Java Contract Job Trends in the South East

Java
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Java skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 97 40 49
Rank change year-on-year -57 +9 -2
Contract jobs citing Java 150 172 172
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.30% 4.81% 3.96%
As % of the Programming Languages category 12.01% 18.94% 15.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 95 130 126
10th Percentile £240 £204 £338
25th Percentile £332 £284 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £450 £563
Median % change year-on-year +8.89% -20.00% +7.14%
75th Percentile £626 £568 £643
90th Percentile £750 £601 £675
England median daily rate £525 £520 £600
% change year-on-year +0.96% -13.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 10 3
10th Percentile £44.10 £49.63 £33.70
25th Percentile £55.00 - £42.63
Median hourly rate £70.00 £50.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.00% -16.67% -11.11%
75th Percentile - £53.75 £68.13
90th Percentile - £55.00 £71.50
England median hourly rate £70.00 £50.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year +40.00% -28.57% +7.69%

All Programming Languages
South East

Java falls under the Programming Languages category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring coding skills in the South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 1,249 908 1,130
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 19.18% 25.38% 26.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 769 633 720
10th Percentile £303 £256 £330
25th Percentile £407 £380 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £490 £513
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -4.39% -2.38%
75th Percentile £608 £575 £625
90th Percentile £688 £625 £660
England median daily rate £525 £515 £543
% change year-on-year +1.94% -5.07% -1.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 31 57
10th Percentile £16.30 £50.00 £27.00
25th Percentile £37.24 £51.25 £51.00
Median hourly rate £60.00 £55.00 £67.02
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -17.93% +20.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £73.75
90th Percentile £77.50 - £75.00
England median hourly rate £65.00 £56.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +16.07% -13.85% -

Java
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Java relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Java job vacancy trend in the South East

Java
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Java.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Java

Java
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Java in the South East over the 6 months to 9 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Java in the South East

Java
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Java.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Java

Java
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Java in the South East over the 6 months to 9 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Java in the South East

Java
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Java within the South East region over the 6 months to 9 October 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
West Sussex +10 46 £375 +10.29% 19
Surrey -22 35 £425 +104.82% 21
Thames Valley -70 33 £525 +23.53% 83
Hampshire -57 32 £650 +18.18% 46
Berkshire -52 19 £448 -0.56% 37
Oxfordshire -22 8 £665 - 36
Buckinghamshire -35 6 £525 +61.54% 10
Sussex - 2 £613 - 2
Middlesex -20 1 - - 1
Java
England

