Software Engineering Contracts

Software Engineering
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Software Engineering skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Software Engineering over the 6 months leading up to 19 March 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Mar 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 43 33 45
Rank change year-on-year -10 +12 -4
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 1,409 2,160 3,216
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 4.81% 4.86% 5.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.32% 5.62% 5.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 916 1,258 2,147
10th Percentile £400 £413 £438
25th Percentile £477 £485 £508
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year - - +4.35%
75th Percentile £725 £730 £700
90th Percentile £838 £800 £798
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% +4.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 336 222
10th Percentile £42.60 £46.25 £44.60
25th Percentile £54.19 £51.63 £53.75
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +18.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £68.75 £75.00 £72.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% +18.18%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Software Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 26,483 38,445 57,649
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.39% 86.56% 89.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,032 25,024 39,857
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £439
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £744 £745 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.00% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 925 2,325 1,839
10th Percentile £15.22 £13.00 £11.25
25th Percentile £20.86 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £32.50 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year - -7.14% +43.74%
75th Percentile £64.52 £57.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £70.30 £73.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.64 £31.13 £35.00
% change year-on-year +1.65% -11.07% +79.49%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Software Engineering as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Software Engineering in the UK

Software Engineering
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for Software Engineering in the UK

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering over the 6 months to 19 March 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineering in the UK

Software Engineering
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for Software Engineering in the UK

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineering over the 6 months to 19 March 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineering in the UK

Software Engineering
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 Engineering within the UK over the 6 months to 19 March 2025. 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 -8 1,221 £600 - 2,506
London 0 716 £659 +1.42% 1,190
UK excluding London -20 552 £500 -4.76% 1,523
Work from Home -3 546 £625 +4.17% 1,463
South West +16 126 £585 +6.36% 191
North of England -22 119 £528 -3.74% 377
South East -22 103 £500 -5.44% 378
Scotland +6 83 £478 -4.50% 125
North West -26 72 £550 - 242
Midlands -8 57 £490 -2.00% 196
Yorkshire -10 41 £525 +5.00% 88
East of England -33 39 £452 -9.60% 244
West Midlands -10 38 £500 +2.56% 117
East Midlands +3 15 £490 -10.91% 75
Northern Ireland +6 13 £325 -51.85% 19
Wales -4 13 £513 -2.38% 27
North East -30 6 - - 52

