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 18 April 2026.

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

 6 months to
18 Apr 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 92 125 82
Rank change year-on-year +33 -43 +56
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,093 547 955
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.77% 2.23% 2.56%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.00% 2.41% 2.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 481 363 508
10th Percentile £400 £413 £436
25th Percentile £450 £484 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £628
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -4.38% +6.36%
75th Percentile £688 £769 £750
90th Percentile £788 £875 £800
UK median daily rate £550 £600 £625
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +5.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 367 49 283
10th Percentile £52.50 £52.40 £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% +4.17%
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £71.43 £68.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +4.00% +4.17%

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 36,383 22,702 34,513
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.29% 92.69% 92.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,833 15,164 23,008
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £644
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,430 862 2,374
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.41 £12.88
25th Percentile £20.72 £19.43 £16.25
Median hourly rate £45.00 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.46% -7.14% -18.60%
75th Percentile £67.25 £64.69 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £76.25 £72.49
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £30.43 £35.00
% change year-on-year +37.85% -13.07% -20.55%

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 18 April 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 18 April 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 18 April 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 -26 338 £615 -8.89% 227
South West +39 243 £575 -4.17% 121
North of England +25 170 £500 +5.26% 126
East of England +43 144 £500 -14.16% 103
South East +14 117 £550 -1.35% 208
North West +7 93 £525 +16.67% 77
Yorkshire -20 53 £500 +4.17% 32
Midlands -45 42 £475 +11.76% 69
West Midlands -38 35 £478 +6.16% 48
North East +12 27 £439 - 18
East Midlands -36 7 £475 - 21
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 18 April 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 1,082 (98.99%) Software Engineering
2 269 (24.61%) Security Cleared
3 268 (24.52%) Agile
4 262 (23.97%) Java
5 259 (23.70%) AWS
6 237 (21.68%) CI/CD
7 227 (20.77%) Python
8 208 (19.03%) SC Cleared
9 187 (17.11%) C++
10 151 (13.82%) C#
11 150 (13.72%) TypeScript
12 141 (12.90%) DevOps
13 139 (12.72%) React
14 136 (12.44%) JavaScript
15 130 (11.89%) Microservices
16 128 (11.71%) Docker
17 126 (11.53%) Kubernetes
18 122 (11.16%) Linux
19 118 (10.80%) Azure
19 118 (10.80%) Full-Stack Development
20 112 (10.25%) Ada
21 111 (10.16%) SQL
22 104 (9.52%) Node.js
23 95 (8.69%) AI
23 95 (8.69%) Kafka
24 90 (8.23%) .NET
24 90 (8.23%) Go
25 88 (8.05%) Git
26 86 (7.87%) Problem-Solving
27 84 (7.69%) C

