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 8 February 2026.

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

 6 months to
8 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 106 114 100
Rank change year-on-year +8 -14 +23
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 848 593 865
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.54% 2.26% 2.26%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.77% 2.43% 2.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 361 351 444
10th Percentile £400 £413 £425
25th Percentile £456 £500 £485
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £610
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -1.64% +2.52%
75th Percentile £688 £713 £725
90th Percentile £763 £850 £788
UK median daily rate £550 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -8.33% - +1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 274 58 262
10th Percentile £51.25 £47.50 £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% -3.85%
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.00 £67.38
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £79.80
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 30,591 24,375 35,670
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.64% 93.06% 93.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,473 15,100 24,021
10th Percentile £300 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £640
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 1,949 720 2,128
10th Percentile £14.99 £15.89 £13.23
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.25 £16.80
Median hourly rate £30.11 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.99% - -3.19%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.56 £61.25
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £33.77 £35.00
% change year-on-year -11.16% -3.51% -

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 -34 284 £625 - 277
South West +7 162 £500 -13.04% 131
North of England +13 148 £525 +10.53% 166
East of England +37 120 £525 +1.94% 78
North West +13 72 £550 +22.22% 108
South East -14 68 £525 +2.44% 211
Yorkshire -10 60 £525 +3.70% 34
Midlands -30 31 £503 +5.89% 83
West Midlands -25 26 £528 +11.05% 40
North East -2 18 £550 - 25
East Midlands -22 5 £475 -4.04% 43
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 8 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.

1 838 (98.82%) Software Engineering
2 239 (28.18%) Agile
3 236 (27.83%) AWS
4 208 (24.53%) Python
5 197 (23.23%) CI/CD
6 192 (22.64%) C++
7 183 (21.58%) Java
7 183 (21.58%) Security Cleared
8 141 (16.63%) DevOps
9 140 (16.51%) SC Cleared
10 137 (16.16%) Docker
11 132 (15.57%) Kubernetes
12 129 (15.21%) JavaScript
12 129 (15.21%) Microservices
13 121 (14.27%) Linux
14 120 (14.15%) TypeScript
15 116 (13.68%) React
16 115 (13.56%) C#
17 104 (12.26%) SQL
18 98 (11.56%) Terraform
19 96 (11.32%) Azure
20 88 (10.38%) Problem-Solving
21 83 (9.79%) Containerisation
22 81 (9.55%) Full-Stack Development
23 80 (9.43%) AI
23 80 (9.43%) Degree
24 78 (9.20%) Test Automation
25 77 (9.08%) Kafka
25 77 (9.08%) Node.js
25 77 (9.08%) Serverless

