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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 43 45 46
Rank change year-on-year +2 +1 -16
Contract jobs citing Java 166 195 273
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 4.79% 4.22% 4.85%
As % of the Programming Languages category 18.53% 16.81% 19.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 117 146 171
10th Percentile £204 £363 £305
25th Percentile £313 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £650 £634
90th Percentile £602 £681 £700
England median daily rate £525 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -12.50% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 4 19
10th Percentile £49.63 £36.68 £52.25
25th Percentile - £50.06 £55.00
Median hourly rate £50.00 £60.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% -7.69% -
75th Percentile £53.75 £65.31 £73.73
90th Percentile £55.00 £70.38 £75.00
England median hourly rate £50.00 £70.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -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 896 1,160 1,374
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 25.84% 25.11% 24.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 619 787 945
10th Percentile £286 £325 £313
25th Percentile £400 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
75th Percentile £588 £608 £613
90th Percentile £628 £659 £688
England median daily rate £514 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -6.55% - -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 56 77
10th Percentile £50.00 £27.00 £32.30
25th Percentile £50.63 £49.94 £49.73
Median hourly rate £55.00 £70.00 £56.06
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% +24.87% +1.93%
75th Percentile £57.50 £75.00 £67.50
90th Percentile - £76.25 £75.00
England median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £63.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% +3.17% +10.53%

Java
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Job postings citing Java as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Job vacancy trend for Java 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 14 September 2025.

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
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 14 September 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
Thames Valley +4 67 £450 -10.00% 75
Berkshire +8 57 £450 -5.26% 54
Hampshire +16 48 £600 +14.29% 27
Surrey +7 38 £208 -62.27% 27
Buckinghamshire +8 9 £325 -48.00% 13
West Sussex -9 6 £334 -23.04%
East Sussex 0 3 £300 -38.78% 4
Middlesex -6 2 £635 +1.60% 8
Oxfordshire -9 1 - - 10
Kent - 1 £600 - 8
Java
England

Java
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 3 (1.81%) Documentum
1 3 (1.81%) JBoss
2 2 (1.20%) Anypoint
2 2 (1.20%) CMS
2 2 (1.20%) Mule
2 2 (1.20%) Mule ESB
2 2 (1.20%) Tomcat
3 1 (0.60%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.60%) Drupal
3 1 (0.60%) IBM Domino
3 1 (0.60%) IIS
3 1 (0.60%) NetWeaver
3 1 (0.60%) nginx
3 1 (0.60%) WordPress
Business Applications
1 3 (1.81%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.60%) Oracle BPM
2 1 (0.60%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 50 (30.12%) Azure
2 38 (22.89%) AWS
3 13 (7.83%) Amazon EKS
4 12 (7.23%) SaaS
5 11 (6.63%) GCP
5 11 (6.63%) OpenShift
6 10 (6.02%) Sauce Labs
7 8 (4.82%) Azure DevOps
7 8 (4.82%) GitHub
8 7 (4.22%) Serverless
9 5 (3.01%) Amazon S3
9 5 (3.01%) AWS Lambda
9 5 (3.01%) Cloud Computing
