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 9 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 26 29
Rank change year-on-year 0 +3 +44
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 106 69 80
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 6.50% 7.37% 5.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 7.69% 8.11% 5.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 53 49 39
10th Percentile £400 £400 £456
25th Percentile £450 £463 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £530 £548
Median % change year-on-year +3.77% -3.28% +6.93%
75th Percentile £625 £700 £622
90th Percentile £638 £725 £688
North West median daily rate £500 £530 £548
% change year-on-year -5.66% -3.28% -6.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 1 10
10th Percentile - - £52.05
25th Percentile £52.50 £76.25 £52.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.30% +32.00% +56.25%
75th Percentile £73.75 £88.75 £72.34
90th Percentile £77.50 - £73.35
North West median hourly rate £57.50 £70.54 £48.22
% change year-on-year -18.49% +46.30% +18.79%

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 1,379 851 1,354
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 84.50% 90.92% 87.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 898 603 938
10th Percentile £311 £311 £313
25th Percentile £388 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £461 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.27% -7.50% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £686 £694
North West median daily rate £460 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -3.16% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 98 32 71
10th Percentile £20.63 £15.92 £12.40
25th Percentile £25.99 £23.00 £13.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £32.50 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +69.23% +25.00% -30.67%
75th Percentile £75.75 £60.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £90.00 £74.88 £72.50
North West median hourly rate £45.46 £31.52 £23.50
% change year-on-year +44.23% +34.13% -34.72%

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 9 April 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 9 April 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 9 April 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% 4
Bolton - 2 £550 - 4
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 (1.89%) Apache
1 2 (1.89%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 39 (36.79%) AWS
2 19 (17.92%) Azure
3 11 (10.38%) Serverless
4 9 (8.49%) GitHub
5 8 (7.55%) GCP
6 7 (6.60%) AWS Lambda
7 6 (5.66%) GitHub Actions
8 5 (4.72%) Amazon ECS
9 3 (2.83%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (2.83%) Amazon EventBridge
9 3 (2.83%) Amazon SQS
9 3 (2.83%) AWS Fargate
10 2 (1.89%) Amazon EC2
10 2 (1.89%) Amazon MSK
10 2 (1.89%) Amazon OpenSearch
10 2 (1.89%) Amazon S3
10 2 (1.89%) Azure AI
10 2 (1.89%) Azure Cognitive Search
10 2 (1.89%) Firebase
10 2 (1.89%) SaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (8.49%) PostgreSQL
2 7 (6.60%) Elasticsearch
3 6 (5.66%) NoSQL
4 5 (4.72%) MySQL
5 4 (3.77%) DynamoDB
5 4 (3.77%) MongoDB
5 4 (3.77%) SQL Server
6 3 (2.83%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (2.83%) Redis
7 2 (1.89%) Amazon Aurora
7 2 (1.89%) DocumentDB
7 2 (1.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.94%) Mixpanel
8 1 (0.94%) ObjectStore
8 1 (0.94%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 16 (15.09%) GitLab
2 13 (12.26%) Gradle
3 11 (10.38%) IntelliJ
4 10 (9.43%) Git
5 6 (5.66%) CocoaPods
6 4 (3.77%) Selenium
7 3 (2.83%) JIRA
7 3 (2.83%) JMeter
7 3 (2.83%) Postman
8 2 (1.89%) Cucumber
8 2 (1.89%) Cypress.io
8 2 (1.89%) Maven
9 1 (0.94%) fastlane
9 1 (0.94%) Jenkins
9 1 (0.94%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.94%) SonarQube
General
1 15 (14.15%) Social Skills
