Aerospace Contract Job Trends

Aerospace
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Aerospace in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Aerospace over the 6 months leading up to 15 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 294 403 291
Rank change year-on-year +109 -112 +116
Contract jobs citing Aerospace 349 131 345
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.87% 0.42% 0.77%
As % of the General category 1.49% 0.68% 1.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 108 37 70
10th Percentile £153 £345 £258
25th Percentile £425 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £548 £605
Median % change year-on-year -8.76% -9.42% +10.00%
75th Percentile £616 £638 £674
90th Percentile £713 £673 £739
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £536 £600
% change year-on-year -6.72% -10.67% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 147 38 163
10th Percentile £30.00 £30.11 £21.25
25th Percentile £42.00 £39.95 £40.00
Median hourly rate £57.35 £60.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.42% +9.09% -15.38%
75th Percentile £69.37 £67.50 £68.75
90th Percentile £79.90 £73.75 £75.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.35 £60.25 £55.00
% change year-on-year -4.81% +9.55% -15.06%

All General Skills
UK

Aerospace 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 23,451 19,163 26,334
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 58.69% 62.00% 58.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,684 11,535 16,994
10th Percentile £293 £285 £266
25th Percentile £403 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £649 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £479 £500
% change year-on-year -0.84% -4.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,446 605 1,635
10th Percentile £13.70 £15.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £16.36 £20.12 £15.00
Median hourly rate £22.85 £29.00 £25.25
Median % change year-on-year -21.21% +14.85% -4.72%
75th Percentile £50.00 £57.50 £53.75
90th Percentile £71.75 £75.00 £67.71
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.80 £27.00 £24.00
% change year-on-year -19.26% +12.50% -3.19%

Aerospace
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Aerospace relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Aerospace job vacancy trend in the UK

Aerospace
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Aerospace.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Aerospace

Aerospace
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Aerospace over the 6 months to 15 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Aerospace in the UK

Aerospace
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Aerospace.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Aerospace

Aerospace
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Aerospace over the 6 months to 15 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Aerospace in the UK

Aerospace
Top 15 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Aerospace within the UK over the 6 months to 15 February 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
UK excluding London +69 303 £500 -6.72% 362
England +78 293 £505 -7.76% 363
South West +39 98 £450 -17.88% 90
East of England +33 74 £492 -18.00% 57
Work from Home +5 54 £510 -23.88% 115
South East +6 53 £581 +28.13% 104
Midlands -50 26 £650 +92.59% 41
Scotland +25 24 £65 -84.71% 21
London -10 21 £650 +7.88% 26
North of England -60 19 £70 -87.98% 57
East Midlands -17 18 £650 - 11
North West -35 12 £78 -86.55% 47
Wales +6 9 £550 - 9
West Midlands -50 8 - - 30
North East -6 7 £70 - 3

