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

6 months to
2 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 286 380 347
Rank change year-on-year +94 -33 +43
Contract jobs citing Aerospace 328 165 264
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.88% 0.50% 0.61%
As % of the General category 1.46% 0.82% 1.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 102 47 89
10th Percentile £188 £315 £350
25th Percentile £321 £399 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £548 £600
Median % change year-on-year -11.50% -8.67% +5.32%
75th Percentile £614 £671 £673
90th Percentile £675 £734 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £467 £506 £600
% change year-on-year -7.75% -15.63% +5.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 138 43 99
10th Percentile £30.00 £27.35 £27.25
25th Percentile £42.00 £44.34 £42.63
Median hourly rate £55.00 £62.50 £56.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +10.62% -12.91%
75th Percentile £67.19 £70.13 £65.00
90th Percentile £76.25 £75.00 £76.67
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £63.75 £55.00
% change year-on-year -13.73% +15.91% -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 22,509 20,164 25,593
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 60.69% 61.39% 59.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,144 12,012 16,860
10th Percentile £283 £285 £275
25th Percentile £400 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £543
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -3.31% -1.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £730 £756 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,393 690 1,126
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.48 £14.16
25th Percentile £16.50 £18.78 £16.26
Median hourly rate £23.50 £27.50 £32.75
Median % change year-on-year -14.55% -16.03% +31.00%
75th Percentile £46.00 £54.69 £59.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.58 £70.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £26.23 £30.48
% change year-on-year -16.13% -13.93% +38.52%

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 2 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 2 January 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 2 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
England +73 285 £510 -6.93% 339
UK excluding London +56 281 £467 -7.75% 349
South West +30 82 £480 -12.33% 78
East of England +27 77 £496 +29.67% 57
Work from Home +5 48 £450 -32.84% 113
South East +4 41 £565 +17.35% 96
Midlands -34 28 £459 +28.70% 27
London -8 27 £581 +0.17% 21
North of England -26 27 £400 -31.62% 74
North West -27 19 £449 -23.33% 53
Scotland +22 18 £65 -84.71% 29
East Midlands -15 16 £559 +48.93% 12
West Midlands -39 12 £363 +7.41% 15
Wales +5 8 £550 - 5
North East -3 6 £70 - 7
Yorkshire - 2 £345 - 14

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 (1.52%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.22%) CMS
2 4 (1.22%) Confluence
3 3 (0.91%) Apache
4 1 (0.30%) Alfresco
4 1 (0.30%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.30%) Documentum
4 1 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 18 (5.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (3.66%) Siemens NX
3 8 (2.44%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (2.44%) Simulink
4 6 (1.83%) FrameMaker
4 6 (1.83%) Stateflow
5 3 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.61%) Windchill
7 1 (0.30%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.30%) NASTRAN
7 1 (0.30%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 16 (4.88%) SAP S/4HANA
1 16 (4.88%) Teamcenter
2 9 (2.74%) SAP EHS
3 7 (2.13%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (1.83%) Oracle SCM
5 5 (1.52%) SAP HCM
6 3 (0.91%) SAP PS
7 2 (0.61%) SAP MM
7 2 (0.61%) SAP Oil and Gas
8 1 (0.30%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
8 1 (0.30%) Primavera
8 1 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
8 1 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 15 (4.57%) Azure
2 14 (4.27%) AWS
