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 9 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 41 32
Rank change year-on-year +1 -9 +9
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 1,972 1,232 1,960
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.04% 5.06% 5.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.88% 5.56% 6.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,036 821 1,147
10th Percentile £398 £406 £425
25th Percentile £450 £500 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £669 £763 £748
90th Percentile £788 £838 £838
UK median daily rate £550 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 428 80 321
10th Percentile £52.50 £42.95 £46.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £54.78 £51.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year - +4.00% -2.45%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £73.46 £68.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +4.00% -0.29%

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 33,539 22,147 32,451
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.75% 90.94% 86.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,506 14,596 21,405
10th Percentile £313 £313 £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 2,075 867 2,189
10th Percentile £15.43 £14.99 £12.92
25th Percentile £19.91 £19.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £32.50 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year +23.08% -4.41% -9.33%
75th Percentile £65.74 £65.00 £58.70
90th Percentile £77.80 £76.25 £70.78
UK median hourly rate £36.70 £31.64 £33.07
% change year-on-year +15.99% -4.31% -8.15%

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 9 April 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 9 April 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 9 April 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 -11 837 £600 -11.11% 539
North of England +12 284 £500 -4.76% 264
South West +13 273 £553 -4.74% 216
South East +4 213 £525 +2.44% 355
East of England +37 206 £475 -2.66% 135
North West +3 134 £500 -5.66% 145
Yorkshire -2 106 £519 +3.75% 87
Midlands -29 99 £500 +3.41% 126
West Midlands -18 87 £498 -0.50% 74
North East +23 49 £478 +3.80% 33
East Midlands -33 12 £513 +6.22% 52
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 (2.74%) Confluence
2 45 (2.28%) Apache
3 43 (2.18%) Apache Spark
4 19 (0.96%) Apache Airflow
5 10 (0.51%) CMS
6 9 (0.46%) WebLogic
7 6 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
8 5 (0.25%) SharePoint
9 4 (0.20%) IIS
9 4 (0.20%) JBoss
9 4 (0.20%) nginx
10 3 (0.15%) Camunda
10 3 (0.15%) OpenStack
10 3 (0.15%) SAS
11 2 (0.10%) Magnolia
11 2 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.10%) Sitecore CMS
11 2 (0.10%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.10%) WinCC
11 2 (0.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 11 (0.56%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (0.46%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.25%) Chatbot
4 4 (0.20%) Simulink
5 3 (0.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.10%) CPLEX
6 2 (0.10%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.051%) Maya
7 1 (0.051%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.051%) OrCAD
7 1 (0.051%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.10%) Aladdin
3 2 (0.10%) LabWindows
3 2 (0.10%) Primavera
4 1 (0.051%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.051%) Orchestrade
4 1 (0.051%) Sprinklr
4 1 (0.051%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 551 (27.94%) AWS
2 365 (18.51%) Azure
3 178 (9.03%) GCP
4 136 (6.90%) GitHub
5 118 (5.98%) Serverless
6 71 (3.60%) Azure DevOps
7 62 (3.14%) AWS Lambda
8 57 (2.89%) Amazon S3
9 56 (2.84%) GitHub Actions
10 50 (2.54%) OpenShift
11 48 (2.43%) Power Platform
12 42 (2.13%) AWS CloudFormation
13 38 (1.93%) Azure AKS
14 36 (1.83%) Amazon EKS
15 32 (1.62%) Amazon ECS
16 31 (1.57%) SaaS
17 30 (1.52%) Amazon EC2
18 28 (1.42%) Azure Functions
19 27 (1.37%) Amazon SQS
