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 14 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 45 32
Rank change year-on-year +14 -13 +6
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2,561 1,341 1,943
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.62% 4.85% 5.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.60% 5.34% 6.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,410 863 1,229
10th Percentile £400 £375 £407
25th Percentile £464 £463 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £552 £600 £625
Median % change year-on-year -8.08% -4.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £688 £750 £800
90th Percentile £788 £848 £888
UK median daily rate £550 £575 £600
% change year-on-year -4.35% -4.17% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 414 90 277
10th Percentile £51.25 £37.89 £46.22
25th Percentile £60.00 £52.13 £56.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.00 £77.63 £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 38,785 25,097 28,627
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.06% 90.81% 85.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,091 16,007 18,621
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,533 1,429 1,649
10th Percentile £14.48 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.34 £17.87 £18.50
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +68.19% -39.40% -2.35%

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 14 August 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 14 August 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 14 August 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 -2 1,149 £600 -7.69% 2,683
North of England +24 391 £538 +8.28% 444
South East +31 331 £525 +2.44% 510
South West +17 317 £550 +10.00% 332
East of England +24 219 £505 +3.37% 264
North West +19 179 £550 +10.00% 281
Yorkshire +18 148 £500 - 94
Midlands +2 112 £453 -13.56% 199
West Midlands -14 79 £450 -21.74% 105
North East +8 69 £650 +41.30% 70
East Midlands -4 32 £513 +7.89% 94
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 (2.07%) Confluence
2 49 (1.91%) Apache Spark
3 37 (1.44%) Apache Airflow
4 34 (1.33%) Apache
5 11 (0.43%) CMS
6 10 (0.39%) SAS
7 8 (0.31%) SharePoint
8 6 (0.23%) Jupyter
9 5 (0.20%) Apache Solr
9 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
9 5 (0.20%) Hyperledger
10 4 (0.16%) nginx
11 3 (0.12%) Apache Superset
11 3 (0.12%) Palantir Foundry
11 3 (0.12%) WordPress
12 2 (0.078%) Apache Pulsar
12 2 (0.078%) Camunda
12 2 (0.078%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.078%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 2 (0.078%) Tomcat
Applications
1 12 (0.47%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (0.39%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 10 (0.39%) Chatbot
3 7 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
5 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.16%) Simulink
6 3 (0.12%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.12%) Trello
7 2 (0.078%) CATIA
7 2 (0.078%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 2 (0.078%) Notion
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.039%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.039%) Blender
8 1 (0.039%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 7 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
1 7 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
2 6 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.20%) R3 Corda
4 4 (0.16%) Quorum
4 4 (0.16%) Ripple
5 3 (0.12%) Orchestrade
5 3 (0.12%) Primavera
5 3 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.078%) Aladdin
6 2 (0.078%) Endur
6 2 (0.078%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.039%) Distributed Ledger
7 1 (0.039%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 1 (0.039%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.039%) Shopify
7 1 (0.039%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 630 (24.60%) AWS
2 511 (19.95%) Azure
3 255 (9.96%) GCP
4 221 (8.63%) GitHub
5 126 (4.92%) Serverless
6 109 (4.26%) GitHub Actions
7 104 (4.06%) Azure DevOps
8 88 (3.44%) AWS Lambda
9 62 (2.42%) Amazon S3
