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

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 44 31
Rank change year-on-year +12 -13 +9
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2,581 1,362 1,919
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.65% 4.91% 5.78%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.66% 5.40% 6.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,408 862 1,199
10th Percentile £400 £375 £407
25th Percentile £468 £463 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% -4.00% +3.22%
75th Percentile £688 £750 £810
90th Percentile £788 £838 £888
UK median daily rate £551 £575 £601
% change year-on-year -4.26% -4.25% +0.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 419 107 261
10th Percentile £51.25 £35.82 £46.18
25th Percentile £60.00 £52.50 £54.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.09 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

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 38,743 25,202 28,504
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.81% 90.84% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,962 16,051 18,351
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £424
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £627 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £751
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,572 1,476 1,524
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.25 £14.05
25th Percentile £19.17 £17.87 £18.08
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.05 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +67.00% -38.57% -3.67%

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 24 August 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 24 August 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 24 August 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 -2 1,161 £600 -7.69% 435
North of England +28 398 £530 +6.77% 231
South East +22 333 £525 +3.65% 311
South West +19 320 £550 +10.00% 225
East of England +21 218 £505 +2.17% 125
North West +9 182 £550 +10.00% 126
Yorkshire +19 153 £500 - 58
Midlands +7 111 £450 -18.18% 114
West Midlands -10 77 £459 -20.17% 60
North East +9 68 £650 +41.30% 48
East Midlands +9 33 £435 -8.42% 53
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 57 (2.21%) Confluence
2 52 (2.01%) Apache Spark
3 42 (1.63%) Apache Airflow
4 33 (1.28%) Apache
5 11 (0.43%) CMS
6 9 (0.35%) SAS
7 8 (0.31%) SharePoint
8 6 (0.23%) Jupyter
9 5 (0.19%) Apache Solr
9 5 (0.19%) Ethereum
9 5 (0.19%) Hyperledger
10 4 (0.15%) Apache Superset
10 4 (0.15%) Camunda
11 3 (0.12%) WordPress
12 2 (0.077%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.077%) IIS
12 2 (0.077%) MQSeries
12 2 (0.077%) nginx
12 2 (0.077%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.077%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 15 (0.58%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (0.39%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 10 (0.39%) Chatbot
3 9 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (0.15%) CPLEX
5 4 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.15%) Simulink
6 3 (0.12%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.12%) Trello
7 2 (0.077%) CATIA
7 2 (0.077%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 2 (0.077%) Notion
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.039%) Blender
8 1 (0.039%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 7 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
1 7 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
2 6 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.19%) R3 Corda
4 4 (0.15%) Quorum
4 4 (0.15%) Ripple
5 3 (0.12%) Orchestrade
5 3 (0.12%) Primavera
5 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.077%) Aladdin
6 2 (0.077%) Endur
6 2 (0.077%) Oracle Payroll
6 2 (0.077%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.039%) Distributed Ledger
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.039%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.039%) Shopify
7 1 (0.039%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 641 (24.84%) AWS
2 522 (20.22%) Azure
3 258 (10.00%) GCP
4 218 (8.45%) GitHub
5 125 (4.84%) Serverless
