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 5 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 42 30
Rank change year-on-year +11 -12 +11
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2,732 1,394 1,842
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.93% 4.99% 5.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 7.00% 5.49% 6.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,448 839 1,111
10th Percentile £400 £375 £406
25th Percentile £463 £463 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £575 £613
Median % change year-on-year -2.61% -6.12% +0.41%
75th Percentile £688 £725 £810
90th Percentile £777 £838 £888
UK median daily rate £550 £558 £600
% change year-on-year -1.35% -7.08% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 432 123 213
10th Percentile £51.25 £43.05 £46.18
25th Percentile £60.00 £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 £67.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £74.60 £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 39,045 25,398 28,013
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.68% 90.94% 86.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,601 16,100 17,122
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £643
90th Percentile £738 £730 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,948 1,574 1,187
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.42 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.50 £17.87 £20.30
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.47 £45.75 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.25 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +52.09% -39.40% -2.35%

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 5 October 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 5 October 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 5 October 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 -1 1,229 £601 -3.92% 4,755
North of England +20 469 £525 +5.00% 1,091
South East +33 341 £525 +10.53% 1,004
South West +16 303 £550 +18.92% 594
North West +27 226 £550 +10.00% 632
East of England +16 226 £510 -2.86% 678
Yorkshire +12 177 £500 - 295
Midlands +35 143 £470 -8.07% 560
West Midlands +14 99 £470 -18.26% 294
North East +3 70 £650 +33.33% 171
East Midlands +19 43 £435 +3.45% 266
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 (2.20%) Apache Spark
2 57 (2.09%) Confluence
3 49 (1.79%) Apache Airflow
4 34 (1.24%) Apache
5 16 (0.59%) CMS
6 13 (0.48%) SharePoint
7 9 (0.33%) Ethereum
7 9 (0.33%) Jupyter
8 7 (0.26%) SAS
9 6 (0.22%) Camunda
10 5 (0.18%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.18%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.18%) Hyperledger
10 5 (0.18%) nginx
10 5 (0.18%) WordPress
11 3 (0.11%) MQSeries
11 3 (0.11%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.073%) Apache Pulsar
12 2 (0.073%) Headless CMS
12 2 (0.073%) Solana
Applications
1 15 (0.55%) 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 (0.073%) CATIA
7 2 (0.073%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 2 (0.073%) Notion
7 2 (0.073%) Simulink
8 1 (0.037%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.037%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.037%) Blender
8 1 (0.037%) LaTeX
8 1 (0.037%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 7 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
2 6 (0.22%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.22%) Oracle Payroll
3 5 (0.18%) R3 Corda
4 4 (0.15%) Quorum
4 4 (0.15%) Ripple
5 3 (0.11%) Distributed Ledger
5 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
5 3 (0.11%) Orchestrade
5 3 (0.11%) Primavera
5 3 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.11%) Temenos T24
6 2 (0.073%) Endur
6 2 (0.073%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.037%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.037%) Sage 50
7 1 (0.037%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.037%) SAP S/4HANA
7 1 (0.037%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 692 (25.33%) AWS
2 551 (20.17%) Azure
3 285 (10.43%) GCP
4 245 (8.97%) GitHub
5 144 (5.27%) Serverless
6 124 (4.54%) GitHub Actions
7 118 (4.32%) Azure DevOps
