Software Engineer Contracts

The median contractor rate for a Software Engineer was £424 per day in advertised job vacancies during the 3 months to 23 June 2017.

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
Location	3 months to 23 Jun 2017	Same period 2016	Same period 2015
Rank	222	256	243
Rank change year-on-year	+34	-13
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer	514	508	534
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK	1.10%	0.94%	0.95%
As % of the Job Titles category	1.16%	1.00%	1.00%
Number of daily rates quoted	261	288	257
Median daily rate	£424	£400	£375
Median daily rate % change year-on-year	+5.93%	+6.66%
90% offered a daily rate of more than	£326	£304	£290
10% offered a daily rate of more than	£561	£575	£550
UK excluding London median daily rate	£393	£380	£350
% change year-on-year	+3.28%	+8.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted	101	89	101
Median hourly rate	£42.50	£42.25	£40.00
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year	+0.59%	+5.62%
90% offered a hourly rate of more than	£35.00	£32.50	£33.50
10% offered a hourly rate of more than	£52.42	£50.16	£52.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£42.50	£42.13	£40.00
% change year-on-year	+0.89%	+5.31%

The next table is for comparison with the above and includes summary statistics for all job roles in contract job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title. As such, the figures in the first row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract IT Job Roles UK
Contract job vacancies with a job title containing a recognized job role	44357	51050	53273
As % of all contract IT job vacancies advertised in the UK	94.75%	94.87%	94.80%
Number of daily rates quoted	28704	33277	33414
Median daily rate	£438	£425	£400
Median daily rate % change year-on-year	+2.94%	+6.25%
90% offered a daily rate of more than	£275	£260	£248
10% offered a daily rate of more than	£600	£600	£570
UK excluding London median daily rate	£400	£400	£370
% change year-on-year	-	+8.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted	1368	1510	2064
Median hourly rate	£18.00	£17.50	£16.50
Median hourly rate % change year-on-year	+2.85%	+6.06%
90% offered a hourly rate of more than	£11.50	£11.00	£11.00
10% offered a hourly rate of more than	£47.50	£44.00	£40.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£17.50	£17.45	£16.14
% change year-on-year	+0.28%	+8.11%

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

The job posting trend of jobs advertised that featured Software Engineer in the job title.

Job vacancy trend for Software Engineer in the UK

Software Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for daily rates quoted in contract jobs citing Software Engineer.

Contractor daily rate trend for Software Engineer in the UK

Software Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Histogram

The daily rate distribution of IT jobs citing Software Engineer over the 3 months to 23 June 2017.

Contractor daily rate histogram for Software Engineer in the UK

Software Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

This chart provides the 3-month moving average for contractor hourly rates quoted in IT jobs citing Software Engineer.

Contractor hourly rate trend for Software Engineer in the UK

Software Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Histogram

The hourly rate distribution of IT jobs citing Software Engineer over the 3 months to 23 June 2017.

Contractor hourly rate histogram for Software Engineer in the UK

Software Engineer
Top 30 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 3 months to 23 June 2017. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year.

Location	Rank Change on Same Period Last Year	Matching Contract IT Job Ads	Median Daily Rate Last 3 Months	Median Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year	Live Job Vacancies
England	+23	429	£428	+6.87%	413
London	+16	144	£500	+11.11%	116
South East	-33	73	£370	+1.71%	68
South West	+14	61	£375	+11.11%	62
Wales	+22	47	£393	+0.64%	6
North West	+42	46	£406	-0.91%	36
South Wales	+19	42	£396	+1.60%	5
East of England	-6	36	£385	+10.00%	75
East Midlands	+17	32	£340	-32.00%	10
Hampshire	+14	29	£440	+23.94%	15
Cambridgeshire	+15	25	£375	+7.14%	59
City of London	+8	24	£500	+2.56%	28
Bristol	+8	24	£374	+10.74%	25
Manchester	+20	21	£425	+3.65%	28
Scotland	+40	20	£375	+44.23%	38
Yorkshire	+24	19	£400	+7.38%	29
Gloucestershire	+23	19	£425	-	8
Cambridge	+11	17	-	-	51
Edinburgh	+27	15	£355	+26.78%	25
West Yorkshire	+19	13	£420	+29.23%	23
Newport	-1	13	£400	+2.56%	1
Northampton	+16	12	£340	-35.23%	4
Cardiff	+10	12	£407	+12.13%	2
Northamptonshire	+7	12	£340	-35.23%	4
Leeds	+9	11	£420	+1.81%	20
East Sussex	+4	11	£340	+33.33%	1
Surrey	-2	11	£413	+8.19%	14
West Midlands	-12	10	£444	+7.01%	11
Lancashire	-	10	-	-	2
Cheshire	+24	8	£375	-19.35%	5

Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring IT Skills

For the 6 months to 23 June 2017, Software Engineer contract jobs required the following IT skills in order of popularity. The figures indicate the number co-occurrences and its proportion to all contract ads featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1	1004 (97.38%)	Software Engineering
2	365 (35.40%)	C++
3	344 (33.37%)	Agile Software Development
4	337 (32.69%)	Java
5	280 (27.16%)	C
6	272 (26.38%)	Linux
7	214 (20.76%)	C#
8	173 (16.78%)	SQL
9	168 (16.29%)	Security Cleared
10	161 (15.62%)	Python
11	154 (14.94%)	OO
12	153 (14.84%)	JavaScript
13	150 (14.55%)	TDD
14	142 (13.77%)	UML
15	134 (13.00%)	Scrum

16	133 (12.90%)	Git (software)
17	132 (12.80%)	SC Cleared
18	128 (12.42%)	.NET
19	127 (12.32%)	Windows
20	113 (10.96%)	Spring
21	107 (10.38%)	Embedded C
22	105 (10.18%)	Multithreading
23	104 (10.09%)	Configuration Management
24	103 (9.99%)	SDLC
25	93 (9.02%)	Test Automation
26	91 (8.83%)	Web Services
27	88 (8.54%)	HTML
28	85 (8.24%)	Microsoft
28	85 (8.24%)	REST
29	84 (8.15%)	Node.js

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
Applications
Business Applications
Cloud Services
Communications & Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
Development Applications
General
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
Miscellaneous
Operating Systems
Processes & Methodologies
Programming Languages
Qualifications
Quality Assurance & Compliance
System Software
Systems Management
Vendors

Application Platforms
1	52 (5.04%)	Apache
2	35 (3.39%)	Tomcat
3	27 (2.62%)	Elasticsearch
4	22 (2.13%)	Apache Spark
5	18 (1.75%)	JBoss
6	17 (1.65%)	WebLogic
7	16 (1.55%)	Confluence
8	14 (1.36%)	WebSphere
9	13 (1.26%)	NServiceBus
10	12 (1.16%)	CMS
11	11 (1.07%)	nginx
12	8 (0.78%)	ArcGIS
12	8 (0.78%)	SharePoint
13	7 (0.68%)	Drupal
13	7 (0.68%)	GlassFish
14	6 (0.58%)	Cloud Foundry
15	5 (0.48%)	OpenROAD
16	4 (0.39%)	Apache Pig
16	4 (0.39%)	Mule
17	3 (0.29%)	Adobe Experience Manager

Applications
1	40 (3.88%)	Simulink
2	16 (1.55%)	Microsoft Office
3	6 (0.58%)	Microsoft Excel
3	6 (0.58%)	TargetLink
4	3 (0.29%)	Microsoft PowerPoint
5	2 (0.19%)	Doxygen
5	2 (0.19%)	MS Visio
6	1 (0.097%)	Adobe Creative Suite
6	1 (0.097%)	HipChat
6	1 (0.097%)	Photoshop
6	1 (0.097%)	Stateflow
6	1 (0.097%)	Windchill

Business Applications
1	10 (0.97%)	LabWindows
2	4 (0.39%)	Salesforce.com CRM
3	3 (0.29%)	BusinessWorks
3	3 (0.29%)	Teamcenter
4	2 (0.19%)	Oracle Cash Management
4	2 (0.19%)	Payment Gateway
4	2 (0.19%)	Remedy ITSM
4	2 (0.19%)	SAP Oil and Gas
5	1 (0.097%)	Dynamics CRM
5	1 (0.097%)	Siebel CRM

