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 24 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 55 35
Rank change year-on-year +10 -20 +22
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 235 114 267
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 4.09% 3.80% 4.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.01% 4.16% 5.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 108 66 142
10th Percentile £349 £418 £388
25th Percentile £413 £475 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -6.82% +1.85%
75th Percentile £653 £600 £650
90th Percentile £725 £641 £688
England median daily rate £550 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 17 64
10th Percentile £46.25 £43.71 £45.00
25th Percentile £47.00 £48.99 £49.86
Median hourly rate £60.00 £56.75 £62.25
Median % change year-on-year +5.73% -8.84% +10.67%
75th Percentile £68.75 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £64.52 £74.63
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +4.00% -2.56%

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 4,686 2,742 4,751
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 81.58% 91.49% 85.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,058 1,743 2,778
10th Percentile £285 £256 £229
25th Percentile £406 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% - -1.23%
75th Percentile £613 £600 £619
90th Percentile £713 £675 £699
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 425 171 431
10th Percentile £15.62 £13.85 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.00 £16.34 £18.26
Median hourly rate £49.00 £28.00 £46.87
Median % change year-on-year +75.00% -40.26% -6.26%
75th Percentile £81.00 £62.50 £62.48
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.86
England median hourly rate £42.50 £30.62 £35.00
% change year-on-year +38.82% -12.53% -6.67%

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 24 April 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 24 April 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 24 April 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 +13 100 £600 +13.21% 108
Thames Valley -22 64 £448 -10.59% 81
Surrey +12 46 £494 -1.25% 34
Berkshire -24 40 £488 -2.55% 26
Buckinghamshire -15 20 £361 -33.40% 18
West Sussex -3 9 £280 -20.00% 5
East Sussex - 6 £525 - 13
Oxfordshire -20 4 £575 - 37
Sussex - 3 £323 - 7
Kent -6 2 £550 +15.79% 12
Middlesex - 2 £552 - 5
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 7 (2.98%) Confluence
2 3 (1.28%) IIS
3 2 (0.85%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.43%) Apache
4 1 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.43%) CMS
4 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 4 (1.70%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.28%) CPLEX
3 2 (0.85%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 35 (14.89%) Azure
2 22 (9.36%) AWS
3 15 (6.38%) Serverless
4 14 (5.96%) OpenShift
5 13 (5.53%) Azure DevOps
5 13 (5.53%) GitHub
6 9 (3.83%) Azure Functions
6 9 (3.83%) GCP
7 7 (2.98%) Amazon S3
8 6 (2.55%) Cloud Computing
9 5 (2.13%) Azure API Management
9 5 (2.13%) Azure Data Factory
9 5 (2.13%) Azure Storage
10 4 (1.70%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (1.70%) AWS Lambda
10 4 (1.70%) GitHub Actions
11 3 (1.28%) Amazon ECS
11 3 (1.28%) AWS CloudFormation
11 3 (1.28%) Power Platform
11 3 (1.28%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.98%) Software-Defined Radio
2 2 (0.85%) Wireless
3 1 (0.43%) HTTP
3 1 (0.43%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (7.66%) NoSQL
1 18 (7.66%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (5.96%) SQL Server
3 12 (5.11%) Relational Database
4 7 (2.98%) Azure SQL Database
5 6 (2.55%) DynamoDB
6 5 (2.13%) Big Data
6 5 (2.13%) MongoDB
7 4 (1.70%) Data Lake
7 4 (1.70%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.85%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.85%) BigQuery
8 2 (0.85%) Pinecone
8 2 (0.85%) Weaviate
9 1 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.43%) Parquet
9 1 (0.43%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 27 (11.49%) Git
2 20 (8.51%) Jenkins
3 14 (5.96%) GitLab
4 12 (5.11%) SonarQube
5 7 (2.98%) JIRA
6 5 (2.13%) Bitbucket
7 3 (1.28%) Android Studio
7 3 (1.28%) Subversion
8 2 (0.85%) JUnit
8 2 (0.85%) Selenium
8 2 (0.85%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.43%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.43%) CMake
9 1 (0.43%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.43%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.43%) GoogleTest
9 1 (0.43%) Liquibase
9 1 (0.43%) Mockito
9 1 (0.43%) NUnit
9 1 (0.43%) Rational DOORS
General
1 29 (12.34%) Social Skills
2 28 (11.91%) Aerospace
3 12 (5.11%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (5.11%) Finance
