Automotive Contract Job Trends

Automotive
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Automotive in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Automotive over the 6 months leading up to 10 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 349 344 349
Rank change year-on-year -5 +5 -15
Contract jobs citing Automotive 360 210 220
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 0.64% 0.57%
As % of the General category 1.19% 1.00% 1.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 89 85 131
10th Percentile £286 £220 £300
25th Percentile £463 £331 £361
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £450 £469
Median % change year-on-year +22.22% -4.05% -6.20%
75th Percentile £638 £600 £560
90th Percentile £788 £657 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +16.67% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 52 25
10th Percentile £21.33 £22.01 £26.28
25th Percentile £22.00 £27.94 £36.75
Median hourly rate £31.39 £35.60 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.84% -20.89% +28.57%
75th Percentile £33.99 £50.00 £55.00
90th Percentile £47.13 - £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.39 £38.96 £42.88
% change year-on-year -19.44% -9.14% +22.51%

All General Skills
UK

Automotive 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 30,281 20,994 22,109
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.57% 63.64% 57.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,811 12,998 13,405
10th Percentile £313 £275 £288
25th Percentile £419 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,436 1,187 1,144
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £14.66
25th Percentile £16.46 £16.17 £17.44
Median hourly rate £30.00 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +19.28% -32.93% +36.36%
75th Percentile £55.00 £50.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £68.75 £70.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £21.40 £38.12
% change year-on-year +40.19% -43.86% +46.76%

Automotive
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Automotive relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Automotive job vacancy trend in the UK

Automotive
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Automotive.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Automotive

Automotive
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Automotive over the 6 months to 10 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Automotive in the UK

Automotive
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Automotive.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Automotive

Automotive
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Automotive over the 6 months to 10 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Automotive in the UK

Automotive
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 Automotive within the UK over the 6 months to 10 September 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 -9 323 £550 +22.22% 577
UK excluding London -20 278 £525 +16.67% 475
Midlands -7 128 £425 - 138
West Midlands +1 108 £425 +17.24% 95
South East -22 78 £500 +11.11% 128
London -66 50 £675 +45.95% 128
Work from Home -90 45 £540 +0.47% 177
East of England -17 30 £510 +19.86% 71
North of England -67 28 £550 +3.48% 87
North West -52 27 £550 +3.48% 53
East Midlands -8 18 £292 -56.74% 43
South West -42 6 £550 +23.04% 35
Scotland -39 5 £233 - 21
Northern Ireland - 2 - - 5
Wales - 1 - - 6
Yorkshire - 1 £475 - 21

