Java Engineer Contract Job Trends

Java Engineer
UK

The median Java Engineer daily rate in the UK is £540, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 April 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 346 358 414
Rank change year-on-year +12 +56 +54
Contract jobs requiring a Java Engineer 305 179 175
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 0.61% 0.40%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.72% 0.66% 0.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 189 116 121
10th Percentile £375 £380 £413
25th Percentile £440 £468 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £600 £550
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £825 £725
90th Percentile £672 £875 £875
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +6.38% -6.00% -13.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 8 3
10th Percentile - £60.13 -
25th Percentile £52.50 £64.06 £67.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £66.25 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.89% -5.36% +6.87%
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.75 £72.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.88 -
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 42,358 27,131 40,661
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.24% 92.61% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,304 17,800 26,582
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £517 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.29% -1.52% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £626 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,673 984 2,591
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.55 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.27 £19.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £41.94 £30.79 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.20% -12.02% -22.22%
75th Percentile £65.25 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.90 £75.43 £72.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.69 £30.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +42.28% -14.29% -17.38%

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 16 April 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 16 April 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 16 April 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 -1 262 £525 -16.83% 65
UK excluding London +7 158 £500 +6.38% 30
London -41 124 £550 -20.00% 45
Work from Home -31 75 £483 -35.67% 33
North of England -32 51 £500 -4.76% 10
Midlands -40 28 £469 -10.67% 2
South West -13 27 £488 -12.56% 4
West Midlands -32 27 £469 -10.67% 1
South East -37 25 £450 -30.77% 14
North West -19 24 £478 - 6
Scotland +19 22 £600 +28.69%
Yorkshire -39 19 £523 -18.04% 1
North East -9 9 £439 +12.50% 3
East of England -37 3 £535 -1.38%
Wales - 2 £388 -
East Midlands - 1 - - 1

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

For the 6 months to 16 April 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.