8 99 (3.62%) AWS Lambda
9 76 (2.78%) Anthropic Claude
10 71 (2.60%) GitHub Copilot
11 68 (2.49%) Amazon S3
12 58 (2.12%) Amazon EKS
13 52 (1.90%) Amazon SQS
14 51 (1.87%) OpenShift
15 50 (1.83%) Amazon ECS
16 46 (1.68%) Snowflake
17 45 (1.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 44 (1.61%) Power Platform
19 34 (1.24%) dbt
20 32 (1.17%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 31 (1.13%) Wireless
2 25 (0.92%) Software-Defined Radio
3 24 (0.88%) Firewall
4 20 (0.73%) Internet
4 20 (0.73%) TCP/IP
4 20 (0.73%) VPN
5 18 (0.66%) HTTP
6 16 (0.59%) Ethernet
7 14 (0.51%) Wi-Fi
8 12 (0.44%) DNS
9 11 (0.40%) Network Security
10 9 (0.33%) RTP
10 9 (0.33%) Wireshark
11 6 (0.22%) 3GPP
11 6 (0.22%) Cisco IPT
12 5 (0.18%) SSL
13 4 (0.15%) Broadband
13 4 (0.15%) Reverse Proxy
13 4 (0.15%) RS-232
14 3 (0.11%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 138 (5.05%) PostgreSQL
2 95 (3.48%) Relational Database
3 84 (3.07%) SQL Server
4 82 (3.00%) NoSQL
5 61 (2.23%) MongoDB
6 52 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
7 40 (1.46%) DynamoDB
7 40 (1.46%) MySQL
8 34 (1.24%) Metadata
9 31 (1.13%) Data Lake
10 29 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
11 27 (0.99%) Big Data
11 27 (0.99%) BigQuery
11 27 (0.99%) Redis
12 26 (0.95%) Elasticsearch
12 26 (0.95%) Pinecone
12 26 (0.95%) Power BI
13 20 (0.73%) Weaviate
14 19 (0.70%) Chroma
15 18 (0.66%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 275 (10.07%) Git
2 154 (5.64%) GitLab
3 149 (5.45%) Jenkins
4 112 (4.10%) JIRA
5 49 (1.79%) SonarQube
6 43 (1.57%) Claude Code
7 36 (1.32%) Gradle
8 33 (1.21%) JUnit
9 31 (1.13%) Visual Studio
10 28 (1.02%) Rational DOORS
11 27 (0.99%) Maven
12 26 (0.95%) Selenium
13 22 (0.81%) Cucumber
14 20 (0.73%) Rational Rhapsody
15 16 (0.59%) Mockito
16 15 (0.55%) LabVIEW
17 13 (0.48%) Bitbucket
17 13 (0.48%) Cypress.io
18 12 (0.44%) Snyk
19 11 (0.40%) Postman
General
1 583 (21.34%) Social Skills
2 521 (19.07%) Finance
3 224 (8.20%) Banking
4 203 (7.43%) Public Sector
5 191 (6.99%) Analytical Skills
6 96 (3.51%) Aerospace
7 77 (2.82%) Front Office
8 56 (2.05%) Investment Banking
9 54 (1.98%) Manufacturing
10 46 (1.68%) Law
11 45 (1.65%) Retail
12 39 (1.43%) Automotive
13 34 (1.24%) Telecoms
14 31 (1.13%) Military
15 27 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 25 (0.92%) Aviation
16 25 (0.92%) Influencing Skills
16 25 (0.92%) Marketing
17 21 (0.77%) Back Office
18 17 (0.62%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 1,101 (40.30%) Software Engineer
2 534 (19.55%) Developer
3 525 (19.22%) Senior
4 295 (10.80%) Lead
5 199 (7.28%) Senior Software Engineer
6 157 (5.75%) Java Engineer
7 150 (5.49%) Java Developer
8 149 (5.45%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 149 (5.45%) Embedded Engineer
9 143 (5.23%) Embedded Software Engineer
10 133 (4.87%) Software Developer
11 127 (4.65%) Java Software Engineer
12 118 (4.32%) Architect
13 114 (4.17%) C++ Software Engineer
14 112 (4.10%) Senior Developer
15 111 (4.06%) Python Engineer
16 106 (3.88%) Data Engineer
17 89 (3.26%) DevOps Engineer
18 79 (2.89%) AWS Engineer
19 76 (2.78%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 302 (11.05%) Terraform
2 248 (9.08%) React
3 241 (8.82%) REST
4 222 (8.13%) Spring
5 218 (7.98%) .NET
6 211 (7.72%) Spring Boot
7 176 (6.44%) Kafka
8 151 (5.53%) RESTful
9 133 (4.87%) Node.js
10 97 (3.55%) AngularJS
11 62 (2.27%) Django
12 60 (2.20%) LangChain
13 59 (2.16%) HTML
13 59 (2.16%) OAuth
14 57 (2.09%) CSS
15 54 (1.98%) Next.js
16 51 (1.87%) Web Services
17 46 (1.68%) FastAPI
17 46 (1.68%) Model Context Protocol
18 43 (1.57%) LangGraph
Miscellaneous
1 434 (15.89%) Cloud Native
2 241 (8.82%) Distributed Systems
3 160 (5.86%) AI Agents
4 152 (5.56%) Product Ownership
5 71 (2.60%) Enterprise Software
6 68 (2.49%) Algorithms
7 63 (2.31%) Onboarding
8 57 (2.09%) Data Structures
9 50 (1.83%) Data Protection Act
10 44 (1.61%) Embedded Systems
11 37 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
12 36 (1.32%) Legacy Systems
13 32 (1.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 28 (1.02%) Derivative
14 28 (1.02%) Fixed Income
14 28 (1.02%) Greenfield Project
15 24 (0.88%) Equities
