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

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 41 31 45
Rank change year-on-year -10 +14 -8
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 825 921 870
As % of all contract jobs in London 5.74% 5.83% 4.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.26% 6.49% 5.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 544 682 659
10th Percentile £400 £450 £463
25th Percentile £500 £550 £553
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 £610
% change year-on-year -8.33% -1.64% +1.67%
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 13,188 14,190 17,310
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 91.79% 89.85% 89.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,704 9,175 12,401
10th Percentile £338 £350 £356
25th Percentile £425 £450 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £526 £550 £568
Median % change year-on-year -4.45% -3.08% -3.81%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £688
90th Percentile £763 £800 £800
England median daily rate £500 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -4.76% -3.67% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 247 166 233
10th Percentile £18.25 £17.25 £18.81
25th Percentile £24.56 £23.80 £21.75
Median hourly rate £29.50 £37.25 £35.63
Median % change year-on-year -20.81% +4.55% -9.80%
75th Percentile £47.63 £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% +18.67%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 +14 106 £619 +9.03% 73
West London +2 25 £603 +4.78% 18
South London -5 13 £528 -27.24% 12
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 (6.91%) Apache
1 57 (6.91%) Apache Airflow
2 31 (3.76%) Apache Spark
2 31 (3.76%) Confluence
3 7 (0.85%) CMS
4 4 (0.48%) 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
1 320 (38.79%) AWS
2 159 (19.27%) Azure
3 94 (11.39%) GCP
4 75 (9.09%) Serverless
5 73 (8.85%) GitHub
6 52 (6.30%) dbt
7 46 (5.58%) Snowflake
8 45 (5.45%) GitHub Actions
9 35 (4.24%) Power Platform
10 34 (4.12%) AWS Lambda
11 33 (4.00%) Amazon S3
12 28 (3.39%) Azure DevOps
13 22 (2.67%) AWS CloudFormation
14 19 (2.30%) Amazon ECS
14 19 (2.30%) AWS Step Functions
14 19 (2.30%) SaaS
15 15 (1.82%) Datadog
16 14 (1.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 14 (1.70%) CloudFront
17 13 (1.58%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 6 (0.73%) Firewall
2 4 (0.48%) Network Security
2 4 (0.48%) 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 (7.88%) PostgreSQL
2 49 (5.94%) Amazon Athena
3 46 (5.58%) Data Lake
4 43 (5.21%) Apache Arrow
4 43 (5.21%) Apache Iceberg
4 43 (5.21%) Dremio
5 39 (4.73%) Apache Cassandra
6 38 (4.61%) NoSQL
7 35 (4.24%) Big Data
8 33 (4.00%) SQL Server
9 29 (3.52%) Hadoop
10 28 (3.39%) Apache Ignite
11 27 (3.27%) Power BI
12 26 (3.15%) MongoDB
13 24 (2.91%) Relational Database
14 21 (2.55%) Elasticsearch
15 18 (2.18%) MySQL
16 17 (2.06%) Amazon RDS
16 17 (2.06%) Metadata
17 15 (1.82%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 84 (10.18%) Git
2 55 (6.67%) Jenkins
3 42 (5.09%) JIRA
4 31 (3.76%) GitLab
5 18 (2.18%) Cypress.io
6 15 (1.82%) JUnit
7 14 (1.70%) Cucumber
8 12 (1.45%) Gradle
8 12 (1.45%) 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%) rollup.js
General
1 272 (32.97%) Finance
2 173 (20.97%) Social Skills
3 124 (15.03%) Banking
4 94 (11.39%) Front Office
5 75 (9.09%) Investment Banking
6 45 (5.45%) Analytical Skills
6 45 (5.45%) Public Sector
7 17 (2.06%) Financial Institution
7 17 (2.06%) Pharmaceutical
8 12 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 9 (1.09%) Retail Banking
10 8 (0.97%) Back Office
10 8 (0.97%) Influencing Skills
11 7 (0.85%) Retail
12 6 (0.73%) Documentation Skills
12 6 (0.73%) Games
12 6 (0.73%) Publishing
13 5 (0.61%) Marketing
13 5 (0.61%) Military
13 5 (0.61%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 316 (38.30%) Software Engineer
2 241 (29.21%) Developer
3 194 (23.52%) Senior
4 86 (10.42%) Senior Software Engineer
