Software Engineer Contracts

Software Engineer
UK

The median Software Engineer daily rate in the UK is £575 according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 26 November 2023.

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

 6 months to
26 Nov 2023		 Same period 2022 Same period 2021
Rank 132 120 129
Rank change year-on-year -12 +9 -18
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 859 1,754 1,910
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.89% 2.24% 2.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.02% 2.36% 2.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 537 1,225 1,375
10th Percentile £416 £450 £400
25th Percentile £500 £508 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £590 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.54% +7.27% +4.76%
75th Percentile £700 £688 £650
90th Percentile £775 £750 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £540 £475
% change year-on-year -2.78% +13.68% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 140 114
10th Percentile £48.32 £42.50 £40.35
25th Percentile £53.75 £52.79 £44.77
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £48.58
Median % change year-on-year - +33.80% +8.56%
75th Percentile £69.00 £67.50 £55.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £70.75 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £48.50
% change year-on-year - +34.02% +7.78%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

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.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 42,434 74,371 84,991
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.54% 95.14% 95.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,677 51,926 59,473
10th Percentile £290 £313 £301
25th Percentile £413 £428 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £508
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +8.27% +6.95%
75th Percentile £649 £650 £613
90th Percentile £738 £750 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £450
% change year-on-year - +11.11% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,517 1,749 2,199
10th Percentile £15.21 £13.23 £12.00
25th Percentile £19.12 £16.75 £14.00
Median hourly rate £44.50 £30.00 £20.45
Median % change year-on-year +48.33% +46.70% -9.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.75 £46.16
90th Percentile £77.50 £72.30 £63.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.79 £18.00
% change year-on-year +81.52% +37.72% -9.55%

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 26 November 2023.

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 26 November 2023.

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 26 November 2023. 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 -9 791 £575 -4.17% 1,504
UK excluding London +12 485 £525 -2.78% 1,132
Work from Home -18 310 £600 +9.09% 887
London -32 310 £650 +4.00% 611
South West +3 145 £538 -2.27% 169
East of England +40 124 £475 -19.83% 173
South East +20 86 £530 -3.64% 308
North of England +51 77 £550 -4.35% 212
North West +55 58 £550 -8.33% 128
Scotland +7 24 £484 -5.66% 106
Midlands -65 20 £500 -7.41% 125
Yorkshire +39 18 £550 +10.00% 60
East Midlands +20 10 £420 -20.00% 50
Wales +16 10 £525 -12.50% 27
West Midlands -55 10 £525 -2.78% 76
North East +18 1 £500 -13.04% 26

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

For the 6 months to 26 November 2023, Software 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 Engineer in the job title.

1 843 (98.14%) Software Engineering
2 340 (39.58%) Agile
3 284 (33.06%) Python
4 274 (31.90%) AWS
5 250 (29.10%) C++
6 205 (23.86%) Security Cleared
7 204 (23.75%) C
8 199 (23.17%) Java
9 190 (22.12%) JavaScript
9 190 (22.12%) C#
10 171 (19.91%) Finance
11 161 (18.74%) Azure
11 161 (18.74%) TypeScript
11 161 (18.74%) DevOps
12 151 (17.58%) React
13 146 (17.00%) Linux
14 145 (16.88%) SC Cleared
15 136 (15.83%) GCP
16 135 (15.72%) .NET
17 125 (14.55%) Problem-Solving
18 121 (14.09%) Social Skills
19 115 (13.39%) Front Office
20 112 (13.04%) Asset Management
21 109 (12.69%) CI/CD
21 109 (12.69%) SQL
22 106 (12.34%) Software Testing
23 103 (11.99%) TDD
24 101 (11.76%) Test Automation
25 99 (11.53%) Degree
25 99 (11.53%) Node.js

