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 10 December 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
10 Dec 2023
Same period 2022 Same period 2021
Rank 134 118 132
Rank change year-on-year -16 +14 -29
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 846 1,707 1,891
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.90% 2.22% 2.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.04% 2.33% 2.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 529 1,191 1,359
10th Percentile £418 £448 £400
25th Percentile £500 £506 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £588 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% +6.82% +4.76%
75th Percentile £700 £675 £650
90th Percentile £786 £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 172 134 115
10th Percentile £48.47 £42.50 £40.47
25th Percentile £53.75 £53.03 £44.69
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £48.58
Median % change year-on-year - +33.80% +7.96%
75th Percentile £66.38 £67.50 £56.75
90th Percentile £88.80 £70.62 £61.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £49.00
% change year-on-year - +32.65% +8.89%

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 41,552 73,114 85,514
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.42% 95.16% 95.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,976 50,959 59,881
10th Percentile £293 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +7.32% +8.47%
75th Percentile £644 £650 £613
90th Percentile £740 £750 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £450
% change year-on-year - +11.11% +5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,473 1,721 2,216
10th Percentile £15.16 £13.25 £12.00
25th Percentile £19.06 £17.00 £14.00
Median hourly rate £44.50 £30.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +48.33% +50.00% -16.67%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £45.89
90th Percentile £77.50 £72.50 £63.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.73 £17.50
% change year-on-year +79.98% +41.29% -14.29%

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 10 December 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 10 December 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 10 December 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 -12 778 £600 - 1,565
UK excluding London +15 473 £525 -2.78% 1,165
London -22 307 £650 +4.00% 638
Work from Home -22 302 £600 +9.09% 843
South West +4 135 £538 -4.78% 157
East of England +38 121 £475 -18.80% 169
South East +7 90 £530 -3.64% 349
North of England +37 76 £550 -4.35% 235
North West +50 57 £570 -5.00% 127
Scotland +9 22 £450 -11.11% 94
Midlands -59 20 £500 -7.41% 113
Yorkshire +33 18 £550 +10.00% 67
East Midlands +20 10 £420 -20.00% 48
Wales +17 10 £525 +5.00% 30
West Midlands -55 10 £525 -2.78% 65
North East +16 1 £500 -13.04% 42

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

For the 6 months to 10 December 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.

