Software Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Software Engineer
UK > England

The median Software Engineer daily rate in England is £575, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 29 July 2026.

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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 96 129 67
Rank change year-on-year +33 -62 +60
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,209 613 1,053
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.70% 2.23% 3.09%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.91% 2.43% 3.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 558 404 587
10th Percentile £400 £410 £439
25th Percentile £475 £481 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £632 £650
Median % change year-on-year -8.98% -2.81% +13.04%
75th Percentile £688 £838 £800
90th Percentile £788 £875 £888
UK median daily rate £575 £625 £636
% change year-on-year -8.00% -1.77% +10.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 323 58 270
10th Percentile £52.50 £31.25 £47.95
25th Percentile £60.50 £59.00 £55.15
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £68.65 £67.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £78.25 £75.25
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 41,522 25,227 31,663
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.61% 91.72% 92.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,267 16,394 20,893
10th Percentile £329 £288 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £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 3,038 1,280 1,957
10th Percentile £15.99 £13.74 £14.05
25th Percentile £22.13 £17.79 £20.00
Median hourly rate £45.56 £26.02 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +75.08% -39.49% -1.58%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.62 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.02 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.61 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +73.38% -40.82% -1.88%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -34 397 £631 -15.83% 592
South West +61 243 £543 -5.65% 116
North of England +8 195 £525 +8.81% 140
South East +34 157 £530 +6.00% 149
East of England +26 146 £505 +1.00% 97
North West +2 124 £550 +15.79% 89
Midlands -21 55 £450 +0.56% 61
Yorkshire -18 52 £475 -3.06% 29
West Midlands -26 40 £450 - 29
North East -27 21 - - 22
East Midlands -6 15 £473 -0.53% 32
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 29 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 1,194 (98.76%) Software Engineering
2 337 (27.87%) Agile
3 318 (26.30%) Java
4 294 (24.32%) Security Cleared
5 283 (23.41%) CI/CD
6 279 (23.08%) Python
7 257 (21.26%) AWS
8 248 (20.51%) SC Cleared
9 170 (14.06%) C++
10 163 (13.48%) TypeScript
11 160 (13.23%) React
12 158 (13.07%) C#
13 143 (11.83%) Full-Stack Development
14 142 (11.75%) JavaScript
15 135 (11.17%) DevOps
16 131 (10.84%) Docker
17 128 (10.59%) Microservices
17 128 (10.59%) SQL
18 120 (9.93%) AI
19 117 (9.68%) Kubernetes
20 114 (9.43%) Linux
21 113 (9.35%) Azure
22 110 (9.10%) Test Automation
23 105 (8.68%) .NET
24 103 (8.52%) Node.js
25 101 (8.35%) Ada
26 93 (7.69%) Kafka
27 90 (7.44%) Problem-Solving
28 87 (7.20%) Git
29 84 (6.95%) Spring

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 11 (0.91%) Apache Spark
3 7 (0.58%) Apache
4 4 (0.33%) CMS
5 3 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.25%) Apache Solr
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 Pulsar
7 1 (0.083%) IIS
