Software Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Software Engineer
UK > England

The median Software Engineer daily rate in England is £610, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 November 2025.

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

6 months to
16 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 127 84 125
Rank change year-on-year -43 +41 -12
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 688 833 829
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.29% 2.68% 2.07%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.51% 2.88% 2.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 377 435 528
10th Percentile £400 £400 £413
25th Percentile £475 £484 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £610 £625 £575
Median % change year-on-year -2.40% +8.70% -4.17%
75th Percentile £825 £850 £700
90th Percentile £850 £888 £788
UK median daily rate £600 £600 £575
% change year-on-year - +4.35% -3.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 130 130 173
10th Percentile £44.50 £42.38 £48.63
25th Percentile £61.25 £57.50 £53.75
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.76% +0.77% -
75th Percentile £67.00 £70.00 £69.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £90.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year -0.38% +0.38% -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 27,406 28,955 37,488
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.21% 93.02% 93.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,580 17,706 25,955
10th Percentile £281 £300 £294
25th Percentile £404 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% -1.69% -2.91%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,653 1,088 1,444
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.22 £15.25
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.22 £19.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -11.11% +50.00%
75th Percentile £55.00 £66.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £77.30
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -30.14% -19.10% +58.28%

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 16 November 2025.

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 16 November 2025.

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 16 November 2025. 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 -26 328 £643 -4.78% 795
North of England +1 118 £550 +10.00% 204
East of England +2 96 £500 - 192
South West -32 69 £569 +3.41% 207
Yorkshire +6 61 £525 +2.44% 56
North West -26 48 £550 +18.92% 129
South East -49 33 £475 -5.00% 244
Midlands -48 25 £500 +5.26% 83
West Midlands -14 20 £525 +5.00% 45
North East -7 11 £575 - 19
East Midlands -31 5 £475 - 38
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 16 November 2025, 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.

1 679 (98.69%) Software Engineering
2 310 (45.06%) Agile
3 255 (37.06%) AWS
4 250 (36.34%) Python
5 211 (30.67%) Java
6 193 (28.05%) JavaScript
7 191 (27.76%) CI/CD
8 176 (25.58%) C++
9 160 (23.26%) TypeScript
10 144 (20.93%) React
11 142 (20.64%) DevOps
12 127 (18.46%) Docker
13 126 (18.31%) Linux
13 126 (18.31%) Microservices
14 124 (18.02%) Node.js
15 120 (17.44%) C#
16 111 (16.13%) Security Cleared
17 104 (15.12%) Kubernetes
18 103 (14.97%) SQL
19 96 (13.95%) GCP
20 95 (13.81%) SC Cleared
21 94 (13.66%) Azure
22 87 (12.65%) Terraform
23 85 (12.35%) Serverless
24 84 (12.21%) Full-Stack Development
25 83 (12.06%) Containerisation
26 82 (11.92%) Investment Management
26 82 (11.92%) TDD
27 81 (11.77%) Problem-Solving
28 79 (11.48%) Infrastructure as Code

