHub
2 1 (2.33%) Power Platform
2 1 (2.33%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.33%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (6.98%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (2.33%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 1 (2.33%) Git
1 1 (2.33%) Visual Studio
General
1 3 (6.98%) Analytical Skills
2 2 (4.65%) Social Skills
3 1 (2.33%) Aerospace
3 1 (2.33%) Aviation
3 1 (2.33%) Finance
3 1 (2.33%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 32 (74.42%) Software Engineer
2 17 (39.53%) Senior
2 17 (39.53%) Senior Software Engineer
3 7 (16.28%) C++ Software Engineer
4 6 (13.95%) Head of Engineering
4 6 (13.95%) Head of Software Engineering
4 6 (13.95%) Java Engineer
4 6 (13.95%) Java Software Engineer
4 6 (13.95%) Lead
4 6 (13.95%) Lead Software Engineer
4 6 (13.95%) Senior C++ Software Engineer
5 5 (11.63%) Senior Java Engineer
5 5 (11.63%) Senior Java Software Engineer
6 4 (9.30%) Project Engineer
6 4 (9.30%) SCADA Engineer
6 4 (9.30%) SCADA Software Engineer
7 1 (2.33%) Cloud Software Engineer
7 1 (2.33%) Full-Stack Engineer
7 1 (2.33%) Python Engineer
7 1 (2.33%) Technology Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (4.65%) .NET
2 1 (2.33%) AngularJS
2 1 (2.33%) ASP.NET Web API
2 1 (2.33%) CSS
2 1 (2.33%) Django
2 1 (2.33%) FastAPI
2 1 (2.33%) HTML
2 1 (2.33%) HTML5
2 1 (2.33%) HTML5 Canvas
2 1 (2.33%) Kafka
2 1 (2.33%) Node.js
2 1 (2.33%) WCF
Miscellaneous
1 5 (11.63%) SCADA
2 4 (9.30%) Renewable Energy
3 1 (2.33%) Algorithms
3 1 (2.33%) Cloud Native
3 1 (2.33%) Digital Signage
3 1 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
3 1 (2.33%) IoT
3 1 (2.33%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.33%) Tizen
1 1 (2.33%) webOS
1 1 (2.33%) Windows
1 1 (2.33%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (6.98%) Agile
2 2 (4.65%) CI/CD
2 2 (4.65%) DevOps
3 1 (2.33%) Acceptance Criteria
3 1 (2.33%) Actionable Insight
3 1 (2.33%) Co-Creation
3 1 (2.33%) Data Engineering
3 1 (2.33%) Data Science
3 1 (2.33%) Digital Transformation Programme
3 1 (2.33%) Front End Development
3 1 (2.33%) Microservices
3 1 (2.33%) Minimum Viable Product
3 1 (2.33%) Patch Management
3 1 (2.33%) Presales
3 1 (2.33%) Probabilistic Modelling
3 1 (2.33%) Problem-Solving
3 1 (2.33%) SDLC
3 1 (2.33%) Secure Coding
3 1 (2.33%) Software Delivery
3 1 (2.33%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 7 (16.28%) C++
2 6 (13.95%) Java
2 6 (13.95%) RPG
3 3 (6.98%) Python
4 2 (4.65%) C#
4 2 (4.65%) JavaScript
5 1 (2.33%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 1 (2.33%) AWS Certification
1 1 (2.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
1 1 (2.33%) Computer Science Degree
1 1 (2.33%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (2.33%) Actionable Recommendations
1 1 (2.33%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 2 (4.65%) Docker
2 1 (2.33%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 1 (2.33%) SCCM
Vendors
1 2 (4.65%) Databricks
2 1 (2.33%) Microsoft