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 12 February 2026.

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

 6 months to
12 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 102 124 105
Rank change year-on-year +22 -19 +19
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 871 582 840
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.56% 2.23% 2.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.80% 2.40% 2.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 372 349 430
10th Percentile £400 £412 £425
25th Percentile £462 £500 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £688 £713 £725
90th Percentile £762 £850 £788
UK median daily rate £550 £595 £600
% change year-on-year -7.56% -0.83% +1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 282 58 256
10th Percentile £51.25 £47.50 £46.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £61.25 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year - +4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.00 £67.81
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £79.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +4.00% -3.85%

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 31,137 24,269 35,007
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.66% 93.07% 93.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,768 15,138 23,489
10th Percentile £300 £299 £270
25th Percentile £407 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £640
90th Percentile £725 £750 £745
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,988 717 2,110
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.92 £13.18
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.54
Median hourly rate £31.36 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.41% - -6.67%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.73 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.68 £75.00 £72.46
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £34.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -11.76% -2.86% -2.23%

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 12 February 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 12 February 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 12 February 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 -28 296 £625 - 242
South West +6 166 £500 -13.04% 129
North of England +20 151 £525 +10.53% 161
East of England +40 119 £525 -9.87% 81
North West +17 74 £550 +22.22% 110
South East -16 69 £525 +2.44% 190
Yorkshire -14 60 £525 +3.70% 32
Midlands -33 35 £502 +8.43% 83
West Midlands -27 30 £525 +10.53% 40
North East -1 19 £550 - 20
East Midlands -22 5 £475 -3.06% 43
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 12 February 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.

1 861 (98.85%) Software Engineering
2 246 (28.24%) Agile
3 241 (27.67%) AWS
4 212 (24.34%) Python
5 206 (23.65%) CI/CD
6 192 (22.04%) C++
7 190 (21.81%) Java
8 186 (21.35%) Security Cleared
9 143 (16.42%) DevOps
10 141 (16.19%) SC Cleared
11 140 (16.07%) Docker
12 135 (15.50%) Kubernetes
13 130 (14.93%) JavaScript
13 130 (14.93%) Microservices
14 124 (14.24%) Linux
15 120 (13.78%) TypeScript
16 118 (13.55%) React
17 117 (13.43%) C#
18 105 (12.06%) SQL
19 101 (11.60%) Terraform
20 96 (11.02%) Azure
21 89 (10.22%) Problem-Solving
22 85 (9.76%) Containerisation
22 85 (9.76%) Full-Stack Development
23 84 (9.64%) AI
24 82 (9.41%) Degree
25 81 (9.30%) GCP
26 80 (9.18%) Test Automation
27 77 (8.84%) Infrastructure as Code
27 77 (8.84%) Kafka

