Java Engineer Contract Job Trends

Java Engineer
UK

The median Java Engineer daily rate in the UK is £537, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 May 2026.

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

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 326 349 389
Rank change year-on-year +23 +40 +71
Contract jobs requiring a Java Engineer 334 179 212
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.70% 0.61% 0.49%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.76% 0.66% 0.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 203 117 142
10th Percentile £375 £380 £418
25th Percentile £450 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £613 £575
Median % change year-on-year -12.33% +6.52% -4.17%
75th Percentile £625 £825 £750
90th Percentile £671 £875 £888
UK excluding London median daily rate £523 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +8.85% -4.00% -13.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 9 13
10th Percentile £52.50 £53.00 -
25th Percentile £53.75 £61.25 £67.50
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 £75.80 £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 43,929 27,125 40,035
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 92.53% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,003 17,719 26,065
10th Percentile £318 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £514 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.75% -2.10% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,852 1,052 2,665
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £44.00 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.72% -20.55% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.25 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £28.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +62.36% -30.00% -4.76%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 +7 286 £525 -30.00% 83
UK excluding London -3 165 £523 +8.85% 58
London -18 141 £550 -26.67% 38
Work from Home -21 95 £525 -30.00% 49
North of England -11 61 £523 -0.48% 11
North West -20 30 £525 - 8
South West -19 28 £488 -6.02% 6
South East -34 28 £469 -27.88% 31
Midlands -50 23 £469 -10.67% 4
West Midlands -37 22 £469 -10.67% 2
Scotland +13 21 £600 +28.69% 2
Yorkshire -43 17 £523 -18.04% 2
North East -5 15 £478 +22.44% 1
East of England -37 3 £535 -10.83% 4
Wales - 3 £388 - 1
East Midlands - 1 - - 2

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

For the 6 months to 6 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.