10 59 (2.30%) OpenShift
11 56 (2.19%) Anthropic Claude
12 49 (1.91%) Amazon SQS
12 49 (1.91%) Power Platform
13 48 (1.87%) Amazon EKS
14 47 (1.84%) Amazon ECS
15 46 (1.80%) GitHub Copilot
16 38 (1.48%) Azure AKS
17 34 (1.33%) Snowflake
18 30 (1.17%) AWS CloudFormation
19 29 (1.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 28 (1.09%) Software-Defined Radio
2 27 (1.05%) Wireless
3 20 (0.78%) Ethernet
3 20 (0.78%) TCP/IP
4 19 (0.74%) Firewall
4 19 (0.74%) Internet
5 16 (0.62%) VPN
6 14 (0.55%) HTTP
7 11 (0.43%) Wi-Fi
8 7 (0.27%) 3GPP
8 7 (0.27%) Network Security
8 7 (0.27%) RTP
8 7 (0.27%) Wireshark
9 5 (0.20%) DNS
10 4 (0.16%) RS-232
10 4 (0.16%) SSL
11 3 (0.12%) IPv4
11 3 (0.12%) IPv6
11 3 (0.12%) RS-485
12 2 (0.078%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 148 (5.78%) PostgreSQL
2 98 (3.83%) Relational Database
3 81 (3.16%) NoSQL
3 81 (3.16%) SQL Server
4 48 (1.87%) MongoDB
5 44 (1.72%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.44%) DynamoDB
7 35 (1.37%) MySQL
8 34 (1.33%) Power BI
9 29 (1.13%) Big Data
10 28 (1.09%) Metadata
11 25 (0.98%) Redis
12 24 (0.94%) Data Lake
13 22 (0.86%) Amazon RDS
14 21 (0.82%) BigQuery
15 20 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
15 20 (0.78%) Pinecone
16 18 (0.70%) Amazon Redshift
16 18 (0.70%) Weaviate
17 13 (0.51%) Apache Cassandra
Development Applications
1 269 (10.50%) Git
2 166 (6.48%) Jenkins
3 149 (5.82%) GitLab
4 107 (4.18%) JIRA
5 59 (2.30%) SonarQube
6 38 (1.48%) Gradle
6 38 (1.48%) JUnit
7 28 (1.09%) Claude Code
8 25 (0.98%) Rational DOORS
8 25 (0.98%) Visual Studio
9 21 (0.82%) Selenium
10 20 (0.78%) Maven
10 20 (0.78%) Rational Rhapsody
11 18 (0.70%) Bitbucket
12 17 (0.66%) Cucumber
12 17 (0.66%) Mockito
13 14 (0.55%) Liquibase
14 13 (0.51%) Cypress.io
15 12 (0.47%) Mocha
15 12 (0.47%) Snyk
General
1 479 (18.70%) Social Skills
2 451 (17.61%) Finance
3 190 (7.42%) Banking
4 185 (7.22%) Analytical Skills
5 174 (6.79%) Public Sector
6 104 (4.06%) Aerospace
7 87 (3.40%) Front Office
8 52 (2.03%) Retail
9 48 (1.87%) Manufacturing
10 47 (1.84%) Investment Banking
11 45 (1.76%) Law
12 33 (1.29%) Automotive
13 30 (1.17%) Military
14 29 (1.13%) Telecoms
15 26 (1.02%) Aviation
16 24 (0.94%) Influencing Skills
17 20 (0.78%) Marketing
18 19 (0.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 18 (0.70%) Electronics
19 18 (0.70%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 1,178 (46.00%) Software Engineer
2 470 (18.35%) Developer
3 446 (17.42%) Senior
4 276 (10.78%) Lead
5 186 (7.26%) Senior Software Engineer
6 167 (6.52%) Java Engineer
7 157 (6.13%) Embedded Engineer
8 143 (5.58%) Embedded Software Engineer
9 136 (5.31%) Java Software Engineer
10 127 (4.96%) Java Developer
11 115 (4.49%) C++ Software Engineer
12 112 (4.37%) Software Developer
13 105 (4.10%) Python Engineer
14 104 (4.06%) Architect
15 93 (3.63%) Lead Software Engineer
16 91 (3.55%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 91 (3.55%) Senior Developer
17 86 (3.36%) Data Engineer
18 74 (2.89%) DevOps Engineer
18 74 (2.89%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 262 (10.23%) React
2 212 (8.28%) REST
3 207 (8.08%) .NET
4 195 (7.61%) Spring
5 178 (6.95%) Spring Boot
6 167 (6.52%) Kafka
7 158 (6.17%) Node.js
8 121 (4.72%) RESTful
9 111 (4.33%) AngularJS
10 53 (2.07%) GraphQL
11 52 (2.03%) Django
12 49 (1.91%) Next.js
13 46 (1.80%) HTML
14 44 (1.72%) CSS
15 41 (1.60%) LangChain
16 40 (1.56%) Quarkus
17 38 (1.48%) JSON
17 38 (1.48%) Web Services
18 37 (1.44%) FastAPI
19 34 (1.33%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 350 (13.67%) Cloud Native
2 217 (8.47%) Distributed Systems
3 132 (5.15%) Product Ownership
4 93 (3.63%) AI Agents
5 84 (3.28%) Algorithms
6 52 (2.03%) Data Structures
6 52 (2.03%) Fixed Income
7 51 (1.99%) Embedded Systems
7 51 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
8 48 (1.87%) Onboarding
9 44 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
10 34 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 31 (1.21%) Legacy Systems
12 30 (1.17%) Derivative
12 30 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
13 27 (1.05%) Robotics
14 26 (1.02%) Equities
15 21 (0.82%) Greenfield Project