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 55 (7.99%) Apache Airflow
2 46 (6.69%) Apache
3 11 (1.60%) Confluence
4 8 (1.16%) JBoss
5 7 (1.02%) Apache Spark
6 5 (0.73%) WebLogic
7 4 (0.58%) SAS
8 2 (0.29%) nginx
8 2 (0.29%) Tomcat
9 1 (0.15%) CICS
9 1 (0.15%) CMS
9 1 (0.15%) Mule
9 1 (0.15%) Mule ESB
9 1 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.15%) Tuxedo
9 1 (0.15%) WordPress
Applications
1 6 (0.87%) Simulink
2 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.15%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.15%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (1.16%) Temenos T24
2 5 (0.73%) FLEXCUBE
2 5 (0.73%) Oracle BPM
3 1 (0.15%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 255 (37.06%) AWS
2 96 (13.95%) GCP
3 94 (13.66%) Azure
4 85 (12.35%) Serverless
5 55 (7.99%) dbt
6 50 (7.27%) GitHub
7 40 (5.81%) AWS Lambda
8 36 (5.23%) Snowflake
9 28 (4.07%) GitHub Actions
10 25 (3.63%) Amazon ECS
10 25 (3.63%) Amazon S3
11 23 (3.34%) Azure DevOps
12 15 (2.18%) Amazon SQS
13 13 (1.89%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 13 (1.89%) Amazon EC2
14 12 (1.74%) Amazon EKS
14 12 (1.74%) AWS Step Functions
15 11 (1.60%) AWS CloudFormation
16 10 (1.45%) Amazon Cognito
17 9 (1.31%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 27 (3.92%) Ethernet
2 20 (2.91%) TCP/IP
3 8 (1.16%) NFC
3 8 (1.16%) PPP
4 3 (0.44%) BGP
4 3 (0.44%) Firewall
4 3 (0.44%) Network Security
4 3 (0.44%) Software-Defined Networking
4 3 (0.44%) VLAN
5 2 (0.29%) SSL
5 2 (0.29%) X.509
6 1 (0.15%) 3GPP
6 1 (0.15%) Bluetooth
6 1 (0.15%) FTP
6 1 (0.15%) HTTP
6 1 (0.15%) Internet
6 1 (0.15%) Multicast
6 1 (0.15%) VPN
6 1 (0.15%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.15%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (8.43%) Amazon Athena
1 58 (8.43%) PostgreSQL
2 55 (7.99%) Apache Arrow
2 55 (7.99%) Apache Iceberg
2 55 (7.99%) Dremio
3 44 (6.40%) NoSQL
4 41 (5.96%) Data Lake
5 34 (4.94%) Apache Ignite
6 28 (4.07%) MongoDB
7 16 (2.33%) DynamoDB
7 16 (2.33%) SQL Server
8 14 (2.03%) Amazon RDS
8 14 (2.03%) Big Data
8 14 (2.03%) MySQL
9 13 (1.89%) Apache Cassandra
10 9 (1.31%) Elasticsearch
10 9 (1.31%) Relational Database
11 8 (1.16%) GIS
12 7 (1.02%) DocumentDB
12 7 (1.02%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 75 (10.90%) Git
2 54 (7.85%) Jenkins
3 44 (6.40%) GitLab
4 36 (5.23%) JIRA
5 30 (4.36%) Eclipse
6 27 (3.92%) Visual Studio
7 21 (3.05%) Liquibase
8 16 (2.33%) Rational DOORS
9 11 (1.60%) Cypress.io
10 9 (1.31%) Artifactory
10 9 (1.31%) SonarQube
11 8 (1.16%) Gradle
11 8 (1.16%) JUnit
11 8 (1.16%) Valgrind
12 7 (1.02%) Rational Rhapsody
13 6 (0.87%) Selenium
14 5 (0.73%) Maven
15 4 (0.58%) Postman
16 3 (0.44%) LabVIEW
16 3 (0.44%) Locust
General
1 192 (27.91%) Finance
2 134 (19.48%) Social Skills
3 98 (14.24%) Front Office
4 95 (13.81%) Banking
5 50 (7.27%) Investment Banking
6 39 (5.67%) Public Sector
7 37 (5.38%) Military
8 34 (4.94%) Analytical Skills
9 19 (2.76%) Aerospace
9 19 (2.76%) Presentation Skills
10 17 (2.47%) Financial Institution
10 17 (2.47%) Law
11 14 (2.03%) Electronics
12 9 (1.31%) Manufacturing
12 9 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
13 6 (0.87%) Automotive
13 6 (0.87%) Games
14 5 (0.73%) Back Office
14 5 (0.73%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (0.73%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 144 (20.93%) React
2 124 (18.02%) Node.js
3 73 (10.61%) Kafka
4 63 (9.16%) .NET
4 63 (9.16%) AngularJS
5 57 (8.28%) NumPy
5 57 (8.28%) SciPy
6 56 (8.14%) REST
7 55 (7.99%) Pandas
8 48 (6.98%) RESTful
9 43 (6.25%) gRPC
10 37 (5.38%) Spring
11 36 (5.23%) Vue
12 35 (5.09%) Web Services
13 34 (4.94%) Protocol Buffers
14 31 (4.51%) Redux
15 30 (4.36%) Spring Boot
16 28 (4.07%) JSON
17 24 (3.49%) GraphQL
17 24 (3.49%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 86 (12.50%) Fixed Income
2 76 (11.05%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 67 (9.74%) Equities
4 62 (9.01%) Cloud Native
5 49 (7.12%) Distributed Systems
