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 9 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 42 30
Rank change year-on-year +11 -12 +9
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2,734 1,406 1,837
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.92% 5.00% 5.67%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.97% 5.51% 6.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,454 846 1,103
10th Percentile £400 £375 £405
25th Percentile £463 £463 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £551 £575 £603
Median % change year-on-year -4.26% -4.64% -1.31%
75th Percentile £688 £725 £810
90th Percentile £775 £838 £888
UK median daily rate £550 £555 £600
% change year-on-year -0.90% -7.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 428 121 209
10th Percentile £51.25 £42.25 £46.18
25th Percentile £60.00 £52.50 £60.00
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 £75.00 £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 39,199 25,531 28,009
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.82% 90.87% 86.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,678 16,181 17,100
10th Percentile £325 £294 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,975 1,587 1,157
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.36 £17.79 £20.19
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -4.49%
75th Percentile £67.47 £45.00 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.25 £74.92
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -8.31%

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 9 October 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 9 October 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 9 October 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 0 1,243 £600 -4.00% 5,094
North of England +24 470 £523 +4.60% 952
South East +43 341 £525 +10.53% 894
South West +17 301 £550 +18.92% 511
North West +29 229 £550 +10.00% 566
East of England +15 212 £506 -8.00% 618
Yorkshire +7 174 £500 -2.44% 245
Midlands +34 144 £470 -10.48% 441
West Midlands +16 101 £470 -15.70% 254
North East -1 69 £650 +33.33% 144
East Midlands +9 42 £425 +1.07% 187
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 62 (2.27%) Apache Spark
2 60 (2.19%) Confluence
3 49 (1.79%) Apache Airflow
4 35 (1.28%) Apache
5 16 (0.59%) CMS
6 14 (0.51%) SharePoint
7 10 (0.37%) Jupyter
8 9 (0.33%) Ethereum
9 7 (0.26%) SAS
10 6 (0.22%) Camunda
10 6 (0.22%) nginx
11 5 (0.18%) Apache Solr
11 5 (0.18%) Apache Superset
11 5 (0.18%) Hyperledger
11 5 (0.18%) WordPress
12 3 (0.11%) MQSeries
12 3 (0.11%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.073%) IIS
13 2 (0.073%) Microsoft Exchange
13 2 (0.073%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 16 (0.59%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (0.40%) 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 (0.073%) CATIA
7 2 (0.073%) LaTeX
7 2 (0.073%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 2 (0.073%) Notion
7 2 (0.073%) Simulink
8 1 (0.037%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.037%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.037%) Blender
8 1 (0.037%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 7 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
2 6 (0.22%) Oracle Payroll
3 5 (0.18%) R3 Corda
4 4 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.15%) Quorum
4 4 (0.15%) Ripple
5 3 (0.11%) Distributed Ledger
5 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
5 3 (0.11%) Primavera
5 3 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.11%) Temenos T24
6 2 (0.073%) Endur
6 2 (0.073%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.073%) Orchestrade
6 2 (0.073%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.037%) Sage 50
7 1 (0.037%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.037%) Shopify
7 1 (0.037%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 701 (25.64%) AWS
2 563 (20.59%) Azure
3 286 (10.46%) GCP
4 246 (9.00%) GitHub
5 146 (5.34%) Serverless
6 128 (4.68%) Azure DevOps
7 127 (4.65%) GitHub Actions
8 98 (3.58%) AWS Lambda
9 77 (2.82%) Anthropic Claude
10 72 (2.63%) GitHub Copilot
11 67 (2.45%) Amazon S3
12 56 (2.05%) Amazon EKS
13 54 (1.98%) Amazon SQS
