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 20 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 41 36
Rank change year-on-year +2 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 1,780 1,265 1,865
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.11% 4.87% 4.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.85% 5.42% 5.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 921 792 1,077
10th Percentile £383 £419 £425
25th Percentile £450 £500 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £669 £750 £738
90th Percentile £775 £838 £800
UK median daily rate £550 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 346 78 314
10th Percentile £52.50 £41.00 £46.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £57.51 £51.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year - +4.00% -3.85%
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £72.98 £68.75 £76.75
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £64.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +1.56% +2.40% -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 30,443 23,357 32,953
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.38% 90.01% 87.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,446 14,532 21,897
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £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 1,911 750 2,006
10th Percentile £15.22 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £18.32 £21.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £26.61 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.99% - -
75th Percentile £62.29 £64.73 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £75.28 £72.90
UK median hourly rate £25.64 £32.50 £34.77
% change year-on-year -21.12% -6.52% -0.67%

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 20 February 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 20 February 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 20 February 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 -11 796 £600 -7.69% 1,019
North of England +13 276 £523 -5.00% 344
South West +11 228 £500 -16.67% 245
East of England +27 174 £475 +5.56% 142
South East +6 147 £500 - 424
North West +13 129 £525 -4.55% 224
Yorkshire -10 109 £525 - 89
Midlands -11 98 £516 +5.36% 151
West Midlands -6 85 £525 +10.06% 84
North East +13 41 £488 -18.41% 31
East Midlands -23 13 £475 -5.00% 66
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 60 (3.37%) Confluence
2 52 (2.92%) Apache
3 43 (2.42%) Apache Spark
4 27 (1.52%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.73%) WebLogic
6 10 (0.56%) CMS
7 9 (0.51%) Palantir Foundry
8 8 (0.45%) JBoss
9 6 (0.34%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.22%) IIS
10 4 (0.22%) SAS
11 3 (0.17%) nginx
11 3 (0.17%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.11%) Appian
12 2 (0.11%) Camunda
12 2 (0.11%) Magnolia
12 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Exchange
12 2 (0.11%) SharePoint
12 2 (0.11%) WinCC
12 2 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 16 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (0.73%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.56%) Chatbot
4 5 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.17%) Simulink
6 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.056%) CPLEX
7 1 (0.056%) Maya
7 1 (0.056%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.056%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.056%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.11%) LabWindows
1 2 (0.11%) Primavera
2 1 (0.056%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.056%) Fidessa
2 1 (0.056%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (0.056%) Temenos T24
2 1 (0.056%) thinkFolio
Cloud Services
1 532 (29.89%) AWS
2 308 (17.30%) Azure
3 182 (10.22%) GCP
4 152 (8.54%) Serverless
5 122 (6.85%) GitHub
6 66 (3.71%) AWS Lambda
6 66 (3.71%) GitHub Actions
7 65 (3.65%) Azure DevOps
8 61 (3.43%) Amazon S3
9 44 (2.47%) Amazon EKS
10 43 (2.42%) AWS CloudFormation
11 42 (2.36%) OpenShift
