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 23 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 65 45 38
Rank change year-on-year -20 -7 +6
Contract jobs citing Java 215 153 228
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.27% 4.48% 4.27%
As % of the Programming Languages category 16.21% 17.29% 18.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 131 97 156
10th Percentile £238 £282 £363
25th Percentile £363 £380 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £475 £589
Median % change year-on-year +7.89% -19.32% +12.14%
75th Percentile £608 £588 £675
90th Percentile £700 £600 £738
England median daily rate £525 £533 £600
% change year-on-year -1.41% -11.25% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 10 9
10th Percentile £54.50 £43.71 £33.55
25th Percentile £62.50 - £35.00
Median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.00% -16.67% -11.11%
75th Percentile £70.00 £53.75 £73.75
90th Percentile - £55.00 £76.00
England median hourly rate £69.50 £50.00 £68.75
% change year-on-year +39.00% -27.27% +4.88%

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 1,326 885 1,247
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 20.16% 25.91% 23.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 856 610 858
10th Percentile £310 £320 £331
25th Percentile £403 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +2.65% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £688 £643 £661
England median daily rate £520 £515 £545
% change year-on-year +1.02% -5.50% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 80 24 69
10th Percentile £33.13 £33.93 £27.60
25th Percentile £43.81 £45.82 £50.75
Median hourly rate £62.50 £51.25 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.95% -21.15% +18.18%
75th Percentile £70.00 £58.70 £75.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £64.29 £77.50
England median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -11.54% +4.00%

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 23 July 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 23 July 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 23 July 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
Surrey +7 57 £511 +7.63% 3
West Sussex +8 51 £363 -4.42% 5
Thames Valley -59 51 £525 +16.67% 31
Hampshire -30 48 £600 +0.42% 13
Berkshire -49 30 £445 -4.30% 15
Buckinghamshire -36 12 £500 +31.58% 4
Oxfordshire -11 9 £530 - 12
Sussex - 4 £475 - 2
East Sussex -2 1 £600 +88.24% 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 8 (3.72%) Apache Spark
2 7 (3.26%) Documentum
3 4 (1.86%) NetWeaver
3 4 (1.86%) SAP EP
3 4 (1.86%) SharePoint
4 3 (1.40%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.93%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 2 (0.93%) Apache
6 1 (0.47%) CMS
6 1 (0.47%) Confluence
6 1 (0.47%) IIS
6 1 (0.47%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.47%) WebLogic
Applications
1 4 (1.86%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.47%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 4 (1.86%) SAP CRM
1 4 (1.86%) SAP PSCD
2 2 (0.93%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 51 (23.72%) AWS
1 51 (23.72%) Azure
2 28 (13.02%) OpenShift
3 25 (11.63%) GCP
4 19 (8.84%) GitHub
5 13 (6.05%) Amazon S3
6 12 (5.58%) Azure DevOps
7 11 (5.12%) GitHub Actions
