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 27 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 60 36
Rank change year-on-year +26 -24 +23
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 280 99 260
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 4.66% 3.40% 4.69%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.79% 3.72% 5.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 119 60 131
10th Percentile £349 £348 £388
25th Percentile £413 £463 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -6.82% +4.76%
75th Percentile £660 £600 £650
90th Percentile £725 £601 £688
England median daily rate £550 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 13 71
10th Percentile £46.25 £44.51 £45.00
25th Percentile £48.64 £48.99 £51.06
Median hourly rate £60.00 £56.75 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.73% -9.20% +8.70%
75th Percentile £68.55 £63.75 £68.51
90th Percentile £70.00 £64.52 £75.00
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +4.00% -3.85%

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 4,836 2,658 4,638
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.53% 91.37% 83.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,134 1,714 2,692
10th Percentile £280 £250 £255
25th Percentile £412 £391 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £501
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -0.20% -0.79%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £625
90th Percentile £700 £656 £700
England median daily rate £514 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.10% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 445 173 445
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.35 £15.00 £18.20
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -47.05% -5.00%
75th Percentile £82.25 £62.24 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.86
England median hourly rate £45.00 £28.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year +60.71% -23.29% -2.67%

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 27 May 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 27 May 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 27 May 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 +23 123 £563 +4.17% 130
Thames Valley -8 73 £469 -6.25% 101
Surrey +13 50 £513 +2.50% 19
Berkshire -15 42 £469 -6.25% 34
Buckinghamshire -19 22 £361 -31.18% 15
West Sussex -8 13 £280 -2.78% 10
East Sussex - 12 £525 - 2
Oxfordshire -17 9 £800 +77.78% 52
Sussex - 3 £323 - 5
Kent -8 2 £550 +15.79% 19
Middlesex - 1 £509 - 3
Home Counties - 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 6 (2.14%) Confluence
2 4 (1.43%) IIS
3 3 (1.07%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.36%) Apache
4 1 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.36%) CMS
4 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.36%) SAS
Applications
1 8 (2.86%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.43%) CPLEX
3 2 (0.71%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 38 (13.57%) Azure
2 27 (9.64%) AWS
3 17 (6.07%) OpenShift
4 16 (5.71%) GitHub
5 14 (5.00%) Azure DevOps
6 13 (4.64%) Serverless
7 11 (3.93%) GCP
8 7 (2.50%) Amazon S3
8 7 (2.50%) Azure Functions
8 7 (2.50%) GitHub Actions
9 6 (2.14%) Cloud Computing
10 5 (1.79%) Amazon EKS
10 5 (1.79%) Azure API Management
10 5 (1.79%) Azure Data Factory
10 5 (1.79%) Azure Storage
11 4 (1.43%) Amazon ECS
11 4 (1.43%) Power Platform
12 3 (1.07%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 3 (1.07%) AWS Lambda
12 3 (1.07%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 10 (3.57%) Software-Defined Radio
1 10 (3.57%) Wireless
2 1 (0.36%) HTTP
2 1 (0.36%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (6.43%) PostgreSQL
2 17 (6.07%) NoSQL
3 13 (4.64%) Relational Database
3 13 (4.64%) SQL Server
4 6 (2.14%) Azure SQL Database
4 6 (2.14%) Big Data
4 6 (2.14%) Data Lake
4 6 (2.14%) Data Warehouse
4 6 (2.14%) DynamoDB
5 5 (1.79%) MongoDB
6 4 (1.43%) Amazon Redshift
7 3 (1.07%) Metadata
8 2 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.71%) BigQuery
8 2 (0.71%) Pinecone
8 2 (0.71%) Power BI
8 2 (0.71%) Weaviate
9 1 (0.36%) Apache Iceberg
9 1 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.36%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 28 (10.00%) Git
2 19 (6.79%) Jenkins
3 18 (6.43%) GitLab
4 15 (5.36%) SonarQube
5 7 (2.50%) JIRA
6 4 (1.43%) Bitbucket
7 3 (1.07%) Postman
8 2 (0.71%) Android Studio
8 2 (0.71%) JUnit
8 2 (0.71%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.71%) Subversion
8 2 (0.71%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.36%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.36%) CMake
9 1 (0.36%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.36%) Liquibase
9 1 (0.36%) Mockito
9 1 (0.36%) NUnit
9 1 (0.36%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.36%) Selenium
General
1 37 (13.21%) Aerospace
