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 May 2026.

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

 6 months to
8 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 133 76
Rank change year-on-year +47 -57 +57
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,154 531 1,003
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.85% 2.19% 2.72%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.09% 2.37% 2.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 494 356 530
10th Percentile £400 £412 £450
25th Percentile £462 £475 £511
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £625 £638
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% -1.96% +8.05%
75th Percentile £688 £825 £750
90th Percentile £788 £875 £850
UK median daily rate £550 £600 £625
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +5.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 392 48 307
10th Percentile £52.50 £52.35 £46.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £61.25 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £72.32 £68.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +4.00% +2.04%

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 37,387 22,434 34,163
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.28% 92.58% 92.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,316 14,918 22,678
10th Percentile £313 £300 £281
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £645
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £505 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -1.46% -2.38% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,544 909 2,434
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.11 £12.94
25th Percentile £20.98 £18.51 £16.30
Median hourly rate £47.00 £30.40 £36.58
Median % change year-on-year +54.61% -16.88% -17.86%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.49
UK median hourly rate £44.00 £28.75 £36.50
% change year-on-year +53.04% -21.23% -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 8 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 8 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 8 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 -23 346 £615 -8.89% 280
South West +44 259 £575 - 103
North of England +22 169 £500 +5.26% 162
East of England +52 154 £500 -14.16% 108
South East +15 148 £550 -4.35% 220
North West +13 99 £489 +8.61% 86
Yorkshire -17 48 £500 +4.17% 54
Midlands -50 41 £494 +12.99% 64
West Midlands -30 35 £489 +8.58% 37
North East +7 24 £400 - 23
East Midlands -32 6 £500 +5.26% 27
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 8 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 1,141 (98.87%) Software Engineering
2 289 (25.04%) Java
3 275 (23.83%) Agile
4 272 (23.57%) Security Cleared
5 259 (22.44%) AWS
6 237 (20.54%) CI/CD
7 222 (19.24%) Python
8 207 (17.94%) SC Cleared
9 180 (15.60%) C++
10 160 (13.86%) C#
11 155 (13.43%) TypeScript
12 147 (12.74%) React
13 142 (12.31%) JavaScript
14 138 (11.96%) DevOps
15 134 (11.61%) Microservices
16 128 (11.09%) Docker
17 126 (10.92%) Kubernetes
18 123 (10.66%) Linux
19 121 (10.49%) Full-Stack Development
20 118 (10.23%) Azure
21 117 (10.14%) SQL
22 115 (9.97%) Ada
23 101 (8.75%) Node.js
24 95 (8.23%) .NET
24 95 (8.23%) AI
25 91 (7.89%) C
26 90 (7.80%) Kafka
27 86 (7.45%) Git
27 86 (7.45%) Go
28 83 (7.19%) Problem-Solving

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 19 (1.65%) Apache
2 16 (1.39%) Confluence
3 13 (1.13%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.26%) IIS
4 3 (0.26%) nginx
4 3 (0.26%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.17%) Camunda
5 2 (0.17%) MQSeries
5 2 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
5 2 (0.17%) SAS
5 2 (0.17%) WebLogic
5 2 (0.17%) WinCC
6 1 (0.087%) Apache Synapse
6 1 (0.087%) CMS
