Software Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Software Engineer
UK > England

The median Software Engineer daily rate in England is £560, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 21 August 2026.

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

 6 months to
21 Aug 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 98 126 71
Rank change year-on-year +28 -55 +49
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,196 617 1,012
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.62% 2.24% 3.04%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.83% 2.45% 3.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 528 399 543
10th Percentile £400 £409 £450
25th Percentile £463 £488 £519
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £638 £650
Median % change year-on-year -12.16% -1.92% +13.04%
75th Percentile £688 £825 £850
90th Percentile £750 £875 £888
UK median daily rate £570 £625 £650
% change year-on-year -8.80% -3.85% +15.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 329 63 238
10th Percentile £52.29 £31.25 £45.22
25th Percentile £60.00 £56.28 £54.09
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.25
Median % change year-on-year - -0.38% +0.38%
75th Percentile £68.75 £67.00 £70.25
90th Percentile £73.56 £77.00 £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 42,206 25,233 30,946
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.42% 91.57% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,476 16,290 20,133
10th Percentile £325 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -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% -1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,208 1,360 1,737
10th Percentile £15.24 £13.55 £14.16
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.79 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £26.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.46% -42.22% +6.95%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.00 £66.33
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +2.38%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -41 382 £625 -13.79% 133
South West +55 231 £550 -12.87% 125
North of England +1 191 £523 +6.30% 103
South East +43 169 £530 +11.58% 122
East of England +31 148 £505 +1.00% 69
North West +6 118 £550 +13.75% 62
Midlands -2 61 £450 -5.26% 50
Yorkshire -15 58 £475 -5.00% 20
West Midlands -22 36 £450 - 21
East Midlands +1 25 £445 -6.32% 29
North East -21 17 £425 -5.56% 21
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 21 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 1,182 (98.83%) Software Engineering
2 312 (26.09%) Agile
3 304 (25.42%) Java
4 293 (24.50%) CI/CD
5 282 (23.58%) Security Cleared
6 264 (22.07%) Python
7 244 (20.40%) SC Cleared
8 228 (19.06%) AWS
9 176 (14.72%) C++
10 159 (13.29%) C#
11 139 (11.62%) TypeScript
12 138 (11.54%) DevOps
12 138 (11.54%) React
13 131 (10.95%) Microservices
14 130 (10.87%) Docker
15 128 (10.70%) Full-Stack Development
16 126 (10.54%) AI
16 126 (10.54%) SQL
17 118 (9.87%) Kubernetes
18 111 (9.28%) Azure
18 111 (9.28%) JavaScript
18 111 (9.28%) Test Automation
19 109 (9.11%) .NET
20 108 (9.03%) Linux
21 93 (7.78%) Ada
21 93 (7.78%) Spring
22 92 (7.69%) Git
23 89 (7.44%) Spring Boot
24 85 (7.11%) Node.js
25 84 (7.02%) 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 12 (1.00%) Apache Spark
1 12 (1.00%) Confluence
2 8 (0.67%) Apache
3 5 (0.42%) Apache Solr
4 4 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
4 4 (0.33%) CMS
5 2 (0.17%) MQSeries
5 2 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
5 2 (0.17%) SAS
5 2 (0.17%) WordPress
6 1 (0.084%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.084%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.084%) IIS
6 1 (0.084%) nginx
6 1 (0.084%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.084%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.084%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 4 (0.33%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.25%) Trello