Automotive
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 (1.39%) CMS
1 5 (1.39%) Confluence
2 2 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.56%) ThingWorx
3 1 (0.28%) Apache
3 1 (0.28%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 14 (3.89%) Adobe Illustrator
1 14 (3.89%) Microsoft Excel
1 14 (3.89%) Photoshop
2 11 (3.06%) Adobe After Effects
3 5 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.83%) CATIA
4 3 (0.83%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.83%) Windchill
5 1 (0.28%) Adobe Captivate
5 1 (0.28%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.28%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 21 (5.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (2.50%) Teamcenter
3 8 (2.22%) SAP SD
3 8 (2.22%) SAP VC
4 5 (1.39%) SAP ERP
5 4 (1.11%) ENOVIA
5 4 (1.11%) SAP GTS
6 3 (0.83%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.56%) DELMIA
7 2 (0.56%) SAP QM
8 1 (0.28%) SAP IBP
8 1 (0.28%) SAP MII
8 1 (0.28%) SAP PM
8 1 (0.28%) SAP PP
8 1 (0.28%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 18 (5.00%) Azure
2 17 (4.72%) AWS
3 14 (3.89%) Figma
4 7 (1.94%) GCP
4 7 (1.94%) SaaS
5 6 (1.67%) GitHub
6 5 (1.39%) Dynamics 365
6 5 (1.39%) Entra ID
6 5 (1.39%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
7 4 (1.11%) Power Platform
7 4 (1.11%) Salesforce Service Cloud
7 4 (1.11%) Snowflake
8 3 (0.83%) GitHub Actions
8 3 (0.83%) Smartsheet
9 2 (0.56%) Intacct
9 2 (0.56%) Microsoft 365
9 2 (0.56%) Power Automate
10 1 (0.28%) Amazon Kinesis
10 1 (0.28%) AWS CloudFormation
10 1 (0.28%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 10 (2.78%) Firewall
2 7 (1.94%) VPN
3 6 (1.67%) Network Security
4 4 (1.11%) DHCP
4 4 (1.11%) DNS
4 4 (1.11%) TCP/IP
4 4 (1.11%) VLAN
5 3 (0.83%) Ethernet
6 2 (0.56%) FlexRay
6 2 (0.56%) Remote Desktop
7 1 (0.28%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (0.28%) LAN
7 1 (0.28%) WAN
7 1 (0.28%) Wi-Fi
7 1 (0.28%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (1.67%) Metadata
1 6 (1.67%) PostgreSQL
1 6 (1.67%) Tableau
2 5 (1.39%) Relational Database
3 4 (1.11%) Power BI
4 3 (0.83%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
5 2 (0.56%) BigQuery
5 2 (0.56%) Data Lake
5 2 (0.56%) Power Query
5 2 (0.56%) PowerPivot
5 2 (0.56%) Tableau Server
6 1 (0.28%) Apache Iceberg
6 1 (0.28%) BusinessObjects
6 1 (0.28%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.28%) Looker
6 1 (0.28%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.28%) Tableau Desktop
Development Applications
1 11 (3.06%) Git
2 8 (2.22%) JIRA
3 4 (1.11%) Rational DOORS
3 4 (1.11%) SonarQube
4 3 (0.83%) Ant
4 3 (0.83%) Eclipse
4 3 (0.83%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.83%) JUnit
4 3 (0.83%) Postman
4 3 (0.83%) Visual Studio Code
5 2 (0.56%) CANoe
6 1 (0.28%) Claude Code
6 1 (0.28%) Cucumber
6 1 (0.28%) IntelliJ
6 1 (0.28%) NUnit
6 1 (0.28%) Robot Framework
6 1 (0.28%) Selenium
6 1 (0.28%) SpecFlow
General
1 80 (22.22%) Manufacturing
2 60 (16.67%) Social Skills
3 36 (10.00%) Finance
4 26 (7.22%) Aerospace
5 25 (6.94%) Analytical Skills
6 14 (3.89%) Retail
7 11 (3.06%) Marketing
8 5 (1.39%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (1.39%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (1.39%) Pharmaceutical
8 5 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (0.83%) Electronics
9 3 (0.83%) German Language
9 3 (0.83%) Telecoms
10 2 (0.56%) Agriculture
10 2 (0.56%) Aviation
10 2 (0.56%) French Language
10 2 (0.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.56%) Italian Language
10 2 (0.56%) Legal
Job Titles
1 40 (11.11%) Senior
2 32 (8.89%) Analyst
3 26 (7.22%) Designer
3 26 (7.22%) Test Engineer
3 26 (7.22%) UI Designer
4 24 (6.67%) Architect
4 24 (6.67%) Lead
5 22 (6.11%) Software Engineer
6 21 (5.83%) Data Engineer
6 21 (5.83%) Systems Engineer
7 19 (5.28%) Developer
8 17 (4.72%) Quality Engineer
8 17 (4.72%) Senior Designer
8 17 (4.72%) Senior UI Designer
9 16 (4.44%) Project Manager
10 14 (3.89%) Consultant
11 12 (3.33%) Cybersecurity Engineer
11 12 (3.33%) Salesforce Engineer
12 11 (3.06%) Business Analyst
