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 31 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 43 31
Rank change year-on-year +11 -12 +9
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2,583 1,364 1,911
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.65% 4.91% 5.78%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.65% 5.41% 6.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,396 850 1,197
10th Percentile £400 £380 £409
25th Percentile £468 £471 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% -4.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £688 £745 £823
90th Percentile £775 £838 £888
UK median daily rate £555 £575 £601
% change year-on-year -3.48% -4.25% +0.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 414 111 250
10th Percentile £51.25 £38.63 £45.22
25th Percentile £58.16 £52.50 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.46 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year - - +0.66%

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 38,818 25,195 28,384
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.84% 90.79% 85.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,932 16,050 18,115
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £753
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,599 1,473 1,445
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.25 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.87 £18.75
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +2.63%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +3.56%

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 31 August 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 31 August 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 31 August 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 -2 1,154 £600 -7.69% 2,435
North of England +26 416 £538 +9.25% 417
South East +29 331 £525 +4.90% 438
South West +18 307 £550 +7.32% 350
East of England +23 216 £505 +1.00% 241
North West +10 192 £550 +10.00% 249
Yorkshire +12 161 £500 +2.04% 111
Midlands +10 123 £460 -16.45% 181
West Midlands -1 85 £461 -19.78% 99
North East +11 68 £650 +41.30% 57
East Midlands +11 37 £435 -8.42% 81
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 53 (2.05%) Confluence
2 52 (2.01%) Apache Spark
3 41 (1.59%) Apache Airflow
4 34 (1.32%) Apache
5 11 (0.43%) CMS
6 9 (0.35%) SharePoint
7 7 (0.27%) SAS
8 6 (0.23%) Jupyter
9 5 (0.19%) Apache Solr
9 5 (0.19%) Camunda
9 5 (0.19%) Ethereum
9 5 (0.19%) Hyperledger
10 4 (0.15%) Apache Superset
11 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
11 3 (0.12%) WordPress
12 2 (0.077%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.077%) IIS
12 2 (0.077%) MQSeries
12 2 (0.077%) nginx
12 2 (0.077%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 14 (0.54%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (0.39%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 10 (0.39%) Chatbot
2 10 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
3 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.15%) CPLEX
4 4 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.15%) Simulink
5 3 (0.12%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.12%) Trello
6 2 (0.077%) CATIA
6 2 (0.077%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.077%) Notion
7 1 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.039%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.039%) Blender
7 1 (0.039%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 7 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
1 7 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
2 5 (0.19%) R3 Corda
3 4 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.15%) Quorum
3 4 (0.15%) Ripple
4 3 (0.12%) Oracle Payroll
4 3 (0.12%) Orchestrade
4 3 (0.12%) Primavera
4 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.077%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.077%) Endur
5 2 (0.077%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.039%) Distributed Ledger
6 1 (0.039%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.039%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.039%) Shopify
6 1 (0.039%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 647 (25.05%) AWS
2 519 (20.09%) Azure
3 260 (10.07%) GCP
4 225 (8.71%) GitHub
5 132 (5.11%) Serverless