7 1 (0.083%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.083%) SharePoint
7 1 (0.083%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 3 (0.25%) Trello
2 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 2 (0.17%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.083%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.083%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 4 (0.33%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 257 (21.26%) AWS
2 113 (9.35%) Azure
3 66 (5.46%) GCP
4 59 (4.88%) GitHub
5 52 (4.30%) Serverless
6 35 (2.89%) AWS Lambda
7 31 (2.56%) GitHub Actions
8 25 (2.07%) OpenShift
9 21 (1.74%) Amazon SQS
10 19 (1.57%) Amazon S3
11 18 (1.49%) Amazon ECS
12 16 (1.32%) Amazon EKS
13 14 (1.16%) Amazon EC2
14 10 (0.83%) Azure DevOps
14 10 (0.83%) Power Platform
14 10 (0.83%) SaaS
15 9 (0.74%) Anthropic Claude
16 8 (0.66%) Amazon EventBridge
16 8 (0.66%) AWS CloudFormation
17 7 (0.58%) Amazon OpenSearch
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%) Firewall
5 12 (0.99%) HTTP
6 10 (0.83%) VPN
7 9 (0.74%) 3GPP
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%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (6.04%) PostgreSQL
2 48 (3.97%) Relational Database
3 39 (3.23%) SQL Server
4 29 (2.40%) NoSQL
5 18 (1.49%) Elasticsearch
6 17 (1.41%) DynamoDB
7 14 (1.16%) MongoDB
8 11 (0.91%) MySQL
9 9 (0.74%) Apache Cassandra
10 7 (0.58%) Redis
11 6 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
11 6 (0.50%) Big Data
11 6 (0.50%) Metadata
11 6 (0.50%) Power BI
12 4 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
12 4 (0.33%) Hadoop
13 3 (0.25%) Apache Hive
13 3 (0.25%) Couchbase
13 3 (0.25%) Data Mining
13 3 (0.25%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 87 (7.20%) Git
2 62 (5.13%) Jenkins
3 52 (4.30%) GitLab
4 30 (2.48%) JIRA
5 23 (1.90%) JUnit
6 18 (1.49%) SonarQube
6 18 (1.49%) Visual Studio
7 16 (1.32%) Rational DOORS
8 13 (1.08%) Mockito
8 13 (1.08%) Rational Rhapsody
9 11 (0.91%) Eclipse
9 11 (0.91%) Gradle
9 11 (0.91%) Liquibase
10 9 (0.74%) Bitbucket
11 8 (0.66%) IntelliJ
12 7 (0.58%) Claude Code
12 7 (0.58%) Cucumber
12 7 (0.58%) LabVIEW
12 7 (0.58%) TeamCity
13 6 (0.50%) Selenium
General
1 172 (14.23%) Finance
2 122 (10.09%) Social Skills
3 63 (5.21%) Aerospace
4 62 (5.13%) Banking
5 61 (5.05%) Front Office
6 55 (4.55%) Public Sector
7 40 (3.31%) Analytical Skills
8 29 (2.40%) Law
9 25 (2.07%) Manufacturing
10 17 (1.41%) Aviation
10 17 (1.41%) Retail
11 16 (1.32%) Automotive
12 13 (1.08%) Electronics
12 13 (1.08%) Military
13 11 (0.91%) Investment Banking
14 8 (0.66%) Back Office
15 7 (0.58%) Avionics
15 7 (0.58%) Telecoms
16 5 (0.41%) Fire and Rescue
16 5 (0.41%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 160 (13.23%) React
2 105 (8.68%) .NET
3 103 (8.52%) Node.js
4 93 (7.69%) Kafka
5 84 (6.95%) Spring
6 78 (6.45%) Spring Boot
7 74 (6.12%) REST
8 56 (4.63%) AngularJS
9 55 (4.55%) Redux
10 49 (4.05%) GraphQL
11 40 (3.31%) RESTful
12 37 (3.06%) Django
13 24 (1.99%) Next.js
14 23 (1.90%) CSS
15 22 (1.82%) HTML
16 20 (1.65%) FastAPI
17 17 (1.41%) .NET Core
18 16 (1.32%) Web Services
19 15 (1.24%) Flask
19 15 (1.24%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 117 (9.68%) Cloud Native
2 82 (6.78%) Distributed Systems
3 62 (5.13%) Fixed Income
4 42 (3.47%) Algorithms
5 30 (2.48%) Embedded Systems
5 30 (2.48%) Product Ownership
6 22 (1.82%) AI Agents
7 21 (1.74%) Derivative
8 20 (1.65%) Onboarding
9 16 (1.32%) Legacy Systems
10 15 (1.24%) Equities
11 14 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
