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 3 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 41 33
Rank change year-on-year +1 -8 +9
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 1,927 1,220 1,958
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.02% 5.03% 5.21%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.84% 5.54% 6.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,017 814 1,144
10th Percentile £395 £406 £425
25th Percentile £450 £500 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £669 £750 £748
90th Percentile £788 £838 £825
UK median daily rate £550 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 404 80 321
10th Percentile £52.15 £42.95 £46.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £52.88 £51.75
Median hourly rate £65.00 £64.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.78% +3.20% -3.21%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.46 £68.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £64.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +1.56% +2.40% -2.56%

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 32,977 22,016 32,582
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.99% 90.82% 86.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,149 14,501 21,512
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 £614 £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 2,015 852 2,158
10th Percentile £15.38 £15.00 £12.92
25th Percentile £19.34 £19.96 £15.78
Median hourly rate £37.50 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.38% - -13.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.64 £58.69
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £70.66
UK median hourly rate £35.77 £31.76 £32.50
% change year-on-year +12.61% -2.28% -10.41%

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 3 April 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 3 April 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 3 April 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 -11 832 £600 -9.43% 539
North of England +17 281 £500 -4.76% 264
South West +10 259 £543 -7.26% 216
South East -3 204 £525 +2.44% 355
East of England +29 189 £475 -2.66% 135
North West -2 131 £500 -5.66% 145
Yorkshire -2 106 £519 +3.75% 87
Midlands -27 102 £503 +2.65% 126
West Midlands -20 90 £500 - 74
North East +21 47 £478 +3.80% 33
East Midlands -32 12 £538 +8.59% 52
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 58 (3.01%) Confluence
2 47 (2.44%) Apache
3 45 (2.34%) Apache Spark
4 19 (0.99%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (0.47%) CMS
5 9 (0.47%) WebLogic
6 8 (0.42%) Palantir Foundry
7 4 (0.21%) IIS
7 4 (0.21%) JBoss
7 4 (0.21%) nginx
7 4 (0.21%) OpenStack
7 4 (0.21%) SharePoint
8 3 (0.16%) Camunda
8 3 (0.16%) SAS
9 2 (0.10%) Magnolia
9 2 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.10%) Sitecore CMS
9 2 (0.10%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.10%) WinCC
9 2 (0.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 11 (0.57%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (0.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.26%) Chatbot
4 4 (0.21%) Simulink
5 3 (0.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.10%) CPLEX
6 2 (0.10%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.052%) Maya
7 1 (0.052%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.052%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.052%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.10%) Aladdin
2 2 (0.10%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.10%) LabWindows
2 2 (0.10%) Primavera
3 1 (0.052%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.052%) Sprinklr
3 1 (0.052%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 550 (28.54%) AWS
2 359 (18.63%) Azure
3 184 (9.55%) GCP
4 129 (6.69%) GitHub
5 128 (6.64%) Serverless
6 70 (3.63%) Azure DevOps
7 63 (3.27%) AWS Lambda
8 58 (3.01%) GitHub Actions
9 57 (2.96%) Amazon S3
10 52 (2.70%) OpenShift
11 47 (2.44%) Power Platform
12 43 (2.23%) AWS CloudFormation
13 40 (2.08%) Azure AKS
14 35 (1.82%) Amazon EKS
