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 18 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 208 379 221
Rank change year-on-year +171 -158 +187
Contract jobs citing Aerospace 559 146 443
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.17% 0.50% 1.04%
As % of the General category 2.17% 0.79% 1.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 97 41 69
10th Percentile £278 £399 £321
25th Percentile £425 £513 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £548 £650
Median % change year-on-year -8.76% -15.69% +23.81%
75th Percentile £675 £628 £700
90th Percentile £713 £675 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £650
% change year-on-year -4.76% -19.23% +30.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 330 57 256
10th Percentile £28.50 £34.30 £25.50
25th Percentile £40.53 £46.30 £45.00
Median hourly rate £60.00 £57.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +15.00% -18.70%
75th Percentile £79.75 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £74.25 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £61.00 £58.04 £50.00
% change year-on-year +5.10% +16.08% -18.70%

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 25,717 18,580 24,689
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 53.63% 63.23% 57.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,704 11,812 15,578
10th Percentile £310 £285 £275
25th Percentile £410 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.88% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £498
% change year-on-year +2.63% -4.62% -0.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,655 797 1,927
10th Percentile £13.95 £13.96 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.25 £15.41
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -7.69%
75th Percentile £60.52 £55.93 £52.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £66.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.05 £24.50 £28.00
% change year-on-year +14.47% -12.50% -0.57%

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 18 May 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 18 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Aerospace in the UK

Aerospace
Top 17 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 18 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
UK excluding London +113 519 £500 -4.76% 370
England +159 490 £505 -7.85% 368
South East +50 187 £653 +26.70% 124
South West +49 126 £500 -8.26% 74
East of England +33 92 £492 - 58
Work from Home +15 83 £495 -5.71% 123
North of England -39 52 £74 -87.27% 48
North West -12 42 £452 -22.46% 33
Scotland +23 27 £70 -83.53% 24
Midlands -54 20 £613 +16.67% 46
London -61 11 £638 +1.92% 33
Wales -3 10 - - 11
East Midlands -22 10 £575 - 16
West Midlands -54 9 - - 30
North East - 9 £70 - 11
Northern Ireland +6 5 £447 - 4
Yorkshire - 1 - - 4

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 3 (0.54%) Apache
1 3 (0.54%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.36%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.36%) ThingWorx
3 1 (0.18%) Confluence
3 1 (0.18%) Jupyter
3 1 (0.18%) Tomcat
Applications
1 13 (2.33%) CATIA
1 13 (2.33%) Simulink
2 10 (1.79%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.89%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.72%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (0.72%) Windchill
5 2 (0.36%) Adobe Illustrator
5 2 (0.36%) Photoshop
5 2 (0.36%) Siemens NX
5 2 (0.36%) Stateflow
6 1 (0.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.18%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 15 (2.68%) Teamcenter
2 10 (1.79%) SAP EHS
2 10 (1.79%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.72%) SAP EWM
4 3 (0.54%) SAP GRC
5 2 (0.36%) DELMIA
5 2 (0.36%) ENOVIA
5 2 (0.36%) Remedy ITSM
5 2 (0.36%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.36%) SAP MM
5 2 (0.36%) SAP WM
6 1 (0.18%) Demantra
6 1 (0.18%) Primavera
6 1 (0.18%) SAP CCM
6 1 (0.18%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.18%) SAP FI-GL