1 305 (100.00%) Java
2 151 (49.51%) Software Engineering
3 124 (40.66%) Spring
4 112 (36.72%) Spring Boot
5 89 (29.18%) AWS
6 86 (28.20%) Kubernetes
7 85 (27.87%) Microservices
8 81 (26.56%) CI/CD
9 72 (23.61%) Agile
10 58 (19.02%) Docker
11 55 (18.03%) Security Cleared
12 54 (17.70%) DevOps
12 54 (17.70%) Full-Stack Development
12 54 (17.70%) Kafka
13 50 (16.39%) SC Cleared
14 46 (15.08%) Azure
15 42 (13.77%) TDD
16 40 (13.11%) SQL
17 37 (12.13%) Python
17 37 (12.13%) React
18 36 (11.80%) Containerisation
19 31 (10.16%) PostgreSQL
20 30 (9.84%) Event-Driven
20 30 (9.84%) Jenkins
20 30 (9.84%) Problem-Solving
20 30 (9.84%) QA
20 30 (9.84%) Test Automation
21 28 (9.18%) Git
21 28 (9.18%) Gradle
22 25 (8.20%) 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 8 (2.62%) Apache Spark
2 6 (1.97%) Apache
3 4 (1.31%) WebLogic
4 3 (0.98%) JBoss
4 3 (0.98%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 2 (0.66%) Confluence
5 2 (0.66%) MQSeries
6 1 (0.33%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.33%) Camunda
6 1 (0.33%) Ethereum
6 1 (0.33%) Hyperledger
6 1 (0.33%) nginx
6 1 (0.33%) Tomcat
Applications
1 1 (0.33%) Notion
Business Applications
1 2 (0.66%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 89 (29.18%) AWS
2 46 (15.08%) Azure
3 19 (6.23%) AWS Lambda
3 19 (6.23%) Serverless
4 17 (5.57%) GCP
4 17 (5.57%) GitHub
5 15 (4.92%) Amazon S3
6 13 (4.26%) Amazon ECS
7 11 (3.61%) OpenShift
8 9 (2.95%) GitHub Actions
9 8 (2.62%) Amazon EC2
9 8 (2.62%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (1.97%) AWS Step Functions
11 4 (1.31%) AWS CodePipeline
11 4 (1.31%) Cloud Computing
12 3 (0.98%) Amazon EKS
12 3 (0.98%) Amazon Kinesis
12 3 (0.98%) AWS Fargate
12 3 (0.98%) Azure Service Bus
12 3 (0.98%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.98%) HTTP
1 3 (0.98%) MQTT
2 1 (0.33%) FTP
2 1 (0.33%) HTTPS
2 1 (0.33%) Kerberos
2 1 (0.33%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (10.16%) PostgreSQL
2 24 (7.87%) MongoDB
3 10 (3.28%) Big Data
3 10 (3.28%) SQL Server
4 9 (2.95%) DynamoDB
5 8 (2.62%) Amazon RDS
5 8 (2.62%) MySQL
6 7 (2.30%) NoSQL
6 7 (2.30%) Relational Database
7 6 (1.97%) Apache Cassandra
8 4 (1.31%) Elasticsearch
9 3 (0.98%) Hadoop
9 3 (0.98%) HBase
10 2 (0.66%) BigQuery
10 2 (0.66%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.66%) Redis
10 2 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 1 (0.33%) Azure SQL Database
11 1 (0.33%) Bigtable
11 1 (0.33%) Cloud Spanner
Development Applications
1 30 (9.84%) Jenkins
2 28 (9.18%) Git
2 28 (9.18%) Gradle
3 25 (8.20%) JUnit
4 24 (7.87%) GitLab
5 18 (5.90%) IntelliJ
6 14 (4.59%) Maven
7 10 (3.28%) Cucumber
7 10 (3.28%) SonarQube
8 8 (2.62%) Selenium
9 7 (2.30%) JIRA
9 7 (2.30%) Mockito
10 5 (1.64%) Artifactory
10 5 (1.64%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (1.31%) Eclipse
11 4 (1.31%) Postman
12 3 (0.98%) Gatling
12 3 (0.98%) Liquibase
13 2 (0.66%) JMeter
14 1 (0.33%) TestNG
General
1 58 (19.02%) Finance
2 32 (10.49%) Social Skills
3 23 (7.54%) Banking
4 17 (5.57%) Front Office
5 16 (5.25%) Public Sector
6 7 (2.30%) Law
7 6 (1.97%) Analytical Skills
8 5 (1.64%) Financial Institution
8 5 (1.64%) Investment Banking
9 3 (0.98%) Back Office
9 3 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (0.66%) Retail
11 1 (0.33%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.33%) Automotive
11 1 (0.33%) French Language
11 1 (0.33%) Legal
11 1 (0.33%) Military
11 1 (0.33%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 124 (40.66%) Spring
2 112 (36.72%) Spring Boot
3 54 (17.70%) Kafka
4 37 (12.13%) React
5 24 (7.87%) RESTful
6 18 (5.90%) Node.js
6 18 (5.90%) REST
7 17 (5.57%) GraphQL
8 16 (5.25%) Middleware
9 15 (4.92%) AngularJS
9 15 (4.92%) Swagger
10 13 (4.26%) OpenTelemetry
11 10 (3.28%) Hibernate
11 10 (3.28%) OpenAPI
11 10 (3.28%) Quarkus
12 9 (2.95%) JSON
12 9 (2.95%) Redux
13 6 (1.97%) AWS CDK
