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 12 March 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
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 2 7
Rank change year-on-year -6 +5 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 178 193 197
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 12.18% 19.42% 12.56%
As % of the Vendors category 32.78% 41.24% 33.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 137 148 137
10th Percentile £287 £213 £250
25th Percentile £350 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% - -5.26%
75th Percentile £538 £528 £538
90th Percentile £597 £700 £609
North West median daily rate £415 £450 £428
% change year-on-year -7.78% +5.26% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 8 33
10th Percentile £17.09 - £11.83
25th Percentile £19.75 £31.25 £12.84
Median hourly rate £21.50 £32.50 £16.05
Median % change year-on-year -33.85% +102.56% -18.76%
75th Percentile £29.50 £33.75 £25.25
90th Percentile £31.80 - £26.50
North West median hourly rate £25.38 £28.75 £16.06
% change year-on-year -11.72% +79.02% -38.82%

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 543 468 581
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 37.17% 47.08% 37.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 382 320 412
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £400 £394 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £461 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.68% -7.75% -
75th Percentile £581 £575 £584
90th Percentile £650 £700 £700
North West median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +2.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 12 45
10th Percentile £18.27 - £11.87
25th Percentile £19.75 £31.25 £12.84
Median hourly rate £22.68 £32.50 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -30.22% +83.41% -52.75%
75th Percentile £29.50 £40.31 £26.50
90th Percentile £41.35 £60.00 £60.00
North West median hourly rate £27.75 £32.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -14.62% +102.37% -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 12 March 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 12 March 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 12 March 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 £400 +110.53% 12
Oldham -1 3 £205 -43.45% 6
Salford +2 2 £500 -30.17% 5
Stockport -1 2 £155 -61.25% 8
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 20 (11.24%) SharePoint
2 10 (5.62%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (2.81%) Confluence
4 4 (2.25%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (1.69%) Apache
6 2 (1.12%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.56%) CICS
7 1 (0.56%) CMS
7 1 (0.56%) IIS
7 1 (0.56%) SAS
Applications
1 26 (14.61%) Microsoft Office
2 16 (8.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (3.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (3.37%) MS Visio
4 5 (2.81%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (2.25%) Trello
6 3 (1.69%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.56%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 6 (3.37%) Advent Geneva
2 4 (2.25%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (1.69%) Primavera
3 3 (1.69%) SAP MM
4 1 (0.56%) Elite 3E
4 1 (0.56%) Infor M3
4 1 (0.56%) Maximo
4 1 (0.56%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 69 (38.76%) Azure
2 42 (23.60%) Microsoft 365
3 36 (20.22%) Power Platform
4 29 (16.29%) Entra ID
5 19 (10.67%) AWS
6 18 (10.11%) PowerApps
7 17 (9.55%) Power Automate
8 15 (8.43%) Microsoft Copilot
9 13 (7.30%) Dynamics 365
9 13 (7.30%) GCP
10 12 (6.74%) Azure DevOps
11 9 (5.06%) OneDrive
11 9 (5.06%) Serverless
12 8 (4.49%) Microsoft Purview
13 7 (3.93%) Google Tag Manager
14 6 (3.37%) Azure AKS
