Software Engineer Contracts in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Software Engineer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 June 2024.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jun 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 63 131 135
Rank change year-on-year +68 +4 -20
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 637 423 604
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 2.99% 1.86% 1.99%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.23% 1.98% 2.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 136 213 310
10th Percentile £323 £413 £413
25th Percentile £425 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% +0.95% +16.67%
75th Percentile £577 £600 £625
90th Percentile £688 £675 £696
UK median daily rate £625 £600 £600
% change year-on-year +4.17% - +20.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 355 122 111
10th Percentile £46.25 £47.08 £47.50
25th Percentile £52.50 £53.75 £52.13
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year - +8.33% +26.32%
75th Percentile £70.00 £70.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £79.80 £65.75
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +1.96% +6.25% +26.32%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 19,709 21,379 29,050
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.42% 94.21% 95.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,751 14,853 20,421
10th Percentile £213 £225 £208
25th Percentile £363 £388 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% +5.26% +8.57%
75th Percentile £593 £600 £575
90th Percentile £680 £688 £656
UK median daily rate £525 £538 £525
% change year-on-year -2.42% +2.48% +6.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,515 1,090 1,383
10th Percentile £12.63 £13.41 £12.50
25th Percentile £15.92 £18.08 £15.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £42.08 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.94% +110.39% +7.82%
75th Percentile £62.83 £65.00 £47.25
90th Percentile £74.00 £75.68 £62.45
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £45.00 £25.00
% change year-on-year -16.67% +80.00% +16.28%

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings that featured Software Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Software Engineer in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Software Engineer in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Software Engineer in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 18 June 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineer in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Software Engineer in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Software Engineer in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 18 June 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineer in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Software Engineer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 18 June 2024. 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
East of England +29 164 £493 -10.45% 127
South East +54 148 £475 -9.52% 194
South West +26 141 £550 +3.53% 168
North of England +73 130 £463 -15.91% 172
North West +71 97 £525 -0.94% 109
Scotland +44 25 £320 -35.03% 69
Midlands -3 20 £500 -7.49% 122
Yorkshire +15 19 £400 -20.00% 36
North East +12 14 - - 28
East Midlands +6 10 £500 +17.65% 53
West Midlands -1 10 £513 -13.14% 68
Wales +17 6 £458 -22.95% 23
Northern Ireland - 4 £675 - 19
Software Engineer
UK

Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 18 June 2024, Software Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 634 (99.53%) Software Engineering
2 195 (30.61%) C++
3 182 (28.57%) Agile
4 173 (27.16%) C
5 146 (22.92%) Linux
6 115 (18.05%) Security Cleared
7 112 (17.58%) Java
8 97 (15.23%) DevOps
9 93 (14.60%) C#
