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 24 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 43 29
Rank change year-on-year +12 -14 +11
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2,718 1,378 1,887
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.84% 4.95% 5.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.89% 5.45% 6.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,450 842 1,145
10th Percentile £400 £378 £411
25th Percentile £463 £463 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £594 £625
Median % change year-on-year -7.37% -5.00% +3.35%
75th Percentile £688 £738 £810
90th Percentile £775 £838 £888
UK median daily rate £550 £575 £600
% change year-on-year -4.35% -4.17% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 437 116 223
10th Percentile £51.25 £42.44 £46.18
25th Percentile £60.00 £52.50 £57.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.50
Median % change year-on-year - -0.76% +0.77%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.50
% change year-on-year - -0.76% +0.77%

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 39,443 25,283 28,060
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.68% 90.86% 86.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,053 16,051 17,283
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £645
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,841 1,529 1,252
10th Percentile £13.99 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.72 £17.87 £20.09
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -2.39%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.12 £66.61
90th Percentile £79.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -

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 24 September 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 24 September 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 24 September 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 1,204 £600 -7.19% 4,533
North of England +22 454 £523 +4.60% 902
South East +38 349 £525 +10.53% 863
South West +18 309 £550 +10.00% 604
East of England +14 232 £510 +2.00% 541
North West +19 214 £540 +8.00% 561
Yorkshire +18 176 £500 - 237
Midlands +31 144 £469 -11.51% 422
West Midlands +17 100 £470 -18.26% 234
North East +1 68 £650 +33.33% 105
East Midlands +13 43 £435 -3.33% 188
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 58 (2.13%) Apache Spark
1 58 (2.13%) Confluence
2 49 (1.80%) Apache Airflow
3 34 (1.25%) Apache
4 15 (0.55%) CMS
5 14 (0.52%) SharePoint
6 8 (0.29%) Jupyter
7 7 (0.26%) Camunda
7 7 (0.26%) Ethereum
7 7 (0.26%) SAS
8 5 (0.18%) Apache Solr
8 5 (0.18%) Apache Superset
8 5 (0.18%) Hyperledger
9 4 (0.15%) nginx
9 4 (0.15%) WordPress
10 3 (0.11%) MQSeries
10 3 (0.11%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.074%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.074%) IIS
11 2 (0.074%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 14 (0.52%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (0.44%) Chatbot
3 10 (0.37%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 10 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.11%) CPLEX
6 3 (0.11%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.11%) Trello
7 2 (0.074%) CATIA
7 2 (0.074%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 2 (0.074%) Notion
7 2 (0.074%) Simulink
8 1 (0.037%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.037%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.037%) Blender
8 1 (0.037%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 7 (0.26%) Payment Gateway
2 5 (0.18%) Oracle Payroll
2 5 (0.18%) R3 Corda
3 4 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.15%) Quorum
3 4 (0.15%) Ripple
4 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.11%) Orchestrade
4 3 (0.11%) Primavera
4 3 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.074%) Distributed Ledger
5 2 (0.074%) Endur
5 2 (0.074%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.037%) Aladdin
6 1 (0.037%) Sage 50
6 1 (0.037%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.037%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.037%) Shopify
6 1 (0.037%) Sprinklr
6 1 (0.037%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 692 (25.46%) AWS
