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

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 45 30
Rank change year-on-year +14 -15 +9
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2,682 1,335 1,888
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.80% 4.88% 5.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.85% 5.37% 6.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,451 816 1,163
10th Percentile £400 £380 £413
25th Percentile £463 £475 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +3.22%
75th Percentile £688 £750 £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 419 111 232
10th Percentile £51.25 £38.63 £45.31
25th Percentile £57.63 £52.50 £57.19
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.50
Median % change year-on-year - -0.76% +0.77%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.25
% change year-on-year - -0.38% +0.38%

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 39,157 24,863 28,050
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.69% 90.87% 86.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,010 15,784 17,561
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £648
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 2,714 1,478 1,320
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.29 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.79 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -1.81%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.74 £66.53
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -2 1,206 £600 -7.69% 5,408
North of England +23 441 £525 +6.62% 1,026
South East +33 343 £525 +10.53% 943
South West +16 305 £550 +7.32% 592
East of England +14 221 £509 +1.70% 683
North West +17 203 £528 +5.50% 624
Yorkshire +17 176 £500 +0.73% 276
Midlands +24 139 £463 -16.38% 472
West Midlands +4 96 £466 -18.90% 269
North East +8 65 £650 +41.30% 131
East Midlands +18 42 £435 -3.33% 202
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 61 (2.27%) Confluence
2 56 (2.09%) Apache Spark
3 48 (1.79%) Apache Airflow
4 36 (1.34%) Apache
5 14 (0.52%) SharePoint
6 13 (0.48%) CMS
7 7 (0.26%) Camunda
7 7 (0.26%) Jupyter
7 7 (0.26%) SAS
8 5 (0.19%) Apache Solr
8 5 (0.19%) Ethereum
8 5 (0.19%) Hyperledger
9 4 (0.15%) Apache Superset
9 4 (0.15%) WordPress
10 3 (0.11%) MQSeries
10 3 (0.11%) nginx
10 3 (0.11%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.075%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.075%) IIS
11 2 (0.075%) Oracle SOA Suite
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 (0.19%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (0.15%) CPLEX
5 4 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.11%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.11%) Simulink
6 3 (0.11%) Trello
7 2 (0.075%) CATIA
7 2 (0.075%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 2 (0.075%) Notion
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 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
2 5 (0.19%) R3 Corda
3 4 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.15%) Quorum
3 4 (0.15%) Ripple
4 3 (0.11%) Oracle Payroll
4 3 (0.11%) Orchestrade
4 3 (0.11%) Primavera
4 3 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.075%) Endur
5 2 (0.075%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.037%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.037%) Distributed Ledger
6 1 (0.037%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.037%) Sage 50
6 1 (0.037%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.037%) Shopify
6 1 (0.037%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 681 (25.39%) AWS
2 540 (20.13%) Azure
3 272 (10.14%) GCP
4 238 (8.87%) GitHub
5 144 (5.37%) Serverless
6 125 (4.66%) GitHub Actions
7 110 (4.10%) Azure DevOps
8 104 (3.88%) AWS Lambda
9 70 (2.61%) Amazon S3
10 67 (2.50%) Anthropic Claude
11 58 (2.16%) OpenShift
12 57 (2.13%) GitHub Copilot
13 53 (1.98%) Amazon SQS
14 51 (1.90%) Amazon ECS
15 50 (1.86%) Amazon EKS
16 46 (1.72%) Power Platform
