Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Contract Software Engineer Skill Set
Period
to 7 March 2021

The median contractor rate for a Software Engineer was £510 per day in advertised job vacancies during the 6 months to 7 March 2021.

The first table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics including a comparison to same period in the previous 2 years.

Note that daily and hourly rates are treated separately in these statistics. When calculating contractor rate percentiles, daily rates are never derived from quoted hourly rates or vice versa.

Software Engineer
UK
6 months to
7 Mar 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 103 154 205
Rank change year-on-year +51 +51 +27
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,107 1,122 1,383
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.30% 1.70% 1.42%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.48% 1.81% 1.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 931 675 731
Median daily rate £510 £485 £450
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +5.15% +7.78% -
10th Percentile £363 £356 £325
90th Percentile £700 £625 £600
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £425
% change year-on-year - +5.88% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 97 145 219
Median hourly rate £45.00 £47.50 £45.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% +5.88%
10th Percentile £33.70 £41.10 £35.25
90th Percentile £52.50 £53.56 £52.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £47.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -5.26% +5.56% +5.88%

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes 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.

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK
Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 44,605 62,032 92,022
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.73% 93.92% 94.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 30,340 41,343 62,070
Median daily rate £475 £450 £463
Median daily rate % change year-on-year +5.56% -2.70% +2.78%
10th Percentile £263 £230 £269
90th Percentile £650 £650 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £425 £425
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,604 2,324 2,733
Median hourly rate £22.50 £18.70 £17.50
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year +20.32% +6.86% -2.78%
10th Percentile £11.17 £11.41 £11.00
90th Percentile £57.50 £51.62 £48.75
Median hourly rate £18.50 £17.50 £17.50
% change year-on-year +5.71% - -

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for Software Engineer in the UK

Software Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Software Engineer in the UK

Software Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineer over the 6 months to 7 March 2021.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineer in the UK

Software Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Software Engineer in the UK

Software Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineer over the 6 months to 7 March 2021.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineer in the UK

Software Engineer
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Software Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 7 March 2021. 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
Job
Vacancies
England +70 971 £510 +2.00% 1,126
London +91 552 £550 +2.33% 344
UK excluding London +25 436 £450 - 879
Work from Home -36 283 £500 +17.65% 263
South West +10 116 £513 +13.89% 125
South East +73 87 £410 -7.87% 194
North of England +43 70 £413 -8.33% 191
East of England +30 59 £396 -0.94% 137
Midlands +55 48 £403 -5.63% 137
North West +43 47 £413 -2.94% 101
West Midlands +40 34 £405 -5.04% 83
Wales -1 32 £500 +5.26% 23
Scotland +8 21 £438 +2.94% 64
Yorkshire +16 15 £393 -17.37% 73
East Midlands +28 14 £400 - 54
North East +31 8 £450 +5.88% 17
Northern Ireland +9 4 £480 - 11

Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring IT Skills

For the 6 months to 7 March 2021, Software Engineer contract jobs required the following IT skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 1,090 (98.46%) Software Engineering
2 499 (45.08%) Agile Software Development
3 437 (39.48%) Java
4 411 (37.13%) AWS
5 400 (36.13%) Python
6 355 (32.07%) JavaScript
7 273 (24.66%) Finance
8 270 (24.39%) React
9 269 (24.30%) Web Services
10 233 (21.05%) .NET
11 225 (20.33%) Serverless
12 222 (20.05%) SQL
13 221 (19.96%) C#
14 216 (19.51%) Azure
15 211 (19.06%) Asset Management
16 205 (18.52%) Security Cleared
17 193 (17.43%) Microservices
18 192 (17.34%) AngularJS
19 188 (16.98%) C++
20 165 (14.91%) SC Cleared
21 155 (14.00%) Linux
22 154 (13.91%) Docker
23 149 (13.46%) GCP
24 138 (12.47%) Kubernetes
25 133 (12.01%) Node.js
26 132 (11.92%) Front Office
27 129 (11.65%) C
28 128 (11.56%) Kotlin
29 126 (11.38%) DevOps
29 126 (11.38%) Derivative

Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring IT Skills by Category

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

Application Platforms
1 125 (11.29%) Apache
2 54 (4.88%) Apache Spark
3 37 (3.34%) WebLogic
4 24 (2.17%) Elasticsearch
5 13 (1.17%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (1.17%) Confluence
6 12 (1.08%) SAS
7 10 (0.90%) OpenStack
8 6 (0.54%) CICS
8 6 (0.54%) Tomcat
9 4 (0.36%) BizTalk Server
9 4 (0.36%) JBoss
9 4 (0.36%) WebSphere
10 2 (0.18%) Camunda
10 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.18%) CMS
10 2 (0.18%) IIS
10 2 (0.18%) Predix
10 2 (0.18%) ThingWorx
11 1 (0.090%) GeoServer
Applications
1 10 (0.90%) Simulink
2 5 (0.45%) Chatbot
2 5 (0.45%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.36%) Gephi
4 3 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.18%) Figma
6 1 (0.090%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.090%) Microsoft Excel
6 1 (0.090%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.090%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.090%) PrintSoft PReS
6 1 (0.090%) PTC Creo
6 1 (0.090%) Siemens NX
6 1 (0.090%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 1 (0.090%) Magento
1 1 (0.090%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 411 (37.13%) AWS
2 225 (20.33%) Serverless
3 216 (19.51%) Azure
4 149 (13.46%) GCP
5 107 (9.67%) AWS Lambda
6 78 (7.05%) Amazon S3
7 58 (5.24%) Amazon EC2
8 29 (2.62%) GitHub
9 23 (2.08%) Amazon ECS
10 17 (1.54%) Cloud Computing
11 15 (1.36%) OpenShift
12 14 (1.26%) Apigee
13 13 (1.17%) PaaS
14 11 (0.99%) IaaS
15 10 (0.90%) Power Platform
15 10 (0.90%) SaaS
16 9 (0.81%) AWS CloudFormation
17 8 (0.72%) Azure Functions
18 7 (0.63%) Logic Apps
18 7 (0.63%) npm
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.63%) Wi-Fi
2 16 (1.45%) Ethernet
2 16 (1.45%) HTTP
3 15 (1.36%) TCP/IP
4 14 (1.26%) Wireless
5 12 (1.08%) DECT
5 12 (1.08%) IPv6
6 11 (0.99%) Broadband
7 10 (0.90%) Multicast
7 10 (0.90%) SNMP
8 9 (0.81%) RS-485
8 9 (0.81%) UPnP
9 8 (0.72%) FTP
9 8 (0.72%) IPv4
9 8 (0.72%) Modbus
9 8 (0.72%) PPP
9 8 (0.72%) WAN
10 7 (0.63%) RS-422
11 6 (0.54%) Internet
11 6 (0.54%) SDH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 85 (7.68%) Amazon DynamoDB
2 57 (5.15%) Apache Ignite
3 51 (4.61%) PostgreSQL
4 50 (4.52%) Big Data
5 47 (4.25%) SQL Server
6 42 (3.79%) MongoDB
7 39 (3.52%) MySQL
8 36 (3.25%) Relational Database
9 30 (2.71%) NoSQL
10 18 (1.63%) Hadoop
11 16 (1.45%) Neo4j
12 12 (1.08%) Azure SQL Database
12 12 (1.08%) Redis
13 11 (0.99%) Apache Hive
13 11 (0.99%) Pentaho
14 10 (0.90%) Amazon Redshift
14 10 (0.90%) Oracle Database
15 8 (0.72%) Tableau
15 8 (0.72%) Tableau Server
16 7 (0.63%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 99 (8.94%) Git (software)
2 80 (7.23%) Jenkins
3 48 (4.34%) JIRA
4 41 (3.70%) GitLab
5 31 (2.80%) CA Gen
5 31 (2.80%) Rational Rhapsody
6 30 (2.71%) Maven
7 24 (2.17%) Cucumber
8 22 (1.99%) JUnit
9 18 (1.63%) Cypress.io
