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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 66 45
Rank change year-on-year +29 -21 +21
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 331 110 193
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 4.99% 3.10% 4.08%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.19% 3.47% 4.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 133 56 101
10th Percentile £280 £281 £359
25th Percentile £400 £384 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £501 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.90% +0.10% -2.91%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £638
90th Percentile £699 - £675
England median daily rate £560 £600 £625
% change year-on-year -6.67% -4.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 106 28 57
10th Percentile £47.00 £48.99 £45.00
25th Percentile £51.25 £51.25 £51.06
Median hourly rate £60.00 £55.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -21.43% +21.74%
75th Percentile £68.55 £57.50 £75.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £64.52 -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

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 5,347 3,169 3,898
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.65% 89.34% 82.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,254 1,971 2,344
10th Percentile £280 £238 £260
25th Percentile £420 £393 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.91% -0.66%
75th Percentile £619 £600 £638
90th Percentile £713 £669 £700
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 609 309 294
10th Percentile £13.48 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £15.50 £27.13
Median hourly rate £52.50 £22.07 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +137.88% -61.52% +13.09%
75th Percentile £70.50 £53.50 £70.39
90th Percentile £87.96 £69.65 £76.86
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +2.63%

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 31 August 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 31 August 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 31 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
Hampshire +42 137 £534 +4.15% 85
Thames Valley +15 84 £530 +5.89% 168
Surrey -3 56 £513 +7.89% 28
Berkshire +7 48 £550 +9.89% 75
West Sussex 0 34 £280 -2.78% 21
Oxfordshire -6 19 £530 +22.90% 68
Buckinghamshire - 17 £525 - 25
East Sussex - 10 £525 - 15
Kent +4 4 - - 11
Middlesex -16 4 £535 -15.75% 2
Sussex - 2 - - 1
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 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.60%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.60%) Confluence
3 1 (0.30%) CMS
3 1 (0.30%) IIS
3 1 (0.30%) SAS
Applications
1 8 (2.42%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.21%) CPLEX
3 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.30%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.30%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 3 (0.91%) Primavera
1 3 (0.91%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 41 (12.39%) Azure
2 35 (10.57%) AWS
3 26 (7.85%) OpenShift
4 18 (5.44%) GitHub
5 15 (4.53%) Azure DevOps
6 13 (3.93%) GCP
7 11 (3.32%) GitHub Actions
8 7 (2.11%) SaaS
9 5 (1.51%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 4 (1.21%) Snowflake
11 3 (0.91%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (0.91%) Amazon S3
11 3 (0.91%) Azure AKS
11 3 (0.91%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
11 3 (0.91%) Serverless
12 2 (0.60%) AWS Lambda
12 2 (0.60%) Azure Data Factory
12 2 (0.60%) Datadog
12 2 (0.60%) n8n
12 2 (0.60%) Zapier
Communications & Networking
1 21 (6.34%) Wireless
2 10 (3.02%) Software-Defined Radio
3 3 (0.91%) Network Security
4 2 (0.60%) Broadband
5 1 (0.30%) HTTPS
5 1 (0.30%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (6.95%) PostgreSQL
2 15 (4.53%) NoSQL
3 14 (4.23%) Relational Database
4 7 (2.11%) Data Warehouse
4 7 (2.11%) SQL Server
5 6 (1.81%) Metadata
6 5 (1.51%) DynamoDB
7 4 (1.21%) Amazon Redshift
7 4 (1.21%) Big Data
7 4 (1.21%) Data Lake
7 4 (1.21%) MongoDB
8 3 (0.91%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.91%) Geospatial Data
9 2 (0.60%) Apache Iceberg
9 2 (0.60%) BigQuery
9 2 (0.60%) Power BI
9 2 (0.60%) Redis
10 1 (0.30%) BusinessObjects
10 1 (0.30%) Couchbase
10 1 (0.30%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 35 (10.57%) Git
2 24 (7.25%) GitLab
3 21 (6.34%) SonarQube
4 18 (5.44%) Jenkins
5 11 (3.32%) LabVIEW
6 5 (1.51%) JIRA
7 3 (0.91%) JUnit
8 2 (0.60%) Postman
8 2 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.60%) Visual Studio Code
9 1 (0.30%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.30%) GoogleTest
9 1 (0.30%) Liquibase
9 1 (0.30%) Maven
9 1 (0.30%) Mockito
9 1 (0.30%) NUnit
9 1 (0.30%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.30%) Selenium
9 1 (0.30%) Subversion
9 1 (0.30%) tSQLt
General
1 59 (17.82%) Social Skills
2 46 (13.90%) Aerospace
3 29 (8.76%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (8.16%) Finance
5 22 (6.65%) Manufacturing
6 7 (2.11%) Automotive
6 7 (2.11%) Public Sector
7 6 (1.81%) Avionics
8 5 (1.51%) Aviation
8 5 (1.51%) Banking
8 5 (1.51%) Law
