Head of Engineering Contracts

Head of Engineering
UK

The median Head of Engineering daily rate in the UK is £688, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 July 2025.

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

6 months to
7 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 523 572 645
Rank change year-on-year +49 +73 +192
Contract jobs requiring a Head of Engineering 20 24 40
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.063% 0.055% 0.070%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.068% 0.060% 0.074%
Number of daily rates quoted 6 17 26
10th Percentile £553 £570 £646
25th Percentile £598 £650 £703
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £688 £820 £800
Median % change year-on-year -16.16% +2.50% +3.23%
75th Percentile £747 £888 £988
90th Percentile £863 £963 £1,188
UK excluding London median daily rate £650 £650 £680
% change year-on-year - -4.41% -6.21%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 29,319 40,234 53,898
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 93.01% 94.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,683 25,888 37,411
10th Percentile £287 £285 £313
25th Percentile £400 £409 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +0.94%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -3.65% -1.40% +3.84%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,330 2,797 1,580
10th Percentile £13.75 £12.86 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.36 £16.65 £19.00
Median hourly rate £26.39 £37.50 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year -29.64% -12.79% +72.00%
75th Percentile £55.25 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £73.25 £74.00 £76.99
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £39.55
% change year-on-year -37.13% +1.14% +97.75%

Head of Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Head of Engineering in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Head of Engineering in the UK

Head of Engineering
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Head of Engineering.

Daily rate trend for Head of Engineering in the UK

Head of Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Head of Engineering over the 6 months to 7 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Head of Engineering in the UK

Head of Engineering
Top 9 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Head of Engineering within the UK over the 6 months to 7 July 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
England +47 18 £650 -20.73% 111
London +24 11 £769 -8.21% 70
UK excluding London +51 8 £650 - 46
Work from Home +37 8 £738 -1.67% 46
North of England +4 4 £700 -20.00% 18
North West +4 3 £650 -25.71% 7
South West - 3 £550 - 11
North East - 1 £750 - 1
Scotland - 1 - - 5

Head of Engineering Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 7 July 2025, Head of Engineering 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 featuring Head of Engineering in the job title.

1 8 (40.00%) Finance
2 7 (35.00%) Azure
2 7 (35.00%) AWS
3 6 (30.00%) Banking
3 6 (30.00%) Python
3 6 (30.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 6 (30.00%) Data Governance
3 6 (30.00%) DevOps
3 6 (30.00%) Apache Spark
3 6 (30.00%) Data Strategy
4 5 (25.00%) Databricks
4 5 (25.00%) Microservices
4 5 (25.00%) TypeScript
4 5 (25.00%) Machine Learning
4 5 (25.00%) JavaScript
4 5 (25.00%) Software Engineering
4 5 (25.00%) QA
5 4 (20.00%) Artificial Intelligence
5 4 (20.00%) Investment Banking
5 4 (20.00%) Java
5 4 (20.00%) Financial Institution
5 4 (20.00%) Front Office
5 4 (20.00%) Agile
5 4 (20.00%) Data Quality
5 4 (20.00%) Predictive Analytics
5 4 (20.00%) Analytics
5 4 (20.00%) Azure Data Factory
5 4 (20.00%) Serverless
5 4 (20.00%) Data Science
5 4 (20.00%) Delta Lake

Head of Engineering Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 6 (30.00%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 7 (35.00%) AWS
1 7 (35.00%) Azure
2 4 (20.00%) Azure Data Factory
2 4 (20.00%) Serverless
3 3 (15.00%) SaaS
4 2 (10.00%) Azure AKS
4 2 (10.00%) Azure API Management
4 2 (10.00%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (10.00%) Azure Functions
4 2 (10.00%) Azure Logic Apps
5 1 (5.00%) Dynamics 365
5 1 (5.00%) Power Platform
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (20.00%) Delta Lake
2 2 (10.00%) Hadoop
3 1 (5.00%) Data Lake
3 1 (5.00%) Power BI
General
1 8 (40.00%) Finance
2 6 (30.00%) Banking
3 4 (20.00%) Financial Institution
3 4 (20.00%) Front Office
3 4 (20.00%) Investment Banking
4 1 (5.00%) Social Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (15.00%) React
2 2 (10.00%) ARM Templates
2 2 (10.00%) Kafka
2 2 (10.00%) Node.js
2 2 (10.00%) RabbitMQ
3 1 (5.00%) .NET
3 1 (5.00%) .NET Core
3 1 (5.00%) Next.js
Miscellaneous
1 2 (10.00%) Cloud Native
1 2 (10.00%) Educational Technology
2 1 (5.00%) Data Protection Act
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (30.00%) Data Governance
1 6 (30.00%) Data Strategy
1 6 (30.00%) DevOps
1 6 (30.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
2 5 (25.00%) Machine Learning
2 5 (25.00%) Microservices
2 5 (25.00%) Software Engineering
3 4 (20.00%) Agile
3 4 (20.00%) Analytics
3 4 (20.00%) Artificial Intelligence
3 4 (20.00%) CI/CD
3 4 (20.00%) Data Science
3 4 (20.00%) Predictive Analytics
4 3 (15.00%) Containerisation
4 3 (15.00%) Roadmaps
4 3 (15.00%) Stakeholder Management
5 2 (10.00%) B2B
5 2 (10.00%) Change Management
5 2 (10.00%) Event-Driven Architecture
5 2 (10.00%) Technical Architecture
Programming Languages
1 6 (30.00%) Python
2 5 (25.00%) JavaScript
2 5 (25.00%) TypeScript
3 4 (20.00%) Java
4 3 (15.00%) SQL
5 2 (10.00%) Bicep
5 2 (10.00%) C#
5 2 (10.00%) Scala
Qualifications
1 2 (10.00%) SC Cleared
1 2 (10.00%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (25.00%) QA
2 4 (20.00%) Data Quality
System Software
1 2 (10.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 2 (10.00%) Kubernetes
1 2 (10.00%) Terraform
Vendors
1 5 (25.00%) Databricks
2 3 (15.00%) Microsoft