20 22 (1.12%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.22%) Ethernet
2 14 (0.71%) Software-Defined Radio
3 13 (0.66%) Network Security
3 13 (0.66%) TCP/IP
4 12 (0.61%) Firewall
5 8 (0.41%) Wireless
6 6 (0.30%) 3GPP
7 5 (0.25%) HTTP
7 5 (0.25%) Modbus
7 5 (0.25%) VPN
8 4 (0.20%) BGP
8 4 (0.20%) RS-232
8 4 (0.20%) RS-485
8 4 (0.20%) Software-Defined Networking
8 4 (0.20%) VLAN
9 3 (0.15%) Bluetooth
9 3 (0.15%) IPv4
9 3 (0.15%) IPv6
9 3 (0.15%) RS-422
10 2 (0.10%) iSCSI
Database & Business Intelligence
1 120 (6.09%) PostgreSQL
2 69 (3.50%) Relational Database
3 61 (3.09%) Apache Cassandra
4 59 (2.99%) SQL Server
5 57 (2.89%) NoSQL
6 52 (2.64%) MongoDB
7 35 (1.77%) Power BI
8 34 (1.72%) Data Lake
9 30 (1.52%) Amazon RDS
10 29 (1.47%) MySQL
11 27 (1.37%) BigQuery
12 25 (1.27%) Metadata
13 24 (1.22%) Big Data
14 23 (1.17%) DynamoDB
15 19 (0.96%) Data Warehouse
16 16 (0.81%) Amazon Athena
17 15 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
17 15 (0.76%) Mixpanel
18 13 (0.66%) Amazon Redshift
18 13 (0.66%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 202 (10.24%) Git
2 120 (6.09%) Jenkins
3 106 (5.38%) JIRA
4 105 (5.32%) GitLab
5 38 (1.93%) SonarQube
6 37 (1.88%) Rational DOORS
7 36 (1.83%) JUnit
8 35 (1.77%) Rational Rhapsody
9 27 (1.37%) Selenium
10 26 (1.32%) Cucumber
10 26 (1.32%) Gradle
10 26 (1.32%) IntelliJ
11 22 (1.12%) Bitbucket
12 20 (1.01%) Cypress.io
12 20 (1.01%) Maven
13 18 (0.91%) Mockito
14 17 (0.86%) Eclipse
14 17 (0.86%) Visual Studio
15 11 (0.56%) Liquibase
16 9 (0.46%) Artifactory
General
1 307 (15.57%) Finance
2 300 (15.21%) Social Skills
3 124 (6.29%) Public Sector
4 110 (5.58%) Banking
5 108 (5.48%) Analytical Skills
6 80 (4.06%) Aerospace
7 66 (3.35%) Front Office
8 41 (2.08%) Electronics
9 35 (1.77%) Law
10 31 (1.57%) Retail
11 30 (1.52%) Manufacturing
12 28 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
12 28 (1.42%) Military
13 27 (1.37%) Investment Banking
14 22 (1.12%) Telecoms
15 21 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
16 17 (0.86%) Financial Institution
17 13 (0.66%) Documentation Skills
17 13 (0.66%) Legal
18 12 (0.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 1,056 (53.55%) Software Engineer
2 358 (18.15%) Senior
3 355 (18.00%) Developer
4 168 (8.52%) Senior Software Engineer
5 147 (7.45%) Lead
6 135 (6.85%) Java Engineer
7 133 (6.74%) Embedded Engineer
8 124 (6.29%) C++ Software Engineer
9 121 (6.14%) Embedded Software Engineer
10 106 (5.38%) Java Software Engineer
11 87 (4.41%) Java Developer
12 82 (4.16%) Architect
13 72 (3.65%) Senior Developer
14 67 (3.40%) Developer/Software Engineer
15 65 (3.30%) Python Engineer
16 59 (2.99%) Python Developer
17 58 (2.94%) Lead Software Engineer
17 58 (2.94%) Software Developer
18 56 (2.84%) Data Engineer
19 52 (2.64%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 234 (11.87%) React
2 198 (10.04%) Kafka
3 168 (8.52%) Node.js
4 147 (7.45%) .NET
5 141 (7.15%) REST
6 137 (6.95%) Spring
7 122 (6.19%) Spring Boot
8 103 (5.22%) AngularJS
9 91 (4.61%) RESTful
10 72 (3.65%) GraphQL
11 64 (3.25%) gRPC
12 57 (2.89%) Middleware
13 52 (2.64%) Redux
14 51 (2.59%) HTML
15 47 (2.38%) CSS
16 46 (2.33%) JSON
17 42 (2.13%) Playwright
18 37 (1.88%) Web Services
19 34 (1.72%) Vue
20 31 (1.57%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 215 (10.90%) Cloud Native
2 144 (7.30%) Distributed Systems
3 96 (4.87%) Product Ownership
4 78 (3.96%) Algorithms
5 61 (3.09%) Fixed Income
6 34 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
7 33 (1.67%) AI Agents
8 29 (1.47%) Derivative
9 28 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
9 28 (1.42%) Mobile App
9 28 (1.42%) Onboarding
10 26 (1.32%) Data Structures
10 26 (1.32%) Embedded Systems
11 24 (1.22%) Equities
11 24 (1.22%) Greenfield Project
12 23 (1.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 21 (1.06%) Robotics
14 17 (0.86%) Hedge funds
15 14 (0.71%) Life Science
15 14 (0.71%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 194 (9.84%) Linux
2 72 (3.65%) Windows
3 45 (2.28%) Unix
