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

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 41 34
Rank change year-on-year +1 -7 +8
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 1,885 1,220 1,934
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.03% 5.03% 5.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.82% 5.53% 5.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 993 814 1,126
10th Percentile £395 £401 £425
25th Percentile £450 £500 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £660 £750 £747
90th Percentile £788 £838 £800
UK median daily rate £550 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 384 79 319
10th Percentile £52.50 £42.90 £46.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £54.19 £51.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year - +4.00% -2.56%
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.00 £69.03
90th Percentile £73.17 £68.75 £77.75
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £64.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +0.78% +3.20% -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 32,391 22,052 32,754
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.35% 90.83% 86.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,759 14,493 21,652
10th Percentile £313 £312 £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 1,980 839 2,155
10th Percentile £15.31 £15.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.56 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.25 £32.81 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.44% -0.58% -12.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £58.70
90th Percentile £75.44 £77.25 £71.89
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year - - -9.72%

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 25 March 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 25 March 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 25 March 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 -11 819 £597 -9.34% 543
North of England +19 280 £518 -2.36% 264
South West +9 252 £535 -8.55% 210
South East -2 183 £505 -0.35% 353
East of England +31 181 £475 -2.06% 132
North West +9 131 £505 -8.18% 145
Yorkshire -3 106 £525 +2.44% 88
Midlands -25 104 £502 +2.35% 127
West Midlands -10 89 £500 -2.44% 74
North East +20 46 £464 - 32
East Midlands -31 15 £513 +6.22% 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 63 (3.34%) Confluence
2 45 (2.39%) Apache
2 45 (2.39%) Apache Spark
3 18 (0.95%) Apache Airflow
4 10 (0.53%) CMS
5 9 (0.48%) 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
8 3 (0.16%) SAS
8 3 (0.16%) SharePoint
8 3 (0.16%) Sitecore CMS
9 2 (0.11%) Camunda
9 2 (0.11%) Magnolia
9 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.11%) WinCC
9 2 (0.11%) WordPress
10 1 (0.053%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 12 (0.64%) Microsoft Excel
1 12 (0.64%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (0.48%) Chatbot
3 5 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.21%) Simulink
5 2 (0.11%) CPLEX
5 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.053%) Maya
6 1 (0.053%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.053%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 4 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.11%) LabWindows
2 2 (0.11%) Primavera
3 1 (0.053%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.053%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.053%) Sprinklr
3 1 (0.053%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 541 (28.70%) AWS
2 352 (18.67%) Azure
3 182 (9.66%) GCP
4 130 (6.90%) Serverless
5 129 (6.84%) GitHub
6 68 (3.61%) Azure DevOps
7 60 (3.18%) AWS Lambda
8 58 (3.08%) GitHub Actions
9 57 (3.02%) Amazon S3
10 47 (2.49%) OpenShift
11 44 (2.33%) Power Platform
12 41 (2.18%) AWS CloudFormation
13 40 (2.12%) Azure AKS
14 38 (2.02%) Amazon EKS
15 33 (1.75%) Amazon ECS
15 33 (1.75%) Azure Functions
