Software Engineer Contracts in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Software Engineer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £525 according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 16 May 2024.

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
16 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 71 135 122
Rank change year-on-year +64 -13 -11
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 554 440 654
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 2.73% 1.91% 2.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.95% 2.03% 2.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 137 228 351
10th Percentile £313 £413 £400
25th Percentile £425 £463 £448
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.42% +4.98% +13.89%
75th Percentile £606 £600 £625
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £625 £590 £590
% change year-on-year +5.93% - +18.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 313 113 118
10th Percentile £46.25 £47.40 £45.74
25th Percentile £52.50 £53.75 £48.52
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year - +8.33% +33.33%
75th Percentile £70.00 £70.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £77.00 £65.75
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
% change year-on-year +1.96% +10.87% +27.78%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK excluding London

The following table is for comparison with the above and includes summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London. 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 excluding London with a recognized job title 18,765 21,693 29,110
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.47% 94.29% 95.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,441 15,152 20,402
10th Percentile £213 £225 £204
25th Percentile £363 £393 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% +5.26% +11.76%
75th Percentile £595 £600 £575
90th Percentile £688 £688 £650
UK median daily rate £525 £543 £525
% change year-on-year -3.23% +3.33% +10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,259 1,107 1,452
10th Percentile £12.50 £13.41 £12.25
25th Percentile £15.75 £18.08 £14.25
Median hourly rate £40.00 £42.50 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% +112.50% +5.26%
75th Percentile £61.60 £65.00 £45.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £75.00 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £36.58 £45.00 £24.00
% change year-on-year -18.72% +87.50% +6.67%

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings that featured Software Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Software Engineer in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Software Engineer in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Software Engineer in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 16 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineer in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Software Engineer in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Software Engineer in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 16 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineer in the UK excluding London

Software Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

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 excluding London region over the 6 months to 16 May 2024. 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
East of England +33 154 £550 -0.90% 108
South East +39 135 £450 -13.46% 190
North of England +69 116 £525 -8.70% 152
South West +16 104 £550 +4.76% 162
North West +69 85 £550 - 93
Scotland +34 27 £326 -30.56% 73
Yorkshire +13 18 £400 -23.81% 47
North East +10 13 £390 -44.29% 14
Midlands -12 9 £525 -2.42% 115
Wales +14 6 £458 -22.95% 19
West Midlands -7 6 £500 -7.41% 60
Northern Ireland +8 4 £675 - 18
East Midlands +7 3 £575 +35.29% 54
Software Engineer
UK

Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 16 May 2024, 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 across the UK excluding London region featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 551 (99.46%) Software Engineering
2 170 (30.69%) C++
3 169 (30.51%) C
4 159 (28.70%) Agile
5 115 (20.76%) Linux
6 102 (18.41%) Security Cleared
7 91 (16.43%) Java
8 90 (16.25%) C#
9 86 (15.52%) DevOps
10 84 (15.16%) Social Skills
11 77 (13.90%) Electronics
12 74 (13.36%) Validation
13 73 (13.18%) CI/CD
14 70 (12.64%) Continuous Integration
15 69 (12.45%) SC Cleared
16 68 (12.27%) AWS
17 67 (12.09%) Python
18 64 (11.55%) TDD
19 62 (11.19%) JavaScript
20 60 (10.83%) Aerospace
21 55 (9.93%) Git
22 54 (9.75%) Embedded C
23 53 (9.57%) Unit Testing
24 52 (9.39%) Test Automation
25 50 (9.03%) Degree
25 50 (9.03%) Computer Science
25 50 (9.03%) Problem-Solving
26 48 (8.66%) Software Testing
26 48 (8.66%) Scrum
27 46 (8.30%) JIRA

