Microsoft Contract Job Trends in Manchester

Microsoft
North West > Manchester

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in Manchester requiring knowledge or experience of Microsoft products and/or services. It includes a benchmarking guide to contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Microsoft over the 6 months leading up to 10 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

The figures below represent the IT contractor job market in general and are not representative of contractor rates within the Microsoft Corporation.

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 3 10
Rank change year-on-year -7 +7 -3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 190 159 163
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 10.59% 17.32% 11.20%
As % of the Vendors category 30.30% 37.24% 32.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 132 118 111
10th Percentile £186 £207 £280
25th Percentile £328 £360 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £449 £425 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.53% -10.53% -
75th Percentile £570 £537 £581
90th Percentile £610 £612 £650
North West median daily rate £438 £425 £475
% change year-on-year +2.94% -10.53% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 6 29
10th Percentile £22.23 - £11.79
25th Percentile £28.50 - £12.00
Median hourly rate £46.00 £13.00 £14.27
Median % change year-on-year +253.85% -8.87% -16.87%
75th Percentile £178.75 - £25.25
90th Percentile - £23.00 £28.20
North West median hourly rate £25.38 £27.13 £14.50
% change year-on-year -6.43% +87.07% -40.24%

All Vendors
Manchester

Microsoft falls under the Vendor Products and Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of all vendor products and services in Manchester.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 627 427 508
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 34.95% 46.51% 34.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 379 289 340
10th Percentile £287 £300 £325
25th Percentile £375 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £586 £564 £598
90th Percentile £665 £672 £663
North West median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +4.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 14 44
10th Percentile £22.63 - £11.85
25th Percentile £24.19 £13.00 £12.73
Median hourly rate £40.00 £41.49 £18.43
Median % change year-on-year -3.60% +125.20% -11.01%
75th Percentile £77.00 £60.00 £26.50
90th Percentile £178.75 £68.13 £60.00
North West median hourly rate £30.49 £34.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -11.62% +114.82% -45.19%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in Manchester

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

Microsoft job vacancy trend in Manchester

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Microsoft.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in Manchester

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in Manchester over the 6 months to 10 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in Manchester

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in Manchester

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Microsoft.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Manchester citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in Manchester

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in Manchester over the 6 months to 10 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in Manchester

Microsoft
Contract Job Locations in Manchester

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft within the Manchester region over the 6 months to 10 June 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
Bolton -5 4 £400 +110.53% 4
Salford 0 3 £334 -52.32% 13
Oldham +2 2 £205 +2.50% 4
Stockport -4 1 £155 -61.25% 4
Bury - 1 - - 6
Microsoft
North West

