Java Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Java Engineer
UK > England

The median Java Engineer daily rate in England is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 September 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 362 322 297
Rank change year-on-year -40 -25 +142
Contract jobs requiring a Java Engineer 299 183 252
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.65% 0.67% 0.78%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.70% 0.73% 0.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 193 137 181
10th Percentile £330 £390 £475
25th Percentile £425 £520 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £675 £800
Median % change year-on-year -22.22% -15.63% +35.59%
75th Percentile £600 £825 £850
90th Percentile £660 £850 £888
UK median daily rate £525 £600 £750
% change year-on-year -12.50% -20.00% +25.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 6 25
10th Percentile - £38.75 £66.25
25th Percentile - £49.38 -
Median hourly rate £70.00 £75.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +7.14% +27.27%
75th Percentile £76.25 £85.63 -
90th Percentile £77.00 £87.50 -
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £80.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year -12.50% +14.29% +27.27%

All Contract IT Job Roles
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in 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 England with a recognized job title 42,705 25,037 30,206
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 91.31% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,379 16,124 18,786
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £401 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -3.98%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,515 1,363 1,435
10th Percentile £14.87 £13.75 £14.84
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £43.61 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +73.38% -45.54% +2.62%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.87 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%

Java Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Java Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Java Engineer job vacancy trend in England

Java Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Java Engineer job vacancies in England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Java Engineer job vacancies in England

Java Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Java Engineer in England over the 6 months to 22 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Java Engineer in England

Java Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Java Engineer job vacancies in England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Java Engineer job vacancies in England

Java Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Java Engineer in England over the 6 months to 22 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Java Engineer in England

Java Engineer
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Java Engineer within the England region over the 6 months to 22 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
London -78 146 £525 -30.00% 279
North of England -9 71 £500 -13.04% 85
Midlands -19 40 £593 +12.86% 22
North West -18 39 £540 +77.05% 50
West Midlands -20 34 £595 +12.80% 15
South East -49 23 £500 - 23
Yorkshire -27 19 £475 +49.09% 20
East of England -19 16 £585 -2.50% 1
North East -25 13 £640 +11.30% 15
South West -32 8 £484 -12.05% 57
East Midlands -11 6 £400 +26.98% 7
Java Engineer
UK

Java Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 22 September 2026, Java 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 England region featuring Java Engineer in the job title.

1 299 (100.00%) Java
2 162 (54.18%) Software Engineering
3 139 (46.49%) Spring
4 130 (43.48%) Spring Boot
5 126 (42.14%) CI/CD
6 109 (36.45%) Agile
7 105 (35.12%) AWS
8 97 (32.44%) Microservices
9 94 (31.44%) Kubernetes
10 71 (23.75%) Docker
11 69 (23.08%) DevOps
11 69 (23.08%) Security Cleared
12 66 (22.07%) SQL
12 66 (22.07%) Test Automation
13 65 (21.74%) Kafka
14 62 (20.74%) SC Cleared
15 54 (18.06%) Event-Driven
15 54 (18.06%) REST
16 40 (13.38%) Event-Driven Architecture
16 40 (13.38%) Git
16 40 (13.38%) QA
16 40 (13.38%) TDD
17 39 (13.04%) AI
17 39 (13.04%) JUnit
17 39 (13.04%) SDLC
18 38 (12.71%) Azure
19 36 (12.04%) Problem-Solving
19 36 (12.04%) Scrum
20 34 (11.37%) Observability
21 33 (11.04%) Front End Development