4 26 (1.32%) Android
5 25 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 19 (0.96%) Apple iOS
7 15 (0.76%) Windows Server
8 9 (0.46%) Embedded Linux
8 9 (0.46%) FreeRTOS
8 9 (0.46%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.25%) Debian
9 5 (0.25%) VMS
10 3 (0.15%) Rocky
11 2 (0.10%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.10%) Solaris
11 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
11 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.051%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.051%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 575 (29.16%) Agile
1 575 (29.16%) CI/CD
2 396 (20.08%) DevOps
3 328 (16.63%) Microservices
4 270 (13.69%) AI
5 243 (12.32%) Problem-Solving
6 213 (10.80%) Containerisation
7 203 (10.29%) Full-Stack Development
8 202 (10.24%) Test Automation
9 197 (9.99%) Infrastructure as Code
10 165 (8.37%) Machine Learning
11 160 (8.11%) Computer Science
12 159 (8.06%) Continuous Improvement
13 154 (7.81%) Mentoring
14 151 (7.66%) Observability
15 137 (6.95%) SDLC
16 135 (6.85%) Scrum
17 133 (6.74%) TDD
18 130 (6.59%) Technical Leadership
19 120 (6.09%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 528 (26.77%) Python
2 486 (24.65%) Java
3 256 (12.98%) SQL
4 247 (12.53%) C#
5 237 (12.02%) C++
6 236 (11.97%) TypeScript
7 216 (10.95%) JavaScript
8 155 (7.86%) Go
9 130 (6.59%) Ada
10 115 (5.83%) C
11 39 (1.98%) PowerShell
12 35 (1.77%) Kotlin
13 33 (1.67%) Bash
14 29 (1.47%) Embedded C
15 27 (1.37%) Ruby
15 27 (1.37%) Rust
16 26 (1.32%) MATLAB
17 22 (1.12%) Shell Script
18 19 (0.96%) Embedded C++
19 17 (0.86%) Scala
Qualifications
1 474 (24.04%) Security Cleared
2 368 (18.66%) SC Cleared
3 180 (9.13%) Degree
4 87 (4.41%) Computer Science Degree
5 59 (2.99%) DV Cleared
6 45 (2.28%) Master's Degree
7 28 (1.42%) BPSS Clearance
8 21 (1.06%) AWS Certification
9 16 (0.81%) PhD
10 15 (0.76%) CISSP
11 14 (0.71%) Azure Certification
12 13 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 12 (0.61%) CISM
14 10 (0.51%) TOGAF Certification
15 8 (0.41%) ISTQB
16 7 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Certification
18 4 (0.20%) HND
18 4 (0.20%) Microsoft Certified Professional
19 3 (0.15%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 113 (5.73%) QA
2 55 (2.79%) Def Stans
3 42 (2.13%) Data Quality
4 40 (2.03%) IEC 61508
5 28 (1.42%) Accessibility
6 26 (1.32%) GDPR
7 25 (1.27%) MISRA
8 19 (0.96%) MISRA C
9 14 (0.71%) WCAG
10 11 (0.56%) NIST
11 7 (0.35%) DO-178B
11 7 (0.35%) HL7
11 7 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 6 (0.30%) NCSC
13 3 (0.15%) EU AI Act
14 2 (0.10%) FATCA
14 2 (0.10%) PCI DSS
14 2 (0.10%) PMO
14 2 (0.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 2 (0.10%) SLA
System Software
1 314 (15.92%) Docker
2 17 (0.86%) Firmware
3 16 (0.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
5 9 (0.46%) Active Directory
6 5 (0.25%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
8 3 (0.15%) HDFS
9 2 (0.10%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 350 (17.75%) Kubernetes
2 214 (10.85%) Terraform
3 85 (4.31%) Grafana
4 53 (2.69%) Ansible
5 46 (2.33%) Prometheus
6 32 (1.62%) Argo
7 17 (0.86%) Puppet
8 12 (0.61%) Progress Chef
9 7 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
10 6 (0.30%) Istio
10 6 (0.30%) Kibana
11 5 (0.25%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.20%) Data Guard
12 4 (0.20%) Docker Swarm
12 4 (0.20%) HAProxy
12 4 (0.20%) HP Quality Center
13 3 (0.15%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
14 2 (0.10%) HP ALM
14 2 (0.10%) Podman
15 1 (0.051%) Consul
Vendors
1 142 (7.20%) Microsoft
2 74 (3.75%) Google
3 62 (3.14%) Oracle
4 61 (3.09%) Red Hat
5 49 (2.48%) Databricks
6 23 (1.17%) IBM
7 19 (0.96%) OpenAI
8 18 (0.91%) Foundry
9 17 (0.86%) Splunk
9 17 (0.86%) VMware
10 13 (0.66%) ServiceNow
11 11 (0.56%) BiZZdesign
11 11 (0.56%) Siemens
12 10 (0.51%) Atlassian
12 10 (0.51%) PagerDuty
13 9 (0.46%) MathWorks
13 9 (0.46%) SAP
13 9 (0.46%) Software AG
14 8 (0.41%) ANSYS
14 8 (0.41%) Spotify