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

6 months to
28 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 19 27
Rank change year-on-year -1 +8 +41
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 131 75 74
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 7.50% 8.43% 5.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.95% 9.46% 5.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 68 52 28
10th Percentile £404 £400 -
25th Percentile £450 £423 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £530 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.83% +0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £700 £581
90th Percentile £641 £724 £673
North West median daily rate £500 £500 £533
% change year-on-year - -6.10% -3.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 4 12
10th Percentile - £71.05 -
25th Percentile £52.50 £72.63 £52.50
Median hourly rate £63.75 £80.75 £68.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.05% +17.88% +44.21%
75th Percentile £76.00 £90.31 £72.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £93.13 £74.30
North West median hourly rate £65.00 £79.00 £48.00
% change year-on-year -17.72% +64.58% +18.26%

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 1,464 793 1,235
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 83.80% 89.10% 86.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 882 542 843
10th Percentile £306 £313 £314
25th Percentile £400 £400 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.70% -7.50% -
75th Percentile £575 £550 £588
90th Percentile £650 £667 £694
North West median daily rate £474 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -0.21% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 131 26 79
10th Percentile £21.00 £16.73 £12.48
25th Percentile £35.75 £26.61 £13.81
Median hourly rate £57.50 £60.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +130.77% -5.80%
75th Percentile £76.75 £74.69 £60.63
90th Percentile £90.00 £86.63 £72.90
North West median hourly rate £53.89 £31.08 £26.00
% change year-on-year +73.38% +19.54% -25.75%

