Software Engineering Contract Job Trends in the South East

Software Engineering
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 8 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 80 56
Rank change year-on-year +40 -24 +12
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 339 95 148
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 5.21% 2.66% 3.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.44% 3.00% 4.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 128 51 77
10th Percentile £280 £274 £357
25th Percentile £400 £330 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -5.00% -5.66%
75th Percentile £613 £563 £625
90th Percentile £711 £600 £663
England median daily rate £558 £575 £605
% change year-on-year -3.04% -4.96% -0.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 22 46
10th Percentile £48.64 - £51.03
25th Percentile £51.25 £52.50 £61.28
Median hourly rate £60.00 £55.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -21.43% +21.74%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £75.00
90th Percentile £90.80 - -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.50
% change year-on-year - -0.76% +0.77%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

Software Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 5,266 3,165 3,597
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.93% 88.73% 83.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,063 1,990 2,156
10th Percentile £275 £213 £255
25th Percentile £422 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £619 £588 £625
90th Percentile £713 £650 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 668 321 193
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.50 £16.25
25th Percentile £16.19 £16.17 £30.00
Median hourly rate £47.50 £22.19 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +114.06% -63.02% +12.15%
75th Percentile £70.00 £50.00 £70.43
90th Percentile £88.00 £69.65 £76.86
England median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.69
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.09% -4.07%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Software Engineering relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in the South East

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Software Engineering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in the South East over the 6 months to 8 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineering in the South East

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Software Engineering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineering in the South East over the 6 months to 8 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineering in the South East

Software Engineering
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 Engineering within the South East region over the 6 months to 8 October 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
Hampshire +41 121 £500 +17.65% 212
Thames Valley +40 111 £550 +9.89% 377
Berkshire +29 68 £550 +4.76% 132
Surrey -3 50 £525 +10.53% 74
West Sussex -2 37 £285 -1.04% 57
Oxfordshire 0 30 £625 +44.93% 202
Buckinghamshire - 13 £525 - 45
East Sussex - 7 £430 - 41
Middlesex -14 6 £600 -5.51% 3
Kent -1 4 - - 17
Sussex - 3 £325 - 3
Software Engineering
England