2 552 (20.31%) Azure
3 285 (10.49%) GCP
4 240 (8.83%) GitHub
5 144 (5.30%) Serverless
6 125 (4.60%) GitHub Actions
7 115 (4.23%) Azure DevOps
8 105 (3.86%) AWS Lambda
9 69 (2.54%) Amazon S3
9 69 (2.54%) Anthropic Claude
10 65 (2.39%) GitHub Copilot
11 58 (2.13%) OpenShift
12 55 (2.02%) Amazon SQS
13 53 (1.95%) Amazon EKS
14 51 (1.88%) Amazon ECS
15 46 (1.69%) Power Platform
15 46 (1.69%) Snowflake
16 44 (1.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 34 (1.25%) dbt
18 31 (1.14%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 33 (1.21%) Wireless
2 31 (1.14%) Software-Defined Radio
3 21 (0.77%) Firewall
4 20 (0.74%) Internet
5 18 (0.66%) Ethernet
5 18 (0.66%) HTTP
5 18 (0.66%) TCP/IP
5 18 (0.66%) VPN
6 14 (0.52%) Wi-Fi
7 9 (0.33%) DNS
7 9 (0.33%) Network Security
7 9 (0.33%) RTP
7 9 (0.33%) Wireshark
8 6 (0.22%) 3GPP
8 6 (0.22%) Cisco IPT
9 4 (0.15%) Broadband
9 4 (0.15%) RS-232
9 4 (0.15%) SSL
10 3 (0.11%) RS-485
10 3 (0.11%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (5.30%) PostgreSQL
2 100 (3.68%) Relational Database
3 83 (3.05%) SQL Server
4 80 (2.94%) NoSQL
5 60 (2.21%) MongoDB
6 51 (1.88%) Data Warehouse
7 45 (1.66%) DynamoDB
8 43 (1.58%) MySQL
9 34 (1.25%) Metadata
10 30 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
11 28 (1.03%) Data Lake
11 28 (1.03%) Power BI
11 28 (1.03%) Redis
12 26 (0.96%) Big Data
12 26 (0.96%) BigQuery
12 26 (0.96%) Elasticsearch
12 26 (0.96%) Pinecone
13 21 (0.77%) Weaviate
14 19 (0.70%) Chroma
15 16 (0.59%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 281 (10.34%) Git
2 157 (5.78%) GitLab
3 150 (5.52%) Jenkins
4 117 (4.30%) JIRA
5 57 (2.10%) SonarQube
6 38 (1.40%) Gradle
7 37 (1.36%) Claude Code
7 37 (1.36%) JUnit
8 31 (1.14%) Visual Studio
9 29 (1.07%) Rational DOORS
9 29 (1.07%) Selenium
10 28 (1.03%) Maven
11 21 (0.77%) Cucumber
12 20 (0.74%) Rational Rhapsody
13 17 (0.63%) Mockito
14 15 (0.55%) LabVIEW
15 13 (0.48%) Bitbucket
16 12 (0.44%) Cypress.io
16 12 (0.44%) Snyk
17 10 (0.37%) MLflow
General
1 567 (20.86%) Social Skills
2 498 (18.32%) Finance
3 218 (8.02%) Banking
4 202 (7.43%) Public Sector
5 193 (7.10%) Analytical Skills
6 98 (3.61%) Aerospace
7 78 (2.87%) Front Office
8 53 (1.95%) Manufacturing
9 52 (1.91%) Investment Banking
10 46 (1.69%) Retail
11 45 (1.66%) Law
12 39 (1.43%) Automotive
13 33 (1.21%) Military
14 30 (1.10%) Telecoms
15 27 (0.99%) Influencing Skills
16 26 (0.96%) Aviation
17 25 (0.92%) Marketing
18 24 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 18 (0.66%) Back Office
20 16 (0.59%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 1,127 (41.46%) Software Engineer
2 533 (19.61%) Developer
3 513 (18.87%) Senior
4 300 (11.04%) Lead
5 202 (7.43%) Senior Software Engineer
6 162 (5.96%) Embedded Engineer
7 160 (5.89%) Java Engineer
8 156 (5.74%) Embedded Software Engineer
9 153 (5.63%) Java Developer
10 137 (5.04%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 128 (4.71%) Software Developer
12 126 (4.64%) Java Software Engineer
13 115 (4.23%) C++ Software Engineer
14 113 (4.16%) Senior Developer
15 110 (4.05%) Architect
16 106 (3.90%) Python Engineer
17 103 (3.79%) Data Engineer
18 81 (2.98%) DevOps Engineer
19 79 (2.91%) Lead Software Engineer
20 77 (2.83%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 297 (10.93%) Terraform
2 251 (9.23%) React
3 241 (8.87%) REST
4 231 (8.50%) Spring
5 222 (8.17%) .NET
6 218 (8.02%) Spring Boot
7 174 (6.40%) Kafka
8 149 (5.48%) RESTful
9 140 (5.15%) Node.js
10 101 (3.72%) AngularJS
11 62 (2.28%) Django
12 58 (2.13%) HTML
12 58 (2.13%) OAuth
13 57 (2.10%) LangChain
14 56 (2.06%) CSS
15 55 (2.02%) Next.js
16 52 (1.91%) Web Services
17 45 (1.66%) JSON
18 44 (1.62%) FastAPI
19 42 (1.55%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 420 (15.45%) Cloud Native
2 235 (8.65%) Distributed Systems
3 153 (5.63%) Product Ownership
4 141 (5.19%) AI Agents
5 74 (2.72%) Algorithms
6 66 (2.43%) Enterprise Software
7 58 (2.13%) Onboarding
8 56 (2.06%) Data Structures
9 50 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
10 48 (1.77%) Embedded Systems
11 38 (1.40%) Self-Motivation
12 35 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
13 33 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 29 (1.07%) Fixed Income
