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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 253 403 251
Rank change year-on-year +150 -152 +167
Contract jobs citing Aerospace 436 130 405
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.01% 0.44% 0.91%
As % of the General category 1.77% 0.71% 1.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 95 37 82
10th Percentile £125 £363 £319
25th Percentile £406 £465 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £548 £648
Median % change year-on-year -8.76% -15.43% +17.82%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £700
90th Percentile £695 £692 £713
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £545 £650
% change year-on-year -8.26% -16.15% +16.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 219 50 206
10th Percentile £29.67 £27.02 £24.00
25th Percentile £42.00 £41.25 £40.00
Median hourly rate £62.50 £56.25 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.12% +12.50% -22.78%
75th Percentile £82.25 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.50 £57.37 £50.00
% change year-on-year +8.94% +14.75% -20.00%

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 24,639 18,367 25,993
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 56.94% 62.65% 58.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,366 11,681 16,636
10th Percentile £300 £300 £263
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £490
% change year-on-year - -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,513 669 1,810
10th Percentile £13.69 £15.22 £12.84
25th Percentile £17.00 £20.12 £15.38
Median hourly rate £24.55 £30.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.17% +15.38% -23.53%
75th Percentile £56.96 £58.75 £50.00
90th Percentile £76.20 £75.45 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £27.85 £25.00
% change year-on-year -17.41% +11.40% -14.53%

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 March 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 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Aerospace in the UK

Aerospace
Top 16 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 March 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 +108 397 £500 -8.26% 384
England +103 371 £500 -8.76% 392
South West +40 109 £500 -8.59% 96
South East +38 108 £600 +22.14% 118
East of England +31 81 £492 -18.00% 46
Work from Home 0 66 £480 -11.93% 108
North of England -39 36 £74 -87.27% 45
North West -20 29 £452 -22.46% 34
Scotland +29 24 £65 -84.71% 34
Midlands -52 23 £650 +23.81% 53
East Midlands -33 13 £650 - 16
London -43 13 £588 -8.91% 45
Wales +3 11 £550 - 5
West Midlands -53 10 - - 37
North East - 7 £70 - 6
Northern Ireland - 5 £447 - 2

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 (1.38%) SharePoint
2 3 (0.69%) Apache
2 3 (0.69%) CMS
2 3 (0.69%) Confluence
3 1 (0.23%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.23%) Jupyter
Applications
1 18 (4.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.61%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.15%) CATIA
3 5 (1.15%) Simulink
4 3 (0.69%) Siemens NX
5 2 (0.46%) Windchill
6 1 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.23%) PTC Creo
6 1 (0.23%) SOLIDWORKS
6 1 (0.23%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 13 (2.98%) Teamcenter
2 9 (2.06%) SAP EHS
3 7 (1.61%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.92%) SAP EWM
5 3 (0.69%) SAP MM
6 2 (0.46%) SAP GRC
6 2 (0.46%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 2 (0.46%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.46%) SAP WM
7 1 (0.23%) Demantra
7 1 (0.23%) Primavera
7 1 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.23%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.23%) SAP HCM
7 1 (0.23%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 10 (2.29%) Azure
2 7 (1.61%) AWS
3 6 (1.38%) Microsoft 365
4 5 (1.15%) Azure DevOps
4 5 (1.15%) Power Platform
