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

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 209 372 231
Rank change year-on-year +163 -141 +173
Contract jobs citing Aerospace 556 145 438
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.17% 0.50% 1.02%
As % of the General category 2.18% 0.79% 1.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 97 40 65
10th Percentile £278 £402 £325
25th Percentile £425 £513 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £549 £650
Median % change year-on-year -7.10% -15.54% +23.81%
75th Percentile £638 £629 £700
90th Percentile £713 £675 -
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £525 £675
% change year-on-year -4.76% -22.22% +35.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 329 56 255
10th Percentile £28.50 £33.88 £29.60
25th Percentile £40.53 £45.98 £45.00
Median hourly rate £59.00 £58.04 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.65% +16.08% -18.70%
75th Percentile £78.75 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £74.38 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £58.58 £50.00
% change year-on-year +2.42% +17.16% -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 25,541 18,360 24,809
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 53.70% 63.35% 58.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,612 11,672 15,642
10th Percentile £308 £289 £275
25th Percentile £409 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.37% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +1.75% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,634 780 1,929
10th Percentile £13.95 £14.00 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.50 £17.31 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.30 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year +9.89% -9.48% -10.82%
75th Percentile £60.72 £56.00 £52.78
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.16 £24.50 £28.50
% change year-on-year +14.92% -14.04% -1.72%

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 14 May 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 14 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Aerospace in the UK

Aerospace
Top 17 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 14 May 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 +112 518 £500 -4.76% 390
England +144 486 £510 -6.93% 390
South East +59 186 £653 +26.70% 123
South West +41 125 £500 -8.26% 81
East of England +26 93 £492 - 66
Work from Home +9 82 £495 -5.71% 124
North of England -32 50 £74 -87.27% 52
North West -11 41 £452 -22.46% 31
Scotland +29 27 £70 -83.53% 25
Midlands -50 20 £613 +16.67% 49
Wales -1 12 £550 - 10
London -65 11 £638 +1.92% 29
West Midlands -51 10 - - 31
East Midlands -26 9 £575 - 18
North East - 8 £70 - 13
Northern Ireland +5 5 £447 - 4
Yorkshire - 1 - - 8

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 (0.54%) Apache
1 3 (0.54%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.36%) ThingWorx
3 1 (0.18%) Confluence
3 1 (0.18%) Jupyter
3 1 (0.18%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.18%) Tomcat
Applications
1 13 (2.34%) CATIA
2 11 (1.98%) Simulink
3 10 (1.80%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.72%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (0.72%) Windchill
5 3 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.36%) Adobe Illustrator
6 2 (0.36%) Photoshop
6 2 (0.36%) Siemens NX
6 2 (0.36%) Stateflow
7 1 (0.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 1 (0.18%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 15 (2.70%) Teamcenter
2 9 (1.62%) SAP EHS
2 9 (1.62%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.72%) SAP EWM
4 3 (0.54%) SAP GRC
5 2 (0.36%) DELMIA
5 2 (0.36%) ENOVIA
5 2 (0.36%) Remedy ITSM
5 2 (0.36%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.36%) SAP MM
5 2 (0.36%) SAP WM
6 1 (0.18%) Demantra
6 1 (0.18%) Primavera
6 1 (0.18%) SAP CCM
6 1 (0.18%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.18%) SAP FI-GL
