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 25 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 33 19
Rank change year-on-year +16 -14 -4
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 311 99 195
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 8.28% 5.05% 7.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.65% 5.56% 8.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 110 36 40
10th Percentile £413 £179 £437
25th Percentile £508 £395 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £488 £550
Median % change year-on-year +12.82% -11.36% -
75th Percentile £612 £611 £675
90th Percentile £675 £663 £676
England median daily rate £550 £600 £620
% change year-on-year -8.33% -3.23% +2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 132 41 75
10th Percentile £56.66 £62.00 £61.25
25th Percentile £65.00 - £65.00
Median hourly rate £66.50 £65.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.31% -7.14% +7.69%
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.00 -
90th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £72.75
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.50
% change year-on-year - -0.76% +0.77%

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 2,920 1,781 2,189
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 77.72% 90.77% 83.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,636 1,025 1,283
10th Percentile £325 £213 £300
25th Percentile £450 £363 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £633 £619 £638
90th Percentile £730 £713 £722
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 477 262 209
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.25 £21.96
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.60 £48.00
Median hourly rate £62.00 £25.15 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +146.52% -62.74% +7.57%
75th Percentile £68.75 £63.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £78.28 £68.00 £75.00
England median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -2.05%

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 25 September 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 25 September 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 25 September 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 +10 205 £525 +2.44% 141
Gloucestershire +26 38 £550 -12.00% 180
Somerset -15 25 £470 +4.79% 46
Devon -11 17 £609 +35.28% 33
Dorset - 9 - - 63
Wiltshire -8 5 £575 -4.96% 31
Cornwall - 3 £750 - 1
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 9 (2.89%) Confluence
2 8 (2.57%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.96%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.64%) Apache
Applications
1 9 (2.89%) Spreadsheet
2 4 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.32%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 5 (1.61%) Oracle Payroll
Cloud Services
1 52 (16.72%) AWS
2 40 (12.86%) Azure
3 22 (7.07%) GCP
4 9 (2.89%) Serverless
5 8 (2.57%) OCI
6 6 (1.93%) GitHub
7 4 (1.29%) Azure Functions
7 4 (1.29%) Entra ID
7 4 (1.29%) Microsoft 365
8 3 (0.96%) AWS CloudFormation
8 3 (0.96%) AWS Lambda
8 3 (0.96%) Azure Key Vault
8 3 (0.96%) Azure Service Bus
8 3 (0.96%) GitHub Copilot
8 3 (0.96%) PaaS
9 2 (0.64%) Amazon S3
9 2 (0.64%) Amazon SQS
9 2 (0.64%) dbt
9 2 (0.64%) Power Platform
9 2 (0.64%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.61%) Ethernet
2 4 (1.29%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.32%) DHCP
3 1 (0.32%) DNS
3 1 (0.32%) Firewall
3 1 (0.32%) Network Security
3 1 (0.32%) RS-232
3 1 (0.32%) RS-422
3 1 (0.32%) SNMP
3 1 (0.32%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (2.57%) PostgreSQL
2 7 (2.25%) Elasticsearch
3 3 (0.96%) Apache Cassandra
3 3 (0.96%) Big Data
3 3 (0.96%) Data Warehouse
3 3 (0.96%) HBase
3 3 (0.96%) NoSQL
3 3 (0.96%) Pinecone
4 2 (0.64%) Chroma
4 2 (0.64%) Relational Database
5 1 (0.32%) Amazon Athena
5 1 (0.32%) Amazon Aurora
5 1 (0.32%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.32%) BigQuery
5 1 (0.32%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.32%) DynamoDB
5 1 (0.32%) Geospatial Data
5 1 (0.32%) Power BI
5 1 (0.32%) QGIS
5 1 (0.32%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 25 (8.04%) GitLab
2 23 (7.40%) JIRA
3 22 (7.07%) Git
4 18 (5.79%) Rational Rhapsody
5 17 (5.47%) Jenkins
6 7 (2.25%) Rational DOORS
7 6 (1.93%) Visual Studio
8 4 (1.29%) Eclipse
8 4 (1.29%) JUnit
8 4 (1.29%) Selenium
9 1 (0.32%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.32%) NUnit
General
1 37 (11.90%) Social Skills
2 19 (6.11%) Finance
3 18 (5.79%) Aerospace
4 16 (5.14%) Public Sector
5 8 (2.57%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (2.25%) Military
7 6 (1.93%) Automotive
7 6 (1.93%) Law
8 5 (1.61%) Banking
9 4 (1.29%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (0.96%) Avionics
