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 1 April 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
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 2 7
Rank change year-on-year -5 +5 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 194 195 186
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 12.24% 20.63% 11.82%
As % of the Vendors category 33.16% 43.53% 33.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 150 148 127
10th Percentile £294 £209 £248
25th Percentile £359 £348 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% - -5.26%
75th Percentile £524 £538 £538
90th Percentile £595 £700 £646
North West median daily rate £414 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -8.00% - -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 7 32
10th Percentile £19.55 - £11.81
25th Percentile £19.75 £31.25 £12.63
Median hourly rate £27.00 £32.50 £15.16
Median % change year-on-year -16.92% +114.45% +3.38%
75th Percentile £54.00 £33.75 £25.25
90th Percentile £144.25 - £26.50
North West median hourly rate £25.38 £28.75 £15.27
% change year-on-year -11.72% +88.25% -42.37%

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 585 448 561
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 36.91% 47.41% 35.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 405 319 392
10th Percentile £314 £298 £313
25th Percentile £400 £386 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.41% -7.50% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £596
90th Percentile £650 £700 £700
North West median daily rate £464 £499 £500
% change year-on-year -6.85% -0.30% +2.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 10 44
10th Percentile £19.75 - £11.85
25th Percentile £22.29 £31.25 £12.73
Median hourly rate £22.84 £32.50 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -29.72% +83.41% -52.75%
75th Percentile £56.75 £53.44 £26.50
90th Percentile £86.63 £60.00 £60.00
North West median hourly rate £29.00 £32.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -10.77% +102.37% -57.17%

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 1 April 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 1 April 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 1 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
Bolton -1 5 £400 +110.53% 13
Salford +3 3 £334 -53.39% 8
Oldham -1 3 £205 +2.50% 4
Stockport -1 2 £155 -61.25% 4
Rochdale - 1 - - 2
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 23 (11.86%) SharePoint
2 12 (6.19%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (4.64%) Confluence
4 4 (2.06%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (1.55%) Apache
5 3 (1.55%) CMS
6 2 (1.03%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.52%) CICS
7 1 (0.52%) IIS
7 1 (0.52%) SAS
Applications
1 27 (13.92%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (9.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (4.64%) Microsoft Project
4 7 (3.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (3.09%) MS Visio
6 5 (2.58%) Chatbot
7 4 (2.06%) Trello
8 1 (0.52%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 6 (3.09%) Advent Geneva
1 6 (3.09%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (1.55%) Primavera
2 3 (1.55%) SAP MM
3 1 (0.52%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.52%) Infor M3
3 1 (0.52%) Maximo
3 1 (0.52%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.52%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 75 (38.66%) Azure
2 52 (26.80%) Microsoft 365
3 36 (18.56%) Power Platform
4 35 (18.04%) Entra ID
5 20 (10.31%) AWS
6 19 (9.79%) Power Automate
7 18 (9.28%) PowerApps
8 17 (8.76%) Microsoft Copilot
9 14 (7.22%) Dynamics 365
10 13 (6.70%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (6.19%) GCP
12 10 (5.15%) Microsoft Purview
12 10 (5.15%) OneDrive
13 9 (4.64%) Serverless