6 1 (0.18%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.18%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 20 (3.60%) Azure
2 14 (2.52%) AWS
3 11 (1.98%) Azure DevOps
4 6 (1.08%) Power Platform
5 5 (0.90%) Dynamics 365
6 3 (0.54%) GCP
7 2 (0.36%) Figma
7 2 (0.36%) Google Workspace
7 2 (0.36%) SaaS
7 2 (0.36%) SuccessFactors
8 1 (0.18%) Amazon EC2
8 1 (0.18%) AWS CloudFormation
8 1 (0.18%) Azure Logic Apps
8 1 (0.18%) Boomi
8 1 (0.18%) Google Sheets
8 1 (0.18%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (0.18%) OpenShift
8 1 (0.18%) Power Automate
8 1 (0.18%) PowerApps
8 1 (0.18%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.98%) Ethernet
2 10 (1.80%) Software-Defined Radio
2 10 (1.80%) Wireless
3 6 (1.08%) DNS
3 6 (1.08%) Firewall
4 5 (0.90%) DHCP
5 3 (0.54%) SpaceWire
5 3 (0.54%) TCP/IP
6 2 (0.36%) Cisco ASA
6 2 (0.36%) Network Security
6 2 (0.36%) VPN
7 1 (0.18%) 3GPP
7 1 (0.18%) Cisco Wireless
7 1 (0.18%) FTP
7 1 (0.18%) HTTPS
7 1 (0.18%) MPLS
7 1 (0.18%) Multicast
7 1 (0.18%) NX-OS
7 1 (0.18%) OSPF
7 1 (0.18%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (0.72%) Power BI
2 3 (0.54%) Hadoop
2 3 (0.54%) NoSQL
2 3 (0.54%) SAP HANA
3 2 (0.36%) Big Data
3 2 (0.36%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (0.36%) Tableau
4 1 (0.18%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.18%) MS Access
4 1 (0.18%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 49 (8.81%) Rational DOORS
2 13 (2.34%) Git
3 11 (1.98%) GitLab
4 8 (1.44%) Jenkins
4 8 (1.44%) Rational Rhapsody
5 4 (0.72%) JIRA
6 2 (0.36%) Artifactory
6 2 (0.36%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.18%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.18%) Hudson
7 1 (0.18%) LabVIEW
7 1 (0.18%) PetaLinux
7 1 (0.18%) Postman
7 1 (0.18%) SonarQube
General
1 135 (24.28%) Manufacturing
2 57 (10.25%) Social Skills
3 35 (6.29%) Aviation
4 33 (5.94%) Finance
5 26 (4.68%) Analytical Skills
6 23 (4.14%) Automotive
7 21 (3.78%) Documentation Skills
8 19 (3.42%) Electronics
9 10 (1.80%) Avionics
9 10 (1.80%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (1.26%) Military
11 4 (0.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (0.72%) Legal
11 4 (0.72%) Public Sector
12 3 (0.54%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.54%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.36%) Agriculture
13 2 (0.36%) General Ledger
13 2 (0.36%) Pharmaceutical
14 1 (0.18%) Law
Job Titles
1 64 (11.51%) Software Engineer
2 50 (8.99%) Systems Engineer
3 44 (7.91%) Senior
4 39 (7.01%) Product Manager
5 34 (6.12%) Architect
5 34 (6.12%) Delivery Manager
5 34 (6.12%) Product Delivery Manager
6 32 (5.76%) Embedded Engineer
6 32 (5.76%) Lead
7 29 (5.22%) Principal Engineer
8 27 (4.86%) Systems Manager
8 27 (4.86%) Technical Support
8 27 (4.86%) Test Engineer
9 23 (4.14%) Administrator
9 23 (4.14%) Embedded Software Engineer
10 22 (3.96%) Systems Delivery Manager
11 21 (3.78%) Support Engineer
11 21 (3.78%) Technical Engineer
12 20 (3.60%) Technical Support Engineer
13 19 (3.42%) Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (2.70%) Middleware
2 9 (1.62%) LDAP
3 6 (1.08%) REST
4 5 (0.90%) Apache NiFi
5 3 (0.54%) Qt
6 2 (0.36%) .NET
6 2 (0.36%) Flash
6 2 (0.36%) RESTful
6 2 (0.36%) SAP Fiori
6 2 (0.36%) SOAP
6 2 (0.36%) Unity (Game Engine)
6 2 (0.36%) Unreal Engine
6 2 (0.36%) Web Services
6 2 (0.36%) XML
6 2 (0.36%) Yocto
7 1 (0.18%) Flask
7 1 (0.18%) Kafka
7 1 (0.18%) PostGIS
7 1 (0.18%) pytest
7 1 (0.18%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 35 (6.29%) Product Ownership
2 23 (4.14%) Data Structures
3 22 (3.96%) Management Information System
4 17 (3.06%) FPGA
5 16 (2.88%) Operational Technology
6 11 (1.98%) Embedded Systems
6 11 (1.98%) PCIe
7 9 (1.62%) Algorithms
7 9 (1.62%) VHDL
8 8 (1.44%) Data Centre
8 8 (1.44%) Virtual Team
9 7 (1.26%) Onboarding
9 7 (1.26%) Security Posture
10 6 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
10 6 (1.08%) Verilog
11 5 (0.90%) SCADA
12 3 (0.54%) CAN bus