15 27 (0.99%) Greenfield Project
16 25 (0.92%) Derivative
17 24 (0.88%) Equities
17 24 (0.88%) Robotics
18 20 (0.74%) Virtual Team
19 19 (0.70%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 191 (7.03%) Linux
2 66 (2.43%) Windows
3 35 (1.29%) Unix
4 24 (0.88%) Embedded Linux
5 23 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.52%) FreeRTOS
7 13 (0.48%) Android
8 12 (0.44%) Windows Server
9 8 (0.29%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.26%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.18%) Debian
12 3 (0.11%) Rocky
12 3 (0.11%) VxWorks
13 2 (0.074%) VMS
13 2 (0.074%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.074%) zOS
14 1 (0.037%) Solaris
14 1 (0.037%) Tizen
14 1 (0.037%) webOS
14 1 (0.037%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 944 (34.73%) CI/CD
2 827 (30.43%) Agile
3 646 (23.77%) DevOps
4 588 (21.63%) AI
5 409 (15.05%) Microservices
6 407 (14.97%) Test Automation
7 341 (12.55%) Continuous Improvement
8 328 (12.07%) Problem-Solving
9 327 (12.03%) Infrastructure as Code
10 286 (10.52%) Observability
11 271 (9.97%) SDLC
12 267 (9.82%) Containerisation
13 257 (9.46%) Full-Stack Development
14 243 (8.94%) Technical Leadership
15 241 (8.87%) Stakeholder Management
16 232 (8.54%) Machine Learning
17 226 (8.31%) Platform Engineering
18 221 (8.13%) Event-Driven
18 221 (8.13%) LLM
19 218 (8.02%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 795 (29.25%) Python
2 682 (25.09%) Java
3 386 (14.20%) SQL
4 304 (11.18%) TypeScript
5 302 (11.11%) C#
6 230 (8.46%) C++
7 227 (8.35%) JavaScript
8 121 (4.45%) C
9 83 (3.05%) Go
10 80 (2.94%) Ada
11 68 (2.50%) Kotlin
12 48 (1.77%) PowerShell
13 44 (1.62%) Bash
13 44 (1.62%) Rust
14 39 (1.43%) Scala
15 28 (1.03%) Embedded C
16 23 (0.85%) PL/SQL
17 22 (0.81%) Bicep
18 20 (0.74%) PHP
19 18 (0.66%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 604 (22.22%) Security Cleared
2 511 (18.80%) SC Cleared
3 218 (8.02%) Degree
4 101 (3.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 94 (3.46%) DV Cleared
6 60 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
7 48 (1.77%) Master's Degree
8 45 (1.66%) AWS Certification
9 24 (0.88%) Azure Certification
10 19 (0.70%) PhD
11 18 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 13 (0.48%) PMP
13 10 (0.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 8 (0.29%) CISSP
15 6 (0.22%) Chartered Engineer
15 6 (0.22%) ISTQB
15 6 (0.22%) TOGAF Certification
16 5 (0.18%) Numerate Degree
16 5 (0.18%) PMI Certification
17 4 (0.15%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 181 (6.66%) QA
2 78 (2.87%) Data Quality
3 59 (2.17%) Accessibility
4 22 (0.81%) MISRA
5 20 (0.74%) GDPR
6 17 (0.63%) Def Stans
7 14 (0.52%) NIST
7 14 (0.52%) WCAG
8 12 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 11 (0.40%) IEC 61508
9 11 (0.40%) MISRA C
10 10 (0.37%) DO-178B
11 9 (0.33%) GRC
12 6 (0.22%) HL7
12 6 (0.22%) NCSC
13 5 (0.18%) EMIR
13 5 (0.18%) JSP 440
13 5 (0.18%) MiFID
14 4 (0.15%) PCI DSS
15 3 (0.11%) DO-254
System Software
1 393 (14.46%) Docker
2 30 (1.10%) Firmware
3 19 (0.70%) Embedded Firmware
4 15 (0.55%) Active Directory
5 13 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.037%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 446 (16.41%) Kubernetes
2 94 (3.46%) Ansible
3 55 (2.02%) Grafana
4 41 (1.51%) Argo
4 41 (1.51%) Prometheus
5 18 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
6 16 (0.59%) Kibana
7 9 (0.33%) Puppet
8 6 (0.22%) Functional Safety
9 4 (0.15%) Consul
9 4 (0.15%) Kubeflow
9 4 (0.15%) Kustomize
10 3 (0.11%) HP Fortify
10 3 (0.11%) Istio
10 3 (0.11%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.074%) Cilium
11 2 (0.074%) Control-M
11 2 (0.074%) HAProxy
11 2 (0.074%) Packer
11 2 (0.074%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 149 (5.48%) Microsoft
2 106 (3.90%) Google
3 86 (3.16%) Oracle
4 82 (3.02%) Databricks
5 67 (2.47%) OpenAI
6 42 (1.55%) Red Hat
7 30 (1.10%) Salesforce
8 25 (0.92%) Splunk
9 20 (0.74%) IBM
10 17 (0.63%) Foundry
10 17 (0.63%) Informatica
10 17 (0.63%) ServiceNow
11 12 (0.44%) Adobe
12 11 (0.40%) SAP
13 10 (0.37%) VMware
14 9 (0.33%) Checkmarx
14 9 (0.33%) Dynatrace
15 8 (0.29%) Siemens
16 7 (0.26%) ForgeRock
16 7 (0.26%) Hitachi