Aerospace
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 6 (1.72%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.15%) CMS
3 3 (0.86%) Confluence
4 2 (0.57%) Apache
5 1 (0.29%) Alfresco
5 1 (0.29%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.29%) Documentum
5 1 (0.29%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 15 (4.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (2.01%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.72%) Simulink
4 4 (1.15%) Stateflow
5 3 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.86%) Siemens NX
6 2 (0.57%) CATIA
6 2 (0.57%) FrameMaker
6 2 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.29%) PTC Creo
7 1 (0.29%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.29%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 17 (4.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (3.15%) Teamcenter
3 9 (2.58%) SAP EHS
4 5 (1.43%) SAP HCM
5 3 (0.86%) SAP MM
6 2 (0.57%) SAP EWM
6 2 (0.57%) SAP GRC
6 2 (0.57%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 2 (0.57%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.57%) SAP PS
7 1 (0.29%) Demantra
7 1 (0.29%) Primavera
7 1 (0.29%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.29%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.29%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.29%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 13 (3.72%) Azure
2 8 (2.29%) AWS
3 7 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
4 6 (1.72%) Power Platform
5 4 (1.15%) Azure DevOps
5 4 (1.15%) Google Workspace
5 4 (1.15%) OpenShift
6 3 (0.86%) GitHub
6 3 (0.86%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (0.57%) Smartsheet
8 1 (0.29%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.29%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 1 (0.29%) Azure Monitor
8 1 (0.29%) Azure Sentinel
8 1 (0.29%) Entra ID
8 1 (0.29%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.29%) Firewall
2 6 (1.72%) PABX
3 4 (1.15%) DHCP
3 4 (1.15%) DNS
4 3 (0.86%) Ethernet
4 3 (0.86%) VPN
5 2 (0.57%) Cisco ASA
5 2 (0.57%) Network Security
5 2 (0.57%) SpaceWire
5 2 (0.57%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.29%) BGP
6 1 (0.29%) Cisco Wireless
6 1 (0.29%) MPLS
6 1 (0.29%) Multicast
6 1 (0.29%) NX-OS
6 1 (0.29%) OSPF
6 1 (0.29%) SAN
6 1 (0.29%) VLAN
6 1 (0.29%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.29%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.72%) Power BI
2 3 (0.86%) MongoDB
2 3 (0.86%) SAP HANA
3 2 (0.57%) Metadata
4 1 (0.29%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.29%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 12 (3.44%) Git
2 11 (3.15%) Rational DOORS
3 10 (2.87%) GitLab
4 6 (1.72%) Jenkins
5 4 (1.15%) Rational Team Concert
6 3 (0.86%) JIRA
6 3 (0.86%) Maven
7 2 (0.57%) Rational Rhapsody
7 2 (0.57%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.29%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 79 (22.64%) Manufacturing
2 69 (19.77%) Social Skills
3 24 (6.88%) Aviation
4 21 (6.02%) Automotive
5 18 (5.16%) Electronics
6 16 (4.58%) Analytical Skills
7 13 (3.72%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (3.44%) Finance
8 12 (3.44%) Organisational Skills
8 12 (3.44%) Pharmaceutical
9 9 (2.58%) Military
10 5 (1.43%) Avionics
10 5 (1.43%) Legal
10 5 (1.43%) Publishing
11 4 (1.15%) Environmental Health
11 4 (1.15%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (1.15%) Public Sector
12 2 (0.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 2 (0.57%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.29%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 44 (12.61%) Software Engineer
2 40 (11.46%) Systems Engineer
3 38 (10.89%) Senior
4 24 (6.88%) Support Engineer
5 22 (6.30%) Lead
6 21 (6.02%) Architect
6 21 (6.02%) Principal Engineer
7 20 (5.73%) Technical Support
8 18 (5.16%) Consultant
9 17 (4.87%) Technical Engineer
10 16 (4.58%) Technical Support Engineer
11 14 (4.01%) Administrator
12 13 (3.72%) Electrical Engineer
13 12 (3.44%) Analyst
14 11 (3.15%) Test Engineer
15 10 (2.87%) IT Engineer
16 9 (2.58%) Principal Software Engineer
16 9 (2.58%) Project Engineer
16 9 (2.58%) Project Manager
16 9 (2.58%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (3.44%) SAP Fiori
2 10 (2.87%) Middleware
3 5 (1.43%) LDAP
3 5 (1.43%) XML
4 4 (1.15%) Elastic Stack
4 4 (1.15%) Kafka
5 3 (0.86%) Flash
5 3 (0.86%) HTML
5 3 (0.86%) ModSecurity
5 3 (0.86%) OpenID
5 3 (0.86%) Qt
5 3 (0.86%) REST
5 3 (0.86%) SAML
5 3 (0.86%) Spring Boot
6 2 (0.57%) Apache NiFi
6 2 (0.57%) Unity (Game Engine)
6 2 (0.57%) Unreal Engine
7 1 (0.29%) Azure Blueprints
