Software Engineering Contract Job Trends in London

Software Engineering
England > London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in London requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 40 31 44
Rank change year-on-year -9 +13 -7
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 813 908 894
As % of all contract jobs in London 5.79% 5.79% 4.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.30% 6.46% 5.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 540 676 680
10th Percentile £400 £445 £463
25th Percentile £500 £550 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £675 £650
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% +3.85% -
75th Percentile £750 £838 £788
90th Percentile £850 £888 £850
England median daily rate £550 £600 £611
% change year-on-year -8.33% -1.80% +1.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 5 9
10th Percentile £29.47 £46.30 £40.62
25th Percentile £41.25 £51.25 £40.82
Median hourly rate £66.00 £67.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.22% +12.50% +4.35%
75th Percentile £78.75 £71.00 £65.11
90th Percentile £87.50 £71.15 £73.00
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

All Process and Methodology Skills
London

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 London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 12,904 14,060 17,647
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 91.94% 89.70% 89.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,504 9,083 12,650
10th Percentile £335 £350 £353
25th Percentile £425 £450 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £567
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -2.96% -3.72%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £688
90th Percentile £764 £800 £800
England median daily rate £500 £525 £548
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.11% -0.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 242 169 237
10th Percentile £18.25 £17.25 £18.54
25th Percentile £24.50 £23.80 £21.50
Median hourly rate £29.25 £37.00 £35.63
Median % change year-on-year -20.95% +3.85% -9.80%
75th Percentile £47.38 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £66.50 £80.75 £76.25
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +19.14%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in London

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

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in London

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in London

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

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

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in London

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

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineering in London

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in London

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

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

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Histogram in London

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

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineering in London

Software Engineering
Contract Job Locations in London

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 London region over the 6 months to 1 December 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
Central London +17 107 £619 +8.32% 87
West London +3 22 £614 +6.74% 25
South London -2 12 £530 -26.13% 13
East London +1 5 £813 +54.03% 17
Software Engineering
England