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 (3.54%) Apache
2 15 (1.77%) Apache Spark
3 12 (1.42%) Apache Airflow
4 11 (1.30%) Confluence
5 4 (0.47%) SAS
5 4 (0.47%) WebLogic
6 3 (0.35%) IIS
7 2 (0.24%) Camunda
7 2 (0.24%) JBoss
8 1 (0.12%) Apache Synapse
8 1 (0.12%) CMS
8 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.12%) Smallworld
8 1 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 4 (0.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.12%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.12%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 2 (0.24%) LabWindows
2 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 236 (27.83%) AWS
2 96 (11.32%) Azure
3 77 (9.08%) Serverless
4 76 (8.96%) GCP
5 52 (6.13%) GitHub
6 37 (4.36%) AWS Lambda
7 27 (3.18%) Amazon S3
8 26 (3.07%) Amazon ECS
8 26 (3.07%) Azure DevOps
8 26 (3.07%) GitHub Actions
9 20 (2.36%) Amazon EC2
10 17 (2.00%) Amazon SQS
10 17 (2.00%) AWS CloudFormation
11 15 (1.77%) Amazon EKS
12 14 (1.65%) OpenShift
13 12 (1.42%) dbt
14 11 (1.30%) Cloud Computing
14 11 (1.30%) Power Platform
15 10 (1.18%) Azure Functions
15 10 (1.18%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.89%) Ethernet
2 8 (0.94%) TCP/IP
3 5 (0.59%) Firewall
3 5 (0.59%) Software-Defined Radio
4 4 (0.47%) BGP
4 4 (0.47%) Network Security
4 4 (0.47%) VLAN
5 3 (0.35%) HTTP
5 3 (0.35%) NFC
5 3 (0.35%) PPP
5 3 (0.35%) Software-Defined Networking
6 2 (0.24%) Bluetooth
6 2 (0.24%) SSL
6 2 (0.24%) Wireless
7 1 (0.12%) 5G
7 1 (0.12%) 5G NR
7 1 (0.12%) DNS
7 1 (0.12%) Internet
7 1 (0.12%) VPN
7 1 (0.12%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (5.78%) PostgreSQL
2 40 (4.72%) NoSQL
3 28 (3.30%) MongoDB
4 27 (3.18%) Apache Cassandra
5 25 (2.95%) Data Lake
6 23 (2.71%) Amazon Athena
6 23 (2.71%) SQL Server
7 22 (2.59%) Amazon RDS
8 18 (2.12%) MySQL
8 18 (2.12%) Relational Database
9 13 (1.53%) Metadata
10 12 (1.42%) Apache Arrow
10 12 (1.42%) Apache Iceberg
10 12 (1.42%) Dremio
10 12 (1.42%) DynamoDB
10 12 (1.42%) Mixpanel
11 11 (1.30%) Power BI
12 9 (1.06%) BigQuery
12 9 (1.06%) Elasticsearch
13 8 (0.94%) Apache Ignite
Development Applications
1 72 (8.49%) Git
2 50 (5.90%) GitLab
3 40 (4.72%) JIRA
4 39 (4.60%) Jenkins
5 24 (2.83%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (2.12%) Gradle
6 18 (2.12%) Liquibase
7 17 (2.00%) Rational Rhapsody
8 14 (1.65%) Cypress.io
8 14 (1.65%) IntelliJ
9 13 (1.53%) Eclipse
9 13 (1.53%) Visual Studio
10 9 (1.06%) Cucumber
10 9 (1.06%) Postman
10 9 (1.06%) Selenium
11 8 (0.94%) Maven
11 8 (0.94%) PVCS
11 8 (0.94%) SonarQube
12 7 (0.83%) JUnit
12 7 (0.83%) Oracle APEX
General
1 118 (13.92%) Finance
2 111 (13.09%) Social Skills
3 45 (5.31%) Public Sector
4 44 (5.19%) Banking
5 37 (4.36%) Aerospace
6 36 (4.25%) Analytical Skills
7 33 (3.89%) Electronics
8 30 (3.54%) Front Office
9 23 (2.71%) Law
10 21 (2.48%) Military
11 18 (2.12%) Financial Institution
12 15 (1.77%) Investment Banking
12 15 (1.77%) Manufacturing
13 9 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (0.83%) Pharmaceutical
14 7 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
15 6 (0.71%) Automotive
15 6 (0.71%) Retail
16 5 (0.59%) Health Technology
16 5 (0.59%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 116 (13.68%) React
2 77 (9.08%) Kafka
2 77 (9.08%) Node.js
3 66 (7.78%) .NET
4 64 (7.55%) REST
5 54 (6.37%) RESTful
6 46 (5.42%) Spring
6 46 (5.42%) Spring Boot
7 41 (4.83%) AngularJS
8 34 (4.01%) Middleware
9 29 (3.42%) gRPC
10 26 (3.07%) Qt
11 22 (2.59%) CSS
12 21 (2.48%) JSON
13 19 (2.24%) GraphQL
13 19 (2.24%) HTML
14 18 (2.12%) Web Services
14 18 (2.12%) XML
15 17 (2.00%) Elastic Stack
15 17 (2.00%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 77 (9.08%) Cloud Native
2 56 (6.60%) Distributed Systems
3 37 (4.36%) Algorithms
4 26 (3.07%) Fixed Income
5 24 (2.83%) Product Ownership
6 19 (2.24%) Public Cloud
7 18 (2.12%) Embedded Systems
7 18 (2.12%) Equities
7 18 (2.12%) Greenfield Project
