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 12 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 44 32 43
Rank change year-on-year -12 +11 -7
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 1,491 1,689 1,834
As % of all contract jobs in England 4.98% 5.48% 4.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.51% 6.32% 5.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 870 1,014 1,237
10th Percentile £375 £400 £425
25th Percentile £463 £496 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £568 £600 £611
Median % change year-on-year -5.42% -1.80% +1.83%
75th Percentile £700 £788 £743
90th Percentile £825 £875 £817
UK median daily rate £550 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 160 154 231
10th Percentile £45.85 £43.10 £46.18
25th Percentile £52.50 £54.43 £51.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.25 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.38% +0.38% -
75th Percentile £67.00 £70.00 £69.00
90th Percentile £73.80 £75.00 £85.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

All Process and 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 27,075 26,730 35,112
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 90.46% 86.69% 88.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,210 16,317 24,093
10th Percentile £300 £313 £313
25th Percentile £405 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £525 £547
Median % change year-on-year -3.33% -4.02% -0.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.43% -3.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,755 963 1,478
10th Percentile £14.71 £15.10 £14.33
25th Percentile £17.79 £20.06 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.14% -19.10% +27.14%
75th Percentile £45.46 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.17
% change year-on-year -28.14% -18.92% +23.33%

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 12 November 2025.

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 12 November 2025.

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 12 November 2025. 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 -9 818 £625 -7.41% 1,668
North of England -3 208 £525 - 447
South West -13 119 £458 -23.75% 304
Yorkshire +1 109 £525 -4.55% 105
East of England -4 109 £538 +16.22% 288
South East -30 96 £475 -5.00% 529
North West -22 79 £550 +15.79% 292
Midlands -42 69 £509 +5.33% 192
West Midlands -24 55 £528 +9.10% 110
North East -2 23 £488 -18.41% 50
East Midlands -30 14 £436 -8.32% 81
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 75 (5.03%) Apache Airflow
2 72 (4.83%) Apache
3 52 (3.49%) Confluence
4 31 (2.08%) Apache Spark
5 14 (0.94%) JBoss
6 11 (0.74%) WebLogic
7 10 (0.67%) CMS
8 4 (0.27%) IIS
8 4 (0.27%) nginx
8 4 (0.27%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.27%) SAS
8 4 (0.27%) WordPress
9 3 (0.20%) Appian
9 3 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
9 3 (0.20%) SharePoint
9 3 (0.20%) Sitecore CMS
10 2 (0.13%) Drupal
10 2 (0.13%) Magnolia
10 2 (0.13%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.067%) Cloud Foundry
Applications
1 17 (1.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.94%) Chatbot
3 10 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (0.67%) Simulink
4 9 (0.60%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (0.20%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.067%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.067%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.067%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 8 (0.54%) Aladdin
1 8 (0.54%) Temenos T24
2 7 (0.47%) FLEXCUBE
2 7 (0.47%) Oracle BPM
3 3 (0.20%) Fidessa
3 3 (0.20%) thinkFolio
4 2 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.067%) ION Anvil
5 1 (0.067%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.067%) Primavera
5 1 (0.067%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 542 (36.35%) AWS
2 258 (17.30%) Azure
3 175 (11.74%) GCP
4 163 (10.93%) Serverless
5 124 (8.32%) GitHub
6 71 (4.76%) GitHub Actions
7 66 (4.43%) AWS Lambda
8 65 (4.36%) dbt
9 64 (4.29%) Azure DevOps