Java Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in 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 7 (2.34%) WebLogic
2 6 (2.01%) Apache Spark
3 3 (1.00%) Apache
3 3 (1.00%) Confluence
3 3 (1.00%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 2 (0.67%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.67%) MQSeries
5 1 (0.33%) Apache Pulsar
5 1 (0.33%) Ethereum
5 1 (0.33%) nginx
5 1 (0.33%) Tomcat
Applications
1 3 (1.00%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (0.67%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 105 (35.12%) AWS
2 38 (12.71%) Azure
3 24 (8.03%) GCP
4 18 (6.02%) GitHub
5 16 (5.35%) OpenShift
5 16 (5.35%) Serverless
6 15 (5.02%) AWS Lambda
7 13 (4.35%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (2.68%) Amazon ECS
8 8 (2.68%) Amazon SQS
8 8 (2.68%) AWS CloudFormation
9 7 (2.34%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 5 (1.67%) Amazon EKS
10 5 (1.67%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 5 (1.67%) Amazon S3
11 4 (1.34%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (1.34%) GitHub Copilot
11 4 (1.34%) Snowflake
12 3 (1.00%) AWS Fargate
12 3 (1.00%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 10 (3.34%) Firewall
1 10 (3.34%) VPN
2 5 (1.67%) HTTP
3 4 (1.34%) Internet
4 1 (0.33%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (9.36%) PostgreSQL
2 25 (8.36%) Relational Database
3 19 (6.35%) NoSQL
4 13 (4.35%) MySQL
5 10 (3.34%) DynamoDB
6 9 (3.01%) MongoDB
7 8 (2.68%) Couchbase
8 7 (2.34%) Elasticsearch
8 7 (2.34%) SQL Server
9 6 (2.01%) Apache Cassandra
9 6 (2.01%) Redis
10 3 (1.00%) Big Data
10 3 (1.00%) Data Lake
10 3 (1.00%) Oracle Database
10 3 (1.00%) Power BI
11 2 (0.67%) Flink
11 2 (0.67%) HBase
11 2 (0.67%) Snowflake Schema
11 2 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 1 (0.33%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 40 (13.38%) Git
2 39 (13.04%) JUnit
3 32 (10.70%) GitLab
4 28 (9.36%) Maven
5 19 (6.35%) Mockito
6 16 (5.35%) Jenkins
7 15 (5.02%) SonarQube
8 13 (4.35%) Gradle
9 8 (2.68%) JIRA
10 7 (2.34%) Cucumber
11 6 (2.01%) Bitbucket
11 6 (2.01%) Selenium
12 5 (1.67%) TeamCity
13 4 (1.34%) Liquibase
14 3 (1.00%) Cypress.io
15 2 (0.67%) Appium
15 2 (0.67%) Flyway
15 2 (0.67%) Gatling
15 2 (0.67%) Katalon Studio
15 2 (0.67%) REST Assured
General
1 81 (27.09%) Finance
2 57 (19.06%) Social Skills
3 52 (17.39%) Banking
4 12 (4.01%) Front Office
4 12 (4.01%) Manufacturing
5 10 (3.34%) Public Sector
6 9 (3.01%) Retail
7 7 (2.34%) Analytical Skills
8 5 (1.67%) Financial Institution
9 4 (1.34%) iGaming
9 4 (1.34%) Law
9 4 (1.34%) Retail Banking
10 3 (1.00%) Automotive
10 3 (1.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (1.00%) Investment Banking
10 3 (1.00%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (0.67%) Corporate Banking
11 2 (0.67%) Military
12 1 (0.33%) Back Office
12 1 (0.33%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 139 (46.49%) Spring
2 130 (43.48%) Spring Boot
3 65 (21.74%) Kafka
4 54 (18.06%) REST
5 24 (8.03%) React
6 23 (7.69%) RESTful
7 22 (7.36%) AngularJS
8 18 (6.02%) OpenAPI
9 16 (5.35%) JPA
10 15 (5.02%) Quarkus
10 15 (5.02%) Terraform
11 10 (3.34%) Swagger
12 8 (2.68%) Node.js
12 8 (2.68%) OAuth
13 7 (2.34%) Hibernate
13 7 (2.34%) JSON
13 7 (2.34%) RabbitMQ
13 7 (2.34%) Spring MVC
14 6 (2.01%) GraphQL
15 5 (1.67%) FIX Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 63 (21.07%) Cloud Native
2 52 (17.39%) Distributed Systems
3 13 (4.35%) Greenfield Project
4 12 (4.01%) Product Ownership
