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 19 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
19 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 2 7
Rank change year-on-year -7 +5 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 160 167 193
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 13.51% 15.97% 12.44%
As % of the Vendors category 32.52% 34.29% 31.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 121 124 150
10th Percentile £268 £242 £225
25th Percentile £319 £366 £264
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £450 £425
Median % change year-on-year -11.11% +5.88% -3.41%
75th Percentile £475 £528 £538
90th Percentile £575 £700 £659
North West median daily rate £400 £450 £400
% change year-on-year -11.11% +12.50% -11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 10 20
10th Percentile £19.01 £29.85 £11.78
25th Percentile £19.75 £31.25 £12.00
Median hourly rate £22.32 £32.50 £15.14
Median % change year-on-year -31.34% +114.70% -22.37%
75th Percentile £31.40 £33.75 £24.13
90th Percentile £31.66 - £26.85
North West median hourly rate £22.32 £30.20 £20.50
% change year-on-year -26.11% +47.32% +5.13%

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 492 487 611
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 41.55% 46.56% 39.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 353 302 426
10th Percentile £304 £341 £248
25th Percentile £363 £400 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £483 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.74% -3.50% +2.30%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £585
90th Percentile £649 £700 £700
North West median daily rate £455 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -9.00% - +3.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 11 28
10th Percentile £18.93 £28.50 £11.76
25th Percentile £19.75 £30.63 £12.00
Median hourly rate £22.75 £32.50 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -30.00% +83.41% -72.74%
75th Percentile £31.40 £33.75 £30.00
90th Percentile £32.00 - £47.51
North West median hourly rate £29.30 £32.50 £32.12
% change year-on-year -9.85% +1.20% +24.43%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +1 6 £396 +93.29% 16
Stockport -1 2 £155 -61.25% 19
Oldham -2 2 £225 -43.75% 6
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 (8.13%) SharePoint
2 7 (4.38%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (3.75%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (2.50%) CMS
5 3 (1.88%) Apache
5 3 (1.88%) IIS
6 2 (1.25%) Confluence
6 2 (1.25%) iPlanet
6 2 (1.25%) JBoss
6 2 (1.25%) SAS
6 2 (1.25%) WebSphere
6 2 (1.25%) WebSphere Application Server
7 1 (0.63%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 26 (16.25%) Microsoft Office
2 16 (10.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (2.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (2.50%) Trello
4 3 (1.88%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (1.88%) MS Visio
4 3 (1.88%) Sketch
5 1 (0.63%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.63%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 7 (4.38%) Advent Geneva
2 5 (3.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.63%) Maximo
3 1 (0.63%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.63%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.63%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.63%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 54 (33.75%) Azure
2 36 (22.50%) Power Platform
3 30 (18.75%) Microsoft 365
4 21 (13.13%) AWS
5 16 (10.00%) GCP
6 15 (9.38%) Entra ID
6 15 (9.38%) Power Automate
6 15 (9.38%) PowerApps
7 14 (8.75%) Dynamics 365
8 10 (6.25%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (5.63%) Google Tag Manager
10 8 (5.00%) Google Analytics
