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 12 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 37 70 51
Rank change year-on-year +33 -19 +16
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 335 102 176
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 5.05% 2.91% 3.78%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.26% 3.26% 4.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 134 52 94
10th Percentile £277 £275 £358
25th Percentile £400 £334 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £647
90th Percentile £693 - £684
England median daily rate £550 £600 £625
% change year-on-year -8.33% -4.00% +4.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 25 54
10th Percentile £47.00 £50.50 £45.00
25th Percentile £51.25 £52.50 £51.80
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 £61.71 -
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 5,355 3,126 3,844
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.74% 89.21% 82.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,224 1,947 2,310
10th Percentile £280 £221 £257
25th Percentile £425 £383 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.82% -0.75%
75th Percentile £619 £600 £630
90th Percentile £713 £656 £700
England median daily rate £525 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 612 309 270
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.50 £16.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £15.50 £34.25
Median hourly rate £52.43 £21.39 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +145.09% -62.70% +9.24%
75th Percentile £70.00 £50.00 £71.86
90th Percentile £85.94 £69.65 £78.75
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +0.58%

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 12 September 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 12 September 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 12 September 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 +42 134 £525 +19.32% 123
Thames Valley +15 90 £530 +5.89% 226
Surrey -1 57 £513 +7.89% 44
Berkshire -2 51 £525 +4.90% 88
West Sussex -5 33 £280 -2.78% 40
Oxfordshire -2 22 £565 +31.01% 101
Buckinghamshire - 17 £525 - 39
East Sussex - 10 £525 - 14
Middlesex -15 5 £600 -5.51% 6
Kent +5 4 - - 9
Sussex - 2 - - 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 2 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
1 2 (0.60%) Apache Spark
2 1 (0.30%) CMS
2 1 (0.30%) Confluence
2 1 (0.30%) IIS
2 1 (0.30%) SAS
Applications
1 8 (2.39%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.19%) CPLEX
3 3 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.30%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.30%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 3 (0.90%) Primavera
1 3 (0.90%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 42 (12.54%) AWS
1 42 (12.54%) Azure
2 25 (7.46%) OpenShift
3 19 (5.67%) GitHub
4 15 (4.48%) Azure DevOps
4 15 (4.48%) GCP
5 11 (3.28%) GitHub Actions
6 8 (2.39%) SaaS
7 7 (2.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 6 (1.79%) Serverless
9 5 (1.49%) AWS Lambda
10 4 (1.19%) Snowflake
11 3 (0.90%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (0.90%) Azure AKS
11 3 (0.90%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
12 2 (0.60%) Amazon S3
12 2 (0.60%) Azure Data Factory
12 2 (0.60%) Cloudflare
12 2 (0.60%) Datadog
12 2 (0.60%) Zapier
Communications & Networking
1 22 (6.57%) Wireless
2 10 (2.99%) Software-Defined Radio
3 3 (0.90%) Network Security
4 2 (0.60%) Broadband
5 1 (0.30%) HTTPS
5 1 (0.30%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (6.87%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (3.88%) Relational Database
3 12 (3.58%) NoSQL
4 7 (2.09%) DynamoDB
4 7 (2.09%) Metadata
5 6 (1.79%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (1.79%) SQL Server
6 5 (1.49%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (1.19%) MongoDB
8 3 (0.90%) Amazon Redshift
8 3 (0.90%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.90%) Geospatial Data
9 2 (0.60%) Apache Iceberg
9 2 (0.60%) Big Data
9 2 (0.60%) BigQuery
9 2 (0.60%) Power BI
9 2 (0.60%) Redis
10 1 (0.30%) Couchbase
10 1 (0.30%) Oracle Database
10 1 (0.30%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 35 (10.45%) Git
2 26 (7.76%) GitLab
3 20 (5.97%) SonarQube
4 16 (4.78%) Jenkins
5 11 (3.28%) LabVIEW
6 4 (1.19%) JIRA
7 3 (0.90%) JUnit
7 3 (0.90%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.60%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.60%) Postman
8 2 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.60%) Subversion
9 1 (0.30%) GoogleTest
9 1 (0.30%) Gradle
9 1 (0.30%) Liquibase
9 1 (0.30%) Maven
9 1 (0.30%) NUnit
9 1 (0.30%) PowerBuilder
9 1 (0.30%) Selenium
9 1 (0.30%) tSQLt
General
