Software Engineering Contracts in the South East

Software Engineering
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East requiring Software Engineering skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Software Engineering over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 56 36 63
Rank change year-on-year -20 +27 +9
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 113 263 215
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 3.75% 4.73% 3.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.10% 5.58% 4.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 66 137 134
10th Percentile £418 £388 £406
25th Percentile £475 £425 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £550 £530
Median % change year-on-year -6.82% +3.77% -1.21%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £619
90th Percentile £641 £688 £700
England median daily rate £600 £600 £600
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 66 25
10th Percentile £43.71 £45.00 £38.08
25th Percentile £48.99 £47.45 £50.00
Median hourly rate £56.75 £62.25 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.84% +8.26% +14.43%
75th Percentile £62.50 £65.00 £64.63
90th Percentile £64.52 £76.25 £69.00
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +18.18%

All Process and 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 2,757 4,716 5,181
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 91.59% 84.85% 89.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,756 2,743 3,594
10th Percentile £256 £243 £250
25th Percentile £400 £400 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year - -1.53% +1.55%
75th Percentile £600 £621 £619
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 171 434 219
10th Percentile £13.85 £13.00 £18.25
25th Percentile £15.79 £18.23 £23.83
Median hourly rate £28.00 £47.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -41.05% -5.00% +122.22%
75th Percentile £62.50 £62.49 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.86 £74.83
England median hourly rate £29.07 £36.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -19.25% -4.00% +53.06%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Job vacancy trend for Software Engineering in the South East

Software Engineering
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the South East

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

Daily rate trend for Software Engineering in the South East

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 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineering in the South East

Software Engineering
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

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

Hourly rate trend for Software Engineering in the South East

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 1 May 2025.

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 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 -9 44 £501 -19.92% 202
Hampshire -12 37 £530 +17.78% 93
Berkshire -10 35 £500 -22.44% 92
Surrey +11 15 £500 - 88
Buckinghamshire +9 5 £543 -1.36% 55
Oxfordshire -2 4 - - 76
Kent +8 2 £475 +15.15% 33
West Sussex +3 1 £350 -24.32% 20
Software Engineering
England

