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 30 March 2026.

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

6 months to
30 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 339 364 434
Rank change year-on-year +25 +70 -4
Contract jobs requiring a Java Engineer 294 164 167
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 0.56% 0.38%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.72% 0.60% 0.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 179 115 110
10th Percentile £375 £335 £411
25th Percentile £427 £463 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year - - -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £825 £684
90th Percentile £682 £875 £794
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +5.85% -6.00% -13.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 9 3
10th Percentile - £53.70 -
25th Percentile £52.50 £61.25 £67.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year - -7.14% +6.87%
75th Percentile £69.06 £68.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £71.50 £73.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year - -7.14% +6.87%

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 40,867 27,187 41,091
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.04% 92.82% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,444 17,883 26,923
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.67%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,559 948 2,529
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.08 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.52 £20.99 £16.25
Median hourly rate £38.63 £32.50 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +18.86% -1.20% -24.60%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.53 £71.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £32.25 £32.90
% change year-on-year +24.03% -1.96% -20.57%

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 30 March 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 30 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Java Engineer in the UK

Java Engineer
Top 16 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 30 March 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 -7 254 £525 -12.50% 71
UK excluding London +17 158 £498 +5.85% 39
London -40 118 £550 -8.33% 39
Work from Home -2 80 £478 -36.33% 36
North of England -29 51 £488 +6.56% 17
Midlands -40 28 £469 -10.67% 3
West Midlands -29 27 £469 -10.67% 1
South West -13 26 £488 -12.56% 7
North West -19 26 £478 - 8
South East -30 25 £400 -38.46% 8
Scotland +24 24 £600 +28.69% 4
Yorkshire -51 16 £511 -2.62% 6
North East -3 10 £439 +12.50% 3
Wales -9 2 £388 +96.20%
East of England -30 2 £500 +6.95%
East Midlands - 1 - - 2

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

For the 6 months to 30 March 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.

1 294 (100.00%) Java
2 150 (51.02%) Software Engineering
3 117 (39.80%) Spring
4 106 (36.05%) Spring Boot
5 89 (30.27%) AWS
6 84 (28.57%) Kubernetes
6 84 (28.57%) Microservices
7 82 (27.89%) CI/CD
8 75 (25.51%) Agile
9 54 (18.37%) DevOps
10 52 (17.69%) Kafka
11 50 (17.01%) Docker
11 50 (17.01%) Full-Stack Development
12 49 (16.67%) Security Cleared
13 47 (15.99%) Azure
14 45 (15.31%) SC Cleared
15 42 (14.29%) TDD
16 39 (13.27%) SQL
17 36 (12.24%) Python
18 35 (11.90%) Test Automation
19 34 (11.56%) Containerisation
19 34 (11.56%) QA
20 33 (11.22%) React
21 32 (10.88%) Jenkins
22 29 (9.86%) PostgreSQL
22 29 (9.86%) Problem-Solving
23 27 (9.18%) Git
23 27 (9.18%) GitLab
23 27 (9.18%) Gradle
23 27 (9.18%) Scrum

