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 21 August 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
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 13
Rank change year-on-year -4 +10 -9
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 253 180 124
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 12.87% 17.73% 10.31%
As % of the Vendors category 32.48% 36.22% 27.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 163 120 90
10th Percentile £193 £208 £363
25th Percentile £358 £360 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -10.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £525 £552 £638
90th Percentile £600 £638 £664
North West median daily rate £450 £438 £475
% change year-on-year +2.86% -7.89% +5.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 25 7
10th Percentile £19.05 £13.00 £18.40
25th Percentile £25.88 £19.07 £24.25
Median hourly rate £29.50 £22.32 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +32.20% -25.62% +74.83%
75th Percentile £150.73 £22.63 £33.75
90th Percentile £178.75 £31.40 £40.50
North West median hourly rate £25.38 £22.32 £16.06
% change year-on-year +13.74% +38.95% -28.72%

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 779 497 459
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 39.62% 48.97% 38.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 450 314 284
10th Percentile £275 £306 £363
25th Percentile £380 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.16% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £585 £600 £605
90th Percentile £663 £700 £675
North West median daily rate £495 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.21% -5.00% +3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 35 21
10th Percentile £21.55 £13.00 £15.63
25th Percentile £24.19 £19.07 £20.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £22.32 £31.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.05% -28.02% +74.94%
75th Percentile £69.25 £30.77 £60.00
90th Percentile £86.75 £62.25 £97.50
North West median hourly rate £29.48 £25.15 £16.06
% change year-on-year +17.24% +56.57% -52.76%

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 21 August 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 21 August 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 21 August 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 -4 8 £160 -46.67% 12
Oldham +3 4 £205 - 4
Salford +1 2 £334 -16.56% 11
Rochdale - 2 - - 5
Bury - 1 - - 3
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 37 (14.62%) SharePoint
2 23 (9.09%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (3.16%) Confluence
4 7 (2.77%) SharePoint Server
5 2 (0.79%) Apache
5 2 (0.79%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.79%) CMS
5 2 (0.79%) IIS
6 1 (0.40%) CICS
6 1 (0.40%) SharePoint 2013
6 1 (0.40%) WebSphere
Applications
1 30 (11.86%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (10.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (4.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 11 (4.35%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (1.58%) MS Visio
5 3 (1.19%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.79%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.40%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.40%) Navisworks
7 1 (0.40%) ProjectWise
7 1 (0.40%) Revit
Business Applications
1 5 (1.98%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (1.58%) Primavera
2 4 (1.58%) SAP MM
2 4 (1.58%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (1.19%) Elite 3E
4 2 (0.79%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.40%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.40%) Cloudability
5 1 (0.40%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 1 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.40%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 105 (41.50%) Azure
2 97 (38.34%) Microsoft 365
3 51 (20.16%) Power Platform
4 45 (17.79%) Entra ID
5 34 (13.44%) Microsoft Copilot
6 25 (9.88%) AWS
7 23 (9.09%) Power Automate
8 20 (7.91%) PowerApps
9 18 (7.11%) Azure DevOps
9 18 (7.11%) OneDrive
10 12 (4.74%) GCP
11 11 (4.35%) Dynamics 365
12 9 (3.56%) Azure Monitor
13 8 (3.16%) Azure AI
14 7 (2.77%) Serverless
15 6 (2.37%) Azure Data Factory
15 6 (2.37%) OpenShift
16 5 (1.98%) GitHub
17 4 (1.58%) GitHub Actions
17 4 (1.58%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (5.14%) Firewall
2 10 (3.95%) VPN
3 8 (3.16%) DNS
4 7 (2.77%) SSL
5 6 (2.37%) Network Security
5 6 (2.37%) VLAN
6 5 (1.98%) DHCP
6 5 (1.98%) SAN
7 4 (1.58%) LAN
