Software Engineering Contract Job Trends in England

Software Engineering
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 42 34
Rank change year-on-year +2 -8 +7
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 1,855 1,217 1,934
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.04% 4.95% 5.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.82% 5.47% 5.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 974 806 1,123
10th Percentile £381 £407 £419
25th Percentile £450 £500 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £669 £750 £738
90th Percentile £788 £838 £800
UK median daily rate £550 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 377 80 321
10th Percentile £52.50 £42.95 £46.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £56.97 £51.75
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year - +4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £72.50 £68.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +4.00% -3.85%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

Software Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 31,848 22,266 32,932
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.46% 90.63% 86.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,386 14,474 21,796
10th Percentile £313 £310 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.29% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £640 £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 1,978 815 2,152
10th Percentile £15.29 £15.18 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.79 £34.11 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.73% +4.95% -12.87%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.50
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Software Engineering relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in England

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Software Engineering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in England over the 6 months to 17 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineering in England

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Software Engineering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineering in England over the 6 months to 17 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineering in England

Software Engineering
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 Engineering within the England region over the 6 months to 17 March 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 -11 803 £600 -8.99% 562
North of England +14 272 £511 -3.54% 254
South West +10 254 £518 -10.78% 214
East of England +32 182 £475 +5.09% 123
South East -1 177 £494 -1.25% 345
North West +11 130 £505 -8.18% 117
Midlands -11 100 £502 +5.14% 123
Yorkshire -9 96 £523 -0.48% 101
West Midlands -15 84 £502 +5.14% 72
North East +23 51 £488 - 37
East Midlands -30 16 £506 +3.32% 51
Software Engineering
UK

