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 27 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 43 30
Rank change year-on-year +12 -13 +10
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2,703 1,384 1,870
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.83% 4.96% 5.72%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.89% 5.45% 6.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,446 842 1,132
10th Percentile £400 £375 £410
25th Percentile £463 £463 £498
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £585 £615
Median % change year-on-year -5.98% -4.88% +2.36%
75th Percentile £682 £738 £810
90th Percentile £775 £838 £888
UK median daily rate £550 £563 £600
% change year-on-year -2.22% -6.25% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 425 119 218
10th Percentile £51.25 £44.73 £46.18
25th Percentile £60.00 £52.50 £58.13
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.50
Median % change year-on-year - -0.76% +0.77%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.40 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.50
% change year-on-year - -0.76% +0.77%

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 39,218 25,382 28,205
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.59% 90.90% 86.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,880 16,110 17,293
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £645
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,852 1,550 1,234
10th Percentile £13.90 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.60 £17.87 £20.26
Median hourly rate £41.03 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.14% -41.51% -2.27%
75th Percentile £67.50 £47.41 £66.61
90th Percentile £79.00 £67.28 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +57.06% -40.82% -

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 27 September 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 27 September 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 27 September 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 -4 1,195 £600 -5.51% 3,990
North of England +19 454 £525 +5.00% 850
South East +34 344 £525 +10.53% 755
South West +16 306 £550 +12.82% 569
East of England +19 235 £510 +2.00% 520
North West +19 217 £550 +10.00% 519
Yorkshire +10 177 £500 - 231
Midlands +36 143 £470 -7.94% 408
West Midlands +14 99 £470 -18.26% 214
North East +2 64 £650 +33.33% 102
East Midlands +11 43 £435 +3.45% 194
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 58 (2.15%) Apache Spark
2 55 (2.03%) Confluence
3 49 (1.81%) Apache Airflow
4 33 (1.22%) Apache
5 16 (0.59%) CMS
6 13 (0.48%) SharePoint
7 8 (0.30%) Jupyter
8 7 (0.26%) Ethereum
8 7 (0.26%) SAS
9 6 (0.22%) Camunda
10 5 (0.18%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.18%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.18%) Hyperledger
11 4 (0.15%) nginx
11 4 (0.15%) WordPress
12 3 (0.11%) MQSeries
12 3 (0.11%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.074%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 2 (0.074%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.074%) IIS
Applications
1 14 (0.52%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (0.41%) Chatbot
3 10 (0.37%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 10 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.11%) CPLEX
6 3 (0.11%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.11%) Trello
7 2 (0.074%) CATIA
7 2 (0.074%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 2 (0.074%) Notion
8 1 (0.037%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.037%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.037%) Blender
8 1 (0.037%) Simulink
8 1 (0.037%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 7 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
2 5 (0.18%) Oracle Payroll
2 5 (0.18%) R3 Corda
3 4 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.15%) Quorum
3 4 (0.15%) Ripple
4 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.11%) Orchestrade
4 3 (0.11%) Primavera
4 3 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.074%) Distributed Ledger
5 2 (0.074%) Endur
5 2 (0.074%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.037%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.037%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.037%) Sage 50