5 85 (10.30%) Python Engineer
6 63 (7.64%) Java Engineer
7 62 (7.52%) AWS Engineer
7 62 (7.52%) Java Software Engineer
8 60 (7.27%) Python Developer
8 60 (7.27%) Python Software Engineer
9 56 (6.79%) Lead
10 55 (6.67%) AWS Software Engineer
11 50 (6.06%) Senior Developer
12 46 (5.58%) Java Developer
13 40 (4.85%) Developer/Software Engineer
14 38 (4.61%) Data Engineer
15 32 (3.88%) AWS Developer
16 31 (3.76%) Senior Java Engineer
16 31 (3.76%) Senior Java Software Engineer
17 29 (3.52%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 164 (19.88%) Kafka
2 148 (17.94%) React
3 103 (12.48%) Node.js
4 75 (9.09%) gRPC
5 73 (8.85%) .NET
6 72 (8.73%) NumPy
7 71 (8.61%) Pandas
8 68 (8.24%) AngularJS
9 61 (7.39%) SciPy
10 48 (5.82%) REST
10 48 (5.82%) RESTful
11 46 (5.58%) Vue
12 43 (5.21%) FastAPI
13 42 (5.09%) Spring
14 39 (4.73%) GraphQL
15 30 (3.64%) CSS
16 29 (3.52%) HTML
16 29 (3.52%) Spring Boot
17 28 (3.39%) Protocol Buffers
18 27 (3.27%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 103 (12.48%) Cloud Native
2 87 (10.55%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 79 (9.58%) Fixed Income
4 72 (8.73%) Distributed Systems
5 60 (7.27%) Hedge funds
6 53 (6.42%) Equities
7 41 (4.97%) Derivative
8 31 (3.76%) Product Ownership
9 28 (3.39%) Pricing Data
10 27 (3.27%) Data Structures
11 23 (2.79%) Algorithms
11 23 (2.79%) Virtual Team
12 20 (2.42%) Data Protection Act
12 20 (2.42%) Greenfield Project
13 15 (1.82%) AI Agents
13 15 (1.82%) Genomics
14 14 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
14 14 (1.70%) Onboarding
15 12 (1.45%) Life Science
16 11 (1.33%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 107 (12.97%) Linux
2 38 (4.61%) Unix
3 17 (2.06%) Windows
4 13 (1.58%) Android
5 11 (1.33%) 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
1 356 (43.15%) Agile
2 268 (32.48%) CI/CD
3 177 (21.45%) DevOps
4 139 (16.85%) Microservices
5 132 (16.00%) AI
6 117 (14.18%) Infrastructure as Code
7 114 (13.82%) Problem-Solving
8 110 (13.33%) Test Automation
9 103 (12.48%) Machine Learning
10 91 (11.03%) Containerisation
11 87 (10.55%) Full-Stack Development
12 86 (10.42%) Computer Science
13 80 (9.70%) Mentoring
14 76 (9.21%) Clean Code
15 68 (8.24%) Investment Management
16 63 (7.64%) Data Pipeline
16 63 (7.64%) Fintech
16 63 (7.64%) Scrum
17 62 (7.52%) Open Source
18 58 (7.03%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 362 (43.88%) Python
2 240 (29.09%) Java
3 175 (21.21%) JavaScript
4 162 (19.64%) TypeScript
5 161 (19.52%) SQL
6 132 (16.00%) C#
7 115 (13.94%) C++
8 80 (9.70%) Go
9 29 (3.52%) Rust
10 18 (2.18%) Ruby
11 11 (1.33%) C
12 10 (1.21%) Bash
12 10 (1.21%) PHP
13 9 (1.09%) Bicep
14 8 (0.97%) PL/SQL
14 8 (0.97%) PowerShell
15 7 (0.85%) JSX
15 7 (0.85%) Kotlin
16 6 (0.73%) Scala
17 5 (0.61%) R
Qualifications
1 113 (13.70%) Security Cleared
2 101 (12.24%) Degree
3 96 (11.64%) SC Cleared
4 38 (4.61%) Computer Science Degree
5 35 (4.24%) DV Cleared
6 18 (2.18%) Master's Degree
7 10 (1.21%) 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%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 2 (0.24%) CISM
13 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (4.24%) QA
2 25 (3.03%) Data Quality
3 13 (1.58%) GDPR
4 12 (1.45%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.48%) MiFID
5 4 (0.48%) SLA
5 4 (0.48%) 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
1 184 (22.30%) 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
1 178 (21.58%) Kubernetes
2 98 (11.88%) Terraform
3 34 (4.12%) Grafana
4 28 (3.39%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.67%) Ansible
6 5 (0.61%) Kibana
7 4 (0.48%) 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 55 (6.67%) Microsoft
2 35 (4.24%) Google
2 35 (4.24%) Oracle
3 30 (3.64%) Databricks
4 23 (2.79%) Foundry
5 15 (1.82%) Palantir
6 13 (1.58%) Cloudera
7 10 (1.21%) 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 (0.48%) Alteryx
11 4 (0.48%) Atlassian
11 4 (0.48%) Murex
11 4 (0.48%) Splunk
12 3 (0.36%) EMC
12 3 (0.36%) IBM
12 3 (0.36%) SAP