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 1 February 2026.

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

 6 months to
1 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 106 116 101
Rank change year-on-year +10 -15 +21
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 814 604 863
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.47% 2.28% 2.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.70% 2.45% 2.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 349 350 456
10th Percentile £387 £413 £425
25th Percentile £450 £500 £487
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £675 £713 £720
90th Percentile £750 £850 £788
UK median daily rate £550 £600 £588
% change year-on-year -8.33% +2.13% -0.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 261 60 247
10th Percentile £51.21 £47.50 £46.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £60.69 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year - +4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £67.50 £68.00 £67.02
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £82.10
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 30,140 24,646 35,463
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.63% 93.03% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,205 15,195 23,928
10th Percentile £300 £300 £275
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
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 1,877 735 2,040
10th Percentile £14.83 £15.92 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.08
Median hourly rate £30.00 £35.00 £36.05
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -2.90% +2.99%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £62.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £29.60 £32.66 £36.05
% change year-on-year -9.36% -9.40% +2.99%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -31 272 £616 -2.38% 244
South West 0 155 £513 -12.02% 161
North of England +15 139 £525 +8.25% 160
East of England +30 119 £525 +3.45% 92
South East -10 64 £538 +2.38% 203
North West +3 63 £550 +22.22% 99
Yorkshire -5 62 £525 +1.20% 42
Midlands -38 30 £503 +5.89% 77
West Midlands -22 25 £528 +11.05% 30
North East -5 16 £550 - 20
East Midlands -23 5 £475 -3.06% 47
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 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.

1 805 (98.89%) Software Engineering
2 233 (28.62%) Agile
3 220 (27.03%) AWS
4 198 (24.32%) CI/CD
5 192 (23.59%) C++
6 191 (23.46%) Python
7 176 (21.62%) Security Cleared
8 172 (21.13%) Java
9 141 (17.32%) DevOps
10 138 (16.95%) Docker
11 136 (16.71%) SC Cleared
12 128 (15.72%) Kubernetes
13 127 (15.60%) Microservices
14 119 (14.62%) C#
15 118 (14.50%) Linux
16 112 (13.76%) JavaScript
17 106 (13.02%) SQL
18 105 (12.90%) TypeScript
19 103 (12.65%) React
20 94 (11.55%) Terraform
21 93 (11.43%) Azure
22 85 (10.44%) Containerisation
22 85 (10.44%) Problem-Solving
23 80 (9.83%) Degree
23 80 (9.83%) Serverless
24 77 (9.46%) AI
25 76 (9.34%) Test Automation
26 74 (9.09%) C
26 74 (9.09%) Git
26 74 (9.09%) Infrastructure as Code

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 (3.69%) Apache
2 14 (1.72%) Apache Airflow
2 14 (1.72%) Apache Spark
3 10 (1.23%) Confluence
4 4 (0.49%) SAS
5 3 (0.37%) IIS
5 3 (0.37%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.25%) Camunda
6 2 (0.25%) JBoss
7 1 (0.12%) Apache Synapse
7 1 (0.12%) CMS
7 1 (0.12%) nginx
7 1 (0.12%) Smallworld
7 1 (0.12%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 4 (0.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.12%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.12%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 2 (0.25%) LabWindows
