Java Engineer Contract Job Trends

Java Engineer
UK

The median Java Engineer daily rate in the UK is £575, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 November 2025.

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

6 months to
15 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 373 344 489
Rank change year-on-year -29 +145 -144
Contract jobs requiring a Java Engineer 198 210 140
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.56% 0.57% 0.30%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.61% 0.62% 0.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 157 151 109
10th Percentile £363 £434 £399
25th Percentile £463 £520 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £675 £600
Median % change year-on-year -14.81% +12.50% -0.66%
75th Percentile £825 £850 £713
90th Percentile - £888 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £538 £475
% change year-on-year -9.77% +13.16% -18.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 15 3
10th Percentile £41.75 £48.10 £55.75
25th Percentile £44.00 £66.25 £56.88
Median hourly rate £75.00 £70.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% +12.00% -4.58%
75th Percentile £87.50 - £71.88
90th Percentile - - £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.00 £70.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year -31.43% +12.00% -4.73%

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 32,290 34,016 43,872
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.93% 92.86% 93.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,492 20,527 29,813
10th Percentile £278 £300 £294
25th Percentile £402 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,873 1,272 1,545
10th Percentile £14.14 £15.11 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.45 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.14% -19.10% +58.28%
75th Percentile £53.99 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £77.47
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +85.26%

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 15 November 2025.

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 15 November 2025.

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 15 November 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 -52 167 £586 -21.87% 190
London -25 129 £625 -21.88% 113
Work from Home +23 101 £750 -6.25% 132
UK excluding London -20 55 £485 -9.77% 97
Scotland +11 19 £538 +34.38% 6
North of England -30 14 £488 -11.36% 40
Midlands -20 13 £430 -32.55% 9
West Midlands -18 11 £440 -43.23% 6
South East +9 7 £370 -26.00% 26
North West -17 5 £353 -35.91% 25
Yorkshire -28 5 £350 +25.00% 11
North East - 4 £575 - 4
East Midlands -12 2 £314 -41.63% 3
South West -20 2 £550 -2.44% 13

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

For the 6 months to 15 November 2025, 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.

1 198 (100.00%) Java
2 119 (60.10%) AWS
3 114 (57.58%) Software Engineering
4 97 (48.99%) Agile
5 74 (37.37%) CI/CD
6 68 (34.34%) Python
6 68 (34.34%) TypeScript
7 66 (33.33%) Spring
8 59 (29.80%) JavaScript
9 58 (29.29%) Microservices
10 44 (22.22%) Azure
11 43 (21.72%) Investment Management
12 42 (21.21%) Spring Boot
13 40 (20.20%) Apache Airflow
14 39 (19.70%) Amazon Athena
14 39 (19.70%) Apache Arrow
14 39 (19.70%) Apache Iceberg
14 39 (19.70%) Asset Management
14 39 (19.70%) dbt
14 39 (19.70%) Dremio
14 39 (19.70%) NumPy
14 39 (19.70%) Pandas
14 39 (19.70%) SciPy
15 38 (19.19%) Apache
16 37 (18.69%) Data Lake
16 37 (18.69%) DevOps
17 36 (18.18%) Kubernetes
18 35 (17.68%) gRPC
18 35 (17.68%) Snowflake
19 34 (17.17%) Apache Ignite

