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

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 45 27
Rank change year-on-year +12 -18 +13
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2,369 1,214 2,306
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.45% 4.80% 6.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.38% 5.26% 7.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,274 802 1,339
10th Percentile £400 £400 £418
25th Percentile £463 £475 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £601
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -0.08% -0.29%
75th Percentile £688 £775 £775
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 438 66 399
10th Percentile £52.50 £34.38 £46.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £51.44 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.08 £78.75 £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 37,112 23,092 31,896
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.37% 91.39% 85.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,409 14,893 20,664
10th Percentile £325 £300 £304
25th Percentile £418 £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 £515 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +1.98% -3.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,320 1,127 2,324
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.79
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.87 £16.06
Median hourly rate £47.00 £25.50 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +84.31% -33.11% +1.87%
75th Percentile £68.55 £55.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £82.25 £72.50 £73.60
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +4.17%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -5 1,029 £593 -8.85% 599
North of England +30 357 £550 +11.61% 247
South West +23 334 £551 +5.00% 184
South East +20 289 £525 +4.90% 355
East of England +30 218 £498 +1.89% 154
North West +6 168 £528 +5.50% 150
Yorkshire +30 124 £538 +9.69% 50
Midlands -28 96 £462 -8.51% 111
West Midlands -28 76 £459 -17.67% 60
North East +17 70 £621 +35.05% 49
East Midlands -11 19 £513 +7.89% 51
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 (2.28%) 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%) Palantir Foundry
9 3 (0.13%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.084%) Camunda
10 2 (0.084%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.084%) IIS
10 2 (0.084%) MQSeries
10 2 (0.084%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.084%) WinCC
11 1 (0.042%) Traefik
Applications
1 15 (0.63%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (0.34%) Chatbot
3 7 (0.30%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 5 (0.21%) CPLEX
5 4 (0.17%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (0.17%) Simulink
6 2 (0.084%) CATIA
6 2 (0.084%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.084%) 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
7 1 (0.042%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 6 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
1 6 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
1 6 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (0.17%) Quorum
2 4 (0.17%) R3 Corda
2 4 (0.17%) Ripple
3 3 (0.13%) Orchestrade
4 2 (0.084%) Aladdin
4 2 (0.084%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.042%) Endur
5 1 (0.042%) LabWindows
5 1 (0.042%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.042%) Sprinklr
5 1 (0.042%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 585 (24.69%) AWS
2 455 (19.21%) Azure
3 212 (8.95%) GCP
