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 vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 September 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 42 48
Rank change year-on-year +17 +6 -10
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 69 43 59
As % of all contract jobs advertised in Manchester 6.91% 3.64% 3.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 7.69% 4.16% 3.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 41 24 33
10th Percentile £380 £416 £411
25th Percentile £400 £425 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% -8.33%
75th Percentile £575 £581 £700
90th Percentile £650 £650 £738
North West median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% -10.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 2 4
10th Percentile £71.05 £63.20 £56.88
25th Percentile £72.63 £64.25 £59.69
Median hourly rate £80.75 £69.50 £63.75
Median % change year-on-year +16.19% +9.02% -1.92%
75th Percentile £90.31 £73.75 £68.13
90th Percentile £93.13 £74.20 £73.75
North West median hourly rate £70.00 £42.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year +64.71% -7.97% -20.31%

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 897 1,033 1,497
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 89.79% 87.39% 88.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 581 621 1,073
10th Percentile £311 £313 £277
25th Percentile £400 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.60% - -
75th Percentile £580 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £675
North West median daily rate £454 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -8.01% -1.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 34 60
10th Percentile £15.71 £15.94 £15.72
25th Percentile £19.07 £21.44 £16.79
Median hourly rate £22.63 £35.00 £19.75
Median % change year-on-year -35.34% +77.22% -1.25%
75th Percentile £39.31 £62.50 £43.75
90th Percentile £74.13 £87.45 £70.00
North West median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -40.82% +21.43% +57.30%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

Job postings citing Software Engineering as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in Manchester.

Job vacancy trend for Software Engineering 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 21 September 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in Manchester

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineering in Manchester over the 6 months to 21 September 2025.

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 21 September 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
Salford +4 2 £390 -13.33% 4
Software Engineering
North West

