Java Engineer Contract Job Trends

Java Engineer
UK

The median Java Engineer daily rate in the UK is £530, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 July 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 338 319 306
Rank change year-on-year -19 -13 +172
Contract jobs requiring a Java Engineer 357 221 314
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.68% 0.68% 0.74%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.73% 0.74% 0.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 218 159 220
10th Percentile £362 £400 £424
25th Percentile £431 £486 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £602 £625
Median % change year-on-year -11.96% -3.68% -
75th Percentile £613 £825 £850
90th Percentile £670 £875 £888
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £506 £500
% change year-on-year +3.21% +1.25% +0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 9 29
10th Percentile £61.25 £41.00 £66.25
25th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 -
Median hourly rate £70.00 £67.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.70% -3.57% +7.28%
75th Percentile - £80.00 -
90th Percentile £77.00 £88.50 £70.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £67.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year +3.70% -3.57% +6.87%

All Contract IT Job Roles
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 48,701 29,792 39,645
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.54% 91.70% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,482 18,952 25,549
10th Percentile £325 £287 £288
25th Percentile £419 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,274 1,409 2,702
10th Percentile £15.93 £13.75 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.27 £17.30 £17.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £26.21 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +71.69% -34.48% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.84 £55.49 £63.75
90th Percentile £80.04 £74.00 £73.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.56 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +81.13% -37.13% +6.67%

Java Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Java Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Java Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Java Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Java Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Java Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Java Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Java Engineer over the 6 months to 16 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Java Engineer in the UK

Java Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Java Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Java Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Java Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Java Engineer over the 6 months to 16 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Java Engineer in the UK

Java Engineer
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Java Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 16 July 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 -7 315 £525 -26.96% 77
UK excluding London +10 170 £523 +3.21% 44
London -61 161 £545 -27.33% 55
Work from Home -64 115 £525 -30.00% 48
North of England -32 59 £523 +14.21% 8
South East -36 34 £500 -23.08% 16
South West -4 31 £505 -6.05% 6
North West -34 24 £550 - 7
Yorkshire -34 19 £500 -4.76% 1
Midlands -49 18 £477 -9.24% 5
North East -22 17 £533 +36.54%
West Midlands -45 16 £483 -8.87% 3
Scotland -8 14 £600 +26.32% 4
East of England -14 13 £538 -10.42%
Wales - 6 £388 -
East Midlands -11 2 £400 +26.98% 2
Northern Ireland -2 1 - - 5

Java Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 16 July 2026, Java Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Java Engineer in the job title.

1 357 (100.00%) Java
2 197 (55.18%) Software Engineering
3 135 (37.82%) Spring
4 125 (35.01%) Spring Boot
5 113 (31.65%) CI/CD
6 104 (29.13%) AWS
7 103 (28.85%) Microservices
8 100 (28.01%) Agile
9 93 (26.05%) Kubernetes
10 83 (23.25%) Security Cleared
11 80 (22.41%) Docker
12 75 (21.01%) Kafka
12 75 (21.01%) SC Cleared
13 68 (19.05%) DevOps
14 62 (17.37%) SQL
15 56 (15.69%) Full-Stack Development
16 50 (14.01%) Azure
16 50 (14.01%) Test Automation
17 44 (12.32%) React
18 43 (12.04%) Containerisation
18 43 (12.04%) TDD
19 41 (11.48%) Event-Driven
19 41 (11.48%) Python
20 39 (10.92%) PostgreSQL
21 38 (10.64%) Problem-Solving
22 35 (9.80%) JUnit
22 35 (9.80%) QA
23 34 (9.52%) REST
24 33 (9.24%) Git
24 33 (9.24%) Jenkins

