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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 43 30
Rank change year-on-year +13 -13 +10
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2,718 1,366 1,873
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.84% 4.95% 5.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.90% 5.45% 6.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,457 832 1,140
10th Percentile £400 £380 £410
25th Percentile £463 £463 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +3.35%
75th Percentile £682 £738 £810
90th Percentile £775 £838 £888
UK median daily rate £550 £575 £600
% change year-on-year -4.35% -4.17% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 437 116 222
10th Percentile £51.25 £42.44 £46.18
25th Percentile £57.63 £52.50 £57.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.50
Median % change year-on-year - -0.76% +0.77%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £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 39,416 25,077 27,731
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.69% 90.84% 86.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,046 15,915 17,172
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £421
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £511 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.68% -2.61% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £626 £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 2,836 1,513 1,250
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.72 £17.87 £20.14
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -2.27%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.12 £66.58
90th Percentile £79.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -3 1,206 £600 -7.19% 3,961
North of England +18 457 £524 +4.80% 912
South East +33 346 £525 +10.53% 855
South West +15 310 £550 +10.00% 617
East of England +14 231 £509 +1.70% 505
North West +21 214 £540 +8.00% 562
Yorkshire +11 179 £500 - 237
Midlands +31 142 £469 -13.15% 421
West Midlands +19 98 £470 -18.26% 230
North East +4 68 £650 +31.65% 113
East Midlands +11 43 £435 -3.33% 191
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 60 (2.21%) Confluence
2 58 (2.13%) Apache Spark
3 49 (1.80%) Apache Airflow
4 34 (1.25%) Apache
5 15 (0.55%) CMS
6 14 (0.52%) SharePoint
7 8 (0.29%) Jupyter
8 7 (0.26%) Camunda
8 7 (0.26%) Ethereum
8 7 (0.26%) SAS
9 5 (0.18%) Apache Solr
9 5 (0.18%) Apache Superset
9 5 (0.18%) Hyperledger
10 4 (0.15%) nginx
10 4 (0.15%) WordPress
11 3 (0.11%) MQSeries
11 3 (0.11%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.074%) Apache Pulsar
12 2 (0.074%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.074%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 14 (0.52%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (0.44%) 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
7 2 (0.074%) 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 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%) 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%) Sprinklr
6 1 (0.037%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 690 (25.39%) AWS
2 551 (20.27%) Azure
3 284 (10.45%) GCP
4 240 (8.83%) GitHub
5 144 (5.30%) Serverless
6 125 (4.60%) GitHub Actions
7 114 (4.19%) Azure DevOps
8 105 (3.86%) AWS Lambda
9 70 (2.58%) Amazon S3
10 66 (2.43%) Anthropic Claude
11 63 (2.32%) GitHub Copilot
12 59 (2.17%) OpenShift
13 54 (1.99%) Amazon SQS
14 53 (1.95%) Amazon EKS
15 52 (1.91%) Amazon ECS
16 46 (1.69%) Power Platform
16 46 (1.69%) Snowflake
17 43 (1.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 34 (1.25%) dbt
19 32 (1.18%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 33 (1.21%) Wireless
2 31 (1.14%) Software-Defined Radio
3 21 (0.77%) Firewall
4 20 (0.74%) Internet
5 18 (0.66%) Ethernet
