Software Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Software Engineer
UK > England

The median Software Engineer daily rate in England is £551, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 June 2026.

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

 6 months to
26 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 87 135 65
Rank change year-on-year +48 -70 +71
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,224 530 1,171
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.82% 2.10% 3.14%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.05% 2.28% 3.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 540 372 596
10th Percentile £400 £413 £450
25th Percentile £463 £475 £506
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £551 £625 £638
Median % change year-on-year -11.80% -1.96% +6.25%
75th Percentile £688 £825 £800
90th Percentile £788 £875 £875
UK median daily rate £550 £600 £625
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 361 37 355
10th Percentile £53.34 £44.01 £46.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £59.00 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £81.80 £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 40,088 23,260 34,683
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.37% 92.28% 92.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,631 15,261 22,669
10th Percentile £325 £293 £293
25th Percentile £418 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £635 £638
90th Percentile £734 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,855 1,061 2,606
10th Percentile £15.99 £13.85 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.93 £17.87 £16.67
Median hourly rate £45.00 £28.18 £39.78
Median % change year-on-year +59.69% -29.15% -8.17%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.61 £26.45 £37.50
% change year-on-year +64.86% -29.47% -12.79%

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 26 June 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 26 June 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 26 June 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 -22 375 £625 -10.71% 211
South West +70 283 £550 -11.11% 122
North of England +32 191 £500 +11.11% 124
South East +30 159 £550 +5.77% 182
East of England +43 146 £500 +1.52% 110
North West +13 117 £550 +22.22% 83
Yorkshire -13 51 £488 +1.04% 19
Midlands -34 47 £450 -2.70% 52
West Midlands -29 37 £450 -7.69% 21
North East -7 25 £400 - 22
East Midlands -8 10 £473 -0.53% 31
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 26 June 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 1,207 (98.61%) Software Engineering
2 328 (26.80%) Agile
3 318 (25.98%) Java
4 298 (24.35%) Security Cleared
5 278 (22.71%) CI/CD
6 277 (22.63%) AWS
7 243 (19.85%) Python
8 239 (19.53%) SC Cleared
9 187 (15.28%) C++
10 172 (14.05%) C#
11 167 (13.64%) TypeScript
12 160 (13.07%) React
13 141 (11.52%) JavaScript
14 140 (11.44%) DevOps
15 139 (11.36%) Full-Stack Development
16 137 (11.19%) Microservices
17 136 (11.11%) Docker
18 133 (10.87%) SQL
19 126 (10.29%) Kubernetes
20 121 (9.89%) Azure
21 119 (9.72%) AI
22 116 (9.48%) Linux
23 111 (9.07%) Ada
24 106 (8.66%) .NET
25 103 (8.42%) Test Automation
26 99 (8.09%) Kafka
26 99 (8.09%) Node.js
27 90 (7.35%) Git
28 88 (7.19%) Problem-Solving
29 86 (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 (1.14%) Confluence
2 13 (1.06%) Apache Spark
3 11 (0.90%) Apache
4 3 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.25%) nginx
4 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.16%) MQSeries
5 2 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
5 2 (0.16%) SAS
5 2 (0.16%) WebLogic
5 2 (0.16%) WinCC
6 1 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.082%) Apache Synapse
6 1 (0.082%) Camunda
6 1 (0.082%) CMS
6 1 (0.082%) IIS
6 1 (0.082%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.082%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.082%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 2 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