14 6 (3.09%) Azure AKS
14 6 (3.09%) Azure Logic Apps
14 6 (3.09%) GitHub
14 6 (3.09%) Google Analytics
14 6 (3.09%) Google Tag Manager
15 5 (2.58%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 15 (7.73%) Firewall
2 9 (4.64%) Network Security
3 5 (2.58%) DNS
4 4 (2.06%) WAN
4 4 (2.06%) Wi-Fi
5 3 (1.55%) VPN
6 2 (1.03%) DHCP
6 2 (1.03%) LAN
6 2 (1.03%) SD-WAN
6 2 (1.03%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.52%) Cisco ISE
7 1 (0.52%) HTTP
7 1 (0.52%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (0.52%) Kerberos
7 1 (0.52%) NGFW
7 1 (0.52%) SSL
7 1 (0.52%) WebEx
7 1 (0.52%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (8.25%) Power BI
2 13 (6.70%) Relational Database
3 12 (6.19%) SQL Server
4 6 (3.09%) DB2
4 6 (3.09%) MySQL
4 6 (3.09%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (3.09%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 4 (2.06%) BigQuery
5 4 (2.06%) Data Lake
5 4 (2.06%) Looker
5 4 (2.06%) MongoDB
5 4 (2.06%) NoSQL
5 4 (2.06%) RDBMS
6 3 (1.55%) BusinessObjects
6 3 (1.55%) Oracle Reports
7 2 (1.03%) Metadata
7 2 (1.03%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 1 (0.52%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.52%) DataStage
8 1 (0.52%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 14 (7.22%) JIRA
2 5 (2.58%) Git
3 4 (2.06%) GitLab
4 1 (0.52%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.52%) MSI
4 1 (0.52%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 73 (37.63%) Social Skills
2 48 (24.74%) Finance
3 34 (17.53%) Public Sector
4 27 (13.92%) Analytical Skills
5 19 (9.79%) Banking
6 12 (6.19%) Legal
7 9 (4.64%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (3.61%) Organisational Skills
9 5 (2.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 5 (2.58%) Retail
9 5 (2.58%) Telecoms
10 4 (2.06%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (2.06%) Manufacturing
11 3 (1.55%) Law
12 2 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.52%) Billing
13 1 (0.52%) Local Government
13 1 (0.52%) Military
13 1 (0.52%) Publishing
13 1 (0.52%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 31 (15.98%) Analyst
2 26 (13.40%) Developer
3 14 (7.22%) Lead
4 13 (6.70%) IT Support
4 13 (6.70%) Senior
5 11 (5.67%) Administrator
5 11 (5.67%) Architect
5 11 (5.67%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
6 10 (5.15%) Microsoft Engineer
6 10 (5.15%) Security Engineer
7 9 (4.64%) Support Analyst
8 7 (3.61%) Consultant
8 7 (3.61%) IT Analyst
8 7 (3.61%) Project Manager
8 7 (3.61%) Support Engineer
9 6 (3.09%) IT Engineer
9 6 (3.09%) IT Support Analyst
9 6 (3.09%) IT Support Engineer
9 6 (3.09%) Senior Analyst
10 5 (2.58%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (6.19%) .NET
2 8 (4.12%) Spring
2 8 (4.12%) Spring Boot
3 7 (3.61%) REST
4 6 (3.09%) XML
5 5 (2.58%) JSON
5 5 (2.58%) Kafka
6 4 (2.06%) HTML5 Canvas
7 3 (1.55%) Microsoft Graph
7 3 (1.55%) OAuth
8 2 (1.03%) ARM Templates
8 2 (1.03%) AWS CDK
8 2 (1.03%) HTML
8 2 (1.03%) LangChain
8 2 (1.03%) LDAP
8 2 (1.03%) Node.js
8 2 (1.03%) SAML
9 1 (0.52%) ISPF
9 1 (0.52%) Middleware
9 1 (0.52%) SPFx
Miscellaneous
1 14 (7.22%) Onboarding
2 10 (5.15%) Cloud Native
3 8 (4.12%) Security Posture
4 7 (3.61%) Data Protection Act
5 6 (3.09%) Product Ownership
5 6 (3.09%) Virtual Team
6 5 (2.58%) Data Centre
6 5 (2.58%) Management Information System
7 4 (2.06%) Cloud Security Posture
7 4 (2.06%) Driving Licence
8 3 (1.55%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (1.03%) AI Agents
9 2 (1.03%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (1.03%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (1.03%) Mainframe
9 2 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
10 1 (0.52%) Legacy Applications
10 1 (0.52%) Manufacturing Execution System
10 1 (0.52%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 34 (17.53%) Windows