11 6 (3.75%) Figma
11 6 (3.75%) GitHub
12 4 (2.50%) Microsoft Copilot
12 4 (2.50%) OneDrive
13 3 (1.88%) Cloud Computing
13 3 (1.88%) Copilot Studio
13 3 (1.88%) OCI
13 3 (1.88%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.50%) Firewall
1 4 (2.50%) Network Security
1 4 (2.50%) VPN
1 4 (2.50%) Wi-Fi
2 2 (1.25%) Kerberos
2 2 (1.25%) VoIP
2 2 (1.25%) WAN
2 2 (1.25%) WebEx
3 1 (0.63%) Cisco ISE
3 1 (0.63%) DHCP
3 1 (0.63%) DNS
3 1 (0.63%) HTTP
3 1 (0.63%) IP Telephony
3 1 (0.63%) Remote Desktop
3 1 (0.63%) SD-WAN
3 1 (0.63%) SSH
3 1 (0.63%) SSL
3 1 (0.63%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.63%) VLAN
3 1 (0.63%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (15.00%) Power BI
2 11 (6.88%) Relational Database
3 10 (6.25%) SQL Server
4 7 (4.38%) BigQuery
4 7 (4.38%) DB2
4 7 (4.38%) Looker
4 7 (4.38%) MySQL
4 7 (4.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 6 (3.75%) Data Lake
6 4 (2.50%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (1.88%) Oracle Database
8 2 (1.25%) BusinessObjects
8 2 (1.25%) Metadata
8 2 (1.25%) NoSQL
8 2 (1.25%) Snowflake Schema
8 2 (1.25%) Tableau
9 1 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
9 1 (0.63%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.63%) Big Data
9 1 (0.63%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 6 (3.75%) Git
1 6 (3.75%) JIRA
2 5 (3.13%) GitLab
3 3 (1.88%) Jenkins
4 2 (1.25%) Bitbucket Server
4 2 (1.25%) CA Release Automation
4 2 (1.25%) Gradle
4 2 (1.25%) Storybook
4 2 (1.25%) Xcode
5 1 (0.63%) Browser DevTools
5 1 (0.63%) MSI
5 1 (0.63%) Octopus Deploy
5 1 (0.63%) Selenium
5 1 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 61 (38.13%) Social Skills
2 41 (25.63%) Finance
3 27 (16.88%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (15.63%) Public Sector
5 10 (6.25%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (5.63%) Banking
7 5 (3.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (3.13%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.88%) Retail
8 3 (1.88%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.25%) Legal
9 2 (1.25%) Military
9 2 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.25%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.63%) Billing
10 1 (0.63%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.63%) Italian Language
10 1 (0.63%) Marketing
10 1 (0.63%) Polish Language
10 1 (0.63%) Spanish Language
Job Titles
1 30 (18.75%) Analyst
2 26 (16.25%) Developer
3 15 (9.38%) Administrator
4 12 (7.50%) Senior
5 10 (6.25%) Lead
5 10 (6.25%) Support Analyst
6 6 (3.75%) Business Analyst
6 6 (3.75%) Consultant
6 6 (3.75%) Deskside Analyst
6 6 (3.75%) Deskside Support
6 6 (3.75%) Deskside Support Analyst
6 6 (3.75%) Desktop Support
6 6 (3.75%) DevOps Engineer
6 6 (3.75%) IT Support
6 6 (3.75%) Microsoft Developer
6 6 (3.75%) Performance Analyst
6 6 (3.75%) Technology Support Analyst
7 5 (3.13%) Architect
7 5 (3.13%) Data Engineer
7 5 (3.13%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (6.88%) .NET
2 6 (3.75%) HTML5 Canvas
3 5 (3.13%) HTML
3 5 (3.13%) JSON
3 5 (3.13%) OAuth
4 4 (2.50%) Kafka
4 4 (2.50%) REST
5 3 (1.88%) OpenID
5 3 (1.88%) SAML
6 2 (1.25%) D3.js
6 2 (1.25%) LangChain
6 2 (1.25%) LDAP
6 2 (1.25%) PySpark
6 2 (1.25%) React Native
6 2 (1.25%) SVG
6 2 (1.25%) XML
7 1 (0.63%) AngularJS
7 1 (0.63%) Microsoft Graph
7 1 (0.63%) OAuth2
7 1 (0.63%) React
Miscellaneous
1 16 (10.00%) Onboarding
2 7 (4.38%) Virtual Team
3 6 (3.75%) Data Protection Act
4 5 (3.13%) Mobile App
5 4 (2.50%) Data Centre
5 4 (2.50%) Low-Code
6 3 (1.88%) Clustering
6 3 (1.88%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (1.25%) CMDB
7 2 (1.25%) Distributed Computing
7 2 (1.25%) Driving Licence
7 2 (1.25%) Life Science
7 2 (1.25%) Mainframe
7 2 (1.25%) Product Ownership
