Software Engineering Contracts in England

Software Engineering
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England requiring Software Engineering skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Software Engineering over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 41 33 41
Rank change year-on-year -8 +8 -3
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 1,215 2,025 2,568
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 4.99% 5.44% 5.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.47% 6.29% 5.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 807 1,191 1,738
10th Percentile £405 £419 £438
25th Percentile £488 £491 £508
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £600 £600
75th Percentile £775 £750 £713
90th Percentile £838 £850 £800
UK median daily rate £600 £600 £600
% change year-on-year - - +3.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 79 340 193
10th Percentile £42.90 £46.25 £45.25
25th Percentile £56.44 £52.50 £53.75
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +18.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £68.56
90th Percentile £68.75 £80.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £64.15
% change year-on-year +4.00% -2.56% +16.63%

All Process and 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 22,202 32,193 45,529
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 91.16% 86.56% 90.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,534 21,105 31,969
10th Percentile £310 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +2.33%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £750 £750 £765
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 921 2,246 1,592
10th Percentile £14.42 £12.92 £10.87
25th Percentile £18.20 £16.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.07 £36.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.25% -4.00% +53.06%
75th Percentile £63.75 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
% change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing Software Engineering as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Software Engineering in England

Software Engineering
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Software Engineering in England.

Daily rate trend for Software Engineering in England

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineering in England

Software Engineering
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Software Engineering in England.

Hourly rate trend for Software Engineering in England

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineering in England over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

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 1 May 2025. 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 -2 710 £675 - 1,965
North of England -26 124 £500 -4.76% 718
South West +10 113 £575 +9.52% 340
South East -20 113 £513 -6.82% 869
North West -14 85 £500 -8.88% 436
Midlands -12 54 £483 -1.83% 358
West Midlands -12 36 £531 +18.00% 187
Yorkshire -18 36 £500 +25.00% 193
East of England -37 36 £488 -2.35% 367
East Midlands -5 15 £490 -10.91% 150
North East -27 3 £460 +17.95% 94
Software Engineering
UK

