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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 44 31
Rank change year-on-year +12 -13 +10
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2,774 1,405 1,810
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.92% 4.99% 5.66%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.97% 5.49% 6.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,474 845 1,086
10th Percentile £400 £375 £406
25th Percentile £463 £463 £493
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £604
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% -4.80% -0.41%
75th Percentile £688 £725 £800
90th Percentile £775 £838 £888
UK median daily rate £550 £550 £600
% change year-on-year - -8.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 436 123 201
10th Percentile £51.25 £42.70 £46.18
25th Percentile £60.25 £52.50 £60.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.50
Median % change year-on-year - -0.76% +0.77%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.00 £74.60 £75.00
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 39,775 25,570 27,639
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.94% 90.90% 86.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,015 16,235 16,841
10th Percentile £325 £294 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,044 1,594 1,106
10th Percentile £13.70 £14.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.41 £17.87 £20.30
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -5.56%
75th Percentile £67.47 £44.80 £66.90
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.25 £74.22
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -10.11%

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 October 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 October 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 October 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 1,261 £600 -4.00% 3,739
North of England +20 487 £513 +2.65% 800
South East +44 350 £525 +10.53% 702
South West +14 297 £550 +19.57% 386
North West +30 237 £550 +10.00% 485
East of England +12 209 £505 -10.22% 443
Yorkshire +6 178 £500 -2.44% 194
Midlands +28 148 £470 -10.48% 304
West Midlands +16 105 £470 -14.55% 186
North East +4 74 £600 +23.08% 125
East Midlands +9 42 £425 +0.95% 118
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 64 (2.31%) Apache Spark
2 62 (2.24%) Confluence
3 50 (1.80%) Apache Airflow
4 37 (1.33%) Apache
5 16 (0.58%) CMS
5 16 (0.58%) SharePoint
6 10 (0.36%) Jupyter
7 9 (0.32%) Ethereum
8 7 (0.25%) SAS
9 6 (0.22%) Camunda
9 6 (0.22%) nginx
10 5 (0.18%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.18%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.18%) Hyperledger
10 5 (0.18%) WordPress
11 3 (0.11%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.072%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 2 (0.072%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.072%) Microsoft Exchange
12 2 (0.072%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 16 (0.58%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (0.40%) Chatbot
3 10 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 10 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Excel
5 4 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.11%) CPLEX
6 3 (0.11%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.11%) Trello
7 2 (0.072%) CATIA
7 2 (0.072%) LaTeX
7 2 (0.072%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 2 (0.072%) Notion
7 2 (0.072%) Simulink
8 1 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.036%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.036%) Blender
8 1 (0.036%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 7 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
2 6 (0.22%) Oracle Payroll
3 5 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.18%) R3 Corda
4 4 (0.14%) Quorum
4 4 (0.14%) Ripple
5 3 (0.11%) Distributed Ledger
5 3 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
5 3 (0.11%) Primavera
5 3 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.11%) Temenos T24
6 2 (0.072%) Endur
6 2 (0.072%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.072%) Orchestrade
6 2 (0.072%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.036%) Sage 50
7 1 (0.036%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.036%) Shopify