15 32 (1.66%) Amazon ECS
16 30 (1.56%) Azure Functions
16 30 (1.56%) SaaS
17 29 (1.50%) Amazon EC2
18 27 (1.40%) Amazon SQS
19 23 (1.19%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.19%) Ethernet
2 13 (0.67%) Network Security
2 13 (0.67%) TCP/IP
3 10 (0.52%) Firewall
3 10 (0.52%) Software-Defined Radio
4 7 (0.36%) Wireless
5 6 (0.31%) HTTP
6 5 (0.26%) 3GPP
6 5 (0.26%) Modbus
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
8 3 (0.16%) Bluetooth
8 3 (0.16%) IPv4
8 3 (0.16%) IPv6
8 3 (0.16%) RS-422
8 3 (0.16%) VPN
9 2 (0.10%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 126 (6.54%) PostgreSQL
2 68 (3.53%) Relational Database
3 65 (3.37%) NoSQL
4 64 (3.32%) Apache Cassandra
5 57 (2.96%) SQL Server
6 53 (2.75%) MongoDB
7 34 (1.76%) Data Lake
7 34 (1.76%) Power BI
8 32 (1.66%) Amazon RDS
9 28 (1.45%) MySQL
10 27 (1.40%) Big Data
10 27 (1.40%) BigQuery
11 23 (1.19%) DynamoDB
11 23 (1.19%) Metadata
12 18 (0.93%) Data Warehouse
13 17 (0.88%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.83%) Amazon Athena
15 15 (0.78%) Hadoop
15 15 (0.78%) Mixpanel
16 13 (0.67%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 200 (10.38%) Git
2 127 (6.59%) Jenkins
3 107 (5.55%) GitLab
4 106 (5.50%) JIRA
5 35 (1.82%) Rational DOORS
5 35 (1.82%) SonarQube
6 33 (1.71%) JUnit
6 33 (1.71%) Rational Rhapsody
7 28 (1.45%) Selenium
8 26 (1.35%) Cucumber
9 25 (1.30%) Gradle
10 24 (1.25%) Cypress.io
11 23 (1.19%) IntelliJ
12 22 (1.14%) Bitbucket
13 21 (1.09%) Maven
14 17 (0.88%) Eclipse
14 17 (0.88%) Liquibase
14 17 (0.88%) Mockito
14 17 (0.88%) Visual Studio
15 10 (0.52%) Artifactory
General
1 305 (15.83%) Social Skills
2 302 (15.67%) Finance
3 125 (6.49%) Public Sector
4 114 (5.92%) Banking
5 105 (5.45%) Analytical Skills
6 76 (3.94%) Aerospace
7 66 (3.43%) Front Office
8 41 (2.13%) Electronics
9 34 (1.76%) Law
10 30 (1.56%) Retail
11 27 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
11 27 (1.40%) Investment Banking
12 26 (1.35%) Financial Institution
12 26 (1.35%) Military
13 25 (1.30%) Manufacturing
14 22 (1.14%) Telecoms
15 20 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
16 13 (0.67%) Documentation Skills
17 12 (0.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 12 (0.62%) Legal
Job Titles
1 1,027 (53.30%) Software Engineer
2 358 (18.58%) Senior
3 346 (17.96%) Developer
4 168 (8.72%) Senior Software Engineer
5 145 (7.52%) Lead
6 136 (7.06%) Java Engineer
7 122 (6.33%) C++ Software Engineer
8 118 (6.12%) Embedded Engineer
9 107 (5.55%) Java Software Engineer
10 106 (5.50%) Embedded Software Engineer
11 83 (4.31%) Architect
12 81 (4.20%) Java Developer
13 74 (3.84%) Senior Developer
14 67 (3.48%) Python Engineer
15 61 (3.17%) Developer/Software Engineer
15 61 (3.17%) Python Developer
16 58 (3.01%) Lead Software Engineer
17 55 (2.85%) Data Engineer
18 54 (2.80%) AWS Engineer
19 51 (2.65%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 231 (11.99%) React
2 206 (10.69%) Kafka
3 167 (8.67%) Node.js
4 143 (7.42%) REST
5 141 (7.32%) .NET
6 130 (6.75%) Spring
7 116 (6.02%) Spring Boot
8 103 (5.35%) AngularJS
8 103 (5.35%) RESTful
9 68 (3.53%) GraphQL
9 68 (3.53%) gRPC
10 57 (2.96%) Middleware
11 52 (2.70%) Redux
12 50 (2.59%) HTML
13 49 (2.54%) CSS
14 48 (2.49%) JSON
15 44 (2.28%) Playwright
16 36 (1.87%) Web Services
17 33 (1.71%) Vue
18 31 (1.61%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 221 (11.47%) Cloud Native
2 156 (8.10%) Distributed Systems
3 94 (4.88%) Product Ownership
4 70 (3.63%) Algorithms
5 62 (3.22%) Fixed Income
6 34 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
7 30 (1.56%) Mobile App
8 29 (1.50%) Derivative
9 28 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
9 28 (1.45%) Onboarding
10 27 (1.40%) AI Agents
11 26 (1.35%) Data Structures
12 25 (1.30%) Embedded Systems
12 25 (1.30%) Equities
13 24 (1.25%) Greenfield Project
14 23 (1.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 21 (1.09%) Public Cloud
16 18 (0.93%) Hedge funds
17 17 (0.88%) Robotics
18 16 (0.83%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 201 (10.43%) Linux
2 73 (3.79%) Windows
