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 £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 March 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 58 17
Rank change year-on-year +38 -41 +45
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 121 24 154
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 6.54% 2.35% 7.96%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.02% 2.58% 8.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 22 6 22
10th Percentile £265 £436 £413
25th Percentile £384 £467 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £583 £500
Median % change year-on-year -18.45% +16.50% -6.98%
75th Percentile £603 £675 £594
90th Percentile £675 £684 £600
England median daily rate £550 £600 £625
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +5.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 11 107
10th Percentile £62.50 - £52.50
25th Percentile £65.00 £59.00 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.80% -3.85% +13.04%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.38 £70.00
90th Percentile - £68.75 £90.00
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +4.00% -3.85%

All Contract IT Job Roles
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 1,723 932 1,735
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.08% 91.10% 89.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 747 500 890
10th Percentile £191 £225 £206
25th Percentile £323 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £461
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% +6.23% -2.89%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £563
90th Percentile £675 £688 £675
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 532 148 491
10th Percentile £13.64 £15.44 £14.16
25th Percentile £16.93 £21.46 £15.88
Median hourly rate £23.27 £61.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -61.86% +52.50% +24.40%
75th Percentile £65.00 £75.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £85.00 £75.00
England median hourly rate £36.00 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +2.86% +7.69% -22.27%

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 9 March 2026.

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 9 March 2026.

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 9 March 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
Hertfordshire +22 86 £675 - 28
Bedfordshire +1 13 £525 -19.23% 13
Cambridgeshire +5 12 £403 -11.34% 40
Essex - 6 - - 30
Norfolk -27 2 £475 - 10
Suffolk - 2 £550 - 13
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 9 March 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 East of England region featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 116 (95.87%) Software Engineering
2 48 (39.67%) C++
3 42 (34.71%) Security Cleared
4 36 (29.75%) C
5 32 (26.45%) SC Cleared
6 30 (24.79%) C#
7 28 (23.14%) Ada
8 23 (19.01%) Embedded C
8 23 (19.01%) Rational DOORS
8 23 (19.01%) Validation
9 19 (15.70%) Windows
10 18 (14.88%) Unit Testing
11 17 (14.05%) Agile
11 17 (14.05%) Linux
12 14 (11.57%) Embedded C++
12 14 (11.57%) Python
13 13 (10.74%) CI/CD
13 13 (10.74%) Ethernet
13 13 (10.74%) JIRA
13 13 (10.74%) Test Scripting
13 13 (10.74%) Verification and Validation
14 12 (9.92%) UML
14 12 (9.92%) Visualisation
15 11 (9.09%) Git
15 11 (9.09%) JavaScript
15 11 (9.09%) SysML
16 10 (8.26%) Continuous Integration
16 10 (8.26%) Software Testing
16 10 (8.26%) Synthetic Environment
16 10 (8.26%) Visual Studio

