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

6 months to
25 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 41 36
Rank change year-on-year +2 -5 +5
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 1,798 1,275 1,871
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.10% 4.98% 4.99%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.84% 5.53% 5.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 941 804 1,083
10th Percentile £385 £413 £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 £788 £838 £800
UK median daily rate £544 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -9.32% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 350 80 310
10th Percentile £52.50 £42.00 £46.25
25th Percentile £61.25 £57.53 £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 £72.60 £68.75 £75.25
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 30,789 23,051 32,723
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.31% 90.11% 87.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,727 14,450 21,724
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £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 1,908 755 2,031
10th Percentile £15.18 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £34.25
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% +2.19% -2.14%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.00 £59.95
90th Percentile £72.15 £75.40 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £25.94 £33.00 £33.07
% change year-on-year -21.39% -0.20% -5.53%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -13 795 £600 -7.69% 556
North of England +13 279 £519 -3.49% 249
South West +7 237 £500 -16.67% 175
East of England +30 176 £475 +5.56% 122
South East -4 147 £494 -1.25% 352
North West +3 130 £525 -4.55% 139
Yorkshire -4 109 £525 +2.44% 80
Midlands -14 104 £509 +3.93% 117
West Midlands -9 88 £523 +9.54% 61
North East +12 43 £488 -18.41% 31
East Midlands -26 16 £488 -1.52% 56
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 63 (3.50%) Confluence
2 53 (2.95%) Apache
3 44 (2.45%) Apache Spark
4 28 (1.56%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (0.72%) WebLogic
6 10 (0.56%) CMS
6 10 (0.56%) Palantir Foundry
7 8 (0.44%) JBoss
8 7 (0.39%) SAS
9 6 (0.33%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.22%) IIS
10 4 (0.22%) 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%) SharePoint
12 2 (0.11%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.11%) WinCC
12 2 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 16 (0.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.78%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.56%) Chatbot
4 5 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.11%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.11%) Simulink
6 1 (0.056%) CPLEX
6 1 (0.056%) Maya
6 1 (0.056%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.056%) OrCAD
6 1 (0.056%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.11%) LabWindows
1 2 (0.11%) Primavera
2 1 (0.056%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (0.056%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 540 (30.03%) AWS
2 313 (17.41%) Azure
3 188 (10.46%) GCP
4 150 (8.34%) Serverless
5 125 (6.95%) GitHub
6 66 (3.67%) GitHub Actions
7 65 (3.62%) Azure DevOps
8 63 (3.50%) AWS Lambda
9 60 (3.34%) Amazon S3
10 44 (2.45%) Amazon EKS
11 43 (2.39%) AWS CloudFormation
11 43 (2.39%) OpenShift
11 43 (2.39%) Power Platform
12 41 (2.28%) Azure AKS
13 38 (2.11%) Amazon ECS
14 37 (2.06%) Azure Functions
15 36 (2.00%) Amazon EC2
15 36 (2.00%) SaaS
16 28 (1.56%) Snowflake
17 22 (1.22%) Cloud Run
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.22%) Ethernet
2 13 (0.72%) TCP/IP
3 12 (0.67%) Network Security
4 9 (0.50%) Firewall
5 7 (0.39%) Internet
6 5 (0.28%) 3GPP
6 5 (0.28%) Modbus
6 5 (0.28%) Software-Defined Radio
7 4 (0.22%) BGP
7 4 (0.22%) HTTP