10 4 (2.41%) Amazon EC2
11 3 (1.81%) Amazon EMR
11 3 (1.81%) Amazon Kinesis
11 3 (1.81%) GitHub Actions
12 2 (1.20%) Amazon ECS
12 2 (1.20%) Amazon SQS
13 1 (0.60%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 14 (8.43%) Wireshark
2 11 (6.63%) VPN
3 10 (6.02%) ATM
3 10 (6.02%) Ethernet
3 10 (6.02%) Frame Relay
3 10 (6.02%) GPRS
3 10 (6.02%) GSM
3 10 (6.02%) LAN
3 10 (6.02%) LTE
3 10 (6.02%) MPLS
3 10 (6.02%) SAN
3 10 (6.02%) SDH
3 10 (6.02%) UMTS
3 10 (6.02%) WAN
3 10 (6.02%) Wireless
4 6 (3.61%) NFC
4 6 (3.61%) PPP
5 4 (2.41%) FTP
5 4 (2.41%) HTTP
5 4 (2.41%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (12.05%) Relational Database
2 18 (10.84%) MySQL
3 5 (3.01%) PostgreSQL
4 4 (2.41%) Amazon Redshift
4 4 (2.41%) NoSQL
4 4 (2.41%) RDBMS
5 3 (1.81%) Data Warehouse
5 3 (1.81%) SQL Server
6 2 (1.20%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.60%) Amazon Aurora
7 1 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (0.60%) Big Data
7 1 (0.60%) Delta Lake
7 1 (0.60%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.60%) Power BI
7 1 (0.60%) Sybase IQ
Development Applications
1 40 (24.10%) Jenkins
2 34 (20.48%) Git
3 27 (16.27%) JIRA
4 24 (14.46%) Selenium
5 21 (12.65%) GitLab
6 20 (12.05%) Cucumber
7 17 (10.24%) Eclipse
8 13 (7.83%) REST Assured
9 11 (6.63%) Browser DevTools
10 10 (6.02%) Android Studio
10 10 (6.02%) SonarQube
10 10 (6.02%) Xcode
11 7 (4.22%) WebDriver
12 6 (3.61%) Postman
12 6 (3.61%) Valgrind
13 5 (3.01%) JUnit
14 4 (2.41%) Maven
15 3 (1.81%) Bitbucket
15 3 (1.81%) Gradle
15 3 (1.81%) Mockito
General
1 69 (41.57%) Social Skills
2 31 (18.67%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (7.83%) Public Sector
4 11 (6.63%) Telecoms
5 8 (4.82%) Law
6 6 (3.61%) Aerospace
6 6 (3.61%) Finance
7 4 (2.41%) Banking
7 4 (2.41%) Police
8 3 (1.81%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (1.20%) Billing
10 1 (0.60%) Automotive
10 1 (0.60%) Back Office
10 1 (0.60%) Digital Healthcare
10 1 (0.60%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 38 (22.89%) Developer
2 26 (15.66%) Architect
3 22 (13.25%) Senior
4 21 (12.65%) Technical Support
5 17 (10.24%) Software Engineer
5 17 (10.24%) Test Engineer
6 16 (9.64%) Java Architect
6 16 (9.64%) Support Engineer
7 15 (9.04%) Java Developer
7 15 (9.04%) Java Solutions Architect
7 15 (9.04%) Solutions Architect
7 15 (9.04%) Technical Engineer
7 15 (9.04%) Technical Support Engineer
8 13 (7.83%) Platform Engineer
9 11 (6.63%) UX Engineer
10 10 (6.02%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
11 9 (5.42%) IP Engineer
11 9 (5.42%) Java Engineer
11 9 (5.42%) Java Software Engineer
12 8 (4.82%) Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (27.11%) REST
2 34 (20.48%) React
3 18 (10.84%) RESTful
4 16 (9.64%) CSS
5 15 (9.04%) AngularJS
5 15 (9.04%) Web Services
6 14 (8.43%) Spring
7 13 (7.83%) Java EE
7 13 (7.83%) JSON
7 13 (7.83%) Middleware
8 12 (7.23%) Ajax
8 12 (7.23%) GraphQL
8 12 (7.23%) XML
9 11 (6.63%) Spring Boot
10 9 (5.42%) ARM Templates
10 9 (5.42%) SOAP
11 8 (4.82%) Hibernate
11 8 (4.82%) HTML
12 7 (4.22%) Kafka
13 5 (3.01%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 18 (10.84%) Self-Motivation
2 17 (10.24%) Distributed Systems
3 14 (8.43%) Mobile App
4 11 (6.63%) Private Cloud
5 7 (4.22%) Cloud Native
6 6 (3.61%) Enterprise Software
6 6 (3.61%) Smartcard
7 5 (3.01%) Product Ownership
8 3 (1.81%) Algorithms
8 3 (1.81%) Data Centre
8 3 (1.81%) Hybrid Cloud
8 3 (1.81%) Onboarding
9 2 (1.20%) CMDB
