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 8 October 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 32 19
Rank change year-on-year +9 -13 +6
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 146 64 101
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 6.08% 4.80% 6.82%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.71% 5.67% 7.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 37 11 15
10th Percentile £74 £383 £385
25th Percentile £356 £431 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% - -2.44%
75th Percentile £600 £662 £550
90th Percentile £615 £675 £556
England median daily rate £550 £625 £625
% change year-on-year -12.00% - +5.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 79 37 44
10th Percentile £57.63 £31.25 £51.63
25th Percentile £65.00 - £61.25
Median hourly rate £68.21 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.94% - -
75th Percentile £71.73 £67.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £75.00 - £77.50
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.50
% change year-on-year - -0.76% +0.77%

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 2,176 1,128 1,322
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.59% 84.56% 89.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 846 507 547
10th Percentile £190 £190 £213
25th Percentile £353 £363 £306
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +11.11% -7.69%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £575
90th Percentile £713 £688 £630
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 653 279 289
10th Percentile £14.46 £13.80 £14.84
25th Percentile £20.44 £16.18 £21.25
Median hourly rate £48.84 £30.32 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year +61.08% -30.93% +18.73%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £75.00 £68.15
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -6.70%

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 8 October 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 8 October 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 8 October 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 +1 73 £775 +14.81% 33
Bedfordshire +25 31 £74 - 27
Essex 0 21 £597 +4.60% 13
Suffolk - 14 £406 - 11
Cambridgeshire -7 7 £425 +4.94% 204
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 8 October 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 40 (27.40%) C++
3 36 (24.66%) Agile
3 36 (24.66%) C
4 33 (22.60%) Security Cleared
5 31 (21.23%) CI/CD
6 30 (20.55%) SC Cleared
7 26 (17.81%) DevOps
8 25 (17.12%) Java
8 25 (17.12%) Software Testing
9 20 (13.70%) Test Automation
10 19 (13.01%) C#
11 18 (12.33%) Embedded C
11 18 (12.33%) Software-Defined Radio
12 17 (11.64%) Ada
12 17 (11.64%) Rational DOORS
13 15 (10.27%) Continuous Integration
13 15 (10.27%) GCP
13 15 (10.27%) Problem-Solving
13 15 (10.27%) Test Scripting
14 12 (8.22%) Firewall
14 12 (8.22%) Identity Management
14 12 (8.22%) Load Balancing
14 12 (8.22%) Relational Database
14 12 (8.22%) VPN
15 11 (7.53%) Ethernet
15 11 (7.53%) Identity Access Management
15 11 (7.53%) Visual Studio
15 11 (7.53%) Web Development
15 11 (7.53%) Windows

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 15 (10.27%) GCP
2 8 (5.48%) Azure
3 6 (4.11%) Azure DevOps
3 6 (4.11%) GitHub
4 5 (3.42%) GitHub Actions
5 2 (1.37%) AWS
Communications & Networking
1 18 (12.33%) Software-Defined Radio
2 12 (8.22%) Firewall
2 12 (8.22%) VPN
3 11 (7.53%) Ethernet
4 6 (4.11%) Wireless
5 5 (3.42%) TCP/IP
6 2 (1.37%) VoIP
7 1 (0.68%) Asterisk PBX
7 1 (0.68%) RTCP
7 1 (0.68%) RTP
7 1 (0.68%) Unified Communications
7 1 (0.68%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (8.22%) Relational Database
2 1 (0.68%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 17 (11.64%) Rational DOORS
2 11 (7.53%) Visual Studio
3 5 (3.42%) Eclipse
3 5 (3.42%) Git
3 5 (3.42%) Jenkins
4 3 (2.05%) CppUnit
4 3 (2.05%) JIRA
4 3 (2.05%) LabVIEW
4 3 (2.05%) PVCS
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%) IntelliJ
6 1 (0.68%) JUnit
6 1 (0.68%) SonarQube
General
1 14 (9.59%) Banking
1 14 (9.59%) Finance
2 13 (8.90%) Manufacturing
3 11 (7.53%) Telecoms
4 10 (6.85%) Electronics
4 10 (6.85%) Law
5 7 (4.79%) Aerospace
6 6 (4.11%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (4.11%) Social Skills
7 5 (3.42%) Military
8 3 (2.05%) Automotive
9 2 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (6.16%) .NET
2 6 (4.11%) WinForms
2 6 (4.11%) WPF
3 5 (3.42%) Node.js
3 5 (3.42%) Web Services
4 3 (2.05%) React
5 2 (1.37%) Servlets
5 2 (1.37%) Spring Boot
6 1 (0.68%) AngularJS
6 1 (0.68%) FreeSWITCH
6 1 (0.68%) OAuth
6 1 (0.68%) RESTful
6 1 (0.68%) Spring
6 1 (0.68%) WebRTC
Miscellaneous
1 16 (10.96%) Embedded Systems
2 6 (4.11%) FPGA
2 6 (4.11%) PCIe
3 5 (3.42%) RISC-V
4 4 (2.74%) Onboarding
5 3 (2.05%) Legacy Applications
5 3 (2.05%) Product Ownership
6 1 (0.68%) Distributed Systems
6 1 (0.68%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.68%) Reinsurance
6 1 (0.68%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 11 (7.53%) Windows
2 6 (4.11%) FreeRTOS
3 5 (3.42%) Linux
4 2 (1.37%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (97.95%) Software Engineering
2 36 (24.66%) Agile
3 31 (21.23%) CI/CD
4 26 (17.81%) DevOps
5 25 (17.12%) Software Testing
6 20 (13.70%) Test Automation
7 15 (10.27%) Continuous Integration
7 15 (10.27%) Problem-Solving
7 15 (10.27%) Test Scripting
8 12 (8.22%) Identity Management
8 12 (8.22%) Load Balancing
9 11 (7.53%) Identity Access Management
9 11 (7.53%) Web Development
10 10 (6.85%) Continuous Delivery
10 10 (6.85%) Validation
10 10 (6.85%) Verification and Validation
11 9 (6.16%) Digital Signal Processing
11 9 (6.16%) Signal Processing
12 8 (5.48%) OO
12 8 (5.48%) UML
Programming Languages
1 40 (27.40%) C++
2 36 (24.66%) C
3 25 (17.12%) Java
4 19 (13.01%) C#
5 18 (12.33%) Embedded C
6 17 (11.64%) Ada
7 6 (4.11%) Python
8 5 (3.42%) JavaScript
9 3 (2.05%) TypeScript
10 2 (1.37%) SQL
Qualifications
1 33 (22.60%) Security Cleared
2 30 (20.55%) 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 1 (0.68%) QA
System Software
1 7 (4.79%) Firmware
2 3 (2.05%) Virtual Machines
2 3 (2.05%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.68%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (0.68%) Ansible
1 1 (0.68%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 5 (3.42%) Microsoft
2 3 (2.05%) Google
2 3 (2.05%) VMware
3 2 (1.37%) Oracle
4 1 (0.68%) Checkmarx
4 1 (0.68%) Metaswitch
4 1 (0.68%) Remedy