5 18 (0.66%) HTTP
5 18 (0.66%) TCP/IP
5 18 (0.66%) VPN
6 14 (0.52%) Wi-Fi
7 10 (0.37%) Network Security
8 9 (0.33%) DNS
8 9 (0.33%) RTP
8 9 (0.33%) Wireshark
9 6 (0.22%) 3GPP
9 6 (0.22%) Cisco IPT
10 4 (0.15%) Broadband
10 4 (0.15%) RS-232
10 4 (0.15%) SSL
11 3 (0.11%) Reverse Proxy
11 3 (0.11%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (5.22%) PostgreSQL
2 102 (3.75%) Relational Database
3 83 (3.05%) SQL Server
4 79 (2.91%) NoSQL
5 58 (2.13%) MongoDB
6 51 (1.88%) Data Warehouse
7 44 (1.62%) DynamoDB
8 42 (1.55%) MySQL
9 34 (1.25%) Metadata
10 31 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
11 28 (1.03%) Data Lake
11 28 (1.03%) Power BI
12 27 (0.99%) Elasticsearch
12 27 (0.99%) Redis
13 26 (0.96%) Big Data
13 26 (0.96%) BigQuery
14 24 (0.88%) Pinecone
15 20 (0.74%) Weaviate
16 17 (0.63%) Chroma
17 16 (0.59%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 288 (10.60%) Git
2 156 (5.74%) GitLab
3 154 (5.67%) Jenkins
4 119 (4.38%) JIRA
5 58 (2.13%) SonarQube
6 39 (1.43%) JUnit
7 38 (1.40%) Gradle
8 36 (1.32%) Claude Code
9 30 (1.10%) Selenium
9 30 (1.10%) Visual Studio
10 28 (1.03%) Maven
10 28 (1.03%) Rational DOORS
11 22 (0.81%) Cucumber
12 20 (0.74%) Rational Rhapsody
13 17 (0.63%) Mockito
14 15 (0.55%) LabVIEW
15 13 (0.48%) Bitbucket
16 12 (0.44%) Cypress.io
16 12 (0.44%) Snyk
17 10 (0.37%) MLflow
General
1 567 (20.86%) Social Skills
2 497 (18.29%) Finance
3 215 (7.91%) Banking
4 203 (7.47%) Public Sector
5 192 (7.06%) Analytical Skills
6 98 (3.61%) Aerospace
7 78 (2.87%) Front Office
8 52 (1.91%) Manufacturing
9 51 (1.88%) Investment Banking
10 46 (1.69%) Retail
11 45 (1.66%) Law
12 39 (1.43%) Automotive
13 33 (1.21%) Military
14 29 (1.07%) Telecoms
15 28 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
16 26 (0.96%) Aviation
17 25 (0.92%) Marketing
18 24 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 18 (0.66%) Back Office
20 17 (0.63%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 1,134 (41.72%) Software Engineer
2 529 (19.46%) Developer
3 510 (18.76%) Senior
4 302 (11.11%) Lead
5 202 (7.43%) Senior Software Engineer
6 162 (5.96%) Embedded Engineer
6 162 (5.96%) Java Engineer
7 156 (5.74%) Embedded Software Engineer
8 153 (5.63%) Java Developer
9 133 (4.89%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 128 (4.71%) Java Software Engineer
11 127 (4.67%) Software Developer
12 115 (4.23%) C++ Software Engineer
13 112 (4.12%) Architect
14 111 (4.08%) Senior Developer
15 106 (3.90%) Python Engineer
16 103 (3.79%) Data Engineer
17 82 (3.02%) DevOps Engineer
18 80 (2.94%) Lead Software Engineer
19 77 (2.83%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 301 (11.07%) Terraform
2 249 (9.16%) React
3 242 (8.90%) REST
4 232 (8.54%) Spring
5 223 (8.20%) .NET
6 219 (8.06%) Spring Boot
7 171 (6.29%) Kafka
8 145 (5.33%) RESTful
9 142 (5.22%) Node.js
10 104 (3.83%) AngularJS
11 62 (2.28%) Django
12 57 (2.10%) HTML
12 57 (2.10%) OAuth
13 55 (2.02%) CSS
13 55 (2.02%) LangChain
13 55 (2.02%) Next.js
14 52 (1.91%) Web Services
15 46 (1.69%) JSON
16 43 (1.58%) FastAPI
17 42 (1.55%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 419 (15.42%) Cloud Native
2 233 (8.57%) Distributed Systems
3 151 (5.56%) Product Ownership
4 136 (5.00%) AI Agents
5 75 (2.76%) Algorithms
6 67 (2.47%) Enterprise Software
7 56 (2.06%) Data Structures
7 56 (2.06%) Onboarding
8 50 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
9 48 (1.77%) Embedded Systems
10 38 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
11 35 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
12 33 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 30 (1.10%) Fixed Income
14 26 (0.96%) Greenfield Project
15 25 (0.92%) Derivative
16 24 (0.88%) Equities
16 24 (0.88%) Robotics
17 21 (0.77%) Virtual Team
18 19 (0.70%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 193 (7.10%) Linux
