Manufacturing Contract Job Trends in the North West

Manufacturing
England > North West

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Manufacturing in contract job vacancies in the North West. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Manufacturing over the 6 months leading up to 13 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 63 58
Rank change year-on-year -7 -5 +50
Contract jobs citing Manufacturing 78 59 81
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.14% 2.88% 3.01%
As % of the General category 5.20% 4.92% 5.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 38 20 35
10th Percentile £170 £446 £408
25th Percentile £400 £463 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £584 £575
Median % change year-on-year -11.17% +1.57% +27.78%
75th Percentile £638 £647 £725
90th Percentile £700 £752 £738
England median daily rate £525 £520 £550
% change year-on-year +0.96% -5.45% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 9 19
10th Percentile - £24.15 £21.12
25th Percentile £19.00 £24.25 £30.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £31.50 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -11.27% -16.20%
75th Percentile £64.38 £33.00 £40.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £38.50 £44.00
England median hourly rate £23.83 £33.00 £40.50
% change year-on-year -27.80% -18.52% -10.00%

All General Skills
North West

Manufacturing falls under the General Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring general skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 1,499 1,198 1,464
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 60.37% 58.55% 54.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 965 645 950
10th Percentile £199 £260 £256
25th Percentile £350 £360 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £638 £678 £700
England median daily rate £500 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -5.70% -3.59% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 125 86 119
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.69 £12.97
25th Percentile £18.50 £19.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.60 £27.26 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.60% +23.89% +3.41%
75th Percentile £45.46 £42.63 £43.75
90th Percentile £67.84 £66.59 £52.78
England median hourly rate £23.02 £29.00 £30.48
% change year-on-year -20.64% -4.84% +18.53%

Manufacturing
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Manufacturing relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Manufacturing job vacancy trend in the North West

Manufacturing
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Manufacturing.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Manufacturing

Manufacturing
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Manufacturing in the North West over the 6 months to 13 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Manufacturing in the North West

Manufacturing
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Manufacturing.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Manufacturing

Manufacturing
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Manufacturing in the North West over the 6 months to 13 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Manufacturing in the North West

Manufacturing
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Manufacturing within the North West region over the 6 months to 13 January 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
Manchester +13 35 £600 +15.38% 34
Cheshire -22 19 £513 +7.89% 24
Cumbria +7 13 £700 - 7
Lancashire -6 9 £325 - 20
Merseyside -15 2 £500 -20.00% 11
Manufacturing
England

