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

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 32 28
Rank change year-on-year +20 -4 -11
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 314 91 186
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 8.91% 4.81% 6.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.08% 5.37% 7.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 93 42 51
10th Percentile £485 £355 £425
25th Percentile £513 £385 £454
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £620 £600
90th Percentile £671 £681 £688
England median daily rate £550 £600 £615
% change year-on-year -8.33% -2.44% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 149 30 96
10th Percentile £53.91 - £55.00
25th Percentile - £65.00 £65.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £68.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.41% -2.86% +7.28%
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.56 -
90th Percentile - £75.25 £73.75
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

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 2,833 1,696 2,545
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 80.35% 89.59% 83.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,558 1,004 1,616
10th Percentile £325 £220 £263
25th Percentile £415 £363 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £608 £613 £627
90th Percentile £700 £688 £700
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 436 200 342
10th Percentile £16.62 £15.25 £14.04
25th Percentile £32.50 £18.51 £35.00
Median hourly rate £57.50 £25.15 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +128.63% -61.31% -
75th Percentile £68.00 £65.00 £71.50
90th Percentile £76.75 £70.00 £75.00
England median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -37.13% -6.98%

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 22 July 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 22 July 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 22 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
Bristol +16 227 £525 +41.89% 70
Gloucestershire +9 31 £550 -18.97% 83
Somerset -13 18 £525 +14.13% 27
Devon -11 14 £613 +36.11% 13
Wiltshire -10 11 £575 -1.71% 10
Dorset -6 6 £550 +15.79% 15
Cornwall - 3 £750 -
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 7 (2.23%) Confluence
2 4 (1.27%) Apache
2 4 (1.27%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.96%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 4 (1.27%) Spreadsheet
2 3 (0.96%) Simulink
3 2 (0.64%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 39 (12.42%) AWS
2 26 (8.28%) Azure
3 9 (2.87%) GCP
4 7 (2.23%) Serverless
5 6 (1.91%) GitHub
6 4 (1.27%) Entra ID
6 4 (1.27%) OCI
7 3 (0.96%) AWS CloudFormation
7 3 (0.96%) AWS Lambda
8 2 (0.64%) Amazon S3
8 2 (0.64%) Azure DevOps
8 2 (0.64%) Azure Functions
8 2 (0.64%) Azure Key Vault
8 2 (0.64%) Azure Service Bus
8 2 (0.64%) dbt
8 2 (0.64%) GitHub Copilot
8 2 (0.64%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (0.64%) OpenShift
8 2 (0.64%) Power Platform
8 2 (0.64%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.23%) Ethernet
1 7 (2.23%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.32%) AMQP
2 1 (0.32%) Firewall
2 1 (0.32%) Network Security
2 1 (0.32%) RS-232
2 1 (0.32%) RS-422
2 1 (0.32%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.91%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (0.96%) Apache Cassandra
2 3 (0.96%) Big Data
2 3 (0.96%) Elasticsearch
2 3 (0.96%) HBase
2 3 (0.96%) NoSQL
2 3 (0.96%) Relational Database
3 2 (0.64%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.64%) Geospatial Data
3 2 (0.64%) Power BI
4 1 (0.32%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (0.32%) DynamoDB
4 1 (0.32%) GIS
4 1 (0.32%) InfluxDB
4 1 (0.32%) MongoDB
4 1 (0.32%) QGIS
4 1 (0.32%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 21 (6.69%) Git
2 17 (5.41%) GitLab
3 15 (4.78%) Jenkins
4 11 (3.50%) JIRA
4 11 (3.50%) Rational Rhapsody
5 8 (2.55%) Visual Studio
6 6 (1.91%) Eclipse
7 4 (1.27%) JUnit
7 4 (1.27%) Selenium
8 2 (0.64%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.64%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.32%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.32%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.32%) NUnit
General
1 34 (10.83%) Social Skills
2 32 (10.19%) Aerospace
3 15 (4.78%) Finance
4 10 (3.18%) Public Sector
5 9 (2.87%) Law
6 8 (2.55%) Military
7 6 (1.91%) Analytical Skills
7 6 (1.91%) Automotive
8 3 (0.96%) Avionics
8 3 (0.96%) Banking
9 2 (0.64%) Documentation Skills
9 2 (0.64%) Legal
9 2 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (0.64%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.32%) Aviation
10 1 (0.32%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 250 (79.62%) Software Engineer
2 59 (18.79%) C++ Software Engineer
