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 11 June 2026.

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

 6 months to
11 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 135 67
Rank change year-on-year +46 -68 +68
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,195 504 1,155
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.81% 2.06% 3.08%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.04% 2.23% 3.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 517 352 585
10th Percentile £400 £413 £450
25th Percentile £463 £475 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £625 £630
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% -0.79% +5.00%
75th Percentile £688 £825 £788
90th Percentile £775 £875 £850
UK median daily rate £550 £600 £625
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 376 36 352
10th Percentile £52.50 £48.26 £46.25
25th Percentile £59.41 £59.00 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.46 £82.25 £80.00
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 39,333 22,600 34,789
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.35% 92.37% 92.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,258 14,872 22,778
10th Percentile £325 £290 £288
25th Percentile £414 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £514 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.17% -2.10% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £638
90th Percentile £726 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.55% -4.76% -2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,776 986 2,652
10th Percentile £15.86 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £45.00 £29.07 £38.50
Median % change year-on-year +54.80% -24.49% -14.44%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £43.00 £27.70 £37.50
% change year-on-year +55.23% -26.13% -16.67%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -33 358 £620 -9.22% 168
South West +70 276 £553 -10.71% 115
North of England +23 187 £500 +11.11% 139
South East +28 160 £550 +5.77% 184
East of England +52 144 £500 +3.09% 109
North West +16 112 £500 +11.11% 78
Yorkshire -15 52 £500 +5.26% 24
Midlands -37 44 £450 -2.70% 45
West Midlands -31 34 £450 -7.69% 25
North East -4 25 £400 - 37
East Midlands -26 10 £473 -0.53% 20
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 11 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 1,181 (98.83%) Software Engineering
2 319 (26.69%) Java
3 300 (25.10%) Agile
4 281 (23.51%) Security Cleared
5 269 (22.51%) CI/CD
6 268 (22.43%) AWS
7 232 (19.41%) Python
8 222 (18.58%) SC Cleared
9 174 (14.56%) C++
10 172 (14.39%) C#
11 159 (13.31%) TypeScript
12 157 (13.14%) React
13 141 (11.80%) JavaScript
14 138 (11.55%) Microservices
15 137 (11.46%) DevOps
16 131 (10.96%) Docker
17 130 (10.88%) SQL
18 129 (10.79%) Full-Stack Development
19 128 (10.71%) Kubernetes
20 121 (10.13%) Linux
21 118 (9.87%) Azure
22 115 (9.62%) AI
23 110 (9.21%) Ada
24 102 (8.54%) .NET
25 97 (8.12%) Test Automation
26 94 (7.87%) Node.js
27 92 (7.70%) Kafka
28 91 (7.62%) Spring
29 88 (7.36%) Git
29 88 (7.36%) Spring Boot

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 15 (1.26%) Apache Spark
1 15 (1.26%) Confluence
2 13 (1.09%) Apache
3 4 (0.33%) IIS
4 3 (0.25%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.25%) nginx
4 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.17%) Camunda
5 2 (0.17%) MQSeries
5 2 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
5 2 (0.17%) SAS
5 2 (0.17%) WebLogic
5 2 (0.17%) WinCC
6 1 (0.084%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.084%) Apache Synapse
6 1 (0.084%) CMS
6 1 (0.084%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.084%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.084%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.17%) LabWindows