14 6 (3.37%) Azure Logic Apps
14 6 (3.37%) Google Analytics
15 5 (2.81%) Azure Functions
15 5 (2.81%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 13 (7.30%) Firewall
2 7 (3.93%) Network Security
3 4 (2.25%) DNS
3 4 (2.25%) Wi-Fi
4 3 (1.69%) WAN
5 2 (1.12%) DHCP
5 2 (1.12%) LAN
5 2 (1.12%) TCP/IP
5 2 (1.12%) VPN
6 1 (0.56%) Cisco ISE
6 1 (0.56%) HTTP
6 1 (0.56%) Intrusion Detection
6 1 (0.56%) NGFW
6 1 (0.56%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.56%) SSL
6 1 (0.56%) WebEx
6 1 (0.56%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (11.24%) Power BI
2 13 (7.30%) Relational Database
3 11 (6.18%) SQL Server
4 6 (3.37%) DB2
4 6 (3.37%) MySQL
4 6 (3.37%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 5 (2.81%) BigQuery
5 5 (2.81%) Looker
5 5 (2.81%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (2.25%) Data Lake
6 4 (2.25%) MongoDB
6 4 (2.25%) NoSQL
6 4 (2.25%) RDBMS
7 3 (1.69%) BusinessObjects
7 3 (1.69%) Oracle Reports
8 2 (1.12%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (1.12%) Metadata
8 2 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 1 (0.56%) Power Query
9 1 (0.56%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 9 (5.06%) JIRA
2 4 (2.25%) Git
2 4 (2.25%) GitLab
3 1 (0.56%) Browser DevTools
3 1 (0.56%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.56%) MSI
3 1 (0.56%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 67 (37.64%) Social Skills
2 42 (23.60%) Finance
3 34 (19.10%) Public Sector
4 23 (12.92%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (5.62%) Banking
5 10 (5.62%) Legal
6 9 (5.06%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (2.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (2.81%) Influencing Skills
7 5 (2.81%) Manufacturing
8 4 (2.25%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (2.25%) Retail
8 4 (2.25%) Telecoms
9 3 (1.69%) Law
10 2 (1.12%) Billing
10 2 (1.12%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.56%) Local Government
11 1 (0.56%) Military
11 1 (0.56%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 30 (16.85%) Developer
2 28 (15.73%) Analyst
3 16 (8.99%) Lead
4 14 (7.87%) Senior
5 10 (5.62%) Administrator
5 10 (5.62%) Security Engineer
6 9 (5.06%) Microsoft Engineer
7 8 (4.49%) IT Support
7 8 (4.49%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
8 7 (3.93%) Architect
8 7 (3.93%) Consultant
8 7 (3.93%) Microsoft Developer
8 7 (3.93%) Project Manager
8 7 (3.93%) Support Analyst
9 6 (3.37%) Senior Analyst
10 5 (2.81%) Business Analyst
10 5 (2.81%) DBA
10 5 (2.81%) DevOps Engineer
10 5 (2.81%) Java Developer
10 5 (2.81%) Lead Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (6.74%) .NET
2 7 (3.93%) JSON
2 7 (3.93%) REST
2 7 (3.93%) Spring
2 7 (3.93%) Spring Boot
3 6 (3.37%) HTML5 Canvas
3 6 (3.37%) XML
4 5 (2.81%) Kafka
5 4 (2.25%) HTML
6 2 (1.12%) ARM Templates
6 2 (1.12%) AWS CDK
6 2 (1.12%) LangChain
6 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Graph
6 2 (1.12%) Node.js
6 2 (1.12%) OAuth
7 1 (0.56%) 802.1X
7 1 (0.56%) OAuth2
7 1 (0.56%) PyTorch
7 1 (0.56%) scikit-learn
7 1 (0.56%) SPFx
Miscellaneous
1 14 (7.87%) Onboarding
2 9 (5.06%) Cloud Native
3 8 (4.49%) Security Posture
4 6 (3.37%) Data Protection Act
4 6 (3.37%) Virtual Team
5 5 (2.81%) Management Information System
5 5 (2.81%) Product Ownership
6 4 (2.25%) Cloud Security Posture
6 4 (2.25%) Data Centre
6 4 (2.25%) Driving Licence
7 3 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (1.69%) Low-Code
8 2 (1.12%) AI Agents
8 2 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (1.12%) Linux Command Line
8 2 (1.12%) Mainframe
8 2 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.56%) Legacy Systems
9 1 (0.56%) Manufacturing Execution System
9 1 (0.56%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 29 (16.29%) Windows
