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 6 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 39 31 45
Rank change year-on-year -8 +14 -8
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 823 902 877
As % of all contract jobs in London 5.73% 5.74% 4.52%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.24% 6.39% 5.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 542 666 666
10th Percentile £400 £448 £463
25th Percentile £500 £550 £556
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £675 £650
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% +3.85% -
75th Percentile £750 £825 £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 19 5 9
10th Percentile £30.54 £46.30 £40.62
25th Percentile £43.63 £51.25 £40.82
Median hourly rate £58.94 £67.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.69% +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 13,187 14,116 17,405
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 91.78% 89.82% 89.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,698 9,124 12,474
10th Percentile £339 £350 £356
25th Percentile £425 £450 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £550 £568
Median % change year-on-year -3.73% -3.08% -3.81%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £688
90th Percentile £763 £800 £800
England median daily rate £503 £525 £548
% change year-on-year -4.29% -4.11% -0.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 247 164 235
10th Percentile £18.25 £17.25 £18.65
25th Percentile £24.56 £23.80 £21.75
Median hourly rate £29.50 £37.50 £35.63
Median % change year-on-year -21.33% +5.25% -10.93%
75th Percentile £47.63 £54.06 £60.00
90th Percentile £66.50 £80.75 £76.25
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.25
% change year-on-year -28.14% -20.90% +18.00%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 +13 106 £613 +8.17% 84
West London +3 25 £603 +4.78% 20
South London -6 13 £528 -27.24% 23
East London +1 5 £813 +54.03% 16
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 57 (6.93%) Apache
1 57 (6.93%) Apache Airflow
2 31 (3.77%) Apache Spark
2 31 (3.77%) Confluence
3 7 (0.85%) CMS
4 4 (0.49%) JBoss
5 2 (0.24%) Appian
5 2 (0.24%) Magnolia
5 2 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
5 2 (0.24%) WordPress
6 1 (0.12%) CICS
6 1 (0.12%) Cloud Foundry
6 1 (0.12%) IIS
6 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.12%) nginx
6 1 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.12%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.12%) Smallworld
6 1 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 13 (1.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.73%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.61%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.36%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (0.97%) Temenos T24
2 7 (0.85%) Aladdin
3 3 (0.36%) Fidessa
3 3 (0.36%) thinkFolio
4 2 (0.24%) FLEXCUBE
4 2 (0.24%) Oracle BPM
5 1 (0.12%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.12%) ION Anvil
5 1 (0.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.12%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 319 (38.76%) AWS
2 161 (19.56%) Azure
3 94 (11.42%) GCP
4 75 (9.11%) Serverless
5 73 (8.87%) GitHub
6 52 (6.32%) dbt
7 46 (5.59%) Snowflake
8 45 (5.47%) GitHub Actions
9 35 (4.25%) Power Platform
10 34 (4.13%) AWS Lambda
11 33 (4.01%) Amazon S3
12 28 (3.40%) Azure DevOps
13 22 (2.67%) AWS CloudFormation
14 19 (2.31%) Amazon ECS
14 19 (2.31%) AWS Step Functions