Java
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 7 (4.67%) Documentum
2 4 (2.67%) NetWeaver
2 4 (2.67%) SharePoint
3 3 (2.00%) Apache Spark
4 2 (1.33%) SAP EP
5 1 (0.67%) Apache
5 1 (0.67%) Confluence
5 1 (0.67%) IIS
5 1 (0.67%) OpenEdge
5 1 (0.67%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.67%) WebSphere
Applications
1 3 (2.00%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.67%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.67%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 4 (2.67%) SAP PSCD
2 2 (1.33%) SAP CRM
2 2 (1.33%) SAP ERP
2 2 (1.33%) SAP FI-CA
2 2 (1.33%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.67%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 38 (25.33%) Azure
2 36 (24.00%) AWS
3 21 (14.00%) OpenShift
4 19 (12.67%) GCP
5 17 (11.33%) GitHub
6 11 (7.33%) Azure DevOps
7 9 (6.00%) GitHub Actions
8 6 (4.00%) Amazon ECS
8 6 (4.00%) Power Platform
9 4 (2.67%) Amazon S3
10 3 (2.00%) Amazon EKS
10 3 (2.00%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 3 (2.00%) AWS CodePipeline
10 3 (2.00%) AWS Lambda
10 3 (2.00%) SaaS
10 3 (2.00%) Sauce Labs
10 3 (2.00%) Serverless
11 2 (1.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 2 (1.33%) Entra ID
11 2 (1.33%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 5 (3.33%) HTTPS
2 3 (2.00%) Wireshark
3 1 (0.67%) Broadband
3 1 (0.67%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (9.33%) Relational Database
2 12 (8.00%) MySQL
2 12 (8.00%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (7.33%) NoSQL
4 8 (5.33%) Couchbase
5 7 (4.67%) SQL Server
6 6 (4.00%) Power BI
7 5 (3.33%) Apache Cassandra
7 5 (3.33%) Data Lake
8 4 (2.67%) Metadata
9 3 (2.00%) Big Data
9 3 (2.00%) BigQuery
9 3 (2.00%) Data Warehouse
9 3 (2.00%) DynamoDB
9 3 (2.00%) MongoDB
10 2 (1.33%) RDBMS
11 1 (0.67%) Amazon Redshift
11 1 (0.67%) Db2
11 1 (0.67%) Hadoop
11 1 (0.67%) Redis
Development Applications
1 30 (20.00%) Git
2 18 (12.00%) SonarQube
3 14 (9.33%) Jenkins
4 10 (6.67%) JUnit
5 8 (5.33%) JIRA
6 7 (4.67%) Gradle
6 7 (4.67%) Maven
7 5 (3.33%) GitLab
7 5 (3.33%) REST Assured
7 5 (3.33%) Selenium
8 4 (2.67%) Bitbucket
8 4 (2.67%) Visual Studio
9 3 (2.00%) Android Studio
9 3 (2.00%) Browser DevTools
9 3 (2.00%) Cucumber
9 3 (2.00%) Eclipse
9 3 (2.00%) JMeter
9 3 (2.00%) Postman
9 3 (2.00%) WebDriver
9 3 (2.00%) Xcode
General
1 29 (19.33%) Social Skills
2 23 (15.33%) Finance
3 9 (6.00%) Analytical Skills
4 8 (5.33%) Banking
5 6 (4.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 4 (2.67%) Aerospace
7 3 (2.00%) Military
8 2 (1.33%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (1.33%) Public Sector
9 1 (0.67%) Advertising
9 1 (0.67%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.67%) German Language
9 1 (0.67%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.67%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 50 (33.33%) Developer
2 31 (20.67%) Java Developer
3 25 (16.67%) Senior
4 22 (14.67%) Architect
5 20 (13.33%) Java Engineer
6 13 (8.67%) Technical Architect
7 11 (7.33%) Software Engineer
8 9 (6.00%) Senior Developer
8 9 (6.00%) Software Developer
9 8 (5.33%) Senior Java Developer
10 7 (4.67%) Analyst
10 7 (4.67%) Consultant
10 7 (4.67%) Documentum Architect
10 7 (4.67%) Java Architect
11 6 (4.00%) Java Solutions Architect
11 6 (4.00%) SC Cleared Java Developer
11 6 (4.00%) Solutions Architect
12 5 (3.33%) DV Cleared Java Developer
12 5 (3.33%) Support Engineer
12 5 (3.33%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (24.00%) REST
2 28 (18.67%) AngularJS
3 27 (18.00%) Spring
4 23 (15.33%) Spring Boot
5 18 (12.00%) .NET
5 18 (12.00%) Quarkus
6 15 (10.00%) RESTful