6 111 (4.30%) Azure DevOps
6 111 (4.30%) GitHub Actions
7 95 (3.68%) AWS Lambda
8 65 (2.52%) Amazon S3
9 61 (2.36%) Anthropic Claude
10 58 (2.25%) OpenShift
11 50 (1.94%) Amazon SQS
12 47 (1.82%) Amazon ECS
12 47 (1.82%) GitHub Copilot
13 46 (1.78%) Amazon EKS
14 45 (1.74%) Power Platform
15 38 (1.47%) Snowflake
16 36 (1.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 33 (1.28%) Azure AKS
18 29 (1.12%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 30 (1.16%) Software-Defined Radio
2 29 (1.12%) Wireless
3 20 (0.77%) Firewall
4 19 (0.74%) Internet
5 18 (0.70%) HTTP
6 17 (0.66%) VPN
7 13 (0.50%) Ethernet
8 12 (0.46%) TCP/IP
8 12 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
9 7 (0.27%) Network Security
9 7 (0.27%) RTP
9 7 (0.27%) Wireshark
10 6 (0.23%) 3GPP
11 5 (0.19%) DNS
12 4 (0.15%) IPv4
12 4 (0.15%) IPv6
12 4 (0.15%) RS-232
12 4 (0.15%) SSL
13 3 (0.12%) Cisco IPT
13 3 (0.12%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 137 (5.30%) PostgreSQL
2 103 (3.99%) Relational Database
3 86 (3.33%) NoSQL
4 85 (3.29%) SQL Server
5 53 (2.05%) MongoDB
6 49 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
7 40 (1.55%) DynamoDB
8 35 (1.36%) MySQL
9 32 (1.24%) Power BI
10 31 (1.20%) Metadata
11 28 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
11 28 (1.08%) Big Data
12 27 (1.05%) Data Lake
13 26 (1.01%) Redis
14 24 (0.93%) Elasticsearch
15 21 (0.81%) Pinecone
16 20 (0.77%) BigQuery
17 19 (0.74%) Weaviate
18 14 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
18 14 (0.54%) Chroma
Development Applications
1 272 (10.53%) Git
2 156 (6.04%) Jenkins
3 149 (5.77%) GitLab
4 109 (4.22%) JIRA
5 59 (2.28%) SonarQube
6 38 (1.47%) Gradle
6 38 (1.47%) JUnit
7 29 (1.12%) Claude Code
8 26 (1.01%) Selenium
9 25 (0.97%) Rational DOORS
10 23 (0.89%) Rational Rhapsody
11 20 (0.77%) Maven
12 18 (0.70%) Visual Studio
13 17 (0.66%) Cucumber
14 16 (0.62%) Mockito
15 14 (0.54%) LabVIEW
16 13 (0.50%) Cypress.io
16 13 (0.50%) Liquibase
17 12 (0.46%) MLflow
17 12 (0.46%) Snyk
General
1 511 (19.78%) Social Skills
2 443 (17.15%) Finance
3 202 (7.82%) Banking
4 188 (7.28%) Analytical Skills
5 187 (7.24%) Public Sector
6 92 (3.56%) Aerospace
7 72 (2.79%) Front Office
8 49 (1.90%) Investment Banking
8 49 (1.90%) Manufacturing
9 46 (1.78%) Retail
10 42 (1.63%) Law
11 36 (1.39%) Automotive
12 27 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
12 27 (1.05%) Telecoms
13 26 (1.01%) Aviation
14 24 (0.93%) Military
15 20 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 20 (0.77%) Marketing
16 17 (0.66%) Back Office
16 17 (0.66%) Legal
Job Titles
1 1,144 (44.29%) Software Engineer
2 467 (18.08%) Developer
3 462 (17.89%) Senior
4 283 (10.96%) Lead
5 194 (7.51%) Senior Software Engineer
6 171 (6.62%) Java Engineer
7 158 (6.12%) Embedded Engineer
8 148 (5.73%) Embedded Software Engineer
9 136 (5.27%) Java Software Engineer
10 135 (5.23%) Java Developer
11 116 (4.49%) Software Developer
12 109 (4.22%) C++ Software Engineer
13 106 (4.10%) Architect
13 106 (4.10%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 102 (3.95%) Python Engineer
15 95 (3.68%) Senior Developer
16 85 (3.29%) Data Engineer
17 79 (3.06%) DevOps Engineer
17 79 (3.06%) Lead Software Engineer
18 74 (2.86%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 280 (10.84%) Terraform
2 238 (9.21%) React
3 220 (8.52%) Spring
4 216 (8.36%) REST
5 207 (8.01%) .NET
6 204 (7.90%) Spring Boot
7 168 (6.50%) Kafka
8 129 (4.99%) RESTful
9 126 (4.88%) Node.js
10 102 (3.95%) AngularJS
11 60 (2.32%) Django
12 52 (2.01%) Next.js
13 49 (1.90%) CSS
14 48 (1.86%) LangChain
15 47 (1.82%) HTML
16 41 (1.59%) FastAPI
17 40 (1.55%) JSON
18 39 (1.51%) Quarkus
19 37 (1.43%) .NET Core
19 37 (1.43%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 387 (14.98%) Cloud Native
2 236 (9.14%) Distributed Systems
3 133 (5.15%) Product Ownership
4 107 (4.14%) AI Agents
5 84 (3.25%) Algorithms
6 59 (2.28%) Enterprise Software
7 53 (2.05%) Data Structures
8 49 (1.90%) Embedded Systems
8 49 (1.90%) Onboarding
9 45 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
10 35 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
11 34 (1.32%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 31 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
13 28 (1.08%) Fixed Income
14 27 (1.05%) Robotics
