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 13 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
13 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 83 143 133
Rank change year-on-year +60 -10 +2
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 1,096 1,064 1,771
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.56% 1.83% 2.01%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.76% 1.93% 2.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 566 662 1,187
10th Percentile £436 £438 £413
25th Percentile £500 £500 £494
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £590 £588
Median % change year-on-year +5.93% +0.43% +17.50%
75th Percentile £750 £675 £694
90th Percentile £850 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £538 £513
% change year-on-year -2.42% +4.98% +13.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 335 136 147
10th Percentile £46.25 £46.50 £43.02
25th Percentile £52.50 £53.75 £48.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.96% +10.87% +27.78%
75th Percentile £70.00 £70.08 £61.25
90th Percentile £80.00 £77.00 £65.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year - +8.33% +33.33%

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 39,665 55,057 84,118
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.77% 94.65% 95.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,784 38,442 59,095
10th Percentile £280 £313 £313
25th Percentile £410 £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 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -2.00% +5.26% +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,665 1,534 2,069
10th Percentile £12.86 £14.25 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.30 £19.06 £15.75
Median hourly rate £37.50 £45.00 £23.91
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +88.21% +6.13%
75th Percentile £61.30 £65.75 £49.25
90th Percentile £73.26 £76.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £42.08 £20.00
% change year-on-year -4.94% +110.39% +3.98%

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 13 May 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 13 May 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 13 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
England +67 1,015 £638 +8.05% 1,233
UK excluding London +66 549 £525 -2.42% 863
London +47 448 £675 +8.00% 468
Work from Home +38 370 £650 +13.04% 843
East of England +28 154 £550 -0.90% 122
South East +42 135 £450 -13.46% 197
North of England +65 114 £525 -8.70% 164
South West +22 103 £550 +3.29% 160
North West +73 83 £549 -0.18% 102
Scotland +46 27 £326 -30.56% 81
Yorkshire +19 18 £400 -23.81% 51
North East +12 13 £390 -44.29% 15
Midlands -12 9 £525 -2.42% 118
West Midlands -16 6 £500 -7.41% 61
Wales +16 5 £458 -22.95% 22
East Midlands +18 3 £575 +35.29% 56
Northern Ireland +9 3 £675 - 19

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

For the 6 months to 13 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 featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 1,084 (98.91%) Software Engineering
2 444 (40.51%) Agile
3 377 (34.40%) AWS
4 294 (26.82%) Python
5 264 (24.09%) Finance
6 254 (23.18%) Java
7 238 (21.72%) TypeScript
8 228 (20.80%) Azure
9 221 (20.16%) JavaScript
10 215 (19.62%) C#
11 210 (19.16%) React
12 207 (18.89%) C++
13 195 (17.79%) Front Office
14 182 (16.61%) C
15 171 (15.60%) Asset Management
16 168 (15.33%) DevOps
17 165 (15.05%) Fixed Income
18 164 (14.96%) GCP
19 153 (13.96%) Full Stack Development
20 150 (13.69%) Investment Management
21 149 (13.59%) Banking
21 149 (13.59%) Social Skills
22 144 (13.14%) Security Cleared
23 140 (12.77%) gRPC
24 136 (12.41%) Apache Airflow
25 135 (12.32%) Protocol Buffers
25 135 (12.32%) Hedge funds
25 135 (12.32%) Apache
26 132 (12.04%) Linux
27 129 (11.77%) Apache Ignite

