Software Engineer Contracts in the South East

Software Engineer
England > South East

The median Software Engineer daily rate in the South East is £575, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 104 80 120
Rank change year-on-year -24 +40 +35
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 55 138 105
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 1.83% 2.48% 1.81%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.99% 2.68% 1.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 27 49 62
10th Percentile £470 £183 £425
25th Percentile £475 £406 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £450 £523
Median % change year-on-year +27.78% -13.88% -5.00%
75th Percentile £626 £575 £567
90th Percentile £661 £650 £625
England median daily rate £603 £638 £590
% change year-on-year -5.45% +8.05% -1.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 54 19
10th Percentile £35.15 £46.25 £45.93
25th Percentile £42.50 £51.06 £50.00
Median hourly rate £47.81 £62.50 £58.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.51% +6.84% +16.42%
75th Percentile £57.50 £65.00 £64.63
90th Percentile £59.08 £74.63 £68.26
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £63.75
% change year-on-year +4.00% -1.96% +11.84%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
South East

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South East. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the South East with a recognized job title 2,767 5,141 5,491
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.93% 92.50% 94.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,821 3,084 3,829
10th Percentile £250 £213 £225
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - +2.42%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £606
90th Percentile £663 £688 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 481 240
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.78 £18.04
25th Percentile £20.06 £18.32 £22.16
Median hourly rate £32.50 £47.50 £48.40
Median % change year-on-year -31.58% -1.86% +130.48%
75th Percentile £63.75 £62.50 £65.16
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.86 £75.00
England median hourly rate £30.62 £36.31 £45.00
% change year-on-year -15.67% -19.32% +100.00%

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Job postings that featured Software Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Job vacancy trend for Software Engineer in the South East

Software Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the South East

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Software Engineer in the South East.

Daily rate trend for Software Engineer in the South East

Software Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineer in the South East over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineer in the South East

Software Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Software Engineer in the South East.

Hourly rate trend for Software Engineer in the South East

Software Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineer in the South East over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineer in the South East

Software Engineer
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 Software Engineer within the South East region over the 6 months to 1 May 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 +41 24 £575 +15.00% 129
Berkshire +33 19 £575 -4.17% 54
Hampshire -18 19 £613 +13.52% 44
Surrey +18 9 £500 +11.11% 48
Oxfordshire +3 4 - - 51
Buckinghamshire +14 1 - - 40
Kent +7 1 £475 +15.15% 15
West Sussex +7 1 £350 -30.00% 11
Software Engineer
England

Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, Software Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the South East region featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 55 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 30 (54.55%) Agile
3 28 (50.91%) JIRA
3 28 (50.91%) Security Cleared
4 27 (49.09%) SC Cleared
5 25 (45.45%) Test Automation
6 23 (41.82%) Jenkins
7 22 (40.00%) Scrum
8 19 (34.55%) AWS
9 18 (32.73%) Azure
9 18 (32.73%) DevOps
9 18 (32.73%) Linux
10 17 (30.91%) Git
10 17 (30.91%) Continuous Integration
11 16 (29.09%) Java
11 16 (29.09%) Google
11 16 (29.09%) Design Patterns
12 15 (27.27%) GitLab
13 14 (25.45%) JavaScript
13 14 (25.45%) C++
13 14 (25.45%) GoogleTest
13 14 (25.45%) Bitbucket
14 13 (23.64%) Degree
14 13 (23.64%) OO
15 12 (21.82%) Kanban
16 11 (20.00%) Docker
16 11 (20.00%) Clean Code
16 11 (20.00%) CI/CD
16 11 (20.00%) REST
16 11 (20.00%) Confluence

