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

6 months to
31 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 295 400 299
Rank change year-on-year +105 -101 +105
Contract jobs citing Aerospace 331 140 340
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.85% 0.45% 0.76%
As % of the General category 1.44% 0.72% 1.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 105 35 86
10th Percentile £118 £363 £334
25th Percentile £378 £425 £494
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £548 £600
Median % change year-on-year -8.76% -8.67% +9.09%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £675
90th Percentile £695 £699 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £547 £600
% change year-on-year -11.33% -8.83% +7.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 138 36 146
10th Percentile £31.20 £29.01 £21.25
25th Percentile £42.00 £39.52 £40.00
Median hourly rate £57.35 £57.63 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.48% +4.77% -15.38%
75th Percentile £68.75 £67.50 £67.81
90th Percentile £76.25 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £60.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -15.38%

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 22,967 19,471 26,307
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 59.28% 61.92% 58.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,411 11,610 17,070
10th Percentile £286 £284 £265
25th Percentile £400 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £731 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.09% -3.95% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,400 630 1,545
10th Percentile £13.71 £15.62 £13.16
25th Percentile £16.35 £20.00 £15.17
Median hourly rate £22.50 £28.21 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.23% +8.48% +4.00%
75th Percentile £46.00 £53.75 £55.25
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.85 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.00 £26.50 £25.00
% change year-on-year -20.75% +6.00% +11.11%

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 31 January 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 31 January 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 31 January 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 +67 283 £485 -11.33% 352
England +83 277 £500 -8.76% 347
South West +37 89 £450 -17.88% 86
East of England +35 73 £492 -18.00% 54
Work from Home +16 56 £450 -32.89% 116
South East -1 41 £581 +28.04% 102
Midlands -41 26 £650 +92.59% 35
Scotland +26 24 £65 -84.71% 19
London -25 24 £650 +7.88% 26
North of England -48 22 £164 -71.82% 63
East Midlands -15 16 £650 - 10
North West -31 15 £250 -57.08% 49
West Midlands -47 10 - - 25
Wales +4 8 £550 - 6
North East -11 7 £70 - 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 5 (1.51%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.21%) CMS
2 4 (1.21%) Confluence
3 2 (0.60%) Apache
4 1 (0.30%) Alfresco
4 1 (0.30%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.30%) Documentum
4 1 (0.30%) Jupyter
4 1 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 12 (3.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (2.42%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (2.11%) Simulink
4 5 (1.51%) Stateflow
5 4 (1.21%) FrameMaker
6 3 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 3 (0.91%) Siemens NX
7 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.30%) CATIA
8 1 (0.30%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.30%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 18 (5.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (3.02%) Teamcenter
3 9 (2.72%) SAP EHS
4 5 (1.51%) SAP HCM
5 3 (0.91%) SAP PS
6 2 (0.60%) SAP GRC
6 2 (0.60%) SAP MM
6 2 (0.60%) SAP Oil and Gas
7 1 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
7 1 (0.30%) Oracle SCM
7 1 (0.30%) Primavera
7 1 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.30%) SAP EWM