Cloud Services
1	51 (4.95%)	Amazon AWS
2	42 (4.07%)	Microsoft Azure
3	18 (1.75%)	GitHub
4	10 (0.97%)	PaaS
5	7 (0.68%)	OpenShift
5	7 (0.68%)	SaaS
6	6 (0.58%)	IaaS
6	6 (0.58%)	Slack
7	5 (0.48%)	Google Analytics
8	4 (0.39%)	Amazon EC2
9	3 (0.29%)	Oracle Service Cloud
10	2 (0.19%)	Amazon Kinesis
10	2 (0.19%)	AWS CloudFormation
10	2 (0.19%)	AWS Lambda
10	2 (0.19%)	Cloud Computing
10	2 (0.19%)	Google Cloud Platform
10	2 (0.19%)	Oracle CX
11	1 (0.097%)	Amazon SQS
11	1 (0.097%)	Google App Engine
11	1 (0.097%)	Sauce Labs

Communications & Networking
1	45 (4.36%)	TCP/IP
2	31 (3.01%)	HTTP
3	25 (2.42%)	Wireshark
4	22 (2.13%)	SSL
5	20 (1.94%)	Bluetooth
6	17 (1.65%)	VoIP
7	14 (1.36%)	Internet
8	13 (1.26%)	Asterisk PBX
8	13 (1.26%)	Diameter Protocol
8	13 (1.26%)	FlexRay
8	13 (1.26%)	GSM
8	13 (1.26%)	LTE
8	13 (1.26%)	PBX
8	13 (1.26%)	RANAP
8	13 (1.26%)	RTP
8	13 (1.26%)	UMTS
9	12 (1.16%)	Ethernet
9	12 (1.16%)	Link 16
9	12 (1.16%)	Wireless
10	11 (1.07%)	Firewall

Database & Business Intelligence
1	61 (5.92%)	MongoDB
2	57 (5.53%)	NoSQL
3	56 (5.43%)	MySQL
3	56 (5.43%)	SQL Server
4	48 (4.66%)	PostgreSQL
5	42 (4.07%)	Relational Database
6	31 (3.01%)	Big Data
6	31 (3.01%)	Hadoop
7	26 (2.52%)	Apache Cassandra
8	18 (1.75%)	RDBMS
9	13 (1.26%)	Redis
10	11 (1.07%)	Apache Hive
10	11 (1.07%)	Oracle Database
11	9 (0.87%)	Data Warehouse
12	6 (0.58%)	Blockchain
12	6 (0.58%)	Ingres
13	4 (0.39%)	Amazon DynamoDB
13	4 (0.39%)	Geospatial Data
13	4 (0.39%)	GIS
13	4 (0.39%)	SQLite

Development Applications
1	133 (12.90%)	Git (software)
2	84 (8.15%)	Visual Studio
3	83 (8.05%)	Jenkins
4	69 (6.69%)	Rational DOORS
5	63 (6.11%)	Eclipse
6	57 (5.53%)	Rational Rhapsody
7	48 (4.66%)	JIRA
8	42 (4.07%)	JUnit
8	42 (4.07%)	Subversion
9	35 (3.39%)	Cucumber
10	34 (3.30%)	Maven
11	27 (2.62%)	GDB
11	27 (2.62%)	Team Foundation Server
12	21 (2.04%)	GCC
13	18 (1.75%)	Selenium
14	15 (1.45%)	TeamCity
15	14 (1.36%)	Ant
15	14 (1.36%)	Hudson
15	14 (1.36%)	Octopus Deploy
16	13 (1.26%)	Trac