9 18 (1.63%) Visual Studio
10 17 (1.54%) Ant
10 17 (1.54%) Selenium
11 16 (1.45%) GDB
11 16 (1.45%) NetBeans
11 16 (1.45%) webpack
12 15 (1.36%) Artifactory
12 15 (1.36%) Rational DOORS
13 14 (1.26%) Subversion
14 13 (1.17%) Mockito
General
1 273 (24.66%) Finance
2 132 (11.92%) Front Office
3 81 (7.32%) Public Sector
4 40 (3.61%) Banking
5 39 (3.52%) Law
6 29 (2.62%) Telecoms
7 26 (2.35%) Electronics
8 21 (1.90%) Aerospace
9 17 (1.54%) Games
10 9 (0.81%) Automotive
10 9 (0.81%) Retail
11 8 (0.72%) Investment Banking
11 8 (0.72%) Manufacturing
11 8 (0.72%) Marketing
12 5 (0.45%) Military
13 4 (0.36%) Avionics
13 4 (0.36%) Publishing
14 3 (0.27%) Advertising
14 3 (0.27%) Back Office
14 3 (0.27%) German Language
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 270 (24.39%) React
2 269 (24.30%) Web Services
3 233 (21.05%) .NET
4 192 (17.34%) AngularJS
5 133 (12.01%) Node.js
6 90 (8.13%) Vue.js
7 81 (7.32%) React Native
8 75 (6.78%) Spring
9 73 (6.59%) Kafka
10 66 (5.96%) .NET Core
11 59 (5.33%) REST
12 56 (5.06%) gRPC
13 49 (4.43%) HTML
14 44 (3.97%) RESTful
15 41 (3.70%) Spring Boot
16 39 (3.52%) CSS
16 39 (3.52%) Protocol Buffers
17 34 (3.07%) J2EE
18 31 (2.80%) XML
19 30 (2.71%) Redux
Miscellaneous
1 126 (11.38%) Derivative
2 124 (11.20%) Equities
3 122 (11.02%) Fixed Income
4 101 (9.12%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 82 (7.41%) Hedge funds
6 59 (5.33%) Blog
7 40 (3.61%) Greenfield Project
8 31 (2.80%) User Experience
9 27 (2.44%) Algorithms
10 26 (2.35%) Cloud Native
11 25 (2.26%) Analytical Skills
12 23 (2.08%) Embedded Systems
13 22 (1.99%) Self-Motivation
14 15 (1.36%) Public Cloud
15 14 (1.26%) Mobile App
16 13 (1.17%) Data Structures
17 12 (1.08%) Device Driver
18 9 (0.81%) Credit Derivative
18 9 (0.81%) CUDA
18 9 (0.81%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 155 (14.00%) Linux
2 62 (5.60%) Unix
3 36 (3.25%) Windows
4 29 (2.62%) Android
5 26 (2.35%) Embedded Linux
6 17 (1.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (1.45%) OpenWrt
8 15 (1.36%) Apple iOS
9 10 (0.90%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.27%) AIX
10 3 (0.27%) Mac OS
10 3 (0.27%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.18%) FreeRTOS
11 2 (0.18%) Windows Server
12 1 (0.090%) CentOS
12 1 (0.090%) Debian
12 1 (0.090%) VME
12 1 (0.090%) VxWorks
12 1 (0.090%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.090%) Windows Embedded Compact
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,090 (98.46%) Software Engineering
2 499 (45.08%) Agile Software Development
3 211 (19.06%) Asset Management
4 193 (17.43%) Microservices
5 126 (11.38%) DevOps
6 124 (11.20%) TDD
7 115 (10.39%) Scrum
8 94 (8.49%) Open Source
9 93 (8.40%) Test Automation
10 78 (7.05%) Problem-Solving
11 77 (6.96%) SDLC
12 76 (6.87%) Web Application Development
13 73 (6.59%) OO
14 72 (6.50%) Progressive Web App
15 70 (6.32%) Investment Management
16 68 (6.14%) Unit Testing
