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 8 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 40 31 41
Rank change year-on-year -9 +10 -2
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 816 967 986
As % of all contract jobs in London 5.87% 6.17% 4.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.35% 6.92% 5.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 545 717 768
10th Percentile £400 £425 £463
25th Percentile £513 £550 £556
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £675 £650
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% +3.85% +1.96%
75th Percentile £788 £838 £788
90th Percentile £850 £888 £850
England median daily rate £575 £600 £620
% change year-on-year -4.17% -3.23% +3.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 6 12
10th Percentile £26.79 £56.34 £40.82
25th Percentile £42.40 £62.01 £47.62
Median hourly rate £65.00 £67.50 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year -3.70% +20.00% +7.14%
75th Percentile £81.88 £71.19 £66.95
90th Percentile £87.50 £76.22 £74.75
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -0.76% +0.77% -

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 12,857 13,965 18,257
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 92.44% 89.14% 89.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,458 8,984 13,161
10th Percentile £331 £350 £358
25th Percentile £425 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% -4.35% -2.13%
75th Percentile £663 £675 £688
90th Percentile £775 £800 £800
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 260 163 244
10th Percentile £17.93 £17.30 £18.52
25th Percentile £25.00 £24.75 £21.25
Median hourly rate £30.00 £37.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% - -
75th Percentile £46.81 £56.00 £62.25
90th Percentile £65.00 £80.60 £77.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £37.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -32.03% -16.85% +27.14%

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 8 November 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 8 November 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 8 November 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 +14 101 £625 +10.62% 1,066
West London -8 14 £625 +8.70% 39
East London +3 7 £675 +27.96% 33
South London -6 6 £513 -27.30% 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 72 (8.82%) Apache Airflow
2 61 (7.48%) Apache
3 33 (4.04%) Confluence
4 27 (3.31%) Apache Spark
5 6 (0.74%) CMS
6 5 (0.61%) JBoss
7 2 (0.25%) Appian
7 2 (0.25%) Magnolia
7 2 (0.25%) SharePoint
7 2 (0.25%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.25%) WordPress
8 1 (0.12%) CICS
8 1 (0.12%) Drupal
8 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.12%) nginx
8 1 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 13 (1.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.86%) Chatbot
4 6 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (0.37%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (0.98%) Aladdin
1 8 (0.98%) Temenos T24
2 7 (0.86%) FLEXCUBE
2 7 (0.86%) Oracle BPM
3 3 (0.37%) Fidessa
3 3 (0.37%) thinkFolio
4 2 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.12%) ION Anvil
5 1 (0.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.12%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 333 (40.81%) AWS
2 157 (19.24%) Azure
3 107 (13.11%) GCP
4 78 (9.56%) Serverless
5 71 (8.70%) GitHub
6 67 (8.21%) dbt
7 54 (6.62%) Snowflake
8 42 (5.15%) GitHub Actions
9 34 (4.17%) AWS Lambda
10 32 (3.92%) Power Platform
11 28 (3.43%) Amazon S3
11 28 (3.43%) Azure DevOps
12 19 (2.33%) AWS Step Functions