3 45 (2.34%) Unix
4 26 (1.35%) Android
5 25 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 19 (0.99%) Apple iOS
7 15 (0.78%) Windows Server
8 10 (0.52%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.42%) Embedded Linux
10 7 (0.36%) FreeRTOS
11 5 (0.26%) Debian
11 5 (0.26%) VMS
12 3 (0.16%) Rocky
13 2 (0.10%) Robot Operating System
13 2 (0.10%) Solaris
13 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.052%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.052%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 571 (29.63%) Agile
2 562 (29.16%) CI/CD
3 397 (20.60%) DevOps
4 336 (17.44%) Microservices
5 267 (13.86%) AI
6 241 (12.51%) Problem-Solving
7 220 (11.42%) Containerisation
8 205 (10.64%) Test Automation
9 198 (10.28%) Full-Stack Development
10 197 (10.22%) Infrastructure as Code
11 168 (8.72%) Computer Science
12 165 (8.56%) Machine Learning
13 154 (7.99%) Continuous Improvement
14 152 (7.89%) Mentoring
15 147 (7.63%) Observability
16 133 (6.90%) SDLC
17 132 (6.85%) Scrum
18 129 (6.69%) TDD
19 128 (6.64%) Technical Leadership
20 115 (5.97%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 536 (27.82%) Python
2 479 (24.86%) Java
3 252 (13.08%) SQL
4 234 (12.14%) C#
4 234 (12.14%) C++
4 234 (12.14%) TypeScript
5 220 (11.42%) JavaScript
6 166 (8.61%) Go
7 126 (6.54%) Ada
8 113 (5.86%) C
9 39 (2.02%) PowerShell
10 34 (1.76%) Kotlin
11 32 (1.66%) Bash
12 28 (1.45%) Embedded C
13 27 (1.40%) Rust
14 26 (1.35%) Ruby
15 25 (1.30%) MATLAB
16 22 (1.14%) Shell Script
17 20 (1.04%) Embedded C++
18 17 (0.88%) Scala
Qualifications
1 475 (24.65%) Security Cleared
2 367 (19.05%) SC Cleared
3 190 (9.86%) Degree
4 91 (4.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 63 (3.27%) DV Cleared
6 55 (2.85%) Master's Degree
7 28 (1.45%) BPSS Clearance
8 21 (1.09%) AWS Certification
9 19 (0.99%) PhD
10 17 (0.88%) CISSP
11 14 (0.73%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.73%) CISM
12 13 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 12 (0.62%) TOGAF Certification
14 8 (0.42%) ISTQB
15 7 (0.36%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Certification
17 4 (0.21%) HND
17 4 (0.21%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 3 (0.16%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 110 (5.71%) QA
2 56 (2.91%) Def Stans
3 41 (2.13%) Data Quality
4 40 (2.08%) IEC 61508
5 27 (1.40%) Accessibility
6 26 (1.35%) GDPR
6 26 (1.35%) MISRA
7 19 (0.99%) MISRA C
8 15 (0.78%) WCAG
9 11 (0.57%) NIST
10 8 (0.42%) DO-178B
11 7 (0.36%) HL7
11 7 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 6 (0.31%) NCSC
13 3 (0.16%) EU AI Act
13 3 (0.16%) SLA
14 2 (0.10%) FATCA
14 2 (0.10%) PCI DSS
14 2 (0.10%) PMO
14 2 (0.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 320 (16.61%) Docker
2 18 (0.93%) Firmware
3 16 (0.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (0.62%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.42%) Active Directory
6 5 (0.26%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
8 3 (0.16%) HDFS
9 2 (0.10%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 364 (18.89%) Kubernetes
2 214 (11.11%) Terraform
3 94 (4.88%) Grafana
4 60 (3.11%) Ansible
5 55 (2.85%) Prometheus
6 32 (1.66%) Argo
7 18 (0.93%) Puppet
8 13 (0.67%) Progress Chef
9 7 (0.36%) Single Sign-On
10 6 (0.31%) Istio
10 6 (0.31%) Kibana
11 5 (0.26%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.21%) Data Guard
12 4 (0.21%) Docker Swarm
12 4 (0.21%) HAProxy
12 4 (0.21%) HP Quality Center
13 3 (0.16%) Podman
13 3 (0.16%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
14 2 (0.10%) HP ALM
15 1 (0.052%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 146 (7.58%) Microsoft
2 72 (3.74%) Google
3 63 (3.27%) Oracle
4 62 (3.22%) Red Hat
5 49 (2.54%) Databricks
6 25 (1.30%) Splunk
7 22 (1.14%) IBM
8 20 (1.04%) Foundry
9 17 (0.88%) VMware
10 16 (0.83%) OpenAI
11 13 (0.67%) BiZZdesign
12 11 (0.57%) Siemens
13 10 (0.52%) Atlassian
13 10 (0.52%) PagerDuty
13 10 (0.52%) ServiceNow
14 9 (0.47%) Palantir
14 9 (0.47%) SAP
14 9 (0.47%) Software AG
15 8 (0.42%) ANSYS
15 8 (0.42%) MathWorks