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 19 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 293 403 277
Rank change year-on-year +110 -126 +128
Contract jobs citing Aerospace 371 126 360
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.91% 0.41% 0.82%
As % of the General category 1.55% 0.66% 1.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 111 39 73
10th Percentile £83 £354 £269
25th Percentile £425 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £548 £632
Median % change year-on-year -8.76% -13.22% +14.82%
75th Percentile £613 £646 £688
90th Percentile £713 £673 £733
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £536 £600
% change year-on-year -6.72% -10.67% +11.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 157 37 176
10th Percentile £30.29 £29.56 £22.43
25th Percentile £42.00 £39.68 £40.00
Median hourly rate £57.35 £60.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -4.42% +9.09% -15.22%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £71.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.75 £60.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -3.75% +20.00% -21.41%

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 23,869 19,117 25,904
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 58.63% 62.06% 58.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,927 11,591 16,674
10th Percentile £300 £285 £265
25th Percentile £403 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £640 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £476 £500
% change year-on-year -0.21% -4.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,472 605 1,651
10th Percentile £13.64 £15.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £16.36 £20.12 £15.16
Median hourly rate £23.00 £29.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.69% +11.54% -3.70%
75th Percentile £50.00 £57.50 £52.64
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £67.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £27.13 £25.00
% change year-on-year -18.89% +8.50% -

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +94 325 £500 -6.72% 419
England +106 315 £500 -8.76% 412
South West +48 103 £450 -17.88% 101
East of England +32 74 £492 -18.00% 66
South East +24 69 £581 +28.04% 125
Work from Home +1 61 £510 -23.88% 124
Midlands -59 27 £650 +92.59% 41
Scotland +28 24 £65 -84.71% 33
London -41 21 £650 +1.56% 38
North of England -69 19 £70 -87.98% 59
East Midlands -15 18 £650 - 14
North West -31 12 £78 -86.55% 43
Wales +2 9 £550 - 10
West Midlands -62 9 - - 26
North East -8 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 (1.62%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.08%) CMS
3 3 (0.81%) Apache
3 3 (0.81%) Confluence
4 1 (0.27%) Alfresco
4 1 (0.27%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.27%) Documentum
4 1 (0.27%) Jupyter
4 1 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 15 (4.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.89%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.35%) Simulink
4 3 (0.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.81%) Siemens NX
4 3 (0.81%) Stateflow
5 2 (0.54%) CATIA
5 2 (0.54%) FrameMaker
5 2 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.27%) PTC Creo
6 1 (0.27%) SOLIDWORKS
6 1 (0.27%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 18 (4.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (3.50%) Teamcenter
3 9 (2.43%) SAP EHS
4 5 (1.35%) SAP HCM
5 3 (0.81%) SAP EWM
5 3 (0.81%) SAP MM
6 2 (0.54%) SAP GRC
6 2 (0.54%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 2 (0.54%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.54%) SAP PS
7 1 (0.27%) Demantra
7 1 (0.27%) Primavera
7 1 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.27%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.27%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.27%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 13 (3.50%) Azure