Software Engineering
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 61 (3.29%) Confluence
2 47 (2.53%) Apache Spark
3 46 (2.48%) Apache
4 21 (1.13%) Apache Airflow
5 10 (0.54%) CMS
6 9 (0.49%) WebLogic
7 8 (0.43%) Palantir Foundry
8 5 (0.27%) OpenStack
9 4 (0.22%) IIS
9 4 (0.22%) JBoss
9 4 (0.22%) nginx
10 3 (0.16%) SAS
10 3 (0.16%) SharePoint
10 3 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
11 2 (0.11%) Camunda
11 2 (0.11%) Magnolia
11 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.11%) WinCC
11 2 (0.11%) WordPress
12 1 (0.054%) Appian
Applications
1 15 (0.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.75%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.54%) Chatbot
4 5 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.16%) Simulink
6 2 (0.11%) CPLEX
6 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.054%) Maya
7 1 (0.054%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.054%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 2 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.11%) LabWindows
1 2 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
1 2 (0.11%) Primavera
2 1 (0.054%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.054%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (0.054%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 531 (28.63%) AWS
2 339 (18.27%) Azure
3 183 (9.87%) GCP
4 136 (7.33%) Serverless
5 132 (7.12%) GitHub
6 67 (3.61%) Azure DevOps
7 62 (3.34%) Amazon S3
8 61 (3.29%) AWS Lambda
8 61 (3.29%) GitHub Actions
9 46 (2.48%) Azure AKS
9 46 (2.48%) Power Platform
10 45 (2.43%) Amazon EKS
10 45 (2.43%) OpenShift
11 41 (2.21%) AWS CloudFormation
12 38 (2.05%) Azure Functions
13 35 (1.89%) Amazon EC2
13 35 (1.89%) Amazon ECS
14 32 (1.73%) SaaS
15 25 (1.35%) Datadog
16 23 (1.24%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.13%) Ethernet
2 13 (0.70%) TCP/IP
3 12 (0.65%) Network Security
4 9 (0.49%) Firewall
5 7 (0.38%) Internet
6 5 (0.27%) 3GPP
6 5 (0.27%) Modbus
6 5 (0.27%) Software-Defined Radio
7 4 (0.22%) BGP
7 4 (0.22%) HTTP
7 4 (0.22%) RS-232
7 4 (0.22%) RS-485
7 4 (0.22%) Software-Defined Networking
7 4 (0.22%) VLAN
7 4 (0.22%) Wireless
8 3 (0.16%) Bluetooth
8 3 (0.16%) IPv4
8 3 (0.16%) IPv6
8 3 (0.16%) Kerberos
8 3 (0.16%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (6.68%) PostgreSQL
2 74 (3.99%) Apache Cassandra
3 70 (3.77%) NoSQL
4 61 (3.29%) MongoDB
5 56 (3.02%) Relational Database
6 53 (2.86%) SQL Server
7 35 (1.89%) Amazon RDS
7 35 (1.89%) Data Lake
8 33 (1.78%) Big Data
8 33 (1.78%) Power BI
9 29 (1.56%) BigQuery
10 28 (1.51%) MySQL
11 25 (1.35%) Metadata
12 21 (1.13%) Data Warehouse
12 21 (1.13%) DynamoDB
13 19 (1.02%) Hadoop
14 16 (0.86%) Amazon Athena
14 16 (0.86%) Elasticsearch
15 15 (0.81%) Mixpanel
16 13 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 181 (9.76%) Git
2 129 (6.95%) Jenkins
3 115 (6.20%) GitLab
4 105 (5.66%) JIRA
5 33 (1.78%) Rational DOORS
6 30 (1.62%) Rational Rhapsody
7 29 (1.56%) JUnit
7 29 (1.56%) SonarQube
8 28 (1.51%) Gradle
9 27 (1.46%) Cucumber
10 26 (1.40%) Cypress.io
10 26 (1.40%) Selenium
11 25 (1.35%) Bitbucket
12 21 (1.13%) IntelliJ
13 18 (0.97%) Eclipse
13 18 (0.97%) Maven
14 17 (0.92%) Liquibase
14 17 (0.92%) Mockito
14 17 (0.92%) Visual Studio
15 11 (0.59%) Postman
General
1 308 (16.60%) Finance
2 298 (16.06%) Social Skills
3 123 (6.63%) Public Sector
4 112 (6.04%) Banking
5 98 (5.28%) Analytical Skills
6 65 (3.50%) Front Office
7 63 (3.40%) Aerospace
8 42 (2.26%) Electronics
9 33 (1.78%) Law
10 31 (1.67%) Retail
11 29 (1.56%) Financial Institution
12 28 (1.51%) Investment Banking
12 28 (1.51%) Military
13 23 (1.24%) Manufacturing
14 22 (1.19%) Influencing Skills
15 20 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
15 20 (1.08%) Telecoms
16 15 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
17 14 (0.75%) Documentation Skills
18 12 (0.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 963 (51.91%) Software Engineer
2 346 (18.65%) Senior
3 342 (18.44%) Developer
4 156 (8.41%) Senior Software Engineer
5 145 (7.82%) Lead
6 123 (6.63%) Java Engineer
7 120 (6.47%) C++ Software Engineer
8 106 (5.71%) Embedded Engineer
9 101 (5.44%) Java Software Engineer
10 94 (5.07%) Embedded Software Engineer
11 74 (3.99%) Java Developer
12 73 (3.94%) Architect
12 73 (3.94%) Senior Developer
13 69 (3.72%) Python Engineer
14 64 (3.45%) Python Developer
15 63 (3.40%) Developer/Software Engineer
16 57 (3.07%) Lead Software Engineer
17 55 (2.96%) Data Engineer
18 50 (2.70%) Full-Stack Engineer
19 49 (2.64%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 238 (12.83%) React
2 223 (12.02%) Kafka
3 167 (9.00%) Node.js
4 142 (7.65%) REST
5 138 (7.44%) .NET
6 118 (6.36%) Spring
7 109 (5.88%) Spring Boot
8 105 (5.66%) RESTful
9 93 (5.01%) AngularJS
10 77 (4.15%) gRPC
11 67 (3.61%) GraphQL
12 65 (3.50%) Middleware
13 54 (2.91%) Redux
14 52 (2.80%) HTML
15 50 (2.70%) CSS
16 48 (2.59%) JSON
17 42 (2.26%) Playwright
