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 21 September 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 383 356 303
Rank change year-on-year -27 -53 +164
Contract jobs requiring a Java Engineer 325 214 278
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.60% 0.66% 0.72%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.65% 0.72% 0.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 208 156 204
10th Percentile £328 £388 £450
25th Percentile £425 £511 £520
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £619 £750
Median % change year-on-year -15.15% -17.50% +25.00%
75th Percentile £600 £825 £850
90th Percentile £657 £850 £888
UK excluding London median daily rate £524 £506 £500
% change year-on-year +3.46% +1.25% +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 7 26
10th Percentile £65.88 £39.50 £66.25
25th Percentile - £56.25 -
Median hourly rate £70.00 £80.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% +14.29% +27.27%
75th Percentile £76.25 £87.50 -
90th Percentile £77.00 £89.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £70.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year - - +7.69%

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 50,135 29,742 35,694
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 91.07% 92.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,651 18,759 21,938
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 £627 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,860 1,586 1,659
10th Percentile £14.56 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.17 £20.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.84 £51.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.78 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.13 £43.90
% change year-on-year +69.14% -42.76% +0.34%

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 21 September 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 21 September 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 21 September 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 -17 300 £525 -26.32% 636
UK excluding London 0 155 £524 +3.46% 371
London -84 148 £525 -30.00% 388
Work from Home -84 97 £473 -37.00% 244
North of England -4 71 £500 +60.36% 88
North West -16 39 £540 +77.05% 51
Midlands -17 38 £590 +12.38% 31
West Midlands -20 32 £593 +12.32% 16
South East -49 23 £500 - 25
Yorkshire -22 19 £475 +49.09% 24
East of England -14 16 £585 -2.50% 6
North East - 13 £640 - 13
South West -33 9 £484 -12.05% 68
East Midlands -11 6 £400 +26.98% 15
Wales - 4 - - 5
Northern Ireland +7 3 £275 -41.49% 19
Scotland -40 2 £550 +17.33% 130

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

For the 6 months to 21 September 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.

1 325 (100.00%) Java
2 181 (55.69%) Software Engineering
3 148 (45.54%) Spring
4 139 (42.77%) CI/CD
5 137 (42.15%) Spring Boot
6 115 (35.38%) Agile
7 111 (34.15%) AWS
8 108 (33.23%) Microservices
9 106 (32.62%) Kubernetes
10 79 (24.31%) Docker
11 77 (23.69%) Security Cleared
12 76 (23.38%) DevOps
13 73 (22.46%) SQL
14 70 (21.54%) SC Cleared
15 69 (21.23%) Kafka
16 67 (20.62%) Test Automation
17 54 (16.62%) Event-Driven
17 54 (16.62%) REST
18 44 (13.54%) TDD
19 41 (12.62%) Git
19 41 (12.62%) SDLC
20 40 (12.31%) AI
20 40 (12.31%) Containerisation
20 40 (12.31%) Event-Driven Architecture
20 40 (12.31%) QA
21 39 (12.00%) Azure
22 38 (11.69%) Full-Stack Development
22 38 (11.69%) JUnit
22 38 (11.69%) Problem-Solving
22 38 (11.69%) Python

