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

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 44 31
Rank change year-on-year +9 -13 +10
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2,147 1,169 2,050
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.23% 4.82% 5.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.18% 5.28% 6.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,123 770 1,205
10th Percentile £400 £400 £425
25th Percentile £455 £486 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £673 £763 £750
90th Percentile £775 £838 £850
UK median daily rate £550 £585 £600
% change year-on-year -5.98% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 460 76 356
10th Percentile £52.50 £40.38 £46.25
25th Percentile £61.19 £56.97 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year - +4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.46 £68.75 £80.00
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 34,754 22,136 31,448
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.71% 91.24% 86.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,164 14,481 20,585
10th Percentile £320 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £505 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,141 934 2,241
10th Percentile £15.34 £14.41 £12.87
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.41 £16.00
Median hourly rate £47.00 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +62.07% -20.55% -2.14%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.06 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £28.41 £36.02
% change year-on-year +49.60% -21.13% +0.06%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 -7 892 £578 -13.73% 720
North of England +19 315 £500 - 305
South West +17 307 £575 +2.22% 192
South East +14 272 £525 +2.44% 384
East of England +45 219 £495 +1.43% 173
North West +4 145 £500 - 163
Yorkshire +11 118 £500 +0.73% 78
Midlands -30 88 £498 +1.53% 120
West Midlands -19 77 £482 -9.26% 65
North East +22 57 £593 +28.80% 66
East Midlands -30 10 £563 +14.80% 55
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 54 (2.52%) Confluence
2 43 (2.00%) Apache Spark
3 38 (1.77%) Apache
4 20 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.33%) SAS
6 5 (0.23%) CMS
6 5 (0.23%) IIS
6 5 (0.23%) nginx
6 5 (0.23%) Palantir Foundry
6 5 (0.23%) SharePoint
7 4 (0.19%) WebLogic
8 3 (0.14%) Camunda
8 3 (0.14%) OpenStack
8 3 (0.14%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.093%) MQSeries
9 2 (0.093%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.093%) WinCC
10 1 (0.047%) Cloud Foundry
10 1 (0.047%) Microsoft Exchange
10 1 (0.047%) Smallworld
Applications
1 15 (0.70%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (0.28%) Chatbot
2 6 (0.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.19%) CPLEX
3 4 (0.19%) Simulink
4 2 (0.093%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.093%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.047%) Adobe After Effects
5 1 (0.047%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 1 (0.047%) Blender
5 1 (0.047%) CATIA
5 1 (0.047%) Maya
5 1 (0.047%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.047%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 6 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.093%) Aladdin
4 2 (0.093%) LabWindows
4 2 (0.093%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.047%) Orchestrade
5 1 (0.047%) Sprinklr
5 1 (0.047%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 540 (25.15%) AWS
2 398 (18.54%) Azure
3 195 (9.08%) GCP
4 144 (6.71%) GitHub
5 113 (5.26%) Serverless
6 78 (3.63%) Azure DevOps
7 69 (3.21%) AWS Lambda
8 61 (2.84%) Amazon S3
9 60 (2.79%) GitHub Actions
10 49 (2.28%) OpenShift
11 43 (2.00%) Power Platform
12 39 (1.82%) Amazon EKS
12 39 (1.82%) Azure AKS
13 36 (1.68%) Amazon ECS
14 33 (1.54%) AWS CloudFormation
15 32 (1.49%) Amazon EC2
15 32 (1.49%) Amazon SQS
16 27 (1.26%) SaaS
17 21 (0.98%) Anthropic Claude