10 58 (3.89%) Snowflake
11 48 (3.22%) Amazon S3
12 46 (3.09%) Power Platform
13 39 (2.62%) Amazon ECS
14 33 (2.21%) Azure AKS
15 31 (2.08%) AWS CloudFormation
16 29 (1.95%) Azure Functions
17 28 (1.88%) OpenShift
18 27 (1.81%) Amazon EKS
19 25 (1.68%) Amazon EC2
20 23 (1.54%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.74%) Ethernet
2 20 (1.34%) TCP/IP
3 11 (0.74%) Firewall
4 9 (0.60%) Network Security
4 9 (0.60%) NFC
4 9 (0.60%) PPP
5 8 (0.54%) Internet
6 6 (0.40%) Wireless
7 5 (0.34%) HTTP
8 4 (0.27%) tcpdump
8 4 (0.27%) VPN
9 3 (0.20%) BGP
9 3 (0.20%) Kerberos
9 3 (0.20%) Software-Defined Networking
9 3 (0.20%) VLAN
10 2 (0.13%) DNS
10 2 (0.13%) HTTPS
10 2 (0.13%) SSH
10 2 (0.13%) SSL
10 2 (0.13%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (8.32%) PostgreSQL
2 81 (5.43%) NoSQL
3 69 (4.63%) Apache Cassandra
4 66 (4.43%) MongoDB
5 60 (4.02%) Amazon Athena
6 55 (3.69%) Apache Arrow
6 55 (3.69%) Apache Iceberg
6 55 (3.69%) Dremio
7 53 (3.55%) Data Lake
8 44 (2.95%) SQL Server
9 37 (2.48%) Big Data
10 34 (2.28%) Apache Ignite
11 33 (2.21%) Relational Database
12 32 (2.15%) Hadoop
12 32 (2.15%) Power BI
13 31 (2.08%) MySQL
14 27 (1.81%) Elasticsearch
15 25 (1.68%) DynamoDB
16 23 (1.54%) Amazon RDS
17 20 (1.34%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 178 (11.94%) Git
2 137 (9.19%) Jenkins
3 100 (6.71%) JIRA
4 94 (6.30%) GitLab
5 36 (2.41%) Selenium
6 35 (2.35%) Eclipse
7 34 (2.28%) JUnit
7 34 (2.28%) Liquibase
8 31 (2.08%) Cypress.io
9 28 (1.88%) Cucumber
10 25 (1.68%) SonarQube
11 24 (1.61%) Gradle
12 22 (1.48%) Visual Studio
13 18 (1.21%) Rational DOORS
14 17 (1.14%) Maven
15 16 (1.07%) Artifactory
15 16 (1.07%) Mockito
16 13 (0.87%) Bitbucket
16 13 (0.87%) TeamCity
17 12 (0.80%) Postman
General
1 363 (24.35%) Finance
2 345 (23.14%) Social Skills
3 170 (11.40%) Banking
4 118 (7.91%) Front Office
5 107 (7.18%) Public Sector
6 88 (5.90%) Analytical Skills
7 84 (5.63%) Investment Banking
8 40 (2.68%) Financial Institution
8 40 (2.68%) Military
9 28 (1.88%) Aerospace
10 22 (1.48%) Law
11 21 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
12 19 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
13 18 (1.21%) Electronics
14 17 (1.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 16 (1.07%) Pharmaceutical
16 15 (1.01%) Documentation Skills
17 12 (0.80%) Retail
18 11 (0.74%) Manufacturing
19 10 (0.67%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 656 (44.00%) Software Engineer
2 368 (24.68%) Developer
3 301 (20.19%) Senior
4 148 (9.93%) Senior Software Engineer
5 125 (8.38%) Lead
6 117 (7.85%) Python Engineer
7 96 (6.44%) AWS Engineer
7 96 (6.44%) C++ Software Engineer
8 94 (6.30%) Java Engineer
9 87 (5.84%) Java Software Engineer
10 85 (5.70%) AWS Software Engineer
11 83 (5.57%) Python Software Engineer
12 72 (4.83%) Python Developer
13 69 (4.63%) Java Developer
14 62 (4.16%) Senior Developer
15 61 (4.09%) Developer/Software Engineer
16 51 (3.42%) Full-Stack Engineer
17 49 (3.29%) Architect
18 47 (3.15%) Data Engineer
19 46 (3.09%) Lead Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 245 (16.43%) React
2 226 (15.16%) Kafka
3 178 (11.94%) Node.js
4 138 (9.26%) .NET
5 132 (8.85%) REST
6 116 (7.78%) RESTful
7 112 (7.51%) gRPC
8 109 (7.31%) AngularJS
9 92 (6.17%) Pandas
10 88 (5.90%) Spring
11 87 (5.84%) NumPy
12 76 (5.10%) SciPy
13 66 (4.43%) Spring Boot
14 63 (4.23%) Vue
15 57 (3.82%) HTML
16 53 (3.55%) FastAPI
16 53 (3.55%) JSON
17 50 (3.35%) GraphQL
18 42 (2.82%) CSS
18 42 (2.82%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 166 (11.13%) Cloud Native
2 128 (8.58%) Distributed Systems
3 112 (7.51%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 104 (6.98%) Fixed Income
5 71 (4.76%) Equities
6 70 (4.69%) Hedge funds
7 59 (3.96%) Algorithms
8 47 (3.15%) Derivative
9 46 (3.09%) Product Ownership
10 43 (2.88%) Data Structures
11 35 (2.35%) Public Cloud
12 34 (2.28%) Pricing Data
13 33 (2.21%) Data Protection Act
13 33 (2.21%) Greenfield Project
13 33 (2.21%) Virtual Team
14 21 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
15 19 (1.27%) Legacy Systems
16 17 (1.14%) Embedded Systems