3 7 (2.13%) GitHub
4 6 (1.83%) Microsoft 365
4 6 (1.83%) OCI
4 6 (1.83%) Power Platform
5 5 (1.52%) AWS CloudFormation
5 5 (1.52%) Azure DevOps
5 5 (1.52%) OpenShift
6 4 (1.22%) Amazon ECS
6 4 (1.22%) Amazon S3
6 4 (1.22%) Google Workspace
7 3 (0.91%) GCP
7 3 (0.91%) GitHub Actions
8 2 (0.61%) Smartsheet
9 1 (0.30%) Azure ExpressRoute
9 1 (0.30%) Azure Monitor
9 1 (0.30%) Azure Sentinel
9 1 (0.30%) Entra ID
9 1 (0.30%) npm
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.44%) DNS
1 8 (2.44%) Firewall
2 6 (1.83%) DHCP
2 6 (1.83%) PABX
3 4 (1.22%) Network Security
3 4 (1.22%) VPN
4 3 (0.91%) Ethernet
4 3 (0.91%) TCP/IP
4 3 (0.91%) Wireless
5 2 (0.61%) FTP
5 2 (0.61%) HTTP
5 2 (0.61%) PBX
5 2 (0.61%) RS-232
5 2 (0.61%) SD-WAN
5 2 (0.61%) SMTP
5 2 (0.61%) SNMP
5 2 (0.61%) SpaceWire
5 2 (0.61%) SSL
5 2 (0.61%) WAN
6 1 (0.30%) Cisco Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.83%) Power BI
2 5 (1.52%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (1.22%) Amazon Athena
3 4 (1.22%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (0.91%) MongoDB
5 2 (0.61%) Metadata
6 1 (0.30%) Crystal Reports
6 1 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
6 1 (0.30%) Hadoop
6 1 (0.30%) SAP HANA
6 1 (0.30%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 18 (5.49%) GitLab
2 13 (3.96%) Git
3 11 (3.35%) Rational DOORS
4 8 (2.44%) Jenkins
4 8 (2.44%) JIRA
5 6 (1.83%) Rational Team Concert
6 3 (0.91%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.91%) Maven
6 3 (0.91%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.61%) Rational Rhapsody
7 2 (0.61%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.30%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.30%) Selenium
8 1 (0.30%) Subversion
General
1 79 (24.09%) Manufacturing
2 77 (23.48%) Social Skills
3 27 (8.23%) Aviation
4 26 (7.93%) Analytical Skills
5 25 (7.62%) Automotive
6 19 (5.79%) Finance
7 15 (4.57%) Electronics
7 15 (4.57%) Organisational Skills
8 11 (3.35%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (3.35%) Pharmaceutical
9 10 (3.05%) Publishing
10 9 (2.74%) Military
11 6 (1.83%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (1.52%) Public Sector
13 4 (1.22%) Environmental Health
13 4 (1.22%) Legal
13 4 (1.22%) Telecoms
14 3 (0.91%) Avionics
15 2 (0.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 1 (0.30%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 38 (11.59%) Systems Engineer
2 32 (9.76%) Senior
3 28 (8.54%) Software Engineer
4 23 (7.01%) Architect
5 22 (6.71%) Support Engineer
6 21 (6.40%) Lead
7 15 (4.57%) Administrator
8 14 (4.27%) Analyst
9 13 (3.96%) Electrical Engineer
10 12 (3.66%) Consultant
10 12 (3.66%) Test Engineer
11 10 (3.05%) Technical Engineer
11 10 (3.05%) Technical Support
12 9 (2.74%) IT Engineer
12 9 (2.74%) Principal Engineer
12 9 (2.74%) Technical Support Engineer
13 7 (2.13%) Author
13 7 (2.13%) C++ Software Engineer
13 7 (2.13%) Desktop Engineer
13 7 (2.13%) Desktop Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (3.35%) SAP Fiori
2 10 (3.05%) XML
3 6 (1.83%) Elastic Stack
3 6 (1.83%) Middleware
3 6 (1.83%) SGML
4 5 (1.52%) HTML
4 5 (1.52%) Kafka
4 5 (1.52%) LDAP
5 4 (1.22%) REST
6 3 (0.91%) Apache NiFi
6 3 (0.91%) ModSecurity
6 3 (0.91%) OpenID
6 3 (0.91%) SAML
6 3 (0.91%) Spring Boot
7 2 (0.61%) AngularJS
7 2 (0.61%) Flash
7 2 (0.61%) SailPoint
8 1 (0.30%) React
8 1 (0.30%) Unity (Game Engine)
8 1 (0.30%) Unreal Engine
Miscellaneous
1 17 (5.18%) Self-Motivation
2 12 (3.66%) Data Protection Act
2 12 (3.66%) FPGA
3 11 (3.35%) Analytical Mindset
4 10 (3.05%) Legacy Systems
4 10 (3.05%) Management Information System
5 9 (2.74%) Operational Technology
5 9 (2.74%) Product Ownership
6 8 (2.44%) PCIe
7 6 (1.83%) SCADA
7 6 (1.83%) Smartphone
7 6 (1.83%) VHDL
8 5 (1.52%) Greenfield Project
8 5 (1.52%) State Machine
9 4 (1.22%) Data Centre
9 4 (1.22%) Learning Management System
10 3 (0.91%) Algorithms
10 3 (0.91%) CAN bus
11 2 (0.61%) Industrial Internet of Things
11 2 (0.61%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 32 (9.76%) Windows