12 11 (3.06%) QA Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (2.50%) REST
2 8 (2.22%) Terraform
3 7 (1.94%) Kafka
4 5 (1.39%) SAP Fiori
4 5 (1.39%) SOAP
4 5 (1.39%) Web Services
5 4 (1.11%) 802.1X
5 4 (1.11%) Spring
5 4 (1.11%) VML
6 3 (0.83%) .NET
6 3 (0.83%) .NET Framework
6 3 (0.83%) ASP.NET Web Forms
6 3 (0.83%) HTML
6 3 (0.83%) Lightning Web Components
6 3 (0.83%) Spring Boot
6 3 (0.83%) Visualforce
7 2 (0.56%) ASP.NET
7 2 (0.56%) PySpark
7 2 (0.56%) XML
7 2 (0.56%) Yocto
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.72%) Animation
1 17 (4.72%) Self-Motivation
2 11 (3.06%) Robotics
3 10 (2.78%) Driving Licence
4 9 (2.50%) Embedded Systems
5 6 (1.67%) Algorithms
5 6 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (1.39%) Taxonomies
7 4 (1.11%) Hybrid Cloud
7 4 (1.11%) IoT
7 4 (1.11%) Linux Command Line
7 4 (1.11%) Operational Technology
7 4 (1.11%) PKI
7 4 (1.11%) Public Cloud
8 3 (0.83%) Cloud Native
8 3 (0.83%) Data Centre
8 3 (0.83%) Onboarding
8 3 (0.83%) Self-Driving Car
8 3 (0.83%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 7 (1.94%) Linux
2 5 (1.39%) VMS
3 4 (1.11%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.83%) Windows
5 2 (0.56%) Embedded Linux
5 2 (0.56%) FreeRTOS
6 1 (0.28%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 64 (17.78%) Validation
2 47 (13.06%) Problem-Solving
3 44 (12.22%) Migration
4 38 (10.56%) Software Engineering
5 37 (10.28%) Stakeholder Management
6 31 (8.61%) Software Testing
7 30 (8.33%) Data Migration
8 28 (7.78%) Analytics
8 28 (7.78%) User Experience
9 27 (7.50%) Continuous Improvement
9 27 (7.50%) CRM
10 25 (6.94%) Agile
11 23 (6.39%) AI
12 20 (5.56%) Cybersecurity
12 20 (5.56%) ERP
12 20 (5.56%) Logistics
13 17 (4.72%) Change Management
13 17 (4.72%) Hardware-in-the-Loop
13 17 (4.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 16 (4.44%) PLM
Programming Languages
1 20 (5.56%) Python
2 14 (3.89%) SQL
3 11 (3.06%) Java
4 9 (2.50%) C++
5 7 (1.94%) Ada
6 5 (1.39%) JavaScript
6 5 (1.39%) SOQL
7 4 (1.11%) Bash
8 3 (0.83%) Apex Code
8 3 (0.83%) C
8 3 (0.83%) C#
8 3 (0.83%) Embedded C++
8 3 (0.83%) SOSL
8 3 (0.83%) TypeScript
9 2 (0.56%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.28%) Korn
10 1 (0.28%) Scala
Qualifications
1 37 (10.28%) Degree
2 13 (3.61%) Security Cleared
3 11 (3.06%) SC Cleared
4 6 (1.67%) Chartered Engineer
5 4 (1.11%) CCNP
5 4 (1.11%) Cisco Certification
5 4 (1.11%) JNCIP
5 4 (1.11%) JNCIS
6 3 (0.83%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (0.83%) IIBA
7 2 (0.56%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (0.56%) DV Cleared
7 2 (0.56%) HNC
8 1 (0.28%) CCA
8 1 (0.28%) CISSP
8 1 (0.28%) HND
8 1 (0.28%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.28%) PMP
8 1 (0.28%) PRINCE2 Certification
8 1 (0.28%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.83%) Data Quality
2 18 (5.00%) QA
3 6 (1.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (1.39%) Accessibility
4 5 (1.39%) Cyber Essentials
4 5 (1.39%) NIST
5 4 (1.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 4 (1.11%) MISRA
6 3 (0.83%) Automotive SPICE
6 3 (0.83%) IEC 61508
6 3 (0.83%) ISO 26262
7 2 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
7 2 (0.56%) GDPR
8 1 (0.28%) AUTOSAR
8 1 (0.28%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 5 (1.39%) Active Directory
2 4 (1.11%) Docker
3 1 (0.28%) Firmware
3 1 (0.28%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 9 (2.50%) Functional Safety
2 4 (1.11%) Ansible
2 4 (1.11%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.11%) systemd
3 1 (0.28%) Grafana
3 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (0.28%) Prometheus
3 1 (0.28%) SCCM
Vendors
1 35 (9.72%) SAP
2 29 (8.06%) Microsoft
2 29 (8.06%) Salesforce
3 14 (3.89%) Adobe
4 13 (3.61%) Oracle
5 12 (3.33%) Siemens
6 5 (1.39%) Databricks
6 5 (1.39%) Google
6 5 (1.39%) Siebel
7 4 (1.11%) Ariba
7 4 (1.11%) Cisco
7 4 (1.11%) Juniper
7 4 (1.11%) MikroTik
7 4 (1.11%) MuleSoft
8 3 (0.83%) Checkmarx
8 3 (0.83%) PTC
9 2 (0.56%) Logi
9 2 (0.56%) Motorola
9 2 (0.56%) Qualtrics
9 2 (0.56%) Samsung