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 11 February 2026.

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

 6 months to
11 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 104 119 100
Rank change year-on-year +15 -19 +26
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 865 580 848
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.55% 2.24% 2.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.79% 2.40% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 371 347 437
10th Percentile £400 £413 £425
25th Percentile £461 £500 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £624
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -3.77% +4.79%
75th Percentile £681 £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 280 58 257
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 £67.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £78.80
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 31,053 24,121 35,236
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.67% 93.07% 93.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,752 15,028 23,675
10th Percentile £300 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £410 £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 1,981 713 2,112
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.92 £13.19
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.63
Median hourly rate £31.25 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.71% - -6.67%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £72.44
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £33.54 £35.00
% change year-on-year -10.55% -4.17% -2.51%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -28 291 £625 - 250
South West +4 165 £500 -13.04% 120
North of England +25 151 £525 +10.53% 170
East of England +40 119 £525 -9.87% 79
North West +14 73 £550 +22.22% 113
South East -24 69 £525 +2.44% 191
Yorkshire -12 61 £525 +3.70% 36
Midlands -37 35 £502 +5.58% 79
West Midlands -26 30 £525 +10.53% 43
North East 0 19 £550 - 22
East Midlands -22 5 £475 -4.04% 36
Software Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 855 (98.84%) Software Engineering
2 243 (28.09%) Agile
3 238 (27.51%) AWS
4 208 (24.05%) Python
5 202 (23.35%) CI/CD
6 192 (22.20%) C++
7 186 (21.50%) Java
7 186 (21.50%) Security Cleared
8 143 (16.53%) DevOps
9 141 (16.30%) SC Cleared
10 139 (16.07%) Docker
11 134 (15.49%) Kubernetes
12 130 (15.03%) Microservices
13 129 (14.91%) JavaScript
14 123 (14.22%) Linux
15 120 (13.87%) TypeScript
16 117 (13.53%) C#
17 116 (13.41%) React
18 105 (12.14%) SQL
19 99 (11.45%) Terraform
20 96 (11.10%) Azure
21 87 (10.06%) Problem-Solving
22 84 (9.71%) Containerisation
23 82 (9.48%) AI
24 81 (9.36%) Degree
24 81 (9.36%) Full-Stack Development
25 79 (9.13%) GCP
26 78 (9.02%) Kafka
26 78 (9.02%) Test Automation
27 77 (8.90%) Node.js

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 (3.47%) Apache
2 15 (1.73%) Apache Spark
3 12 (1.39%) Apache Airflow
4 11 (1.27%) Confluence
5 4 (0.46%) SAS
5 4 (0.46%) WebLogic
6 3 (0.35%) IIS
7 2 (0.23%) Camunda
7 2 (0.23%) 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%) WinCC
8 1 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 4 (0.46%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.12%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.12%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 2 (0.23%) LabWindows
2 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 238 (27.51%) AWS
2 96 (11.10%) Azure
3 79 (9.13%) GCP
4 77 (8.90%) Serverless
