Software Engineering Contracts in the UK excluding London

Software Engineering
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Software Engineering skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Software Engineering over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 50 33 48
Rank change year-on-year -17 +15 -5
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 557 1,070 1,056
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 4.36% 5.15% 4.39%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.83% 6.08% 4.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 322 434 636
10th Percentile £355 £358 £413
25th Percentile £425 £425 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -5.56% +2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £699 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £600 £600 £600
% change year-on-year - - +3.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 333 162
10th Percentile £51.12 £46.25 £46.50
25th Percentile £60.31 £52.50 £53.75
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +14.54%
75th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £68.56
90th Percentile £68.75 £80.00 £74.87
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £64.15
% change year-on-year +4.00% -2.56% +16.63%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 11,543 17,602 21,544
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 90.42% 84.74% 89.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,249 10,520 14,947
10th Percentile £235 £250 £255
25th Percentile £375 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £662 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 825 2,048 1,307
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.33 £11.00
25th Percentile £17.30 £15.28 £16.00
Median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%
75th Percentile £64.50 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £72.98
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
% change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Software Engineering as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Software Engineering in the UK excluding London

Software Engineering
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Daily rate trend for Software Engineering in the UK excluding London

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineering in the UK excluding London

Software Engineering
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Hourly rate trend for Software Engineering in the UK excluding London

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineering in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineering in the UK excluding London

Software Engineering
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 Engineering within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 May 2025. 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
North of England -26 124 £500 -4.76% 779
South West +10 113 £575 +9.52% 383
South East -20 113 £513 -6.82% 980
Scotland +3 94 £478 -4.02% 252
North West -14 85 £500 -8.88% 463
Midlands -12 54 £483 -1.83% 411
West Midlands -12 36 £531 +18.00% 218
Yorkshire -18 36 £500 +25.00% 214
East of England -37 36 £488 -2.35% 428
East Midlands -5 15 £490 -10.91% 168
Northern Ireland +2 13 £325 -51.85% 45
Wales -6 11 £475 -13.79% 55
North East -27 3 £460 +17.95% 107
Software Engineering
UK