Java Engineer Skill Set
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 7 (1.96%) Apache Spark
2 5 (1.40%) Apache
3 3 (0.84%) Confluence
3 3 (0.84%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 3 (0.84%) WebLogic
4 2 (0.56%) MQSeries
5 1 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.28%) Apache Pulsar
5 1 (0.28%) Camunda
5 1 (0.28%) Ethereum
5 1 (0.28%) Hyperledger
5 1 (0.28%) nginx
5 1 (0.28%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.28%) WebSphere
Applications
1 1 (0.28%) Notion
1 1 (0.28%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (0.56%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 104 (29.13%) AWS
2 50 (14.01%) Azure
3 30 (8.40%) GCP
3 30 (8.40%) GitHub
4 23 (6.44%) GitHub Actions
5 21 (5.88%) OpenShift
6 14 (3.92%) Serverless
7 13 (3.64%) AWS Lambda
8 9 (2.52%) Amazon S3
9 8 (2.24%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 7 (1.96%) Amazon EC2
11 6 (1.68%) AWS Step Functions
11 6 (1.68%) Cloud Run
12 5 (1.40%) Amazon ECS
12 5 (1.40%) Azure DevOps
13 4 (1.12%) AWS Fargate
14 3 (0.84%) Amazon EKS
14 3 (0.84%) Amazon Kinesis
14 3 (0.84%) Power Platform
14 3 (0.84%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.96%) Firewall
1 7 (1.96%) VPN
2 6 (1.68%) HTTP
3 4 (1.12%) Internet
4 3 (0.84%) MQTT
5 1 (0.28%) DNS
5 1 (0.28%) HTTPS
5 1 (0.28%) Kerberos
5 1 (0.28%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (10.92%) PostgreSQL
2 20 (5.60%) Relational Database
3 16 (4.48%) MongoDB
4 14 (3.92%) NoSQL
4 14 (3.92%) SQL Server
5 13 (3.64%) MySQL
6 11 (3.08%) DynamoDB
7 10 (2.80%) Apache Cassandra
8 9 (2.52%) Elasticsearch
9 8 (2.24%) Big Data
10 7 (1.96%) Amazon RDS
11 6 (1.68%) Couchbase
12 4 (1.12%) Redis
12 4 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 3 (0.84%) Data Lake
13 3 (0.84%) Flink
13 3 (0.84%) Hadoop
13 3 (0.84%) Power BI
14 2 (0.56%) HBase
14 2 (0.56%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 35 (9.80%) JUnit
2 33 (9.24%) Git
2 33 (9.24%) Jenkins
3 18 (5.04%) Gradle
3 18 (5.04%) SonarQube
4 13 (3.64%) Maven
5 12 (3.36%) GitLab
5 12 (3.36%) Mockito
6 10 (2.80%) JIRA
7 8 (2.24%) Liquibase
8 6 (1.68%) Selenium
9 4 (1.12%) Cucumber
9 4 (1.12%) IntelliJ
10 3 (0.84%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.84%) Flyway
10 3 (0.84%) XCUITest
11 2 (0.56%) Appium
11 2 (0.56%) Gatling
11 2 (0.56%) Katalon Studio
11 2 (0.56%) Postman
General
1 90 (25.21%) Finance
2 51 (14.29%) Banking
3 32 (8.96%) Social Skills
4 20 (5.60%) Front Office
4 20 (5.60%) Public Sector
5 11 (3.08%) Financial Institution
5 11 (3.08%) Law
6 9 (2.52%) Manufacturing
6 9 (2.52%) Retail
7 8 (2.24%) Analytical Skills
8 5 (1.40%) Investment Banking
8 5 (1.40%) Military
9 3 (0.84%) Automotive
9 3 (0.84%) Back Office
9 3 (0.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (0.84%) Retail Banking
10 2 (0.56%) Aerospace
10 2 (0.56%) Corporate Banking
11 1 (0.28%) French Language
11 1 (0.28%) International Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (37.82%) Spring
2 125 (35.01%) Spring Boot
3 75 (21.01%) Kafka
4 44 (12.32%) React
5 34 (9.52%) REST
6 26 (7.28%) RESTful
7 25 (7.00%) AngularJS
8 18 (5.04%) Node.js
8 18 (5.04%) Quarkus
9 17 (4.76%) Middleware
10 16 (4.48%) GraphQL
11 10 (2.80%) Hibernate
11 10 (2.80%) OpenAPI
11 10 (2.80%) Swagger
12 8 (2.24%) Next.js
12 8 (2.24%) Redux
12 8 (2.24%) Web Services
13 7 (1.96%) AWS CDK
13 7 (1.96%) FIX Protocol
13 7 (1.96%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 61 (17.09%) Cloud Native
2 46 (12.89%) Distributed Systems
3 11 (3.08%) Greenfield Project
4 10 (2.80%) Data Protection Act
5 9 (2.52%) Fixed Income