General
1	83 (8.05%)	Finance
2	46 (4.46%)	Automotive
3	40 (3.88%)	Aerospace
3	40 (3.88%)	Banking
4	37 (3.59%)	Electronics
5	32 (3.10%)	Manufacturing
6	28 (2.72%)	Telecoms
7	26 (2.52%)	Military
8	25 (2.42%)	Avionics
9	19 (1.84%)	Games
10	17 (1.65%)	Retail
11	10 (0.97%)	Front Office
12	8 (0.78%)	International Banking
13	7 (0.68%)	Publishing
14	6 (0.58%)	Investment Banking
14	6 (0.58%)	Marketing
15	5 (0.48%)	Advertising
15	5 (0.48%)	Retail Banking
16	4 (0.39%)	Back Office
16	4 (0.39%)	Financial Institution

Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1	128 (12.42%)	.NET
2	113 (10.96%)	Spring
3	91 (8.83%)	Web Services
4	88 (8.54%)	HTML
5	85 (8.24%)	REST
6	84 (8.15%)	Node.js
7	75 (7.27%)	CSS
8	53 (5.14%)	RESTful
9	52 (5.04%)	AngularJS
10	49 (4.75%)	XML
11	46 (4.46%)	JSON
12	42 (4.07%)	Boost C++ Libraries
13	41 (3.98%)	HTML5
14	39 (3.78%)	SOAP
14	39 (3.78%)	STL
15	34 (3.30%)	Hibernate
15	34 (3.30%)	WPF
16	31 (3.01%)	J2EE
17	30 (2.91%)	ASP.NET
18	28 (2.72%)	jQuery

Miscellaneous
1	65 (6.30%)	Analytical Skills
2	59 (5.72%)	Computer Science
3	39 (3.78%)	Embedded Systems
4	33 (3.20%)	User Experience
5	29 (2.81%)	Device Driver
6	26 (2.52%)	Algorithms
7	25 (2.42%)	Greenfield Project
8	16 (1.55%)	RIA
9	15 (1.45%)	Mobile App
10	14 (1.36%)	Field-Programmable Gate Array
11	13 (1.26%)	Clustering
11	13 (1.26%)	Data Structures
12	12 (1.16%)	Fintech
13	10 (0.97%)	Foreign Exchange (FX)
13	10 (0.97%)	Management Information System
14	9 (0.87%)	NHS
15	8 (0.78%)	iSeries
16	6 (0.58%)	Enterprise Software
16	6 (0.58%)	Equities
16	6 (0.58%)	Virtual Team

Operating Systems
1	272 (26.38%)	Linux
2	127 (12.32%)	Windows
3	79 (7.66%)	Unix
4	41 (3.98%)	Android
5	30 (2.91%)	Apple iOS
6	26 (2.52%)	Embedded Linux
7	25 (2.42%)	Ubuntu
8	14 (1.36%)	Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9	11 (1.07%)	VxWorks
10	8 (0.78%)	CentOS
11	5 (0.48%)	AIX
11	5 (0.48%)	Windows 10
12	4 (0.39%)	CoreOS
12	4 (0.39%)	Debian
12	4 (0.39%)	Nucleus RTOS
12	4 (0.39%)	Windows Embedded Compact
13	3 (0.29%)	Windows 8
13	3 (0.29%)	Windows Server
14	2 (0.19%)	Solaris
14	2 (0.19%)	ThreadX

Processes & Methodologies
1	1004 (97.38%)	Software Engineering
2	344 (33.37%)	Agile Software Development
3	154 (14.94%)	OO
4	150 (14.55%)	TDD
5	142 (13.77%)	UML
6	134 (13.00%)	Scrum
7	105 (10.18%)	Multithreading
8	104 (10.09%)	Configuration Management
9	103 (9.99%)	SDLC
10	93 (9.02%)	Test Automation
11	83 (8.05%)	Continuous Integration
12	82 (7.95%)	Integration Testing
13	78 (7.57%)	BDD
13	78 (7.57%)	DevOps
14	77 (7.47%)	Microservices
15	72 (6.98%)	Open Source
16	71 (6.89%)	Unit Testing
17	66 (6.40%)	MVC
18	54 (5.24%)	OOD
19	37 (3.59%)	E-Commerce