5 52 (6.01%) GitHub
6 37 (4.28%) AWS Lambda
7 27 (3.12%) Amazon S3
8 26 (3.01%) Amazon ECS
8 26 (3.01%) Azure DevOps
8 26 (3.01%) GitHub Actions
9 20 (2.31%) Amazon EC2
10 17 (1.97%) Amazon SQS
10 17 (1.97%) AWS CloudFormation
11 15 (1.73%) Amazon EKS
12 14 (1.62%) OpenShift
13 12 (1.39%) dbt
14 11 (1.27%) Cloud Computing
14 11 (1.27%) Power Platform
15 10 (1.16%) Azure Functions
15 10 (1.16%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.85%) Ethernet
2 8 (0.92%) TCP/IP
3 5 (0.58%) Firewall
3 5 (0.58%) Software-Defined Radio
4 4 (0.46%) BGP
4 4 (0.46%) Network Security
4 4 (0.46%) VLAN
5 3 (0.35%) 3GPP
5 3 (0.35%) HTTP
5 3 (0.35%) NFC
5 3 (0.35%) PPP
5 3 (0.35%) Software-Defined Networking
6 2 (0.23%) Wireless
7 1 (0.12%) 5G
7 1 (0.12%) 5G NR
7 1 (0.12%) LTE
7 1 (0.12%) Modbus
7 1 (0.12%) Multicast
7 1 (0.12%) Profibus
7 1 (0.12%) XCAP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (5.78%) PostgreSQL
2 40 (4.62%) NoSQL
3 28 (3.24%) Apache Cassandra
3 28 (3.24%) MongoDB
4 25 (2.89%) Data Lake
5 24 (2.77%) SQL Server
6 23 (2.66%) Amazon Athena
7 22 (2.54%) Amazon RDS
8 18 (2.08%) MySQL
8 18 (2.08%) Relational Database
9 13 (1.50%) Metadata
10 12 (1.39%) Apache Arrow
10 12 (1.39%) Apache Iceberg
10 12 (1.39%) Dremio
10 12 (1.39%) DynamoDB
10 12 (1.39%) Mixpanel
11 11 (1.27%) Power BI
12 9 (1.04%) BigQuery
12 9 (1.04%) Elasticsearch
13 8 (0.92%) Apache Ignite
Development Applications
1 72 (8.32%) Git
2 51 (5.90%) GitLab
3 40 (4.62%) Jenkins
3 40 (4.62%) JIRA
4 24 (2.77%) Rational DOORS
5 19 (2.20%) Liquibase
6 18 (2.08%) Gradle
7 17 (1.97%) Rational Rhapsody
8 14 (1.62%) Cypress.io
8 14 (1.62%) IntelliJ
9 13 (1.50%) Eclipse
9 13 (1.50%) Visual Studio
10 9 (1.04%) Cucumber
10 9 (1.04%) Postman
10 9 (1.04%) Selenium
11 8 (0.92%) Maven
11 8 (0.92%) PVCS
11 8 (0.92%) SonarQube
12 7 (0.81%) JUnit
12 7 (0.81%) Oracle APEX
General
1 118 (13.64%) Finance
2 110 (12.72%) Social Skills
3 45 (5.20%) Banking
3 45 (5.20%) Public Sector
4 38 (4.39%) Aerospace
5 36 (4.16%) Analytical Skills
6 33 (3.82%) Electronics
7 30 (3.47%) Front Office
8 24 (2.77%) Law
9 21 (2.43%) Military
10 18 (2.08%) Financial Institution
11 16 (1.85%) Manufacturing
12 15 (1.73%) Investment Banking
13 9 (1.04%) Influencing Skills
13 9 (1.04%) Retail
14 8 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
15 7 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
16 6 (0.69%) Automotive
17 5 (0.58%) Health Technology
18 4 (0.46%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 116 (13.41%) React
2 78 (9.02%) Kafka
3 77 (8.90%) Node.js
4 68 (7.86%) .NET
5 67 (7.75%) REST
6 54 (6.24%) RESTful
7 48 (5.55%) Spring
7 48 (5.55%) Spring Boot
8 41 (4.74%) AngularJS
9 34 (3.93%) Middleware
10 30 (3.47%) gRPC
11 26 (3.01%) Qt
12 22 (2.54%) CSS
13 21 (2.43%) JSON
14 20 (2.31%) XML
15 19 (2.20%) GraphQL
15 19 (2.20%) HTML
16 18 (2.08%) Elastic Stack
16 18 (2.08%) Web Services
17 17 (1.97%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 78 (9.02%) Cloud Native
2 57 (6.59%) Distributed Systems
3 39 (4.51%) Algorithms
4 26 (3.01%) Fixed Income
5 25 (2.89%) Product Ownership
6 20 (2.31%) Public Cloud
7 18 (2.08%) Equities
7 18 (2.08%) Greenfield Project
8 17 (1.97%) Embedded Systems
8 17 (1.97%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 16 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
10 13 (1.50%) Legacy Systems
10 13 (1.50%) Life Science
11 12 (1.39%) Derivative
11 12 (1.39%) Mobile App
12 11 (1.27%) AI Agents
13 10 (1.16%) Data Structures
14 9 (1.04%) Robotics
15 8 (0.92%) CUDA
