Manufacturing Contracts

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 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 122 80 134
Rank change year-on-year -42 +54 +43
Contract jobs citing Manufacturing 668 1,143 1,161
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.28% 2.62% 1.95%
As % of the General category 3.62% 4.50% 3.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 322 608 787
10th Percentile £278 £208 £236
25th Percentile £425 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £500 £540
Median % change year-on-year +6.00% -7.41% +2.86%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £700 £750 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £475 £525
% change year-on-year +10.53% -9.52% +1.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 157 67
10th Percentile £18.20 £13.32 £23.15
25th Percentile £22.86 £19.09 £39.62
Median hourly rate £45.30 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.41% -22.22% +18.95%
75th Percentile £63.13 £51.50 £51.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £62.50 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.05 £33.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +30.44% -26.67% +24.72%

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 common skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 18,465 25,387 34,897
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 63.16% 58.23% 58.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,795 16,033 24,201
10th Percentile £300 £270 £313
25th Percentile £409 £413 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +2.80%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £763 £763 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -4.23% -0.80% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 794 1,939 1,062
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.78 £13.42
25th Percentile £17.85 £15.50 £18.09
Median hourly rate £28.00 £30.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% -14.29% +59.71%
75th Percentile £56.00 £51.91 £61.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £65.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £28.13 £30.54
% change year-on-year -10.58% -7.91% +65.08%

Manufacturing
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Manufacturing as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Manufacturing in the UK

Manufacturing
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Manufacturing.

Daily rate trend for Manufacturing in the UK

Manufacturing
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Manufacturing over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Manufacturing in the UK

Manufacturing
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Manufacturing.

Hourly rate trend for Manufacturing in the UK

Manufacturing
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Manufacturing over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Manufacturing in the UK

Manufacturing
Top 17 Contract 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 30 April 2025. 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 -37 567 £530 +6.00% 2,611
UK excluding London -16 414 £525 +10.53% 2,337
Work from Home -37 202 £525 - 1,226
London -35 143 £530 -11.74% 386
South East +35 139 £581 +45.31% 560
North of England -7 116 £530 +6.00% 614
North West +4 88 £550 +7.84% 296
South West -17 56 £550 -7.56% 267
Midlands -27 47 £500 +11.11% 627
East of England -15 38 £519 +26.59% 159
West Midlands -21 24 £475 +9.83% 316
East Midlands -5 21 £513 +41.18% 308
North East 0 16 £481 +13.77% 63
Scotland -17 14 £461 +8.47% 94
Yorkshire -16 12 £425 -5.56% 262
Wales -1 5 £613 +36.11% 45
Northern Ireland -16 3 - - 30