2 23 (7.01%) Linux
3 6 (1.83%) Windows 10
4 5 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (1.52%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.91%) CentOS
5 3 (0.91%) Ubuntu
5 3 (0.91%) Windows Server 2016
5 3 (0.91%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.61%) Debian
6 2 (0.61%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.30%) FreeRTOS
7 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2003
7 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (11.59%) Software Engineering
2 32 (9.76%) Problem-Solving
3 31 (9.45%) Continuous Improvement
4 26 (7.93%) Validation
5 25 (7.62%) Stakeholder Management
6 21 (6.40%) Cybersecurity
6 21 (6.40%) PLM
6 21 (6.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 20 (6.10%) Agile
7 20 (6.10%) DevOps
7 20 (6.10%) Mentoring
7 20 (6.10%) Systems Engineering
8 17 (5.18%) CI/CD
8 17 (5.18%) Containerisation
8 17 (5.18%) Migration
8 17 (5.18%) Project Management
9 16 (4.88%) Configuration Management
9 16 (4.88%) Knowledge Management
9 16 (4.88%) Software Testing
9 16 (4.88%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 22 (6.71%) C++
1 22 (6.71%) Python
2 20 (6.10%) C
3 15 (4.57%) Ada
4 12 (3.66%) C#
4 12 (3.66%) MATLAB
5 11 (3.35%) PowerShell
6 6 (1.83%) Fortran
7 5 (1.52%) Java
7 5 (1.52%) JavaScript
8 4 (1.22%) Bash
8 4 (1.22%) Shell Script
8 4 (1.22%) SQL
9 2 (0.61%) SystemVerilog
9 2 (0.61%) TypeScript
9 2 (0.61%) VBA
10 1 (0.30%) Embedded C++
10 1 (0.30%) Google Apps Script
10 1 (0.30%) SAPscript
10 1 (0.30%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 142 (43.29%) Security Cleared
2 104 (31.71%) SC Cleared
3 47 (14.33%) Degree
4 24 (7.32%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (3.96%) DV Cleared
6 9 (2.74%) AWS Certification
7 7 (2.13%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (2.13%) HNC
7 7 (2.13%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (1.83%) HND
9 5 (1.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 5 (1.52%) Azure Certification
10 4 (1.22%) CISSP
10 4 (1.22%) CompTIA Security+
11 3 (0.91%) CISM
11 3 (0.91%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.91%) PMP
11 3 (0.91%) TOGAF Certification
12 2 (0.61%) A+ Certification
12 2 (0.61%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (6.10%) QA
2 13 (3.96%) Def Stans
3 12 (3.66%) NIST
4 6 (1.83%) ECSS
4 6 (1.83%) ISO 9001
4 6 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 6 (1.83%) SLA
5 5 (1.52%) Cyber Essentials
5 5 (1.52%) JSP 440
5 5 (1.52%) NCSC
5 5 (1.52%) NIST 800
6 4 (1.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 4 (1.22%) GDPR
7 2 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
7 2 (0.61%) EU AI Act
7 2 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 2 (0.61%) MISRA
7 2 (0.61%) MISRA C
7 2 (0.61%) PMO
7 2 (0.61%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 12 (3.66%) Active Directory
2 8 (2.44%) Docker
3 7 (2.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.52%) Firmware
5 4 (1.22%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.61%) QEMU
7 1 (0.30%) Terminal Services
7 1 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 13 (3.96%) Ansible
2 12 (3.66%) Terraform
3 11 (3.35%) Kubernetes
4 6 (1.83%) Grafana
4 6 (1.83%) Prometheus
5 5 (1.52%) Podman
6 3 (0.91%) Check_MK
6 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
6 3 (0.91%) PingFederate
6 3 (0.91%) Red Hat Satellite
7 2 (0.61%) Argo
8 1 (0.30%) Cisco Prime
8 1 (0.30%) Kibana
8 1 (0.30%) logstash
8 1 (0.30%) MOM
8 1 (0.30%) Puppet
8 1 (0.30%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.30%) Wonderware InTouch
Vendors
1 39 (11.89%) SAP
2 23 (7.01%) Microsoft
3 20 (6.10%) VMware
4 15 (4.57%) Siemens
5 13 (3.96%) ServiceNow
6 11 (3.35%) Cisco
6 11 (3.35%) Oracle
7 10 (3.05%) Red Hat
8 7 (2.13%) IBM
9 6 (1.83%) MathWorks
10 4 (1.22%) Google
10 4 (1.22%) Palo Alto
10 4 (1.22%) Twitter
10 4 (1.22%) Xilinx
11 3 (0.91%) Databricks
11 3 (0.91%) HubSpot
11 3 (0.91%) Ping Identity
11 3 (0.91%) Salesforce
11 3 (0.91%) Splunk
11 3 (0.91%) Veeam