Software Engineer Contracts in the South East

Software Engineer
England > South East

The median Software Engineer daily rate in the South East is £545, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 4 June 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
4 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 108 74 117
Rank change year-on-year -34 +43 +47
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 44 139 95
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 1.50% 2.47% 1.68%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.65% 2.68% 1.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 20 45 50
10th Percentile £461 £125 £405
25th Percentile £463 £388 £491
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £545 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year +21.11% -14.29% -8.70%
75th Percentile £607 £575 £564
90th Percentile £660 £645 £588
England median daily rate £625 £630 £600
% change year-on-year -0.79% +5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 62 20
10th Percentile £33.10 £46.25 £46.25
25th Percentile £37.38 £51.06 £50.94
Median hourly rate £47.81 £63.75 £56.75
Median % change year-on-year -25.01% +12.33% +8.10%
75th Percentile £55.61 £70.00 £64.63
90th Percentile £58.32 £75.00 £67.88
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year - - +8.33%

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 2,671 5,192 5,359
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.10% 92.14% 94.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,788 3,074 3,712
10th Percentile £220 £234 £215
25th Percentile £375 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £600 £625 £604
90th Percentile £650 £688 £700
England median daily rate £517 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -1.52% -4.55% +3.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 170 524 238
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.88 £16.25
25th Percentile £16.95 £18.32 £22.18
Median hourly rate £32.18 £48.20 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -33.24% -3.60% +150.00%
75th Percentile £63.44 £65.00 £66.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.00 £75.00
England median hourly rate £29.27 £38.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -22.97% -15.56% +88.21%

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 4 June 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 4 June 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 4 June 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
Hampshire -19 17 £626 +16.47% 283
Thames Valley +18 16 £575 +15.00% 700
Berkshire +25 14 £575 -4.17% 404
Surrey +17 8 £500 +11.11% 188
Oxfordshire -3 2 £450 - 127
West Sussex +11 1 £350 -36.36% 84
Kent +4 1 £475 - 161
Software Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 4 June 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 44 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 25 (56.82%) JIRA
3 23 (52.27%) Test Automation
3 23 (52.27%) Agile
4 21 (47.73%) Security Cleared
4 21 (47.73%) SC Cleared
5 20 (45.45%) Jenkins
6 18 (40.91%) Azure
6 18 (40.91%) Java
7 17 (38.64%) Linux
7 17 (38.64%) Scrum
8 15 (34.09%) JavaScript
8 15 (34.09%) GitLab
9 14 (31.82%) AWS
9 14 (31.82%) Continuous Integration
9 14 (31.82%) Git
10 13 (29.55%) REST
10 13 (29.55%) C++
10 13 (29.55%) DevOps
11 11 (25.00%) Design Patterns
11 11 (25.00%) Python
11 11 (25.00%) Google
11 11 (25.00%) GoogleTest
11 11 (25.00%) Confluence
11 11 (25.00%) Bitbucket
11 11 (25.00%) Docker
12 10 (22.73%) OO
12 10 (22.73%) CI/CD
12 10 (22.73%) Technical Leadership
13 9 (20.45%) Kubernetes

