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

6 months to
16 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 41 34
Rank change year-on-year +1 -7 +8
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 1,842 1,224 1,934
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.01% 4.95% 5.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.79% 5.46% 5.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 966 810 1,123
10th Percentile £381 £406 £419
25th Percentile £450 £500 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £669 £750 £738
90th Percentile £788 £838 £800
UK median daily rate £548 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -8.75% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 375 79 321
10th Percentile £52.50 £42.90 £46.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £57.52 £51.75
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year - +4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £72.50 £68.75 £75.00
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 31,799 22,421 32,927
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.47% 90.62% 86.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,337 14,594 21,795
10th Percentile £313 £310 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £504 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.05% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £639 £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 1,979 812 2,149
10th Percentile £15.30 £15.22 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.15 £34.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.32% +4.62% -12.16%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.53
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 -10 797 £600 -7.69% 531
North of England +10 272 £511 -3.54% 252
South West +8 252 £500 -13.79% 223
East of England +33 180 £475 +5.09% 120
South East -3 174 £500 - 336
North West +6 130 £505 -8.18% 119
Midlands -11 101 £500 +4.82% 122
Yorkshire -8 96 £523 -0.48% 101
West Midlands -11 85 £500 +4.82% 72
North East +24 51 £488 - 33
East Midlands -28 16 £506 +3.32% 50
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 (3.31%) Confluence
2 48 (2.61%) Apache
3 47 (2.55%) Apache Spark
4 22 (1.19%) Apache Airflow
5 12 (0.65%) WebLogic
6 10 (0.54%) CMS
7 8 (0.43%) Palantir Foundry
8 7 (0.38%) JBoss
9 5 (0.27%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.22%) IIS
10 4 (0.22%) nginx
11 3 (0.16%) SAS
11 3 (0.16%) SharePoint
11 3 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.11%) Camunda
12 2 (0.11%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.11%) WinCC
12 2 (0.11%) WordPress
13 1 (0.054%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 15 (0.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.76%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.54%) Chatbot
4 5 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.16%) Simulink
6 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.054%) CPLEX
7 1 (0.054%) Maya
7 1 (0.054%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.054%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.054%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.11%) LabWindows
1 2 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
1 2 (0.11%) Primavera
2 1 (0.054%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.054%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (0.054%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 536 (29.10%) AWS
2 331 (17.97%) Azure
3 181 (9.83%) GCP
4 135 (7.33%) Serverless
5 131 (7.11%) GitHub
6 63 (3.42%) Azure DevOps
7 61 (3.31%) Amazon S3
7 61 (3.31%) AWS Lambda
7 61 (3.31%) GitHub Actions
8 46 (2.50%) Azure AKS
9 45 (2.44%) OpenShift
9 45 (2.44%) Power Platform
10 44 (2.39%) Amazon EKS
11 41 (2.23%) AWS CloudFormation
12 38 (2.06%) Azure Functions
13 34 (1.85%) Amazon EC2
13 34 (1.85%) Amazon ECS
14 31 (1.68%) SaaS
15 25 (1.36%) Datadog
16 24 (1.30%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.14%) Ethernet
2 13 (0.71%) TCP/IP