1 334 (100.00%) Java
2 163 (48.80%) Software Engineering
3 136 (40.72%) Spring
4 125 (37.43%) Spring Boot
5 96 (28.74%) Kubernetes
6 92 (27.54%) AWS
7 89 (26.65%) Microservices
8 88 (26.35%) CI/CD
9 78 (23.35%) Agile
10 67 (20.06%) Security Cleared
11 65 (19.46%) Docker
12 61 (18.26%) SC Cleared
13 58 (17.37%) Kafka
14 56 (16.77%) Full-Stack Development
15 54 (16.17%) DevOps
16 48 (14.37%) Azure
16 48 (14.37%) SQL
17 43 (12.87%) TDD
18 42 (12.57%) Containerisation
19 39 (11.68%) React
20 38 (11.38%) Python
20 38 (11.38%) Test Automation
21 35 (10.48%) Event-Driven
22 34 (10.18%) PostgreSQL
23 33 (9.88%) QA
24 30 (8.98%) Jenkins
24 30 (8.98%) Problem-Solving
25 28 (8.38%) Gradle
26 27 (8.08%) RESTful
27 25 (7.49%) 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 (2.40%) Apache Spark
2 4 (1.20%) Confluence
3 3 (0.90%) Apache
3 3 (0.90%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 2 (0.60%) MQSeries
5 1 (0.30%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.30%) Camunda
5 1 (0.30%) Ethereum
5 1 (0.30%) Hyperledger
5 1 (0.30%) nginx
5 1 (0.30%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.30%) WebLogic
Applications
1 1 (0.30%) Notion
Business Applications
1 2 (0.60%) Shopify
2 1 (0.30%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 92 (27.54%) AWS
2 48 (14.37%) Azure
3 22 (6.59%) Serverless
4 21 (6.29%) AWS Lambda
5 18 (5.39%) GitHub
6 17 (5.09%) GCP
7 15 (4.49%) Amazon S3
7 15 (4.49%) OpenShift
8 14 (4.19%) Amazon ECS
9 11 (3.29%) GitHub Actions
10 9 (2.69%) Amazon EC2
11 8 (2.40%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (1.80%) AWS Step Functions
13 4 (1.20%) Azure Service Bus
13 4 (1.20%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 3 (0.90%) Amazon EKS
14 3 (0.90%) Amazon Kinesis
14 3 (0.90%) AWS CodePipeline
14 3 (0.90%) AWS Fargate
14 3 (0.90%) Cloud Run
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.50%) HTTP
2 3 (0.90%) MQTT
3 1 (0.30%) DNS
3 1 (0.30%) HTTPS
3 1 (0.30%) Internet
3 1 (0.30%) Kerberos
3 1 (0.30%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (10.18%) PostgreSQL
2 22 (6.59%) MongoDB
3 13 (3.89%) SQL Server
4 11 (3.29%) DynamoDB
5 9 (2.69%) Big Data
5 9 (2.69%) Relational Database
6 8 (2.40%) Amazon RDS
6 8 (2.40%) MySQL
7 7 (2.10%) NoSQL
8 6 (1.80%) Apache Cassandra
9 4 (1.20%) Elasticsearch
10 3 (0.90%) Hadoop
10 3 (0.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 2 (0.60%) HBase
11 2 (0.60%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.60%) Redis
12 1 (0.30%) Azure SQL Database
12 1 (0.30%) BigQuery
12 1 (0.30%) Bigtable
12 1 (0.30%) Flink
Development Applications
1 30 (8.98%) Jenkins
2 28 (8.38%) Gradle
3 23 (6.89%) Git
3 23 (6.89%) GitLab
4 21 (6.29%) JUnit
5 15 (4.49%) IntelliJ
6 14 (4.19%) SonarQube
7 12 (3.59%) Maven
8 8 (2.40%) Cucumber
8 8 (2.40%) JIRA
8 8 (2.40%) Mockito
9 6 (1.80%) Selenium
10 4 (1.20%) Artifactory
10 4 (1.20%) Liquibase
11 3 (0.90%) Postman
11 3 (0.90%) Sonatype Nexus
12 2 (0.60%) Gatling
12 2 (0.60%) TeamCity
12 2 (0.60%) WebDriver
12 2 (0.60%) XCUITest
General
1 63 (18.86%) Finance
2 33 (9.88%) Social Skills
3 28 (8.38%) Banking
4 22 (6.59%) Public Sector
5 20 (5.99%) Front Office
6 9 (2.69%) Law
7 8 (2.40%) Analytical Skills
8 7 (2.10%) Financial Institution
9 6 (1.80%) Investment Banking
10 3 (0.90%) Back Office
10 3 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.90%) Retail
11 2 (0.60%) Automotive
11 2 (0.60%) Military
12 1 (0.30%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.30%) Corporate Banking
12 1 (0.30%) French Language
12 1 (0.30%) Legal
12 1 (0.30%) Retail Banking
12 1 (0.30%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 136 (40.72%) Spring
2 125 (37.43%) Spring Boot
3 58 (17.37%) Kafka
4 39 (11.68%) React
5 27 (8.08%) RESTful
6 21 (6.29%) REST
7 18 (5.39%) AngularJS
7 18 (5.39%) GraphQL
7 18 (5.39%) Node.js
8 17 (5.09%) Middleware
9 16 (4.79%) Swagger
10 14 (4.19%) Quarkus
11 13 (3.89%) OpenTelemetry
12 11 (3.29%) OpenAPI
13 9 (2.69%) Redux
14 8 (2.40%) FIX Protocol
