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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 30 45
Rank change year-on-year +15 +15 +1
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 203 61 38
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 10.13% 6.04% 3.21%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 12.03% 6.73% 3.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 88 35 21
10th Percentile £419 £332 £413
25th Percentile £480 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £555 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +11.00% - -16.67%
75th Percentile £638 £644 £575
90th Percentile £738 £688 £650
North West median daily rate £550 £500 £484
% change year-on-year +10.00% +3.31% -12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 3 2
10th Percentile £62.50 £70.70 £63.20
25th Percentile £65.00 £71.75 £64.25
Median hourly rate £69.00 £79.00 £69.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.66% +13.67% +11.20%
75th Percentile £77.00 £89.75 £73.75
90th Percentile - £92.90 £74.20
North West median hourly rate £69.00 £70.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -1.43% +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 1,688 906 1,032
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 84.23% 89.70% 87.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 976 586 589
10th Percentile £332 £300 £313
25th Percentile £419 £385 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £458 £480
Median % change year-on-year +12.02% -4.69% -4.00%
75th Percentile £618 £588 £584
90th Percentile £708 £678 £675
North West median daily rate £500 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +11.11% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 180 69 37
10th Percentile £19.00 £15.92 £15.97
25th Percentile £33.91 £19.07 £25.35
Median hourly rate £62.50 £22.63 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +176.18% -35.34% +79.49%
75th Percentile £75.00 £35.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £64.00 £81.90
North West median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £40.33
% change year-on-year +88.90% -37.64% +18.60%

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 October 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 October 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 October 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 - - 6
Bolton - 1 - - 2
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 5 (2.46%) Confluence
2 3 (1.48%) Apache
2 3 (1.48%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.99%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.99%) CMS
3 2 (0.99%) SAS
4 1 (0.49%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.49%) Jupyter
4 1 (0.49%) nginx
Cloud Services
1 103 (50.74%) AWS
2 19 (9.36%) Serverless
3 13 (6.40%) AWS Lambda
4 11 (5.42%) Azure
5 9 (4.43%) Amazon S3
5 9 (4.43%) Anthropic Claude
5 9 (4.43%) GitHub
6 8 (3.94%) GCP
6 8 (3.94%) Google Gemini
7 7 (3.45%) Amazon ECS
7 7 (3.45%) GitHub Actions
7 7 (3.45%) GitHub Copilot
8 6 (2.96%) Amazon SQS
8 6 (2.96%) SaaS
9 5 (2.46%) AWS CloudFormation
9 5 (2.46%) AWS Fargate
10 4 (1.97%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (1.97%) CloudFront
11 3 (1.48%) Amazon OpenSearch
11 3 (1.48%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.46%) HTTP
2 3 (1.48%) Firewall
3 2 (0.99%) Network Security
3 2 (0.99%) VPN
4 1 (0.49%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.49%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (5.91%) NoSQL
2 10 (4.93%) DynamoDB
3 8 (3.94%) MySQL
4 5 (2.46%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (2.46%) Relational Database
5 4 (1.97%) SQL Server
6 3 (1.48%) Elasticsearch
6 3 (1.48%) MongoDB
7 2 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.99%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (0.99%) Data Vault
7 2 (0.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.49%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.49%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 24 (11.82%) Git
2 11 (5.42%) Claude Code
3 5 (2.46%) Cucumber
3 5 (2.46%) JIRA
4 4 (1.97%) JUnit
5 3 (1.48%) Mockito
5 3 (1.48%) Selenium
6 2 (0.99%) CocoaPods
6 2 (0.99%) Cypress.io
6 2 (0.99%) fastlane
7 1 (0.49%) Gatling
7 1 (0.49%) GitLab
7 1 (0.49%) Gradle
7 1 (0.49%) Jenkins
7 1 (0.49%) JMeter
7 1 (0.49%) MSTest
7 1 (0.49%) Postman
7 1 (0.49%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.49%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.49%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 59 (29.06%) Social Skills
2 22 (10.84%) Finance
3 17 (8.37%) Public Sector
4 12 (5.91%) Retail
5 9 (4.43%) Banking
6 7 (3.45%) Analytical Skills