16 17 (1.14%) Onboarding
17 15 (1.01%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 233 (15.63%) Linux
2 72 (4.83%) Windows
3 52 (3.49%) Unix
4 22 (1.48%) Ubuntu
5 19 (1.27%) Android
6 11 (0.74%) Apple iOS
7 8 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 8 (0.54%) Windows Server
8 6 (0.40%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.34%) FreeRTOS
10 4 (0.27%) VMS
11 1 (0.067%) Amazon Linux
11 1 (0.067%) Robot Operating System
11 1 (0.067%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.067%) Windows Embedded Compact
11 1 (0.067%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.067%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 627 (42.05%) Agile
2 458 (30.72%) CI/CD
3 346 (23.21%) DevOps
4 300 (20.12%) Microservices
5 232 (15.56%) Problem-Solving
6 190 (12.74%) Containerisation
6 190 (12.74%) Infrastructure as Code
7 176 (11.80%) Test Automation
8 167 (11.20%) Computer Science
9 162 (10.87%) Mentoring
10 160 (10.73%) AI
11 154 (10.33%) Full-Stack Development
11 154 (10.33%) TDD
12 143 (9.59%) Scrum
13 135 (9.05%) Machine Learning
14 116 (7.78%) Clean Code
15 112 (7.51%) Open Source
16 103 (6.91%) Continuous Integration
17 92 (6.17%) Continuous Improvement
18 91 (6.10%) Investment Management
Programming Languages
1 535 (35.88%) Python
2 403 (27.03%) Java
3 298 (19.99%) JavaScript
4 265 (17.77%) SQL
5 245 (16.43%) TypeScript
6 243 (16.30%) C++
7 210 (14.08%) C#
8 141 (9.46%) Go
9 71 (4.76%) C
10 36 (2.41%) Ada
11 33 (2.21%) Shell Script
12 30 (2.01%) Rust
13 29 (1.95%) Bash
14 20 (1.34%) VB
15 19 (1.27%) PowerShell
15 19 (1.27%) Ruby
15 19 (1.27%) Scala
16 16 (1.07%) PL/SQL
17 15 (1.01%) MATLAB
18 14 (0.94%) PHP
Qualifications
1 259 (17.37%) Security Cleared
2 213 (14.29%) SC Cleared
3 200 (13.41%) Degree
4 95 (6.37%) Computer Science Degree
5 51 (3.42%) Master's Degree
6 47 (3.15%) DV Cleared
7 20 (1.34%) BPSS Clearance
8 19 (1.27%) AWS Certification
9 18 (1.21%) PhD
10 17 (1.14%) MCP
11 13 (0.87%) CISSP
12 11 (0.74%) CISM
13 10 (0.67%) Azure Certification
14 9 (0.60%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 8 (0.54%) TOGAF Certification
16 7 (0.47%) Postgraduate
17 6 (0.40%) ISTQB
18 4 (0.27%) HND
18 4 (0.27%) PMP
19 3 (0.20%) EMC Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 77 (5.16%) QA
2 32 (2.15%) Data Quality
3 29 (1.95%) Accessibility
4 20 (1.34%) WCAG
5 19 (1.27%) Def Stans
6 17 (1.14%) IEC 61508
7 16 (1.07%) GDPR
7 16 (1.07%) MISRA
8 14 (0.94%) NIST
9 13 (0.87%) EU AI Act
10 11 (0.74%) MISRA C
11 9 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 6 (0.40%) DO-178B
13 5 (0.34%) SLA
13 5 (0.34%) Software Quality Assurance
14 4 (0.27%) ISO 26262
14 4 (0.27%) MiFID
15 3 (0.20%) NCSC
15 3 (0.20%) SEPA
15 3 (0.20%) SOC 2
System Software
1 337 (22.60%) Docker
2 16 (1.07%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
4 6 (0.40%) Firmware
5 5 (0.34%) zsh
6 4 (0.27%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.067%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.067%) KVM
7 1 (0.067%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.067%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 320 (21.46%) Kubernetes
2 183 (12.27%) Terraform
3 67 (4.49%) Ansible
4 64 (4.29%) Grafana
5 54 (3.62%) Prometheus
6 16 (1.07%) Puppet
7 13 (0.87%) Kibana
8 8 (0.54%) Argo
8 8 (0.54%) Podman
8 8 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
9 5 (0.34%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.27%) Functional Safety
10 4 (0.27%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.20%) Cilium
11 3 (0.20%) Rsyslog
11 3 (0.20%) SCOM
11 3 (0.20%) SELinux
12 2 (0.13%) Packer
12 2 (0.13%) rkt
13 1 (0.067%) Consul
Vendors
1 126 (8.45%) Microsoft
2 60 (4.02%) Oracle
3 54 (3.62%) Google
4 38 (2.55%) Splunk
5 33 (2.21%) Databricks
6 32 (2.15%) Foundry
7 28 (1.88%) Red Hat
8 15 (1.01%) Atlassian
8 15 (1.01%) Palantir
9 14 (0.94%) Cloudera
10 10 (0.67%) BiZZdesign
10 10 (0.67%) OpenAI
10 10 (0.67%) Salesforce
10 10 (0.67%) Temenos
11 9 (0.60%) CA Agile Central
11 9 (0.60%) SAP
11 9 (0.60%) webMethods
12 8 (0.54%) ServiceNow
13 7 (0.47%) Cisco
13 7 (0.47%) IBM