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 3 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 36 55 39
Rank change year-on-year +19 -16 +2
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 59 30 63
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 5.18% 2.62% 3.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.78% 2.96% 4.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 34 21 39
10th Percentile £319 £413 £423
25th Percentile £416 £425 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £475 £600
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -20.83% -
75th Percentile £650 £538 £700
90th Percentile £688 £575 £738
North West median daily rate £550 £475 £550
% change year-on-year +15.79% -13.64% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 6
10th Percentile - - £56.88
25th Percentile - - £59.38
Median hourly rate - - £62.50
75th Percentile - - £65.94
90th Percentile - - £71.88
North West median hourly rate £41.71 £44.34 £46.18
% change year-on-year -5.94% -3.98% +3.36%

All Process and 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 1,021 1,015 1,406
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 89.64% 88.57% 88.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 692 586 1,015
10th Percentile £300 £300 £285
25th Percentile £363 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £580 £575 £588
90th Percentile £656 £675 £675
North West median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 42 48
10th Percentile £17.23 £16.01 £15.74
25th Percentile £19.07 £22.56 £17.37
Median hourly rate £22.32 £32.50 £19.75
Median % change year-on-year -31.34% +64.56% -6.24%
75th Percentile £31.40 £46.88 £51.25
90th Percentile £56.50 £65.00 £74.28
North West median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £35.50
% change year-on-year -7.69% -8.45% +50.39%

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 3 December 2025.

