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 2 October 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 362 341 300
Rank change year-on-year -21 -41 +153
Contract jobs requiring a Java Engineer 303 181 240
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.65% 0.65% 0.74%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.71% 0.71% 0.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 195 144 171
10th Percentile £331 £366 £475
25th Percentile £425 £519 £547
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £625 £800
Median % change year-on-year -16.00% -21.88% +35.59%
75th Percentile £603 £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 21 6 26
10th Percentile - £38.75 £66.25
25th Percentile £70.00 £49.38 -
Median hourly rate £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year - +7.14% +12.00%
75th Percentile £77.00 £85.63 -
90th Percentile - £87.50 -
UK median hourly rate £75.00 £75.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year - +7.14% +12.00%

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 42,886 25,528 30,220
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.14% 91.21% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,349 16,462 18,545
10th Percentile £325 £279 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.11%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £730 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,627 1,402 1,358
10th Percentile £14.59 £13.80 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.31 £21.37
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% -1.20%
75th Percentile £67.87 £52.50 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -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 2 October 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 2 October 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 2 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
London -85 146 £525 -30.00% 322
North of England -13 68 £500 -13.04% 79
Midlands -14 48 £590 +12.38% 24
West Midlands -4 42 £593 +12.32% 15
North West -13 41 £540 +77.05% 52
South East -50 21 £500 +44.93% 20
East of England -9 19 £600 - 3
Yorkshire -18 17 £470 +47.52% 14
North East -35 10 £640 +11.30% 13
South West -31 7 £484 -12.05% 64
East Midlands -11 6 £400 +26.98% 9
Java Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 October 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.

1 303 (100.00%) Java
2 157 (51.82%) Software Engineering
3 146 (48.18%) Spring
4 134 (44.22%) CI/CD
5 133 (43.89%) Spring Boot
6 112 (36.96%) AWS
7 111 (36.63%) Agile
8 101 (33.33%) Microservices
9 98 (32.34%) Kubernetes
10 73 (24.09%) Docker
11 69 (22.77%) Kafka
11 69 (22.77%) Test Automation
12 68 (22.44%) DevOps
13 65 (21.45%) Security Cleared
13 65 (21.45%) SQL
14 59 (19.47%) REST
15 58 (19.14%) Event-Driven
15 58 (19.14%) SC Cleared
16 45 (14.85%) Git
17 44 (14.52%) AI
17 44 (14.52%) TDD
18 43 (14.19%) Azure
19 42 (13.86%) JUnit
19 42 (13.86%) QA
20 40 (13.20%) Event-Driven Architecture
20 40 (13.20%) GitLab
21 37 (12.21%) Problem-Solving
21 37 (12.21%) Scrum
21 37 (12.21%) SDLC
22 34 (11.22%) Observability

