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

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 230 370 243
Rank change year-on-year +140 -127 +152
Contract jobs citing Aerospace 499 158 434
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.08% 0.54% 0.99%
As % of the General category 1.96% 0.85% 1.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 93 44 76
10th Percentile £195 £400 £287
25th Percentile £425 £482 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £548 £650
Median % change year-on-year -8.76% -15.69% +16.59%
75th Percentile £630 £595 £700
90th Percentile £713 £653 £706
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £535 £650
% change year-on-year -6.54% -17.69% +18.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 282 59 243
10th Percentile £30.00 £30.83 £26.30
25th Percentile £41.28 £41.88 £45.00
Median hourly rate £57.35 £55.25 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.80% +10.50% -18.70%
75th Percentile £78.75 £66.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.80 £75.00 £77.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £59.50 £57.25 £50.00
% change year-on-year +3.94% +14.49% -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 25,419 18,596 25,477
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.12% 63.19% 58.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,754 11,902 16,136
10th Percentile £305 £296 £270
25th Percentile £406 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £640 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,600 775 1,917
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.34 £18.17 £15.39
Median hourly rate £27.80 £28.60 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.80% +4.00% -21.43%
75th Percentile £59.50 £56.00 £51.25
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £26.50 £26.00
% change year-on-year -5.09% +1.92% -14.75%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 +104 460 £500 -6.54% 368
England +103 430 £500 -8.76% 351
South East +54 151 £675 +31.32% 107
South West +37 111 £500 -8.59% 86
East of England +25 91 £492 - 46
Work from Home -3 74 £495 -5.71% 97
North of England -45 42 £74 -87.27% 66
North West -32 33 £452 -22.46% 57
Scotland +24 26 £68 -84.12% 32
Midlands -57 21 £550 +4.76% 26
Wales +4 13 £550 - 12
London -53 13 £588 -4.47% 19
East Midlands -29 11 £550 - 8
West Midlands -60 10 - - 18
North East - 9 £70 - 5
Northern Ireland +7 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 3 (0.60%) Apache
2 2 (0.40%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.40%) SharePoint
2 2 (0.40%) ThingWorx
3 1 (0.20%) Confluence
3 1 (0.20%) Jupyter
Applications
1 12 (2.40%) CATIA
2 10 (2.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (1.60%) Simulink
4 6 (1.20%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.80%) Windchill
6 3 (0.60%) Siemens NX
7 1 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.20%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 15 (3.01%) Teamcenter
2 9 (1.80%) SAP EHS
3 5 (1.00%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.80%) SAP EWM
5 3 (0.60%) SAP GRC
6 2 (0.40%) DELMIA
6 2 (0.40%) ENOVIA
6 2 (0.40%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.40%) SAP MM
6 2 (0.40%) SAP WM
7 1 (0.20%) Demantra
7 1 (0.20%) Primavera
7 1 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.20%) SAP CCM
7 1 (0.20%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.20%) SAP FI-GL
7 1 (0.20%) SAP HCM
7 1 (0.20%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.20%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 13 (2.61%) Azure
2 12 (2.40%) AWS
3 5 (1.00%) Azure DevOps
3 5 (1.00%) Power Platform
4 3 (0.60%) Google Workspace
5 2 (0.40%) Dynamics 365
5 2 (0.40%) GCP
5 2 (0.40%) OpenShift
5 2 (0.40%) SuccessFactors
6 1 (0.20%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (0.20%) Azure Functions
