Software Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Software Engineer
UK > England

The median Software Engineer daily rate in England is £568, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 21 July 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 94 130 68
Rank change year-on-year +36 -62 +63
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,209 595 1,089
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.70% 2.18% 3.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.91% 2.38% 3.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 548 397 594
10th Percentile £400 £412 £425
25th Percentile £474 £485 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £568 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -9.20% -3.85% +10.17%
75th Percentile £688 £838 £800
90th Percentile £788 £875 £875
UK median daily rate £570 £600 £630
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% +9.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 332 55 296
10th Percentile £52.50 £34.20 £48.00
25th Percentile £61.25 £60.13 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.38 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £79.00 £76.25
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

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 41,476 25,032 32,906
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.50% 91.85% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,274 16,261 21,669
10th Percentile £325 £290 £300
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,987 1,247 2,188
10th Percentile £16.00 £13.75 £13.50
25th Percentile £22.15 £17.87 £18.13
Median hourly rate £45.56 £27.40 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +66.26% -35.53% -3.53%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.44 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.52 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £44.10 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +75.33% -37.13% -6.98%

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in 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 England.

Software Engineer job vacancy trend in England

Software Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in England

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

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

Software Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineer in England over the 6 months to 21 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineer in England

Software Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in England

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

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

Software Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineer in England over the 6 months to 21 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineer in England

Software 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 Software Engineer within the England region over the 6 months to 21 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
London -38 384 £625 -16.67% 495
South West +58 252 £543 -5.65% 117
North of England +20 199 £525 +10.53% 144
South East +20 156 £530 +1.92% 150
East of England +34 148 £505 +1.00% 107
North West +8 130 £550 +22.22% 82
Midlands -13 52 £450 - 64
Yorkshire -27 49 £481 -1.79% 38
West Midlands -22 39 £450 - 22
North East -21 22 £52 - 24
East Midlands -8 13 £473 -0.53% 42
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 21 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 England region featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 1,193 (98.68%) Software Engineering
2 334 (27.63%) Agile
3 312 (25.81%) Java
4 292 (24.15%) Security Cleared
5 277 (22.91%) CI/CD
6 262 (21.67%) Python
7 258 (21.34%) AWS
8 245 (20.26%) SC Cleared
9 178 (14.72%) C++
10 166 (13.73%) TypeScript
11 161 (13.32%) React
12 156 (12.90%) C#
13 140 (11.58%) Full-Stack Development
14 138 (11.41%) JavaScript
15 131 (10.84%) Docker
16 130 (10.75%) DevOps
17 126 (10.42%) Microservices
18 124 (10.26%) SQL
19 118 (9.76%) AI
20 116 (9.59%) Kubernetes
21 115 (9.51%) Azure
22 114 (9.43%) Linux
23 111 (9.18%) Test Automation
24 103 (8.52%) .NET
25 102 (8.44%) Ada
26 101 (8.35%) Node.js
27 94 (7.78%) Kafka
28 91 (7.53%) Problem-Solving
29 87 (7.20%) Git
30 85 (7.03%) TDD

