Software Engineering Contract Job Trends in Hertfordshire

Software Engineering
East of England > Hertfordshire

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Hertfordshire requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 12 9
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 +3
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 84 46 58
As % of all contract jobs in Hertfordshire 8.97% 9.54% 10.21%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.94% 10.31% 11.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 10 4 4
10th Percentile £425 £546 £426
25th Percentile £464 £548 £449
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £619 £478
Median % change year-on-year -15.15% +29.51% -4.45%
75th Percentile £759 £675 £497
90th Percentile £850 - £514
East of England median daily rate £505 £550 £456
% change year-on-year -8.18% +20.55% -17.05%
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 28 29
10th Percentile £57.63 - £60.00
25th Percentile - - £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.00 -
90th Percentile - £69.40 -
East of England median hourly rate £70.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +7.69% - -

All Process & Methodology Skills
Hertfordshire

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 Hertfordshire.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 768 446 484
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Hertfordshire 82.05% 92.53% 85.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 280 211 163
10th Percentile £193 £200 £242
25th Percentile £406 £403 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £550 £425
Median % change year-on-year -3.18% +29.41% -22.73%
75th Percentile £675 £588 £575
90th Percentile £788 £688 £648
East of England median daily rate £500 £503 £450
% change year-on-year -0.55% +11.72% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 271 131 137
10th Percentile £17.00 £16.45 £15.10
25th Percentile £37.50 £18.82 £35.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £43.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +51.16% -14.00% -23.08%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £70.00
East of England median hourly rate £47.25 £21.64 £32.61
% change year-on-year +118.35% -33.63% +63.80%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in Hertfordshire

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Software Engineering relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Hertfordshire.

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in Hertfordshire

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in Hertfordshire

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Hertfordshire citing Software Engineering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Hertfordshire citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in Hertfordshire

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in Hertfordshire over the 6 months to 10 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineering in Hertfordshire

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in Hertfordshire

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Hertfordshire citing Software Engineering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Hertfordshire citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Histogram in Hertfordshire

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineering in Hertfordshire over the 6 months to 10 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineering in Hertfordshire

Software Engineering
Contract Job Locations in Hertfordshire

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 Hertfordshire region over the 6 months to 10 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
Stevenage +3 73 £488 - 17
Welwyn Garden City +3 4 £850 - 12
Hemel Hempstead -11 3 £650 +18.18% 7
Watford -4 2 £450 -33.33%
Software Engineering
East of England