3 12 (0.65%) Network Security
4 9 (0.49%) Firewall
5 7 (0.38%) Internet
6 5 (0.27%) 3GPP
6 5 (0.27%) Modbus
6 5 (0.27%) Software-Defined Radio
7 4 (0.22%) BGP
7 4 (0.22%) HTTP
7 4 (0.22%) RS-232
7 4 (0.22%) RS-485
7 4 (0.22%) Software-Defined Networking
7 4 (0.22%) VLAN
7 4 (0.22%) Wireless
8 3 (0.16%) Bluetooth
8 3 (0.16%) Kerberos
8 3 (0.16%) NFC
8 3 (0.16%) PPP
8 3 (0.16%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (6.62%) PostgreSQL
2 74 (4.02%) Apache Cassandra
3 67 (3.64%) NoSQL
4 64 (3.47%) MongoDB
5 53 (2.88%) Relational Database
6 52 (2.82%) SQL Server
7 36 (1.95%) Data Lake
8 34 (1.85%) Amazon RDS
9 33 (1.79%) Big Data
10 32 (1.74%) Power BI
11 29 (1.57%) BigQuery
12 28 (1.52%) MySQL
13 24 (1.30%) Metadata
14 21 (1.14%) DynamoDB
15 19 (1.03%) Data Warehouse
15 19 (1.03%) Hadoop
16 17 (0.92%) Amazon Athena
17 16 (0.87%) Elasticsearch
18 15 (0.81%) Mixpanel
19 13 (0.71%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 182 (9.88%) Git
2 129 (7.00%) Jenkins
3 117 (6.35%) GitLab
4 103 (5.59%) JIRA
5 33 (1.79%) Rational DOORS
6 32 (1.74%) JUnit
7 30 (1.63%) Rational Rhapsody
7 30 (1.63%) Selenium
7 30 (1.63%) SonarQube
8 28 (1.52%) Cucumber
8 28 (1.52%) Gradle
9 27 (1.47%) Cypress.io
10 24 (1.30%) Bitbucket
10 24 (1.30%) IntelliJ
11 22 (1.19%) Eclipse
12 18 (0.98%) Maven
13 17 (0.92%) Visual Studio
14 16 (0.87%) Liquibase
14 16 (0.87%) Mockito
15 12 (0.65%) Postman
General
1 307 (16.67%) Finance
2 302 (16.40%) Social Skills
3 120 (6.51%) Public Sector
4 113 (6.13%) Banking
5 98 (5.32%) Analytical Skills
6 66 (3.58%) Front Office
7 62 (3.37%) Aerospace
8 42 (2.28%) Electronics
9 33 (1.79%) Law
10 31 (1.68%) Retail
11 30 (1.63%) Investment Banking
12 29 (1.57%) Financial Institution
13 28 (1.52%) Military
14 25 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
15 23 (1.25%) Manufacturing
16 20 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
16 20 (1.09%) Telecoms
17 15 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
18 14 (0.76%) Documentation Skills
19 12 (0.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 955 (51.85%) Software Engineer
2 347 (18.84%) Senior
3 336 (18.24%) Developer
4 157 (8.52%) Senior Software Engineer
5 146 (7.93%) Lead
6 124 (6.73%) Java Engineer
7 121 (6.57%) C++ Software Engineer
8 106 (5.75%) Embedded Engineer
9 101 (5.48%) Java Software Engineer
10 94 (5.10%) Embedded Software Engineer
11 75 (4.07%) Java Developer
12 73 (3.96%) Architect
13 72 (3.91%) Senior Developer
14 71 (3.85%) Python Engineer
15 62 (3.37%) Python Developer
16 61 (3.31%) Developer/Software Engineer
17 57 (3.09%) Lead Software Engineer
18 55 (2.99%) Data Engineer
19 49 (2.66%) AWS Engineer
20 48 (2.61%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 236 (12.81%) React
2 220 (11.94%) Kafka
3 168 (9.12%) Node.js
4 144 (7.82%) REST
5 136 (7.38%) .NET
6 120 (6.51%) Spring
7 108 (5.86%) Spring Boot
8 105 (5.70%) RESTful
9 93 (5.05%) AngularJS
10 78 (4.23%) gRPC
11 67 (3.64%) GraphQL
12 64 (3.47%) Middleware
13 54 (2.93%) HTML
13 54 (2.93%) Redux
14 50 (2.71%) JSON
15 49 (2.66%) CSS
16 39 (2.12%) Playwright
17 38 (2.06%) Vue
18 37 (2.01%) FastAPI
19 33 (1.79%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 213 (11.56%) Cloud Native
2 133 (7.22%) Distributed Systems
3 88 (4.78%) Product Ownership
4 68 (3.69%) Algorithms
5 62 (3.37%) Fixed Income
6 39 (2.12%) Data Protection Act
7 34 (1.85%) Mobile App
8 32 (1.74%) Legacy Systems
9 29 (1.57%) Derivative
10 28 (1.52%) AI Agents
10 28 (1.52%) Data Structures
11 27 (1.47%) Equities
11 27 (1.47%) Greenfield Project
12 26 (1.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 26 (1.41%) Onboarding
13 23 (1.25%) Embedded Systems
14 22 (1.19%) Hedge funds
15 21 (1.14%) Public Cloud
16 19 (1.03%) Life Science
16 19 (1.03%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 210 (11.40%) Linux
2 77 (4.18%) Windows
3 53 (2.88%) Unix
4 26 (1.41%) Android
5 19 (1.03%) Apple iOS
5 19 (1.03%) Ubuntu