Software Engineer Skill Set
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 11 (20.00%) Confluence
2 4 (7.27%) Apache
2 4 (7.27%) CMS
2 4 (7.27%) Drupal
2 4 (7.27%) WordPress
Applications
1 2 (3.64%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 19 (34.55%) AWS
2 18 (32.73%) Azure
3 4 (7.27%) GCP
4 2 (3.64%) AWS CloudFormation
4 2 (3.64%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (1.82%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (7.27%) Internet
2 1 (1.82%) RS-232
2 1 (1.82%) SNMP
2 1 (1.82%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (10.91%) Relational Database
2 5 (9.09%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (7.27%) MySQL
3 4 (7.27%) Oracle Database
3 4 (7.27%) Oracle Database 11g
3 4 (7.27%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 28 (50.91%) JIRA
2 23 (41.82%) Jenkins
3 17 (30.91%) Git
4 15 (27.27%) GitLab
5 14 (25.45%) Bitbucket
5 14 (25.45%) GoogleTest
6 9 (16.36%) Cucumber
6 9 (16.36%) REST Assured
6 9 (16.36%) Selenium
7 8 (14.55%) Rational DOORS
8 7 (12.73%) Eclipse
8 7 (12.73%) Robot Framework
8 7 (12.73%) TestRail
9 5 (9.09%) SonarQube
10 4 (7.27%) Bitbucket Server
11 1 (1.82%) Octopus Deploy
11 1 (1.82%) VectorCAST
General
1 8 (14.55%) Social Skills
2 6 (10.91%) Analytical Skills
3 4 (7.27%) Law
3 4 (7.27%) Police
3 4 (7.27%) Public Sector
4 3 (5.45%) Aerospace
4 3 (5.45%) Telecoms
5 2 (3.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.82%) Automotive
6 1 (1.82%) Electronics
6 1 (1.82%) Games
6 1 (1.82%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (20.00%) REST
2 9 (16.36%) CSS
2 9 (16.36%) HTML
2 9 (16.36%) Java EE
3 6 (10.91%) AngularJS
4 5 (9.09%) .NET
4 5 (9.09%) ARM Templates
4 5 (9.09%) Web Services
5 4 (7.27%) Ajax
5 4 (7.27%) CodeIgniter
5 4 (7.27%) jQuery
5 4 (7.27%) LAMP
5 4 (7.27%) SOAP
6 3 (5.45%) HTML5
6 3 (5.45%) React
7 2 (3.64%) Angular 2
7 2 (3.64%) Node.js
8 1 (1.82%) ASP.NET Web API
8 1 (1.82%) CSS3
8 1 (1.82%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 4 (7.27%) Legacy Code
2 2 (3.64%) Algorithms
2 2 (3.64%) Greenfield Project
2 2 (3.64%) Mobile App
2 2 (3.64%) Public Cloud
3 1 (1.82%) Data Structures
3 1 (1.82%) FPGA
3 1 (1.82%) Product Ownership
3 1 (1.82%) VHDL
3 1 (1.82%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 18 (32.73%) Linux
2 7 (12.73%) Embedded Linux
3 4 (7.27%) Unix
4 3 (5.45%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 55 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 30 (54.55%) Agile
3 25 (45.45%) Test Automation
4 22 (40.00%) Scrum
5 18 (32.73%) DevOps
6 17 (30.91%) Continuous Integration
7 16 (29.09%) Design Patterns
8 13 (23.64%) OO
9 12 (21.82%) Kanban
10 11 (20.00%) CI/CD
10 11 (20.00%) Clean Code
11 10 (18.18%) Migration
11 10 (18.18%) Technical Leadership
12 9 (16.36%) Computer Science
12 9 (16.36%) Configuration Management
12 9 (16.36%) Multithreading
12 9 (16.36%) Software Architecture
13 8 (14.55%) Containerisation
13 8 (14.55%) Problem-Solving
13 8 (14.55%) Secure Coding
Programming Languages
1 16 (29.09%) Java
2 14 (25.45%) C++
2 14 (25.45%) JavaScript
3 11 (20.00%) Python
4 9 (16.36%) C#
5 6 (10.91%) SQL
6 5 (9.09%) TypeScript
7 4 (7.27%) C
7 4 (7.27%) PHP
7 4 (7.27%) PL/SQL
8 3 (5.45%) MATLAB
8 3 (5.45%) PowerShell
9 2 (3.64%) Go
10 1 (1.82%) Embedded C
10 1 (1.82%) Rust
Qualifications
1 28 (50.91%) Security Cleared
2 27 (49.09%) SC Cleared
3 13 (23.64%) Degree
4 9 (16.36%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (5.45%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (3.64%) ISO 26262
2 1 (1.82%) DO-178B
System Software
1 11 (20.00%) Docker
2 1 (1.82%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 9 (16.36%) Kubernetes
2 5 (9.09%) Ansible
2 5 (9.09%) Docker Swarm
2 5 (9.09%) Podman
2 5 (9.09%) Terraform
3 3 (5.45%) WMI
Vendors
1 16 (29.09%) Google
2 7 (12.73%) Atlassian
2 7 (12.73%) Intel
3 4 (7.27%) Microsoft
3 4 (7.27%) Oracle
3 4 (7.27%) Zend
4 3 (5.45%) Databricks
4 3 (5.45%) Virgin Media
5 2 (3.64%) Xamarin
6 1 (1.82%) CA Agile Central
6 1 (1.82%) Siemens