Software Engineering
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Hertfordshire 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 1 (1.19%) CMS
Applications
1 2 (2.38%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 1 (1.19%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 7 (8.33%) Azure
2 4 (4.76%) Azure AKS
3 3 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (1.19%) AWS
4 1 (1.19%) Azure Logic Apps
4 1 (1.19%) Cloud Computing
4 1 (1.19%) GitHub
4 1 (1.19%) Power Automate
4 1 (1.19%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (15.48%) Software-Defined Radio
2 10 (11.90%) Ethernet
3 5 (5.95%) TCP/IP
3 5 (5.95%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.76%) PostgreSQL
2 2 (2.38%) Couchbase
2 2 (2.38%) MySQL
2 2 (2.38%) Redis
2 2 (2.38%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 9 (10.71%) Rational DOORS
2 5 (5.95%) Eclipse
2 5 (5.95%) Visual Studio
3 4 (4.76%) CppUnit
3 4 (4.76%) PVCS
4 3 (3.57%) Git
5 1 (1.19%) GitLab
General
1 12 (14.29%) Law
2 10 (11.90%) Electronics
3 8 (9.52%) Aerospace
3 8 (9.52%) Social Skills
4 6 (7.14%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (5.95%) Military
6 4 (4.76%) Retail
7 2 (2.38%) Manufacturing
7 2 (2.38%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (1.19%) Finance
8 1 (1.19%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 69 (82.14%) Software Engineer
2 37 (44.05%) Embedded Engineer
2 37 (44.05%) Embedded Software Engineer
3 21 (25.00%) C Software Engineer
4 19 (22.62%) C++ Software Engineer
5 16 (19.05%) Embedded C Engineer
5 16 (19.05%) Embedded C Software Engineer
6 15 (17.86%) Development Engineer
6 15 (17.86%) Software Development Engineer
7 13 (15.48%) DSP Engineer
7 13 (15.48%) DSP Software Engineer
8 10 (11.90%) C# Software Engineer
8 10 (11.90%) Radio Engineer
9 5 (5.95%) C/C++ Software Engineer
9 5 (5.95%) DSP Embedded Software Engineer
10 4 (4.76%) Ada Engineer
10 4 (4.76%) Ada Software Engineer
10 4 (4.76%) DevOps Engineer
10 4 (4.76%) Senior
11 2 (2.38%) Senior DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (5.95%) Node.js
1 5 (5.95%) Web Services
2 3 (3.57%) REST
3 2 (2.38%) Celery
3 2 (2.38%) Django
3 2 (2.38%) JWT
3 2 (2.38%) Kafka
3 2 (2.38%) OAuth
3 2 (2.38%) React
3 2 (2.38%) Spring
3 2 (2.38%) Spring Boot
3 2 (2.38%) Terraform
3 2 (2.38%) Vue
4 1 (1.19%) PyTorch
4 1 (1.19%) RxJava
4 1 (1.19%) scikit-learn
4 1 (1.19%) SOAP
4 1 (1.19%) TensorFlow
4 1 (1.19%) XGBoost
Miscellaneous
1 6 (7.14%) RISC-V
2 5 (5.95%) FPGA
2 5 (5.95%) PCIe
3 4 (4.76%) Cloud Native
4 3 (3.57%) Embedded Systems
5 2 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (2.38%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (2.38%) Security Posture
6 1 (1.19%) CMDB
6 1 (1.19%) Distributed Computing
6 1 (1.19%) Life Science
6 1 (1.19%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 7 (8.33%) Linux
2 5 (5.95%) FreeRTOS
2 5 (5.95%) Windows
3 2 (2.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (2.38%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (20.24%) Agile
2 14 (16.67%) CI/CD
3 13 (15.48%) DevOps
4 9 (10.71%) Continuous Integration
4 9 (10.71%) Unit Testing
5 8 (9.52%) Software Testing
6 7 (8.33%) Validation
7 6 (7.14%) Continuous Improvement
7 6 (7.14%) UML
8 5 (5.95%) Continuous Delivery
8 5 (5.95%) Digital Signal Processing
8 5 (5.95%) Digital Twin
8 5 (5.95%) Signal Processing
8 5 (5.95%) Synthetic Environment
8 5 (5.95%) SysML
8 5 (5.95%) TDD
9 4 (4.76%) Containerisation
9 4 (4.76%) Customer Requirements
9 4 (4.76%) Infrastructure as Code
9 4 (4.76%) Verification and Validation
Programming Languages
1 38 (45.24%) C
2 34 (40.48%) C++
3 19 (22.62%) Embedded C
4 10 (11.90%) Ada
4 10 (11.90%) C#
5 6 (7.14%) JavaScript
6 4 (4.76%) Python
7 2 (2.38%) Java
8 1 (1.19%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 8 (9.52%) Security Cleared
2 6 (7.14%) SC Cleared
3 2 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
3 2 (2.38%) Degree
4 1 (1.19%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (1.19%) Master's Degree
4 1 (1.19%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (7.14%) Def Stans
1 6 (7.14%) DO-178B
1 6 (7.14%) MISRA
1 6 (7.14%) QA
System Software
1 6 (7.14%) Docker
1 6 (7.14%) Firmware
2 4 (4.76%) Virtual Machines
2 4 (4.76%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 6 (7.14%) Kubernetes
2 2 (2.38%) Ansible
Vendors
1 5 (5.95%) Microsoft
2 4 (4.76%) VMware
3 2 (2.38%) Remedy
4 1 (1.19%) MuleSoft
4 1 (1.19%) Pega
4 1 (1.19%) Salesforce
4 1 (1.19%) SAP
4 1 (1.19%) ServiceNow