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 27 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 42 43
Rank change year-on-year -34 +1 +3
Contract jobs citing Java 190 169 203
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.86% 4.77% 4.24%
As % of the Programming Languages category 14.62% 18.51% 16.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 121 114 142
10th Percentile £244 £204 £363
25th Percentile £357 £335 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £473 £575
Median % change year-on-year +8.47% -17.83% +11.38%
75th Percentile £619 £567 £651
90th Percentile £713 £600 £688
England median daily rate £525 £525 £600
% change year-on-year - -12.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 11 6
10th Percentile £49.55 £46.25 £31.38
25th Percentile £55.00 - £40.63
Median hourly rate £70.00 £50.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.00% -16.67% -12.73%
75th Percentile - £52.50 £63.44
90th Percentile - £55.00 £68.75
England median hourly rate £67.50 £50.00 £67.50
% change year-on-year +35.00% -25.93% +2.89%

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 1,300 913 1,195
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 19.60% 25.78% 24.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 821 630 802
10th Percentile £310 £300 £325
25th Percentile £405 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £608
90th Percentile £688 £638 £656
England median daily rate £525 £514 £550
% change year-on-year +2.14% -6.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 99 38 60
10th Percentile £32.56 £45.73 £27.00
25th Percentile £38.25 £50.00 £50.94
Median hourly rate £60.00 £55.00 £68.20
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -19.35% +24.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £74.90
90th Percentile £77.50 £60.25 £75.25
England median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +18.18% -15.38% +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 27 August 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 27 August 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 27 August 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 -6 49 £513 +61.42% 9
West Sussex +10 48 £293 -21.48% 6
Thames Valley -63 44 £525 +16.67% 72
Hampshire -37 43 £643 +9.83% 22
Berkshire -58 26 £448 -1.92% 31
Oxfordshire -15 10 £530 - 28
Buckinghamshire -38 8 £463 +42.31% 14
East Sussex -1 1 £600 +100.00% 15
Middlesex -18 1 - - 3
Sussex - 1 £600 - 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 (3.68%) Apache Spark
1 7 (3.68%) Documentum
2 4 (2.11%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.58%) NetWeaver
3 3 (1.58%) SAP EP
4 2 (1.05%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.53%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.53%) Apache
5 1 (0.53%) Confluence
5 1 (0.53%) IIS
5 1 (0.53%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.53%) WebLogic
Applications
1 3 (1.58%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.53%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.53%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 4 (2.11%) SAP PSCD
2 3 (1.58%) SAP CRM
3 2 (1.05%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.53%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 50 (26.32%) Azure
2 48 (25.26%) AWS
3 27 (14.21%) OpenShift
4 22 (11.58%) GCP
5 19 (10.00%) GitHub
6 13 (6.84%) Azure DevOps
7 10 (5.26%) Amazon S3
7 10 (5.26%) GitHub Actions
8 7 (3.68%) Amazon ECS
8 7 (3.68%) Serverless
9 6 (3.16%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (3.16%) Power Platform
10 5 (2.63%) Amazon EKS
11 4 (2.11%) Snowflake
11 4 (2.11%) SuccessFactors
12 3 (1.58%) Amazon SQS
12 3 (1.58%) AWS CodePipeline
12 3 (1.58%) SaaS
12 3 (1.58%) Sauce Labs
13 2 (1.05%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.11%) HTTPS
2 3 (1.58%) Wireshark
3 1 (0.53%) Broadband
3 1 (0.53%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (13.16%) Relational Database
2 20 (10.53%) NoSQL
2 20 (10.53%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (5.79%) MySQL
4 10 (5.26%) Big Data
5 9 (4.74%) SQL Server
6 8 (4.21%) DynamoDB
7 7 (3.68%) Couchbase
7 7 (3.68%) Data Lake
7 7 (3.68%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (3.16%) Apache Cassandra
8 6 (3.16%) Power BI
9 4 (2.11%) Metadata
10 3 (1.58%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (1.58%) MongoDB
10 3 (1.58%) RDBMS
11 2 (1.05%) Db2
12 1 (0.53%) BigQuery
12 1 (0.53%) Hadoop
12 1 (0.53%) Redis
Development Applications
1 36 (18.95%) Git
2 25 (13.16%) Jenkins
3 21 (11.05%) SonarQube
4 11 (5.79%) JUnit
5 9 (4.74%) JIRA
6 7 (3.68%) Selenium
7 6 (3.16%) GitLab
7 6 (3.16%) Gradle
7 6 (3.16%) Maven
8 5 (2.63%) REST Assured
9 4 (2.11%) Android Studio
9 4 (2.11%) Bitbucket
9 4 (2.11%) Cucumber
9 4 (2.11%) Eclipse
9 4 (2.11%) JMeter
9 4 (2.11%) Postman
9 4 (2.11%) Visual Studio
9 4 (2.11%) WebDriver
10 3 (1.58%) TeamCity
10 3 (1.58%) Xcode
General
1 46 (24.21%) Social Skills
2 20 (10.53%) Analytical Skills
2 20 (10.53%) Finance