Software 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 14 (1.16%) Confluence
2 12 (0.99%) Apache Spark
3 8 (0.66%) Apache
4 4 (0.33%) CMS
5 3 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.25%) nginx
5 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.17%) MQSeries
6 2 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
6 2 (0.17%) SAS
6 2 (0.17%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.17%) WinCC
6 2 (0.17%) WordPress
7 1 (0.083%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.083%) Apache Solr
7 1 (0.083%) Apache Synapse
7 1 (0.083%) IIS
7 1 (0.083%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.083%) SharePoint
7 1 (0.083%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (0.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (0.17%) MS Visio
1 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
1 2 (0.17%) Trello
2 1 (0.083%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.083%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 3 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 258 (21.34%) AWS
2 115 (9.51%) Azure
3 70 (5.79%) GCP
4 58 (4.80%) GitHub
5 53 (4.38%) Serverless
6 37 (3.06%) AWS Lambda
7 28 (2.32%) GitHub Actions
8 25 (2.07%) OpenShift
9 24 (1.99%) Amazon S3
10 20 (1.65%) Amazon SQS
11 18 (1.49%) Amazon ECS
12 17 (1.41%) Amazon EC2
13 13 (1.08%) Amazon EKS
14 12 (0.99%) SaaS
15 10 (0.83%) Anthropic Claude
15 10 (0.83%) Azure DevOps
16 9 (0.74%) Power Platform
17 7 (0.58%) Amazon EventBridge
17 7 (0.58%) AWS CloudFormation
17 7 (0.58%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 27 (2.23%) Software-Defined Radio
2 23 (1.90%) Wireless
3 20 (1.65%) Ethernet
4 15 (1.24%) TCP/IP
5 12 (0.99%) HTTP
6 11 (0.91%) Firewall
7 9 (0.74%) 3GPP
7 9 (0.74%) VPN
8 8 (0.66%) RTP
9 7 (0.58%) Wireshark
10 4 (0.33%) Internet
11 3 (0.25%) Network Security
12 2 (0.17%) DNS
12 2 (0.17%) RS-232
12 2 (0.17%) RS-422
13 1 (0.083%) BGP
13 1 (0.083%) HTTPS
13 1 (0.083%) MQTT
13 1 (0.083%) RS-485
13 1 (0.083%) RTCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (5.87%) PostgreSQL
2 45 (3.72%) Relational Database
3 38 (3.14%) SQL Server
4 27 (2.23%) NoSQL
5 16 (1.32%) DynamoDB
5 16 (1.32%) Elasticsearch
6 14 (1.16%) MongoDB
7 10 (0.83%) Apache Cassandra
7 10 (0.83%) MySQL
8 9 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
9 6 (0.50%) Metadata
9 6 (0.50%) Redis
10 5 (0.41%) Big Data
10 5 (0.41%) Power BI
11 4 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
11 4 (0.33%) GIS
11 4 (0.33%) Hadoop
12 3 (0.25%) Amazon Athena
12 3 (0.25%) Data Hub
12 3 (0.25%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 87 (7.20%) Git
2 60 (4.96%) Jenkins
3 50 (4.14%) GitLab
4 29 (2.40%) JIRA
5 21 (1.74%) JUnit
6 18 (1.49%) SonarQube
6 18 (1.49%) Visual Studio
7 17 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
8 14 (1.16%) Rational Rhapsody
9 13 (1.08%) Gradle
10 11 (0.91%) Eclipse
10 11 (0.91%) Liquibase
10 11 (0.91%) Mockito
11 9 (0.74%) Selenium
12 8 (0.66%) Bitbucket
12 8 (0.66%) IntelliJ
13 7 (0.58%) Cucumber
13 7 (0.58%) LabVIEW
13 7 (0.58%) TeamCity
14 6 (0.50%) Mocha
General
1 168 (13.90%) Finance
2 122 (10.09%) Social Skills
3 66 (5.46%) Aerospace
4 59 (4.88%) Front Office
5 58 (4.80%) Banking
6 52 (4.30%) Public Sector
7 40 (3.31%) Analytical Skills
8 29 (2.40%) Law
9 25 (2.07%) Manufacturing
10 19 (1.57%) Retail
11 17 (1.41%) Aviation
12 16 (1.32%) Automotive
13 13 (1.08%) Electronics
14 12 (0.99%) Military
15 11 (0.91%) Investment Banking
16 8 (0.66%) Back Office
16 8 (0.66%) Telecoms
17 7 (0.58%) Avionics
18 5 (0.41%) Fire and Rescue
18 5 (0.41%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 161 (13.32%) React
2 103 (8.52%) .NET
3 101 (8.35%) Node.js
4 94 (7.78%) Kafka
5 83 (6.87%) Spring
6 78 (6.45%) Spring Boot
7 67 (5.54%) REST
8 56 (4.63%) Redux
9 54 (4.47%) AngularJS
10 52 (4.30%) GraphQL
11 38 (3.14%) RESTful
12 33 (2.73%) Django
13 24 (1.99%) Next.js
14 23 (1.90%) CSS
15 21 (1.74%) HTML
16 19 (1.57%) FastAPI
17 17 (1.41%) .NET Core
18 16 (1.32%) Web Services
19 15 (1.24%) Vue
20 14 (1.16%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 111 (9.18%) Cloud Native
2 76 (6.29%) Distributed Systems
3 61 (5.05%) Fixed Income
4 44 (3.64%) Algorithms
5 34 (2.81%) Product Ownership
6 30 (2.48%) Embedded Systems
