Java Engineer Contract Job Trends

Java Engineer
UK

The median Java Engineer daily rate in the UK is £528, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 25 July 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 353 339 301
Rank change year-on-year -14 -38 +162
Contract jobs requiring a Java Engineer 345 220 305
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.65% 0.67% 0.75%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.70% 0.73% 0.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 214 160 213
10th Percentile £368 £400 £435
25th Percentile £450 £492 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £528 £630 £650
Median % change year-on-year -16.30% -3.04% +8.33%
75th Percentile £613 £825 £850
90th Percentile £669 £875 £888
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +4.50% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 7 29
10th Percentile £61.25 £39.50 £66.25
25th Percentile £66.25 £53.75 -
Median hourly rate £70.00 £70.00 £70.00
75th Percentile £75.00 £83.75 -
90th Percentile £77.00 £89.50 £70.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £67.50 £70.00
% change year-on-year +3.70% -3.57% +7.28%

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 49,051 29,963 37,757
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.59% 91.58% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,625 19,061 24,462
10th Percentile £328 £285 £300
25th Percentile £420 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.05%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,310 1,445 2,320
10th Percentile £15.75 £13.71 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £18.24
Median hourly rate £42.85 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +70.39% -39.40% -5.26%
75th Percentile £67.88 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £73.75 £74.59
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -41.51% +8.04%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -11 306 £525 -30.00% 137
UK excluding London +26 167 £523 +4.50% 55
London -67 154 £545 -27.33% 99
Work from Home -65 111 £525 -30.00% 49
North of England -23 64 £523 +33.97% 10
South East -47 32 £513 - 15
North West -29 30 £555 - 6
South West -13 23 £505 -6.05% 4
Midlands -38 22 £470 -10.48% 18
West Midlands -39 20 £470 -11.32% 16
Yorkshire - 19 £500 - 1
North East -27 16 £640 +64.10% 3
East of England -11 13 £538 -10.42% 1
Scotland -13 13 £600 +28.00% 6
Wales - 5 £375 -
East Midlands -14 2 £400 +26.98% 2
Northern Ireland 0 1 - - 1

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

For the 6 months to 25 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.

1 345 (100.00%) Java
2 193 (55.94%) Software Engineering
3 137 (39.71%) Spring
4 130 (37.68%) Spring Boot
5 118 (34.20%) CI/CD
6 107 (31.01%) Agile
7 104 (30.14%) AWS
8 102 (29.57%) Kubernetes
9 100 (28.99%) Microservices
10 85 (24.64%) Docker
10 85 (24.64%) Security Cleared
11 78 (22.61%) Kafka
12 76 (22.03%) SC Cleared
13 72 (20.87%) DevOps
14 66 (19.13%) SQL
15 54 (15.65%) Full-Stack Development
16 52 (15.07%) Test Automation
17 50 (14.49%) Azure
17 50 (14.49%) Containerisation
18 44 (12.75%) React
19 42 (12.17%) Event-Driven
20 41 (11.88%) PostgreSQL
20 41 (11.88%) Python
21 40 (11.59%) Problem-Solving
22 39 (11.30%) TDD
23 36 (10.43%) QA
23 36 (10.43%) REST
24 35 (10.14%) Git
25 33 (9.57%) Event-Driven Architecture
26 32 (9.28%) JUnit