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester 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 19 (10.00%) SharePoint
2 10 (5.26%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (4.74%) Confluence
4 2 (1.05%) Apache
4 2 (1.05%) Apache Spark
4 2 (1.05%) CMS
4 2 (1.05%) IIS
5 1 (0.53%) CICS
5 1 (0.53%) WebSphere
Applications
1 24 (12.63%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (9.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (4.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (4.21%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (2.63%) MS Visio
6 4 (2.11%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.53%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.53%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 6 (3.16%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (1.58%) Elite 3E
2 3 (1.58%) Primavera
2 3 (1.58%) SAP MM
2 3 (1.58%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (1.05%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.53%) Infor M3
4 1 (0.53%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.53%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 74 (38.95%) Azure
2 57 (30.00%) Microsoft 365
3 28 (14.74%) Microsoft Copilot
4 25 (13.16%) Power Platform
5 23 (12.11%) Entra ID
6 17 (8.95%) AWS
7 16 (8.42%) Power Automate
8 14 (7.37%) Dynamics 365
8 14 (7.37%) PowerApps
9 13 (6.84%) Azure DevOps
10 10 (5.26%) Microsoft Purview
11 8 (4.21%) GCP
11 8 (4.21%) Serverless
12 7 (3.68%) OneDrive
13 6 (3.16%) Azure AKS
14 5 (2.63%) Azure Logic Apps
15 4 (2.11%) Azure Functions
15 4 (2.11%) GitHub
15 4 (2.11%) OpenShift
16 3 (1.58%) Azure Storage
Communications & Networking
1 12 (6.32%) Firewall
2 7 (3.68%) Network Security
3 5 (2.63%) DNS
4 4 (2.11%) TCP/IP
5 3 (1.58%) WAN
6 2 (1.05%) DHCP
6 2 (1.05%) LAN
6 2 (1.05%) VPN
6 2 (1.05%) VSAN
6 2 (1.05%) Wi-Fi
7 1 (0.53%) BGP
7 1 (0.53%) Internet
7 1 (0.53%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (0.53%) Kerberos
7 1 (0.53%) NGFW
7 1 (0.53%) SD-WAN
7 1 (0.53%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (5.26%) SQL Server
2 9 (4.74%) Power BI
3 7 (3.68%) Relational Database
4 6 (3.16%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (3.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 3 (1.58%) Metadata
5 3 (1.58%) MongoDB
5 3 (1.58%) NoSQL
5 3 (1.58%) Oracle Reports
5 3 (1.58%) RDBMS
6 2 (1.05%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (1.05%) BusinessObjects
6 2 (1.05%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (1.05%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 2 (1.05%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 1 (0.53%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.53%) DataStage
7 1 (0.53%) EDRMS
7 1 (0.53%) MS Access
Development Applications
1 12 (6.32%) JIRA
2 6 (3.16%) Git
General
1 65 (34.21%) Social Skills
2 46 (24.21%) Finance
3 28 (14.74%) Analytical Skills
3 28 (14.74%) Public Sector
4 18 (9.47%) Banking
5 12 (6.32%) Legal
6 9 (4.74%) Manufacturing
6 9 (4.74%) Telecoms
7 7 (3.68%) Organisational Skills
7 7 (3.68%) Retail
8 4 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
9 3 (1.58%) Law
9 3 (1.58%) Marketing
10 2 (1.05%) Agriculture
10 2 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.53%) Corporate Banking
11 1 (0.53%) Local Government
11 1 (0.53%) Military
11 1 (0.53%) Publishing
11 1 (0.53%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 32 (16.84%) Analyst
2 19 (10.00%) Architect
3 18 (9.47%) Developer
3 18 (9.47%) IT Support
4 13 (6.84%) Support Analyst
5 12 (6.32%) IT Analyst
5 12 (6.32%) Lead
6 11 (5.79%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
7 10 (5.26%) Designer
7 10 (5.26%) Microsoft Engineer
7 10 (5.26%) Support Engineer
8 9 (4.74%) Content Designer
8 9 (4.74%) IT Support Analyst
8 9 (4.74%) Security Engineer
9 8 (4.21%) IT Engineer
9 8 (4.21%) IT Support Engineer
9 8 (4.21%) Senior
10 7 (3.68%) Solutions Architect
11 6 (3.16%) Java Developer
11 6 (3.16%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (4.74%) Spring
1 9 (4.74%) Spring Boot
2 8 (4.21%) REST
3 7 (3.68%) .NET
4 4 (2.11%) Node.js
4 4 (2.11%) XML
5 3 (1.58%) JSON
5 3 (1.58%) Kafka
6 2 (1.05%) A2A Protocol
6 2 (1.05%) ARM Templates
6 2 (1.05%) AWS CDK
6 2 (1.05%) Flash
6 2 (1.05%) HTML5 Canvas
6 2 (1.05%) LDAP
6 2 (1.05%) Microsoft Graph
6 2 (1.05%) Model Context Protocol
6 2 (1.05%) Next.js