Software 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 61 (7.10%) Apache Airflow
2 57 (6.64%) Apache
3 22 (2.56%) Confluence
4 9 (1.05%) Apache Spark
5 4 (0.47%) Luigi
6 3 (0.35%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.23%) Apache Pulsar
7 2 (0.23%) Apache Solr
8 1 (0.12%) Alfresco
8 1 (0.12%) BizTalk Server
8 1 (0.12%) CMS
8 1 (0.12%) IIS
8 1 (0.12%) MQSeries
8 1 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 5 (0.58%) Simulink
2 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.12%) Trello
2 1 (0.12%) Weka
Business Applications
1 4 (0.47%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 2 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.12%) Exstream
3 1 (0.12%) LabWindows
Cloud Services
1 274 (31.90%) AWS
2 161 (18.74%) Azure
3 136 (15.83%) GCP
4 50 (5.82%) GitHub
5 45 (5.24%) Azure DevOps
6 30 (3.49%) Serverless
7 25 (2.91%) dbt
8 17 (1.98%) AWS Lambda
9 16 (1.86%) Azure Event Grid
9 16 (1.86%) GitHub Actions
10 14 (1.63%) Amazon S3
11 13 (1.51%) Azure Logic Apps
12 11 (1.28%) Azure AKS
13 9 (1.05%) Azure Functions
14 7 (0.81%) AWS CloudFormation
14 7 (0.81%) Azure App Service
14 7 (0.81%) Azure Service Bus
14 7 (0.81%) Cloud Computing
15 6 (0.70%) Azure Storage
15 6 (0.70%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 38 (4.42%) RS-485
2 34 (3.96%) Modbus
2 34 (3.96%) RS-422
3 21 (2.44%) Wireless
4 10 (1.16%) Ethernet
5 9 (1.05%) 5G
5 9 (1.05%) VoIP
6 8 (0.93%) HTTP
6 8 (0.93%) SNMP
6 8 (0.93%) Software-Defined Radio
7 7 (0.81%) TCP/IP
8 6 (0.70%) Firewall
8 6 (0.70%) LTE
9 5 (0.58%) Tactical Data Link
9 5 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
10 4 (0.47%) 4G
10 4 (0.47%) 5G NR
10 4 (0.47%) FTP
10 4 (0.47%) VPN
11 3 (0.35%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (5.12%) Apache Ignite
2 40 (4.66%) MongoDB
2 40 (4.66%) PostgreSQL
3 34 (3.96%) SQL Server
4 32 (3.73%) Amazon Athena
5 28 (3.26%) NoSQL
6 25 (2.91%) Apache Arrow
6 25 (2.91%) Dremio
7 23 (2.68%) MySQL
8 15 (1.75%) Apache Cassandra
8 15 (1.75%) DynamoDB
8 15 (1.75%) Elasticsearch
9 14 (1.63%) Relational Database
10 9 (1.05%) Metadata
10 9 (1.05%) Oracle Database
10 9 (1.05%) Oracle Database 11g
11 8 (0.93%) Amazon Aurora
12 6 (0.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 5 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
13 5 (0.58%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 78 (9.08%) Git
2 46 (5.36%) Rational DOORS
3 34 (3.96%) Jenkins
4 33 (3.84%) JIRA
5 29 (3.38%) Cypress.io
6 21 (2.44%) Rational Rhapsody
7 17 (1.98%) Bitbucket
7 17 (1.98%) Visual Studio
8 16 (1.86%) GitLab
8 16 (1.86%) Robot Framework
9 12 (1.40%) Selenium
9 12 (1.40%) Subversion
10 10 (1.16%) GoogleTest
11 9 (1.05%) Eclipse
11 9 (1.05%) JUnit
12 8 (0.93%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 8 (0.93%) GCC
13 7 (0.81%) Mercurial
14 6 (0.70%) SpecFlow
14 6 (0.70%) TeamCity
General
1 171 (19.91%) Finance
2 121 (14.09%) Social Skills
3 115 (13.39%) Front Office
4 64 (7.45%) Banking
5 51 (5.94%) Electronics
6 38 (4.42%) Public Sector
7 36 (4.19%) Aerospace
8 34 (3.96%) Analytical Skills
9 30 (3.49%) Investment Banking
10 26 (3.03%) Automotive
11 15 (1.75%) Military
12 14 (1.63%) Avionics
12 14 (1.63%) Manufacturing
13 12 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 9 (1.05%) Aviation
14 9 (1.05%) Health Technology
15 8 (0.93%) Law
15 8 (0.93%) Marketing
15 8 (0.93%) Telecoms
16 6 (0.70%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 151 (17.58%) React
2 135 (15.72%) .NET
3 99 (11.53%) Node.js
4 78 (9.08%) Redux
5 55 (6.40%) gRPC
6 49 (5.70%) ASP.NET
7 47 (5.47%) AngularJS
8 45 (5.24%) Spring
9 43 (5.01%) REST
10 42 (4.89%) Protocol Buffers
11 39 (4.54%) Kafka
12 38 (4.42%) .NET Core
12 38 (4.42%) Vue
13 36 (4.19%) HTML
14 34 (3.96%) ASP.NET Core
14 34 (3.96%) RESTful
15 33 (3.84%) Spring Boot
16 32 (3.73%) Pandas
17 30 (3.49%) CSS
17 30 (3.49%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 82 (9.55%) Fixed Income
2 59 (6.87%) Derivative
3 45 (5.24%) Equities
4 41 (4.77%) Hedge funds
5 40 (4.66%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 39 (4.54%) Algorithms
7 31 (3.61%) Self-Motivation
8 24 (2.79%) Distributed Systems
9 19 (2.21%) Greenfield Project