6 109 (4.22%) Azure DevOps
6 109 (4.22%) GitHub Actions
7 92 (3.56%) AWS Lambda
8 63 (2.44%) Amazon S3
9 58 (2.25%) OpenShift
10 57 (2.21%) Anthropic Claude
11 50 (1.94%) Amazon EKS
12 49 (1.90%) Amazon SQS
13 47 (1.82%) Amazon ECS
14 46 (1.78%) Power Platform
15 44 (1.70%) GitHub Copilot
16 38 (1.47%) Snowflake
17 37 (1.43%) Azure AKS
18 32 (1.24%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 29 (1.12%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 30 (1.16%) Software-Defined Radio
2 29 (1.12%) Wireless
3 20 (0.77%) Ethernet
4 19 (0.74%) Firewall
4 19 (0.74%) Internet
5 18 (0.70%) TCP/IP
6 17 (0.66%) HTTP
7 15 (0.58%) VPN
8 11 (0.43%) Wi-Fi
9 7 (0.27%) Network Security
9 7 (0.27%) RTP
9 7 (0.27%) Wireshark
10 6 (0.23%) 3GPP
11 5 (0.19%) DNS
12 4 (0.15%) IPv4
12 4 (0.15%) IPv6
12 4 (0.15%) RS-232
12 4 (0.15%) SSL
13 3 (0.12%) Cisco IPT
13 3 (0.12%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (5.58%) PostgreSQL
2 102 (3.95%) Relational Database
3 84 (3.25%) NoSQL
3 84 (3.25%) SQL Server
4 49 (1.90%) Data Warehouse
4 49 (1.90%) MongoDB
5 39 (1.51%) DynamoDB
6 36 (1.39%) MySQL
7 33 (1.28%) Power BI
8 29 (1.12%) Metadata
9 28 (1.08%) Big Data
10 26 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
11 25 (0.97%) Data Lake
11 25 (0.97%) Elasticsearch
11 25 (0.97%) Redis
12 21 (0.81%) Pinecone
13 20 (0.77%) BigQuery
14 19 (0.74%) Weaviate
15 17 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
16 12 (0.46%) Apache Cassandra
Development Applications
1 269 (10.42%) Git
2 164 (6.35%) Jenkins
3 149 (5.77%) GitLab
4 117 (4.53%) JIRA
5 58 (2.25%) SonarQube
6 38 (1.47%) Gradle
6 38 (1.47%) JUnit
7 28 (1.08%) Claude Code
8 26 (1.01%) Rational DOORS
9 25 (0.97%) Visual Studio
10 24 (0.93%) Selenium
11 22 (0.85%) Rational Rhapsody
12 20 (0.77%) Maven
13 17 (0.66%) Cucumber
13 17 (0.66%) Mockito
14 16 (0.62%) Bitbucket
15 13 (0.50%) Cypress.io
15 13 (0.50%) Liquibase
16 12 (0.46%) Eclipse
16 12 (0.46%) LabVIEW
General
1 503 (19.49%) Social Skills
2 446 (17.28%) Finance
3 193 (7.48%) Banking
4 185 (7.17%) Analytical Skills
5 184 (7.13%) Public Sector
6 93 (3.60%) Aerospace
7 80 (3.10%) Front Office
8 49 (1.90%) Investment Banking
8 49 (1.90%) Retail
9 46 (1.78%) Law
10 45 (1.74%) Manufacturing
11 35 (1.36%) Automotive
12 31 (1.20%) Military
13 27 (1.05%) Telecoms
14 26 (1.01%) Aviation
15 24 (0.93%) Influencing Skills
16 20 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 20 (0.77%) Marketing
17 18 (0.70%) Electronics
17 18 (0.70%) Legal
Job Titles
1 1,169 (45.29%) Software Engineer
2 469 (18.17%) Developer
3 452 (17.51%) Senior
4 280 (10.85%) Lead
5 192 (7.44%) Senior Software Engineer
6 171 (6.63%) Java Engineer
7 158 (6.12%) Embedded Engineer
8 147 (5.70%) Embedded Software Engineer
9 137 (5.31%) Java Software Engineer
10 124 (4.80%) Java Developer
11 117 (4.53%) C++ Software Engineer
12 114 (4.42%) Software Developer
13 105 (4.07%) Python Engineer
14 104 (4.03%) Architect
15 98 (3.80%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 90 (3.49%) Senior Developer
17 86 (3.33%) Data Engineer
18 83 (3.22%) Lead Software Engineer
19 75 (2.91%) DevOps Engineer
19 75 (2.91%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 265 (10.27%) Terraform
2 253 (9.80%) React
3 213 (8.25%) REST
4 210 (8.14%) .NET
5 207 (8.02%) Spring
6 191 (7.40%) Spring Boot
7 169 (6.55%) Kafka
8 146 (5.66%) Node.js
9 127 (4.92%) RESTful
10 107 (4.15%) AngularJS
11 58 (2.25%) Django
12 53 (2.05%) Next.js
13 49 (1.90%) HTML
14 48 (1.86%) CSS
15 44 (1.70%) GraphQL
16 43 (1.67%) LangChain
17 40 (1.55%) JSON
18 39 (1.51%) Quarkus
18 39 (1.51%) Web Services
19 38 (1.47%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 369 (14.30%) Cloud Native
2 230 (8.91%) Distributed Systems
3 130 (5.04%) Product Ownership
4 96 (3.72%) AI Agents
5 84 (3.25%) Algorithms
6 58 (2.25%) Enterprise Software
7 52 (2.01%) Data Structures
8 50 (1.94%) Embedded Systems
9 48 (1.86%) Onboarding
10 43 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
11 40 (1.55%) Fixed Income
12 34 (1.32%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 34 (1.32%) Legacy Systems
13 30 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
14 27 (1.05%) Derivative
14 27 (1.05%) Robotics
15 24 (0.93%) Equities
