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 11 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 21 26
Rank change year-on-year +1 +5 +36
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 138 77 76
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 7.64% 8.39% 5.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.14% 9.44% 6.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 73 54 28
10th Percentile £400 £400 -
25th Percentile £450 £420 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £516 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.79% -1.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £700 £581
90th Percentile £650 £722 £673
North West median daily rate £500 £500 £533
% change year-on-year - -6.10% -3.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 4 12
10th Percentile - £71.05 -
25th Percentile £52.50 £72.63 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £80.75 £68.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.50% +17.88% +44.21%
75th Percentile £76.25 £90.31 £72.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £93.13 £74.30
North West median hourly rate £66.24 £79.00 £46.91
% change year-on-year -16.16% +68.41% +15.57%

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 1,510 816 1,245
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 83.56% 88.89% 85.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 918 556 828
10th Percentile £300 £312 £325
25th Percentile £400 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £550 £588
90th Percentile £650 £668 £694
North West median daily rate £475 £463 £500
% change year-on-year +2.70% -7.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 131 26 81
10th Percentile £21.00 £14.16 £12.50
25th Percentile £37.50 £26.61 £14.13
Median hourly rate £57.50 £60.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +130.77% +15.56%
75th Percentile £77.50 £74.69 £60.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £86.63 £72.50
North West median hourly rate £55.00 £31.76 £28.00
% change year-on-year +73.17% +13.43% -8.32%

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 11 June 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 11 June 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 11 June 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 0 3 £400 -42.86% 5
Bolton - 2 £550 - 1
Stockport - 1 £600 -
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 (1.45%) Apache
1 2 (1.45%) Apache Spark
1 2 (1.45%) CMS
2 1 (0.72%) Adobe Experience Manager
Cloud Services
1 66 (47.83%) AWS
2 25 (18.12%) Azure
3 17 (12.32%) Serverless
4 12 (8.70%) GCP
5 9 (6.52%) AWS Lambda
6 7 (5.07%) Amazon S3
6 7 (5.07%) GitHub
7 5 (3.62%) Amazon ECS
7 5 (3.62%) AWS Fargate
7 5 (3.62%) SaaS
8 4 (2.90%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (2.17%) Amazon ElastiCache
9 3 (2.17%) Amazon SQS
9 3 (2.17%) CloudFront
10 2 (1.45%) Amazon EC2
10 2 (1.45%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 2 (1.45%) Azure Logic Apps
10 2 (1.45%) Azure Stack
10 2 (1.45%) Cloud Computing
10 2 (1.45%) OpenShift
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (5.07%) DynamoDB
1 7 (5.07%) Elasticsearch
2 6 (4.35%) MySQL
2 6 (4.35%) NoSQL
2 6 (4.35%) PostgreSQL
3 5 (3.62%) Amazon RDS
3 5 (3.62%) SQL Server
4 2 (1.45%) MongoDB
4 2 (1.45%) Relational Database
4 2 (1.45%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (0.72%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 13 (9.42%) GitLab
2 12 (8.70%) Git
2 12 (8.70%) Gradle
3 9 (6.52%) IntelliJ
4 7 (5.07%) Selenium
5 4 (2.90%) Cucumber
5 4 (2.90%) Cypress.io
5 4 (2.90%) JMeter
5 4 (2.90%) Postman
6 3 (2.17%) Claude Code
6 3 (2.17%) CocoaPods
6 3 (2.17%) JIRA
7 2 (1.45%) Maven
8 1 (0.72%) Gatling
8 1 (0.72%) Jenkins
8 1 (0.72%) JUnit
8 1 (0.72%) REST Assured
8 1 (0.72%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.72%) SonarQube
General
1 30 (21.74%) Social Skills
2 13 (9.42%) Retail
