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 £488, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 30 March 2026.

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

6 months to
30 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 57 14
Rank change year-on-year +38 -43 +45
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 129 22 151
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 6.45% 2.25% 7.93%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.96% 2.49% 8.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 24 6 21
10th Percentile £265 £470 £413
25th Percentile £397 £491 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £583 £500
Median % change year-on-year -16.31% +16.50% -
75th Percentile £559 £675 £575
90th Percentile £675 £684 £600
England median daily rate £550 £600 £625
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 10 106
10th Percentile £62.50 £58.35 £52.50
25th Percentile £65.00 £59.00 £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.00 £63.75 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% -1.92% +13.04%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile - £81.00 £90.00
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +4.00% +4.17%

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 1,854 882 1,695
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.70% 90.28% 89.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 824 482 844
10th Percentile £191 £225 £209
25th Percentile £329 £363 £323
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £490 £450
Median % change year-on-year -3.06% +8.89% -5.26%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £551
90th Percentile £675 £686 £658
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 542 165 505
10th Percentile £13.51 £15.13 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.01 £21.46 £16.00
Median hourly rate £23.83 £55.00 £39.55
Median % change year-on-year -56.68% +39.06% +19.85%
75th Percentile £65.00 £73.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £85.00 £75.25
England median hourly rate £41.26 £34.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +19.58% +6.15% -23.53%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 +29 87 £675 - 20
Essex +7 14 £500 +3.09% 6
Bedfordshire 0 14 £525 -19.23% 2
Cambridgeshire +7 10 £413 -14.86% 53
Norfolk -27 2 £475 -
Suffolk - 2 £550 - 7
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 30 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.

1 124 (96.12%) Software Engineering
2 50 (38.76%) C++
3 43 (33.33%) Security Cleared
4 37 (28.68%) C
5 33 (25.58%) SC Cleared
6 29 (22.48%) Ada
6 29 (22.48%) C#
7 24 (18.60%) Embedded C
8 23 (17.83%) Rational DOORS
9 19 (14.73%) Validation
10 16 (12.40%) Agile
10 16 (12.40%) Unit Testing
10 16 (12.40%) Windows
11 14 (10.85%) Embedded C++
11 14 (10.85%) Linux
12 13 (10.08%) Python
12 13 (10.08%) Test Scripting
13 12 (9.30%) CI/CD
13 12 (9.30%) Ethernet
13 12 (9.30%) Git
13 12 (9.30%) JIRA
13 12 (9.30%) UML
13 12 (9.30%) Verification and Validation
14 11 (8.53%) SysML
14 11 (8.53%) Visualisation
15 10 (7.75%) TDD
16 9 (6.98%) Continuous Integration
16 9 (6.98%) Node.js
16 9 (6.98%) Software Testing
16 9 (6.98%) Synthetic Environment

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:

Applications
1 2 (1.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.78%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 2 (1.55%) Azure
1 2 (1.55%) GCP
1 2 (1.55%) GitHub
2 1 (0.78%) Anthropic Claude
2 1 (0.78%) Azure AKS
2 1 (0.78%) Azure DevOps
2 1 (0.78%) ChatGPT
2 1 (0.78%) Google Ads
2 1 (0.78%) Google Gemini
Communications & Networking
1 12 (9.30%) Ethernet
2 6 (4.65%) TCP/IP
3 2 (1.55%) Modbus
4 1 (0.78%) 3GPP
4 1 (0.78%) 5G
4 1 (0.78%) 5G NR
4 1 (0.78%) LTE
4 1 (0.78%) Profibus
4 1 (0.78%) RS-232
4 1 (0.78%) RS-422
4 1 (0.78%) RS-485
4 1 (0.78%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.55%) Metadata
2 1 (0.78%) Oracle Database
2 1 (0.78%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 23 (17.83%) Rational DOORS
2 12 (9.30%) Git
2 12 (9.30%) JIRA
3 9 (6.98%) Visual Studio
4 8 (6.20%) PVCS
5 7 (5.43%) Eclipse
6 3 (2.33%) Rational Rhapsody
7 2 (1.55%) IntelliJ
7 2 (1.55%) JUnit
7 2 (1.55%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.78%) Polyspace
General
1 17 (13.18%) Electronics
2 11 (8.53%) Aerospace
2 11 (8.53%) Social Skills
3 10 (7.75%) Analytical Skills
4 8 (6.20%) Military
5 6 (4.65%) Law
5 6 (4.65%) Presentation Skills
6 4 (3.10%) Manufacturing
7 3 (2.33%) Finance
8 2 (1.55%) Publishing
9 1 (0.78%) Automotive
9 1 (0.78%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.78%) Marketing
9 1 (0.78%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (6.98%) Node.js
2 6 (4.65%) Web Services
3 5 (3.88%) .NET
4 2 (1.55%) Spring
4 2 (1.55%) Spring Boot
4 2 (1.55%) WPF
5 1 (0.78%) .NET Framework
5 1 (0.78%) JSON
5 1 (0.78%) Kafka
5 1 (0.78%) PyTorch
5 1 (0.78%) React
5 1 (0.78%) REST
5 1 (0.78%) TensorFlow
5 1 (0.78%) WCF
5 1 (0.78%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 5 (3.88%) Embedded Systems
2 4 (3.10%) Life Science
2 4 (3.10%) PCIe
3 3 (2.33%) Cyber Threat
3 3 (2.33%) Management Information System
4 2 (1.55%) Cloud Native
4 2 (1.55%) Genomics
4 2 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
4 2 (1.55%) Reference Data
4 2 (1.55%) Robotics
4 2 (1.55%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (0.78%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (0.78%) Augmented Reality
5 1 (0.78%) Data Centre
5 1 (0.78%) Distributed Computing
5 1 (0.78%) IoT
5 1 (0.78%) NB-IoT
5 1 (0.78%) Product Ownership
5 1 (0.78%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 16 (12.40%) Windows
2 14 (10.85%) Linux
3 5 (3.88%) FreeRTOS
4 2 (1.55%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 124 (96.12%) Software Engineering
2 19 (14.73%) Validation
3 16 (12.40%) Agile
3 16 (12.40%) Unit Testing
4 13 (10.08%) Test Scripting
5 12 (9.30%) CI/CD
5 12 (9.30%) UML
5 12 (9.30%) Verification and Validation
6 11 (8.53%) SysML
6 11 (8.53%) Visualisation
7 10 (7.75%) TDD
8 9 (6.98%) Continuous Integration
8 9 (6.98%) Software Testing
8 9 (6.98%) Synthetic Environment
9 8 (6.20%) Code Coverage
9 8 (6.20%) Requirements Analysis
9 8 (6.20%) Workflow
10 7 (5.43%) Problem-Solving
10 7 (5.43%) Systems Engineering
10 7 (5.43%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 50 (38.76%) C++
2 37 (28.68%) C
3 29 (22.48%) Ada
3 29 (22.48%) C#
4 24 (18.60%) Embedded C
5 14 (10.85%) Embedded C++
6 13 (10.08%) Python
7 8 (6.20%) JavaScript
8 6 (4.65%) Java
9 3 (2.33%) Perl
10 2 (1.55%) Go
10 2 (1.55%) PowerShell
10 2 (1.55%) SQL
11 1 (0.78%) MATLAB
11 1 (0.78%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.78%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 43 (33.33%) Security Cleared
2 33 (25.58%) SC Cleared
3 5 (3.88%) Degree
4 3 (2.33%) DV Cleared
5 2 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (1.55%) ISTQB
5 2 (1.55%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (0.78%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (1.55%) QA
2 1 (0.78%) AUTOSAR
2 1 (0.78%) IEC 61508
2 1 (0.78%) ISO 26262
2 1 (0.78%) MISRA
2 1 (0.78%) MISRA C
System Software
1 8 (6.20%) Virtual Machines
1 8 (6.20%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (0.78%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 2 (1.55%) Functional Safety
2 1 (0.78%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.78%) Terraform
Vendors
1 8 (6.20%) ANSYS
1 8 (6.20%) IBM
1 8 (6.20%) VMware
2 7 (5.43%) Microsoft
3 3 (2.33%) Google
4 2 (1.55%) Checkmarx
5 1 (0.78%) Adobe
5 1 (0.78%) OpenAI
5 1 (0.78%) OpenText
5 1 (0.78%) Oracle
5 1 (0.78%) QNX
5 1 (0.78%) Serena
5 1 (0.78%) Siemens
5 1 (0.78%) Tealium