16 32 (1.70%) Amazon EC2
17 31 (1.64%) SaaS
18 25 (1.33%) Datadog
19 24 (1.27%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.11%) Ethernet
2 13 (0.69%) Network Security
2 13 (0.69%) TCP/IP
3 10 (0.53%) Firewall
4 7 (0.37%) Internet
5 5 (0.27%) 3GPP
5 5 (0.27%) HTTP
5 5 (0.27%) Modbus
5 5 (0.27%) Software-Defined Radio
6 4 (0.21%) BGP
6 4 (0.21%) RS-232
6 4 (0.21%) RS-485
6 4 (0.21%) Software-Defined Networking
6 4 (0.21%) VLAN
6 4 (0.21%) Wireless
7 3 (0.16%) Bluetooth
7 3 (0.16%) IPv4
7 3 (0.16%) IPv6
7 3 (0.16%) Kerberos
7 3 (0.16%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (6.63%) PostgreSQL
2 71 (3.77%) Apache Cassandra
3 67 (3.55%) NoSQL
4 63 (3.34%) Relational Database
5 55 (2.92%) MongoDB
6 54 (2.86%) SQL Server
7 35 (1.86%) Data Lake
8 34 (1.80%) Amazon RDS
9 31 (1.64%) Power BI
10 29 (1.54%) Big Data
11 28 (1.49%) BigQuery
11 28 (1.49%) MySQL
12 24 (1.27%) Metadata
13 19 (1.01%) Data Warehouse
13 19 (1.01%) DynamoDB
14 18 (0.95%) Hadoop
15 16 (0.85%) Amazon Athena
15 16 (0.85%) Elasticsearch
16 15 (0.80%) Mixpanel
17 12 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 194 (10.29%) Git
2 132 (7.00%) Jenkins
3 108 (5.73%) JIRA
4 105 (5.57%) GitLab
5 34 (1.80%) Rational DOORS
6 32 (1.70%) Rational Rhapsody
6 32 (1.70%) SonarQube
7 30 (1.59%) JUnit
8 27 (1.43%) Gradle
9 25 (1.33%) Cucumber
9 25 (1.33%) Cypress.io
9 25 (1.33%) Selenium
10 24 (1.27%) Bitbucket
11 22 (1.17%) IntelliJ
12 20 (1.06%) Maven
13 18 (0.95%) Eclipse
13 18 (0.95%) Liquibase
14 17 (0.90%) Mockito
14 17 (0.90%) Visual Studio
15 11 (0.58%) Artifactory
General
1 307 (16.29%) Social Skills
2 306 (16.23%) Finance
3 124 (6.58%) Public Sector
4 116 (6.15%) Banking
5 104 (5.52%) Analytical Skills
6 65 (3.45%) Aerospace
7 64 (3.40%) Front Office
8 43 (2.28%) Electronics
9 34 (1.80%) Law
10 30 (1.59%) Retail
11 28 (1.49%) Financial Institution
12 27 (1.43%) Investment Banking
13 26 (1.38%) Influencing Skills
13 26 (1.38%) Military
14 23 (1.22%) Manufacturing
15 20 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
15 20 (1.06%) Telecoms
16 14 (0.74%) Documentation Skills
17 12 (0.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 12 (0.64%) Legal
Job Titles
1 988 (52.41%) Software Engineer
2 356 (18.89%) Senior
3 340 (18.04%) Developer
4 164 (8.70%) Senior Software Engineer
5 144 (7.64%) Lead
6 134 (7.11%) Java Engineer
7 120 (6.37%) C++ Software Engineer
8 109 (5.78%) Embedded Engineer
9 108 (5.73%) Java Software Engineer
10 97 (5.15%) Embedded Software Engineer
11 84 (4.46%) Architect
12 75 (3.98%) Java Developer
12 75 (3.98%) Senior Developer
13 67 (3.55%) Python Engineer
14 62 (3.29%) Developer/Software Engineer
14 62 (3.29%) Python Developer
15 56 (2.97%) Lead Software Engineer
16 52 (2.76%) Data Engineer
17 51 (2.71%) Software Developer
18 50 (2.65%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 228 (12.10%) React
2 216 (11.46%) Kafka
3 170 (9.02%) Node.js
4 141 (7.48%) REST
5 137 (7.27%) .NET
6 120 (6.37%) Spring
7 107 (5.68%) Spring Boot
8 101 (5.36%) RESTful
9 99 (5.25%) AngularJS
10 74 (3.93%) gRPC
11 68 (3.61%) GraphQL
12 60 (3.18%) Middleware
13 53 (2.81%) Redux
14 51 (2.71%) HTML
15 49 (2.60%) CSS
16 47 (2.49%) JSON
17 43 (2.28%) Playwright
18 34 (1.80%) Vue
19 32 (1.70%) FastAPI
19 32 (1.70%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 220 (11.67%) Cloud Native
2 154 (8.17%) Distributed Systems
3 90 (4.77%) Product Ownership
4 69 (3.66%) Algorithms
5 60 (3.18%) Fixed Income
6 35 (1.86%) Mobile App
7 33 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
8 31 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
9 29 (1.54%) Data Structures
10 28 (1.49%) AI Agents
10 28 (1.49%) Derivative
10 28 (1.49%) Onboarding
11 25 (1.33%) Equities
12 24 (1.27%) Embedded Systems
12 24 (1.27%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 24 (1.27%) Greenfield Project
13 22 (1.17%) Public Cloud
14 21 (1.11%) Virtual Team
15 19 (1.01%) Hedge funds
