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 4 August 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 96 127 67
Rank change year-on-year +31 -60 +58
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,208 616 1,028
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.68% 2.23% 3.07%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.89% 2.43% 3.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 555 404 572
10th Percentile £400 £413 £450
25th Percentile £475 £488 £517
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £644 £650
Median % change year-on-year -10.71% -0.92% +13.04%
75th Percentile £688 £838 £850
90th Percentile £775 £875 £888
UK median daily rate £575 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -8.00% -3.85% +13.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 321 59 252
10th Percentile £52.50 £31.25 £47.55
25th Percentile £60.50 £59.00 £59.38
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £68.55 £67.00 £70.25
90th Percentile £74.00 £78.00 £77.50
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 41,773 25,317 31,124
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.56% 91.70% 92.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,362 16,429 20,502
10th Percentile £329 £286 £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 £627 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,095 1,308 1,828
10th Percentile £15.93 £13.54 £14.16
25th Percentile £22.00 £17.50 £21.25
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.32 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +77.73% -43.73% +5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%

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 4 August 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 4 August 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 4 August 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 -38 404 £631 -15.83% 713
South West +58 238 £550 -12.00% 159
North of England +13 190 £525 +7.14% 155
South East +32 156 £530 -1.85% 168
East of England +28 146 £505 +1.00% 117
North West +1 119 £550 +13.75% 90
Midlands -9 58 £450 -5.26% 81
Yorkshire -17 52 £475 -4.04% 34
West Midlands -22 41 £450 - 39
North East -21 21 - - 31
East Midlands 0 17 £473 -0.53% 42
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 4 August 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 1,195 (98.92%) Software Engineering
2 337 (27.90%) Agile
3 321 (26.57%) Java
4 299 (24.75%) Security Cleared
5 286 (23.68%) CI/CD
6 277 (22.93%) Python
7 254 (21.03%) SC Cleared
8 251 (20.78%) AWS
9 169 (13.99%) C++
10 158 (13.08%) C#
11 157 (13.00%) TypeScript
12 155 (12.83%) React
13 144 (11.92%) Full-Stack Development
14 135 (11.18%) JavaScript
15 134 (11.09%) DevOps
16 131 (10.84%) Docker
16 131 (10.84%) Microservices
17 130 (10.76%) SQL
18 119 (9.85%) AI
19 116 (9.60%) Kubernetes
20 111 (9.19%) Linux
20 111 (9.19%) Test Automation
21 108 (8.94%) Azure
22 106 (8.77%) .NET
23 101 (8.36%) Node.js
24 98 (8.11%) Ada
25 92 (7.62%) Kafka
26 91 (7.53%) Git
27 89 (7.37%) Problem-Solving
28 87 (7.20%) 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 10 (0.83%) Apache Spark
3 6 (0.50%) 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
1 251 (20.78%) AWS
2 108 (8.94%) Azure