8 17 (2.00%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 16 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
10 13 (1.53%) Life Science
11 12 (1.42%) Derivative
11 12 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
12 11 (1.30%) AI Agents
13 9 (1.06%) Data Structures
13 9 (1.06%) Mobile App
14 8 (0.94%) CUDA
14 8 (0.94%) Pricing Data
14 8 (0.94%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 121 (14.27%) Linux
2 56 (6.60%) Windows
3 24 (2.83%) Unix
4 13 (1.53%) Android
4 13 (1.53%) Apple iOS
5 10 (1.18%) Windows Server
6 7 (0.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (0.71%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.59%) FreeRTOS
9 2 (0.24%) Debian
9 2 (0.24%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.24%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.12%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.12%) Rocky
10 1 (0.12%) VMS
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 838 (98.82%) Software Engineering
2 239 (28.18%) Agile
3 197 (23.23%) CI/CD
4 141 (16.63%) DevOps
5 129 (15.21%) Microservices
6 88 (10.38%) Problem-Solving
7 83 (9.79%) Containerisation
8 81 (9.55%) Full-Stack Development
9 80 (9.43%) AI
10 78 (9.20%) Test Automation
11 74 (8.73%) Infrastructure as Code
12 65 (7.67%) TDD
13 62 (7.31%) Mentoring
14 58 (6.84%) Clean Code
15 54 (6.37%) Machine Learning
16 50 (5.90%) Computer Science
17 48 (5.66%) Validation
18 47 (5.54%) Software Testing
19 45 (5.31%) Continuous Improvement
20 44 (5.19%) Continuous Integration
Programming Languages
1 208 (24.53%) Python
2 192 (22.64%) C++
3 183 (21.58%) Java
4 129 (15.21%) JavaScript
5 120 (14.15%) TypeScript
6 115 (13.56%) C#
7 104 (12.26%) SQL
8 74 (8.73%) C
9 72 (8.49%) Ada
10 71 (8.37%) Go
11 23 (2.71%) Embedded C++
12 22 (2.59%) Embedded C
13 20 (2.36%) PowerShell
14 18 (2.12%) Rust
15 17 (2.00%) Kotlin
16 14 (1.65%) MATLAB
17 10 (1.18%) Bash
17 10 (1.18%) Shell Script
18 7 (0.83%) R
18 7 (0.83%) Swift
Qualifications
1 183 (21.58%) Security Cleared
2 140 (16.51%) SC Cleared
3 80 (9.43%) Degree
4 39 (4.60%) Computer Science Degree
5 25 (2.95%) DV Cleared
6 18 (2.12%) Master's Degree
7 10 (1.18%) AWS Certification
8 7 (0.83%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 6 (0.71%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.35%) AWS Certified Developer
10 3 (0.35%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 3 (0.35%) Postgraduate
11 2 (0.24%) CCNA
11 2 (0.24%) Cisco Certification
12 1 (0.12%) Azure Certification
12 1 (0.12%) CCDP
12 1 (0.12%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (4.60%) Def Stans
2 30 (3.54%) MISRA
3 29 (3.42%) IEC 61508
4 23 (2.71%) QA
5 20 (2.36%) MISRA C
6 16 (1.89%) Data Quality
7 10 (1.18%) DO-178B
8 8 (0.94%) GDPR
9 7 (0.83%) Accessibility
10 6 (0.71%) HL7
11 2 (0.24%) NCSC
11 2 (0.24%) Software Quality Assurance
12 1 (0.12%) AUTOSAR
12 1 (0.12%) DICOM
12 1 (0.12%) ISO 26262
12 1 (0.12%) NIST
12 1 (0.12%) WCAG
System Software
1 137 (16.16%) Docker
2 15 (1.77%) Firmware
3 14 (1.65%) Virtual Machines
4 9 (1.06%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.71%) Active Directory
6 4 (0.47%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 132 (15.57%) Kubernetes
2 98 (11.56%) Terraform
3 31 (3.66%) Grafana
4 25 (2.95%) Ansible
5 19 (2.24%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.71%) Argo
7 4 (0.47%) Data Guard
7 4 (0.47%) Kibana
7 4 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.24%) Functional Safety
8 2 (0.24%) Puppet
9 1 (0.12%) Bitnami
9 1 (0.12%) Podman
Vendors
1 33 (3.89%) Microsoft
2 25 (2.95%) Google
2 25 (2.95%) Red Hat
3 22 (2.59%) Databricks
3 22 (2.59%) Oracle
4 17 (2.00%) Splunk
5 15 (1.77%) IBM
6 9 (1.06%) VMware
7 8 (0.94%) ANSYS
8 7 (0.83%) Spotify
9 5 (0.59%) MathWorks
9 5 (0.59%) Siemens
10 4 (0.47%) Atlassian
10 4 (0.47%) Brio
11 2 (0.24%) Adobe
11 2 (0.24%) Cisco
11 2 (0.24%) NVIDIA
11 2 (0.24%) PagerDuty
11 2 (0.24%) Sybase
11 2 (0.24%) webMethods
911 Software Engineer jobs in England