17 60 (5.42%) Continuous Integration
18 58 (5.24%) Data Modelling
19 55 (4.97%) Configuration Management
20 53 (4.79%) Integration Testing
Programming Languages
1 437 (39.48%) Java
2 400 (36.13%) Python
3 355 (32.07%) JavaScript
4 222 (20.05%) SQL
5 221 (19.96%) C#
6 188 (16.98%) C++
7 129 (11.65%) C
8 128 (11.56%) Kotlin
9 90 (8.13%) Scala
10 87 (7.86%) TypeScript
11 63 (5.69%) Go
12 49 (4.43%) Shell Script
13 40 (3.61%) Embedded C
14 38 (3.43%) PL/SQL
15 36 (3.25%) Bash Shell
16 33 (2.98%) Ada
17 26 (2.35%) COBOL
18 24 (2.17%) Perl
19 22 (1.99%) Clojure
20 19 (1.72%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 205 (18.52%) Security Cleared
2 165 (14.91%) SC Cleared
3 55 (4.97%) Degree
4 48 (4.34%) DV Cleared
5 13 (1.17%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (0.99%) BPSS Clearance
7 10 (0.90%) PhD
8 9 (0.81%) DBS Check
9 7 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 5 (0.45%) VCAP
10 5 (0.45%) VCDX
10 5 (0.45%) VCP6
11 4 (0.36%) Master's Degree
12 3 (0.27%) Chartered Engineer
12 3 (0.27%) ISTQB
12 3 (0.27%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 2 (0.18%) BC Cleared
13 2 (0.18%) HNC
13 2 (0.18%) HND
13 2 (0.18%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (2.08%) QA
2 10 (0.90%) JTAG
3 6 (0.54%) OASIS TOSCA
4 5 (0.45%) DO-178B
5 4 (0.36%) Data Quality
6 3 (0.27%) GDPR
6 3 (0.27%) MiFID
6 3 (0.27%) MISRA
7 1 (0.090%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.090%) IEC 61508
7 1 (0.090%) MISRA C
7 1 (0.090%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 154 (13.91%) Docker
2 8 (0.72%) HDFS
2 8 (0.72%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (0.54%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.54%) Time Sharing Option
4 5 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.45%) vSphere
5 4 (0.36%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
6 2 (0.18%) Firmware
7 1 (0.090%) Platform Symphony
7 1 (0.090%) VirtualBox
7 1 (0.090%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 138 (12.47%) Kubernetes
2 70 (6.32%) Terraform
3 21 (1.90%) Ansible
4 9 (0.81%) Puppet
5 8 (0.72%) Graphite
6 7 (0.63%) Grafana
6 7 (0.63%) Tivoli
7 4 (0.36%) Kibana
7 4 (0.36%) Kubeflow
8 3 (0.27%) Hadoop YARN
8 3 (0.27%) ITRS Geneos
8 3 (0.27%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.18%) Oozie
9 2 (0.18%) Opscode Chef
9 2 (0.18%) Prometheus
9 2 (0.18%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.18%) vRealize
10 1 (0.090%) Chronos
10 1 (0.090%) Marathon
10 1 (0.090%) Mesos
Vendors
1 86 (7.77%) Oracle
2 36 (3.25%) Bloomberg
3 34 (3.07%) Microsoft
4 32 (2.89%) Google
5 19 (1.72%) BEA
5 19 (1.72%) Pega
5 19 (1.72%) webMethods
6 18 (1.63%) IBM
7 13 (1.17%) Splunk
8 12 (1.08%) CA
9 11 (0.99%) VMware
10 10 (0.90%) Talend
11 9 (0.81%) Cloudera
11 9 (0.81%) Red Hat
12 8 (0.72%) MuleSoft
13 5 (0.45%) Salesforce.com
14 4 (0.36%) Atlassian
14 4 (0.36%) Rackspace
14 4 (0.36%) SAP
14 4 (0.36%) Xamarin
1,253 Software Engineer job vacancies Nationwide