15 24 (0.93%) Greenfield Project
16 18 (0.70%) NHS
16 18 (0.70%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 187 (7.25%) Linux
2 56 (2.17%) Windows
3 29 (1.12%) Unix
4 24 (0.93%) Embedded Linux
5 20 (0.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.54%) FreeRTOS
7 13 (0.50%) Android
8 8 (0.31%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.27%) Windows Server
10 6 (0.23%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.23%) Debian
11 3 (0.12%) Rocky
11 3 (0.12%) VMS
12 2 (0.077%) VxWorks
12 2 (0.077%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.039%) Solaris
13 1 (0.039%) Tizen
13 1 (0.039%) webOS
13 1 (0.039%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.039%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 871 (33.75%) CI/CD
2 780 (30.22%) Agile
3 604 (23.40%) DevOps
4 501 (19.41%) AI
5 398 (15.42%) Microservices
6 350 (13.56%) Test Automation
7 305 (11.82%) Problem-Solving
8 291 (11.27%) Continuous Improvement
9 283 (10.96%) Infrastructure as Code
10 260 (10.07%) Containerisation
11 255 (9.88%) Full-Stack Development
12 240 (9.30%) Observability
12 240 (9.30%) SDLC
13 218 (8.45%) Machine Learning
14 205 (7.94%) Platform Engineering
15 204 (7.90%) Technical Leadership
16 199 (7.71%) Mentoring
17 194 (7.52%) Scrum
18 193 (7.48%) Event-Driven
19 191 (7.40%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 745 (28.86%) Python
2 654 (25.34%) Java
3 364 (14.10%) SQL
4 296 (11.47%) C#
5 282 (10.93%) TypeScript
6 227 (8.80%) C++
7 214 (8.29%) JavaScript
8 116 (4.49%) C
9 102 (3.95%) Ada
10 90 (3.49%) Go
11 63 (2.44%) Kotlin
12 44 (1.70%) PowerShell
13 41 (1.59%) Rust
14 40 (1.55%) Bash
15 37 (1.43%) Scala
16 23 (0.89%) Embedded C
16 23 (0.89%) PL/SQL
17 20 (0.77%) Ruby
18 19 (0.74%) Bicep
19 18 (0.70%) PHP
Qualifications
1 598 (23.17%) Security Cleared
2 501 (19.41%) SC Cleared
3 208 (8.06%) Degree
4 95 (3.68%) Computer Science Degree
5 80 (3.10%) DV Cleared
6 55 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
7 46 (1.78%) Master's Degree
8 33 (1.28%) AWS Certification
9 20 (0.77%) PhD
10 16 (0.62%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 14 (0.54%) Azure Certification
12 8 (0.31%) CISSP
13 7 (0.27%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 7 (0.27%) PMP
14 6 (0.23%) Chartered Engineer
14 6 (0.23%) ISTQB
15 4 (0.15%) GIAC
15 4 (0.15%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 4 (0.15%) MBA
15 4 (0.15%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 159 (6.16%) QA
2 61 (2.36%) Data Quality
3 47 (1.82%) Accessibility
4 24 (0.93%) GDPR
5 23 (0.89%) Def Stans
6 17 (0.66%) MISRA
7 15 (0.58%) NIST
8 14 (0.54%) IEC 61508
8 14 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 12 (0.46%) WCAG
10 10 (0.39%) DO-178B
11 9 (0.35%) NCSC
12 7 (0.27%) GRC
13 6 (0.23%) MISRA C
14 5 (0.19%) HL7
14 5 (0.19%) JSP 440
14 5 (0.19%) PCI DSS
14 5 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.12%) DO-254
15 3 (0.12%) MiFID
System Software
1 382 (14.80%) Docker
2 30 (1.16%) Firmware
3 19 (0.74%) Embedded Firmware
4 9 (0.35%) Active Directory
4 9 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.19%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.077%) HDFS
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 433 (16.78%) Kubernetes
2 86 (3.33%) Ansible
3 54 (2.09%) Grafana
4 41 (1.59%) Argo
5 38 (1.47%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (0.43%) Kibana
8 9 (0.35%) Puppet
9 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
9 6 (0.23%) Kubeflow
10 5 (0.19%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.15%) Consul
11 4 (0.15%) HAProxy
12 3 (0.12%) HP Fortify
12 3 (0.12%) Istio
12 3 (0.12%) Kustomize
13 2 (0.077%) Cilium
13 2 (0.077%) Docker Swarm
13 2 (0.077%) Packer
13 2 (0.077%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 136 (5.27%) Microsoft
2 92 (3.56%) Google
3 76 (2.94%) Oracle
4 65 (2.52%) Databricks
5 52 (2.01%) OpenAI
6 42 (1.63%) Red Hat
7 25 (0.97%) Salesforce
8 19 (0.74%) Informatica
8 19 (0.74%) ServiceNow
8 19 (0.74%) Splunk
9 17 (0.66%) IBM
10 12 (0.46%) Adobe
10 12 (0.46%) SAP
11 11 (0.43%) Checkmarx
11 11 (0.43%) Foundry
12 10 (0.39%) ForgeRock
12 10 (0.39%) Okta
13 9 (0.35%) Dynatrace
14 8 (0.31%) Confluent
15 7 (0.27%) Solace