Software Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Software Engineer
UK > England

The median Software Engineer daily rate in England is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 April 2026.

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

 6 months to
9 Apr 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 93 123 83
Rank change year-on-year +30 -40 +55
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,067 553 940
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.73% 2.27% 2.51%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.95% 2.45% 2.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 467 368 496
10th Percentile £400 £400 £425
25th Percentile £457 £481 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +5.93%
75th Percentile £688 £750 £750
90th Percentile £800 £875 £800
UK median daily rate £550 £600 £625
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +5.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 363 53 281
10th Percentile £52.50 £53.08 £46.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £61.25 £51.75
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year - +4.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £72.14 £68.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +4.00% +4.17%

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 36,122 22,602 34,731
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.35% 92.81% 92.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,747 15,141 23,178
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £409 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.43% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,403 844 2,344
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.84 £12.92
25th Percentile £20.42 £20.41 £16.25
Median hourly rate £43.61 £33.00 £34.11
Median % change year-on-year +32.15% -3.24% -21.71%
75th Percentile £66.38 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £76.25 £71.75
UK median hourly rate £40.54 £31.76 £35.00
% change year-on-year +27.64% -9.26% -21.40%

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 9 April 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 9 April 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 9 April 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 -20 332 £625 -3.85% 235
South West +30 233 £575 -2.54% 136
North of England +21 167 £500 +5.26% 146
East of England +44 143 £500 -14.16% 90
South East -3 111 £550 -4.35% 186
North West +21 91 £550 +22.22% 80
Yorkshire -22 51 £500 +3.09% 45
Midlands -43 41 £475 +5.56% 79
West Midlands -35 34 £478 +0.57% 46
North East +11 28 £439 - 21
East Midlands -34 7 £475 - 33
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 April 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 1,056 (98.97%) Software Engineering
2 272 (25.49%) Agile
3 265 (24.84%) Java
4 262 (24.55%) AWS
5 261 (24.46%) Security Cleared
6 237 (22.21%) CI/CD
7 227 (21.27%) Python
8 203 (19.03%) SC Cleared
9 186 (17.43%) C++
10 151 (14.15%) TypeScript
11 147 (13.78%) C#
12 140 (13.12%) React
13 139 (13.03%) DevOps
13 139 (13.03%) JavaScript
14 130 (12.18%) Kubernetes
15 129 (12.09%) Docker
15 129 (12.09%) Microservices
16 121 (11.34%) Linux
17 119 (11.15%) Azure
18 115 (10.78%) Full-Stack Development
19 110 (10.31%) Ada
20 107 (10.03%) Node.js
20 107 (10.03%) SQL
21 94 (8.81%) Kafka
22 92 (8.62%) Go
23 91 (8.53%) AI
23 91 (8.53%) Problem-Solving
24 87 (8.15%) .NET
25 86 (8.06%) Terraform
26 84 (7.87%) Git