10 17 (1.98%) Device Driver
11 16 (1.86%) Cloud Native
11 16 (1.86%) Private Cloud
12 14 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
12 14 (1.63%) Data Structures
13 13 (1.51%) Embedded Systems
14 11 (1.28%) Mobile App
15 10 (1.16%) ARM Cortex
16 9 (1.05%) Product Ownership
17 8 (0.93%) FPGA
17 8 (0.93%) PCIe
Operating Systems
1 146 (17.00%) Linux
2 54 (6.29%) Windows
3 19 (2.21%) Unix
4 10 (1.16%) FreeRTOS
5 9 (1.05%) Android
5 9 (1.05%) VxWorks
6 7 (0.81%) Embedded Linux
7 5 (0.58%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.47%) CentOS
9 2 (0.23%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.12%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.12%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.12%) OS/400
10 1 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.12%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 843 (98.14%) Software Engineering
2 340 (39.58%) Agile
3 161 (18.74%) DevOps
4 125 (14.55%) Problem-Solving
5 112 (13.04%) Asset Management
6 109 (12.69%) CI/CD
7 106 (12.34%) Software Testing
8 103 (11.99%) TDD
9 101 (11.76%) Test Automation
10 97 (11.29%) Full Stack Development
11 93 (10.83%) Unit Testing
12 90 (10.48%) Scrum
13 82 (9.55%) Continuous Integration
14 79 (9.20%) SDLC
15 71 (8.27%) Investment Management
16 69 (8.03%) Microservices
17 66 (7.68%) Computer Science
18 63 (7.33%) Analytics
19 61 (7.10%) OO
20 57 (6.64%) Fintech
Programming Languages
1 284 (33.06%) Python
2 250 (29.10%) C++
3 204 (23.75%) C
4 199 (23.17%) Java
5 190 (22.12%) C#
5 190 (22.12%) JavaScript
6 161 (18.74%) TypeScript
7 109 (12.69%) SQL
8 67 (7.80%) Embedded C
9 45 (5.24%) Embedded C++
10 42 (4.89%) Ada
11 41 (4.77%) Go
12 20 (2.33%) MATLAB
13 19 (2.21%) Bash
13 19 (2.21%) Scala
14 15 (1.75%) Kotlin
15 13 (1.51%) PowerShell
16 12 (1.40%) PHP
16 12 (1.40%) PL/SQL
17 9 (1.05%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 205 (23.86%) Security Cleared
2 145 (16.88%) SC Cleared
3 99 (11.53%) Degree
4 56 (6.52%) DV Cleared
5 40 (4.66%) Computer Science Degree
6 29 (3.38%) Master's Degree
7 10 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
7 10 (1.16%) Chartered Engineer
7 10 (1.16%) PhD
8 6 (0.70%) AWS Certification
9 5 (0.58%) HNC
9 5 (0.58%) RHCSA
10 4 (0.47%) HND
10 4 (0.47%) PMI Certification
10 4 (0.47%) PMP
11 3 (0.35%) CEH
12 2 (0.23%) Azure Certification
12 2 (0.23%) DBS Check
12 2 (0.23%) Postgraduate
13 1 (0.12%) AWS Certified Developer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (4.66%) QA
2 10 (1.16%) MISRA
3 8 (0.93%) MISRA C
4 7 (0.81%) Accessibility
4 7 (0.81%) Def Stans
5 6 (0.70%) IEC 61508
5 6 (0.70%) JTAG
6 3 (0.35%) ARP4754
6 3 (0.35%) Automotive SPICE
6 3 (0.35%) DO-254
6 3 (0.35%) ISO 26262
7 2 (0.23%) AUTOSAR
7 2 (0.23%) DO-178B
7 2 (0.23%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.12%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.12%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.12%) EMIR
8 1 (0.12%) GDPR
8 1 (0.12%) ISO 9000
8 1 (0.12%) MiFID
System Software
1 87 (10.13%) Docker
2 24 (2.79%) Firmware
3 6 (0.70%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.47%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 3 (0.35%) Active Directory
5 3 (0.35%) Embedded Firmware
5 3 (0.35%) zsh
6 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.12%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 80 (9.31%) Kubernetes
2 35 (4.07%) Terraform
3 16 (1.86%) Ansible
4 5 (0.58%) Consul
5 4 (0.47%) Grafana
5 4 (0.47%) HP ALM
6 2 (0.23%) Functional Safety
6 2 (0.23%) Podman
6 2 (0.23%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.23%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.12%) Cobbler
7 1 (0.12%) Kubeflow
7 1 (0.12%) Packer
7 1 (0.12%) Puppet
7 1 (0.12%) SELinux
Vendors
1 44 (5.12%) Google
2 37 (4.31%) Microsoft
3 27 (3.14%) Oracle
4 26 (3.03%) Atlassian
5 18 (2.10%) IBM
6 12 (1.40%) Finsemble
7 11 (1.28%) Red Hat
8 8 (0.93%) Databricks
8 8 (0.93%) Lauterbach
9 6 (0.70%) SAP
9 6 (0.70%) VMware
10 5 (0.58%) Micro Focus
10 5 (0.58%) ServiceNow
10 5 (0.58%) Workday
11 4 (0.47%) Brio
11 4 (0.47%) HP
11 4 (0.47%) Sparx
12 3 (0.35%) Perforce
13 2 (0.23%) Hitachi
13 2 (0.23%) Salesforce
1,756 Software Engineer jobs Nationwide