6 2 (1.05%) OAuth
6 2 (1.05%) React
6 2 (1.05%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 17 (8.95%) Onboarding
2 12 (6.32%) Cloud Native
3 8 (4.21%) Security Posture
4 7 (3.68%) Product Ownership
5 5 (2.63%) Data Centre
5 5 (2.63%) Data Protection Act
5 5 (2.63%) Legacy Systems
5 5 (2.63%) Management Information System
6 4 (2.11%) Analytical Mindset
6 4 (2.11%) Cloud Security Posture
6 4 (2.11%) Linux Command Line
7 3 (1.58%) Hybrid Cloud
7 3 (1.58%) Life Science
8 2 (1.05%) Driving Licence
8 2 (1.05%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.05%) iPhone
8 2 (1.05%) Private Cloud
8 2 (1.05%) Public Cloud
8 2 (1.05%) Replication
8 2 (1.05%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 35 (18.42%) Windows
2 26 (13.68%) Windows 10
3 12 (6.32%) Linux
4 5 (2.63%) Unix
5 4 (2.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (2.11%) Windows Server
6 3 (1.58%) VMS
7 2 (1.05%) AIX
7 2 (1.05%) Solaris
7 2 (1.05%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.53%) HPUX
8 1 (0.53%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.53%) Oracle Linux
8 1 (0.53%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (17.89%) Agile
1 34 (17.89%) DevOps
2 30 (15.79%) CI/CD
2 30 (15.79%) ITIL
3 28 (14.74%) Problem-Solving
4 27 (14.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 22 (11.58%) Roadmaps
5 22 (11.58%) Stakeholder Management
6 20 (10.53%) Customer Service
7 18 (9.47%) Migration
8 15 (7.89%) Change Management
9 14 (7.37%) AI
9 14 (7.37%) Cloud Security
10 13 (6.84%) Analytics
10 13 (6.84%) Data Loss Prevention
10 13 (6.84%) ERP
11 12 (6.32%) Computer Science
11 12 (6.32%) Identity Access Management
11 12 (6.32%) Risk Management
11 12 (6.32%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 27 (14.21%) SQL
2 21 (11.05%) Python
3 17 (8.95%) PowerShell
4 13 (6.84%) Java
5 7 (3.68%) C#
6 5 (2.63%) Bash
6 5 (2.63%) JavaScript
7 4 (2.11%) Bicep
7 4 (2.11%) T-SQL
8 3 (1.58%) TypeScript
9 2 (1.05%) VBA
10 1 (0.53%) C++
10 1 (0.53%) COBOL
10 1 (0.53%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 34 (17.89%) Degree
2 18 (9.47%) Microsoft Certification
3 12 (6.32%) Computer Science Degree
3 12 (6.32%) Security Cleared
4 10 (5.26%) A+ Certification
5 9 (4.74%) Network+ Certification
5 9 (4.74%) SC Cleared
6 6 (3.16%) Azure Certification
7 5 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (2.63%) CISSP
8 4 (2.11%) PMI Certification
9 3 (1.58%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 3 (1.58%) PMP
10 2 (1.05%) AWS Certification
10 2 (1.05%) CompTIA Security+
10 2 (1.05%) ITIL Certification
10 2 (1.05%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 1 (0.53%) CBAP
11 1 (0.53%) Chartered Engineer
11 1 (0.53%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (7.89%) GDPR
2 8 (4.21%) Accessibility
3 6 (3.16%) Data Quality
3 6 (3.16%) WCAG
4 5 (2.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (2.63%) PMO
5 4 (2.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 3 (1.58%) Cyber Essentials
6 3 (1.58%) NIST
6 3 (1.58%) SLA
7 2 (1.05%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 2 (1.05%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.53%) GRC
8 1 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 1 (0.53%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.53%) QA
8 1 (0.53%) SOC 2
System Software
1 44 (23.16%) Active Directory
2 17 (8.95%) Docker
3 3 (1.58%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.05%) GPFS
4 2 (1.05%) NFS
4 2 (1.05%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (1.05%) vSphere
5 1 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 17 (8.95%) Kubernetes
2 14 (7.37%) Microsoft Intune
3 11 (5.79%) Terraform
4 3 (1.58%) SCCM
5 2 (1.05%) AirWatch
5 2 (1.05%) Ansible
5 2 (1.05%) CASB
5 2 (1.05%) Failover Clustering
5 2 (1.05%) Grafana
5 2 (1.05%) Progress Chef
5 2 (1.05%) vRealize
5 2 (1.05%) VxRail
6 1 (0.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 1 (0.53%) Nessus
6 1 (0.53%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 12 (6.32%) SAP
2 8 (4.21%) Oracle
2 8 (4.21%) ServiceNow
3 7 (3.68%) Red Hat
4 6 (3.16%) Cisco
4 6 (3.16%) Google
5 5 (2.63%) Databricks
5 5 (2.63%) IBM
6 4 (2.11%) Salesforce
6 4 (2.11%) VMware
7 3 (1.58%) HP
7 3 (1.58%) UiPath
8 2 (1.05%) Adobe
8 2 (1.05%) Bloomberg
8 2 (1.05%) Infoblox
8 2 (1.05%) Okta
8 2 (1.05%) Remedy
8 2 (1.05%) Splunk
8 2 (1.05%) Varonis
9 1 (0.53%) CyberArk