7 1 (0.036%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 712 (25.67%) AWS
2 576 (20.76%) Azure
3 289 (10.42%) GCP
4 255 (9.19%) GitHub
5 151 (5.44%) Serverless
6 134 (4.83%) GitHub Actions
7 132 (4.76%) Azure DevOps
8 101 (3.64%) AWS Lambda
9 77 (2.78%) Anthropic Claude
10 73 (2.63%) GitHub Copilot
11 67 (2.42%) Amazon S3
12 58 (2.09%) Amazon EKS
13 56 (2.02%) Amazon SQS
14 53 (1.91%) OpenShift
14 53 (1.91%) Power Platform
15 51 (1.84%) Amazon ECS
16 47 (1.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 46 (1.66%) Snowflake
18 35 (1.26%) AWS CloudFormation
19 34 (1.23%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 32 (1.15%) Wireless
2 23 (0.83%) Firewall
3 21 (0.76%) TCP/IP
4 20 (0.72%) Internet
4 20 (0.72%) Software-Defined Radio
4 20 (0.72%) VPN
5 16 (0.58%) HTTP
6 15 (0.54%) Wi-Fi
7 14 (0.50%) DNS
7 14 (0.50%) Ethernet
8 13 (0.47%) Network Security
9 7 (0.25%) RTP
9 7 (0.25%) Wireshark
10 6 (0.22%) Cisco IPT
11 5 (0.18%) SSL
12 4 (0.14%) 3GPP
12 4 (0.14%) Broadband
12 4 (0.14%) Reverse Proxy
12 4 (0.14%) RS-232
13 3 (0.11%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (5.16%) PostgreSQL
2 98 (3.53%) Relational Database
3 89 (3.21%) NoSQL
4 87 (3.14%) SQL Server
5 66 (2.38%) MongoDB
6 53 (1.91%) Data Warehouse
7 43 (1.55%) MySQL
8 42 (1.51%) DynamoDB
9 37 (1.33%) Data Lake
9 37 (1.33%) Metadata
10 30 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
11 29 (1.05%) Power BI
11 29 (1.05%) Redis
12 28 (1.01%) BigQuery
12 28 (1.01%) Elasticsearch
13 27 (0.97%) Big Data
14 24 (0.87%) Pinecone
15 21 (0.76%) Delta Lake
16 18 (0.65%) Weaviate
17 17 (0.61%) Chroma
Development Applications
1 281 (10.13%) Git
2 157 (5.66%) Jenkins
3 151 (5.44%) GitLab
4 115 (4.15%) JIRA
5 47 (1.69%) Claude Code
5 47 (1.69%) SonarQube
6 39 (1.41%) Gradle
7 33 (1.19%) Visual Studio
8 32 (1.15%) JUnit
9 29 (1.05%) Maven
10 27 (0.97%) Cucumber
10 27 (0.97%) Rational DOORS
11 26 (0.94%) Selenium
12 23 (0.83%) Rational Rhapsody
13 18 (0.65%) Mockito
14 15 (0.54%) LabVIEW
15 13 (0.47%) Cypress.io
16 12 (0.43%) Bitbucket
16 12 (0.43%) Snyk
17 11 (0.40%) Postman
General
1 613 (22.10%) Social Skills
2 540 (19.47%) Finance
3 229 (8.26%) Banking
4 214 (7.71%) Public Sector
5 200 (7.21%) Analytical Skills
6 100 (3.60%) Aerospace
7 79 (2.85%) Front Office
8 56 (2.02%) Investment Banking
9 55 (1.98%) Manufacturing
10 45 (1.62%) Law
10 45 (1.62%) Retail
11 38 (1.37%) Automotive
12 35 (1.26%) Telecoms
13 30 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 29 (1.05%) Military
15 24 (0.87%) Influencing Skills
15 24 (0.87%) Marketing
16 23 (0.83%) Back Office
17 21 (0.76%) Aviation
17 21 (0.76%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 1,069 (38.54%) Software Engineer
2 543 (19.57%) Developer
3 536 (19.32%) Senior
4 302 (10.89%) Lead
5 195 (7.03%) Senior Software Engineer
6 159 (5.73%) Java Engineer
7 152 (5.48%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 147 (5.30%) Java Developer
9 137 (4.94%) Embedded Engineer
10 134 (4.83%) Software Developer
11 133 (4.79%) Architect
12 130 (4.69%) Embedded Software Engineer
13 126 (4.54%) Java Software Engineer
14 117 (4.22%) Senior Developer
15 113 (4.07%) C++ Software Engineer
16 112 (4.04%) Python Engineer
17 110 (3.97%) Data Engineer
18 95 (3.42%) DevOps Engineer
19 82 (2.96%) AWS Engineer
20 76 (2.74%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 313 (11.28%) Terraform
2 267 (9.63%) REST
3 244 (8.80%) React
4 229 (8.26%) Spring
5 218 (7.86%) .NET
5 218 (7.86%) Spring Boot
6 188 (6.78%) Kafka
7 160 (5.77%) RESTful
8 137 (4.94%) Node.js
9 100 (3.60%) AngularJS
10 69 (2.49%) OAuth
11 62 (2.24%) Django
12 59 (2.13%) LangChain
13 58 (2.09%) HTML
14 56 (2.02%) CSS
15 54 (1.95%) Web Services
16 53 (1.91%) Next.js
17 49 (1.77%) Model Context Protocol
18 45 (1.62%) FastAPI
19 44 (1.59%) LangGraph
Miscellaneous
1 441 (15.90%) Cloud Native
2 249 (8.98%) Distributed Systems
3 163 (5.88%) AI Agents
4 162 (5.84%) Product Ownership
5 85 (3.06%) Enterprise Software
6 64 (2.31%) Onboarding
7 62 (2.24%) Algorithms
8 61 (2.20%) Data Structures
9 58 (2.09%) Data Protection Act
10 42 (1.51%) Embedded Systems
11 41 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
12 37 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
13 32 (1.15%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 31 (1.12%) Greenfield Project
15 29 (1.05%) Fixed Income