18 38 (2.05%) FastAPI
19 37 (1.99%) Vue
20 32 (1.73%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 217 (11.70%) Cloud Native
2 136 (7.33%) Distributed Systems
3 88 (4.74%) Product Ownership
4 70 (3.77%) Algorithms
5 61 (3.29%) Fixed Income
6 39 (2.10%) Data Protection Act
7 34 (1.83%) Mobile App
8 32 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
9 30 (1.62%) Data Structures
10 28 (1.51%) AI Agents
10 28 (1.51%) Derivative
11 27 (1.46%) Greenfield Project
11 27 (1.46%) Onboarding
12 26 (1.40%) Equities
13 25 (1.35%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 23 (1.24%) Embedded Systems
15 21 (1.13%) Public Cloud
16 20 (1.08%) Hedge funds
17 19 (1.02%) Life Science
17 19 (1.02%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 206 (11.11%) Linux
2 77 (4.15%) Windows
3 49 (2.64%) Unix
4 27 (1.46%) Android
5 20 (1.08%) Apple iOS
6 18 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (0.97%) Ubuntu
7 14 (0.75%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.32%) FreeRTOS
9 3 (0.16%) Debian
9 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
9 3 (0.16%) VMS
10 2 (0.11%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.11%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.11%) Rocky
10 2 (0.11%) Solaris
10 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.054%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.054%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 569 (30.67%) Agile
2 528 (28.46%) CI/CD
3 372 (20.05%) DevOps
4 322 (17.36%) Microservices
5 268 (14.45%) AI
6 239 (12.88%) Problem-Solving
7 220 (11.86%) Containerisation
8 205 (11.05%) Test Automation
9 192 (10.35%) Full-Stack Development
10 177 (9.54%) Infrastructure as Code
11 166 (8.95%) Computer Science
12 165 (8.89%) Machine Learning
13 153 (8.25%) Mentoring
14 148 (7.98%) Continuous Improvement
15 131 (7.06%) SDLC
16 129 (6.95%) Observability
17 128 (6.90%) Scrum
18 125 (6.74%) TDD
19 118 (6.36%) Technical Leadership
20 111 (5.98%) Open Source
Programming Languages
1 526 (28.36%) Python
2 443 (23.88%) Java
3 253 (13.64%) SQL
4 245 (13.21%) C++
5 242 (13.05%) JavaScript
6 236 (12.72%) TypeScript
7 221 (11.91%) C#
8 168 (9.06%) Go
9 123 (6.63%) Ada
10 114 (6.15%) C
11 36 (1.94%) PowerShell
12 33 (1.78%) Shell Script
13 31 (1.67%) Bash
13 31 (1.67%) Rust
14 30 (1.62%) Kotlin
15 26 (1.40%) Embedded C
16 24 (1.29%) Embedded C++
17 21 (1.13%) MATLAB
18 18 (0.97%) Ruby
19 17 (0.92%) Scala
Qualifications
1 432 (23.29%) Security Cleared
2 330 (17.79%) SC Cleared
3 199 (10.73%) Degree
4 91 (4.91%) Computer Science Degree
5 61 (3.29%) DV Cleared
6 58 (3.13%) Master's Degree
7 22 (1.19%) BPSS Clearance
8 21 (1.13%) PhD
9 19 (1.02%) CISSP
10 18 (0.97%) AWS Certification
11 17 (0.92%) CISM
12 16 (0.86%) Azure Certification
13 15 (0.81%) TOGAF Certification
14 11 (0.59%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 10 (0.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 7 (0.38%) ISTQB
17 6 (0.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
18 5 (0.27%) Microsoft Certification
19 4 (0.22%) HND
19 4 (0.22%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (5.18%) QA
2 58 (3.13%) Def Stans
3 41 (2.21%) Data Quality
4 40 (2.16%) IEC 61508
5 34 (1.83%) Accessibility
6 31 (1.67%) MISRA
7 26 (1.40%) GDPR
8 21 (1.13%) MISRA C
9 18 (0.97%) WCAG
10 17 (0.92%) NIST
11 11 (0.59%) DO-178B
12 10 (0.54%) EU AI Act
13 6 (0.32%) HL7
13 6 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
14 5 (0.27%) NCSC
15 3 (0.16%) SLA
16 2 (0.11%) FATCA
16 2 (0.11%) PCI DSS
16 2 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 2 (0.11%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 334 (18.01%) Docker
2 18 (0.97%) Firmware
3 15 (0.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.38%) Active Directory
6 4 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
7 3 (0.16%) HDFS
8 2 (0.11%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 364 (19.62%) Kubernetes
2 205 (11.05%) Terraform
3 94 (5.07%) Grafana
4 65 (3.50%) Ansible
5 57 (3.07%) Prometheus
6 24 (1.29%) Argo
7 19 (1.02%) Puppet
8 13 (0.70%) Progress Chef
9 9 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
10 6 (0.32%) Istio
11 5 (0.27%) HP Quality Center
11 5 (0.27%) Kibana
11 5 (0.27%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.22%) Data Guard
12 4 (0.22%) Podman
13 3 (0.16%) Docker Swarm
13 3 (0.16%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.16%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
14 2 (0.11%) Functional Safety
14 2 (0.11%) rkt
Vendors
1 145 (7.82%) Microsoft
2 69 (3.72%) Google
3 63 (3.40%) Red Hat
4 57 (3.07%) Oracle
5 47 (2.53%) Databricks
6 26 (1.40%) Foundry
6 26 (1.40%) Splunk
7 19 (1.02%) IBM
8 16 (0.86%) BiZZdesign
8 16 (0.86%) VMware
9 15 (0.81%) OpenAI
10 11 (0.59%) Atlassian
11 10 (0.54%) PagerDuty
11 10 (0.54%) Siemens
12 9 (0.49%) Palantir
12 9 (0.49%) SAP
12 9 (0.49%) Software AG
13 8 (0.43%) ANSYS
13 8 (0.43%) CyberArk
13 8 (0.43%) ServiceNow