15 7 (2.10%) AWS CDK
15 7 (2.10%) Hibernate
15 7 (2.10%) Next.js
16 6 (1.80%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 49 (14.67%) Cloud Native
2 24 (7.19%) Distributed Systems
3 10 (2.99%) Data Protection Act
4 9 (2.69%) Fixed Income
5 8 (2.40%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 8 (2.40%) Greenfield Project
6 6 (1.80%) Legacy Applications
7 5 (1.50%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.20%) Onboarding
8 4 (1.20%) Product Ownership
8 4 (1.20%) TWAP
8 4 (1.20%) VWAP
9 3 (0.90%) Derivative
9 3 (0.90%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (0.90%) Mobile App
9 3 (0.90%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 3 (0.90%) Virtual Team
10 2 (0.60%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (0.60%) Distributed Computing
10 2 (0.60%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 19 (5.69%) Linux
2 6 (1.80%) Unix
3 1 (0.30%) Android
3 1 (0.30%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (0.30%) Solaris
3 1 (0.30%) SUSE
3 1 (0.30%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
3 1 (0.30%) VMS
3 1 (0.30%) Windows
3 1 (0.30%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2008
3 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
3 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 163 (48.80%) Software Engineering
2 89 (26.65%) Microservices
3 88 (26.35%) CI/CD
4 78 (23.35%) Agile
5 56 (16.77%) Full-Stack Development
6 54 (16.17%) DevOps
7 43 (12.87%) TDD
8 42 (12.57%) Containerisation
9 38 (11.38%) Test Automation
10 35 (10.48%) Event-Driven
11 30 (8.98%) Problem-Solving
12 25 (7.49%) Scrum
12 25 (7.49%) Unit Testing
13 22 (6.59%) Clean Code
13 22 (6.59%) Code Quality
14 21 (6.29%) Migration
15 20 (5.99%) Front End Development
15 20 (5.99%) SDLC
16 19 (5.69%) High Availability
17 18 (5.39%) Event-Driven Architecture
Programming Languages
1 334 (100.00%) Java
2 48 (14.37%) SQL
3 38 (11.38%) Python
4 24 (7.19%) TypeScript
5 17 (5.09%) JavaScript
5 17 (5.09%) Kotlin
6 13 (3.89%) Go
7 11 (3.29%) Ada
8 5 (1.50%) C++
8 5 (1.50%) PL/SQL
9 3 (0.90%) C#
9 3 (0.90%) Scala
10 2 (0.60%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.30%) Groovy
11 1 (0.30%) Korn
11 1 (0.30%) Rust
11 1 (0.30%) Solidity
11 1 (0.30%) Swift
Qualifications
1 67 (20.06%) Security Cleared
2 61 (18.26%) SC Cleared
3 10 (2.99%) Degree
4 5 (1.50%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (1.20%) DV Cleared
6 3 (0.90%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.60%) OCP
7 2 (0.60%) Oracle Certification
8 1 (0.30%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.30%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 1 (0.30%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (9.88%) QA
2 11 (3.29%) Def Stans
2 11 (3.29%) IEC 61508
3 7 (2.10%) GDPR
3 7 (2.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 6 (1.80%) Accessibility
5 5 (1.50%) ISO 20022
6 3 (0.90%) Data Quality
6 3 (0.90%) SEPA
7 2 (0.60%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.30%) WCAG
System Software
1 65 (19.46%) Docker
2 1 (0.30%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (0.30%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
2 1 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
2 1 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 96 (28.74%) Kubernetes
2 23 (6.89%) Terraform
3 16 (4.79%) Grafana
4 13 (3.89%) Argo
5 6 (1.80%) Ansible
6 3 (0.90%) HAProxy
7 2 (0.60%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.30%) Kibana
8 1 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.30%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 12 (3.59%) Red Hat
2 11 (3.29%) Google
2 11 (3.29%) Microsoft
3 10 (2.99%) Oracle
4 6 (1.80%) Splunk
4 6 (1.80%) Spotify
5 5 (1.50%) IBM
6 3 (0.90%) Databricks
6 3 (0.90%) Dynatrace
6 3 (0.90%) SAP
6 3 (0.90%) ServiceNow
6 3 (0.90%) Solace
7 2 (0.60%) Checkmarx
7 2 (0.60%) Confluent
7 2 (0.60%) MKS
7 2 (0.60%) New Relic
8 1 (0.30%) Actian
8 1 (0.30%) Netlify
8 1 (0.30%) Sonatype
8 1 (0.30%) Veracode