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 16 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 59 41
Rank change year-on-year +20 -18 +22
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 306 114 236
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 4.70% 3.37% 4.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.78% 3.74% 5.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 133 69 128
10th Percentile £280 £330 £400
25th Percentile £400 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £501 £513
Median % change year-on-year +4.90% -2.34% -2.38%
75th Percentile £638 £600 £641
90th Percentile £712 £603 £688
England median daily rate £550 £600 £615
% change year-on-year -8.33% -2.44% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 85 11 64
10th Percentile £47.00 £44.51 £45.38
25th Percentile £48.64 £45.38 £51.06
Median hourly rate £60.00 £52.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% -25.00% +21.74%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.51 £75.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £64.52 £76.75
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 5,298 3,045 4,618
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 81.31% 90.06% 82.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,356 1,891 2,707
10th Percentile £280 £250 £263
25th Percentile £413 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% -0.49%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £638
90th Percentile £700 £675 £700
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 523 263 424
10th Percentile £15.80 £13.50 £13.00
25th Percentile £25.12 £15.13 £18.29
Median hourly rate £55.00 £24.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +129.17% -52.00% -
75th Percentile £82.25 £53.63 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £78.38
England median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +88.87% -34.02% -8.14%

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 16 July 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 16 July 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 16 July 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 +28 136 £546 +5.05% 92
Thames Valley -7 73 £525 +5.00% 88
Surrey +8 53 £519 +9.21% 25
Berkshire -21 40 £510 +1.90% 27
West Sussex -10 21 £280 -2.78% 16
Buckinghamshire -18 20 £361 -31.18% 18
Oxfordshire -18 13 £688 +59.42% 43
East Sussex - 11 £525 - 3
Kent +4 6 £550 +15.79% 7
Sussex - 3 £323 - 7
Middlesex -11 1 £470 -25.98% 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 2 (0.65%) Apache Spark
1 2 (0.65%) Confluence
2 1 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (0.33%) CMS
2 1 (0.33%) IIS
2 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.33%) SAS
Applications
1 7 (2.29%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.63%) CPLEX
3 2 (0.65%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.33%) Adobe XD
4 1 (0.33%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 2 (0.65%) Primavera
1 2 (0.65%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 38 (12.42%) Azure
2 29 (9.48%) AWS
3 22 (7.19%) OpenShift
4 15 (4.90%) GitHub
5 14 (4.58%) Azure DevOps
6 12 (3.92%) GCP
7 9 (2.94%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (2.61%) SaaS
9 7 (2.29%) Serverless
10 5 (1.63%) Amazon S3
11 4 (1.31%) Amazon EKS
11 4 (1.31%) Power Platform
12 3 (0.98%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 3 (0.98%) Amazon ECS
12 3 (0.98%) Azure AI
12 3 (0.98%) Azure Functions
12 3 (0.98%) Snowflake
13 2 (0.65%) AWS Lambda
13 2 (0.65%) Azure Machine Learning
13 2 (0.65%) Zapier
Communications & Networking
1 16 (5.23%) Wireless
2 5 (1.63%) Software-Defined Radio
3 1 (0.33%) HTTP
3 1 (0.33%) HTTPS
3 1 (0.33%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (7.19%) PostgreSQL
2 17 (5.56%) NoSQL
3 11 (3.59%) Relational Database
4 6 (1.96%) Data Warehouse
5 5 (1.63%) Big Data
5 5 (1.63%) DynamoDB
5 5 (1.63%) MongoDB
5 5 (1.63%) SQL Server
6 4 (1.31%) Amazon Redshift
6 4 (1.31%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.98%) Geospatial Data
7 3 (0.98%) Metadata
8 2 (0.65%) Apache Iceberg
8 2 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.65%) BigQuery
8 2 (0.65%) Pinecone
8 2 (0.65%) Power BI
8 2 (0.65%) Redis
8 2 (0.65%) Weaviate
9 1 (0.33%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 33 (10.78%) Git
2 20 (6.54%) GitLab
3 19 (6.21%) SonarQube
4 16 (5.23%) Jenkins
5 7 (2.29%) JIRA
6 4 (1.31%) LabVIEW
7 2 (0.65%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.65%) JUnit
7 2 (0.65%) Postman
7 2 (0.65%) Rational DOORS
7 2 (0.65%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.33%) CMake
8 1 (0.33%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.33%) GoogleTest
8 1 (0.33%) Liquibase
8 1 (0.33%) MLflow
8 1 (0.33%) Mockito
8 1 (0.33%) NUnit
8 1 (0.33%) Selenium
8 1 (0.33%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 50 (16.34%) Social Skills
2 46 (15.03%) Aerospace
3 27 (8.82%) Finance
4 20 (6.54%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (5.88%) Manufacturing
6 9 (2.94%) Public Sector
7 8 (2.61%) Law
8 7 (2.29%) Avionics
9 5 (1.63%) Aviation
10 3 (0.98%) Automotive
10 3 (0.98%) Banking
10 3 (0.98%) Electronics
