Java Engineer Contract Job Trends

Java Engineer
UK

The median Java Engineer daily rate in the UK is £530, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 May 2026.

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

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 331 349 353
Rank change year-on-year +18 +4 +113
Contract jobs requiring a Java Engineer 339 174 228
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.71% 0.60% 0.54%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.76% 0.65% 0.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 206 116 154
10th Percentile £378 £380 £419
25th Percentile £451 £468 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £625 £581
Median % change year-on-year -15.20% +7.53% -3.13%
75th Percentile £625 £825 £778
90th Percentile £671 £875 £888
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +11.17% -6.00% -8.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 9 16
10th Percentile £52.50 £53.00 £67.50
25th Percentile £55.00 £61.25 £69.38
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year - -7.14% +6.87%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 -
90th Percentile £76.00 £73.50 £72.50
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 44,326 26,919 39,482
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.29% 92.40% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,149 17,544 25,684
10th Percentile £320 £295 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £615 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +4.74% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,891 1,039 2,653
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.31 £18.20 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £28.18 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.47% -22.79% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.38 £61.38 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £27.35 £40.00
% change year-on-year +64.53% -31.63% -5.88%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 +7 293 £525 -30.00% 89
UK excluding London +1 166 £523 +11.17% 59
London -25 145 £550 -26.67% 50
Work from Home -6 97 £525 -30.00% 104
North of England -14 61 £523 +14.21% 17
North West -12 30 £528 - 8
South East -49 30 £500 -23.08% 22
South West -21 29 £505 -2.65% 8
Midlands -50 21 £470 -10.57% 2
West Midlands -45 20 £470 -10.57% 1
Scotland +9 19 £600 +28.69% 5
Yorkshire -40 17 £523 -0.48% 7
North East -7 15 £478 +22.44% 2
East of England -31 6 £505 -15.83% 1
Wales - 3 £388 - 2
East Midlands -25 1 - - 1

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

For the 6 months to 16 May 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.

1 339 (100.00%) Java
2 171 (50.44%) Software Engineering
3 138 (40.71%) Spring
4 128 (37.76%) Spring Boot
5 95 (28.02%) Kubernetes
6 93 (27.43%) AWS
7 92 (27.14%) Microservices
8 90 (26.55%) CI/CD
9 80 (23.60%) Agile
10 67 (19.76%) Docker
11 66 (19.47%) Security Cleared
12 60 (17.70%) Kafka
12 60 (17.70%) SC Cleared
13 58 (17.11%) DevOps
14 56 (16.52%) Full-Stack Development
15 50 (14.75%) SQL
16 46 (13.57%) Azure
17 42 (12.39%) React
17 42 (12.39%) TDD
18 41 (12.09%) Containerisation
19 38 (11.21%) Test Automation
20 36 (10.62%) Event-Driven
20 36 (10.62%) Python
21 35 (10.32%) PostgreSQL
22 33 (9.73%) QA
23 30 (8.85%) Problem-Solving
24 29 (8.55%) Gradle
24 29 (8.55%) Jenkins
25 28 (8.26%) RESTful
25 28 (8.26%) TypeScript