7 1 (0.30%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.30%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 13 (3.93%) Azure
2 7 (2.11%) AWS
3 6 (1.81%) Microsoft 365
4 5 (1.51%) Power Platform
5 4 (1.21%) Azure DevOps
5 4 (1.21%) Google Workspace
5 4 (1.21%) OpenShift
6 3 (0.91%) GitHub
6 3 (0.91%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (0.60%) Smartsheet
8 1 (0.30%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.30%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 1 (0.30%) Azure Monitor
8 1 (0.30%) Azure Sentinel
8 1 (0.30%) Entra ID
8 1 (0.30%) OCI
8 1 (0.30%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.42%) Firewall
2 6 (1.81%) PABX
3 4 (1.21%) DHCP
3 4 (1.21%) DNS
4 3 (0.91%) Ethernet
4 3 (0.91%) Network Security
4 3 (0.91%) VPN
5 2 (0.60%) Cisco ASA
5 2 (0.60%) SpaceWire
5 2 (0.60%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.30%) Cisco IOS
6 1 (0.30%) LAN
6 1 (0.30%) MPLS
6 1 (0.30%) SAN
6 1 (0.30%) SNMP
6 1 (0.30%) VLAN
6 1 (0.30%) WAN
6 1 (0.30%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.30%) Wireless
6 1 (0.30%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.51%) Power BI
2 3 (0.91%) MongoDB
3 2 (0.60%) Metadata
3 2 (0.60%) SAP HANA
4 1 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.30%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 12 (3.63%) Git
1 12 (3.63%) Rational DOORS
2 11 (3.32%) GitLab
3 6 (1.81%) Jenkins
4 5 (1.51%) Rational Team Concert
5 3 (0.91%) JIRA
5 3 (0.91%) Maven
5 3 (0.91%) Rational Rhapsody
6 2 (0.60%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.30%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.30%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.30%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.30%) Subversion
General
1 77 (23.26%) Manufacturing
2 68 (20.54%) Social Skills
3 25 (7.55%) Automotive
4 20 (6.04%) Aviation
5 18 (5.44%) Electronics
6 14 (4.23%) Documentation Skills
7 12 (3.63%) Analytical Skills
7 12 (3.63%) Organisational Skills
8 11 (3.32%) Pharmaceutical
9 10 (3.02%) Military
10 9 (2.72%) Finance
11 7 (2.11%) Publishing
12 5 (1.51%) Avionics
12 5 (1.51%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (1.51%) Legal
12 5 (1.51%) Public Sector
13 4 (1.21%) Environmental Health
14 3 (0.91%) Telecoms
15 2 (0.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 1 (0.30%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 40 (12.08%) Software Engineer
1 40 (12.08%) Systems Engineer
2 33 (9.97%) Senior
3 23 (6.95%) Support Engineer
4 21 (6.34%) Lead
5 19 (5.74%) Principal Engineer
6 18 (5.44%) Architect
7 17 (5.14%) Technical Support
8 14 (4.23%) Consultant
8 14 (4.23%) Technical Engineer
9 13 (3.93%) Electrical Engineer
9 13 (3.93%) Technical Support Engineer
10 11 (3.32%) Administrator
10 11 (3.32%) Analyst
10 11 (3.32%) Test Engineer
11 9 (2.72%) IT Engineer
11 9 (2.72%) Project Engineer
12 8 (2.42%) Embedded Engineer
12 8 (2.42%) Principal Software Engineer
12 8 (2.42%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (3.63%) SAP Fiori
2 10 (3.02%) Middleware
3 7 (2.11%) XML
4 5 (1.51%) LDAP
5 4 (1.21%) Elastic Stack
5 4 (1.21%) HTML
5 4 (1.21%) Kafka
5 4 (1.21%) REST
6 3 (0.91%) Flash
6 3 (0.91%) ModSecurity
6 3 (0.91%) OpenID
6 3 (0.91%) Qt
6 3 (0.91%) SAML
6 3 (0.91%) SGML
6 3 (0.91%) Spring Boot
7 2 (0.60%) Apache NiFi
7 2 (0.60%) Unity (Game Engine)
7 2 (0.60%) Unreal Engine
8 1 (0.30%) Azure Blueprints
8 1 (0.30%) Quarkus
Miscellaneous
1 17 (5.14%) Self-Motivation
2 14 (4.23%) FPGA
3 12 (3.63%) Management Information System
4 10 (3.02%) Operational Technology
5 9 (2.72%) Legacy Systems
6 8 (2.42%) VHDL
7 7 (2.11%) Data Protection Act
7 7 (2.11%) SCADA
8 6 (1.81%) Data Centre
8 6 (1.81%) PCIe
8 6 (1.81%) Smartphone
9 5 (1.51%) Greenfield Project
9 5 (1.51%) Product Ownership
9 5 (1.51%) Security Posture
10 4 (1.21%) Learning Management System
11 3 (0.91%) Algorithms
11 3 (0.91%) CAN bus
11 3 (0.91%) State Machine
11 3 (0.91%) Verilog
12 2 (0.60%) Cloud Native
Operating Systems
1 24 (7.25%) Windows