Software Engineering
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 3 (0.88%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.59%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.59%) CMS
2 2 (0.59%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.29%) Apache
3 1 (0.29%) Confluence
3 1 (0.29%) Headless CMS
3 1 (0.29%) IIS
3 1 (0.29%) SAS
Applications
1 8 (2.36%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.88%) CPLEX
2 3 (0.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.29%) Adobe XD
3 1 (0.29%) Simulink
3 1 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (0.88%) Primavera
1 3 (0.88%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 47 (13.86%) Azure
2 45 (13.27%) AWS
3 26 (7.67%) OpenShift
4 20 (5.90%) GitHub
5 19 (5.60%) Azure DevOps
6 16 (4.72%) GCP
7 10 (2.95%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (2.36%) Serverless
9 7 (2.06%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 7 (2.06%) SaaS
10 6 (1.77%) Amazon EKS
11 5 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
11 5 (1.47%) Power Platform
12 4 (1.18%) Anthropic Claude
12 4 (1.18%) Azure Data Factory
12 4 (1.18%) Cloudflare
12 4 (1.18%) GitHub Copilot
12 4 (1.18%) Snowflake
12 4 (1.18%) Supabase
13 3 (0.88%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 25 (7.37%) Wireless
2 9 (2.65%) Software-Defined Radio
3 3 (0.88%) Broadband
3 3 (0.88%) Network Security
4 2 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
5 1 (0.29%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (6.19%) PostgreSQL
2 10 (2.95%) NoSQL
3 8 (2.36%) Relational Database
4 7 (2.06%) Metadata
5 6 (1.77%) DynamoDB
6 5 (1.47%) Amazon RDS
6 5 (1.47%) Data Lake
6 5 (1.47%) Data Warehouse
7 4 (1.18%) MongoDB
8 3 (0.88%) Geospatial Data
8 3 (0.88%) Power BI
8 3 (0.88%) SQL Server
9 2 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.59%) Apache Iceberg
9 2 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.59%) BigQuery
9 2 (0.59%) Redis
10 1 (0.29%) Big Data
10 1 (0.29%) Couchbase
10 1 (0.29%) Neo4j
Development Applications
1 37 (10.91%) Git
2 20 (5.90%) GitLab
3 19 (5.60%) SonarQube
4 12 (3.54%) LabVIEW
5 11 (3.24%) Jenkins
6 5 (1.47%) JIRA
6 5 (1.47%) Visual Studio Code
7 2 (0.59%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.59%) Postman
7 2 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.59%) Subversion
8 1 (0.29%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.29%) Gradle
8 1 (0.29%) JUnit
8 1 (0.29%) Maven
8 1 (0.29%) PowerBuilder
8 1 (0.29%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.29%) tSQLt
General
1 71 (20.94%) Social Skills
2 55 (16.22%) Aerospace
3 38 (11.21%) Finance
4 26 (7.67%) Analytical Skills
5 22 (6.49%) Manufacturing
6 12 (3.54%) Automotive
6 12 (3.54%) Public Sector
7 11 (3.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (2.36%) Japanese Language
9 5 (1.47%) Aviation
9 5 (1.47%) Law
9 5 (1.47%) Marketing
10 4 (1.18%) Avionics
10 4 (1.18%) Banking
11 2 (0.59%) Retail
11 2 (0.59%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.29%) Electronics
12 1 (0.29%) Military
12 1 (0.29%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.29%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 143 (42.18%) Software Engineer
2 56 (16.52%) Developer
3 47 (13.86%) Senior
4 41 (12.09%) Embedded Engineer
4 41 (12.09%) Embedded Software Engineer
5 25 (7.37%) Lead
6 20 (5.90%) Software Developer
7 19 (5.60%) Senior Software Engineer
8 18 (5.31%) Architect
9 16 (4.72%) Technical Leader
10 12 (3.54%) Data Engineer
10 12 (3.54%) Enterprise Architect
11 11 (3.24%) Delivery Manager
12 10 (2.95%) Java Developer
12 10 (2.95%) Principal Engineer
13 9 (2.65%) C++ Software Engineer
13 9 (2.65%) Python Engineer
14 8 (2.36%) C Developer
14 8 (2.36%) Java Engineer
14 8 (2.36%) Linux Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (10.03%) Terraform
2 27 (7.96%) AngularJS
3 23 (6.78%) React
4 18 (5.31%) REST