Software Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 17 (3.07%) Confluence
2 2 (0.36%) Apache
2 2 (0.36%) Apache Solr
2 2 (0.36%) Drupal
3 1 (0.18%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.18%) Ethereum
3 1 (0.18%) MetaMask
3 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.18%) MTS
3 1 (0.18%) nginx
3 1 (0.18%) Tomcat
3 1 (0.18%) WebSphere
Applications
1 23 (4.15%) Simulink
2 16 (2.89%) Stateflow
3 3 (0.54%) Adobe After Effects
3 3 (0.54%) Blender
3 3 (0.54%) Maya
3 3 (0.54%) Photoshop
4 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.54%) Misys Midas
2 1 (0.18%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.18%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 68 (12.27%) AWS
2 38 (6.86%) Azure
3 25 (4.51%) GitHub
4 14 (2.53%) GCP
5 11 (1.99%) Serverless
6 10 (1.81%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
8 5 (0.90%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 5 (0.90%) npm
9 4 (0.72%) BrowserStack
10 3 (0.54%) Azure Functions
10 3 (0.54%) Cloud Computing
10 3 (0.54%) Power Platform
11 2 (0.36%) Google App Engine
11 2 (0.36%) IaaS
11 2 (0.36%) Pulumi
12 1 (0.18%) Azure Batch
12 1 (0.18%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 1 (0.18%) SaaS
12 1 (0.18%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 37 (6.68%) RS-485
2 36 (6.50%) Modbus
2 36 (6.50%) RS-422
3 23 (4.15%) Software-Defined Radio
4 15 (2.71%) TCP/IP
5 13 (2.35%) HTTP
5 13 (2.35%) SNMP
6 10 (1.81%) Ethernet
7 9 (1.62%) Wi-Fi
8 8 (1.44%) 802.11
9 6 (1.08%) Wireless
10 5 (0.90%) Internet
10 5 (0.90%) J1939
11 4 (0.72%) Firewall
11 4 (0.72%) Radio Access Network
11 4 (0.72%) VPN
12 3 (0.54%) Link 16
12 3 (0.54%) RS-232
12 3 (0.54%) Tactical Data Link
13 2 (0.36%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (3.07%) MongoDB
2 14 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
3 12 (2.17%) MySQL
4 8 (1.44%) NoSQL
5 6 (1.08%) SQLite
6 4 (0.72%) Relational Database
6 4 (0.72%) SQL Server
7 3 (0.54%) BigQuery
8 2 (0.36%) Couchbase
9 1 (0.18%) Apache Cassandra
9 1 (0.18%) CouchDB
9 1 (0.18%) DB2
9 1 (0.18%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.18%) Geospatial Data
9 1 (0.18%) Metadata
9 1 (0.18%) Redis
9 1 (0.18%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 55 (9.93%) Git
2 46 (8.30%) JIRA
3 42 (7.58%) Jenkins
4 24 (4.33%) Eclipse
5 23 (4.15%) GoogleTest
6 19 (3.43%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (3.43%) Visual Studio
7 18 (3.25%) GitLab
8 17 (3.07%) Bitbucket
9 14 (2.53%) Rational Rhapsody
10 11 (1.99%) Cypress.io
10 11 (1.99%) Robot Framework
11 10 (1.81%) SonarQube
12 9 (1.62%) Selenium
13 7 (1.26%) Cucumber
14 6 (1.08%) Subversion
15 5 (0.90%) Checkstyle
15 5 (0.90%) REST Assured
16 4 (0.72%) Artifactory
16 4 (0.72%) GCC
General
1 84 (15.16%) Social Skills
2 77 (13.90%) Electronics
3 60 (10.83%) Aerospace
4 36 (6.50%) Automotive
5 20 (3.61%) Manufacturing
6 18 (3.25%) Military
7 16 (2.89%) Finance
8 15 (2.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 14 (2.53%) Legal
10 11 (1.99%) Law
10 11 (1.99%) Presentation Skills
10 11 (1.99%) Telecoms
11 10 (1.81%) Aviation
12 9 (1.62%) Analytical Skills
13 7 (1.26%) Public Sector
14 4 (0.72%) Billing
14 4 (0.72%) Games
14 4 (0.72%) Police
15 3 (0.54%) Tech for Good
16 2 (0.36%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (7.94%) Node.js
1 44 (7.94%) React
2 38 (6.86%) RESTful
3 27 (4.87%) CSS
3 27 (4.87%) HTML
4 23 (4.15%) .NET
4 23 (4.15%) AngularJS
5 21 (3.79%) Spring
6 19 (3.43%) REST
7 15 (2.71%) Spring Boot
7 15 (2.71%) Web Services
8 13 (2.35%) XML
9 12 (2.17%) Qt
10 11 (1.99%) .NET Core
10 11 (1.99%) .NET Framework
11 8 (1.44%) 802.1X
12 7 (1.26%) JSON
12 7 (1.26%) Kafka
13 6 (1.08%) Java EE