3 12 (5.11%) Public Sector
4 10 (4.26%) Manufacturing
5 7 (2.98%) Electronics
6 4 (1.70%) Law
7 3 (1.28%) Avionics
7 3 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.85%) Military
9 1 (0.43%) Advertising
9 1 (0.43%) Banking
9 1 (0.43%) Legal
9 1 (0.43%) Retail Banking
9 1 (0.43%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 127 (54.04%) Software Engineer
2 50 (21.28%) Developer
3 37 (15.74%) Senior
4 19 (8.09%) Embedded Engineer
4 19 (8.09%) Embedded Software Engineer
5 17 (7.23%) Senior Software Engineer
6 14 (5.96%) DevOps Engineer
6 14 (5.96%) Java Developer
7 13 (5.53%) Engineering Manager
7 13 (5.53%) Java Engineer
7 13 (5.53%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
7 13 (5.53%) Software Engineering Manager
8 12 (5.11%) Android Developer
9 11 (4.68%) Lead
10 10 (4.26%) Senior Developer
10 10 (4.26%) Software Manager
11 8 (3.40%) Azure Engineer
11 8 (3.40%) C++ Software Engineer
11 8 (3.40%) Senior Manager
12 6 (2.55%) Azure Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (11.06%) .NET
2 25 (10.64%) REST
3 16 (6.81%) AngularJS
3 16 (6.81%) React
4 12 (5.11%) JSON
4 12 (5.11%) Quarkus
5 11 (4.68%) Kafka
6 9 (3.83%) RESTful
6 9 (3.83%) WPF
7 7 (2.98%) WinForms
8 6 (2.55%) ARM Templates
8 6 (2.55%) XML
8 6 (2.55%) YAML
9 5 (2.13%) Spring
9 5 (2.13%) Spring Boot
10 4 (1.70%) Flask
10 4 (1.70%) pytest
10 4 (1.70%) RabbitMQ
10 4 (1.70%) TensorFlow
10 4 (1.70%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 21 (8.94%) Cloud Native
2 12 (5.11%) Algorithms
3 10 (4.26%) Distributed Systems
4 6 (2.55%) Data Protection Act
5 5 (2.13%) Data Structures
5 5 (2.13%) Mobile App
6 4 (1.70%) Embedded Systems
6 4 (1.70%) Robotics
7 3 (1.28%) Device Driver
7 3 (1.28%) Distributed Architecture
7 3 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (1.28%) Virtual Team
8 2 (0.85%) AI Agents
8 2 (0.85%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (0.85%) MicroBlaze
8 2 (0.85%) Mixed Reality
8 2 (0.85%) Onboarding
8 2 (0.85%) RISC-V
8 2 (0.85%) Virtual Reality
9 1 (0.43%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 20 (8.51%) Linux
2 16 (6.81%) Android
3 11 (4.68%) Windows
4 4 (1.70%) Embedded Linux
4 4 (1.70%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.85%) Unix
6 1 (0.43%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.43%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.43%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (26.38%) Agile
2 54 (22.98%) CI/CD
3 47 (20.00%) DevOps
4 29 (12.34%) Scrum
5 27 (11.49%) Microservices
6 26 (11.06%) AI
7 25 (10.64%) Test Automation
8 24 (10.21%) Containerisation
9 23 (9.79%) Unit Testing
10 22 (9.36%) SDLC
11 21 (8.94%) Computer Science
11 21 (8.94%) Problem-Solving
12 20 (8.51%) DevSecOps
13 19 (8.09%) Front End Development
14 16 (6.81%) Sprint Planning
15 15 (6.38%) Machine Learning
16 13 (5.53%) Data Pipeline
16 13 (5.53%) Secure Coding
17 12 (5.11%) Android Development
17 12 (5.11%) Sprint Review
Programming Languages
1 57 (24.26%) Java
2 52 (22.13%) Python
3 36 (15.32%) C#
4 24 (10.21%) JavaScript
5 22 (9.36%) C++
6 20 (8.51%) SQL
7 17 (7.23%) C
8 14 (5.96%) Go
9 9 (3.83%) TypeScript
10 8 (3.40%) Bash
11 7 (2.98%) Ada
11 7 (2.98%) PowerShell
12 5 (2.13%) Embedded C
12 5 (2.13%) Rust
13 2 (0.85%) Embedded C++
13 2 (0.85%) R
13 2 (0.85%) Scala
14 1 (0.43%) Delphi
14 1 (0.43%) MATLAB
14 1 (0.43%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 92 (39.15%) Security Cleared
2 73 (31.06%) SC Cleared
3 22 (9.36%) Degree
4 13 (5.53%) Computer Science Degree
5 5 (2.13%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (0.85%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.85%) ISTQB
7 2 (0.85%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (0.43%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (7.23%) QA
2 2 (0.85%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.43%) PMO
System Software
1 27 (11.49%) Docker
2 5 (2.13%) Firmware
3 2 (0.85%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 34 (14.47%) Kubernetes
2 12 (5.11%) Argo
3 7 (2.98%) Terraform
4 5 (2.13%) Ansible
5 3 (1.28%) Grafana
5 3 (1.28%) Puppet
5 3 (1.28%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
6 2 (0.85%) Kubeflow
7 1 (0.43%) HP Quality Center
7 1 (0.43%) Podman
7 1 (0.43%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.43%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 18 (7.66%) Red Hat
2 13 (5.53%) Microsoft
3 7 (2.98%) Databricks
4 4 (1.70%) Atlassian
4 4 (1.70%) Google
4 4 (1.70%) OpenAI
4 4 (1.70%) Siemens
5 3 (1.28%) Coverity
5 3 (1.28%) Thales
6 2 (0.85%) Ab Initio
6 2 (0.85%) Foundry
6 2 (0.85%) PagerDuty
6 2 (0.85%) SAP
6 2 (0.85%) Teradata
7 1 (0.43%) Apple
7 1 (0.43%) Ariba
7 1 (0.43%) CA Agile Central
7 1 (0.43%) Splunk
7 1 (0.43%) UiPath