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 22 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 42 34
Rank change year-on-year +2 -8 +8
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 1,877 1,231 1,937
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.00% 4.99% 5.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.79% 5.50% 5.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 986 816 1,125
10th Percentile £381 £404 £425
25th Percentile £450 £500 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £663 £750 £748
90th Percentile £788 £838 £800
UK median daily rate £550 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 379 81 322
10th Percentile £52.50 £43.00 £46.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £55.38 £51.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year - +4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.00 £69.04
90th Percentile £72.69 £68.75 £77.50
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 32,413 22,389 32,764
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.42% 90.76% 86.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,785 14,611 21,658
10th Percentile £313 £310 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,991 834 2,145
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £34.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.41% +4.62% -13.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £58.69
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.41 £71.87
UK median hourly rate £30.50 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -6.15% - -7.29%

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 22 March 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 22 March 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 22 March 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 -10 810 £600 -8.99% 599
North of England +19 277 £518 -1.90% 284
South West +8 251 £535 -8.55% 210
South East -3 185 £500 - 376
East of England +33 184 £475 +1.17% 147
North West +13 132 £515 -6.36% 143
Midlands -16 105 £500 +2.04% 133
Yorkshire -6 104 £525 - 103
West Midlands -18 89 £500 - 80
North East +18 44 £450 - 39
East Midlands -33 16 £506 +2.27% 53
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 (3.20%) Confluence
2 46 (2.45%) Apache Spark
3 44 (2.34%) Apache
4 18 (0.96%) Apache Airflow
5 10 (0.53%) CMS
6 9 (0.48%) WebLogic
7 8 (0.43%) Palantir Foundry
8 4 (0.21%) IIS
8 4 (0.21%) JBoss
8 4 (0.21%) nginx
8 4 (0.21%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.16%) SAS
9 3 (0.16%) SharePoint
9 3 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
10 2 (0.11%) Camunda
10 2 (0.11%) Magnolia
10 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.11%) WinCC
10 2 (0.11%) WordPress
11 1 (0.053%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 14 (0.75%) Microsoft Excel
1 14 (0.75%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (0.43%) Chatbot
3 5 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.21%) Simulink
5 2 (0.11%) CPLEX
5 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.053%) Maya
6 1 (0.053%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.053%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 4 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.11%) LabWindows
2 2 (0.11%) Primavera
3 1 (0.053%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.053%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.053%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 542 (28.88%) AWS
2 350 (18.65%) Azure
3 182 (9.70%) GCP
4 130 (6.93%) Serverless
5 129 (6.87%) GitHub
6 68 (3.62%) Azure DevOps
7 60 (3.20%) GitHub Actions
8 59 (3.14%) Amazon S3
8 59 (3.14%) AWS Lambda
9 44 (2.34%) OpenShift
9 44 (2.34%) Power Platform
10 42 (2.24%) AWS CloudFormation
11 41 (2.18%) Azure AKS
12 39 (2.08%) Amazon EKS
13 34 (1.81%) Azure Functions
14 33 (1.76%) Amazon ECS
15 32 (1.70%) Amazon EC2
15 32 (1.70%) SaaS
16 25 (1.33%) Datadog
17 24 (1.28%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.12%) Ethernet
