Manufacturing Contract Job Trends in the South East

Manufacturing
England > South East

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Manufacturing in contract job vacancies in the South East. 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 77 47 72
Rank change year-on-year -30 +25 +1
Contract jobs citing Manufacturing 112 151 144
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.58% 4.54% 2.87%
As % of the General category 4.75% 7.75% 5.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 54 89 82
10th Percentile £161 £216 £200
25th Percentile £369 £413 £205
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £550 £456
Median % change year-on-year -11.36% +20.55% -21.00%
75th Percentile £588 £663 £616
90th Percentile £759 £704 £989
England median daily rate £525 £520 £550
% change year-on-year +0.96% -5.45% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 8 21
10th Percentile £18.65 £17.07 £13.05
25th Percentile £20.50 £19.55 £26.00
Median hourly rate £22.00 £34.25 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -35.77% -31.50% +11.11%
75th Percentile £69.65 £50.88 £61.88
90th Percentile £81.00 £76.44 £77.50
England median hourly rate £23.83 £33.00 £40.50
% change year-on-year -27.80% -18.52% -10.00%

All General Skills
South East

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 South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 2,357 1,948 2,796
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 54.26% 58.52% 55.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,567 1,144 1,716
10th Percentile £204 £211 £205
25th Percentile £363 £363 £362
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% - -
75th Percentile £588 £601 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -5.70% -3.59% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 224 74 182
10th Percentile £13.24 £18.56 £15.77
25th Percentile £16.47 £23.67 £24.00
Median hourly rate £21.63 £39.93 £49.87
Median % change year-on-year -45.84% -19.93% +37.35%
75th Percentile £51.53 £62.06 £62.49
90th Percentile £76.99 £66.94 £71.85
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 South East

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

Manufacturing job vacancy trend in the South East

Manufacturing
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Manufacturing.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Manufacturing

Manufacturing
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

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

Daily rate histogram for Manufacturing in the South East

Manufacturing
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Manufacturing.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Manufacturing

Manufacturing
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

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

Hourly rate histogram for Manufacturing in the South East

Manufacturing
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Manufacturing within the South East 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
Thames Valley -38 40 £575 +1.77% 67
Surrey +3 19 £578 +196.41% 13
Berkshire -43 19 £733 +22.08% 38
Kent +5 15 £438 +113.41% 19
Hampshire -47 15 £205 -64.73% 30
Buckinghamshire +3 11 £525 +24.63% 12
Oxfordshire -10 10 £688 +52.78% 17
Isle of Wight +1 8 - - 12
West Sussex -5 8 £400 -50.00% 15
Home Counties 0 1 £1,100 -
East Sussex - 1 - - 13
Manufacturing
England