10 89 (13.97%) Social Skills
11 83 (13.03%) Python
12 79 (12.40%) CI/CD
13 77 (12.09%) SC Cleared
14 76 (11.93%) Electronics
15 73 (11.46%) Aerospace
16 72 (11.30%) Continuous Integration
17 70 (10.99%) Validation
17 70 (10.99%) JavaScript
18 67 (10.52%) AWS
19 65 (10.20%) Git
19 65 (10.20%) JIRA
20 62 (9.73%) TDD
21 58 (9.11%) Degree
21 58 (9.11%) Embedded C
22 55 (8.63%) Computer Science
23 54 (8.48%) Jenkins
24 53 (8.32%) Scrum
25 52 (8.16%) Unit Testing
26 51 (8.01%) Test Automation
26 51 (8.01%) SDLC

Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 21 (3.30%) Confluence
2 3 (0.47%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.31%) Apache
3 2 (0.31%) Apache Solr
3 2 (0.31%) Drupal
4 1 (0.16%) Ethereum
4 1 (0.16%) MetaMask
4 1 (0.16%) MTS
4 1 (0.16%) Tomcat
4 1 (0.16%) WebSphere
Applications
1 23 (3.61%) Simulink
2 16 (2.51%) Stateflow
3 3 (0.47%) Adobe After Effects
3 3 (0.47%) Blender
3 3 (0.47%) Maya
3 3 (0.47%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 14 (2.20%) Misys Midas
2 1 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 67 (10.52%) AWS
2 42 (6.59%) Azure
3 38 (5.97%) GitHub
4 15 (2.35%) GCP
4 15 (2.35%) Serverless
5 9 (1.41%) Azure DevOps
6 8 (1.26%) AWS Lambda
7 6 (0.94%) BrowserStack
8 5 (0.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 5 (0.78%) Cloud Computing
8 5 (0.78%) npm
9 3 (0.47%) Azure Functions
9 3 (0.47%) Power Platform
10 2 (0.31%) Google App Engine
10 2 (0.31%) OpenShift
10 2 (0.31%) Pulumi
11 1 (0.16%) Azure Batch
11 1 (0.16%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 1 (0.16%) Figma
11 1 (0.16%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 36 (5.65%) RS-485
2 33 (5.18%) Modbus
2 33 (5.18%) RS-422
3 29 (4.55%) Software-Defined Radio
4 18 (2.83%) SNMP
5 14 (2.20%) TCP/IP
6 13 (2.04%) HTTP
7 10 (1.57%) Ethernet
8 8 (1.26%) Link 16
9 7 (1.10%) Tactical Data Link
10 6 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
10 6 (0.94%) Wireless
11 5 (0.78%) 802.11
11 5 (0.78%) Internet
11 5 (0.78%) J1939
12 4 (0.63%) Firewall
12 4 (0.63%) Radio Access Network
12 4 (0.63%) VPN
13 3 (0.47%) RS-232
14 1 (0.16%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (2.51%) MySQL
2 15 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (1.73%) MongoDB
4 10 (1.57%) NoSQL
5 6 (0.94%) SQLite
6 5 (0.78%) Relational Database
6 5 (0.78%) SQL Server
7 3 (0.47%) BigQuery
7 3 (0.47%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.31%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.31%) Big Data
8 2 (0.31%) Couchbase
8 2 (0.31%) DynamoDB
8 2 (0.31%) Hadoop
9 1 (0.16%) Apache Cassandra
9 1 (0.16%) CouchDB
9 1 (0.16%) Geospatial Data
9 1 (0.16%) Metadata
9 1 (0.16%) Redis
Development Applications
1 65 (10.20%) Git
1 65 (10.20%) JIRA
2 54 (8.48%) Jenkins
3 39 (6.12%) GoogleTest
4 29 (4.55%) Eclipse
5 21 (3.30%) Bitbucket
5 21 (3.30%) Visual Studio
6 19 (2.98%) Rational DOORS
7 15 (2.35%) Cypress.io
7 15 (2.35%) Robot Framework
8 14 (2.20%) Rational Rhapsody
9 10 (1.57%) SonarQube
10 9 (1.41%) Selenium
11 8 (1.26%) GitLab
12 7 (1.10%) Cucumber
13 5 (0.78%) Checkstyle
13 5 (0.78%) REST Assured
13 5 (0.78%) Subversion
14 4 (0.63%) Artifactory
14 4 (0.63%) JUnit
General
1 89 (13.97%) Social Skills
2 76 (11.93%) Electronics
3 73 (11.46%) Aerospace
4 37 (5.81%) Automotive
5 26 (4.08%) Military
6 20 (3.14%) Manufacturing
7 16 (2.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 16 (2.51%) Telecoms
8 15 (2.35%) Finance
9 14 (2.20%) Legal
10 12 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
11 10 (1.57%) Aviation
11 10 (1.57%) Law
12 9 (1.41%) Analytical Skills
13 5 (0.78%) Public Sector
14 4 (0.63%) Billing
14 4 (0.63%) Games
14 4 (0.63%) Police
14 4 (0.63%) Tech for Good
15 3 (0.47%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (7.54%) React
2 37 (5.81%) Node.js
3 31 (4.87%) CSS
3 31 (4.87%) HTML
4 30 (4.71%) RESTful