16 17 (0.90%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 202 (10.72%) Linux
2 76 (4.03%) Windows
3 47 (2.49%) Unix
4 26 (1.38%) Android
5 21 (1.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 19 (1.01%) Apple iOS
7 15 (0.80%) Windows Server
8 13 (0.69%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.32%) FreeRTOS
10 5 (0.27%) Embedded Linux
11 4 (0.21%) Debian
11 4 (0.21%) VMS
12 3 (0.16%) Rocky
13 2 (0.11%) Robot Operating System
13 2 (0.11%) Solaris
13 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.053%) Mac OS
14 1 (0.053%) Windows 10
14 1 (0.053%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 564 (29.92%) Agile
2 548 (29.07%) CI/CD
3 385 (20.42%) DevOps
4 332 (17.61%) Microservices
5 261 (13.85%) AI
6 244 (12.94%) Problem-Solving
7 218 (11.56%) Containerisation
8 208 (11.03%) Test Automation
9 190 (10.08%) Infrastructure as Code
10 189 (10.03%) Full-Stack Development
11 169 (8.97%) Computer Science
12 157 (8.33%) Machine Learning
13 150 (7.96%) Continuous Improvement
14 148 (7.85%) Mentoring
15 138 (7.32%) Observability
16 134 (7.11%) Scrum
17 133 (7.06%) SDLC
18 130 (6.90%) TDD
19 119 (6.31%) Technical Leadership
20 111 (5.89%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 522 (27.69%) Python
2 464 (24.62%) Java
3 254 (13.47%) SQL
4 239 (12.68%) C++
5 233 (12.36%) JavaScript
5 233 (12.36%) TypeScript
6 223 (11.83%) C#
7 171 (9.07%) Go
8 123 (6.53%) Ada
9 111 (5.89%) C
10 39 (2.07%) PowerShell
11 32 (1.70%) Bash
11 32 (1.70%) Kotlin
12 30 (1.59%) Rust
13 26 (1.38%) Embedded C
13 26 (1.38%) Shell Script
14 25 (1.33%) Ruby
15 24 (1.27%) MATLAB
16 22 (1.17%) Embedded C++
17 18 (0.95%) Scala
Qualifications
1 448 (23.77%) Security Cleared
2 342 (18.14%) SC Cleared
3 196 (10.40%) Degree
4 89 (4.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 61 (3.24%) DV Cleared
6 58 (3.08%) Master's Degree
7 26 (1.38%) BPSS Clearance
8 21 (1.11%) PhD
9 20 (1.06%) CISSP
10 18 (0.95%) AWS Certification
11 17 (0.90%) CISM
12 16 (0.85%) Azure Certification
13 15 (0.80%) TOGAF Certification
14 10 (0.53%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 6 (0.32%) ISTQB
15 6 (0.32%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 5 (0.27%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 5 (0.27%) Microsoft Certification
17 4 (0.21%) HND
18 3 (0.16%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (5.41%) QA
2 59 (3.13%) Def Stans
3 40 (2.12%) IEC 61508
4 39 (2.07%) Data Quality
5 33 (1.75%) Accessibility
6 30 (1.59%) MISRA
7 25 (1.33%) GDPR
8 20 (1.06%) MISRA C
9 19 (1.01%) WCAG
10 12 (0.64%) NIST
11 11 (0.58%) DO-178B
12 7 (0.37%) HL7
12 7 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
13 6 (0.32%) NCSC
14 5 (0.27%) EU AI Act
15 3 (0.16%) SLA
16 2 (0.11%) FATCA
16 2 (0.11%) PCI DSS
16 2 (0.11%) PMO
16 2 (0.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 330 (17.51%) Docker
2 18 (0.95%) Firmware
3 16 (0.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.42%) Active Directory
6 4 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
7 3 (0.16%) HDFS
8 2 (0.11%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 364 (19.31%) Kubernetes
2 212 (11.25%) Terraform
3 96 (5.09%) Grafana
4 64 (3.40%) Ansible
5 57 (3.02%) Prometheus
6 28 (1.49%) Argo
7 18 (0.95%) Puppet
8 13 (0.69%) Progress Chef
9 9 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
10 6 (0.32%) Istio
11 5 (0.27%) Kibana
11 5 (0.27%) 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 (0.11%) HP ALM
14 2 (0.11%) rkt
Vendors
1 148 (7.85%) Microsoft
2 70 (3.71%) Google
3 63 (3.34%) Oracle
4 62 (3.29%) Red Hat
5 47 (2.49%) Databricks
6 26 (1.38%) Splunk
7 22 (1.17%) Foundry
8 20 (1.06%) IBM
9 17 (0.90%) VMware
10 16 (0.85%) BiZZdesign
11 15 (0.80%) OpenAI
12 11 (0.58%) Atlassian
12 11 (0.58%) Siemens
13 10 (0.53%) PagerDuty
13 10 (0.53%) ServiceNow
14 9 (0.48%) Palantir
14 9 (0.48%) SAP
14 9 (0.48%) Software AG
15 8 (0.42%) ANSYS
15 8 (0.42%) CyberArk