Software Engineer Contracts

Software Engineer
UK

The median Software Engineer daily rate in the UK is £625 according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months to 29 April 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
29 Apr 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 90 145 130
Rank change year-on-year +55 -15 0
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,050 1,103 1,816
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.41% 1.85% 2.05%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.60% 1.95% 2.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 545 696 1,222
10th Percentile £425 £438 £413
25th Percentile £500 £500 £482
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £590 £575
Median % change year-on-year +5.93% +2.61% +12.75%
75th Percentile £750 £675 £688
90th Percentile £815 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £538 £513
% change year-on-year -7.06% +4.98% +13.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 317 136 152
10th Percentile £46.25 £45.63 £41.25
25th Percentile £52.50 £53.44 £47.75
Median hourly rate £62.50 £61.25 £56.75
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% +7.93% +26.11%
75th Percentile £70.00 £70.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.75 £65.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £65.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year -3.85% +13.04% +27.78%

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 40,448 56,471 84,729
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.78% 94.61% 95.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,348 39,474 59,497
10th Percentile £275 £313 £313
25th Percentile £409 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £540 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% +2.86% +10.53%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £734
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -1.60% +5.26% +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,658 1,569 2,098
10th Percentile £12.86 £14.29 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.30 £19.50 £15.50
Median hourly rate £36.00 £45.00 £23.46
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +91.86% +3.42%
75th Percentile £60.75 £65.75 £48.94
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.75 £63.36
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.50 £42.50 £19.50
% change year-on-year -9.41% +117.95% +2.63%

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 29 April 2024.

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 29 April 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineer in the UK

Software Engineer
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 Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 29 April 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
England +53 975 £638 +8.05% 1,271
UK excluding London +62 531 £500 -7.06% 905
London +41 423 £675 +8.00% 451
Work from Home +26 361 £650 +18.18% 863
East of England +36 153 £500 - 143
South East +39 137 £450 -13.88% 200
North of England +60 106 £525 -8.70% 157
South West +8 93 £550 +4.76% 185
North West +67 77 £548 -8.67% 95
Scotland +26 24 £357 -22.86% 76
Yorkshire +19 16 £350 -33.33% 47
North East +12 13 £390 -32.17% 17
Midlands -30 10 £513 -4.74% 130
West Midlands -24 7 £496 -8.19% 75
Wales +9 6 £458 -20.43% 15
East Midlands +15 3 £575 +35.29% 55
Northern Ireland +11 3 £675 - 18

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

For the 6 months to 29 April 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 featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 1,039 (98.95%) Software Engineering
2 406 (38.67%) Agile
3 350 (33.33%) AWS
4 270 (25.71%) Python
5 241 (22.95%) Finance
6 235 (22.38%) Java
7 210 (20.00%) C#
7 210 (20.00%) Azure
8 209 (19.90%) JavaScript
9 208 (19.81%) TypeScript
10 202 (19.24%) C++
11 195 (18.57%) React
12 181 (17.24%) C
13 171 (16.29%) Front Office
14 162 (15.43%) DevOps
15 150 (14.29%) GCP
16 149 (14.19%) Asset Management
17 144 (13.71%) Social Skills
18 142 (13.52%) Security Cleared
19 140 (13.33%) Fixed Income
20 139 (13.24%) Full Stack Development
21 128 (12.19%) Investment Management
22 126 (12.00%) Banking
23 125 (11.90%) .NET
24 123 (11.71%) TDD
25 121 (11.52%) Linux
26 118 (11.24%) Fintech
27 114 (10.86%) gRPC
28 110 (10.48%) Apache Airflow
28 110 (10.48%) Kubernetes