3 60 (4.97%) GCP
4 59 (4.88%) GitHub
5 52 (4.30%) Serverless
6 35 (2.90%) AWS Lambda
7 30 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
8 25 (2.07%) OpenShift
9 21 (1.74%) Amazon SQS
10 19 (1.57%) Amazon ECS
10 19 (1.57%) Amazon S3
11 16 (1.32%) Amazon EKS
12 13 (1.08%) Amazon EC2
13 11 (0.91%) Azure DevOps
14 10 (0.83%) Anthropic Claude
14 10 (0.83%) Power Platform
15 9 (0.75%) AWS CloudFormation
15 9 (0.75%) SaaS
16 8 (0.66%) Amazon EventBridge
16 8 (0.66%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 27 (2.24%) Software-Defined Radio
2 23 (1.90%) Wireless
3 20 (1.66%) Ethernet
4 15 (1.24%) TCP/IP
5 11 (0.91%) Firewall
5 11 (0.91%) HTTP
6 10 (0.83%) VPN
7 9 (0.75%) 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%) RS-232
12 2 (0.17%) RS-422
13 1 (0.083%) BGP
13 1 (0.083%) Modbus
13 1 (0.083%) MQTT
13 1 (0.083%) RS-485
13 1 (0.083%) VLAN
13 1 (0.083%) XCAP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (5.88%) PostgreSQL
2 46 (3.81%) Relational Database
3 37 (3.06%) SQL Server
4 32 (2.65%) NoSQL
5 18 (1.49%) DynamoDB
6 17 (1.41%) Elasticsearch
7 13 (1.08%) MongoDB
7 13 (1.08%) MySQL
8 8 (0.66%) Apache Cassandra
9 7 (0.58%) Metadata
9 7 (0.58%) Redis
10 6 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
10 6 (0.50%) Big Data
10 6 (0.50%) Power BI
11 4 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
12 3 (0.25%) Apache Hive
12 3 (0.25%) Couchbase
12 3 (0.25%) Data Hub
12 3 (0.25%) Pentaho
12 3 (0.25%) Pinecone
Development Applications
1 91 (7.53%) Git
2 64 (5.30%) Jenkins
3 55 (4.55%) GitLab
4 32 (2.65%) JIRA
5 24 (1.99%) JUnit
6 18 (1.49%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (1.49%) SonarQube
6 18 (1.49%) Visual Studio
7 14 (1.16%) Mockito
8 13 (1.08%) Rational Rhapsody
9 12 (0.99%) Gradle
10 11 (0.91%) Eclipse
10 11 (0.91%) Liquibase
11 9 (0.75%) Bitbucket
12 8 (0.66%) IntelliJ
12 8 (0.66%) LabVIEW
13 7 (0.58%) Claude Code
13 7 (0.58%) Selenium
13 7 (0.58%) TeamCity
14 6 (0.50%) Cucumber
General
1 170 (14.07%) Finance
2 121 (10.02%) Social Skills
3 64 (5.30%) Banking
4 59 (4.88%) Aerospace
4 59 (4.88%) Front Office
5 56 (4.64%) Public Sector
6 40 (3.31%) Analytical Skills
7 28 (2.32%) Law
8 25 (2.07%) Manufacturing
9 17 (1.41%) Aviation
9 17 (1.41%) Retail
10 16 (1.32%) Automotive
11 14 (1.16%) Electronics
12 13 (1.08%) Military
13 10 (0.83%) Investment Banking
14 9 (0.75%) Back Office
15 7 (0.58%) Avionics
15 7 (0.58%) Telecoms
16 5 (0.41%) Marketing
16 5 (0.41%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 155 (12.83%) React
2 106 (8.77%) .NET
3 101 (8.36%) Node.js
4 92 (7.62%) Kafka
5 87 (7.20%) Spring
6 81 (6.71%) Spring Boot
7 77 (6.37%) REST
8 54 (4.47%) AngularJS
9 51 (4.22%) Redux
10 46 (3.81%) GraphQL
11 39 (3.23%) Django
11 39 (3.23%) RESTful
12 23 (1.90%) Next.js
13 20 (1.66%) FastAPI
13 20 (1.66%) HTML
14 19 (1.57%) CSS
15 18 (1.49%) .NET Core
16 16 (1.32%) Flask
17 15 (1.24%) Quarkus
18 14 (1.16%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 118 (9.77%) Cloud Native
2 85 (7.04%) Distributed Systems
3 58 (4.80%) Fixed Income
4 39 (3.23%) Algorithms
5 30 (2.48%) Embedded Systems
6 29 (2.40%) Product Ownership
7 22 (1.82%) AI Agents
8 21 (1.74%) Onboarding
9 18 (1.49%) Derivative
10 14 (1.16%) Data Structures