7 6 (2.96%) Military
8 3 (1.48%) iGaming
8 3 (1.48%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.49%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.49%) Games
9 1 (0.49%) Health Technology
9 1 (0.49%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.49%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 118 (58.13%) Software Engineer
2 45 (22.17%) Senior
3 31 (15.27%) Java Engineer
4 28 (13.79%) Developer
5 26 (12.81%) Java Software Engineer
6 25 (12.32%) Senior Software Engineer
7 22 (10.84%) AWS Engineer
7 22 (10.84%) Lead
8 17 (8.37%) AWS Software Engineer
9 12 (5.91%) Full-Stack Engineer
10 11 (5.42%) Java Developer
11 10 (4.93%) Embedded Engineer
11 10 (4.93%) Embedded Software Engineer
12 9 (4.43%) Engineering Manager
12 9 (4.43%) Full-Stack Developer
12 9 (4.43%) Lead Software Engineer
12 9 (4.43%) Senior Developer
13 7 (3.45%) Cloud Engineer
13 7 (3.45%) Data Engineer
13 7 (3.45%) Senior Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (25.12%) Spring
1 51 (25.12%) Spring Boot
2 31 (15.27%) React
2 31 (15.27%) REST
3 26 (12.81%) Kafka
4 25 (12.32%) Node.js
5 22 (10.84%) Terraform
6 20 (9.85%) .NET
7 14 (6.90%) RESTful
8 12 (5.91%) Next.js
9 7 (3.45%) OAuth
9 7 (3.45%) Vue
10 6 (2.96%) AWS CDK
10 6 (2.96%) Jakarta EE
11 5 (2.46%) AngularJS
11 5 (2.46%) OpenID
12 4 (1.97%) GraphQL
12 4 (1.97%) PySpark
12 4 (1.97%) Web Services
13 3 (1.48%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 57 (28.08%) Cloud Native
2 33 (16.26%) Distributed Systems
3 12 (5.91%) Onboarding
4 10 (4.93%) Product Ownership
5 7 (3.45%) AI Agents
6 5 (2.46%) Greenfield Project
7 4 (1.97%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (1.97%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (1.97%) Legacy Systems
8 3 (1.48%) Culture of Ownership
8 3 (1.48%) Distributed Architecture
8 3 (1.48%) Public Cloud
8 3 (1.48%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (0.99%) Credit Risk
9 2 (0.99%) Educational Technology
9 2 (0.99%) Mobile App
9 2 (0.99%) Private Cloud
10 1 (0.49%) CMDB
10 1 (0.49%) Online Gambling
10 1 (0.49%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 10 (4.93%) Linux
2 4 (1.97%) Apple iOS
3 3 (1.48%) Android
3 3 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 3 (1.48%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 80 (39.41%) CI/CD
2 72 (35.47%) Agile
3 52 (25.62%) Microservices
4 48 (23.65%) Test Automation
5 39 (19.21%) Event-Driven
6 38 (18.72%) DevOps
7 37 (18.23%) Continuous Improvement
8 36 (17.73%) Event-Driven Architecture
9 35 (17.24%) Full-Stack Development
10 34 (16.75%) AI
11 33 (16.26%) Infrastructure as Code
12 32 (15.76%) Observability
13 27 (13.30%) Technical Leadership
14 23 (11.33%) E-Commerce
14 23 (11.33%) Problem-Solving
14 23 (11.33%) User Experience
15 21 (10.34%) Code Quality
15 21 (10.34%) Decision-Making
15 21 (10.34%) SDLC
16 20 (9.85%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 87 (42.86%) Java
2 38 (18.72%) TypeScript
3 29 (14.29%) JavaScript
4 27 (13.30%) Python
5 23 (11.33%) SQL
6 13 (6.40%) C#
6 13 (6.40%) Kotlin
7 5 (2.46%) C++
8 4 (1.97%) Go
8 4 (1.97%) Rust
9 3 (1.48%) Objective-C
9 3 (1.48%) Swift
10 2 (0.99%) Bash
10 2 (0.99%) Scala
11 1 (0.49%) Ada
11 1 (0.49%) C
11 1 (0.49%) Korn
11 1 (0.49%) Perl
Qualifications
1 17 (8.37%) Security Cleared
2 12 (5.91%) SC Cleared
3 9 (4.43%) Degree
4 7 (3.45%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (1.97%) AWS Certification
6 3 (1.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (0.99%) Microsoft Certified Professional
7 2 (0.99%) TOGAF Certification
8 1 (0.49%) CEH
8 1 (0.49%) CISM
8 1 (0.49%) CISSP
8 1 (0.49%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.49%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.49%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (4.43%) Accessibility
2 7 (3.45%) QA
3 4 (1.97%) Data Quality
3 4 (1.97%) GDPR
3 4 (1.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 1 (0.49%) Def Stans
4 1 (0.49%) DO-178B
4 1 (0.49%) MISRA
4 1 (0.49%) NIST
System Software
1 34 (16.75%) Docker
2 1 (0.49%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 38 (18.72%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.49%) Grafana
2 1 (0.49%) Istio
2 1 (0.49%) Network Intrusion Detection System
2 1 (0.49%) Prometheus
2 1 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 8 (3.94%) Microsoft
2 5 (2.46%) Google
3 3 (1.48%) SAP
4 2 (0.99%) Databricks
4 2 (0.99%) Informatica
4 2 (0.99%) OpenAI
5 1 (0.49%) Adobe
5 1 (0.49%) Apple
5 1 (0.49%) BeyondTrust
5 1 (0.49%) BiZZdesign
5 1 (0.49%) CheckPoint
5 1 (0.49%) Cisco
5 1 (0.49%) CyberArk
5 1 (0.49%) F5
5 1 (0.49%) Intel
5 1 (0.49%) Okta
5 1 (0.49%) Oracle
5 1 (0.49%) Ping Identity
5 1 (0.49%) ServiceNow