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

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 278 400 274
Rank change year-on-year +122 -126 +135
Contract jobs citing Aerospace 382 130 373
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.93% 0.42% 0.84%
As % of the General category 1.59% 0.68% 1.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 111 39 76
10th Percentile £83 £354 £287
25th Percentile £425 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £548 £638
Median % change year-on-year -8.76% -14.14% +16.05%
75th Percentile £613 £646 £688
90th Percentile £713 £673 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £536 £624
% change year-on-year -6.72% -14.03% +16.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 167 42 185
10th Percentile £29.35 £26.34 £23.77
25th Percentile £42.00 £39.20 £40.00
Median hourly rate £57.35 £56.38 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.73% +7.38% -19.08%
75th Percentile £70.36 £66.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.35 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.00 £58.75 £50.00
% change year-on-year -1.28% +17.50% -21.41%

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 23,969 19,082 26,240
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 58.52% 62.09% 58.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,975 11,615 16,888
10th Percentile £300 £284 £265
25th Percentile £404 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £645 £650
90th Percentile £735 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £476 £500
% change year-on-year -0.21% -4.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,474 618 1,680
10th Percentile £13.70 £15.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £16.39 £20.27 £15.17
Median hourly rate £23.00 £29.90 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.08% +15.00% -5.80%
75th Percentile £51.53 £57.59 £52.50
90th Percentile £73.46 £75.00 £67.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £27.13 £25.00
% change year-on-year -18.89% +8.50% -

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 21 February 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 21 February 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 21 February 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 +81 336 £500 -6.72% 379
England +92 327 £500 -8.76% 370
South West +45 106 £450 -17.88% 91
East of England +34 77 £492 -18.00% 60
South East +26 74 £581 +28.04% 119
Work from Home +10 62 £518 -22.76% 121
Midlands -47 27 £650 +92.59% 34
Scotland +26 23 £65 -84.71% 33
London -33 21 £650 +1.56% 34
North of England -58 20 £70 -87.98% 53
East Midlands -15 18 £650 - 9
North West -37 13 £78 -86.55% 41
Wales +4 9 £550 - 8
West Midlands -56 9 - - 25
North East -13 7 £70 - 3

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 (1.57%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.05%) CMS
3 3 (0.79%) Apache
3 3 (0.79%) Confluence
4 1 (0.26%) Alfresco
4 1 (0.26%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.26%) Documentum
4 1 (0.26%) Jupyter
4 1 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 16 (4.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.83%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.31%) Simulink
4 3 (0.79%) Siemens NX
4 3 (0.79%) Stateflow
5 2 (0.52%) CATIA
5 2 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.26%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.26%) PTC Creo
6 1 (0.26%) SOLIDWORKS
6 1 (0.26%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 18 (4.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (3.40%) Teamcenter
3 9 (2.36%) SAP EHS
4 5 (1.31%) SAP HCM
5 3 (0.79%) SAP EWM
5 3 (0.79%) SAP MM
6 2 (0.52%) SAP GRC
6 2 (0.52%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 2 (0.52%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.52%) SAP PS
7 1 (0.26%) Demantra
7 1 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.26%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.26%) SAP HR