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%) WebLogic
2 6 (1.85%) Apache Spark
3 5 (1.54%) Apache
4 3 (0.92%) Confluence
4 3 (0.92%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 2 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.62%) MQSeries
6 1 (0.31%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.31%) Ethereum
6 1 (0.31%) nginx
6 1 (0.31%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.31%) WebSphere
Applications
1 3 (0.92%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (0.62%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.31%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 111 (34.15%) AWS
2 39 (12.00%) Azure
3 30 (9.23%) GCP
4 26 (8.00%) GitHub
5 20 (6.15%) GitHub Actions
6 18 (5.54%) Serverless
7 17 (5.23%) AWS Lambda
8 16 (4.92%) OpenShift
9 9 (2.77%) Amazon SQS
10 8 (2.46%) Amazon ECS
10 8 (2.46%) AWS CloudFormation
11 7 (2.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 6 (1.85%) Amazon EKS
12 6 (1.85%) Amazon S3
12 6 (1.85%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 5 (1.54%) Amazon OpenSearch
13 5 (1.54%) Azure DevOps
14 4 (1.23%) Cloud Run
14 4 (1.23%) GitHub Copilot
14 4 (1.23%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 10 (3.08%) Firewall
1 10 (3.08%) VPN
2 5 (1.54%) HTTP
3 4 (1.23%) Internet
4 1 (0.31%) DNS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (11.08%) PostgreSQL
2 26 (8.00%) Relational Database
3 19 (5.85%) NoSQL
4 14 (4.31%) MySQL
5 11 (3.38%) MongoDB
6 10 (3.08%) DynamoDB
7 9 (2.77%) Elasticsearch
8 8 (2.46%) Couchbase
8 8 (2.46%) SQL Server
9 7 (2.15%) Redis
10 6 (1.85%) Apache Cassandra
11 4 (1.23%) Flink
12 3 (0.92%) Big Data
12 3 (0.92%) Data Lake
12 3 (0.92%) Oracle Database
12 3 (0.92%) Power BI
13 2 (0.62%) HBase
13 2 (0.62%) Snowflake Schema
13 2 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 1 (0.31%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 41 (12.62%) Git
2 38 (11.69%) JUnit
3 31 (9.54%) GitLab
4 26 (8.00%) Maven
5 19 (5.85%) Jenkins
6 18 (5.54%) Mockito
7 15 (4.62%) SonarQube
8 14 (4.31%) Gradle
9 8 (2.46%) JIRA
10 7 (2.15%) Cucumber
11 6 (1.85%) Bitbucket
11 6 (1.85%) Selenium
12 5 (1.54%) Liquibase
12 5 (1.54%) TeamCity
13 3 (0.92%) Cypress.io
13 3 (0.92%) Flyway
14 2 (0.62%) Appium
14 2 (0.62%) Gatling
14 2 (0.62%) Katalon Studio
14 2 (0.62%) REST Assured
General
1 85 (26.15%) Finance
2 59 (18.15%) Social Skills
3 54 (16.62%) Banking
4 17 (5.23%) Public Sector
5 12 (3.69%) Front Office
5 12 (3.69%) Manufacturing
6 9 (2.77%) Retail
7 8 (2.46%) Analytical Skills
8 6 (1.85%) Financial Institution
8 6 (1.85%) Military
9 5 (1.54%) Law
10 4 (1.23%) iGaming
10 4 (1.23%) Retail Banking
11 3 (0.92%) Automotive
11 3 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (0.92%) Investment Banking
11 3 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.62%) Corporate Banking
13 1 (0.31%) French Language
13 1 (0.31%) International Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 148 (45.54%) Spring
2 137 (42.15%) Spring Boot
3 69 (21.23%) Kafka
4 54 (16.62%) REST
5 28 (8.62%) RESTful
6 27 (8.31%) React
7 25 (7.69%) AngularJS
8 18 (5.54%) Terraform
9 17 (5.23%) OpenAPI
10 15 (4.62%) Quarkus
11 14 (4.31%) JPA
12 10 (3.08%) OAuth
12 10 (3.08%) Swagger
13 8 (2.46%) Node.js
13 8 (2.46%) Web Services
14 7 (2.15%) CSS
14 7 (2.15%) Hibernate
14 7 (2.15%) HTML
14 7 (2.15%) JSON
14 7 (2.15%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 70 (21.54%) Cloud Native
2 52 (16.00%) Distributed Systems
3 14 (4.31%) Greenfield Project
4 12 (3.69%) Product Ownership
