J2SE Contract Job Trends

Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring J2SE skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 20 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 577 514 584
Rank change year-on-year -63 +70 +128
Contract jobs citing J2SE 9 1 1
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.024% 0.003% 0.002%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 0.11% 0.014% 0.011%
Number of daily rates quoted 6 0 0
10th Percentile £400 - -
25th Percentile £428 - -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £429 - -
75th Percentile £430 - -
90th Percentile £435 - -
UK excluding London median daily rate £429 - -

All Software Libraries and Frameworks
UK

J2SE falls under the Software Libraries and Frameworks category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring technical specification, industry standards, software libraries and framework skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for technical specification, industry standards, software libraries and framework skills 8,287 6,960 9,310
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.23% 22.25% 21.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,513 4,420 6,600
10th Percentile £356 £356 £355
25th Percentile £413 £425 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.12% -2.27% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 206 90 180
10th Percentile £33.00 £22.00 £27.66
25th Percentile £46.00 £35.44 £46.18
Median hourly rate £61.50 £62.50 £54.78
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% +14.09% -15.72%
75th Percentile £68.00 £65.56 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £75.22 £77.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.75 £65.00 £54.78
% change year-on-year -3.46% +18.66% -15.72%

J2SE
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing J2SE relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

J2SE job vacancy trend in the UK

J2SE
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing J2SE.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing J2SE

J2SE
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing J2SE.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing J2SE

J2SE
Top 5 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing J2SE within the UK over the 6 months to 20 January 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
England -50 8 £429 - 2
Midlands - 8 £429 -
West Midlands - 8 £429 -
UK excluding London - 8 £429 - 1
Work from Home - 3 £429 -

J2SE
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 (100.00%) Apache
1 9 (100.00%) JBoss
1 9 (100.00%) WebLogic
Cloud Services
1 9 (100.00%) AWS
1 9 (100.00%) Cloud Computing
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (100.00%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 9 (100.00%) Eclipse
1 9 (100.00%) Git
1 9 (100.00%) IntelliJ
1 9 (100.00%) JUnit
1 9 (100.00%) Selenium
General
1 9 (100.00%) Influencing Skills
1 9 (100.00%) Social Skills
Job Titles
1 4 (44.44%) Java Engineer
2 3 (33.33%) Developer
3 2 (22.22%) Java Developer
3 2 (22.22%) Software Engineer
4 1 (11.11%) Developer/Software Engineer
4 1 (11.11%) Messaging Engineer
4 1 (11.11%) Open Source Developer
4 1 (11.11%) Open Source Engineer
4 1 (11.11%) Operations Engineer
4 1 (11.11%) Software Developer
4 1 (11.11%) Software Tester
4 1 (11.11%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (100.00%) EJB
1 9 (100.00%) Hibernate
1 9 (100.00%) HTML
1 9 (100.00%) HTML5
1 9 (100.00%) J2EE
1 9 (100.00%) JSON
1 9 (100.00%) Play Framework
1 9 (100.00%) REST
1 9 (100.00%) SOAP
1 9 (100.00%) Spring
1 9 (100.00%) XML
Operating Systems
1 9 (100.00%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (100.00%) Agile
1 9 (100.00%) CI/CD
1 9 (100.00%) Continuous Delivery
1 9 (100.00%) Continuous Improvement
1 9 (100.00%) Continuous Integration
1 9 (100.00%) Deployment Automation
1 9 (100.00%) Infrastructure as Code
1 9 (100.00%) Infrastructure Automation
1 9 (100.00%) Lean Software Development
1 9 (100.00%) Mentoring
1 9 (100.00%) Microservices
1 9 (100.00%) Open Source
1 9 (100.00%) Problem-Solving
1 9 (100.00%) Scrum
2 8 (88.89%) DevOps
2 8 (88.89%) Software Engineering
3 3 (33.33%) Software Testing
4 1 (11.11%) Open Source Development
Programming Languages
1 9 (100.00%) Java
1 9 (100.00%) Scala
1 9 (100.00%) SQL
Qualifications
1 1 (11.11%) BPSS Clearance
System Software
1 9 (100.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 9 (100.00%) Puppet
Vendors
1 9 (100.00%) webMethods