6 18 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (0.76%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.33%) FreeRTOS
9 3 (0.16%) Debian
9 3 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
9 3 (0.16%) VMS
10 2 (0.11%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.11%) Robot Operating System
10 2 (0.11%) Rocky
10 2 (0.11%) Solaris
10 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.054%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.054%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 567 (30.78%) Agile
2 527 (28.61%) CI/CD
3 368 (19.98%) DevOps
4 319 (17.32%) Microservices
5 262 (14.22%) AI
6 241 (13.08%) Problem-Solving
7 215 (11.67%) Containerisation
8 205 (11.13%) Test Automation
9 189 (10.26%) Full-Stack Development
10 178 (9.66%) Infrastructure as Code
11 164 (8.90%) Computer Science
12 161 (8.74%) Machine Learning
13 155 (8.41%) Mentoring
14 151 (8.20%) Continuous Improvement
15 131 (7.11%) Scrum
16 129 (7.00%) SDLC
17 127 (6.89%) Observability
18 124 (6.73%) TDD
19 118 (6.41%) Technical Leadership
20 114 (6.19%) Open Source
Programming Languages
1 527 (28.61%) Python
2 446 (24.21%) Java
3 251 (13.63%) SQL
4 248 (13.46%) C++
5 244 (13.25%) JavaScript
6 232 (12.60%) TypeScript
7 220 (11.94%) C#
8 168 (9.12%) Go
9 122 (6.62%) Ada
10 114 (6.19%) C
11 36 (1.95%) PowerShell
12 33 (1.79%) Shell Script
13 32 (1.74%) Rust
14 31 (1.68%) Bash
15 30 (1.63%) Kotlin
16 26 (1.41%) Embedded C
17 24 (1.30%) Embedded C++
18 21 (1.14%) MATLAB
19 20 (1.09%) Scala
20 18 (0.98%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 426 (23.13%) Security Cleared
2 327 (17.75%) SC Cleared
3 198 (10.75%) Degree
4 91 (4.94%) Computer Science Degree
5 59 (3.20%) DV Cleared
6 57 (3.09%) Master's Degree
7 24 (1.30%) BPSS Clearance
8 20 (1.09%) PhD
9 19 (1.03%) CISSP
10 18 (0.98%) AWS Certification
11 17 (0.92%) CISM
12 16 (0.87%) Azure Certification
13 15 (0.81%) TOGAF Certification
14 11 (0.60%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 10 (0.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 7 (0.38%) ISTQB
17 6 (0.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
18 5 (0.27%) Microsoft Certification
19 4 (0.22%) HND
19 4 (0.22%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 95 (5.16%) QA
2 57 (3.09%) Def Stans
3 40 (2.17%) Data Quality
4 39 (2.12%) IEC 61508
5 33 (1.79%) Accessibility
6 31 (1.68%) MISRA
7 26 (1.41%) GDPR
8 21 (1.14%) MISRA C
9 18 (0.98%) WCAG
10 17 (0.92%) NIST
11 11 (0.60%) DO-178B
12 10 (0.54%) EU AI Act
13 6 (0.33%) HL7
13 6 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
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%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 2 (0.11%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 332 (18.02%) Docker
2 18 (0.98%) Firmware
3 15 (0.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.43%) Active Directory
6 4 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
7 3 (0.16%) HDFS
8 2 (0.11%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 360 (19.54%) Kubernetes
2 203 (11.02%) Terraform
3 94 (5.10%) Grafana
4 65 (3.53%) Ansible
5 57 (3.09%) Prometheus
6 24 (1.30%) Argo
7 22 (1.19%) Puppet
8 13 (0.71%) Progress Chef
9 9 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
10 6 (0.33%) Istio
11 5 (0.27%) HP Quality Center
11 5 (0.27%) Kibana
11 5 (0.27%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.22%) Data Guard
12 4 (0.22%) Podman
13 3 (0.16%) Docker Swarm
13 3 (0.16%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.16%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
14 2 (0.11%) Functional Safety
14 2 (0.11%) rkt
Vendors
1 141 (7.65%) Microsoft
2 68 (3.69%) Google
3 63 (3.42%) Red Hat
4 58 (3.15%) Oracle
5 46 (2.50%) Databricks
6 27 (1.47%) Splunk
7 26 (1.41%) Foundry
8 19 (1.03%) IBM
9 16 (0.87%) BiZZdesign
9 16 (0.87%) VMware
10 15 (0.81%) OpenAI
11 10 (0.54%) Atlassian
11 10 (0.54%) PagerDuty
11 10 (0.54%) Siemens
12 9 (0.49%) Palantir
12 9 (0.49%) Software AG
13 8 (0.43%) ANSYS
13 8 (0.43%) CyberArk
13 8 (0.43%) SAP
13 8 (0.43%) ServiceNow