5 11 (3.38%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (2.46%) AI Agents
6 8 (2.46%) Legacy Systems
6 8 (2.46%) Onboarding
7 7 (2.15%) Data Structures
8 6 (1.85%) Legacy Applications
8 6 (1.85%) Virtual Team
9 5 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.54%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 5 (1.54%) Linux Command Line
10 4 (1.23%) Algorithms
10 4 (1.23%) Client/Server
10 4 (1.23%) Public Cloud
10 4 (1.23%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 4 (1.23%) TWAP
10 4 (1.23%) VWAP
Operating Systems
1 20 (6.15%) Linux
2 12 (3.69%) Unix
3 2 (0.62%) Android
3 2 (0.62%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.31%) Solaris
4 1 (0.31%) Windows
4 1 (0.31%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2008
4 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 181 (55.69%) Software Engineering
2 139 (42.77%) CI/CD
3 115 (35.38%) Agile
4 108 (33.23%) Microservices
5 76 (23.38%) DevOps
6 67 (20.62%) Test Automation
7 54 (16.62%) Event-Driven
8 44 (13.54%) TDD
9 41 (12.62%) SDLC
10 40 (12.31%) AI
10 40 (12.31%) Containerisation
10 40 (12.31%) Event-Driven Architecture
11 38 (11.69%) Full-Stack Development
11 38 (11.69%) Problem-Solving
12 37 (11.38%) Scrum
13 36 (11.08%) Observability
14 33 (10.15%) Front End Development
15 32 (9.85%) Unit Testing
16 31 (9.54%) Clean Code
17 25 (7.69%) Code Quality
Programming Languages
1 325 (100.00%) Java
2 73 (22.46%) SQL
3 38 (11.69%) Python
4 27 (8.31%) Kotlin
5 26 (8.00%) JavaScript
5 26 (8.00%) TypeScript
6 17 (5.23%) Shell Script
7 5 (1.54%) C#
7 5 (1.54%) C++
8 4 (1.23%) Bash
8 4 (1.23%) Groovy
8 4 (1.23%) PL/SQL
8 4 (1.23%) PowerShell
8 4 (1.23%) Ruby
9 3 (0.92%) Go
10 2 (0.62%) Swift
11 1 (0.31%) Korn
11 1 (0.31%) Rust
11 1 (0.31%) Scala
11 1 (0.31%) Solidity
Qualifications
1 77 (23.69%) Security Cleared
2 70 (21.54%) SC Cleared
3 22 (6.77%) BPSS Clearance
4 13 (4.00%) Degree
5 9 (2.77%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (0.92%) DV Cleared
6 3 (0.92%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.31%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.31%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (12.31%) QA
2 9 (2.77%) ISO 20022
3 5 (1.54%) SEPA
4 4 (1.23%) GDPR
4 4 (1.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 3 (0.92%) Accessibility
5 3 (0.92%) Data Quality
5 3 (0.92%) ISO 15022
5 3 (0.92%) SLA
6 1 (0.31%) Def Stans
6 1 (0.31%) IEC 61508
6 1 (0.31%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.31%) PSD2
6 1 (0.31%) WCAG
System Software
1 79 (24.31%) Docker
2 1 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (0.31%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
2 1 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.31%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 106 (32.62%) Kubernetes
2 15 (4.62%) Argo
3 10 (3.08%) Kibana
4 6 (1.85%) Prometheus
5 5 (1.54%) Ansible
6 3 (0.92%) Grafana
7 2 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.31%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.31%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.31%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 26 (8.00%) Oracle
2 13 (4.00%) Red Hat
3 8 (2.46%) Microsoft
4 7 (2.15%) Google
5 5 (1.54%) Confluent
5 5 (1.54%) IBM
5 5 (1.54%) Splunk
6 4 (1.23%) Databricks
6 4 (1.23%) Dynatrace
6 4 (1.23%) SAP
7 3 (0.92%) FIS
7 3 (0.92%) Spotify
8 2 (0.62%) Checkmarx
8 2 (0.62%) MKS
8 2 (0.62%) OpenAI
8 2 (0.62%) ServiceNow
9 1 (0.31%) Ariba
9 1 (0.31%) Concur
9 1 (0.31%) Solace
9 1 (0.31%) VMware