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 (25.00%) Confluence
2 5 (11.36%) CMS
3 4 (9.09%) Apache
3 4 (9.09%) Drupal
3 4 (9.09%) WordPress
Cloud Services
1 18 (40.91%) Azure
2 14 (31.82%) AWS
3 2 (4.55%) Azure DevOps
3 2 (4.55%) GCP
4 1 (2.27%) SaaS
4 1 (2.27%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 4 (9.09%) Internet
2 2 (4.55%) NFC
2 2 (4.55%) PPP
3 1 (2.27%) RS-232
3 1 (2.27%) SNMP
3 1 (2.27%) Software-Defined Radio
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (13.64%) Relational Database
2 4 (9.09%) MySQL
2 4 (9.09%) SQL Server
3 1 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 25 (56.82%) JIRA
2 20 (45.45%) Jenkins
3 15 (34.09%) GitLab
4 14 (31.82%) Git
5 11 (25.00%) Bitbucket
5 11 (25.00%) GoogleTest
6 9 (20.45%) Cucumber
6 9 (20.45%) Eclipse
6 9 (20.45%) REST Assured
6 9 (20.45%) Selenium
7 7 (15.91%) Robot Framework
8 5 (11.36%) SonarQube
9 4 (9.09%) Bitbucket Server
9 4 (9.09%) Rational DOORS
9 4 (9.09%) TestRail
10 2 (4.55%) Valgrind
11 1 (2.27%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 9 (20.45%) Social Skills
2 6 (13.64%) Analytical Skills
3 4 (9.09%) Law
3 4 (9.09%) Police
4 3 (6.82%) Telecoms
5 2 (4.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (2.27%) Games
6 1 (2.27%) Public Sector
6 1 (2.27%) Retail
6 1 (2.27%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (29.55%) REST
2 9 (20.45%) Java EE
3 7 (15.91%) CSS
3 7 (15.91%) HTML
3 7 (15.91%) Web Services
4 5 (11.36%) .NET
4 5 (11.36%) ARM Templates
5 4 (9.09%) Ajax
5 4 (9.09%) AngularJS
5 4 (9.09%) CodeIgniter
5 4 (9.09%) jQuery
5 4 (9.09%) LAMP
5 4 (9.09%) React
5 4 (9.09%) SOAP
6 2 (4.55%) JSON
6 2 (4.55%) XML
7 1 (2.27%) ASP.NET Web API
7 1 (2.27%) CSS3
7 1 (2.27%) Ruby on Rails
7 1 (2.27%) WCF
Miscellaneous
1 4 (9.09%) Legacy Code
2 2 (4.55%) Greenfield Project
2 2 (4.55%) Smartcard
3 1 (2.27%) Algorithms
3 1 (2.27%) Data Structures
3 1 (2.27%) FPGA
3 1 (2.27%) Product Ownership
3 1 (2.27%) VHDL
3 1 (2.27%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 17 (38.64%) Linux
2 4 (9.09%) Embedded Linux
2 4 (9.09%) Unix
3 3 (6.82%) Windows
4 2 (4.55%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 44 (100.00%) Software Engineering
2 23 (52.27%) Agile
2 23 (52.27%) Test Automation
3 17 (38.64%) Scrum
4 14 (31.82%) Continuous Integration
5 13 (29.55%) DevOps
6 11 (25.00%) Design Patterns
7 10 (22.73%) CI/CD
7 10 (22.73%) OO
7 10 (22.73%) Technical Leadership
8 9 (20.45%) Configuration Management
8 9 (20.45%) Kanban
8 9 (20.45%) Software Architecture
9 8 (18.18%) Containerisation
9 8 (18.18%) Multithreading
10 7 (15.91%) Infrastructure as Code
11 6 (13.64%) Computer Science
11 6 (13.64%) Migration
11 6 (13.64%) Multithreaded Programming
11 6 (13.64%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 18 (40.91%) Java
2 15 (34.09%) JavaScript
3 13 (29.55%) C++
4 11 (25.00%) Python
5 9 (20.45%) C#
6 4 (9.09%) PHP
6 4 (9.09%) TypeScript
7 3 (6.82%) PowerShell
7 3 (6.82%) SQL
8 2 (4.55%) C
8 2 (4.55%) Go
9 1 (2.27%) Embedded C
9 1 (2.27%) Ruby
9 1 (2.27%) Rust
Qualifications
1 21 (47.73%) SC Cleared
1 21 (47.73%) Security Cleared
2 8 (18.18%) Degree
3 6 (13.64%) Computer Science Degree
4 3 (6.82%) DV Cleared
System Software
1 11 (25.00%) Docker
2 1 (2.27%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 9 (20.45%) Kubernetes
2 5 (11.36%) Ansible
2 5 (11.36%) Docker Swarm
2 5 (11.36%) Podman
2 5 (11.36%) Terraform
3 3 (6.82%) WMI
Vendors
1 11 (25.00%) Google
2 7 (15.91%) Atlassian
2 7 (15.91%) Intel
3 4 (9.09%) Microsoft
3 4 (9.09%) Zend
4 3 (6.82%) Databricks
4 3 (6.82%) Virgin Media
5 1 (2.27%) CA Agile Central
5 1 (2.27%) Siemens