16 46 (1.72%) Snowflake
17 42 (1.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 34 (1.27%) Amazon EC2
18 34 (1.27%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 31 (1.16%) Wireless
2 30 (1.12%) Software-Defined Radio
3 20 (0.75%) Firewall
3 20 (0.75%) Internet
4 19 (0.71%) HTTP
5 18 (0.67%) Ethernet
5 18 (0.67%) TCP/IP
6 17 (0.63%) VPN
7 13 (0.48%) Wi-Fi
8 8 (0.30%) Network Security
8 8 (0.30%) RTP
8 8 (0.30%) Wireshark
9 7 (0.26%) DNS
10 6 (0.22%) 3GPP
10 6 (0.22%) Cisco IPT
11 4 (0.15%) RS-232
11 4 (0.15%) SSL
12 3 (0.11%) Broadband
12 3 (0.11%) Reverse Proxy
12 3 (0.11%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 148 (5.52%) PostgreSQL
2 106 (3.95%) Relational Database
3 87 (3.24%) SQL Server
4 81 (3.02%) NoSQL
5 55 (2.05%) MongoDB
6 52 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
7 44 (1.64%) DynamoDB
8 39 (1.45%) MySQL
9 34 (1.27%) Metadata
10 32 (1.19%) Amazon RDS
11 29 (1.08%) Power BI
12 27 (1.01%) Elasticsearch
12 27 (1.01%) Redis
13 26 (0.97%) Data Lake
14 25 (0.93%) Big Data
15 24 (0.89%) BigQuery
16 22 (0.82%) Pinecone
17 20 (0.75%) Weaviate
18 16 (0.60%) Chroma
19 14 (0.52%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 289 (10.78%) Git
2 157 (5.85%) Jenkins
3 154 (5.74%) GitLab
4 121 (4.51%) JIRA
5 58 (2.16%) SonarQube
6 40 (1.49%) Gradle
6 40 (1.49%) JUnit
7 34 (1.27%) Claude Code
8 30 (1.12%) Selenium
9 28 (1.04%) Maven
10 26 (0.97%) Rational DOORS
11 24 (0.89%) Visual Studio
12 21 (0.78%) Cucumber
12 21 (0.78%) Rational Rhapsody
13 18 (0.67%) Mockito
14 15 (0.56%) LabVIEW
15 13 (0.48%) Bitbucket
15 13 (0.48%) Cypress.io
16 12 (0.45%) Snyk
17 11 (0.41%) MLflow
General
1 555 (20.69%) Social Skills
2 484 (18.05%) Finance
3 213 (7.94%) Banking
4 206 (7.68%) Public Sector
5 193 (7.20%) Analytical Skills
6 92 (3.43%) Aerospace
7 76 (2.83%) Front Office
8 52 (1.94%) Investment Banking
9 50 (1.86%) Manufacturing
10 46 (1.72%) Law
10 46 (1.72%) Retail
11 38 (1.42%) Automotive
12 33 (1.23%) Military
13 27 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
14 26 (0.97%) Aviation
15 24 (0.89%) Marketing
15 24 (0.89%) Telecoms
16 22 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 18 (0.67%) Back Office
18 17 (0.63%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 1,141 (42.54%) Software Engineer
2 514 (19.16%) Developer
3 501 (18.68%) Senior
4 296 (11.04%) Lead
5 206 (7.68%) Senior Software Engineer
6 166 (6.19%) Java Engineer
7 159 (5.93%) Embedded Engineer
8 152 (5.67%) Embedded Software Engineer
9 146 (5.44%) Java Developer
10 133 (4.96%) Java Software Engineer
11 125 (4.66%) Software Developer
12 120 (4.47%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 114 (4.25%) C++ Software Engineer
14 107 (3.99%) Senior Developer
15 106 (3.95%) Architect
16 105 (3.91%) Python Engineer
17 98 (3.65%) Data Engineer
18 80 (2.98%) DevOps Engineer
18 80 (2.98%) Lead Software Engineer
19 77 (2.87%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 303 (11.30%) Terraform
2 252 (9.40%) React
3 236 (8.80%) REST
4 225 (8.39%) Spring
5 222 (8.28%) .NET
6 213 (7.94%) Spring Boot
7 169 (6.30%) Kafka
8 142 (5.29%) RESTful
9 137 (5.11%) Node.js
10 102 (3.80%) AngularJS
11 62 (2.31%) Django
12 56 (2.09%) HTML
12 56 (2.09%) Next.js
13 55 (2.05%) CSS
14 51 (1.90%) LangChain
15 49 (1.83%) OAuth
16 45 (1.68%) JSON
16 45 (1.68%) Web Services
17 44 (1.64%) FastAPI
18 41 (1.53%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 410 (15.29%) Cloud Native
2 239 (8.91%) Distributed Systems
3 149 (5.56%) Product Ownership
4 123 (4.59%) AI Agents
5 81 (3.02%) Algorithms
6 65 (2.42%) Enterprise Software
7 58 (2.16%) Data Structures
8 52 (1.94%) Onboarding
9 48 (1.79%) Data Protection Act
9 48 (1.79%) Embedded Systems
10 37 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
11 36 (1.34%) Legacy Systems
12 33 (1.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 29 (1.08%) Fixed Income
14 25 (0.93%) Derivative
14 25 (0.93%) Robotics
15 24 (0.89%) Greenfield Project
16 22 (0.82%) Equities
17 21 (0.78%) Virtual Team
