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 18 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 23 37
Rank change year-on-year +6 +14 +15
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 181 70 46
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 9.20% 6.90% 3.86%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.99% 7.68% 4.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 88 41 24
10th Percentile £419 £380 £416
25th Percentile £457 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -2.44% -6.82%
75th Percentile £638 £575 £581
90th Percentile £729 £688 £650
North West median daily rate £550 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +10.00% - -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 4 3
10th Percentile £62.50 £71.05 £54.50
25th Percentile £64.25 £72.63 £57.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £80.75 £67.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.50% +20.52% +5.10%
75th Percentile £76.00 £90.31 £73.00
90th Percentile £77.00 £93.13 £73.90
North West median hourly rate £65.00 £70.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -7.14% +64.71% -7.97%

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 1,647 912 1,042
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 83.73% 89.94% 87.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 979 588 631
10th Percentile £313 £310 £313
25th Percentile £413 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £465 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.53% -7.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
North West median daily rate £500 £450 £493
% change year-on-year +11.11% -8.72% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 68 35
10th Percentile £21.00 £15.71 £15.95
25th Percentile £33.64 £19.07 £21.63
Median hourly rate £55.00 £22.63 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +143.04% -35.34% +79.49%
75th Percentile £75.00 £39.31 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £74.13 £85.60
North West median hourly rate £47.12 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +87.36% -40.82% +21.43%

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 18 September 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 18 September 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 18 September 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 - 6 £744 -
Stockport - 1 - - 7
Bolton - 1 - - 3
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 4 (2.21%) Confluence
2 3 (1.66%) Apache
2 3 (1.66%) Apache Spark
3 2 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (1.10%) CMS
3 2 (1.10%) SAS
4 1 (0.55%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.55%) Jupyter
4 1 (0.55%) nginx
Cloud Services
1 99 (54.70%) AWS
2 18 (9.94%) Serverless
3 12 (6.63%) Azure
4 11 (6.08%) AWS Lambda
5 9 (4.97%) Anthropic Claude
5 9 (4.97%) GitHub
6 8 (4.42%) Amazon S3
6 8 (4.42%) GCP
6 8 (4.42%) Google Gemini
7 7 (3.87%) GitHub Actions
7 7 (3.87%) GitHub Copilot
8 6 (3.31%) Amazon ECS
8 6 (3.31%) Amazon SQS
9 5 (2.76%) AWS CloudFormation
9 5 (2.76%) SaaS
10 4 (2.21%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (2.21%) AWS Fargate
10 4 (2.21%) CloudFront
11 3 (1.66%) Amazon ElastiCache
11 3 (1.66%) Amazon OpenSearch
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.76%) HTTP
2 3 (1.66%) Firewall
3 2 (1.10%) VPN
4 1 (0.55%) Network Security
4 1 (0.55%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (6.63%) NoSQL
2 10 (5.52%) DynamoDB
2 10 (5.52%) MySQL
3 9 (4.97%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (2.76%) Relational Database
5 3 (1.66%) Elasticsearch
5 3 (1.66%) MongoDB
5 3 (1.66%) SQL Server
6 2 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (1.10%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (1.10%) Data Vault
6 2 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.55%) Oracle Database
7 1 (0.55%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 21 (11.60%) Git
2 10 (5.52%) Claude Code
3 6 (3.31%) Cucumber
3 6 (3.31%) JIRA
4 4 (2.21%) JUnit
4 4 (2.21%) Selenium
5 3 (1.66%) Mockito
6 2 (1.10%) Cypress.io
6 2 (1.10%) GitLab
7 1 (0.55%) CocoaPods
7 1 (0.55%) fastlane
7 1 (0.55%) Gatling
7 1 (0.55%) Gradle
7 1 (0.55%) Jenkins
7 1 (0.55%) JMeter
7 1 (0.55%) Postman
7 1 (0.55%) REST Assured
7 1 (0.55%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.55%) SonarQube
General
1 54 (29.83%) Social Skills
2 18 (9.94%) Finance
3 17 (9.39%) Public Sector
4 14 (7.73%) Retail
5 8 (4.42%) Banking