15 8 (0.92%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 123 (14.22%) Linux
2 56 (6.47%) Windows
3 24 (2.77%) Unix
4 15 (1.73%) Apple iOS
5 13 (1.50%) Android
6 10 (1.16%) Windows Server
7 7 (0.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 6 (0.69%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.58%) FreeRTOS
10 2 (0.23%) Debian
10 2 (0.23%) Embedded Linux
10 2 (0.23%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.12%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.12%) Rocky
11 1 (0.12%) VMS
11 1 (0.12%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 855 (98.84%) Software Engineering
2 243 (28.09%) Agile
3 202 (23.35%) CI/CD
4 143 (16.53%) DevOps
5 130 (15.03%) Microservices
6 87 (10.06%) Problem-Solving
7 84 (9.71%) Containerisation
8 82 (9.48%) AI
9 81 (9.36%) Full-Stack Development
10 78 (9.02%) Test Automation
11 75 (8.67%) Infrastructure as Code
12 67 (7.75%) TDD
13 64 (7.40%) Mentoring
14 59 (6.82%) Clean Code
15 54 (6.24%) Machine Learning
16 50 (5.78%) Computer Science
17 49 (5.66%) Validation
18 47 (5.43%) Continuous Improvement
18 47 (5.43%) Software Testing
19 46 (5.32%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 208 (24.05%) Python
2 192 (22.20%) C++
3 186 (21.50%) Java
4 129 (14.91%) JavaScript
5 120 (13.87%) TypeScript
6 117 (13.53%) C#
7 105 (12.14%) SQL
8 75 (8.67%) Ada
9 74 (8.55%) C
10 73 (8.44%) Go
11 23 (2.66%) Embedded C++
12 22 (2.54%) Embedded C
13 20 (2.31%) PowerShell
14 19 (2.20%) Kotlin
14 19 (2.20%) Rust
15 15 (1.73%) MATLAB
16 10 (1.16%) Bash
16 10 (1.16%) Shell Script
17 9 (1.04%) Swift
18 7 (0.81%) R
Qualifications
1 186 (21.50%) Security Cleared
2 141 (16.30%) SC Cleared
3 81 (9.36%) Degree
4 39 (4.51%) Computer Science Degree
5 26 (3.01%) DV Cleared
6 18 (2.08%) Master's Degree
7 10 (1.16%) AWS Certification
8 7 (0.81%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 6 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.35%) AWS Certified Developer
10 3 (0.35%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 3 (0.35%) Postgraduate
11 2 (0.23%) CCNA
11 2 (0.23%) Cisco Certification
12 1 (0.12%) Azure Certification
12 1 (0.12%) CCDP
12 1 (0.12%) CCNP
12 1 (0.12%) HNC
12 1 (0.12%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (4.51%) Def Stans
2 30 (3.47%) MISRA
3 29 (3.35%) IEC 61508
4 26 (3.01%) QA
5 20 (2.31%) MISRA C
6 16 (1.85%) Data Quality
7 10 (1.16%) DO-178B
8 8 (0.92%) GDPR
9 7 (0.81%) Accessibility
10 6 (0.69%) HL7
11 2 (0.23%) NCSC
11 2 (0.23%) 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
1 139 (16.07%) Docker
2 14 (1.62%) Firmware
2 14 (1.62%) Virtual Machines
3 9 (1.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.69%) Active Directory
5 4 (0.46%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 134 (15.49%) Kubernetes
2 99 (11.45%) Terraform
3 34 (3.93%) Grafana
4 26 (3.01%) Ansible
5 20 (2.31%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.69%) Argo
7 4 (0.46%) Data Guard
7 4 (0.46%) Kibana
7 4 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.23%) Functional Safety
8 2 (0.23%) Puppet
9 1 (0.12%) Bitnami
9 1 (0.12%) Podman
Vendors
1 33 (3.82%) Microsoft
2 29 (3.35%) Google
3 25 (2.89%) Red Hat
4 23 (2.66%) Oracle
5 22 (2.54%) Databricks
6 20 (2.31%) Splunk
7 15 (1.73%) IBM
8 9 (1.04%) VMware
9 8 (0.92%) ANSYS
10 7 (0.81%) Siemens
10 7 (0.81%) Spotify
11 5 (0.58%) MathWorks
12 4 (0.46%) Atlassian
12 4 (0.46%) Brio
13 2 (0.23%) Adobe
13 2 (0.23%) Cisco
13 2 (0.23%) NVIDIA
13 2 (0.23%) PagerDuty
13 2 (0.23%) Sybase
13 2 (0.23%) webMethods
855 Software Engineer jobs in England