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 7 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 47 52 50
Rank change year-on-year +5 -2 -12
Contract jobs citing Java 220 121 193
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.73% 4.03% 3.48%
As % of the Programming Languages category 19.75% 15.28% 15.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 138 64 128
10th Percentile £204 £366 £365
25th Percentile £301 £450 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £501 £575
Median % change year-on-year -5.09% -12.96% +9.52%
75th Percentile £584 £638 £688
90th Percentile £638 £663 £738
England median daily rate £525 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -8.70% - -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 5 13
10th Percentile £42.00 £32.51 £40.00
25th Percentile £53.75 - £61.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £50.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +30.00% -23.08% -7.14%
75th Percentile £68.75 - £67.02
90th Percentile £70.00 £53.00 £73.40
England median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +18.18% -12.00% -4.21%

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 1,114 792 1,211
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 18.90% 26.35% 21.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 770 532 839
10th Percentile £310 £350 £325
25th Percentile £403 £450 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.58% +2.65% -4.76%
75th Percentile £597 £600 £608
90th Percentile £681 £675 £681
England median daily rate £507 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -3.43% -3.67% -3.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 31 75
10th Percentile £34.01 £42.50 £35.00
25th Percentile £46.25 £48.99 £46.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £56.75 £60.14
Median % change year-on-year -3.08% -5.64% +9.35%
75th Percentile £69.06 £64.13 £66.01
90th Percentile £82.25 £65.62 £76.50
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% - +2.97%

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 7 May 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 7 May 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 7 May 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
Thames Valley -45 61 £406 -18.83% 46
Hampshire +8 56 £534 +7.29% 23
Surrey +15 53 £500 -15.79% 12
Berkshire -36 46 £385 -23.00% 31
West Sussex -6 35 £339 -31.40% 5
Buckinghamshire -25 13 £500 -13.04% 9
Sussex - 6 £475 -
Middlesex - 5 £725 - 1
East Sussex +2 2 £525 +40.00% 4
Oxfordshire -22 2 £530 - 6
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 9 (4.09%) Apache Spark
2 5 (2.27%) NetWeaver
2 5 (2.27%) SAP EP
3 4 (1.82%) Apache
4 3 (1.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 3 (1.36%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (1.36%) IIS
5 2 (0.91%) CMS
5 2 (0.91%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.45%) OpenStack
Applications
1 3 (1.36%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 5 (2.27%) SAP CRM
2 2 (0.91%) Oracle BRM
3 1 (0.45%) Maximo
3 1 (0.45%) Oracle CRM
Cloud Services
1 61 (27.73%) AWS
2 42 (19.09%) Azure
3 29 (13.18%) GitHub
4 27 (12.27%) OpenShift
5 26 (11.82%) GCP
6 15 (6.82%) GitHub Actions
7 14 (6.36%) Amazon S3
8 12 (5.45%) AWS Lambda
9 11 (5.00%) Serverless
10 7 (3.18%) Snowflake
11 6 (2.73%) SaaS
11 6 (2.73%) Sauce Labs
