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 27 February 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 358 406 453
Rank change year-on-year +48 +47 -70
Contract jobs requiring a Java Engineer 257 143 140
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.62% 0.47% 0.32%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.67% 0.50% 0.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 166 97 93
10th Percentile £361 £323 £400
25th Percentile £414 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £813 £688
90th Percentile £700 £875 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £480 £475
% change year-on-year +3.13% +1.05% -18.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 9 4
10th Percentile £51.25 £37.95 £61.38
25th Percentile £52.50 £57.50 £65.31
Median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -7.14% +6.70%
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £87.50 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £66.25
% change year-on-year -3.85% -1.89% +0.98%

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 38,124 28,451 41,052
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.79% 92.87% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,974 17,854 27,035
10th Percentile £309 £290 £275
25th Percentile £408 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,315 836 2,340
10th Percentile £14.64 £16.38 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.49 £16.30
Median hourly rate £33.50 £34.31 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.35% -1.99% -12.50%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.50 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -3.08% -7.14% -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 27 February 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 27 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Java Engineer in the UK

Java Engineer
Top 15 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 27 February 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 +2 219 £541 -9.88% 47
UK excluding London +14 130 £495 +3.13% 32
London -31 112 £565 -5.83% 23
Work from Home +16 76 £500 -35.48% 20
North of England -37 35 £489 +6.83% 8
Midlands -24 28 £469 -10.67% 2
West Midlands -21 26 £469 -10.67% 1
Scotland +32 24 £600 +26.32% 6
North West -8 22 £475 - 3
South West -17 21 £550 -1.35% 8
South East -14 20 £365 -43.85% 8
North East -9 8 £575 +47.44% 1
Yorkshire -65 5 £511 -2.62% 4
Wales -2 2 £388 +96.20%
East Midlands - 2 £313 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 27 February 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.

1 257 (100.00%) Java
2 119 (46.30%) Software Engineering
3 112 (43.58%) Spring
4 97 (37.74%) Spring Boot
5 82 (31.91%) AWS
5 82 (31.91%) CI/CD
5 82 (31.91%) Microservices
6 78 (30.35%) Kubernetes
7 69 (26.85%) Agile
8 48 (18.68%) Azure
9 45 (17.51%) DevOps
9 45 (17.51%) Kafka
10 44 (17.12%) Docker
11 40 (15.56%) Full-Stack Development
12 39 (15.18%) TDD
13 36 (14.01%) Security Cleared
14 35 (13.62%) SQL
15 33 (12.84%) Containerisation
15 33 (12.84%) SC Cleared
16 32 (12.45%) Test Automation
17 30 (11.67%) Problem-Solving
17 30 (11.67%) Python
18 29 (11.28%) QA
19 28 (10.89%) Git
19 28 (10.89%) Jenkins
20 25 (9.73%) Event-Driven
20 25 (9.73%) GitLab
20 25 (9.73%) Gradle
20 25 (9.73%) JUnit
20 25 (9.73%) RESTful