7 1 (0.29%) IDoc
7 1 (0.29%) Quarkus
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.87%) Self-Motivation
2 14 (4.01%) FPGA
2 14 (4.01%) Management Information System
3 10 (2.87%) Operational Technology
4 9 (2.58%) Legacy Systems
5 8 (2.29%) VHDL
6 7 (2.01%) Security Posture
7 6 (1.72%) Algorithms
7 6 (1.72%) Data Centre
7 6 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
7 6 (1.72%) PCIe
7 6 (1.72%) SCADA
7 6 (1.72%) Smartphone
8 5 (1.43%) Greenfield Project
9 4 (1.15%) Learning Management System
9 4 (1.15%) Onboarding
9 4 (1.15%) Product Ownership
10 3 (0.86%) CAN bus
10 3 (0.86%) State Machine
10 3 (0.86%) Verilog
Operating Systems
1 25 (7.16%) Windows
2 18 (5.16%) Linux
3 7 (2.01%) Windows 10
4 6 (1.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (1.43%) CentOS
5 5 (1.43%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.86%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.86%) Windows Server 2016
6 3 (0.86%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.57%) Debian
8 1 (0.29%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2003
8 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (16.05%) Software Engineering
2 35 (10.03%) Continuous Improvement
3 33 (9.46%) Problem-Solving
4 29 (8.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 29 (8.31%) Stakeholder Management
4 29 (8.31%) Validation
5 27 (7.74%) Cybersecurity
6 26 (7.45%) Configuration Management
7 25 (7.16%) Systems Engineering
8 22 (6.30%) Agile
9 20 (5.73%) Project Management
10 19 (5.44%) Data Management
10 19 (5.44%) Risk Management
11 18 (5.16%) PLM
12 16 (4.58%) Roadmaps
13 15 (4.30%) Analytics
13 15 (4.30%) Decision-Making
13 15 (4.30%) Software Testing
13 15 (4.30%) Verification and Validation
14 14 (4.01%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 27 (7.74%) Ada
2 23 (6.59%) C++
3 20 (5.73%) C
4 17 (4.87%) Python
5 16 (4.58%) MATLAB
6 8 (2.29%) C#
7 6 (1.72%) PowerShell
7 6 (1.72%) Shell Script
8 5 (1.43%) Java
9 4 (1.15%) Fortran
10 3 (0.86%) Bash
10 3 (0.86%) JavaScript
10 3 (0.86%) SQL
10 3 (0.86%) SystemVerilog
11 2 (0.57%) ABAP
12 1 (0.29%) Embedded C++
12 1 (0.29%) Google Apps Script
12 1 (0.29%) SAPscript
12 1 (0.29%) VBA
Qualifications
1 170 (48.71%) Security Cleared
2 111 (31.81%) SC Cleared
3 31 (8.88%) Degree
4 23 (6.59%) BPSS Clearance
5 22 (6.30%) DV Cleared
6 5 (1.43%) CISSP
6 5 (1.43%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (1.15%) AWS Certification
7 4 (1.15%) Azure Certification
7 4 (1.15%) CISM
7 4 (1.15%) PMP
8 3 (0.86%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (0.86%) CompTIA Security+
8 3 (0.86%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (0.86%) PMI Certification
8 3 (0.86%) TOGAF Certification
9 2 (0.57%) CCNA
9 2 (0.57%) Chartered Engineer
9 2 (0.57%) HNC
9 2 (0.57%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.44%) Def Stans
2 16 (4.58%) QA
3 13 (3.72%) NIST
4 7 (2.01%) SLA
5 6 (1.72%) Cyber Essentials
5 6 (1.72%) ECSS
5 6 (1.72%) ISO 9001
5 6 (1.72%) NCSC
6 5 (1.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 5 (1.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (1.43%) NIST 800
7 4 (1.15%) Data Quality
7 4 (1.15%) IEC 61508
7 4 (1.15%) JSP 440
8 3 (0.86%) GRC
8 3 (0.86%) MISRA
8 3 (0.86%) MISRA C
8 3 (0.86%) PMO
9 2 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.57%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 14 (4.01%) Active Directory
2 7 (2.01%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (1.43%) Docker
3 5 (1.43%) Firmware
4 4 (1.15%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.57%) QEMU
6 1 (0.29%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 1 (0.29%) Terminal Services
6 1 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 11 (3.15%) Ansible
2 8 (2.29%) Kubernetes
2 8 (2.29%) Podman
3 5 (1.43%) Check_MK
3 5 (1.43%) Red Hat Satellite
4 4 (1.15%) Grafana
4 4 (1.15%) Prometheus
4 4 (1.15%) Terraform
5 3 (0.86%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
5 3 (0.86%) PingFederate
6 2 (0.57%) Cisco Prime
7 1 (0.29%) Argo
7 1 (0.29%) Iperf
7 1 (0.29%) Kibana
7 1 (0.29%) logstash
7 1 (0.29%) Nessus
7 1 (0.29%) Nmap
7 1 (0.29%) SCCM
7 1 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 41 (11.75%) SAP
2 23 (6.59%) VMware
3 15 (4.30%) Microsoft
4 12 (3.44%) Twitter
5 11 (3.15%) ServiceNow
6 10 (2.87%) Cisco
6 10 (2.87%) Red Hat
6 10 (2.87%) Siemens
7 5 (1.43%) Xilinx
8 4 (1.15%) Google
8 4 (1.15%) MathWorks
8 4 (1.15%) Oracle
9 3 (0.86%) Altera
9 3 (0.86%) Databricks
9 3 (0.86%) HubSpot
9 3 (0.86%) Intel
9 3 (0.86%) Palo Alto
9 3 (0.86%) Ping Identity
9 3 (0.86%) Salesforce
9 3 (0.86%) Veeam