Senior Contract Job Trends in Manchester

Senior
North West > Manchester

The median Senior daily rate in Manchester is £625, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 October 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 19 20
Rank change year-on-year +8 +1 -2
Contract jobs requiring a Senior 224 87 82
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 11.18% 8.61% 6.93%
As % of the Job Titles category 12.25% 9.33% 7.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 112 57 44
10th Percentile £419 £400 £366
25th Percentile £512 £425 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £500 £494
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% +1.27% -2.23%
75th Percentile £675 £600 £600
90th Percentile £712 £643 £610
North West median daily rate £600 £511 £505
% change year-on-year +17.35% +1.25% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 6 5
10th Percentile - £32.00 £48.50
25th Percentile £60.00 £44.56 £57.50
Median hourly rate £74.50 £52.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +43.27% -13.33% +45.07%
75th Percentile £90.00 £69.06 £62.50
90th Percentile £95.00 £79.13 £67.90
North West median hourly rate £57.50 £44.72 £42.50
% change year-on-year +28.58% +5.22% +6.25%

All Contract IT Job Roles
Manchester

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in Manchester. 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 Manchester with a recognized job title 1,829 932 1,116
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.27% 92.28% 94.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,035 594 642
10th Percentile £336 £300 £315
25th Percentile £418 £386 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £450 £490
Median % change year-on-year +13.37% -8.16% -2.00%
75th Percentile £625 £575 £575
90th Percentile £702 £663 £675
North West median daily rate £500 £450 £480
% change year-on-year +11.11% -6.25% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 219 80 39
10th Percentile £23.83 £13.24 £15.60
25th Percentile £34.38 £17.24 £21.25
Median hourly rate £60.00 £22.32 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +168.88% -31.34% +68.83%
75th Percentile £75.00 £31.61 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £63.75 £78.20
North West median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +98.83% -28.15% +16.67%

Senior
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Senior' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester.

Senior job vacancy trend in Manchester

Senior
Daily Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Senior job vacancies in Manchester.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Senior job vacancies in Manchester

Senior
Daily Rate Histogram in Manchester

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Senior in Manchester over the 6 months to 9 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Senior in Manchester

Senior
Hourly Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Senior job vacancies in Manchester.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Senior job vacancies in Manchester

Senior
Hourly Rate Histogram in Manchester

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Senior in Manchester over the 6 months to 9 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Senior in Manchester

Senior
Contract Job Locations in Manchester

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Senior within the Manchester region over the 6 months to 9 October 2026. 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
Bury - 12 £750 - 1
Salford +5 2 - - 24
Bolton +3 2 - - 24
Senior
North West

Senior Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester

For the 6 months to 9 October 2026, Senior contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the Manchester region featuring Senior in the job title.

1 64 (28.57%) AWS
2 62 (27.68%) CI/CD
3 55 (24.55%) Agile
4 45 (20.09%) DevOps
4 45 (20.09%) Software Engineering
5 37 (16.52%) Java
5 37 (16.52%) Python
6 35 (15.63%) Terraform
7 33 (14.73%) AI
7 33 (14.73%) Event-Driven
8 31 (13.84%) Infrastructure as Code
9 30 (13.39%) Security Cleared
9 30 (13.39%) Test Automation
10 29 (12.95%) Continuous Improvement
11 28 (12.50%) Stakeholder Management
12 27 (12.05%) Kubernetes
13 26 (11.61%) Microservices
13 26 (11.61%) Observability
14 25 (11.16%) Azure
14 25 (11.16%) SC Cleared
15 23 (10.27%) Event-Driven Architecture
16 22 (9.82%) Docker
16 22 (9.82%) GitHub
16 22 (9.82%) Migration
16 22 (9.82%) REST
17 21 (9.38%) Roadmaps
17 21 (9.38%) SQL
18 20 (8.93%) Containerisation
19 19 (8.48%) Analytics
19 19 (8.48%) Kafka