2 1 (0.082%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.082%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.082%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 3 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.082%) LabWindows
Cloud Services
1 277 (22.63%) AWS
2 121 (9.89%) Azure
3 64 (5.23%) GCP
4 56 (4.58%) GitHub
5 55 (4.49%) Serverless
6 34 (2.78%) AWS Lambda
7 29 (2.37%) OpenShift
8 25 (2.04%) Amazon S3
9 23 (1.88%) GitHub Actions
10 21 (1.72%) Amazon EC2
11 18 (1.47%) Azure DevOps
12 17 (1.39%) Amazon ECS
12 17 (1.39%) Amazon SQS
13 13 (1.06%) Amazon EKS
13 13 (1.06%) SaaS
14 11 (0.90%) Power Platform
15 10 (0.82%) Anthropic Claude
16 9 (0.74%) AWS CloudFormation
16 9 (0.74%) AWS Step Functions
16 9 (0.74%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 32 (2.61%) Software-Defined Radio
2 21 (1.72%) Wireless
3 20 (1.63%) Ethernet
4 14 (1.14%) TCP/IP
5 12 (0.98%) HTTP
6 9 (0.74%) 3GPP
7 7 (0.57%) Firewall
7 7 (0.57%) RTP
8 6 (0.49%) Wireshark
9 5 (0.41%) VPN
10 4 (0.33%) Internet
11 2 (0.16%) DNS
11 2 (0.16%) RS-232
11 2 (0.16%) RS-422
12 1 (0.082%) BGP
12 1 (0.082%) Bluetooth
12 1 (0.082%) HTTPS
12 1 (0.082%) RS-485
12 1 (0.082%) RTCP
12 1 (0.082%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (5.80%) PostgreSQL
2 41 (3.35%) Relational Database
3 34 (2.78%) SQL Server
4 25 (2.04%) NoSQL
5 18 (1.47%) Apache Cassandra
5 18 (1.47%) DynamoDB
5 18 (1.47%) MongoDB
6 16 (1.31%) Amazon RDS
6 16 (1.31%) MySQL
7 12 (0.98%) Elasticsearch
8 8 (0.65%) Metadata
9 7 (0.57%) Data Lake
9 7 (0.57%) Hadoop
9 7 (0.57%) Power BI
10 6 (0.49%) Amazon Athena
11 5 (0.41%) Amazon Aurora
12 4 (0.33%) Azure SQL Database
12 4 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
12 4 (0.33%) Mixpanel
12 4 (0.33%) Redis
Development Applications
1 90 (7.35%) Git
2 62 (5.07%) Jenkins
3 48 (3.92%) GitLab
4 32 (2.61%) JIRA
5 23 (1.88%) JUnit
6 21 (1.72%) Visual Studio
7 19 (1.55%) Rational DOORS
7 19 (1.55%) Rational Rhapsody
8 18 (1.47%) SonarQube
9 17 (1.39%) Gradle
10 12 (0.98%) Mockito
11 11 (0.90%) Eclipse
11 11 (0.90%) IntelliJ
11 11 (0.90%) Liquibase
12 10 (0.82%) Cucumber
12 10 (0.82%) Selenium
13 9 (0.74%) Bitbucket
14 8 (0.65%) Maven
15 6 (0.49%) LabVIEW
15 6 (0.49%) TeamCity
General
1 163 (13.32%) Finance
2 115 (9.40%) Social Skills
3 66 (5.39%) Aerospace
4 58 (4.74%) Front Office
5 53 (4.33%) Banking
6 45 (3.68%) Public Sector
7 37 (3.02%) Analytical Skills
8 31 (2.53%) Law
9 24 (1.96%) Manufacturing
10 17 (1.39%) Aviation
10 17 (1.39%) Retail
11 14 (1.14%) Automotive
12 12 (0.98%) Military
13 11 (0.90%) Electronics
13 11 (0.90%) Investment Banking
14 8 (0.65%) Back Office
15 7 (0.57%) Telecoms
16 6 (0.49%) Influencing Skills
17 5 (0.41%) Fire and Rescue
17 5 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 160 (13.07%) React
2 106 (8.66%) .NET
3 99 (8.09%) Kafka
3 99 (8.09%) Node.js
4 85 (6.94%) Spring
5 84 (6.86%) Spring Boot
6 70 (5.72%) REST
7 56 (4.58%) Redux
8 54 (4.41%) AngularJS
9 51 (4.17%) GraphQL
10 39 (3.19%) RESTful
11 26 (2.12%) Next.js
12 22 (1.80%) CSS
12 22 (1.80%) Middleware
13 20 (1.63%) HTML
14 18 (1.47%) Django
14 18 (1.47%) FastAPI
15 17 (1.39%) .NET Core
16 16 (1.31%) Vue
16 16 (1.31%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 106 (8.66%) Cloud Native
2 76 (6.21%) Distributed Systems
3 60 (4.90%) Algorithms
3 60 (4.90%) Fixed Income
4 36 (2.94%) Product Ownership
5 30 (2.45%) Embedded Systems
6 21 (1.72%) Derivative
7 20 (1.63%) AI Agents
8 18 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
8 18 (1.47%) Onboarding
9 15 (1.23%) Equities
9 15 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
10 13 (1.06%) Data Protection Act
11 10 (0.82%) FPGA
11 10 (0.82%) Robotics
12 9 (0.74%) Greenfield Project
13 8 (0.65%) Data Centre
13 8 (0.65%) Data Structures
13 8 (0.65%) PCIe
13 8 (0.65%) RISC-V
Operating Systems
1 116 (9.48%) Linux