7 4 (0.22%) RS-232
7 4 (0.22%) RS-485
7 4 (0.22%) Software-Defined Networking
7 4 (0.22%) VLAN
7 4 (0.22%) VPN
7 4 (0.22%) Wireless
8 3 (0.17%) Bluetooth
8 3 (0.17%) Kerberos
8 3 (0.17%) NFC
8 3 (0.17%) PPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (6.79%) PostgreSQL
2 74 (4.12%) Apache Cassandra
3 69 (3.84%) NoSQL
4 68 (3.78%) MongoDB
5 48 (2.67%) Relational Database
6 47 (2.61%) SQL Server
7 36 (2.00%) Amazon RDS
8 33 (1.84%) Big Data
8 33 (1.84%) Data Lake
8 33 (1.84%) MySQL
9 30 (1.67%) Power BI
10 27 (1.50%) BigQuery
11 26 (1.45%) Hadoop
11 26 (1.45%) Metadata
12 21 (1.17%) Amazon Athena
12 21 (1.17%) Elasticsearch
13 18 (1.00%) DynamoDB
14 15 (0.83%) Data Warehouse
15 14 (0.78%) Mixpanel
16 10 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 171 (9.51%) Git
2 130 (7.23%) Jenkins
3 124 (6.90%) GitLab
4 101 (5.62%) JIRA
5 35 (1.95%) Selenium
6 32 (1.78%) Rational DOORS
7 31 (1.72%) JUnit
8 30 (1.67%) SonarQube
9 29 (1.61%) Cypress.io
10 28 (1.56%) Gradle
11 27 (1.50%) Cucumber
12 26 (1.45%) Rational Rhapsody
13 24 (1.33%) Liquibase
14 23 (1.28%) Bitbucket
14 23 (1.28%) Eclipse
15 22 (1.22%) IntelliJ
16 19 (1.06%) Maven
17 16 (0.89%) Mockito
17 16 (0.89%) Visual Studio
18 13 (0.72%) Postman
General
1 318 (17.69%) Finance
2 315 (17.52%) Social Skills
3 126 (7.01%) Banking
4 124 (6.90%) Public Sector
5 96 (5.34%) Analytical Skills
6 61 (3.39%) Front Office
7 57 (3.17%) Aerospace
8 42 (2.34%) Electronics
9 35 (1.95%) Financial Institution
10 34 (1.89%) Investment Banking
11 32 (1.78%) Law
12 28 (1.56%) Military
12 28 (1.56%) Retail
13 27 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
14 24 (1.33%) Manufacturing
15 20 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
16 19 (1.06%) Telecoms
17 18 (1.00%) Pharmaceutical
18 15 (0.83%) Documentation Skills
19 12 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 917 (51.00%) Software Engineer
2 366 (20.36%) Senior
3 338 (18.80%) Developer
4 180 (10.01%) Senior Software Engineer
5 138 (7.68%) Lead
6 126 (7.01%) C++ Software Engineer
7 104 (5.78%) Java Engineer
8 96 (5.34%) Embedded Engineer
9 88 (4.89%) Embedded Software Engineer
10 86 (4.78%) Java Software Engineer
11 79 (4.39%) Java Developer
12 77 (4.28%) Python Engineer
12 77 (4.28%) Senior Developer
13 62 (3.45%) Architect
13 62 (3.45%) Python Developer
14 56 (3.11%) Developer/Software Engineer
15 55 (3.06%) Data Engineer
16 54 (3.00%) AWS Engineer
17 52 (2.89%) Full-Stack Engineer
18 50 (2.78%) Lead Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 230 (12.79%) React
2 217 (12.07%) Kafka
3 162 (9.01%) Node.js
4 143 (7.95%) REST
5 136 (7.56%) .NET
6 114 (6.34%) Spring
7 112 (6.23%) RESTful
8 106 (5.90%) Spring Boot
9 91 (5.06%) AngularJS
10 79 (4.39%) gRPC
11 63 (3.50%) GraphQL
12 62 (3.45%) Middleware
13 54 (3.00%) JSON
14 53 (2.95%) HTML
15 48 (2.67%) CSS
16 44 (2.45%) Playwright
17 42 (2.34%) Redux
18 40 (2.22%) Vue
19 39 (2.17%) FastAPI
20 35 (1.95%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 217 (12.07%) Cloud Native
2 137 (7.62%) Distributed Systems
3 88 (4.89%) Product Ownership
4 66 (3.67%) Algorithms
5 53 (2.95%) Fixed Income
6 42 (2.34%) Data Protection Act
7 33 (1.84%) Mobile App
8 32 (1.78%) Data Structures
8 32 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
9 31 (1.72%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 29 (1.61%) Public Cloud
11 28 (1.56%) Equities
12 27 (1.50%) AI Agents
12 27 (1.50%) Derivative
12 27 (1.50%) Greenfield Project
13 26 (1.45%) Hedge funds
14 25 (1.39%) Onboarding
15 22 (1.22%) Embedded Systems
16 21 (1.17%) Virtual Team
17 20 (1.11%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 223 (12.40%) Linux
2 81 (4.51%) Windows
3 59 (3.28%) Unix
4 27 (1.50%) Android
5 21 (1.17%) Apple iOS
6 19 (1.06%) Ubuntu
7 17 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 15 (0.83%) Windows Server
9 6 (0.33%) FreeRTOS
