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

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 44 28
Rank change year-on-year +11 -16 +11
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2,258 1,159 2,258
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.35% 4.74% 6.03%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.28% 5.19% 7.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,204 759 1,298
10th Percentile £400 £400 £418
25th Percentile £463 £475 £493
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -0.37%
75th Percentile £675 £763 £750
90th Percentile £775 £838 £850
UK median daily rate £550 £575 £600
% change year-on-year -4.35% -4.17% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 447 65 400
10th Percentile £52.29 £39.80 £46.25
25th Percentile £59.38 £55.38 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £79.00 £77.50
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 35,948 22,351 32,031
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.10% 91.35% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,764 14,463 20,809
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £407 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,246 1,016 2,371
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.81
25th Percentile £20.75 £18.12 £16.00
Median hourly rate £47.00 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +67.86% -25.33% +4.17%
75th Percentile £68.00 £58.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £27.28 £36.50
% change year-on-year +61.14% -25.26% +1.39%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -5 968 £578 -11.08% 545
North of England +22 331 £525 +5.00% 290
South West +26 325 £570 +8.57% 188
South East +24 283 £525 +4.90% 389
East of England +38 218 £495 +1.43% 163
North West +4 155 £500 - 167
Yorkshire +17 122 £525 +7.14% 61
Midlands -34 85 £466 -8.19% 105
West Midlands -24 69 £459 -18.94% 61
North East +16 59 £621 +35.05% 62
East Midlands -27 15 £525 +7.14% 44
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 53 (2.35%) Confluence
2 44 (1.95%) Apache Spark
3 28 (1.24%) Apache
4 26 (1.15%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.35%) SAS
6 6 (0.27%) CMS
6 6 (0.27%) SharePoint
7 5 (0.22%) IIS
7 5 (0.22%) nginx
8 4 (0.18%) Ethereum
8 4 (0.18%) Hyperledger
8 4 (0.18%) WebLogic
9 3 (0.13%) Camunda
9 3 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
9 3 (0.13%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.089%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.089%) MQSeries
10 2 (0.089%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.089%) WinCC
11 1 (0.044%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 14 (0.62%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (0.27%) Chatbot
2 6 (0.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.22%) CPLEX
4 4 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 4 (0.18%) Simulink
5 2 (0.089%) CATIA
5 2 (0.089%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.089%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.044%) Adobe After Effects
6 1 (0.044%) Blender
6 1 (0.044%) Maya
6 1 (0.044%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.044%) Notion
6 1 (0.044%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 6 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
1 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
2 5 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
3 4 (0.18%) Quorum
3 4 (0.18%) R3 Corda
3 4 (0.18%) Ripple
4 3 (0.13%) Orchestrade
5 2 (0.089%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.089%) LabWindows
5 2 (0.089%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.089%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.044%) Sprinklr
6 1 (0.044%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 553 (24.49%) AWS
2 423 (18.73%) Azure
3 203 (8.99%) GCP
4 160 (7.09%) GitHub
5 119 (5.27%) Serverless
6 90 (3.99%) Azure DevOps
7 76 (3.37%) AWS Lambda
8 73 (3.23%) GitHub Actions
9 62 (2.75%) Amazon S3
10 50 (2.21%) OpenShift
11 46 (2.04%) Power Platform
12 39 (1.73%) Amazon SQS
13 35 (1.55%) Amazon ECS
13 35 (1.55%) Amazon EKS
13 35 (1.55%) Azure AKS
14 32 (1.42%) Amazon EC2