Manufacturing
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 17 (2.54%) Confluence
2 15 (2.25%) SharePoint
3 5 (0.75%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.45%) FactoryTalk
5 2 (0.30%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
5 2 (0.30%) CMS
5 2 (0.30%) Exchange Server 2013
5 2 (0.30%) Skype for Business
6 1 (0.15%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.15%) SAS
6 1 (0.15%) SharePoint 2013
6 1 (0.15%) WinCC
Applications
1 31 (4.64%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (2.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.90%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.45%) CATIA
6 3 (0.45%) Maya
6 3 (0.45%) NUKE
7 2 (0.30%) CANalyzer
7 2 (0.30%) Simulink
8 1 (0.15%) InVision
8 1 (0.15%) Siemens NX
8 1 (0.15%) Sketch
8 1 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 100 (14.97%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (5.24%) SAP PP
3 15 (2.25%) Oracle EBS
4 12 (1.80%) SAP Oil and Gas
5 9 (1.35%) SAP R/3
6 7 (1.05%) SAP LE
6 7 (1.05%) SAP QM
6 7 (1.05%) SAP VC
7 6 (0.90%) SAP MII
8 5 (0.75%) Infor LN
8 5 (0.75%) Primavera
8 5 (0.75%) SAP CO
8 5 (0.75%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.75%) SAP FI
8 5 (0.75%) SAP FI/CO
8 5 (0.75%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.75%) SAP SD
8 5 (0.75%) Teamcenter
9 4 (0.60%) SAP ERP
9 4 (0.60%) SAP WM
Cloud Services
1 75 (11.23%) Azure
2 37 (5.54%) AWS
3 22 (3.29%) Dynamics 365
3 22 (3.29%) Microsoft 365
3 22 (3.29%) Power Platform
4 20 (2.99%) GCP
5 19 (2.84%) Azure DevOps
6 10 (1.50%) Azure Data Factory
7 9 (1.35%) Snowflake
8 7 (1.05%) Salesforce Service Cloud
9 6 (0.90%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
10 5 (0.75%) Serverless
11 4 (0.60%) Anthropic Claude
11 4 (0.60%) Azure AI
11 4 (0.60%) Azure Logic Apps
11 4 (0.60%) Entra ID
11 4 (0.60%) Google Gemini
11 4 (0.60%) OCI
11 4 (0.60%) PowerApps
12 3 (0.45%) Yammer
Communications & Networking
1 23 (3.44%) Firewall
2 21 (3.14%) LAN
3 17 (2.54%) VPN
4 15 (2.25%) Network Security
5 14 (2.10%) WAN
6 12 (1.80%) SAN
7 10 (1.50%) Wireless
8 9 (1.35%) NAS
9 8 (1.20%) DNS
10 7 (1.05%) Intranet
11 6 (0.90%) DHCP
11 6 (0.90%) SD-WAN
12 3 (0.45%) BGP
12 3 (0.45%) Ethernet
12 3 (0.45%) Internet
12 3 (0.45%) iSCSI
12 3 (0.45%) OSPF
12 3 (0.45%) Structured Cabling
12 3 (0.45%) VoIP
12 3 (0.45%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (3.29%) PostgreSQL
2 21 (3.14%) Relational Database
3 19 (2.84%) Power BI
4 14 (2.10%) Data Warehouse
5 9 (1.35%) Data Lake
6 5 (0.75%) Tableau
7 4 (0.60%) Neo4j
7 4 (0.60%) SAP HANA
8 3 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (0.45%) Big Data
8 3 (0.45%) Looker
8 3 (0.45%) SAP BW
9 2 (0.30%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.30%) DynamoDB
9 2 (0.30%) Metadata
9 2 (0.30%) Oracle Reports
9 2 (0.30%) Snowflake Schema
9 2 (0.30%) SQL Server
10 1 (0.15%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.15%) Impala
Development Applications
1 29 (4.34%) Jenkins
2 28 (4.19%) JIRA
3 22 (3.29%) JUnit
4 21 (3.14%) Gradle
4 21 (3.14%) Liquibase
4 21 (3.14%) Mockito
5 16 (2.40%) Git
5 16 (2.40%) GitLab
6 11 (1.65%) Visual Studio
7 10 (1.50%) Selenium
8 3 (0.45%) Cypress.io
8 3 (0.45%) LabVIEW
