Job Vacancy Trend Daily Rate Trend Daily Rate Histogram Hourly Rate Trend Hourly Rate Histogram Job Locations Contract Software Engineer Skill Set
Period
to 19 October 2021

The median contractor rate for a Software Engineer was £540 per day in advertised job vacancies during the 6 months to 19 October 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
19 Oct 2021		 Same period 2020 Same period 2019
Rank 118 115 160
Rank change year-on-year -3 +45 +23
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,769 685 1,491
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.10% 2.20% 1.76%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.25% 2.38% 1.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,256 469 693
10th Percentile £400 £386 £320
25th Percentile £450 £438 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £525 £450
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% +16.67% -5.26%
75th Percentile £638 £700 £550
90th Percentile £700 £800 £613
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £443 £425
% change year-on-year +7.34% +4.12% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 50 198
10th Percentile £41.25 £40.90 £41.00
25th Percentile £44.13 £41.25 £42.50
Median hourly rate £49.00 £45.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.89% -5.26% +7.30%
75th Percentile £55.00 £47.50 £51.25
90th Percentile £60.97 £52.50 £53.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.75 £45.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year +8.33% -5.26% +6.74%

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 78,520 28,782 79,543
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.26% 92.31% 94.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 54,602 19,413 53,256
10th Percentile £300 £263 £259
25th Percentile £406 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +2.70% +2.78%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £569
90th Percentile £700 £663 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £425
% change year-on-year +5.88% - +2.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,070 932 2,705
10th Percentile £11.75 £11.17 £11.17
25th Percentile £13.54 £14.00 £13.75
Median hourly rate £20.00 £22.00 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +15.79% +8.57%
75th Percentile £45.00 £43.75 £43.25
90th Percentile £62.26 £53.75 £52.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £17.50 £19.50 £17.50
% change year-on-year -10.26% +11.43% -

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 19 October 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 19 October 2021.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineer in the UK

Software Engineer
Top 16 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 19 October 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 -11 1,470 £550 - 1,316
London -22 796 £575 -4.17% 475
UK excluding London +30 690 £475 +7.34% 967
Work from Home -1 516 £527 +10.84% 304
North of England +9 137 £425 +3.03% 199
South West +22 135 £491 +9.03% 154
South East -45 121 £525 +15.38% 199
East of England +3 105 £450 +10.77% 143
North West -1 92 £425 +3.03% 109
Midlands -17 81 £475 +2.70% 143
Scotland -24 69 £475 +15.15% 75
West Midlands -16 59 £490 +5.95% 86
Wales +2 43 £500 +2.04% 41
Yorkshire -12 41 £475 +52.00% 76
East Midlands -15 22 £413 -13.16% 56
North East -8 6 £525 +10.53% 14

Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring IT Skills

For the 6 months to 19 October 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 1,732 (97.91%) Software Engineering
2 829 (46.86%) Agile Software Development
3 637 (36.01%) AWS
4 601 (33.97%) JavaScript
5 584 (33.01%) Java
6 478 (27.02%) React
7 458 (25.89%) Python
8 417 (23.57%) Full Stack Development
9 413 (23.35%) Finance
10 408 (23.06%) Docker
11 380 (21.48%) Serverless
12 379 (21.42%) Node.js
13 368 (20.80%) SQL
14 364 (20.58%) TypeScript
15 361 (20.41%) .NET
16 351 (19.84%) C#
17 350 (19.79%) Azure
18 349 (19.73%) Web Services
19 320 (18.09%) Kubernetes
20 290 (16.39%) Microservices
21 285 (16.11%) AWS Lambda
22 276 (15.60%) DevOps
23 274 (15.49%) Asset Management
24 262 (14.81%) Git (software)
25 255 (14.41%) Security Cleared
26 232 (13.11%) C++
27 229 (12.95%) Front Office
28 226 (12.78%) Amazon S3
29 223 (12.61%) Amazon DynamoDB
30 218 (12.32%) SC Cleared