17 21 (0.98%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 30 (1.40%) Software-Defined Radio
2 25 (1.16%) Ethernet
3 17 (0.79%) Wireless
4 15 (0.70%) HTTP
5 14 (0.65%) TCP/IP
6 10 (0.47%) Firewall
7 9 (0.42%) 3GPP
7 9 (0.42%) Network Security
8 8 (0.37%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (0.28%) RTP
9 6 (0.28%) VPN
10 5 (0.23%) Modbus
10 5 (0.23%) Wireshark
11 4 (0.19%) DNS
11 4 (0.19%) RS-232
11 4 (0.19%) RS-485
12 3 (0.14%) Bluetooth
12 3 (0.14%) IPv4
12 3 (0.14%) IPv6
12 3 (0.14%) RS-422
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (6.05%) PostgreSQL
2 71 (3.31%) Relational Database
3 66 (3.07%) SQL Server
4 57 (2.65%) NoSQL
5 50 (2.33%) MongoDB
6 47 (2.19%) Apache Cassandra
7 34 (1.58%) Power BI
8 32 (1.49%) Amazon RDS
9 29 (1.35%) BigQuery
9 29 (1.35%) DynamoDB
10 28 (1.30%) Data Lake
11 27 (1.26%) Big Data
12 24 (1.12%) MySQL
13 20 (0.93%) Data Warehouse
13 20 (0.93%) Metadata
14 16 (0.75%) Amazon Athena
14 16 (0.75%) Pinecone
14 16 (0.75%) Redis
15 15 (0.70%) Weaviate
16 14 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 208 (9.69%) Git
2 144 (6.71%) Jenkins
3 127 (5.92%) GitLab
4 110 (5.12%) JIRA
5 46 (2.14%) SonarQube
6 45 (2.10%) Gradle
7 33 (1.54%) JUnit
8 32 (1.49%) Rational DOORS
9 31 (1.44%) Rational Rhapsody
10 25 (1.16%) Cucumber
11 24 (1.12%) IntelliJ
12 23 (1.07%) Bitbucket
12 23 (1.07%) Maven
13 19 (0.88%) Selenium
14 18 (0.84%) Visual Studio
15 17 (0.79%) Cypress.io
16 16 (0.75%) Mockito
17 15 (0.70%) Liquibase
18 13 (0.61%) Artifactory
19 12 (0.56%) Eclipse
General
1 342 (15.93%) Finance
2 303 (14.11%) Social Skills
3 127 (5.92%) Public Sector
4 125 (5.82%) Analytical Skills
4 125 (5.82%) Banking
5 89 (4.15%) Aerospace
6 70 (3.26%) Front Office
7 44 (2.05%) Manufacturing
8 39 (1.82%) Law
9 33 (1.54%) Investment Banking
9 33 (1.54%) Retail
10 31 (1.44%) Electronics
11 27 (1.26%) Military
12 24 (1.12%) Influencing Skills
13 23 (1.07%) Telecoms
14 19 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
15 18 (0.84%) Automotive
15 18 (0.84%) Aviation
16 16 (0.75%) Financial Institution
17 14 (0.65%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 1,164 (54.22%) Software Engineer
2 387 (18.03%) Developer
3 369 (17.19%) Senior
4 180 (8.38%) Senior Software Engineer
5 165 (7.69%) Lead
6 164 (7.64%) Embedded Engineer
7 153 (7.13%) Java Engineer
8 152 (7.08%) Embedded Software Engineer
9 124 (5.78%) Java Software Engineer
10 118 (5.50%) C++ Software Engineer
11 111 (5.17%) Java Developer
12 82 (3.82%) Architect
13 73 (3.40%) Senior Developer
14 70 (3.26%) Developer/Software Engineer
15 65 (3.03%) Full-Stack Engineer
16 62 (2.89%) Software Developer
17 60 (2.79%) Data Engineer
17 60 (2.79%) DevOps Engineer
17 60 (2.79%) Python Engineer
18 59 (2.75%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 244 (11.36%) React
2 185 (8.62%) Kafka
3 171 (7.96%) Node.js
4 160 (7.45%) Spring
5 159 (7.41%) .NET
6 146 (6.80%) REST
7 145 (6.75%) Spring Boot
8 108 (5.03%) AngularJS
9 96 (4.47%) RESTful
10 75 (3.49%) GraphQL
11 53 (2.47%) Redux
12 49 (2.28%) Middleware
13 45 (2.10%) CSS
13 45 (2.10%) gRPC
14 43 (2.00%) HTML
15 37 (1.72%) JSON
15 37 (1.72%) Playwright
16 35 (1.63%) Next.js
16 35 (1.63%) OpenTelemetry
17 34 (1.58%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 220 (10.25%) Cloud Native
2 150 (6.99%) Distributed Systems
3 100 (4.66%) Product Ownership
4 88 (4.10%) Algorithms
5 61 (2.84%) Fixed Income
6 51 (2.38%) AI Agents
7 36 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
8 35 (1.63%) Embedded Systems
9 34 (1.58%) Onboarding
10 30 (1.40%) Derivative
10 30 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
11 29 (1.35%) Robotics
12 28 (1.30%) Data Structures
13 25 (1.16%) Mobile App
14 22 (1.02%) Greenfield Project
15 20 (0.93%) Equities
15 20 (0.93%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 14 (0.65%) FPGA
17 13 (0.61%) Data Centre
17 13 (0.61%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 198 (9.22%) Linux
2 69 (3.21%) Windows
3 44 (2.05%) Unix