3 11 (7.97%) Public Sector
4 10 (7.25%) Finance
5 3 (2.17%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (1.45%) Automotive
6 2 (1.45%) Banking
6 2 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (1.45%) Marketing
6 2 (1.45%) Military
7 1 (0.72%) Health Technology
7 1 (0.72%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 98 (71.01%) Software Engineer
2 30 (21.74%) Senior
3 27 (19.57%) Java Engineer
4 25 (18.12%) Java Software Engineer
4 25 (18.12%) Senior Software Engineer
5 17 (12.32%) Lead
6 11 (7.97%) Developer
7 8 (5.80%) AWS Engineer
7 8 (5.80%) AWS Software Engineer
7 8 (5.80%) Java Developer
8 7 (5.07%) Architect
8 7 (5.07%) Principal Engineer
8 7 (5.07%) Principal Software Engineer
9 6 (4.35%) Cloud Engineer
9 6 (4.35%) Cloud Software Engineer
9 6 (4.35%) Lead Software Engineer
9 6 (4.35%) Migration Engineer
10 5 (3.62%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
10 5 (3.62%) Lead Developer
11 4 (2.90%) DV Cleared Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (30.43%) Spring
2 39 (28.26%) Spring Boot
3 33 (23.91%) React
4 20 (14.49%) Node.js
5 11 (7.97%) .NET
6 10 (7.25%) REST
6 10 (7.25%) RESTful
7 9 (6.52%) AngularJS
7 9 (6.52%) OpenTelemetry
8 8 (5.80%) GraphQL
8 8 (5.80%) Next.js
9 7 (5.07%) AWS CDK
9 7 (5.07%) CSS
9 7 (5.07%) Kafka
10 5 (3.62%) HTML
10 5 (3.62%) Nunjucks
10 5 (3.62%) Playwright
11 4 (2.90%) MACH
11 4 (2.90%) RabbitMQ
11 4 (2.90%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 27 (19.57%) Cloud Native
2 17 (12.32%) Product Ownership
3 6 (4.35%) Distributed Systems
4 3 (2.17%) Data Protection Act
4 3 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
4 3 (2.17%) Mobile App
4 3 (2.17%) Onboarding
5 2 (1.45%) Distributed Architecture
5 2 (1.45%) Educational Technology
5 2 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (1.45%) Private Cloud
5 2 (1.45%) Public Cloud
6 1 (0.72%) Algorithms
6 1 (0.72%) Credit Risk
6 1 (0.72%) Culture of Ownership
6 1 (0.72%) Marketing Technology
6 1 (0.72%) NHS
6 1 (0.72%) SCADA
6 1 (0.72%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.72%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 8 (5.80%) Linux
2 4 (2.90%) Apple iOS
3 2 (1.45%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (39.13%) CI/CD
2 40 (28.99%) Agile
3 32 (23.19%) Microservices
4 31 (22.46%) DevOps
5 26 (18.84%) Full-Stack Development
6 22 (15.94%) Test Automation
7 20 (14.49%) Event-Driven
8 18 (13.04%) Event-Driven Architecture
8 18 (13.04%) Infrastructure as Code
9 16 (11.59%) TDD
10 15 (10.87%) AI
10 15 (10.87%) Observability
11 14 (10.14%) Technical Leadership
12 13 (9.42%) Migration
13 12 (8.70%) Code Quality
13 12 (8.70%) Containerisation
13 12 (8.70%) Machine Learning
13 12 (8.70%) Problem-Solving
13 12 (8.70%) User Experience
14 11 (7.97%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 71 (51.45%) Java
2 34 (24.64%) TypeScript
3 26 (18.84%) JavaScript
4 20 (14.49%) Python
5 13 (9.42%) C#
5 13 (9.42%) Kotlin
6 10 (7.25%) SQL
7 7 (5.07%) Go
7 7 (5.07%) Rust
8 3 (2.17%) Objective-C
8 3 (2.17%) Swift
9 1 (0.72%) C++
9 1 (0.72%) Scala
Qualifications
1 15 (10.87%) Security Cleared
2 8 (5.80%) AWS Certification
2 8 (5.80%) SC Cleared
3 7 (5.07%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
4 6 (4.35%) DV Cleared
5 4 (2.90%) Degree
6 3 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (1.45%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (5.80%) Accessibility
2 7 (5.07%) QA
3 4 (2.90%) GDPR
3 4 (2.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 25 (18.12%) Docker
2 1 (0.72%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 32 (23.19%) Kubernetes
2 15 (10.87%) Terraform
3 14 (10.14%) Grafana
4 4 (2.90%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 6 (4.35%) Microsoft
2 4 (2.90%) OpenAI
3 3 (2.17%) Google
3 3 (2.17%) PagerDuty
4 2 (1.45%) Foundry
4 2 (1.45%) SAP
5 1 (0.72%) Adobe
5 1 (0.72%) Oracle
5 1 (0.72%) Siemens
5 1 (0.72%) Sitecore