8 9 (4.19%) Serverless
9 8 (3.72%) AWS Lambda
10 7 (3.26%) Amazon ECS
11 6 (2.79%) Snowflake
12 5 (2.33%) Amazon EKS
12 5 (2.33%) Power Platform
12 5 (2.33%) SuccessFactors
13 4 (1.86%) Amazon SQS
14 3 (1.40%) AWS CodePipeline
14 3 (1.40%) SaaS
14 3 (1.40%) Sauce Labs
15 2 (0.93%) Amazon OpenSearch
Communications & Networking
1 7 (3.26%) HTTPS
2 5 (2.33%) Wireshark
3 4 (1.86%) HTTP
4 2 (0.93%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (13.49%) Relational Database
2 23 (10.70%) PostgreSQL
3 22 (10.23%) NoSQL
4 12 (5.58%) Big Data
4 12 (5.58%) MySQL
5 11 (5.12%) DynamoDB
6 8 (3.72%) Data Warehouse
6 8 (3.72%) SQL Server
7 7 (3.26%) Data Lake
8 6 (2.79%) Apache Cassandra
8 6 (2.79%) Couchbase
9 5 (2.33%) Power BI
10 4 (1.86%) Metadata
11 3 (1.40%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (1.40%) MongoDB
11 3 (1.40%) RDBMS
12 2 (0.93%) BigQuery
12 2 (0.93%) Db2
13 1 (0.47%) Amazon RDS
13 1 (0.47%) Redis
Development Applications
1 39 (18.14%) Git
2 26 (12.09%) Jenkins
3 21 (9.77%) SonarQube
4 12 (5.58%) JIRA
4 12 (5.58%) JUnit
5 11 (5.12%) Maven
6 8 (3.72%) Selenium
7 7 (3.26%) Eclipse
7 7 (3.26%) Gradle
8 6 (2.79%) GitLab
9 5 (2.33%) Bitbucket
9 5 (2.33%) WebDriver
10 4 (1.86%) Android Studio
10 4 (1.86%) Cucumber
10 4 (1.86%) Postman
10 4 (1.86%) Subversion
10 4 (1.86%) Visual Studio
11 3 (1.40%) Browser DevTools
11 3 (1.40%) REST Assured
11 3 (1.40%) TeamCity
General
1 56 (26.05%) Social Skills
2 22 (10.23%) Analytical Skills
3 21 (9.77%) Finance
4 7 (3.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 6 (2.79%) Banking
5 6 (2.79%) Public Sector
6 3 (1.40%) Aerospace
6 3 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
6 3 (1.40%) Military
7 2 (0.93%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (0.93%) Marketing
8 1 (0.47%) Advertising
8 1 (0.47%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.47%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (0.47%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (0.47%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 73 (33.95%) Developer
2 53 (24.65%) Java Developer
3 32 (14.88%) Java Engineer
4 29 (13.49%) Software Engineer
5 28 (13.02%) Senior
6 25 (11.63%) Architect
7 14 (6.51%) Technical Architect
8 11 (5.12%) Lead
9 10 (4.65%) SC Cleared Java Developer
9 10 (4.65%) Senior Developer
10 9 (4.19%) Technical Engineer
11 8 (3.72%) DevOps Engineer
11 8 (3.72%) Java Architect
11 8 (3.72%) Software Developer
11 8 (3.72%) Technical Support
12 7 (3.26%) Analyst
12 7 (3.26%) Applications Developer
12 7 (3.26%) Consultant
12 7 (3.26%) Senior Java Engineer
12 7 (3.26%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (21.40%) REST
2 39 (18.14%) Spring
3 32 (14.88%) AngularJS
3 32 (14.88%) Spring Boot
4 22 (10.23%) .NET
5 21 (9.77%) Quarkus
6 19 (8.84%) Kafka
6 19 (8.84%) React
7 18 (8.37%) RESTful
8 16 (7.44%) SOAP
9 15 (6.98%) GraphQL
10 14 (6.51%) CSS
11 12 (5.58%) Hibernate
11 12 (5.58%) HTML
12 11 (5.12%) Web Services
13 8 (3.72%) OAuth
13 8 (3.72%) SAP PI
14 7 (3.26%) XML
15 6 (2.79%) ADO
15 6 (2.79%) JPA
Miscellaneous
1 32 (14.88%) Distributed Systems
2 21 (9.77%) Cloud Native
3 8 (3.72%) Product Ownership
3 8 (3.72%) Self-Motivation
4 7 (3.26%) Mobile App
5 6 (2.79%) Data Protection Act
5 6 (2.79%) Enterprise Software
6 5 (2.33%) Algorithms
6 5 (2.33%) Data Structures