Software Engineering
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in Manchester by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 1 (1.45%) Apache
1 1 (1.45%) Apache Airflow
1 1 (1.45%) Confluence
Applications
1 1 (1.45%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 22 (31.88%) AWS
2 7 (10.14%) Serverless
3 6 (8.70%) AWS Lambda
4 5 (7.25%) GCP
5 4 (5.80%) Amazon EC2
5 4 (5.80%) Apigee
6 3 (4.35%) Amazon ECS
6 3 (4.35%) Amazon EKS
6 3 (4.35%) Amazon MSK
6 3 (4.35%) Amazon SQS
6 3 (4.35%) AWS CloudFormation
6 3 (4.35%) GitHub
7 2 (2.90%) Amazon EventBridge
7 2 (2.90%) Amazon S3
7 2 (2.90%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (1.45%) Azure
8 1 (1.45%) Google Workspace
8 1 (1.45%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (1.45%) OpenShift
8 1 (1.45%) SaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (20.29%) MongoDB
2 11 (15.94%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (11.59%) Relational Database
4 6 (8.70%) NoSQL
5 3 (4.35%) Amazon Aurora
5 3 (4.35%) Apache Cassandra
5 3 (4.35%) DynamoDB
5 3 (4.35%) MySQL
6 2 (2.90%) DocumentDB
7 1 (1.45%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (1.45%) Power BI
7 1 (1.45%) SQL Server
7 1 (1.45%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 21 (30.43%) Jenkins
2 11 (15.94%) GitLab
2 11 (15.94%) Mockito
3 9 (13.04%) Gradle
3 9 (13.04%) JUnit
4 8 (11.59%) JIRA
4 8 (11.59%) Liquibase
5 6 (8.70%) Rational DOORS
6 4 (5.80%) Artifactory
6 4 (5.80%) CircleCI
6 4 (5.80%) Git
7 3 (4.35%) Cypress.io
8 1 (1.45%) Bitbucket
8 1 (1.45%) Maven
8 1 (1.45%) Rational Rhapsody
8 1 (1.45%) Robot Framework
8 1 (1.45%) SonarQube
8 1 (1.45%) XCTest
8 1 (1.45%) XCUITest
General
1 20 (28.99%) Public Sector
2 14 (20.29%) Finance
3 13 (18.84%) Social Skills
4 9 (13.04%) Electronics
4 9 (13.04%) Manufacturing
4 9 (13.04%) Marketing
4 9 (13.04%) Telecoms
5 4 (5.80%) Military
6 3 (4.35%) Documentation Skills
6 3 (4.35%) Retail
7 2 (2.90%) Analytical Skills
8 1 (1.45%) Automotive
8 1 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 41 (59.42%) Software Engineer
2 17 (24.64%) Lead
3 16 (23.19%) Senior
4 14 (20.29%) Lead Software Engineer
5 12 (17.39%) Developer
5 12 (17.39%) Senior Software Engineer
6 7 (10.14%) Java Developer
7 6 (8.70%) Java Engineer
7 6 (8.70%) Java Software Engineer
8 5 (7.25%) AWS Engineer
8 5 (7.25%) AWS Software Engineer
9 4 (5.80%) Architect
9 4 (5.80%) DevSecOps Engineer
9 4 (5.80%) Kafka Developer
9 4 (5.80%) React Developer
9 4 (5.80%) SC Cleared Java Developer
9 4 (5.80%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
10 3 (4.35%) Software Architect
11 2 (2.90%) Engineering Manager
11 2 (2.90%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (30.43%) Kafka
2 18 (26.09%) React
3 14 (20.29%) Spring
4 12 (17.39%) Node.js
4 12 (17.39%) Spring Boot
5 9 (13.04%) OpenAPI
5 9 (13.04%) Swagger
6 6 (8.70%) RESTful
7 4 (5.80%) AWS CDK
8 3 (4.35%) ActiveMQ
8 3 (4.35%) AngularJS
8 3 (4.35%) GraphQL
8 3 (4.35%) JAX-RS
8 3 (4.35%) OAuth
8 3 (4.35%) Playwright
8 3 (4.35%) Puppeteer
8 3 (4.35%) Spring Batch
8 3 (4.35%) Spring Security
9 2 (2.90%) .NET
9 2 (2.90%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 10 (14.49%) Cloud Native
2 3 (4.35%) Data Protection Act
2 3 (4.35%) Distributed Systems
2 3 (4.35%) Greenfield Project
3 2 (2.90%) Embedded Systems
3 2 (2.90%) Product Ownership
3 2 (2.90%) Video\Live Streaming
4 1 (1.45%) Cyber Threat
4 1 (1.45%) IoT
4 1 (1.45%) Mobile App
4 1 (1.45%) Security Posture
4 1 (1.45%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 8 (11.59%) Linux
2 3 (4.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (2.90%) Android
4 1 (1.45%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (46.38%) CI/CD
2 28 (40.58%) Agile
2 28 (40.58%) Containerisation
2 28 (40.58%) Microservices
3 24 (34.78%) DevOps
4 20 (28.99%) TDD
5 12 (17.39%) Infrastructure as Code
5 12 (17.39%) Migration
6 10 (14.49%) Business Intelligence
7 9 (13.04%) Digital Marketing
7 9 (13.04%) Mentoring
7 9 (13.04%) Programme Management
7 9 (13.04%) Software Architecture
8 8 (11.59%) DevSecOps
8 8 (11.59%) Event-Driven
9 7 (10.14%) Coaching
9 7 (10.14%) Event-Driven Architecture
9 7 (10.14%) Test Automation
9 7 (10.14%) UML
10 6 (8.70%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 38 (55.07%) Java
2 23 (33.33%) TypeScript
3 19 (27.54%) SQL
4 15 (21.74%) Python
5 12 (17.39%) Bash
6 8 (11.59%) JavaScript
7 6 (8.70%) C++
8 3 (4.35%) C
9 2 (2.90%) Kotlin
10 1 (1.45%) C#
10 1 (1.45%) Rust
10 1 (1.45%) Scala
10 1 (1.45%) SPARQL
10 1 (1.45%) Swift
Qualifications
1 23 (33.33%) Security Cleared
2 17 (24.64%) SC Cleared
3 2 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
4 1 (1.45%) Degree
4 1 (1.45%) DV Cleared
4 1 (1.45%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (4.35%) IEC 61508
1 3 (4.35%) IEC 62304
1 3 (4.35%) ISO 26262
2 1 (1.45%) Accessibility
2 1 (1.45%) GDPR
2 1 (1.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 21 (30.43%) Docker
2 1 (1.45%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 16 (23.19%) Kubernetes
2 9 (13.04%) Terraform
3 4 (5.80%) Ansible
4 3 (4.35%) Grafana
4 3 (4.35%) Podman
4 3 (4.35%) Prometheus
4 3 (4.35%) SELinux
5 1 (1.45%) Argo
5 1 (1.45%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 9 (13.04%) SAP
2 5 (7.25%) Google
3 4 (5.80%) Atlassian
4 3 (4.35%) PagerDuty
4 3 (4.35%) Red Hat
5 1 (1.45%) Microsoft
5 1 (1.45%) Oracle
5 1 (1.45%) Ping Identity
5 1 (1.45%) Salesforce
5 1 (1.45%) SendGrid
5 1 (1.45%) VMware