2 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 220 (27.03%) AWS
2 93 (11.43%) Azure
3 80 (9.83%) Serverless
4 72 (8.85%) GCP
5 56 (6.88%) GitHub
6 39 (4.79%) AWS Lambda
7 30 (3.69%) Amazon S3
8 29 (3.56%) Amazon ECS
8 29 (3.56%) GitHub Actions
9 27 (3.32%) Azure DevOps
10 19 (2.33%) Amazon EC2
11 16 (1.97%) Amazon EKS
11 16 (1.97%) Amazon SQS
11 16 (1.97%) AWS CloudFormation
12 14 (1.72%) dbt
12 14 (1.72%) OpenShift
13 11 (1.35%) Azure Functions
13 11 (1.35%) Cloud Computing
13 11 (1.35%) Power Platform
13 11 (1.35%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 17 (2.09%) Ethernet
2 9 (1.11%) TCP/IP
3 5 (0.61%) Software-Defined Radio
4 3 (0.37%) BGP
4 3 (0.37%) Firewall
4 3 (0.37%) Network Security
4 3 (0.37%) NFC
4 3 (0.37%) PPP
4 3 (0.37%) Software-Defined Networking
4 3 (0.37%) VLAN
5 2 (0.25%) Bluetooth
5 2 (0.25%) HTTP
5 2 (0.25%) SSL
5 2 (0.25%) Wireless
6 1 (0.12%) 3GPP
6 1 (0.12%) FTP
6 1 (0.12%) Internet
6 1 (0.12%) VPN
6 1 (0.12%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.12%) ZigBee
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (5.53%) PostgreSQL
2 41 (5.04%) NoSQL
3 27 (3.32%) MongoDB
4 26 (3.19%) Apache Cassandra
4 26 (3.19%) Data Lake
5 25 (3.07%) Amazon Athena
6 24 (2.95%) Amazon RDS
7 23 (2.83%) SQL Server
8 18 (2.21%) MySQL
9 16 (1.97%) Relational Database
10 14 (1.72%) Apache Arrow
10 14 (1.72%) Apache Iceberg
10 14 (1.72%) Dremio
11 13 (1.60%) DynamoDB
11 13 (1.60%) Metadata
12 12 (1.47%) Mixpanel
13 11 (1.35%) Power BI
14 9 (1.11%) Apache Ignite
15 8 (0.98%) Amazon Aurora
15 8 (0.98%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 74 (9.09%) Git
2 53 (6.51%) GitLab
3 42 (5.16%) Jenkins
4 40 (4.91%) JIRA
5 24 (2.95%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (2.21%) Gradle
6 18 (2.21%) Liquibase
7 17 (2.09%) Rational Rhapsody
8 14 (1.72%) Cypress.io
8 14 (1.72%) Eclipse
8 14 (1.72%) IntelliJ
8 14 (1.72%) Visual Studio
9 9 (1.11%) Selenium
10 8 (0.98%) Cucumber
10 8 (0.98%) JUnit
10 8 (0.98%) Maven
10 8 (0.98%) Postman
10 8 (0.98%) PVCS
11 7 (0.86%) Oracle APEX
11 7 (0.86%) SonarQube
General
1 109 (13.39%) Finance
1 109 (13.39%) Social Skills
2 45 (5.53%) Public Sector
3 42 (5.16%) Banking
4 35 (4.30%) Aerospace
4 35 (4.30%) Analytical Skills
5 33 (4.05%) Electronics
6 23 (2.83%) Law
7 22 (2.70%) Military
8 21 (2.58%) Front Office
9 18 (2.21%) Financial Institution
10 15 (1.84%) Investment Banking
11 14 (1.72%) Manufacturing
12 9 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
13 8 (0.98%) Pharmaceutical
13 8 (0.98%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (0.74%) Automotive
14 6 (0.74%) Retail
15 5 (0.61%) Health Technology
15 5 (0.61%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (12.65%) React
2 71 (8.72%) Node.js
3 69 (8.48%) .NET
4 68 (8.35%) Kafka
5 62 (7.62%) REST
6 50 (6.14%) RESTful
7 45 (5.53%) Spring
8 44 (5.41%) Spring Boot
9 37 (4.55%) AngularJS
10 34 (4.18%) Middleware
11 29 (3.56%) gRPC
12 26 (3.19%) Qt
13 19 (2.33%) CSS
13 19 (2.33%) JSON
14 17 (2.09%) Elastic Stack
14 17 (2.09%) FastAPI
14 17 (2.09%) Next.js
14 17 (2.09%) Web Services
14 17 (2.09%) XML
15 16 (1.97%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 77 (9.46%) Cloud Native
2 52 (6.39%) Distributed Systems
3 34 (4.18%) Algorithms
4 23 (2.83%) Product Ownership
5 19 (2.33%) Embedded Systems
5 19 (2.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 19 (2.33%) Public Cloud
6 18 (2.21%) Greenfield Project
7 16 (1.97%) Equities
7 16 (1.97%) Fixed Income
8 14 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
8 14 (1.72%) Life Science
9 11 (1.35%) AI Agents
10 10 (1.23%) Derivative
11 9 (1.11%) Data Structures