3 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.17%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.084%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.084%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 4 (0.33%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.084%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 228 (19.06%) AWS
2 111 (9.28%) Azure
3 64 (5.35%) GitHub
4 55 (4.60%) Serverless
5 52 (4.35%) GCP
6 39 (3.26%) AWS Lambda
7 35 (2.93%) GitHub Actions
8 23 (1.92%) Amazon SQS
8 23 (1.92%) OpenShift
9 21 (1.76%) Amazon ECS
9 21 (1.76%) Amazon S3
10 17 (1.42%) Amazon EKS
11 13 (1.09%) Amazon EC2
11 13 (1.09%) Azure DevOps
11 13 (1.09%) Power Platform
12 10 (0.84%) Amazon EventBridge
12 10 (0.84%) Anthropic Claude
13 9 (0.75%) Datadog
13 9 (0.75%) SaaS
14 8 (0.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 31 (2.59%) Software-Defined Radio
2 27 (2.26%) Wireless
3 19 (1.59%) Ethernet
4 14 (1.17%) TCP/IP
5 12 (1.00%) HTTP
6 11 (0.92%) Firewall
6 11 (0.92%) VPN
7 7 (0.59%) RTP
7 7 (0.59%) Wireshark
8 6 (0.50%) 3GPP
9 4 (0.33%) Internet
10 2 (0.17%) Network Security
11 1 (0.084%) DNS
11 1 (0.084%) MQTT
11 1 (0.084%) RS-232
11 1 (0.084%) RS-422
11 1 (0.084%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (5.69%) PostgreSQL
2 48 (4.01%) Relational Database
3 38 (3.18%) SQL Server
4 34 (2.84%) NoSQL
5 19 (1.59%) DynamoDB
6 15 (1.25%) MySQL
7 14 (1.17%) Elasticsearch
8 11 (0.92%) MongoDB
9 8 (0.67%) Metadata
9 8 (0.67%) Power BI
9 8 (0.67%) Redis
10 6 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
10 6 (0.50%) Apache Cassandra
10 6 (0.50%) Big Data
11 5 (0.42%) ObjectStore
12 4 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
13 3 (0.25%) Amazon Athena
13 3 (0.25%) Couchbase
13 3 (0.25%) Data Mining
13 3 (0.25%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 92 (7.69%) Git
2 64 (5.35%) Jenkins
3 55 (4.60%) GitLab
4 35 (2.93%) JIRA
5 25 (2.09%) JUnit
6 20 (1.67%) Rational DOORS
7 18 (1.51%) Visual Studio
8 15 (1.25%) SonarQube
9 14 (1.17%) Gradle
9 14 (1.17%) Mockito
9 14 (1.17%) Rational Rhapsody
10 12 (1.00%) LabVIEW
11 11 (0.92%) Eclipse
12 9 (0.75%) Liquibase
12 9 (0.75%) Selenium
13 8 (0.67%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.67%) Claude Code
14 7 (0.59%) IntelliJ
14 7 (0.59%) TeamCity
15 6 (0.50%) Maven
General
1 154 (12.88%) Finance
2 125 (10.45%) Social Skills
3 67 (5.60%) Banking
4 60 (5.02%) Public Sector
5 54 (4.52%) Aerospace
6 41 (3.43%) Front Office
7 37 (3.09%) Analytical Skills
8 26 (2.17%) Law
9 21 (1.76%) Manufacturing
10 18 (1.51%) Automotive
11 17 (1.42%) Aviation
12 14 (1.17%) Military
13 13 (1.09%) Electronics
14 12 (1.00%) Investment Banking
14 12 (1.00%) Retail
15 11 (0.92%) Back Office
16 7 (0.59%) Avionics
17 6 (0.50%) Telecoms
18 5 (0.42%) Marketing
18 5 (0.42%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 138 (11.54%) React
2 109 (9.11%) .NET
3 93 (7.78%) Spring
4 89 (7.44%) Spring Boot
5 85 (7.11%) Node.js
6 81 (6.77%) Kafka
6 81 (6.77%) REST
7 65 (5.43%) Terraform
8 47 (3.93%) AngularJS
9 43 (3.60%) Django
10 36 (3.01%) RESTful
11 32 (2.68%) Redux
12 29 (2.42%) GraphQL
13 24 (2.01%) Next.js
14 22 (1.84%) FastAPI
15 19 (1.59%) CSS
15 19 (1.59%) HTML
16 17 (1.42%) .NET Core
16 17 (1.42%) Flask
17 15 (1.25%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 118 (9.87%) Cloud Native
2 89 (7.44%) Distributed Systems
3 39 (3.26%) Fixed Income
4 35 (2.93%) Algorithms
5 32 (2.68%) Embedded Systems
6 26 (2.17%) AI Agents
7 25 (2.09%) Product Ownership
8 21 (1.76%) Onboarding
9 15 (1.25%) Derivative
10 13 (1.09%) Data Protection Act
10 13 (1.09%) Data Structures
10 13 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
10 13 (1.09%) RISC-V
11 12 (1.00%) Device Driver
12 11 (0.92%) Legacy Systems
12 11 (0.92%) Self-Motivation
13 9 (0.75%) Equities
