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

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 45 27
Rank change year-on-year +13 -18 +13
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2,366 1,190 2,317
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.46% 4.76% 6.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.40% 5.21% 7.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,265 788 1,323
10th Percentile £400 £400 £419
25th Percentile £463 £475 £493
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £601
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -0.08% -1.64%
75th Percentile £688 £775 £763
90th Percentile £788 £838 £875
UK median daily rate £550 £575 £600
% change year-on-year -4.35% -4.17% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 448 63 420
10th Percentile £52.50 £38.65 £46.25
25th Percentile £60.88 £51.63 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.08 £79.50 £75.25
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 36,943 22,820 31,966
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.26% 91.36% 85.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,357 14,745 20,676
10th Percentile £325 £300 £303
25th Percentile £415 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.97% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £730 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £502 £525
% change year-on-year +2.09% -4.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,312 1,098 2,392
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £21.00 £18.13 £16.06
Median hourly rate £47.00 £27.06 £37.63
Median % change year-on-year +73.67% -28.07% +7.07%
75th Percentile £68.55 £55.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £74.13 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +7.14%

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 23 June 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 23 June 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 23 June 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 -4 1,021 £593 -8.85% 561
North of England +31 358 £538 +7.50% 238
South West +27 342 £551 +5.00% 169
South East +22 289 £525 +4.90% 335
East of England +31 215 £500 +2.40% 152
North West +9 169 £515 +3.00% 141
Yorkshire +23 122 £538 +9.38% 50
Midlands -17 95 £462 -8.97% 96
West Midlands -24 75 £459 -17.67% 51
North East +17 72 £621 +35.05% 49
East Midlands -14 19 £513 +6.22% 45
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 55 (2.32%) Confluence
2 40 (1.69%) Apache Spark
3 27 (1.14%) Apache
3 27 (1.14%) Apache Airflow
4 8 (0.34%) SAS
5 7 (0.30%) CMS
6 6 (0.25%) SharePoint
7 5 (0.21%) nginx
8 4 (0.17%) Ethereum
8 4 (0.17%) Hyperledger
8 4 (0.17%) WebLogic
9 3 (0.13%) Camunda
9 3 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
9 3 (0.13%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.085%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.085%) IIS
10 2 (0.085%) MQSeries
10 2 (0.085%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.085%) WinCC
11 1 (0.042%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 16 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.30%) Chatbot
3 6 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 5 (0.21%) CPLEX
4 5 (0.21%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (0.17%) Simulink
6 2 (0.085%) CATIA
6 2 (0.085%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.085%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.042%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.042%) Blender
7 1 (0.042%) Maya
7 1 (0.042%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.042%) Notion
7 1 (0.042%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 6 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
1 6 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
2 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
3 4 (0.17%) Quorum
3 4 (0.17%) R3 Corda
3 4 (0.17%) Ripple
4 3 (0.13%) Orchestrade
5 2 (0.085%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.085%) LabWindows
5 2 (0.085%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.042%) Endur
6 1 (0.042%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 1 (0.042%) Sprinklr
6 1 (0.042%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 585 (24.73%) AWS
2 452 (19.10%) Azure
