Manufacturing Contract Job Trends

Manufacturing
UK

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

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 131 110 76
Rank change year-on-year -21 -34 +59
Contract jobs citing Manufacturing 925 698 1,158
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.02% 2.39% 2.63%
As % of the General category 3.62% 3.79% 4.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 395 355 646
10th Percentile £195 £269 £205
25th Percentile £405 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% +5.00% -8.73%
75th Percentile £625 £631 £638
90th Percentile £750 £700 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £525 £475
% change year-on-year -14.29% +10.53% -9.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 196 50 153
10th Percentile £17.14 £19.52 £13.67
25th Percentile £22.39 £23.24 £20.75
Median hourly rate £30.50 £42.75 £36.05
Median % change year-on-year -28.65% +18.60% -19.90%
75th Percentile £41.58 £60.00 £50.71
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £62.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.08 £33.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -8.86% -5.71% -22.22%

All General Skills
UK

Manufacturing 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 25,557 18,394 25,602
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.72% 62.96% 58.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,901 11,786 16,235
10th Percentile £304 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £409 £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 £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,587 745 1,892
10th Percentile £13.72 £14.70 £12.78
25th Percentile £17.25 £18.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £26.50 £28.75 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.83% +6.48% -22.86%
75th Percentile £59.00 £57.50 £50.06
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £27.00 £25.50
% change year-on-year -7.41% +5.88% -17.05%

Manufacturing
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Manufacturing job vacancy trend in the UK

Manufacturing
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Manufacturing
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Manufacturing over the 6 months to 10 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Manufacturing in the UK

Manufacturing
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Manufacturing
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Manufacturing over the 6 months to 10 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Manufacturing in the UK

Manufacturing
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 Manufacturing within the UK over the 6 months to 10 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
England -27 738 £500 -5.66% 1,027
UK excluding London -21 580 £450 -14.29% 1,013
Work from Home -45 201 £550 +4.76% 280
London -25 192 £551 +3.96% 140
North of England -63 120 £500 -4.76% 243
East of England +22 118 £425 -17.07% 115
South East -59 113 £481 -17.20% 209
Midlands -18 94 £420 -11.58% 245
North West -26 87 £525 -4.55% 143
South West -23 71 £550 +4.76% 124
West Midlands -27 58 £420 -11.58% 155
East Midlands -20 34 £420 -16.00% 90
Scotland +22 27 £750 +62.69% 57
Wales +4 21 £170 -72.24% 39
North East -17 20 £175 -60.23% 34
Northern Ireland +11 16 £488 - 11
Yorkshire -53 13 £450 +5.88% 71