12 13 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
12 13 (1.08%) Data Structures
13 10 (0.83%) RISC-V
14 9 (0.74%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (0.74%) FPGA
15 8 (0.66%) Device Driver
15 8 (0.66%) PCIe
15 8 (0.66%) Robotics
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 11 (0.91%) FreeRTOS
6 9 (0.74%) Unix
7 6 (0.50%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.50%) Windows Server
8 5 (0.41%) Android
9 3 (0.25%) Debian
9 3 (0.25%) Rocky
9 3 (0.25%) Solaris
9 3 (0.25%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
9 3 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.17%) VxWorks
11 1 (0.083%) Tizen
11 1 (0.083%) webOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,194 (98.76%) Software Engineering
2 337 (27.87%) Agile
3 283 (23.41%) CI/CD
4 143 (11.83%) Full-Stack Development
5 135 (11.17%) DevOps
6 128 (10.59%) Microservices
7 120 (9.93%) AI
8 110 (9.10%) Test Automation
9 90 (7.44%) Problem-Solving
10 82 (6.78%) TDD
11 78 (6.45%) Continuous Improvement
12 70 (5.79%) Containerisation
13 68 (5.62%) Software Testing
14 67 (5.54%) Infrastructure as Code
15 66 (5.46%) Mentoring
16 64 (5.29%) SDLC
17 58 (4.80%) Machine Learning
18 57 (4.71%) Event-Driven
19 56 (4.63%) Clean Code
20 53 (4.38%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 318 (26.30%) Java
2 279 (23.08%) Python
3 170 (14.06%) C++
4 163 (13.48%) TypeScript
5 158 (13.07%) C#
6 142 (11.75%) JavaScript
7 128 (10.59%) SQL
8 101 (8.35%) Ada
9 75 (6.20%) C
10 71 (5.87%) Go
11 34 (2.81%) Kotlin
12 25 (2.07%) Rust
13 22 (1.82%) PowerShell
14 18 (1.49%) Embedded C
15 14 (1.16%) PHP
16 12 (0.99%) MATLAB
16 12 (0.99%) PL/SQL
17 11 (0.91%) Bash
18 7 (0.58%) R
18 7 (0.58%) Scala
Qualifications
1 294 (24.32%) Security Cleared
2 248 (20.51%) SC Cleared
3 47 (3.89%) Degree
4 37 (3.06%) DV Cleared
5 20 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
6 19 (1.57%) Computer Science Degree
7 10 (0.83%) AWS Certification
7 10 (0.83%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 5 (0.41%) ISTQB
8 5 (0.41%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 3 (0.25%) Chartered Engineer
9 3 (0.25%) PhD
10 2 (0.17%) CCNP
10 2 (0.17%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.17%) HNC
10 2 (0.17%) HND
10 2 (0.17%) Master's Degree
10 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 1 (0.083%) OCA
11 1 (0.083%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (3.56%) QA
2 16 (1.32%) Def Stans
3 13 (1.08%) IEC 61508
4 11 (0.91%) MISRA
5 9 (0.74%) Accessibility
5 9 (0.74%) Data Quality
6 8 (0.66%) DO-178B
6 8 (0.66%) GDPR
7 5 (0.41%) WCAG
8 4 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.25%) MISRA C
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
1 117 (9.68%) Kubernetes
2 69 (5.71%) Terraform
3 21 (1.74%) Ansible
4 14 (1.16%) Argo
4 14 (1.16%) Grafana
5 8 (0.66%) Prometheus
6 4 (0.33%) Control-M
6 4 (0.33%) Kibana
6 4 (0.33%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.25%) Functional Safety
7 3 (0.25%) Progress Chef
7 3 (0.25%) Puppet
8 2 (0.17%) Cilium
8 2 (0.17%) HAProxy
9 1 (0.083%) CA Endevor
9 1 (0.083%) PTC Integrity
Vendors
1 36 (2.98%) Microsoft
2 26 (2.15%) Oracle
3 22 (1.82%) Red Hat
4 19 (1.57%) Google
5 10 (0.83%) IBM
6 8 (0.66%) SAP
7 7 (0.58%) Splunk
8 5 (0.41%) Hitachi
8 5 (0.41%) MathWorks
8 5 (0.41%) OpenAI
9 4 (0.33%) Checkmarx
9 4 (0.33%) Siemens
9 4 (0.33%) Sybase
10 3 (0.25%) Databricks
10 3 (0.25%) Informatica
10 3 (0.25%) Talend
10 3 (0.25%) VMware
11 2 (0.17%) FIS
11 2 (0.17%) NVIDIA
11 2 (0.17%) Rockwell