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 (2.72%) Apache
1 8 (2.72%) Apache Spark
2 4 (1.36%) WebLogic
3 3 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (1.02%) JBoss
3 3 (1.02%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 2 (0.68%) Confluence
5 1 (0.34%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.34%) Camunda
5 1 (0.34%) Ethereum
5 1 (0.34%) Hyperledger
5 1 (0.34%) nginx
5 1 (0.34%) Tomcat
Applications
1 1 (0.34%) Notion
Business Applications
1 2 (0.68%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 89 (30.27%) AWS
2 47 (15.99%) Azure
3 18 (6.12%) AWS Lambda
3 18 (6.12%) Serverless
4 17 (5.78%) GCP
4 17 (5.78%) GitHub
5 15 (5.10%) Amazon S3
6 13 (4.42%) Amazon ECS
6 13 (4.42%) OpenShift
7 11 (3.74%) Amazon EC2
8 10 (3.40%) GitHub Actions
9 8 (2.72%) AWS CloudFormation
9 8 (2.72%) AWS Step Functions
10 6 (2.04%) Amazon Kinesis
11 4 (1.36%) AWS CodePipeline
11 4 (1.36%) Cloud Computing
11 4 (1.36%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 3 (1.02%) Amazon EKS
12 3 (1.02%) Azure Service Bus
12 3 (1.02%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.02%) HTTP
1 3 (1.02%) MQTT
2 1 (0.34%) FTP
2 1 (0.34%) HTTPS
2 1 (0.34%) Kerberos
2 1 (0.34%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (9.86%) PostgreSQL
2 24 (8.16%) MongoDB
3 11 (3.74%) Amazon RDS
3 11 (3.74%) MySQL
4 10 (3.40%) Big Data
5 9 (3.06%) Apache Cassandra
5 9 (3.06%) DynamoDB
5 9 (3.06%) SQL Server
6 7 (2.38%) NoSQL
7 6 (2.04%) Hadoop
7 6 (2.04%) Relational Database
8 4 (1.36%) Elasticsearch
9 3 (1.02%) HBase
10 2 (0.68%) Amazon Athena
10 2 (0.68%) Apache Arrow
10 2 (0.68%) Apache Ignite
10 2 (0.68%) BigQuery
10 2 (0.68%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.68%) Dremio
10 2 (0.68%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 32 (10.88%) Jenkins
2 27 (9.18%) Git
2 27 (9.18%) GitLab
2 27 (9.18%) Gradle
3 25 (8.50%) JUnit
4 17 (5.78%) IntelliJ
5 12 (4.08%) Cucumber
5 12 (4.08%) Maven
6 10 (3.40%) SonarQube
7 8 (2.72%) Selenium
8 7 (2.38%) JIRA
8 7 (2.38%) Mockito
9 6 (2.04%) Sonatype Nexus
10 4 (1.36%) Artifactory
10 4 (1.36%) Eclipse
10 4 (1.36%) JMeter
10 4 (1.36%) Postman
11 3 (1.02%) Gatling
11 3 (1.02%) Liquibase
12 1 (0.34%) CircleCI
General
1 62 (21.09%) Finance
2 36 (12.24%) Social Skills
3 24 (8.16%) Banking
4 17 (5.78%) Public Sector
5 15 (5.10%) Front Office
6 7 (2.38%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (2.38%) Investment Banking
6 7 (2.38%) Law
7 5 (1.70%) Financial Institution
8 3 (1.02%) Back Office
8 3 (1.02%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (0.68%) Retail
10 1 (0.34%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.34%) French Language
10 1 (0.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.34%) Legal
10 1 (0.34%) Military
10 1 (0.34%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 117 (39.80%) Spring
2 106 (36.05%) Spring Boot
3 52 (17.69%) Kafka
4 33 (11.22%) React
5 25 (8.50%) RESTful
6 20 (6.80%) Node.js
7 19 (6.46%) REST
8 17 (5.78%) GraphQL
8 17 (5.78%) Middleware
9 15 (5.10%) AngularJS
10 14 (4.76%) Swagger
11 12 (4.08%) OpenTelemetry
12 11 (3.74%) Hibernate
13 10 (3.40%) Quarkus
14 9 (3.06%) OpenAPI
14 9 (3.06%) Redux
15 7 (2.38%) JSON
15 7 (2.38%) Playwright
16 6 (2.04%) AWS CDK
16 6 (2.04%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 40 (13.61%) Cloud Native
2 23 (7.82%) Distributed Systems
3 12 (4.08%) Data Protection Act
4 11 (3.74%) Fixed Income
5 9 (3.06%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 7 (2.38%) Onboarding