12 41 (2.30%) Azure AKS
13 40 (2.25%) Amazon ECS
13 40 (2.25%) Power Platform
14 38 (2.13%) SaaS
15 36 (2.02%) Amazon EC2
16 35 (1.97%) Azure Functions
17 29 (1.63%) Snowflake
18 22 (1.24%) Cloud Run
Communications & Networking
1 19 (1.07%) Ethernet
2 12 (0.67%) Network Security
3 9 (0.51%) Firewall
3 9 (0.51%) TCP/IP
4 7 (0.39%) Internet
5 5 (0.28%) 3GPP
5 5 (0.28%) Modbus
5 5 (0.28%) Software-Defined Radio
6 4 (0.22%) BGP
6 4 (0.22%) HTTP
6 4 (0.22%) RS-232
6 4 (0.22%) RS-485
6 4 (0.22%) Software-Defined Networking
6 4 (0.22%) VLAN
6 4 (0.22%) VPN
6 4 (0.22%) Wireless
7 3 (0.17%) DNS
7 3 (0.17%) Kerberos
7 3 (0.17%) NFC
7 3 (0.17%) PPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (6.40%) PostgreSQL
2 78 (4.38%) Apache Cassandra
3 75 (4.21%) NoSQL
4 70 (3.93%) MongoDB
5 50 (2.81%) SQL Server
6 48 (2.70%) Relational Database
7 36 (2.02%) Amazon RDS
8 33 (1.85%) Big Data
8 33 (1.85%) Data Lake
9 32 (1.80%) MySQL
10 29 (1.63%) Power BI
11 27 (1.52%) BigQuery
11 27 (1.52%) Metadata
12 23 (1.29%) Hadoop
13 21 (1.18%) Amazon Athena
14 20 (1.12%) Elasticsearch
15 19 (1.07%) DynamoDB
16 15 (0.84%) Data Warehouse
17 14 (0.79%) Mixpanel
18 10 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 167 (9.38%) Git
2 126 (7.08%) Jenkins
3 122 (6.85%) GitLab
4 98 (5.51%) JIRA
5 35 (1.97%) Selenium
6 31 (1.74%) JUnit
6 31 (1.74%) SonarQube
7 30 (1.69%) Rational DOORS
8 29 (1.63%) Cypress.io
9 28 (1.57%) Gradle
10 27 (1.52%) Cucumber
11 24 (1.35%) Liquibase
11 24 (1.35%) Rational Rhapsody
12 22 (1.24%) IntelliJ
13 20 (1.12%) Maven
14 19 (1.07%) Bitbucket
15 18 (1.01%) Eclipse
15 18 (1.01%) Mockito
16 13 (0.73%) Postman
17 12 (0.67%) Artifactory
General
1 309 (17.36%) Finance
2 308 (17.30%) Social Skills
3 126 (7.08%) Banking
4 122 (6.85%) Public Sector
5 96 (5.39%) Analytical Skills
6 55 (3.09%) Aerospace
7 51 (2.87%) Front Office
8 42 (2.36%) Electronics
9 36 (2.02%) Investment Banking
10 35 (1.97%) Financial Institution
11 31 (1.74%) Law
12 27 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
12 27 (1.52%) Retail
13 24 (1.35%) Manufacturing
14 23 (1.29%) Military
15 19 (1.07%) Telecoms
16 18 (1.01%) Pharmaceutical
17 16 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
18 13 (0.73%) Documentation Skills
19 12 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 890 (50.00%) Software Engineer
2 367 (20.62%) Senior
3 334 (18.76%) Developer
4 181 (10.17%) Senior Software Engineer
5 132 (7.42%) Lead
6 125 (7.02%) C++ Software Engineer
7 96 (5.39%) Java Engineer
8 92 (5.17%) Embedded Engineer
9 86 (4.83%) Embedded Software Engineer
10 79 (4.44%) Java Software Engineer
11 77 (4.33%) Java Developer
12 76 (4.27%) Python Engineer
12 76 (4.27%) Senior Developer
13 63 (3.54%) Architect
13 63 (3.54%) Python Developer
14 54 (3.03%) AWS Engineer
15 51 (2.87%) Data Engineer
16 50 (2.81%) DevOps Engineer
16 50 (2.81%) Full-Stack Engineer
17 45 (2.53%) Developer/Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 222 (12.47%) React
2 217 (12.19%) Kafka
3 148 (8.31%) Node.js
4 141 (7.92%) REST
5 134 (7.53%) .NET
6 116 (6.52%) Spring
7 115 (6.46%) RESTful
8 110 (6.18%) Spring Boot
9 93 (5.22%) AngularJS
10 81 (4.55%) gRPC
11 58 (3.26%) Middleware
12 55 (3.09%) GraphQL
13 53 (2.98%) JSON
14 52 (2.92%) HTML
15 48 (2.70%) CSS
16 45 (2.53%) Playwright
17 43 (2.42%) FastAPI
18 39 (2.19%) Vue
19 34 (1.91%) Elastic Stack
19 34 (1.91%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 217 (12.19%) Cloud Native
2 137 (7.70%) Distributed Systems
3 88 (4.94%) Product Ownership
4 66 (3.71%) Algorithms
5 43 (2.42%) Data Protection Act
6 42 (2.36%) Fixed Income
7 33 (1.85%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 33 (1.85%) Mobile App
8 32 (1.80%) Data Structures
9 31 (1.74%) Legacy Systems
10 29 (1.63%) Public Cloud
11 28 (1.57%) Hedge funds
12 26 (1.46%) AI Agents
12 26 (1.46%) Greenfield Project
13 24 (1.35%) Derivative
13 24 (1.35%) Equities
13 24 (1.35%) Onboarding
14 22 (1.24%) Embedded Systems
14 22 (1.24%) Virtual Team
15 20 (1.12%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 226 (12.70%) Linux