Manufacturing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 (6.41%) Exchange Server 2010
1 5 (6.41%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.28%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (1.28%) CMS
2 1 (1.28%) Resin
2 1 (1.28%) SharePoint
Applications
1 13 (16.67%) Siemens NX
2 7 (8.97%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (2.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (2.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (1.28%) PTC Creo
4 1 (1.28%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (1.28%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 14 (17.95%) Teamcenter
2 2 (2.56%) Dynamics AX
2 2 (2.56%) SAP CO
2 2 (2.56%) SAP FI
2 2 (2.56%) SAP FI/CO
2 2 (2.56%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (1.28%) ENOVIA
3 1 (1.28%) Oracle ASCP
3 1 (1.28%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (1.28%) Oracle SCM
3 1 (1.28%) SAP BPC
Cloud Services
1 7 (8.97%) Microsoft 365
2 3 (3.85%) AWS
2 3 (3.85%) Azure
2 3 (3.85%) Power Platform
3 2 (2.56%) Dynamics 365
3 2 (2.56%) GCP
4 1 (1.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 1 (1.28%) Amazon EC2
4 1 (1.28%) Amazon S3
4 1 (1.28%) GitHub
4 1 (1.28%) GitHub Actions
4 1 (1.28%) IaaS
4 1 (1.28%) Lucidchart
4 1 (1.28%) OneDrive
4 1 (1.28%) SaaS
4 1 (1.28%) Smartsheet
Communications & Networking
1 5 (6.41%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (3.85%) Power BI
1 3 (3.85%) SQL Server
2 2 (2.56%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 1 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
3 1 (1.28%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.28%) MySQL
3 1 (1.28%) Neo4j
3 1 (1.28%) Power Query
3 1 (1.28%) Redis
3 1 (1.28%) Relational Database
3 1 (1.28%) SAP BW
3 1 (1.28%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 2 (2.56%) Jenkins
2 1 (1.28%) Artifactory
2 1 (1.28%) Git
2 1 (1.28%) Hudson
2 1 (1.28%) JIRA
2 1 (1.28%) Rational DOORS
General
1 27 (34.62%) Social Skills
2 19 (24.36%) Finance
3 15 (19.23%) Aerospace
4 14 (17.95%) Electronics
4 14 (17.95%) Public Sector
5 10 (12.82%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (12.82%) Marketing
5 10 (12.82%) Telecoms
6 5 (6.41%) Organisational Skills
7 4 (5.13%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (1.28%) Agriculture
8 1 (1.28%) Law
Job Titles
1 11 (14.10%) Architect
2 10 (12.82%) 2nd Line Support
2 10 (12.82%) Analyst
3 8 (10.26%) IT Support
4 7 (8.97%) Lead
4 7 (8.97%) Support Technician
5 6 (7.69%) Consultant
5 6 (7.69%) Data Analyst
6 5 (6.41%) 1st/2nd Line Support
6 5 (6.41%) 1st/2nd Line Support Technician
6 5 (6.41%) 2nd Line Desktop Support
6 5 (6.41%) 2nd Line Support Technician
6 5 (6.41%) Desktop Support
6 5 (6.41%) ICT Support
6 5 (6.41%) ICT Support Technician
6 5 (6.41%) ICT Technician
6 5 (6.41%) SC Cleared Desktop Support
7 4 (5.13%) Project Manager
8 3 (3.85%) Graduate
8 3 (3.85%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (1.28%) Bootstrap
1 1 (1.28%) HTML
1 1 (1.28%) Laravel
1 1 (1.28%) Node.js
1 1 (1.28%) RabbitMQ
1 1 (1.28%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 8 (10.26%) Analytical Mindset
2 6 (7.69%) Fibre Optics
3 5 (6.41%) Data Centre
4 4 (5.13%) Operational Technology
5 3 (3.85%) FMCG
6 2 (2.56%) Life Science
6 2 (2.56%) Renewable Energy
6 2 (2.56%) SCADA
7 1 (1.28%) 3D Printing
7 1 (1.28%) Data Fabric
7 1 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (1.28%) Data Structures
7 1 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (1.28%) Driving Licence
7 1 (1.28%) Industrial Internet of Things
7 1 (1.28%) Manufacturing Execution System
7 1 (1.28%) Onboarding
7 1 (1.28%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 6 (7.69%) Android
1 6 (7.69%) Mac OS
2 2 (2.56%) Apple iOS
2 2 (2.56%) Windows
2 2 (2.56%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (19.23%) Mentoring
2 14 (17.95%) Knowledge Transfer
3 13 (16.67%) Business Intelligence
3 13 (16.67%) PLM
4 12 (15.38%) Stakeholder Management
5 11 (14.10%) Programme Management
6 10 (12.82%) Digital Marketing
6 10 (12.82%) Knowledge Management
6 10 (12.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 10 (12.82%) Visualisation
7 9 (11.54%) CAD
7 9 (11.54%) ERP
7 9 (11.54%) Problem-Solving
8 8 (10.26%) Coaching
8 8 (10.26%) Use Case
9 6 (7.69%) Customer Service
9 6 (7.69%) Instructional Design
9 6 (7.69%) Migration
9 6 (7.69%) Service Delivery
10 5 (6.41%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 4 (5.13%) SQL
2 3 (3.85%) Python
3 2 (2.56%) C
3 2 (2.56%) C++
3 2 (2.56%) Java
3 2 (2.56%) X++
4 1 (1.28%) PHP
4 1 (1.28%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 26 (33.33%) Security Cleared
2 25 (32.05%) SC Cleared
3 1 (1.28%) AWS Certification
3 1 (1.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
3 1 (1.28%) Azure Certification
3 1 (1.28%) BPSS Clearance
3 1 (1.28%) Degree
3 1 (1.28%) ISTQB
3 1 (1.28%) Oracle Certification
3 1 (1.28%) PMI Certification
3 1 (1.28%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (7.69%) QA
2 2 (2.56%) Data Quality
2 2 (2.56%) IEC 61508
2 2 (2.56%) ISO 26262
2 2 (2.56%) NIST
2 2 (2.56%) SLA
3 1 (1.28%) IEC 61131
3 1 (1.28%) IEC 62304
3 1 (1.28%) PMBOK
3 1 (1.28%) PMO
System Software
1 6 (7.69%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.28%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (1.28%) Kubernetes
1 1 (1.28%) MOM
1 1 (1.28%) SCCM
1 1 (1.28%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
1 1 (1.28%) Wonderware InTouch
Vendors
1 20 (25.64%) SAP
2 16 (20.51%) Siemens
3 13 (16.67%) Microsoft
4 6 (7.69%) Apple
5 5 (6.41%) Cisco
5 5 (6.41%) Dell
5 5 (6.41%) HP
6 4 (5.13%) ServiceNow
7 2 (2.56%) Wonderware
8 1 (1.28%) Atlassian
8 1 (1.28%) AVEVA
8 1 (1.28%) Google
8 1 (1.28%) IFS
8 1 (1.28%) OpenText
8 1 (1.28%) Oracle
8 1 (1.28%) PTC
8 1 (1.28%) Rockwell
8 1 (1.28%) Sage