6 1 (0.037%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.037%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.037%) Shopify
6 1 (0.037%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 686 (25.38%) AWS
2 546 (20.20%) Azure
3 285 (10.54%) GCP
4 244 (9.03%) GitHub
5 144 (5.33%) Serverless
6 127 (4.70%) GitHub Actions
7 116 (4.29%) Azure DevOps
8 104 (3.85%) AWS Lambda
9 71 (2.63%) Amazon S3
10 70 (2.59%) Anthropic Claude
11 66 (2.44%) GitHub Copilot
12 55 (2.03%) Amazon EKS
12 55 (2.03%) Amazon SQS
13 50 (1.85%) Amazon ECS
13 50 (1.85%) OpenShift
14 47 (1.74%) Snowflake
15 45 (1.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 44 (1.63%) Power Platform
17 35 (1.29%) dbt
18 32 (1.18%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 31 (1.15%) Wireless
2 29 (1.07%) Software-Defined Radio
3 22 (0.81%) Firewall
4 20 (0.74%) Internet
5 19 (0.70%) TCP/IP
5 19 (0.70%) VPN
6 18 (0.67%) Ethernet
6 18 (0.67%) HTTP
7 14 (0.52%) Wi-Fi
8 10 (0.37%) DNS
9 9 (0.33%) Network Security
9 9 (0.33%) RTP
9 9 (0.33%) Wireshark
10 6 (0.22%) 3GPP
10 6 (0.22%) Cisco IPT
11 4 (0.15%) Broadband
11 4 (0.15%) RS-232
11 4 (0.15%) SSL
12 3 (0.11%) RS-485
12 3 (0.11%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (5.25%) PostgreSQL
2 97 (3.59%) Relational Database
3 83 (3.07%) SQL Server
4 81 (3.00%) NoSQL
5 61 (2.26%) MongoDB
6 52 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
7 44 (1.63%) DynamoDB
8 41 (1.52%) MySQL
9 34 (1.26%) Metadata
10 30 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
11 28 (1.04%) Data Lake
12 27 (1.00%) Big Data
12 27 (1.00%) Power BI
12 27 (1.00%) Redis
13 26 (0.96%) BigQuery
13 26 (0.96%) Elasticsearch
13 26 (0.96%) Pinecone
14 21 (0.78%) Weaviate
15 19 (0.70%) Chroma
16 16 (0.59%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 279 (10.32%) Git
2 160 (5.92%) GitLab
3 153 (5.66%) Jenkins
4 115 (4.25%) JIRA
5 49 (1.81%) SonarQube
6 38 (1.41%) Claude Code
6 38 (1.41%) Gradle
7 37 (1.37%) JUnit
8 31 (1.15%) Visual Studio
9 30 (1.11%) Selenium
10 29 (1.07%) Rational DOORS
11 28 (1.04%) Maven
12 22 (0.81%) Cucumber
13 20 (0.74%) Rational Rhapsody
14 17 (0.63%) Mockito
15 15 (0.55%) LabVIEW
16 14 (0.52%) Cypress.io
17 13 (0.48%) Bitbucket
18 12 (0.44%) Snyk
19 10 (0.37%) Postman
General
1 567 (20.98%) Social Skills
2 505 (18.68%) Finance
3 218 (8.07%) Banking
4 202 (7.47%) Public Sector
5 189 (6.99%) Analytical Skills
6 92 (3.40%) Aerospace
7 79 (2.92%) Front Office
8 53 (1.96%) Investment Banking
9 51 (1.89%) Manufacturing
10 46 (1.70%) Retail
11 45 (1.66%) Law
12 39 (1.44%) Automotive
13 33 (1.22%) Military
14 30 (1.11%) Telecoms
15 26 (0.96%) Aviation
15 26 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 26 (0.96%) Influencing Skills
16 25 (0.92%) Marketing
17 18 (0.67%) Back Office
18 16 (0.59%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 1,115 (41.25%) Software Engineer
2 531 (19.64%) Developer
3 521 (19.27%) Senior
4 295 (10.91%) Lead
5 204 (7.55%) Senior Software Engineer
6 156 (5.77%) Embedded Engineer
6 156 (5.77%) Java Engineer
7 150 (5.55%) Embedded Software Engineer
7 150 (5.55%) Java Developer
8 139 (5.14%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
9 129 (4.77%) Software Developer
10 125 (4.62%) Java Software Engineer
11 116 (4.29%) C++ Software Engineer
12 115 (4.25%) Senior Developer
13 110 (4.07%) Architect
14 104 (3.85%) Data Engineer
15 103 (3.81%) Python Engineer
16 85 (3.14%) DevOps Engineer
17 77 (2.85%) Lead Software Engineer
18 76 (2.81%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 301 (11.14%) Terraform
2 254 (9.40%) React
3 240 (8.88%) REST
4 225 (8.32%) Spring
5 223 (8.25%) .NET
6 214 (7.92%) Spring Boot
7 174 (6.44%) Kafka
8 150 (5.55%) RESTful
9 138 (5.11%) Node.js
10 95 (3.51%) AngularJS
11 62 (2.29%) Django
12 59 (2.18%) OAuth
13 58 (2.15%) HTML
13 58 (2.15%) LangChain
14 56 (2.07%) CSS
15 55 (2.03%) Next.js
16 49 (1.81%) Web Services
17 44 (1.63%) FastAPI
17 44 (1.63%) JSON
18 43 (1.59%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 422 (15.61%) Cloud Native
2 239 (8.84%) Distributed Systems
3 152 (5.62%) Product Ownership
4 144 (5.33%) AI Agents
5 73 (2.70%) Algorithms
6 67 (2.48%) Enterprise Software
7 62 (2.29%) Onboarding
8 56 (2.07%) Data Structures
9 47 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
10 44 (1.63%) Embedded Systems
11 36 (1.33%) Legacy Systems
12 35 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