14 19 (2.31%) SaaS
15 15 (1.82%) Datadog
16 14 (1.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 14 (1.70%) Amazon EKS
16 14 (1.70%) CloudFront
Communications & Networking
1 6 (0.73%) Firewall
2 4 (0.49%) Network Security
2 4 (0.49%) tcpdump
3 3 (0.36%) VPN
4 2 (0.24%) HTTP
4 2 (0.24%) 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%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (7.90%) PostgreSQL
2 49 (5.95%) Amazon Athena
3 46 (5.59%) Data Lake
4 43 (5.22%) Apache Arrow
4 43 (5.22%) Apache Iceberg
4 43 (5.22%) Dremio
5 38 (4.62%) Apache Cassandra
6 36 (4.37%) NoSQL
7 35 (4.25%) Big Data
8 33 (4.01%) SQL Server
9 28 (3.40%) Apache Ignite
10 27 (3.28%) Hadoop
10 27 (3.28%) Power BI
11 24 (2.92%) MongoDB
11 24 (2.92%) Relational Database
12 21 (2.55%) Elasticsearch
13 18 (2.19%) MySQL
14 17 (2.07%) Amazon RDS
14 17 (2.07%) Metadata
15 15 (1.82%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 83 (10.09%) Git
2 55 (6.68%) Jenkins
3 42 (5.10%) JIRA
4 31 (3.77%) GitLab
5 18 (2.19%) Cypress.io
6 15 (1.82%) JUnit
7 14 (1.70%) Cucumber
8 12 (1.46%) Gradle
8 12 (1.46%) SonarQube
9 9 (1.09%) Selenium
10 8 (0.97%) Mockito
10 8 (0.97%) TeamCity
11 7 (0.85%) Bitbucket
12 6 (0.73%) MLflow
13 5 (0.61%) CircleCI
13 5 (0.61%) Maven
13 5 (0.61%) Postman
14 3 (0.36%) Lerna
15 2 (0.24%) ESLint
15 2 (0.24%) Zephyr
General
1 271 (32.93%) Finance
2 171 (20.78%) Social Skills
3 123 (14.95%) Banking
4 94 (11.42%) Front Office
5 74 (8.99%) Investment Banking
6 45 (5.47%) Public Sector
7 44 (5.35%) Analytical Skills
8 17 (2.07%) Pharmaceutical
9 16 (1.94%) Financial Institution
10 12 (1.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 9 (1.09%) Retail Banking
12 8 (0.97%) Back Office
12 8 (0.97%) Influencing Skills
13 7 (0.85%) Retail
14 6 (0.73%) Documentation Skills
14 6 (0.73%) Games
14 6 (0.73%) Publishing
15 5 (0.61%) Marketing
15 5 (0.61%) Military
15 5 (0.61%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 317 (38.52%) Software Engineer
2 237 (28.80%) Developer
3 196 (23.82%) Senior
4 88 (10.69%) Senior Software Engineer
5 85 (10.33%) Python Engineer
6 63 (7.65%) AWS Engineer
7 62 (7.53%) Java Engineer
8 61 (7.41%) Java Software Engineer
9 60 (7.29%) Python Software Engineer
10 59 (7.17%) Python Developer
11 55 (6.68%) AWS Software Engineer
11 55 (6.68%) Lead
12 50 (6.08%) Senior Developer
13 44 (5.35%) Java Developer
14 40 (4.86%) Developer/Software Engineer
15 38 (4.62%) Data Engineer
16 31 (3.77%) AWS Developer
16 31 (3.77%) Senior Java Engineer
16 31 (3.77%) Senior Java Software Engineer
17 29 (3.52%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 163 (19.81%) Kafka
2 147 (17.86%) React
3 102 (12.39%) Node.js
4 74 (8.99%) gRPC
5 72 (8.75%) .NET
6 71 (8.63%) NumPy
7 70 (8.51%) Pandas
8 67 (8.14%) AngularJS
9 60 (7.29%) SciPy
10 48 (5.83%) RESTful
11 47 (5.71%) REST
12 45 (5.47%) Vue
13 42 (5.10%) FastAPI
13 42 (5.10%) Spring
14 38 (4.62%) GraphQL
15 30 (3.65%) CSS
16 29 (3.52%) HTML
16 29 (3.52%) Spring Boot
17 28 (3.40%) Protocol Buffers
18 27 (3.28%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 104 (12.64%) Cloud Native
2 86 (10.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 79 (9.60%) Fixed Income
4 70 (8.51%) Distributed Systems
5 58 (7.05%) Hedge funds
6 53 (6.44%) Equities
7 41 (4.98%) Derivative
8 31 (3.77%) Product Ownership
9 28 (3.40%) Pricing Data
10 24 (2.92%) Data Structures
11 23 (2.79%) Virtual Team
12 21 (2.55%) Greenfield Project
13 20 (2.43%) Algorithms
13 20 (2.43%) Data Protection Act