Software Engineering
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 19 (16.81%) Confluence
2 4 (3.54%) Apache
2 4 (3.54%) CMS
2 4 (3.54%) Drupal
2 4 (3.54%) WordPress
3 2 (1.77%) TPMS
Applications
1 2 (1.77%) Simulink
Cloud Services
1 35 (30.97%) Azure
2 33 (29.20%) AWS
3 9 (7.96%) Azure DevOps
3 9 (7.96%) SaaS
4 8 (7.08%) GCP
5 5 (4.42%) Serverless
6 4 (3.54%) Azure Data Factory
7 3 (2.65%) Amazon EKS
8 2 (1.77%) Amazon EC2
8 2 (1.77%) Amazon S3
8 2 (1.77%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (1.77%) AWS Lambda
8 2 (1.77%) Azure AKS
8 2 (1.77%) Azure Monitor
8 2 (1.77%) Azure Stack
8 2 (1.77%) PaaS
9 1 (0.88%) Azure Machine Learning
9 1 (0.88%) GitHub
9 1 (0.88%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.88%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 7 (6.19%) Software-Defined Radio
2 6 (5.31%) SNMP
3 4 (3.54%) Internet
4 1 (0.88%) RS-232
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (9.73%) SQL Server
2 9 (7.96%) Relational Database
3 7 (6.19%) PostgreSQL
4 4 (3.54%) Azure SQL Database
4 4 (3.54%) Big Data
4 4 (3.54%) Data Lake
4 4 (3.54%) MySQL
4 4 (3.54%) Oracle Database
4 4 (3.54%) Oracle Database 11g
5 2 (1.77%) Elasticsearch
5 2 (1.77%) Microsoft Analysis Services
5 2 (1.77%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 1 (0.88%) ObjectStore
Development Applications
1 40 (35.40%) JIRA
2 29 (25.66%) Git
3 27 (23.89%) Jenkins
4 21 (18.58%) GitLab
5 19 (16.81%) Bitbucket
5 19 (16.81%) GoogleTest
6 15 (13.27%) Selenium
7 13 (11.50%) Cucumber
7 13 (11.50%) REST Assured
7 13 (11.50%) Robot Framework
8 12 (10.62%) Eclipse
9 9 (7.96%) SonarQube
10 8 (7.08%) Rational DOORS
11 7 (6.19%) TestRail
12 4 (3.54%) Bitbucket Server
12 4 (3.54%) Cypress.io
12 4 (3.54%) Visual Studio Code
13 2 (1.77%) Moq
13 2 (1.77%) SpecFlow
13 2 (1.77%) Visual Studio
General
1 34 (30.09%) Social Skills
2 11 (9.73%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (7.08%) Law
4 7 (6.19%) Aerospace
5 5 (4.42%) Public Sector
6 4 (3.54%) Police
7 3 (2.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (2.65%) Telecoms
8 1 (0.88%) Automotive
8 1 (0.88%) Aviation
8 1 (0.88%) Electronics
8 1 (0.88%) Finance
8 1 (0.88%) Games
8 1 (0.88%) Legal
8 1 (0.88%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (0.88%) Retail
Job Titles
1 55 (48.67%) Software Engineer
2 17 (15.04%) Senior
3 16 (14.16%) Developer
3 16 (14.16%) Embedded Engineer
4 15 (13.27%) Embedded Software Engineer
5 12 (10.62%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
6 10 (8.85%) Senior Software Engineer
7 9 (7.96%) FPGA Engineer
7 9 (7.96%) Java Engineer
7 9 (7.96%) Java Software Engineer
8 8 (7.08%) C++ Software Engineer
9 7 (6.19%) Embedded C++ Engineer
9 7 (6.19%) Embedded C++ Software Engineer
9 7 (6.19%) Embedded Linux Engineer
9 7 (6.19%) Embedded Linux Software Engineer
9 7 (6.19%) Linux Engineer
9 7 (6.19%) Senior C++ Software Engineer
9 7 (6.19%) Senior Embedded Engineer
9 7 (6.19%) Senior Embedded Software Engineer
9 7 (6.19%) Senior Linux Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (17.70%) CSS
1 20 (17.70%) HTML
2 17 (15.04%) REST
3 16 (14.16%) .NET
4 13 (11.50%) AngularJS
4 13 (11.50%) Java EE
5 9 (7.96%) ARM Templates
6 8 (7.08%) Web Services
7 6 (5.31%) RESTful
8 5 (4.42%) ASP.NET Web API
8 5 (4.42%) React
9 4 (3.54%) Ajax
9 4 (3.54%) CodeIgniter
9 4 (3.54%) HTML5
9 4 (3.54%) jQuery
9 4 (3.54%) LAMP
9 4 (3.54%) PySpark
9 4 (3.54%) SOAP
9 4 (3.54%) YAML
10 3 (2.65%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 16 (14.16%) Product Ownership
2 10 (8.85%) FPGA
3 9 (7.96%) Verilog
4 4 (3.54%) Legacy Code
5 3 (2.65%) Algorithms
5 3 (2.65%) Distributed Systems
5 3 (2.65%) Embedded Systems
6 2 (1.77%) Cloud Native
6 2 (1.77%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (1.77%) Mobile App
6 2 (1.77%) Public Cloud
6 2 (1.77%) Wiki
7 1 (0.88%) Cyberattack
7 1 (0.88%) Data Structures
7 1 (0.88%) Device Driver
7 1 (0.88%) Life Science
7 1 (0.88%) Management Information System
7 1 (0.88%) NHS
7 1 (0.88%) N-Tier
7 1 (0.88%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 35 (30.97%) Linux
2 13 (11.50%) Unix
3 8 (7.08%) Embedded Linux
4 4 (3.54%) Windows
5 1 (0.88%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (49.56%) Agile
2 42 (37.17%) Test Automation
3 35 (30.97%) Scrum
4 33 (29.20%) DevOps
5 31 (27.43%) CI/CD
6 22 (19.47%) Continuous Integration
7 21 (18.58%) Validation
8 20 (17.70%) Design Patterns
8 20 (17.70%) OO
9 18 (15.93%) Containerisation
9 18 (15.93%) Problem-Solving
10 16 (14.16%) Configuration Management
11 15 (13.27%) Software Testing
12 14 (12.39%) Technical Leadership
13 13 (11.50%) Computer Science
13 13 (11.50%) Full-Stack Development
13 13 (11.50%) Infrastructure as Code
13 13 (11.50%) Software Architecture
14 12 (10.62%) Kanban
14 12 (10.62%) Multithreading
Programming Languages
1 36 (31.86%) Python
2 28 (24.78%) JavaScript
3 22 (19.47%) C#
3 22 (19.47%) C++
4 21 (18.58%) Java
5 18 (15.93%) SQL
6 10 (8.85%) TypeScript
7 9 (7.96%) Shell Script
7 9 (7.96%) SystemVerilog
7 9 (7.96%) Tcl
8 6 (5.31%) PowerShell
9 5 (4.42%) Rust
10 4 (3.54%) C
10 4 (3.54%) PHP
10 4 (3.54%) PL/SQL
11 3 (2.65%) MATLAB
12 2 (1.77%) Bicep
12 2 (1.77%) Go
13 1 (0.88%) Embedded C
Qualifications
1 53 (46.90%) Security Cleared
2 48 (42.48%) SC Cleared
3 21 (18.58%) Degree
4 9 (7.96%) Computer Science Degree
5 5 (4.42%) DV Cleared
6 2 (1.77%) CEH
6 2 (1.77%) CISM
6 2 (1.77%) CISSP
7 1 (0.88%) CCNP
7 1 (0.88%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.88%) JNCIP
7 1 (0.88%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (2.65%) NIST
1 3 (2.65%) QA
2 2 (1.77%) Accessibility
2 2 (1.77%) ISO 26262
2 2 (1.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.88%) DO-178B
3 1 (0.88%) Government Security Classifications
3 1 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27005
3 1 (0.88%) JSP 440
System Software
1 23 (20.35%) Docker
2 3 (2.65%) Firmware
3 1 (0.88%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 21 (18.58%) Kubernetes
2 14 (12.39%) Terraform
3 12 (10.62%) Ansible
4 9 (7.96%) Docker Swarm
4 9 (7.96%) Podman
5 3 (2.65%) WMI
Vendors
1 24 (21.24%) Google
2 13 (11.50%) Microsoft
3 12 (10.62%) Atlassian
4 9 (7.96%) Xilinx
5 7 (6.19%) Databricks
5 7 (6.19%) Intel
6 4 (3.54%) Oracle
6 4 (3.54%) Zend
7 3 (2.65%) Virgin Media
8 2 (1.77%) Palantir
8 2 (1.77%) Xamarin
9 1 (0.88%) CA Agile Central
9 1 (0.88%) Cisco
9 1 (0.88%) Fortinet
9 1 (0.88%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.88%) Siemens
9 1 (0.88%) Twitter
9 1 (0.88%) VMware