Programming Languages
1	365 (35.40%)	C++
2	337 (32.69%)	Java
3	280 (27.16%)	C
4	214 (20.76%)	C#
5	173 (16.78%)	SQL
6	161 (15.62%)	Python
7	153 (14.84%)	JavaScript
8	107 (10.38%)	Embedded C
9	56 (5.43%)	Ada
10	50 (4.85%)	MATLAB
10	50 (4.85%)	Perl
11	42 (4.07%)	Scala
12	41 (3.98%)	PHP
13	38 (3.69%)	Ruby
14	32 (3.10%)	Embedded C++
15	24 (2.33%)	PowerShell
16	22 (2.13%)	Bash Shell
17	21 (2.04%)	T-SQL
18	19 (1.84%)	Ada 95
18	19 (1.84%)	Assembly Language

Qualifications
1	168 (16.29%)	Security Cleared
2	132 (12.80%)	SC Cleared
3	72 (6.98%)	Degree
4	27 (2.62%)	Computer Science Degree
5	11 (1.07%)	Microsoft Certification
6	7 (0.68%)	BPSS Clearance
6	7 (0.68%)	DV Cleared
7	6 (0.58%)	RHCE
8	3 (0.29%)	MCTS
9	2 (0.19%)	HND
9	2 (0.19%)	Master's Degree
9	2 (0.19%)	PhD
10	1 (0.097%)	Numerate Degree
10	1 (0.097%)	Postgraduate

Quality Assurance & Compliance
1	34 (3.30%)	MISRA
2	31 (3.01%)	QA
3	20 (1.94%)	MISRA C
4	15 (1.45%)	Def Stans
5	14 (1.36%)	DO-178B
6	13 (1.26%)	IEC 62304
7	10 (0.97%)	MIL-STD-1553
8	9 (0.87%)	ISO 26262
9	4 (0.39%)	IEC 61508
10	3 (0.29%)	JTAG
10	3 (0.29%)	MIL-STD-498
11	2 (0.19%)	WCAG
12	1 (0.097%)	Disclosure Scotland
12	1 (0.097%)	DO-254
12	1 (0.097%)	ISO 13485
12	1 (0.097%)	ISO 8583
12	1 (0.097%)	ISO 9001
12	1 (0.097%)	MiFID
12	1 (0.097%)	WAI

System Software
1	55 (5.33%)	Docker
2	15 (1.45%)	Firmware
3	4 (0.39%)	Active Directory
3	4 (0.39%)	Apache ZooKeeper
3	4 (0.39%)	KVM
3	4 (0.39%)	LXC
4	3 (0.29%)	Apache Flume
5	2 (0.19%)	VMware Infrastructure

Systems Management
1	32 (3.10%)	Puppet
2	29 (2.81%)	Ansible
3	23 (2.23%)	Opscode Chef
4	18 (1.75%)	Kibana
5	11 (1.07%)	Kubernetes
6	8 (0.78%)	Grafana
7	7 (0.68%)	Graphite
7	7 (0.68%)	Mesos
8	6 (0.58%)	Salt
9	5 (0.48%)	logstash
10	4 (0.39%)	OpenAM
10	4 (0.39%)	OpenIDM
10	4 (0.39%)	Packer
11	3 (0.29%)	Oozie
11	3 (0.29%)	Prometheus
11	3 (0.29%)	Terraform
12	2 (0.19%)	Hadoop YARN
12	2 (0.19%)	Nagios
12	2 (0.19%)	SCCM
12	2 (0.19%)	TIBCO Hawk

Vendors
1	85 (8.24%)	Microsoft
2	56 (5.43%)	Oracle
3	19 (1.84%)	Red Hat
4	15 (1.45%)	IBM
5	14 (1.36%)	Cisco
5	14 (1.36%)	Serena
6	10 (0.97%)	Google
6	10 (0.97%)	Green Hills
7	9 (0.87%)	TIBCO
8	8 (0.78%)	Adobe
8	8 (0.78%)	hybris
9	7 (0.68%)	Intel
9	7 (0.68%)	Splunk
10	6 (0.58%)	Salesforce.com
10	6 (0.58%)	VMware
11	5 (0.48%)	Luciad
11	5 (0.48%)	Pega
11	5 (0.48%)	SAP
11	5 (0.48%)	Sybase
11	5 (0.48%)	webMethods