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 7 August 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 95 128 67
Rank change year-on-year +33 -61 +55
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,214 616 1,027
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.66% 2.23% 3.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.88% 2.43% 3.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 558 405 568
10th Percentile £400 £410 £450
25th Percentile £471 £488 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £640 £650
Median % change year-on-year -10.16% -1.54% +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 320 59 253
10th Percentile £52.48 £31.25 £47.60
25th Percentile £60.00 £59.00 £57.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £68.55 £67.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.51 £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 42,226 25,298 31,012
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.54% 91.69% 92.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,604 16,413 20,392
10th Percentile £326 £285 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.02%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,151 1,307 1,820
10th Percentile £15.25 £13.61 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.79 £21.25
Median hourly rate £43.56 £26.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.54% -42.22% +4.65%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.25 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.99% -41.51% -

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 -39 406 £631 -15.83% 1,051
South West +64 239 £550 -12.00% 157
North of England 0 189 £525 +6.92% 189
South East +36 157 £530 +4.43% 188
East of England +26 148 £505 +1.00% 149
North West +7 119 £550 +13.75% 120
Midlands -12 59 £450 -5.26% 103
Yorkshire -15 53 £475 -5.00% 38
West Midlands -28 41 £450 - 50
North East -25 19 - - 31
East Midlands -3 18 £473 -0.53% 53
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 7 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 1,200 (98.85%) Software Engineering
2 340 (28.01%) Agile
3 322 (26.52%) Java
4 295 (24.30%) Security Cleared
5 291 (23.97%) CI/CD
6 279 (22.98%) Python
7 252 (20.76%) SC Cleared
8 250 (20.59%) AWS
9 171 (14.09%) C++
10 159 (13.10%) C#
11 156 (12.85%) TypeScript
12 155 (12.77%) React
13 145 (11.94%) Full-Stack Development
14 138 (11.37%) DevOps
15 137 (11.29%) JavaScript
16 132 (10.87%) Docker
17 131 (10.79%) Microservices
18 128 (10.54%) SQL
19 121 (9.97%) AI
20 116 (9.56%) Kubernetes
21 113 (9.31%) Test Automation
22 112 (9.23%) Linux
23 111 (9.14%) Azure
24 109 (8.98%) .NET
25 100 (8.24%) Node.js
26 98 (8.07%) Ada
27 96 (7.91%) Git
28 92 (7.58%) Kafka
29 87 (7.17%) Problem-Solving
29 87 (7.17%) 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 13 (1.07%) Confluence
2 10 (0.82%) Apache Spark
3 7 (0.58%) Apache
4 4 (0.33%) Apache Solr
4 4 (0.33%) CMS
5 3 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.25%) nginx
5 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.16%) MQSeries
6 2 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
6 2 (0.16%) SAS
6 2 (0.16%) WinCC
6 2 (0.16%) WordPress
7 1 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.082%) Apache Pulsar
7 1 (0.082%) IIS
7 1 (0.082%) SharePoint
7 1 (0.082%) Tuxedo
7 1 (0.082%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (0.25%) Trello
2 2 (0.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 2 (0.16%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.082%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.082%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 4 (0.33%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.082%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 250 (20.59%) AWS