5 4 (0.92%) Google Workspace
5 4 (0.92%) OpenShift
6 3 (0.69%) GitHub
6 3 (0.69%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (0.46%) SuccessFactors
8 1 (0.23%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.23%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 1 (0.23%) Azure Monitor
8 1 (0.23%) Azure Sentinel
8 1 (0.23%) Boomi
8 1 (0.23%) Entra ID
8 1 (0.23%) iPaaS
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.83%) Firewall
2 5 (1.15%) Ethernet
2 5 (1.15%) PABX
3 4 (0.92%) DHCP
3 4 (0.92%) DNS
4 3 (0.69%) VPN
5 2 (0.46%) Cisco ASA
5 2 (0.46%) Network Security
5 2 (0.46%) SpaceWire
5 2 (0.46%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.23%) Cisco IOS
6 1 (0.23%) Cisco Wireless
6 1 (0.23%) HTTPS
6 1 (0.23%) Multicast
6 1 (0.23%) NX-OS
6 1 (0.23%) SAN
6 1 (0.23%) VLAN
6 1 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.23%) Wireless
6 1 (0.23%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.15%) Power BI
2 3 (0.69%) MongoDB
2 3 (0.69%) SAP HANA
3 1 (0.23%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.23%) Elasticsearch
3 1 (0.23%) Hadoop
3 1 (0.23%) Metadata
3 1 (0.23%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 44 (10.09%) Rational DOORS
2 11 (2.52%) GitLab
3 10 (2.29%) Git
4 7 (1.61%) Rational Rhapsody
5 6 (1.38%) Jenkins
6 5 (1.15%) JIRA
7 3 (0.69%) Maven
8 2 (0.46%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.46%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.23%) Hudson
9 1 (0.23%) Rational Team Concert
9 1 (0.23%) SonarQube
General
1 84 (19.27%) Manufacturing
2 68 (15.60%) Social Skills
3 28 (6.42%) Aviation
4 19 (4.36%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (4.13%) Finance
6 17 (3.90%) Automotive
7 16 (3.67%) Documentation Skills
7 16 (3.67%) Electronics
8 10 (2.29%) Organisational Skills
9 9 (2.06%) Military
10 6 (1.38%) Avionics
11 5 (1.15%) Pharmaceutical
12 4 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (0.92%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (0.92%) Legal
12 4 (0.92%) Public Sector
13 3 (0.69%) Publishing
14 2 (0.46%) Telecoms
15 1 (0.23%) Environmental Health
15 1 (0.23%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 47 (10.78%) Systems Engineer
2 45 (10.32%) Senior
3 44 (10.09%) Software Engineer
4 38 (8.72%) Product Manager
5 34 (7.80%) Delivery Manager
5 34 (7.80%) Product Delivery Manager
6 26 (5.96%) Lead
6 26 (5.96%) Support Engineer
6 26 (5.96%) Technical Support
7 24 (5.50%) Principal Engineer
8 22 (5.05%) Systems Delivery Manager
8 22 (5.05%) Systems Manager
9 21 (4.82%) Architect
10 20 (4.59%) Administrator
10 20 (4.59%) Technical Engineer
11 19 (4.36%) Technical Support Engineer
12 18 (4.13%) Consultant
13 16 (3.67%) Senior Manager
14 15 (3.44%) Embedded Engineer
15 13 (2.98%) Electrical Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (2.75%) Middleware
2 5 (1.15%) LDAP
2 5 (1.15%) REST
3 4 (0.92%) Elastic Stack
3 4 (0.92%) Flash
3 4 (0.92%) Kafka
3 4 (0.92%) SAP Fiori
3 4 (0.92%) Spring Boot
3 4 (0.92%) XML
4 3 (0.69%) Apache NiFi
4 3 (0.69%) HTML
4 3 (0.69%) ModSecurity
4 3 (0.69%) Qt
5 2 (0.46%) SOAP
5 2 (0.46%) Unity (Game Engine)
5 2 (0.46%) Unreal Engine
5 2 (0.46%) Web Services
6 1 (0.23%) Azure Blueprints
6 1 (0.23%) IDoc
6 1 (0.23%) Quarkus
Miscellaneous
1 36 (8.26%) Product Ownership
2 22 (5.05%) Data Structures
2 22 (5.05%) Management Information System
3 13 (2.98%) Operational Technology
4 12 (2.75%) FPGA
4 12 (2.75%) Self-Motivation
5 9 (2.06%) VHDL
6 8 (1.83%) Algorithms
7 7 (1.61%) Security Posture
8 6 (1.38%) Data Centre
8 6 (1.38%) Legacy Systems
8 6 (1.38%) Onboarding
8 6 (1.38%) SCADA
9 5 (1.15%) PCIe
9 5 (1.15%) Smartphone
9 5 (1.15%) Virtual Team
10 4 (0.92%) Verilog
11 3 (0.69%) CAN bus
11 3 (0.69%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (0.69%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 21 (4.82%) Windows
2 17 (3.90%) Linux
3 6 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 6 (1.38%) Windows 10