2 19 (5.74%) Linux
3 6 (1.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 6 (1.81%) Windows 10
4 5 (1.51%) CentOS
4 5 (1.51%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.91%) Ubuntu
5 3 (0.91%) Windows Server 2016
5 3 (0.91%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.60%) Debian
7 1 (0.30%) FreeRTOS
7 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2003
7 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 52 (15.71%) Software Engineering
2 31 (9.37%) Continuous Improvement
3 30 (9.06%) Validation
4 27 (8.16%) Problem-Solving
4 27 (8.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 27 (8.16%) Stakeholder Management
5 25 (7.55%) Systems Engineering
6 23 (6.95%) Cybersecurity
7 21 (6.34%) Agile
8 20 (6.04%) Configuration Management
9 19 (5.74%) Project Management
10 16 (4.83%) Risk Management
11 15 (4.53%) Analytics
11 15 (4.53%) Data Management
11 15 (4.53%) Software Testing
12 14 (4.23%) PLM
12 14 (4.23%) Workflow
13 13 (3.93%) AI
13 13 (3.93%) Digital Transformation Programme
13 13 (3.93%) Logistics
Programming Languages
1 25 (7.55%) Ada
1 25 (7.55%) C++
2 24 (7.25%) C
3 17 (5.14%) Python
4 15 (4.53%) MATLAB
5 9 (2.72%) C#
6 7 (2.11%) PowerShell
7 6 (1.81%) Shell Script
8 5 (1.51%) Fortran
8 5 (1.51%) Java
9 4 (1.21%) JavaScript
10 3 (0.91%) Bash
10 3 (0.91%) SQL
10 3 (0.91%) SystemVerilog
11 1 (0.30%) ABAP
11 1 (0.30%) Embedded C++
11 1 (0.30%) Google Apps Script
11 1 (0.30%) SAPscript
11 1 (0.30%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.30%) VBA
Qualifications
1 150 (45.32%) Security Cleared
2 99 (29.91%) SC Cleared
3 34 (10.27%) Degree
4 22 (6.65%) DV Cleared
5 18 (5.44%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (1.51%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (1.21%) CISM
7 4 (1.21%) CISSP
7 4 (1.21%) HNC
7 4 (1.21%) PMP
8 3 (0.91%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.91%) Azure Certification
8 3 (0.91%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (0.91%) CompTIA Security+
8 3 (0.91%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (0.91%) HND
8 3 (0.91%) PMI Certification
9 2 (0.60%) CCNA
9 2 (0.60%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.60%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (5.44%) Def Stans
2 17 (5.14%) QA
3 10 (3.02%) NIST
4 8 (2.42%) SLA
5 6 (1.81%) Cyber Essentials
5 6 (1.81%) ECSS
5 6 (1.81%) ISO 9001
6 5 (1.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 5 (1.51%) NCSC
7 4 (1.21%) IEC 61508
7 4 (1.21%) JSP 440
7 4 (1.21%) MISRA
7 4 (1.21%) MISRA C
7 4 (1.21%) NIST 800
8 3 (0.91%) GRC
8 3 (0.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 2 (0.60%) Data Quality
9 2 (0.60%) DO-254
9 2 (0.60%) MIL-STD-1553
9 2 (0.60%) PMO
System Software
1 14 (4.23%) Active Directory
2 7 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (1.51%) Docker
3 5 (1.51%) Firmware
4 4 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.60%) QEMU
6 1 (0.30%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 1 (0.30%) Terminal Services
6 1 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 11 (3.32%) Ansible
2 8 (2.42%) Kubernetes
2 8 (2.42%) Podman
3 5 (1.51%) Check_MK
3 5 (1.51%) Red Hat Satellite
4 4 (1.21%) Grafana
4 4 (1.21%) Prometheus
4 4 (1.21%) Terraform
5 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
5 3 (0.91%) PingFederate
6 2 (0.60%) Cisco Prime
7 1 (0.30%) Argo
7 1 (0.30%) Iperf
7 1 (0.30%) Kibana
7 1 (0.30%) logstash
7 1 (0.30%) MOM
7 1 (0.30%) Nmap
7 1 (0.30%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.30%) Wonderware InTouch
Vendors
1 37 (11.18%) SAP
2 23 (6.95%) VMware
3 15 (4.53%) Microsoft
4 11 (3.32%) ServiceNow
5 10 (3.02%) Cisco
5 10 (3.02%) Red Hat
6 9 (2.72%) Siemens
7 7 (2.11%) Twitter
8 5 (1.51%) MathWorks
8 5 (1.51%) Oracle
8 5 (1.51%) Xilinx
9 4 (1.21%) Google
10 3 (0.91%) Altera
10 3 (0.91%) Databricks
10 3 (0.91%) HubSpot
10 3 (0.91%) IBM
10 3 (0.91%) Intel
10 3 (0.91%) Palo Alto
10 3 (0.91%) Salesforce
10 3 (0.91%) Veeam