13 33 (1.22%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 29 (1.07%) Fixed Income
15 27 (1.00%) Greenfield Project
16 26 (0.96%) Derivative
17 24 (0.89%) Equities
17 24 (0.89%) Robotics
18 21 (0.78%) Virtual Team
19 19 (0.70%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 188 (6.96%) Linux
2 65 (2.40%) Windows
3 35 (1.29%) Unix
4 23 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 19 (0.70%) Embedded Linux
6 14 (0.52%) FreeRTOS
7 12 (0.44%) Android
7 12 (0.44%) Windows Server
8 8 (0.30%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.26%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.18%) Debian
11 3 (0.11%) Rocky
11 3 (0.11%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.074%) VMS
12 2 (0.074%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.074%) zOS
13 1 (0.037%) Solaris
13 1 (0.037%) Tizen
13 1 (0.037%) webOS
13 1 (0.037%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 951 (35.18%) CI/CD
2 817 (30.23%) Agile
3 644 (23.83%) DevOps
4 594 (21.98%) AI
5 404 (14.95%) Microservices
6 402 (14.87%) Test Automation
7 343 (12.69%) Continuous Improvement
8 329 (12.17%) Infrastructure as Code
9 326 (12.06%) Problem-Solving
10 287 (10.62%) Observability
11 269 (9.95%) SDLC
12 268 (9.91%) Containerisation
13 260 (9.62%) Full-Stack Development
14 250 (9.25%) Stakeholder Management
15 237 (8.77%) Technical Leadership
16 235 (8.69%) Machine Learning
17 229 (8.47%) Platform Engineering
18 224 (8.29%) Event-Driven
19 222 (8.21%) LLM
20 213 (7.88%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 794 (29.37%) Python
2 669 (24.75%) Java
3 385 (14.24%) SQL
4 305 (11.28%) TypeScript
5 302 (11.17%) C#
6 226 (8.36%) C++
7 222 (8.21%) JavaScript
8 117 (4.33%) C
9 85 (3.14%) Go
10 78 (2.89%) Ada
11 67 (2.48%) Kotlin
12 48 (1.78%) PowerShell
13 46 (1.70%) Bash
14 44 (1.63%) Rust
15 39 (1.44%) Scala
16 29 (1.07%) Embedded C
17 23 (0.85%) Bicep
17 23 (0.85%) PL/SQL
18 20 (0.74%) PHP
19 17 (0.63%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 589 (21.79%) Security Cleared
2 494 (18.28%) SC Cleared
3 215 (7.95%) Degree
4 99 (3.66%) Computer Science Degree
5 96 (3.55%) DV Cleared
6 61 (2.26%) BPSS Clearance
7 47 (1.74%) Master's Degree
8 44 (1.63%) AWS Certification
9 24 (0.89%) Azure Certification
10 18 (0.67%) PhD
11 15 (0.55%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 13 (0.48%) PMP
13 10 (0.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 8 (0.30%) CISSP
15 7 (0.26%) ISTQB
16 6 (0.22%) Chartered Engineer
16 6 (0.22%) TOGAF Certification
17 5 (0.18%) Numerate Degree
17 5 (0.18%) PMI Certification
18 4 (0.15%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 175 (6.47%) QA
2 79 (2.92%) Data Quality
3 59 (2.18%) Accessibility
4 22 (0.81%) MISRA
5 21 (0.78%) GDPR
6 17 (0.63%) Def Stans
7 14 (0.52%) NIST
7 14 (0.52%) WCAG
8 12 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 11 (0.41%) IEC 61508
9 11 (0.41%) MISRA C
10 10 (0.37%) DO-178B
11 9 (0.33%) GRC
12 6 (0.22%) NCSC
13 5 (0.18%) EMIR
13 5 (0.18%) HL7
13 5 (0.18%) JSP 440
13 5 (0.18%) MiFID
14 4 (0.15%) PCI DSS
15 3 (0.11%) DO-254
System Software
1 393 (14.54%) Docker
2 28 (1.04%) Firmware
3 17 (0.63%) Embedded Firmware
4 15 (0.55%) Active Directory
5 13 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.037%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.037%) zsh
Systems Management
1 442 (16.35%) Kubernetes
2 96 (3.55%) Ansible
3 57 (2.11%) Grafana
4 44 (1.63%) Prometheus
5 33 (1.22%) Argo
6 19 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (0.59%) Kibana
8 9 (0.33%) Puppet
9 6 (0.22%) Functional Safety
10 4 (0.15%) Consul
10 4 (0.15%) Kubeflow
10 4 (0.15%) Kustomize
11 3 (0.11%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.11%) Istio
11 3 (0.11%) Progress Chef
12 2 (0.074%) Cilium
12 2 (0.074%) Control-M
12 2 (0.074%) HAProxy
12 2 (0.074%) Packer
12 2 (0.074%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 147 (5.44%) Microsoft
2 107 (3.96%) Google
3 84 (3.11%) Databricks
4 82 (3.03%) Oracle
5 67 (2.48%) OpenAI
6 36 (1.33%) Red Hat
7 29 (1.07%) Salesforce
8 26 (0.96%) Splunk
9 19 (0.70%) IBM
10 17 (0.63%) Foundry
10 17 (0.63%) Informatica
10 17 (0.63%) ServiceNow
11 13 (0.48%) Adobe
12 12 (0.44%) SAP
13 10 (0.37%) VMware
14 9 (0.33%) Checkmarx
15 8 (0.30%) Dynatrace
15 8 (0.30%) Siemens
16 7 (0.26%) ForgeRock
16 7 (0.26%) Hitachi