2 8 (2.16%) AWS
3 7 (1.89%) Microsoft 365
3 7 (1.89%) Power Platform
4 4 (1.08%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (1.08%) Google Workspace
4 4 (1.08%) OpenShift
5 3 (0.81%) GitHub
5 3 (0.81%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (0.54%) Smartsheet
7 1 (0.27%) AWS CloudFormation
7 1 (0.27%) Azure ExpressRoute
7 1 (0.27%) Azure Monitor
7 1 (0.27%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (0.27%) Entra ID
7 1 (0.27%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.16%) Firewall
2 6 (1.62%) PABX
3 4 (1.08%) DHCP
3 4 (1.08%) DNS
4 3 (0.81%) Ethernet
4 3 (0.81%) VPN
5 2 (0.54%) Cisco ASA
5 2 (0.54%) Network Security
5 2 (0.54%) SpaceWire
5 2 (0.54%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.27%) BGP
6 1 (0.27%) Cisco Wireless
6 1 (0.27%) HTTPS
6 1 (0.27%) MPLS
6 1 (0.27%) Multicast
6 1 (0.27%) NX-OS
6 1 (0.27%) OSPF
6 1 (0.27%) SAN
6 1 (0.27%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.27%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (1.89%) Power BI
2 3 (0.81%) MongoDB
2 3 (0.81%) SAP HANA
3 2 (0.54%) Metadata
4 1 (0.27%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.27%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.27%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 13 (3.50%) Git
1 13 (3.50%) Rational DOORS
2 11 (2.96%) GitLab
3 6 (1.62%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.08%) JIRA
4 4 (1.08%) Rational Rhapsody
5 3 (0.81%) Maven
5 3 (0.81%) Rational Team Concert
6 2 (0.54%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.54%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.27%) SonarQube
General
1 82 (22.10%) Manufacturing
2 73 (19.68%) Social Skills
3 24 (6.47%) Aviation
4 21 (5.66%) Automotive
5 18 (4.85%) Electronics
6 16 (4.31%) Analytical Skills
7 15 (4.04%) Finance
8 13 (3.50%) Documentation Skills
9 12 (3.23%) Organisational Skills
9 12 (3.23%) Pharmaceutical
10 11 (2.96%) Military
11 6 (1.62%) Avionics
12 5 (1.35%) Legal
12 5 (1.35%) Public Sector
12 5 (1.35%) Publishing
13 4 (1.08%) Environmental Health
13 4 (1.08%) Influencing Skills
14 2 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 2 (0.54%) Telecoms
15 1 (0.27%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 47 (12.67%) Software Engineer
2 42 (11.32%) Systems Engineer
3 41 (11.05%) Senior
4 25 (6.74%) Support Engineer
5 22 (5.93%) Lead
6 21 (5.66%) Architect
6 21 (5.66%) Consultant
6 21 (5.66%) Principal Engineer
6 21 (5.66%) Technical Support
7 18 (4.85%) Technical Engineer
8 17 (4.58%) Technical Support Engineer
9 14 (3.77%) Administrator
10 13 (3.50%) Analyst
10 13 (3.50%) Electrical Engineer
11 11 (2.96%) Senior Manager
11 11 (2.96%) Test Engineer
12 10 (2.70%) Embedded Engineer
12 10 (2.70%) IT Engineer
12 10 (2.70%) IT Manager
13 9 (2.43%) Embedded Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (3.23%) SAP Fiori
2 10 (2.70%) Middleware
3 5 (1.35%) LDAP
3 5 (1.35%) REST
3 5 (1.35%) XML
4 4 (1.08%) Elastic Stack
4 4 (1.08%) Kafka
4 4 (1.08%) Spring Boot
5 3 (0.81%) Apache NiFi
5 3 (0.81%) Flash
5 3 (0.81%) HTML
5 3 (0.81%) ModSecurity
5 3 (0.81%) OpenID
5 3 (0.81%) Qt
5 3 (0.81%) SAML
6 2 (0.54%) Unity (Game Engine)
6 2 (0.54%) Unreal Engine
6 2 (0.54%) Web Services
7 1 (0.27%) AngularJS
7 1 (0.27%) Azure Blueprints
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.58%) Self-Motivation
2 16 (4.31%) Management Information System
3 14 (3.77%) FPGA
4 10 (2.70%) Operational Technology
5 9 (2.43%) Legacy Systems
6 8 (2.16%) Product Ownership
6 8 (2.16%) VHDL
7 7 (1.89%) Security Posture
8 6 (1.62%) Algorithms
8 6 (1.62%) Data Centre
8 6 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
8 6 (1.62%) PCIe
8 6 (1.62%) SCADA
8 6 (1.62%) Smartphone
9 5 (1.35%) Greenfield Project
9 5 (1.35%) Onboarding
10 4 (1.08%) Learning Management System
11 3 (0.81%) CAN bus
11 3 (0.81%) State Machine
11 3 (0.81%) Verilog
Operating Systems
1 26 (7.01%) Windows