7 1 (0.26%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 13 (3.40%) Azure
2 8 (2.09%) AWS
3 7 (1.83%) Microsoft 365
3 7 (1.83%) Power Platform
4 4 (1.05%) Azure DevOps
4 4 (1.05%) Google Workspace
4 4 (1.05%) OpenShift
5 3 (0.79%) GitHub
5 3 (0.79%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (0.26%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (0.26%) Azure ExpressRoute
6 1 (0.26%) Azure Monitor
6 1 (0.26%) Azure Sentinel
6 1 (0.26%) Entra ID
6 1 (0.26%) Smartsheet
6 1 (0.26%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.09%) Firewall
2 6 (1.57%) PABX
3 4 (1.05%) DHCP
3 4 (1.05%) DNS
4 3 (0.79%) Ethernet
4 3 (0.79%) VPN
5 2 (0.52%) Cisco ASA
5 2 (0.52%) Network Security
5 2 (0.52%) SpaceWire
5 2 (0.52%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.26%) BGP
6 1 (0.26%) Cisco Wireless
6 1 (0.26%) HTTPS
6 1 (0.26%) LAN
6 1 (0.26%) MPLS
6 1 (0.26%) Multicast
6 1 (0.26%) NX-OS
6 1 (0.26%) OSPF
6 1 (0.26%) SAN
6 1 (0.26%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (1.83%) Power BI
2 3 (0.79%) MongoDB
2 3 (0.79%) SAP HANA
3 2 (0.52%) Metadata
4 1 (0.26%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.26%) Elasticsearch
4 1 (0.26%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.26%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 18 (4.71%) Rational DOORS
2 13 (3.40%) Git
3 11 (2.88%) GitLab
4 6 (1.57%) Jenkins
5 5 (1.31%) Rational Rhapsody
6 4 (1.05%) JIRA
7 3 (0.79%) Maven
7 3 (0.79%) Rational Team Concert
8 2 (0.52%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.52%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.26%) SonarQube
General
1 82 (21.47%) Manufacturing
2 70 (18.32%) Social Skills
3 27 (7.07%) Aviation
4 20 (5.24%) Automotive
5 18 (4.71%) Electronics
6 17 (4.45%) Analytical Skills
7 15 (3.93%) Finance
8 14 (3.66%) Documentation Skills
9 12 (3.14%) Pharmaceutical
10 11 (2.88%) Organisational Skills
11 10 (2.62%) Military
12 6 (1.57%) Avionics
13 5 (1.31%) Legal
13 5 (1.31%) Public Sector
14 4 (1.05%) Environmental Health
14 4 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
14 4 (1.05%) Publishing
15 2 (0.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 2 (0.52%) Telecoms
16 1 (0.26%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 48 (12.57%) Software Engineer
2 46 (12.04%) Systems Engineer
3 41 (10.73%) Senior
4 26 (6.81%) Support Engineer
5 23 (6.02%) Technical Support
6 21 (5.50%) Architect
6 21 (5.50%) Consultant
6 21 (5.50%) Lead
6 21 (5.50%) Principal Engineer
7 19 (4.97%) Technical Engineer
8 18 (4.71%) Technical Support Engineer
9 16 (4.19%) Administrator
10 13 (3.40%) Analyst
10 13 (3.40%) Electrical Engineer
11 11 (2.88%) Embedded Engineer
11 11 (2.88%) Senior Manager
11 11 (2.88%) Test Engineer
12 10 (2.62%) IT Engineer
12 10 (2.62%) IT Manager
13 9 (2.36%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (3.14%) SAP Fiori
2 10 (2.62%) Middleware
3 5 (1.31%) LDAP
3 5 (1.31%) REST
4 4 (1.05%) Elastic Stack
4 4 (1.05%) Kafka
4 4 (1.05%) Spring Boot
4 4 (1.05%) XML
5 3 (0.79%) Apache NiFi
5 3 (0.79%) Flash
5 3 (0.79%) HTML
5 3 (0.79%) ModSecurity
5 3 (0.79%) OpenID
5 3 (0.79%) Qt
5 3 (0.79%) SAML
6 2 (0.52%) Unity (Game Engine)
6 2 (0.52%) Unreal Engine
6 2 (0.52%) Web Services
7 1 (0.26%) AngularJS
7 1 (0.26%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.45%) Self-Motivation
2 16 (4.19%) Management Information System
3 14 (3.66%) FPGA
4 10 (2.62%) Operational Technology
5 9 (2.36%) Product Ownership
6 8 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
6 8 (2.09%) VHDL
7 7 (1.83%) Security Posture
8 6 (1.57%) Algorithms
8 6 (1.57%) Data Centre
8 6 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
8 6 (1.57%) PCIe
8 6 (1.57%) SCADA
8 6 (1.57%) Smartphone
9 5 (1.31%) Greenfield Project
9 5 (1.31%) Onboarding
10 4 (1.05%) Learning Management System
11 3 (0.79%) CAN bus
11 3 (0.79%) State Machine
11 3 (0.79%) Verilog
Operating Systems
1 25 (6.54%) Windows