14 51 (1.87%) OpenShift
15 50 (1.83%) Amazon ECS
15 50 (1.83%) Power Platform
16 46 (1.68%) Snowflake
17 45 (1.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 34 (1.24%) dbt
19 33 (1.21%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 31 (1.13%) Wireless
2 23 (0.84%) Firewall
3 22 (0.80%) Software-Defined Radio
4 21 (0.77%) Internet
4 21 (0.77%) TCP/IP
5 20 (0.73%) VPN
6 18 (0.66%) HTTP
7 15 (0.55%) Ethernet
7 15 (0.55%) Wi-Fi
8 14 (0.51%) DNS
8 14 (0.51%) Network Security
9 8 (0.29%) RTP
9 8 (0.29%) Wireshark
10 6 (0.22%) Cisco IPT
11 5 (0.18%) 3GPP
11 5 (0.18%) SSL
12 4 (0.15%) Broadband
12 4 (0.15%) Reverse Proxy
12 4 (0.15%) RS-232
13 3 (0.11%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 141 (5.16%) PostgreSQL
2 97 (3.55%) Relational Database
3 87 (3.18%) SQL Server
4 85 (3.11%) NoSQL
5 63 (2.30%) MongoDB
6 53 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
7 42 (1.54%) MySQL
8 40 (1.46%) DynamoDB
9 37 (1.35%) Metadata
10 34 (1.24%) Data Lake
11 30 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
11 30 (1.10%) Redis
12 28 (1.02%) BigQuery
12 28 (1.02%) Elasticsearch
12 28 (1.02%) Power BI
13 27 (0.99%) Big Data
14 25 (0.91%) Pinecone
15 20 (0.73%) Delta Lake
16 19 (0.69%) Weaviate
17 18 (0.66%) Chroma
Development Applications
1 276 (10.10%) Git
2 152 (5.56%) GitLab
3 151 (5.52%) Jenkins
4 114 (4.17%) JIRA
5 45 (1.65%) Claude Code
5 45 (1.65%) SonarQube
6 35 (1.28%) Gradle
7 32 (1.17%) Visual Studio
8 30 (1.10%) JUnit
9 28 (1.02%) Rational DOORS
10 27 (0.99%) Maven
11 26 (0.95%) Selenium
12 23 (0.84%) Cucumber
13 22 (0.80%) Rational Rhapsody
14 16 (0.59%) Mockito
15 15 (0.55%) LabVIEW
16 13 (0.48%) Cypress.io
17 12 (0.44%) Bitbucket
17 12 (0.44%) Snyk
18 11 (0.40%) Postman
General
1 600 (21.95%) Social Skills
2 528 (19.31%) Finance
3 224 (8.19%) Banking
4 211 (7.72%) Public Sector
5 195 (7.13%) Analytical Skills
6 100 (3.66%) Aerospace
7 78 (2.85%) Front Office
8 56 (2.05%) Investment Banking
9 55 (2.01%) Manufacturing
10 46 (1.68%) Law
11 45 (1.65%) Retail
12 39 (1.43%) Automotive
13 34 (1.24%) Telecoms
14 29 (1.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 29 (1.06%) Military
15 24 (0.88%) Influencing Skills
15 24 (0.88%) Marketing
16 22 (0.80%) Aviation
16 22 (0.80%) Back Office
17 19 (0.69%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 1,075 (39.32%) Software Engineer
2 529 (19.35%) Developer
2 529 (19.35%) Senior
3 296 (10.83%) Lead
4 196 (7.17%) Senior Software Engineer
5 159 (5.82%) Java Engineer
6 150 (5.49%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 145 (5.30%) Java Developer
8 139 (5.08%) Embedded Engineer
9 133 (4.86%) Embedded Software Engineer
10 128 (4.68%) Architect
10 128 (4.68%) Java Software Engineer
10 128 (4.68%) Software Developer
11 115 (4.21%) Senior Developer
12 114 (4.17%) C++ Software Engineer
13 111 (4.06%) Python Engineer
14 107 (3.91%) Data Engineer
15 88 (3.22%) DevOps Engineer
16 80 (2.93%) AWS Engineer
17 76 (2.78%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 304 (11.12%) Terraform
2 252 (9.22%) REST
3 243 (8.89%) React
4 221 (8.08%) Spring
5 215 (7.86%) .NET
6 211 (7.72%) Spring Boot
7 185 (6.77%) Kafka
8 159 (5.82%) RESTful
9 134 (4.90%) Node.js
10 98 (3.58%) AngularJS
11 64 (2.34%) OAuth
12 62 (2.27%) Django
13 59 (2.16%) LangChain
14 57 (2.08%) HTML
15 55 (2.01%) CSS
16 52 (1.90%) Next.js
17 50 (1.83%) Web Services
18 47 (1.72%) Model Context Protocol
19 46 (1.68%) FastAPI
20 43 (1.57%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 433 (15.84%) Cloud Native
2 245 (8.96%) Distributed Systems
3 159 (5.82%) Product Ownership
4 156 (5.71%) AI Agents
5 78 (2.85%) Enterprise Software
6 64 (2.34%) Onboarding
7 63 (2.30%) Algorithms
8 61 (2.23%) Data Structures
9 55 (2.01%) Data Protection Act
10 42 (1.54%) Embedded Systems
11 40 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
12 38 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
13 32 (1.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 30 (1.10%) Greenfield Project
15 29 (1.06%) Fixed Income
16 28 (1.02%) Derivative
17 24 (0.88%) Equities
18 23 (0.84%) Management Information System
19 22 (0.80%) Virtual Team
20 20 (0.73%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 191 (6.99%) Linux
2 71 (2.60%) Windows