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 (2.31%) WebLogic
2 5 (1.65%) Apache
2 5 (1.65%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.99%) Confluence
4 2 (0.66%) Ethereum
4 2 (0.66%) MQSeries
4 2 (0.66%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.33%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 3 (0.99%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (0.66%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 112 (36.96%) AWS
2 43 (14.19%) Azure
3 25 (8.25%) GCP
4 20 (6.60%) GitHub
5 16 (5.28%) Serverless
6 15 (4.95%) AWS Lambda
7 12 (3.96%) GitHub Actions
7 12 (3.96%) OpenShift
8 8 (2.64%) Amazon ECS
8 8 (2.64%) Amazon SQS
8 8 (2.64%) AWS CloudFormation
9 7 (2.31%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 6 (1.98%) Amazon EKS
10 6 (1.98%) GitHub Copilot
11 5 (1.65%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 5 (1.65%) Amazon S3
12 4 (1.32%) AWS Fargate
12 4 (1.32%) Azure DevOps
12 4 (1.32%) Snowflake
13 3 (0.99%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 11 (3.63%) Firewall
1 11 (3.63%) VPN
2 5 (1.65%) HTTP
3 4 (1.32%) Internet
4 1 (0.33%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (9.24%) PostgreSQL
2 24 (7.92%) Relational Database
3 20 (6.60%) NoSQL
4 12 (3.96%) MongoDB
4 12 (3.96%) MySQL
5 9 (2.97%) DynamoDB
6 8 (2.64%) Couchbase
7 7 (2.31%) Redis
7 7 (2.31%) SQL Server
8 6 (1.98%) Apache Cassandra
8 6 (1.98%) Elasticsearch
9 4 (1.32%) Flink
10 3 (0.99%) Data Lake
10 3 (0.99%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.99%) Power BI
11 2 (0.66%) Big Data
11 2 (0.66%) HBase
11 2 (0.66%) Snowflake Schema
11 2 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 1 (0.33%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 45 (14.85%) Git
2 42 (13.86%) JUnit
3 40 (13.20%) GitLab
4 30 (9.90%) Maven
5 20 (6.60%) Mockito
6 15 (4.95%) Gradle
6 15 (4.95%) Jenkins
7 13 (4.29%) SonarQube
8 10 (3.30%) Cucumber
9 8 (2.64%) JIRA
9 8 (2.64%) Selenium
10 6 (1.98%) Bitbucket
11 5 (1.65%) TeamCity
12 4 (1.32%) Gatling
12 4 (1.32%) Liquibase
13 3 (0.99%) Cypress.io
14 2 (0.66%) Appium
14 2 (0.66%) Flyway
14 2 (0.66%) IntelliJ
14 2 (0.66%) XCUITest
General
1 80 (26.40%) Finance
2 62 (20.46%) Social Skills
3 55 (18.15%) Banking
4 13 (4.29%) Manufacturing
5 12 (3.96%) Front Office
5 12 (3.96%) Retail
6 9 (2.97%) Public Sector
7 8 (2.64%) Analytical Skills
8 5 (1.65%) Financial Institution
9 4 (1.32%) iGaming
9 4 (1.32%) Investment Banking
9 4 (1.32%) Law
9 4 (1.32%) Retail Banking
10 3 (0.99%) Automotive
10 3 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.99%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (0.66%) Corporate Banking
11 2 (0.66%) Military
12 1 (0.33%) Back Office
12 1 (0.33%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 146 (48.18%) Spring
2 133 (43.89%) Spring Boot
3 69 (22.77%) Kafka
4 59 (19.47%) REST
5 26 (8.58%) React
6 24 (7.92%) RESTful
7 20 (6.60%) OpenAPI
8 18 (5.94%) AngularJS
9 17 (5.61%) JPA
10 16 (5.28%) Terraform
11 12 (3.96%) JSON
12 11 (3.63%) RabbitMQ
12 11 (3.63%) Swagger
13 10 (3.30%) OAuth
13 10 (3.30%) Quarkus
14 8 (2.64%) Hibernate
14 8 (2.64%) Node.js
14 8 (2.64%) Spring MVC
15 6 (1.98%) GraphQL
16 5 (1.65%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 66 (21.78%) Cloud Native
2 56 (18.48%) Distributed Systems
3 12 (3.96%) Enterprise Software
3 12 (3.96%) Greenfield Project
3 12 (3.96%) Product Ownership
4 9 (2.97%) AI Agents
5 8 (2.64%) Onboarding
6 6 (1.98%) Data Structures
6 6 (1.98%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (1.98%) Linux Command Line
7 5 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.65%) Legacy Applications
7 5 (1.65%) Virtual Team
8 4 (1.32%) Client/Server
8 4 (1.32%) Low-Code
8 4 (1.32%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.32%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 4 (1.32%) TWAP
8 4 (1.32%) VWAP
9 3 (0.99%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 18 (5.94%) Linux
2 12 (3.96%) Unix
3 2 (0.66%) Android
3 2 (0.66%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 157 (51.82%) Software Engineering
2 134 (44.22%) CI/CD
3 111 (36.63%) Agile
4 101 (33.33%) Microservices
5 69 (22.77%) Test Automation
6 68 (22.44%) DevOps
7 58 (19.14%) Event-Driven
8 44 (14.52%) AI
8 44 (14.52%) TDD
9 40 (13.20%) Event-Driven Architecture
10 37 (12.21%) Problem-Solving
10 37 (12.21%) Scrum
10 37 (12.21%) SDLC
11 34 (11.22%) Observability
12 33 (10.89%) Clean Code
12 33 (10.89%) Full-Stack Development
13 31 (10.23%) Containerisation
14 30 (9.90%) Front End Development
15 28 (9.24%) Unit Testing
16 26 (8.58%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 303 (100.00%) Java
2 65 (21.45%) SQL
3 33 (10.89%) Python
4 29 (9.57%) JavaScript
5 28 (9.24%) Kotlin
6 23 (7.59%) TypeScript
7 18 (5.94%) Shell Script
8 4 (1.32%) C#
8 4 (1.32%) Groovy
8 4 (1.32%) PowerShell
9 3 (0.99%) Bash
9 3 (0.99%) PL/SQL
9 3 (0.99%) Ruby
10 2 (0.66%) C++
10 2 (0.66%) Solidity
10 2 (0.66%) Swift
11 1 (0.33%) Go
11 1 (0.33%) Korn
11 1 (0.33%) Rust
11 1 (0.33%) Scala
Qualifications
1 65 (21.45%) Security Cleared
2 58 (19.14%) SC Cleared
3 28 (9.24%) BPSS Clearance
4 8 (2.64%) Degree
5 6 (1.98%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (0.99%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.33%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.33%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (13.86%) QA
2 9 (2.97%) ISO 20022
3 5 (1.65%) SEPA
4 4 (1.32%) Accessibility
5 3 (0.99%) GDPR
5 3 (0.99%) ISO 15022
5 3 (0.99%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 3 (0.99%) SLA
5 3 (0.99%) WCAG
6 2 (0.66%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.33%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.33%) PSD2
System Software
1 73 (24.09%) Docker
Systems Management
1 98 (32.34%) Kubernetes
2 12 (3.96%) Argo
2 12 (3.96%) Kibana
3 5 (1.65%) Prometheus
4 4 (1.32%) Ansible
5 2 (0.66%) Grafana
5 2 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.33%) Docker Swarm
6 1 (0.33%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 27 (8.91%) Oracle
2 9 (2.97%) Red Hat
3 8 (2.64%) Microsoft
4 5 (1.65%) Confluent
4 5 (1.65%) Databricks
4 5 (1.65%) Google
4 5 (1.65%) Splunk
5 4 (1.32%) Dynatrace
5 4 (1.32%) SAP
6 3 (0.99%) FIS
6 3 (0.99%) IBM
7 2 (0.66%) MKS
7 2 (0.66%) OpenAI
7 2 (0.66%) ServiceNow
8 1 (0.33%) Ariba
8 1 (0.33%) Checkmarx
8 1 (0.33%) Concur