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 £505, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 September 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 34 14
Rank change year-on-year +13 -20 +13
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 146 61 111
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 6.27% 4.69% 7.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.94% 5.57% 8.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 42 8 19
10th Percentile £74 £413 £350
25th Percentile £413 £450 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% - -2.44%
75th Percentile £600 £662 £553
90th Percentile £638 £673 £560
England median daily rate £550 £641 £625
% change year-on-year -14.20% +2.56% +5.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 79 38 52
10th Percentile £57.63 £31.25 £53.00
25th Percentile £62.97 - £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £74.69
90th Percentile £75.00 £69.40 £80.00
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.85
% change year-on-year - -1.29% +1.31%

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 2,105 1,095 1,343
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.34% 84.10% 88.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 890 488 544
10th Percentile £190 £186 £200
25th Percentile £363 £361 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +11.11% -7.69%
75th Percentile £598 £588 £563
90th Percentile £688 £688 £600
England median daily rate £525 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 595 262 357
10th Percentile £14.74 £14.53 £14.50
25th Percentile £18.98 £17.50 £21.37
Median hourly rate £50.00 £40.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -15.79% +28.47%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £64.25
90th Percentile £80.00 £79.88 £69.25
England median hourly rate £44.46 £25.15 £46.18
% change year-on-year +76.76% -45.54% +3.20%

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 16 September 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 16 September 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 16 September 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 +6 78 £775 - 61
Bedfordshire +29 28 £74 - 38
Essex +4 27 £593 +18.70% 27
Cambridgeshire -1 7 £425 +30.77% 244
Suffolk - 6 £625 - 7
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 16 September 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.

1 143 (97.95%) Software Engineering
2 43 (29.45%) C++
3 34 (23.29%) Agile
3 34 (23.29%) C
3 34 (23.29%) Security Cleared
4 31 (21.23%) SC Cleared
5 25 (17.12%) CI/CD
5 25 (17.12%) Software Testing
6 23 (15.75%) DevOps
6 23 (15.75%) Software-Defined Radio
7 20 (13.70%) Ada
8 19 (13.01%) Java
9 18 (12.33%) C#
9 18 (12.33%) Test Automation
10 16 (10.96%) Rational DOORS
10 16 (10.96%) Test Scripting
11 14 (9.59%) Embedded C
11 14 (9.59%) GCP
11 14 (9.59%) Problem-Solving
12 13 (8.90%) Ethernet
13 12 (8.22%) Continuous Integration
13 12 (8.22%) Firewall
13 12 (8.22%) Identity Management
13 12 (8.22%) Load Balancing
13 12 (8.22%) VPN
14 11 (7.53%) Digital Signal Processing
14 11 (7.53%) Relational Database
14 11 (7.53%) Signal Processing
15 10 (6.85%) Identity Access Management
15 10 (6.85%) UML

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 14 (9.59%) GCP
2 4 (2.74%) GitHub
3 3 (2.05%) Azure
3 3 (2.05%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (0.68%) AWS
4 1 (0.68%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 23 (15.75%) Software-Defined Radio
2 13 (8.90%) Ethernet
3 12 (8.22%) Firewall
3 12 (8.22%) VPN
4 8 (5.48%) Wireless
5 5 (3.42%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (7.53%) Relational Database
2 1 (0.68%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 16 (10.96%) Rational DOORS
2 8 (5.48%) Git
2 8 (5.48%) Visual Studio
3 5 (3.42%) Eclipse
3 5 (3.42%) JIRA
4 3 (2.05%) CppUnit
4 3 (2.05%) IntelliJ
4 3 (2.05%) JUnit
4 3 (2.05%) LabVIEW
4 3 (2.05%) PVCS
4 3 (2.05%) SonarQube
5 2 (1.37%) Rational Rhapsody
5 2 (1.37%) VectorCAST
6 1 (0.68%) GitLab
6 1 (0.68%) Gradle
6 1 (0.68%) Jenkins
General
1 17 (11.64%) Finance
2 15 (10.27%) Banking
2 15 (10.27%) Manufacturing
3 11 (7.53%) Electronics
3 11 (7.53%) Law
4 9 (6.16%) Aerospace
5 7 (4.79%) Social Skills
6 6 (4.11%) Analytical Skills
7 5 (3.42%) Military
8 3 (2.05%) Automotive
9 2 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.68%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (5.48%) .NET
2 7 (4.79%) Node.js
2 7 (4.79%) React
3 5 (3.42%) Web Services
4 4 (2.74%) Spring Boot
5 3 (2.05%) Spring
5 3 (2.05%) WinForms
5 3 (2.05%) WPF
6 1 (0.68%) AngularJS
6 1 (0.68%) CSS
6 1 (0.68%) HTML
6 1 (0.68%) OAuth
6 1 (0.68%) RESTful
6 1 (0.68%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 18 (12.33%) Embedded Systems
2 8 (5.48%) FPGA
2 8 (5.48%) PCIe
3 5 (3.42%) Product Ownership
3 5 (3.42%) RISC-V
4 4 (2.74%) Legacy Applications
5 2 (1.37%) Cloud Native
5 2 (1.37%) Onboarding
6 1 (0.68%) Device Driver
6 1 (0.68%) Distributed Systems
6 1 (0.68%) Genomics
6 1 (0.68%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.68%) Reinsurance
6 1 (0.68%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 9 (6.16%) Windows
2 8 (5.48%) FreeRTOS
3 7 (4.79%) Linux
4 2 (1.37%) VxWorks
5 1 (0.68%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (97.95%) Software Engineering
2 34 (23.29%) Agile
3 25 (17.12%) CI/CD
3 25 (17.12%) Software Testing
4 23 (15.75%) DevOps
5 18 (12.33%) Test Automation
6 16 (10.96%) Test Scripting
7 14 (9.59%) Problem-Solving
8 12 (8.22%) Continuous Integration
8 12 (8.22%) Identity Management
8 12 (8.22%) Load Balancing
9 11 (7.53%) Digital Signal Processing
9 11 (7.53%) Signal Processing
10 10 (6.85%) Identity Access Management
10 10 (6.85%) UML
10 10 (6.85%) Web Development
11 8 (5.48%) SysML
11 8 (5.48%) TDD
11 8 (5.48%) Validation
11 8 (5.48%) Verification and Validation
Programming Languages
1 43 (29.45%) C++
2 34 (23.29%) C
3 20 (13.70%) Ada
4 19 (13.01%) Java
5 18 (12.33%) C#
6 14 (9.59%) Embedded C
7 7 (4.79%) JavaScript
8 5 (3.42%) Python
8 5 (3.42%) TypeScript
9 2 (1.37%) Go
9 2 (1.37%) SQL
10 1 (0.68%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 34 (23.29%) Security Cleared
2 31 (21.23%) SC Cleared
3 2 (1.37%) BPSS Clearance
4 1 (0.68%) ISTQB
4 1 (0.68%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.79%) DO-178B
2 5 (3.42%) Def Stans
2 5 (3.42%) MISRA
3 3 (2.05%) QA
System Software
1 8 (5.48%) Firmware
2 3 (2.05%) Virtual Machines
2 3 (2.05%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 1 (0.68%) Ansible
Vendors
1 5 (3.42%) Microsoft
2 4 (2.74%) Google
3 3 (2.05%) Checkmarx
3 3 (2.05%) VMware
4 1 (0.68%) NVIDIA
4 1 (0.68%) Remedy