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 30 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 22 40
Rank change year-on-year -3 +18 +21
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 155 77 51
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 7.88% 7.77% 4.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.42% 8.82% 4.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 79 47 21
10th Percentile £400 £378 £425
25th Percentile £450 £416 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £501 £550
Median % change year-on-year +9.89% -9.00% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £650
90th Percentile £705 £716 £725
North West median daily rate £550 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +10.00% -9.09% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 4 10
10th Percentile £62.30 £71.05 £52.05
25th Percentile - £72.63 £52.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £80.75 £61.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.50% +32.38% -4.31%
75th Percentile £76.50 £90.31 £71.87
90th Percentile £77.50 £93.13 £72.70
North West median hourly rate £67.47 £70.00 £48.00
% change year-on-year -3.61% +45.83% +3.94%

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 1,645 873 1,096
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 83.63% 88.09% 86.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 987 559 709
10th Percentile £300 £304 £325
25th Percentile £400 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £597 £599 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £689
North West median daily rate £492 £460 £500
% change year-on-year +6.96% -8.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 160 51 55
10th Percentile £22.48 £17.08 £15.77
25th Percentile £29.96 £19.07 £22.75
Median hourly rate £60.50 £22.63 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +167.34% -46.75% +117.95%
75th Percentile £76.25 £60.00 £65.63
90th Percentile £85.00 £77.50 £79.60
North West median hourly rate £50.00 £28.75 £32.00
% change year-on-year +73.91% -10.16% +4.78%

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 30 July 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 30 July 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 30 July 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 - 5 £744 - 3
Stockport - 2 £600 - 5
Salford 0 1 £400 - 5
Bolton - 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 (1.29%) Apache
1 2 (1.29%) Apache Spark
1 2 (1.29%) CMS
1 2 (1.29%) Confluence
1 2 (1.29%) SAS
2 1 (0.65%) Adobe Experience Manager
Cloud Services
1 82 (52.90%) AWS
2 16 (10.32%) Azure
3 14 (9.03%) Serverless
4 9 (5.81%) GitHub
5 8 (5.16%) Amazon S3
5 8 (5.16%) AWS Lambda
5 8 (5.16%) GCP
5 8 (5.16%) GitHub Actions
6 7 (4.52%) Anthropic Claude
6 7 (4.52%) Google Gemini
7 6 (3.87%) Amazon ECS
7 6 (3.87%) Amazon SQS
8 5 (3.23%) GitHub Copilot
8 5 (3.23%) SaaS
9 4 (2.58%) Amazon EKS
9 4 (2.58%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 4 (2.58%) AWS CloudFormation
9 4 (2.58%) CloudFront
10 3 (1.94%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 3 (1.94%) Amazon ElastiCache
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.29%) Firewall
1 2 (1.29%) VPN
2 1 (0.65%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (6.45%) DynamoDB
1 10 (6.45%) PostgreSQL
2 9 (5.81%) Elasticsearch
2 9 (5.81%) MySQL
3 8 (5.16%) NoSQL
4 5 (3.23%) SQL Server
5 4 (2.58%) Relational Database
5 4 (2.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (1.29%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (1.29%) Data Vault
7 1 (0.65%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 17 (10.97%) Git
2 8 (5.16%) Claude Code
3 5 (3.23%) Cucumber
3 5 (3.23%) JIRA
4 4 (2.58%) JUnit
4 4 (2.58%) Selenium
5 3 (1.94%) Cypress.io
5 3 (1.94%) Mockito
6 1 (0.65%) CocoaPods
6 1 (0.65%) Gatling
6 1 (0.65%) GitLab
6 1 (0.65%) Gradle
6 1 (0.65%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.65%) JMeter
6 1 (0.65%) Postman
6 1 (0.65%) REST Assured
6 1 (0.65%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.65%) SonarQube
General
1 32 (20.65%) Social Skills
2 18 (11.61%) Retail