Software Engineering
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London 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 59 (7.26%) Apache Airflow
2 56 (6.89%) Apache
3 32 (3.94%) Confluence
4 29 (3.57%) Apache Spark
5 7 (0.86%) CMS
6 4 (0.49%) JBoss
7 2 (0.25%) Appian
7 2 (0.25%) Magnolia
7 2 (0.25%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.25%) WordPress
8 1 (0.12%) CICS
8 1 (0.12%) Cloud Foundry
8 1 (0.12%) IIS
8 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.12%) nginx
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.12%) SharePoint
8 1 (0.12%) Smallworld
8 1 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 13 (1.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.62%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.37%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (0.98%) Aladdin
1 8 (0.98%) Temenos T24
2 3 (0.37%) Fidessa
2 3 (0.37%) thinkFolio
3 2 (0.25%) FLEXCUBE
3 2 (0.25%) Oracle BPM
4 1 (0.12%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.12%) ION Anvil
4 1 (0.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.12%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 317 (38.99%) AWS
2 160 (19.68%) Azure
3 96 (11.81%) GCP
4 75 (9.23%) Serverless
5 74 (9.10%) GitHub
6 54 (6.64%) dbt
7 48 (5.90%) Snowflake
8 45 (5.54%) GitHub Actions
9 34 (4.18%) AWS Lambda
10 33 (4.06%) Power Platform
11 31 (3.81%) Amazon S3
12 29 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
13 20 (2.46%) AWS CloudFormation
14 19 (2.34%) Amazon ECS
14 19 (2.34%) AWS Step Functions
14 19 (2.34%) SaaS
15 14 (1.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 14 (1.72%) Datadog
16 13 (1.60%) Amazon EC2
16 13 (1.60%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 6 (0.74%) Firewall
2 4 (0.49%) Network Security
2 4 (0.49%) tcpdump
3 3 (0.37%) VPN
4 2 (0.25%) HTTP
4 2 (0.25%) HTTPS
5 1 (0.12%) DNS
5 1 (0.12%) Ethernet
5 1 (0.12%) Internet
5 1 (0.12%) Modbus
5 1 (0.12%) MPLS
5 1 (0.12%) Multicast
5 1 (0.12%) Radio Access Network
5 1 (0.12%) RS-232
5 1 (0.12%) RS-485
5 1 (0.12%) SMS
5 1 (0.12%) Software-Defined Networking
5 1 (0.12%) SSH
5 1 (0.12%) SSL
5 1 (0.12%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (8.00%) PostgreSQL
2 49 (6.03%) Amazon Athena
3 47 (5.78%) Data Lake
4 45 (5.54%) Apache Arrow
4 45 (5.54%) Apache Iceberg
4 45 (5.54%) Dremio
5 38 (4.67%) NoSQL
6 36 (4.43%) Apache Cassandra
6 36 (4.43%) Big Data
7 31 (3.81%) SQL Server
8 30 (3.69%) Apache Ignite
9 29 (3.57%) Hadoop
10 25 (3.08%) MongoDB
10 25 (3.08%) Power BI
11 24 (2.95%) Relational Database
12 21 (2.58%) Elasticsearch
13 17 (2.09%) Amazon RDS
13 17 (2.09%) Metadata
13 17 (2.09%) MySQL
14 15 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 84 (10.33%) Git
2 54 (6.64%) Jenkins
3 43 (5.29%) JIRA
4 31 (3.81%) GitLab
5 18 (2.21%) Cypress.io
6 14 (1.72%) Cucumber
6 14 (1.72%) JUnit
7 13 (1.60%) Gradle
8 12 (1.48%) SonarQube
9 9 (1.11%) Selenium
9 9 (1.11%) TeamCity
10 7 (0.86%) Bitbucket
10 7 (0.86%) Mockito
11 6 (0.74%) Maven
11 6 (0.74%) MLflow
12 5 (0.62%) CircleCI
12 5 (0.62%) Postman
13 3 (0.37%) Lerna
14 2 (0.25%) GoCD
14 2 (0.25%) rollup.js
General
1 273 (33.58%) Finance
2 172 (21.16%) Social Skills
3 126 (15.50%) Banking
4 98 (12.05%) Front Office
5 79 (9.72%) Investment Banking
6 47 (5.78%) Analytical Skills
7 45 (5.54%) Public Sector
8 17 (2.09%) Pharmaceutical
9 16 (1.97%) Financial Institution
10 13 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 10 (1.23%) Back Office
12 9 (1.11%) Retail Banking
13 8 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (0.86%) Retail
15 6 (0.74%) Documentation Skills
15 6 (0.74%) Games
15 6 (0.74%) Publishing
15 6 (0.74%) Telecoms
16 5 (0.62%) Marketing
16 5 (0.62%) Military
Job Titles
1 314 (38.62%) Software Engineer
2 237 (29.15%) Developer
3 188 (23.12%) Senior
4 87 (10.70%) Python Engineer
5 84 (10.33%) Senior Software Engineer
6 67 (8.24%) Java Engineer
7 66 (8.12%) Java Software Engineer
8 64 (7.87%) AWS Engineer
9 63 (7.75%) Python Software Engineer
10 60 (7.38%) Python Developer
11 57 (7.01%) AWS Software Engineer
12 55 (6.77%) Lead
13 48 (5.90%) Senior Developer
14 44 (5.41%) Java Developer
15 39 (4.80%) Developer/Software Engineer
16 37 (4.55%) Data Engineer
17 33 (4.06%) Senior Java Engineer
17 33 (4.06%) Senior Java Software Engineer
18 32 (3.94%) AWS Developer
19 29 (3.57%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 157 (19.31%) Kafka
2 148 (18.20%) React
3 102 (12.55%) Node.js
4 74 (9.10%) .NET
4 74 (9.10%) gRPC
5 73 (8.98%) NumPy
