Software Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Software Engineer
UK > England

The median Software Engineer daily rate in England is £551, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 May 2026.

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

 6 months to
23 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 87 136 77
Rank change year-on-year +49 -59 +54
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,176 498 1,035
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.83% 2.09% 2.85%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.07% 2.26% 3.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 502 343 543
10th Percentile £400 £411 £450
25th Percentile £463 £475 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £551 £625 £638
Median % change year-on-year -11.80% -1.96% +6.25%
75th Percentile £688 £825 £775
90th Percentile £788 £875 £850
UK median daily rate £550 £600 £625
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +4.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 385 37 319
10th Percentile £52.50 £49.01 £46.25
25th Percentile £60.50 £59.00 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.27 £80.30 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year - - +6.12%

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 38,335 21,999 33,717
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.30% 92.32% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,771 14,636 22,380
10th Percentile £320 £290 £283
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £640
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -2.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,655 881 2,449
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.00 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £45.00 £29.07 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +54.80% -21.81% -17.38%
75th Percentile £67.50 £61.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.90
UK median hourly rate £42.59 £27.97 £36.50
% change year-on-year +52.31% -23.38% -18.89%

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 23 May 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 23 May 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 23 May 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 -29 356 £625 -7.41% 280
South West +59 262 £570 -5.00% 132
North of England +26 179 £500 +11.11% 155
South East +16 154 £550 - 213
East of England +51 150 £504 -13.48% 103
North West +21 106 £500 +12.68% 87
Yorkshire -25 51 £500 +5.26% 40
Midlands -47 43 £489 +11.69% 63
West Midlands -34 37 £467 +3.74% 35
North East -3 24 £400 - 30
East Midlands -33 6 £513 +7.89% 28
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 23 May 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 1,163 (98.89%) Software Engineering
2 303 (25.77%) Java
3 285 (24.23%) Agile
4 278 (23.64%) Security Cleared
5 259 (22.02%) AWS
6 252 (21.43%) CI/CD
7 232 (19.73%) Python
8 215 (18.28%) SC Cleared
9 175 (14.88%) C++
10 164 (13.95%) C#
11 160 (13.61%) TypeScript
12 152 (12.93%) React
13 139 (11.82%) DevOps
13 139 (11.82%) JavaScript
14 138 (11.73%) Microservices
15 130 (11.05%) Docker
16 129 (10.97%) Kubernetes
17 124 (10.54%) Linux
18 122 (10.37%) Full-Stack Development
18 122 (10.37%) SQL
19 119 (10.12%) Azure
20 110 (9.35%) Ada
21 100 (8.50%) Node.js
22 98 (8.33%) AI
23 97 (8.25%) .NET
24 92 (7.82%) Test Automation
25 89 (7.57%) Kafka
26 86 (7.31%) Problem-Solving
27 85 (7.23%) Git
27 85 (7.23%) Spring