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 23 (2.16%) Apache
2 18 (1.69%) Confluence
3 17 (1.59%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.28%) IIS
4 3 (0.28%) WebLogic
5 2 (0.19%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.19%) Camunda
5 2 (0.19%) nginx
5 2 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
5 2 (0.19%) SAS
5 2 (0.19%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.19%) WinCC
6 1 (0.094%) Apache Synapse
6 1 (0.094%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.094%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.094%) Smallworld
Applications
1 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.19%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.094%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.094%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.094%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.19%) LabWindows
2 1 (0.094%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.094%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 262 (24.55%) AWS
2 119 (11.15%) Azure
3 66 (6.19%) GCP
4 53 (4.97%) Serverless
5 51 (4.78%) GitHub
6 26 (2.44%) AWS Lambda
7 22 (2.06%) Azure DevOps
7 22 (2.06%) GitHub Actions
8 21 (1.97%) Amazon S3
8 21 (1.97%) OpenShift
9 19 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
10 17 (1.59%) Power Platform
11 16 (1.50%) Amazon ECS
11 16 (1.50%) Amazon SQS
12 14 (1.31%) Amazon EC2
13 12 (1.12%) Azure Functions
14 11 (1.03%) Amazon EKS
14 11 (1.03%) Collibra
15 9 (0.84%) SaaS
16 8 (0.75%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 19 (1.78%) Ethernet
2 14 (1.31%) Software-Defined Radio
3 11 (1.03%) TCP/IP
4 7 (0.66%) Wireless
5 6 (0.56%) Firewall
6 5 (0.47%) 3GPP
6 5 (0.47%) HTTP
7 4 (0.37%) BGP
7 4 (0.37%) Network Security
7 4 (0.37%) VLAN
8 3 (0.28%) Software-Defined Networking
9 2 (0.19%) Modbus
9 2 (0.19%) RTP
10 1 (0.094%) Bluetooth
10 1 (0.094%) DNS
10 1 (0.094%) FTP
10 1 (0.094%) HTTPS
10 1 (0.094%) PPP
10 1 (0.094%) RTCP
10 1 (0.094%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (5.72%) PostgreSQL
2 31 (2.91%) Relational Database
3 29 (2.72%) SQL Server
4 28 (2.62%) Apache Cassandra
5 22 (2.06%) MongoDB
6 21 (1.97%) Data Lake
6 21 (1.97%) NoSQL
7 18 (1.69%) Amazon RDS
8 17 (1.59%) MySQL
9 14 (1.31%) Power BI
10 13 (1.22%) Amazon Athena
10 13 (1.22%) Metadata
11 12 (1.12%) DynamoDB
11 12 (1.12%) Mixpanel
12 10 (0.94%) Elasticsearch
13 9 (0.84%) BigQuery
14 7 (0.66%) Hadoop
14 7 (0.66%) OLAP
14 7 (0.66%) OLTP
15 6 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 84 (7.87%) Git
2 51 (4.78%) GitLab
3 46 (4.31%) Jenkins
4 42 (3.94%) JIRA
5 28 (2.62%) Rational DOORS
6 26 (2.44%) Rational Rhapsody
7 20 (1.87%) Gradle
8 17 (1.59%) IntelliJ
8 17 (1.59%) JUnit
8 17 (1.59%) SonarQube
8 17 (1.59%) Visual Studio
9 12 (1.12%) Cucumber
9 12 (1.12%) Eclipse
10 10 (0.94%) Bitbucket
11 9 (0.84%) Maven
12 8 (0.75%) Cypress.io
12 8 (0.75%) Postman
12 8 (0.75%) PVCS
13 7 (0.66%) Liquibase
13 7 (0.66%) Oracle APEX
General
1 114 (10.68%) Finance
2 89 (8.34%) Social Skills
3 53 (4.97%) Aerospace
4 50 (4.69%) Front Office
5 43 (4.03%) Public Sector
6 38 (3.56%) Analytical Skills
7 32 (3.00%) Electronics
8 28 (2.62%) Banking
8 28 (2.62%) Law
9 22 (2.06%) Manufacturing
10 20 (1.87%) Military
11 12 (1.12%) Retail
12 9 (0.84%) Influencing Skills
13 8 (0.75%) Investment Banking
13 8 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
14 5 (0.47%) Health Technology
15 4 (0.37%) Aviation
15 4 (0.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 4 (0.37%) Telecoms
16 3 (0.28%) Games
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 140 (13.12%) React
2 107 (10.03%) Node.js
3 94 (8.81%) Kafka
4 87 (8.15%) .NET
5 73 (6.84%) REST
6 62 (5.81%) Spring
7 60 (5.62%) Spring Boot
8 56 (5.25%) AngularJS
9 46 (4.31%) GraphQL
9 46 (4.31%) Redux
10 36 (3.37%) RESTful
11 34 (3.19%) Middleware
12 26 (2.44%) gRPC
13 24 (2.25%) CSS
14 21 (1.97%) HTML
15 19 (1.78%) Qt
15 19 (1.78%) Vue
16 18 (1.69%) JSON
16 18 (1.69%) Next.js
16 18 (1.69%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 76 (7.12%) Cloud Native
2 53 (4.97%) Algorithms
3 52 (4.87%) Fixed Income
4 51 (4.78%) Distributed Systems
5 35 (3.28%) Product Ownership