12 5 (2.27%) Amazon ECS
12 5 (2.27%) Amazon EKS
12 5 (2.27%) SuccessFactors
13 4 (1.82%) Azure DevOps
14 3 (1.36%) Amazon Cognito
14 3 (1.36%) Amazon EC2
14 3 (1.36%) Amazon SQS
14 3 (1.36%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.36%) HTTP
1 3 (1.36%) HTTPS
2 2 (0.91%) Broadband
2 2 (0.91%) FTP
2 2 (0.91%) GPRS
2 2 (0.91%) GSM
2 2 (0.91%) Wireshark
3 1 (0.45%) Bluetooth
3 1 (0.45%) DHCP
3 1 (0.45%) DNS
3 1 (0.45%) Firewall
3 1 (0.45%) Kerberos
3 1 (0.45%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (19.55%) Relational Database
2 30 (13.64%) PostgreSQL
3 23 (10.45%) MySQL
3 23 (10.45%) NoSQL
4 12 (5.45%) Big Data
5 11 (5.00%) DynamoDB
6 9 (4.09%) MongoDB
7 7 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (2.73%) SQL Server
9 5 (2.27%) Pinecone
9 5 (2.27%) Weaviate
10 3 (1.36%) BigQuery
10 3 (1.36%) HBase
10 3 (1.36%) RDBMS
11 2 (0.91%) Amazon Redshift
11 2 (0.91%) Data Lake
11 2 (0.91%) Elasticsearch
12 1 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
12 1 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
12 1 (0.45%) Couchbase
Development Applications
1 33 (15.00%) Git
2 28 (12.73%) Jenkins
3 18 (8.18%) Gradle
4 15 (6.82%) Maven
5 14 (6.36%) JUnit
5 14 (6.36%) SonarQube
6 10 (4.55%) Android Studio
6 10 (4.55%) Cucumber
6 10 (4.55%) Eclipse
7 9 (4.09%) JIRA
8 8 (3.64%) Selenium
9 7 (3.18%) Bitbucket
9 7 (3.18%) Sonatype Nexus
10 6 (2.73%) Browser DevTools
10 6 (2.73%) GitLab
10 6 (2.73%) WebDriver
10 6 (2.73%) Xcode
11 5 (2.27%) JMeter
12 4 (1.82%) Subversion
13 3 (1.36%) TeamCity
General
1 61 (27.73%) Social Skills
2 23 (10.45%) Analytical Skills
3 20 (9.09%) Finance
4 7 (3.18%) Public Sector
5 5 (2.27%) Marketing
6 4 (1.82%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (1.36%) Banking
8 2 (0.91%) Billing
8 2 (0.91%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.45%) Advertising
9 1 (0.45%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.45%) Back Office
9 1 (0.45%) Electronics
9 1 (0.45%) Front Office
9 1 (0.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.45%) Legal
9 1 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.45%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (0.45%) Retail
Job Titles
1 90 (40.91%) Developer
2 70 (31.82%) Java Developer
3 28 (12.73%) Java Engineer
4 27 (12.27%) Software Engineer
5 19 (8.64%) Technical Support
6 15 (6.82%) Lead
7 13 (5.91%) Senior
8 12 (5.45%) Technical Engineer
9 11 (5.00%) Support Engineer
10 10 (4.55%) Applications Developer
10 10 (4.55%) Architect
10 10 (4.55%) Technical Support Engineer
11 9 (4.09%) DevOps Engineer
11 9 (4.09%) Full-Stack Developer
11 9 (4.09%) SC Cleared Java Developer
11 9 (4.09%) Senior Developer
12 7 (3.18%) AWS Developer
12 7 (3.18%) Java Software Engineer
12 7 (3.18%) Site Reliability Engineer
13 6 (2.73%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (20.00%) Spring
2 31 (14.09%) AngularJS
3 30 (13.64%) Spring Boot
4 27 (12.27%) REST
5 26 (11.82%) React
6 25 (11.36%) Kafka
7 16 (7.27%) GraphQL
8 14 (6.36%) CSS
8 14 (6.36%) Quarkus
9 13 (5.91%) RESTful
10 12 (5.45%) Node.js
11 9 (4.09%) HTML
11 9 (4.09%) SOAP
12 8 (3.64%) Hibernate
13 7 (3.18%) Vue
14 6 (2.73%) .NET
14 6 (2.73%) Ajax
15 5 (2.27%) SAP PI
15 5 (2.27%) Web Services
15 5 (2.27%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 27 (12.27%) Distributed Systems