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 64 (3.62%) Confluence
2 60 (3.39%) Apache
3 42 (2.37%) Apache Airflow
4 31 (1.75%) SAS
5 25 (1.41%) Elasticsearch
6 21 (1.19%) SharePoint
7 17 (0.96%) CMS
8 16 (0.90%) Apache Spark
8 16 (0.90%) WebLogic
9 14 (0.79%) Tomcat
10 13 (0.73%) BizTalk Server
11 10 (0.57%) CICS
12 8 (0.45%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 8 (0.45%) Cloud Foundry
12 8 (0.45%) WordPress
13 6 (0.34%) Headless CMS
13 6 (0.34%) IIS
13 6 (0.34%) WebLogic Portal
14 3 (0.17%) JBoss
14 3 (0.17%) Jupyter
Applications
1 23 (1.30%) Simulink
2 17 (0.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.51%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.34%) FrameMaker
4 6 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
5 4 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.11%) Figma
6 2 (0.11%) Sketch
7 1 (0.057%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.057%) InVision
7 1 (0.057%) Mathcad
7 1 (0.057%) PlantUML
7 1 (0.057%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 5 (0.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 3 (0.17%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.11%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.057%) LabWindows
4 1 (0.057%) Refinitiv Enterprise Platform
4 1 (0.057%) Sentinel
Cloud Services
1 637 (36.01%) AWS
2 380 (21.48%) Serverless
3 350 (19.79%) Azure
4 285 (16.11%) AWS Lambda
5 226 (12.78%) Amazon S3
6 151 (8.54%) Amazon SQS
7 149 (8.42%) GCP
8 140 (7.91%) AWS Step Functions
9 77 (4.35%) Amazon EC2
10 60 (3.39%) GitHub
11 35 (1.98%) AWS CloudFormation
12 32 (1.81%) PaaS
13 27 (1.53%) SaaS
14 24 (1.36%) IaaS
15 21 (1.19%) Apigee
16 20 (1.13%) OpenShift
16 20 (1.13%) Slack
17 19 (1.07%) Amazon ECS
17 19 (1.07%) Azure Functions
17 19 (1.07%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 32 (1.81%) HTTP
2 13 (0.73%) TCP/IP
3 12 (0.68%) HTTPS
3 12 (0.68%) Internet
3 12 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
4 11 (0.62%) Wireless
5 8 (0.45%) Modbus
6 7 (0.40%) IPv4
6 7 (0.40%) IPv6
7 6 (0.34%) RS-485
8 5 (0.28%) DECT
8 5 (0.28%) Kerberos
8 5 (0.28%) Multicast
8 5 (0.28%) RS-422
9 4 (0.23%) Broadband
9 4 (0.23%) DHCP
9 4 (0.23%) PPP
9 4 (0.23%) SNMP
9 4 (0.23%) UPnP
9 4 (0.23%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 223 (12.61%) Amazon DynamoDB
2 143 (8.08%) Amazon RDS
3 100 (5.65%) NoSQL
4 85 (4.80%) MySQL
4 85 (4.80%) SQL Server
5 70 (3.96%) MongoDB
5 70 (3.96%) PostgreSQL
6 46 (2.60%) Relational Database
7 45 (2.54%) Big Data
8 34 (1.92%) Amazon Athena
9 33 (1.87%) Azure SQL Database
9 33 (1.87%) Redis
10 27 (1.53%) Apache Hive
11 25 (1.41%) Hadoop
12 24 (1.36%) Oracle Database
13 22 (1.24%) Apache Ignite
14 21 (1.19%) Apache Cassandra
15 19 (1.07%) Pentaho
16 17 (0.96%) Data Warehouse
17 14 (0.79%) GIS
Development Applications
1 262 (14.81%) Git (software)
2 144 (8.14%) Jenkins
3 133 (7.52%) JIRA
4 62 (3.50%) GitLab
5 56 (3.17%) Rational DOORS
6 54 (3.05%) Maven
7 45 (2.54%) Rational Rhapsody
8 38 (2.15%) Bitbucket
8 38 (2.15%) Cucumber
8 38 (2.15%) Visual Studio
9 37 (2.09%) Selenium
10 32 (1.81%) Mocha