6 1 (0.087%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.087%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.087%) 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 (0.087%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 259 (22.44%) AWS
2 118 (10.23%) Azure
3 63 (5.46%) GCP
4 49 (4.25%) Serverless
5 48 (4.16%) GitHub
6 26 (2.25%) AWS Lambda
7 21 (1.82%) OpenShift
8 20 (1.73%) Azure DevOps
9 19 (1.65%) Amazon S3
10 17 (1.47%) GitHub Actions
11 16 (1.39%) AWS CloudFormation
12 15 (1.30%) Amazon EC2
12 15 (1.30%) Amazon SQS
12 15 (1.30%) Power Platform
13 14 (1.21%) Amazon ECS
14 11 (0.95%) Azure Functions
15 9 (0.78%) Amazon EKS
15 9 (0.78%) Collibra
15 9 (0.78%) SaaS
16 7 (0.61%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 29 (2.51%) Software-Defined Radio
2 20 (1.73%) Ethernet
3 14 (1.21%) Wireless
4 11 (0.95%) TCP/IP
5 9 (0.78%) HTTP
6 7 (0.61%) 3GPP
7 5 (0.43%) RTP
8 4 (0.35%) Wireshark
9 3 (0.26%) Firewall
10 2 (0.17%) DNS
10 2 (0.17%) Modbus
11 1 (0.087%) BGP
11 1 (0.087%) Bluetooth
11 1 (0.087%) HTTPS
11 1 (0.087%) Internet
11 1 (0.087%) Network Security
11 1 (0.087%) Profibus
11 1 (0.087%) RTCP
11 1 (0.087%) VPN
11 1 (0.087%) XCAP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (5.98%) PostgreSQL
2 33 (2.86%) SQL Server
3 31 (2.69%) Relational Database
4 23 (1.99%) Apache Cassandra
5 21 (1.82%) NoSQL
6 20 (1.73%) MongoDB
7 15 (1.30%) Data Lake
7 15 (1.30%) MySQL
8 14 (1.21%) Amazon RDS
8 14 (1.21%) DynamoDB
9 12 (1.04%) Power BI
10 10 (0.87%) Amazon Athena
10 10 (0.87%) Elasticsearch
10 10 (0.87%) Metadata
10 10 (0.87%) Mixpanel
11 7 (0.61%) BigQuery
11 7 (0.61%) Redis
12 6 (0.52%) Hadoop
13 5 (0.43%) Azure SQL Database
13 5 (0.43%) OLAP
Development Applications
1 86 (7.45%) Git
2 58 (5.03%) GitLab
3 50 (4.33%) Jenkins
4 42 (3.64%) JIRA
5 26 (2.25%) Rational DOORS
6 25 (2.17%) Gradle
7 23 (1.99%) Rational Rhapsody
8 22 (1.91%) JUnit
9 19 (1.65%) IntelliJ
9 19 (1.65%) SonarQube
10 18 (1.56%) Visual Studio
11 14 (1.21%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.95%) Eclipse
12 11 (0.95%) Mockito
13 10 (0.87%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.87%) Maven
14 9 (0.78%) Liquibase
15 8 (0.69%) PVCS
15 8 (0.69%) Selenium
16 7 (0.61%) Cypress.io
General
1 125 (10.83%) Finance
2 91 (7.89%) Social Skills
3 58 (5.03%) Aerospace
4 51 (4.42%) Front Office
5 39 (3.38%) Public Sector
6 34 (2.95%) Analytical Skills
6 34 (2.95%) Banking
7 30 (2.60%) Law
8 26 (2.25%) Electronics
9 25 (2.17%) Manufacturing
10 17 (1.47%) Military
11 14 (1.21%) Retail
12 9 (0.78%) Aviation
12 9 (0.78%) Investment Banking
13 8 (0.69%) Automotive
13 8 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
13 8 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
14 4 (0.35%) Fire and Rescue
14 4 (0.35%) Police
14 4 (0.35%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 147 (12.74%) React
2 101 (8.75%) Node.js
3 95 (8.23%) .NET
4 90 (7.80%) Kafka
5 78 (6.76%) Spring
6 72 (6.24%) REST
6 72 (6.24%) Spring Boot
7 57 (4.94%) AngularJS
8 46 (3.99%) GraphQL
8 46 (3.99%) Redux
9 34 (2.95%) RESTful
10 30 (2.60%) Middleware
11 21 (1.82%) CSS
12 20 (1.73%) gRPC
12 20 (1.73%) HTML
12 20 (1.73%) Next.js
13 18 (1.56%) Web Services
14 17 (1.47%) Vue
15 16 (1.39%) JSON
15 16 (1.39%) Qt
Miscellaneous
1 81 (7.02%) Cloud Native
2 59 (5.11%) Algorithms
3 52 (4.51%) Fixed Income
4 51 (4.42%) Distributed Systems
5 39 (3.38%) Product Ownership
6 24 (2.08%) Embedded Systems
7 20 (1.73%) AI Agents
8 17 (1.47%) Derivative
9 16 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
10 14 (1.21%) Equities
10 14 (1.21%) Robotics
11 13 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
11 13 (1.13%) Mobile App
12 12 (1.04%) FPGA
12 12 (1.04%) Onboarding
13 11 (0.95%) Greenfield Project
14 10 (0.87%) Life Science
15 9 (0.78%) PCIe
15 9 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