2 12 (5.45%) Cloud Native
3 11 (5.00%) Mobile App
4 7 (3.18%) Self-Motivation
5 5 (2.27%) Data Centre
6 4 (1.82%) Data Structures
7 3 (1.36%) Algorithms
7 3 (1.36%) Distributed Architecture
7 3 (1.36%) Product Ownership
8 2 (0.91%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (0.91%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (0.91%) IPTV
8 2 (0.91%) Security Posture
9 1 (0.45%) Clustering
9 1 (0.45%) Legacy Applications
9 1 (0.45%) Life Science
9 1 (0.45%) Marketing Technology
9 1 (0.45%) Robotics
9 1 (0.45%) Team-Oriented Environment
9 1 (0.45%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 32 (14.55%) Linux
2 26 (11.82%) Unix
3 24 (10.91%) Windows
4 13 (5.91%) Android
5 4 (1.82%) Windows Server
6 3 (1.36%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.91%) VMS
8 1 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.45%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 81 (36.82%) CI/CD
2 66 (30.00%) Agile
3 61 (27.73%) Software Engineering
4 40 (18.18%) Test Automation
5 38 (17.27%) DevOps
5 38 (17.27%) Scrum
6 37 (16.82%) Problem-Solving
7 36 (16.36%) Microservices
8 28 (12.73%) Unit Testing
9 26 (11.82%) Containerisation
9 26 (11.82%) OOP
10 25 (11.36%) OO
11 23 (10.45%) High Availability
12 21 (9.55%) Computer Science
12 21 (9.55%) Fintech
13 20 (9.09%) SDLC
14 19 (8.64%) DevSecOps
14 19 (8.64%) Sprint Planning
15 18 (8.18%) Front End Development
16 16 (7.27%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 68 (30.91%) Python
2 50 (22.73%) SQL
3 44 (20.00%) JavaScript
4 24 (10.91%) Go
5 18 (8.18%) Perl
6 16 (7.27%) C#
7 11 (5.00%) Kotlin
7 11 (5.00%) PowerShell
8 7 (3.18%) Bash
9 6 (2.73%) C++
9 6 (2.73%) TypeScript
10 5 (2.27%) ABAP
11 4 (1.82%) Scala
11 4 (1.82%) Shell Script
12 3 (1.36%) PL/SQL
13 2 (0.91%) BeanShell
13 2 (0.91%) R
13 2 (0.91%) VBScript
14 1 (0.45%) Groovy
14 1 (0.45%) Swift
Qualifications
1 69 (31.36%) Security Cleared
2 66 (30.00%) SC Cleared
3 24 (10.91%) Degree
4 21 (9.55%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (1.82%) OCP
5 4 (1.82%) Oracle Certification
6 2 (0.91%) ISTQB
6 2 (0.91%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
7 1 (0.45%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.45%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.45%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (7.73%) QA
2 3 (1.36%) Accessibility
2 3 (1.36%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.45%) Software Quality Assurance
3 1 (0.45%) WCAG
System Software
1 24 (10.91%) Docker
2 5 (2.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.36%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 57 (25.91%) Kubernetes
2 15 (6.82%) Argo
3 11 (5.00%) Ansible
4 8 (3.64%) Terraform
5 4 (1.82%) Grafana
5 4 (1.82%) Progress Chef
6 3 (1.36%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.91%) Kubeflow
7 2 (0.91%) Puppet
8 1 (0.45%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.45%) SCCM
Vendors
1 22 (10.00%) Oracle
2 13 (5.91%) Microsoft
2 13 (5.91%) Red Hat
3 10 (4.55%) Splunk
4 6 (2.73%) Google
4 6 (2.73%) VMware
5 5 (2.27%) Ab Initio
5 5 (2.27%) Ariba
5 5 (2.27%) SAP
5 5 (2.27%) Teradata
6 4 (1.82%) Atlassian
7 3 (1.36%) Adobe
7 3 (1.36%) Blue Prism
7 3 (1.36%) OpenAI
7 3 (1.36%) UiPath
8 2 (0.91%) Databricks
8 2 (0.91%) Dynatrace
9 1 (0.45%) Automation Anywhere
9 1 (0.45%) ServiceNow
9 1 (0.45%) Solace