15 31 (1.37%) Anthropic Claude
16 28 (1.24%) SaaS
17 27 (1.20%) AWS CloudFormation
18 26 (1.15%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 30 (1.33%) Software-Defined Radio
2 24 (1.06%) Ethernet
3 22 (0.97%) Wireless
4 17 (0.75%) TCP/IP
5 14 (0.62%) HTTP
6 13 (0.58%) Firewall
7 12 (0.53%) Wi-Fi
8 10 (0.44%) 3GPP
9 9 (0.40%) Internet
9 9 (0.40%) VPN
10 7 (0.31%) Network Security
10 7 (0.31%) RTP
11 6 (0.27%) Wireshark
12 4 (0.18%) DNS
12 4 (0.18%) Modbus
13 3 (0.13%) Bluetooth
13 3 (0.13%) IPv4
13 3 (0.13%) IPv6
13 3 (0.13%) RS-232
13 3 (0.13%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 137 (6.07%) PostgreSQL
2 76 (3.37%) Relational Database
3 68 (3.01%) SQL Server
4 60 (2.66%) NoSQL
5 51 (2.26%) MongoDB
6 38 (1.68%) Apache Cassandra
7 34 (1.51%) Power BI
8 32 (1.42%) DynamoDB
9 30 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
10 29 (1.28%) BigQuery
10 29 (1.28%) Data Lake
11 27 (1.20%) Big Data
12 26 (1.15%) Data Warehouse
13 25 (1.11%) Metadata
13 25 (1.11%) MySQL
14 17 (0.75%) Pinecone
15 16 (0.71%) Weaviate
16 15 (0.66%) Amazon Athena
16 15 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
16 15 (0.66%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 221 (9.79%) Git
2 143 (6.33%) Jenkins
3 125 (5.54%) GitLab
4 107 (4.74%) JIRA
5 47 (2.08%) Gradle
6 45 (1.99%) SonarQube
7 34 (1.51%) JUnit
8 30 (1.33%) Rational Rhapsody
9 29 (1.28%) Rational DOORS
10 25 (1.11%) Cucumber
11 22 (0.97%) IntelliJ
11 22 (0.97%) Selenium
11 22 (0.97%) Visual Studio
12 21 (0.93%) Bitbucket
13 20 (0.89%) Maven
14 16 (0.71%) Cypress.io
14 16 (0.71%) Liquibase
14 16 (0.71%) Mockito
15 13 (0.58%) Claude Code
16 12 (0.53%) Eclipse
General
1 389 (17.23%) Finance
2 336 (14.88%) Social Skills
3 142 (6.29%) Banking
4 136 (6.02%) Analytical Skills
5 133 (5.89%) Public Sector
6 96 (4.25%) Aerospace
7 74 (3.28%) Front Office
8 46 (2.04%) Manufacturing
9 41 (1.82%) Law
10 38 (1.68%) Retail
11 36 (1.59%) Investment Banking
12 28 (1.24%) Military
13 25 (1.11%) Automotive
13 25 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
14 24 (1.06%) Aviation
15 22 (0.97%) Telecoms
16 17 (0.75%) Electronics
16 17 (0.75%) Financial Institution
17 16 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
18 15 (0.66%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 1,166 (51.64%) Software Engineer
2 414 (18.33%) Developer
3 392 (17.36%) Senior
4 199 (8.81%) Lead
5 176 (7.79%) Senior Software Engineer
6 162 (7.17%) Java Engineer
7 151 (6.69%) Embedded Engineer
8 140 (6.20%) Embedded Software Engineer
9 133 (5.89%) Java Software Engineer
10 121 (5.36%) C++ Software Engineer
11 119 (5.27%) Java Developer
12 95 (4.21%) Architect
13 79 (3.50%) Senior Developer
14 70 (3.10%) Python Developer
15 69 (3.06%) Developer/Software Engineer
16 68 (3.01%) Software Developer
17 65 (2.88%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 65 (2.88%) Full-Stack Engineer
18 64 (2.83%) DevOps Engineer
18 64 (2.83%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 257 (11.38%) React
2 177 (7.84%) Kafka
3 175 (7.75%) .NET
4 174 (7.71%) Spring
5 163 (7.22%) Node.js
6 162 (7.17%) Spring Boot
7 154 (6.82%) REST
8 107 (4.74%) AngularJS
9 106 (4.69%) RESTful
10 71 (3.14%) GraphQL
11 53 (2.35%) Redux
12 47 (2.08%) CSS
13 46 (2.04%) HTML
14 40 (1.77%) Middleware
15 39 (1.73%) JSON
15 39 (1.73%) Next.js
16 36 (1.59%) LangChain
17 34 (1.51%) Playwright
18 33 (1.46%) gRPC
18 33 (1.46%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 247 (10.94%) Cloud Native
2 164 (7.26%) Distributed Systems
3 109 (4.83%) Product Ownership
4 88 (3.90%) Algorithms
5 64 (2.83%) Fixed Income
6 57 (2.52%) AI Agents
7 40 (1.77%) Embedded Systems
8 38 (1.68%) Onboarding
9 37 (1.64%) Data Protection Act
10 33 (1.46%) Derivative
10 33 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
11 32 (1.42%) Data Structures
12 29 (1.28%) Robotics
13 25 (1.11%) Equities
13 25 (1.11%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 24 (1.06%) Self-Motivation
15 22 (0.97%) Greenfield Project
16 20 (0.89%) Mobile App
17 18 (0.80%) Enterprise Software
18 15 (0.66%) FPGA
Operating Systems
1 181 (8.02%) Linux
2 62 (2.75%) Windows
3 42 (1.86%) Unix