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 28 May 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 28 May 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 28 May 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 +1 3 £400 -42.86% 3
Bolton - 2 £550 - 1
Stockport - 1 £600 - 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 (1.53%) Apache
1 2 (1.53%) Apache Spark
1 2 (1.53%) CMS
2 1 (0.76%) Adobe Experience Manager
Cloud Services
1 60 (45.80%) AWS
2 24 (18.32%) Azure
3 17 (12.98%) Serverless
4 12 (9.16%) GCP
5 9 (6.87%) AWS Lambda
6 7 (5.34%) GitHub
7 6 (4.58%) Amazon S3
8 5 (3.82%) Amazon ECS
8 5 (3.82%) AWS Fargate
9 4 (3.05%) GitHub Actions
10 3 (2.29%) Amazon ElastiCache
10 3 (2.29%) Amazon SQS
11 2 (1.53%) Amazon EC2
11 2 (1.53%) Azure Functions
11 2 (1.53%) Azure Stack
11 2 (1.53%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (1.53%) CloudFront
11 2 (1.53%) Firebase
11 2 (1.53%) OpenShift
11 2 (1.53%) SaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (5.34%) DynamoDB
1 7 (5.34%) Elasticsearch
1 7 (5.34%) PostgreSQL
2 5 (3.82%) Amazon RDS
2 5 (3.82%) MySQL
2 5 (3.82%) NoSQL
2 5 (3.82%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.53%) MongoDB
3 2 (1.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 1 (0.76%) Mixpanel
4 1 (0.76%) Redis
4 1 (0.76%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 15 (11.45%) GitLab
2 14 (10.69%) Gradle
3 13 (9.92%) Git
4 11 (8.40%) IntelliJ
5 7 (5.34%) Selenium
6 4 (3.05%) CocoaPods
6 4 (3.05%) Cucumber
6 4 (3.05%) Cypress.io
6 4 (3.05%) JMeter
6 4 (3.05%) Postman
7 3 (2.29%) Claude Code
7 3 (2.29%) JIRA
8 2 (1.53%) Maven
9 1 (0.76%) fastlane
9 1 (0.76%) Gatling
9 1 (0.76%) Jenkins
9 1 (0.76%) JUnit
9 1 (0.76%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.76%) Robot Framework
9 1 (0.76%) SonarQube
General
1 26 (19.85%) Social Skills
2 10 (7.63%) Public Sector
2 10 (7.63%) Retail
3 9 (6.87%) Finance
4 3 (2.29%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (1.53%) Automotive
5 2 (1.53%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (1.53%) Influencing Skills
5 2 (1.53%) Marketing
5 2 (1.53%) Military
6 1 (0.76%) Banking
6 1 (0.76%) Games
6 1 (0.76%) Health Technology
6 1 (0.76%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 94 (71.76%) Software Engineer
2 29 (22.14%) Senior
3 26 (19.85%) Java Engineer
4 25 (19.08%) Senior Software Engineer
5 24 (18.32%) Java Software Engineer
6 15 (11.45%) Lead
7 9 (6.87%) Developer
8 7 (5.34%) Architect
8 7 (5.34%) AWS Engineer
8 7 (5.34%) AWS Software Engineer
9 6 (4.58%) Cloud Engineer
9 6 (4.58%) Cloud Software Engineer
9 6 (4.58%) Java Developer
9 6 (4.58%) Migration Engineer
9 6 (4.58%) Principal Engineer
9 6 (4.58%) Principal Software Engineer
10 5 (3.82%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
10 5 (3.82%) Lead Software Engineer
11 4 (3.05%) DV Cleared Software Engineer
11 4 (3.05%) iOS Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (29.01%) Spring
2 35 (26.72%) Spring Boot
3 32 (24.43%) React
4 20 (15.27%) Node.js
5 11 (8.40%) OpenTelemetry
6 10 (7.63%) REST
7 9 (6.87%) AngularJS
7 9 (6.87%) GraphQL
7 9 (6.87%) RESTful
8 8 (6.11%) .NET
9 7 (5.34%) CSS
9 7 (5.34%) Next.js
10 6 (4.58%) AWS CDK
11 5 (3.82%) HTML
11 5 (3.82%) Nunjucks
11 5 (3.82%) Playwright
12 4 (3.05%) JSON
12 4 (3.05%) Kafka
12 4 (3.05%) OpenID
12 4 (3.05%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 24 (18.32%) Cloud Native
2 17 (12.98%) Product Ownership
3 4 (3.05%) Distributed Systems
3 4 (3.05%) Mobile App
4 3 (2.29%) Data Protection Act
4 3 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
4 3 (2.29%) Onboarding
5 2 (1.53%) Distributed Architecture
5 2 (1.53%) Educational Technology
5 2 (1.53%) Private Cloud
5 2 (1.53%) Public Cloud
6 1 (0.76%) Algorithms
6 1 (0.76%) Culture of Ownership
6 1 (0.76%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (0.76%) Marketing Technology
6 1 (0.76%) NHS
6 1 (0.76%) Replication
6 1 (0.76%) SCADA
6 1 (0.76%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.76%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 8 (6.11%) Linux
2 5 (3.82%) Apple iOS
3 2 (1.53%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (35.88%) CI/CD
2 35 (26.72%) Agile
3 31 (23.66%) Microservices
4 28 (21.37%) DevOps
5 25 (19.08%) Full-Stack Development
6 21 (16.03%) Test Automation
7 16 (12.21%) TDD
8 15 (11.45%) Event-Driven
8 15 (11.45%) Infrastructure as Code
8 15 (11.45%) Technical Leadership
9 14 (10.69%) Observability
10 13 (9.92%) Code Quality
10 13 (9.92%) Event-Driven Architecture
10 13 (9.92%) User Experience
11 12 (9.16%) AI
11 12 (9.16%) Containerisation
11 12 (9.16%) Machine Learning
11 12 (9.16%) Mentoring
12 11 (8.40%) Continuous Improvement
12 11 (8.40%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 68 (51.91%) Java
2 34 (25.95%) TypeScript
3 26 (19.85%) JavaScript
4 20 (15.27%) Python
5 14 (10.69%) Kotlin
6 10 (7.63%) C#
7 9 (6.87%) SQL
8 7 (5.34%) Go
8 7 (5.34%) Rust
9 4 (3.05%) Objective-C
9 4 (3.05%) Swift
10 1 (0.76%) C++
10 1 (0.76%) Ruby
10 1 (0.76%) Scala
Qualifications
1 16 (12.21%) Security Cleared
2 9 (6.87%) SC Cleared
3 8 (6.11%) AWS Certification
4 7 (5.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 6 (4.58%) DV Cleared
6 4 (3.05%) Degree
7 2 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (1.53%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (6.87%) Accessibility
2 8 (6.11%) QA
3 4 (3.05%) GDPR
3 4 (3.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 22 (16.79%) Docker
2 1 (0.76%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 31 (23.66%) Kubernetes
2 16 (12.21%) Grafana
3 13 (9.92%) Terraform
4 4 (3.05%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 6 (4.58%) Microsoft
2 3 (2.29%) Google
2 3 (2.29%) OpenAI
2 3 (2.29%) PagerDuty
2 3 (2.29%) SAP
3 2 (1.53%) Foundry
4 1 (0.76%) Adobe
4 1 (0.76%) Oracle
4 1 (0.76%) Salesforce
4 1 (0.76%) Siemens
4 1 (0.76%) Sitecore