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

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 61 42
Rank change year-on-year +23 -19 +19
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 332 110 208
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 4.97% 3.12% 4.31%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.17% 3.48% 5.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 135 60 107
10th Percentile £280 £287 £360
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 £631 £600 £638
90th Percentile £709 £626 £675
England median daily rate £560 £600 £625
% change year-on-year -6.67% -4.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 22 60
10th Percentile £47.00 £46.52 £45.00
25th Percentile £50.00 £50.27 £53.27
Median hourly rate £60.00 £55.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -21.43% +21.74%
75th Percentile £68.75 £57.50 £75.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £64.52 £75.50
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 5,381 3,160 3,976
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.49% 89.67% 82.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,309 1,970 2,411
10th Percentile £280 £250 £255
25th Percentile £420 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% +1.35%
75th Percentile £613 £600 £638
90th Percentile £711 £675 £700
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 592 305 315
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £21.00 £15.50 £26.25
Median hourly rate £53.20 £24.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +121.67% -58.15% +14.70%
75th Percentile £73.25 £53.50 £70.09
90th Percentile £88.00 £70.81 £76.86
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -40.82% +3.61%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +37 138 £543 +5.85% 72
Thames Valley +12 86 £530 +5.89% 86
Surrey +4 54 £519 +9.21% 18
Berkshire -1 49 £550 +9.89% 43
West Sussex 0 33 £280 -2.78% 12
Oxfordshire -11 20 £553 +28.12% 31
Buckinghamshire -18 17 £525 -8.70% 13
East Sussex - 11 £492 - 4
Kent +2 4 - - 13
Sussex - 3 £323 - 2
Middlesex -18 2 £470 -25.98% 2
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 (0.90%) 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 (2.41%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.20%) 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 40 (12.05%) Azure
2 32 (9.64%) AWS
3 27 (8.13%) OpenShift
4 18 (5.42%) GitHub
5 15 (4.52%) Azure DevOps
6 12 (3.61%) GCP
6 12 (3.61%) GitHub Actions
7 8 (2.41%) SaaS
8 4 (1.20%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 4 (1.20%) Amazon EKS
8 4 (1.20%) Amazon S3
8 4 (1.20%) Snowflake
9 3 (0.90%) Amazon ECS
9 3 (0.90%) Azure AKS
9 3 (0.90%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
9 3 (0.90%) Serverless
10 2 (0.60%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (0.60%) Azure Data Factory
10 2 (0.60%) Power Platform
10 2 (0.60%) Zapier
Communications & Networking
1 20 (6.02%) Wireless
2 9 (2.71%) Software-Defined Radio
3 3 (0.90%) Network Security
4 1 (0.30%) Broadband
4 1 (0.30%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (6.93%) PostgreSQL
2 16 (4.82%) NoSQL
3 14 (4.22%) 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 (1.20%) Amazon Redshift
7 4 (1.20%) Big Data
7 4 (1.20%) Data Lake
7 4 (1.20%) MongoDB
8 3 (0.90%) Geospatial Data
9 2 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
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%) Amazon Athena
10 1 (0.30%) Couchbase
10 1 (0.30%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 35 (10.54%) Git
2 24 (7.23%) GitLab
3 22 (6.63%) SonarQube
4 20 (6.02%) Jenkins
5 9 (2.71%) LabVIEW
6 7 (2.11%) JIRA
7 3 (0.90%) JUnit
8 2 (0.60%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.60%) Postman
8 2 (0.60%) Rational DOORS
8 2 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.30%) CMake
9 1 (0.30%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.30%) GoogleTest
9 1 (0.30%) Gradle
9 1 (0.30%) Liquibase
9 1 (0.30%) Maven
9 1 (0.30%) Subversion
9 1 (0.30%) tSQLt
9 1 (0.30%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 60 (18.07%) Social Skills
2 48 (14.46%) Aerospace
3 28 (8.43%) Finance
4 27 (8.13%) Analytical Skills
5 21 (6.33%) Manufacturing
6 7 (2.11%) Public Sector
7 6 (1.81%) Avionics
8 5 (1.51%) Automotive
8 5 (1.51%) Aviation
8 5 (1.51%) Banking
8 5 (1.51%) Law
9 4 (1.20%) Electronics
9 4 (1.20%) Marketing
10 3 (0.90%) 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
1 169 (50.90%) Software Engineer
