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 26 January 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 47 18
Rank change year-on-year +30 -29 +42
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 118 40 141
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 7.07% 3.62% 7.89%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.84% 4.02% 8.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 20 10 30
10th Percentile £265 £407 -
25th Percentile £386 £451 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £485
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% +4.64% -12.61%
75th Percentile £665 £645 £550
90th Percentile £689 £677 £600
England median daily rate £550 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 78 8 84
10th Percentile £62.50 £51.00 £60.00
25th Percentile £65.00 £57.38 -
Median hourly rate £68.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.80% -3.85% +13.04%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.94 £82.50
90th Percentile - £72.13 £90.00
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £64.52
% change year-on-year - +0.75% -0.74%

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 1,505 996 1,608
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.17% 90.22% 90.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 674 454 857
10th Percentile £188 £227 £216
25th Percentile £313 £337 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
75th Percentile £579 £600 £575
90th Percentile £681 £688 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 456 149 372
10th Percentile £13.72 £17.34 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.35 £21.46 £15.94
Median hourly rate £25.08 £50.00 £40.66
Median % change year-on-year -49.85% +22.99% +98.32%
75th Percentile £65.00 £70.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £85.00 £77.45
England median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -14.29% -6.67% +7.14%

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 26 January 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 26 January 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 26 January 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 +14 83 £675 +40.48% 40
Cambridgeshire +3 13 £340 -32.00% 44
Bedfordshire -2 11 £525 -19.23% 21
Essex - 7 £641 - 32
Suffolk +5 2 £550 +72.68% 32
Norfolk -24 2 £475 - 17
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 26 January 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.

1 115 (97.46%) Software Engineering
2 44 (37.29%) C++
3 34 (28.81%) Security Cleared
4 33 (27.97%) C
5 30 (25.42%) C#
6 28 (23.73%) Validation
7 27 (22.88%) Ada
8 25 (21.19%) SC Cleared
9 23 (19.49%) Rational DOORS
10 21 (17.80%) Windows
11 20 (16.95%) Embedded C
11 20 (16.95%) Unit Testing
12 19 (16.10%) Agile
12 19 (16.10%) Linux
13 17 (14.41%) JavaScript
14 16 (13.56%) CI/CD
14 16 (13.56%) Python
15 15 (12.71%) Ethernet
15 15 (12.71%) Verification and Validation
16 14 (11.86%) JIRA
16 14 (11.86%) Visualisation
17 13 (11.02%) Embedded C++
17 13 (11.02%) Git
18 12 (10.17%) Synthetic Environment
18 12 (10.17%) UML
18 12 (10.17%) Visual Studio
19 11 (9.32%) Node.js
19 11 (9.32%) SysML
19 11 (9.32%) Test Scripting
20 10 (8.47%) Eclipse