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
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 3 December 2025. 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
Cheadle - 5 £625 - 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 1 (1.69%) Apache
1 1 (1.69%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 1 (1.69%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 17 (28.81%) AWS
2 7 (11.86%) Serverless
3 6 (10.17%) AWS Lambda
4 5 (8.47%) Amazon ECS
4 5 (8.47%) Amazon EKS
4 5 (8.47%) Amazon SQS
4 5 (8.47%) GitHub
5 4 (6.78%) Amazon EC2
5 4 (6.78%) Amazon EventBridge
5 4 (6.78%) Amazon MSK
5 4 (6.78%) GitHub Actions
6 3 (5.08%) Azure
7 2 (3.39%) Amazon S3
7 2 (3.39%) GCP
7 2 (3.39%) SaaS
8 1 (1.69%) Amazon Cognito
8 1 (1.69%) Amazon Kinesis
8 1 (1.69%) AWS Step Functions
8 1 (1.69%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 1 (1.69%) Snowflake
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (22.03%) MongoDB
2 5 (8.47%) Amazon Aurora
2 5 (8.47%) DynamoDB
2 5 (8.47%) NoSQL
2 5 (8.47%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (6.78%) Apache Cassandra
3 4 (6.78%) DocumentDB
3 4 (6.78%) MySQL
4 2 (3.39%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (3.39%) Redis
5 1 (1.69%) Hadoop
5 1 (1.69%) ObjectStore
5 1 (1.69%) Power BI
5 1 (1.69%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 8 (13.56%) Jenkins
2 5 (8.47%) Rational DOORS
3 4 (6.78%) Git
3 4 (6.78%) GitLab
4 3 (5.08%) Artifactory
4 3 (5.08%) JIRA
4 3 (5.08%) Mockito
5 2 (3.39%) CocoaPods
6 1 (1.69%) Robot Framework
General
1 13 (22.03%) Social Skills
2 12 (20.34%) Public Sector
3 5 (8.47%) Finance
4 4 (6.78%) Military
5 2 (3.39%) Documentation Skills
5 2 (3.39%) Games
6 1 (1.69%) Analytical Skills
6 1 (1.69%) Electronics
6 1 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (1.69%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.69%) Marketing
6 1 (1.69%) Retail
6 1 (1.69%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 34 (57.63%) Software Engineer
2 18 (30.51%) Lead
3 14 (23.73%) Lead Software Engineer
4 9 (15.25%) Senior
5 6 (10.17%) Developer
6 5 (8.47%) Senior Software Engineer
7 4 (6.78%) Architect
8 3 (5.08%) DevSecOps Engineer
8 3 (5.08%) Engineering Manager
8 3 (5.08%) Java Developer
8 3 (5.08%) Java Engineer
8 3 (5.08%) Java Software Engineer
8 3 (5.08%) Senior Developer
8 3 (5.08%) Software Architect
9 2 (3.39%) Full-Stack Engineer
9 2 (3.39%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
9 2 (3.39%) iOS Software Engineer
9 2 (3.39%) Python Engineer
9 2 (3.39%) Python Software Engineer
9 2 (3.39%) Software Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (27.12%) Kafka
2 7 (11.86%) Spring
3 6 (10.17%) .NET
3 6 (10.17%) Node.js
3 6 (10.17%) React
3 6 (10.17%) Spring Boot
4 5 (8.47%) REST
5 4 (6.78%) AngularJS
6 3 (5.08%) ActiveMQ
6 3 (5.08%) JAX-RS
6 3 (5.08%) Spring Batch
6 3 (5.08%) Spring Security
7 2 (3.39%) OAuth
7 2 (3.39%) OAuth2
7 2 (3.39%) OpenID
7 2 (3.39%) pytest
8 1 (1.69%) Core Media
8 1 (1.69%) Pandas
8 1 (1.69%) scikit-learn
8 1 (1.69%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 5 (8.47%) Cloud Native
1 5 (8.47%) Distributed Systems
2 4 (6.78%) Data Protection Act
3 3 (5.08%) Greenfield Project
4 2 (3.39%) Embedded Systems
5 1 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (1.69%) NHS
5 1 (1.69%) Private Cloud
5 1 (1.69%) Product Ownership
5 1 (1.69%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 7 (11.86%) Linux
2 3 (5.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (3.39%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (38.98%) CI/CD
1 23 (38.98%) Microservices
2 21 (35.59%) Agile
3 18 (30.51%) DevOps
4 16 (27.12%) Containerisation
5 14 (23.73%) TDD
6 11 (18.64%) Software Architecture
7 8 (13.56%) Mentoring
7 8 (13.56%) Technical Leadership
8 7 (11.86%) Coaching
9 6 (10.17%) Configuration Management
9 6 (10.17%) Full-Stack Development
9 6 (10.17%) Problem-Solving
9 6 (10.17%) Stakeholder Management
9 6 (10.17%) UML
10 5 (8.47%) Event-Driven
10 5 (8.47%) Scrum
11 4 (6.78%) AI
11 4 (6.78%) Kanban
11 4 (6.78%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 25 (42.37%) Java
2 14 (23.73%) Python
3 11 (18.64%) SQL
4 7 (11.86%) Bash
4 7 (11.86%) TypeScript
5 6 (10.17%) C++
6 3 (5.08%) C
6 3 (5.08%) JavaScript
7 2 (3.39%) Objective-C
7 2 (3.39%) Swift
8 1 (1.69%) C#
8 1 (1.69%) Go
8 1 (1.69%) Ruby
8 1 (1.69%) Rust
Qualifications
1 14 (23.73%) Security Cleared
2 8 (13.56%) SC Cleared
3 2 (3.39%) BPSS Clearance
4 1 (1.69%) Degree
4 1 (1.69%) DV Cleared
4 1 (1.69%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (5.08%) IEC 61508
1 3 (5.08%) IEC 62304
1 3 (5.08%) ISO 26262
2 1 (1.69%) Accessibility
2 1 (1.69%) Data Quality
2 1 (1.69%) HL7
2 1 (1.69%) QA
System Software
1 13 (22.03%) Docker
2 1 (1.69%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 15 (25.42%) Kubernetes
2 9 (15.25%) Terraform
3 5 (8.47%) Ansible
4 3 (5.08%) Podman
4 3 (5.08%) SELinux
5 1 (1.69%) Argo
5 1 (1.69%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 3 (5.08%) Atlassian
1 3 (5.08%) Red Hat
2 2 (3.39%) VMware
3 1 (1.69%) Google
3 1 (1.69%) Microsoft
3 1 (1.69%) Oracle
3 1 (1.69%) Salesforce
3 1 (1.69%) SAP