Senior Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 4 (1.79%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.45%) Apache
2 1 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (0.45%) Confluence
2 1 (0.45%) Jupyter
2 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.45%) nginx
2 1 (0.45%) Traefik
Business Applications
1 1 (0.45%) Primavera
1 1 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 64 (28.57%) AWS
2 25 (11.16%) Azure
3 22 (9.82%) GitHub
4 13 (5.80%) GitHub Actions
5 10 (4.46%) GCP
6 8 (3.57%) SaaS
7 7 (3.13%) Amazon ECS
7 7 (3.13%) dbt
7 7 (3.13%) Serverless
8 6 (2.68%) Anthropic Claude
8 6 (2.68%) GitHub Copilot
8 6 (2.68%) Google Gemini
9 5 (2.23%) AWS Lambda
9 5 (2.23%) Microsoft 365
10 4 (1.79%) Amazon EC2
10 4 (1.79%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (1.79%) Amazon S3
10 4 (1.79%) AWS CloudFormation
10 4 (1.79%) Azure Data Factory
10 4 (1.79%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.68%) WAN
2 5 (2.23%) Firewall
3 4 (1.79%) Cisco IOS
3 4 (1.79%) DWDM
3 4 (1.79%) IOS XR
3 4 (1.79%) MPLS
3 4 (1.79%) VPN
4 3 (1.34%) BGP
4 3 (1.34%) OSPF
4 3 (1.34%) Skype
5 2 (0.89%) BIG-IP
5 2 (0.89%) DNS
5 2 (0.89%) Ethernet VPN
5 2 (0.89%) VXLAN
6 1 (0.45%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 1 (0.45%) HTTP
6 1 (0.45%) Junos
6 1 (0.45%) Network Security
6 1 (0.45%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.45%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (3.57%) MongoDB
2 6 (2.68%) Looker
2 6 (2.68%) Semantic Layer
3 5 (2.23%) NoSQL
3 5 (2.23%) Relational Database
3 5 (2.23%) Snowflake Schema
4 4 (1.79%) Delta Lake
4 4 (1.79%) MySQL
4 4 (1.79%) Power BI
4 4 (1.79%) SQL Server
5 3 (1.34%) Data Warehouse
5 3 (1.34%) Metadata
5 3 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.34%) Star Schema
6 2 (0.89%) Amazon QuickSight
6 2 (0.89%) RDBMS
6 2 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.45%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.45%) DocumentDB
7 1 (0.45%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 13 (5.80%) Git
2 12 (5.36%) GitLab
3 7 (3.13%) Claude Code
4 4 (1.79%) Cucumber
4 4 (1.79%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.79%) Mockito
4 4 (1.79%) Selenium
5 3 (1.34%) Cypress.io
6 2 (0.89%) Maven
6 2 (0.89%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.45%) Gatling
7 1 (0.45%) JIRA
7 1 (0.45%) JMeter
7 1 (0.45%) JUnit
7 1 (0.45%) MLflow
7 1 (0.45%) Postman
7 1 (0.45%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (0.45%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.45%) WebDriver
General
1 37 (16.52%) Social Skills
2 27 (12.05%) Public Sector
3 23 (10.27%) Finance
4 15 (6.70%) Retail
5 12 (5.36%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (5.36%) Military
6 11 (4.91%) Banking
7 5 (2.23%) iGaming
8 4 (1.79%) Investment Banking
8 4 (1.79%) Legal
9 3 (1.34%) Games
9 3 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
9 3 (1.34%) Local Government
10 2 (0.89%) Aerospace
10 2 (0.89%) Italian Language
10 2 (0.89%) Japanese Language
10 2 (0.89%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.45%) Advertising
11 1 (0.45%) Law
11 1 (0.45%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (15.63%) Terraform
2 22 (9.82%) REST
3 19 (8.48%) Kafka
4 17 (7.59%) Spring
4 17 (7.59%) Spring Boot
5 12 (5.36%) Node.js
6 10 (4.46%) React
7 6 (2.68%) Next.js
7 6 (2.68%) RESTful
8 4 (1.79%) .NET
8 4 (1.79%) ActiveMQ
8 4 (1.79%) Django
8 4 (1.79%) JAX-RS
8 4 (1.79%) Lightning Web Components
8 4 (1.79%) SOAP
9 3 (1.34%) Android Jetpack
9 3 (1.34%) AWS CDK
9 3 (1.34%) Jakarta EE
9 3 (1.34%) JSON
9 3 (1.34%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 28 (12.50%) Cloud Native
2 16 (7.14%) Distributed Systems
3 9 (4.02%) Onboarding
4 8 (3.57%) Product Ownership
5 6 (2.68%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (2.23%) Data Centre
6 5 (2.23%) Management Information System