2 20 (5.24%) Linux
3 7 (1.83%) Windows 10
4 6 (1.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (1.31%) CentOS
5 5 (1.31%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.79%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.79%) Windows Server 2016
6 3 (0.79%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.52%) Debian
8 1 (0.26%) FreeRTOS
8 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2003
8 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (17.02%) Software Engineering
2 45 (11.78%) Continuous Improvement
3 37 (9.69%) Validation
4 35 (9.16%) Problem-Solving
5 33 (8.64%) Configuration Management
5 33 (8.64%) Systems Engineering
6 32 (8.38%) Stakeholder Management
7 31 (8.12%) Roadmaps
7 31 (8.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 29 (7.59%) Cybersecurity
9 27 (7.07%) Agile
10 23 (6.02%) PLM
11 22 (5.76%) Verification and Validation
12 21 (5.50%) Data Management
13 20 (5.24%) Project Management
14 19 (4.97%) Risk Management
15 16 (4.19%) Analytics
15 16 (4.19%) ITIL
15 16 (4.19%) Migration
15 16 (4.19%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 31 (8.12%) Ada
2 25 (6.54%) C++
3 20 (5.24%) C
4 19 (4.97%) Python
5 15 (3.93%) MATLAB
6 8 (2.09%) C#
7 7 (1.83%) PowerShell
8 6 (1.57%) Java
8 6 (1.57%) Shell Script
9 4 (1.05%) SQL
10 3 (0.79%) Bash
10 3 (0.79%) Fortran
10 3 (0.79%) JavaScript
10 3 (0.79%) SystemVerilog
11 2 (0.52%) ABAP
12 1 (0.26%) Embedded C++
12 1 (0.26%) Google Apps Script
12 1 (0.26%) SAPscript
12 1 (0.26%) VBA
Qualifications
1 193 (50.52%) Security Cleared
2 123 (32.20%) SC Cleared
3 38 (9.95%) Degree
4 28 (7.33%) BPSS Clearance
5 22 (5.76%) DV Cleared
6 5 (1.31%) CISSP
6 5 (1.31%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (1.05%) AWS Certification
7 4 (1.05%) Azure Certification
7 4 (1.05%) CISM
7 4 (1.05%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (1.05%) PMP
8 3 (0.79%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (0.79%) CompTIA Security+
8 3 (0.79%) PMI Certification
8 3 (0.79%) TOGAF Certification
9 2 (0.52%) CCNA
9 2 (0.52%) Chartered Engineer
9 2 (0.52%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.26%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (5.24%) Def Stans
2 19 (4.97%) QA
3 15 (3.93%) NIST
4 7 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (1.83%) SLA
5 6 (1.57%) Cyber Essentials
5 6 (1.57%) Data Quality
5 6 (1.57%) ECSS
5 6 (1.57%) IEC 61508
5 6 (1.57%) ISO 9001
5 6 (1.57%) NCSC
6 5 (1.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 5 (1.31%) NIST 800
7 4 (1.05%) DO-254
7 4 (1.05%) JSP 440
8 3 (0.79%) GRC
8 3 (0.79%) MISRA
8 3 (0.79%) MISRA C
8 3 (0.79%) PMO
9 2 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 14 (3.66%) Active Directory
2 7 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (1.31%) Docker
3 5 (1.31%) Firmware
4 4 (1.05%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.52%) QEMU
6 1 (0.26%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 1 (0.26%) Terminal Services
6 1 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 12 (3.14%) Ansible
2 9 (2.36%) Kubernetes
3 8 (2.09%) Podman
4 5 (1.31%) Check_MK
4 5 (1.31%) Red Hat Satellite
4 5 (1.31%) Terraform
5 4 (1.05%) Grafana
5 4 (1.05%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.79%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
6 3 (0.79%) PingFederate
7 2 (0.52%) Cisco Prime
8 1 (0.26%) Argo
8 1 (0.26%) Iperf
8 1 (0.26%) Kibana
8 1 (0.26%) logstash
8 1 (0.26%) Nessus
8 1 (0.26%) Nmap
8 1 (0.26%) SCCM
8 1 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 45 (11.78%) SAP
2 23 (6.02%) VMware
3 16 (4.19%) Twitter
4 14 (3.66%) Microsoft
5 13 (3.40%) ServiceNow
6 11 (2.88%) Red Hat
6 11 (2.88%) Siemens
7 10 (2.62%) Cisco
8 5 (1.31%) IBM
8 5 (1.31%) Xilinx
9 4 (1.05%) Google
10 3 (0.79%) Altera
10 3 (0.79%) Databricks
10 3 (0.79%) HubSpot
10 3 (0.79%) Intel
10 3 (0.79%) MathWorks
10 3 (0.79%) Oracle
10 3 (0.79%) Palo Alto
10 3 (0.79%) Salesforce
10 3 (0.79%) Veeam