7 14 (9.33%) Kafka
7 14 (9.33%) React
8 13 (8.67%) CSS
8 13 (8.67%) GraphQL
9 12 (8.00%) SOAP
10 11 (7.33%) HTML
11 9 (6.00%) Node.js
11 9 (6.00%) Web Services
12 8 (5.33%) Hibernate
12 8 (5.33%) OAuth
13 7 (4.67%) JSON
14 6 (4.00%) ADO
14 6 (4.00%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 23 (15.33%) Distributed Systems
2 15 (10.00%) Cloud Native
3 7 (4.67%) Data Protection Act
3 7 (4.67%) Enterprise Software
4 6 (4.00%) Product Ownership
5 4 (2.67%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (2.00%) Algorithms
6 3 (2.00%) Distributed Architecture
6 3 (2.00%) Mobile App
7 2 (1.33%) Security Posture
8 1 (0.67%) AI Agents
8 1 (0.67%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (0.67%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.67%) EMV
8 1 (0.67%) Enterprise Cloud
8 1 (0.67%) IoT
8 1 (0.67%) Java Card
8 1 (0.67%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 13 (8.67%) Unix
2 11 (7.33%) Windows
3 10 (6.67%) Linux
4 5 (3.33%) Android
5 1 (0.67%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.67%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (43.33%) Agile
2 55 (36.67%) CI/CD
2 55 (36.67%) Test Automation
3 50 (33.33%) Software Engineering
4 42 (28.00%) Microservices
5 41 (27.33%) DevOps
6 39 (26.00%) SDLC
7 30 (20.00%) Scrum
8 28 (18.67%) Sprint Planning
8 28 (18.67%) Unit Testing
9 24 (16.00%) Sprint Review
10 21 (14.00%) Front End Development
11 20 (13.33%) DevSecOps
11 20 (13.33%) Problem-Solving
12 19 (12.67%) Event-Driven
13 17 (11.33%) Continuous Improvement
14 14 (9.33%) Design Patterns
15 13 (8.67%) AI
16 12 (8.00%) High Availability
16 12 (8.00%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 34 (22.67%) Python
2 28 (18.67%) SQL
3 25 (16.67%) JavaScript
4 10 (6.67%) Go
5 9 (6.00%) C#
6 8 (5.33%) ABAP
6 8 (5.33%) PowerShell
6 8 (5.33%) Shell Script
6 8 (5.33%) TypeScript
7 5 (3.33%) C++
7 5 (3.33%) Perl
7 5 (3.33%) PL/SQL
8 4 (2.67%) Bash
8 4 (2.67%) VB.NET
9 3 (2.00%) C
9 3 (2.00%) Kotlin
9 3 (2.00%) Lua
9 3 (2.00%) Scala
10 2 (1.33%) BeanShell
10 2 (1.33%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 64 (42.67%) Security Cleared
2 52 (34.67%) SC Cleared
3 12 (8.00%) Degree
4 8 (5.33%) DV Cleared
5 7 (4.67%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (3.33%) AWS Certification
7 4 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
7 4 (2.67%) DBS Check
8 3 (2.00%) Azure Certification
9 2 (1.33%) CISM
9 2 (1.33%) CISSP
9 2 (1.33%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.67%) CCNA
10 1 (0.67%) CEH
10 1 (0.67%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.67%) ISEB
10 1 (0.67%) ISTQB
10 1 (0.67%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 1 (0.67%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (25.33%) QA
2 5 (3.33%) GDPR
2 5 (3.33%) NCSC
3 3 (2.00%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 21 (14.00%) Docker
2 5 (3.33%) Active Directory
3 4 (2.67%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 39 (26.00%) Kubernetes
2 20 (13.33%) Argo
3 3 (2.00%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 3 (2.00%) Grafana
3 3 (2.00%) Prometheus
4 2 (1.33%) Ansible
4 2 (1.33%) Puppet
5 1 (0.67%) Amdocs OSS
5 1 (0.67%) Podman
5 1 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 20 (13.33%) Microsoft
2 18 (12.00%) Red Hat
3 14 (9.33%) Oracle
4 10 (6.67%) SAP
5 7 (4.67%) Google
5 7 (4.67%) Splunk
6 5 (3.33%) webMethods
7 4 (2.67%) IBM
7 4 (2.67%) VMware
8 2 (1.33%) Sparx
9 1 (0.67%) Ariba
9 1 (0.67%) Cisco
9 1 (0.67%) Concur
9 1 (0.67%) Conga
9 1 (0.67%) Databricks
9 1 (0.67%) Dynatrace
9 1 (0.67%) GoCardless
9 1 (0.67%) Nokia
9 1 (0.67%) Parasoft
9 1 (0.67%) Solace