7 3 (1.34%) AI Agents
7 3 (1.34%) Blackberry
7 3 (1.34%) Culture of Ownership
7 3 (1.34%) Distributed Computing
7 3 (1.34%) Handset
7 3 (1.34%) Hybrid Cloud
7 3 (1.34%) Mobile App
7 3 (1.34%) NHS
7 3 (1.34%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (0.89%) Cyber Threat
8 2 (0.89%) Distributed Architecture
8 2 (0.89%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (0.89%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 13 (5.80%) Linux
2 9 (4.02%) Unix
3 6 (2.68%) Android
4 3 (1.34%) Windows
5 2 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.89%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.45%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.45%) CentOS
6 1 (0.45%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.45%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (27.68%) CI/CD
2 55 (24.55%) Agile
3 45 (20.09%) DevOps
3 45 (20.09%) Software Engineering
4 33 (14.73%) AI
4 33 (14.73%) Event-Driven
5 31 (13.84%) Infrastructure as Code
6 30 (13.39%) Test Automation
7 29 (12.95%) Continuous Improvement
8 28 (12.50%) Stakeholder Management
9 26 (11.61%) Microservices
9 26 (11.61%) Observability
10 23 (10.27%) Event-Driven Architecture
11 22 (9.82%) Migration
12 21 (9.38%) Roadmaps
13 20 (8.93%) Containerisation
14 19 (8.48%) Analytics
14 19 (8.48%) Mentoring
15 16 (7.14%) Data Modelling
15 16 (7.14%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 37 (16.52%) Java
1 37 (16.52%) Python
2 21 (9.38%) SQL
3 12 (5.36%) TypeScript
4 11 (4.91%) Bash
5 10 (4.46%) JavaScript
6 8 (3.57%) Kotlin
7 5 (2.23%) PowerShell
8 4 (1.79%) Apex Code
8 4 (1.79%) C++
9 3 (1.34%) Bicep
9 3 (1.34%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.89%) Go
10 2 (0.89%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.45%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.45%) Perl
11 1 (0.45%) Rust
11 1 (0.45%) Search Processing Language
11 1 (0.45%) Swift
11 1 (0.45%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 30 (13.39%) Security Cleared
2 25 (11.16%) SC Cleared
3 8 (3.57%) BPSS Clearance
4 5 (2.23%) Degree
5 4 (1.79%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (0.89%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.45%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.45%) CCA
7 1 (0.45%) CCNA
7 1 (0.45%) CCNP
7 1 (0.45%) Chartered Engineer
7 1 (0.45%) CISA
7 1 (0.45%) CRISC
7 1 (0.45%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.45%) HNC
7 1 (0.45%) HND
7 1 (0.45%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (5.36%) QA
2 10 (4.46%) Data Quality
3 5 (2.23%) Accessibility
4 3 (1.34%) SLA
5 2 (0.89%) Def Stans
5 2 (0.89%) PMO
5 2 (0.89%) WCAG
6 1 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.45%) COBIT
6 1 (0.45%) GDPR
6 1 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.45%) ITGC
6 1 (0.45%) NCSC
6 1 (0.45%) NIST
6 1 (0.45%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 22 (9.82%) Docker
2 2 (0.89%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.45%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 27 (12.05%) Kubernetes
2 10 (4.46%) Ansible
3 3 (1.34%) Grafana
3 3 (1.34%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (0.89%) Packer
4 2 (0.89%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.45%) Argo
5 1 (0.45%) Consul
5 1 (0.45%) HAProxy
5 1 (0.45%) Istio
5 1 (0.45%) Jamf Pro
5 1 (0.45%) linkerd
5 1 (0.45%) Rancher
5 1 (0.45%) SCCM
5 1 (0.45%) WSUS
5 1 (0.45%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 12 (5.36%) Salesforce
2 8 (3.57%) Microsoft
3 7 (3.13%) Databricks
4 6 (2.68%) Arista
5 5 (2.23%) Cisco
5 5 (2.23%) Google
5 5 (2.23%) Oracle
6 4 (1.79%) SAP
7 3 (1.34%) Citrix
7 3 (1.34%) Informatica
7 3 (1.34%) Palo Alto
7 3 (1.34%) Splunk
7 3 (1.34%) VMware
8 2 (0.89%) Apple
8 2 (0.89%) Aruba
8 2 (0.89%) F5
8 2 (0.89%) Perforce
9 1 (0.45%) Hitachi
9 1 (0.45%) Juniper
9 1 (0.45%) Red Hat