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 (2.03%) Apache Spark
1 7 (2.03%) WebLogic
2 5 (1.45%) Apache
3 3 (0.87%) Confluence
3 3 (0.87%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 2 (0.58%) MQSeries
5 1 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.29%) Apache Pulsar
5 1 (0.29%) Camunda
5 1 (0.29%) nginx
5 1 (0.29%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.29%) WebSphere
Applications
1 2 (0.58%) Trello
2 1 (0.29%) Notion
Business Applications
1 2 (0.58%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.29%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 104 (30.14%) AWS
2 50 (14.49%) Azure
3 31 (8.99%) GCP
4 27 (7.83%) GitHub
5 23 (6.67%) GitHub Actions
6 20 (5.80%) OpenShift
7 16 (4.64%) Serverless
8 15 (4.35%) AWS Lambda
9 8 (2.32%) Amazon ECS
9 8 (2.32%) Amazon S3
9 8 (2.32%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 6 (1.74%) Amazon SQS
10 6 (1.74%) Cloud Run
11 5 (1.45%) Amazon EKS
11 5 (1.45%) Azure DevOps
12 4 (1.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 4 (1.16%) Amazon EC2
12 4 (1.16%) AWS Fargate
13 3 (0.87%) Azure Service Bus
13 3 (0.87%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.03%) Firewall
1 7 (2.03%) VPN
2 4 (1.16%) HTTP
2 4 (1.16%) Internet
3 3 (0.87%) MQTT
4 1 (0.29%) DNS
4 1 (0.29%) HTTPS
4 1 (0.29%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (11.88%) PostgreSQL
2 20 (5.80%) Relational Database
3 15 (4.35%) MongoDB
3 15 (4.35%) NoSQL
4 14 (4.06%) DynamoDB
5 13 (3.77%) SQL Server
6 11 (3.19%) MySQL
7 10 (2.90%) Elasticsearch
8 7 (2.03%) Apache Cassandra
8 7 (2.03%) Big Data
9 6 (1.74%) Couchbase
10 5 (1.45%) Redis
11 4 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
11 4 (1.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 3 (0.87%) Data Lake
12 3 (0.87%) Flink
12 3 (0.87%) Power BI
13 2 (0.58%) HBase
13 2 (0.58%) Oracle Database
13 2 (0.58%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 35 (10.14%) Git
2 32 (9.28%) JUnit
3 31 (8.99%) Jenkins
4 18 (5.22%) GitLab
4 18 (5.22%) SonarQube
5 16 (4.64%) Gradle
6 15 (4.35%) Maven
7 12 (3.48%) Mockito
8 9 (2.61%) JIRA
9 8 (2.32%) Liquibase
10 6 (1.74%) Selenium
11 4 (1.16%) Bitbucket
11 4 (1.16%) Cucumber
11 4 (1.16%) IntelliJ
12 3 (0.87%) Flyway
12 3 (0.87%) XCUITest
13 2 (0.58%) Artifactory
13 2 (0.58%) Gatling
13 2 (0.58%) Katalon Studio
13 2 (0.58%) Postman
General
1 92 (26.67%) Finance
2 49 (14.20%) Banking
3 30 (8.70%) Social Skills
4 19 (5.51%) Public Sector
5 18 (5.22%) Front Office
6 11 (3.19%) Financial Institution
7 10 (2.90%) Law
7 10 (2.90%) Retail
8 9 (2.61%) Manufacturing
9 7 (2.03%) Analytical Skills
10 5 (1.45%) Military
11 3 (0.87%) Automotive
11 3 (0.87%) Back Office
11 3 (0.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (0.87%) Investment Banking
11 3 (0.87%) Retail Banking
12 2 (0.58%) Aerospace
12 2 (0.58%) Corporate Banking
12 2 (0.58%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.29%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 137 (39.71%) Spring
2 130 (37.68%) Spring Boot
3 78 (22.61%) Kafka
4 44 (12.75%) React
5 36 (10.43%) REST
6 27 (7.83%) RESTful
7 24 (6.96%) AngularJS
8 18 (5.22%) Node.js
8 18 (5.22%) Quarkus
9 15 (4.35%) GraphQL
10 12 (3.48%) Middleware
11 10 (2.90%) OpenAPI
11 10 (2.90%) Swagger
12 9 (2.61%) Hibernate
13 8 (2.32%) Next.js
13 8 (2.32%) Redux
14 7 (2.03%) AWS CDK
14 7 (2.03%) Web Services
15 6 (1.74%) CSS
15 6 (1.74%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 67 (19.42%) Cloud Native
2 47 (13.62%) Distributed Systems
3 12 (3.48%) Greenfield Project
4 9 (2.61%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (2.32%) Fixed Income
5 8 (2.32%) Legacy Systems