Software Engineering
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
1 102 (7.24%) Apache
1 102 (7.24%) Apache Airflow
2 75 (5.32%) Confluence
3 44 (3.12%) Apache Spark
4 30 (2.13%) SAS
5 11 (0.78%) CMS
6 7 (0.50%) SharePoint
6 7 (0.50%) WordPress
7 6 (0.43%) Drupal
7 6 (0.43%) GemFire
7 6 (0.43%) Oracle Coherence
8 3 (0.21%) Headless CMS
8 3 (0.21%) WebSphere
9 2 (0.14%) BizTalk Server
9 2 (0.14%) Documentum
9 2 (0.14%) FileNet
9 2 (0.14%) IIS
9 2 (0.14%) Jupyter
9 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.14%) MQSeries
Applications
1 9 (0.64%) Simulink
2 5 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.071%) Acrobat
4 1 (0.071%) CANalyzer
4 1 (0.071%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.071%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.071%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 11 (0.78%) BASE24
2 6 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
5 3 (0.21%) FLEXCUBE
5 3 (0.21%) Misys Midas
5 3 (0.21%) Oracle BPM
5 3 (0.21%) SAP ERP
5 3 (0.21%) SAP EWM
5 3 (0.21%) SAP GTS
6 2 (0.14%) Endur
6 2 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
6 2 (0.14%) Remedy ITSM
6 2 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.071%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.071%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 575 (40.81%) AWS
2 311 (22.07%) Azure
3 223 (15.83%) GCP
4 125 (8.87%) Serverless
5 102 (7.24%) dbt
6 92 (6.53%) AWS Lambda
7 83 (5.89%) Amazon ECS
8 80 (5.68%) OpenShift
9 77 (5.46%) GitHub
10 74 (5.25%) Amazon EC2
11 62 (4.40%) Azure DevOps
12 58 (4.12%) Amazon S3
13 44 (3.12%) AWS CloudFormation
13 44 (3.12%) Snowflake
14 42 (2.98%) Cloud Computing
15 41 (2.91%) Power Platform
16 39 (2.77%) GitHub Actions
17 37 (2.63%) Amazon SQS
18 31 (2.20%) Amazon EKS
18 31 (2.20%) Dagster
Communications & Networking
1 18 (1.28%) HTTP
2 13 (0.92%) DNS
3 10 (0.71%) Internet
3 10 (0.71%) SNMP
4 9 (0.64%) ATM
4 9 (0.64%) Firewall
4 9 (0.64%) MQTT
4 9 (0.64%) SAN
4 9 (0.64%) Software-Defined Radio
5 8 (0.57%) Modbus
5 8 (0.57%) TCP/IP
5 8 (0.57%) VPN
6 6 (0.43%) Network Security
6 6 (0.43%) SSL
7 5 (0.35%) Ethernet
7 5 (0.35%) NAS
8 4 (0.28%) VSAN
9 3 (0.21%) LAN
9 3 (0.21%) RS-232
9 3 (0.21%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 151 (10.72%) PostgreSQL
2 100 (7.10%) Amazon Athena
3 99 (7.03%) Relational Database
4 98 (6.96%) Apache Iceberg
4 98 (6.96%) Dremio
5 82 (5.82%) Apache Arrow
6 76 (5.39%) MongoDB
7 75 (5.32%) SQL Server
8 72 (5.11%) MySQL
9 62 (4.40%) Apache Ignite
10 59 (4.19%) NoSQL
11 48 (3.41%) Data Lake
12 47 (3.34%) Amazon RDS
13 46 (3.26%) Apache Cassandra
14 44 (3.12%) Big Data
15 43 (3.05%) Oracle Database
16 34 (2.41%) Amazon Redshift
17 33 (2.34%) Power BI
18 25 (1.77%) Hadoop
18 25 (1.77%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 180 (12.78%) Git
2 135 (9.58%) Jenkins
3 114 (8.09%) JIRA
4 75 (5.32%) GitLab
5 62 (4.40%) Bitbucket
6 58 (4.12%) JUnit
7 51 (3.62%) Artifactory
8 39 (2.77%) Cucumber
9 25 (1.77%) GoogleTest
9 25 (1.77%) Maven
9 25 (1.77%) SonarQube
10 21 (1.49%) Gradle
10 21 (1.49%) Liquibase
10 21 (1.49%) Rational DOORS
11 20 (1.42%) Eclipse
12 18 (1.28%) Jasmine
12 18 (1.28%) Visual Studio
13 16 (1.14%) Mockito
14 15 (1.06%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 15 (1.06%) Robot Framework
General
1 408 (28.96%) Finance
2 286 (20.30%) Social Skills
3 211 (14.98%) Front Office
4 170 (12.07%) Banking
5 111 (7.88%) Analytical Skills
6 107 (7.59%) Public Sector
7 70 (4.97%) Investment Banking
8 37 (2.63%) Telecoms
9 33 (2.34%) Marketing
10 28 (1.99%) Electronics
11 23 (1.63%) Aerospace
12 21 (1.49%) Financial Institution
12 21 (1.49%) Manufacturing
13 20 (1.42%) Retail
14 18 (1.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 17 (1.21%) Military
16 16 (1.14%) Law
16 16 (1.14%) Legal
17 14 (0.99%) Presentation Skills
18 12 (0.85%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 585 (41.52%) Software Engineer
2 435 (30.87%) Developer
3 254 (18.03%) Senior
4 155 (11.00%) Python Engineer
5 134 (9.51%) AWS Engineer
6 123 (8.73%) Senior Software Engineer
7 102 (7.24%) Java Developer
8 101 (7.17%) Developer/Software Engineer
9 98 (6.96%) DevOps Engineer
10 81 (5.75%) Java Engineer
11 79 (5.61%) Lead
12 76 (5.39%) Software Developer
13 74 (5.25%) AWS Software Engineer
13 74 (5.25%) Senior Developer
14 72 (5.11%) Python Software Engineer
15 71 (5.04%) Data Engineer
16 70 (4.97%) Python Developer
17 66 (4.68%) Java Software Engineer
18 56 (3.97%) Architect
18 56 (3.97%) AWS DevOps
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 217 (15.40%) React
2 154 (10.93%) .NET
3 151 (10.72%) Node.js
4 148 (10.50%) Kafka
5 107 (7.59%) AngularJS
6 94 (6.67%) Spring
7 91 (6.46%) HTML
8 89 (6.32%) CSS
9 87 (6.17%) Spring Boot
10 84 (5.96%) PySpark
10 84 (5.96%) RESTful
11 83 (5.89%) Pandas
12 82 (5.82%) NumPy
13 70 (4.97%) SciPy
