Software Engineer Contracts in England

Software Engineer
UK > England

The median Software Engineer daily rate in England is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 130 76 138
Rank change year-on-year -54 +62 -15
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 524 1,027 941
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 2.14% 2.82% 1.96%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.32% 3.04% 2.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 357 539 604
10th Percentile £412 £450 £438
25th Percentile £475 £513 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £638 £591
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +7.87% -1.50%
75th Percentile £825 £750 £682
90th Percentile £875 £850 £746
UK median daily rate £600 £625 £590
% change year-on-year -4.00% +5.93% -1.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 314 133
10th Percentile £52.20 £46.25 £46.35
25th Percentile £61.25 £52.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £70.30
90th Percentile £74.00 £80.00 £77.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £63.75
% change year-on-year - +1.96% +10.87%

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 22,610 33,814 45,522
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.35% 92.78% 94.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,047 22,417 32,346
10th Percentile £296 £283 £313
25th Percentile £406 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.38% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £638 £644 £663
90th Percentile £750 £750 £760
UK median daily rate £513 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -2.38% -2.82% +2.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 916 2,440 1,342
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.86 £14.25
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £36.92 £44.77
Median % change year-on-year -18.73% -17.54% +94.63%
75th Percentile £63.75 £61.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.75 £77.00
UK median hourly rate £28.08 £36.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -23.08% -18.89% +88.21%

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings that featured Software Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Software Engineer in England

Software Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Software Engineer in England.

Daily rate trend for Software Engineer in England

Software Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineer in England over the 6 months to 18 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineer in England

Software Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Software Engineer in England.

Hourly rate trend for Software Engineer in England

Software Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineer in England over the 6 months to 18 May 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 18 May 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 -24 312 £675 - 1,139
North of England -33 55 £450 -14.29% 426
South West -4 54 £575 +4.55% 222
South East -25 52 £575 +27.78% 602
North West -32 39 £450 -18.18% 260
Midlands +28 20 £438 -16.67% 177
East of England -54 18 £583 +5.91% 229
Yorkshire +14 15 £475 +18.75% 95
East Midlands +18 9 £475 -17.39% 76
West Midlands +8 9 £450 -10.00% 90
North East -17 1 - - 75
Software Engineer
UK

Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 18 May 2025, Software Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the England region featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 506 (96.56%) Software Engineering
2 276 (52.67%) Agile
3 242 (46.18%) AWS
4 236 (45.04%) Python
5 219 (41.79%) JavaScript
6 208 (39.69%) Finance
7 186 (35.50%) TypeScript
8 166 (31.68%) Java
9 156 (29.77%) React
10 147 (28.05%) Front Office
11 132 (25.19%) Fixed Income
12 127 (24.24%) Asset Management
13 121 (23.09%) GCP
14 120 (22.90%) Node.js
15 118 (22.52%) CI/CD
16 102 (19.47%) Investment Management
17 101 (19.27%) Banking
18 97 (18.51%) Azure
19 96 (18.32%) Security Cleared
20 91 (17.37%) Fintech
21 90 (17.18%) SQL
22 89 (16.98%) PostgreSQL
23 84 (16.03%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
24 83 (15.84%) SC Cleared
25 80 (15.27%) C#
26 79 (15.08%) Equities
26 79 (15.08%) dbt
27 78 (14.89%) Test Automation
28 76 (14.50%) DevOps
29 75 (14.31%) Amazon Athena

Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 74 (14.12%) Apache Airflow
2 62 (11.83%) Apache
3 22 (4.20%) Confluence
4 6 (1.15%) CMS
5 5 (0.95%) Drupal
6 4 (0.76%) WordPress
7 2 (0.38%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.38%) BizTalk Server
7 2 (0.38%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.19%) CICS
8 1 (0.19%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.19%) SharePoint
8 1 (0.19%) Tuxedo
8 1 (0.19%) WinCC
Applications
1 5 (0.95%) Simulink
2 2 (0.38%) CANalyzer
3 1 (0.19%) Stateflow
3 1 (0.19%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (1.34%) BASE24
2 3 (0.57%) SAP ERP
2 3 (0.57%) SAP EWM
2 3 (0.57%) SAP GTS
2 3 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.38%) FLEXCUBE
3 2 (0.38%) Oracle BPM
4 1 (0.19%) LabWindows
4 1 (0.19%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.19%) Oracle TCA
4 1 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 242 (46.18%) AWS
2 121 (23.09%) GCP
3 97 (18.51%) Azure
4 79 (15.08%) dbt
5 45 (8.59%) Snowflake
6 36 (6.87%) Serverless
7 33 (6.30%) GitHub
8 27 (5.15%) AWS Lambda
9 24 (4.58%) GitHub Actions
10 23 (4.39%) Amazon ECS
11 22 (4.20%) Amazon EC2
11 22 (4.20%) Amazon EKS
12 13 (2.48%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 13 (2.48%) Dagster
13 12 (2.29%) Amazon SQS
13 12 (2.29%) AWS CloudFormation
14 11 (2.10%) Amazon S3
14 11 (2.10%) Azure AKS
14 11 (2.10%) Azure Service Bus
15 10 (1.91%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.15%) ATM
1 6 (1.15%) DNS
1 6 (1.15%) Ethernet
1 6 (1.15%) TCP/IP
2 5 (0.95%) HTTP
2 5 (0.95%) HTTPS
3 4 (0.76%) Internet
4 3 (0.57%) 3GPP
4 3 (0.57%) Network Security
4 3 (0.57%) Wireless
5 1 (0.19%) HSRP
5 1 (0.19%) LAN
5 1 (0.19%) MQTT
5 1 (0.19%) NFC
5 1 (0.19%) PPP
5 1 (0.19%) SNMP
5 1 (0.19%) Software-Defined Networking
5 1 (0.19%) Software-Defined Radio
5 1 (0.19%) VPN
5 1 (0.19%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (16.98%) PostgreSQL
2 75 (14.31%) Amazon Athena
3 74 (14.12%) Apache Arrow
3 74 (14.12%) Apache Iceberg
3 74 (14.12%) Dremio
4 37 (7.06%) Apache Ignite
5 30 (5.73%) Data Lake
6 27 (5.15%) Relational Database
6 27 (5.15%) SQL Server
7 19 (3.63%) MongoDB
8 15 (2.86%) NoSQL
9 13 (2.48%) MySQL
10 9 (1.72%) DynamoDB
11 6 (1.15%) NonStop SQL
11 6 (1.15%) Oracle Database
12 5 (0.95%) Oracle Database 11g
13 4 (0.76%) Amazon Aurora
13 4 (0.76%) Amazon Redshift
14 3 (0.57%) Elasticsearch
14 3 (0.57%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 58 (11.07%) Jenkins
2 51 (9.73%) Git
2 51 (9.73%) JIRA
3 31 (5.92%) GitLab
4 24 (4.58%) Bitbucket
5 14 (2.67%) Eclipse
6 13 (2.48%) Cucumber
6 13 (2.48%) GoogleTest
6 13 (2.48%) JUnit
7 12 (2.29%) Selenium
8 11 (2.10%) Rational DOORS
8 11 (2.10%) SonarQube
9 10 (1.91%) Gradle
9 10 (1.91%) Liquibase
9 10 (1.91%) Mockito
10 9 (1.72%) REST Assured
10 9 (1.72%) Visual Studio
11 8 (1.53%) TestRail
12 7 (1.34%) Robot Framework
13 6 (1.15%) Cypress.io
General
1 208 (39.69%) Finance
2 147 (28.05%) Front Office
3 101 (19.27%) Banking
4 70 (13.36%) Social Skills
5 52 (9.92%) Investment Banking
6 31 (5.92%) Public Sector
7 29 (5.53%) Analytical Skills
8 15 (2.86%) Electronics
8 15 (2.86%) Manufacturing
8 15 (2.86%) Marketing
8 15 (2.86%) Telecoms
9 10 (1.91%) Aerospace
9 10 (1.91%) Presentation Skills
10 8 (1.53%) Law
10 8 (1.53%) Military
11 7 (1.34%) Automotive
12 6 (1.15%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.95%) Multimedia
14 4 (0.76%) Advertising
14 4 (0.76%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 156 (29.77%) React
2 120 (22.90%) Node.js
3 67 (12.79%) AngularJS
3 67 (12.79%) NumPy
4 66 (12.60%) Pandas
5 64 (12.21%) Redux
6 59 (11.26%) .NET
7 58 (11.07%) SciPy
8 55 (10.50%) Vue
9 40 (7.63%) REST
10 39 (7.44%) gRPC
11 37 (7.06%) Protocol Buffers
12 31 (5.92%) PySpark
13 30 (5.73%) HTML
14 29 (5.53%) Kafka
14 29 (5.53%) Spring Boot
15 28 (5.34%) Spring
16 27 (5.15%) CSS
16 27 (5.15%) RESTful
17 21 (4.01%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 132 (25.19%) Fixed Income