4 25 (1.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.75%) Android
5 17 (0.75%) Apple iOS
6 16 (0.71%) Embedded Linux
7 12 (0.53%) Windows Server
8 11 (0.49%) FreeRTOS
9 5 (0.22%) Debian
9 5 (0.22%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.18%) Rocky
10 4 (0.18%) VMS
10 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.13%) Solaris
11 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.089%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.089%) VxWorks
13 1 (0.044%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.044%) webOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 664 (29.41%) CI/CD
2 634 (28.08%) Agile
3 462 (20.46%) DevOps
4 361 (15.99%) AI
5 349 (15.46%) Microservices
6 255 (11.29%) Test Automation
7 241 (10.67%) Problem-Solving
8 240 (10.63%) Full-Stack Development
9 219 (9.70%) Containerisation
10 204 (9.03%) Infrastructure as Code
11 180 (7.97%) Continuous Improvement
12 175 (7.75%) Observability
13 173 (7.66%) Machine Learning
14 169 (7.48%) TDD
15 166 (7.35%) SDLC
16 160 (7.09%) Mentoring
17 155 (6.86%) Scrum
18 153 (6.78%) Platform Engineering
19 150 (6.64%) Technical Leadership
20 140 (6.20%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 586 (25.95%) Java
1 586 (25.95%) Python
2 301 (13.33%) SQL
3 289 (12.80%) C#
4 267 (11.82%) TypeScript
5 233 (10.32%) JavaScript
6 213 (9.43%) C++
7 131 (5.80%) Ada
8 127 (5.62%) Go
9 106 (4.69%) C
10 46 (2.04%) Kotlin
11 35 (1.55%) PowerShell
12 29 (1.28%) Bash
12 29 (1.28%) Rust
13 26 (1.15%) MATLAB
14 25 (1.11%) Embedded C
15 23 (1.02%) Scala
16 19 (0.84%) PL/SQL
17 18 (0.80%) Ruby
18 17 (0.75%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 535 (23.69%) Security Cleared
2 430 (19.04%) SC Cleared
3 176 (7.79%) Degree
4 80 (3.54%) Computer Science Degree
5 64 (2.83%) DV Cleared
6 48 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
7 28 (1.24%) Master's Degree
8 25 (1.11%) AWS Certification
9 17 (0.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 11 (0.49%) Azure Certification
11 8 (0.35%) CISSP
11 8 (0.35%) PhD
12 7 (0.31%) ISTQB
12 7 (0.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 6 (0.27%) Chartered Engineer
14 5 (0.22%) CISM
14 5 (0.22%) TOGAF Certification
15 4 (0.18%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
16 3 (0.13%) MBA
16 3 (0.13%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 117 (5.18%) QA
2 42 (1.86%) Def Stans
3 39 (1.73%) Data Quality
4 36 (1.59%) Accessibility
5 34 (1.51%) IEC 61508
6 22 (0.97%) GDPR
7 17 (0.75%) MISRA
8 13 (0.58%) MISRA C
9 11 (0.49%) NCSC
10 9 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 9 (0.40%) NIST
10 9 (0.40%) WCAG
11 6 (0.27%) PCI DSS
12 5 (0.22%) DO-178B
12 5 (0.22%) JSP 440
13 4 (0.18%) DO-254
13 4 (0.18%) GRC
13 4 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (0.13%) HL7
14 3 (0.13%) MiFID
System Software
1 310 (13.73%) Docker
2 21 (0.93%) Firmware
3 10 (0.44%) Embedded Firmware
3 10 (0.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.31%) Active Directory
4 7 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
6 3 (0.13%) HDFS
7 2 (0.089%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 362 (16.03%) Kubernetes
2 208 (9.21%) Terraform
3 70 (3.10%) Grafana
4 53 (2.35%) Ansible
5 38 (1.68%) Prometheus
6 34 (1.51%) Argo
7 7 (0.31%) Puppet
7 7 (0.31%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.27%) Istio
8 6 (0.27%) Kibana
8 6 (0.27%) Progress Chef
9 5 (0.22%) HAProxy
10 4 (0.18%) Data Guard
10 4 (0.18%) Functional Safety
10 4 (0.18%) HP Quality Center
11 3 (0.13%) Docker Swarm
11 3 (0.13%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.089%) Cilium
12 2 (0.089%) Consul
12 2 (0.089%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 121 (5.36%) Microsoft
2 76 (3.37%) Google
3 68 (3.01%) Oracle
4 52 (2.30%) Red Hat
5 46 (2.04%) Databricks
6 34 (1.51%) OpenAI
7 21 (0.93%) IBM
8 17 (0.75%) Splunk
9 16 (0.71%) ServiceNow
10 15 (0.66%) Informatica
11 13 (0.58%) Siemens
12 11 (0.49%) Foundry
12 11 (0.49%) Salesforce
13 10 (0.44%) ForgeRock
13 10 (0.44%) MathWorks
13 10 (0.44%) Okta
13 10 (0.44%) SAP
13 10 (0.44%) VMware
14 8 (0.35%) Checkmarx
14 8 (0.35%) Dynatrace