Java Engineer Contract Job Trends

Java Engineer
UK

The median Java Engineer daily rate in the UK is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 January 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 400 392 473
Rank change year-on-year -8 +81 -127
Contract jobs requiring a Java Engineer 182 138 115
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.49% 0.43% 0.27%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.54% 0.46% 0.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 131 99 83
10th Percentile £360 £344 £384
25th Percentile £447 £519 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £590
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +1.69% -1.67%
75th Percentile £638 £850 £700
90th Percentile £825 £888 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £470 £479 £475
% change year-on-year -1.83% +0.79% -18.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 7 2
10th Percentile £43.15 £37.40 £60.13
25th Percentile £52.50 £48.00 £62.19
Median hourly rate £55.00 £62.50 £68.75
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% -9.09% +4.79%
75th Percentile £60.31 £66.88 £74.69
90th Percentile £87.50 £68.75 £76.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £63.75 £68.75
% change year-on-year -13.73% -7.27% +4.79%

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 33,792 29,885 39,768
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.29% 92.67% 93.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,415 18,301 26,575
10th Percentile £300 £293 £281
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,959 924 1,607
10th Percentile £14.32 £15.56 £14.18
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.05 £19.06
Median hourly rate £26.78 £32.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.60% -26.97% +36.75%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £73.75 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.50 £45.88
% change year-on-year -20.16% -31.34% +69.89%

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 7 January 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 7 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Java Engineer in the UK

Java Engineer
Top 14 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 7 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 -20 153 £550 -18.52% 81
London -25 96 £600 -11.11% 37
UK excluding London -19 73 £470 -1.83% 54
Work from Home +18 72 £600 -25.00% 45
North of England -28 26 £475 -7.77% 18
Scotland +15 18 £600 +50.94% 2
North West -10 16 £400 - 11
Midlands -25 16 £460 -45.88% 7
West Midlands -22 15 £460 -45.88% 6
South East -11 12 £365 -36.52% 18
Yorkshire -48 5 £350 -32.04% 5
North East - 5 £575 - 3
South West -15 1 £550 -2.44% 7
East Midlands - 1 £313 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 7 January 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.

1 182 (100.00%) Java
2 88 (48.35%) Software Engineering
3 85 (46.70%) AWS
4 80 (43.96%) Spring
5 77 (42.31%) CI/CD
6 70 (38.46%) Agile
7 67 (36.81%) Spring Boot
8 63 (34.62%) Microservices
9 59 (32.42%) Kubernetes
10 45 (24.73%) Azure
11 39 (21.43%) DevOps
12 38 (20.88%) Docker
12 38 (20.88%) Python
13 32 (17.58%) JavaScript
13 32 (17.58%) TDD
13 32 (17.58%) TypeScript
14 31 (17.03%) Kafka
15 29 (15.93%) SQL
16 28 (15.38%) Test Automation
17 27 (14.84%) QA
18 26 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
19 25 (13.74%) Containerisation
20 24 (13.19%) Apache
21 23 (12.64%) GitLab
21 23 (12.64%) RESTful
21 23 (12.64%) Security Cleared
22 22 (12.09%) Full-Stack Development
22 22 (12.09%) Git
23 21 (11.54%) Apache Airflow
23 21 (11.54%) Data Lake

