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 19 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 44 31
Rank change year-on-year +10 -13 +10
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2,144 1,171 2,074
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.22% 4.81% 5.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.17% 5.28% 6.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,124 774 1,219
10th Percentile £400 £400 £421
25th Percentile £455 £483 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £675 £763 £750
90th Percentile £775 £838 £850
UK median daily rate £550 £585 £600
% change year-on-year -5.98% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 457 75 356
10th Percentile £52.42 £39.80 £46.25
25th Percentile £60.00 £56.44 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year - +4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.46 £68.75 £80.00
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 34,728 22,194 31,472
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.62% 91.24% 86.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,149 14,504 20,626
10th Percentile £322 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £507 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -1.65% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,129 949 2,251
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.38 £12.92
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.22 £15.97
Median hourly rate £45.78 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.86% -20.55% +0.29%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.40 £28.18 £36.02
% change year-on-year +50.46% -21.77% +0.06%

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 19 May 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 19 May 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 19 May 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 -5 890 £591 -11.75% 704
North of England +23 319 £500 - 338
South West +16 304 £575 +2.22% 207
South East +18 274 £525 +2.44% 410
East of England +44 220 £495 +1.43% 185
North West +1 146 £500 - 174
Yorkshire +14 121 £500 +1.46% 91
Midlands -29 84 £482 -1.67% 136
West Midlands -19 73 £472 -11.11% 77
North East +23 57 £593 +51.92% 75
East Midlands -35 10 £563 +14.80% 59
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 52 (2.43%) Confluence
2 43 (2.01%) Apache Spark
3 38 (1.77%) Apache
4 21 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.33%) SAS
6 5 (0.23%) CMS
6 5 (0.23%) IIS
6 5 (0.23%) nginx
6 5 (0.23%) Palantir Foundry
6 5 (0.23%) SharePoint
7 4 (0.19%) WebLogic
8 3 (0.14%) Camunda
8 3 (0.14%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.093%) Cloud Foundry
9 2 (0.093%) MQSeries
9 2 (0.093%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.093%) WinCC
10 1 (0.047%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 1 (0.047%) Microsoft Exchange
10 1 (0.047%) OpenStack
Applications
1 15 (0.70%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (0.28%) Chatbot
2 6 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.19%) CPLEX
3 4 (0.19%) Simulink
4 2 (0.093%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.093%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.047%) Adobe After Effects
5 1 (0.047%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 1 (0.047%) Blender
5 1 (0.047%) CATIA
5 1 (0.047%) Maya
5 1 (0.047%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.047%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 6 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
3 2 (0.093%) Aladdin
3 2 (0.093%) LabWindows
3 2 (0.093%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 2 (0.093%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.047%) Orchestrade
4 1 (0.047%) Sprinklr
4 1 (0.047%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 539 (25.14%) AWS
2 399 (18.61%) Azure
3 196 (9.14%) GCP
4 138 (6.44%) GitHub
5 110 (5.13%) Serverless
6 79 (3.68%) Azure DevOps
7 67 (3.13%) AWS Lambda
8 60 (2.80%) Amazon S3
9 56 (2.61%) GitHub Actions
10 49 (2.29%) OpenShift
11 43 (2.01%) Power Platform
12 40 (1.87%) Azure AKS