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 30 (3.44%) Apache
2 15 (1.72%) Apache Spark
3 12 (1.38%) Apache Airflow
4 11 (1.26%) Confluence
5 4 (0.46%) SAS
5 4 (0.46%) WebLogic
6 3 (0.34%) IIS
7 2 (0.23%) Camunda
7 2 (0.23%) JBoss
8 1 (0.11%) Apache Synapse
8 1 (0.11%) CMS
8 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.11%) Smallworld
8 1 (0.11%) WinCC
8 1 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 4 (0.46%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.11%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.11%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 2 (0.23%) LabWindows
2 1 (0.11%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 241 (27.67%) AWS
2 96 (11.02%) Azure
3 81 (9.30%) GCP
4 77 (8.84%) Serverless
5 53 (6.08%) GitHub
6 36 (4.13%) AWS Lambda
7 27 (3.10%) Amazon S3
8 26 (2.99%) Amazon ECS
8 26 (2.99%) Azure DevOps
8 26 (2.99%) GitHub Actions
9 20 (2.30%) Amazon EC2
10 18 (2.07%) AWS CloudFormation
11 16 (1.84%) Amazon SQS
12 15 (1.72%) Amazon EKS
13 14 (1.61%) OpenShift
14 12 (1.38%) dbt
15 11 (1.26%) Cloud Computing
15 11 (1.26%) Power Platform
16 10 (1.15%) Cloud Run
16 10 (1.15%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.84%) Ethernet
2 8 (0.92%) TCP/IP
3 5 (0.57%) Firewall
3 5 (0.57%) Software-Defined Radio
4 4 (0.46%) BGP
4 4 (0.46%) Network Security
4 4 (0.46%) VLAN
5 3 (0.34%) 3GPP
5 3 (0.34%) HTTP
5 3 (0.34%) NFC
5 3 (0.34%) PPP
5 3 (0.34%) Software-Defined Networking
6 2 (0.23%) Wireless
7 1 (0.11%) DNS
7 1 (0.11%) FTP
7 1 (0.11%) Internet
7 1 (0.11%) RTCP
7 1 (0.11%) RTP
7 1 (0.11%) SSL
7 1 (0.11%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (5.74%) PostgreSQL
2 39 (4.48%) NoSQL
3 29 (3.33%) MongoDB
4 28 (3.21%) Apache Cassandra
5 25 (2.87%) Data Lake
6 24 (2.76%) SQL Server
7 23 (2.64%) Amazon Athena
8 22 (2.53%) Amazon RDS
9 18 (2.07%) MySQL
9 18 (2.07%) Relational Database
10 13 (1.49%) Metadata
11 12 (1.38%) Apache Arrow
11 12 (1.38%) Apache Iceberg
11 12 (1.38%) Dremio
11 12 (1.38%) DynamoDB
11 12 (1.38%) Mixpanel
12 11 (1.26%) Power BI
13 9 (1.03%) BigQuery
13 9 (1.03%) Elasticsearch
14 8 (0.92%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 73 (8.38%) Git
2 52 (5.97%) GitLab
3 42 (4.82%) Jenkins
4 40 (4.59%) JIRA
5 24 (2.76%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (2.18%) Liquibase
7 18 (2.07%) Gradle
8 17 (1.95%) Rational Rhapsody
9 14 (1.61%) Cypress.io
9 14 (1.61%) IntelliJ
10 13 (1.49%) Eclipse
10 13 (1.49%) Visual Studio
11 9 (1.03%) Cucumber
11 9 (1.03%) Postman
11 9 (1.03%) Selenium
12 8 (0.92%) Maven
12 8 (0.92%) PVCS
12 8 (0.92%) SonarQube
13 7 (0.80%) JUnit
13 7 (0.80%) Oracle APEX
General
1 118 (13.55%) Finance
2 112 (12.86%) Social Skills
3 46 (5.28%) Banking
4 44 (5.05%) Public Sector
5 38 (4.36%) Aerospace
6 37 (4.25%) Analytical Skills
7 33 (3.79%) Electronics
8 30 (3.44%) Front Office
9 24 (2.76%) Law
10 21 (2.41%) Military
11 18 (2.07%) Financial Institution
12 16 (1.84%) Manufacturing
13 15 (1.72%) Investment Banking
14 10 (1.15%) Influencing Skills
15 9 (1.03%) Retail
16 8 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
17 7 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
18 6 (0.69%) Automotive
19 5 (0.57%) Health Technology
20 4 (0.46%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 118 (13.55%) React
2 77 (8.84%) Kafka
2 77 (8.84%) Node.js
3 69 (7.92%) .NET
4 68 (7.81%) REST
5 54 (6.20%) RESTful
6 49 (5.63%) Spring
6 49 (5.63%) Spring Boot
7 41 (4.71%) AngularJS
8 34 (3.90%) Middleware
9 30 (3.44%) gRPC
10 26 (2.99%) Qt
11 22 (2.53%) CSS
12 21 (2.41%) JSON
13 20 (2.30%) GraphQL
13 20 (2.30%) XML
14 19 (2.18%) HTML
15 18 (2.07%) Elastic Stack
15 18 (2.07%) Web Services
16 17 (1.95%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 80 (9.18%) Cloud Native
2 57 (6.54%) Distributed Systems
3 39 (4.48%) Algorithms
4 26 (2.99%) Fixed Income
5 25 (2.87%) Product Ownership
6 20 (2.30%) Public Cloud
7 18 (2.07%) Equities
7 18 (2.07%) Greenfield Project
