Software Engineering Contract Job Trends in Manchester

Software Engineering
North West > Manchester

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Manchester requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 14 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 19 26
Rank change year-on-year -5 +7 +46
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 123 73 80
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 7.22% 8.21% 5.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.60% 9.18% 6.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 67 52 34
10th Percentile £400 £400 £456
25th Percentile £450 £423 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
75th Percentile £613 £700 £623
90th Percentile £638 £724 £650
North West median daily rate £500 £500 £550
% change year-on-year - -9.09% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 2 12
10th Percentile - £73.78 -
25th Percentile £52.50 £74.19 £52.50
Median hourly rate £62.25 £80.75 £68.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.91% +17.88% +44.21%
75th Percentile £76.00 £87.69 £72.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £88.33 £74.30
North West median hourly rate £63.75 £79.00 £48.00
% change year-on-year -19.30% +64.58% +18.26%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Manchester

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 in Manchester.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,430 795 1,252
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 83.92% 89.43% 86.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 899 554 853
10th Percentile £303 £300 £325
25th Percentile £388 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £465 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.08% -7.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £572 £598
90th Percentile £650 £674 £694
North West median daily rate £465 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -2.11% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 119 28 76
10th Percentile £21.00 £15.64 £12.45
25th Percentile £38.25 £24.25 £13.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £54.50 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.50% +109.62% -25.71%
75th Percentile £77.50 £72.81 £60.31
90th Percentile £91.00 £80.48 £73.50
North West median hourly rate £55.00 £31.88 £24.10
% change year-on-year +72.52% +32.28% -33.06%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Software Engineering relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester.

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in Manchester

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Software Engineering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in Manchester

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in Manchester over the 6 months to 14 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineering in Manchester

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Software Engineering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Histogram in Manchester

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineering in Manchester over the 6 months to 14 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineering in Manchester

Software Engineering
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 Software Engineering within the Manchester region over the 6 months to 14 May 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
Salford +1 3 £400 -42.86% 6
Bolton - 2 £550 - 3
Stockport - 1 £600 - 1
Software Engineering
North West