2 57 (17.17%) Developer
3 45 (13.55%) Senior
4 42 (12.65%) Embedded Engineer
4 42 (12.65%) Embedded Software Engineer
5 26 (7.83%) Lead
6 20 (6.02%) Senior Software Engineer
7 18 (5.42%) Software Developer
8 16 (4.82%) Engineering Manager
9 15 (4.52%) Java Engineer
10 13 (3.92%) Software Manager
10 13 (3.92%) Technical Leader
11 12 (3.61%) C++ Software Engineer
11 12 (3.61%) Data Engineer
11 12 (3.61%) Java Developer
11 12 (3.61%) Software Engineering Manager
12 11 (3.31%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
13 10 (3.01%) Senior Developer
14 9 (2.71%) Principal Engineer
15 8 (2.41%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (8.73%) AngularJS
2 23 (6.93%) .NET
3 22 (6.63%) React
4 21 (6.33%) REST
4 21 (6.33%) Terraform
5 20 (6.02%) Quarkus
6 15 (4.52%) Kafka
7 12 (3.61%) RESTful
8 10 (3.01%) Yocto
9 9 (2.71%) JSON
10 8 (2.41%) GraphQL
10 8 (2.41%) WinForms
10 8 (2.41%) WPF
11 6 (1.81%) .NET Core
11 6 (1.81%) FastAPI
11 6 (1.81%) Flask
11 6 (1.81%) Node.js
11 6 (1.81%) RabbitMQ
12 5 (1.51%) PySpark
12 5 (1.51%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 29 (8.73%) Cloud Native
2 20 (6.02%) Product Ownership
3 15 (4.52%) Distributed Systems
4 13 (3.92%) Algorithms
5 11 (3.31%) Data Protection Act
5 11 (3.31%) Embedded Systems
6 10 (3.01%) Device Driver
7 9 (2.71%) Data Structures
8 8 (2.41%) MicroBlaze
8 8 (2.41%) RISC-V
9 6 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (1.51%) Robotics
10 5 (1.51%) Social Media
11 4 (1.20%) Onboarding
11 4 (1.20%) Virtual Team
12 3 (0.90%) AI Agents
12 3 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
12 3 (0.90%) ARM Cortex
12 3 (0.90%) Distributed Architecture
13 2 (0.60%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 30 (9.04%) Linux
2 12 (3.61%) Embedded Linux
3 5 (1.51%) Windows
4 1 (0.30%) Android
4 1 (0.30%) Debian
4 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.30%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (29.82%) Agile
2 70 (21.08%) CI/CD
3 55 (16.57%) DevOps
4 47 (14.16%) Test Automation
5 42 (12.65%) DevSecOps
6 41 (12.35%) Problem-Solving
6 41 (12.35%) Scrum
7 35 (10.54%) Continuous Improvement
8 33 (9.94%) Unit Testing
9 32 (9.64%) SDLC
10 29 (8.73%) Microservices
11 28 (8.43%) Computer Science
11 28 (8.43%) Mentoring
12 27 (8.13%) Sprint Planning
13 25 (7.53%) Front End Development
14 24 (7.23%) AI
14 24 (7.23%) Containerisation
14 24 (7.23%) Stakeholder Management
15 22 (6.63%) Technical Leadership
16 20 (6.02%) Sprint Review
Programming Languages
1 71 (21.39%) Java
2 49 (14.76%) Python
3 39 (11.75%) C
4 32 (9.64%) C#
4 32 (9.64%) SQL
5 29 (8.73%) C++
6 21 (6.33%) TypeScript
7 19 (5.72%) JavaScript
8 18 (5.42%) Go
9 10 (3.01%) Embedded C
10 8 (2.41%) Bash
11 7 (2.11%) PowerShell
12 4 (1.20%) PL/SQL
12 4 (1.20%) Scala
13 3 (0.90%) Ada
13 3 (0.90%) Apex Code
14 2 (0.60%) Kotlin
15 1 (0.30%) Embedded C++
15 1 (0.30%) MATLAB
15 1 (0.30%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 111 (33.43%) Security Cleared
2 95 (28.61%) SC Cleared
3 32 (9.64%) Degree
4 13 (3.92%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (1.51%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.90%) AWS Certification
7 3 (0.90%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 2 (0.60%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.60%) Master's Degree
8 2 (0.60%) PMP
9 1 (0.30%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 1 (0.30%) CCSP
9 1 (0.30%) CISA
9 1 (0.30%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (0.30%) CISSP
9 1 (0.30%) ISTQB
9 1 (0.30%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 1 (0.30%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (7.83%) QA
2 9 (2.71%) Data Quality
3 3 (0.90%) 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 32 (9.64%) Docker
2 9 (2.71%) Embedded Firmware
2 9 (2.71%) Firmware
3 4 (1.20%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.20%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 48 (14.46%) Kubernetes
2 21 (6.33%) Argo
3 12 (3.61%) Ansible
4 5 (1.51%) Grafana
5 4 (1.20%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.60%) Kibana
6 2 (0.60%) Puppet
7 1 (0.30%) CASB
7 1 (0.30%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 21 (6.33%) Red Hat
2 11 (3.31%) 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 (0.90%) Siemens
7 2 (0.60%) CA Agile Central
8 1 (0.30%) Adobe
8 1 (0.30%) Ariba
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%) Splunk
8 1 (0.30%) UiPath
8 1 (0.30%) VMware