5 28 (4.40%) .NET
6 24 (3.77%) Qt
7 23 (3.61%) AngularJS
8 21 (3.30%) Spring
9 19 (2.98%) REST
10 17 (2.67%) Spring Boot
10 17 (2.67%) Web Services
11 13 (2.04%) .NET Core
11 13 (2.04%) XML
12 12 (1.88%) .NET Framework
13 9 (1.41%) Java EE
14 8 (1.26%) Kafka
15 7 (1.10%) JSON
15 7 (1.10%) Next.js
16 6 (0.94%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 30 (4.71%) Self-Motivation
2 25 (3.92%) ARM Cortex
3 24 (3.77%) Algorithms
3 24 (3.77%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 20 (3.14%) Linux Command Line
5 9 (1.41%) Embedded Systems
6 8 (1.26%) Device Driver
6 8 (1.26%) IoT
7 7 (1.10%) PCIe
8 5 (0.78%) CAN bus
8 5 (0.78%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (0.78%) Data Structures
8 5 (0.78%) Renewable Energy
9 4 (0.63%) Augmented Reality
9 4 (0.63%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (0.63%) Product Ownership
9 4 (0.63%) Verilog
9 4 (0.63%) VHDL
10 3 (0.47%) FPGA
10 3 (0.47%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 146 (22.92%) Linux
2 38 (5.97%) Windows
3 27 (4.24%) FreeRTOS
4 16 (2.51%) Embedded Linux
5 4 (0.63%) Android
5 4 (0.63%) SafeRTOS
5 4 (0.63%) VxWorks
6 3 (0.47%) Unix
7 2 (0.31%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.16%) CentOS
8 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 634 (99.53%) Software Engineering
2 182 (28.57%) Agile
3 97 (15.23%) DevOps
4 79 (12.40%) CI/CD
5 72 (11.30%) Continuous Integration
6 70 (10.99%) Validation
7 62 (9.73%) TDD
8 55 (8.63%) Computer Science
9 53 (8.32%) Scrum
10 52 (8.16%) Unit Testing
11 51 (8.01%) SDLC
11 51 (8.01%) Test Automation
12 46 (7.22%) Problem-Solving
12 46 (7.22%) Software Testing
13 44 (6.91%) Verification and Validation
14 43 (6.75%) Continuous Improvement
14 43 (6.75%) UML
15 39 (6.12%) Pair Programming
16 38 (5.97%) Configuration Management
16 38 (5.97%) Customer Requirements
Programming Languages
1 195 (30.61%) C++
2 173 (27.16%) C
3 112 (17.58%) Java
4 93 (14.60%) C#
5 83 (13.03%) Python
6 70 (10.99%) JavaScript
7 58 (9.11%) Embedded C
8 39 (6.12%) Ada
9 37 (5.81%) TypeScript
10 28 (4.40%) MATLAB
11 22 (3.45%) SQL
12 16 (2.51%) Perl
13 13 (2.04%) PHP
14 12 (1.88%) Bash
15 11 (1.73%) Rust
16 8 (1.26%) Embedded C++
17 7 (1.10%) Ada 95
18 6 (0.94%) PowerShell
18 6 (0.94%) Shell Script
19 5 (0.78%) Assembly Language
Qualifications
1 115 (18.05%) Security Cleared
2 77 (12.09%) SC Cleared
3 58 (9.11%) Degree
4 36 (5.65%) DV Cleared
5 21 (3.30%) Computer Science Degree
6 18 (2.83%) Master's Degree
7 12 (1.88%) PhD
8 2 (0.31%) HND
9 1 (0.16%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.16%) Chartered Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (5.18%) MISRA
2 8 (1.26%) MISRA C
3 6 (0.94%) Accessibility
3 6 (0.94%) AUTOSAR
3 6 (0.94%) QA
4 5 (0.78%) JTAG
5 1 (0.16%) HL7
5 1 (0.16%) ISO 13485
5 1 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.16%) SLA
System Software
1 32 (5.02%) Firmware
2 25 (3.92%) Docker
3 5 (0.78%) VirtualBox
4 4 (0.63%) Embedded Firmware
4 4 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.31%) zsh
6 1 (0.16%) Active Directory
6 1 (0.16%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.16%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 24 (3.77%) Kubernetes
2 12 (1.88%) Terraform
3 11 (1.73%) Ansible
4 8 (1.26%) Grafana
5 6 (0.94%) Functional Safety
6 5 (0.78%) Docker Swarm
6 5 (0.78%) Podman
7 1 (0.16%) HP ALM
7 1 (0.16%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.16%) Puppet
Vendors
1 45 (7.06%) Google
2 35 (5.49%) IBM
3 25 (3.92%) Atlassian
3 25 (3.92%) Lauterbach
4 24 (3.77%) Microsoft
5 7 (1.10%) Oracle
6 5 (0.78%) NVIDIA
7 4 (0.63%) Adobe
7 4 (0.63%) Intel
8 3 (0.47%) MathWorks
8 3 (0.47%) Red Hat
8 3 (0.47%) SAP
8 3 (0.47%) Xamarin
9 2 (0.31%) CA Agile Central
9 2 (0.31%) Denodo
9 2 (0.31%) Sitecore
9 2 (0.31%) Talend
9 2 (0.31%) Twitter
10 1 (0.16%) QinetiQ
10 1 (0.16%) Sparx