16 27 (0.97%) Derivative
17 24 (0.87%) Equities
17 24 (0.87%) Management Information System
18 23 (0.83%) Virtual Team
19 20 (0.72%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 196 (7.07%) Linux
2 70 (2.52%) Windows
3 37 (1.33%) Unix
4 20 (0.72%) Embedded Linux
4 20 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (0.61%) Android
6 12 (0.43%) FreeRTOS
6 12 (0.43%) Windows Server
7 11 (0.40%) Apple iOS
8 7 (0.25%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.14%) Debian
9 4 (0.14%) macOS
10 3 (0.11%) Rocky
10 3 (0.11%) VxWorks
10 3 (0.11%) zOS
11 2 (0.072%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.072%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.036%) Solaris
12 1 (0.036%) VMS
12 1 (0.036%) webOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 985 (35.51%) CI/CD
2 861 (31.04%) Agile
3 683 (24.62%) DevOps
4 632 (22.78%) AI
5 445 (16.04%) Test Automation
6 415 (14.96%) Microservices
7 376 (13.55%) Continuous Improvement
8 345 (12.44%) Problem-Solving
9 343 (12.36%) Infrastructure as Code
10 315 (11.36%) Observability
11 288 (10.38%) SDLC
12 287 (10.35%) Stakeholder Management
13 273 (9.84%) Containerisation
14 259 (9.34%) Full-Stack Development
15 248 (8.94%) Technical Leadership
16 242 (8.72%) Machine Learning
17 241 (8.69%) LLM
18 240 (8.65%) Platform Engineering
19 236 (8.51%) Scrum
20 233 (8.40%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 823 (29.67%) Python
2 698 (25.16%) Java
3 415 (14.96%) SQL
4 319 (11.50%) TypeScript
5 290 (10.45%) C#
6 236 (8.51%) JavaScript
7 227 (8.18%) C++
8 112 (4.04%) C
9 82 (2.96%) Go
10 70 (2.52%) Ada
10 70 (2.52%) Kotlin
11 53 (1.91%) PowerShell
12 51 (1.84%) Bash
13 44 (1.59%) Rust
14 39 (1.41%) Scala
15 29 (1.05%) Bicep
15 29 (1.05%) Embedded C
16 24 (0.87%) PL/SQL
17 21 (0.76%) PHP
18 18 (0.65%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 601 (21.67%) Security Cleared
2 499 (17.99%) SC Cleared
3 231 (8.33%) Degree
4 107 (3.86%) Computer Science Degree
5 106 (3.82%) DV Cleared
6 61 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
7 51 (1.84%) AWS Certification
8 50 (1.80%) Master's Degree
9 31 (1.12%) Azure Certification
10 18 (0.65%) PhD
11 15 (0.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 13 (0.47%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 12 (0.43%) CISSP
13 12 (0.43%) TOGAF Certification
14 11 (0.40%) PMP
15 6 (0.22%) Chartered Engineer
16 5 (0.18%) ISTQB
16 5 (0.18%) Numerate Degree
16 5 (0.18%) PMI Certification
17 4 (0.14%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 175 (6.31%) QA
2 89 (3.21%) Data Quality
3 65 (2.34%) Accessibility
4 24 (0.87%) MISRA
5 20 (0.72%) GDPR
6 17 (0.61%) Def Stans
7 15 (0.54%) NIST
8 14 (0.50%) WCAG
9 13 (0.47%) MISRA C
10 12 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 11 (0.40%) IEC 61508
12 10 (0.36%) DO-178B
13 8 (0.29%) GRC
14 7 (0.25%) NCSC
15 5 (0.18%) EMIR
15 5 (0.18%) HL7
15 5 (0.18%) JSP 440
15 5 (0.18%) MiFID
15 5 (0.18%) PCI DSS
15 5 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 405 (14.60%) Docker
2 30 (1.08%) Firmware
3 18 (0.65%) Active Directory
3 18 (0.65%) Embedded Firmware
4 13 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.072%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.072%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.036%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.036%) zsh
Systems Management
1 470 (16.94%) Kubernetes
2 98 (3.53%) Ansible
3 66 (2.38%) Grafana
4 48 (1.73%) Prometheus
5 38 (1.37%) Argo
6 23 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
7 16 (0.58%) Kibana
8 10 (0.36%) Puppet
9 6 (0.22%) Functional Safety
10 5 (0.18%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.14%) Istio
11 4 (0.14%) Kubeflow
11 4 (0.14%) Kustomize
11 4 (0.14%) Podman
12 3 (0.11%) Consul
12 3 (0.11%) HP Fortify
13 2 (0.072%) Cilium
13 2 (0.072%) HAProxy
13 2 (0.072%) Packer
13 2 (0.072%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 182 (6.56%) Microsoft
2 110 (3.97%) Google
3 101 (3.64%) Databricks
4 91 (3.28%) Oracle
5 75 (2.70%) OpenAI
6 42 (1.51%) Red Hat
7 34 (1.23%) Salesforce
8 27 (0.97%) Splunk
9 20 (0.72%) Foundry
9 20 (0.72%) IBM
10 16 (0.58%) Adobe
10 16 (0.58%) Informatica
10 16 (0.58%) SAP
11 15 (0.54%) Dynatrace
11 15 (0.54%) ServiceNow
12 10 (0.36%) VMware
13 8 (0.29%) Siemens
14 7 (0.25%) Cisco
14 7 (0.25%) Hitachi
14 7 (0.25%) Mistral