11 9 (1.11%) Hedge funds
11 9 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
11 9 (1.11%) Pricing Data
12 8 (0.98%) Onboarding
12 8 (0.98%) PCIe
Operating Systems
1 118 (14.50%) Linux
2 56 (6.88%) Windows
3 24 (2.95%) Unix
4 15 (1.84%) Android
5 13 (1.60%) Apple iOS
6 9 (1.11%) Windows Server
7 6 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (0.74%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.61%) FreeRTOS
9 2 (0.25%) Debian
9 2 (0.25%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.25%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.25%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.12%) Rocky
10 1 (0.12%) VMS
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Embedded Compact
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 805 (98.89%) Software Engineering
2 233 (28.62%) Agile
3 198 (24.32%) CI/CD
4 141 (17.32%) DevOps
5 127 (15.60%) Microservices
6 85 (10.44%) Containerisation
6 85 (10.44%) Problem-Solving
7 77 (9.46%) AI
8 76 (9.34%) Test Automation
9 74 (9.09%) Infrastructure as Code
10 73 (8.97%) Full-Stack Development
11 64 (7.86%) TDD
12 58 (7.13%) Mentoring
13 57 (7.00%) Clean Code
14 50 (6.14%) Machine Learning
15 49 (6.02%) Validation
16 47 (5.77%) Computer Science
17 45 (5.53%) Software Testing
17 45 (5.53%) Unit Testing
18 44 (5.41%) Continuous Integration
Programming Languages
1 192 (23.59%) C++
2 191 (23.46%) Python
3 172 (21.13%) Java
4 119 (14.62%) C#
5 112 (13.76%) JavaScript
6 106 (13.02%) SQL
7 105 (12.90%) TypeScript
8 74 (9.09%) C
9 70 (8.60%) Ada
10 61 (7.49%) Go
11 22 (2.70%) Embedded C++
12 21 (2.58%) Embedded C
13 18 (2.21%) PowerShell
14 17 (2.09%) Kotlin
15 15 (1.84%) Rust
16 12 (1.47%) MATLAB
17 9 (1.11%) Bash
17 9 (1.11%) Shell Script
18 7 (0.86%) PHP
18 7 (0.86%) R
Qualifications
1 176 (21.62%) Security Cleared
2 136 (16.71%) SC Cleared
3 80 (9.83%) Degree
4 37 (4.55%) Computer Science Degree
5 23 (2.83%) DV Cleared
6 18 (2.21%) Master's Degree
7 7 (0.86%) AWS Certification
8 6 (0.74%) BPSS Clearance
9 4 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (0.37%) AWS Certified Developer
10 3 (0.37%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 3 (0.37%) Postgraduate
11 1 (0.12%) Azure Certification
11 1 (0.12%) CCNA
11 1 (0.12%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (4.79%) Def Stans
2 30 (3.69%) MISRA
3 29 (3.56%) IEC 61508
4 20 (2.46%) MISRA C
4 20 (2.46%) QA
5 13 (1.60%) Data Quality
6 10 (1.23%) DO-178B
7 8 (0.98%) GDPR
8 7 (0.86%) Accessibility
9 6 (0.74%) HL7
10 2 (0.25%) NCSC
10 2 (0.25%) Software Quality Assurance
11 1 (0.12%) AUTOSAR
11 1 (0.12%) DICOM
11 1 (0.12%) ISO 26262
11 1 (0.12%) WCAG
System Software
1 138 (16.95%) Docker
2 15 (1.84%) Firmware
3 14 (1.72%) Virtual Machines
4 8 (0.98%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.61%) Active Directory
6 4 (0.49%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 128 (15.72%) Kubernetes
2 94 (11.55%) Terraform
3 31 (3.81%) Grafana
4 24 (2.95%) Ansible
5 19 (2.33%) Prometheus
6 5 (0.61%) Argo
7 4 (0.49%) Data Guard
7 4 (0.49%) Kibana
7 4 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.25%) Functional Safety
8 2 (0.25%) Puppet
9 1 (0.12%) Bitnami
9 1 (0.12%) Podman
Vendors
1 38 (4.67%) Microsoft
2 27 (3.32%) Google
3 23 (2.83%) Red Hat
4 22 (2.70%) Databricks
5 18 (2.21%) Oracle
6 17 (2.09%) Splunk
7 16 (1.97%) IBM
8 8 (0.98%) ANSYS
8 8 (0.98%) VMware
9 7 (0.86%) Spotify
10 5 (0.61%) MathWorks
11 4 (0.49%) Atlassian
11 4 (0.49%) Brio
11 4 (0.49%) Siemens
12 3 (0.37%) OpenAI
12 3 (0.37%) Salesforce
13 2 (0.25%) Adobe
13 2 (0.25%) NVIDIA
13 2 (0.25%) Ping Identity
13 2 (0.25%) webMethods
899 Software Engineer jobs in England