Software Engineering
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 34 (6.10%) Confluence
2 11 (1.97%) Apache
3 7 (1.26%) Apache Spark
4 5 (0.90%) CMS
5 4 (0.72%) Drupal
5 4 (0.72%) WordPress
6 3 (0.54%) SharePoint
7 2 (0.36%) GemFire
7 2 (0.36%) TPMS
8 1 (0.18%) Camunda
8 1 (0.18%) JBoss
8 1 (0.18%) OpenROAD
8 1 (0.18%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.18%) WebSphere
Applications
1 5 (0.90%) Simulink
2 4 (0.72%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.18%) Acrobat
3 1 (0.18%) CANalyzer
3 1 (0.18%) Fusion 360
3 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.18%) Siemens NX
3 1 (0.18%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 6 (1.08%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.54%) SAP ERP
2 3 (0.54%) SAP EWM
2 3 (0.54%) SAP GTS
3 2 (0.36%) LabWindows
3 2 (0.36%) Misys Midas
3 2 (0.36%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 141 (25.31%) AWS
2 116 (20.83%) Azure
3 41 (7.36%) GCP
4 33 (5.92%) Serverless
5 24 (4.31%) Azure DevOps
6 21 (3.77%) Amazon S3
6 21 (3.77%) AWS Lambda
7 20 (3.59%) GitHub
8 19 (3.41%) SaaS
9 15 (2.69%) Cloud Computing
10 14 (2.51%) OpenShift
11 11 (1.97%) AWS CloudFormation
12 9 (1.62%) Amazon EC2
12 9 (1.62%) AWS CodeBuild
13 7 (1.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 7 (1.26%) Amazon EKS
13 7 (1.26%) Power Platform
14 6 (1.08%) Azure AKS
14 6 (1.08%) Azure Data Factory
14 6 (1.08%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.26%) HTTP
1 7 (1.26%) SNMP
1 7 (1.26%) Software-Defined Radio
2 6 (1.08%) SAN
3 5 (0.90%) Ethernet
3 5 (0.90%) Internet
3 5 (0.90%) NAS
3 5 (0.90%) TCP/IP
4 4 (0.72%) HTTPS
5 3 (0.54%) Firewall
6 1 (0.18%) BGP
6 1 (0.18%) DHCP
6 1 (0.18%) DWDM
6 1 (0.18%) IGRP
6 1 (0.18%) Intranet
6 1 (0.18%) IPsec
6 1 (0.18%) MPLS
6 1 (0.18%) OSPF
6 1 (0.18%) SSL
6 1 (0.18%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (9.69%) Relational Database
2 49 (8.80%) PostgreSQL
3 38 (6.82%) MongoDB
4 31 (5.57%) MySQL
5 28 (5.03%) SQL Server
6 22 (3.95%) NoSQL
7 14 (2.51%) Big Data
8 12 (2.15%) Apache Cassandra
8 12 (2.15%) DB2
9 10 (1.80%) Hadoop
10 9 (1.62%) Elasticsearch
10 9 (1.62%) RDBMS
11 8 (1.44%) Data Lake
12 7 (1.26%) Azure SQL Database
13 5 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
13 5 (0.90%) DynamoDB
13 5 (0.90%) Power BI
14 4 (0.72%) Amazon Aurora
14 4 (0.72%) Oracle Database
14 4 (0.72%) Oracle Database 11g
Development Applications
1 85 (15.26%) Git
2 72 (12.93%) JIRA
3 67 (12.03%) Jenkins
4 42 (7.54%) GitLab
5 38 (6.82%) JUnit
6 29 (5.21%) Bitbucket
7 23 (4.13%) Cucumber
8 19 (3.41%) Eclipse
8 19 (3.41%) GoogleTest
9 16 (2.87%) Selenium
10 14 (2.51%) Rational DOORS
11 13 (2.33%) REST Assured
11 13 (2.33%) Robot Framework
11 13 (2.33%) Visual Studio
12 12 (2.15%) Mockito
13 11 (1.97%) Liquibase
14 10 (1.80%) Gradle
14 10 (1.80%) SonarQube
15 7 (1.26%) Jasmine
15 7 (1.26%) TestRail
General
1 140 (25.13%) Social Skills
2 93 (16.70%) Finance
3 65 (11.67%) Public Sector
4 63 (11.31%) Analytical Skills
5 32 (5.75%) Telecoms
6 27 (4.85%) Electronics
7 26 (4.67%) Manufacturing
7 26 (4.67%) Marketing
8 20 (3.59%) Aerospace
9 17 (3.05%) Banking
9 17 (3.05%) Front Office
9 17 (3.05%) Law
10 10 (1.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 9 (1.62%) Legal
11 9 (1.62%) Military
12 8 (1.44%) Automotive
13 7 (1.26%) Financial Institution
14 6 (1.08%) Police
14 6 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
15 5 (0.90%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 243 (43.63%) Software Engineer
2 137 (24.60%) Developer
3 78 (14.00%) Senior
4 68 (12.21%) Java Developer
5 51 (9.16%) Senior Software Engineer
6 47 (8.44%) Java Engineer
7 42 (7.54%) Java Software Engineer
8 30 (5.39%) Embedded Engineer
9 29 (5.21%) Embedded Software Engineer
10 28 (5.03%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
11 27 (4.85%) Architect
12 26 (4.67%) C++ Software Engineer
13 20 (3.59%) Senior Developer
14 19 (3.41%) C# Software Engineer
14 19 (3.41%) DevOps Engineer
15 18 (3.23%) Python Engineer
16 17 (3.05%) Full-Stack Engineer
17 16 (2.87%) Lead
17 16 (2.87%) Linux Engineer
17 16 (2.87%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (11.49%) .NET
2 62 (11.13%) React
2 62 (11.13%) Spring
3 55 (9.87%) Spring Boot
4 54 (9.69%) CSS
5 45 (8.08%) HTML
6 44 (7.90%) Node.js
7 40 (7.18%) Kafka
8 38 (6.82%) AngularJS
8 38 (6.82%) REST
9 37 (6.64%) Middleware
10 36 (6.46%) RESTful
11 20 (3.59%) Swagger
12 18 (3.23%) OpenAPI
13 17 (3.05%) Web Services
14 14 (2.51%) Java EE
15 13 (2.33%) Qt
16 12 (2.15%) JSON
16 12 (2.15%) SOAP