10 4 (0.22%) VMS
11 3 (0.17%) Debian
12 2 (0.11%) Embedded Linux
12 2 (0.11%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.11%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.11%) Rocky
12 2 (0.11%) Solaris
12 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.056%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.056%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 580 (32.26%) Agile
2 521 (28.98%) CI/CD
3 372 (20.69%) DevOps
4 312 (17.35%) Microservices
5 260 (14.46%) AI
6 244 (13.57%) Problem-Solving
7 223 (12.40%) Containerisation
8 203 (11.29%) Infrastructure as Code
8 203 (11.29%) Test Automation
9 181 (10.07%) Full-Stack Development
10 165 (9.18%) Computer Science
10 165 (9.18%) Machine Learning
11 155 (8.62%) Mentoring
12 142 (7.90%) Continuous Improvement
13 129 (7.17%) Scrum
14 123 (6.84%) SDLC
15 121 (6.73%) Observability
16 118 (6.56%) Open Source
16 118 (6.56%) TDD
17 112 (6.23%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 529 (29.42%) Python
2 425 (23.64%) Java
3 254 (14.13%) C++
4 251 (13.96%) SQL
5 248 (13.79%) JavaScript
6 227 (12.63%) TypeScript
7 216 (12.01%) C#
8 164 (9.12%) Go
9 112 (6.23%) Ada
10 108 (6.01%) C
11 36 (2.00%) Rust
12 35 (1.95%) Shell Script
13 31 (1.72%) PowerShell
14 28 (1.56%) Kotlin
15 24 (1.33%) Bash
15 24 (1.33%) Embedded C++
16 23 (1.28%) Embedded C
17 18 (1.00%) Scala
18 17 (0.95%) MATLAB
18 17 (0.95%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 395 (21.97%) Security Cleared
2 312 (17.35%) SC Cleared
3 211 (11.74%) Degree
4 97 (5.39%) Computer Science Degree
5 65 (3.62%) Master's Degree
6 57 (3.17%) DV Cleared
7 23 (1.28%) BPSS Clearance
8 22 (1.22%) AWS Certification
9 18 (1.00%) CISSP
9 18 (1.00%) PhD
10 17 (0.95%) CISM
11 15 (0.83%) Azure Certification
11 15 (0.83%) TOGAF Certification
12 13 (0.72%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 10 (0.56%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 7 (0.39%) ISTQB
15 6 (0.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 5 (0.28%) Microsoft Certification
16 5 (0.28%) Postgraduate
17 4 (0.22%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (5.12%) QA
2 54 (3.00%) Def Stans
3 40 (2.22%) IEC 61508
4 36 (2.00%) Data Quality
5 35 (1.95%) Accessibility
6 31 (1.72%) MISRA
7 21 (1.17%) MISRA C
8 20 (1.11%) GDPR
9 18 (1.00%) WCAG
10 14 (0.78%) NIST
11 11 (0.61%) DO-178B
12 10 (0.56%) EU AI Act
13 6 (0.33%) HL7
14 3 (0.17%) ISO 26262
14 3 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
14 3 (0.17%) NCSC
14 3 (0.17%) SLA
15 2 (0.11%) FATCA
15 2 (0.11%) IEC 62304
15 2 (0.11%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 340 (18.91%) Docker
2 17 (0.95%) Firmware
3 15 (0.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
5 10 (0.56%) Active Directory
6 4 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.17%) HDFS
8 2 (0.11%) Embedded Firmware
8 2 (0.11%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 364 (20.24%) Kubernetes
2 222 (12.35%) Terraform
3 102 (5.67%) Grafana
4 68 (3.78%) Ansible
5 64 (3.56%) Prometheus
6 24 (1.33%) Puppet
7 22 (1.22%) Argo
8 14 (0.78%) Progress Chef
9 10 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.44%) Kibana
11 6 (0.33%) Istio
12 5 (0.28%) HP Quality Center
12 5 (0.28%) Podman
13 4 (0.22%) Data Guard
14 3 (0.17%) Docker Swarm
14 3 (0.17%) HP ALM
14 3 (0.17%) Kubeflow
14 3 (0.17%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
15 2 (0.11%) Functional Safety
15 2 (0.11%) rkt
Vendors
1 138 (7.68%) Microsoft
2 67 (3.73%) Google
3 59 (3.28%) Red Hat
4 58 (3.23%) Oracle
5 45 (2.50%) Databricks
6 37 (2.06%) Splunk
7 29 (1.61%) Foundry
8 19 (1.06%) IBM
9 16 (0.89%) BiZZdesign
9 16 (0.89%) VMware
10 12 (0.67%) OpenAI
11 11 (0.61%) Atlassian
11 11 (0.61%) Palantir
12 9 (0.50%) Software AG
13 8 (0.44%) Cloudera
13 8 (0.44%) CyberArk
13 8 (0.44%) PagerDuty
13 8 (0.44%) SAP
13 8 (0.44%) Siemens
13 8 (0.44%) webMethods