8 3 (0.45%) SpecFlow
9 2 (0.30%) Appium
9 2 (0.30%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.30%) LSMW
9 2 (0.30%) NUnit
9 2 (0.30%) Postman
9 2 (0.30%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.15%) Gatling
General
1 310 (46.41%) Finance
2 210 (31.44%) Social Skills
3 200 (29.94%) Public Sector
4 198 (29.64%) Electronics
5 197 (29.49%) Marketing
6 193 (28.89%) Telecoms
7 92 (13.77%) Analytical Skills
8 41 (6.14%) Aerospace
8 41 (6.14%) Pharmaceutical
9 38 (5.69%) Automotive
10 31 (4.64%) Retail
11 18 (2.69%) Documentation Skills
11 18 (2.69%) Legal
12 17 (2.54%) Presentation Skills
13 16 (2.40%) Organisational Skills
14 8 (1.20%) Billing
15 7 (1.05%) Back Office
15 7 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
16 6 (0.90%) Aviation
16 6 (0.90%) Law
Job Titles
1 94 (14.07%) Consultant
2 68 (10.18%) Architect
3 60 (8.98%) Developer
4 55 (8.23%) Project Manager
5 52 (7.78%) Lead
6 49 (7.34%) Analyst
7 45 (6.74%) Senior
8 42 (6.29%) SAP Consultant
9 32 (4.79%) Business Analyst
10 29 (4.34%) Support Engineer
11 26 (3.89%) Functional Consultant
11 26 (3.89%) SAP PP Consultant
12 23 (3.44%) SAP Manager
13 22 (3.29%) IT Manager
14 21 (3.14%) Active Directory Architect
15 19 (2.84%) Azure Engineer
16 18 (2.69%) IT Engineer
17 17 (2.54%) Solutions Architect
18 16 (2.40%) Desktop Support
18 16 (2.40%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.59%) React
2 22 (3.29%) OpenAPI
2 22 (3.29%) Swagger
3 21 (3.14%) Kafka
3 21 (3.14%) Spring
3 21 (3.14%) Spring Boot
4 15 (2.25%) CSS
4 15 (2.25%) HTML
5 13 (1.95%) .NET
6 6 (0.90%) PyTorch
6 6 (0.90%) SAP Fiori
6 6 (0.90%) TensorFlow
7 5 (0.75%) AngularJS
7 5 (0.75%) PySpark
7 5 (0.75%) SAPUI5
8 4 (0.60%) Django
8 4 (0.60%) Gherkin
8 4 (0.60%) Lightning Web Components
8 4 (0.60%) Middleware
8 4 (0.60%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 52 (7.78%) Life Science
2 39 (5.84%) Management Information System
3 23 (3.44%) Renewable Energy
4 19 (2.84%) FMCG
4 19 (2.84%) Manufacturing Execution System
5 18 (2.69%) NHS
6 14 (2.10%) Onboarding
6 14 (2.10%) Virtual Team
7 12 (1.80%) Industry 4.0
7 12 (1.80%) Product Ownership
7 12 (1.80%) Self-Motivation
8 11 (1.65%) Operational Technology
8 11 (1.65%) Team-Oriented Environment
9 9 (1.35%) Algorithms
9 9 (1.35%) Data Centre
9 9 (1.35%) LIMS
10 7 (1.05%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (1.05%) PACS
11 6 (0.90%) Private Cloud
11 6 (0.90%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 92 (13.77%) Windows
2 23 (3.44%) Linux
3 22 (3.29%) Windows 10
4 17 (2.54%) Windows Server
5 7 (1.05%) Windows XP
6 5 (0.75%) Windows 8
6 5 (0.75%) Windows Server 2003
6 5 (0.75%) Windows Server 2008
6 5 (0.75%) Windows Server 2012
6 5 (0.75%) Windows Server 2016
7 4 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.45%) Android
9 2 (0.30%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.30%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.15%) Alpine Linux
10 1 (0.15%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 207 (30.99%) Business Intelligence
2 205 (30.69%) Programme Management
3 191 (28.59%) Digital Marketing
4 158 (23.65%) Problem-Solving
5 132 (19.76%) Agile
6 97 (14.52%) Project Management
7 86 (12.87%) ERP
8 82 (12.28%) Migration