3 209 (8.83%) GCP
4 165 (6.97%) GitHub
5 121 (5.11%) Serverless
6 98 (4.14%) Azure DevOps
7 76 (3.21%) AWS Lambda
7 76 (3.21%) GitHub Actions
8 60 (2.54%) Amazon S3
9 59 (2.49%) OpenShift
10 44 (1.86%) Power Platform
11 39 (1.65%) Amazon SQS
12 38 (1.61%) Azure AKS
13 37 (1.56%) Anthropic Claude
14 36 (1.52%) Amazon EKS
15 35 (1.48%) Amazon ECS
16 31 (1.31%) Amazon EC2
17 30 (1.27%) SaaS
18 27 (1.14%) Entra ID
19 26 (1.10%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 30 (1.27%) Software-Defined Radio
2 24 (1.01%) Ethernet
3 22 (0.93%) Wireless
4 17 (0.72%) TCP/IP
5 15 (0.63%) HTTP
6 13 (0.55%) Firewall
7 12 (0.51%) Internet
7 12 (0.51%) Wi-Fi
8 10 (0.42%) 3GPP
9 9 (0.38%) VPN
10 7 (0.30%) Network Security
10 7 (0.30%) RTP
11 6 (0.25%) Wireshark
12 4 (0.17%) DNS
12 4 (0.17%) RS-232
12 4 (0.17%) RS-422
13 3 (0.13%) Bluetooth
13 3 (0.13%) IPv4
13 3 (0.13%) IPv6
13 3 (0.13%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (6.04%) PostgreSQL
2 85 (3.59%) Relational Database
3 71 (3.00%) SQL Server
4 65 (2.75%) NoSQL
5 54 (2.28%) MongoDB
6 35 (1.48%) Apache Cassandra
7 34 (1.44%) DynamoDB
8 32 (1.35%) MySQL
9 30 (1.27%) Power BI
10 29 (1.23%) Data Warehouse
11 28 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
12 25 (1.06%) Big Data
13 24 (1.01%) Data Lake
14 23 (0.97%) Metadata
15 22 (0.93%) BigQuery
16 19 (0.80%) Redis
17 18 (0.76%) Pinecone
18 16 (0.68%) Weaviate
19 15 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
19 15 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 234 (9.89%) Git
2 144 (6.09%) Jenkins
3 125 (5.28%) GitLab
4 108 (4.56%) JIRA
5 55 (2.32%) SonarQube
6 41 (1.73%) Gradle
7 34 (1.44%) JUnit
8 29 (1.23%) Rational DOORS
8 29 (1.23%) Rational Rhapsody
9 26 (1.10%) Visual Studio
10 23 (0.97%) Cucumber
11 21 (0.89%) Bitbucket
11 21 (0.89%) Maven
12 20 (0.85%) Selenium
13 17 (0.72%) IntelliJ
14 16 (0.68%) Cypress.io
14 16 (0.68%) Liquibase
14 16 (0.68%) Mockito
15 15 (0.63%) Claude Code
16 12 (0.51%) Eclipse
General
1 415 (17.54%) Finance
2 376 (15.89%) Social Skills
3 159 (6.72%) Banking
4 149 (6.30%) Analytical Skills
5 140 (5.92%) Public Sector
6 101 (4.27%) Aerospace
7 83 (3.51%) Front Office
8 46 (1.94%) Law
8 46 (1.94%) Retail
9 43 (1.82%) Manufacturing
10 40 (1.69%) Investment Banking
11 26 (1.10%) Military
12 25 (1.06%) Automotive
12 25 (1.06%) Aviation
12 25 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
13 23 (0.97%) Telecoms
14 18 (0.76%) Financial Institution
15 17 (0.72%) Electronics
16 15 (0.63%) Documentation Skills
17 14 (0.59%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 1,209 (51.10%) Software Engineer
2 432 (18.26%) Developer
3 410 (17.33%) Senior
4 225 (9.51%) Lead
5 187 (7.90%) Senior Software Engineer
6 170 (7.19%) Java Engineer
7 142 (6.00%) Embedded Engineer
8 140 (5.92%) Java Software Engineer
9 131 (5.54%) Embedded Software Engineer
10 130 (5.49%) C++ Software Engineer
11 125 (5.28%) Java Developer
12 103 (4.35%) Architect
13 83 (3.51%) Senior Developer
14 78 (3.30%) Lead Software Engineer
15 77 (3.25%) Python Engineer
16 75 (3.17%) Software Developer
17 74 (3.13%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
18 71 (3.00%) Python Developer
19 70 (2.96%) Developer/Software Engineer
20 66 (2.79%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 265 (11.20%) React
2 187 (7.90%) .NET
3 183 (7.73%) Kafka
4 174 (7.35%) Spring
5 169 (7.14%) Node.js
6 163 (6.89%) REST
7 162 (6.85%) Spring Boot
8 109 (4.61%) RESTful
9 106 (4.48%) AngularJS
10 72 (3.04%) GraphQL
11 59 (2.49%) Redux
12 47 (1.99%) CSS
13 46 (1.94%) HTML
14 40 (1.69%) Middleware
15 38 (1.61%) JSON
15 38 (1.61%) Next.js
16 37 (1.56%) LangChain
17 34 (1.44%) Quarkus
17 34 (1.44%) Web Services
18 32 (1.35%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 265 (11.20%) Cloud Native
2 181 (7.65%) Distributed Systems
3 119 (5.03%) Product Ownership
4 93 (3.93%) Algorithms
5 71 (3.00%) Fixed Income
6 65 (2.75%) AI Agents
7 42 (1.78%) Embedded Systems
8 41 (1.73%) Onboarding
9 36 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
9 36 (1.52%) Data Structures
10 34 (1.44%) Derivative
10 34 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
11 28 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
12 26 (1.10%) Equities
12 26 (1.10%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 23 (0.97%) Enterprise Software