3 8 (4.21%) Banking
4 7 (3.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 5 (2.63%) Public Sector
6 3 (1.58%) Aerospace
6 3 (1.58%) Military
7 2 (1.05%) Advertising
7 2 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (1.05%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.53%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.53%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (0.53%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (0.53%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 60 (31.58%) Developer
2 41 (21.58%) Java Developer
3 28 (14.74%) Java Engineer
3 28 (14.74%) Senior
4 27 (14.21%) Software Engineer
5 23 (12.11%) Architect
6 13 (6.84%) Technical Architect
7 9 (4.74%) Lead
7 9 (4.74%) Senior Developer
7 9 (4.74%) Software Developer
8 8 (4.21%) Java Architect
8 8 (4.21%) SC Cleared Java Developer
9 7 (3.68%) Analyst
9 7 (3.68%) Consultant
9 7 (3.68%) Documentum Architect
9 7 (3.68%) Senior Java Engineer
9 7 (3.68%) Technical Engineer
10 6 (3.16%) Java Software Engineer
10 6 (3.16%) Senior Java Developer
10 6 (3.16%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (22.63%) REST
2 32 (16.84%) AngularJS
3 30 (15.79%) Spring
4 23 (12.11%) .NET
4 23 (12.11%) Spring Boot
5 21 (11.05%) Quarkus
6 17 (8.95%) Kafka
7 15 (7.89%) GraphQL
7 15 (7.89%) React
8 13 (6.84%) RESTful
8 13 (6.84%) SOAP
9 12 (6.32%) CSS
10 10 (5.26%) HTML
11 8 (4.21%) OAuth
11 8 (4.21%) Web Services
12 7 (3.68%) Hibernate
12 7 (3.68%) Node.js
12 7 (3.68%) SAP PI
13 6 (3.16%) ADO
13 6 (3.16%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 29 (15.26%) Distributed Systems
2 19 (10.00%) Cloud Native
3 7 (3.68%) Data Protection Act
3 7 (3.68%) Product Ownership
4 6 (3.16%) Enterprise Software
5 5 (2.63%) Algorithms
5 5 (2.63%) Mobile App
6 4 (2.11%) Distributed Architecture
6 4 (2.11%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (1.05%) Data Structures
8 2 (1.05%) Security Posture
9 1 (0.53%) AI Agents
9 1 (0.53%) Data Centre
9 1 (0.53%) Enterprise Cloud
9 1 (0.53%) IoT
9 1 (0.53%) Low-Code
9 1 (0.53%) Marketing Technology
9 1 (0.53%) Robotics
9 1 (0.53%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 15 (7.89%) Unix
2 11 (5.79%) Linux
2 11 (5.79%) Windows
3 7 (3.68%) Android
4 1 (0.53%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.53%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (37.89%) Agile
2 69 (36.32%) Software Engineering
3 67 (35.26%) CI/CD
4 55 (28.95%) Test Automation
5 48 (25.26%) DevOps
6 41 (21.58%) Microservices
7 40 (21.05%) Scrum
8 39 (20.53%) SDLC
9 34 (17.89%) Unit Testing
10 31 (16.32%) Sprint Planning
11 27 (14.21%) Problem-Solving
12 26 (13.68%) Sprint Review
13 25 (13.16%) DevSecOps
14 24 (12.63%) Front End Development
15 22 (11.58%) Event-Driven
16 20 (10.53%) High Availability
17 17 (8.95%) Continuous Improvement
18 15 (7.89%) Containerisation
18 15 (7.89%) Design Patterns
19 14 (7.37%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 46 (24.21%) Python
2 37 (19.47%) SQL
3 28 (14.74%) JavaScript
4 18 (9.47%) C#
4 18 (9.47%) Go
5 11 (5.79%) PowerShell
6 8 (4.21%) Shell Script
7 7 (3.68%) ABAP
7 7 (3.68%) C++
7 7 (3.68%) Kotlin
8 5 (2.63%) Bash
8 5 (2.63%) Perl
8 5 (2.63%) PL/SQL
8 5 (2.63%) Scala
8 5 (2.63%) TypeScript
9 4 (2.11%) VB.NET
10 3 (1.58%) C
10 3 (1.58%) Lua
11 2 (1.05%) Groovy
11 2 (1.05%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 78 (41.05%) Security Cleared
2 65 (34.21%) SC Cleared
3 14 (7.37%) Degree
4 9 (4.74%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (4.21%) DV Cleared
6 5 (2.63%) AWS Certification
6 5 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
7 4 (2.11%) DBS Check
8 3 (1.58%) Azure Certification
9 2 (1.05%) CISM
9 2 (1.05%) CISSP
9 2 (1.05%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.53%) CCNA
10 1 (0.53%) CEH
10 1 (0.53%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.53%) ISEB
10 1 (0.53%) ISTQB
10 1 (0.53%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 1 (0.53%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (18.95%) QA
2 5 (2.63%) Data Quality
2 5 (2.63%) GDPR
2 5 (2.63%) NCSC
3 2 (1.05%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.53%) Software Quality Assurance
4 1 (0.53%) WCAG
System Software
1 20 (10.53%) Docker
2 5 (2.63%) Active Directory
3 4 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 45 (23.68%) Kubernetes
2 22 (11.58%) Argo
3 3 (1.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 3 (1.58%) Grafana
3 3 (1.58%) Prometheus
4 2 (1.05%) Ansible
4 2 (1.05%) Kubeflow
4 2 (1.05%) Puppet
5 1 (0.53%) Amdocs OSS
5 1 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 20 (10.53%) Red Hat
2 15 (7.89%) Microsoft
3 13 (6.84%) Oracle
4 9 (4.74%) SAP
5 7 (3.68%) Google
5 7 (3.68%) Splunk
6 5 (2.63%) webMethods
7 4 (2.11%) Ariba
7 4 (2.11%) VMware
8 3 (1.58%) Blue Prism
8 3 (1.58%) Databricks
8 3 (1.58%) IBM
8 3 (1.58%) UiPath
9 2 (1.05%) Ab Initio
9 2 (1.05%) Dynatrace
9 2 (1.05%) Solace
9 2 (1.05%) Sparx
9 2 (1.05%) Teradata
10 1 (0.53%) Cramer
10 1 (0.53%) Parasoft