Software Engineering Contract Job Trends in the South West

Software Engineering
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 13 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 20 28
Rank change year-on-year -1 +8 -6
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 179 157 167
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 7.37% 8.16% 5.73%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.99% 9.24% 6.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 33 47 88
10th Percentile £68 £463 £478
25th Percentile £375 £500 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £458 £600 £550
Median % change year-on-year -23.75% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £606 £676 £675
90th Percentile £683 - £727
England median daily rate £550 £600 £624
% change year-on-year -8.33% -3.88% +4.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 112 44 53
10th Percentile £61.25 £61.25 £48.32
25th Percentile £63.48 £63.44 £60.76
Median hourly rate £65.00 £66.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.26% +2.31% -0.76%
75th Percentile - £68.19 £70.00
90th Percentile £67.25 £68.75 -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +4.00% -3.85%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South West

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 West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,991 1,699 2,477
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 81.97% 88.26% 84.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,150 1,034 1,628
10th Percentile £263 £250 £275
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £638 £632 £650
90th Percentile £738 £715 £725
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 318 103 262
10th Percentile £15.62 £18.51 £17.46
25th Percentile £20.82 £46.88 £44.44
Median hourly rate £38.94 £65.00 £59.84
Median % change year-on-year -40.09% +8.62% -2.70%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.38 £70.00
90th Percentile £65.30 £74.35 £83.40
England median hourly rate £25.15 £34.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -26.03% -20.00% +21.43%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Software Engineering relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in the South West

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Software Engineering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in the South West over the 6 months to 13 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineering in the South West

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Software Engineering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineering in the South West over the 6 months to 13 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineering in the South West

Software Engineering
Contract Job Locations in the South West

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 West region over the 6 months to 13 January 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
Bristol +2 137 £400 -23.81% 114
Gloucestershire -28 16 £616 -7.79% 66
Dorset +10 12 - - 41
Somerset 0 8 £447 +21.22% 56
Wiltshire -13 5 £625 -28.57% 33
Devon -13 1 - - 39
Software Engineering
England