4 5 (1.15%) CentOS
4 5 (1.15%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.69%) Ubuntu
5 3 (0.69%) Windows Server 2016
5 3 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.46%) Debian
7 1 (0.23%) FreeRTOS
7 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
7 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 71 (16.28%) Continuous Improvement
1 71 (16.28%) Software Engineering
2 65 (14.91%) Systems Engineering
3 57 (13.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 55 (12.61%) Configuration Management
5 54 (12.39%) Agile
6 48 (11.01%) Validation
7 45 (10.32%) Computer Science
8 44 (10.09%) Problem-Solving
9 40 (9.17%) PRINCE2
10 39 (8.94%) Roadmaps
11 38 (8.72%) Scaled Agile Framework
12 35 (8.03%) Change Control
12 35 (8.03%) Cybersecurity
12 35 (8.03%) Programme Management
13 34 (7.80%) Stakeholder Management
14 33 (7.57%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
14 33 (7.57%) SysML
14 33 (7.57%) UML
15 31 (7.11%) Verification and Validation
Programming Languages
1 32 (7.34%) Ada
2 20 (4.59%) C
2 20 (4.59%) C++
3 18 (4.13%) Python
4 17 (3.90%) MATLAB
5 7 (1.61%) Java
5 7 (1.61%) PowerShell
6 6 (1.38%) Shell Script
7 5 (1.15%) SystemVerilog
8 4 (0.92%) C#
9 3 (0.69%) Bash
9 3 (0.69%) JavaScript
10 2 (0.46%) ABAP
10 2 (0.46%) SQL
11 1 (0.23%) Embedded C++
11 1 (0.23%) Fortran
11 1 (0.23%) Google Apps Script
11 1 (0.23%) SAPscript
11 1 (0.23%) VBA
Qualifications
1 235 (53.90%) Security Cleared
2 122 (27.98%) SC Cleared
3 66 (15.14%) Degree
4 47 (10.78%) BPSS Clearance
5 22 (5.05%) DV Cleared
6 6 (1.38%) PMP
7 5 (1.15%) CISSP
7 5 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
8 4 (0.92%) AWS Certification
8 4 (0.92%) Azure Certification
8 4 (0.92%) CISM
8 4 (0.92%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (0.92%) PMI Certification
9 3 (0.69%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.69%) CompTIA Security+
9 3 (0.69%) HNC
9 3 (0.69%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (0.46%) CCNA
10 2 (0.46%) Chartered Engineer
10 2 (0.46%) NVQ Level 4
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (5.28%) Def Stans
2 21 (4.82%) NIST
3 17 (3.90%) QA
4 14 (3.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 10 (2.29%) Data Quality
6 9 (2.06%) NIST 800
7 8 (1.83%) IEC 61508
8 7 (1.61%) Cyber Essentials
8 7 (1.61%) DO-254
8 7 (1.61%) SLA
9 6 (1.38%) NCSC
10 5 (1.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.92%) ECSS
11 4 (0.92%) ISO 9001
11 4 (0.92%) JSP 440
12 3 (0.69%) GRC
12 3 (0.69%) ISO 26262
12 3 (0.69%) MISRA
12 3 (0.69%) MISRA C
13 2 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 12 (2.75%) Active Directory
2 7 (1.61%) Firmware
3 5 (1.15%) Docker
3 5 (1.15%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.92%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.46%) QEMU
6 1 (0.23%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 1 (0.23%) Terminal Services
6 1 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 12 (2.75%) Ansible
2 9 (2.06%) Kubernetes
3 8 (1.83%) Podman
4 5 (1.15%) Check_MK
4 5 (1.15%) Red Hat Satellite
4 5 (1.15%) Terraform
5 4 (0.92%) Grafana
5 4 (0.92%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.69%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
7 2 (0.46%) Cisco Prime
8 1 (0.23%) Argo
8 1 (0.23%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.23%) Iperf
8 1 (0.23%) Kibana
8 1 (0.23%) logstash
8 1 (0.23%) Nessus
8 1 (0.23%) Nmap
8 1 (0.23%) PingFederate
8 1 (0.23%) SCCM
Vendors
1 43 (9.86%) SAP
2 29 (6.65%) IBM
3 21 (4.82%) VMware
4 17 (3.90%) ServiceNow
5 11 (2.52%) Red Hat
6 9 (2.06%) Microsoft
7 8 (1.83%) Cisco
7 8 (1.83%) Siemens
8 6 (1.38%) Xilinx
9 5 (1.15%) Altera
9 5 (1.15%) Microsemi
10 4 (0.92%) Google
11 3 (0.69%) HubSpot
11 3 (0.69%) Lauterbach
11 3 (0.69%) Oracle
11 3 (0.69%) Palo Alto
11 3 (0.69%) Salesforce
11 3 (0.69%) Veeam
12 2 (0.46%) Intel
12 2 (0.46%) PTC