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 21 (1.92%) Apache
2 18 (1.65%) Confluence
3 17 (1.56%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.27%) IIS
4 3 (0.27%) WebLogic
5 2 (0.18%) Camunda
5 2 (0.18%) MQSeries
5 2 (0.18%) nginx
5 2 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
5 2 (0.18%) SAS
5 2 (0.18%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.18%) WinCC
6 1 (0.091%) Apache Synapse
6 1 (0.091%) CMS
6 1 (0.091%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.091%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.091%) Smallworld
Applications
1 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 2 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.091%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.18%) LabWindows
2 1 (0.091%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.091%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 259 (23.70%) AWS
2 118 (10.80%) Azure
3 67 (6.13%) GCP
4 52 (4.76%) GitHub
4 52 (4.76%) Serverless
5 26 (2.38%) AWS Lambda
6 22 (2.01%) Azure DevOps
6 22 (2.01%) GitHub Actions
7 21 (1.92%) Amazon S3
8 19 (1.74%) OpenShift
9 18 (1.65%) AWS CloudFormation
10 17 (1.56%) Power Platform
11 16 (1.46%) Amazon ECS
11 16 (1.46%) Amazon SQS
12 12 (1.10%) Amazon EC2
12 12 (1.10%) Azure Functions
13 11 (1.01%) Amazon EKS
13 11 (1.01%) Collibra
14 10 (0.91%) SaaS
15 8 (0.73%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 19 (1.74%) Software-Defined Radio
2 17 (1.56%) Ethernet
3 11 (1.01%) TCP/IP
4 9 (0.82%) Wireless
5 7 (0.64%) 3GPP
6 6 (0.55%) Firewall
6 6 (0.55%) HTTP
7 4 (0.37%) BGP
7 4 (0.37%) Network Security
7 4 (0.37%) RTP
7 4 (0.37%) VLAN
8 3 (0.27%) Software-Defined Networking
8 3 (0.27%) Wireshark
9 2 (0.18%) Modbus
10 1 (0.091%) DNS
10 1 (0.091%) HTTPS
10 1 (0.091%) LTE
10 1 (0.091%) Profibus
10 1 (0.091%) RTCP
10 1 (0.091%) XCAP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (5.86%) PostgreSQL
2 30 (2.74%) SQL Server
3 28 (2.56%) Relational Database
4 26 (2.38%) Apache Cassandra
5 22 (2.01%) MongoDB
6 21 (1.92%) NoSQL
7 19 (1.74%) Data Lake
8 16 (1.46%) Amazon RDS
8 16 (1.46%) MySQL
9 14 (1.28%) Power BI
10 13 (1.19%) Metadata
11 12 (1.10%) DynamoDB
11 12 (1.10%) Mixpanel
12 11 (1.01%) Amazon Athena
13 10 (0.91%) Elasticsearch
14 9 (0.82%) BigQuery
15 7 (0.64%) OLAP
15 7 (0.64%) OLTP
15 7 (0.64%) Redis
16 6 (0.55%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 88 (8.05%) Git
2 53 (4.85%) GitLab
3 46 (4.21%) Jenkins
4 42 (3.84%) JIRA
5 23 (2.10%) Rational Rhapsody
6 22 (2.01%) Rational DOORS
7 20 (1.83%) Gradle
8 18 (1.65%) IntelliJ
8 18 (1.65%) JUnit
9 17 (1.56%) SonarQube
9 17 (1.56%) Visual Studio
10 12 (1.10%) Cucumber
11 11 (1.01%) Eclipse
12 10 (0.91%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.91%) Cypress.io
12 10 (0.91%) Maven
13 9 (0.82%) Postman
14 8 (0.73%) PVCS
15 7 (0.64%) Oracle APEX
15 7 (0.64%) Selenium
General
1 115 (10.52%) Finance
2 92 (8.42%) Social Skills
3 53 (4.85%) Aerospace
4 49 (4.48%) Front Office
5 43 (3.93%) Public Sector
6 36 (3.29%) Analytical Skills
7 28 (2.56%) Banking
7 28 (2.56%) Electronics
8 26 (2.38%) Law
9 22 (2.01%) Manufacturing
10 20 (1.83%) Military
11 13 (1.19%) Retail
12 9 (0.82%) Influencing Skills
13 8 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
14 7 (0.64%) Aviation
14 7 (0.64%) Investment Banking
15 5 (0.46%) Health Technology
16 4 (0.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 4 (0.37%) Telecoms
17 3 (0.27%) Games
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 139 (12.72%) React
2 104 (9.52%) Node.js
3 95 (8.69%) Kafka
4 90 (8.23%) .NET
5 72 (6.59%) REST
6 65 (5.95%) Spring
7 62 (5.67%) Spring Boot
8 53 (4.85%) AngularJS
9 46 (4.21%) GraphQL
9 46 (4.21%) Redux
10 36 (3.29%) RESTful
11 34 (3.11%) Middleware
12 23 (2.10%) gRPC
13 22 (2.01%) CSS
14 19 (1.74%) HTML
14 19 (1.74%) JSON
14 19 (1.74%) Qt
15 18 (1.65%) Vue
16 17 (1.56%) Next.js
16 17 (1.56%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 78 (7.14%) Cloud Native
2 57 (5.22%) Algorithms
3 51 (4.67%) Distributed Systems
3 51 (4.67%) Fixed Income
4 36 (3.29%) Product Ownership
5 21 (1.92%) Embedded Systems
6 17 (1.56%) AI Agents
7 15 (1.37%) Derivative