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 (2.36%) Apache Spark
2 4 (1.18%) Confluence
3 3 (0.88%) Apache
3 3 (0.88%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 2 (0.59%) MQSeries
5 1 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.29%) Apache Pulsar
5 1 (0.29%) Camunda
5 1 (0.29%) Ethereum
5 1 (0.29%) Hyperledger
5 1 (0.29%) nginx
5 1 (0.29%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.29%) WebLogic
Applications
1 1 (0.29%) Notion
Business Applications
1 2 (0.59%) Shopify
2 1 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.29%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 93 (27.43%) AWS
2 46 (13.57%) Azure
3 20 (5.90%) Serverless
4 19 (5.60%) AWS Lambda
4 19 (5.60%) GitHub
5 18 (5.31%) GCP
6 15 (4.42%) OpenShift
7 14 (4.13%) Amazon S3
8 13 (3.83%) Amazon ECS
8 13 (3.83%) GitHub Actions
9 8 (2.36%) Amazon EC2
10 7 (2.06%) AWS CloudFormation
11 6 (1.77%) AWS Step Functions
12 4 (1.18%) Azure DevOps
12 4 (1.18%) Azure Service Bus
12 4 (1.18%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 3 (0.88%) Amazon EKS
13 3 (0.88%) Amazon Kinesis
13 3 (0.88%) AWS Fargate
13 3 (0.88%) Cloud Run
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.47%) HTTP
2 3 (0.88%) MQTT
3 2 (0.59%) Firewall
3 2 (0.59%) VPN
4 1 (0.29%) DNS
4 1 (0.29%) HTTPS
4 1 (0.29%) Internet
4 1 (0.29%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.29%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (10.32%) PostgreSQL
2 21 (6.19%) MongoDB
3 13 (3.83%) SQL Server
4 11 (3.24%) DynamoDB
4 11 (3.24%) Relational Database
5 9 (2.65%) Big Data
6 8 (2.36%) Amazon RDS
6 8 (2.36%) MySQL
6 8 (2.36%) NoSQL
7 6 (1.77%) Apache Cassandra
8 4 (1.18%) Elasticsearch
9 3 (0.88%) Hadoop
9 3 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 2 (0.59%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.59%) Redis
11 1 (0.29%) Azure SQL Database
11 1 (0.29%) BigQuery
11 1 (0.29%) Bigtable
11 1 (0.29%) Flink
11 1 (0.29%) HBase
Development Applications
1 29 (8.55%) Gradle
1 29 (8.55%) Jenkins
2 24 (7.08%) GitLab
3 23 (6.78%) Git
4 22 (6.49%) JUnit
5 15 (4.42%) IntelliJ
6 14 (4.13%) SonarQube
7 12 (3.54%) Maven
8 10 (2.95%) Mockito
9 8 (2.36%) JIRA
10 6 (1.77%) Liquibase
11 5 (1.47%) Cucumber
11 5 (1.47%) Selenium
12 3 (0.88%) Artifactory
13 2 (0.59%) Flyway
13 2 (0.59%) Gatling
13 2 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
13 2 (0.59%) TeamCity
13 2 (0.59%) WebDriver
13 2 (0.59%) XCUITest
General
1 65 (19.17%) Finance
2 32 (9.44%) Social Skills
3 31 (9.14%) Banking
4 21 (6.19%) Front Office
5 20 (5.90%) Public Sector
6 10 (2.95%) Law
7 8 (2.36%) Financial Institution
8 7 (2.06%) Analytical Skills
9 6 (1.77%) Investment Banking
10 3 (0.88%) Automotive
10 3 (0.88%) Back Office
10 3 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.88%) Retail
11 2 (0.59%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.59%) Military
12 1 (0.29%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.29%) Health Technology
12 1 (0.29%) Legal
12 1 (0.29%) Police
12 1 (0.29%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 138 (40.71%) Spring
2 128 (37.76%) Spring Boot
3 60 (17.70%) Kafka
4 42 (12.39%) React
5 28 (8.26%) RESTful
6 24 (7.08%) REST
7 18 (5.31%) AngularJS
7 18 (5.31%) GraphQL
7 18 (5.31%) Node.js
8 17 (5.01%) Middleware
8 17 (5.01%) Swagger
9 14 (4.13%) Quarkus
10 13 (3.83%) OpenAPI
10 13 (3.83%) OpenTelemetry
11 9 (2.65%) Redux
12 8 (2.36%) FIX Protocol
12 8 (2.36%) Hibernate
12 8 (2.36%) Next.js
13 7 (2.06%) AWS CDK
14 6 (1.77%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 51 (15.04%) Cloud Native
2 26 (7.67%) Distributed Systems
3 10 (2.95%) Data Protection Act
4 9 (2.65%) Fixed Income
4 9 (2.65%) Greenfield Project