11 30 (1.70%) JMeter
12 29 (1.64%) JUnit
13 26 (1.47%) Rational Team Concert
14 21 (1.19%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 21 (1.19%) Subversion
15 18 (1.02%) Cypress.io
16 17 (0.96%) webpack
17 16 (0.90%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 413 (23.35%) Finance
2 229 (12.95%) Front Office
3 198 (11.19%) Social Skills
4 71 (4.01%) Public Sector
5 59 (3.34%) Law
6 51 (2.88%) Banking
7 48 (2.71%) Analytical Skills
8 34 (1.92%) Electronics
8 34 (1.92%) Retail
9 24 (1.36%) Aerospace
9 24 (1.36%) Games
10 23 (1.30%) Automotive
11 18 (1.02%) Investment Banking
12 17 (0.96%) Telecoms
13 16 (0.90%) Marketing
13 16 (0.90%) Pharmaceutical
14 13 (0.73%) Avionics
14 13 (0.73%) Manufacturing
15 11 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
15 11 (0.62%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 478 (27.02%) React
2 379 (21.42%) Node.js
3 361 (20.41%) .NET
4 349 (19.73%) Web Services
5 191 (10.80%) AngularJS
6 175 (9.89%) Material-UI
7 142 (8.03%) REST
8 138 (7.80%) .NET Core
9 114 (6.44%) Spring
10 111 (6.27%) CSS
11 106 (5.99%) Kafka
12 92 (5.20%) HTML
13 90 (5.09%) Spring Boot
14 83 (4.69%) RESTful
14 83 (4.69%) Vue.js
15 58 (3.28%) GraphQL
16 56 (3.17%) .NET Framework
17 50 (2.83%) ASP.NET
18 47 (2.66%) React Native
19 39 (2.20%) ASP.NET Web API
Miscellaneous
1 96 (5.43%) User Experience
2 83 (4.69%) Equities
3 80 (4.52%) Derivative
4 77 (4.35%) Fixed Income
5 76 (4.30%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 46 (2.60%) Cloud Native
7 42 (2.37%) Greenfield Project
8 39 (2.20%) Self-Motivation
9 38 (2.15%) Hedge funds
10 36 (2.04%) Algorithms
11 33 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
11 33 (1.87%) Data Structures
12 31 (1.75%) Embedded Systems
13 16 (0.90%) Cybercrime
14 15 (0.85%) Client/Server
14 15 (0.85%) CMDB
15 12 (0.68%) Legacy Applications
16 11 (0.62%) Credit Derivative
16 11 (0.62%) Device Driver
16 11 (0.62%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 211 (11.93%) Linux
2 107 (6.05%) Windows
3 62 (3.50%) Unix
4 28 (1.58%) Android
5 16 (0.90%) Apple iOS
6 15 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (0.62%) Embedded Linux
7 11 (0.62%) Windows 10
8 9 (0.51%) AIX
9 7 (0.40%) CentOS
9 7 (0.40%) OpenWrt
10 6 (0.34%) FreeRTOS
10 6 (0.34%) zOS
11 4 (0.23%) SafeRTOS
11 4 (0.23%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.23%) VMS
11 4 (0.23%) Windows Server
12 3 (0.17%) Solaris
12 3 (0.17%) VME
12 3 (0.17%) VxWorks
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,732 (97.91%) Software Engineering
2 829 (46.86%) Agile Software Development
3 417 (23.57%) Full Stack Development
4 290 (16.39%) Microservices
5 276 (15.60%) DevOps
6 274 (15.49%) Asset Management
7 217 (12.27%) TDD
8 195 (11.02%) Test Automation
9 185 (10.46%) Investment Management
10 156 (8.82%) Scrum
11 146 (8.25%) Continuous Integration
12 134 (7.57%) Software Testing
13 129 (7.29%) OO
14 124 (7.01%) Problem-Solving
15 115 (6.50%) SDLC
16 111 (6.27%) Analytics
17 87 (4.92%) Configuration Management
18 82 (4.64%) BDD
18 82 (4.64%) Unit Testing