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 40 (20.20%) Apache Airflow
2 38 (19.19%) Apache
3 5 (2.53%) JBoss
4 4 (2.02%) Confluence
4 4 (2.02%) WebLogic
5 3 (1.52%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.51%) Luigi
Applications
1 1 (0.51%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 119 (60.10%) AWS
2 44 (22.22%) Azure
3 39 (19.70%) dbt
4 35 (17.68%) Snowflake
5 20 (10.10%) GCP
5 20 (10.10%) GitHub
6 9 (4.55%) Amazon EC2
6 9 (4.55%) GitHub Actions
6 9 (4.55%) OpenShift
7 8 (4.04%) Amazon Kinesis
8 7 (3.54%) AWS Step Functions
8 7 (3.54%) Cloud Computing
9 6 (3.03%) Amazon ECS
9 6 (3.03%) Serverless
10 5 (2.53%) Amazon EKS
10 5 (2.53%) AWS Lambda
11 3 (1.52%) AWS CodePipeline
11 3 (1.52%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (1.52%) BlazeMeter
11 3 (1.52%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.01%) AMQP
2 1 (0.51%) Broadband
2 1 (0.51%) FTP
2 1 (0.51%) SSL
2 1 (0.51%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (19.70%) Amazon Athena
1 39 (19.70%) Apache Arrow
1 39 (19.70%) Apache Iceberg
1 39 (19.70%) Dremio
2 37 (18.69%) Data Lake
3 34 (17.17%) Apache Ignite
4 19 (9.60%) PostgreSQL
5 18 (9.09%) MySQL
6 16 (8.08%) MongoDB
7 13 (6.57%) Apache Cassandra
8 10 (5.05%) NoSQL
9 9 (4.55%) Big Data
10 8 (4.04%) Amazon RDS
10 8 (4.04%) Hadoop
11 7 (3.54%) Relational Database
12 5 (2.53%) HPCC
13 4 (2.02%) RDBMS
14 3 (1.52%) BigQuery
14 3 (1.52%) DynamoDB
14 3 (1.52%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 32 (16.16%) Git
2 24 (12.12%) JUnit
3 21 (10.61%) Jenkins
4 16 (8.08%) Cucumber
5 14 (7.07%) GitLab
6 11 (5.56%) Gradle
7 10 (5.05%) Maven
8 8 (4.04%) Selenium
9 7 (3.54%) IntelliJ
9 7 (3.54%) JMeter
10 6 (3.03%) JIRA
10 6 (3.03%) Sonatype Nexus
11 5 (2.53%) Bitbucket
11 5 (2.53%) Postman
12 4 (2.02%) Cypress.io
12 4 (2.02%) Eclipse
12 4 (2.02%) Mockito
13 3 (1.52%) Artifactory
13 3 (1.52%) Gatling
13 3 (1.52%) SonarQube
General
1 92 (46.46%) Finance
2 50 (25.25%) Banking
3 46 (23.23%) Front Office
4 39 (19.70%) Investment Banking
5 35 (17.68%) Social Skills
6 8 (4.04%) Analytical Skills
7 6 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
7 6 (3.03%) Public Sector
8 4 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
9 3 (1.52%) Back Office
9 3 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.51%) Law
10 1 (0.51%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 66 (33.33%) Spring
2 42 (21.21%) Spring Boot
3 39 (19.70%) NumPy
3 39 (19.70%) Pandas
3 39 (19.70%) SciPy
4 35 (17.68%) gRPC
5 34 (17.17%) Protocol Buffers
6 31 (15.66%) Kafka
6 31 (15.66%) React
7 27 (13.64%) AngularJS
8 23 (11.62%) Node.js
9 21 (10.61%) REST
10 20 (10.10%) RESTful
11 14 (7.07%) Hibernate
12 13 (6.57%) HTML
13 11 (5.56%) JSON
14 10 (5.05%) GraphQL
14 10 (5.05%) XML
15 8 (4.04%) OAuth
16 7 (3.54%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 43 (21.72%) Fixed Income
1 43 (21.72%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
2 41 (20.71%) Equities
3 36 (18.18%) Derivative
4 34 (17.17%) Hedge funds
4 34 (17.17%) Pricing Data
5 22 (11.11%) Distributed Systems
6 16 (8.08%) Cloud Native
7 10 (5.05%) Product Ownership
8 9 (4.55%) Onboarding
9 7 (3.54%) Mobile App
9 7 (3.54%) Virtual Team
10 6 (3.03%) Public Cloud
11 4 (2.02%) Algorithms
11 4 (2.02%) Legacy Systems
12 3 (1.52%) Blockchain
12 3 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
12 3 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
13 2 (1.01%) Data Centre
13 2 (1.01%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 17 (8.59%) Linux
2 14 (7.07%) Unix
3 9 (4.55%) Windows
4 2 (1.01%) CentOS
4 2 (1.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 114 (57.58%) Software Engineering
2 97 (48.99%) Agile
3 74 (37.37%) CI/CD
4 58 (29.29%) Microservices
5 43 (21.72%) Investment Management
6 39 (19.70%) Asset Management
7 37 (18.69%) DevOps
8 32 (16.16%) Full-Stack Development
9 29 (14.65%) Test Automation
10 27 (13.64%) Problem-Solving
10 27 (13.64%) TDD
11 23 (11.62%) Fintech
12 21 (10.61%) Containerisation
13 19 (9.60%) Observability
14 18 (9.09%) Infrastructure as Code
14 18 (9.09%) SDLC
15 16 (8.08%) API Development
15 16 (8.08%) Clean Code
16 14 (7.07%) BDD
16 14 (7.07%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 198 (100.00%) Java
2 68 (34.34%) Python
2 68 (34.34%) TypeScript
3 59 (29.80%) JavaScript
4 28 (14.14%) SQL
5 11 (5.56%) Kotlin
6 10 (5.05%) C++
7 7 (3.54%) C
8 6 (3.03%) Go
8 6 (3.03%) Scala
9 4 (2.02%) Ruby
10 3 (1.52%) C#
10 3 (1.52%) DAML
10 3 (1.52%) Groovy
10 3 (1.52%) PHP
11 2 (1.01%) Bash
11 2 (1.01%) PL/SQL
11 2 (1.01%) Rust
11 2 (1.01%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.51%) Ada
Qualifications
1 20 (10.10%) Security Cleared
2 18 (9.09%) SC Cleared
3 9 (4.55%) Degree
4 6 (3.03%) BPSS Clearance
4 6 (3.03%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (1.52%) Master's Degree
6 2 (1.01%) DV Cleared
6 2 (1.01%) OCP
6 2 (1.01%) Oracle Certification
6 2 (1.01%) PhD
7 1 (0.51%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (16.16%) QA
2 9 (4.55%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.01%) Data Quality
3 2 (1.01%) WCAG
System Software
1 33 (16.67%) Docker
Systems Management
1 36 (18.18%) Kubernetes
2 16 (8.08%) Terraform
3 13 (6.57%) Ansible
4 9 (4.55%) Grafana
5 5 (2.53%) Puppet
6 4 (2.02%) Progress Chef
7 3 (1.52%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.51%) Argo
8 1 (0.51%) Kibana
8 1 (0.51%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.51%) Tivoli Identity Manager
Vendors
1 10 (5.05%) Microsoft
2 8 (4.04%) Google
2 8 (4.04%) Oracle
3 5 (2.53%) Splunk
4 4 (2.02%) Databricks
4 4 (2.02%) Dynatrace
4 4 (2.02%) VMware
4 4 (2.02%) webMethods
5 2 (1.01%) ForgeRock
5 2 (1.01%) IBM
5 2 (1.01%) TIBCO
6 1 (0.51%) Atlassian
6 1 (0.51%) Calypso
6 1 (0.51%) Cisco
6 1 (0.51%) Guidewire
6 1 (0.51%) Informatica
6 1 (0.51%) Red Hat
6 1 (0.51%) ServiceNow
6 1 (0.51%) SnapLogic
6 1 (0.51%) Solace