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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 19 26
Rank change year-on-year -4 +7 +52
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 114 72 84
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 6.77% 7.78% 5.54%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.03% 8.66% 6.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 61 52 40
10th Percentile £400 £400 £456
25th Percentile £450 £425 £472
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £516 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.08% -6.23% +2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £700 £625
90th Percentile £638 £724 £681
North West median daily rate £488 £500 £549
% change year-on-year -2.55% -8.88% -8.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 1 10
10th Percentile - - £52.05
25th Percentile £52.50 £76.25 £52.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £82.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.30% +32.00% +35.14%
75th Percentile £76.38 £88.75 £72.34
90th Percentile £77.50 - £73.35
North West median hourly rate £59.75 £70.54 £48.00
% change year-on-year -15.30% +46.96% +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 1,419 831 1,323
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 84.31% 89.74% 87.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 899 578 898
10th Percentile £309 £300 £319
25th Percentile £386 £400 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £469 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.21% -6.20% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £595
90th Percentile £650 £675 £694
North West median daily rate £463 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -2.63% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 112 33 75
10th Percentile £21.00 £15.18 £12.44
25th Percentile £36.13 £19.25 £13.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £32.50 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +76.92% +25.00% -30.29%
75th Percentile £77.50 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £94.50 £77.00 £72.50
North West median hourly rate £51.02 £31.88 £21.56
% change year-on-year +60.04% +47.90% -38.41%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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% 2
Bolton - 2 £550 - 2
Stockport - 1 £600 - 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 2 (1.75%) Apache
1 2 (1.75%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 46 (40.35%) AWS
2 22 (19.30%) Azure
3 13 (11.40%) Serverless
4 10 (8.77%) GCP
5 7 (6.14%) GitHub
6 5 (4.39%) AWS Lambda
7 4 (3.51%) GitHub Actions
8 3 (2.63%) Amazon ECS
8 3 (2.63%) AWS Fargate
9 2 (1.75%) Amazon EC2
9 2 (1.75%) Amazon OpenSearch
9 2 (1.75%) Amazon S3
9 2 (1.75%) Azure AI
9 2 (1.75%) Azure Cognitive Search
9 2 (1.75%) Azure Functions
9 2 (1.75%) Azure Logic Apps
9 2 (1.75%) Firebase
9 2 (1.75%) Power Platform
9 2 (1.75%) SaaS
10 1 (0.88%) Amazon SQS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (7.89%) PostgreSQL
2 7 (6.14%) Elasticsearch
3 5 (4.39%) MySQL
3 5 (4.39%) NoSQL
3 5 (4.39%) SQL Server
4 3 (2.63%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (2.63%) DynamoDB
4 3 (2.63%) Redis
5 2 (1.75%) MongoDB
5 2 (1.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.88%) Mixpanel
6 1 (0.88%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 15 (13.16%) GitLab
2 14 (12.28%) Gradle
3 11 (9.65%) Git
3 11 (9.65%) IntelliJ
4 6 (5.26%) CocoaPods
5 5 (4.39%) Selenium
6 4 (3.51%) Postman
7 3 (2.63%) Cypress.io
7 3 (2.63%) JIRA
7 3 (2.63%) JMeter
8 2 (1.75%) Cucumber
8 2 (1.75%) Maven
9 1 (0.88%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.88%) fastlane
9 1 (0.88%) Jenkins
9 1 (0.88%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.88%) Robot Framework
9 1 (0.88%) SonarQube
General
1 16 (14.04%) Social Skills