9 2 (1.20%) Greenfield Project
9 2 (1.20%) Security Posture
10 1 (0.60%) Data Protection Act
10 1 (0.60%) IoT
10 1 (0.60%) Legacy Systems
10 1 (0.60%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 45 (27.11%) Linux
2 34 (20.48%) Windows
3 31 (18.67%) Unix
4 14 (8.43%) Android
5 6 (3.61%) Ubuntu
6 5 (3.01%) Windows Server
7 4 (2.41%) Apple iOS
8 3 (1.81%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (1.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.60%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (36.75%) CI/CD
2 49 (29.52%) Problem-Solving
3 42 (25.30%) DevOps
4 39 (23.49%) Agile
5 30 (18.07%) Software Engineering
5 30 (18.07%) Test Automation
6 25 (15.06%) Configuration Management
6 25 (15.06%) Infrastructure as Code
7 22 (13.25%) Containerisation
8 21 (12.65%) OO
9 20 (12.05%) User Experience
10 19 (11.45%) Technical Leadership
11 17 (10.24%) Continuous Integration
11 17 (10.24%) High Availability
11 17 (10.24%) Microservices
12 15 (9.04%) Computer Science
12 15 (9.04%) Scrum
13 14 (8.43%) Mobile Application Development
13 14 (8.43%) SDLC
14 13 (7.83%) Sprint Planning
Programming Languages
1 75 (45.18%) Python
2 56 (33.73%) JavaScript
3 41 (24.70%) SQL
4 28 (16.87%) C#
5 21 (12.65%) Perl
6 17 (10.24%) PowerShell
7 12 (7.23%) Go
8 11 (6.63%) C++
9 6 (3.61%) Kotlin
10 5 (3.01%) Apex Code
10 5 (3.01%) Bash
10 5 (3.01%) C
10 5 (3.01%) R
11 4 (2.41%) ABAP
11 4 (2.41%) Scala
11 4 (2.41%) Shell Script
12 3 (1.81%) Objective-C
12 3 (1.81%) Swift
12 3 (1.81%) TypeScript
13 2 (1.20%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 69 (41.57%) Security Cleared
2 50 (30.12%) SC Cleared
3 21 (12.65%) DV Cleared
4 15 (9.04%) Degree
5 13 (7.83%) Cisco Certification
6 12 (7.23%) Computer Science Degree
7 10 (6.02%) CCNP
7 10 (6.02%) ISEB
7 10 (6.02%) ISTQB
7 10 (6.02%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 5 (3.01%) AWS Certification
8 5 (3.01%) BPSS Clearance
9 4 (2.41%) Network+ Certification
10 3 (1.81%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (1.81%) CCNA
11 2 (1.20%) Azure Certification
11 2 (1.20%) CISSP
11 2 (1.20%) CompTIA Security+
12 1 (0.60%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (3.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (3.01%) GDPR
3 4 (2.41%) EU AI Act
4 3 (1.81%) Data Quality
4 3 (1.81%) QA
5 2 (1.20%) NIST
6 1 (0.60%) Accessibility
System Software
1 22 (13.25%) Docker
2 4 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.81%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.60%) Postfix
4 1 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 44 (26.51%) Kubernetes
2 24 (14.46%) Ansible
3 14 (8.43%) Terraform
4 9 (5.42%) Docker Swarm
4 9 (5.42%) Podman
5 5 (3.01%) Grafana
6 3 (1.81%) Proxmox
6 3 (1.81%) Rundeck
6 3 (1.81%) Salt
7 2 (1.20%) CloudHub
7 2 (1.20%) Kibana
7 2 (1.20%) Prometheus
7 2 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.60%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 1 (0.60%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.60%) SCCM
8 1 (0.60%) vRealize
Vendors
1 35 (21.08%) Microsoft
2 24 (14.46%) Oracle
3 14 (8.43%) ServiceNow
3 14 (8.43%) Splunk
4 13 (7.83%) Red Hat
5 10 (6.02%) Cisco
5 10 (6.02%) Juniper
6 7 (4.22%) MuleSoft
7 6 (3.61%) SAP
8 5 (3.01%) Salesforce
9 4 (2.41%) Adobe
9 4 (2.41%) VMware
10 3 (1.81%) Apple
11 2 (1.20%) Databricks
11 2 (1.20%) Dynatrace
12 1 (0.60%) Atlassian
12 1 (0.60%) Citrix
12 1 (0.60%) CyberArk
12 1 (0.60%) Jaspersoft
12 1 (0.60%) Sybase