2 111 (9.14%) Azure
3 62 (5.11%) GCP
4 61 (5.02%) GitHub
5 53 (4.37%) Serverless
6 36 (2.97%) AWS Lambda
7 31 (2.55%) GitHub Actions
8 24 (1.98%) OpenShift
9 21 (1.73%) Amazon SQS
10 20 (1.65%) Amazon ECS
10 20 (1.65%) Amazon S3
11 16 (1.32%) Amazon EKS
12 14 (1.15%) Amazon EC2
13 12 (0.99%) Azure DevOps
14 11 (0.91%) Power Platform
15 10 (0.82%) Anthropic Claude
16 9 (0.74%) SaaS
17 8 (0.66%) Amazon EventBridge
17 8 (0.66%) Amazon OpenSearch
17 8 (0.66%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 27 (2.22%) Software-Defined Radio
2 23 (1.89%) Wireless
3 20 (1.65%) Ethernet
4 15 (1.24%) TCP/IP
5 11 (0.91%) Firewall
5 11 (0.91%) HTTP
5 11 (0.91%) VPN
6 9 (0.74%) 3GPP
7 8 (0.66%) RTP
8 7 (0.58%) Wireshark
9 4 (0.33%) Internet
10 2 (0.16%) Network Security
10 2 (0.16%) RS-232
10 2 (0.16%) RS-422
11 1 (0.082%) DNS
11 1 (0.082%) Modbus
11 1 (0.082%) MQTT
11 1 (0.082%) RS-485
11 1 (0.082%) RTCP
11 1 (0.082%) XCAP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (5.85%) PostgreSQL
2 46 (3.79%) Relational Database
3 39 (3.21%) SQL Server
4 32 (2.64%) NoSQL
5 19 (1.57%) DynamoDB
6 16 (1.32%) Elasticsearch
7 13 (1.07%) MySQL
8 12 (0.99%) MongoDB
9 8 (0.66%) Apache Cassandra
10 7 (0.58%) Metadata
10 7 (0.58%) Power BI
10 7 (0.58%) Redis
11 6 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
11 6 (0.49%) Big Data
12 4 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
12 4 (0.33%) ObjectStore
13 3 (0.25%) Couchbase
13 3 (0.25%) Data Mining
13 3 (0.25%) GIS
13 3 (0.25%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 96 (7.91%) Git
2 66 (5.44%) Jenkins
3 56 (4.61%) GitLab
4 33 (2.72%) JIRA
5 24 (1.98%) JUnit
6 18 (1.48%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (1.48%) Visual Studio
7 17 (1.40%) SonarQube
8 14 (1.15%) Mockito
9 13 (1.07%) Gradle
9 13 (1.07%) Rational Rhapsody
10 11 (0.91%) Eclipse
10 11 (0.91%) Liquibase
11 9 (0.74%) Bitbucket
11 9 (0.74%) LabVIEW
11 9 (0.74%) Selenium
12 8 (0.66%) Claude Code
12 8 (0.66%) IntelliJ
13 7 (0.58%) TeamCity
14 6 (0.49%) Cucumber
General
1 171 (14.09%) Finance
2 120 (9.88%) Social Skills
3 67 (5.52%) Banking
4 59 (4.86%) Aerospace
4 59 (4.86%) Front Office
5 57 (4.70%) Public Sector
6 41 (3.38%) Analytical Skills
7 28 (2.31%) Law
8 24 (1.98%) Manufacturing
9 17 (1.40%) Aviation
9 17 (1.40%) Retail
10 16 (1.32%) Automotive
11 14 (1.15%) Electronics
12 13 (1.07%) Military
13 11 (0.91%) Investment Banking
14 10 (0.82%) Back Office
15 8 (0.66%) Telecoms
16 7 (0.58%) Avionics
17 5 (0.41%) Marketing
17 5 (0.41%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 155 (12.77%) React
2 109 (8.98%) .NET
3 100 (8.24%) Node.js
4 92 (7.58%) Kafka
5 87 (7.17%) Spring
6 81 (6.67%) Spring Boot
7 79 (6.51%) REST
8 53 (4.37%) AngularJS
9 51 (4.20%) Redux
10 46 (3.79%) GraphQL
11 39 (3.21%) Django
12 37 (3.05%) RESTful
13 23 (1.89%) Next.js
14 20 (1.65%) FastAPI
15 19 (1.57%) CSS
15 19 (1.57%) HTML
16 18 (1.48%) .NET Core
17 16 (1.32%) Flask
18 14 (1.15%) Quarkus
18 14 (1.15%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 118 (9.72%) Cloud Native
2 83 (6.84%) Distributed Systems
3 58 (4.78%) Fixed Income
4 39 (3.21%) Algorithms
5 30 (2.47%) Embedded Systems
6 29 (2.39%) Product Ownership
7 23 (1.89%) AI Agents
8 21 (1.73%) Onboarding
9 18 (1.48%) Derivative
10 14 (1.15%) Data Structures
11 13 (1.07%) Legacy Systems
12 12 (0.99%) Self-Motivation
13 11 (0.91%) Data Protection Act
13 11 (0.91%) Equities
14 10 (0.82%) RISC-V
15 9 (0.74%) Enterprise Software
15 9 (0.74%) FPGA
16 8 (0.66%) Device Driver
16 8 (0.66%) PCIe
