Software Development Engineer Contracts

Software Development Engineer
UK

The median Software Development Engineer daily rate in the UK is £600, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 3 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 499 557 680
Rank change year-on-year +58 +123 +112
Contract jobs requiring a Software Development Engineer 27 26 25
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.092% 0.060% 0.042%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.100% 0.065% 0.044%
Number of daily rates quoted 23 16 16
10th Percentile £270 £406 £488
25th Percentile £438 £425 £504
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +26.32% -13.64% +15.79%
75th Percentile - £488 £675
90th Percentile £715 £494 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £438 £450 -
% change year-on-year -2.78% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 3 0
Median hourly rate - £65.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £65.00 -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 27,094 40,274 56,187
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 92.76% 94.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,701 26,219 39,262
10th Percentile £300 £276 £313
25th Percentile £406 £409 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,044 2,672 1,567
10th Percentile £14.15 £12.86 £14.28
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.30 £19.38
Median hourly rate £28.88 £36.42 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.71% -19.07% +94.45%
75th Percentile £62.50 £61.25 £65.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
% change year-on-year -29.22% -6.94% +117.95%

Software Development Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Software Development Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Software Development Engineer in the UK

Software Development Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Software Development Engineer.

Daily rate trend for Software Development Engineer in the UK

Software Development Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Development Engineer over the 6 months to 3 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Software Development Engineer in the UK

Software Development Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Software Development Engineer.

Hourly rate trend for Software Development Engineer in the UK

Software Development Engineer
Top 7 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Software Development Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 3 May 2025. 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 +70 26 £600 +26.32% 82
London +49 17 £600 +26.32% 56
UK excluding London +56 8 £438 -2.78% 46
North of England - 5 £450 - 3
Yorkshire - 5 £450 -
South West +32 3 £230 - 3
Work from Home +36 1 £800 +72.97% 30

Software Development Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 3 May 2025, Software Development Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Software Development Engineer in the job title.

1 13 (48.15%) OO
2 12 (44.44%) Software Engineering
3 11 (40.74%) BASE24
3 11 (40.74%) ISO 8583
4 10 (37.04%) ATM
4 10 (37.04%) HP
4 10 (37.04%) NonStop SQL
4 10 (37.04%) PSD2
4 10 (37.04%) Apple Pay
5 9 (33.33%) Web Services
6 8 (29.63%) Test Automation
7 7 (25.93%) Agile
8 6 (22.22%) Finance
8 6 (22.22%) Software Testing
8 6 (22.22%) Social Skills
8 6 (22.22%) SDET
9 4 (14.81%) Continuous Improvement
9 4 (14.81%) TDD
9 4 (14.81%) Python
9 4 (14.81%) SQL
9 4 (14.81%) Oracle
10 3 (11.11%) COBOL
10 3 (11.11%) Java
10 3 (11.11%) PL/SQL
10 3 (11.11%) Oracle Forms
10 3 (11.11%) OOP
10 3 (11.11%) Confluence
10 3 (11.11%) CI/CD
11 2 (7.41%) Model Validation
11 2 (7.41%) End-to-End Testing

Software Development Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 3 (11.11%) Confluence
2 1 (3.70%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 1 (3.70%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 11 (40.74%) BASE24
2 1 (3.70%) Oracle TCA
Cloud Services
1 10 (37.04%) Apple Pay
2 2 (7.41%) AWS
2 2 (7.41%) Azure
3 1 (3.70%) GitHub
3 1 (3.70%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 10 (37.04%) ATM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (37.04%) NonStop SQL
2 1 (3.70%) MySQL
2 1 (3.70%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (3.70%) Relational Database
2 1 (3.70%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 3 (11.11%) Oracle Forms
2 2 (7.41%) Cucumber
2 2 (7.41%) Selenium
3 1 (3.70%) Atlassian Bamboo
3 1 (3.70%) Bitbucket
3 1 (3.70%) Git
3 1 (3.70%) JIRA
3 1 (3.70%) Spock
3 1 (3.70%) TestRail
General
1 6 (22.22%) Finance
1 6 (22.22%) Social Skills
2 1 (3.70%) Analytical Skills
2 1 (3.70%) Financial Institution
2 1 (3.70%) Presentation Skills
2 1 (3.70%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (33.33%) Web Services
2 2 (7.41%) .NET
3 1 (3.70%) .NET Core
3 1 (3.70%) .NET Framework
3 1 (3.70%) GraphQL
3 1 (3.70%) Micronaut
3 1 (3.70%) Node.js
3 1 (3.70%) React
3 1 (3.70%) Spring
3 1 (3.70%) Spring Boot
3 1 (3.70%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 2 (7.41%) Product Ownership
2 1 (3.70%) Algorithms
2 1 (3.70%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (3.70%) Data Structures
2 1 (3.70%) Distributed Systems
2 1 (3.70%) Equity Derivative
2 1 (3.70%) Fixed Income
2 1 (3.70%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 1 (3.70%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (48.15%) OO
2 12 (44.44%) Software Engineering
3 8 (29.63%) Test Automation
4 7 (25.93%) Agile
5 6 (22.22%) SDET
5 6 (22.22%) Software Testing
6 4 (14.81%) Continuous Improvement
6 4 (14.81%) TDD
7 3 (11.11%) CI/CD
7 3 (11.11%) OOP
8 2 (7.41%) Code Quality
8 2 (7.41%) Design Patterns
8 2 (7.41%) End-to-End Testing
8 2 (7.41%) Impact Analysis
8 2 (7.41%) Model Validation
8 2 (7.41%) Problem-Solving
8 2 (7.41%) Project Planning
8 2 (7.41%) SOLID
8 2 (7.41%) Translating Business Requirements
8 2 (7.41%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 4 (14.81%) Python
1 4 (14.81%) SQL
2 3 (11.11%) COBOL
2 3 (11.11%) Java
2 3 (11.11%) PL/SQL
3 2 (7.41%) C#
3 2 (7.41%) TypeScript
4 1 (3.70%) Bash
4 1 (3.70%) C++
4 1 (3.70%) Groovy
4 1 (3.70%) Kotlin
4 1 (3.70%) PowerShell
4 1 (3.70%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1 (3.70%) Computer Science Degree
1 1 (3.70%) Degree
1 1 (3.70%) Master's Degree
1 1 (3.70%) SC Cleared
1 1 (3.70%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (40.74%) ISO 8583
2 10 (37.04%) PSD2
3 2 (7.41%) QA
4 1 (3.70%) MiFID
System Software
1 1 (3.70%) Hyper-V
1 1 (3.70%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 2 (7.41%) Ansible
2 1 (3.70%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 10 (37.04%) HP
2 4 (14.81%) Oracle
3 2 (7.41%) Perforce
4 1 (3.70%) Atlassian
4 1 (3.70%) VMware