Manufacturing
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 3 (2.68%) Confluence
2 2 (1.79%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.89%) Anypoint
3 1 (0.89%) CMS
Applications
1 10 (8.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (5.36%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (4.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (3.57%) MS Visio
5 2 (1.79%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.89%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 29 (25.89%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (6.25%) SAP EWM
2 7 (6.25%) SAP WM
3 4 (3.57%) SAP PM
4 3 (2.68%) SAP MM
5 2 (1.79%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (1.79%) NetSuite
5 2 (1.79%) SAP APO
5 2 (1.79%) SAP Oil and Gas
5 2 (1.79%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.89%) Sage 50
6 1 (0.89%) SAP CO
6 1 (0.89%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.89%) SAP FI
6 1 (0.89%) SAP FI/CO
6 1 (0.89%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 6 (5.36%) Azure
2 5 (4.46%) Power Platform
3 4 (3.57%) Dynamics 365
3 4 (3.57%) Lucidchart
4 3 (2.68%) AWS
4 3 (2.68%) GCP
4 3 (2.68%) GitHub
4 3 (2.68%) GitHub Actions
4 3 (2.68%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (2.68%) OCI
5 1 (0.89%) Azure Logic Apps
5 1 (0.89%) Boomi
5 1 (0.89%) Google Ads
5 1 (0.89%) Power Automate
5 1 (0.89%) PowerApps
5 1 (0.89%) SaaS
5 1 (0.89%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 12 (10.71%) BGP
1 12 (10.71%) Firewall
1 12 (10.71%) OSPF
2 9 (8.04%) IPsec
2 9 (8.04%) LAN
2 9 (8.04%) Structured Cabling
2 9 (8.04%) WAN
3 3 (2.68%) Junos
3 3 (2.68%) VPN
4 1 (0.89%) Ethernet VPN
4 1 (0.89%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (4.46%) Power BI
2 3 (2.68%) MySQL
2 3 (2.68%) PostgreSQL
2 3 (2.68%) SAP HANA
3 2 (1.79%) Tableau
4 1 (0.89%) QlikView
Development Applications
1 6 (5.36%) JIRA
2 3 (2.68%) Jenkins
2 3 (2.68%) JUnit
2 3 (2.68%) Storybook
General
1 48 (42.86%) Social Skills
2 38 (33.93%) Finance
3 26 (23.21%) Electronics
3 26 (23.21%) Public Sector
4 25 (22.32%) Marketing
5 22 (19.64%) Telecoms
6 15 (13.39%) Documentation Skills
7 14 (12.50%) Analytical Skills
8 13 (11.61%) Aerospace
9 12 (10.71%) Pharmaceutical
10 10 (8.93%) Organisational Skills
11 8 (7.14%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (1.79%) Automotive
12 2 (1.79%) Military
12 2 (1.79%) Retail
13 1 (0.89%) Agriculture
13 1 (0.89%) Games
13 1 (0.89%) German Language
13 1 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.89%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 20 (17.86%) Lead
2 16 (14.29%) Analyst
3 13 (11.61%) Consultant
4 12 (10.71%) Network Engineer
5 10 (8.93%) IT Support
6 9 (8.04%) SAP Consultant
7 7 (6.25%) Business Analyst
8 6 (5.36%) IT Engineer
8 6 (5.36%) Project Manager
9 5 (4.46%) IT Analyst
9 5 (4.46%) IT Support Analyst
9 5 (4.46%) SAP EWM Consultant
9 5 (4.46%) Support Analyst
9 5 (4.46%) Windows Engineer
10 4 (3.57%) Design Engineer
10 4 (3.57%) Designer
10 4 (3.57%) Migration Engineer
10 4 (3.57%) Principal Engineer
10 4 (3.57%) RF Design Engineer
10 4 (3.57%) RF Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (12.50%) SAP Fiori
2 3 (2.68%) CSS
2 3 (2.68%) HTML
2 3 (2.68%) React
2 3 (2.68%) RESTful
2 3 (2.68%) Spring
2 3 (2.68%) Spring Boot
2 3 (2.68%) Vitest
3 2 (1.79%) Middleware
3 2 (1.79%) SAP PI
4 1 (0.89%) ADO
Miscellaneous
1 9 (8.04%) Life Science
2 8 (7.14%) Data Centre
2 8 (7.14%) Management Information System
2 8 (7.14%) NHS
3 7 (6.25%) Renewable Energy
4 4 (3.57%) FPGA
5 3 (2.68%) Legacy Systems
5 3 (2.68%) Operational Technology
5 3 (2.68%) Virtual Team
6 2 (1.79%) CMDB
6 2 (1.79%) FMCG
6 2 (1.79%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.89%) AI Agents
7 1 (0.89%) AS400
7 1 (0.89%) Cloud Native
7 1 (0.89%) Driving Licence
7 1 (0.89%) Manufacturing Execution System
7 1 (0.89%) Public Cloud
7 1 (0.89%) SCADA
7 1 (0.89%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 8 (7.14%) Windows
2 5 (4.46%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (24.11%) Business Intelligence
2 22 (19.64%) Digital Marketing
2 22 (19.64%) Programme Management
3 20 (17.86%) Workflow
4 17 (15.18%) Logistics
4 17 (15.18%) Problem-Solving
5 16 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
6 15 (13.39%) Agile
6 15 (13.39%) Change Management
6 15 (13.39%) Migration
6 15 (13.39%) Project Management
7 12 (10.71%) Continuous Improvement
8 11 (9.82%) Discrete Manufacturing
8 11 (9.82%) Procure-to-Pay
9 10 (8.93%) Supplier Relationship Management
10 9 (8.04%) ERP
11 8 (7.14%) Customer Requirements
11 8 (7.14%) ITIL
11 8 (7.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 7 (6.25%) Digital Transformation Programme
Programming Languages
1 5 (4.46%) SQL
2 3 (2.68%) Java
2 3 (2.68%) JavaScript
2 3 (2.68%) Python
2 3 (2.68%) TypeScript
3 2 (1.79%) R
4 1 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 38 (33.93%) Security Cleared
2 31 (27.68%) SC Cleared
3 24 (21.43%) Degree
4 9 (8.04%) CCNP
4 9 (8.04%) Cisco Certification
5 8 (7.14%) DV Cleared
6 5 (4.46%) A+ Certification
7 4 (3.57%) HND
8 3 (2.68%) JNCIA
8 3 (2.68%) JNCIP
8 3 (2.68%) JNCIS
8 3 (2.68%) PMI Certification
8 3 (2.68%) PMP
9 2 (1.79%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (1.79%) Six Sigma Black Belt
9 2 (1.79%) Six Sigma Master Black Belt
10 1 (0.89%) APMG
10 1 (0.89%) CCNA
10 1 (0.89%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.89%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (3.57%) ISO 9001
2 3 (2.68%) PMO
3 2 (1.79%) Data Quality
3 2 (1.79%) GDPR
3 2 (1.79%) PMBOK
3 2 (1.79%) QA
4 1 (0.89%) GMP
4 1 (0.89%) NCSC
4 1 (0.89%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.89%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 4 (3.57%) Firmware
2 3 (2.68%) Active Directory
Vendors
1 60 (53.57%) SAP
2 19 (16.96%) Microsoft
3 12 (10.71%) Cisco
4 9 (8.04%) Aruba
4 9 (8.04%) CheckPoint
4 9 (8.04%) Palo Alto
5 7 (6.25%) Oracle
6 5 (4.46%) EMC
7 4 (3.57%) Cadence
8 3 (2.68%) Juniper
9 2 (1.79%) Cognos
9 2 (1.79%) ServiceNow
10 1 (0.89%) Ariba
10 1 (0.89%) MuleSoft
10 1 (0.89%) Pegasus
10 1 (0.89%) PTC
10 1 (0.89%) Sage
10 1 (0.89%) Siemens