Software Engineering Contract Job Trends in Kent

Software Engineering
South East > Kent

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Kent requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 2 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 18 27
Rank change year-on-year -6 +9 +6
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 2 2 4
As % of all contract jobs in Kent 1.23% 1.75% 1.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.49% 2.00% 2.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 2 1 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - £463 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £475 £413
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% +15.15% -17.50%
75th Percentile - £488 £419
90th Percentile - - -
South East median daily rate £488 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -2.50% -9.09% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 3
10th Percentile - - £52.40
25th Percentile - - £53.38
Median hourly rate - £57.54 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year - +4.62% +15.79%
75th Percentile - - £61.14
90th Percentile - - £64.67
South East median hourly rate £59.25 £60.50 £62.00
% change year-on-year -2.07% -2.42% +18.10%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Kent

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 Kent.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 134 100 165
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Kent 82.21% 87.72% 75.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 99 62 116
10th Percentile £180 £201 £203
25th Percentile £200 £253 £228
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £440 £513 £450
Median % change year-on-year -14.15% +13.89% +23.29%
75th Percentile £559 £623 £550
90th Percentile £638 £688 £653
South East median daily rate £500 £505 £500
% change year-on-year -0.99% +1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 5 16
10th Percentile £16.91 £16.19 £11.80
25th Percentile £20.40 £21.00 £15.00
Median hourly rate £25.77 £22.00 £30.50
Median % change year-on-year +17.14% -27.87% -36.18%
75th Percentile £39.00 £57.54 £48.90
90th Percentile £39.41 £71.08 £59.11
South East median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -44.11% - -

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in Kent

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

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in Kent

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in Kent

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

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

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in Kent

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

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

Software Engineering
Contract Job Locations in Kent

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 Kent region over the 6 months to 2 March 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
Tunbridge Wells - 2 £550 -
Software Engineering
South East

Software Engineering
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Kent 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:

Cloud Services
1 2 (100.00%) Azure
1 2 (100.00%) Azure AI
1 2 (100.00%) Azure Cognitive Search
1 2 (100.00%) Azure Functions
1 2 (100.00%) Azure Logic Apps
1 2 (100.00%) Power Platform
1 2 (100.00%) Serverless
Job Titles
1 2 (100.00%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
1 2 (100.00%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (100.00%) JSON
1 2 (100.00%) Node.js
1 2 (100.00%) REST
Processes & Methodologies
1 2 (100.00%) AI
1 2 (100.00%) CRM
1 2 (100.00%) ERP
1 2 (100.00%) Generative AI
1 2 (100.00%) Intelligent Automation
1 2 (100.00%) Kalman Filter
1 2 (100.00%) LLM
1 2 (100.00%) Machine Learning
1 2 (100.00%) OCR
1 2 (100.00%) Prompt Engineering
1 2 (100.00%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
1 2 (100.00%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 2 (100.00%) C#
1 2 (100.00%) Python
Vendors
1 2 (100.00%) Foundry
1 2 (100.00%) OpenAI