3 1 (0.084%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 268 (22.43%) AWS
2 118 (9.87%) Azure
3 67 (5.61%) GCP
4 56 (4.69%) Serverless
5 54 (4.52%) GitHub
6 34 (2.85%) AWS Lambda
7 27 (2.26%) Amazon S3
8 25 (2.09%) OpenShift
9 22 (1.84%) Amazon EC2
10 20 (1.67%) Azure DevOps
10 20 (1.67%) GitHub Actions
11 17 (1.42%) Amazon ECS
12 16 (1.34%) Amazon SQS
13 13 (1.09%) Power Platform
14 12 (1.00%) Amazon EKS
14 12 (1.00%) SaaS
15 11 (0.92%) AWS CloudFormation
16 10 (0.84%) Azure Functions
17 9 (0.75%) Anthropic Claude
18 8 (0.67%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 32 (2.68%) Software-Defined Radio
2 21 (1.76%) Wireless
3 20 (1.67%) Ethernet
4 14 (1.17%) TCP/IP
5 11 (0.92%) HTTP
6 9 (0.75%) 3GPP
7 7 (0.59%) Firewall
7 7 (0.59%) RTP
8 6 (0.50%) Wireshark
9 5 (0.42%) VPN
10 2 (0.17%) DNS
10 2 (0.17%) Internet
10 2 (0.17%) Modbus
11 1 (0.084%) BGP
11 1 (0.084%) HTTPS
11 1 (0.084%) Network Security
11 1 (0.084%) Profibus
11 1 (0.084%) RTCP
11 1 (0.084%) VLAN
11 1 (0.084%) XCAP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (5.94%) PostgreSQL
2 40 (3.35%) Relational Database
3 35 (2.93%) SQL Server
4 23 (1.92%) NoSQL
5 20 (1.67%) Apache Cassandra
6 18 (1.51%) Amazon RDS
6 18 (1.51%) MongoDB
7 17 (1.42%) DynamoDB
8 14 (1.17%) MySQL
9 12 (1.00%) Data Lake
9 12 (1.00%) Elasticsearch
10 11 (0.92%) Metadata
11 10 (0.84%) Power BI
12 9 (0.75%) Amazon Athena
13 8 (0.67%) Mixpanel
14 7 (0.59%) Hadoop
15 5 (0.42%) Amazon Aurora
15 5 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
15 5 (0.42%) BigQuery
16 4 (0.33%) Redis
Development Applications
1 88 (7.36%) Git
2 55 (4.60%) Jenkins
3 54 (4.52%) GitLab
4 36 (3.01%) JIRA
5 25 (2.09%) Gradle
5 25 (2.09%) JUnit
6 21 (1.76%) Rational Rhapsody
7 20 (1.67%) Rational DOORS
8 19 (1.59%) Visual Studio
9 18 (1.51%) IntelliJ
9 18 (1.51%) SonarQube
10 13 (1.09%) Cucumber
10 13 (1.09%) Mockito
11 11 (0.92%) Eclipse
11 11 (0.92%) Liquibase
12 10 (0.84%) Selenium
13 9 (0.75%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.75%) Maven
14 7 (0.59%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.59%) LabVIEW
General
1 154 (12.89%) Finance
2 94 (7.87%) Social Skills
3 65 (5.44%) Aerospace
4 51 (4.27%) Front Office
5 42 (3.51%) Banking
6 39 (3.26%) Public Sector
7 33 (2.76%) Analytical Skills
8 30 (2.51%) Law
9 28 (2.34%) Manufacturing
10 17 (1.42%) Aviation
11 15 (1.26%) Military
11 15 (1.26%) Retail
12 14 (1.17%) Automotive
13 11 (0.92%) Investment Banking
14 9 (0.75%) Electronics
15 7 (0.59%) Back Office
15 7 (0.59%) Influencing Skills
15 7 (0.59%) Telecoms
16 5 (0.42%) Police
16 5 (0.42%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 157 (13.14%) React
2 102 (8.54%) .NET
3 94 (7.87%) Node.js
4 92 (7.70%) Kafka
5 91 (7.62%) Spring
6 88 (7.36%) Spring Boot
7 71 (5.94%) REST
8 63 (5.27%) AngularJS
9 48 (4.02%) GraphQL
10 47 (3.93%) Redux
11 40 (3.35%) RESTful
12 27 (2.26%) Next.js
13 24 (2.01%) Middleware
14 23 (1.92%) CSS
15 21 (1.76%) HTML
16 19 (1.59%) Vue
17 17 (1.42%) FastAPI
18 16 (1.34%) Web Services
19 15 (1.26%) Qt
19 15 (1.26%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 98 (8.20%) Cloud Native
2 65 (5.44%) Distributed Systems
3 63 (5.27%) Algorithms
4 54 (4.52%) Fixed Income
5 35 (2.93%) Product Ownership
6 28 (2.34%) Embedded Systems
7 21 (1.76%) Derivative
8 20 (1.67%) AI Agents
9 17 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
10 15 (1.26%) Equities
11 14 (1.17%) Onboarding
11 14 (1.17%) Robotics
11 14 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
12 13 (1.09%) Data Protection Act
13 11 (0.92%) Greenfield Project
14 10 (0.84%) FPGA
15 9 (0.75%) Life Science
16 8 (0.67%) Data Structures
16 8 (0.67%) Device Driver
16 8 (0.67%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 121 (10.13%) Linux
2 45 (3.77%) Windows
3 17 (1.42%) Unix