4 24 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (1.07%) Android
6 18 (0.84%) Apple iOS
7 14 (0.65%) Embedded Linux
8 12 (0.56%) Windows Server
9 11 (0.51%) FreeRTOS
10 6 (0.28%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.23%) Debian
12 4 (0.19%) Rocky
12 4 (0.19%) VMS
13 3 (0.14%) Solaris
13 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
13 3 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
14 2 (0.093%) Robot Operating System
15 1 (0.047%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 618 (28.78%) CI/CD
2 585 (27.25%) Agile
3 426 (19.84%) DevOps
4 338 (15.74%) Microservices
5 295 (13.74%) AI
6 241 (11.22%) Problem-Solving
7 231 (10.76%) Test Automation
8 229 (10.67%) Full-Stack Development
9 224 (10.43%) Containerisation
10 199 (9.27%) Infrastructure as Code
11 164 (7.64%) Observability
12 157 (7.31%) SDLC
13 153 (7.13%) Continuous Improvement
14 152 (7.08%) Machine Learning
15 149 (6.94%) Computer Science
15 149 (6.94%) Mentoring
16 146 (6.80%) TDD
17 142 (6.61%) Scrum
18 140 (6.52%) Technical Leadership
19 128 (5.96%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 555 (25.85%) Java
2 544 (25.34%) Python
3 284 (13.23%) SQL
4 277 (12.90%) C#
5 257 (11.97%) TypeScript
6 227 (10.57%) JavaScript
7 221 (10.29%) C++
8 148 (6.89%) Go
9 128 (5.96%) Ada
10 116 (5.40%) C
11 41 (1.91%) Kotlin
12 38 (1.77%) PowerShell
13 33 (1.54%) Bash
13 33 (1.54%) Rust
14 31 (1.44%) Embedded C
15 26 (1.21%) MATLAB
16 21 (0.98%) Scala
17 20 (0.93%) Ruby
17 20 (0.93%) Shell Script
18 16 (0.75%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 518 (24.13%) Security Cleared
2 405 (18.86%) SC Cleared
3 173 (8.06%) Degree
4 88 (4.10%) Computer Science Degree
5 69 (3.21%) DV Cleared
6 33 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
6 33 (1.54%) Master's Degree
7 20 (0.93%) AWS Certification
8 13 (0.61%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 11 (0.51%) Azure Certification
10 8 (0.37%) CISSP
10 8 (0.37%) PhD
11 7 (0.33%) ISTQB
11 7 (0.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 6 (0.28%) CISM
12 6 (0.28%) TOGAF Certification
13 3 (0.14%) Cisco Certification
13 3 (0.14%) HNC
13 3 (0.14%) HND
13 3 (0.14%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (5.26%) QA
2 48 (2.24%) Def Stans
3 40 (1.86%) Data Quality
4 34 (1.58%) IEC 61508
5 27 (1.26%) Accessibility
6 24 (1.12%) GDPR
7 20 (0.93%) MISRA
8 14 (0.65%) MISRA C
9 9 (0.42%) NCSC
10 8 (0.37%) WCAG
11 7 (0.33%) NIST
12 6 (0.28%) DO-178B
12 6 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
13 5 (0.23%) HL7
13 5 (0.23%) PCI DSS
14 4 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.14%) EMIR
15 3 (0.14%) FATCA
15 3 (0.14%) JSP 440
15 3 (0.14%) MiFID
System Software
1 310 (14.44%) Docker
2 21 (0.98%) Firmware
3 15 (0.70%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
5 8 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (0.28%) Active Directory
7 4 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
8 3 (0.14%) HDFS
9 2 (0.093%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 356 (16.58%) Kubernetes
2 207 (9.64%) Terraform
3 86 (4.01%) Grafana
4 61 (2.84%) Ansible
5 50 (2.33%) Prometheus
6 37 (1.72%) Argo
7 13 (0.61%) Puppet
8 11 (0.51%) Progress Chef
9 6 (0.28%) Istio
9 6 (0.28%) Kibana
10 5 (0.23%) HAProxy
11 4 (0.19%) Data Guard
11 4 (0.19%) Docker Swarm
11 4 (0.19%) HP Quality Center
11 4 (0.19%) Kubeflow
11 4 (0.19%) Single Sign-On
12 3 (0.14%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 2 (0.093%) Consul
13 2 (0.093%) HP ALM
13 2 (0.093%) Podman
Vendors
1 126 (5.87%) Microsoft
2 73 (3.40%) Google
3 58 (2.70%) Oracle
4 57 (2.65%) Red Hat
5 45 (2.10%) Databricks
6 25 (1.16%) OpenAI
7 23 (1.07%) IBM
8 17 (0.79%) Splunk
9 16 (0.75%) VMware
10 14 (0.65%) Informatica
11 13 (0.61%) Foundry
11 13 (0.61%) SAP
11 13 (0.61%) ServiceNow
12 11 (0.51%) Okta
12 11 (0.51%) Siemens
13 10 (0.47%) Dynatrace
13 10 (0.47%) ForgeRock
13 10 (0.47%) MathWorks
14 9 (0.42%) Atlassian
14 9 (0.42%) Salesforce