16 8 (0.66%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 112 (9.23%) Linux
2 36 (2.97%) Windows
3 17 (1.40%) Embedded Linux
4 14 (1.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 11 (0.91%) FreeRTOS
6 8 (0.66%) Unix
7 6 (0.49%) Android
8 5 (0.41%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.41%) Windows Server
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 1,200 (98.85%) Software Engineering
2 340 (28.01%) Agile
3 291 (23.97%) CI/CD
4 145 (11.94%) Full-Stack Development
5 138 (11.37%) DevOps
6 131 (10.79%) Microservices
7 121 (9.97%) AI
8 113 (9.31%) Test Automation
9 87 (7.17%) Problem-Solving
10 82 (6.75%) TDD
11 76 (6.26%) Continuous Improvement
12 69 (5.68%) Software Testing
13 68 (5.60%) Containerisation
14 65 (5.35%) Infrastructure as Code
14 65 (5.35%) Mentoring
15 62 (5.11%) SDLC
16 57 (4.70%) Clean Code
16 57 (4.70%) Event-Driven
17 55 (4.53%) Technical Leadership
18 54 (4.45%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 322 (26.52%) Java
2 279 (22.98%) Python
3 171 (14.09%) C++
4 159 (13.10%) C#
5 156 (12.85%) TypeScript
6 137 (11.29%) JavaScript
7 128 (10.54%) SQL
8 98 (8.07%) Ada
9 79 (6.51%) C
10 73 (6.01%) Go
11 37 (3.05%) Kotlin
12 24 (1.98%) Rust
13 22 (1.81%) PowerShell
14 21 (1.73%) Embedded C
15 14 (1.15%) PHP
16 12 (0.99%) PL/SQL
17 11 (0.91%) Bash
18 10 (0.82%) MATLAB
19 8 (0.66%) Scala
20 7 (0.58%) R
Qualifications
1 295 (24.30%) Security Cleared
2 252 (20.76%) SC Cleared
3 47 (3.87%) Degree
4 36 (2.97%) DV Cleared
5 20 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
6 19 (1.57%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (0.66%) AWS Certification
7 8 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 7 (0.58%) ISTQB
9 6 (0.49%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 3 (0.25%) Chartered Engineer
10 3 (0.25%) PhD
11 2 (0.16%) HNC
11 2 (0.16%) HND
11 2 (0.16%) Master's Degree
11 2 (0.16%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 1 (0.082%) CCNP
12 1 (0.082%) Cisco Certification
12 1 (0.082%) OCA
12 1 (0.082%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (3.38%) QA
2 16 (1.32%) Def Stans
3 13 (1.07%) IEC 61508
4 11 (0.91%) MISRA
5 9 (0.74%) Accessibility
6 8 (0.66%) DO-178B
6 8 (0.66%) GDPR
7 6 (0.49%) Data Quality
8 5 (0.41%) WCAG
9 4 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.25%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.25%) MISRA C
11 2 (0.16%) ISO 26262
11 2 (0.16%) NCSC
12 1 (0.082%) FATCA
12 1 (0.082%) HL7
12 1 (0.082%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 1 (0.082%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 132 (10.87%) Docker
2 14 (1.15%) Firmware
3 5 (0.41%) Embedded Firmware
4 3 (0.25%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.16%) HDFS
5 2 (0.16%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 116 (9.56%) Kubernetes
2 63 (5.19%) Terraform
3 22 (1.81%) Ansible
4 15 (1.24%) Grafana
5 13 (1.07%) Argo
6 8 (0.66%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.33%) Control-M
7 4 (0.33%) Kibana
7 4 (0.33%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.25%) Functional Safety
8 3 (0.25%) Progress Chef
8 3 (0.25%) Puppet
9 2 (0.16%) Cilium
9 2 (0.16%) HAProxy
10 1 (0.082%) CA Endevor
10 1 (0.082%) PTC Integrity
Vendors
1 37 (3.05%) Microsoft
2 25 (2.06%) Oracle
3 20 (1.65%) Google
4 19 (1.57%) Red Hat
5 10 (0.82%) IBM
6 9 (0.74%) SAP
7 7 (0.58%) Splunk
8 6 (0.49%) Hitachi
9 5 (0.41%) Databricks
9 5 (0.41%) MathWorks
9 5 (0.41%) OpenAI
10 4 (0.33%) Checkmarx
10 4 (0.33%) VMware
11 3 (0.25%) FIS
11 3 (0.25%) Informatica
11 3 (0.25%) Siemens
11 3 (0.25%) Talend
12 2 (0.16%) Dynatrace
12 2 (0.16%) NVIDIA
12 2 (0.16%) Rockwell