Manufacturing
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 15 (1.62%) Confluence
2 10 (1.08%) SharePoint
3 9 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.32%) Anypoint
4 3 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.32%) Jupyter
5 2 (0.22%) Apache
5 2 (0.22%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
5 2 (0.22%) ThingWorx
5 2 (0.22%) WinCC
6 1 (0.11%) Cloud Foundry
6 1 (0.11%) CMS
6 1 (0.11%) Documentum
6 1 (0.11%) MTS
6 1 (0.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 38 (4.11%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (3.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.41%) CATIA
4 12 (1.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (1.08%) Microsoft Project
6 9 (0.97%) Siemens NX
7 8 (0.86%) MS Visio
8 7 (0.76%) Windchill
9 6 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
10 3 (0.32%) Adobe Illustrator
10 3 (0.32%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.32%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.22%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.22%) SOLIDWORKS
12 1 (0.11%) FrameMaker
12 1 (0.11%) Fusion 360
12 1 (0.11%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 114 (12.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (3.78%) SAP PP
3 28 (3.03%) Teamcenter
4 14 (1.51%) SAP PM
5 11 (1.19%) SAP EWM
5 11 (1.19%) SAP QM
6 10 (1.08%) SAP EHS
6 10 (1.08%) SAP MM
7 9 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
7 9 (0.97%) Sage X3
8 8 (0.86%) NetSuite
8 8 (0.86%) SAP FI
9 7 (0.76%) Oracle EBS R12
9 7 (0.76%) Oracle Manufacturing
9 7 (0.76%) SAP Payroll
10 6 (0.65%) SAP CO
10 6 (0.65%) SAP ERP
10 6 (0.65%) SAP WM
11 5 (0.54%) Oracle EBS
12 4 (0.43%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 53 (5.73%) Microsoft 365
2 44 (4.76%) Azure
3 30 (3.24%) AWS
4 28 (3.03%) Power Platform
5 23 (2.49%) Dynamics 365
6 18 (1.95%) SaaS
7 17 (1.84%) GCP
8 10 (1.08%) SuccessFactors
9 6 (0.65%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (0.54%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 5 (0.54%) Lucidchart
10 5 (0.54%) OCI
11 4 (0.43%) Azure Data Factory
11 4 (0.43%) GitHub
11 4 (0.43%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 4 (0.43%) Microsoft Copilot
12 3 (0.32%) Amazon Kinesis
12 3 (0.32%) Amazon S3
12 3 (0.32%) dbt
12 3 (0.32%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 29 (3.14%) LAN
2 23 (2.49%) Firewall
2 23 (2.49%) WAN
3 15 (1.62%) Wireless
4 14 (1.51%) BGP
4 14 (1.51%) OSPF
4 14 (1.51%) Wi-Fi
5 12 (1.30%) IPsec
5 12 (1.30%) Structured Cabling
6 9 (0.97%) Skype
7 8 (0.86%) Cisco IOS
7 8 (0.86%) Network Security
8 7 (0.76%) Modbus
9 6 (0.65%) Ethernet
9 6 (0.65%) VPN
10 5 (0.54%) VLAN
11 4 (0.43%) DHCP
11 4 (0.43%) DNS
11 4 (0.43%) SD-WAN
11 4 (0.43%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (2.92%) Power BI
2 13 (1.41%) Data Warehouse
3 9 (0.97%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 7 (0.76%) Power Query
4 7 (0.76%) Tableau
5 6 (0.65%) SAP HANA
5 6 (0.65%) ZAP BI
6 5 (0.54%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (0.43%) Data Lake
7 4 (0.43%) MySQL
7 4 (0.43%) SQL Server
8 3 (0.32%) Delta Lake
9 2 (0.22%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.22%) Big Data
9 2 (0.22%) Crystal Reports
9 2 (0.22%) Electronic Patient Records
9 2 (0.22%) Metadata
9 2 (0.22%) Oracle Reports
9 2 (0.22%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.22%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 39 (4.22%) JIRA
2 11 (1.19%) Hudson
3 7 (0.76%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.43%) IBM UrbanCode
4 4 (0.43%) Team Foundation Server
5 3 (0.32%) JUnit
5 3 (0.32%) Storybook
6 2 (0.22%) MLflow
6 2 (0.22%) Tricentis qTest
6 2 (0.22%) Zephyr
7 1 (0.11%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.11%) Git
7 1 (0.11%) GitLab
7 1 (0.11%) LSMW
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.11%) QADirector
7 1 (0.11%) Selenium
General
1 258 (27.89%) Social Skills
2 240 (25.95%) Finance
3 132 (14.27%) Public Sector
4 125 (13.51%) Electronics
5 118 (12.76%) Aerospace
6 117 (12.65%) Marketing
7 114 (12.32%) Telecoms
8 96 (10.38%) Analytical Skills
9 70 (7.57%) Pharmaceutical
10 40 (4.32%) Retail
11 36 (3.89%) Documentation Skills
12 23 (2.49%) Automotive
12 23 (2.49%) Aviation
12 23 (2.49%) Organisational Skills
13 12 (1.30%) Presentation Skills
14 11 (1.19%) Influencing Skills
15 8 (0.86%) Law
15 8 (0.86%) Military
16 7 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 7 (0.76%) Legal
Job Titles
1 117 (12.65%) Consultant
2 86 (9.30%) Analyst
3 75 (8.11%) Lead
4 68 (7.35%) SAP Consultant
5 66 (7.14%) Architect
6 61 (6.59%) Project Manager
7 59 (6.38%) IT Support
8 49 (5.30%) Support Engineer
9 35 (3.78%) IT Engineer
9 35 (3.78%) Senior
9 35 (3.78%) Solutions Architect
10 33 (3.57%) Developer
11 31 (3.35%) Technical Engineer
12 29 (3.14%) Technical Support
12 29 (3.14%) Technical Support Engineer
13 24 (2.59%) Network Engineer
14 23 (2.49%) Business Analyst