1 58 (17.31%) Social Skills
2 44 (13.13%) Aerospace
3 28 (8.36%) Analytical Skills
3 28 (8.36%) Finance
4 23 (6.87%) Manufacturing
5 9 (2.69%) Automotive
5 9 (2.69%) Public Sector
6 6 (1.79%) Avionics
7 5 (1.49%) Aviation
7 5 (1.49%) Banking
7 5 (1.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (1.49%) Law
8 4 (1.19%) Marketing
9 3 (0.90%) Electronics
10 2 (0.60%) Japanese Language
10 2 (0.60%) Military
10 2 (0.60%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.30%) Advertising
11 1 (0.30%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 166 (49.55%) Software Engineer
2 59 (17.61%) Developer
3 45 (13.43%) Embedded Engineer
3 45 (13.43%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 42 (12.54%) Senior
5 28 (8.36%) Lead
6 21 (6.27%) Senior Software Engineer
7 20 (5.97%) Software Developer
8 17 (5.07%) Technical Leader
9 13 (3.88%) Data Engineer
10 12 (3.58%) Java Developer
11 11 (3.28%) C++ Software Engineer
11 11 (3.28%) Engineering Manager
11 11 (3.28%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
12 10 (2.99%) Java Engineer
12 10 (2.99%) Principal Engineer
12 10 (2.99%) Software Manager
13 9 (2.69%) Architect
13 9 (2.69%) Senior Developer
14 8 (2.39%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (8.96%) Terraform
2 27 (8.06%) AngularJS
3 22 (6.57%) .NET
4 21 (6.27%) React
5 18 (5.37%) Quarkus
6 16 (4.78%) REST
7 13 (3.88%) Kafka
8 12 (3.58%) RESTful
9 10 (2.99%) JSON
9 10 (2.99%) Yocto
10 8 (2.39%) Node.js
10 8 (2.39%) WinForms
11 7 (2.09%) WPF
12 6 (1.79%) .NET Core
12 6 (1.79%) CSS
12 6 (1.79%) FastAPI
12 6 (1.79%) Flask
12 6 (1.79%) GraphQL
12 6 (1.79%) HTML
13 5 (1.49%) OpenTofu
Miscellaneous
1 29 (8.66%) Cloud Native
2 22 (6.57%) Product Ownership
3 15 (4.48%) Distributed Systems
4 12 (3.58%) Algorithms
4 12 (3.58%) Embedded Systems
5 10 (2.99%) Device Driver
6 9 (2.69%) Data Protection Act
6 9 (2.69%) Data Structures
6 9 (2.69%) MicroBlaze
6 9 (2.69%) RISC-V
7 7 (2.09%) AI Agents
8 6 (1.79%) Social Media
9 5 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (1.49%) Robotics
10 4 (1.19%) Onboarding
10 4 (1.19%) Virtual Team
11 3 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
11 3 (0.90%) ARM Cortex
11 3 (0.90%) Distributed Architecture
12 2 (0.60%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 33 (9.85%) Linux
2 12 (3.58%) Embedded Linux
3 5 (1.49%) 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
1 106 (31.64%) Agile
2 80 (23.88%) CI/CD
3 55 (16.42%) DevOps
4 49 (14.63%) Test Automation
5 45 (13.43%) Problem-Solving
5 45 (13.43%) Scrum
6 42 (12.54%) DevSecOps
7 41 (12.24%) Continuous Improvement
8 32 (9.55%) Mentoring
8 32 (9.55%) SDLC
8 32 (9.55%) Stakeholder Management
9 29 (8.66%) Computer Science
9 29 (8.66%) Unit Testing
10 27 (8.06%) Technical Leadership
11 26 (7.76%) AI
11 26 (7.76%) Infrastructure as Code
12 25 (7.46%) Containerisation
12 25 (7.46%) Microservices
12 25 (7.46%) Sprint Planning
13 24 (7.16%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 60 (17.91%) Java
2 50 (14.93%) Python
3 42 (12.54%) C
4 38 (11.34%) SQL
5 30 (8.96%) C#
5 30 (8.96%) C++
6 24 (7.16%) TypeScript
7 20 (5.97%) JavaScript
8 13 (3.88%) Go
9 10 (2.99%) Embedded C
10 7 (2.09%) Bash
11 6 (1.79%) PowerShell
12 4 (1.19%) PL/SQL
13 3 (0.90%) Ada
13 3 (0.90%) Apex Code
13 3 (0.90%) Scala
14 2 (0.60%) Kotlin
15 1 (0.30%) Embedded C++
15 1 (0.30%) Ruby
15 1 (0.30%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 102 (30.45%) Security Cleared
2 93 (27.76%) SC Cleared
3 33 (9.85%) Degree
4 15 (4.48%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (2.39%) AWS Certification
6 5 (1.49%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (1.49%) DV Cleared
6 5 (1.49%) PMP
7 4 (1.19%) Azure Certification
7 4 (1.19%) Master's Degree
7 4 (1.19%) PMI Certification
8 3 (0.90%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 2 (0.60%) CISSP
9 2 (0.60%) TOGAF 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%) ISTQB
10 1 (0.30%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (8.96%) QA
2 10 (2.99%) Data Quality
3 4 (1.19%) 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%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.30%) WCAG
System Software
1 32 (9.55%) Docker
2 10 (2.99%) Embedded Firmware
2 10 (2.99%) Firmware
3 5 (1.49%) Active Directory
4 4 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 47 (14.03%) Kubernetes
2 19 (5.67%) Argo
3 15 (4.48%) Ansible
4 5 (1.49%) Grafana
5 4 (1.19%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.60%) Kibana
6 2 (0.60%) Puppet
7 1 (0.30%) CASB
Vendors
1 19 (5.67%) Red Hat
2 13 (3.88%) Microsoft
3 8 (2.39%) Oracle
4 6 (1.79%) Salesforce
4 6 (1.79%) SAP
5 5 (1.49%) Workday
6 4 (1.19%) Databricks
6 4 (1.19%) Google
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%) Siemens
8 1 (0.30%) VMware