7 6 (2.04%) Legacy Applications
8 5 (1.70%) Derivative
8 5 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (1.70%) Product Ownership
8 5 (1.70%) Public Cloud
8 5 (1.70%) Virtual Team
9 4 (1.36%) Greenfield Project
10 3 (1.02%) Hedge funds
10 3 (1.02%) Mobile App
10 3 (1.02%) Pricing Data
11 2 (0.68%) Algorithms
11 2 (0.68%) Data Structures
11 2 (0.68%) Equity Derivative
11 2 (0.68%) Exotic Derivative
Operating Systems
1 21 (7.14%) Linux
2 9 (3.06%) Unix
3 1 (0.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (0.34%) Solaris
3 1 (0.34%) SUSE
3 1 (0.34%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
3 1 (0.34%) VMS
3 1 (0.34%) Windows
3 1 (0.34%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.34%) Windows Server 2008
3 1 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
3 1 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 150 (51.02%) Software Engineering
2 84 (28.57%) Microservices
3 82 (27.89%) CI/CD
4 75 (25.51%) Agile
5 54 (18.37%) DevOps
6 50 (17.01%) Full-Stack Development
7 42 (14.29%) TDD
8 35 (11.90%) Test Automation
9 34 (11.56%) Containerisation
10 29 (9.86%) Problem-Solving
11 27 (9.18%) Scrum
12 26 (8.84%) Event-Driven
13 20 (6.80%) Migration
13 20 (6.80%) Unit Testing
14 19 (6.46%) Clean Code
15 17 (5.78%) Code Quality
15 17 (5.78%) Software Testing
16 16 (5.44%) Front End Development
16 16 (5.44%) Mentoring
17 15 (5.10%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 294 (100.00%) Java
2 39 (13.27%) SQL
3 36 (12.24%) Python
4 24 (8.16%) TypeScript
5 16 (5.44%) JavaScript
6 15 (5.10%) Kotlin
7 13 (4.42%) Go
8 11 (3.74%) Ada
9 5 (1.70%) C++
9 5 (1.70%) PL/SQL
9 5 (1.70%) Scala
10 3 (1.02%) C#
11 2 (0.68%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.34%) Rust
12 1 (0.34%) Solidity
Qualifications
1 49 (16.67%) Security Cleared
2 45 (15.31%) SC Cleared
3 11 (3.74%) Degree
4 6 (2.04%) Computer Science Degree
5 5 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (1.02%) Master's Degree
6 3 (1.02%) OCP
6 3 (1.02%) Oracle Certification
7 2 (0.68%) DV Cleared
8 1 (0.34%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 1 (0.34%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (11.56%) QA
2 11 (3.74%) Def Stans
2 11 (3.74%) IEC 61508
3 5 (1.70%) Accessibility
4 3 (1.02%) GDPR
4 3 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 2 (0.68%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.68%) ISO 15022
5 2 (0.68%) ISO 20022
5 2 (0.68%) WCAG
System Software
1 50 (17.01%) Docker
2 1 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (0.34%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
2 1 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.34%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 84 (28.57%) Kubernetes
2 23 (7.82%) Terraform
3 19 (6.46%) Grafana
4 10 (3.40%) Argo
5 6 (2.04%) Ansible
6 3 (1.02%) Puppet
7 2 (0.68%) HAProxy
7 2 (0.68%) Progress Chef
7 2 (0.68%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.34%) Kibana
8 1 (0.34%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.34%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 11 (3.74%) Google
1 11 (3.74%) Microsoft
2 10 (3.40%) Oracle
3 9 (3.06%) Red Hat
4 7 (2.38%) Splunk
5 5 (1.70%) IBM
6 3 (1.02%) Databricks
6 3 (1.02%) Spotify
6 3 (1.02%) VMware
6 3 (1.02%) webMethods
7 2 (0.68%) Dynatrace
7 2 (0.68%) New Relic
7 2 (0.68%) ServiceNow
7 2 (0.68%) Solace
8 1 (0.34%) Ab Initio
8 1 (0.34%) Actian
8 1 (0.34%) Sonatype
8 1 (0.34%) Teradata
8 1 (0.34%) Veracode
8 1 (0.34%) Virgin Media