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 5 January 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
5 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -6 +3 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 172 160 220
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 14.56% 15.24% 14.30%
As % of the Vendors category 33.27% 33.26% 35.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 126 115 172
10th Percentile £300 £234 £225
25th Percentile £325 £371 £257
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £401 £450 £425
Median % change year-on-year -10.89% +5.88% -
75th Percentile £481 £531 £538
90th Percentile £588 £700 £624
North West median daily rate £400 £450 £400
% change year-on-year -11.11% +12.50% -11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 11 16
10th Percentile £19.07 £28.50 £12.00
25th Percentile £19.58 £30.63 £15.02
Median hourly rate £22.32 £32.50 £16.68
Median % change year-on-year -31.34% +94.84% -14.46%
75th Percentile £31.40 £33.75 £18.23
90th Percentile - - £26.88
North West median hourly rate £22.32 £30.40 £22.50
% change year-on-year -26.60% +35.11% +15.38%

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 517 481 624
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 43.78% 45.81% 40.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 359 289 445
10th Percentile £311 £336 £239
25th Percentile £375 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.22% -3.00% +2.56%
75th Percentile £581 £575 £598
90th Percentile £669 £690 £700
North West median daily rate £456 £500 £510
% change year-on-year -8.75% -1.96% +7.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 12 24
10th Percentile £18.87 £17.25 £12.00
25th Percentile £19.41 £29.63 £15.02
Median hourly rate £22.50 £32.50 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -30.77% +83.41% -72.74%
75th Percentile £31.40 £33.75 £33.13
90th Percentile - - £48.36
North West median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +44.09%

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 5 January 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 5 January 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 5 January 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 +2 9 £396 +93.29% 14
Oldham -2 2 £225 -43.75% 2
Stockport -2 2 £155 -61.25% 13
Rochdale - 1 - - 1
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 13 (7.56%) SharePoint
2 7 (4.07%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (3.49%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (2.91%) CMS
5 3 (1.74%) Apache
5 3 (1.74%) IIS
6 2 (1.16%) Confluence
6 2 (1.16%) iPlanet
6 2 (1.16%) JBoss
6 2 (1.16%) SAS
6 2 (1.16%) WebSphere
6 2 (1.16%) WebSphere Application Server
7 1 (0.58%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 28 (16.28%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (12.79%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (2.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (2.33%) Microsoft Project
3 4 (2.33%) Trello
4 3 (1.74%) MS Visio
4 3 (1.74%) Sketch
5 1 (0.58%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.58%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 7 (4.07%) Advent Geneva
2 5 (2.91%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.58%) Maximo
3 1 (0.58%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.58%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.58%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 55 (31.98%) Azure
2 36 (20.93%) Power Platform
3 31 (18.02%) Microsoft 365
4 21 (12.21%) AWS
5 16 (9.30%) GCP
6 15 (8.72%) Entra ID
7 14 (8.14%) Dynamics 365
7 14 (8.14%) Power Automate
7 14 (8.14%) PowerApps
8 9 (5.23%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (5.23%) Google Tag Manager
9 8 (4.65%) Google Analytics