6 7 (2.03%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 5 (1.45%) Legacy Applications
7 5 (1.45%) Linux Command Line
7 5 (1.45%) Public Cloud
7 5 (1.45%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 4 (1.16%) Data Structures
8 4 (1.16%) Low-Code
8 4 (1.16%) Onboarding
8 4 (1.16%) Product Ownership
8 4 (1.16%) TWAP
8 4 (1.16%) VWAP
9 3 (0.87%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (0.87%) Mobile App
9 3 (0.87%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 22 (6.38%) Linux
2 10 (2.90%) Unix
3 2 (0.58%) Android
3 2 (0.58%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.29%) Solaris
4 1 (0.29%) SUSE
4 1 (0.29%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
4 1 (0.29%) Windows
4 1 (0.29%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2008
4 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 193 (55.94%) Software Engineering
2 118 (34.20%) CI/CD
3 107 (31.01%) Agile
4 100 (28.99%) Microservices
5 72 (20.87%) DevOps
6 54 (15.65%) Full-Stack Development
7 52 (15.07%) Test Automation
8 50 (14.49%) Containerisation
9 42 (12.17%) Event-Driven
10 40 (11.59%) Problem-Solving
11 39 (11.30%) TDD
12 33 (9.57%) Event-Driven Architecture
13 32 (9.28%) Scrum
13 32 (9.28%) SDLC
14 29 (8.41%) Migration
15 28 (8.12%) Unit Testing
16 26 (7.54%) Code Quality
17 25 (7.25%) Front End Development
17 25 (7.25%) Observability
18 24 (6.96%) AI
Programming Languages
1 345 (100.00%) Java
2 66 (19.13%) SQL
3 41 (11.88%) Python
4 32 (9.28%) TypeScript
5 23 (6.67%) JavaScript
6 20 (5.80%) Kotlin
7 10 (2.90%) Shell Script
8 9 (2.61%) Go
9 7 (2.03%) Ada
9 7 (2.03%) PL/SQL
10 4 (1.16%) Groovy
11 3 (0.87%) C#
11 3 (0.87%) C++
12 2 (0.58%) Scala
12 2 (0.58%) Swift
13 1 (0.29%) Korn
13 1 (0.29%) Rust
Qualifications
1 85 (24.64%) Security Cleared
2 76 (22.03%) SC Cleared
3 12 (3.48%) Degree
4 7 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
5 5 (1.45%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.16%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.16%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.58%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.58%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 1 (0.29%) Numerate Degree
8 1 (0.29%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (10.43%) QA
2 9 (2.61%) ISO 20022
3 7 (2.03%) Def Stans
3 7 (2.03%) IEC 61508
3 7 (2.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 6 (1.74%) GDPR
5 5 (1.45%) SEPA
6 3 (0.87%) ISO 15022
7 2 (0.58%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.58%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.29%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.29%) PSD2
System Software
1 85 (24.64%) Docker
2 1 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (0.29%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
2 1 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 102 (29.57%) Kubernetes
2 21 (6.09%) Terraform
3 16 (4.64%) Argo
4 4 (1.16%) Ansible
5 3 (0.87%) Grafana
5 3 (0.87%) HAProxy
5 3 (0.87%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.58%) Kibana
7 1 (0.29%) Docker Swarm
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle RMAN
7 1 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.29%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 24 (6.96%) Oracle
2 16 (4.64%) Red Hat
3 12 (3.48%) Google
4 11 (3.19%) Microsoft
5 6 (1.74%) Splunk
5 6 (1.74%) Spotify
6 5 (1.45%) IBM
7 4 (1.16%) SAP
8 3 (0.87%) Checkmarx
8 3 (0.87%) ServiceNow
9 2 (0.58%) Confluent
9 2 (0.58%) Dynatrace
9 2 (0.58%) FIS
9 2 (0.58%) MKS
9 2 (0.58%) Solace
10 1 (0.29%) Ab Initio
10 1 (0.29%) Concur
10 1 (0.29%) Sonatype
10 1 (0.29%) Teradata
10 1 (0.29%) VMware