2 20 (5.39%) Linux
3 7 (1.89%) Windows 10
4 6 (1.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (1.35%) CentOS
5 5 (1.35%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.81%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.81%) Windows Server 2016
6 3 (0.81%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.54%) Debian
8 1 (0.27%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
8 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (16.98%) Software Engineering
2 43 (11.59%) Continuous Improvement
3 34 (9.16%) Problem-Solving
4 33 (8.89%) Validation
5 32 (8.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 31 (8.36%) Configuration Management
6 31 (8.36%) Stakeholder Management
7 30 (8.09%) Systems Engineering
8 29 (7.82%) Cybersecurity
9 28 (7.55%) Roadmaps
10 26 (7.01%) Agile
11 22 (5.93%) PLM
12 20 (5.39%) Data Management
12 20 (5.39%) Project Management
13 19 (5.12%) Risk Management
14 18 (4.85%) Verification and Validation
15 16 (4.31%) Analytics
15 16 (4.31%) Decision-Making
15 16 (4.31%) Migration
16 15 (4.04%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 29 (7.82%) Ada
2 24 (6.47%) C++
3 19 (5.12%) C
3 19 (5.12%) Python
4 15 (4.04%) MATLAB
5 8 (2.16%) C#
6 7 (1.89%) PowerShell
7 6 (1.62%) Java
7 6 (1.62%) Shell Script
8 4 (1.08%) SQL
9 3 (0.81%) Bash
9 3 (0.81%) Fortran
9 3 (0.81%) JavaScript
9 3 (0.81%) SystemVerilog
10 2 (0.54%) ABAP
11 1 (0.27%) Embedded C++
11 1 (0.27%) Google Apps Script
11 1 (0.27%) SAPscript
11 1 (0.27%) VBA
Qualifications
1 186 (50.13%) Security Cleared
2 120 (32.35%) SC Cleared
3 37 (9.97%) Degree
4 25 (6.74%) BPSS Clearance
5 22 (5.93%) DV Cleared
6 5 (1.35%) CISSP
6 5 (1.35%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (1.08%) AWS Certification
7 4 (1.08%) Azure Certification
7 4 (1.08%) CISM
7 4 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (1.08%) PMP
8 3 (0.81%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (0.81%) CompTIA Security+
8 3 (0.81%) PMI Certification
8 3 (0.81%) TOGAF Certification
9 2 (0.54%) CCNA
9 2 (0.54%) Chartered Engineer
9 2 (0.54%) HNC
9 2 (0.54%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.12%) Def Stans
2 17 (4.58%) QA
3 14 (3.77%) NIST
4 7 (1.89%) SLA
5 6 (1.62%) Cyber Essentials
5 6 (1.62%) ECSS
5 6 (1.62%) ISO 9001
5 6 (1.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (1.62%) NCSC
6 5 (1.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 5 (1.35%) Data Quality
6 5 (1.35%) NIST 800
7 4 (1.08%) IEC 61508
7 4 (1.08%) JSP 440
8 3 (0.81%) GRC
8 3 (0.81%) MISRA
8 3 (0.81%) MISRA C
8 3 (0.81%) PMO
9 2 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 2 (0.54%) MIL-STD-1553
System Software
1 14 (3.77%) Active Directory
2 7 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (1.35%) Docker
3 5 (1.35%) Firmware
4 4 (1.08%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.54%) QEMU
6 1 (0.27%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 1 (0.27%) Terminal Services
6 1 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 12 (3.23%) Ansible
2 9 (2.43%) Kubernetes
3 8 (2.16%) Podman
4 5 (1.35%) Check_MK
4 5 (1.35%) Red Hat Satellite
4 5 (1.35%) Terraform
5 4 (1.08%) Grafana
5 4 (1.08%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.81%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
6 3 (0.81%) PingFederate
7 2 (0.54%) Cisco Prime
8 1 (0.27%) Argo
8 1 (0.27%) Iperf
8 1 (0.27%) Kibana
8 1 (0.27%) logstash
8 1 (0.27%) Nessus
8 1 (0.27%) Nmap
8 1 (0.27%) SCCM
8 1 (0.27%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 42 (11.32%) SAP
2 23 (6.20%) VMware
3 15 (4.04%) Microsoft
4 13 (3.50%) ServiceNow
4 13 (3.50%) Twitter
5 11 (2.96%) Red Hat
5 11 (2.96%) Siemens
6 10 (2.70%) Cisco
7 5 (1.35%) Xilinx
8 4 (1.08%) Google
8 4 (1.08%) IBM
8 4 (1.08%) Oracle
9 3 (0.81%) Altera
9 3 (0.81%) Databricks
9 3 (0.81%) HubSpot
9 3 (0.81%) Intel
9 3 (0.81%) MathWorks
9 3 (0.81%) Palo Alto
9 3 (0.81%) Salesforce
9 3 (0.81%) Veeam