17 10 (1.80%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 29 (5.21%) Algorithms
1 29 (5.21%) Product Ownership
2 23 (4.13%) Data Structures
3 15 (2.69%) Greenfield Project
4 13 (2.33%) Equities
4 13 (2.33%) Equity Derivative
4 13 (2.33%) FPGA
4 13 (2.33%) Management Information System
5 12 (2.15%) Derivative
5 12 (2.15%) Mobile App
6 10 (1.80%) Cloud Native
6 10 (1.80%) Verilog
7 9 (1.62%) Data Centre
8 8 (1.44%) PKI
9 7 (1.26%) Public Cloud
10 6 (1.08%) Distributed Systems
10 6 (1.08%) Replication
10 6 (1.08%) Virtual Team
11 5 (0.90%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 5 (0.90%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 147 (26.39%) Linux
2 44 (7.90%) Windows
3 38 (6.82%) Unix
4 21 (3.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 11 (1.97%) Ubuntu
5 11 (1.97%) Windows Server
6 9 (1.62%) Android
6 9 (1.62%) Apple iOS
7 8 (1.44%) Embedded Linux
8 6 (1.08%) HPUX
8 6 (1.08%) Solaris
9 3 (0.54%) VxWorks
10 2 (0.36%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.18%) FreeRTOS
11 1 (0.18%) VMS
11 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 213 (38.24%) Agile
2 159 (28.55%) CI/CD
3 119 (21.36%) DevOps
4 113 (20.29%) Problem-Solving
5 96 (17.24%) Test Automation
6 78 (14.00%) TDD
7 69 (12.39%) Microservices
8 66 (11.85%) Scrum
9 62 (11.13%) Continuous Integration
10 60 (10.77%) Containerisation
11 56 (10.05%) Computer Science
12 51 (9.16%) Design Patterns
13 46 (8.26%) User Experience
14 45 (8.08%) Full-Stack Development
15 42 (7.54%) Multithreading
16 39 (7.00%) OO
17 38 (6.82%) SDLC
18 37 (6.64%) Continuous Delivery
18 37 (6.64%) Infrastructure as Code
18 37 (6.64%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 173 (31.06%) Java
2 136 (24.42%) Python
3 127 (22.80%) SQL
4 124 (22.26%) JavaScript
5 75 (13.46%) C#
6 72 (12.93%) C++
7 66 (11.85%) TypeScript
8 45 (8.08%) Ada
9 36 (6.46%) Shell Script
10 32 (5.75%) C
11 22 (3.95%) PowerShell
12 17 (3.05%) Bash
13 15 (2.69%) PHP
14 10 (1.80%) SystemVerilog
14 10 (1.80%) Tcl
15 8 (1.44%) Kotlin
16 6 (1.08%) MATLAB
16 6 (1.08%) Swift
17 5 (0.90%) PL/SQL
17 5 (0.90%) Rust
Qualifications
1 176 (31.60%) Security Cleared
2 147 (26.39%) SC Cleared
3 67 (12.03%) Degree
4 41 (7.36%) Computer Science Degree
5 27 (4.85%) DV Cleared
6 17 (3.05%) Azure Certification
7 9 (1.62%) Microsoft Certification
7 9 (1.62%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 8 (1.44%) AWS Certification
9 7 (1.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 4 (0.72%) Cisco Certification
11 3 (0.54%) CCNP
11 3 (0.54%) Master's Degree
12 2 (0.36%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (0.36%) CISM
12 2 (0.36%) CISSP
12 2 (0.36%) OCA
12 2 (0.36%) Oracle Certification
12 2 (0.36%) RHCE
12 2 (0.36%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (7.00%) QA
2 24 (4.31%) IEC 61508
3 23 (4.13%) Def Stans
4 17 (3.05%) MISRA
4 17 (3.05%) MISRA C
5 10 (1.80%) Accessibility
6 5 (0.90%) Disclosure Scotland
7 4 (0.72%) GDPR
8 3 (0.54%) Data Quality
8 3 (0.54%) NIST
8 3 (0.54%) Software Quality Assurance
9 2 (0.36%) DO-178B
9 2 (0.36%) ISO 26262
9 2 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 2 (0.36%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.36%) WCAG
10 1 (0.18%) Government Security Classifications
10 1 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 27005
10 1 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 75 (13.46%) Docker
2 4 (0.72%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.54%) Firmware
3 3 (0.54%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.36%) Active Directory
4 2 (0.36%) vSphere
5 1 (0.18%) GPFS
5 1 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 69 (12.39%) Kubernetes
2 58 (10.41%) Terraform
3 33 (5.92%) Ansible
4 13 (2.33%) Grafana
5 10 (1.80%) Docker Swarm
6 9 (1.62%) Podman
7 6 (1.08%) Prometheus
8 5 (0.90%) NetBackup
8 5 (0.90%) Oracle RMAN
9 3 (0.54%) Kibana
9 3 (0.54%) Opsview
9 3 (0.54%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (0.54%) WMI
10 2 (0.36%) FortiGate
10 2 (0.36%) PowerCLI
10 2 (0.36%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.36%) Puppet
10 2 (0.36%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.18%) SCCM
11 1 (0.18%) Veritas Storage Foundation
Vendors
1 56 (10.05%) Google
2 41 (7.36%) Microsoft
3 26 (4.67%) SAP
4 21 (3.77%) Atlassian
4 21 (3.77%) Oracle
5 15 (2.69%) Red Hat
6 14 (2.51%) VMware
7 11 (1.97%) Databricks
8 10 (1.80%) Sybase
8 10 (1.80%) Xilinx
9 9 (1.62%) IBM
10 8 (1.44%) Intel
11 6 (1.08%) Adobe
11 6 (1.08%) Splunk
11 6 (1.08%) Sun
11 6 (1.08%) Veritas
12 5 (0.90%) PagerDuty
12 5 (0.90%) Ping Identity
12 5 (0.90%) Siemens
12 5 (0.90%) Unisys