13 23 (0.97%) Robotics
14 20 (0.85%) Greenfield Project
15 19 (0.80%) Mobile App
16 15 (0.63%) FPGA
Operating Systems
1 184 (7.78%) Linux
2 58 (2.45%) Windows
3 39 (1.65%) Unix
4 30 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (0.68%) Embedded Linux
6 15 (0.63%) Android
6 15 (0.63%) Apple iOS
7 11 (0.46%) FreeRTOS
8 9 (0.38%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.38%) Windows Server
9 5 (0.21%) Debian
10 4 (0.17%) Rocky
10 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.13%) Solaris
11 3 (0.13%) VMS
11 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.085%) VxWorks
13 1 (0.042%) Tizen
13 1 (0.042%) webOS
13 1 (0.042%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 703 (29.71%) CI/CD
2 702 (29.67%) Agile
3 491 (20.75%) DevOps
4 378 (15.98%) AI
5 351 (14.84%) Microservices
6 284 (12.00%) Test Automation
7 262 (11.07%) Problem-Solving
8 256 (10.82%) Full-Stack Development
9 219 (9.26%) Containerisation
10 213 (9.00%) Infrastructure as Code
11 205 (8.66%) Continuous Improvement
12 183 (7.73%) SDLC
13 182 (7.69%) TDD
14 177 (7.48%) Machine Learning
15 176 (7.44%) Observability
16 175 (7.40%) Scrum
17 170 (7.19%) Mentoring
18 161 (6.80%) Platform Engineering
19 155 (6.55%) Technical Leadership
20 149 (6.30%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 622 (26.29%) Python
2 609 (25.74%) Java
3 309 (13.06%) SQL
4 300 (12.68%) C#
5 287 (12.13%) TypeScript
6 245 (10.36%) JavaScript
7 227 (9.59%) C++
8 133 (5.62%) Ada
8 133 (5.62%) Go
9 113 (4.78%) C
10 43 (1.82%) Kotlin
11 35 (1.48%) Rust
12 32 (1.35%) PowerShell
13 29 (1.23%) Bash
14 26 (1.10%) MATLAB
15 24 (1.01%) Embedded C
15 24 (1.01%) Scala
16 23 (0.97%) PL/SQL
17 17 (0.72%) Ruby
17 17 (0.72%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 568 (24.01%) Security Cleared
2 458 (19.36%) SC Cleared
3 170 (7.19%) Degree
4 77 (3.25%) Computer Science Degree
5 69 (2.92%) DV Cleared
6 50 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
7 27 (1.14%) AWS Certification
7 27 (1.14%) Master's Degree
8 18 (0.76%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 12 (0.51%) Azure Certification
10 11 (0.46%) PhD
11 9 (0.38%) CISSP
12 7 (0.30%) ISTQB
12 7 (0.30%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 6 (0.25%) Chartered Engineer
13 6 (0.25%) TOGAF Certification
14 4 (0.17%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 4 (0.17%) CISM
14 4 (0.17%) GIAC
14 4 (0.17%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 128 (5.41%) QA
2 45 (1.90%) Def Stans
3 40 (1.69%) Data Quality
4 37 (1.56%) Accessibility
5 33 (1.39%) IEC 61508
6 20 (0.85%) GDPR
6 20 (0.85%) MISRA
7 13 (0.55%) MISRA C
8 12 (0.51%) NIST
9 11 (0.46%) NCSC
10 10 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 10 (0.42%) WCAG
11 8 (0.34%) DO-178B
12 6 (0.25%) PCI DSS
13 5 (0.21%) GRC
13 5 (0.21%) JSP 440
14 4 (0.17%) DO-254
14 4 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.13%) FATCA
16 2 (0.085%) EMIR
System Software
1 323 (13.65%) Docker
2 24 (1.01%) Firmware
3 10 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
4 9 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
5 8 (0.34%) Active Directory
6 6 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
8 3 (0.13%) HDFS
9 2 (0.085%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 381 (16.10%) Kubernetes
2 216 (9.13%) Terraform
3 66 (2.79%) Grafana
4 65 (2.75%) Ansible
5 39 (1.65%) Prometheus
6 37 (1.56%) Argo
7 10 (0.42%) Kibana
8 8 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (0.30%) Puppet
10 6 (0.25%) Progress Chef
11 5 (0.21%) HAProxy
12 4 (0.17%) Data Guard
12 4 (0.17%) HP Quality Center
13 3 (0.13%) Docker Swarm
13 3 (0.13%) Functional Safety
13 3 (0.13%) Kubeflow
14 2 (0.085%) Cilium
14 2 (0.085%) HP ALM
14 2 (0.085%) Istio
14 2 (0.085%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 122 (5.16%) Microsoft
2 74 (3.13%) Google
3 69 (2.92%) Oracle
4 54 (2.28%) Red Hat
5 42 (1.78%) Databricks
6 36 (1.52%) OpenAI
7 21 (0.89%) IBM
8 18 (0.76%) ServiceNow
8 18 (0.76%) Splunk
9 16 (0.68%) Informatica
10 13 (0.55%) Salesforce
11 12 (0.51%) Siemens
12 11 (0.46%) Foundry
13 10 (0.42%) Checkmarx
13 10 (0.42%) ForgeRock
13 10 (0.42%) MathWorks
13 10 (0.42%) Okta
13 10 (0.42%) SAP
14 9 (0.38%) VMware
15 8 (0.34%) Atlassian