Software Engineering
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 (3.35%) Apache
2 2 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.56%) Confluence
Applications
1 3 (1.68%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (1.68%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (1.12%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 23 (12.85%) AWS
2 12 (6.70%) Azure
3 6 (3.35%) GCP
4 5 (2.79%) npm
5 4 (2.23%) Azure DevOps
6 2 (1.12%) Amazon ECS
6 2 (1.12%) Amazon EKS
6 2 (1.12%) Amazon S3
6 2 (1.12%) AWS Lambda
6 2 (1.12%) Azure AKS
6 2 (1.12%) Azure Cosmos DB
6 2 (1.12%) Entra ID
6 2 (1.12%) OpenShift
6 2 (1.12%) Serverless
7 1 (0.56%) Cloud Computing
7 1 (0.56%) Dagster
7 1 (0.56%) GitHub
7 1 (0.56%) IaaS
7 1 (0.56%) Prefect
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.56%) Bluetooth
1 1 (0.56%) Ethernet
1 1 (0.56%) Internet
1 1 (0.56%) TCP/IP
1 1 (0.56%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (5.59%) PostgreSQL
2 6 (3.35%) GIS
3 5 (2.79%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (2.79%) MongoDB
3 5 (2.79%) MySQL
4 4 (2.23%) SQL Server
5 3 (1.68%) Amazon Aurora
5 3 (1.68%) DynamoDB
5 3 (1.68%) NoSQL
6 2 (1.12%) ClickHouse
6 2 (1.12%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.56%) ObjectStore
7 1 (0.56%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 14 (7.82%) GitLab
2 13 (7.26%) Rational Rhapsody
3 11 (6.15%) Jenkins
4 5 (2.79%) Artifactory
5 4 (2.23%) Git
6 3 (1.68%) Oracle APEX
7 2 (1.12%) Bitbucket
7 2 (1.12%) JIRA
7 2 (1.12%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.56%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.56%) Eclipse
8 1 (0.56%) NUnit
8 1 (0.56%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.56%) Visual Studio
General
1 18 (10.06%) Aerospace
2 14 (7.82%) Social Skills
3 12 (6.70%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (5.03%) Electronics
4 9 (5.03%) Law
5 7 (3.91%) Finance
5 7 (3.91%) Public Sector
6 5 (2.79%) Automotive
7 4 (2.23%) Military
7 4 (2.23%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.12%) Banking
8 2 (1.12%) Financial Institution
8 2 (1.12%) Investment Banking
8 2 (1.12%) Tech for Good
8 2 (1.12%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.56%) Aviation
9 1 (0.56%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 126 (70.39%) Software Engineer
2 57 (31.84%) C++ Software Engineer
3 16 (8.94%) Embedded Engineer
3 16 (8.94%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 14 (7.82%) Senior
5 12 (6.70%) Documentation Officer
5 12 (6.70%) Product Engineer
5 12 (6.70%) Products Support Engineer
5 12 (6.70%) Software Support Engineer
5 12 (6.70%) Support Engineer
6 10 (5.59%) Senior Software Engineer
7 8 (4.47%) C Software Engineer
7 8 (4.47%) C/C++ Software Engineer
7 8 (4.47%) Lead
8 7 (3.91%) Full-Stack Engineer
8 7 (3.91%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
9 6 (3.35%) Algorithm Engineer
9 6 (3.35%) DevOps Engineer
10 5 (2.79%) Data Engineer
10 5 (2.79%) Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (20.67%) Middleware
2 22 (12.29%) Qt
3 13 (7.26%) Node.js
4 10 (5.59%) React
5 6 (3.35%) REST
6 5 (2.79%) Spring Boot
7 4 (2.23%) Apache NiFi
8 3 (1.68%) .NET
9 2 (1.12%) Django
9 2 (1.12%) Elastic Stack
9 2 (1.12%) Express.js
9 2 (1.12%) JDBC
9 2 (1.12%) Next.js
9 2 (1.12%) OAuth
9 2 (1.12%) OAuth2
9 2 (1.12%) Web Services
10 1 (0.56%) AWS CDK
10 1 (0.56%) FastAPI
10 1 (0.56%) JWT
10 1 (0.56%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 14 (7.82%) Algorithms
2 10 (5.59%) Embedded Systems
3 7 (3.91%) CUDA
4 5 (2.79%) Video\Live Streaming
5 4 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (2.23%) Onboarding
5 4 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (1.68%) Cloud Native
6 3 (1.68%) Product Ownership
7 2 (1.12%) Greenfield Project
7 2 (1.12%) IoT
7 2 (1.12%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (0.56%) AI Agents
8 1 (0.56%) Contactless
8 1 (0.56%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 23 (12.85%) Linux
2 13 (7.26%) Ubuntu
3 11 (6.15%) Windows
4 2 (1.12%) Android
5 1 (0.56%) Debian
5 1 (0.56%) Embedded Linux
5 1 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.56%) Rocky
5 1 (0.56%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (13.41%) CI/CD
2 18 (10.06%) Agile
3 16 (8.94%) Project Management
4 15 (8.38%) Software Testing
5 14 (7.82%) DevOps
6 13 (7.26%) Validation
7 11 (6.15%) Configuration Management
7 11 (6.15%) Full-Stack Development
7 11 (6.15%) Problem-Solving
7 11 (6.15%) Software Delivery
7 11 (6.15%) Systems Engineering
7 11 (6.15%) Workflow
8 9 (5.03%) Computer Science
8 9 (5.03%) Integration Testing
9 8 (4.47%) Collaborative Culture
9 8 (4.47%) Containerisation
9 8 (4.47%) UML
10 7 (3.91%) Decision-Making
10 7 (3.91%) Project Delivery
10 7 (3.91%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 81 (45.25%) C++
2 39 (21.79%) C
3 37 (20.67%) Ada
4 23 (12.85%) JavaScript
4 23 (12.85%) Python
5 16 (8.94%) Java
6 12 (6.70%) Shell Script
7 11 (6.15%) SQL
7 11 (6.15%) TypeScript
8 10 (5.59%) C#
9 6 (3.35%) MATLAB
9 6 (3.35%) PowerShell
10 3 (1.68%) PL/SQL
11 2 (1.12%) Bicep
12 1 (0.56%) Embedded C++
12 1 (0.56%) Fortran
12 1 (0.56%) Go
Qualifications
1 61 (34.08%) Security Cleared
2 48 (26.82%) SC Cleared
3 16 (8.94%) Degree
4 11 (6.15%) DV Cleared
5 9 (5.03%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (1.12%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.56%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.56%) CISSP
7 1 (0.56%) HND
7 1 (0.56%) MCSE
7 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.56%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (16.76%) Def Stans
2 25 (13.97%) MISRA
3 21 (11.73%) IEC 61508
4 16 (8.94%) MISRA C
5 9 (5.03%) DO-178B
6 8 (4.47%) QA
7 1 (0.56%) DICOM
7 1 (0.56%) GDPR
7 1 (0.56%) HL7
7 1 (0.56%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 12 (6.70%) Docker
2 9 (5.03%) Firmware
3 3 (1.68%) Oracle RAC
4 2 (1.12%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 12 (6.70%) Terraform
2 10 (5.59%) Kubernetes
3 6 (3.35%) Ansible
4 3 (1.68%) Data Guard
5 2 (1.12%) Grafana
5 2 (1.12%) Kibana
5 2 (1.12%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.56%) Packer
6 1 (0.56%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 18 (10.06%) Red Hat
2 5 (2.79%) IBM
2 5 (2.79%) Microsoft
3 4 (2.23%) MathWorks
4 3 (1.68%) Oracle
5 2 (1.12%) Databricks
5 2 (1.12%) Google
6 1 (0.56%) Atlassian
6 1 (0.56%) NVIDIA
6 1 (0.56%) VMware
6 1 (0.56%) Xamarin