13 18 (2.21%) SaaS
14 14 (1.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 14 (1.72%) Amazon ECS
15 13 (1.59%) Amazon Kinesis
15 13 (1.59%) AWS CloudFormation
16 12 (1.47%) Entra ID
16 12 (1.47%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 6 (0.74%) Firewall
1 6 (0.74%) Network Security
2 4 (0.49%) tcpdump
3 3 (0.37%) VPN
4 2 (0.25%) HTTP
4 2 (0.25%) HTTPS
4 2 (0.25%) Internet
4 2 (0.25%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.12%) DNS
5 1 (0.12%) MPLS
5 1 (0.12%) Radio Access Network
5 1 (0.12%) SMS
5 1 (0.12%) SSH
5 1 (0.12%) SSL
5 1 (0.12%) VoWiFi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 80 (9.80%) PostgreSQL
2 62 (7.60%) Amazon Athena
3 58 (7.11%) Apache Arrow
3 58 (7.11%) Apache Iceberg
3 58 (7.11%) Dremio
4 51 (6.25%) Data Lake
5 36 (4.41%) Apache Cassandra
5 36 (4.41%) Apache Ignite
6 34 (4.17%) Big Data
7 29 (3.55%) Hadoop
8 28 (3.43%) NoSQL
8 28 (3.43%) SQL Server
9 23 (2.82%) Elasticsearch
9 23 (2.82%) Power BI
10 22 (2.70%) Relational Database
11 21 (2.57%) MongoDB
12 19 (2.33%) MySQL
13 15 (1.84%) Amazon RDS
13 15 (1.84%) Metadata
14 14 (1.72%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 85 (10.42%) Git
2 53 (6.50%) Jenkins
3 43 (5.27%) JIRA
4 29 (3.55%) GitLab
5 18 (2.21%) Cypress.io
6 13 (1.59%) Cucumber
6 13 (1.59%) Gradle
6 13 (1.59%) TeamCity
7 11 (1.35%) JUnit
8 10 (1.23%) SonarQube
9 9 (1.10%) Selenium
10 8 (0.98%) MLflow
11 6 (0.74%) Bitbucket
11 6 (0.74%) Maven
12 5 (0.61%) CircleCI
13 4 (0.49%) Mockito
13 4 (0.49%) Postman
14 3 (0.37%) Lerna
15 2 (0.25%) MSTest
15 2 (0.25%) rollup.js
General
1 298 (36.52%) Finance
2 174 (21.32%) Social Skills
3 146 (17.89%) Banking
4 123 (15.07%) Front Office
5 86 (10.54%) Investment Banking
6 50 (6.13%) Analytical Skills
7 40 (4.90%) Public Sector
8 17 (2.08%) Financial Institution
9 15 (1.84%) Pharmaceutical
10 13 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 10 (1.23%) Military
12 9 (1.10%) Retail Banking
13 8 (0.98%) Back Office
14 7 (0.86%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (0.86%) Retail
15 6 (0.74%) Documentation Skills
15 6 (0.74%) Publishing
15 6 (0.74%) Telecoms
16 5 (0.61%) Games
17 4 (0.49%) Legal
Job Titles
1 321 (39.34%) Software Engineer
2 262 (32.11%) Developer
3 178 (21.81%) Senior
4 95 (11.64%) Python Engineer
5 83 (10.17%) Senior Software Engineer
6 79 (9.68%) Java Engineer
7 78 (9.56%) Java Software Engineer
8 73 (8.95%) AWS Engineer
9 72 (8.82%) Python Software Engineer
10 68 (8.33%) AWS Software Engineer
11 65 (7.97%) Python Developer
12 59 (7.23%) Lead
13 55 (6.74%) Developer/Software Engineer
14 43 (5.27%) Java Developer
15 42 (5.15%) Senior Developer
16 41 (5.02%) AWS Developer
17 39 (4.78%) Senior Java Engineer
17 39 (4.78%) Senior Java Software Engineer
18 35 (4.29%) Data Engineer
18 35 (4.29%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 170 (20.83%) React
2 150 (18.38%) Kafka
3 111 (13.60%) Node.js
4 89 (10.91%) Pandas
5 86 (10.54%) NumPy
6 81 (9.93%) AngularJS
7 79 (9.68%) gRPC
8 78 (9.56%) SciPy
9 73 (8.95%) .NET
10 56 (6.86%) Vue
11 52 (6.37%) REST
11 52 (6.37%) RESTful
12 43 (5.27%) FastAPI
13 40 (4.90%) GraphQL
13 40 (4.90%) Spring
14 36 (4.41%) Protocol Buffers
15 33 (4.04%) Redux
16 28 (3.43%) HTML
17 27 (3.31%) CSS
18 25 (3.06%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 116 (14.22%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 109 (13.36%) Fixed Income
3 87 (10.66%) Cloud Native
4 76 (9.31%) Equities
5 72 (8.82%) Hedge funds
6 63 (7.72%) Distributed Systems
7 49 (6.00%) Derivative
8 36 (4.41%) Pricing Data
9 28 (3.43%) Data Structures
10 27 (3.31%) Virtual Team
11 26 (3.19%) Algorithms