2 36 (12.86%) Social Skills
3 20 (7.14%) Finance
4 18 (6.43%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (6.43%) Manufacturing
5 10 (3.57%) Public Sector
6 9 (3.21%) Law
7 5 (1.79%) Aviation
8 4 (1.43%) Electronics
9 3 (1.07%) Avionics
10 2 (0.71%) Automotive
10 2 (0.71%) Military
11 1 (0.36%) Advertising
11 1 (0.36%) Banking
11 1 (0.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.36%) Legal
11 1 (0.36%) Retail Banking
11 1 (0.36%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 154 (55.00%) Software Engineer
2 53 (18.93%) Developer
3 41 (14.64%) Senior
4 34 (12.14%) Embedded Engineer
4 34 (12.14%) Embedded Software Engineer
5 20 (7.14%) Senior Software Engineer
6 16 (5.71%) DevOps Engineer
7 15 (5.36%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
8 14 (5.00%) Engineering Manager
8 14 (5.00%) Java Developer
8 14 (5.00%) Java Engineer
8 14 (5.00%) Software Engineering Manager
9 11 (3.93%) Android Developer
9 11 (3.93%) Software Manager
10 10 (3.57%) C++ Software Engineer
10 10 (3.57%) Lead
11 9 (3.21%) Senior Developer
12 8 (2.86%) Azure Engineer
12 8 (2.86%) Senior Manager
13 7 (2.50%) SC Cleared Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (9.64%) REST
2 25 (8.93%) .NET
3 20 (7.14%) React
4 18 (6.43%) AngularJS
5 15 (5.36%) JSON
6 14 (5.00%) Kafka
7 13 (4.64%) Quarkus
8 12 (4.29%) RESTful
9 10 (3.57%) WPF
10 8 (2.86%) WinForms
10 8 (2.86%) XML
11 7 (2.50%) GraphQL
12 6 (2.14%) ARM Templates
12 6 (2.14%) FastAPI
12 6 (2.14%) Flask
12 6 (2.14%) YAML
12 6 (2.14%) Yocto
13 5 (1.79%) Node.js
13 5 (1.79%) pytest
13 5 (1.79%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 25 (8.93%) Cloud Native
2 14 (5.00%) Algorithms
3 12 (4.29%) Distributed Systems
4 9 (3.21%) Robotics
5 8 (2.86%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (2.86%) Data Structures
6 7 (2.50%) Embedded Systems
7 6 (2.14%) Device Driver
8 5 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.79%) MicroBlaze
8 5 (1.79%) RISC-V
8 5 (1.79%) Social Media
9 4 (1.43%) Mobile App
9 4 (1.43%) Onboarding
10 3 (1.07%) AI Agents
10 3 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (1.07%) ARM Cortex
10 3 (1.07%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (1.07%) Product Ownership
10 3 (1.07%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 23 (8.21%) Linux
2 12 (4.29%) Android
3 9 (3.21%) Windows
4 7 (2.50%) Embedded Linux
5 4 (1.43%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.71%) Unix
7 1 (0.36%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.36%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.36%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (25.71%) Agile
2 60 (21.43%) CI/CD
3 57 (20.36%) DevOps
4 32 (11.43%) AI
4 32 (11.43%) Scrum
5 30 (10.71%) Test Automation
6 28 (10.00%) Microservices
6 28 (10.00%) Problem-Solving
7 27 (9.64%) Containerisation
8 24 (8.57%) DevSecOps
8 24 (8.57%) Unit Testing
9 22 (7.86%) SDLC
10 21 (7.50%) Front End Development
11 20 (7.14%) Computer Science
12 17 (6.07%) Sprint Planning
13 16 (5.71%) Stakeholder Management
13 16 (5.71%) Systems Engineering
14 15 (5.36%) Data Pipeline
14 15 (5.36%) Machine Learning
14 15 (5.36%) Software Delivery
Programming Languages
1 64 (22.86%) Java
2 58 (20.71%) Python
3 35 (12.50%) C#
4 30 (10.71%) C
5 28 (10.00%) JavaScript
6 26 (9.29%) C++
7 22 (7.86%) SQL
8 14 (5.00%) Go
9 13 (4.64%) TypeScript
10 10 (3.57%) Embedded C
11 9 (3.21%) Bash
12 8 (2.86%) PowerShell
13 5 (1.79%) Ada
13 5 (1.79%) Rust
14 4 (1.43%) Scala
15 2 (0.71%) PL/SQL
15 2 (0.71%) R
16 1 (0.36%) Embedded C++
16 1 (0.36%) MATLAB
16 1 (0.36%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 104 (37.14%) Security Cleared
2 85 (30.36%) SC Cleared
3 26 (9.29%) Degree
4 12 (4.29%) Computer Science Degree
5 5 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (1.43%) DV Cleared
7 2 (0.71%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.36%) ISTQB
8 1 (0.36%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (6.07%) QA
2 3 (1.07%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.36%) PMO
System Software
1 25 (8.93%) Docker
2 8 (2.86%) Firmware
3 5 (1.79%) Embedded Firmware
4 1 (0.36%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 40 (14.29%) Kubernetes
2 14 (5.00%) Argo
3 12 (4.29%) Terraform
4 8 (2.86%) Ansible
5 6 (2.14%) Grafana
6 4 (1.43%) Prometheus
7 3 (1.07%) Puppet
8 2 (0.71%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.71%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 1 (0.36%) HP Quality Center
9 1 (0.36%) Podman
Vendors
1 21 (7.50%) Red Hat
2 11 (3.93%) Microsoft
3 7 (2.50%) Databricks
4 5 (1.79%) Workday
5 4 (1.43%) OpenAI
5 4 (1.43%) Siemens
6 3 (1.07%) Atlassian
6 3 (1.07%) Google
6 3 (1.07%) Oracle
6 3 (1.07%) SAP
7 2 (0.71%) Ab Initio
7 2 (0.71%) Coverity
7 2 (0.71%) Foundry
7 2 (0.71%) Teradata
7 2 (0.71%) Thales
8 1 (0.36%) CA Agile Central
8 1 (0.36%) Dynatrace
8 1 (0.36%) PagerDuty
8 1 (0.36%) UiPath
8 1 (0.36%) VMware