11 2 (0.64%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.64%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.32%) Aviation
12 1 (0.32%) Legal
12 1 (0.32%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.32%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 198 (63.67%) Software Engineer
2 58 (18.65%) Developer
3 54 (17.36%) C++ Software Engineer
4 40 (12.86%) Embedded Engineer
5 39 (12.54%) Embedded Software Engineer
6 35 (11.25%) Software Developer
7 32 (10.29%) Ada Engineer
7 32 (10.29%) Ada Software Engineer
8 23 (7.40%) Lead
9 19 (6.11%) Applications Engineer
10 17 (5.47%) Senior
11 14 (4.50%) Technical Leader
12 13 (4.18%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
13 12 (3.86%) PHP Software Engineer
14 11 (3.54%) Senior Software Engineer
14 11 (3.54%) Software Team Leader
14 11 (3.54%) Team Leader
15 10 (3.22%) Technical Team Leader
16 9 (2.89%) C# Software Engineer
16 9 (2.89%) Oracle Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (6.11%) Terraform
2 18 (5.79%) React
3 17 (5.47%) .NET
4 16 (5.14%) REST
5 13 (4.18%) Qt
6 11 (3.54%) Oracle Fusion
7 10 (3.22%) Node.js
8 6 (1.93%) AWS CDK
8 6 (1.93%) Jest
9 5 (1.61%) Quarkus
9 5 (1.61%) Web Services
10 4 (1.29%) .NET Framework
10 4 (1.29%) CSS
10 4 (1.29%) GraphQL
10 4 (1.29%) HTML
10 4 (1.29%) Middleware
10 4 (1.29%) Next.js
10 4 (1.29%) Spring
10 4 (1.29%) Spring Boot
11 3 (0.96%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 33 (10.61%) Cloud Native
2 17 (5.47%) Algorithms
3 11 (3.54%) Self-Motivation
4 8 (2.57%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (1.93%) Product Ownership
6 4 (1.29%) Embedded Systems
6 4 (1.29%) Team-Oriented Environment
7 3 (0.96%) AI Agents
7 3 (0.96%) Clustering
7 3 (0.96%) Distributed Systems
7 3 (0.96%) Onboarding
7 3 (0.96%) Wiki
8 2 (0.64%) Device Driver
9 1 (0.32%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.32%) Data Structures
9 1 (0.32%) Greenfield Project
9 1 (0.32%) Low-Code
9 1 (0.32%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 35 (11.25%) Linux
2 9 (2.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 9 (2.89%) Windows
3 5 (1.61%) Embedded Linux
3 5 (1.61%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.29%) Android
4 4 (1.29%) FreeRTOS
5 2 (0.64%) Debian
5 2 (0.64%) Rocky
5 2 (0.64%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.32%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (20.26%) CI/CD
2 42 (13.50%) Agile
3 32 (10.29%) DevOps
4 24 (7.72%) Problem-Solving
5 23 (7.40%) SDLC
6 22 (7.07%) UML
7 21 (6.75%) Containerisation
7 21 (6.75%) Test Automation
8 20 (6.43%) Platform Engineering
9 18 (5.79%) AI
10 17 (5.47%) Infrastructure as Code
10 17 (5.47%) Software Delivery
10 17 (5.47%) Stakeholder Management
11 15 (4.82%) Requirements Gathering
12 14 (4.50%) DevSecOps
12 14 (4.50%) Multithreading
13 13 (4.18%) Information Security
13 13 (4.18%) Microservices
13 13 (4.18%) Site Reliability Engineering
13 13 (4.18%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 82 (26.37%) C++
2 56 (18.01%) Ada
3 49 (15.76%) Python
4 42 (13.50%) C#
5 40 (12.86%) Java
6 22 (7.07%) TypeScript
7 21 (6.75%) SQL
8 18 (5.79%) JavaScript
9 16 (5.14%) C
10 14 (4.50%) PHP
11 12 (3.86%) PL/SQL
12 6 (1.93%) PowerShell
13 5 (1.61%) Go
14 4 (1.29%) MATLAB
14 4 (1.29%) Rust
15 2 (0.64%) Kotlin
16 1 (0.32%) Ada 95
16 1 (0.32%) Fortran
Qualifications
1 107 (34.41%) Security Cleared
2 81 (26.05%) SC Cleared
3 25 (8.04%) DV Cleared
4 16 (5.14%) Degree
5 10 (3.22%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (2.57%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (1.93%) Chartered Engineer
8 2 (0.64%) AWS Certification
8 2 (0.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified Developer
9 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 1 (0.32%) ISTQB
9 1 (0.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (3.54%) IEC 61508
1 11 (3.54%) MISRA
1 11 (3.54%) MISRA C
2 10 (3.22%) Def Stans
3 9 (2.89%) QA
4 7 (2.25%) Accessibility
5 6 (1.93%) WCAG
6 3 (0.96%) JSP 440
6 3 (0.96%) NCSC
7 2 (0.64%) GDPR
8 1 (0.32%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 33 (10.61%) Docker
2 6 (1.93%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 31 (9.97%) Kubernetes
2 14 (4.50%) Ansible
3 3 (0.96%) Functional Safety
3 3 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (0.32%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
4 1 (0.32%) Docker Swarm
4 1 (0.32%) McAfee ePO
4 1 (0.32%) PTC Integrity
4 1 (0.32%) SolarWinds Orion
4 1 (0.32%) WMI
4 1 (0.32%) WSUS
Vendors
1 19 (6.11%) Oracle
2 15 (4.82%) Google
3 13 (4.18%) Microsoft
4 6 (1.93%) IBM
5 4 (1.29%) Red Hat
6 3 (0.96%) MathWorks
7 1 (0.32%) Cisco
7 1 (0.32%) Cloudera
7 1 (0.32%) F5
7 1 (0.32%) Fortinet
7 1 (0.32%) Green Hills
7 1 (0.32%) McAfee
7 1 (0.32%) Palo Alto
7 1 (0.32%) PTC
7 1 (0.32%) QinetiQ
7 1 (0.32%) SolarWinds
7 1 (0.32%) Thales