14 15 (1.82%) AI Agents
14 15 (1.82%) Genomics
15 14 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
15 14 (1.70%) Onboarding
16 12 (1.46%) Life Science
17 11 (1.34%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 106 (12.88%) Linux
2 39 (4.74%) Unix
3 17 (2.07%) Windows
4 13 (1.58%) Android
5 11 (1.34%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.61%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.36%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.24%) 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
1 358 (43.50%) Agile
2 268 (32.56%) CI/CD
3 179 (21.75%) DevOps
4 139 (16.89%) Microservices
5 132 (16.04%) AI
6 117 (14.22%) Infrastructure as Code
7 113 (13.73%) Problem-Solving
8 110 (13.37%) Test Automation
9 103 (12.52%) Machine Learning
10 91 (11.06%) Containerisation
11 87 (10.57%) Full-Stack Development
12 85 (10.33%) Computer Science
13 80 (9.72%) Mentoring
14 75 (9.11%) Clean Code
15 68 (8.26%) Investment Management
16 63 (7.65%) Data Pipeline
16 63 (7.65%) Fintech
16 63 (7.65%) Scrum
17 61 (7.41%) Open Source
18 58 (7.05%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 357 (43.38%) Python
2 236 (28.68%) Java
3 173 (21.02%) JavaScript
4 162 (19.68%) TypeScript
5 161 (19.56%) SQL
6 131 (15.92%) C#
7 114 (13.85%) C++
8 79 (9.60%) Go
9 28 (3.40%) Rust
10 17 (2.07%) Ruby
11 10 (1.22%) Bash
11 10 (1.22%) C
12 9 (1.09%) Bicep
12 9 (1.09%) PHP
13 8 (0.97%) PL/SQL
13 8 (0.97%) PowerShell
14 7 (0.85%) JSX
14 7 (0.85%) Kotlin
15 6 (0.73%) Scala
16 5 (0.61%) R
Qualifications
1 113 (13.73%) Security Cleared
2 102 (12.39%) Degree
3 96 (11.66%) SC Cleared
4 39 (4.74%) Computer Science Degree
5 35 (4.25%) DV Cleared
6 19 (2.31%) Master's Degree
7 10 (1.22%) MCP
8 9 (1.09%) AWS Certification
9 7 (0.85%) PhD
10 6 (0.73%) Azure Certification
11 5 (0.61%) BPSS Clearance
12 3 (0.36%) CISSP
12 3 (0.36%) EMC Certification
12 3 (0.36%) HNC
12 3 (0.36%) HND
12 3 (0.36%) ISTQB
12 3 (0.36%) Postgraduate
13 2 (0.24%) CISM
13 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Certification
13 2 (0.24%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (4.25%) QA
2 25 (3.04%) Data Quality
3 13 (1.58%) GDPR
4 12 (1.46%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.49%) MiFID
5 4 (0.49%) SLA
5 4 (0.49%) WCAG
6 3 (0.36%) Def Stans
6 3 (0.36%) IEC 61508
6 3 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 3 (0.36%) NIST
6 3 (0.36%) SEPA
7 2 (0.24%) EU AI Act
7 2 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.24%) PMO
8 1 (0.12%) EMIR
8 1 (0.12%) GxP
8 1 (0.12%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.12%) SOC 2
System Software
1 183 (22.24%) Docker
2 9 (1.09%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.36%) 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
1 175 (21.26%) Kubernetes
2 99 (12.03%) Terraform
3 34 (4.13%) Grafana
4 28 (3.40%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.67%) Ansible
6 5 (0.61%) Kibana
7 4 (0.49%) Argo
8 3 (0.36%) Functional Safety
8 3 (0.36%) Puppet
9 2 (0.24%) Kubeflow
9 2 (0.24%) 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 56 (6.80%) Microsoft
2 35 (4.25%) Google
2 35 (4.25%) Oracle
3 30 (3.65%) Databricks
4 23 (2.79%) Foundry
5 15 (1.82%) Palantir
6 13 (1.58%) Cloudera
7 10 (1.22%) Temenos
8 9 (1.09%) OpenAI
9 6 (0.73%) Cisco
9 6 (0.73%) Dynatrace
9 6 (0.73%) Salesforce
10 5 (0.61%) DocuSign
11 4 (0.49%) Alteryx
11 4 (0.49%) Atlassian
11 4 (0.49%) Murex
11 4 (0.49%) Splunk
12 3 (0.36%) EMC
12 3 (0.36%) IBM
12 3 (0.36%) Software AG