6 20 (1.87%) Embedded Systems
7 16 (1.50%) AI Agents
7 16 (1.50%) Derivative
7 16 (1.50%) Equities
7 16 (1.50%) Legacy Systems
8 13 (1.22%) Greenfield Project
8 13 (1.22%) Mobile App
9 11 (1.03%) Robotics
10 10 (0.94%) Data Protection Act
10 10 (0.94%) Onboarding
11 9 (0.84%) Life Science
12 8 (0.75%) CUDA
12 8 (0.75%) NHS
12 8 (0.75%) PCIe
13 7 (0.66%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 121 (11.34%) Linux
2 51 (4.78%) Windows
3 19 (1.78%) Unix
4 18 (1.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (1.50%) Apple iOS
6 13 (1.22%) Android
7 12 (1.12%) Windows Server
8 9 (0.84%) Embedded Linux
9 8 (0.75%) FreeRTOS
10 6 (0.56%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.37%) Debian
12 3 (0.28%) Rocky
13 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
13 2 (0.19%) Solaris
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.094%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.094%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,056 (98.97%) Software Engineering
2 272 (25.49%) Agile
3 237 (22.21%) CI/CD
4 139 (13.03%) DevOps
5 129 (12.09%) Microservices
6 115 (10.78%) Full-Stack Development
7 91 (8.53%) AI
7 91 (8.53%) Problem-Solving
8 77 (7.22%) Containerisation
9 75 (7.03%) TDD
10 73 (6.84%) Test Automation
11 68 (6.37%) Mentoring
12 63 (5.90%) Infrastructure as Code
13 57 (5.34%) Scrum
13 57 (5.34%) SDLC
14 56 (5.25%) Machine Learning
15 55 (5.15%) Continuous Improvement
15 55 (5.15%) Unit Testing
16 50 (4.69%) Clean Code
17 46 (4.31%) Investment Management
Programming Languages
1 265 (24.84%) Java
2 227 (21.27%) Python
3 186 (17.43%) C++
4 151 (14.15%) TypeScript
5 147 (13.78%) C#
6 139 (13.03%) JavaScript
7 110 (10.31%) Ada
8 107 (10.03%) SQL
9 92 (8.62%) Go
10 82 (7.69%) C
11 28 (2.62%) Embedded C
12 25 (2.34%) PowerShell
13 24 (2.25%) Kotlin
14 22 (2.06%) MATLAB
15 21 (1.97%) Rust
16 18 (1.69%) Embedded C++
17 17 (1.59%) Bash
18 9 (0.84%) PL/SQL
18 9 (0.84%) Swift
19 7 (0.66%) Perl
Qualifications
1 261 (24.46%) Security Cleared
2 203 (19.03%) SC Cleared
3 49 (4.59%) Degree
4 36 (3.37%) DV Cleared
5 21 (1.97%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (0.94%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (0.75%) AWS Certification
8 7 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 4 (0.37%) ISTQB
9 4 (0.37%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.19%) CCNA
11 2 (0.19%) CCNP
11 2 (0.19%) HNC
11 2 (0.19%) HND
11 2 (0.19%) Master's Degree
12 1 (0.094%) AWS Certified Developer
12 1 (0.094%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 1 (0.094%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 1 (0.094%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (3.75%) Def Stans
2 34 (3.19%) IEC 61508
2 34 (3.19%) QA
3 23 (2.16%) MISRA
4 21 (1.97%) Data Quality
5 17 (1.59%) MISRA C
6 13 (1.22%) GDPR
7 9 (0.84%) Accessibility
8 6 (0.56%) DO-178B
8 6 (0.56%) HL7
9 4 (0.37%) NCSC
10 2 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.094%) DICOM
11 1 (0.094%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 1 (0.094%) NIST
11 1 (0.094%) WCAG
System Software
1 129 (12.09%) Docker
2 14 (1.31%) Firmware
3 10 (0.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.37%) Oracle RAC
6 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
7 2 (0.19%) HDFS
8 1 (0.094%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 130 (12.18%) Kubernetes
2 86 (8.06%) Terraform
3 24 (2.25%) Grafana
4 20 (1.87%) Ansible
5 13 (1.22%) Argo
6 6 (0.56%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.37%) Data Guard
8 3 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.19%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.19%) Puppet
10 1 (0.094%) Functional Safety
10 1 (0.094%) HAProxy
10 1 (0.094%) Podman
Vendors
1 38 (3.56%) Microsoft
1 38 (3.56%) Red Hat
2 24 (2.25%) Oracle
3 23 (2.16%) Databricks
4 22 (2.06%) Google
5 20 (1.87%) IBM
6 10 (0.94%) VMware
7 9 (0.84%) MathWorks
8 8 (0.75%) ANSYS
8 8 (0.75%) Siemens
8 8 (0.75%) Spotify
9 7 (0.66%) Splunk
10 4 (0.37%) Atlassian
10 4 (0.37%) Brio
10 4 (0.37%) NVIDIA
11 3 (0.28%) Checkmarx
11 3 (0.28%) OpenAI
11 3 (0.28%) Palantir
12 2 (0.19%) Foundry
12 2 (0.19%) Talend
848 Software Engineer jobs in England