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
1 136 (12.41%) Apache Airflow
2 135 (12.32%) Apache
3 20 (1.82%) Confluence
4 7 (0.64%) Apache Spark
5 6 (0.55%) IIS
6 2 (0.18%) Apache Solr
6 2 (0.18%) Drupal
6 2 (0.18%) SAS
7 1 (0.091%) Cloud Foundry
7 1 (0.091%) CMS
7 1 (0.091%) Ethereum
7 1 (0.091%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.091%) JBoss
7 1 (0.091%) MetaMask
7 1 (0.091%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.091%) MTS
7 1 (0.091%) nginx
7 1 (0.091%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.091%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.091%) WordPress
Applications
1 29 (2.65%) Simulink
2 22 (2.01%) Stateflow
3 3 (0.27%) Adobe After Effects
3 3 (0.27%) Blender
3 3 (0.27%) Maya
3 3 (0.27%) Photoshop
4 1 (0.091%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.091%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.091%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
2 3 (0.27%) Misys Midas
3 2 (0.18%) FLEXCUBE
3 2 (0.18%) Oracle BPM
4 1 (0.091%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.091%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 377 (34.40%) AWS
2 228 (20.80%) Azure
3 164 (14.96%) GCP
4 62 (5.66%) dbt
5 52 (4.74%) Snowflake
6 48 (4.38%) GitHub
7 35 (3.19%) Azure DevOps
7 35 (3.19%) Serverless
8 20 (1.82%) AWS Lambda
9 16 (1.46%) Azure Service Bus
10 15 (1.37%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 15 (1.37%) Amazon EC2
10 15 (1.37%) Amazon S3
11 11 (1.00%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 10 (0.91%) Azure App Service
13 7 (0.64%) Azure Functions
13 7 (0.64%) Cloud Computing
13 7 (0.64%) Entra ID
13 7 (0.64%) npm
14 6 (0.55%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 37 (3.38%) RS-485
2 36 (3.28%) Modbus
2 36 (3.28%) RS-422
3 22 (2.01%) Software-Defined Radio
4 17 (1.55%) HTTP
5 15 (1.37%) TCP/IP
6 13 (1.19%) Internet
7 12 (1.09%) SNMP
8 10 (0.91%) Ethernet
8 10 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (0.82%) 802.11
10 6 (0.55%) Wireless
11 5 (0.46%) J1939
12 4 (0.36%) Diameter Protocol
12 4 (0.36%) Firewall
12 4 (0.36%) Radio Access Network
12 4 (0.36%) VPN
13 3 (0.27%) Link 16
13 3 (0.27%) RS-232
13 3 (0.27%) Tactical Data Link
Database & Business Intelligence
1 129 (11.77%) Apache Ignite
2 83 (7.57%) PostgreSQL
3 62 (5.66%) Amazon Athena
3 62 (5.66%) Apache Arrow
3 62 (5.66%) Dremio
4 47 (4.29%) Apache Cassandra
4 47 (4.29%) Data Lake
5 33 (3.01%) SQL Server
6 25 (2.28%) NoSQL
7 24 (2.19%) MySQL
8 22 (2.01%) MongoDB
9 11 (1.00%) Relational Database
10 9 (0.82%) Couchbase
11 7 (0.64%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 7 (0.64%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 6 (0.55%) DynamoDB
12 6 (0.55%) SQLite
13 5 (0.46%) Data Warehouse
13 5 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
14 4 (0.36%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 87 (7.94%) Git
2 64 (5.84%) Cypress.io
3 61 (5.57%) Jenkins
4 58 (5.29%) JIRA
5 25 (2.28%) Visual Studio
6 23 (2.10%) Eclipse
6 23 (2.10%) GitLab
7 22 (2.01%) GoogleTest
8 20 (1.82%) Rational DOORS
9 19 (1.73%) Selenium
10 17 (1.55%) SonarQube
11 16 (1.46%) Bitbucket
12 14 (1.28%) Rational Rhapsody
13 13 (1.19%) Cucumber
14 12 (1.09%) Maven
15 10 (0.91%) Robot Framework
16 7 (0.64%) REST Assured
17 6 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
17 6 (0.55%) Subversion
18 5 (0.46%) Checkstyle
General
1 264 (24.09%) Finance
2 195 (17.79%) Front Office
3 149 (13.59%) Banking
3 149 (13.59%) Social Skills
4 83 (7.57%) Electronics
5 64 (5.84%) Aerospace
6 60 (5.47%) Investment Banking
7 45 (4.11%) Automotive
8 27 (2.46%) Public Sector
9 26 (2.37%) Analytical Skills
10 22 (2.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 21 (1.92%) Manufacturing
12 20 (1.82%) Legal
13 18 (1.64%) Military
14 17 (1.55%) Telecoms
15 14 (1.28%) Law
16 13 (1.19%) Aviation
17 11 (1.00%) Games
17 11 (1.00%) Presentation Skills
18 10 (0.91%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 210 (19.16%) React
2 140 (12.77%) gRPC
3 135 (12.32%) Protocol Buffers
4 128 (11.68%) .NET
5 112 (10.22%) Redux
6 92 (8.39%) Node.js
7 85 (7.76%) Kafka
8 78 (7.12%) Material-UI
9 74 (6.75%) Pandas
10 69 (6.30%) NumPy
11 66 (6.02%) AngularJS
12 63 (5.75%) SciPy
13 53 (4.84%) REST
14 50 (4.56%) .NET Core
14 50 (4.56%) RESTful
15 47 (4.29%) CSS
15 47 (4.29%) HTML
16 46 (4.20%) Spring
17 37 (3.38%) Spring Boot