14 23 (2.49%) SAP Architect
15 22 (2.38%) SAP Manager
15 22 (2.38%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (1.30%) Middleware
1 12 (1.30%) SAP Fiori
2 11 (1.19%) REST
3 10 (1.08%) .NET
4 8 (0.86%) HTML
4 8 (0.86%) PySpark
4 8 (0.86%) Spring
5 7 (0.76%) CSS
5 7 (0.76%) Node.js
6 5 (0.54%) Pandas
6 5 (0.54%) React
6 5 (0.54%) Web Services
7 4 (0.43%) PyTorch
7 4 (0.43%) Spring Boot
8 3 (0.32%) NumPy
8 3 (0.32%) RESTful
8 3 (0.32%) SAP Basis
8 3 (0.32%) Vitest
9 2 (0.22%) BAPI
9 2 (0.22%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 41 (4.43%) Operational Technology
2 38 (4.11%) Life Science
3 31 (3.35%) Data Centre
4 28 (3.03%) FMCG
5 21 (2.27%) Onboarding
6 19 (2.05%) Analytical Mindset
6 19 (2.05%) Legacy Systems
6 19 (2.05%) SCADA
7 14 (1.51%) Management Information System
8 13 (1.41%) Manufacturing Execution System
9 11 (1.19%) LIMS
9 11 (1.19%) NHS
10 10 (1.08%) IoT
11 9 (0.97%) Mobile App
11 9 (0.97%) Replication
12 8 (0.86%) Virtual Team
13 7 (0.76%) Data Structures
14 6 (0.65%) Enterprise Software
14 6 (0.65%) Greenfield Project
14 6 (0.65%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 55 (5.95%) Windows
2 31 (3.35%) Windows 10
3 26 (2.81%) Android
4 19 (2.05%) Mac OS
5 15 (1.62%) Linux
6 7 (0.76%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.54%) VMS
8 3 (0.32%) Embedded Linux
9 2 (0.22%) Debian
9 2 (0.22%) OpenVMS
9 2 (0.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.22%) Unix
9 2 (0.22%) Windows Server
10 1 (0.11%) Robot Operating System
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 141 (15.24%) Business Intelligence
2 140 (15.14%) ERP
3 128 (13.84%) Migration
3 128 (13.84%) Stakeholder Management
4 123 (13.30%) Programme Management
5 111 (12.00%) Digital Marketing
6 90 (9.73%) Logistics
7 86 (9.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 83 (8.97%) Problem-Solving
9 81 (8.76%) Continuous Improvement
10 79 (8.54%) Agile
11 75 (8.11%) Project Management
12 68 (7.35%) User Acceptance Testing
13 67 (7.24%) Validation
14 65 (7.03%) Data Migration
15 54 (5.84%) Roadmaps
16 53 (5.73%) Cybersecurity
17 49 (5.30%) Project Delivery
18 48 (5.19%) Analytics
19 44 (4.76%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 42 (4.54%) Python
2 35 (3.78%) SQL
3 12 (1.30%) Java
4 10 (1.08%) C
4 10 (1.08%) JavaScript
5 9 (0.97%) ABAP
6 8 (0.86%) C#
6 8 (0.86%) PowerShell
7 6 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 6 (0.65%) VBA
8 5 (0.54%) C++
9 3 (0.32%) TypeScript
10 2 (0.22%) Go
10 2 (0.22%) MATLAB
10 2 (0.22%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.22%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.11%) Google Apps Script
11 1 (0.11%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.11%) PHP
11 1 (0.11%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 166 (17.95%) Security Cleared
2 139 (15.03%) SC Cleared
3 81 (8.76%) Degree
4 24 (2.59%) PMI Certification
5 20 (2.16%) Cisco Certification
6 19 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
6 19 (2.05%) PMP
7 18 (1.95%) CCNP
8 16 (1.73%) DV Cleared
9 12 (1.30%) HNC
10 11 (1.19%) A+ Certification
11 9 (0.97%) ITIL Certification
12 7 (0.76%) CCNA
12 7 (0.76%) NVQ Level 4
13 6 (0.65%) AWS Certification
13 6 (0.65%) Azure Certification
13 6 (0.65%) ISTQB
13 6 (0.65%) Master's Degree
14 5 (0.54%) Computer Science Degree
14 5 (0.54%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (4.22%) QA
2 26 (2.81%) PMO
3 22 (2.38%) NIST
4 18 (1.95%) Data Quality
4 18 (1.95%) GxP
4 18 (1.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (1.19%) GMP
6 8 (0.86%) NIST 800
7 6 (0.65%) JSP 440
7 6 (0.65%) NCSC
8 5 (0.54%) RMADS
9 4 (0.43%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 4 (0.43%) ECSS
9 4 (0.43%) GDPR
9 4 (0.43%) ISO 9001
9 4 (0.43%) SLA
10 2 (0.22%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.22%) MIL-STD-1553
10 2 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 29 (3.14%) Active Directory
2 6 (0.65%) Firmware
3 4 (0.43%) Docker
3 4 (0.43%) Embedded Firmware
3 4 (0.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.11%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.11%) VMware Workstation
5 1 (0.11%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 9 (0.97%) HP ALM
2 6 (0.65%) Kubernetes
2 6 (0.65%) Terraform
3 4 (0.43%) Rancher
3 4 (0.43%) SCCM
4 2 (0.22%) CEMLI
4 2 (0.22%) vRealize
5 1 (0.11%) Failover Clustering
5 1 (0.11%) Grafana
5 1 (0.11%) IBM Guardium
5 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.11%) Nmap
5 1 (0.11%) Oracle RMAN
5 1 (0.11%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 357 (38.59%) SAP
2 119 (12.86%) Microsoft
3 49 (5.30%) Cisco
4 38 (4.11%) Oracle
5 25 (2.70%) Siemens
6 24 (2.59%) Ariba
7 20 (2.16%) HP
8 19 (2.05%) IFS
9 15 (1.62%) CheckPoint
9 15 (1.62%) Sage
10 14 (1.51%) Palo Alto
11 12 (1.30%) Aruba
11 12 (1.30%) Dell
12 11 (1.19%) Apple
13 10 (1.08%) Google
13 10 (1.08%) ServiceNow
14 9 (0.97%) Infor
15 8 (0.86%) Databricks
16 7 (0.76%) Salesforce
16 7 (0.76%) SOTI