Software Engineer Contract Job Trends in the East of England

Software Engineer
England > East of England

The median Software Engineer daily rate in the East of England is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 27 December 2025.

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

6 months to
27 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 16 37 21
Rank change year-on-year +21 -16 +40
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 121 48 121
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 7.49% 4.26% 7.04%
As % of the Job Titles category 8.37% 4.78% 7.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 18 14 37
10th Percentile £386 £428 -
25th Percentile £422 £450 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% +1.50% -14.53%
75th Percentile £672 £556 £550
90th Percentile £691 £675 £600
England median daily rate £575 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -4.17% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 9 67
10th Percentile £61.38 £51.50 -
25th Percentile £65.00 £59.00 -
Median hourly rate £67.00 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.08% - +13.04%
75th Percentile £70.00 - £90.00
90th Percentile - £71.00 -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
East of England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the East of England. 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 East of England with a recognized job title 1,445 1,005 1,544
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.47% 89.10% 89.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 620 445 878
10th Percentile £193 £220 £200
25th Percentile £341 £318 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £454 £475
Median % change year-on-year +8.50% -4.42% -1.04%
75th Percentile £583 £588 £575
90th Percentile £683 £683 £675
England median daily rate £505 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -3.81% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 432 161 298
10th Percentile £13.53 £16.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.79 £21.46 £16.06
Median hourly rate £28.00 £50.00 £39.91
Median % change year-on-year -44.00% +25.27% +90.06%
75th Percentile £65.00 £70.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.35 £85.00 £80.73
England median hourly rate £27.00 £35.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -22.86% -22.22% +38.46%

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the East of England

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 East of England.

Software Engineer job vacancy trend in the East of England

Software Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the East of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the East of England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the East of England

Software Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the East of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineer in the East of England over the 6 months to 27 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineer in the East of England

Software Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the East of England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the East of England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the East of England

Software Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the East of England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineer in the East of England over the 6 months to 27 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineer in the East of England

Software Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the East of England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Software Engineer within the East of England region over the 6 months to 27 December 2025. 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
Hertfordshire +17 94 £675 +40.48% 82
Cambridgeshire -1 15 £405 -19.00% 81
Bedfordshire -11 4 £525 -19.23% 34
Essex - 4 £641 - 65
Suffolk +5 2 £550 +72.68% 24
Norfolk -17 2 £475 - 15
Software Engineer
England

Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the East of England

For the 6 months to 27 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 East of England region featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 118 (97.52%) Software Engineering
2 52 (42.98%) C++
3 36 (29.75%) C#
4 32 (26.45%) C
4 32 (26.45%) Validation
5 27 (22.31%) Linux
6 26 (21.49%) CI/CD
6 26 (21.49%) JavaScript
6 26 (21.49%) Security Cleared
6 26 (21.49%) Unit Testing
7 25 (20.66%) Agile
8 22 (18.18%) Ada
8 22 (18.18%) SC Cleared
8 22 (18.18%) Windows
9 20 (16.53%) Node.js
9 20 (16.53%) Rational DOORS
10 19 (15.70%) Ethernet
10 19 (15.70%) Visual Studio
11 18 (14.88%) TDD
12 17 (14.05%) Python
12 17 (14.05%) Visualisation
13 16 (13.22%) Embedded C
13 16 (13.22%) Synthetic Environment
13 16 (13.22%) Verification and Validation
14 15 (12.40%) Continuous Integration
14 15 (12.40%) JIRA
15 14 (11.57%) Eclipse
15 14 (11.57%) Git
15 14 (11.57%) Microsoft
15 14 (11.57%) Software Testing

Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the East of England 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 4 (3.31%) SAS
2 1 (0.83%) Confluence
Applications
1 5 (4.13%) Simulink
2 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 5 (4.13%) npm
2 4 (3.31%) SuccessFactors
3 1 (0.83%) Amazon EC2
3 1 (0.83%) Amazon ECS
3 1 (0.83%) Amazon S3
3 1 (0.83%) AWS
3 1 (0.83%) AWS Lambda
3 1 (0.83%) Azure
3 1 (0.83%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (0.83%) GitHub
3 1 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
3 1 (0.83%) Google Ads
3 1 (0.83%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 19 (15.70%) Ethernet
2 14 (11.57%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.83%) 3GPP
3 1 (0.83%) 5G
3 1 (0.83%) 5G NR
3 1 (0.83%) Bluetooth
3 1 (0.83%) HTTP
3 1 (0.83%) LTE
3 1 (0.83%) Modbus
3 1 (0.83%) MQTT
3 1 (0.83%) Profibus
3 1 (0.83%) SSL
3 1 (0.83%) UWB
3 1 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
3 1 (0.83%) Wireless
3 1 (0.83%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (3.31%) NoSQL
2 1 (0.83%) Metadata
2 1 (0.83%) Oracle Database
2 1 (0.83%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 20 (16.53%) Rational DOORS
2 19 (15.70%) Visual Studio
3 15 (12.40%) JIRA
4 14 (11.57%) Eclipse
4 14 (11.57%) Git
5 7 (5.79%) PVCS
6 5 (4.13%) Artifactory
6 5 (4.13%) GitLab
7 1 (0.83%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.83%) Jenkins
7 1 (0.83%) LabVIEW
7 1 (0.83%) Polyspace
7 1 (0.83%) Selenium
7 1 (0.83%) TestRail
General
1 26 (21.49%) Social Skills
2 16 (13.22%) Military
3 15 (12.40%) Electronics
4 14 (11.57%) Presentation Skills
5 12 (9.92%) Aerospace
6 11 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
7 8 (6.61%) Law
8 6 (4.96%) Manufacturing
9 5 (4.13%) Finance
9 5 (4.13%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (2.48%) Multimedia
11 2 (1.65%) Automotive
11 2 (1.65%) Wearables
12 1 (0.83%) Banking
12 1 (0.83%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.83%) Marketing
12 1 (0.83%) Public Sector
12 1 (0.83%) Publishing
12 1 (0.83%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (16.53%) Node.js
2 14 (11.57%) Web Services
3 10 (8.26%) React
4 6 (4.96%) CSS
4 6 (4.96%) HTML
5 5 (4.13%) .NET
5 5 (4.13%) .NET Framework
5 5 (4.13%) AngularJS
5 5 (4.13%) JSON
5 5 (4.13%) Svelte
5 5 (4.13%) Vue
6 4 (3.31%) RESTful
6 4 (3.31%) XML
7 3 (2.48%) FastAPI
8 1 (0.83%) NumPy
8 1 (0.83%) Playwright
8 1 (0.83%) Redux
8 1 (0.83%) REST
8 1 (0.83%) SciPy
Miscellaneous
1 9 (7.44%) PCIe
2 6 (4.96%) Algorithms
3 5 (4.13%) Data Structures
3 5 (4.13%) Distributed Systems
3 5 (4.13%) FPGA
3 5 (4.13%) State Machine
4 4 (3.31%) Credit Risk
4 4 (3.31%) Embedded Systems
5 3 (2.48%) CUDA
6 2 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (1.65%) Management Information System
6 2 (1.65%) Robotics
7 1 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.83%) Augmented Reality
7 1 (0.83%) IoT
7 1 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.83%) Life Science
7 1 (0.83%) NB-IoT
7 1 (0.83%) Reference Data
7 1 (0.83%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 27 (22.31%) Linux
2 22 (18.18%) Windows
3 5 (4.13%) FreeRTOS
4 2 (1.65%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 118 (97.52%) Software Engineering
2 32 (26.45%) Validation
3 26 (21.49%) CI/CD
3 26 (21.49%) Unit Testing
4 25 (20.66%) Agile
5 18 (14.88%) TDD
6 17 (14.05%) Visualisation
7 16 (13.22%) Synthetic Environment
7 16 (13.22%) Verification and Validation
8 15 (12.40%) Continuous Integration
9 14 (11.57%) Software Testing
10 13 (10.74%) Continuous Delivery
10 13 (10.74%) Digital Twin
11 12 (9.92%) Problem-Solving
12 11 (9.09%) SysML
12 11 (9.09%) Test Scripting
12 11 (9.09%) UML
13 10 (8.26%) Computer Science
14 9 (7.44%) Test Automation
15 8 (6.61%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 52 (42.98%) C++
2 36 (29.75%) C#
3 32 (26.45%) C
4 26 (21.49%) JavaScript
5 22 (18.18%) Ada
6 17 (14.05%) Python
7 16 (13.22%) Embedded C
8 11 (9.09%) Java
9 9 (7.44%) Embedded C++
10 7 (5.79%) SQL
10 7 (5.79%) TypeScript
11 6 (4.96%) MATLAB
12 5 (4.13%) R
13 4 (3.31%) Shell Script
14 2 (1.65%) Perl
15 1 (0.83%) Bourne shell
15 1 (0.83%) Go
15 1 (0.83%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 26 (21.49%) Security Cleared
2 22 (18.18%) SC Cleared
3 6 (4.96%) Degree
4 2 (1.65%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.65%) QA
2 1 (0.83%) Accessibility
2 1 (0.83%) AUTOSAR
2 1 (0.83%) IEC 61508
2 1 (0.83%) ISO 26262
2 1 (0.83%) MISRA
2 1 (0.83%) MISRA C
2 1 (0.83%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 7 (5.79%) Virtual Machines
1 7 (5.79%) VMware Infrastructure
2 6 (4.96%) Docker
3 1 (0.83%) Embedded Firmware
3 1 (0.83%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 6 (4.96%) Kubernetes
2 2 (1.65%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 14 (11.57%) Microsoft
2 7 (5.79%) ANSYS
2 7 (5.79%) IBM
2 7 (5.79%) VMware
3 5 (4.13%) Oracle
4 4 (3.31%) SAP
4 4 (3.31%) Workday
5 1 (0.83%) Adobe
5 1 (0.83%) QNX
5 1 (0.83%) Siemens
5 1 (0.83%) Tealium