14 63 (4.47%) Redux
15 61 (4.33%) gRPC
15 61 (4.33%) Vue
16 51 (3.62%) REST
17 44 (3.12%) Swagger
18 40 (2.84%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 107 (7.59%) Fixed Income
2 75 (5.32%) Algorithms
3 61 (4.33%) Hedge funds
4 54 (3.83%) Equities
5 53 (3.76%) Distributed Systems
6 52 (3.69%) Derivative
7 47 (3.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 47 (3.34%) Product Ownership
8 32 (2.27%) Greenfield Project
9 31 (2.20%) Cloud Native
9 31 (2.20%) Data Structures
9 31 (2.20%) Public Cloud
10 23 (1.63%) Management Information System
11 16 (1.14%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 14 (0.99%) Mobile App
13 13 (0.92%) Enterprise Software
13 13 (0.92%) Equity Derivative
13 13 (0.92%) IoT
14 12 (0.85%) Data Centre
14 12 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 237 (16.82%) Linux
2 63 (4.47%) Unix
3 59 (4.19%) Windows
4 37 (2.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (1.70%) Android
6 16 (1.14%) Windows Server
7 15 (1.06%) Apple iOS
8 12 (0.85%) Embedded Linux
9 7 (0.50%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.43%) VxWorks
11 5 (0.35%) FreeRTOS
12 4 (0.28%) VMS
12 4 (0.28%) Windows 10
13 1 (0.071%) Amazon Linux
13 1 (0.071%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.071%) SUSE
13 1 (0.071%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.071%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 566 (40.17%) Agile
2 418 (29.67%) CI/CD
3 356 (25.27%) DevOps
4 231 (16.39%) Problem-Solving
5 213 (15.12%) Microservices
6 180 (12.78%) Test Automation
7 170 (12.07%) Asset Management
8 149 (10.57%) Full-Stack Development
8 149 (10.57%) TDD
9 134 (9.51%) Containerisation
10 132 (9.37%) Scrum
11 127 (9.01%) Computer Science
12 122 (8.66%) Continuous Integration
13 116 (8.23%) Fintech
14 105 (7.45%) Design Patterns
15 103 (7.31%) Mentoring
15 103 (7.31%) OO
16 100 (7.10%) Data Engineering
17 99 (7.03%) Artificial Intelligence
18 96 (6.81%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 580 (41.16%) Python
2 455 (32.29%) Java
3 341 (24.20%) JavaScript
4 296 (21.01%) SQL
5 203 (14.41%) TypeScript
6 184 (13.06%) C#
7 143 (10.15%) C++
8 103 (7.31%) Go
9 66 (4.68%) C
10 51 (3.62%) Bash
11 44 (3.12%) Ada
12 41 (2.91%) PowerShell
13 34 (2.41%) Scala
14 31 (2.20%) Shell Script
15 22 (1.56%) PHP
16 21 (1.49%) Kotlin
16 21 (1.49%) Rust
17 20 (1.42%) PL/SQL
17 20 (1.42%) Ruby
18 15 (1.06%) Perl
Qualifications
1 308 (21.86%) Security Cleared
2 266 (18.88%) SC Cleared
3 167 (11.85%) Degree
4 85 (6.03%) Computer Science Degree
5 76 (5.39%) DV Cleared
6 28 (1.99%) Master's Degree
7 25 (1.77%) Azure Certification
8 19 (1.35%) AWS Certification
9 14 (0.99%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 13 (0.92%) Microsoft Certification
11 9 (0.64%) Numerate Degree
12 8 (0.57%) Cisco Certification
13 6 (0.43%) CCNP
13 6 (0.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 4 (0.28%) PMI Certification
14 4 (0.28%) SANS
15 3 (0.21%) BPSS Clearance
15 3 (0.21%) PMP
16 2 (0.14%) OCA
16 2 (0.14%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 84 (5.96%) QA
2 23 (1.63%) Accessibility
2 23 (1.63%) IEC 61508
3 22 (1.56%) Def Stans
4 18 (1.28%) MISRA
5 17 (1.21%) MISRA C
6 12 (0.85%) Data Quality
7 11 (0.78%) ISO 8583
8 9 (0.64%) PSD2
9 7 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
10 5 (0.35%) DO-178B
11 4 (0.28%) GDPR
12 3 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
12 3 (0.21%) ISO 9001
12 3 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
13 2 (0.14%) ISO 26262
13 2 (0.14%) JSP 440
13 2 (0.14%) MiFID
13 2 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 263 (18.67%) Docker
2 13 (0.92%) Firmware
2 13 (0.92%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (0.85%) Active Directory
4 7 (0.50%) vSphere
5 6 (0.43%) GridGain
5 6 (0.43%) HDFS
5 6 (0.43%) VMware NSX
6 5 (0.35%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.14%) SRDF
10 1 (0.071%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 291 (20.65%) Kubernetes
2 187 (13.27%) Terraform
3 90 (6.39%) Ansible
4 32 (2.27%) Grafana
5 17 (1.21%) Prometheus
6 11 (0.78%) Argo
7 9 (0.64%) Progress Chef
8 8 (0.57%) Puppet
9 5 (0.35%) NetBackup
9 5 (0.35%) Oracle RMAN
10 4 (0.28%) Istio
10 4 (0.28%) Kibana
10 4 (0.28%) vCenter Server
11 3 (0.21%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.21%) Opsview
11 3 (0.21%) PowerCLI
11 3 (0.21%) SCCM
11 3 (0.21%) WMI
12 2 (0.14%) systemd
12 2 (0.14%) WSUS
Vendors
1 103 (7.31%) Oracle
2 97 (6.88%) Microsoft
3 87 (6.17%) Google
4 31 (2.20%) Red Hat
5 30 (2.13%) Atlassian
6 29 (2.06%) SAP
7 26 (1.85%) Databricks
7 26 (1.85%) Splunk
8 20 (1.42%) VMware
9 14 (0.99%) Salesforce
10 11 (0.78%) HP
10 11 (0.78%) Informatica
10 11 (0.78%) MuleSoft
10 11 (0.78%) Talend
10 11 (0.78%) TOWER Software
11 10 (0.71%) IBM
11 10 (0.71%) Intel
11 10 (0.71%) ServiceNow
12 9 (0.64%) Cisco
13 8 (0.57%) Sybase