Java Engineer Contract Job Trends

Java Engineer
UK

The median Java Engineer daily rate in the UK is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 October 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 383 361 318
Rank change year-on-year -22 -43 +152
Contract jobs requiring a Java Engineer 326 203 254
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.60% 0.62% 0.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.65% 0.68% 0.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 208 155 181
10th Percentile £333 £368 £450
25th Percentile £425 £513 £520
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £600 £750
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% -20.00% +25.00%
75th Percentile £601 £825 £850
90th Percentile £660 £850 £888
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £525 £500
% change year-on-year - +5.00% +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 7 28
10th Percentile - £39.50 £65.13
25th Percentile £70.00 £56.25 -
Median hourly rate £75.00 £80.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% +14.29% +12.00%
75th Percentile £77.00 £87.50 -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £75.00 £70.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year +7.14% - +12.00%

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 50,334 29,798 35,032
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.11% 90.81% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,572 18,806 21,176
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £638 £620 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,026 1,619 1,521
10th Percentile £14.45 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £19.76 £17.30 £20.50
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -40.82% -4.49%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.38 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.00 £74.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.74 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.44% -41.69% -2.16%

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 6 October 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 6 October 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 6 October 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 -19 301 £525 -16.00% 532
UK excluding London +9 162 £525 - 361
London -91 144 £525 -30.00% 313
Work from Home -86 93 £470 -37.33% 232
North of England -14 69 £500 -13.04% 79
Midlands -2 48 £590 +12.38% 22
North West -8 44 £555 +81.97% 55
West Midlands -10 42 £593 +12.32% 16
South East -42 20 £500 +44.93% 23
East of England -9 19 £600 - 4
Yorkshire -24 15 £470 +47.52% 10
North East -30 10 £640 +11.30% 14
South West -31 7 £484 -12.05% 48
East Midlands -5 6 £400 +26.98% 6
Scotland -34 4 £550 +12.82% 141
Wales - 4 - - 8
Northern Ireland - 3 £275 - 36

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

For the 6 months to 6 October 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.

1 326 (100.00%) Java
2 173 (53.07%) Software Engineering
3 160 (49.08%) Spring
4 150 (46.01%) CI/CD
5 145 (44.48%) Spring Boot
6 123 (37.73%) AWS
7 122 (37.42%) Agile
8 114 (34.97%) Kubernetes
8 114 (34.97%) Microservices
9 81 (24.85%) Docker
10 77 (23.62%) Kafka
11 75 (23.01%) DevOps
12 73 (22.39%) SQL
13 72 (22.09%) Security Cleared
14 70 (21.47%) Test Automation
15 65 (19.94%) SC Cleared
16 64 (19.63%) REST
17 58 (17.79%) Event-Driven
18 48 (14.72%) Azure
18 48 (14.72%) TDD
19 46 (14.11%) Git
20 45 (13.80%) AI
21 43 (13.19%) JUnit
22 42 (12.88%) Containerisation
22 42 (12.88%) QA
23 41 (12.58%) GitLab
23 41 (12.58%) Problem-Solving
24 40 (12.27%) Python
24 40 (12.27%) Scrum
25 39 (11.96%) Event-Driven Architecture