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
1 110 (10.48%) Apache Airflow
2 108 (10.29%) Apache
3 19 (1.81%) Confluence
4 7 (0.67%) Apache Spark
5 6 (0.57%) IIS
6 2 (0.19%) Apache Solr
6 2 (0.19%) Drupal
7 1 (0.095%) Cloud Foundry
7 1 (0.095%) CMS
7 1 (0.095%) Ethereum
7 1 (0.095%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.095%) JBoss
7 1 (0.095%) MetaMask
7 1 (0.095%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.095%) MTS
7 1 (0.095%) nginx
7 1 (0.095%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.095%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.095%) WordPress
Applications
1 29 (2.76%) Simulink
2 22 (2.10%) Stateflow
3 2 (0.19%) Adobe After Effects
3 2 (0.19%) Blender
3 2 (0.19%) Maya
3 2 (0.19%) Photoshop
4 1 (0.095%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.095%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.095%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.19%) FLEXCUBE
1 2 (0.19%) Oracle BPM
2 1 (0.095%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.095%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (0.095%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 350 (33.33%) AWS
2 210 (20.00%) Azure
3 150 (14.29%) GCP
4 52 (4.95%) dbt
5 44 (4.19%) GitHub
6 40 (3.81%) Snowflake
7 33 (3.14%) Azure DevOps
7 33 (3.14%) Serverless
8 17 (1.62%) AWS Lambda
9 15 (1.43%) Amazon EC2
9 15 (1.43%) Azure Service Bus
10 12 (1.14%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 12 (1.14%) Amazon S3
11 9 (0.86%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 8 (0.76%) Azure App Service
12 8 (0.76%) Azure Functions
13 7 (0.67%) Cloud Computing
13 7 (0.67%) npm
14 6 (0.57%) Entra ID
14 6 (0.57%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 37 (3.52%) Modbus
1 37 (3.52%) RS-422
2 36 (3.43%) RS-485
3 21 (2.00%) Software-Defined Radio
4 17 (1.62%) HTTP
5 13 (1.24%) Internet
6 12 (1.14%) TCP/IP
6 12 (1.14%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (1.05%) 802.11
7 11 (1.05%) SNMP
8 7 (0.67%) Ethernet
8 7 (0.67%) Wireless
9 5 (0.48%) J1939
10 4 (0.38%) Firewall
10 4 (0.38%) Radio Access Network
10 4 (0.38%) VPN
11 3 (0.29%) Link 16
11 3 (0.29%) RS-232
11 3 (0.29%) SSL
11 3 (0.29%) Tactical Data Link
Database & Business Intelligence
1 102 (9.71%) Apache Ignite
2 66 (6.29%) PostgreSQL
3 52 (4.95%) Amazon Athena
3 52 (4.95%) Apache Arrow
3 52 (4.95%) Dremio
4 49 (4.67%) Apache Cassandra
5 35 (3.33%) Data Lake
6 31 (2.95%) SQL Server
7 25 (2.38%) MySQL
7 25 (2.38%) NoSQL
8 22 (2.10%) MongoDB
9 10 (0.95%) Relational Database
10 8 (0.76%) Couchbase
11 7 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 7 (0.67%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 6 (0.57%) SQLite
13 5 (0.48%) Data Warehouse
13 5 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
14 4 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
14 4 (0.38%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 87 (8.29%) Git
2 58 (5.52%) Jenkins
3 52 (4.95%) JIRA
4 51 (4.86%) Cypress.io
5 24 (2.29%) GitLab
6 21 (2.00%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (2.00%) Visual Studio
7 20 (1.90%) Eclipse
8 18 (1.71%) Selenium
9 17 (1.62%) GoogleTest
9 17 (1.62%) SonarQube
10 16 (1.52%) Bitbucket
11 14 (1.33%) Rational Rhapsody
12 12 (1.14%) Cucumber
13 11 (1.05%) Maven
14 9 (0.86%) Robot Framework
15 7 (0.67%) GCC
15 7 (0.67%) REST Assured
16 6 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
16 6 (0.57%) Subversion
General
1 241 (22.95%) Finance
2 171 (16.29%) Front Office
3 144 (13.71%) Social Skills
4 126 (12.00%) Banking
5 81 (7.71%) Electronics
6 61 (5.81%) Aerospace
7 52 (4.95%) Investment Banking
8 44 (4.19%) Automotive
9 26 (2.48%) Analytical Skills
9 26 (2.48%) Public Sector
10 24 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 21 (2.00%) Manufacturing
12 20 (1.90%) Legal
13 14 (1.33%) Law
13 14 (1.33%) Telecoms
14 13 (1.24%) Aviation
14 13 (1.24%) Military
15 10 (0.95%) Games
15 10 (0.95%) Retail
16 8 (0.76%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 195 (18.57%) React
2 125 (11.90%) .NET
3 114 (10.86%) gRPC
4 109 (10.38%) Protocol Buffers
5 98 (9.33%) Redux
6 89 (8.48%) Kafka
7 85 (8.10%) Node.js
8 68 (6.48%) Pandas
9 65 (6.19%) AngularJS
10 64 (6.10%) Material-UI
11 62 (5.90%) NumPy
12 56 (5.33%) REST
12 56 (5.33%) SciPy
13 47 (4.48%) HTML
14 46 (4.38%) RESTful
15 45 (4.29%) .NET Core
15 45 (4.29%) CSS
16 43 (4.10%) Spring
17 33 (3.14%) Spring Boot