12 24 (2.94%) Product Ownership
13 20 (2.45%) Data Protection Act
13 20 (2.45%) Greenfield Project
14 15 (1.84%) Genomics
15 13 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
15 13 (1.59%) Linux Command Line
16 12 (1.47%) Self-Motivation
17 11 (1.35%) Life Science
17 11 (1.35%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 101 (12.38%) Linux
2 37 (4.53%) Unix
3 17 (2.08%) Windows
4 11 (1.35%) Android
5 8 (0.98%) Apple iOS
6 5 (0.61%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.37%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.25%) VMS
9 1 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 368 (45.10%) Agile
2 241 (29.53%) CI/CD
3 166 (20.34%) DevOps
4 132 (16.18%) Microservices
5 114 (13.97%) AI
6 112 (13.73%) Problem-Solving
7 99 (12.13%) Test Automation
8 96 (11.76%) Infrastructure as Code
8 96 (11.76%) Machine Learning
9 95 (11.64%) Investment Management
10 92 (11.27%) Full-Stack Development
11 86 (10.54%) Computer Science
12 85 (10.42%) Mentoring
13 84 (10.29%) Clean Code
14 83 (10.17%) Fintech
15 82 (10.05%) Asset Management
16 78 (9.56%) Containerisation
17 61 (7.48%) Open Source
18 59 (7.23%) Data Pipeline
19 57 (6.99%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 371 (45.47%) Python
2 250 (30.64%) Java
3 196 (24.02%) JavaScript
4 178 (21.81%) TypeScript
5 159 (19.49%) SQL
6 126 (15.44%) C#
7 112 (13.73%) C++
8 70 (8.58%) Go
9 28 (3.43%) Rust
10 16 (1.96%) Ruby
11 12 (1.47%) PL/SQL
12 11 (1.35%) C
12 11 (1.35%) PHP
13 10 (1.23%) PowerShell
14 9 (1.10%) Bash
14 9 (1.10%) Bicep
14 9 (1.10%) Scala
15 8 (0.98%) Kotlin
16 7 (0.86%) JSX
17 4 (0.49%) R
Qualifications
1 101 (12.38%) Degree
2 100 (12.25%) Security Cleared
3 85 (10.42%) SC Cleared
4 34 (4.17%) Computer Science Degree
5 33 (4.04%) DV Cleared
6 15 (1.84%) Master's Degree
7 9 (1.10%) MCP
7 9 (1.10%) PhD
8 8 (0.98%) AWS Certification
9 6 (0.74%) BPSS Clearance
10 5 (0.61%) Azure Certification
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%) CISM
12 2 (0.25%) DBS Check
12 2 (0.25%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (4.04%) QA
2 23 (2.82%) Data Quality
3 12 (1.47%) Accessibility
4 10 (1.23%) GDPR
5 5 (0.61%) NIST
5 5 (0.61%) SLA
6 4 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.49%) MiFID
6 4 (0.49%) WCAG
7 3 (0.37%) Def Stans
7 3 (0.37%) IEC 61508
7 3 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 15288
7 3 (0.37%) SEPA
7 3 (0.37%) SOC 2
8 2 (0.25%) EU AI Act
8 2 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 2 (0.25%) PMO
9 1 (0.12%) EMIR
9 1 (0.12%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.12%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 170 (20.83%) Docker
2 9 (1.10%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.61%) zsh
4 1 (0.12%) KVM
4 1 (0.12%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 164 (20.10%) Kubernetes
2 72 (8.82%) Terraform
3 21 (2.57%) Grafana
4 20 (2.45%) Prometheus
5 19 (2.33%) Ansible
6 5 (0.61%) Kibana
7 4 (0.49%) Argo
8 3 (0.37%) Functional Safety
8 3 (0.37%) Kubeflow
9 2 (0.25%) rkt
10 1 (0.12%) CA Endevor
10 1 (0.12%) Docker Swarm
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
10 1 (0.12%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 54 (6.62%) Microsoft
2 40 (4.90%) Oracle
3 32 (3.92%) Google
4 28 (3.43%) Databricks
5 24 (2.94%) Foundry
6 15 (1.84%) Palantir
7 14 (1.72%) Cloudera
8 10 (1.23%) Temenos
9 9 (1.10%) OpenAI
10 6 (0.74%) Atlassian
10 6 (0.74%) Salesforce
11 5 (0.61%) Cisco
11 5 (0.61%) DocuSign
12 4 (0.49%) Alteryx
12 4 (0.49%) Dynatrace
12 4 (0.49%) IBM
12 4 (0.49%) Murex
13 3 (0.37%) EMC
13 3 (0.37%) Portware
13 3 (0.37%) Red Hat