9 78 (11.68%) Stakeholder Management
10 56 (8.38%) Change Management
11 55 (8.23%) DevOps
12 53 (7.93%) CI/CD
13 50 (7.49%) Test Automation
14 48 (7.19%) Collaborative Working
15 47 (7.04%) Quality Management
16 44 (6.59%) Continuous Improvement
17 42 (6.29%) Logistics
18 41 (6.14%) Project Delivery
19 40 (5.99%) Risk Management
19 40 (5.99%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 60 (8.98%) SQL
2 42 (6.29%) Python
3 39 (5.84%) PowerShell
4 31 (4.64%) Java
5 27 (4.04%) C#
6 25 (3.74%) TypeScript
7 17 (2.54%) ABAP
8 15 (2.25%) JavaScript
9 12 (1.80%) C++
10 11 (1.65%) Bash
10 11 (1.65%) PL/SQL
11 10 (1.50%) Delphi
12 5 (0.75%) C
13 4 (0.60%) Apex Code
13 4 (0.60%) Groovy
13 4 (0.60%) MATLAB
13 4 (0.60%) Scala
14 3 (0.45%) Bicep
14 3 (0.45%) Tcl
15 2 (0.30%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 151 (22.60%) Security Cleared
2 104 (15.57%) Degree
3 98 (14.67%) SC Cleared
4 44 (6.59%) DV Cleared
5 27 (4.04%) Computer Science Degree
6 24 (3.59%) Master's Degree
7 20 (2.99%) PMP
8 19 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
9 17 (2.54%) PMI Certification
10 11 (1.65%) CISSP
11 9 (1.35%) Azure Certification
11 9 (1.35%) DBS Check
12 8 (1.20%) Cisco Certification
12 8 (1.20%) SAP Certification
13 7 (1.05%) CISM
14 6 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
15 5 (0.75%) ACCA
15 5 (0.75%) CISA
16 4 (0.60%) CCNP
16 4 (0.60%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (4.64%) QA
2 14 (2.10%) Accessibility
3 12 (1.80%) Data Quality
4 11 (1.65%) NIST
4 11 (1.65%) PMO
5 8 (1.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (1.05%) GDPR
7 6 (0.90%) Cyber Essentials
7 6 (0.90%) ISO 9001
7 6 (0.90%) PMBOK
8 5 (0.75%) GxP
8 5 (0.75%) JSP 440
8 5 (0.75%) NIST 800
9 4 (0.60%) GMP
9 4 (0.60%) SLA
10 3 (0.45%) Government Security Classifications
10 3 (0.45%) GRC
10 3 (0.45%) WCAG
11 2 (0.30%) GLP
11 2 (0.30%) PSD2
System Software
1 38 (5.69%) Active Directory
2 33 (4.94%) Docker
3 8 (1.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.60%) Virtual Servers
5 3 (0.45%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.30%) Firmware
6 2 (0.30%) NFS
6 2 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.30%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.15%) HDFS
7 1 (0.15%) VMware Server
7 1 (0.15%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 13 (1.95%) Kubernetes
2 12 (1.80%) Terraform
3 9 (1.35%) Microsoft Intune
4 8 (1.20%) MOM
4 8 (1.20%) SCCM
5 4 (0.60%) Ansible
5 4 (0.60%) CEMLI
6 3 (0.45%) FortiGate
6 3 (0.45%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.30%) Functional Safety
7 2 (0.30%) Grafana
7 2 (0.30%) Puppet
7 2 (0.30%) vRealize
7 2 (0.30%) vRealize Orchestrator
8 1 (0.15%) CASB
8 1 (0.15%) Jamf Pro
8 1 (0.15%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.15%) VxRail
Vendors
1 363 (54.34%) SAP
2 92 (13.77%) Microsoft
3 39 (5.84%) Oracle
4 19 (2.84%) Ariba
4 19 (2.84%) Salesforce
5 18 (2.69%) Cisco
6 16 (2.40%) VMware
7 14 (2.10%) Siemens
8 13 (1.95%) Google
9 12 (1.80%) Dell
10 10 (1.50%) Rockwell
11 9 (1.35%) HP
11 9 (1.35%) ServiceNow
12 8 (1.20%) Hitachi
12 8 (1.20%) IFS
13 7 (1.05%) Infor
13 7 (1.05%) Splunk
14 6 (0.90%) Palo Alto
15 5 (0.75%) Canon
15 5 (0.75%) Workday