12 3 (0.54%) Cyber Security Posture
12 3 (0.54%) Legacy Applications
12 3 (0.54%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 23 (4.14%) Linux
2 17 (3.06%) Windows
3 9 (1.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 8 (1.44%) CentOS
5 5 (0.90%) FreeRTOS
6 4 (0.72%) Windows Server
7 3 (0.54%) Embedded Linux
7 3 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
7 3 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.36%) Debian
8 2 (0.36%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.18%) Unix
9 1 (0.18%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (17.45%) Software Engineering
2 75 (13.49%) Continuous Improvement
3 70 (12.59%) Systems Engineering
4 67 (12.05%) Agile
5 62 (11.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 60 (10.79%) Validation
7 55 (9.89%) Configuration Management
8 52 (9.35%) Computer Science
9 50 (8.99%) Problem-Solving
10 48 (8.63%) Stakeholder Management
11 45 (8.09%) Cybersecurity
11 45 (8.09%) Roadmaps
12 42 (7.55%) PRINCE2
13 41 (7.37%) Programme Management
14 38 (6.83%) Scaled Agile Framework
15 36 (6.47%) Change Control
16 35 (6.29%) SysML
16 35 (6.29%) UML
16 35 (6.29%) Verification and Validation
17 32 (5.76%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
Programming Languages
1 35 (6.29%) Ada
2 27 (4.86%) MATLAB
3 26 (4.68%) C
4 22 (3.96%) Python
5 18 (3.24%) C++
6 8 (1.44%) Shell Script
6 8 (1.44%) SystemVerilog
7 6 (1.08%) PowerShell
7 6 (1.08%) SQL
8 5 (0.90%) Java
9 4 (0.72%) C#
10 3 (0.54%) Bash
11 2 (0.36%) ABAP
12 1 (0.18%) Embedded C++
12 1 (0.18%) JavaScript
12 1 (0.18%) Tcl
12 1 (0.18%) X++
Qualifications
1 249 (44.78%) Security Cleared
2 134 (24.10%) SC Cleared
3 71 (12.77%) Degree
4 48 (8.63%) BPSS Clearance
5 20 (3.60%) DV Cleared
6 10 (1.80%) CISSP
6 10 (1.80%) HNC
6 10 (1.80%) NVQ Level 4
7 7 (1.26%) CompTIA Security+
7 7 (1.26%) PMP
8 6 (1.08%) TOGAF Certification
9 5 (0.90%) AWS Certification
9 5 (0.90%) Chartered Engineer
9 5 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (0.90%) PMI Certification
10 4 (0.72%) Azure Certification
10 4 (0.72%) CEH
10 4 (0.72%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (0.72%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.54%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (4.50%) QA
2 24 (4.32%) NIST
3 19 (3.42%) Def Stans
4 14 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (1.98%) Data Quality
5 11 (1.98%) SLA
6 9 (1.62%) DO-254
7 8 (1.44%) IEC 61508
7 8 (1.44%) NIST 800
8 7 (1.26%) Cyber Essentials
9 5 (0.90%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 4 (0.72%) GRC
11 3 (0.54%) GDPR
11 3 (0.54%) ISO 26262
11 3 (0.54%) MIL-STD-1553
11 3 (0.54%) MISRA
11 3 (0.54%) MISRA C
12 2 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.36%) NCSC
13 1 (0.18%) HAZOP
System Software
1 14 (2.52%) Active Directory
2 13 (2.34%) Firmware
3 10 (1.80%) Docker
4 6 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.90%) Embedded Firmware
6 4 (0.72%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.36%) QEMU
8 1 (0.18%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 17 (3.06%) Ansible
2 11 (1.98%) Podman
3 8 (1.44%) Check_MK
3 8 (1.44%) Red Hat Satellite
4 6 (1.08%) Kubernetes
4 6 (1.08%) Terraform
5 3 (0.54%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
6 2 (0.36%) Cisco Prime
7 1 (0.18%) Argo
7 1 (0.18%) Grafana
7 1 (0.18%) HP ALM
7 1 (0.18%) Iperf
7 1 (0.18%) Kibana
7 1 (0.18%) logstash
7 1 (0.18%) Nessus
7 1 (0.18%) Nmap
7 1 (0.18%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.18%) SCCM
7 1 (0.18%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 53 (9.53%) SAP
2 29 (5.22%) IBM
3 22 (3.96%) VMware
4 18 (3.24%) Microsoft
5 13 (2.34%) ServiceNow
6 12 (2.16%) Red Hat
7 11 (1.98%) Siemens
8 8 (1.44%) Cisco
8 8 (1.44%) Xilinx
9 7 (1.26%) Altera
9 7 (1.26%) Microsemi
10 4 (0.72%) Lauterbach
10 4 (0.72%) PTC
11 3 (0.54%) Adobe
11 3 (0.54%) Palo Alto
11 3 (0.54%) Veeam
12 2 (0.36%) Fortinet
12 2 (0.36%) Google
12 2 (0.36%) Remedy
13 1 (0.18%) JD Edwards