13 6 (1.97%) FIX Protocol
13 6 (1.97%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 41 (13.44%) Cloud Native
2 21 (6.89%) Distributed Systems
3 11 (3.61%) Data Protection Act
4 9 (2.95%) Fixed Income
5 8 (2.62%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 6 (1.97%) Greenfield Project
6 6 (1.97%) Legacy Applications
7 5 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.64%) Product Ownership
7 5 (1.64%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.31%) Onboarding
9 3 (0.98%) Derivative
9 3 (0.98%) Mobile App
10 2 (0.66%) Algorithms
10 2 (0.66%) Data Structures
10 2 (0.66%) Equity Derivative
10 2 (0.66%) Exotic Derivative
10 2 (0.66%) Hybrid Cloud
10 2 (0.66%) Replication
10 2 (0.66%) VWAP
Operating Systems
1 19 (6.23%) Linux
2 8 (2.62%) Unix
3 1 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (0.33%) Solaris
3 1 (0.33%) SUSE
3 1 (0.33%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
3 1 (0.33%) VMS
3 1 (0.33%) Windows
3 1 (0.33%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.33%) Windows Server 2008
3 1 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
3 1 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 151 (49.51%) Software Engineering
2 85 (27.87%) Microservices
3 81 (26.56%) CI/CD
4 72 (23.61%) Agile
5 54 (17.70%) DevOps
5 54 (17.70%) Full-Stack Development
6 42 (13.77%) TDD
7 36 (11.80%) Containerisation
8 30 (9.84%) Event-Driven
8 30 (9.84%) Problem-Solving
8 30 (9.84%) Test Automation
9 25 (8.20%) Scrum
10 20 (6.56%) Migration
11 19 (6.23%) Code Quality
11 19 (6.23%) Unit Testing
12 18 (5.90%) Software Testing
13 17 (5.57%) Clean Code
13 17 (5.57%) Mentoring
14 16 (5.25%) SDLC
15 15 (4.92%) Front End Development
Programming Languages
1 305 (100.00%) Java
2 40 (13.11%) SQL
3 37 (12.13%) Python
4 22 (7.21%) TypeScript
5 15 (4.92%) Kotlin
6 14 (4.59%) JavaScript
7 13 (4.26%) Go
8 11 (3.61%) Ada
9 6 (1.97%) Scala
10 5 (1.64%) C++
10 5 (1.64%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.66%) C#
12 1 (0.33%) Rust
12 1 (0.33%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.33%) Solidity
Qualifications
1 55 (18.03%) Security Cleared
2 50 (16.39%) SC Cleared
3 10 (3.28%) Degree
4 4 (1.31%) BPSS Clearance
4 4 (1.31%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (0.98%) DV Cleared
5 3 (0.98%) Master's Degree
5 3 (0.98%) OCP
5 3 (0.98%) Oracle Certification
6 1 (0.33%) AWS Certification
6 1 (0.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 1 (0.33%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (9.84%) QA
2 11 (3.61%) Def Stans
2 11 (3.61%) IEC 61508
3 5 (1.64%) Accessibility
4 3 (0.98%) GDPR
4 3 (0.98%) ISO 20022
4 3 (0.98%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 2 (0.66%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.66%) ISO 15022
5 2 (0.66%) WCAG
6 1 (0.33%) SEPA
System Software
1 58 (19.02%) Docker
2 1 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (0.33%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
2 1 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.33%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 86 (28.20%) Kubernetes
2 23 (7.54%) Terraform
3 18 (5.90%) Grafana
4 9 (2.95%) Argo
5 6 (1.97%) Ansible
6 3 (0.98%) HAProxy
6 3 (0.98%) Puppet
7 2 (0.66%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.33%) Kibana
8 1 (0.33%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.33%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.33%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 12 (3.93%) Google
2 11 (3.61%) Microsoft
3 10 (3.28%) Oracle
4 8 (2.62%) Red Hat
5 6 (1.97%) Splunk
5 6 (1.97%) Spotify
6 5 (1.64%) IBM
7 3 (0.98%) Databricks
7 3 (0.98%) Solace
7 3 (0.98%) webMethods
8 2 (0.66%) Checkmarx
8 2 (0.66%) Confluent
8 2 (0.66%) Dynatrace
8 2 (0.66%) MKS
8 2 (0.66%) New Relic
8 2 (0.66%) ServiceNow
8 2 (0.66%) VMware
9 1 (0.33%) Actian
9 1 (0.33%) Netlify
9 1 (0.33%) Teradata