5 11 (3.68%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (2.68%) AI Agents
6 8 (2.68%) Onboarding
7 7 (2.34%) Data Structures
8 6 (2.01%) Legacy Applications
8 6 (2.01%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.67%) Linux Command Line
9 5 (1.67%) Virtual Team
10 4 (1.34%) Algorithms
10 4 (1.34%) Client/Server
10 4 (1.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 4 (1.34%) Public Cloud
10 4 (1.34%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 4 (1.34%) TWAP
10 4 (1.34%) VWAP
Operating Systems
1 19 (6.35%) Linux
2 12 (4.01%) Unix
3 2 (0.67%) Android
3 2 (0.67%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.33%) Solaris
4 1 (0.33%) Windows
4 1 (0.33%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.33%) Windows Server 2008
4 1 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 162 (54.18%) Software Engineering
2 126 (42.14%) CI/CD
3 109 (36.45%) Agile
4 97 (32.44%) Microservices
5 69 (23.08%) DevOps
6 66 (22.07%) Test Automation
7 54 (18.06%) Event-Driven
8 40 (13.38%) Event-Driven Architecture
8 40 (13.38%) TDD
9 39 (13.04%) AI
9 39 (13.04%) SDLC
10 36 (12.04%) Problem-Solving
10 36 (12.04%) Scrum
11 34 (11.37%) Observability
12 33 (11.04%) Front End Development
12 33 (11.04%) Full-Stack Development
13 32 (10.70%) Unit Testing
14 31 (10.37%) Clean Code
14 31 (10.37%) Containerisation
15 24 (8.03%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 299 (100.00%) Java
2 66 (22.07%) SQL
3 30 (10.03%) Python
4 27 (9.03%) Kotlin
5 26 (8.70%) JavaScript
6 22 (7.36%) TypeScript
7 17 (5.69%) Shell Script
8 4 (1.34%) C#
8 4 (1.34%) C++
8 4 (1.34%) Groovy
8 4 (1.34%) PL/SQL
8 4 (1.34%) PowerShell
9 3 (1.00%) Bash
9 3 (1.00%) Ruby
10 2 (0.67%) Swift
11 1 (0.33%) Go
11 1 (0.33%) Korn
11 1 (0.33%) Rust
11 1 (0.33%) Scala
11 1 (0.33%) Solidity
Qualifications
1 69 (23.08%) Security Cleared
2 62 (20.74%) SC Cleared
3 22 (7.36%) BPSS Clearance
4 10 (3.34%) Degree
5 7 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.00%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.33%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.33%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.33%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (13.38%) QA
2 9 (3.01%) ISO 20022
3 5 (1.67%) SEPA
4 3 (1.00%) Accessibility
4 3 (1.00%) Data Quality
4 3 (1.00%) GDPR
4 3 (1.00%) ISO 15022
4 3 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 3 (1.00%) SLA
5 1 (0.33%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.33%) PSD2
5 1 (0.33%) WCAG
System Software
1 71 (23.75%) Docker
2 1 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (0.33%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
2 1 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.33%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 94 (31.44%) Kubernetes
2 15 (5.02%) Argo
3 12 (4.01%) Kibana
4 6 (2.01%) Prometheus
5 5 (1.67%) Ansible
6 3 (1.00%) Grafana
7 2 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.33%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.33%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.33%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.33%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 24 (8.03%) Oracle
2 13 (4.35%) Red Hat
3 8 (2.68%) Microsoft
4 7 (2.34%) Google
5 5 (1.67%) Confluent
5 5 (1.67%) IBM
5 5 (1.67%) Splunk
6 4 (1.34%) Databricks
6 4 (1.34%) Dynatrace
6 4 (1.34%) SAP
7 3 (1.00%) FIS
8 2 (0.67%) MKS
8 2 (0.67%) OpenAI
8 2 (0.67%) ServiceNow
9 1 (0.33%) Ariba
9 1 (0.33%) Checkmarx
9 1 (0.33%) Concur
9 1 (0.33%) Solace
9 1 (0.33%) VMware