Software Engineering
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 2 (1.63%) Apache
1 2 (1.63%) Apache Spark
2 1 (0.81%) CMS
Cloud Services
1 55 (44.72%) AWS
2 23 (18.70%) Azure
3 15 (12.20%) Serverless
4 11 (8.94%) GCP
5 7 (5.69%) AWS Lambda
5 7 (5.69%) GitHub
6 4 (3.25%) Amazon ECS
6 4 (3.25%) Amazon S3
6 4 (3.25%) AWS Fargate
6 4 (3.25%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (2.44%) Amazon ElastiCache
8 2 (1.63%) Amazon EC2
8 2 (1.63%) Amazon OpenSearch
8 2 (1.63%) Amazon SQS
8 2 (1.63%) Azure Cognitive Search
8 2 (1.63%) Azure Functions
8 2 (1.63%) Azure Logic Apps
8 2 (1.63%) Firebase
8 2 (1.63%) Power Platform
8 2 (1.63%) SaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (7.32%) PostgreSQL
2 7 (5.69%) Elasticsearch
3 6 (4.88%) DynamoDB
4 5 (4.07%) MySQL
4 5 (4.07%) NoSQL
4 5 (4.07%) SQL Server
5 4 (3.25%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (2.44%) Redis
7 2 (1.63%) MongoDB
7 2 (1.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.81%) Mixpanel
8 1 (0.81%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 15 (12.20%) GitLab
2 14 (11.38%) Gradle
3 11 (8.94%) IntelliJ
4 10 (8.13%) Git
5 6 (4.88%) Selenium
6 5 (4.07%) CocoaPods
7 4 (3.25%) Cypress.io
7 4 (3.25%) Postman
8 3 (2.44%) Cucumber
8 3 (2.44%) JIRA
8 3 (2.44%) JMeter
9 2 (1.63%) Claude Code
9 2 (1.63%) Maven
10 1 (0.81%) fastlane
10 1 (0.81%) Jenkins
10 1 (0.81%) JUnit
10 1 (0.81%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.81%) Robot Framework
10 1 (0.81%) SonarQube
General
1 22 (17.89%) Social Skills
2 10 (8.13%) Retail
3 9 (7.32%) Finance
3 9 (7.32%) Public Sector
4 3 (2.44%) Games
5 2 (1.63%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (1.63%) Automotive
6 1 (0.81%) Banking
6 1 (0.81%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (0.81%) Health Technology
6 1 (0.81%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (0.81%) Marketing
6 1 (0.81%) Military
6 1 (0.81%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 90 (73.17%) Software Engineer
2 28 (22.76%) Senior
3 26 (21.14%) Java Engineer
4 25 (20.33%) Senior Software Engineer
5 24 (19.51%) Java Software Engineer
6 13 (10.57%) Lead
7 9 (7.32%) Developer
8 7 (5.69%) AWS Engineer
8 7 (5.69%) AWS Software Engineer
9 6 (4.88%) Architect
9 6 (4.88%) Java Developer
9 6 (4.88%) Principal Engineer
9 6 (4.88%) Principal Software Engineer
10 5 (4.07%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
10 5 (4.07%) iOS Software Engineer
11 4 (3.25%) Cloud Engineer
11 4 (3.25%) Cloud Software Engineer
11 4 (3.25%) DV Cleared Software Engineer
11 4 (3.25%) Lead Software Engineer
11 4 (3.25%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (29.27%) Spring
2 33 (26.83%) Spring Boot
3 29 (23.58%) React
4 20 (16.26%) Node.js
5 12 (9.76%) REST
6 11 (8.94%) OpenTelemetry
7 9 (7.32%) AngularJS
7 9 (7.32%) GraphQL
7 9 (7.32%) RESTful
8 6 (4.88%) AWS CDK
8 6 (4.88%) CSS
8 6 (4.88%) OAuth
8 6 (4.88%) OpenID
9 5 (4.07%) .NET
9 5 (4.07%) Nunjucks
10 4 (3.25%) HTML
10 4 (3.25%) JSON
10 4 (3.25%) Kafka
10 4 (3.25%) Next.js
10 4 (3.25%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 20 (16.26%) Cloud Native
2 16 (13.01%) Product Ownership
3 4 (3.25%) Distributed Systems
3 4 (3.25%) Mobile App
4 3 (2.44%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (1.63%) Distributed Architecture
5 2 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (1.63%) NHS
5 2 (1.63%) Onboarding
6 1 (0.81%) Algorithms
6 1 (0.81%) Culture of Ownership
6 1 (0.81%) Educational Technology
6 1 (0.81%) Private Cloud
6 1 (0.81%) Replication
6 1 (0.81%) SCADA
6 1 (0.81%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.81%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 7 (5.69%) Linux
2 6 (4.88%) Apple iOS
3 2 (1.63%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (32.52%) CI/CD
2 28 (22.76%) Microservices
3 27 (21.95%) Agile
4 25 (20.33%) DevOps
5 22 (17.89%) Full-Stack Development
6 16 (13.01%) Observability
7 15 (12.20%) TDD
7 15 (12.20%) Test Automation
8 14 (11.38%) Event-Driven
9 13 (10.57%) Code Quality
10 12 (9.76%) Event-Driven Architecture
10 12 (9.76%) Technical Leadership
11 11 (8.94%) Infrastructure as Code
11 11 (8.94%) Machine Learning
11 11 (8.94%) Mentoring
12 10 (8.13%) Migration
12 10 (8.13%) User Experience
13 9 (7.32%) AI
13 9 (7.32%) Continuous Improvement
13 9 (7.32%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 64 (52.03%) Java
2 35 (28.46%) TypeScript
3 24 (19.51%) JavaScript
4 15 (12.20%) Python
5 14 (11.38%) Kotlin
6 8 (6.50%) SQL
7 7 (5.69%) Rust
8 6 (4.88%) C#
8 6 (4.88%) Go
9 5 (4.07%) Objective-C
9 5 (4.07%) Swift
10 1 (0.81%) Ruby
10 1 (0.81%) Scala
Qualifications
1 15 (12.20%) Security Cleared
2 8 (6.50%) AWS Certification
2 8 (6.50%) SC Cleared
3 7 (5.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
4 6 (4.88%) DV Cleared
5 2 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (1.63%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (6.50%) Accessibility
1 8 (6.50%) QA
2 4 (3.25%) GDPR
2 4 (3.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 1 (0.81%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.81%) HL7
System Software
1 18 (14.63%) Docker
2 1 (0.81%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 30 (24.39%) Kubernetes
2 16 (13.01%) Grafana
3 11 (8.94%) Terraform
4 4 (3.25%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 4 (3.25%) Microsoft
2 3 (2.44%) OpenAI
2 3 (2.44%) PagerDuty
2 3 (2.44%) SAP
3 2 (1.63%) Foundry
4 1 (0.81%) Google
4 1 (0.81%) Oracle
4 1 (0.81%) Salesforce
4 1 (0.81%) Siemens
4 1 (0.81%) Sitecore
4 1 (0.81%) VMware