6 1 (0.18%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.18%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
6 1 (0.18%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 22 (3.94%) Azure
2 14 (2.50%) AWS
3 13 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
4 6 (1.07%) Power Platform
5 5 (0.89%) Dynamics 365
6 3 (0.54%) GCP
6 3 (0.54%) Google Workspace
7 2 (0.36%) Figma
7 2 (0.36%) SaaS
7 2 (0.36%) SuccessFactors
8 1 (0.18%) Amazon EC2
8 1 (0.18%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.18%) Azure Functions
8 1 (0.18%) Azure Logic Apps
8 1 (0.18%) Google Sheets
8 1 (0.18%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (0.18%) OpenShift
8 1 (0.18%) Power Automate
8 1 (0.18%) PowerApps
8 1 (0.18%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.97%) Ethernet
2 10 (1.79%) Software-Defined Radio
3 9 (1.61%) Wireless
4 5 (0.89%) Firewall
5 4 (0.72%) DNS
6 3 (0.54%) DHCP
6 3 (0.54%) SpaceWire
6 3 (0.54%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.36%) Network Security
7 2 (0.36%) VPN
8 1 (0.18%) BGP
8 1 (0.18%) Cisco ASA
8 1 (0.18%) FTP
8 1 (0.18%) HTTPS
8 1 (0.18%) MPLS
8 1 (0.18%) Multicast
8 1 (0.18%) OSPF
8 1 (0.18%) SAN
8 1 (0.18%) VLAN
8 1 (0.18%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.72%) Power BI
2 3 (0.54%) Hadoop
2 3 (0.54%) NoSQL
2 3 (0.54%) SAP HANA
3 2 (0.36%) Big Data
3 2 (0.36%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.36%) Tableau
4 1 (0.18%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.18%) MS Access
4 1 (0.18%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 49 (8.77%) Rational DOORS
2 13 (2.33%) Git
3 11 (1.97%) GitLab
4 8 (1.43%) Jenkins
4 8 (1.43%) Rational Rhapsody
5 4 (0.72%) JIRA
6 2 (0.36%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.36%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.18%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.18%) Hudson
7 1 (0.18%) LabVIEW
7 1 (0.18%) PetaLinux
7 1 (0.18%) Postman
7 1 (0.18%) SonarQube
General
1 136 (24.33%) Manufacturing
2 58 (10.38%) Social Skills
3 40 (7.16%) Aviation
4 35 (6.26%) Finance
5 28 (5.01%) Analytical Skills
6 23 (4.11%) Automotive
7 19 (3.40%) Documentation Skills
7 19 (3.40%) Electronics
8 11 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (1.61%) Avionics
10 8 (1.43%) Military
11 4 (0.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (0.72%) Legal
11 4 (0.72%) Public Sector
12 3 (0.54%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.54%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.36%) Agriculture
13 2 (0.36%) General Ledger
13 2 (0.36%) Pharmaceutical
14 1 (0.18%) Fire and Rescue
Job Titles
1 63 (11.27%) Software Engineer
2 47 (8.41%) Systems Engineer
3 43 (7.69%) Senior
4 39 (6.98%) Product Manager
5 35 (6.26%) Architect
6 34 (6.08%) Delivery Manager
6 34 (6.08%) Product Delivery Manager
7 33 (5.90%) Lead
8 32 (5.72%) Embedded Engineer
9 29 (5.19%) Principal Engineer
10 28 (5.01%) Systems Manager
10 28 (5.01%) Technical Support
11 27 (4.83%) Test Engineer
12 23 (4.11%) Administrator
12 23 (4.11%) Embedded Software Engineer
12 23 (4.11%) Technical Engineer
13 22 (3.94%) Support Engineer
13 22 (3.94%) Systems Delivery Manager
14 21 (3.76%) Technical Support Engineer
15 19 (3.40%) Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (2.68%) Middleware
2 9 (1.61%) LDAP
3 6 (1.07%) REST
4 5 (0.89%) Apache NiFi
5 3 (0.54%) Qt
6 2 (0.36%) .NET
6 2 (0.36%) Flash
6 2 (0.36%) RESTful
6 2 (0.36%) SAP Fiori
6 2 (0.36%) SOAP
6 2 (0.36%) Unity (Game Engine)
6 2 (0.36%) Unreal Engine
6 2 (0.36%) Web Services
6 2 (0.36%) XML
6 2 (0.36%) Yocto
7 1 (0.18%) Hibernate
7 1 (0.18%) IDoc
7 1 (0.18%) JSON
7 1 (0.18%) SAP PI
7 1 (0.18%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 35 (6.26%) Product Ownership
2 23 (4.11%) Data Structures
3 22 (3.94%) Management Information System
4 18 (3.22%) FPGA
5 15 (2.68%) Operational Technology
6 11 (1.97%) Embedded Systems
6 11 (1.97%) PCIe
7 10 (1.79%) VHDL
8 9 (1.61%) Algorithms
9 8 (1.43%) Data Centre