15 25 (0.97%) Greenfield Project
16 23 (0.89%) Derivative
17 20 (0.77%) Equities
18 19 (0.74%) NHS
19 18 (0.70%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 175 (6.78%) Linux
2 47 (1.82%) Windows
3 29 (1.12%) Unix
4 23 (0.89%) Embedded Linux
5 22 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.54%) FreeRTOS
7 13 (0.50%) Android
8 8 (0.31%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.31%) Windows Server
9 7 (0.27%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.23%) Debian
11 3 (0.12%) Rocky
11 3 (0.12%) VMS
12 2 (0.077%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.077%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.039%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.039%) Solaris
13 1 (0.039%) Tizen
13 1 (0.039%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.039%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 879 (34.03%) CI/CD
2 770 (29.81%) Agile
3 615 (23.81%) DevOps
4 521 (20.17%) AI
5 405 (15.68%) Microservices
6 369 (14.29%) Test Automation
7 309 (11.96%) Problem-Solving
8 304 (11.77%) Infrastructure as Code
9 301 (11.65%) Continuous Improvement
10 262 (10.14%) Containerisation
11 257 (9.95%) Observability
12 254 (9.83%) SDLC
13 250 (9.68%) Full-Stack Development
14 217 (8.40%) Machine Learning
14 217 (8.40%) Platform Engineering
15 216 (8.36%) Technical Leadership
16 205 (7.94%) Event-Driven
17 201 (7.78%) Mentoring
18 197 (7.63%) Scrum
19 195 (7.55%) LLM
Programming Languages
1 751 (29.07%) Python
2 661 (25.59%) Java
3 370 (14.32%) SQL
4 286 (11.07%) C#
5 271 (10.49%) TypeScript
6 213 (8.25%) C++
7 195 (7.55%) JavaScript
8 115 (4.45%) C
9 92 (3.56%) Ada
10 81 (3.14%) Go
11 63 (2.44%) Kotlin
12 46 (1.78%) PowerShell
13 42 (1.63%) Bash
14 41 (1.59%) Rust
15 38 (1.47%) Scala
16 24 (0.93%) Embedded C
16 24 (0.93%) Ruby
17 22 (0.85%) PL/SQL
18 21 (0.81%) Bicep
19 18 (0.70%) PHP
Qualifications
1 581 (22.49%) Security Cleared
2 487 (18.85%) SC Cleared
3 208 (8.05%) Degree
4 96 (3.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 81 (3.14%) DV Cleared
6 55 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
7 46 (1.78%) Master's Degree
8 34 (1.32%) AWS Certification
9 20 (0.77%) PhD
10 15 (0.58%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 15 (0.58%) Azure Certification
11 8 (0.31%) CISSP
11 8 (0.31%) PMP
12 7 (0.27%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 6 (0.23%) Chartered Engineer
13 6 (0.23%) ISTQB
14 4 (0.15%) GIAC
14 4 (0.15%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 4 (0.15%) MBA
14 4 (0.15%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 164 (6.35%) QA
2 64 (2.48%) Data Quality
3 49 (1.90%) Accessibility
4 25 (0.97%) GDPR
5 18 (0.70%) Def Stans
6 17 (0.66%) MISRA
7 15 (0.58%) NIST
8 14 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 12 (0.46%) WCAG
10 10 (0.39%) DO-178B
11 9 (0.35%) IEC 61508
11 9 (0.35%) NCSC
12 7 (0.27%) GRC
13 6 (0.23%) MISRA C
14 5 (0.19%) HL7
14 5 (0.19%) JSP 440
14 5 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 4 (0.15%) PCI DSS
16 3 (0.12%) DO-254
16 3 (0.12%) MiFID
System Software
1 387 (14.98%) Docker
2 30 (1.16%) Firmware
3 19 (0.74%) Embedded Firmware
4 10 (0.39%) Active Directory
4 10 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.15%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.039%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 442 (17.11%) Kubernetes
2 84 (3.25%) Ansible
3 52 (2.01%) Grafana
4 42 (1.63%) Argo
5 38 (1.47%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (0.43%) Kibana
8 7 (0.27%) Puppet
9 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
10 5 (0.19%) Kubeflow
11 4 (0.15%) Consul
11 4 (0.15%) HAProxy
12 3 (0.12%) HP Fortify
12 3 (0.12%) Istio
12 3 (0.12%) Kustomize
12 3 (0.12%) Progress Chef
13 2 (0.077%) Cilium
13 2 (0.077%) Docker Swarm
13 2 (0.077%) Packer
13 2 (0.077%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 136 (5.27%) Microsoft
2 94 (3.64%) Google
3 79 (3.06%) Oracle
4 68 (2.63%) Databricks
5 56 (2.17%) OpenAI
6 44 (1.70%) Red Hat
7 25 (0.97%) Salesforce
8 24 (0.93%) Splunk
9 19 (0.74%) IBM
10 18 (0.70%) ServiceNow
11 17 (0.66%) Informatica
12 15 (0.58%) Foundry
13 12 (0.46%) Adobe
13 12 (0.46%) SAP
14 11 (0.43%) Checkmarx
15 9 (0.35%) Dynatrace
16 8 (0.31%) Confluent
16 8 (0.31%) Siemens
17 7 (0.27%) Hitachi
17 7 (0.27%) Okta