4 16 (1.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (1.26%) Embedded Linux
6 11 (0.92%) Apple iOS
6 11 (0.92%) FreeRTOS
7 9 (0.75%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.50%) 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 (0.17%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.17%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.084%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.084%) VMS
12 1 (0.084%) webOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,181 (98.83%) Software Engineering
2 300 (25.10%) Agile
3 269 (22.51%) CI/CD
4 138 (11.55%) Microservices
5 137 (11.46%) DevOps
6 129 (10.79%) Full-Stack Development
7 115 (9.62%) AI
8 97 (8.12%) Test Automation
9 84 (7.03%) Problem-Solving
10 80 (6.69%) TDD
11 78 (6.53%) Containerisation
12 65 (5.44%) Infrastructure as Code
12 65 (5.44%) SDLC
13 61 (5.10%) Machine Learning
14 59 (4.94%) Mentoring
15 57 (4.77%) Continuous Improvement
15 57 (4.77%) Scrum
16 53 (4.44%) Clean Code
17 52 (4.35%) Software Testing
18 51 (4.27%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 319 (26.69%) Java
2 232 (19.41%) Python
3 174 (14.56%) C++
4 172 (14.39%) C#
5 159 (13.31%) TypeScript
6 141 (11.80%) JavaScript
7 130 (10.88%) SQL
8 110 (9.21%) Ada
9 80 (6.69%) Go
10 76 (6.36%) C
11 28 (2.34%) Kotlin
12 25 (2.09%) Embedded C
13 23 (1.92%) PowerShell
14 22 (1.84%) MATLAB
15 21 (1.76%) Rust
16 14 (1.17%) Bash
17 12 (1.00%) PL/SQL
18 10 (0.84%) PHP
19 9 (0.75%) Embedded C++
20 7 (0.59%) Scala
Qualifications
1 281 (23.51%) Security Cleared
2 222 (18.58%) SC Cleared
3 57 (4.77%) Degree
4 38 (3.18%) DV Cleared
5 22 (1.84%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (1.26%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (0.67%) AWS Certification
7 8 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 5 (0.42%) ISTQB
8 5 (0.42%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 3 (0.25%) Chartered Engineer
10 2 (0.17%) CCNP
10 2 (0.17%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.17%) HNC
10 2 (0.17%) HND
11 1 (0.084%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 1 (0.084%) OCA
11 1 (0.084%) Oracle Certification
11 1 (0.084%) PhD
11 1 (0.084%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (3.51%) QA
2 28 (2.34%) IEC 61508
3 27 (2.26%) Def Stans
4 15 (1.26%) MISRA
5 14 (1.17%) Data Quality
6 11 (0.92%) Accessibility
6 11 (0.92%) GDPR
6 11 (0.92%) MISRA C
7 5 (0.42%) WCAG
8 4 (0.33%) DO-178B
8 4 (0.33%) NCSC
8 4 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.17%) HL7
9 2 (0.17%) ISO 26262
10 1 (0.084%) DICOM
10 1 (0.084%) FATCA
10 1 (0.084%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.084%) NIST
System Software
1 131 (10.96%) Docker
2 14 (1.17%) Firmware
3 5 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
3 5 (0.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
5 3 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.17%) HDFS
7 1 (0.084%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 128 (10.71%) Kubernetes
2 71 (5.94%) Terraform
3 26 (2.18%) Grafana
4 18 (1.51%) Ansible
5 13 (1.09%) Argo
6 7 (0.59%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.33%) Data Guard
7 4 (0.33%) Functional Safety
7 4 (0.33%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.17%) Cilium
8 2 (0.17%) HAProxy
8 2 (0.17%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.17%) Puppet
9 1 (0.084%) CA Endevor
9 1 (0.084%) Control-M
Vendors
1 35 (2.93%) Microsoft
2 32 (2.68%) Red Hat
3 25 (2.09%) Oracle
4 23 (1.92%) Google
5 16 (1.34%) Databricks
5 16 (1.34%) IBM
6 10 (0.84%) MathWorks
7 7 (0.59%) Siemens
7 7 (0.59%) Splunk
8 6 (0.50%) SAP
8 6 (0.50%) Spotify
9 5 (0.42%) OpenAI
9 5 (0.42%) VMware
10 4 (0.33%) Atlassian
10 4 (0.33%) Checkmarx
10 4 (0.33%) Sybase
11 3 (0.25%) ANSYS
11 3 (0.25%) Informatica
11 3 (0.25%) Talend
12 2 (0.17%) Ariba
717 Software Engineer jobs in England