3 36 (1.32%) Unix
4 19 (0.69%) Embedded Linux
4 19 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 14 (0.51%) Android
6 13 (0.48%) FreeRTOS
7 12 (0.44%) Windows Server
8 9 (0.33%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.26%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.15%) Debian
11 3 (0.11%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.11%) Rocky
11 3 (0.11%) VxWorks
11 3 (0.11%) zOS
12 2 (0.073%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.073%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.037%) Robot Operating System
13 1 (0.037%) webOS
13 1 (0.037%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 958 (35.04%) CI/CD
2 836 (30.58%) Agile
3 662 (24.21%) DevOps
4 623 (22.79%) AI
5 426 (15.58%) Test Automation
6 405 (14.81%) Microservices
7 364 (13.31%) Continuous Improvement
8 335 (12.25%) Infrastructure as Code
8 335 (12.25%) Problem-Solving
9 303 (11.08%) Observability
10 280 (10.24%) SDLC
11 276 (10.10%) Stakeholder Management
12 266 (9.73%) Containerisation
13 256 (9.36%) Full-Stack Development
14 242 (8.85%) Technical Leadership
15 239 (8.74%) LLM
16 237 (8.67%) Machine Learning
17 234 (8.56%) Platform Engineering
18 231 (8.45%) Event-Driven
19 226 (8.27%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 812 (29.70%) Python
2 679 (24.84%) Java
3 407 (14.89%) SQL
4 314 (11.49%) TypeScript
5 287 (10.50%) C#
6 231 (8.45%) JavaScript
7 227 (8.30%) C++
8 113 (4.13%) C
9 82 (3.00%) Go
10 72 (2.63%) Ada
11 66 (2.41%) Kotlin
12 52 (1.90%) PowerShell
13 47 (1.72%) Bash
14 45 (1.65%) Rust
15 37 (1.35%) Scala
16 31 (1.13%) Embedded C
17 28 (1.02%) Bicep
18 24 (0.88%) PL/SQL
19 21 (0.77%) PHP
20 18 (0.66%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 596 (21.80%) Security Cleared
2 495 (18.11%) SC Cleared
3 226 (8.27%) Degree
4 104 (3.80%) DV Cleared
5 103 (3.77%) Computer Science Degree
6 61 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
7 50 (1.83%) AWS Certification
8 49 (1.79%) Master's Degree
9 31 (1.13%) Azure Certification
10 18 (0.66%) PhD
11 15 (0.55%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 12 (0.44%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 11 (0.40%) CISSP
13 11 (0.40%) PMP
13 11 (0.40%) TOGAF Certification
14 6 (0.22%) Chartered Engineer
15 5 (0.18%) ISTQB
15 5 (0.18%) Numerate Degree
15 5 (0.18%) PMI Certification
16 4 (0.15%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 171 (6.25%) QA
2 87 (3.18%) Data Quality
3 63 (2.30%) Accessibility
4 24 (0.88%) MISRA
5 20 (0.73%) GDPR
6 17 (0.62%) Def Stans
7 15 (0.55%) NIST
8 14 (0.51%) WCAG
9 13 (0.48%) MISRA C
10 12 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 11 (0.40%) IEC 61508
12 10 (0.37%) DO-178B
13 8 (0.29%) GRC
14 7 (0.26%) NCSC
15 5 (0.18%) EMIR
15 5 (0.18%) HL7
15 5 (0.18%) JSP 440
15 5 (0.18%) MiFID
15 5 (0.18%) PCI DSS
15 5 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 396 (14.48%) Docker
2 29 (1.06%) Firmware
3 17 (0.62%) Active Directory
3 17 (0.62%) Embedded Firmware
4 13 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.073%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.037%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.037%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.037%) zsh
Systems Management
1 456 (16.68%) Kubernetes
2 99 (3.62%) Ansible
3 62 (2.27%) Grafana
4 45 (1.65%) Prometheus
5 36 (1.32%) Argo
6 21 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (0.59%) Kibana
8 10 (0.37%) Puppet
9 6 (0.22%) Functional Safety
10 5 (0.18%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.15%) Istio
11 4 (0.15%) Kubeflow
11 4 (0.15%) Kustomize
12 3 (0.11%) Consul
12 3 (0.11%) HP Fortify
12 3 (0.11%) Podman
13 2 (0.073%) Cilium
13 2 (0.073%) HAProxy
13 2 (0.073%) Packer
13 2 (0.073%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 175 (6.40%) Microsoft
2 108 (3.95%) Google
3 94 (3.44%) Databricks
4 90 (3.29%) Oracle
5 73 (2.67%) OpenAI
6 39 (1.43%) Red Hat
7 33 (1.21%) Salesforce
8 26 (0.95%) Splunk
9 20 (0.73%) IBM
10 19 (0.69%) Foundry
11 16 (0.59%) Adobe
11 16 (0.59%) Informatica
11 16 (0.59%) SAP
12 15 (0.55%) ServiceNow
13 13 (0.48%) Dynatrace
14 10 (0.37%) VMware
15 8 (0.29%) Siemens
16 7 (0.26%) Cisco
16 7 (0.26%) Hitachi
16 7 (0.26%) Mistral