13 6 (1.08%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 30 (5.42%) Self-Motivation
2 24 (4.33%) Algorithms
3 19 (3.43%) ARM Cortex
4 12 (2.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 11 (1.99%) Embedded Systems
6 10 (1.81%) IoT
7 8 (1.44%) Device Driver
7 8 (1.44%) Linux Command Line
8 5 (0.90%) CAN bus
8 5 (0.90%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (0.90%) Product Ownership
8 5 (0.90%) Renewable Energy
9 4 (0.72%) Augmented Reality
9 4 (0.72%) Data Structures
9 4 (0.72%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (0.72%) PCIe
9 4 (0.72%) Verilog
9 4 (0.72%) VHDL
10 3 (0.54%) Virtual Reality
11 2 (0.36%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 115 (20.76%) Linux
2 37 (6.68%) Windows
3 23 (4.15%) FreeRTOS
4 16 (2.89%) Embedded Linux
5 4 (0.72%) Android
5 4 (0.72%) SafeRTOS
5 4 (0.72%) Unix
5 4 (0.72%) VxWorks
6 3 (0.54%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.18%) CentOS
7 1 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.18%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 551 (99.46%) Software Engineering
2 159 (28.70%) Agile
3 86 (15.52%) DevOps
4 74 (13.36%) Validation
5 73 (13.18%) CI/CD
6 70 (12.64%) Continuous Integration
7 64 (11.55%) TDD
8 53 (9.57%) Unit Testing
9 52 (9.39%) Test Automation
10 50 (9.03%) Computer Science
10 50 (9.03%) Problem-Solving
11 48 (8.66%) Scrum
11 48 (8.66%) Software Testing
12 46 (8.30%) Verification and Validation
13 44 (7.94%) Continuous Improvement
13 44 (7.94%) SDLC
14 41 (7.40%) Pair Programming
15 38 (6.86%) Customer Requirements
16 32 (5.78%) UML
17 30 (5.42%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 170 (30.69%) C++
2 169 (30.51%) C
3 91 (16.43%) Java
4 90 (16.25%) C#
5 67 (12.09%) Python
6 62 (11.19%) JavaScript
7 54 (9.75%) Embedded C
8 35 (6.32%) Ada
9 33 (5.96%) TypeScript
10 28 (5.05%) MATLAB
11 22 (3.97%) SQL
12 17 (3.07%) Perl
13 13 (2.35%) PHP
14 10 (1.81%) Bash
15 9 (1.62%) Embedded C++
16 8 (1.44%) Tcl
17 7 (1.26%) Shell Script
18 6 (1.08%) PowerShell
19 5 (0.90%) Assembly Language
19 5 (0.90%) Rust
Qualifications
1 102 (18.41%) Security Cleared
2 69 (12.45%) SC Cleared
3 50 (9.03%) Degree
4 32 (5.78%) DV Cleared
5 17 (3.07%) Computer Science Degree
5 17 (3.07%) Master's Degree
6 12 (2.17%) PhD
7 2 (0.36%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (0.36%) HND
8 1 (0.18%) Chartered Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (3.07%) MISRA
2 6 (1.08%) AUTOSAR
3 5 (0.90%) JTAG
3 5 (0.90%) MISRA C
3 5 (0.90%) QA
4 4 (0.72%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.18%) HL7
5 1 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.18%) SLA
System Software
1 29 (5.23%) Firmware
2 20 (3.61%) Docker
3 5 (0.90%) VirtualBox
4 4 (0.72%) Embedded Firmware
4 4 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.54%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.54%) zsh
6 2 (0.36%) Active Directory
7 1 (0.18%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.18%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 20 (3.61%) Kubernetes
1 20 (3.61%) Terraform
2 11 (1.99%) Ansible
3 6 (1.08%) Functional Safety
4 5 (0.90%) Docker Swarm
4 5 (0.90%) Grafana
4 5 (0.90%) Podman
5 1 (0.18%) HP ALM
5 1 (0.18%) Progress Chef
5 1 (0.18%) Puppet
5 1 (0.18%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 30 (5.42%) Google
2 29 (5.23%) IBM
3 25 (4.51%) Microsoft
4 19 (3.43%) Lauterbach
5 16 (2.89%) Atlassian
6 7 (1.26%) Oracle
7 5 (0.90%) NVIDIA
8 4 (0.72%) Adobe
8 4 (0.72%) Intel
9 3 (0.54%) CA Agile Central
9 3 (0.54%) MathWorks
9 3 (0.54%) SAP
9 3 (0.54%) VMware
9 3 (0.54%) Xamarin
10 2 (0.36%) Sitecore
10 2 (0.36%) Twitter
11 1 (0.18%) Greenplum
11 1 (0.18%) QNX
11 1 (0.18%) Splunk
11 1 (0.18%) Wind River