16 23 (0.84%) Robotics
17 21 (0.77%) Virtual Team
18 19 (0.70%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 189 (6.92%) Linux
2 67 (2.45%) Windows
3 34 (1.24%) Unix
4 20 (0.73%) Embedded Linux
5 19 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.51%) Android
7 13 (0.48%) FreeRTOS
8 12 (0.44%) Windows Server
9 9 (0.33%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.26%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.15%) Debian
12 3 (0.11%) Rocky
12 3 (0.11%) VxWorks
13 2 (0.073%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.073%) zOS
14 1 (0.037%) Robot Operating System
14 1 (0.037%) Solaris
14 1 (0.037%) Tizen
14 1 (0.037%) VMS
14 1 (0.037%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 952 (34.85%) CI/CD
2 836 (30.60%) Agile
3 655 (23.98%) DevOps
4 619 (22.66%) AI
5 415 (15.19%) Test Automation
6 401 (14.68%) Microservices
7 354 (12.96%) Continuous Improvement
8 331 (12.12%) Infrastructure as Code
8 331 (12.12%) Problem-Solving
9 295 (10.80%) Observability
10 275 (10.07%) SDLC
11 265 (9.70%) Containerisation
12 262 (9.59%) Stakeholder Management
13 260 (9.52%) Full-Stack Development
14 242 (8.86%) Technical Leadership
15 237 (8.67%) LLM
15 237 (8.67%) Machine Learning
16 230 (8.42%) Platform Engineering
17 221 (8.09%) Event-Driven
17 221 (8.09%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 807 (29.54%) Python
2 675 (24.71%) Java
3 395 (14.46%) SQL
4 310 (11.35%) TypeScript
5 294 (10.76%) C#
6 228 (8.35%) JavaScript
7 225 (8.24%) C++
8 115 (4.21%) C
9 81 (2.96%) Go
10 75 (2.75%) Ada
11 67 (2.45%) Kotlin
12 50 (1.83%) PowerShell
13 48 (1.76%) Bash
14 44 (1.61%) Rust
15 37 (1.35%) Scala
16 30 (1.10%) Embedded C
17 24 (0.88%) PL/SQL
18 23 (0.84%) Bicep
19 21 (0.77%) PHP
20 17 (0.62%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 584 (21.38%) Security Cleared
2 483 (17.68%) SC Cleared
3 220 (8.05%) Degree
4 103 (3.77%) Computer Science Degree
5 101 (3.70%) DV Cleared
6 60 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
7 49 (1.79%) Master's Degree
8 48 (1.76%) AWS Certification
9 25 (0.92%) Azure Certification
10 18 (0.66%) PhD
11 15 (0.55%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 12 (0.44%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 12 (0.44%) PMP
13 9 (0.33%) CISSP
14 6 (0.22%) Chartered Engineer
14 6 (0.22%) TOGAF Certification
15 5 (0.18%) ISTQB
15 5 (0.18%) Numerate Degree
15 5 (0.18%) PMI Certification
16 4 (0.15%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 174 (6.37%) QA
2 81 (2.96%) Data Quality
3 61 (2.23%) Accessibility
4 23 (0.84%) MISRA
5 20 (0.73%) GDPR
6 17 (0.62%) Def Stans
7 15 (0.55%) NIST
8 14 (0.51%) WCAG
9 12 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 12 (0.44%) MISRA C
10 11 (0.40%) IEC 61508
11 10 (0.37%) DO-178B
12 8 (0.29%) GRC
13 7 (0.26%) NCSC
14 5 (0.18%) EMIR
14 5 (0.18%) HL7
14 5 (0.18%) JSP 440
14 5 (0.18%) MiFID
14 5 (0.18%) PCI DSS
15 4 (0.15%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 395 (14.46%) Docker
2 27 (0.99%) Firmware
3 17 (0.62%) Embedded Firmware
4 16 (0.59%) Active Directory
5 12 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.037%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.037%) zsh
Systems Management
1 455 (16.65%) Kubernetes
2 98 (3.59%) Ansible
3 57 (2.09%) Grafana
4 45 (1.65%) Prometheus
5 36 (1.32%) Argo
6 19 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (0.55%) Kibana
8 10 (0.37%) Puppet
9 6 (0.22%) Functional Safety
10 5 (0.18%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.15%) Istio
11 4 (0.15%) Kubeflow
11 4 (0.15%) Kustomize
12 3 (0.11%) Consul
12 3 (0.11%) HP Fortify
13 2 (0.073%) Cilium
13 2 (0.073%) HAProxy
13 2 (0.073%) Packer
13 2 (0.073%) Podman
13 2 (0.073%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 159 (5.82%) Microsoft
2 108 (3.95%) Google
3 89 (3.26%) Databricks
4 84 (3.07%) Oracle
5 74 (2.71%) OpenAI
6 39 (1.43%) Red Hat
7 31 (1.13%) Salesforce
8 26 (0.95%) Splunk
9 18 (0.66%) Foundry
9 18 (0.66%) IBM
10 17 (0.62%) Informatica
10 17 (0.62%) ServiceNow
11 13 (0.48%) Adobe
12 12 (0.44%) SAP
13 10 (0.37%) VMware
14 8 (0.29%) Checkmarx
14 8 (0.29%) Dynatrace
14 8 (0.29%) Siemens
15 7 (0.26%) Hitachi
15 7 (0.26%) Mistral