2 13 (0.69%) TCP/IP
3 12 (0.64%) Network Security
4 10 (0.53%) Firewall
5 7 (0.37%) Internet
6 5 (0.27%) 3GPP
6 5 (0.27%) HTTP
6 5 (0.27%) Modbus
6 5 (0.27%) Software-Defined Radio
7 4 (0.21%) BGP
7 4 (0.21%) RS-232
7 4 (0.21%) RS-485
7 4 (0.21%) Software-Defined Networking
7 4 (0.21%) VLAN
7 4 (0.21%) Wireless
8 3 (0.16%) Bluetooth
8 3 (0.16%) IPv4
8 3 (0.16%) IPv6
8 3 (0.16%) Kerberos
8 3 (0.16%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (6.77%) PostgreSQL
2 72 (3.84%) Apache Cassandra
3 68 (3.62%) NoSQL
4 62 (3.30%) Relational Database
5 56 (2.98%) MongoDB
5 56 (2.98%) SQL Server
6 35 (1.86%) Data Lake
7 34 (1.81%) Amazon RDS
8 31 (1.65%) Big Data
8 31 (1.65%) Power BI
9 29 (1.55%) MySQL
10 26 (1.39%) BigQuery
11 25 (1.33%) Metadata
12 20 (1.07%) Data Warehouse
12 20 (1.07%) DynamoDB
13 18 (0.96%) Hadoop
14 16 (0.85%) Amazon Athena
15 15 (0.80%) Elasticsearch
15 15 (0.80%) Mixpanel
16 13 (0.69%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 185 (9.86%) Git
2 130 (6.93%) Jenkins
3 108 (5.75%) GitLab
4 107 (5.70%) JIRA
5 34 (1.81%) Rational DOORS
6 32 (1.70%) Rational Rhapsody
7 29 (1.55%) JUnit
8 28 (1.49%) Gradle
8 28 (1.49%) SonarQube
9 27 (1.44%) Cucumber
10 25 (1.33%) Cypress.io
10 25 (1.33%) Selenium
11 24 (1.28%) Bitbucket
12 21 (1.12%) IntelliJ
13 20 (1.07%) Maven
14 18 (0.96%) Eclipse
14 18 (0.96%) Liquibase
14 18 (0.96%) Mockito
15 17 (0.91%) Visual Studio
16 11 (0.59%) Artifactory
General
1 313 (16.68%) Finance
2 309 (16.46%) Social Skills
3 122 (6.50%) Public Sector
4 117 (6.23%) Banking
5 103 (5.49%) Analytical Skills
6 65 (3.46%) Front Office
7 63 (3.36%) Aerospace
8 42 (2.24%) Electronics
9 34 (1.81%) Law
10 30 (1.60%) Retail
11 28 (1.49%) Financial Institution
11 28 (1.49%) Investment Banking
12 26 (1.39%) Military
13 24 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
14 23 (1.23%) Manufacturing
15 21 (1.12%) Telecoms
16 20 (1.07%) Presentation Skills
17 15 (0.80%) Documentation Skills
18 13 (0.69%) Pharmaceutical
19 12 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 981 (52.26%) Software Engineer
2 359 (19.13%) Senior
3 341 (18.17%) Developer
4 164 (8.74%) Senior Software Engineer
5 145 (7.73%) Lead
6 131 (6.98%) Java Engineer
7 123 (6.55%) C++ Software Engineer
8 108 (5.75%) Embedded Engineer
9 107 (5.70%) Java Software Engineer
10 96 (5.11%) Embedded Software Engineer
11 79 (4.21%) Architect
12 75 (4.00%) Senior Developer
13 74 (3.94%) Java Developer
14 67 (3.57%) Python Engineer
15 63 (3.36%) Developer/Software Engineer
15 63 (3.36%) Python Developer
16 56 (2.98%) Lead Software Engineer
17 55 (2.93%) Data Engineer
18 51 (2.72%) AWS Engineer
19 50 (2.66%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 234 (12.47%) React
2 215 (11.45%) Kafka
3 165 (8.79%) Node.js
4 142 (7.57%) REST
5 135 (7.19%) .NET
6 119 (6.34%) Spring
7 107 (5.70%) Spring Boot
8 103 (5.49%) RESTful
9 94 (5.01%) AngularJS
10 74 (3.94%) gRPC
11 68 (3.62%) GraphQL
12 61 (3.25%) Middleware
13 54 (2.88%) HTML
13 54 (2.88%) Redux
14 52 (2.77%) CSS
15 47 (2.50%) JSON
16 43 (2.29%) Playwright
17 37 (1.97%) Vue
18 35 (1.86%) FastAPI
19 33 (1.76%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 217 (11.56%) Cloud Native
2 150 (7.99%) Distributed Systems
3 90 (4.79%) Product Ownership
4 70 (3.73%) Algorithms
5 59 (3.14%) Fixed Income
6 35 (1.86%) Data Protection Act
6 35 (1.86%) Mobile App
7 33 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
8 31 (1.65%) Data Structures
9 29 (1.55%) Derivative
9 29 (1.55%) Onboarding
10 28 (1.49%) AI Agents
11 26 (1.39%) Equities
12 25 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 25 (1.33%) Greenfield Project
13 24 (1.28%) Embedded Systems
14 22 (1.17%) Public Cloud
15 20 (1.07%) Hedge funds
15 20 (1.07%) Virtual Team
16 17 (0.91%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 204 (10.87%) Linux
2 78 (4.16%) Windows
3 48 (2.56%) Unix
4 27 (1.44%) Android
5 20 (1.07%) Apple iOS
5 20 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.80%) Windows Server