2 77 (4.33%) Windows
3 54 (3.03%) Unix
4 27 (1.52%) Android
5 21 (1.18%) Apple iOS
6 19 (1.07%) Ubuntu
7 16 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (0.79%) Windows Server
9 6 (0.34%) FreeRTOS
10 3 (0.17%) Debian
10 3 (0.17%) VMS
11 2 (0.11%) Embedded Linux
11 2 (0.11%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.11%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.11%) Rocky
12 1 (0.056%) Solaris
12 1 (0.056%) Windows 10
12 1 (0.056%) Windows Embedded Compact
12 1 (0.056%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.056%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 565 (31.74%) Agile
2 510 (28.65%) CI/CD
3 366 (20.56%) DevOps
4 315 (17.70%) Microservices
5 256 (14.38%) AI
6 244 (13.71%) Problem-Solving
7 225 (12.64%) Containerisation
8 206 (11.57%) Test Automation
9 202 (11.35%) Infrastructure as Code
10 177 (9.94%) Full-Stack Development
11 166 (9.33%) Computer Science
12 160 (8.99%) Machine Learning
13 155 (8.71%) Mentoring
14 137 (7.70%) Continuous Improvement
15 128 (7.19%) Scrum
16 120 (6.74%) Open Source
16 120 (6.74%) SDLC
17 119 (6.69%) Observability
18 118 (6.63%) TDD
19 109 (6.12%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 511 (28.71%) Python
2 411 (23.09%) Java
3 257 (14.44%) C++
3 257 (14.44%) SQL
4 236 (13.26%) JavaScript
5 214 (12.02%) C#
6 210 (11.80%) TypeScript
7 158 (8.88%) Go
8 108 (6.07%) C
9 102 (5.73%) Ada
10 37 (2.08%) Shell Script
11 36 (2.02%) Rust
12 30 (1.69%) PowerShell
13 28 (1.57%) Kotlin
14 25 (1.40%) Bash
15 24 (1.35%) Embedded C++
16 23 (1.29%) Embedded C
17 18 (1.01%) MATLAB
18 17 (0.96%) Ruby
18 17 (0.96%) Scala
Qualifications
1 380 (21.35%) Security Cleared
2 301 (16.91%) SC Cleared
3 210 (11.80%) Degree
4 97 (5.45%) Computer Science Degree
5 65 (3.65%) Master's Degree
6 55 (3.09%) DV Cleared
7 21 (1.18%) AWS Certification
8 18 (1.01%) CISSP
8 18 (1.01%) PhD
9 17 (0.96%) BPSS Clearance
9 17 (0.96%) CISM
10 15 (0.84%) Azure Certification
10 15 (0.84%) TOGAF Certification
11 12 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 10 (0.56%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 8 (0.45%) ISTQB
14 7 (0.39%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 5 (0.28%) Microsoft Certification
15 5 (0.28%) Postgraduate
16 4 (0.22%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (5.28%) QA
2 47 (2.64%) Def Stans
3 35 (1.97%) Accessibility
3 35 (1.97%) Data Quality
3 35 (1.97%) IEC 61508
4 31 (1.74%) MISRA
5 21 (1.18%) MISRA C
6 19 (1.07%) GDPR
7 18 (1.01%) WCAG
8 14 (0.79%) NIST
9 11 (0.62%) DO-178B
10 10 (0.56%) EU AI Act
11 6 (0.34%) HL7
12 3 (0.17%) ISO 26262
12 3 (0.17%) NCSC
12 3 (0.17%) SLA
13 2 (0.11%) FATCA
13 2 (0.11%) IEC 62304
13 2 (0.11%) MiFID
13 2 (0.11%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 350 (19.66%) Docker
2 17 (0.96%) Firmware
3 14 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
4 12 (0.67%) Active Directory
4 12 (0.67%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.11%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.056%) zsh
Systems Management
1 371 (20.84%) Kubernetes
2 217 (12.19%) Terraform
3 99 (5.56%) Grafana
4 64 (3.60%) Prometheus
5 61 (3.43%) Ansible
6 22 (1.24%) Argo
7 20 (1.12%) Puppet
8 10 (0.56%) Progress Chef
8 10 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (0.45%) Kibana
10 6 (0.34%) Istio
11 5 (0.28%) HP Quality Center
11 5 (0.28%) Podman
12 4 (0.22%) Data Guard
13 3 (0.17%) Docker Swarm
13 3 (0.17%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.17%) Kubeflow
13 3 (0.17%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
14 2 (0.11%) Functional Safety
14 2 (0.11%) rkt
Vendors
1 133 (7.47%) Microsoft
2 65 (3.65%) Google
3 59 (3.31%) Red Hat
4 55 (3.09%) Oracle
5 45 (2.53%) Databricks
6 37 (2.08%) Splunk
7 27 (1.52%) Foundry
8 18 (1.01%) IBM
9 16 (0.90%) BiZZdesign
10 13 (0.73%) VMware
11 12 (0.67%) OpenAI
12 11 (0.62%) Atlassian
13 10 (0.56%) Palantir
14 9 (0.51%) Software AG
15 8 (0.45%) ANSYS
15 8 (0.45%) CyberArk
15 8 (0.45%) PagerDuty
15 8 (0.45%) SAP
15 8 (0.45%) Siemens
15 8 (0.45%) webMethods