7 15 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
8 14 (1.28%) Equities
9 13 (1.19%) Mobile App
9 13 (1.19%) Robotics
10 12 (1.10%) Greenfield Project
11 11 (1.01%) Data Protection Act
11 11 (1.01%) Onboarding
12 10 (0.91%) Life Science
13 9 (0.82%) FPGA
14 8 (0.73%) NHS
15 7 (0.64%) Analytical Mindset
15 7 (0.64%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 122 (11.16%) Linux
2 50 (4.57%) Windows
3 18 (1.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 18 (1.65%) Unix
4 16 (1.46%) Apple iOS
5 13 (1.19%) Android
6 12 (1.10%) Windows Server
7 9 (0.82%) Embedded Linux
8 6 (0.55%) FreeRTOS
9 5 (0.46%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.37%) Debian
11 3 (0.27%) Rocky
12 2 (0.18%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.091%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.091%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,082 (98.99%) Software Engineering
2 268 (24.52%) Agile
3 237 (21.68%) CI/CD
4 141 (12.90%) DevOps
5 130 (11.89%) Microservices
6 118 (10.80%) Full-Stack Development
7 95 (8.69%) AI
8 86 (7.87%) Problem-Solving
9 77 (7.04%) TDD
10 73 (6.68%) Test Automation
11 72 (6.59%) Containerisation
12 67 (6.13%) Mentoring
13 62 (5.67%) Infrastructure as Code
14 58 (5.31%) Machine Learning
14 58 (5.31%) SDLC
15 57 (5.22%) Scrum
16 54 (4.94%) Continuous Improvement
16 54 (4.94%) Unit Testing
17 48 (4.39%) Clean Code
18 47 (4.30%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 262 (23.97%) Java
2 227 (20.77%) Python
3 187 (17.11%) C++
4 151 (13.82%) C#
5 150 (13.72%) TypeScript
6 136 (12.44%) JavaScript
7 112 (10.25%) Ada
8 111 (10.16%) SQL
9 90 (8.23%) Go
10 84 (7.69%) C
11 28 (2.56%) Embedded C
12 26 (2.38%) PowerShell
13 24 (2.20%) Kotlin
14 22 (2.01%) MATLAB
14 22 (2.01%) Rust
15 17 (1.56%) Bash
16 16 (1.46%) Embedded C++
17 9 (0.82%) PL/SQL
17 9 (0.82%) Swift
18 7 (0.64%) Perl
Qualifications
1 269 (24.61%) Security Cleared
2 208 (19.03%) SC Cleared
3 50 (4.57%) Degree
4 39 (3.57%) DV Cleared
5 22 (2.01%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (0.91%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (0.73%) AWS Certification
8 7 (0.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 4 (0.37%) ISTQB
9 4 (0.37%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 3 (0.27%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.18%) CCNA
11 2 (0.18%) CCNP
11 2 (0.18%) HNC
11 2 (0.18%) HND
11 2 (0.18%) Master's Degree
12 1 (0.091%) AWS Certified Developer
12 1 (0.091%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 1 (0.091%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 1 (0.091%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (3.66%) Def Stans
2 34 (3.11%) IEC 61508
2 34 (3.11%) QA
3 23 (2.10%) MISRA
4 21 (1.92%) Data Quality
5 17 (1.56%) MISRA C
6 13 (1.19%) GDPR
7 9 (0.82%) Accessibility
8 6 (0.55%) DO-178B
8 6 (0.55%) HL7
9 4 (0.37%) NCSC
10 2 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.091%) DICOM
11 1 (0.091%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 1 (0.091%) NIST
11 1 (0.091%) WCAG
System Software
1 128 (11.71%) Docker
2 14 (1.28%) Firmware
3 10 (0.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.37%) Oracle RAC
6 3 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
7 2 (0.18%) HDFS
8 1 (0.091%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 126 (11.53%) Kubernetes
2 84 (7.69%) Terraform
3 25 (2.29%) Grafana
4 21 (1.92%) Ansible
5 11 (1.01%) Argo
6 7 (0.64%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.37%) Data Guard
8 3 (0.27%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.18%) HAProxy
9 2 (0.18%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.18%) Puppet
10 1 (0.091%) Functional Safety
10 1 (0.091%) Podman
Vendors
1 39 (3.57%) Microsoft
2 36 (3.29%) Red Hat
3 24 (2.20%) Google
3 24 (2.20%) Oracle
4 23 (2.10%) Databricks
5 21 (1.92%) IBM
6 10 (0.91%) MathWorks
6 10 (0.91%) VMware
7 8 (0.73%) ANSYS
7 8 (0.73%) Siemens
7 8 (0.73%) Spotify
8 7 (0.64%) Splunk
9 4 (0.37%) Atlassian
9 4 (0.37%) Brio
9 4 (0.37%) Checkmarx
10 3 (0.27%) NVIDIA
10 3 (0.27%) OpenAI
10 3 (0.27%) Palantir
10 3 (0.27%) SAP
11 2 (0.18%) Talend
824 Software Engineer jobs in England