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 8 (3.11%) Apache
2 4 (1.56%) Apache Airflow
2 4 (1.56%) Apache Spark
2 4 (1.56%) JBoss
2 4 (1.56%) WebLogic
3 3 (1.17%) Confluence
4 2 (0.78%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.39%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.39%) Camunda
5 1 (0.39%) Ethereum
5 1 (0.39%) Hyperledger
Applications
1 1 (0.39%) Notion
Business Applications
1 2 (0.78%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 82 (31.91%) AWS
2 48 (18.68%) Azure
3 17 (6.61%) AWS Lambda
3 17 (6.61%) Serverless
4 16 (6.23%) GCP
5 15 (5.84%) Amazon S3
6 14 (5.45%) GitHub
7 13 (5.06%) Amazon EC2
7 13 (5.06%) Amazon ECS
8 10 (3.89%) OpenShift
9 9 (3.50%) AWS CloudFormation
9 9 (3.50%) AWS Step Functions
10 8 (3.11%) Amazon Kinesis
11 7 (2.72%) GitHub Actions
12 6 (2.33%) Cloud Computing
12 6 (2.33%) Snowflake
13 5 (1.95%) Amazon EKS
14 4 (1.56%) dbt
14 4 (1.56%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 3 (1.17%) AWS Fargate
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.17%) MQTT
2 2 (0.78%) HTTP
3 1 (0.39%) FTP
3 1 (0.39%) HTTPS
3 1 (0.39%) Kerberos
3 1 (0.39%) SSL
3 1 (0.39%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.39%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (9.34%) PostgreSQL
2 23 (8.95%) MongoDB
3 14 (5.45%) MySQL
4 13 (5.06%) Amazon RDS
5 10 (3.89%) Apache Cassandra
6 8 (3.11%) Big Data
6 8 (3.11%) Hadoop
6 8 (3.11%) NoSQL
7 7 (2.72%) DynamoDB
8 5 (1.95%) Relational Database
9 4 (1.56%) Amazon Athena
9 4 (1.56%) Apache Arrow
9 4 (1.56%) Apache Iceberg
9 4 (1.56%) Apache Ignite
9 4 (1.56%) Data Lake
9 4 (1.56%) Dremio
10 3 (1.17%) BigQuery
10 3 (1.17%) Elasticsearch
10 3 (1.17%) HBase
10 3 (1.17%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 28 (10.89%) Git
1 28 (10.89%) Jenkins
2 25 (9.73%) GitLab
2 25 (9.73%) Gradle
2 25 (9.73%) JUnit
3 16 (6.23%) Cucumber
3 16 (6.23%) IntelliJ
4 10 (3.89%) Maven
4 10 (3.89%) Selenium
5 7 (2.72%) JIRA
5 7 (2.72%) JMeter
5 7 (2.72%) Sonatype Nexus
6 5 (1.95%) Eclipse
6 5 (1.95%) Postman
7 4 (1.56%) Mockito
8 3 (1.17%) Artifactory
8 3 (1.17%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.78%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.78%) Gatling
10 1 (0.39%) CircleCI
General
1 59 (22.96%) Finance
2 36 (14.01%) Social Skills
3 24 (9.34%) Banking
4 18 (7.00%) Front Office
5 16 (6.23%) Public Sector
6 9 (3.50%) Investment Banking
7 8 (3.11%) Analytical Skills
8 4 (1.56%) Financial Institution
8 4 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
9 3 (1.17%) Back Office
10 2 (0.78%) Law
10 2 (0.78%) Retail
11 1 (0.39%) Military
11 1 (0.39%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (43.58%) Spring
2 97 (37.74%) Spring Boot
3 45 (17.51%) Kafka
4 25 (9.73%) RESTful
5 24 (9.34%) React
6 18 (7.00%) REST
7 14 (5.45%) Hibernate
7 14 (5.45%) Middleware
7 14 (5.45%) Node.js
8 13 (5.06%) GraphQL
9 12 (4.67%) OpenTelemetry
10 11 (4.28%) Swagger
11 10 (3.89%) AngularJS
12 8 (3.11%) JSON
13 7 (2.72%) HTML
13 7 (2.72%) Playwright
13 7 (2.72%) Redux
14 6 (2.33%) gRPC
14 6 (2.33%) OpenAPI
15 5 (1.95%) FIX Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 31 (12.06%) Cloud Native
2 26 (10.12%) Distributed Systems
3 11 (4.28%) Fixed Income
4 9 (3.50%) Data Protection Act
4 9 (3.50%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 8 (3.11%) Derivative
5 8 (3.11%) Onboarding
6 6 (2.33%) Virtual Team
7 5 (1.95%) Equities
7 5 (1.95%) Hedge funds
7 5 (1.95%) Legacy Applications
7 5 (1.95%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.95%) Product Ownership
7 5 (1.95%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.56%) Greenfield Project
8 4 (1.56%) Pricing Data
9 3 (1.17%) Data Structures
9 3 (1.17%) Mobile App
10 2 (0.78%) Algorithms
10 2 (0.78%) Equity Derivative
Operating Systems
1 20 (7.78%) Linux
2 10 (3.89%) Unix
3 1 (0.39%) SUSE
3 1 (0.39%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
3 1 (0.39%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 119 (46.30%) Software Engineering
2 82 (31.91%) CI/CD
2 82 (31.91%) Microservices
3 69 (26.85%) Agile
4 45 (17.51%) DevOps
5 40 (15.56%) Full-Stack Development
6 39 (15.18%) TDD
7 33 (12.84%) Containerisation
8 32 (12.45%) Test Automation
9 30 (11.67%) Problem-Solving
10 25 (9.73%) Event-Driven
11 20 (7.78%) Software Testing
12 19 (7.39%) Clean Code
12 19 (7.39%) Scrum
13 18 (7.00%) Mentoring
13 18 (7.00%) Observability
14 16 (6.23%) Fintech
14 16 (6.23%) Migration
15 15 (5.84%) BDD
16 14 (5.45%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 257 (100.00%) Java
2 35 (13.62%) SQL
3 30 (11.67%) Python
4 20 (7.78%) TypeScript
5 19 (7.39%) JavaScript
6 17 (6.61%) Kotlin
7 11 (4.28%) Go
8 8 (3.11%) Ada
9 5 (1.95%) PL/SQL
9 5 (1.95%) Scala
10 4 (1.56%) C++
11 3 (1.17%) C#
12 2 (0.78%) Rust
12 2 (0.78%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.39%) Ruby
13 1 (0.39%) Solidity
Qualifications
1 36 (14.01%) Security Cleared
2 33 (12.84%) SC Cleared
3 8 (3.11%) Degree
4 6 (2.33%) BPSS Clearance
5 5 (1.95%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.17%) OCP
6 3 (1.17%) Oracle Certification
7 2 (0.78%) DV Cleared
7 2 (0.78%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.39%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 1 (0.39%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (11.28%) QA
2 8 (3.11%) Def Stans
2 8 (3.11%) IEC 61508
3 6 (2.33%) Accessibility
4 2 (0.78%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.78%) ISO 15022
4 2 (0.78%) ISO 20022
4 2 (0.78%) WCAG
5 1 (0.39%) GDPR
System Software
1 44 (17.12%) Docker
Systems Management
1 78 (30.35%) Kubernetes
2 22 (8.56%) Terraform
3 18 (7.00%) Grafana
4 8 (3.11%) Ansible
5 4 (1.56%) Argo
5 4 (1.56%) Progress Chef
5 4 (1.56%) Puppet
6 1 (0.39%) Kibana
6 1 (0.39%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 9 (3.50%) Google
1 9 (3.50%) Oracle
2 7 (2.72%) Splunk
3 6 (2.33%) Microsoft
4 5 (1.95%) Databricks
5 4 (1.56%) IBM
5 4 (1.56%) VMware
5 4 (1.56%) webMethods
6 3 (1.17%) Red Hat
6 3 (1.17%) Solace
7 2 (0.78%) Dynatrace
7 2 (0.78%) New Relic
7 2 (0.78%) ServiceNow
8 1 (0.39%) Ab Initio
8 1 (0.39%) Actian
8 1 (0.39%) Adobe
8 1 (0.39%) Calypso
8 1 (0.39%) Cisco
8 1 (0.39%) Teradata
8 1 (0.39%) Virgin Media