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 24 (13.19%) Apache
2 21 (11.54%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (2.20%) Apache Spark
3 4 (2.20%) JBoss
3 4 (2.20%) WebLogic
4 2 (1.10%) Confluence
5 1 (0.55%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.55%) Luigi
5 1 (0.55%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 1 (0.55%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (1.10%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 85 (46.70%) AWS
2 45 (24.73%) Azure
3 21 (11.54%) Snowflake
4 20 (10.99%) dbt
5 16 (8.79%) GCP
6 15 (8.24%) GitHub
7 9 (4.95%) Amazon EC2
7 9 (4.95%) Amazon ECS
7 9 (4.95%) Serverless
8 8 (4.40%) AWS Lambda
8 8 (4.40%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (4.40%) OpenShift
9 7 (3.85%) Amazon S3
9 7 (3.85%) Cloud Computing
10 6 (3.30%) Amazon Kinesis
10 6 (3.30%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (3.30%) AWS Step Functions
11 5 (2.75%) Amazon EKS
12 4 (2.20%) Azure Monitor
13 3 (1.65%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.55%) AMQP
1 1 (0.55%) Broadband
1 1 (0.55%) FTP
1 1 (0.55%) SSL
1 1 (0.55%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (11.54%) Data Lake
2 20 (10.99%) Amazon Athena
2 20 (10.99%) Apache Arrow
2 20 (10.99%) Apache Iceberg
2 20 (10.99%) Apache Ignite
2 20 (10.99%) Dremio
2 20 (10.99%) MongoDB
3 18 (9.89%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (7.14%) MySQL
5 12 (6.59%) Apache Cassandra
6 9 (4.95%) NoSQL
7 8 (4.40%) Hadoop
8 7 (3.85%) Amazon RDS
9 6 (3.30%) Big Data
9 6 (3.30%) Relational Database
10 4 (2.20%) SQL Server
11 3 (1.65%) BigQuery
11 3 (1.65%) HBase
11 3 (1.65%) RDBMS
12 2 (1.10%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 23 (12.64%) GitLab
2 22 (12.09%) Git
3 21 (11.54%) Jenkins
3 21 (11.54%) JUnit
4 19 (10.44%) Gradle
5 15 (8.24%) Cucumber
5 15 (8.24%) IntelliJ
6 9 (4.95%) Selenium
7 7 (3.85%) JMeter
7 7 (3.85%) Sonatype Nexus
8 5 (2.75%) Maven
9 4 (2.20%) Eclipse
9 4 (2.20%) Postman
10 3 (1.65%) Artifactory
10 3 (1.65%) Cypress.io
10 3 (1.65%) JIRA
10 3 (1.65%) Mockito
11 2 (1.10%) Bitbucket
11 2 (1.10%) SonarQube
11 2 (1.10%) TestNG
General
1 58 (31.87%) Finance
2 36 (19.78%) Social Skills
3 35 (19.23%) Banking
4 24 (13.19%) Front Office
4 24 (13.19%) Investment Banking
5 7 (3.85%) Public Sector
6 5 (2.75%) Analytical Skills
7 4 (2.20%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.55%) Back Office
9 1 (0.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.55%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (43.96%) Spring
2 67 (36.81%) Spring Boot
3 31 (17.03%) Kafka
4 23 (12.64%) RESTful
5 21 (11.54%) gRPC
6 20 (10.99%) NumPy
6 20 (10.99%) Pandas
6 20 (10.99%) Protocol Buffers
6 20 (10.99%) SciPy
7 15 (8.24%) AngularJS
7 15 (8.24%) REST
8 13 (7.14%) React
9 12 (6.59%) Hibernate
10 11 (6.04%) OpenTelemetry
11 9 (4.95%) HTML
11 9 (4.95%) JSON
12 8 (4.40%) Node.js
12 8 (4.40%) Swagger
13 6 (3.30%) OAuth
14 5 (2.75%) JPA
Miscellaneous
1 23 (12.64%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 22 (12.09%) Derivative
3 21 (11.54%) Equities
4 20 (10.99%) Fixed Income
4 20 (10.99%) Hedge funds
4 20 (10.99%) Pricing Data
5 19 (10.44%) Distributed Systems
6 18 (9.89%) Cloud Native
7 8 (4.40%) Onboarding
8 7 (3.85%) Product Ownership
8 7 (3.85%) Virtual Team
9 6 (3.30%) Public Cloud
10 4 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (1.65%) Legacy Applications
11 3 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
12 2 (1.10%) Algorithms
12 2 (1.10%) Data Structures
12 2 (1.10%) Greenfield Project
13 1 (0.55%) Data Centre
13 1 (0.55%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 15 (8.24%) Linux
2 12 (6.59%) Unix
3 3 (1.65%) Windows
4 1 (0.55%) CentOS
4 1 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.55%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (48.35%) Software Engineering
2 77 (42.31%) CI/CD
3 70 (38.46%) Agile
4 63 (34.62%) Microservices
5 39 (21.43%) DevOps
6 32 (17.58%) TDD
7 28 (15.38%) Test Automation
8 26 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
9 25 (13.74%) Containerisation
10 22 (12.09%) Full-Stack Development
11 21 (11.54%) Observability
12 20 (10.99%) Asset Management
12 20 (10.99%) Infrastructure as Code
12 20 (10.99%) Investment Management
13 18 (9.89%) Event-Driven
14 16 (8.79%) Clean Code
15 15 (8.24%) API Development
15 15 (8.24%) Fintech
16 13 (7.14%) BDD
16 13 (7.14%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 182 (100.00%) Java
2 38 (20.88%) Python
3 32 (17.58%) JavaScript
3 32 (17.58%) TypeScript
4 29 (15.93%) SQL
5 15 (8.24%) Kotlin
6 6 (3.30%) Scala
7 5 (2.75%) C++
8 4 (2.20%) Go
9 2 (1.10%) Bash
9 2 (1.10%) C
9 2 (1.10%) PL/SQL
9 2 (1.10%) Rust
9 2 (1.10%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.55%) C#
10 1 (0.55%) DAML
10 1 (0.55%) Groovy
10 1 (0.55%) Perl
10 1 (0.55%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 23 (12.64%) Security Cleared
2 21 (11.54%) SC Cleared
3 6 (3.30%) Degree
4 5 (2.75%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
5 3 (1.65%) OCP
5 3 (1.65%) Oracle Certification
6 2 (1.10%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.55%) ISTQB
7 1 (0.55%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (14.84%) QA
2 9 (4.95%) Accessibility
3 3 (1.65%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.10%) WCAG
5 1 (0.55%) GDPR
5 1 (0.55%) ISO 15022
5 1 (0.55%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 38 (20.88%) Docker
Systems Management
1 59 (32.42%) Kubernetes
2 21 (11.54%) Terraform
3 18 (9.89%) Grafana
4 13 (7.14%) Ansible
5 5 (2.75%) Puppet
6 4 (2.20%) Progress Chef
7 3 (1.65%) Argo
8 2 (1.10%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.55%) Kibana
Vendors
1 9 (4.95%) Google
2 7 (3.85%) Microsoft
2 7 (3.85%) Oracle
3 5 (2.75%) Databricks
4 4 (2.20%) Dynatrace
4 4 (2.20%) Splunk
4 4 (2.20%) VMware
4 4 (2.20%) webMethods
5 2 (1.10%) IBM
5 2 (1.10%) New Relic
5 2 (1.10%) Red Hat
5 2 (1.10%) Solace
6 1 (0.55%) Adobe
6 1 (0.55%) Calypso
6 1 (0.55%) Cisco
6 1 (0.55%) Confluent
6 1 (0.55%) Okta
6 1 (0.55%) TIBCO
6 1 (0.55%) Virgin Media
6 1 (0.55%) Zoomdata