18 31 (2.95%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 140 (13.33%) Fixed Income
2 110 (10.48%) Hedge funds
3 89 (8.48%) Equities
4 82 (7.81%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 80 (7.62%) Derivative
6 40 (3.81%) Algorithms
7 32 (3.05%) Self-Motivation
8 23 (2.19%) Greenfield Project
9 22 (2.10%) Distributed Systems
10 17 (1.62%) ARM Cortex
11 15 (1.43%) Embedded Systems
12 14 (1.33%) IoT
13 10 (0.95%) Product Ownership
14 9 (0.86%) Renewable Energy
15 8 (0.76%) Client/Server
15 8 (0.76%) Data Protection Act
15 8 (0.76%) Data Structures
15 8 (0.76%) Device Driver
15 8 (0.76%) Distributed Architecture
16 7 (0.67%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 121 (11.52%) Linux
2 49 (4.67%) Windows
3 21 (2.00%) FreeRTOS
4 17 (1.62%) Embedded Linux
5 8 (0.76%) Unix
6 7 (0.67%) Android
7 6 (0.57%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.38%) SafeRTOS
8 4 (0.38%) VxWorks
9 3 (0.29%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.095%) CentOS
10 1 (0.095%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.095%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.095%) Windows Server
10 1 (0.095%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,039 (98.95%) Software Engineering
2 406 (38.67%) Agile
3 162 (15.43%) DevOps
4 149 (14.19%) Asset Management
5 139 (13.24%) Full Stack Development
6 128 (12.19%) Investment Management
7 123 (11.71%) TDD
8 118 (11.24%) Fintech
9 109 (10.38%) CI/CD
10 102 (9.71%) Problem-Solving
11 99 (9.43%) Computer Science
12 88 (8.38%) Validation
13 87 (8.29%) Test Automation
14 81 (7.71%) Continuous Integration
15 75 (7.14%) Microservices
16 73 (6.95%) Machine Learning
16 73 (6.95%) User Experience
17 71 (6.76%) Scrum
18 69 (6.57%) SDLC
18 69 (6.57%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 270 (25.71%) Python
2 235 (22.38%) Java
3 210 (20.00%) C#
4 209 (19.90%) JavaScript
5 208 (19.81%) TypeScript
6 202 (19.24%) C++
7 181 (17.24%) C
8 96 (9.14%) SQL
9 59 (5.62%) Go
10 54 (5.14%) Embedded C
11 36 (3.43%) Ada
12 35 (3.33%) MATLAB
13 22 (2.10%) Perl
13 22 (2.10%) PHP
14 18 (1.71%) Scala
15 17 (1.62%) Kotlin
15 17 (1.62%) PowerShell
16 14 (1.33%) Rust
17 11 (1.05%) Bash
17 11 (1.05%) Embedded C++
Qualifications
1 142 (13.52%) Security Cleared
2 104 (9.90%) Degree
3 95 (9.05%) SC Cleared
4 49 (4.67%) Computer Science Degree
5 43 (4.10%) DV Cleared
6 37 (3.52%) Master's Degree
7 13 (1.24%) PhD
8 7 (0.67%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (0.19%) HND
10 1 (0.095%) Chartered Engineer
10 1 (0.095%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (3.81%) QA
2 12 (1.14%) Data Quality
3 11 (1.05%) MISRA
4 7 (0.67%) AUTOSAR
5 6 (0.57%) JTAG
6 5 (0.48%) Accessibility
7 4 (0.38%) MISRA C
8 2 (0.19%) Automotive SPICE
8 2 (0.19%) MiFID
8 2 (0.19%) SLA
9 1 (0.095%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.095%) ISO 26262
9 1 (0.095%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.095%) WCAG
System Software
1 110 (10.48%) Docker
2 28 (2.67%) Firmware
3 13 (1.24%) Active Directory
4 10 (0.95%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.48%) ACF2
5 5 (0.48%) IAG
5 5 (0.48%) RACF
5 5 (0.48%) VirtualBox
6 4 (0.38%) Embedded Firmware
6 4 (0.38%) VMware Infrastructure
7 3 (0.29%) zsh
8 1 (0.095%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.095%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.095%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 110 (10.48%) Kubernetes
2 43 (4.10%) Terraform
3 14 (1.33%) Ansible
4 8 (0.76%) Podman
5 6 (0.57%) Functional Safety
5 6 (0.57%) Grafana
6 5 (0.48%) Docker Swarm
6 5 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.19%) Argo
8 1 (0.095%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.095%) Kubeflow
8 1 (0.095%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.095%) Packer
8 1 (0.095%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.095%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.095%) Puppet
8 1 (0.095%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 77 (7.33%) Google
2 43 (4.10%) Microsoft
3 33 (3.14%) Oracle
4 27 (2.57%) IBM
5 17 (1.62%) Lauterbach
6 16 (1.52%) Atlassian
7 5 (0.48%) Databricks
7 5 (0.48%) NVIDIA
7 5 (0.48%) ServiceNow
7 5 (0.48%) Sybase
8 4 (0.38%) Intel
8 4 (0.38%) ION Trading
8 4 (0.38%) Okta
8 4 (0.38%) Roku
8 4 (0.38%) SAP
8 4 (0.38%) Splunk
8 4 (0.38%) VMware
9 3 (0.29%) CA Agile Central
9 3 (0.29%) MathWorks
9 3 (0.29%) Xamarin