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 18 (1.53%) Apache
2 16 (1.36%) Confluence
3 15 (1.28%) Apache Spark
4 4 (0.34%) IIS
5 3 (0.26%) nginx
5 3 (0.26%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.17%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.17%) Camunda
6 2 (0.17%) MQSeries
6 2 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
6 2 (0.17%) SAS
6 2 (0.17%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.17%) WinCC
7 1 (0.085%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.085%) Apache Synapse
7 1 (0.085%) CMS
7 1 (0.085%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.085%) SharePoint
7 1 (0.085%) Smallworld
Applications
1 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.17%) LabWindows
2 1 (0.085%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (0.085%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 259 (22.02%) AWS
2 119 (10.12%) Azure
3 66 (5.61%) GCP
4 51 (4.34%) Serverless
5 50 (4.25%) GitHub
6 29 (2.47%) AWS Lambda
7 24 (2.04%) Amazon S3
8 21 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
9 20 (1.70%) Amazon EC2
9 20 (1.70%) OpenShift
10 17 (1.45%) GitHub Actions
11 15 (1.28%) Amazon ECS
11 15 (1.28%) Amazon SQS
11 15 (1.28%) Power Platform
12 13 (1.11%) AWS CloudFormation
13 11 (0.94%) Azure Functions
14 10 (0.85%) Amazon EKS
15 9 (0.77%) Collibra
16 8 (0.68%) Anthropic Claude
16 8 (0.68%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 32 (2.72%) Software-Defined Radio
2 19 (1.62%) Ethernet
3 18 (1.53%) Wireless
4 12 (1.02%) HTTP
5 11 (0.94%) TCP/IP
6 8 (0.68%) 3GPP
7 6 (0.51%) Firewall
7 6 (0.51%) RTP
8 5 (0.43%) Wireshark
9 4 (0.34%) VPN
10 2 (0.17%) DNS
10 2 (0.17%) Modbus
11 1 (0.085%) Bluetooth
11 1 (0.085%) HTTPS
11 1 (0.085%) Internet
11 1 (0.085%) Network Security
11 1 (0.085%) Profibus
11 1 (0.085%) RTCP
11 1 (0.085%) VLAN
11 1 (0.085%) XCAP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (5.70%) PostgreSQL
2 35 (2.98%) Relational Database
3 33 (2.81%) SQL Server
4 22 (1.87%) Apache Cassandra
5 20 (1.70%) NoSQL
6 19 (1.62%) MongoDB
7 17 (1.45%) Amazon RDS
8 15 (1.28%) Data Lake
8 15 (1.28%) DynamoDB
9 14 (1.19%) MySQL
10 12 (1.02%) Power BI
11 11 (0.94%) Elasticsearch
11 11 (0.94%) Metadata
12 10 (0.85%) Amazon Athena
12 10 (0.85%) Mixpanel
13 7 (0.60%) BigQuery
13 7 (0.60%) Hadoop
14 6 (0.51%) Redis
15 5 (0.43%) Azure SQL Database
15 5 (0.43%) OLAP
Development Applications
1 85 (7.23%) Git
2 59 (5.02%) GitLab
3 52 (4.42%) Jenkins
4 38 (3.23%) JIRA
5 26 (2.21%) Gradle
6 23 (1.96%) JUnit
7 22 (1.87%) Rational DOORS
8 21 (1.79%) Rational Rhapsody
9 20 (1.70%) IntelliJ
10 17 (1.45%) SonarQube
10 17 (1.45%) Visual Studio
11 12 (1.02%) Cucumber
11 12 (1.02%) Mockito
12 10 (0.85%) Eclipse
12 10 (0.85%) Liquibase
13 9 (0.77%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.77%) Maven
13 9 (0.77%) Selenium
14 7 (0.60%) Cypress.io
15 6 (0.51%) Postman
General
1 141 (11.99%) Finance
2 92 (7.82%) Social Skills
3 61 (5.19%) Aerospace
4 51 (4.34%) Front Office
5 39 (3.32%) Public Sector
6 37 (3.15%) Analytical Skills
6 37 (3.15%) Banking
7 28 (2.38%) Law
7 28 (2.38%) Manufacturing
8 19 (1.62%) Electronics
9 16 (1.36%) Military
10 14 (1.19%) Retail
11 13 (1.11%) Aviation
12 11 (0.94%) Automotive
12 11 (0.94%) Investment Banking
13 8 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (0.60%) Telecoms
15 6 (0.51%) Back Office
16 5 (0.43%) Presentation Skills
17 4 (0.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 152 (12.93%) React
2 100 (8.50%) Node.js
3 97 (8.25%) .NET
4 89 (7.57%) Kafka
5 85 (7.23%) Spring
6 80 (6.80%) Spring Boot
7 74 (6.29%) REST
8 60 (5.10%) AngularJS
9 49 (4.17%) GraphQL
10 46 (3.91%) Redux
11 39 (3.32%) RESTful
12 28 (2.38%) Middleware
13 23 (1.96%) Next.js
14 22 (1.87%) CSS
15 19 (1.62%) HTML
15 19 (1.62%) Vue
16 18 (1.53%) gRPC
17 17 (1.45%) Web Services
18 16 (1.36%) Qt
19 15 (1.28%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 86 (7.31%) Cloud Native
2 62 (5.27%) Algorithms
3 59 (5.02%) Distributed Systems
4 53 (4.51%) Fixed Income
5 40 (3.40%) Product Ownership
6 28 (2.38%) Embedded Systems
7 20 (1.70%) Derivative
8 19 (1.62%) AI Agents
9 16 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
10 14 (1.19%) Equities
10 14 (1.19%) Robotics