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 1 (0.83%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.83%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 2 (1.65%) Azure
2 1 (0.83%) Amazon EC2
2 1 (0.83%) Amazon ECS
2 1 (0.83%) Amazon S3
2 1 (0.83%) Anthropic Claude
2 1 (0.83%) AWS
2 1 (0.83%) AWS Lambda
2 1 (0.83%) Azure AKS
2 1 (0.83%) Azure DevOps
2 1 (0.83%) ChatGPT
2 1 (0.83%) Google Ads
2 1 (0.83%) Google Gemini
2 1 (0.83%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 13 (10.74%) Ethernet
2 7 (5.79%) TCP/IP
3 2 (1.65%) Modbus
4 1 (0.83%) 3GPP
4 1 (0.83%) 5G
4 1 (0.83%) 5G NR
4 1 (0.83%) LTE
4 1 (0.83%) Profibus
4 1 (0.83%) RS-232
4 1 (0.83%) RS-422
4 1 (0.83%) RS-485
4 1 (0.83%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.65%) Metadata
1 2 (1.65%) NoSQL
2 1 (0.83%) Oracle Database
2 1 (0.83%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 23 (19.01%) Rational DOORS
2 13 (10.74%) JIRA
3 11 (9.09%) Git
4 10 (8.26%) Visual Studio
5 8 (6.61%) Eclipse
5 8 (6.61%) PVCS
6 3 (2.48%) Rational Rhapsody
7 1 (0.83%) Polyspace
General
1 17 (14.05%) Electronics
2 13 (10.74%) Social Skills
3 12 (9.92%) Aerospace
4 10 (8.26%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (7.44%) Military
6 7 (5.79%) Law
6 7 (5.79%) Presentation Skills
7 5 (4.13%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.65%) Publishing
9 1 (0.83%) Automotive
9 1 (0.83%) Finance
9 1 (0.83%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.83%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.83%) Marketing
9 1 (0.83%) Multimedia
9 1 (0.83%) Public Sector
9 1 (0.83%) Wearables
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (6.61%) Node.js
2 7 (5.79%) Web Services
3 4 (3.31%) .NET
4 3 (2.48%) React
5 2 (1.65%) RESTful
5 2 (1.65%) WPF
6 1 (0.83%) .NET Framework
6 1 (0.83%) CSS
6 1 (0.83%) FastAPI
6 1 (0.83%) HTML
6 1 (0.83%) JSON
6 1 (0.83%) Kafka
6 1 (0.83%) NumPy
6 1 (0.83%) PyTorch
6 1 (0.83%) Redux
6 1 (0.83%) REST
6 1 (0.83%) SciPy
6 1 (0.83%) TensorFlow
6 1 (0.83%) WCF
6 1 (0.83%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 5 (4.13%) Embedded Systems
1 5 (4.13%) PCIe
2 4 (3.31%) Life Science
3 3 (2.48%) Management Information System
4 2 (1.65%) Augmented Reality
4 2 (1.65%) Cyber Threat
4 2 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
4 2 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
4 2 (1.65%) Reference Data
4 2 (1.65%) Robotics
4 2 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
4 2 (1.65%) Virtual Reality
5 1 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (0.83%) Data Centre
5 1 (0.83%) Distributed Computing
5 1 (0.83%) IoT
5 1 (0.83%) NB-IoT
5 1 (0.83%) Product Ownership
5 1 (0.83%) Smartphone
5 1 (0.83%) State Machine
Operating Systems
1 19 (15.70%) Windows
2 17 (14.05%) Linux
3 5 (4.13%) FreeRTOS
4 2 (1.65%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 116 (95.87%) Software Engineering
2 23 (19.01%) Validation
3 18 (14.88%) Unit Testing
4 17 (14.05%) Agile
5 13 (10.74%) CI/CD
5 13 (10.74%) Test Scripting
5 13 (10.74%) Verification and Validation
6 12 (9.92%) UML
6 12 (9.92%) Visualisation
7 11 (9.09%) SysML
8 10 (8.26%) Continuous Integration
8 10 (8.26%) Software Testing
8 10 (8.26%) Synthetic Environment
9 9 (7.44%) TDD
10 8 (6.61%) Code Coverage
10 8 (6.61%) Continuous Delivery
10 8 (6.61%) Digital Twin
10 8 (6.61%) Requirements Analysis
10 8 (6.61%) Test Automation
10 8 (6.61%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 48 (39.67%) C++
2 36 (29.75%) C
3 30 (24.79%) C#
4 28 (23.14%) Ada
5 23 (19.01%) Embedded C
6 14 (11.57%) Embedded C++
6 14 (11.57%) Python
7 11 (9.09%) JavaScript
8 4 (3.31%) SQL
9 3 (2.48%) Java
9 3 (2.48%) Perl
9 3 (2.48%) Shell Script
10 2 (1.65%) PowerShell
11 1 (0.83%) Bourne shell
11 1 (0.83%) MATLAB
11 1 (0.83%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 42 (34.71%) Security Cleared
2 32 (26.45%) SC Cleared
3 6 (4.96%) Degree
4 3 (2.48%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (1.65%) DV Cleared
5 2 (1.65%) ISTQB
5 2 (1.65%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (0.83%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (0.83%) AUTOSAR
1 1 (0.83%) IEC 61508
1 1 (0.83%) ISO 26262
1 1 (0.83%) MISRA
1 1 (0.83%) MISRA C
System Software
1 8 (6.61%) Virtual Machines
1 8 (6.61%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (0.83%) Docker
2 1 (0.83%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 2 (1.65%) Functional Safety
1 2 (1.65%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.83%) Terraform
Vendors
1 8 (6.61%) ANSYS
1 8 (6.61%) IBM
1 8 (6.61%) Microsoft
1 8 (6.61%) VMware
2 1 (0.83%) Adobe
2 1 (0.83%) Google
2 1 (0.83%) OpenAI
2 1 (0.83%) OpenText
2 1 (0.83%) Oracle
2 1 (0.83%) QNX
2 1 (0.83%) Serena
2 1 (0.83%) Siemens
2 1 (0.83%) Tealium