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 £504, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 July 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 52 12
Rank change year-on-year +37 -40 +26
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 154 42 161
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 6.85% 3.40% 8.72%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.53% 3.91% 9.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 44 4 20
10th Percentile £74 £363 £408
25th Percentile £413 £419 £449
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £504 £493 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.34% -1.50% -
75th Percentile £600 £550 £561
90th Percentile £638 - £578
England median daily rate £550 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -12.00% -3.85% +10.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 28 110
10th Percentile £57.63 £31.25 £52.50
25th Percentile £62.13 £60.69 £60.31
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £73.46 £66.63 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £80.00
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

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 2,046 1,074 1,634
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.01% 86.96% 88.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 934 509 703
10th Percentile £191 £190 £206
25th Percentile £363 £350 £306
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £430
Median % change year-on-year - +16.28% -9.47%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £564
90th Percentile £688 £651 £638
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 543 223 563
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.99 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.50 £18.95 £18.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £43.20 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% -1.59% +2.09%
75th Percentile £66.00 £67.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £83.70 £70.00
England median hourly rate £47.00 £28.18 £40.00
% change year-on-year +66.78% -29.55% -6.98%

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 15 July 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 15 July 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 15 July 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 +9 74 £650 - 30
Bedfordshire - 36 £74 - 7
Essex +9 29 £548 +9.50% 20
Cambridgeshire +7 9 £425 +30.77% 56
Suffolk - 6 £625 - 11
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 15 July 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.

1 147 (95.45%) Software Engineering
2 48 (31.17%) Security Cleared
3 47 (30.52%) C++
4 40 (25.97%) SC Cleared
5 34 (22.08%) Agile
6 28 (18.18%) C
7 27 (17.53%) Software Testing
8 25 (16.23%) Ada
9 23 (14.94%) Software-Defined Radio
10 22 (14.29%) C#
10 22 (14.29%) CI/CD
10 22 (14.29%) DevOps
11 20 (12.99%) Test Automation
12 18 (11.69%) Test Scripting
13 17 (11.04%) Java
14 15 (9.74%) Problem-Solving
15 14 (9.09%) Windows
16 13 (8.44%) Continuous Integration
16 13 (8.44%) Ethernet
17 12 (7.79%) GCP
17 12 (7.79%) Linux
17 12 (7.79%) Rational DOORS
18 11 (7.14%) Digital Signal Processing
18 11 (7.14%) Python
18 11 (7.14%) Signal Processing
19 10 (6.49%) .NET
19 10 (6.49%) UML
19 10 (6.49%) Validation
19 10 (6.49%) Verification and Validation
20 9 (5.84%) Embedded C

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:

Cloud Services
1 12 (7.79%) GCP
2 4 (2.60%) GitHub
3 3 (1.95%) Azure
4 2 (1.30%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (0.65%) Anthropic Claude
5 1 (0.65%) AWS
5 1 (0.65%) Azure AKS
5 1 (0.65%) ChatGPT
5 1 (0.65%) Google Gemini
Communications & Networking
1 23 (14.94%) Software-Defined Radio
2 13 (8.44%) Ethernet
3 9 (5.84%) Firewall
3 9 (5.84%) VPN
4 8 (5.19%) Wireless
5 4 (2.60%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.65%) Modbus
6 1 (0.65%) RS-232
6 1 (0.65%) RS-422
6 1 (0.65%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (5.19%) Relational Database
2 1 (0.65%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 12 (7.79%) Rational DOORS
2 8 (5.19%) Git
2 8 (5.19%) Visual Studio
3 6 (3.90%) JIRA
4 5 (3.25%) Eclipse
5 4 (2.60%) IntelliJ
5 4 (2.60%) JUnit
5 4 (2.60%) SonarQube
6 3 (1.95%) LabVIEW
7 2 (1.30%) Rational Rhapsody
7 2 (1.30%) VectorCAST
8 1 (0.65%) GitLab
8 1 (0.65%) Gradle
General
1 14 (9.09%) Finance
2 13 (8.44%) Manufacturing
3 12 (7.79%) Aerospace
3 12 (7.79%) Electronics
4 11 (7.14%) Banking
5 10 (6.49%) Law
6 8 (5.19%) Analytical Skills
7 7 (4.55%) Social Skills
8 4 (2.60%) Military
9 3 (1.95%) Automotive
9 3 (1.95%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.65%) Influencing Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (6.49%) .NET
2 7 (4.55%) Node.js
2 7 (4.55%) React
3 5 (3.25%) Spring Boot
4 4 (2.60%) Spring
4 4 (2.60%) Web Services
5 3 (1.95%) WPF
6 2 (1.30%) WinForms
7 1 (0.65%) .NET Framework
7 1 (0.65%) AngularJS
7 1 (0.65%) CSS
7 1 (0.65%) HTML
7 1 (0.65%) Kafka
7 1 (0.65%) OAuth
7 1 (0.65%) PyTorch
7 1 (0.65%) RESTful
7 1 (0.65%) TensorFlow
7 1 (0.65%) WCF
7 1 (0.65%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 20 (12.99%) Embedded Systems
2 8 (5.19%) FPGA
2 8 (5.19%) PCIe
3 5 (3.25%) Product Ownership
3 5 (3.25%) RISC-V
4 4 (2.60%) Legacy Applications
5 3 (1.95%) Cloud Native
5 3 (1.95%) Cyber Threat
6 2 (1.30%) Genomics
6 2 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.65%) Augmented Reality
7 1 (0.65%) Data Centre
7 1 (0.65%) Device Driver
7 1 (0.65%) Distributed Computing
7 1 (0.65%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (0.65%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.65%) Life Science
7 1 (0.65%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.65%) Reinsurance
7 1 (0.65%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 14 (9.09%) Windows
2 12 (7.79%) Linux
3 8 (5.19%) FreeRTOS
4 2 (1.30%) VxWorks
5 1 (0.65%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (95.45%) Software Engineering
2 34 (22.08%) Agile
3 27 (17.53%) Software Testing
4 22 (14.29%) CI/CD
4 22 (14.29%) DevOps
5 20 (12.99%) Test Automation
6 18 (11.69%) Test Scripting
7 15 (9.74%) Problem-Solving
8 13 (8.44%) Continuous Integration
9 11 (7.14%) Digital Signal Processing
9 11 (7.14%) Signal Processing
10 10 (6.49%) UML
10 10 (6.49%) Validation
10 10 (6.49%) Verification and Validation
11 9 (5.84%) Identity Management
11 9 (5.84%) Load Balancing
11 9 (5.84%) SDLC
11 9 (5.84%) TDD
12 8 (5.19%) SysML
12 8 (5.19%) Web Development
Programming Languages
1 47 (30.52%) C++
2 28 (18.18%) C
3 25 (16.23%) Ada
4 22 (14.29%) C#
5 17 (11.04%) Java
6 11 (7.14%) Python
7 9 (5.84%) Embedded C
8 6 (3.90%) JavaScript
9 5 (3.25%) TypeScript
10 3 (1.95%) Go
11 2 (1.30%) Embedded C++
11 2 (1.30%) Shell Script
11 2 (1.30%) SQL
Qualifications
1 48 (31.17%) Security Cleared
2 40 (25.97%) SC Cleared
3 3 (1.95%) DV Cleared
3 3 (1.95%) ISTQB
3 3 (1.95%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
4 2 (1.30%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (0.65%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.65%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.55%) DO-178B
2 5 (3.25%) Def Stans
2 5 (3.25%) MISRA
3 4 (2.60%) QA
System Software
1 8 (5.19%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 1 (0.65%) Ansible
1 1 (0.65%) Kubernetes
1 1 (0.65%) Terraform
Vendors
1 5 (3.25%) Google
1 5 (3.25%) Microsoft
2 4 (2.60%) Checkmarx
3 1 (0.65%) NVIDIA
3 1 (0.65%) OpenAI
3 1 (0.65%) OpenText
3 1 (0.65%) Remedy
3 1 (0.65%) Serena