Software Engineering
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 116 (9.55%) Apache Airflow
2 108 (8.89%) Apache
3 48 (3.95%) Confluence
4 42 (3.46%) Apache Spark
5 13 (1.07%) SAS
6 9 (0.74%) CMS
7 8 (0.66%) GemFire
7 8 (0.66%) Oracle Coherence
8 5 (0.41%) WordPress
9 4 (0.33%) Drupal
10 3 (0.25%) Headless CMS
11 2 (0.16%) BizTalk Server
11 2 (0.16%) IIS
11 2 (0.16%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.16%) SharePoint
11 2 (0.16%) TPMS
12 1 (0.082%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.082%) CICS
12 1 (0.082%) MQSeries
12 1 (0.082%) WebSphere
Applications
1 5 (0.41%) Microsoft Excel
1 5 (0.41%) Simulink
2 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.082%) CANalyzer
4 1 (0.082%) Fusion 360
4 1 (0.082%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.082%) Siemens NX
4 1 (0.082%) Stateflow
4 1 (0.082%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (0.82%) BASE24
2 6 (0.49%) FLEXCUBE
2 6 (0.49%) Oracle BPM
2 6 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.25%) SAP ERP
3 3 (0.25%) SAP EWM
3 3 (0.25%) SAP GTS
4 2 (0.16%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.16%) Misys Midas
4 2 (0.16%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.082%) Fidessa
5 1 (0.082%) IBM Planning Analytics
5 1 (0.082%) LabWindows
5 1 (0.082%) Oracle 11i
5 1 (0.082%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 521 (42.88%) AWS
2 272 (22.39%) Azure
3 203 (16.71%) GCP
4 115 (9.47%) dbt
5 108 (8.89%) Serverless
6 82 (6.75%) AWS Lambda
7 72 (5.93%) Amazon ECS
8 71 (5.84%) GitHub
9 54 (4.44%) OpenShift
10 51 (4.20%) Amazon EC2
11 49 (4.03%) Azure DevOps
11 49 (4.03%) Snowflake
12 43 (3.54%) GitHub Actions
13 36 (2.96%) Amazon S3
14 34 (2.80%) AWS CloudFormation
15 32 (2.63%) Amazon EKS
16 27 (2.22%) Dagster
17 25 (2.06%) Amazon SQS
17 25 (2.06%) Azure AKS
18 24 (1.98%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.32%) HTTP
2 9 (0.74%) ATM
3 7 (0.58%) DNS
3 7 (0.58%) SNMP
3 7 (0.58%) Software-Defined Radio
4 6 (0.49%) Firewall
4 6 (0.49%) HTTPS
4 6 (0.49%) Internet
4 6 (0.49%) TCP/IP
5 5 (0.41%) Ethernet
5 5 (0.41%) MQTT
5 5 (0.41%) Network Security
6 4 (0.33%) Modbus
6 4 (0.33%) VSAN
7 3 (0.25%) VPN
7 3 (0.25%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (0.16%) BGP
8 2 (0.16%) MPLS
8 2 (0.16%) OSPF
8 2 (0.16%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 150 (12.35%) PostgreSQL
2 114 (9.38%) Amazon Athena
3 111 (9.14%) Apache Iceberg
3 111 (9.14%) Dremio
4 100 (8.23%) Apache Arrow
5 74 (6.09%) Relational Database
6 71 (5.84%) SQL Server
7 68 (5.60%) Apache Ignite
8 56 (4.61%) Data Lake
9 50 (4.12%) Apache Cassandra
9 50 (4.12%) MongoDB
10 45 (3.70%) NoSQL
11 42 (3.46%) MySQL
12 29 (2.39%) Big Data
12 29 (2.39%) Oracle Database
13 23 (1.89%) Amazon RDS
14 19 (1.56%) Amazon Redshift
14 19 (1.56%) Power BI
15 16 (1.32%) DynamoDB
16 15 (1.23%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 144 (11.85%) Git
2 130 (10.70%) Jenkins
3 98 (8.07%) JIRA
4 78 (6.42%) GitLab
5 53 (4.36%) JUnit
6 45 (3.70%) Bitbucket
7 37 (3.05%) Artifactory
8 36 (2.96%) Gradle
9 32 (2.63%) Cucumber
10 29 (2.39%) Mockito
11 28 (2.30%) Liquibase
12 27 (2.22%) SonarQube
13 22 (1.81%) Selenium
14 21 (1.73%) Eclipse
15 19 (1.56%) GoogleTest
16 16 (1.32%) Cypress.io
16 16 (1.32%) REST Assured
17 15 (1.23%) Maven
18 14 (1.15%) Jasmine
18 14 (1.15%) Visual Studio
General
1 391 (32.18%) Finance
2 269 (22.14%) Social Skills
3 210 (17.28%) Front Office
4 166 (13.66%) Banking
5 105 (8.64%) Analytical Skills
6 101 (8.31%) Public Sector
7 75 (6.17%) Investment Banking
8 51 (4.20%) Telecoms
9 45 (3.70%) Marketing
10 36 (2.96%) Manufacturing
11 35 (2.88%) Electronics
12 18 (1.48%) Aerospace
12 18 (1.48%) Law
13 17 (1.40%) Presentation Skills
14 16 (1.32%) Financial Institution
14 16 (1.32%) Military
15 14 (1.15%) Retail
16 12 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 12 (0.99%) Legal
17 9 (0.74%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 523 (43.05%) Software Engineer
2 365 (30.04%) Developer
3 217 (17.86%) Senior
4 140 (11.52%) AWS Engineer
4 140 (11.52%) Python Engineer
5 106 (8.72%) Senior Software Engineer
6 101 (8.31%) Developer/Software Engineer
7 99 (8.15%) Java Engineer
8 89 (7.33%) AWS Software Engineer
9 87 (7.16%) Java Software Engineer
10 84 (6.91%) Java Developer
11 80 (6.58%) DevOps Engineer
12 76 (6.26%) Python Software Engineer
13 67 (5.51%) Lead
14 66 (5.43%) Python Developer
14 66 (5.43%) Senior Developer
15 59 (4.86%) AWS Developer
16 57 (4.69%) React Developer
17 56 (4.61%) Data Engineer
17 56 (4.61%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 225 (18.52%) React
2 147 (12.10%) Kafka
3 141 (11.60%) Node.js
4 133 (10.95%) .NET
5 114 (9.38%) AngularJS
6 95 (7.82%) NumPy
7 94 (7.74%) Pandas
8 82 (6.75%) Spring
9 80 (6.58%) PySpark
10 78 (6.42%) SciPy
11 77 (6.34%) gRPC
12 75 (6.17%) HTML
12 75 (6.17%) REST
13 73 (6.01%) Spring Boot
13 73 (6.01%) Vue
14 72 (5.93%) CSS