7 13 (0.69%) Ubuntu
8 6 (0.32%) FreeRTOS
9 4 (0.21%) Debian
10 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
10 3 (0.16%) Rocky
10 3 (0.16%) VMS
11 2 (0.11%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.11%) Solaris
11 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
11 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.053%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.053%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.053%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 564 (30.05%) Agile
2 544 (28.98%) CI/CD
3 380 (20.25%) DevOps
4 327 (17.42%) Microservices
5 264 (14.06%) AI
6 244 (13.00%) Problem-Solving
7 222 (11.83%) Containerisation
8 201 (10.71%) Test Automation
9 192 (10.23%) Full-Stack Development
10 182 (9.70%) Infrastructure as Code
11 169 (9.00%) Computer Science
12 160 (8.52%) Machine Learning
13 150 (7.99%) Continuous Improvement
14 145 (7.73%) Mentoring
15 133 (7.09%) Observability
16 132 (7.03%) Scrum
17 131 (6.98%) SDLC
18 129 (6.87%) TDD
19 114 (6.07%) Technical Leadership
20 112 (5.97%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 524 (27.92%) Python
2 460 (24.51%) Java
3 260 (13.85%) SQL
4 243 (12.95%) C++
5 239 (12.73%) JavaScript
6 234 (12.47%) TypeScript
7 224 (11.93%) C#
8 170 (9.06%) Go
9 122 (6.50%) Ada
10 109 (5.81%) C
11 39 (2.08%) PowerShell
12 32 (1.70%) Bash
12 32 (1.70%) Kotlin
12 32 (1.70%) Rust
13 27 (1.44%) Shell Script
14 26 (1.39%) Embedded C
15 24 (1.28%) Embedded C++
16 23 (1.23%) MATLAB
16 23 (1.23%) Ruby
17 19 (1.01%) Scala
Qualifications
1 435 (23.18%) Security Cleared
2 329 (17.53%) SC Cleared
3 199 (10.60%) Degree
4 91 (4.85%) Computer Science Degree
5 60 (3.20%) DV Cleared
6 58 (3.09%) Master's Degree
7 26 (1.39%) BPSS Clearance
8 21 (1.12%) PhD
9 20 (1.07%) CISSP
10 18 (0.96%) AWS Certification
11 17 (0.91%) CISM
12 16 (0.85%) Azure Certification
13 15 (0.80%) TOGAF Certification
14 10 (0.53%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 7 (0.37%) ISTQB
15 7 (0.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 6 (0.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 5 (0.27%) Microsoft Certification
18 4 (0.21%) HND
19 3 (0.16%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 98 (5.22%) QA
2 60 (3.20%) Def Stans
3 41 (2.18%) IEC 61508
4 40 (2.13%) Data Quality
5 32 (1.70%) Accessibility
6 31 (1.65%) MISRA
7 25 (1.33%) GDPR
8 21 (1.12%) MISRA C
9 19 (1.01%) WCAG
10 13 (0.69%) NIST
11 11 (0.59%) DO-178B
12 7 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
13 6 (0.32%) EU AI Act
13 6 (0.32%) HL7
14 5 (0.27%) NCSC
15 3 (0.16%) SLA
16 2 (0.11%) FATCA
16 2 (0.11%) PCI DSS
16 2 (0.11%) PMO
16 2 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 334 (17.79%) Docker
2 18 (0.96%) Firmware
3 16 (0.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.43%) Active Directory
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
7 3 (0.16%) HDFS
8 2 (0.11%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 366 (19.50%) Kubernetes
2 205 (10.92%) Terraform
3 95 (5.06%) Grafana
4 65 (3.46%) Ansible
5 56 (2.98%) Prometheus
6 24 (1.28%) Argo
7 18 (0.96%) Puppet
8 12 (0.64%) Progress Chef
9 9 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
10 6 (0.32%) Istio
11 5 (0.27%) HP Quality Center
11 5 (0.27%) Kibana
11 5 (0.27%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.21%) Data Guard
12 4 (0.21%) HAProxy
13 3 (0.16%) Docker Swarm
13 3 (0.16%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.16%) Podman
13 3 (0.16%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
14 2 (0.11%) rkt
Vendors
1 146 (7.78%) Microsoft
2 68 (3.62%) Google
3 60 (3.20%) Oracle
4 58 (3.09%) Red Hat
5 48 (2.56%) Databricks
6 26 (1.39%) Splunk
7 22 (1.17%) Foundry
8 20 (1.07%) IBM
9 17 (0.91%) VMware
10 16 (0.85%) BiZZdesign
11 14 (0.75%) OpenAI
12 11 (0.59%) Atlassian
12 11 (0.59%) Siemens
13 10 (0.53%) PagerDuty
13 10 (0.53%) ServiceNow
14 9 (0.48%) Palantir
14 9 (0.48%) SAP
14 9 (0.48%) Software AG
15 8 (0.43%) ANSYS
15 8 (0.43%) CyberArk