19 81 (4.58%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 601 (33.97%) JavaScript
2 584 (33.01%) Java
3 458 (25.89%) Python
4 368 (20.80%) SQL
5 364 (20.58%) TypeScript
6 351 (19.84%) C#
7 232 (13.11%) C++
8 189 (10.68%) C
9 93 (5.26%) Kotlin
10 82 (4.64%) Go
11 71 (4.01%) Scala
12 59 (3.34%) PL/SQL
13 48 (2.71%) Perl
13 48 (2.71%) Shell Script
14 44 (2.49%) Embedded C
15 38 (2.15%) Ada
16 37 (2.09%) Ruby
17 34 (1.92%) PHP
18 33 (1.87%) Bash Shell
19 32 (1.81%) Java 8
Qualifications
1 255 (14.41%) Security Cleared
2 218 (12.32%) SC Cleared
3 86 (4.86%) Degree
4 33 (1.87%) DV Cleared
5 32 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
6 30 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (0.40%) Master's Degree
8 6 (0.34%) DBS Check
8 6 (0.34%) PhD
9 4 (0.23%) ISTQB
9 4 (0.23%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 2 (0.11%) HND
11 1 (0.057%) CCNA
11 1 (0.057%) Cisco Certification
11 1 (0.057%) CITP
11 1 (0.057%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.057%) VCAP
11 1 (0.057%) VCDX
11 1 (0.057%) VCP6
11 1 (0.057%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (3.62%) QA
2 18 (1.02%) Accessibility
2 18 (1.02%) DO-178B
3 11 (0.62%) IEC 61508
3 11 (0.62%) MISRA
4 9 (0.51%) MISRA C
5 6 (0.34%) Def Stans
6 4 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
6 4 (0.23%) GDPR
6 4 (0.23%) JTAG
7 3 (0.17%) Data Quality
7 3 (0.17%) WCAG
8 2 (0.11%) DO-254
8 2 (0.11%) GRC
8 2 (0.11%) ISO 26262
9 1 (0.057%) MiFID
System Software
1 408 (23.06%) Docker
2 23 (1.30%) Active Directory
3 22 (1.24%) Firmware
4 17 (0.96%) HDFS
5 11 (0.62%) Virtual Machines
5 11 (0.62%) VMware Infrastructure
6 9 (0.51%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 6 (0.34%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
8 5 (0.28%) Job Entry Subsystem
8 5 (0.28%) RACF
9 3 (0.17%) KVM
10 2 (0.11%) iptables
10 2 (0.11%) NFS
11 1 (0.057%) Apache Flume
11 1 (0.057%) Hyper-V
11 1 (0.057%) Shibboleth
11 1 (0.057%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.057%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.057%) vSphere
11 1 (0.057%) Xen
Systems Management
1 320 (18.09%) Kubernetes
2 214 (12.10%) Terraform
3 45 (2.54%) Ansible
4 33 (1.87%) Grafana
5 27 (1.53%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.79%) Rancher
7 13 (0.73%) MIIS
8 12 (0.68%) Bosun
9 11 (0.62%) VictorOps
10 9 (0.51%) Graphite
11 7 (0.40%) Oozie
11 7 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
12 6 (0.34%) Kibana
12 6 (0.34%) Tivoli
13 4 (0.23%) Puppet
13 4 (0.23%) Tivoli NetView
14 3 (0.17%) Docker Swarm
14 3 (0.17%) logstash
14 3 (0.17%) Opscode Chef
14 3 (0.17%) Packer
Vendors
1 101 (5.71%) Oracle
2 87 (4.92%) Microsoft
3 38 (2.15%) Google
4 23 (1.30%) Splunk
5 22 (1.24%) Informatica
6 19 (1.07%) IBM
7 17 (0.96%) Adobe
7 17 (0.96%) Atlassian
8 16 (0.90%) Talend
9 13 (0.73%) Databricks
9 13 (0.73%) Red Hat
10 12 (0.68%) CA Agile Central
10 12 (0.68%) Confluent
10 12 (0.68%) Perforce
10 12 (0.68%) VMware
11 11 (0.62%) Cloudera
11 11 (0.62%) Perfecto Mobile
12 9 (0.51%) Salesforce.com
12 9 (0.51%) webMethods
13 8 (0.45%) BEA
1,501 Software Engineer job vacancies Nationwide