8 17 (1.95%) Embedded Systems
8 17 (1.95%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 16 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
10 13 (1.49%) Legacy Systems
10 13 (1.49%) Life Science
10 13 (1.49%) Mobile App
11 12 (1.38%) Derivative
12 11 (1.26%) AI Agents
13 10 (1.15%) Data Structures
14 9 (1.03%) Onboarding
14 9 (1.03%) Robotics
15 8 (0.92%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 124 (14.24%) Linux
2 56 (6.43%) Windows
3 25 (2.87%) Unix
4 16 (1.84%) Apple iOS
5 13 (1.49%) Android
6 10 (1.15%) Windows Server
7 7 (0.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 6 (0.69%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.57%) FreeRTOS
10 2 (0.23%) Debian
10 2 (0.23%) Embedded Linux
10 2 (0.23%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.11%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.11%) Rocky
11 1 (0.11%) VMS
11 1 (0.11%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 861 (98.85%) Software Engineering
2 246 (28.24%) Agile
3 206 (23.65%) CI/CD
4 143 (16.42%) DevOps
5 130 (14.93%) Microservices
6 89 (10.22%) Problem-Solving
7 85 (9.76%) Containerisation
7 85 (9.76%) Full-Stack Development
8 84 (9.64%) AI
9 80 (9.18%) Test Automation
10 77 (8.84%) Infrastructure as Code
11 68 (7.81%) Mentoring
11 68 (7.81%) TDD
12 59 (6.77%) Clean Code
13 56 (6.43%) Machine Learning
14 52 (5.97%) Computer Science
15 49 (5.63%) Validation
16 48 (5.51%) Continuous Improvement
17 47 (5.40%) Software Testing
18 45 (5.17%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 212 (24.34%) Python
2 192 (22.04%) C++
3 190 (21.81%) Java
4 130 (14.93%) JavaScript
5 120 (13.78%) TypeScript
6 117 (13.43%) C#
7 105 (12.06%) SQL
8 75 (8.61%) Ada
9 74 (8.50%) C
10 72 (8.27%) Go
11 23 (2.64%) Embedded C++
12 22 (2.53%) Embedded C
13 20 (2.30%) Kotlin
13 20 (2.30%) PowerShell
14 19 (2.18%) Rust
15 15 (1.72%) MATLAB
16 10 (1.15%) Bash
16 10 (1.15%) Shell Script
16 10 (1.15%) Swift
17 7 (0.80%) R
Qualifications
1 186 (21.35%) Security Cleared
2 141 (16.19%) SC Cleared
3 82 (9.41%) Degree
4 40 (4.59%) Computer Science Degree
5 26 (2.99%) DV Cleared
6 18 (2.07%) Master's Degree
7 10 (1.15%) AWS Certification
8 7 (0.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 6 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.34%) AWS Certified Developer
10 3 (0.34%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 3 (0.34%) Postgraduate
11 2 (0.23%) CCNA
11 2 (0.23%) Cisco Certification
12 1 (0.11%) Azure Certification
12 1 (0.11%) CCDP
12 1 (0.11%) CCNP
12 1 (0.11%) HNC
12 1 (0.11%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (4.48%) Def Stans
2 30 (3.44%) MISRA
3 29 (3.33%) IEC 61508
4 27 (3.10%) QA
5 20 (2.30%) MISRA C
6 16 (1.84%) Data Quality
7 10 (1.15%) DO-178B
8 8 (0.92%) Accessibility
8 8 (0.92%) GDPR
9 6 (0.69%) HL7
10 2 (0.23%) NCSC
10 2 (0.23%) Software Quality Assurance
11 1 (0.11%) AUTOSAR
11 1 (0.11%) DICOM
11 1 (0.11%) ISO 26262
11 1 (0.11%) NIST
System Software
1 140 (16.07%) Docker
2 14 (1.61%) Firmware
2 14 (1.61%) Virtual Machines
3 9 (1.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.69%) Active Directory
5 4 (0.46%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 135 (15.50%) Kubernetes
2 101 (11.60%) Terraform
3 35 (4.02%) Grafana
4 27 (3.10%) Ansible
5 20 (2.30%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.69%) Argo
7 4 (0.46%) Data Guard
7 4 (0.46%) Kibana
7 4 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.23%) Functional Safety
8 2 (0.23%) Puppet
9 1 (0.11%) Bitnami
9 1 (0.11%) Podman
Vendors
1 33 (3.79%) Microsoft
2 30 (3.44%) Google
3 25 (2.87%) Red Hat
4 23 (2.64%) Oracle
5 22 (2.53%) Databricks
6 21 (2.41%) Splunk
7 15 (1.72%) IBM
8 9 (1.03%) VMware
9 8 (0.92%) ANSYS
10 7 (0.80%) Siemens
10 7 (0.80%) Spotify
11 5 (0.57%) MathWorks
12 4 (0.46%) Atlassian
12 4 (0.46%) Brio
13 2 (0.23%) Adobe
13 2 (0.23%) Cisco
13 2 (0.23%) NVIDIA
13 2 (0.23%) PagerDuty
13 2 (0.23%) Sybase
13 2 (0.23%) webMethods
854 Software Engineer jobs in England