13 37 (1.73%) Amazon EKS
14 34 (1.59%) Amazon ECS
15 33 (1.54%) Amazon EC2
16 32 (1.49%) Amazon SQS
16 32 (1.49%) AWS CloudFormation
17 25 (1.17%) SaaS
18 21 (0.98%) Azure Functions
19 20 (0.93%) Anthropic Claude
Communications & Networking
1 30 (1.40%) Software-Defined Radio
2 23 (1.07%) Ethernet
3 18 (0.84%) Wireless
4 15 (0.70%) HTTP
5 14 (0.65%) TCP/IP
6 10 (0.47%) Firewall
6 10 (0.47%) Wi-Fi
7 9 (0.42%) 3GPP
7 9 (0.42%) Network Security
8 6 (0.28%) RTP
8 6 (0.28%) VPN
9 5 (0.23%) Wireshark
10 4 (0.19%) DNS
10 4 (0.19%) Modbus
11 3 (0.14%) Bluetooth
11 3 (0.14%) IPv4
11 3 (0.14%) IPv6
11 3 (0.14%) RS-232
11 3 (0.14%) RS-422
11 3 (0.14%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 131 (6.11%) PostgreSQL
2 71 (3.31%) Relational Database
3 66 (3.08%) SQL Server
4 58 (2.71%) NoSQL
5 50 (2.33%) MongoDB
6 48 (2.24%) Apache Cassandra
7 34 (1.59%) Power BI
8 33 (1.54%) Amazon RDS
9 30 (1.40%) BigQuery
10 29 (1.35%) DynamoDB
11 28 (1.31%) Data Lake
12 27 (1.26%) Big Data
13 24 (1.12%) MySQL
14 21 (0.98%) Data Warehouse
15 20 (0.93%) Metadata
16 16 (0.75%) Amazon Athena
16 16 (0.75%) Redis
17 15 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
17 15 (0.70%) Pinecone
18 14 (0.65%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 210 (9.79%) Git
2 140 (6.53%) Jenkins
3 125 (5.83%) GitLab
4 105 (4.90%) JIRA
5 46 (2.15%) Gradle
6 44 (2.05%) SonarQube
7 33 (1.54%) JUnit
8 32 (1.49%) Rational DOORS
9 31 (1.45%) Rational Rhapsody
10 24 (1.12%) Cucumber
10 24 (1.12%) IntelliJ
11 23 (1.07%) Bitbucket
11 23 (1.07%) Maven
12 20 (0.93%) Selenium
13 17 (0.79%) Cypress.io
13 17 (0.79%) Visual Studio
14 16 (0.75%) Mockito
15 15 (0.70%) Liquibase
16 13 (0.61%) Artifactory
17 12 (0.56%) Claude Code
General
1 345 (16.09%) Finance
2 297 (13.85%) Social Skills
3 126 (5.88%) Analytical Skills
3 126 (5.88%) Public Sector
4 123 (5.74%) Banking
5 88 (4.10%) Aerospace
6 69 (3.22%) Front Office
7 44 (2.05%) Manufacturing
8 38 (1.77%) Law
9 33 (1.54%) Retail
10 32 (1.49%) Investment Banking
11 30 (1.40%) Electronics
12 26 (1.21%) Military
13 24 (1.12%) Influencing Skills
14 21 (0.98%) Telecoms
15 20 (0.93%) Aviation
16 18 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
17 17 (0.79%) Automotive
18 16 (0.75%) Financial Institution
19 13 (0.61%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 1,161 (54.15%) Software Engineer
2 389 (18.14%) Developer
3 373 (17.40%) Senior
4 179 (8.35%) Senior Software Engineer
5 167 (7.79%) Lead
6 162 (7.56%) Embedded Engineer
7 152 (7.09%) Java Engineer
8 151 (7.04%) Embedded Software Engineer
9 123 (5.74%) Java Software Engineer
10 120 (5.60%) C++ Software Engineer
11 114 (5.32%) Java Developer
12 82 (3.82%) Architect
13 76 (3.54%) Senior Developer
14 69 (3.22%) Developer/Software Engineer
15 64 (2.99%) Full-Stack Engineer
16 62 (2.89%) DevOps Engineer
17 61 (2.85%) Python Developer
17 61 (2.85%) Software Developer
18 60 (2.80%) Data Engineer
18 60 (2.80%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 243 (11.33%) React
2 183 (8.54%) Kafka
3 166 (7.74%) Node.js
4 163 (7.60%) Spring
5 159 (7.42%) .NET
6 148 (6.90%) REST
6 148 (6.90%) Spring Boot
7 109 (5.08%) AngularJS
8 95 (4.43%) RESTful
9 73 (3.40%) GraphQL
10 53 (2.47%) Redux
11 49 (2.29%) Middleware
12 46 (2.15%) CSS
13 45 (2.10%) gRPC
14 43 (2.01%) HTML
15 38 (1.77%) JSON
16 34 (1.59%) Next.js
16 34 (1.59%) Playwright
17 33 (1.54%) LangChain
17 33 (1.54%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 218 (10.17%) Cloud Native
2 149 (6.95%) Distributed Systems
3 101 (4.71%) Product Ownership
4 88 (4.10%) Algorithms
5 61 (2.85%) Fixed Income
6 49 (2.29%) AI Agents
7 36 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
8 34 (1.59%) Embedded Systems
8 34 (1.59%) Onboarding
9 30 (1.40%) Derivative
10 29 (1.35%) Legacy Systems
10 29 (1.35%) Robotics
11 27 (1.26%) Data Structures
12 24 (1.12%) Mobile App
13 22 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
14 21 (0.98%) Equities
15 20 (0.93%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 14 (0.65%) FPGA
16 14 (0.65%) Self-Motivation