2 9 (8.49%) Retail
3 7 (6.60%) Finance
4 5 (4.72%) Public Sector
5 3 (2.83%) Games
6 2 (1.89%) Automotive
7 1 (0.94%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.94%) Marketing
7 1 (0.94%) Military
7 1 (0.94%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 75 (70.75%) Software Engineer
2 24 (22.64%) Senior
3 21 (19.81%) Senior Software Engineer
4 20 (18.87%) Java Engineer
5 19 (17.92%) Java Software Engineer
6 9 (8.49%) Developer
6 9 (8.49%) Lead
7 6 (5.66%) iOS Software Engineer
7 6 (5.66%) Java Developer
7 6 (5.66%) Principal Engineer
7 6 (5.66%) Principal Software Engineer
8 5 (4.72%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
9 4 (3.77%) DV Cleared Software Engineer
9 4 (3.77%) Lead Software Engineer
9 4 (3.77%) Software Developer
10 3 (2.83%) Architect
10 3 (2.83%) Integration Engineer
10 3 (2.83%) Lead Developer
10 3 (2.83%) Lead Java Developer
10 3 (2.83%) Software Integration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (28.30%) Spring
2 27 (25.47%) Spring Boot
3 22 (20.75%) React
4 14 (13.21%) Node.js
5 12 (11.32%) REST
6 11 (10.38%) OpenTelemetry
7 9 (8.49%) GraphQL
7 9 (8.49%) RESTful
8 8 (7.55%) AngularJS
9 7 (6.60%) Kafka
10 6 (5.66%) .NET
10 6 (5.66%) CSS
11 4 (3.77%) Core Media
11 4 (3.77%) HTML
11 4 (3.77%) JSON
11 4 (3.77%) RabbitMQ
12 3 (2.83%) Express.js
12 3 (2.83%) OAuth2
12 3 (2.83%) OpenID
12 3 (2.83%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 15 (14.15%) Product Ownership
2 13 (12.26%) Cloud Native
3 4 (3.77%) Data Protection Act
3 4 (3.77%) Distributed Systems
3 4 (3.77%) Mobile App
4 2 (1.89%) Greenfield Project
4 2 (1.89%) NHS
4 2 (1.89%) Onboarding
5 1 (0.94%) Algorithms
5 1 (0.94%) Culture of Ownership
5 1 (0.94%) Distributed Architecture
5 1 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (0.94%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (0.94%) Private Cloud
5 1 (0.94%) Replication
5 1 (0.94%) SCADA
5 1 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 7 (6.60%) Apple iOS
1 7 (6.60%) Linux
2 2 (1.89%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (29.25%) CI/CD
2 28 (26.42%) Agile
3 24 (22.64%) Microservices
4 22 (20.75%) DevOps
5 19 (17.92%) Full-Stack Development
6 15 (14.15%) TDD
7 14 (13.21%) Code Quality
7 14 (13.21%) Observability
8 13 (12.26%) Event-Driven
9 11 (10.38%) Event-Driven Architecture
9 11 (10.38%) Machine Learning
9 11 (10.38%) Test Automation
10 10 (9.43%) Mentoring
10 10 (9.43%) Technical Leadership
11 9 (8.49%) User Experience
12 8 (7.55%) Containerisation
12 8 (7.55%) Continuous Improvement
12 8 (7.55%) Problem-Solving
12 8 (7.55%) Roadmaps
13 7 (6.60%) Clean Code
Programming Languages
1 53 (50.00%) Java
2 26 (24.53%) TypeScript
3 17 (16.04%) JavaScript
3 17 (16.04%) Python
4 14 (13.21%) Kotlin
5 9 (8.49%) SQL
6 7 (6.60%) Rust
7 6 (5.66%) Go
7 6 (5.66%) Objective-C
7 6 (5.66%) Swift
8 5 (4.72%) C#
9 2 (1.89%) Ruby
10 1 (0.94%) Scala
Qualifications
1 11 (10.38%) Security Cleared
2 7 (6.60%) AWS Certification
2 7 (6.60%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
3 6 (5.66%) DV Cleared
4 4 (3.77%) SC Cleared
5 1 (0.94%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (5.66%) QA
2 5 (4.72%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.89%) GDPR
3 2 (1.89%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 1 (0.94%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.94%) HL7
System Software
1 18 (16.98%) Docker
2 1 (0.94%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 30 (28.30%) Kubernetes
2 15 (14.15%) Grafana
3 14 (13.21%) Terraform
4 3 (2.83%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.94%) Ansible
5 1 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 4 (3.77%) Microsoft
2 3 (2.83%) OpenAI
2 3 (2.83%) PagerDuty
3 2 (1.89%) Foundry
3 2 (1.89%) SAP
4 1 (0.94%) Google
4 1 (0.94%) Oracle
4 1 (0.94%) Salesforce
4 1 (0.94%) Siemens
4 1 (0.94%) Sitecore
4 1 (0.94%) VMware