9 8 (1.43%) Virtual Team
10 7 (1.25%) Onboarding
10 7 (1.25%) Security Posture
10 7 (1.25%) Verilog
11 5 (0.89%) Legacy Systems
11 5 (0.89%) SCADA
12 3 (0.54%) CAN bus
12 3 (0.54%) Cyber Security Posture
12 3 (0.54%) Legacy Applications
12 3 (0.54%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 23 (4.11%) Linux
2 15 (2.68%) Windows
3 9 (1.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 8 (1.43%) CentOS
5 5 (0.89%) FreeRTOS
6 3 (0.54%) Embedded Linux
7 2 (0.36%) Debian
7 2 (0.36%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.36%) Windows Server
8 1 (0.18%) Unix
8 1 (0.18%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (17.17%) Software Engineering
2 76 (13.60%) Continuous Improvement
3 73 (13.06%) Systems Engineering
4 68 (12.16%) Agile
5 63 (11.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 61 (10.91%) Validation
7 54 (9.66%) Configuration Management
8 52 (9.30%) Computer Science
9 51 (9.12%) Problem-Solving
10 50 (8.94%) Stakeholder Management
11 45 (8.05%) Roadmaps
12 44 (7.87%) Cybersecurity
13 42 (7.51%) PRINCE2
13 42 (7.51%) Programme Management
14 38 (6.80%) Scaled Agile Framework
15 36 (6.44%) Change Control
15 36 (6.44%) Verification and Validation
16 35 (6.26%) SysML
16 35 (6.26%) UML
17 32 (5.72%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
Programming Languages
1 35 (6.26%) Ada
2 28 (5.01%) MATLAB
3 27 (4.83%) C
4 22 (3.94%) Python
5 18 (3.22%) C++
6 9 (1.61%) SystemVerilog
7 8 (1.43%) Shell Script
8 6 (1.07%) SQL
9 5 (0.89%) Java
10 4 (0.72%) PowerShell
11 3 (0.54%) Bash
11 3 (0.54%) C#
12 2 (0.36%) ABAP
13 1 (0.18%) Bicep
13 1 (0.18%) Embedded C++
13 1 (0.18%) JavaScript
13 1 (0.18%) Tcl
13 1 (0.18%) X++
Qualifications
1 252 (45.08%) Security Cleared
2 137 (24.51%) SC Cleared
3 72 (12.88%) Degree
4 49 (8.77%) BPSS Clearance
5 20 (3.58%) DV Cleared
6 11 (1.97%) NVQ Level 4
7 10 (1.79%) CISSP
7 10 (1.79%) HNC
8 7 (1.25%) PMP
9 6 (1.07%) TOGAF Certification
10 5 (0.89%) AWS Certification
10 5 (0.89%) Chartered Engineer
10 5 (0.89%) CompTIA Security+
10 5 (0.89%) PMI Certification
11 4 (0.72%) Azure Certification
11 4 (0.72%) CEH
11 4 (0.72%) Computer Science Degree
12 3 (0.54%) Cisco Certification
12 3 (0.54%) Microsoft Certification
13 2 (0.36%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (5.01%) QA
2 24 (4.29%) NIST
3 20 (3.58%) Def Stans
4 14 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (1.97%) Data Quality
5 11 (1.97%) SLA
6 9 (1.61%) DO-254
7 8 (1.43%) IEC 61508
7 8 (1.43%) NIST 800
8 7 (1.25%) Cyber Essentials
9 5 (0.89%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 4 (0.72%) GRC
11 3 (0.54%) GDPR
11 3 (0.54%) ISO 26262
11 3 (0.54%) MIL-STD-1553
11 3 (0.54%) MISRA
11 3 (0.54%) MISRA C
12 2 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.36%) NCSC
13 1 (0.18%) HAZOP
System Software
1 13 (2.33%) Firmware
2 11 (1.97%) Active Directory
3 10 (1.79%) Docker
4 5 (0.89%) Embedded Firmware
5 3 (0.54%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.36%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.36%) QEMU
7 1 (0.18%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 17 (3.04%) Ansible
2 11 (1.97%) Podman
3 8 (1.43%) Check_MK
3 8 (1.43%) Red Hat Satellite
4 7 (1.25%) Terraform
5 6 (1.07%) Kubernetes
6 1 (0.18%) Argo
6 1 (0.18%) Cisco Prime
6 1 (0.18%) Grafana
6 1 (0.18%) HP ALM
6 1 (0.18%) Iperf
6 1 (0.18%) Kibana
6 1 (0.18%) logstash
6 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
6 1 (0.18%) Nessus
6 1 (0.18%) Nmap
6 1 (0.18%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.18%) SCCM
6 1 (0.18%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 56 (10.02%) SAP
2 29 (5.19%) IBM
3 19 (3.40%) VMware
4 18 (3.22%) Microsoft
5 13 (2.33%) ServiceNow
6 12 (2.15%) Red Hat
7 11 (1.97%) Siemens
8 9 (1.61%) Xilinx
9 8 (1.43%) Microsemi
10 7 (1.25%) Altera
11 6 (1.07%) Cisco
12 4 (0.72%) Lauterbach
12 4 (0.72%) PTC
13 3 (0.54%) Adobe
13 3 (0.54%) Google
13 3 (0.54%) Palo Alto
14 2 (0.36%) Fortinet
14 2 (0.36%) Intel
14 2 (0.36%) Remedy
15 1 (0.18%) IFS