1 832 (98.35%) Software Engineering
2 338 (39.95%) Agile
3 277 (32.74%) Python
4 272 (32.15%) AWS
5 248 (29.31%) C++
6 202 (23.88%) C
7 197 (23.29%) Security Cleared
8 196 (23.17%) C#
8 196 (23.17%) Java
9 187 (22.10%) JavaScript
10 170 (20.09%) Finance
11 162 (19.15%) Azure
12 160 (18.91%) TypeScript
13 157 (18.56%) DevOps
14 149 (17.61%) React
15 143 (16.90%) Linux
16 140 (16.55%) SC Cleared
17 139 (16.43%) .NET
18 133 (15.72%) GCP
19 124 (14.66%) Problem-Solving
20 122 (14.42%) Social Skills
21 112 (13.24%) Front Office
22 109 (12.88%) Asset Management
23 108 (12.77%) SQL
24 104 (12.29%) TDD
24 104 (12.29%) Software Testing
25 102 (12.06%) CI/CD
26 100 (11.82%) Degree
27 97 (11.47%) Test Automation
28 96 (11.35%) 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 60 (7.09%) Apache Airflow
2 56 (6.62%) Apache
3 22 (2.60%) Confluence
4 6 (0.71%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.35%) Luigi
6 2 (0.24%) Apache Pulsar
6 2 (0.24%) Apache Solr
6 2 (0.24%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.12%) Alfresco
7 1 (0.12%) BizTalk Server
7 1 (0.12%) CMS
7 1 (0.12%) IIS
7 1 (0.12%) JBoss
7 1 (0.12%) MQSeries
7 1 (0.12%) nginx
7 1 (0.12%) WordPress
Applications
1 3 (0.35%) Simulink
2 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.12%) Trello
3 1 (0.12%) Weka
Business Applications
1 4 (0.47%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 2 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.12%) Exstream
3 1 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 272 (32.15%) AWS
2 162 (19.15%) Azure
3 133 (15.72%) GCP
4 50 (5.91%) GitHub
5 44 (5.20%) Azure DevOps
6 29 (3.43%) Serverless
7 28 (3.31%) dbt
8 16 (1.89%) AWS Lambda
8 16 (1.89%) Azure Event Grid
9 15 (1.77%) GitHub Actions
10 14 (1.65%) Amazon S3
11 13 (1.54%) Azure Logic Apps
12 10 (1.18%) Azure AKS
13 9 (1.06%) Azure Functions
14 8 (0.95%) Azure Service Bus
15 7 (0.83%) AWS CloudFormation
15 7 (0.83%) Azure App Service
15 7 (0.83%) Cloud Computing
16 6 (0.71%) Azure Storage
16 6 (0.71%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 39 (4.61%) RS-485
2 36 (4.26%) RS-422
3 35 (4.14%) Modbus
4 18 (2.13%) Wireless
5 10 (1.18%) Ethernet
6 9 (1.06%) SNMP
6 9 (1.06%) Software-Defined Radio
6 9 (1.06%) VoIP
7 8 (0.95%) 5G
7 8 (0.95%) HTTP
8 7 (0.83%) TCP/IP
9 6 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
10 5 (0.59%) 802.11
10 5 (0.59%) LTE
10 5 (0.59%) Tactical Data Link
11 4 (0.47%) Firewall
11 4 (0.47%) FTP
12 3 (0.35%) 4G
12 3 (0.35%) Internet
12 3 (0.35%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (5.20%) Apache Ignite
2 39 (4.61%) MongoDB
3 37 (4.37%) PostgreSQL
4 33 (3.90%) Amazon Athena
4 33 (3.90%) SQL Server
5 28 (3.31%) Apache Arrow
5 28 (3.31%) Dremio
6 24 (2.84%) NoSQL
7 23 (2.72%) MySQL
8 15 (1.77%) Apache Cassandra
8 15 (1.77%) Elasticsearch
9 14 (1.65%) DynamoDB
9 14 (1.65%) Relational Database
10 9 (1.06%) Oracle Database
10 9 (1.06%) Oracle Database 11g
11 8 (0.95%) Metadata
12 6 (0.71%) Amazon Aurora
12 6 (0.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 5 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
13 5 (0.59%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 76 (8.98%) Git
2 44 (5.20%) Rational DOORS
3 34 (4.02%) Jenkins
4 33 (3.90%) JIRA
5 27 (3.19%) Cypress.io
6 21 (2.48%) Rational Rhapsody
7 18 (2.13%) Bitbucket
8 17 (2.01%) GitLab
8 17 (2.01%) Robot Framework
8 17 (2.01%) Visual Studio
9 12 (1.42%) Selenium
9 12 (1.42%) Subversion
10 11 (1.30%) GoogleTest
11 10 (1.18%) Eclipse
12 9 (1.06%) GCC
13 7 (0.83%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 7 (0.83%) Mercurial
14 6 (0.71%) JUnit
14 6 (0.71%) SpecFlow
14 6 (0.71%) TeamCity
General
1 170 (20.09%) Finance
2 122 (14.42%) Social Skills
3 112 (13.24%) Front Office
4 66 (7.80%) Banking
5 51 (6.03%) Electronics
6 38 (4.49%) Public Sector
7 37 (4.37%) Aerospace
8 33 (3.90%) Investment Banking
9 32 (3.78%) Analytical Skills
10 25 (2.96%) Automotive
11 15 (1.77%) Manufacturing
12 14 (1.65%) Avionics
13 13 (1.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 13 (1.54%) Military
14 10 (1.18%) Marketing
15 9 (1.06%) Aviation
15 9 (1.06%) Health Technology
15 9 (1.06%) Law
16 7 (0.83%) Financial Institution
17 5 (0.59%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 149 (17.61%) React
2 139 (16.43%) .NET
3 96 (11.35%) Node.js
4 75 (8.87%) Redux
5 55 (6.50%) gRPC
6 51 (6.03%) ASP.NET
7 48 (5.67%) AngularJS
8 44 (5.20%) Spring
9 43 (5.08%) REST