18 32 (2.92%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 165 (15.05%) Fixed Income
2 135 (12.32%) Hedge funds
3 109 (9.95%) Equities
4 95 (8.67%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 89 (8.12%) Derivative
6 39 (3.56%) Algorithms
7 31 (2.83%) Self-Motivation
8 21 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
8 21 (1.92%) Greenfield Project
9 18 (1.64%) ARM Cortex
10 15 (1.37%) Embedded Systems
11 14 (1.28%) IoT
12 11 (1.00%) Product Ownership
13 10 (0.91%) Data Structures
13 10 (0.91%) Legacy Systems
13 10 (0.91%) Linux Command Line
14 9 (0.82%) Renewable Energy
15 8 (0.73%) Data Protection Act
15 8 (0.73%) Device Driver
15 8 (0.73%) Pricing Data
Operating Systems
1 132 (12.04%) Linux
2 50 (4.56%) Windows
3 22 (2.01%) FreeRTOS
4 16 (1.46%) Embedded Linux
5 8 (0.73%) Android
5 8 (0.73%) Unix
6 7 (0.64%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.36%) SafeRTOS
7 4 (0.36%) VxWorks
8 3 (0.27%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.091%) CentOS
9 1 (0.091%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.091%) Windows Server
9 1 (0.091%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,084 (98.91%) Software Engineering
2 444 (40.51%) Agile
3 171 (15.60%) Asset Management
4 168 (15.33%) DevOps
5 153 (13.96%) Full Stack Development
6 150 (13.69%) Investment Management
7 127 (11.59%) TDD
8 125 (11.41%) CI/CD
9 113 (10.31%) Fintech
10 99 (9.03%) Problem-Solving
11 98 (8.94%) Computer Science
12 90 (8.21%) Validation
13 88 (8.03%) Machine Learning
14 86 (7.85%) Test Automation
15 85 (7.76%) Artificial Intelligence
16 80 (7.30%) Microservices
17 79 (7.21%) Continuous Integration
18 72 (6.57%) Scrum
18 72 (6.57%) Unit Testing
19 71 (6.48%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 294 (26.82%) Python
2 254 (23.18%) Java
3 238 (21.72%) TypeScript
4 221 (20.16%) JavaScript
5 215 (19.62%) C#
6 207 (18.89%) C++
7 182 (16.61%) C
8 109 (9.95%) SQL
9 57 (5.20%) Go
10 54 (4.93%) Embedded C
11 36 (3.28%) Ada
12 34 (3.10%) MATLAB
13 21 (1.92%) Perl
14 20 (1.82%) PHP
15 18 (1.64%) PowerShell
16 17 (1.55%) Rust
16 17 (1.55%) Scala
17 16 (1.46%) Kotlin
18 13 (1.19%) T-SQL
19 11 (1.00%) Bash
Qualifications
1 144 (13.14%) Security Cleared
2 106 (9.67%) Degree
3 97 (8.85%) SC Cleared
4 47 (4.29%) Computer Science Degree
5 43 (3.92%) DV Cleared
6 36 (3.28%) Master's Degree
7 13 (1.19%) PhD
8 7 (0.64%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (0.18%) HND
10 1 (0.091%) Azure Certification
10 1 (0.091%) Chartered Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (3.56%) QA
2 17 (1.55%) MISRA
3 16 (1.46%) Data Quality
4 8 (0.73%) AUTOSAR
5 6 (0.55%) Accessibility
5 6 (0.55%) JTAG
6 5 (0.46%) MISRA C
7 2 (0.18%) Automotive SPICE
7 2 (0.18%) MiFID
7 2 (0.18%) SLA
8 1 (0.091%) HL7
8 1 (0.091%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.091%) ISO 26262
8 1 (0.091%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.091%) WCAG
System Software
1 108 (9.85%) Docker
2 29 (2.65%) Firmware
3 14 (1.28%) Active Directory
4 10 (0.91%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (0.46%) ACF2
5 5 (0.46%) IAG
5 5 (0.46%) RACF
5 5 (0.46%) VirtualBox
6 4 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
6 4 (0.36%) VMware Infrastructure
7 3 (0.27%) zsh
8 1 (0.091%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.091%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.091%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 111 (10.13%) Kubernetes
2 43 (3.92%) Terraform
3 14 (1.28%) Ansible
4 8 (0.73%) Podman
5 6 (0.55%) Functional Safety
5 6 (0.55%) Grafana
6 5 (0.46%) Docker Swarm
6 5 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.18%) Argo
8 1 (0.091%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.091%) Kubeflow
8 1 (0.091%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.091%) Packer
8 1 (0.091%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.091%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.091%) Puppet
8 1 (0.091%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 97 (8.85%) Google
2 49 (4.47%) Microsoft
3 36 (3.28%) Oracle
4 28 (2.55%) IBM
5 18 (1.64%) Lauterbach
6 17 (1.55%) Atlassian
7 5 (0.46%) Databricks
7 5 (0.46%) NVIDIA
7 5 (0.46%) Salesforce
7 5 (0.46%) SAP
7 5 (0.46%) ServiceNow
7 5 (0.46%) Sybase
8 4 (0.36%) Adobe
8 4 (0.36%) Intel
8 4 (0.36%) ION Trading
8 4 (0.36%) Okta
8 4 (0.36%) Roku
8 4 (0.36%) Splunk
8 4 (0.36%) VMware
9 3 (0.27%) MathWorks