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 (2.15%) Apache
1 7 (2.15%) WebLogic
2 5 (1.53%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.92%) Confluence
4 2 (0.61%) Ethereum
4 2 (0.61%) MQSeries
4 2 (0.61%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.31%) Apache Pulsar
5 1 (0.31%) WebSphere
Applications
1 3 (0.92%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (0.61%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.31%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 123 (37.73%) AWS
2 48 (14.72%) Azure
3 35 (10.74%) GCP
4 28 (8.59%) GitHub
5 19 (5.83%) GitHub Actions
6 17 (5.21%) Serverless
7 16 (4.91%) AWS Lambda
8 12 (3.68%) OpenShift
9 8 (2.45%) Amazon ECS
9 8 (2.45%) Amazon SQS
9 8 (2.45%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (2.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 7 (2.15%) Amazon EKS
11 6 (1.84%) Amazon S3
11 6 (1.84%) GitHub Copilot
12 5 (1.53%) Amazon OpenSearch
12 5 (1.53%) Azure DevOps
12 5 (1.53%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 4 (1.23%) AWS Fargate
13 4 (1.23%) Cloud Run
Communications & Networking
1 11 (3.37%) Firewall
1 11 (3.37%) VPN
2 5 (1.53%) HTTP
3 4 (1.23%) Internet
4 1 (0.31%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (11.66%) PostgreSQL
2 27 (8.28%) Relational Database
3 20 (6.13%) NoSQL
4 15 (4.60%) MySQL
5 14 (4.29%) MongoDB
6 9 (2.76%) DynamoDB
7 8 (2.45%) Couchbase
7 8 (2.45%) Elasticsearch
7 8 (2.45%) Redis
7 8 (2.45%) SQL Server
8 6 (1.84%) Apache Cassandra
8 6 (1.84%) Flink
9 3 (0.92%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.92%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.92%) Power BI
10 2 (0.61%) Big Data
10 2 (0.61%) HBase
10 2 (0.61%) Snowflake Schema
10 2 (0.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 1 (0.31%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 46 (14.11%) Git
2 43 (13.19%) JUnit
3 41 (12.58%) GitLab
4 29 (8.90%) Maven
5 21 (6.44%) Mockito
6 18 (5.52%) Jenkins
7 17 (5.21%) Gradle
8 13 (3.99%) SonarQube
9 10 (3.07%) Cucumber
10 8 (2.45%) JIRA
10 8 (2.45%) Selenium
11 6 (1.84%) Bitbucket
12 5 (1.53%) Liquibase
12 5 (1.53%) TeamCity
13 4 (1.23%) Gatling
14 3 (0.92%) Claude Code
14 3 (0.92%) Cypress.io
14 3 (0.92%) Flyway
15 2 (0.61%) Katalon Studio
15 2 (0.61%) XCUITest
General
1 83 (25.46%) Finance
2 66 (20.25%) Social Skills
3 57 (17.48%) Banking
4 16 (4.91%) Public Sector
5 13 (3.99%) Manufacturing
6 12 (3.68%) Retail
7 11 (3.37%) Front Office
8 9 (2.76%) Analytical Skills
9 6 (1.84%) Financial Institution
9 6 (1.84%) Military
10 4 (1.23%) iGaming
10 4 (1.23%) Investment Banking
10 4 (1.23%) Law
10 4 (1.23%) Retail Banking
11 3 (0.92%) Automotive
11 3 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.61%) Corporate Banking
13 1 (0.31%) Aviation
13 1 (0.31%) International Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 160 (49.08%) Spring
2 145 (44.48%) Spring Boot
3 77 (23.62%) Kafka
4 64 (19.63%) REST
5 29 (8.90%) RESTful
6 28 (8.59%) React
7 20 (6.13%) AngularJS
7 20 (6.13%) OpenAPI
8 19 (5.83%) Terraform
9 17 (5.21%) JPA
10 12 (3.68%) JSON
11 11 (3.37%) OAuth
11 11 (3.37%) RabbitMQ
11 11 (3.37%) Swagger
12 9 (2.76%) Quarkus
13 8 (2.45%) GraphQL
13 8 (2.45%) Hibernate
13 8 (2.45%) Node.js
13 8 (2.45%) Spring MVC
14 7 (2.15%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 74 (22.70%) Cloud Native
2 59 (18.10%) Distributed Systems
3 13 (3.99%) Greenfield Project
4 12 (3.68%) Enterprise Software
4 12 (3.68%) Product Ownership
5 9 (2.76%) AI Agents
6 8 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
6 8 (2.45%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.84%) Data Structures
7 6 (1.84%) Linux Command Line
7 6 (1.84%) Virtual Team
8 5 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.53%) Legacy Applications
9 4 (1.23%) Client/Server
9 4 (1.23%) Low-Code
9 4 (1.23%) Public Cloud
9 4 (1.23%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 3 (0.92%) Algorithms
10 3 (0.92%) TWAP
10 3 (0.92%) VWAP
Operating Systems
1 19 (5.83%) Linux
2 12 (3.68%) Unix
3 2 (0.61%) Android
3 2 (0.61%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 173 (53.07%) Software Engineering
2 150 (46.01%) CI/CD
3 122 (37.42%) Agile
4 114 (34.97%) Microservices
5 75 (23.01%) DevOps
6 70 (21.47%) Test Automation
7 58 (17.79%) Event-Driven
8 48 (14.72%) TDD
9 45 (13.80%) AI
10 42 (12.88%) Containerisation
11 41 (12.58%) Problem-Solving
12 40 (12.27%) Scrum
13 39 (11.96%) Event-Driven Architecture
13 39 (11.96%) SDLC
14 38 (11.66%) Observability
15 35 (10.74%) Clean Code
15 35 (10.74%) Full-Stack Development
16 31 (9.51%) Front End Development
17 29 (8.90%) Unit Testing
18 25 (7.67%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 326 (100.00%) Java
2 73 (22.39%) SQL
3 40 (12.27%) Python
4 29 (8.90%) JavaScript
5 28 (8.59%) Kotlin
6 27 (8.28%) TypeScript
7 19 (5.83%) Shell Script
8 5 (1.53%) C#
9 4 (1.23%) Bash
9 4 (1.23%) Groovy
9 4 (1.23%) PowerShell
9 4 (1.23%) Ruby
10 3 (0.92%) Go
10 3 (0.92%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.61%) C++
11 2 (0.61%) Solidity
11 2 (0.61%) Swift
12 1 (0.31%) Korn
12 1 (0.31%) Perl
12 1 (0.31%) Scala
Qualifications
1 72 (22.09%) Security Cleared
2 65 (19.94%) SC Cleared
3 28 (8.59%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (3.37%) Degree
5 8 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (0.92%) DV Cleared
7 2 (0.61%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.31%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 1 (0.31%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (12.88%) QA
2 8 (2.45%) ISO 20022
3 4 (1.23%) Accessibility
3 4 (1.23%) GDPR
3 4 (1.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 4 (1.23%) SEPA
4 3 (0.92%) ISO 15022
4 3 (0.92%) SLA
4 3 (0.92%) WCAG
5 2 (0.61%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.31%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.31%) PSD2
System Software
1 81 (24.85%) Docker
Systems Management
1 114 (34.97%) Kubernetes
2 12 (3.68%) Argo
2 12 (3.68%) Kibana
3 5 (1.53%) Prometheus
4 4 (1.23%) Ansible
5 2 (0.61%) Grafana
5 2 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.31%) Docker Swarm
6 1 (0.31%) HAProxy
Vendors
1 29 (8.90%) Oracle
2 9 (2.76%) Red Hat
3 8 (2.45%) Microsoft
4 5 (1.53%) Confluent
4 5 (1.53%) Databricks
4 5 (1.53%) Google
4 5 (1.53%) Splunk
5 4 (1.23%) Dynatrace
5 4 (1.23%) SAP
6 3 (0.92%) FIS
6 3 (0.92%) IBM
7 2 (0.61%) Checkmarx
7 2 (0.61%) MKS
7 2 (0.61%) OpenAI
7 2 (0.61%) ServiceNow
7 2 (0.61%) Spotify
8 1 (0.31%) Ariba
8 1 (0.31%) Concur
8 1 (0.31%) Okta