6 7 (3.87%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (3.87%) Military
7 3 (1.66%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (1.10%) iGaming
8 2 (1.10%) Marketing
9 1 (0.55%) Automotive
9 1 (0.55%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.55%) Games
9 1 (0.55%) Health Technology
9 1 (0.55%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 107 (59.12%) Software Engineer
2 43 (23.76%) Senior
3 29 (16.02%) Java Engineer
4 26 (14.36%) Senior Software Engineer
5 25 (13.81%) Developer
5 25 (13.81%) Java Software Engineer
6 24 (13.26%) Lead
7 18 (9.94%) AWS Engineer
8 16 (8.84%) AWS Software Engineer
9 13 (7.18%) Java Developer
10 10 (5.52%) Embedded Engineer
10 10 (5.52%) Embedded Software Engineer
11 9 (4.97%) Full-Stack Developer
11 9 (4.97%) Full-Stack Engineer
11 9 (4.97%) Lead Software Engineer
12 8 (4.42%) Senior Developer
13 7 (3.87%) Cloud Engineer
13 7 (3.87%) Lead Developer
13 7 (3.87%) Senior Java Engineer
14 6 (3.31%) Engineering Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (28.18%) Spring
2 49 (27.07%) Spring Boot
3 33 (18.23%) React
4 28 (15.47%) REST
5 25 (13.81%) Node.js
6 22 (12.15%) Terraform
7 21 (11.60%) Kafka
8 19 (10.50%) .NET
9 13 (7.18%) Next.js
10 11 (6.08%) RESTful
11 6 (3.31%) AngularJS
11 6 (3.31%) AWS CDK
11 6 (3.31%) Jakarta EE
12 5 (2.76%) CSS
12 5 (2.76%) HTML
12 5 (2.76%) Vue
13 4 (2.21%) Nunjucks
13 4 (2.21%) OAuth
13 4 (2.21%) OpenID
13 4 (2.21%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 55 (30.39%) Cloud Native
2 28 (15.47%) Distributed Systems
3 8 (4.42%) Onboarding
3 8 (4.42%) Product Ownership
4 5 (2.76%) AI Agents
5 4 (2.21%) Enterprise Software
6 3 (1.66%) Culture of Ownership
6 3 (1.66%) Greenfield Project
6 3 (1.66%) Public Cloud
7 2 (1.10%) Credit Risk
7 2 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (1.10%) Educational Technology
7 2 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (1.10%) Private Cloud
8 1 (0.55%) CMDB
8 1 (0.55%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.55%) NHS
8 1 (0.55%) Online Gambling
8 1 (0.55%) PKI
8 1 (0.55%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 9 (4.97%) Linux
2 3 (1.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (1.10%) Apple iOS
3 2 (1.10%) Windows
4 1 (0.55%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (43.65%) CI/CD
2 63 (34.81%) Agile
3 52 (28.73%) Microservices
4 43 (23.76%) Test Automation
5 37 (20.44%) DevOps
6 35 (19.34%) Event-Driven
7 34 (18.78%) Event-Driven Architecture
8 32 (17.68%) AI
8 32 (17.68%) Full-Stack Development
9 31 (17.13%) Infrastructure as Code
10 29 (16.02%) Continuous Improvement
10 29 (16.02%) Observability
11 24 (13.26%) Code Quality
11 24 (13.26%) Technical Leadership
12 23 (12.71%) SDLC
13 21 (11.60%) Problem-Solving
14 20 (11.05%) Mentoring
14 20 (11.05%) User Experience
15 19 (10.50%) Decision-Making
16 17 (9.39%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 81 (44.75%) Java
2 34 (18.78%) TypeScript
3 29 (16.02%) JavaScript
4 24 (13.26%) Python
5 21 (11.60%) SQL
6 12 (6.63%) Kotlin
7 11 (6.08%) C#
8 5 (2.76%) C++
9 4 (2.21%) Rust
10 3 (1.66%) Go
11 2 (1.10%) Bash
11 2 (1.10%) Scala
12 1 (0.55%) Ada
12 1 (0.55%) C
12 1 (0.55%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.55%) Perl
12 1 (0.55%) Swift
Qualifications
1 17 (9.39%) Security Cleared
2 12 (6.63%) SC Cleared
3 8 (4.42%) Degree
4 7 (3.87%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (2.21%) AWS Certification
6 3 (1.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (1.10%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 1 (0.55%) CEH
8 1 (0.55%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.55%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.55%) SANS
8 1 (0.55%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.52%) QA
2 8 (4.42%) Accessibility
3 4 (2.21%) GDPR
4 3 (1.66%) Data Quality
5 2 (1.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.55%) Def Stans
6 1 (0.55%) DO-178B
6 1 (0.55%) MISRA
6 1 (0.55%) NIST
System Software
1 34 (18.78%) Docker
2 1 (0.55%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 38 (20.99%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.55%) Grafana
2 1 (0.55%) Istio
2 1 (0.55%) Network Intrusion Detection System
2 1 (0.55%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 6 (3.31%) Microsoft
2 3 (1.66%) Google
2 3 (1.66%) OpenAI
3 2 (1.10%) Databricks
3 2 (1.10%) Informatica
3 2 (1.10%) SAP
4 1 (0.55%) Adobe
4 1 (0.55%) BiZZdesign
4 1 (0.55%) CheckPoint
4 1 (0.55%) Cisco
4 1 (0.55%) F5
4 1 (0.55%) Intel
4 1 (0.55%) Oracle
4 1 (0.55%) ServiceNow