9 4 (1.21%) Marketing
10 3 (0.91%) Electronics
10 3 (0.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.60%) Military
11 2 (0.60%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.30%) Advertising
12 1 (0.30%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 172 (51.96%) Software Engineer
2 54 (16.31%) Developer
3 44 (13.29%) Embedded Engineer
3 44 (13.29%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 42 (12.69%) Senior
5 27 (8.16%) Lead
6 21 (6.34%) Senior Software Engineer
7 19 (5.74%) Software Developer
8 14 (4.23%) Engineering Manager
8 14 (4.23%) Technical Leader
9 13 (3.93%) Java Engineer
10 12 (3.63%) Data Engineer
10 12 (3.63%) Java Developer
10 12 (3.63%) Software Manager
11 11 (3.32%) C++ Software Engineer
11 11 (3.32%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
12 10 (3.02%) Software Engineering Manager
13 9 (2.72%) Principal Engineer
13 9 (2.72%) Senior Developer
14 8 (2.42%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (8.46%) AngularJS
2 24 (7.25%) Terraform
3 22 (6.65%) .NET
4 20 (6.04%) React
5 19 (5.74%) Quarkus
5 19 (5.74%) REST
6 12 (3.63%) Kafka
7 11 (3.32%) RESTful
8 10 (3.02%) Yocto
9 9 (2.72%) JSON
10 8 (2.42%) WinForms
11 7 (2.11%) WPF
12 6 (1.81%) .NET Core
12 6 (1.81%) FastAPI
12 6 (1.81%) Flask
12 6 (1.81%) GraphQL
12 6 (1.81%) Node.js
13 5 (1.51%) PySpark
13 5 (1.51%) pytest
13 5 (1.51%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 27 (8.16%) Cloud Native
2 21 (6.34%) Product Ownership
3 14 (4.23%) Distributed Systems
4 13 (3.93%) Algorithms
5 12 (3.63%) Embedded Systems
6 10 (3.02%) Data Protection Act
6 10 (3.02%) Device Driver
7 9 (2.72%) Data Structures
7 9 (2.72%) MicroBlaze
7 9 (2.72%) RISC-V
8 6 (1.81%) Social Media
9 5 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (1.51%) Robotics
10 4 (1.21%) AI Agents
10 4 (1.21%) Onboarding
10 4 (1.21%) Virtual Team
11 3 (0.91%) Analytical Mindset
11 3 (0.91%) ARM Cortex
11 3 (0.91%) Distributed Architecture
12 2 (0.60%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 32 (9.67%) Linux
2 12 (3.63%) Embedded Linux
3 5 (1.51%) Windows
4 2 (0.60%) Debian
5 1 (0.30%) Android
5 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.30%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (30.21%) Agile
2 71 (21.45%) CI/CD
3 52 (15.71%) DevOps
4 46 (13.90%) Test Automation
5 43 (12.99%) Problem-Solving
6 41 (12.39%) DevSecOps
6 41 (12.39%) Scrum
7 36 (10.88%) Continuous Improvement
8 32 (9.67%) SDLC
9 31 (9.37%) Unit Testing
10 28 (8.46%) Mentoring
11 27 (8.16%) Computer Science
12 26 (7.85%) Sprint Planning
13 25 (7.55%) Microservices
13 25 (7.55%) Stakeholder Management
14 24 (7.25%) AI
14 24 (7.25%) Containerisation
14 24 (7.25%) Front End Development
15 23 (6.95%) Technical Leadership
16 19 (5.74%) Sprint Review
Programming Languages
1 67 (20.24%) Java
2 51 (15.41%) Python
3 40 (12.08%) C
4 34 (10.27%) SQL
5 31 (9.37%) C#
6 29 (8.76%) C++
7 22 (6.65%) TypeScript
8 18 (5.44%) JavaScript
9 14 (4.23%) Go
10 10 (3.02%) Embedded C
11 8 (2.42%) Bash
12 7 (2.11%) PowerShell
13 4 (1.21%) PL/SQL
13 4 (1.21%) Scala
14 3 (0.91%) Ada
14 3 (0.91%) Apex Code
15 2 (0.60%) Kotlin
16 1 (0.30%) Bicep
16 1 (0.30%) Embedded C++
16 1 (0.30%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 108 (32.63%) Security Cleared
2 94 (28.40%) SC Cleared
3 31 (9.37%) Degree
4 12 (3.63%) Computer Science Degree
5 7 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (1.51%) DV Cleared
7 4 (1.21%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.91%) PMP
8 3 (0.91%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 2 (0.60%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.60%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.60%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.30%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 1 (0.30%) CCSP
10 1 (0.30%) CISA
10 1 (0.30%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.30%) CISSP
10 1 (0.30%) ISTQB
10 1 (0.30%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (8.76%) QA
2 9 (2.72%) Data Quality
3 4 (1.21%) Accessibility
4 2 (0.60%) NIST
4 2 (0.60%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.30%) GRC
5 1 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.30%) ITGC
5 1 (0.30%) PMO
5 1 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.30%) WCAG
System Software
1 29 (8.76%) Docker
2 10 (3.02%) Embedded Firmware
2 10 (3.02%) Firmware
3 4 (1.21%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.21%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 47 (14.20%) Kubernetes
2 20 (6.04%) Argo
3 13 (3.93%) Ansible
4 5 (1.51%) Grafana
5 4 (1.21%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.60%) Kibana
6 2 (0.60%) Puppet
7 1 (0.30%) CASB
7 1 (0.30%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 20 (6.04%) Red Hat
2 11 (3.32%) Microsoft
3 7 (2.11%) Oracle
4 6 (1.81%) SAP
5 5 (1.51%) Databricks
5 5 (1.51%) Google
5 5 (1.51%) Salesforce
5 5 (1.51%) Workday
6 3 (0.91%) Siemens
7 2 (0.60%) Splunk
8 1 (0.30%) Adobe
8 1 (0.30%) Ariba
8 1 (0.30%) CA Agile Central
8 1 (0.30%) Denodo
8 1 (0.30%) Dynatrace
8 1 (0.30%) IBM
8 1 (0.30%) Informatica
8 1 (0.30%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
8 1 (0.30%) UiPath
8 1 (0.30%) VMware