5 8 (2.36%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 6 (1.77%) Legacy Applications
7 5 (1.47%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.18%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 4 (1.18%) TWAP
8 4 (1.18%) VWAP
9 3 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (0.88%) Low-Code
9 3 (0.88%) Mobile App
9 3 (0.88%) Onboarding
9 3 (0.88%) Product Ownership
9 3 (0.88%) Virtual Team
10 2 (0.59%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (0.59%) Distributed Computing
10 2 (0.59%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 19 (5.60%) Linux
2 6 (1.77%) Unix
3 1 (0.29%) Android
3 1 (0.29%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (0.29%) Solaris
3 1 (0.29%) SUSE
3 1 (0.29%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
3 1 (0.29%) VMS
3 1 (0.29%) Windows
3 1 (0.29%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2008
3 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
3 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (50.44%) Software Engineering
2 92 (27.14%) Microservices
3 90 (26.55%) CI/CD
4 80 (23.60%) Agile
5 58 (17.11%) DevOps
6 56 (16.52%) Full-Stack Development
7 42 (12.39%) TDD
8 41 (12.09%) Containerisation
9 38 (11.21%) Test Automation
10 36 (10.62%) Event-Driven
11 30 (8.85%) Problem-Solving
12 25 (7.37%) Scrum
13 24 (7.08%) Unit Testing
14 22 (6.49%) Clean Code
14 22 (6.49%) Migration
15 20 (5.90%) Code Quality
15 20 (5.90%) Front End Development
15 20 (5.90%) SDLC
16 19 (5.60%) High Availability
16 19 (5.60%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 339 (100.00%) Java
2 50 (14.75%) SQL
3 36 (10.62%) Python
4 28 (8.26%) TypeScript
5 19 (5.60%) JavaScript
6 18 (5.31%) Kotlin
7 13 (3.83%) Go
8 11 (3.24%) Ada
9 5 (1.47%) C++
10 4 (1.18%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.88%) C#
11 3 (0.88%) Scala
12 1 (0.29%) Groovy
12 1 (0.29%) Korn
12 1 (0.29%) Rust
12 1 (0.29%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.29%) Solidity
12 1 (0.29%) Swift
Qualifications
1 66 (19.47%) Security Cleared
2 60 (17.70%) SC Cleared
3 10 (2.95%) Degree
4 5 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (1.18%) DV Cleared
6 3 (0.88%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.29%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.29%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.29%) Numerate Degree
7 1 (0.29%) OCP
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (9.73%) QA
2 11 (3.24%) Def Stans
2 11 (3.24%) IEC 61508
3 7 (2.06%) GDPR
3 7 (2.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 6 (1.77%) Accessibility
4 6 (1.77%) ISO 20022
5 4 (1.18%) SEPA
6 3 (0.88%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.59%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.29%) WCAG
System Software
1 67 (19.76%) Docker
2 1 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (0.29%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
2 1 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 95 (28.02%) Kubernetes
2 21 (6.19%) Terraform
3 16 (4.72%) Grafana
4 13 (3.83%) Argo
5 6 (1.77%) Ansible
6 3 (0.88%) HAProxy
7 2 (0.59%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.29%) Kibana
8 1 (0.29%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.29%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 12 (3.54%) Red Hat
2 11 (3.24%) Google
2 11 (3.24%) Microsoft
3 10 (2.95%) Oracle
4 6 (1.77%) Splunk
4 6 (1.77%) Spotify
5 5 (1.47%) IBM
6 3 (0.88%) Databricks
6 3 (0.88%) Dynatrace
6 3 (0.88%) SAP
6 3 (0.88%) Solace
7 2 (0.59%) Checkmarx
7 2 (0.59%) Confluent
7 2 (0.59%) MKS
7 2 (0.59%) New Relic
7 2 (0.59%) ServiceNow
8 1 (0.29%) Actian
8 1 (0.29%) Netlify
8 1 (0.29%) Sonatype
8 1 (0.29%) Veracode