3 44 (14.01%) Ada Engineer
3 44 (14.01%) Ada Software Engineer
3 44 (14.01%) Embedded Engineer
3 44 (14.01%) Embedded Software Engineer
4 30 (9.55%) Developer
5 20 (6.37%) Algorithm Engineer
6 18 (5.73%) Applications Engineer
7 17 (5.41%) Software Developer
8 15 (4.78%) Java Engineer
9 14 (4.46%) C# Software Engineer
9 14 (4.46%) Java Software Engineer
9 14 (4.46%) Senior
10 13 (4.14%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
11 12 (3.82%) Lead
11 12 (3.82%) PHP Software Engineer
12 10 (3.18%) Senior Software Engineer
13 5 (1.59%) Java Developer
13 5 (1.59%) Lead Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (6.05%) REST
2 13 (4.14%) Middleware
3 11 (3.50%) Node.js
4 10 (3.18%) Qt
4 10 (3.18%) React
5 9 (2.87%) .NET
6 7 (2.23%) Web Services
7 6 (1.91%) AWS CDK
8 5 (1.59%) Jest
8 5 (1.59%) Oracle Fusion
9 4 (1.27%) GraphQL
9 4 (1.27%) Quarkus
9 4 (1.27%) SOAP
9 4 (1.27%) Spring
9 4 (1.27%) Spring Boot
10 3 (0.96%) .NET Framework
10 3 (0.96%) Flask
10 3 (0.96%) Kafka
11 2 (0.64%) RabbitMQ
11 2 (0.64%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 31 (9.87%) Algorithms
2 18 (5.73%) Cloud Native
3 11 (3.50%) Self-Motivation
4 9 (2.87%) Legacy Systems
5 7 (2.23%) Product Ownership
6 6 (1.91%) Embedded Systems
7 3 (0.96%) Clustering
7 3 (0.96%) Distributed Systems
8 2 (0.64%) Device Driver
8 2 (0.64%) Wiki
9 1 (0.32%) AI Agents
9 1 (0.32%) Greenfield Project
9 1 (0.32%) Legacy Applications
9 1 (0.32%) Linux Command Line
9 1 (0.32%) Low-Code
9 1 (0.32%) Management Information System
9 1 (0.32%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.32%) Video\Live Streaming
9 1 (0.32%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 50 (15.92%) Linux
2 12 (3.82%) Windows
3 10 (3.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (1.59%) Embedded Linux
5 3 (0.96%) Android
5 3 (0.96%) Debian
5 3 (0.96%) Rocky
5 3 (0.96%) Ubuntu
5 3 (0.96%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.32%) FreeRTOS
6 1 (0.32%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 52 (16.56%) CI/CD
2 43 (13.69%) Agile
3 26 (8.28%) DevOps
4 21 (6.69%) UML
5 19 (6.05%) SDLC
5 19 (6.05%) Test Automation
6 17 (5.41%) Problem-Solving
7 16 (5.10%) Containerisation
7 16 (5.10%) Technical Leadership
8 15 (4.78%) AI
8 15 (4.78%) TDD
9 14 (4.46%) SysML
10 12 (3.82%) Configuration Management
10 12 (3.82%) Continuous Improvement
10 12 (3.82%) Infrastructure as Code
10 12 (3.82%) Microservices
10 12 (3.82%) Platform Engineering
10 12 (3.82%) Stakeholder Management
11 11 (3.50%) Mentoring
11 11 (3.50%) Synthetic Environment
Programming Languages
1 82 (26.11%) Ada
2 78 (24.84%) C++
3 46 (14.65%) Python
4 39 (12.42%) Java
5 34 (10.83%) C#
6 17 (5.41%) JavaScript
7 16 (5.10%) MATLAB
8 14 (4.46%) C
9 12 (3.82%) PHP
9 12 (3.82%) SQL
9 12 (3.82%) TypeScript
10 10 (3.18%) PowerShell
11 7 (2.23%) Bash
12 5 (1.59%) Go
12 5 (1.59%) PL/SQL
13 3 (0.96%) Rust
14 1 (0.32%) Ada 95
14 1 (0.32%) Fortran
14 1 (0.32%) Kotlin
14 1 (0.32%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 106 (33.76%) Security Cleared
2 83 (26.43%) SC Cleared
3 18 (5.73%) DV Cleared
4 14 (4.46%) Degree
5 10 (3.18%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (1.91%) Chartered Engineer
6 6 (1.91%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (0.64%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.64%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified Developer
8 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
8 1 (0.32%) CCNP
8 1 (0.32%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.32%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.32%) ISTQB
8 1 (0.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (0.32%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.32%) Postgraduate
8 1 (0.32%) RHCA
8 1 (0.32%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (5.41%) IEC 61508
2 14 (4.46%) Def Stans
3 11 (3.50%) QA
4 6 (1.91%) Accessibility
4 6 (1.91%) MISRA
4 6 (1.91%) MISRA C
5 5 (1.59%) NCSC
5 5 (1.59%) WCAG
6 3 (0.96%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.32%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.32%) GDPR
7 1 (0.32%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 27 (8.60%) Docker
2 2 (0.64%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 24 (7.64%) Kubernetes
2 15 (4.78%) Ansible
3 11 (3.50%) Terraform
4 3 (0.96%) Functional Safety
4 3 (0.96%) Progress Chef
4 3 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.64%) Docker Swarm
5 2 (0.64%) Puppet
6 1 (0.32%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
6 1 (0.32%) Grafana
6 1 (0.32%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.32%) PTC Integrity
Vendors
1 11 (3.50%) Microsoft
1 11 (3.50%) Oracle
2 6 (1.91%) IBM
3 5 (1.59%) MathWorks
3 5 (1.59%) Red Hat
4 2 (0.64%) Google
5 1 (0.32%) Cloudera
5 1 (0.32%) Databricks
5 1 (0.32%) F5
5 1 (0.32%) Green Hills
5 1 (0.32%) PTC
5 1 (0.32%) VMware