15 67 (5.51%) Redux
16 64 (5.27%) RESTful
17 49 (4.03%) Swagger
18 46 (3.79%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 133 (10.95%) Fixed Income
2 87 (7.16%) Hedge funds
3 86 (7.08%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 75 (6.17%) Equities
5 59 (4.86%) Distributed Systems
6 55 (4.53%) Derivative
7 46 (3.79%) Algorithms
8 45 (3.70%) Product Ownership
9 31 (2.55%) Cloud Native
10 30 (2.47%) Greenfield Project
11 25 (2.06%) Data Structures
12 24 (1.98%) Public Cloud
13 15 (1.23%) Management Information System
14 13 (1.07%) Mobile App
15 12 (0.99%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
15 12 (0.99%) FPGA
15 12 (0.99%) Pricing Data
16 10 (0.82%) Verilog
17 9 (0.74%) NHS
17 9 (0.74%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 176 (14.49%) Linux
2 41 (3.37%) Windows
3 27 (2.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 22 (1.81%) Unix
5 17 (1.40%) Android
6 11 (0.91%) Ubuntu
7 8 (0.66%) Apple iOS
7 8 (0.66%) Embedded Linux
8 6 (0.49%) Windows Server
9 3 (0.25%) HPUX
9 3 (0.25%) Solaris
9 3 (0.25%) VxWorks
10 2 (0.16%) FreeRTOS
10 2 (0.16%) VMS
11 1 (0.082%) AIX
11 1 (0.082%) SUSE
11 1 (0.082%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.082%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.082%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.082%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 535 (44.03%) Agile
2 370 (30.45%) CI/CD
3 312 (25.68%) DevOps
4 203 (16.71%) Microservices
5 197 (16.21%) Problem-Solving
6 176 (14.49%) Asset Management
7 169 (13.91%) Test Automation
8 144 (11.85%) TDD
9 134 (11.03%) Containerisation
10 126 (10.37%) Full-Stack Development
11 119 (9.79%) Continuous Integration
12 117 (9.63%) Computer Science
13 112 (9.22%) Fintech
14 104 (8.56%) Scrum
15 102 (8.40%) Investment Management
16 91 (7.49%) User Experience
17 89 (7.33%) Infrastructure as Code
18 88 (7.24%) Mentoring
19 85 (7.00%) Data Engineering
19 85 (7.00%) Open Source
Programming Languages
1 492 (40.49%) Python
2 391 (32.18%) Java
3 337 (27.74%) JavaScript
4 225 (18.52%) SQL
5 220 (18.11%) TypeScript
6 163 (13.42%) C#
7 119 (9.79%) C++
8 103 (8.48%) Go
9 46 (3.79%) Ada
10 42 (3.46%) Bash
11 39 (3.21%) C
12 34 (2.80%) PowerShell
13 29 (2.39%) Shell Script
14 25 (2.06%) Rust
15 17 (1.40%) PHP
15 17 (1.40%) PL/SQL
16 16 (1.32%) Scala
17 13 (1.07%) Kotlin
18 12 (0.99%) Bicep
19 10 (0.82%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 282 (23.21%) Security Cleared
2 235 (19.34%) SC Cleared
3 146 (12.02%) Degree
4 80 (6.58%) Computer Science Degree
5 62 (5.10%) DV Cleared
6 27 (2.22%) Master's Degree
7 25 (2.06%) Azure Certification
8 16 (1.32%) AWS Certification
9 14 (1.15%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 12 (0.99%) Microsoft Certification
11 10 (0.82%) Numerate Degree
12 9 (0.74%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 5 (0.41%) Cisco Certification
14 4 (0.33%) CCNP
14 4 (0.33%) SANS
15 3 (0.25%) BPSS Clearance
15 3 (0.25%) PMI Certification
16 2 (0.16%) CISSP
16 2 (0.16%) OCA
16 2 (0.16%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (5.84%) QA
2 24 (1.98%) IEC 61508
3 23 (1.89%) Def Stans
4 22 (1.81%) Accessibility
5 17 (1.40%) MISRA
5 17 (1.40%) MISRA C
6 10 (0.82%) Data Quality
6 10 (0.82%) ISO 8583
7 9 (0.74%) PSD2
8 8 (0.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 5 (0.41%) GDPR
10 4 (0.33%) NIST
11 3 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
11 3 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 3 (0.25%) SEPA
11 3 (0.25%) Software Quality Assurance
12 2 (0.16%) DO-178B
12 2 (0.16%) ISO 26262
12 2 (0.16%) JSP 440
12 2 (0.16%) MiFID
System Software
1 256 (21.07%) Docker
2 8 (0.66%) GridGain
2 8 (0.66%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (0.33%) Firmware
3 4 (0.33%) VMware NSX
3 4 (0.33%) vSphere
4 3 (0.25%) Active Directory
4 3 (0.25%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.082%) Embedded Firmware
5 1 (0.082%) Microsoft App-V
5 1 (0.082%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 254 (20.91%) Kubernetes
2 162 (13.33%) Terraform
3 64 (5.27%) Ansible
4 26 (2.14%) Grafana
5 20 (1.65%) Prometheus
6 11 (0.91%) Podman
7 10 (0.82%) Docker Swarm
8 7 (0.58%) Puppet
9 5 (0.41%) Progress Chef
9 5 (0.41%) Single Sign-On
10 4 (0.33%) Kibana
11 3 (0.25%) Argo
11 3 (0.25%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.25%) Opsview
11 3 (0.25%) WMI
12 2 (0.16%) FortiGate
12 2 (0.16%) PowerCLI
12 2 (0.16%) SCCM
12 2 (0.16%) vCenter Server
13 1 (0.082%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 81 (6.67%) Google
2 78 (6.42%) Oracle
3 72 (5.93%) Microsoft
4 42 (3.46%) SAP
5 24 (1.98%) Databricks
6 21 (1.73%) Atlassian
6 21 (1.73%) Red Hat
7 16 (1.32%) VMware
8 13 (1.07%) Splunk
9 10 (0.82%) Xilinx
10 9 (0.74%) HP
10 9 (0.74%) IBM
10 9 (0.74%) Intel
11 8 (0.66%) MuleSoft
12 7 (0.58%) Adobe
12 7 (0.58%) Salesforce
12 7 (0.58%) ServiceNow
13 6 (0.49%) Cisco
13 6 (0.49%) ForgeRock
13 6 (0.49%) Siemens