3 13 (8.39%) Finance
3 13 (8.39%) Public Sector
4 5 (3.23%) Banking
5 4 (2.58%) Analytical Skills
5 4 (2.58%) Military
6 2 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (1.29%) Marketing
7 1 (0.65%) Automotive
7 1 (0.65%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.65%) Health Technology
7 1 (0.65%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 107 (69.03%) Software Engineer
2 37 (23.87%) Senior
3 29 (18.71%) Senior Software Engineer
4 21 (13.55%) Java Engineer
4 21 (13.55%) Lead
5 20 (12.90%) Java Software Engineer
6 16 (10.32%) Developer
7 15 (9.68%) AWS Engineer
8 14 (9.03%) AWS Software Engineer
9 10 (6.45%) Lead Software Engineer
10 9 (5.81%) Embedded Engineer
10 9 (5.81%) Embedded Software Engineer
11 8 (5.16%) Java Developer
12 7 (4.52%) Full-Stack Developer
13 6 (3.87%) Architect
13 6 (3.87%) Cloud Engineer
13 6 (3.87%) Cloud Software Engineer
13 6 (3.87%) Migration Engineer
13 6 (3.87%) Principal Engineer
13 6 (3.87%) Python Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (21.94%) Spring
2 31 (20.00%) React
2 31 (20.00%) Spring Boot
3 25 (16.13%) Node.js
4 18 (11.61%) .NET
4 18 (11.61%) REST
5 13 (8.39%) Next.js
6 11 (7.10%) RESTful
7 10 (6.45%) Kafka
8 8 (5.16%) CSS
9 7 (4.52%) AngularJS
9 7 (4.52%) AWS CDK
9 7 (4.52%) HTML
10 5 (3.23%) GraphQL
10 5 (3.23%) Nunjucks
11 4 (2.58%) MACH
11 4 (2.58%) OAuth
11 4 (2.58%) Playwright
11 4 (2.58%) Vue
12 3 (1.94%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 38 (24.52%) Cloud Native
2 13 (8.39%) Product Ownership
3 11 (7.10%) Distributed Systems
4 5 (3.23%) Onboarding
5 4 (2.58%) Culture of Ownership
5 4 (2.58%) Enterprise Software
6 3 (1.94%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (1.29%) Credit Risk
7 2 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (1.29%) Distributed Architecture
7 2 (1.29%) Educational Technology
7 2 (1.29%) Private Cloud
7 2 (1.29%) Public Cloud
8 1 (0.65%) Algorithms
8 1 (0.65%) CMDB
8 1 (0.65%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.65%) Mobile App
8 1 (0.65%) NHS
8 1 (0.65%) Replication
8 1 (0.65%) RISC-V
Operating Systems
1 12 (7.74%) Linux
2 2 (1.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (0.65%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (41.94%) CI/CD
2 53 (34.19%) Agile
3 43 (27.74%) DevOps
4 38 (24.52%) Microservices
5 30 (19.35%) Infrastructure as Code
6 29 (18.71%) Test Automation
7 28 (18.06%) Full-Stack Development
8 27 (17.42%) Event-Driven
8 27 (17.42%) Event-Driven Architecture
9 26 (16.77%) AI
10 22 (14.19%) Observability
11 21 (13.55%) Continuous Improvement
12 18 (11.61%) Code Quality
12 18 (11.61%) Mentoring
13 17 (10.97%) Technical Leadership
14 16 (10.32%) Migration
14 16 (10.32%) SDLC
15 15 (9.68%) Machine Learning
15 15 (9.68%) Problem-Solving
15 15 (9.68%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 63 (40.65%) Java
2 36 (23.23%) TypeScript
3 29 (18.71%) JavaScript
4 27 (17.42%) Python
5 18 (11.61%) SQL
6 13 (8.39%) C#
7 9 (5.81%) Rust
8 6 (3.87%) Kotlin
9 5 (3.23%) C++
10 3 (1.94%) Go
10 3 (1.94%) Scala
11 1 (0.65%) Ada
11 1 (0.65%) C
11 1 (0.65%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.65%) Swift
Qualifications
1 17 (10.97%) Security Cleared
2 10 (6.45%) AWS Certification
2 10 (6.45%) SC Cleared
3 9 (5.81%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
4 6 (3.87%) Degree
5 5 (3.23%) BPSS Clearance
5 5 (3.23%) DV Cleared
6 2 (1.29%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (7.10%) QA
2 6 (3.87%) Accessibility
3 4 (2.58%) GDPR
3 4 (2.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 3 (1.94%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.65%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.65%) DO-178B
5 1 (0.65%) MISRA
System Software
1 33 (21.29%) Docker
2 1 (0.65%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 30 (19.35%) Kubernetes
2 28 (18.06%) Terraform
3 1 (0.65%) Grafana
3 1 (0.65%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 6 (3.87%) Microsoft
2 3 (1.94%) Google
2 3 (1.94%) OpenAI
3 2 (1.29%) Databricks
3 2 (1.29%) Informatica
3 2 (1.29%) SAP
4 1 (0.65%) Adobe
4 1 (0.65%) Oracle
4 1 (0.65%) ServiceNow
4 1 (0.65%) Sitecore