10 6 (3.49%) Figma
10 6 (3.49%) GitHub
11 4 (2.33%) Microsoft Copilot
11 4 (2.33%) OneDrive
12 3 (1.74%) Cloud Computing
12 3 (1.74%) Copilot Studio
12 3 (1.74%) OCI
12 3 (1.74%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.91%) Firewall
1 5 (2.91%) Network Security
2 4 (2.33%) VPN
2 4 (2.33%) Wi-Fi
3 2 (1.16%) DNS
3 2 (1.16%) Kerberos
3 2 (1.16%) SSL
3 2 (1.16%) TCP/IP
3 2 (1.16%) VoIP
3 2 (1.16%) WAN
3 2 (1.16%) WebEx
4 1 (0.58%) Cisco ISE
4 1 (0.58%) DHCP
4 1 (0.58%) HTTP
4 1 (0.58%) IP Telephony
4 1 (0.58%) LAN
4 1 (0.58%) Remote Desktop
4 1 (0.58%) SSH
4 1 (0.58%) VLAN
4 1 (0.58%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (13.95%) Power BI
2 11 (6.40%) Relational Database
3 10 (5.81%) SQL Server
4 8 (4.65%) MySQL
5 7 (4.07%) BigQuery
5 7 (4.07%) DB2
5 7 (4.07%) Looker
5 7 (4.07%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 6 (3.49%) Data Lake
7 4 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (1.74%) Oracle Database
9 2 (1.16%) BusinessObjects
9 2 (1.16%) Metadata
9 2 (1.16%) NoSQL
9 2 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
9 2 (1.16%) Snowflake Schema
9 2 (1.16%) Tableau
10 1 (0.58%) Oracle Discoverer
10 1 (0.58%) Power Query
10 1 (0.58%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 8 (4.65%) JIRA
2 6 (3.49%) Git
3 5 (2.91%) GitLab
4 3 (1.74%) Jenkins
5 2 (1.16%) Bitbucket Server
5 2 (1.16%) CA Release Automation
5 2 (1.16%) Gradle
5 2 (1.16%) Storybook
5 2 (1.16%) Xcode
6 1 (0.58%) Browser DevTools
6 1 (0.58%) MSI
6 1 (0.58%) Octopus Deploy
6 1 (0.58%) Selenium
6 1 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 64 (37.21%) Social Skills
2 44 (25.58%) Finance
3 28 (16.28%) Public Sector
4 27 (15.70%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (5.81%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (5.23%) Banking
7 6 (3.49%) Manufacturing
8 5 (2.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (1.74%) Influencing Skills
9 3 (1.74%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (1.74%) Retail
10 2 (1.16%) Aerospace
10 2 (1.16%) Aviation
10 2 (1.16%) Legal
10 2 (1.16%) Military
10 2 (1.16%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.58%) Agriculture
11 1 (0.58%) Games
11 1 (0.58%) Law
11 1 (0.58%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 30 (17.44%) Analyst
2 26 (15.12%) Developer
3 20 (11.63%) Administrator
4 12 (6.98%) Senior
5 11 (6.40%) Lead
6 9 (5.23%) SAP Administrator
6 9 (5.23%) SAP Support
6 9 (5.23%) Support Analyst
7 8 (4.65%) Architect
7 8 (4.65%) Consultant
8 7 (4.07%) Business Analyst
9 6 (3.49%) Deskside Analyst
9 6 (3.49%) Deskside Support
9 6 (3.49%) Deskside Support Analyst
9 6 (3.49%) Desktop Support
9 6 (3.49%) DevOps Engineer
9 6 (3.49%) Microsoft Developer
9 6 (3.49%) Performance Analyst
9 6 (3.49%) Technology Support Analyst
10 5 (2.91%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (6.40%) .NET
2 6 (3.49%) HTML
3 5 (2.91%) HTML5 Canvas
3 5 (2.91%) JSON
3 5 (2.91%) OAuth
4 4 (2.33%) Kafka
4 4 (2.33%) REST
5 3 (1.74%) LDAP
5 3 (1.74%) OpenID
5 3 (1.74%) SAML
6 2 (1.16%) D3.js
6 2 (1.16%) LangChain
6 2 (1.16%) PySpark
6 2 (1.16%) React Native
6 2 (1.16%) SVG
6 2 (1.16%) XML
7 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Graph
7 1 (0.58%) Spark Streaming
7 1 (0.58%) Spring Boot
7 1 (0.58%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 14 (8.14%) Onboarding
2 7 (4.07%) Virtual Team
3 6 (3.49%) Data Centre
3 6 (3.49%) Data Protection Act
4 5 (2.91%) Clustering
4 5 (2.91%) Mobile App
5 4 (2.33%) Low-Code
6 3 (1.74%) Cloud Native
6 3 (1.74%) Security Posture
6 3 (1.74%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (1.16%) CMDB
7 2 (1.16%) Distributed Computing
7 2 (1.16%) Driving Licence
7 2 (1.16%) Life Science
7 2 (1.16%) Mainframe
7 2 (1.16%) Product Ownership