16 19 (0.74%) NHS
17 17 (0.66%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 193 (7.54%) Linux
2 56 (2.19%) Windows
3 33 (1.29%) Unix
4 25 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 22 (0.86%) Embedded Linux
6 13 (0.51%) Android
7 11 (0.43%) FreeRTOS
8 9 (0.35%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.31%) Windows Server
10 6 (0.23%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.20%) Debian
12 4 (0.16%) Rocky
12 4 (0.16%) VMS
13 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
14 2 (0.078%) Solaris
14 2 (0.078%) VxWorks
14 2 (0.078%) Windows Server 2008
15 1 (0.039%) Tizen
15 1 (0.039%) webOS
15 1 (0.039%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 850 (33.19%) CI/CD
2 787 (30.73%) Agile
3 601 (23.47%) DevOps
4 484 (18.90%) AI
5 391 (15.27%) Microservices
6 341 (13.32%) Test Automation
7 306 (11.95%) Problem-Solving
8 287 (11.21%) Continuous Improvement
9 280 (10.93%) Infrastructure as Code
10 262 (10.23%) Full-Stack Development
11 255 (9.96%) Containerisation
12 226 (8.82%) SDLC
13 223 (8.71%) Observability
14 220 (8.59%) Machine Learning
15 206 (8.04%) Mentoring
16 200 (7.81%) Technical Leadership
17 195 (7.61%) Platform Engineering
18 191 (7.46%) Scrum
19 188 (7.34%) TDD
20 184 (7.18%) LLM
Programming Languages
1 746 (29.13%) Python
2 651 (25.42%) Java
3 349 (13.63%) SQL
4 298 (11.64%) TypeScript
5 294 (11.48%) C#
6 229 (8.94%) JavaScript
7 219 (8.55%) C++
8 115 (4.49%) C
9 110 (4.30%) Ada
10 103 (4.02%) Go
11 57 (2.23%) Kotlin
12 43 (1.68%) PowerShell
13 42 (1.64%) Rust
14 41 (1.60%) Bash
15 38 (1.48%) Scala
16 24 (0.94%) PL/SQL
17 22 (0.86%) Embedded C
18 20 (0.78%) Bicep
18 20 (0.78%) Ruby
19 18 (0.70%) PHP
Qualifications
1 607 (23.70%) Security Cleared
2 509 (19.88%) SC Cleared
3 200 (7.81%) Degree
4 90 (3.51%) Computer Science Degree
5 77 (3.01%) DV Cleared
6 56 (2.19%) BPSS Clearance
7 41 (1.60%) Master's Degree
8 34 (1.33%) AWS Certification
9 20 (0.78%) PhD
10 18 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 14 (0.55%) Azure Certification
12 8 (0.31%) CISSP
13 7 (0.27%) ISTQB
13 7 (0.27%) PMP
14 6 (0.23%) Chartered Engineer
14 6 (0.23%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 6 (0.23%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 4 (0.16%) GIAC
15 4 (0.16%) MBA
16 3 (0.12%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 153 (5.97%) QA
2 62 (2.42%) Data Quality
3 47 (1.84%) Accessibility
4 25 (0.98%) Def Stans
5 19 (0.74%) GDPR
6 15 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (0.59%) NIST
7 14 (0.55%) IEC 61508
8 13 (0.51%) MISRA
9 12 (0.47%) WCAG
10 10 (0.39%) DO-178B
11 9 (0.35%) NCSC
12 7 (0.27%) GRC
13 6 (0.23%) PCI DSS
14 5 (0.20%) JSP 440
14 5 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.12%) Automotive SPICE
15 3 (0.12%) DO-254
15 3 (0.12%) HL7
15 3 (0.12%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 379 (14.80%) Docker
2 28 (1.09%) Firmware
3 17 (0.66%) Embedded Firmware
4 9 (0.35%) Active Directory
4 9 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.27%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.12%) HDFS
7 2 (0.078%) SRDF
8 1 (0.039%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 430 (16.79%) Kubernetes
2 266 (10.39%) Terraform
3 86 (3.36%) Ansible
4 53 (2.07%) Grafana
5 42 (1.64%) Argo
6 38 (1.48%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
8 11 (0.43%) Kibana
9 10 (0.39%) Puppet
10 7 (0.27%) Progress Chef
11 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
11 6 (0.23%) Kubeflow
12 5 (0.20%) HAProxy
13 4 (0.16%) Consul
14 3 (0.12%) HP Fortify
14 3 (0.12%) Kustomize
15 2 (0.078%) Docker Swarm
15 2 (0.078%) Istio
15 2 (0.078%) Packer
15 2 (0.078%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 134 (5.23%) Microsoft
2 91 (3.55%) Google
3 73 (2.85%) Oracle
4 60 (2.34%) Databricks
5 47 (1.84%) OpenAI
6 46 (1.80%) Red Hat
7 22 (0.86%) Salesforce
8 20 (0.78%) Informatica
9 19 (0.74%) ServiceNow
10 17 (0.66%) IBM
10 17 (0.66%) Splunk
11 12 (0.47%) Adobe
11 12 (0.47%) Foundry
11 12 (0.47%) SAP
12 11 (0.43%) Checkmarx
13 10 (0.39%) ForgeRock
13 10 (0.39%) Okta
14 9 (0.35%) Dynatrace
15 8 (0.31%) Confluent
15 8 (0.31%) VMware