2 10 (8.77%) Retail
3 9 (7.89%) Finance
4 8 (7.02%) Public Sector
5 3 (2.63%) Games
6 2 (1.75%) Automotive
7 1 (0.88%) Banking
7 1 (0.88%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.88%) Health Technology
7 1 (0.88%) Marketing
7 1 (0.88%) Military
7 1 (0.88%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 82 (71.93%) Software Engineer
2 28 (24.56%) Senior
3 25 (21.93%) Senior Software Engineer
4 23 (20.18%) Java Engineer
5 22 (19.30%) Java Software Engineer
6 11 (9.65%) Lead
7 10 (8.77%) Developer
8 6 (5.26%) Architect
8 6 (5.26%) iOS Software Engineer
8 6 (5.26%) Java Developer
8 6 (5.26%) Principal Engineer
8 6 (5.26%) Principal Software Engineer
9 5 (4.39%) AWS Engineer
9 5 (4.39%) AWS Software Engineer
9 5 (4.39%) Front-End Engineer (Client-Side Engineer)
9 5 (4.39%) Software Developer
10 4 (3.51%) DV Cleared Software Engineer
10 4 (3.51%) Lead Developer
11 3 (2.63%) Full-Stack Developer
11 3 (2.63%) Python Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (27.19%) Spring
2 28 (24.56%) Spring Boot
3 25 (21.93%) React
4 19 (16.67%) Node.js
5 12 (10.53%) REST
6 11 (9.65%) OpenTelemetry
7 9 (7.89%) AngularJS
7 9 (7.89%) GraphQL
7 9 (7.89%) RESTful
8 6 (5.26%) AWS CDK
8 6 (5.26%) CSS
8 6 (5.26%) OAuth
8 6 (5.26%) OpenID
9 4 (3.51%) Core Media
9 4 (3.51%) HTML
9 4 (3.51%) Kafka
9 4 (3.51%) Nunjucks
9 4 (3.51%) OAuth2
9 4 (3.51%) RabbitMQ
9 4 (3.51%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 19 (16.67%) Cloud Native
2 15 (13.16%) Product Ownership
3 4 (3.51%) Distributed Systems
3 4 (3.51%) Mobile App
4 3 (2.63%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (1.75%) Distributed Architecture
5 2 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (1.75%) NHS
5 2 (1.75%) Onboarding
6 1 (0.88%) Algorithms
6 1 (0.88%) Culture of Ownership
6 1 (0.88%) Private Cloud
6 1 (0.88%) Replication
6 1 (0.88%) SCADA
6 1 (0.88%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.88%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 7 (6.14%) Apple iOS
1 7 (6.14%) Linux
2 2 (1.75%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 33 (28.95%) CI/CD
2 26 (22.81%) Agile
2 26 (22.81%) Microservices
3 23 (20.18%) DevOps
4 20 (17.54%) Full-Stack Development
5 16 (14.04%) Observability
6 14 (12.28%) Code Quality
6 14 (12.28%) TDD
7 13 (11.40%) Event-Driven
7 13 (11.40%) Test Automation
8 12 (10.53%) Technical Leadership
9 11 (9.65%) Event-Driven Architecture
9 11 (9.65%) Machine Learning
10 10 (8.77%) Mentoring
11 9 (7.89%) Design Patterns
11 9 (7.89%) User Experience
12 8 (7.02%) Containerisation
12 8 (7.02%) Continuous Improvement
12 8 (7.02%) Infrastructure as Code
12 8 (7.02%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 56 (49.12%) Java
2 32 (28.07%) TypeScript
3 22 (19.30%) JavaScript
4 16 (14.04%) Python
5 14 (12.28%) Kotlin
6 8 (7.02%) SQL
7 7 (6.14%) Rust
8 6 (5.26%) Go
8 6 (5.26%) Objective-C
8 6 (5.26%) Swift
9 5 (4.39%) C#
10 2 (1.75%) Ruby
11 1 (0.88%) Scala
Qualifications
1 14 (12.28%) Security Cleared
2 8 (7.02%) AWS Certification
3 7 (6.14%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
3 7 (6.14%) SC Cleared
4 6 (5.26%) DV Cleared
5 1 (0.88%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (0.88%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (7.02%) QA
2 6 (5.26%) Accessibility
3 4 (3.51%) GDPR
3 4 (3.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 1 (0.88%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.88%) HL7
System Software
1 17 (14.91%) Docker
2 1 (0.88%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 31 (27.19%) Kubernetes
2 16 (14.04%) Grafana
3 11 (9.65%) Terraform
4 4 (3.51%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 4 (3.51%) Microsoft
2 3 (2.63%) OpenAI
2 3 (2.63%) PagerDuty
2 3 (2.63%) SAP
3 2 (1.75%) Foundry
4 1 (0.88%) Google
4 1 (0.88%) Oracle
4 1 (0.88%) Salesforce
4 1 (0.88%) Siemens
4 1 (0.88%) Sitecore
4 1 (0.88%) VMware