17 13 (0.61%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 194 (9.05%) Linux
2 66 (3.08%) Windows
3 44 (2.05%) Unix
4 24 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (1.03%) Android
6 16 (0.75%) Apple iOS
7 14 (0.65%) Embedded Linux
8 12 (0.56%) Windows Server
9 10 (0.47%) FreeRTOS
10 6 (0.28%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.23%) Debian
12 4 (0.19%) Rocky
12 4 (0.19%) VMS
13 3 (0.14%) Solaris
13 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
13 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
14 2 (0.093%) Robot Operating System
15 1 (0.047%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 614 (28.64%) CI/CD
2 583 (27.19%) Agile
3 423 (19.73%) DevOps
4 338 (15.76%) Microservices
5 291 (13.57%) AI
6 235 (10.96%) Problem-Solving
7 230 (10.73%) Test Automation
8 226 (10.54%) Full-Stack Development
9 223 (10.40%) Containerisation
10 197 (9.19%) Infrastructure as Code
11 163 (7.60%) Observability
12 156 (7.28%) Continuous Improvement
12 156 (7.28%) SDLC
13 149 (6.95%) Machine Learning
14 147 (6.86%) Mentoring
15 146 (6.81%) Computer Science
16 145 (6.76%) TDD
17 144 (6.72%) Scrum
18 136 (6.34%) Technical Leadership
19 129 (6.02%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 556 (25.93%) Java
2 540 (25.19%) Python
3 287 (13.39%) SQL
4 274 (12.78%) C#
5 254 (11.85%) TypeScript
6 223 (10.40%) JavaScript
7 218 (10.17%) C++
8 144 (6.72%) Go
9 129 (6.02%) Ada
10 114 (5.32%) C
11 43 (2.01%) Kotlin
12 38 (1.77%) PowerShell
13 33 (1.54%) Bash
13 33 (1.54%) Rust
14 30 (1.40%) Embedded C
15 26 (1.21%) MATLAB
16 21 (0.98%) Scala
17 20 (0.93%) Ruby
17 20 (0.93%) Shell Script
18 16 (0.75%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 519 (24.21%) Security Cleared
2 406 (18.94%) SC Cleared
3 171 (7.98%) Degree
4 85 (3.96%) Computer Science Degree
5 69 (3.22%) DV Cleared
6 35 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
7 31 (1.45%) Master's Degree
8 20 (0.93%) AWS Certification
9 13 (0.61%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 11 (0.51%) Azure Certification
11 8 (0.37%) CISSP
11 8 (0.37%) PhD
12 7 (0.33%) ISTQB
12 7 (0.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 6 (0.28%) CISM
13 6 (0.28%) TOGAF Certification
14 3 (0.14%) Cisco Certification
14 3 (0.14%) HNC
14 3 (0.14%) HND
14 3 (0.14%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 110 (5.13%) QA
2 47 (2.19%) Def Stans
3 40 (1.87%) Data Quality
4 34 (1.59%) IEC 61508
5 28 (1.31%) Accessibility
6 24 (1.12%) GDPR
7 19 (0.89%) MISRA
8 14 (0.65%) MISRA C
9 9 (0.42%) NCSC
9 9 (0.42%) WCAG
10 7 (0.33%) NIST
11 6 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 6 (0.28%) PCI DSS
12 5 (0.23%) DO-178B
12 5 (0.23%) HL7
13 4 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (0.14%) EMIR
14 3 (0.14%) FATCA
14 3 (0.14%) JSP 440
14 3 (0.14%) MiFID
System Software
1 307 (14.32%) Docker
2 19 (0.89%) Firmware
3 15 (0.70%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.37%) Embedded Firmware
4 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (0.28%) Active Directory
6 4 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.14%) HDFS
8 2 (0.093%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 355 (16.56%) Kubernetes
2 205 (9.56%) Terraform
3 82 (3.82%) Grafana
4 59 (2.75%) Ansible
5 48 (2.24%) Prometheus
6 34 (1.59%) Argo
7 13 (0.61%) Puppet
8 11 (0.51%) Progress Chef
9 6 (0.28%) Istio
9 6 (0.28%) Kibana
10 5 (0.23%) HAProxy
11 4 (0.19%) Data Guard
11 4 (0.19%) Docker Swarm
11 4 (0.19%) HP Quality Center
11 4 (0.19%) Kubeflow
11 4 (0.19%) Single Sign-On
12 3 (0.14%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 2 (0.093%) Consul
13 2 (0.093%) HP ALM
13 2 (0.093%) Podman
Vendors
1 126 (5.88%) Microsoft
2 73 (3.40%) Google
3 59 (2.75%) Oracle
4 57 (2.66%) Red Hat
5 44 (2.05%) Databricks
6 25 (1.17%) OpenAI
7 23 (1.07%) IBM
8 17 (0.79%) Splunk
9 16 (0.75%) VMware
10 14 (0.65%) Informatica
11 13 (0.61%) Foundry
11 13 (0.61%) ServiceNow
12 12 (0.56%) SAP
13 11 (0.51%) Okta
13 11 (0.51%) Siemens
14 10 (0.47%) ForgeRock
14 10 (0.47%) MathWorks
15 9 (0.42%) Atlassian
15 9 (0.42%) Dynatrace
16 8 (0.37%) Salesforce