7 2 (1.25%) Security Posture
8 1 (0.63%) Fat Client
8 1 (0.63%) NHS
8 1 (0.63%) Replication
8 1 (0.63%) Social Media
8 1 (0.63%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 25 (15.63%) Windows
2 11 (6.88%) Windows 10
3 9 (5.63%) Linux
4 5 (3.13%) Android
4 5 (3.13%) Apple iOS
4 5 (3.13%) Mac OS
4 5 (3.13%) Unix
5 4 (2.50%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.63%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 26 (16.25%) Business Intelligence
2 25 (15.63%) Problem-Solving
3 23 (14.38%) Analytics
4 21 (13.13%) Stakeholder Management
4 21 (13.13%) User Experience
5 20 (12.50%) DevOps
6 19 (11.88%) Agile
6 19 (11.88%) ITIL
7 17 (10.63%) Data Analysis
8 16 (10.00%) Change Management
9 15 (9.38%) Validation
10 14 (8.75%) Actionable Insight
10 14 (8.75%) CI/CD
10 14 (8.75%) Customer Service
10 14 (8.75%) Migration
11 13 (8.13%) Service Management
12 12 (7.50%) Continuous Improvement
12 12 (7.50%) Digital Transformation Programme
13 11 (6.88%) Dashboard Development
13 11 (6.88%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 27 (16.88%) SQL
2 10 (6.25%) PowerShell
3 9 (5.63%) Python
4 8 (5.00%) JavaScript
5 5 (3.13%) C#
5 5 (3.13%) Java
6 4 (2.50%) TypeScript
7 3 (1.88%) Bash
8 2 (1.25%) Groovy
8 2 (1.25%) PL/SQL
8 2 (1.25%) T-SQL
9 1 (0.63%) Bicep
9 1 (0.63%) CLIST
9 1 (0.63%) COBOL
9 1 (0.63%) JCL
9 1 (0.63%) PHP
9 1 (0.63%) REXX
9 1 (0.63%) Scala
9 1 (0.63%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.63%) VBA
Qualifications
1 13 (8.13%) Degree
2 12 (7.50%) Security Cleared
3 10 (6.25%) Microsoft Certification
3 10 (6.25%) SC Cleared
4 7 (4.38%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (2.50%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (1.25%) A+ Certification
6 2 (1.25%) Azure Certification
6 2 (1.25%) CISA
6 2 (1.25%) CISM
6 2 (1.25%) CISSP
6 2 (1.25%) GSEC
6 2 (1.25%) MCT
6 2 (1.25%) Network+ Certification
6 2 (1.25%) PMI Certification
6 2 (1.25%) PMP
7 1 (0.63%) CCNP
7 1 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.63%) ISEB
7 1 (0.63%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (11.88%) Accessibility
2 14 (8.75%) Data Quality
3 12 (7.50%) QA
4 10 (6.25%) GDPR
5 7 (4.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (2.50%) NIST
7 3 (1.88%) PCI DSS
8 2 (1.25%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.63%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.63%) PMBOK
9 1 (0.63%) PMO
9 1 (0.63%) PSD2
9 1 (0.63%) WCAG
System Software
1 22 (13.75%) Active Directory
2 7 (4.38%) Docker
3 4 (2.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.63%) ACF2
4 1 (0.63%) RACF
4 1 (0.63%) Time Sharing Option
4 1 (0.63%) Tivoli Directory Server
4 1 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.63%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 17 (10.63%) Microsoft Intune
2 8 (5.00%) Kubernetes
3 7 (4.38%) SCCM
4 4 (2.50%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (1.88%) QRadar
6 2 (1.25%) CA Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.25%) CA Wily
6 2 (1.25%) Grafana
6 2 (1.25%) Progress Chef
6 2 (1.25%) Terraform
6 2 (1.25%) Tivoli
7 1 (0.63%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.63%) Ansible
7 1 (0.63%) CA Endevor
7 1 (0.63%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (0.63%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.63%) Tivoli Storage Manager
7 1 (0.63%) WSUS
Vendors
1 14 (8.75%) Google
2 8 (5.00%) Oracle
3 7 (4.38%) Advent
3 7 (4.38%) Splunk
4 6 (3.75%) Apple
4 6 (3.75%) Citrix
4 6 (3.75%) SAP
5 4 (2.50%) IBM
5 4 (2.50%) VMware
6 3 (1.88%) Hopewiser
6 3 (1.88%) ServiceNow
7 2 (1.25%) AppDynamics
7 2 (1.25%) ArcSight
7 2 (1.25%) BMC
7 2 (1.25%) Broadcom
7 2 (1.25%) Cisco
7 2 (1.25%) Confluent
7 2 (1.25%) Salesforce
8 1 (0.63%) Blue Prism
8 1 (0.63%) Cribl.io