11 2 (0.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.65%) Marketing
11 2 (0.65%) Military
11 2 (0.65%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.33%) Advertising
12 1 (0.33%) Legal
12 1 (0.33%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 157 (51.31%) Software Engineer
2 54 (17.65%) Developer
3 45 (14.71%) Senior
4 36 (11.76%) Embedded Engineer
4 36 (11.76%) Embedded Software Engineer
5 19 (6.21%) Lead
5 19 (6.21%) Senior Software Engineer
6 17 (5.56%) Java Engineer
7 15 (4.90%) Software Manager
8 14 (4.58%) Engineering Manager
8 14 (4.58%) Software Engineering Manager
9 13 (4.25%) Software Developer
10 12 (3.92%) Senior Developer
11 11 (3.59%) C++ Software Engineer
11 11 (3.59%) Java Developer
12 10 (3.27%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
13 9 (2.94%) DevOps Engineer
14 8 (2.61%) Python Developer
14 8 (2.61%) Senior Manager
15 7 (2.29%) Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (8.17%) React
2 24 (7.84%) AngularJS
3 20 (6.54%) .NET
3 20 (6.54%) REST
4 17 (5.56%) Quarkus
5 15 (4.90%) Kafka
6 13 (4.25%) JSON
6 13 (4.25%) RESTful
7 8 (2.61%) GraphQL
7 8 (2.61%) WinForms
7 8 (2.61%) WPF
8 7 (2.29%) FastAPI
8 7 (2.29%) Flask
8 7 (2.29%) Node.js
8 7 (2.29%) RabbitMQ
9 6 (1.96%) pytest
9 6 (1.96%) Yocto
10 5 (1.63%) .NET Core
10 5 (1.63%) Pandas
10 5 (1.63%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 25 (8.17%) Cloud Native
2 15 (4.90%) Algorithms
2 15 (4.90%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.92%) Data Protection Act
4 11 (3.59%) Distributed Systems
5 10 (3.27%) Data Structures
6 7 (2.29%) Embedded Systems
7 6 (1.96%) Device Driver
8 5 (1.63%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.63%) MicroBlaze
8 5 (1.63%) RISC-V
8 5 (1.63%) Robotics
8 5 (1.63%) Social Media
9 4 (1.31%) Onboarding
9 4 (1.31%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.98%) AI Agents
10 3 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (0.98%) ARM Cortex
10 3 (0.98%) Distributed Architecture
11 2 (0.65%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 25 (8.17%) Linux
2 8 (2.61%) Embedded Linux
3 5 (1.63%) Android
4 4 (1.31%) Windows
5 1 (0.33%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.33%) Unix
5 1 (0.33%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (27.12%) Agile
2 59 (19.28%) CI/CD
3 48 (15.69%) DevOps
4 38 (12.42%) Test Automation
5 37 (12.09%) Scrum
6 36 (11.76%) Problem-Solving
7 34 (11.11%) DevSecOps
8 28 (9.15%) SDLC
9 27 (8.82%) AI
9 27 (8.82%) Containerisation
9 27 (8.82%) Unit Testing
10 26 (8.50%) Front End Development
10 26 (8.50%) Microservices
11 24 (7.84%) Computer Science
12 23 (7.52%) Continuous Improvement
12 23 (7.52%) Sprint Planning
13 22 (7.19%) Mentoring
14 18 (5.88%) Software Delivery
15 17 (5.56%) Software Testing
15 17 (5.56%) Sprint Review
Programming Languages
1 66 (21.57%) Java
2 52 (16.99%) Python
3 38 (12.42%) C
4 30 (9.80%) C#
5 26 (8.50%) C++
6 24 (7.84%) JavaScript
6 24 (7.84%) SQL
7 23 (7.52%) TypeScript
8 16 (5.23%) Go
9 10 (3.27%) Embedded C
10 6 (1.96%) Bash
11 5 (1.63%) Ada
11 5 (1.63%) PowerShell
12 4 (1.31%) PL/SQL
12 4 (1.31%) Scala
13 2 (0.65%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.65%) Kotlin
13 2 (0.65%) R
13 2 (0.65%) Rust
14 1 (0.33%) Swift
Qualifications
1 107 (34.97%) Security Cleared
2 86 (28.10%) SC Cleared
3 28 (9.15%) Degree
4 10 (3.27%) Computer Science Degree
5 9 (2.94%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (1.63%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.98%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.65%) Master's Degree
8 2 (0.65%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 1 (0.33%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 1 (0.33%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.33%) CCSP
9 1 (0.33%) CISA
9 1 (0.33%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (0.33%) CISSP
9 1 (0.33%) ISTQB
9 1 (0.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.33%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (7.19%) QA
2 3 (0.98%) Accessibility
2 3 (0.98%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.33%) GRC
3 1 (0.33%) ITGC
3 1 (0.33%) NIST
3 1 (0.33%) PMO
3 1 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 1 (0.33%) Software Quality Assurance
3 1 (0.33%) WCAG
System Software
1 33 (10.78%) Docker
2 5 (1.63%) Embedded Firmware
2 5 (1.63%) Firmware
3 4 (1.31%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.31%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.33%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 44 (14.38%) Kubernetes
2 18 (5.88%) Argo
3 17 (5.56%) Terraform
4 8 (2.61%) Ansible
5 5 (1.63%) Grafana
6 4 (1.31%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.65%) Kibana
7 2 (0.65%) Kubeflow
7 2 (0.65%) Puppet
8 1 (0.33%) CASB
Vendors
1 18 (5.88%) Red Hat
2 6 (1.96%) Microsoft
2 6 (1.96%) Oracle
2 6 (1.96%) SAP
3 5 (1.63%) Workday
4 4 (1.31%) OpenAI
4 4 (1.31%) Siemens
5 3 (0.98%) Databricks
5 3 (0.98%) Google
5 3 (0.98%) Salesforce
6 2 (0.65%) CA Agile Central
6 2 (0.65%) Foundry
7 1 (0.33%) Ab Initio
7 1 (0.33%) Adobe
7 1 (0.33%) Apple
7 1 (0.33%) Denodo
7 1 (0.33%) Dynatrace
7 1 (0.33%) Teradata
7 1 (0.33%) UiPath
7 1 (0.33%) VMware