Engineering Manager Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Engineering Manager
UK > UK excluding London

The median Engineering Manager daily rate in the UK excluding London is £538, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 December 2025.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 375 350 378
Rank change year-on-year -25 +28 +98
Contract jobs requiring an Engineering Manager 17 5 28
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.094% 0.034% 0.14%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.10% 0.037% 0.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 8 2 18
10th Percentile £500 £521 £333
25th Percentile £509 £547 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £602 £628
Median % change year-on-year -10.71% -4.06% +6.81%
75th Percentile £578 £670 £730
90th Percentile £696 £703 £833
UK median daily rate £625 £763 £640
% change year-on-year -18.03% +19.14% -10.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 8
10th Percentile - £58.20 £57.50
25th Percentile £91.25 £58.50 £59.38
Median hourly rate £92.50 £59.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +56.78% -1.67% -
75th Percentile £93.75 £59.50 £62.50
90th Percentile - £59.80 £63.51
UK median hourly rate £71.27 £59.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +20.79% -1.67% -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 16,365 13,654 18,188
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.12% 92.40% 93.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,045 8,137 11,891
10th Percentile £213 £213 £213
25th Percentile £369 £363 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,658 773 1,181
10th Percentile £13.87 £15.36 £14.36
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.24 £18.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -29.16% +84.29%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.25 £33.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -23.48% -26.67% +50.00%

Engineering Manager
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Engineering Manager' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Engineering Manager job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Engineering Manager
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Engineering Manager job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Engineering Manager job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Engineering Manager
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Engineering Manager in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 22 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Engineering Manager in the UK excluding London

Engineering Manager
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Engineering Manager job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Engineering Manager job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Engineering Manager
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Engineering Manager within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 22 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
South East -14 7 £525 +4.17% 14
North West -24 4 £525 - 20
North of England -40 4 £525 -25.00% 26
South West - 3 £550 - 11
Wales - 2 - - 1
Scotland - 1 £550 - 2
Engineering Manager
UK

Engineering Manager Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 22 December 2025, Engineering Manager contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Engineering Manager in the job title.

1 7 (41.18%) Software Engineering
2 5 (29.41%) AWS
2 5 (29.41%) Continuous Improvement
2 5 (29.41%) Java
2 5 (29.41%) Line Management
2 5 (29.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
2 5 (29.41%) Stakeholder Management
3 4 (23.53%) Agile
3 4 (23.53%) Coaching
3 4 (23.53%) Degree
3 4 (23.53%) Microsoft Project
3 4 (23.53%) Technical Leadership
4 3 (17.65%) Budget Management
4 3 (17.65%) CI/CD
4 3 (17.65%) DevOps
4 3 (17.65%) Mentoring
4 3 (17.65%) PRINCE2
4 3 (17.65%) Programme Management
4 3 (17.65%) Project Management
5 2 (11.76%) Azure
5 2 (11.76%) Business Case
5 2 (11.76%) Change Control
5 2 (11.76%) Change Management
5 2 (11.76%) Contract Negotiation
5 2 (11.76%) Decision-Making
5 2 (11.76%) GCP
5 2 (11.76%) Matrix Management
5 2 (11.76%) Matrix Organization
5 2 (11.76%) Microservices
5 2 (11.76%) Microsoft Office

Engineering Manager Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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:

Applications
1 4 (23.53%) Microsoft Project
2 2 (11.76%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (5.88%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (5.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (5.88%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 5 (29.41%) AWS
2 2 (11.76%) Azure
2 2 (11.76%) GCP
3 1 (5.88%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (5.88%) DHCP
1 1 (5.88%) DNS
General
1 7 (41.18%) Finance
2 3 (17.65%) Social Skills
3 1 (5.88%) Documentation Skills
3 1 (5.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 1 (5.88%) Influencing Skills
3 1 (5.88%) Manufacturing
3 1 (5.88%) Public Sector
3 1 (5.88%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (5.88%) Kafka
1 1 (5.88%) Next.js
1 1 (5.88%) React
1 1 (5.88%) Spring
1 1 (5.88%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 2 (11.76%) Data Centre
1 2 (11.76%) Product Ownership
1 2 (11.76%) Virtual Team
2 1 (5.88%) Cloud Native
2 1 (5.88%) Legacy Systems
2 1 (5.88%) Smartcard
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (41.18%) Software Engineering
2 5 (29.41%) Continuous Improvement
2 5 (29.41%) Line Management
2 5 (29.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
2 5 (29.41%) Stakeholder Management
3 4 (23.53%) Agile
3 4 (23.53%) Coaching
3 4 (23.53%) Technical Leadership
4 3 (17.65%) Budget Management
4 3 (17.65%) CI/CD
4 3 (17.65%) DevOps
4 3 (17.65%) Mentoring
4 3 (17.65%) PRINCE2
4 3 (17.65%) Programme Management
4 3 (17.65%) Project Management
5 2 (11.76%) Change Control
5 2 (11.76%) Contract Negotiation
5 2 (11.76%) Microservices
5 2 (11.76%) Observability
5 2 (11.76%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 5 (29.41%) Java
2 1 (5.88%) C#
2 1 (5.88%) JavaScript
2 1 (5.88%) PowerShell
2 1 (5.88%) TypeScript
2 1 (5.88%) VB
Qualifications
1 4 (23.53%) Degree
2 1 (5.88%) Master's Degree
2 1 (5.88%) PMI Certification
2 1 (5.88%) PMP
2 1 (5.88%) SC Cleared
2 1 (5.88%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (11.76%) PCI DSS
1 2 (11.76%) PMO
2 1 (5.88%) GDPR
2 1 (5.88%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 1 (5.88%) Active Directory
1 1 (5.88%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 1 (5.88%) Ansible
1 1 (5.88%) Avamar
1 1 (5.88%) EMC NetWorker
1 1 (5.88%) Terraform
1 1 (5.88%) vCenter Server
1 1 (5.88%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1 (5.88%) Dell
1 1 (5.88%) Microsoft
1 1 (5.88%) Veeam
1 1 (5.88%) VMware