6 8 (2.24%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 7 (1.96%) Legacy Systems
8 6 (1.68%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.40%) Legacy Applications
9 5 (1.40%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 5 (1.40%) Virtual Team
10 4 (1.12%) Data Structures
10 4 (1.12%) Low-Code
10 4 (1.12%) Public Cloud
10 4 (1.12%) TWAP
10 4 (1.12%) VWAP
11 3 (0.84%) Algorithms
11 3 (0.84%) Clustering
11 3 (0.84%) Distributed Architecture
11 3 (0.84%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 21 (5.88%) Linux
2 8 (2.24%) Unix
3 2 (0.56%) Android
3 2 (0.56%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.28%) Solaris
4 1 (0.28%) SUSE
4 1 (0.28%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
4 1 (0.28%) Windows
4 1 (0.28%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2008
4 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 197 (55.18%) Software Engineering
2 113 (31.65%) CI/CD
3 103 (28.85%) Microservices
4 100 (28.01%) Agile
5 68 (19.05%) DevOps
6 56 (15.69%) Full-Stack Development
7 50 (14.01%) Test Automation
8 43 (12.04%) Containerisation
8 43 (12.04%) TDD
9 41 (11.48%) Event-Driven
10 38 (10.64%) Problem-Solving
11 32 (8.96%) Scrum
12 30 (8.40%) Event-Driven Architecture
12 30 (8.40%) SDLC
13 29 (8.12%) Migration
14 28 (7.84%) Unit Testing
15 24 (6.72%) Code Quality
15 24 (6.72%) Front End Development
16 23 (6.44%) AI
16 23 (6.44%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 357 (100.00%) Java
2 62 (17.37%) SQL
3 41 (11.48%) Python
4 33 (9.24%) TypeScript
5 21 (5.88%) JavaScript
6 18 (5.04%) Kotlin
7 11 (3.08%) Ada
7 11 (3.08%) Go
8 7 (1.96%) PL/SQL
8 7 (1.96%) Shell Script
9 4 (1.12%) C#
9 4 (1.12%) Groovy
10 3 (0.84%) C++
10 3 (0.84%) Scala
11 2 (0.56%) Swift
12 1 (0.28%) Korn
12 1 (0.28%) Rust
12 1 (0.28%) Solidity
Qualifications
1 83 (23.25%) Security Cleared
2 75 (21.01%) SC Cleared
3 12 (3.36%) Degree
4 6 (1.68%) BPSS Clearance
5 5 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.12%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.12%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.56%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 1 (0.28%) Numerate Degree
8 1 (0.28%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (9.80%) QA
2 11 (3.08%) Def Stans
2 11 (3.08%) IEC 61508
3 8 (2.24%) ISO 20022
4 7 (1.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 6 (1.68%) GDPR
6 5 (1.40%) SEPA
7 2 (0.56%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.56%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.56%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.28%) PSD2
System Software
1 80 (22.41%) Docker
2 1 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (0.28%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
2 1 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.28%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 93 (26.05%) Kubernetes
2 19 (5.32%) Terraform
3 16 (4.48%) Argo
4 4 (1.12%) Ansible
5 3 (0.84%) Grafana
5 3 (0.84%) HAProxy
6 2 (0.56%) Kibana
6 2 (0.56%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.28%) Docker Swarm
7 1 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
7 1 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.28%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 21 (5.88%) Oracle
2 16 (4.48%) Red Hat
3 12 (3.36%) Google
3 12 (3.36%) Microsoft
4 7 (1.96%) Splunk
5 6 (1.68%) Spotify
6 5 (1.40%) IBM
7 4 (1.12%) SAP
8 3 (0.84%) Checkmarx
8 3 (0.84%) ServiceNow
9 2 (0.56%) Confluent
9 2 (0.56%) Dynatrace
9 2 (0.56%) MKS
9 2 (0.56%) Solace
10 1 (0.28%) Concur
10 1 (0.28%) Databricks
10 1 (0.28%) Netlify
10 1 (0.28%) Okta
10 1 (0.28%) Sonatype
10 1 (0.28%) Veracode