10 14 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
11 12 (0.99%) Self-Motivation
12 11 (0.91%) Data Protection Act
12 11 (0.91%) Equities
13 10 (0.83%) RISC-V
14 9 (0.75%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (0.75%) FPGA
15 8 (0.66%) Device Driver
15 8 (0.66%) PCIe
15 8 (0.66%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 111 (9.19%) Linux
2 35 (2.90%) Windows
3 17 (1.41%) Embedded Linux
4 15 (1.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 11 (0.91%) FreeRTOS
6 8 (0.66%) Unix
7 6 (0.50%) Android
7 6 (0.50%) Windows Server
8 5 (0.41%) Apple iOS
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 1,195 (98.92%) Software Engineering
2 337 (27.90%) Agile
3 286 (23.68%) CI/CD
4 144 (11.92%) Full-Stack Development
5 134 (11.09%) DevOps
6 131 (10.84%) Microservices
7 119 (9.85%) AI
8 111 (9.19%) Test Automation
9 89 (7.37%) Problem-Solving
10 83 (6.87%) TDD
11 77 (6.37%) Continuous Improvement
12 68 (5.63%) Software Testing
13 66 (5.46%) Containerisation
13 66 (5.46%) Infrastructure as Code
14 64 (5.30%) Mentoring
15 62 (5.13%) SDLC
16 58 (4.80%) Event-Driven
17 56 (4.64%) Clean Code
17 56 (4.64%) Machine Learning
18 54 (4.47%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 321 (26.57%) Java
2 277 (22.93%) Python
3 169 (13.99%) C++
4 158 (13.08%) C#
5 157 (13.00%) TypeScript
6 135 (11.18%) JavaScript
7 130 (10.76%) SQL
8 98 (8.11%) Ada
9 79 (6.54%) C
10 71 (5.88%) Go
11 37 (3.06%) Kotlin
12 24 (1.99%) Rust
13 23 (1.90%) PowerShell
14 21 (1.74%) Embedded C
15 14 (1.16%) PHP
16 12 (0.99%) PL/SQL
17 11 (0.91%) Bash
18 10 (0.83%) MATLAB
19 8 (0.66%) Scala
20 7 (0.58%) R
Qualifications
1 299 (24.75%) Security Cleared
2 254 (21.03%) SC Cleared
3 46 (3.81%) Degree
4 38 (3.15%) DV Cleared
5 20 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
6 18 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
7 9 (0.75%) AWS Certification
7 9 (0.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 6 (0.50%) ISTQB
8 6 (0.50%) 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%) CCDP
11 1 (0.083%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (3.39%) QA
2 16 (1.32%) Def Stans
3 13 (1.08%) IEC 61508
4 11 (0.91%) MISRA
5 9 (0.75%) Accessibility
6 8 (0.66%) DO-178B
6 8 (0.66%) GDPR
7 7 (0.58%) Data Quality
8 5 (0.41%) WCAG
9 4 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.25%) MISRA C
11 2 (0.17%) ISO 26262
11 2 (0.17%) NCSC
12 1 (0.083%) FATCA
12 1 (0.083%) ISO 20022
12 1 (0.083%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 1 (0.083%) MIL-STD-1553
12 1 (0.083%) NIST
System Software
1 131 (10.84%) Docker
2 14 (1.16%) Firmware
3 5 (0.41%) Embedded Firmware
4 4 (0.33%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.17%) HDFS
5 2 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.083%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 116 (9.60%) Kubernetes
2 64 (5.30%) 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 25 (2.07%) 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%) Databricks
8 5 (0.41%) Hitachi
8 5 (0.41%) MathWorks
8 5 (0.41%) OpenAI
8 5 (0.41%) VMware
9 4 (0.33%) Checkmarx
10 3 (0.25%) FIS
10 3 (0.25%) Informatica
10 3 (0.25%) Siemens
10 3 (0.25%) Talend
11 2 (0.17%) Foundry
11 2 (0.17%) Palantir
11 2 (0.17%) Salesforce