10 42 (4.96%) Protocol Buffers
11 39 (4.61%) Vue
12 37 (4.37%) .NET Core
12 37 (4.37%) HTML
13 36 (4.26%) ASP.NET Core
13 36 (4.26%) Kafka
14 35 (4.14%) Pandas
15 33 (3.90%) NumPy
16 32 (3.78%) RESTful
17 31 (3.66%) CSS
17 31 (3.66%) SciPy
Miscellaneous
1 78 (9.22%) Fixed Income
2 56 (6.62%) Derivative
3 46 (5.44%) Equities
4 42 (4.96%) Hedge funds
5 40 (4.73%) Algorithms
6 39 (4.61%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 30 (3.55%) Self-Motivation
8 24 (2.84%) Distributed Systems
9 18 (2.13%) Greenfield Project
10 16 (1.89%) Private Cloud
11 15 (1.77%) Device Driver
12 14 (1.65%) Cloud Native
12 14 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
12 14 (1.65%) Embedded Systems
13 13 (1.54%) Data Structures
14 10 (1.18%) ARM Cortex
14 10 (1.18%) Mobile App
14 10 (1.18%) Product Ownership
15 8 (0.95%) FPGA
15 8 (0.95%) PCIe
Operating Systems
1 143 (16.90%) Linux
2 56 (6.62%) Windows
3 20 (2.36%) Unix
4 12 (1.42%) FreeRTOS
5 9 (1.06%) VxWorks
6 8 (0.95%) Android
7 6 (0.71%) Embedded Linux
8 5 (0.59%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.47%) CentOS
10 3 (0.35%) Windows 10
11 2 (0.24%) Windows Server
12 1 (0.12%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.12%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.12%) OS/400
12 1 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 832 (98.35%) Software Engineering
2 338 (39.95%) Agile
3 157 (18.56%) DevOps
4 124 (14.66%) Problem-Solving
5 109 (12.88%) Asset Management
6 104 (12.29%) Software Testing
6 104 (12.29%) TDD
7 102 (12.06%) CI/CD
8 97 (11.47%) Test Automation
9 95 (11.23%) Full Stack Development
10 92 (10.87%) Unit Testing
11 90 (10.64%) Scrum
12 80 (9.46%) Continuous Integration
13 79 (9.34%) SDLC
14 70 (8.27%) Microservices
15 67 (7.92%) Computer Science
15 67 (7.92%) Investment Management
16 64 (7.57%) Analytics
17 59 (6.97%) OO
18 57 (6.74%) UML
Programming Languages
1 277 (32.74%) Python
2 248 (29.31%) C++
3 202 (23.88%) C
4 196 (23.17%) C#
4 196 (23.17%) Java
5 187 (22.10%) JavaScript
6 160 (18.91%) TypeScript
7 108 (12.77%) SQL
8 64 (7.57%) Embedded C
9 44 (5.20%) Embedded C++
9 44 (5.20%) Go
10 41 (4.85%) Ada
11 20 (2.36%) Bash
12 19 (2.25%) Scala
13 16 (1.89%) MATLAB
14 13 (1.54%) PHP
14 13 (1.54%) PowerShell
15 12 (1.42%) Kotlin
15 12 (1.42%) PL/SQL
16 9 (1.06%) Perl
Qualifications
1 197 (23.29%) Security Cleared
2 140 (16.55%) SC Cleared
3 100 (11.82%) Degree
4 51 (6.03%) DV Cleared
5 40 (4.73%) Computer Science Degree
6 31 (3.66%) Master's Degree
7 11 (1.30%) PhD
8 10 (1.18%) BPSS Clearance
8 10 (1.18%) Chartered Engineer
9 6 (0.71%) AWS Certification
10 5 (0.59%) HNC
10 5 (0.59%) RHCSA
11 4 (0.47%) HND
11 4 (0.47%) PMI Certification
11 4 (0.47%) PMP
12 3 (0.35%) CEH
13 2 (0.24%) Azure Certification
13 2 (0.24%) DBS Check
13 2 (0.24%) Postgraduate
14 1 (0.12%) AWS Certified Developer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (4.96%) QA
2 8 (0.95%) MISRA
3 7 (0.83%) Accessibility
3 7 (0.83%) MISRA C
4 6 (0.71%) Def Stans
5 5 (0.59%) IEC 61508
5 5 (0.59%) 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 (0.24%) AUTOSAR
7 2 (0.24%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.12%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.12%) DO-178B
8 1 (0.12%) EMIR
8 1 (0.12%) GDPR
8 1 (0.12%) ISO 9000
8 1 (0.12%) MiFID
System Software
1 80 (9.46%) Docker
2 24 (2.84%) Firmware
3 7 (0.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.47%) Active Directory
4 4 (0.47%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 4 (0.47%) zsh
5 2 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.12%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.12%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 78 (9.22%) Kubernetes
2 33 (3.90%) Terraform
3 16 (1.89%) Ansible
4 5 (0.59%) Consul
5 4 (0.47%) Grafana
5 4 (0.47%) HP ALM
6 2 (0.24%) Functional Safety
6 2 (0.24%) Podman
6 2 (0.24%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.24%) 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
7 1 (0.12%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 45 (5.32%) Google
2 38 (4.49%) Microsoft
3 28 (3.31%) Oracle
4 26 (3.07%) Atlassian
5 18 (2.13%) IBM
6 12 (1.42%) Finsemble
7 11 (1.30%) Red Hat
8 8 (0.95%) Lauterbach
9 7 (0.83%) SAP
9 7 (0.83%) VMware
10 6 (0.71%) Databricks
11 5 (0.59%) Micro Focus
11 5 (0.59%) ServiceNow
11 5 (0.59%) Workday
12 4 (0.47%) Brio
12 4 (0.47%) HP
12 4 (0.47%) Sparx
13 3 (0.35%) Perforce
14 2 (0.24%) Hitachi
14 2 (0.24%) Salesforce