2 22 (11.34%) Windows 10
3 12 (6.19%) Linux
4 4 (2.06%) Mac OS
4 4 (2.06%) Unix
5 3 (1.55%) Windows Server
6 2 (1.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (1.03%) VMS
7 1 (0.52%) AIX
7 1 (0.52%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.52%) Solaris
7 1 (0.52%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (16.49%) Agile
2 28 (14.43%) DevOps
2 28 (14.43%) Problem-Solving
3 24 (12.37%) CI/CD
4 22 (11.34%) ITIL
5 21 (10.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 21 (10.82%) Stakeholder Management
6 20 (10.31%) Analytics
7 18 (9.28%) Business Intelligence
8 16 (8.25%) Change Management
8 16 (8.25%) Migration
8 16 (8.25%) User Experience
9 15 (7.73%) Cloud Security
9 15 (7.73%) Customer Service
9 15 (7.73%) Identity Access Management
10 14 (7.22%) Data Protection
10 14 (7.22%) Project Delivery
10 14 (7.22%) Roadmaps
11 13 (6.70%) Data Loss Prevention
11 13 (6.70%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 31 (15.98%) SQL
2 21 (10.82%) PowerShell
3 18 (9.28%) Python
4 14 (7.22%) Java
5 9 (4.64%) JavaScript
6 6 (3.09%) Bash
6 6 (3.09%) C#
7 5 (2.58%) Bicep
8 3 (1.55%) TypeScript
9 2 (1.03%) COBOL
9 2 (1.03%) VBA
10 1 (0.52%) C++
10 1 (0.52%) CLIST
10 1 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.52%) JCL
10 1 (0.52%) PHP
10 1 (0.52%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.52%) REXX
10 1 (0.52%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 20 (10.31%) Degree
2 15 (7.73%) Microsoft Certification
3 10 (5.15%) Security Cleared
4 8 (4.12%) SC Cleared
5 6 (3.09%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (2.58%) A+ Certification
6 5 (2.58%) Azure Certification
6 5 (2.58%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (2.58%) Network+ Certification
7 4 (2.06%) CISSP
7 4 (2.06%) PMI Certification
8 3 (1.55%) PMP
9 2 (1.03%) AWS Certification
9 2 (1.03%) MCSA
9 2 (1.03%) MCSE
9 2 (1.03%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
10 1 (0.52%) APMG
10 1 (0.52%) CBAP
10 1 (0.52%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.52%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (8.25%) GDPR
2 11 (5.67%) Data Quality
3 9 (4.64%) Accessibility
3 9 (4.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 8 (4.12%) QA
5 4 (2.06%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (2.06%) PMO
5 4 (2.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 3 (1.55%) NIST
7 2 (1.03%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 2 (1.03%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 1 (0.52%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.52%) SLA
8 1 (0.52%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.52%) WCAG
System Software
1 46 (23.71%) Active Directory
2 18 (9.28%) Docker
3 3 (1.55%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.03%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.52%) ACF2
5 1 (0.52%) RACF
5 1 (0.52%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 23 (11.86%) Microsoft Intune
2 19 (9.79%) Kubernetes
3 8 (4.12%) Terraform
4 5 (2.58%) SCCM
5 3 (1.55%) Grafana
5 3 (1.55%) Progress Chef
5 3 (1.55%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.03%) CASB
6 2 (1.03%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (0.52%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.52%) CA Endevor
7 1 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (0.52%) Nessus
7 1 (0.52%) Tivoli
7 1 (0.52%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 12 (6.19%) Google
2 7 (3.61%) Oracle
2 7 (3.61%) SAP
3 6 (3.09%) Advent
4 4 (2.06%) Cisco
4 4 (2.06%) Citrix
4 4 (2.06%) VMware
5 3 (1.55%) Red Hat
5 3 (1.55%) Salesforce
5 3 (1.55%) ServiceNow
5 3 (1.55%) Splunk
6 2 (1.03%) Apple
6 2 (1.03%) Confluent
6 2 (1.03%) Databricks
6 2 (1.03%) IBM
6 2 (1.03%) Infoblox
6 2 (1.03%) Okta
6 2 (1.03%) Remedy
6 2 (1.03%) Varonis
7 1 (0.52%) Cribl.io