2 65 (2.39%) Windows
3 36 (1.32%) Unix
4 24 (0.88%) Embedded Linux
4 24 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 14 (0.52%) FreeRTOS
6 13 (0.48%) Android
7 12 (0.44%) Windows Server
8 8 (0.29%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.26%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.18%) Debian
11 3 (0.11%) Rocky
11 3 (0.11%) VMS
11 3 (0.11%) VxWorks
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%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.037%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 946 (34.81%) CI/CD
2 827 (30.43%) Agile
3 649 (23.88%) DevOps
4 582 (21.41%) AI
5 410 (15.08%) Test Automation
6 402 (14.79%) Microservices
7 338 (12.44%) Continuous Improvement
8 331 (12.18%) Infrastructure as Code
9 327 (12.03%) Problem-Solving
10 287 (10.56%) Observability
11 270 (9.93%) SDLC
12 268 (9.86%) Containerisation
13 254 (9.35%) Full-Stack Development
14 245 (9.01%) Technical Leadership
15 241 (8.87%) Stakeholder Management
16 233 (8.57%) Machine Learning
17 226 (8.31%) Platform Engineering
18 218 (8.02%) Event-Driven
19 217 (7.98%) LLM
20 216 (7.95%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 794 (29.21%) Python
2 681 (25.06%) Java
3 386 (14.20%) SQL
4 300 (11.04%) C#
4 300 (11.04%) TypeScript
5 230 (8.46%) C++
6 223 (8.20%) JavaScript
7 122 (4.49%) C
8 84 (3.09%) Go
9 82 (3.02%) Ada
10 68 (2.50%) Kotlin
11 48 (1.77%) PowerShell
12 44 (1.62%) Bash
12 44 (1.62%) Rust
13 39 (1.43%) Scala
14 28 (1.03%) Embedded C
15 23 (0.85%) PL/SQL
16 22 (0.81%) Bicep
17 19 (0.70%) PHP
17 19 (0.70%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 607 (22.33%) Security Cleared
2 514 (18.91%) SC Cleared
3 217 (7.98%) Degree
4 101 (3.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 92 (3.38%) DV Cleared
6 59 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
7 48 (1.77%) Master's Degree
8 45 (1.66%) AWS Certification
9 24 (0.88%) Azure Certification
10 19 (0.70%) PhD
11 18 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 13 (0.48%) PMP
13 10 (0.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 8 (0.29%) CISSP
15 6 (0.22%) Chartered Engineer
15 6 (0.22%) ISTQB
15 6 (0.22%) TOGAF Certification
16 5 (0.18%) Numerate Degree
16 5 (0.18%) PMI Certification
17 4 (0.15%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 181 (6.66%) QA
2 78 (2.87%) Data Quality
3 59 (2.17%) Accessibility
4 22 (0.81%) MISRA
5 20 (0.74%) 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 (0.40%) IEC 61508
9 11 (0.40%) MISRA C
10 10 (0.37%) DO-178B
11 9 (0.33%) GRC
12 7 (0.26%) NCSC
13 6 (0.22%) HL7
14 5 (0.18%) EMIR
14 5 (0.18%) JSP 440
14 5 (0.18%) MiFID
15 4 (0.15%) PCI DSS
16 3 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 393 (14.46%) Docker
2 30 (1.10%) Firmware
3 19 (0.70%) Embedded Firmware
4 15 (0.55%) Active Directory
5 13 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.037%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 446 (16.41%) Kubernetes
2 94 (3.46%) Ansible
3 54 (1.99%) Grafana
4 41 (1.51%) Argo
5 40 (1.47%) Prometheus
6 18 (0.66%) 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
10 4 (0.15%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.11%) HP Fortify
11 3 (0.11%) Istio
12 2 (0.074%) Cilium
12 2 (0.074%) Docker Swarm
12 2 (0.074%) HAProxy
12 2 (0.074%) Packer
12 2 (0.074%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 151 (5.56%) Microsoft
2 104 (3.83%) Google
3 87 (3.20%) Oracle
4 82 (3.02%) Databricks
5 66 (2.43%) OpenAI
6 43 (1.58%) Red Hat
7 30 (1.10%) Salesforce
8 24 (0.88%) Splunk
9 20 (0.74%) IBM
10 18 (0.66%) Foundry
11 17 (0.63%) Informatica
11 17 (0.63%) ServiceNow
12 12 (0.44%) Adobe
13 11 (0.40%) SAP
14 10 (0.37%) Checkmarx
14 10 (0.37%) VMware
15 9 (0.33%) Dynatrace
16 8 (0.29%) Siemens
17 7 (0.26%) ForgeRock
17 7 (0.26%) Hitachi