6 5 (2.33%) Distributed Architecture
7 4 (1.86%) Data Centre
8 3 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
9 2 (0.93%) Security Posture
10 1 (0.47%) Enterprise Cloud
10 1 (0.47%) IoT
10 1 (0.47%) Low-Code
10 1 (0.47%) Marketing Technology
10 1 (0.47%) Robotics
10 1 (0.47%) Team-Oriented Environment
10 1 (0.47%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 19 (8.84%) Unix
2 17 (7.91%) Linux
3 15 (6.98%) Windows
4 9 (4.19%) Android
5 3 (1.40%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.47%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 81 (37.67%) Agile
2 75 (34.88%) CI/CD
3 69 (32.09%) Software Engineering
4 55 (25.58%) Test Automation
5 54 (25.12%) DevOps
6 49 (22.79%) Microservices
7 47 (21.86%) Scrum
8 38 (17.67%) SDLC
9 35 (16.28%) Sprint Planning
10 33 (15.35%) Unit Testing
11 31 (14.42%) Problem-Solving
12 26 (12.09%) Sprint Review
13 25 (11.63%) DevSecOps
13 25 (11.63%) Front End Development
14 23 (10.70%) Event-Driven
15 20 (9.30%) High Availability
16 19 (8.84%) Containerisation
16 19 (8.84%) Design Patterns
17 17 (7.91%) Continuous Improvement
18 16 (7.44%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 46 (21.40%) Python
2 45 (20.93%) SQL
3 31 (14.42%) JavaScript
4 21 (9.77%) Go
5 18 (8.37%) C#
6 12 (5.58%) Kotlin
7 11 (5.12%) PowerShell
8 9 (4.19%) Shell Script
9 8 (3.72%) ABAP
10 7 (3.26%) C++
11 6 (2.79%) Perl
11 6 (2.79%) PL/SQL
11 6 (2.79%) TypeScript
12 5 (2.33%) Bash
13 4 (1.86%) C
13 4 (1.86%) Scala
13 4 (1.86%) VB.NET
14 3 (1.40%) Groovy
14 3 (1.40%) Lua
15 2 (0.93%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 87 (40.47%) Security Cleared
2 75 (34.88%) SC Cleared
3 19 (8.84%) Degree
4 13 (6.05%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (3.72%) DV Cleared
6 5 (2.33%) AWS Certification
6 5 (2.33%) BPSS Clearance
7 4 (1.86%) DBS Check
8 3 (1.40%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.93%) CISM
9 2 (0.93%) CISSP
9 2 (0.93%) ISTQB
9 2 (0.93%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 2 (0.93%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.47%) CCNA
10 1 (0.47%) CEH
10 1 (0.47%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.47%) ISEB
10 1 (0.47%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 1 (0.47%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (15.81%) QA
2 6 (2.79%) Data Quality
3 5 (2.33%) GDPR
3 5 (2.33%) NCSC
4 3 (1.40%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.47%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.47%) WCAG
System Software
1 24 (11.16%) Docker
2 5 (2.33%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 48 (22.33%) Kubernetes
2 22 (10.23%) Argo
3 5 (2.33%) Terraform
4 4 (1.86%) Grafana
4 4 (1.86%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (0.93%) Ansible
6 2 (0.93%) Kubeflow
6 2 (0.93%) Puppet
7 1 (0.47%) Amdocs OSS
7 1 (0.47%) HP ALM
7 1 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 20 (9.30%) Red Hat
2 13 (6.05%) Microsoft
2 13 (6.05%) Oracle
3 10 (4.65%) SAP
4 8 (3.72%) Google
5 6 (2.79%) Splunk
6 5 (2.33%) Ariba
6 5 (2.33%) webMethods
7 4 (1.86%) Ab Initio
7 4 (1.86%) Atlassian
7 4 (1.86%) Teradata
7 4 (1.86%) VMware
8 3 (1.40%) Blue Prism
8 3 (1.40%) Databricks
8 3 (1.40%) Dynatrace
8 3 (1.40%) IBM
8 3 (1.40%) UiPath
9 2 (0.93%) Adobe
9 2 (0.93%) Solace
9 2 (0.93%) Sparx