2 18 (10.11%) Windows 10
3 13 (7.30%) Linux
4 5 (2.81%) Mac OS
4 5 (2.81%) Unix
5 2 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (1.12%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.56%) AIX
6 1 (0.56%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.56%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.56%) Solaris
6 1 (0.56%) VMS
6 1 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (15.17%) Agile
1 27 (15.17%) DevOps
2 23 (12.92%) Problem-Solving
3 22 (12.36%) Business Intelligence
3 22 (12.36%) CI/CD
4 20 (11.24%) Analytics
5 19 (10.67%) ITIL
6 18 (10.11%) Stakeholder Management
7 17 (9.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 17 (9.55%) User Experience
8 14 (7.87%) Change Management
8 14 (7.87%) Roadmaps
9 12 (6.74%) Cloud Security
9 12 (6.74%) Containerisation
9 12 (6.74%) Identity Access Management
9 12 (6.74%) Migration
9 12 (6.74%) Project Delivery
9 12 (6.74%) Project Management
10 11 (6.18%) Actionable Insight
10 11 (6.18%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 30 (16.85%) SQL
2 20 (11.24%) PowerShell
3 17 (9.55%) Python
4 14 (7.87%) Java
5 8 (4.49%) JavaScript
6 6 (3.37%) C#
7 5 (2.81%) Bash
8 4 (2.25%) TypeScript
9 3 (1.69%) Bicep
10 2 (1.12%) COBOL
10 2 (1.12%) T-SQL
10 2 (1.12%) VBA
11 1 (0.56%) C++
11 1 (0.56%) CLIST
11 1 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 1 (0.56%) JCL
11 1 (0.56%) PHP
11 1 (0.56%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.56%) REXX
Qualifications
1 15 (8.43%) Degree
2 12 (6.74%) Microsoft Certification
2 12 (6.74%) Security Cleared
3 10 (5.62%) SC Cleared
4 8 (4.49%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (2.25%) Azure Certification
5 4 (2.25%) CISSP
5 4 (2.25%) PMI Certification
6 3 (1.69%) A+ Certification
6 3 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.69%) Network+ Certification
6 3 (1.69%) PMP
7 2 (1.12%) AWS Certification
7 2 (1.12%) MCSA
7 2 (1.12%) MCSE
7 2 (1.12%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 1 (0.56%) CBAP
8 1 (0.56%) CompTIA Security+
8 1 (0.56%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.56%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (7.87%) GDPR
2 12 (6.74%) Accessibility
3 11 (6.18%) Data Quality
4 9 (5.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (4.49%) QA
6 4 (2.25%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (1.12%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 2 (1.12%) HIPAA
7 2 (1.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 1 (0.56%) NIST
8 1 (0.56%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.56%) PMO
8 1 (0.56%) SLA
8 1 (0.56%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.56%) WCAG
System Software
1 35 (19.66%) Active Directory
2 15 (8.43%) Docker
3 3 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.56%) ACF2
5 1 (0.56%) RACF
5 1 (0.56%) Time Sharing Option
5 1 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 19 (10.67%) Microsoft Intune
2 16 (8.99%) Kubernetes
3 6 (3.37%) Terraform
4 5 (2.81%) SCCM
5 3 (1.69%) Progress Chef
5 3 (1.69%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.12%) CASB
6 2 (1.12%) Grafana
7 1 (0.56%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.56%) CA Endevor
7 1 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (0.56%) Nessus
7 1 (0.56%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.56%) Tivoli
7 1 (0.56%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 13 (7.30%) Google
2 9 (5.06%) Oracle
3 6 (3.37%) Advent
3 6 (3.37%) SAP
4 4 (2.25%) Cisco
4 4 (2.25%) Citrix
4 4 (2.25%) VMware
5 3 (1.69%) Salesforce
5 3 (1.69%) ServiceNow
5 3 (1.69%) Splunk
6 2 (1.12%) Apple
6 2 (1.12%) Confluent
6 2 (1.12%) Databricks
6 2 (1.12%) IBM
6 2 (1.12%) Okta
6 2 (1.12%) Red Hat
6 2 (1.12%) Remedy
6 2 (1.12%) Varonis
7 1 (0.56%) Cribl.io
7 1 (0.56%) Tenable