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 (3.39%) SAS
2 1 (0.85%) Confluence
Applications
1 2 (1.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.85%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 2 (1.69%) Azure
1 2 (1.69%) Azure DevOps
2 1 (0.85%) Amazon EC2
2 1 (0.85%) Amazon ECS
2 1 (0.85%) Amazon S3
2 1 (0.85%) AWS
2 1 (0.85%) AWS Lambda
2 1 (0.85%) GitHub
2 1 (0.85%) GitHub Actions
2 1 (0.85%) Google Ads
2 1 (0.85%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 15 (12.71%) Ethernet
2 10 (8.47%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.85%) 3GPP
3 1 (0.85%) 5G
3 1 (0.85%) 5G NR
3 1 (0.85%) Bluetooth
3 1 (0.85%) HTTP
3 1 (0.85%) LTE
3 1 (0.85%) Modbus
3 1 (0.85%) MQTT
3 1 (0.85%) Profibus
3 1 (0.85%) SSL
3 1 (0.85%) UWB
3 1 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
3 1 (0.85%) Wireless
3 1 (0.85%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (3.39%) NoSQL
2 2 (1.69%) Metadata
3 1 (0.85%) Oracle Database
3 1 (0.85%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 23 (19.49%) Rational DOORS
2 14 (11.86%) JIRA
3 13 (11.02%) Git
4 12 (10.17%) Visual Studio
5 10 (8.47%) Eclipse
6 8 (6.78%) PVCS
7 3 (2.54%) Rational Rhapsody
8 1 (0.85%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.85%) Jenkins
8 1 (0.85%) Polyspace
8 1 (0.85%) Selenium
8 1 (0.85%) TestRail
General
1 20 (16.95%) Social Skills
2 16 (13.56%) Electronics
3 13 (11.02%) Aerospace
4 12 (10.17%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (10.17%) Military
5 10 (8.47%) Presentation Skills
6 8 (6.78%) Law
7 7 (5.93%) Manufacturing
8 5 (4.24%) Finance
8 5 (4.24%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (2.54%) Multimedia
10 2 (1.69%) Automotive
10 2 (1.69%) Publishing
10 2 (1.69%) Wearables
11 1 (0.85%) Banking
11 1 (0.85%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.85%) Marketing
11 1 (0.85%) Public Sector
11 1 (0.85%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (9.32%) Node.js
2 10 (8.47%) Web Services
3 5 (4.24%) React
4 4 (3.39%) .NET
4 4 (3.39%) RESTful
5 3 (2.54%) FastAPI
6 2 (1.69%) WPF
7 1 (0.85%) .NET Framework
7 1 (0.85%) CSS
7 1 (0.85%) HTML
7 1 (0.85%) JSON
7 1 (0.85%) NumPy
7 1 (0.85%) Playwright
7 1 (0.85%) Redux
7 1 (0.85%) REST
7 1 (0.85%) SciPy
7 1 (0.85%) WCF
7 1 (0.85%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 7 (5.93%) PCIe
2 4 (3.39%) Credit Risk
2 4 (3.39%) Embedded Systems
2 4 (3.39%) Life Science
3 3 (2.54%) FPGA
3 3 (2.54%) Management Information System
3 3 (2.54%) State Machine
4 2 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
4 2 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
4 2 (1.69%) Reference Data
4 2 (1.69%) Robotics
5 1 (0.85%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (0.85%) Augmented Reality
5 1 (0.85%) IoT
5 1 (0.85%) NB-IoT
5 1 (0.85%) Product Ownership
5 1 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (0.85%) Smartphone
5 1 (0.85%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 21 (17.80%) Windows
2 19 (16.10%) Linux
3 5 (4.24%) FreeRTOS
4 2 (1.69%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 115 (97.46%) Software Engineering
2 28 (23.73%) Validation
3 20 (16.95%) Unit Testing
4 19 (16.10%) Agile
5 16 (13.56%) CI/CD
6 15 (12.71%) Verification and Validation
7 14 (11.86%) Visualisation
8 12 (10.17%) Synthetic Environment
8 12 (10.17%) UML
9 11 (9.32%) SysML
9 11 (9.32%) Test Scripting
10 9 (7.63%) Continuous Delivery
10 9 (7.63%) Continuous Integration
10 9 (7.63%) Digital Twin
10 9 (7.63%) Problem-Solving
10 9 (7.63%) Software Testing
10 9 (7.63%) TDD
11 8 (6.78%) Requirements Analysis
11 8 (6.78%) Test Automation
11 8 (6.78%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 44 (37.29%) C++
2 33 (27.97%) C
3 30 (25.42%) C#
4 27 (22.88%) Ada
5 20 (16.95%) Embedded C
6 17 (14.41%) JavaScript
7 16 (13.56%) Python
8 13 (11.02%) Embedded C++
9 8 (6.78%) SQL
10 7 (5.93%) Java
11 4 (3.39%) R
11 4 (3.39%) Shell Script
12 3 (2.54%) Perl
13 2 (1.69%) PowerShell
13 2 (1.69%) TypeScript
14 1 (0.85%) Bourne shell
14 1 (0.85%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 34 (28.81%) Security Cleared
2 25 (21.19%) SC Cleared
3 6 (5.08%) Degree
4 2 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (0.85%) Accessibility
1 1 (0.85%) AUTOSAR
1 1 (0.85%) IEC 61508
1 1 (0.85%) ISO 26262
1 1 (0.85%) MISRA
1 1 (0.85%) MISRA C
1 1 (0.85%) QA
System Software
1 8 (6.78%) Virtual Machines
1 8 (6.78%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (1.69%) Firmware
3 1 (0.85%) Docker
3 1 (0.85%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 2 (1.69%) Functional Safety
2 1 (0.85%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 10 (8.47%) Microsoft
2 8 (6.78%) ANSYS
2 8 (6.78%) IBM
2 8 (6.78%) VMware
3 1 (0.85%) Adobe
3 1 (0.85%) OpenText
3 1 (0.85%) Oracle
3 1 (0.85%) QNX
3 1 (0.85%) Serena
3 1 (0.85%) Siemens
3 1 (0.85%) Tealium