6 72 (8.86%) Pandas
7 68 (8.36%) AngularJS
8 63 (7.75%) SciPy
9 49 (6.03%) REST
10 48 (5.90%) RESTful
11 45 (5.54%) Vue
12 43 (5.29%) FastAPI
13 41 (5.04%) Spring
14 37 (4.55%) GraphQL
15 30 (3.69%) Protocol Buffers
16 29 (3.57%) CSS
17 28 (3.44%) HTML
18 27 (3.32%) Spring Boot
19 26 (3.20%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 99 (12.18%) Cloud Native
2 91 (11.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 84 (10.33%) Fixed Income
4 70 (8.61%) Distributed Systems
5 62 (7.63%) Hedge funds
6 55 (6.77%) Equities
7 42 (5.17%) Derivative
8 30 (3.69%) Pricing Data
9 29 (3.57%) Product Ownership
10 28 (3.44%) Data Structures
11 24 (2.95%) Algorithms
12 23 (2.83%) Virtual Team
13 20 (2.46%) Data Protection Act
13 20 (2.46%) Greenfield Project
14 15 (1.85%) Genomics
15 14 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
15 14 (1.72%) Onboarding
16 13 (1.60%) AI Agents
16 13 (1.60%) Self-Motivation
17 12 (1.48%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 105 (12.92%) Linux
2 38 (4.67%) Unix
3 18 (2.21%) Windows
4 13 (1.60%) Android
5 11 (1.35%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.62%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.37%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.25%) VMS
9 1 (0.12%) FreeRTOS
9 1 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 355 (43.67%) Agile
2 263 (32.35%) CI/CD
3 176 (21.65%) DevOps
4 134 (16.48%) Microservices
5 128 (15.74%) AI
6 113 (13.90%) Infrastructure as Code
7 112 (13.78%) Problem-Solving
8 109 (13.41%) Test Automation
9 101 (12.42%) Machine Learning
10 91 (11.19%) Containerisation
11 86 (10.58%) Computer Science
12 85 (10.46%) Full-Stack Development
13 79 (9.72%) Mentoring
14 75 (9.23%) Clean Code
15 72 (8.86%) Investment Management
16 63 (7.75%) Data Pipeline
16 63 (7.75%) Fintech
17 61 (7.50%) Scrum
18 59 (7.26%) Asset Management
18 59 (7.26%) Open Source
Programming Languages
1 362 (44.53%) Python
2 241 (29.64%) Java
3 177 (21.77%) JavaScript
4 162 (19.93%) TypeScript
5 156 (19.19%) SQL
6 130 (15.99%) C#
7 115 (14.15%) C++
8 75 (9.23%) Go
9 29 (3.57%) Rust
10 18 (2.21%) Ruby
11 11 (1.35%) C
12 10 (1.23%) PHP
13 9 (1.11%) Bash
13 9 (1.11%) Bicep
14 8 (0.98%) PL/SQL
14 8 (0.98%) PowerShell
15 7 (0.86%) JSX
15 7 (0.86%) Kotlin
16 6 (0.74%) Scala
17 5 (0.62%) R
Qualifications
1 112 (13.78%) Security Cleared
2 100 (12.30%) Degree
3 96 (11.81%) SC Cleared
4 38 (4.67%) Computer Science Degree
5 34 (4.18%) DV Cleared
6 18 (2.21%) Master's Degree
7 9 (1.11%) AWS Certification
7 9 (1.11%) MCP
8 7 (0.86%) PhD
9 6 (0.74%) Azure Certification
10 5 (0.62%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (0.37%) CISSP
11 3 (0.37%) EMC Certification
11 3 (0.37%) HNC
11 3 (0.37%) HND
11 3 (0.37%) ISTQB
11 3 (0.37%) Postgraduate
12 2 (0.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (0.25%) CISM
12 2 (0.25%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (4.18%) QA
2 23 (2.83%) Data Quality
3 12 (1.48%) Accessibility
4 11 (1.35%) GDPR
5 4 (0.49%) MiFID
5 4 (0.49%) SLA
5 4 (0.49%) WCAG
6 3 (0.37%) Def Stans
6 3 (0.37%) IEC 61508
6 3 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 3 (0.37%) NIST
6 3 (0.37%) SEPA
7 2 (0.25%) EU AI Act
7 2 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.25%) PMO
8 1 (0.12%) EMIR
8 1 (0.12%) GxP
8 1 (0.12%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.12%) SOC 2
System Software
1 180 (22.14%) Docker
2 9 (1.11%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.37%) zsh
4 1 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.12%) Firmware
4 1 (0.12%) KVM
4 1 (0.12%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 172 (21.16%) Kubernetes
2 93 (11.44%) Terraform
3 32 (3.94%) Grafana
4 25 (3.08%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.71%) Ansible
6 5 (0.62%) Kibana
7 4 (0.49%) Argo
8 3 (0.37%) Functional Safety
8 3 (0.37%) Puppet
9 2 (0.25%) Kubeflow
9 2 (0.25%) rkt
10 1 (0.12%) CA Endevor
10 1 (0.12%) Fluentd
10 1 (0.12%) HP ALM
10 1 (0.12%) HP Quality Center
10 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.12%) Packer
Vendors
1 55 (6.77%) Microsoft
2 35 (4.31%) Oracle
3 34 (4.18%) Google
4 28 (3.44%) Databricks
5 23 (2.83%) Foundry
6 15 (1.85%) Palantir
7 13 (1.60%) Cloudera
8 10 (1.23%) Temenos
9 9 (1.11%) OpenAI
10 6 (0.74%) Salesforce
11 5 (0.62%) Cisco
11 5 (0.62%) DocuSign
11 5 (0.62%) Dynatrace
12 4 (0.49%) Alteryx
12 4 (0.49%) Atlassian
12 4 (0.49%) Murex
12 4 (0.49%) Splunk
13 3 (0.37%) EMC
13 3 (0.37%) Portware
13 3 (0.37%) Red Hat