8 1 (0.58%) Cloud Security Posture
8 1 (0.58%) Legacy Applications
8 1 (0.58%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 28 (16.28%) Windows
2 10 (5.81%) Linux
3 9 (5.23%) Windows 10
4 6 (3.49%) Unix
5 5 (2.91%) Android
5 5 (2.91%) Apple iOS
5 5 (2.91%) Mac OS
6 4 (2.33%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.58%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (16.28%) Problem-Solving
2 26 (15.12%) Business Intelligence
3 25 (14.53%) Stakeholder Management
4 24 (13.95%) Change Management
5 23 (13.37%) Analytics
6 22 (12.79%) User Experience
7 20 (11.63%) Agile
8 19 (11.05%) DevOps
9 18 (10.47%) ITIL
10 17 (9.88%) Data Analysis
11 16 (9.30%) Validation
12 14 (8.14%) Actionable Insight
12 14 (8.14%) CI/CD
12 14 (8.14%) Migration
13 12 (6.98%) Continuous Improvement
13 12 (6.98%) Customer Service
13 12 (6.98%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 11 (6.40%) Dashboard Development
14 11 (6.40%) Data Protection
14 11 (6.40%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 28 (16.28%) SQL
2 10 (5.81%) PowerShell
3 9 (5.23%) Python
4 7 (4.07%) JavaScript
5 5 (2.91%) C#
5 5 (2.91%) Java
6 4 (2.33%) TypeScript
7 3 (1.74%) Bash
8 2 (1.16%) Groovy
8 2 (1.16%) PHP
8 2 (1.16%) PL/SQL
8 2 (1.16%) T-SQL
9 1 (0.58%) CLIST
9 1 (0.58%) COBOL
9 1 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.58%) JCL
9 1 (0.58%) REXX
9 1 (0.58%) Scala
9 1 (0.58%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.58%) VBA
Qualifications
1 16 (9.30%) Security Cleared
2 13 (7.56%) Degree
3 12 (6.98%) SC Cleared
4 11 (6.40%) Microsoft Certification
5 9 (5.23%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (1.74%) CISSP
6 3 (1.74%) PMI Certification
6 3 (1.74%) PMP
7 2 (1.16%) Azure Certification
7 2 (1.16%) CISA
7 2 (1.16%) CISM
7 2 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (1.16%) GSEC
7 2 (1.16%) MCSA
7 2 (1.16%) MCSE
7 2 (1.16%) MCT
8 1 (0.58%) ISEB
8 1 (0.58%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.58%) SAFe Agilist
8 1 (0.58%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (11.05%) Accessibility
2 14 (8.14%) Data Quality
3 12 (6.98%) QA
4 10 (5.81%) GDPR
5 7 (4.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (2.33%) NIST
7 3 (1.74%) PCI DSS
8 2 (1.16%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.58%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.58%) PMBOK
9 1 (0.58%) PMO
9 1 (0.58%) PSD2
9 1 (0.58%) WCAG
System Software
1 21 (12.21%) Active Directory
2 7 (4.07%) Docker
3 4 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (1.74%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.58%) ACF2
5 1 (0.58%) RACF
5 1 (0.58%) Time Sharing Option
5 1 (0.58%) Tivoli Directory Server
5 1 (0.58%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 19 (11.05%) Microsoft Intune
2 9 (5.23%) SCCM
3 8 (4.65%) Kubernetes
4 4 (2.33%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (1.74%) QRadar
6 2 (1.16%) CA Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.16%) CA Wily
6 2 (1.16%) Grafana
6 2 (1.16%) Microsoft Clustering
6 2 (1.16%) Progress Chef
6 2 (1.16%) Terraform
6 2 (1.16%) Tivoli
7 1 (0.58%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.58%) Ansible
7 1 (0.58%) CA Endevor
7 1 (0.58%) CASB
7 1 (0.58%) Nessus
7 1 (0.58%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.58%) Tivoli Storage Manager
7 1 (0.58%) WSUS
Vendors
1 14 (8.14%) Google
2 12 (6.98%) SAP
3 9 (5.23%) Oracle
4 8 (4.65%) Splunk
5 7 (4.07%) Advent
6 6 (3.49%) Apple
6 6 (3.49%) Citrix
7 4 (2.33%) IBM
7 4 (2.33%) VMware
8 3 (1.74%) Hopewiser
8 3 (1.74%) ServiceNow
9 2 (1.16%) AppDynamics
9 2 (1.16%) ArcSight
9 2 (1.16%) BMC
9 2 (1.16%) Broadcom
9 2 (1.16%) Cisco
9 2 (1.16%) Confluent
9 2 (1.16%) Salesforce
10 1 (0.58%) Ekahau
10 1 (0.58%) Zscaler