4 166 (7.01%) GitHub
5 120 (5.07%) Serverless
6 98 (4.14%) Azure DevOps
7 77 (3.25%) GitHub Actions
8 76 (3.21%) AWS Lambda
9 61 (2.57%) Amazon S3
10 58 (2.45%) OpenShift
11 44 (1.86%) Power Platform
12 39 (1.65%) Amazon SQS
12 39 (1.65%) Azure AKS
13 38 (1.60%) 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 28 (1.18%) 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
6 13 (0.55%) 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 84 (3.55%) Relational Database
3 70 (2.95%) SQL Server
4 66 (2.79%) NoSQL
5 54 (2.28%) MongoDB
6 34 (1.44%) DynamoDB
7 33 (1.39%) Apache Cassandra
8 30 (1.27%) MySQL
8 30 (1.27%) Power BI
9 29 (1.22%) Data Warehouse
10 28 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
11 25 (1.06%) Big Data
12 23 (0.97%) Data Lake
13 22 (0.93%) BigQuery
13 22 (0.93%) Metadata
14 20 (0.84%) Redis
15 18 (0.76%) Pinecone
16 16 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
16 16 (0.68%) Weaviate
17 15 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 236 (9.96%) Git
2 146 (6.16%) Jenkins
3 123 (5.19%) GitLab
4 107 (4.52%) JIRA
5 54 (2.28%) SonarQube
6 38 (1.60%) Gradle
7 33 (1.39%) JUnit
8 28 (1.18%) Rational DOORS
8 28 (1.18%) Rational Rhapsody
9 25 (1.06%) Visual Studio
10 21 (0.89%) Cucumber
11 20 (0.84%) Bitbucket
11 20 (0.84%) Maven
11 20 (0.84%) Selenium
12 16 (0.68%) Liquibase
13 15 (0.63%) Claude Code
13 15 (0.63%) Cypress.io
13 15 (0.63%) IntelliJ
13 15 (0.63%) Mockito
14 12 (0.51%) Eclipse
General
1 416 (17.56%) Finance
2 390 (16.46%) Social Skills
3 160 (6.75%) Banking
4 150 (6.33%) Analytical Skills
5 144 (6.08%) Public Sector
6 98 (4.14%) Aerospace
7 84 (3.55%) Front Office
8 47 (1.98%) Retail
9 46 (1.94%) Law
10 42 (1.77%) Manufacturing
11 41 (1.73%) Investment Banking
12 27 (1.14%) Military
13 25 (1.06%) Automotive
13 25 (1.06%) Aviation
13 25 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
14 23 (0.97%) Telecoms
15 19 (0.80%) Electronics
16 16 (0.68%) Documentation Skills
16 16 (0.68%) Financial Institution
17 14 (0.59%) Legal
Job Titles
1 1,204 (50.82%) Software Engineer
2 434 (18.32%) Developer
3 403 (17.01%) Senior
4 239 (10.09%) Lead
5 180 (7.60%) Senior Software Engineer
6 169 (7.13%) Java Engineer
7 142 (5.99%) Embedded Engineer
8 139 (5.87%) Java Software Engineer
9 131 (5.53%) Embedded Software Engineer
10 130 (5.49%) C++ Software Engineer
11 125 (5.28%) Java Developer
12 103 (4.35%) Architect
13 86 (3.63%) Lead Software Engineer
14 83 (3.50%) Senior Developer
15 81 (3.42%) Python Engineer
16 75 (3.17%) Software Developer
17 73 (3.08%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 73 (3.08%) Python Developer
18 70 (2.95%) Developer/Software Engineer
19 66 (2.79%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 268 (11.31%) React
2 187 (7.89%) .NET
3 183 (7.72%) Kafka
4 173 (7.30%) Spring
5 171 (7.22%) Node.js
6 165 (6.96%) REST
7 159 (6.71%) Spring Boot
8 109 (4.60%) RESTful
9 105 (4.43%) AngularJS
10 77 (3.25%) GraphQL
11 59 (2.49%) Redux
12 48 (2.03%) CSS
13 47 (1.98%) HTML
14 41 (1.73%) Next.js
15 39 (1.65%) JSON
16 36 (1.52%) LangChain
16 36 (1.52%) Middleware
17 35 (1.48%) Web Services
18 33 (1.39%) OAuth
18 33 (1.39%) Quarkus
Miscellaneous
1 267 (11.27%) Cloud Native
2 181 (7.64%) Distributed Systems
3 120 (5.07%) Product Ownership
4 89 (3.76%) Algorithms
5 71 (3.00%) Fixed Income
6 64 (2.70%) AI Agents
7 42 (1.77%) Embedded Systems
8 40 (1.69%) 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 29 (1.22%) Self-Motivation
12 27 (1.14%) Equities
12 27 (1.14%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 23 (0.97%) Enterprise Software