6 1 (0.20%) Azure Logic Apps
6 1 (0.20%) Boomi
6 1 (0.20%) iPaaS
6 1 (0.20%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (0.20%) Power Automate
6 1 (0.20%) PowerApps
6 1 (0.20%) SaaS
6 1 (0.20%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 11 (2.20%) Ethernet
2 7 (1.40%) Software-Defined Radio
3 6 (1.20%) Firewall
3 6 (1.20%) Wireless
4 4 (0.80%) DHCP
4 4 (0.80%) DNS
5 3 (0.60%) SpaceWire
6 2 (0.40%) Cisco ASA
6 2 (0.40%) Network Security
6 2 (0.40%) TCP/IP
6 2 (0.40%) VPN
7 1 (0.20%) BGP
7 1 (0.20%) Cisco Wireless
7 1 (0.20%) FTP
7 1 (0.20%) HTTPS
7 1 (0.20%) MPLS
7 1 (0.20%) Multicast
7 1 (0.20%) NX-OS
7 1 (0.20%) OSPF
7 1 (0.20%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (1.00%) Power BI
2 3 (0.60%) SAP HANA
3 2 (0.40%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.40%) Hadoop
3 2 (0.40%) NoSQL
3 2 (0.40%) Tableau
4 1 (0.20%) Big Data
4 1 (0.20%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.20%) Metadata
4 1 (0.20%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 48 (9.62%) Rational DOORS
2 13 (2.61%) Git
3 10 (2.00%) GitLab
4 8 (1.60%) Rational Rhapsody
5 7 (1.40%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.60%) JIRA
7 2 (0.40%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.40%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.40%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.20%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.20%) Hudson
8 1 (0.20%) LabVIEW
8 1 (0.20%) PetaLinux
8 1 (0.20%) Postman
General
1 120 (24.05%) Manufacturing
2 55 (11.02%) Social Skills
3 27 (5.41%) Aviation
4 21 (4.21%) Analytical Skills
5 20 (4.01%) Documentation Skills
5 20 (4.01%) Finance
6 19 (3.81%) Automotive
6 19 (3.81%) Electronics
7 9 (1.80%) Military
8 8 (1.60%) Avionics
9 5 (1.00%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (0.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (0.80%) Public Sector
11 3 (0.60%) Legal
11 3 (0.60%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.40%) General Ledger
12 2 (0.40%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.40%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.20%) Fire and Rescue
13 1 (0.20%) Law
Job Titles
1 58 (11.62%) Software Engineer
2 49 (9.82%) Systems Engineer
3 45 (9.02%) Senior
4 38 (7.62%) Product Manager
5 34 (6.81%) Delivery Manager
5 34 (6.81%) Product Delivery Manager
6 28 (5.61%) Architect
6 28 (5.61%) Lead
7 26 (5.21%) Embedded Engineer
7 26 (5.21%) Technical Support
8 25 (5.01%) Principal Engineer
9 22 (4.41%) Systems Delivery Manager
9 22 (4.41%) Systems Manager
10 21 (4.21%) Administrator
11 20 (4.01%) Support Engineer
11 20 (4.01%) Technical Engineer
12 19 (3.81%) Technical Support Engineer
13 17 (3.41%) Embedded Software Engineer
13 17 (3.41%) Engineering Manager
13 17 (3.41%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (2.81%) Middleware
2 7 (1.40%) LDAP
3 6 (1.20%) REST
4 4 (0.80%) Apache NiFi
5 3 (0.60%) Qt
6 2 (0.40%) .NET
6 2 (0.40%) AngularJS
6 2 (0.40%) Flash
6 2 (0.40%) Quarkus
6 2 (0.40%) RESTful
6 2 (0.40%) SAP Fiori
6 2 (0.40%) SOAP
6 2 (0.40%) Unity (Game Engine)
6 2 (0.40%) Unreal Engine
6 2 (0.40%) Web Services
6 2 (0.40%) XML
7 1 (0.20%) Hibernate
7 1 (0.20%) JSON
7 1 (0.20%) SAP PI
7 1 (0.20%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 36 (7.21%) Product Ownership
2 23 (4.61%) Data Structures
3 20 (4.01%) Management Information System
4 17 (3.41%) FPGA
5 16 (3.21%) Operational Technology
6 11 (2.20%) PCIe
7 10 (2.00%) Embedded Systems
7 10 (2.00%) VHDL
8 9 (1.80%) Algorithms
9 8 (1.60%) Virtual Team
10 7 (1.40%) Data Centre
10 7 (1.40%) Security Posture
11 6 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
11 6 (1.20%) Onboarding
11 6 (1.20%) Verilog
12 5 (1.00%) SCADA
13 3 (0.60%) Cyber Security Posture
13 3 (0.60%) Legacy Applications
13 3 (0.60%) Self-Motivation
