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 19 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 554 - 635
Rank change year-on-year - - +164
Contract jobs citing J2SE 6 0 6
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.018% - 0.012%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 0.079% - 0.055%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 0 2
10th Percentile £428 - £486
25th Percentile £429 - £503
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £430 - £550
Median % change year-on-year - - -26.67%
75th Percentile £448 - £616
90th Percentile £479 - £644
UK excluding London median daily rate £430 - -

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 7,605 8,247 10,821
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 22.94% 22.08% 22.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,001 5,229 7,787
10th Percentile £350 £350 £374
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.18% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £670
90th Percentile £725 £788 £768
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 158 203
10th Percentile £30.08 £25.30 £36.74
25th Percentile £41.25 £43.00 £46.18
Median hourly rate £51.97 £65.00 £56.40
Median % change year-on-year -20.05% +15.25% -13.23%
75th Percentile £65.00 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.10 £74.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £65.00 £55.50
% change year-on-year -7.69% +17.12% -14.62%

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 6 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 19 October 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
UK excluding London - 5 £430 - 1
Midlands - 4 £430 - 1
West Midlands - 4 £430 - 1
England - 4 £430 - 1
Work from Home - 3 £430 - 1
Scotland - 1 £500 -

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 5 (83.33%) Apache
1 5 (83.33%) JBoss
1 5 (83.33%) WebLogic
Cloud Services
1 5 (83.33%) AWS
1 5 (83.33%) Cloud Computing
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (83.33%) MongoDB
2 1 (16.67%) DB2
Development Applications
1 6 (100.00%) JUnit
2 5 (83.33%) Eclipse
2 5 (83.33%) Git
2 5 (83.33%) IntelliJ
2 5 (83.33%) Selenium
General
1 6 (100.00%) Social Skills
2 5 (83.33%) Influencing Skills
3 1 (16.67%) Analytical Skills
3 1 (16.67%) Banking
3 1 (16.67%) Finance
3 1 (16.67%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 3 (50.00%) Developer
2 2 (33.33%) Java Developer
2 2 (33.33%) Software Engineer
3 1 (16.67%) Developer/Software Engineer
3 1 (16.67%) Java Engineer
3 1 (16.67%) Open Source Developer
3 1 (16.67%) Open Source Engineer
3 1 (16.67%) Operations Engineer
3 1 (16.67%) Software Developer
3 1 (16.67%) Software Tester
3 1 (16.67%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (100.00%) Spring
2 5 (83.33%) EJB
2 5 (83.33%) Hibernate
2 5 (83.33%) HTML
2 5 (83.33%) HTML5
2 5 (83.33%) J2EE
2 5 (83.33%) JSON
2 5 (83.33%) Play Framework
2 5 (83.33%) REST
2 5 (83.33%) SOAP
2 5 (83.33%) XML
3 1 (16.67%) JMS
Miscellaneous
1 1 (16.67%) Derivative
1 1 (16.67%) Equity Derivative
Operating Systems
1 6 (100.00%) Unix
2 1 (16.67%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (100.00%) Agile
1 6 (100.00%) Problem-Solving
2 5 (83.33%) CI/CD
2 5 (83.33%) Continuous Delivery
2 5 (83.33%) Continuous Improvement
2 5 (83.33%) Continuous Integration
2 5 (83.33%) Deployment Automation
2 5 (83.33%) Infrastructure as Code
2 5 (83.33%) Infrastructure Automation
2 5 (83.33%) Lean Software Development
2 5 (83.33%) Mentoring
2 5 (83.33%) Microservices
2 5 (83.33%) Open Source
2 5 (83.33%) Scrum
3 4 (66.67%) DevOps
3 4 (66.67%) Software Engineering
4 3 (50.00%) Software Testing
5 1 (16.67%) Database Tuning
5 1 (16.67%) OO
5 1 (16.67%) Open Source Development
Programming Languages
1 6 (100.00%) Java
1 6 (100.00%) SQL
2 5 (83.33%) Scala
3 1 (16.67%) Perl
Qualifications
1 1 (16.67%) BPSS Clearance
System Software
1 5 (83.33%) Docker
Systems Management
1 5 (83.33%) Puppet
Vendors
1 5 (83.33%) webMethods
2 1 (16.67%) Sybase