2 42 (3.43%) Windows
3 16 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 15 (1.23%) Embedded Linux
5 14 (1.14%) Unix
6 11 (0.90%) FreeRTOS
7 9 (0.74%) Apple iOS
8 6 (0.49%) Windows Server
9 4 (0.33%) Android
9 4 (0.33%) Debian
9 4 (0.33%) Rocky
9 4 (0.33%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.25%) Solaris
10 3 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
10 3 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.16%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.082%) Tizen
12 1 (0.082%) webOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,207 (98.61%) Software Engineering
2 328 (26.80%) Agile
3 278 (22.71%) CI/CD
4 140 (11.44%) DevOps
5 139 (11.36%) Full-Stack Development
6 137 (11.19%) Microservices
7 119 (9.72%) AI
8 103 (8.42%) Test Automation
9 88 (7.19%) Problem-Solving
10 86 (7.03%) TDD
11 74 (6.05%) Containerisation
12 70 (5.72%) Continuous Improvement
13 65 (5.31%) SDLC
14 64 (5.23%) Infrastructure as Code
14 64 (5.23%) Mentoring
15 63 (5.15%) Software Testing
16 62 (5.07%) Machine Learning
17 55 (4.49%) Scrum
18 54 (4.41%) Clean Code
19 53 (4.33%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 318 (25.98%) Java
2 243 (19.85%) Python
3 187 (15.28%) C++
4 172 (14.05%) C#
5 167 (13.64%) TypeScript
6 141 (11.52%) JavaScript
7 133 (10.87%) SQL
8 111 (9.07%) Ada
9 81 (6.62%) C
10 79 (6.45%) Go
11 25 (2.04%) Kotlin
12 23 (1.88%) Embedded C
13 22 (1.80%) MATLAB
13 22 (1.80%) Rust
14 19 (1.55%) PowerShell
15 16 (1.31%) PL/SQL
16 11 (0.90%) Bash
16 11 (0.90%) PHP
17 7 (0.57%) Embedded C++
17 7 (0.57%) Scala
Qualifications
1 298 (24.35%) Security Cleared
2 239 (19.53%) SC Cleared
3 51 (4.17%) Degree
4 39 (3.19%) DV Cleared
5 22 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
6 18 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (0.65%) AWS Certification
7 8 (0.65%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 5 (0.41%) ISTQB
8 5 (0.41%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 3 (0.25%) Chartered Engineer
10 2 (0.16%) CCNP
10 2 (0.16%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.16%) HNC
10 2 (0.16%) HND
11 1 (0.082%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 1 (0.082%) OCA
11 1 (0.082%) Oracle Certification
11 1 (0.082%) PhD
11 1 (0.082%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (3.51%) QA
2 28 (2.29%) Def Stans
3 25 (2.04%) IEC 61508
4 17 (1.39%) MISRA
5 11 (0.90%) Data Quality
6 10 (0.82%) GDPR
6 10 (0.82%) MISRA C
7 9 (0.74%) Accessibility
8 7 (0.57%) DO-178B
9 5 (0.41%) WCAG
10 4 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.25%) NCSC
12 2 (0.16%) ISO 26262
13 1 (0.082%) DICOM
13 1 (0.082%) FATCA
13 1 (0.082%) HL7
13 1 (0.082%) ISO/IEC 27001
13 1 (0.082%) MIL-STD-1553
13 1 (0.082%) NIST
System Software
1 136 (11.11%) Docker
2 17 (1.39%) Firmware
3 5 (0.41%) Embedded Firmware
4 4 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
5 3 (0.25%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.16%) HDFS
7 1 (0.082%) Active Directory
7 1 (0.082%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 126 (10.29%) Kubernetes
2 68 (5.56%) Terraform
3 18 (1.47%) Ansible
3 18 (1.47%) Grafana
4 13 (1.06%) Argo
5 7 (0.57%) Prometheus
6 5 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.33%) Control-M
7 4 (0.33%) Data Guard
7 4 (0.33%) Kibana
8 3 (0.25%) Functional Safety
9 2 (0.16%) Cilium
9 2 (0.16%) HAProxy
9 2 (0.16%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.16%) Puppet
10 1 (0.082%) CA Endevor
10 1 (0.082%) PTC Integrity
Vendors
1 36 (2.94%) Microsoft
2 29 (2.37%) Oracle
3 26 (2.12%) Red Hat
4 21 (1.72%) Google
5 15 (1.23%) IBM
6 11 (0.90%) Databricks
7 10 (0.82%) MathWorks
8 7 (0.57%) SAP
8 7 (0.57%) Splunk
9 6 (0.49%) Siemens
10 5 (0.41%) OpenAI
10 5 (0.41%) Spotify
11 4 (0.33%) Checkmarx
11 4 (0.33%) Sybase
12 3 (0.25%) Atlassian
12 3 (0.25%) Informatica
12 3 (0.25%) Talend
12 3 (0.25%) VMware
13 2 (0.16%) PagerDuty
13 2 (0.16%) Palantir
753 Software Engineer jobs in England