16 8 (0.69%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 123 (10.66%) Linux
2 51 (4.42%) Windows
3 18 (1.56%) Unix
4 17 (1.47%) Apple iOS
5 16 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (1.04%) Android
6 12 (1.04%) Embedded Linux
7 10 (0.87%) FreeRTOS
7 10 (0.87%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.52%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.43%) Debian
10 4 (0.35%) Rocky
11 3 (0.26%) Solaris
11 3 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
11 3 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.17%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.087%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.087%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,141 (98.87%) Software Engineering
2 275 (23.83%) Agile
3 237 (20.54%) CI/CD
4 138 (11.96%) DevOps
5 134 (11.61%) Microservices
6 121 (10.49%) Full-Stack Development
7 95 (8.23%) AI
8 83 (7.19%) Problem-Solving
9 82 (7.11%) Test Automation
10 75 (6.50%) TDD
11 73 (6.33%) Containerisation
12 66 (5.72%) SDLC
13 64 (5.55%) Scrum
14 60 (5.20%) Infrastructure as Code
15 59 (5.11%) Mentoring
16 57 (4.94%) Unit Testing
17 56 (4.85%) Machine Learning
18 52 (4.51%) Continuous Improvement
19 47 (4.07%) Observability
20 46 (3.99%) Clean Code
Programming Languages
1 289 (25.04%) Java
2 222 (19.24%) Python
3 180 (15.60%) C++
4 160 (13.86%) C#
5 155 (13.43%) TypeScript
6 142 (12.31%) JavaScript
7 117 (10.14%) SQL
8 115 (9.97%) Ada
9 91 (7.89%) C
10 86 (7.45%) Go
11 33 (2.86%) Embedded C
12 25 (2.17%) Kotlin
13 22 (1.91%) MATLAB
13 22 (1.91%) PowerShell
13 22 (1.91%) Rust
14 15 (1.30%) Embedded C++
15 14 (1.21%) Bash
16 10 (0.87%) PL/SQL
17 9 (0.78%) Swift
18 7 (0.61%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 272 (23.57%) Security Cleared
2 207 (17.94%) SC Cleared
3 47 (4.07%) Degree
4 41 (3.55%) DV Cleared
5 20 (1.73%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (0.78%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (0.61%) AWS Certification
7 7 (0.61%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 4 (0.35%) ISTQB
8 4 (0.35%) 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 (0.087%) CCDP
11 1 (0.087%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 1 (0.087%) OCA
11 1 (0.087%) Oracle Certification
11 1 (0.087%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (3.29%) QA
2 34 (2.95%) Def Stans
3 29 (2.51%) IEC 61508
4 19 (1.65%) MISRA
5 17 (1.47%) Data Quality
6 13 (1.13%) GDPR
6 13 (1.13%) MISRA C
7 11 (0.95%) Accessibility
8 5 (0.43%) DO-178B
9 4 (0.35%) HL7
9 4 (0.35%) NCSC
9 4 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.26%) WCAG
11 1 (0.087%) DICOM
11 1 (0.087%) FATCA
11 1 (0.087%) ISO 26262
11 1 (0.087%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 1 (0.087%) NIST
System Software
1 128 (11.09%) Docker
2 15 (1.30%) Firmware
3 10 (0.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.43%) Embedded Firmware
6 4 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
7 2 (0.17%) HDFS
8 1 (0.087%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 126 (10.92%) Kubernetes
2 73 (6.33%) Terraform
3 25 (2.17%) Grafana
4 21 (1.82%) Ansible
5 13 (1.13%) Argo
6 7 (0.61%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.35%) Data Guard
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 (0.087%) CA Endevor
9 1 (0.087%) Functional Safety
9 1 (0.087%) Podman
Vendors
1 36 (3.12%) Microsoft
2 35 (3.03%) Red Hat
3 23 (1.99%) Google
4 22 (1.91%) IBM
5 21 (1.82%) Oracle
6 18 (1.56%) Databricks
7 10 (0.87%) MathWorks
7 10 (0.87%) VMware
8 8 (0.69%) ANSYS
8 8 (0.69%) Spotify
9 7 (0.61%) Siemens
9 7 (0.61%) Splunk
10 6 (0.52%) SAP
11 4 (0.35%) Atlassian
11 4 (0.35%) Checkmarx
12 3 (0.26%) Informatica
12 3 (0.26%) OpenAI
12 3 (0.26%) Palantir
12 3 (0.26%) Sybase
12 3 (0.26%) Talend
900 Software Engineer jobs in England