13 3 (0.60%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 20 (4.01%) Linux
2 16 (3.21%) Windows
3 8 (1.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 7 (1.40%) CentOS
5 4 (0.80%) FreeRTOS
5 4 (0.80%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.60%) Windows Server 2016
6 3 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.40%) Debian
7 2 (0.40%) Embedded Linux
7 2 (0.40%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.20%) Unix
8 1 (0.20%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (17.64%) Software Engineering
2 74 (14.83%) Continuous Improvement
3 63 (12.63%) Systems Engineering
4 59 (11.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 58 (11.62%) Agile
6 57 (11.42%) Validation
7 56 (11.22%) Configuration Management
8 51 (10.22%) Computer Science
9 46 (9.22%) Problem-Solving
10 44 (8.82%) Cybersecurity
11 43 (8.62%) Roadmaps
12 42 (8.42%) PRINCE2
12 42 (8.42%) Stakeholder Management
13 38 (7.62%) Scaled Agile Framework
14 36 (7.21%) Change Control
14 36 (7.21%) Programme Management
15 34 (6.81%) SysML
15 34 (6.81%) UML
16 33 (6.61%) Verification and Validation
17 32 (6.41%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
Programming Languages
1 35 (7.01%) Ada
2 25 (5.01%) C
3 23 (4.61%) MATLAB
3 23 (4.61%) Python
4 18 (3.61%) C++
5 9 (1.80%) SystemVerilog
6 7 (1.40%) Shell Script
7 6 (1.20%) Java
7 6 (1.20%) PowerShell
8 5 (1.00%) SQL
9 4 (0.80%) C#
10 3 (0.60%) Bash
11 2 (0.40%) ABAP
11 2 (0.40%) JavaScript
12 1 (0.20%) Google Apps Script
12 1 (0.20%) Tcl
12 1 (0.20%) X++
Qualifications
1 238 (47.70%) Security Cleared
2 125 (25.05%) SC Cleared
3 72 (14.43%) Degree
4 48 (9.62%) BPSS Clearance
5 21 (4.21%) DV Cleared
6 10 (2.00%) CISSP
6 10 (2.00%) HNC
7 7 (1.40%) CompTIA Security+
7 7 (1.40%) NVQ Level 4
8 6 (1.20%) PMP
8 6 (1.20%) TOGAF Certification
9 5 (1.00%) AWS Certification
9 5 (1.00%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (0.80%) Azure Certification
10 4 (0.80%) CEH
10 4 (0.80%) Chartered Engineer
10 4 (0.80%) Computer Science Degree
10 4 (0.80%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
12 2 (0.40%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (4.81%) NIST
2 21 (4.21%) QA
3 18 (3.61%) Def Stans
4 14 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (2.20%) Data Quality
6 10 (2.00%) DO-254
7 9 (1.80%) SLA
8 8 (1.60%) IEC 61508
8 8 (1.60%) NIST 800
9 7 (1.40%) Cyber Essentials
10 5 (1.00%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.80%) ECSS
11 4 (0.80%) GRC
11 4 (0.80%) ISO 9001
12 3 (0.60%) GDPR
12 3 (0.60%) ISO 26262
12 3 (0.60%) MIL-STD-1553
12 3 (0.60%) MISRA
12 3 (0.60%) MISRA C
13 2 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 14 (2.81%) Firmware
2 13 (2.61%) Active Directory
3 9 (1.80%) Docker
4 6 (1.20%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (1.00%) Embedded Firmware
6 4 (0.80%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.40%) QEMU
8 1 (0.20%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 15 (3.01%) Ansible
2 10 (2.00%) Podman
3 7 (1.40%) Check_MK
3 7 (1.40%) Kubernetes
3 7 (1.40%) Red Hat Satellite
4 5 (1.00%) Terraform
5 3 (0.60%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
6 2 (0.40%) Argo
6 2 (0.40%) Cisco Prime
7 1 (0.20%) Grafana
7 1 (0.20%) HP ALM
7 1 (0.20%) Iperf
7 1 (0.20%) Kibana
7 1 (0.20%) logstash
7 1 (0.20%) Nessus
7 1 (0.20%) Nmap
7 1 (0.20%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.20%) SCCM
Vendors
1 48 (9.62%) SAP
2 29 (5.81%) IBM
3 21 (4.21%) VMware
4 12 (2.40%) Red Hat
4 12 (2.40%) ServiceNow
5 10 (2.00%) Microsoft
5 10 (2.00%) Siemens
6 9 (1.80%) Xilinx
7 8 (1.60%) Altera
7 8 (1.60%) Microsemi
8 7 (1.40%) Cisco
9 4 (0.80%) Lauterbach
10 3 (0.60%) Palo Alto
10 3 (0.60%) PTC
10 3 (0.60%) Veeam
11 2 (0.40%) EMC
11 2 (0.40%) Fortinet
11 2 (0.40%) Google
12 1 (0.20%) Adobe
12 1 (0.20%) Intel