13 9 (0.75%) FPGA
13 9 (0.75%) Greenfield Project
14 8 (0.67%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 108 (9.03%) Linux
2 35 (2.93%) Windows
3 21 (1.76%) Embedded Linux
4 13 (1.09%) FreeRTOS
5 10 (0.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (0.67%) Unix
7 6 (0.50%) Android
8 4 (0.33%) Debian
9 3 (0.25%) Rocky
9 3 (0.25%) Ubuntu
9 3 (0.25%) Windows Server
10 2 (0.17%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.17%) VxWorks
11 1 (0.084%) Solaris
11 1 (0.084%) Tizen
11 1 (0.084%) webOS
11 1 (0.084%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.084%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,182 (98.83%) Software Engineering
2 312 (26.09%) Agile
3 293 (24.50%) CI/CD
4 138 (11.54%) DevOps
5 131 (10.95%) Microservices
6 128 (10.70%) Full-Stack Development
7 126 (10.54%) AI
8 111 (9.28%) Test Automation
9 81 (6.77%) TDD
10 80 (6.69%) Problem-Solving
11 76 (6.35%) Continuous Improvement
12 68 (5.69%) Software Testing
13 65 (5.43%) Event-Driven
14 64 (5.35%) Infrastructure as Code
15 63 (5.27%) Containerisation
16 58 (4.85%) Observability
17 57 (4.77%) Clean Code
18 55 (4.60%) SDLC
19 54 (4.52%) Mentoring
20 53 (4.43%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 304 (25.42%) Java
2 264 (22.07%) Python
3 176 (14.72%) C++
4 159 (13.29%) C#
5 139 (11.62%) TypeScript
6 126 (10.54%) SQL
7 111 (9.28%) JavaScript
8 93 (7.78%) Ada
9 84 (7.02%) C
10 51 (4.26%) Go
11 40 (3.34%) Kotlin
12 23 (1.92%) Embedded C
12 23 (1.92%) PowerShell
13 21 (1.76%) Rust
14 14 (1.17%) PHP
15 11 (0.92%) Bash
16 9 (0.75%) PL/SQL
17 8 (0.67%) MATLAB
17 8 (0.67%) Scala
18 7 (0.59%) R
Qualifications
1 282 (23.58%) Security Cleared
2 244 (20.40%) SC Cleared
3 43 (3.60%) Degree
4 34 (2.84%) DV Cleared
5 20 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
6 16 (1.34%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (0.50%) AWS Certification
7 6 (0.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 5 (0.42%) ISTQB
9 4 (0.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 3 (0.25%) Chartered Engineer
10 3 (0.25%) PhD
11 2 (0.17%) Master's Degree
11 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 1 (0.084%) CCNP
12 1 (0.084%) Cisco Certification
12 1 (0.084%) OCA
12 1 (0.084%) Oracle Certification
12 1 (0.084%) RHCA
12 1 (0.084%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (3.01%) QA
2 16 (1.34%) Def Stans
3 13 (1.09%) IEC 61508
3 13 (1.09%) MISRA
4 9 (0.75%) Accessibility
5 8 (0.67%) DO-178B
5 8 (0.67%) GDPR
6 6 (0.50%) Data Quality
6 6 (0.50%) WCAG
7 5 (0.42%) MISRA C
8 4 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.25%) ISO 20022
10 2 (0.17%) HL7
10 2 (0.17%) ISO 26262
10 2 (0.17%) NCSC
11 1 (0.084%) FATCA
11 1 (0.084%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 1 (0.084%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 130 (10.87%) Docker
2 18 (1.51%) Firmware
3 9 (0.75%) Embedded Firmware
4 3 (0.25%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.17%) HDFS
5 2 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 118 (9.87%) Kubernetes
2 19 (1.59%) Ansible
3 12 (1.00%) Argo
4 11 (0.92%) Grafana
5 6 (0.50%) Prometheus
6 4 (0.33%) Control-M
6 4 (0.33%) Kibana
6 4 (0.33%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.25%) Functional Safety
7 3 (0.25%) Progress Chef
7 3 (0.25%) Puppet
8 2 (0.17%) Cilium
8 2 (0.17%) HAProxy
8 2 (0.17%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.084%) CA Endevor
9 1 (0.084%) PTC Integrity
Vendors
1 39 (3.26%) Microsoft
2 22 (1.84%) Oracle
3 15 (1.25%) Red Hat
4 14 (1.17%) Google
5 10 (0.84%) SAP
6 8 (0.67%) IBM
7 7 (0.59%) Hitachi
8 6 (0.50%) Databricks
9 5 (0.42%) MathWorks
9 5 (0.42%) OpenAI
10 4 (0.33%) Checkmarx
10 4 (0.33%) Splunk
10 4 (0.33%) VMware
11 3 (0.25%) FIS
11 3 (0.25%) Informatica
11 3 (0.25%) Talend
12 2 (0.17%) Ariba
12 2 (0.17%) QNX
12 2 (0.17%) Salesforce
12 2 (0.17%) Sybase
532 Software Engineer jobs in England