11 13 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
11 13 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
11 13 (1.11%) Onboarding
12 11 (0.94%) FPGA
13 10 (0.85%) Life Science
13 10 (0.85%) Mobile App
13 10 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
14 9 (0.77%) Device Driver
15 8 (0.68%) PCIe
Operating Systems
1 124 (10.54%) Linux
2 47 (4.00%) Windows
3 19 (1.62%) Unix
4 16 (1.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (1.28%) Embedded Linux
6 12 (1.02%) Apple iOS
7 11 (0.94%) FreeRTOS
8 10 (0.85%) Windows Server
9 7 (0.60%) Android
10 5 (0.43%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.34%) Debian
11 4 (0.34%) Rocky
12 3 (0.26%) Solaris
12 3 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.17%) Robot Operating System
14 1 (0.085%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.085%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,163 (98.89%) Software Engineering
2 285 (24.23%) Agile
3 252 (21.43%) CI/CD
4 139 (11.82%) DevOps
5 138 (11.73%) Microservices
6 122 (10.37%) Full-Stack Development
7 98 (8.33%) AI
8 92 (7.82%) Test Automation
9 86 (7.31%) Problem-Solving
10 77 (6.55%) Containerisation
11 73 (6.21%) TDD
12 64 (5.44%) SDLC
13 61 (5.19%) Infrastructure as Code
14 60 (5.10%) Mentoring
14 60 (5.10%) Scrum
15 57 (4.85%) Machine Learning
16 56 (4.76%) Continuous Improvement
17 51 (4.34%) Observability
17 51 (4.34%) Unit Testing
18 50 (4.25%) Clean Code
Programming Languages
1 303 (25.77%) Java
2 232 (19.73%) Python
3 175 (14.88%) C++
4 164 (13.95%) C#
5 160 (13.61%) TypeScript
6 139 (11.82%) JavaScript
7 122 (10.37%) SQL
8 110 (9.35%) Ada
9 84 (7.14%) C
9 84 (7.14%) Go
10 28 (2.38%) Embedded C
11 27 (2.30%) Kotlin
12 26 (2.21%) Rust
13 25 (2.13%) PowerShell
14 22 (1.87%) MATLAB
15 15 (1.28%) Bash
16 11 (0.94%) Embedded C++
17 10 (0.85%) PL/SQL
18 7 (0.60%) Scala
18 7 (0.60%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 278 (23.64%) Security Cleared
2 215 (18.28%) SC Cleared
3 52 (4.42%) Degree
4 42 (3.57%) DV Cleared
5 21 (1.79%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (0.85%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (0.60%) AWS Certification
7 7 (0.60%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 5 (0.43%) ISTQB
8 5 (0.43%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 3 (0.26%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.17%) CCNA
10 2 (0.17%) CCNP
10 2 (0.17%) HNC
10 2 (0.17%) HND
11 1 (0.085%) CCDP
11 1 (0.085%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 1 (0.085%) OCA
11 1 (0.085%) Oracle Certification
11 1 (0.085%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (3.32%) QA
2 32 (2.72%) Def Stans
3 28 (2.38%) IEC 61508
4 18 (1.53%) Data Quality
4 18 (1.53%) MISRA
5 13 (1.11%) GDPR
6 12 (1.02%) MISRA C
7 11 (0.94%) Accessibility
8 4 (0.34%) DO-178B
8 4 (0.34%) HL7
8 4 (0.34%) NCSC
8 4 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.26%) WCAG
10 2 (0.17%) ISO 26262
11 1 (0.085%) DICOM
11 1 (0.085%) FATCA
11 1 (0.085%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 1 (0.085%) NIST
System Software
1 130 (11.05%) Docker
2 14 (1.19%) Firmware
3 7 (0.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (0.43%) Embedded Firmware
4 5 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.17%) HDFS
7 1 (0.085%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 129 (10.97%) Kubernetes
2 72 (6.12%) Terraform
3 27 (2.30%) Grafana
4 20 (1.70%) Ansible
5 11 (0.94%) Argo
6 7 (0.60%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.34%) Data Guard
8 2 (0.17%) Cilium
8 2 (0.17%) HAProxy
8 2 (0.17%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.17%) Puppet
8 2 (0.17%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.085%) CA Endevor
9 1 (0.085%) Functional Safety
9 1 (0.085%) Podman
Vendors
1 36 (3.06%) Microsoft
2 34 (2.89%) Red Hat
3 23 (1.96%) Google
4 21 (1.79%) Oracle
5 19 (1.62%) Databricks
5 19 (1.62%) IBM
6 10 (0.85%) MathWorks
7 8 (0.68%) Spotify
8 7 (0.60%) Siemens
8 7 (0.60%) Splunk
8 7 (0.60%) VMware
9 6 (0.51%) SAP
10 5 (0.43%) ANSYS
11 4 (0.34%) Atlassian
11 4 (0.34%) Checkmarx
11 4 (0.34%) OpenAI
12 3 (0.26%) Informatica
12 3 (0.26%) Palantir
12 3 (0.26%) Sybase
12 3 (0.26%) Talend
926 Software Engineer jobs in England