18 19 (0.71%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 190 (7.08%) Linux
2 60 (2.24%) Windows
3 36 (1.34%) Unix
4 25 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (0.86%) Embedded Linux
6 14 (0.52%) Android
6 14 (0.52%) FreeRTOS
7 12 (0.45%) Windows Server
8 9 (0.34%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.30%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.22%) Debian
11 4 (0.15%) Rocky
12 3 (0.11%) VMS
12 3 (0.11%) VxWorks
13 2 (0.075%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.075%) zOS
14 1 (0.037%) Robot Operating System
14 1 (0.037%) Solaris
14 1 (0.037%) Tizen
14 1 (0.037%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 937 (34.94%) CI/CD
2 815 (30.39%) Agile
3 638 (23.79%) DevOps
4 565 (21.07%) AI
5 408 (15.21%) Microservices
6 398 (14.84%) Test Automation
7 330 (12.30%) Infrastructure as Code
8 327 (12.19%) Problem-Solving
9 326 (12.16%) Continuous Improvement
10 277 (10.33%) Observability
11 276 (10.29%) Containerisation
12 268 (9.99%) SDLC
13 256 (9.55%) Full-Stack Development
14 230 (8.58%) Machine Learning
15 227 (8.46%) Technical Leadership
16 224 (8.35%) Platform Engineering
16 224 (8.35%) Stakeholder Management
17 219 (8.17%) Event-Driven
18 213 (7.94%) Scrum
19 209 (7.79%) LLM
Programming Languages
1 785 (29.27%) Python
2 677 (25.24%) Java
3 389 (14.50%) SQL
4 299 (11.15%) C#
5 294 (10.96%) TypeScript
6 223 (8.31%) C++
6 223 (8.31%) JavaScript
7 118 (4.40%) C
8 83 (3.09%) Ada
9 82 (3.06%) Go
10 67 (2.50%) Kotlin
11 48 (1.79%) PowerShell
12 44 (1.64%) Rust
13 42 (1.57%) Bash
14 39 (1.45%) Scala
15 25 (0.93%) Embedded C
16 24 (0.89%) Ruby
17 22 (0.82%) Bicep
17 22 (0.82%) PL/SQL
18 19 (0.71%) PHP
Qualifications
1 604 (22.52%) Security Cleared
2 508 (18.94%) SC Cleared
3 212 (7.90%) Degree
4 99 (3.69%) Computer Science Degree
5 90 (3.36%) DV Cleared
6 61 (2.27%) BPSS Clearance
7 46 (1.72%) Master's Degree
8 41 (1.53%) AWS Certification
9 19 (0.71%) Azure Certification
10 18 (0.67%) PhD
11 17 (0.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 11 (0.41%) PMP
13 8 (0.30%) CISSP
13 8 (0.30%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 6 (0.22%) Chartered Engineer
14 6 (0.22%) ISTQB
14 6 (0.22%) TOGAF Certification
15 5 (0.19%) PMI Certification
16 4 (0.15%) GIAC
16 4 (0.15%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 179 (6.67%) QA
2 74 (2.76%) Data Quality
3 53 (1.98%) Accessibility
4 21 (0.78%) GDPR
5 17 (0.63%) MISRA
6 15 (0.56%) Def Stans
6 15 (0.56%) WCAG
7 13 (0.48%) NIST
8 12 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 10 (0.37%) DO-178B
10 8 (0.30%) GRC
10 8 (0.30%) IEC 61508
11 7 (0.26%) NCSC
12 6 (0.22%) MISRA C
13 5 (0.19%) EMIR
13 5 (0.19%) HL7
13 5 (0.19%) JSP 440
13 5 (0.19%) MiFID
14 4 (0.15%) PCI DSS
15 3 (0.11%) DO-254
System Software
1 401 (14.95%) Docker
2 29 (1.08%) Firmware
3 18 (0.67%) Embedded Firmware
4 14 (0.52%) Active Directory
5 13 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.037%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 448 (16.70%) Kubernetes
2 90 (3.36%) Ansible
3 56 (2.09%) Grafana
4 40 (1.49%) Argo
4 40 (1.49%) Prometheus
5 16 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
6 14 (0.52%) Kibana
7 8 (0.30%) Puppet
8 6 (0.22%) Functional Safety
9 4 (0.15%) Consul
9 4 (0.15%) HAProxy
9 4 (0.15%) Kubeflow
9 4 (0.15%) Kustomize
10 3 (0.11%) HP Fortify
10 3 (0.11%) Istio
10 3 (0.11%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.075%) Cilium
11 2 (0.075%) Docker Swarm
11 2 (0.075%) Packer
11 2 (0.075%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 146 (5.44%) Microsoft
2 97 (3.62%) Google
3 85 (3.17%) Oracle
4 76 (2.83%) Databricks
5 61 (2.27%) OpenAI
6 43 (1.60%) Red Hat
7 29 (1.08%) Salesforce
8 25 (0.93%) Splunk
9 21 (0.78%) IBM
10 18 (0.67%) ServiceNow
11 17 (0.63%) Foundry
11 17 (0.63%) Informatica
12 12 (0.45%) Adobe
13 11 (0.41%) SAP
14 10 (0.37%) Checkmarx
14 10 (0.37%) VMware
15 9 (0.34%) Dynatrace
16 8 (0.30%) Confluent
16 8 (0.30%) Siemens
17 7 (0.26%) Hitachi