14 21 (0.89%) Robotics
15 20 (0.84%) Greenfield Project
16 18 (0.76%) Mobile App
17 15 (0.63%) FPGA
Operating Systems
1 184 (7.77%) Linux
2 58 (2.45%) Windows
3 38 (1.60%) Unix
4 30 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (0.68%) Embedded Linux
6 15 (0.63%) Apple iOS
7 14 (0.59%) Android
8 11 (0.46%) FreeRTOS
9 9 (0.38%) Ubuntu
9 9 (0.38%) Windows Server
10 5 (0.21%) Debian
11 4 (0.17%) Rocky
11 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.13%) Solaris
12 3 (0.13%) VMS
12 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.084%) VxWorks
14 1 (0.042%) Tizen
14 1 (0.042%) webOS
14 1 (0.042%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 711 (30.01%) CI/CD
2 710 (29.97%) Agile
3 496 (20.94%) DevOps
4 377 (15.91%) AI
5 349 (14.73%) Microservices
6 288 (12.16%) Test Automation
7 261 (11.02%) Problem-Solving
8 259 (10.93%) Full-Stack Development
9 222 (9.37%) Containerisation
10 214 (9.03%) Infrastructure as Code
11 210 (8.86%) Continuous Improvement
12 185 (7.81%) SDLC
13 184 (7.77%) TDD
14 179 (7.56%) Observability
15 178 (7.51%) Machine Learning
16 175 (7.39%) Mentoring
17 174 (7.34%) Scrum
18 161 (6.80%) Platform Engineering
19 155 (6.54%) Technical Leadership
20 153 (6.46%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 630 (26.59%) Python
2 606 (25.58%) Java
3 308 (13.00%) SQL
4 298 (12.58%) C#
5 290 (12.24%) TypeScript
6 244 (10.30%) JavaScript
7 228 (9.62%) C++
8 131 (5.53%) Ada
9 130 (5.49%) Go
10 114 (4.81%) C
11 43 (1.82%) Kotlin
12 36 (1.52%) Rust
13 31 (1.31%) PowerShell
14 29 (1.22%) Bash
15 24 (1.01%) MATLAB
15 24 (1.01%) Scala
16 23 (0.97%) PL/SQL
17 22 (0.93%) Embedded C
18 17 (0.72%) Ruby
18 17 (0.72%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 578 (24.40%) Security Cleared
2 469 (19.80%) SC Cleared
3 173 (7.30%) Degree
4 77 (3.25%) Computer Science Degree
5 71 (3.00%) DV Cleared
6 50 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
7 28 (1.18%) Master's Degree
8 27 (1.14%) AWS Certification
9 18 (0.76%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 12 (0.51%) Azure Certification
10 12 (0.51%) 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 (5.40%) QA
2 44 (1.86%) Def Stans
3 41 (1.73%) Data Quality
4 39 (1.65%) Accessibility
5 30 (1.27%) IEC 61508
6 21 (0.89%) GDPR
7 20 (0.84%) MISRA
8 13 (0.55%) NIST
9 11 (0.46%) MISRA C
10 10 (0.42%) DO-178B
10 10 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 10 (0.42%) NCSC
10 10 (0.42%) WCAG
11 6 (0.25%) GRC
11 6 (0.25%) PCI DSS
12 5 (0.21%) JSP 440
12 5 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 4 (0.17%) DO-254
14 3 (0.13%) FATCA
15 2 (0.084%) EMIR
System Software
1 327 (13.80%) Docker
2 25 (1.06%) Firmware
3 10 (0.42%) Embedded Firmware
4 9 (0.38%) Active Directory
5 8 (0.34%) VMware Infrastructure
6 5 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.17%) Oracle RAC
8 3 (0.13%) HDFS
9 2 (0.084%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 382 (16.12%) Kubernetes
2 218 (9.20%) Terraform
3 65 (2.74%) Ansible
4 64 (2.70%) Grafana
5 39 (1.65%) Prometheus
6 36 (1.52%) Argo
7 11 (0.46%) Kibana
8 9 (0.38%) 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 (0.084%) Cilium
14 2 (0.084%) Consul
14 2 (0.084%) HP ALM
14 2 (0.084%) Istio
Vendors
1 121 (5.11%) Microsoft
2 77 (3.25%) Google
3 71 (3.00%) Oracle
4 52 (2.20%) Red Hat
5 41 (1.73%) Databricks
6 36 (1.52%) OpenAI
7 20 (0.84%) 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
12 11 (0.46%) SAP
13 10 (0.42%) Checkmarx
13 10 (0.42%) ForgeRock
13 10 (0.42%) Okta
14 9 (0.38%) MathWorks
15 8 (0.34%) Adobe
15 8 (0.34%) VMware