7 21 (1.74%) Derivative
8 20 (1.65%) AI Agents
9 17 (1.41%) Onboarding
10 16 (1.32%) Legacy Systems
11 15 (1.24%) Equities
11 15 (1.24%) Self-Motivation
12 13 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
13 11 (0.91%) Data Structures
14 10 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
14 10 (0.83%) RISC-V
15 9 (0.74%) FPGA
15 9 (0.74%) Greenfield Project
16 8 (0.66%) Data Centre
16 8 (0.66%) PCIe
Operating Systems
1 114 (9.43%) Linux
2 38 (3.14%) Windows
3 17 (1.41%) Embedded Linux
4 15 (1.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 12 (0.99%) Unix
6 11 (0.91%) FreeRTOS
7 8 (0.66%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.50%) Windows Server
9 5 (0.41%) Android
10 3 (0.25%) Debian
10 3 (0.25%) Rocky
10 3 (0.25%) Solaris
10 3 (0.25%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
10 3 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.17%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.083%) Tizen
12 1 (0.083%) webOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,193 (98.68%) Software Engineering
2 334 (27.63%) Agile
3 277 (22.91%) CI/CD
4 140 (11.58%) Full-Stack Development
5 130 (10.75%) DevOps
6 126 (10.42%) Microservices
7 118 (9.76%) AI
8 111 (9.18%) Test Automation
9 91 (7.53%) Problem-Solving
10 85 (7.03%) TDD
11 74 (6.12%) Continuous Improvement
12 68 (5.62%) Containerisation
13 66 (5.46%) Mentoring
13 66 (5.46%) Software Testing
14 63 (5.21%) Infrastructure as Code
15 62 (5.13%) Machine Learning
16 60 (4.96%) SDLC
17 58 (4.80%) Event-Driven
18 55 (4.55%) Clean Code
19 54 (4.47%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 312 (25.81%) Java
2 262 (21.67%) Python
3 178 (14.72%) C++
4 166 (13.73%) TypeScript
5 156 (12.90%) C#
6 138 (11.41%) JavaScript
7 124 (10.26%) SQL
8 102 (8.44%) Ada
9 75 (6.20%) C
10 73 (6.04%) Go
11 29 (2.40%) Kotlin
12 23 (1.90%) Rust
13 19 (1.57%) Embedded C
13 19 (1.57%) PowerShell
14 14 (1.16%) PHP
15 13 (1.08%) MATLAB
16 12 (0.99%) PL/SQL
17 10 (0.83%) Bash
18 8 (0.66%) R
19 6 (0.50%) Scala
Qualifications
1 292 (24.15%) Security Cleared
2 245 (20.26%) SC Cleared
3 51 (4.22%) Degree
4 36 (2.98%) DV Cleared
5 20 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
5 20 (1.65%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (0.74%) AWS Certification
6 9 (0.74%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 5 (0.41%) ISTQB
7 5 (0.41%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 3 (0.25%) Chartered Engineer
8 3 (0.25%) PhD
9 2 (0.17%) CCNP
9 2 (0.17%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (0.17%) HNC
9 2 (0.17%) HND
9 2 (0.17%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 1 (0.083%) CCDP
10 1 (0.083%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (3.56%) QA
2 18 (1.49%) Def Stans
3 14 (1.16%) IEC 61508
4 12 (0.99%) MISRA
5 10 (0.83%) Data Quality
6 9 (0.74%) Accessibility
6 9 (0.74%) GDPR
7 8 (0.66%) DO-178B
8 5 (0.41%) WCAG
9 4 (0.33%) MISRA C
9 4 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.17%) ISO 26262
10 2 (0.17%) NCSC
11 1 (0.083%) FATCA
11 1 (0.083%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 1 (0.083%) MIL-STD-1553
11 1 (0.083%) NIST
System Software
1 131 (10.84%) Docker
2 14 (1.16%) Firmware
3 5 (0.41%) Embedded Firmware
4 2 (0.17%) HDFS
4 2 (0.17%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.083%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 116 (9.59%) Kubernetes
2 65 (5.38%) Terraform
3 18 (1.49%) Ansible
4 16 (1.32%) Grafana
5 13 (1.08%) Argo
6 9 (0.74%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.33%) Control-M
7 4 (0.33%) Kibana
7 4 (0.33%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.25%) Functional Safety
9 2 (0.17%) Cilium
9 2 (0.17%) HAProxy
9 2 (0.17%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.17%) Puppet
10 1 (0.083%) CA Endevor
10 1 (0.083%) PTC Integrity
Vendors
1 37 (3.06%) Microsoft
2 25 (2.07%) Oracle
3 22 (1.82%) Red Hat
4 21 (1.74%) Google
5 10 (0.83%) IBM
6 8 (0.66%) SAP
7 7 (0.58%) Splunk
8 6 (0.50%) OpenAI
8 6 (0.50%) Siemens
9 5 (0.41%) MathWorks
10 4 (0.33%) Checkmarx
10 4 (0.33%) Databricks
10 4 (0.33%) Sybase
11 3 (0.25%) Hitachi
11 3 (0.25%) Informatica
11 3 (0.25%) Talend
12 2 (0.17%) Ariba
12 2 (0.17%) Foundry
12 2 (0.17%) Palantir
12 2 (0.17%) Salesforce