6 40 (5.81%) Hedge funds
7 36 (5.23%) Derivative
8 34 (4.94%) Pricing Data
9 22 (3.20%) Public Cloud
10 21 (3.05%) Algorithms
11 16 (2.33%) Data Structures
12 13 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
12 13 (1.89%) Embedded Systems
12 13 (1.89%) Greenfield Project
13 11 (1.60%) CUDA
13 11 (1.60%) PCIe
13 11 (1.60%) Self-Motivation
14 9 (1.31%) Product Ownership
14 9 (1.31%) Virtual Reality
15 8 (1.16%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 126 (18.31%) Linux
2 60 (8.72%) Windows
3 21 (3.05%) Unix
4 16 (2.33%) Android
5 9 (1.31%) Ubuntu
6 8 (1.16%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.73%) FreeRTOS
7 5 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (0.58%) Windows Server
9 3 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.15%) Debian
10 1 (0.15%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Embedded Compact
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.15%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 679 (98.69%) Software Engineering
2 310 (45.06%) Agile
3 191 (27.76%) CI/CD
4 142 (20.64%) DevOps
5 126 (18.31%) Microservices
6 84 (12.21%) Full-Stack Development
7 83 (12.06%) Containerisation
8 82 (11.92%) Investment Management
8 82 (11.92%) TDD
9 81 (11.77%) Problem-Solving
10 79 (11.48%) Infrastructure as Code
11 76 (11.05%) Test Automation
12 72 (10.47%) Asset Management
13 66 (9.59%) Mentoring
14 63 (9.16%) Unit Testing
15 58 (8.43%) Computer Science
16 56 (8.14%) Continuous Integration
17 55 (7.99%) Clean Code
18 51 (7.41%) AI
19 49 (7.12%) Continuous Delivery
Programming Languages
1 250 (36.34%) Python
2 211 (30.67%) Java
3 193 (28.05%) JavaScript
4 176 (25.58%) C++
5 160 (23.26%) TypeScript
6 120 (17.44%) C#
7 103 (14.97%) SQL
8 53 (7.70%) Go
9 47 (6.83%) C
10 25 (3.63%) Ada
11 12 (1.74%) Embedded C++
12 11 (1.60%) Bicep
12 11 (1.60%) MATLAB
12 11 (1.60%) PHP
12 11 (1.60%) PowerShell
13 9 (1.31%) Bash
13 9 (1.31%) Embedded C
13 9 (1.31%) PL/SQL
13 9 (1.31%) Shell Script
14 7 (1.02%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 111 (16.13%) Security Cleared
2 95 (13.81%) SC Cleared
3 76 (11.05%) Degree
4 38 (5.52%) Computer Science Degree
5 20 (2.91%) Master's Degree
6 13 (1.89%) DV Cleared
7 9 (1.31%) AWS Certification
8 8 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
9 4 (0.58%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 4 (0.58%) MCP
9 4 (0.58%) Postgraduate
10 3 (0.44%) AWS Certified Developer
10 3 (0.44%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 1 (0.15%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (3.34%) QA
2 14 (2.03%) Def Stans
2 14 (2.03%) MISRA
3 9 (1.31%) IEC 61508
3 9 (1.31%) MISRA C
4 5 (0.73%) DO-178B
4 5 (0.73%) Software Quality Assurance
5 4 (0.58%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.58%) Data Quality
6 3 (0.44%) WCAG
7 2 (0.29%) GDPR
7 2 (0.29%) HL7
7 2 (0.29%) PMO
8 1 (0.15%) AUTOSAR
8 1 (0.15%) ISO 26262
8 1 (0.15%) SEPA
System Software
1 127 (18.46%) Docker
2 8 (1.16%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.87%) Firmware
4 5 (0.73%) Active Directory
5 2 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.15%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 104 (15.12%) Kubernetes
2 87 (12.65%) Terraform
3 27 (3.92%) Ansible
4 24 (3.49%) Prometheus
5 19 (2.76%) Grafana
6 6 (0.87%) Kibana
7 4 (0.58%) Podman
8 3 (0.44%) Argo
8 3 (0.44%) SELinux
8 3 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.29%) Puppet
10 1 (0.15%) Bitnami
10 1 (0.15%) CA Endevor
10 1 (0.15%) Functional Safety
10 1 (0.15%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 48 (6.98%) Microsoft
2 30 (4.36%) Oracle
3 25 (3.63%) Google
4 19 (2.76%) Splunk
5 10 (1.45%) Temenos
6 8 (1.16%) Red Hat
7 6 (0.87%) Databricks
8 5 (0.73%) IBM
8 5 (0.73%) Salesforce
8 5 (0.73%) SAP
8 5 (0.73%) Workday
9 4 (0.58%) Atlassian
9 4 (0.58%) OpenAI
10 3 (0.44%) Brio
10 3 (0.44%) Cisco
10 3 (0.44%) Foundry
10 3 (0.44%) NVIDIA
10 3 (0.44%) VMware
10 3 (0.44%) webMethods
11 2 (0.29%) ANSYS