2 84 (16.03%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 79 (15.08%) Equities
4 70 (13.36%) Hedge funds
5 47 (8.97%) Derivative
6 24 (4.58%) Greenfield Project
7 22 (4.20%) Algorithms
8 17 (3.24%) Product Ownership
9 16 (3.05%) Cloud Native
9 16 (3.05%) Pricing Data
10 13 (2.48%) Data Structures
11 12 (2.29%) Distributed Systems
12 5 (0.95%) Data Protection Act
13 4 (0.76%) Legacy Code
13 4 (0.76%) Mobile App
13 4 (0.76%) NHS
13 4 (0.76%) PKI
13 4 (0.76%) Public Cloud
13 4 (0.76%) Taxonomies
14 3 (0.57%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 65 (12.40%) Linux
2 16 (3.05%) Windows
3 7 (1.34%) Unix
4 6 (1.15%) Embedded Linux
5 4 (0.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.38%) Android
6 2 (0.38%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.38%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.19%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.19%) FreeRTOS
7 1 (0.19%) VxWorks
7 1 (0.19%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 506 (96.56%) Software Engineering
2 276 (52.67%) Agile
3 127 (24.24%) Asset Management
4 118 (22.52%) CI/CD
5 102 (19.47%) Investment Management
6 91 (17.37%) Fintech
7 78 (14.89%) Test Automation
8 76 (14.50%) DevOps
9 64 (12.21%) TDD
10 60 (11.45%) Problem-Solving
11 59 (11.26%) Microservices
12 57 (10.88%) Containerisation
13 56 (10.69%) Full-Stack Development
14 50 (9.54%) User Experience
15 49 (9.35%) Scrum
16 41 (7.82%) Continuous Integration
17 39 (7.44%) Migration
18 37 (7.06%) OO
19 32 (6.11%) Infrastructure as Code
20 31 (5.92%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 236 (45.04%) Python
2 219 (41.79%) JavaScript
3 186 (35.50%) TypeScript
4 166 (31.68%) Java
5 90 (17.18%) SQL
6 80 (15.27%) C#
7 64 (12.21%) C++
8 23 (4.39%) Ada
9 21 (4.01%) Go
10 20 (3.82%) C
11 15 (2.86%) Bash
12 12 (2.29%) PL/SQL
13 8 (1.53%) PHP
13 8 (1.53%) PowerShell
14 6 (1.15%) MATLAB
14 6 (1.15%) Rust
14 6 (1.15%) T-SQL
15 4 (0.76%) Bicep
15 4 (0.76%) Scala
16 3 (0.57%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 96 (18.32%) Security Cleared
2 83 (15.84%) SC Cleared
3 38 (7.25%) Degree
4 26 (4.96%) Computer Science Degree
5 15 (2.86%) DV Cleared
6 9 (1.72%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.38%) CCNP
7 2 (0.38%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (0.38%) OCA
7 2 (0.38%) Oracle Certification
7 2 (0.38%) RHCA
7 2 (0.38%) RHCE
7 2 (0.38%) SANS
7 2 (0.38%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 1 (0.19%) HND
8 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (2.86%) Def Stans
1 15 (2.86%) IEC 61508
2 9 (1.72%) Accessibility
2 9 (1.72%) MISRA
2 9 (1.72%) MISRA C
3 8 (1.53%) QA
3 8 (1.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 7 (1.34%) ISO 8583
5 6 (1.15%) PSD2
6 3 (0.57%) GDPR
7 2 (0.38%) Government Security Classifications
7 2 (0.38%) ISO 26262
8 1 (0.19%) DO-178B
8 1 (0.19%) GRC
8 1 (0.19%) HL7
8 1 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.19%) MiFID
8 1 (0.19%) NIST
8 1 (0.19%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 72 (13.74%) Docker
2 2 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.19%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.19%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 64 (12.21%) Kubernetes
2 47 (8.97%) Terraform
3 22 (4.20%) Ansible
4 8 (1.53%) Grafana
5 7 (1.34%) Podman
5 7 (1.34%) Prometheus
6 6 (1.15%) Docker Swarm
7 5 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.57%) Puppet
8 3 (0.57%) WMI
9 2 (0.38%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.38%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.19%) CA Endevor
10 1 (0.19%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 26 (4.96%) Google
2 25 (4.77%) Oracle
3 20 (3.82%) Microsoft
4 15 (2.86%) Atlassian
4 15 (2.86%) SAP
5 8 (1.53%) Intel
6 6 (1.15%) Databricks
6 6 (1.15%) HP
7 5 (0.95%) ForgeRock
7 5 (0.95%) Ping Identity
8 4 (0.76%) Zend
9 3 (0.57%) CA Agile Central
9 3 (0.57%) Cisco
9 3 (0.57%) IBM
9 3 (0.57%) PagerDuty
9 3 (0.57%) Red Hat
9 3 (0.57%) Splunk
9 3 (0.57%) Veracode
9 3 (0.57%) Virgin Media
10 2 (0.38%) Coverity