5 17 (5.01%) Quarkus
6 15 (4.42%) .NET
7 14 (4.13%) RESTful
8 13 (3.83%) Kafka
9 12 (3.54%) CSS
9 12 (3.54%) HTML
9 12 (3.54%) JSON
10 10 (2.95%) Node.js
11 9 (2.65%) Yocto
12 8 (2.36%) LDAP
12 8 (2.36%) OpenTofu
13 7 (2.06%) Next.js
14 6 (1.77%) .NET Core
14 6 (1.77%) FastAPI
14 6 (1.77%) GraphQL
14 6 (1.77%) JSON Schema
Miscellaneous
1 29 (8.55%) Cloud Native
2 27 (7.96%) Product Ownership
3 16 (4.72%) AI Agents
4 11 (3.24%) Distributed Systems
5 10 (2.95%) Data Protection Act
5 10 (2.95%) Embedded Systems
6 9 (2.65%) Data Structures
6 9 (2.65%) Device Driver
7 8 (2.36%) Algorithms
7 8 (2.36%) MicroBlaze
7 8 (2.36%) RISC-V
8 7 (2.06%) Social Media
9 5 (1.47%) Robotics
10 4 (1.18%) Enterprise Software
10 4 (1.18%) Low-Code
10 4 (1.18%) Management Information System
11 3 (0.88%) ARM Cortex
11 3 (0.88%) Onboarding
12 2 (0.59%) Self-Motivation
12 2 (0.59%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 35 (10.32%) Linux
2 11 (3.24%) Embedded Linux
3 4 (1.18%) Windows
4 2 (0.59%) Debian
5 1 (0.29%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 109 (32.15%) Agile
2 80 (23.60%) CI/CD
3 59 (17.40%) DevOps
4 56 (16.52%) Test Automation
5 51 (15.04%) Continuous Improvement
5 51 (15.04%) Scrum
6 45 (13.27%) Stakeholder Management
7 44 (12.98%) Problem-Solving
8 42 (12.39%) DevSecOps
9 37 (10.91%) AI
9 37 (10.91%) Roadmaps
9 37 (10.91%) SDLC
10 36 (10.62%) Computer Science
11 34 (10.03%) Validation
12 30 (8.85%) Mentoring
13 29 (8.55%) Technical Leadership
14 28 (8.26%) Infrastructure as Code
15 27 (7.96%) Digital Engineering
16 26 (7.67%) Unit Testing
17 23 (6.78%) Sprint Planning
Programming Languages
1 51 (15.04%) Python
2 50 (14.75%) Java
3 42 (12.39%) SQL
4 40 (11.80%) C
5 29 (8.55%) TypeScript
6 26 (7.67%) JavaScript
7 22 (6.49%) C++
8 20 (5.90%) C#
9 12 (3.54%) Go
10 8 (2.36%) Embedded C
11 7 (2.06%) Bash
12 6 (1.77%) PowerShell
13 4 (1.18%) PL/SQL
14 3 (0.88%) Apex Code
15 2 (0.59%) Scala
16 1 (0.29%) Ada
16 1 (0.29%) Embedded C++
16 1 (0.29%) MATLAB
16 1 (0.29%) Ruby
16 1 (0.29%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 107 (31.56%) Security Cleared
2 98 (28.91%) SC Cleared
3 40 (11.80%) Degree
4 16 (4.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 9 (2.65%) AWS Certification
5 9 (2.65%) DV Cleared
6 8 (2.36%) Azure Certification
7 5 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (1.47%) PMP
8 4 (1.18%) Master's Degree
8 4 (1.18%) PMI Certification
9 3 (0.88%) CISSP
9 3 (0.88%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 3 (0.88%) TOGAF Certification
10 1 (0.29%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 1 (0.29%) CCSP
10 1 (0.29%) CISA
10 1 (0.29%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (10.03%) QA
2 10 (2.95%) Data Quality
3 5 (1.47%) Accessibility
4 4 (1.18%) NIST
5 3 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.59%) Software Quality Assurance
7 1 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.29%) GRC
7 1 (0.29%) ITGC
7 1 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.29%) WCAG
System Software
1 35 (10.32%) Docker
2 9 (2.65%) Embedded Firmware
2 9 (2.65%) Firmware
3 8 (2.36%) Active Directory
4 4 (1.18%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.29%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 50 (14.75%) Kubernetes
2 18 (5.31%) Argo
3 15 (4.42%) Ansible
4 5 (1.47%) Grafana
5 4 (1.18%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.59%) Kibana
6 2 (0.59%) Puppet
7 1 (0.29%) CASB
Vendors
1 23 (6.78%) Microsoft
2 19 (5.60%) Red Hat
3 8 (2.36%) Oracle
4 7 (2.06%) Salesforce
5 6 (1.77%) Databricks
6 5 (1.47%) SAP
6 5 (1.47%) Workday
7 4 (1.18%) Google
8 3 (0.88%) Splunk
9 2 (0.59%) Adobe
9 2 (0.59%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
10 1 (0.29%) Ariba
10 1 (0.29%) CA Agile Central
10 1 (0.29%) Denodo
10 1 (0.29%) Dynatrace
10 1 (0.29%) IBM
10 1 (0.29%) Informatica
10 1 (0.29%) OpenAI
10 1 (0.29%) TOWER Software
10 1 (0.29%) VMware