7 4 (1.58%) NAS
7 4 (1.58%) TCP/IP
7 4 (1.58%) WAN
8 3 (1.19%) Skype
9 2 (0.79%) BGP
9 2 (0.79%) PABX
9 2 (0.79%) SD-WAN
9 2 (0.79%) SMTP
9 2 (0.79%) VoIP
9 2 (0.79%) VSAN
9 2 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (11.86%) Power BI
2 23 (9.09%) SQL Server
3 13 (5.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 8 (3.16%) MySQL
5 7 (2.77%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.98%) Metadata
6 5 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (1.58%) Data Lake
7 4 (1.58%) Data Warehouse
7 4 (1.58%) MongoDB
8 3 (1.19%) NoSQL
8 3 (1.19%) Oracle Reports
8 3 (1.19%) RDBMS
9 2 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.79%) Power Query
9 2 (0.79%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 2 (0.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 1 (0.40%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.40%) Delta Lake
10 1 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 12 (4.74%) JIRA
2 7 (2.77%) Git
3 4 (1.58%) Jenkins
4 3 (1.19%) GitLab
5 2 (0.79%) MSI
5 2 (0.79%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 1 (0.40%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 83 (32.81%) Social Skills
2 64 (25.30%) Finance
3 35 (13.83%) Analytical Skills
4 20 (7.91%) Public Sector
5 19 (7.51%) Banking
6 13 (5.14%) Manufacturing
7 12 (4.74%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (3.95%) Organisational Skills
9 8 (3.16%) Legal
10 7 (2.77%) Telecoms
11 6 (2.37%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (2.37%) Retail
12 5 (1.98%) Games
13 4 (1.58%) Marketing
14 3 (1.19%) Military
14 3 (1.19%) Presentation Skills
15 2 (0.79%) Agriculture
15 2 (0.79%) Aviation
15 2 (0.79%) Billing
15 2 (0.79%) Law
Job Titles
1 28 (11.07%) IT Support
2 26 (10.28%) Support Engineer
3 24 (9.49%) Analyst
4 19 (7.51%) Architect
5 18 (7.11%) IT Engineer
5 18 (7.11%) IT Support Engineer
6 15 (5.93%) DBA
7 14 (5.53%) Lead
8 13 (5.14%) Designer
8 13 (5.14%) Developer
9 12 (4.74%) SQL DBA
10 11 (4.35%) Content Designer
10 11 (4.35%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
11 10 (3.95%) IT Analyst
11 10 (3.95%) Senior
12 9 (3.56%) Support Analyst
13 8 (3.16%) Administrator
13 8 (3.16%) Consultant
14 7 (2.77%) IT Support Analyst
14 7 (2.77%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (5.53%) Terraform
2 10 (3.95%) SAML
3 6 (2.37%) JSON
4 5 (1.98%) REST
5 4 (1.58%) Kafka
5 4 (1.58%) Microsoft Graph
5 4 (1.58%) Node.js
5 4 (1.58%) Spring
5 4 (1.58%) Spring Boot
5 4 (1.58%) XML
6 3 (1.19%) .NET
6 3 (1.19%) React
6 3 (1.19%) Software Packaging
7 2 (0.79%) Flash
7 2 (0.79%) Model Context Protocol
7 2 (0.79%) Next.js
7 2 (0.79%) OAuth
7 2 (0.79%) ODBC
7 2 (0.79%) PySpark
7 2 (0.79%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 22 (8.70%) Onboarding
2 10 (3.95%) Cloud Native
3 8 (3.16%) Clustering
3 8 (3.16%) Data Centre
3 8 (3.16%) Replication
4 7 (2.77%) Management Information System
5 6 (2.37%) CMDB
5 6 (2.37%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (1.98%) Animation
6 5 (1.98%) Handset
6 5 (1.98%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (1.98%) Product Ownership
7 4 (1.58%) Blackberry
7 4 (1.58%) Hybrid Cloud
7 4 (1.58%) Security Posture
8 3 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (1.19%) Driving Licence
8 3 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
8 3 (1.19%) Life Science
8 3 (1.19%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 62 (24.51%) Windows
2 31 (12.25%) Windows 10
3 22 (8.70%) Windows Server
4 12 (4.74%) Linux
5 6 (2.37%) Unix
6 4 (1.58%) Android
6 4 (1.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.58%) VMS
7 3 (1.19%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.79%) AIX
8 2 (0.79%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.79%) Solaris
9 1 (0.40%) HPUX
9 1 (0.40%) Oracle Linux
9 1 (0.40%) SUSE
9 1 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (22.92%) ITIL
2 38 (15.02%) Stakeholder Management
3 37 (14.62%) Agile
3 37 (14.62%) DevOps
3 37 (14.62%) Problem-Solving
4 29 (11.46%) Business Intelligence
4 29 (11.46%) CI/CD
4 29 (11.46%) Roadmaps
5 28 (11.07%) Customer Service
6 24 (9.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 23 (9.09%) Analytics
7 23 (9.09%) Migration
8 20 (7.91%) Service Management
9 19 (7.51%) Infrastructure as Code
9 19 (7.51%) Knowledge Transfer
10 18 (7.11%) Continuous Improvement
10 18 (7.11%) Data Modelling
10 18 (7.11%) ERP
10 18 (7.11%) Performance Tuning
11 17 (6.72%) AI
Programming Languages
1 43 (17.00%) SQL
2 34 (13.44%) PowerShell
3 26 (10.28%) Python
4 14 (5.53%) T-SQL
5 7 (2.77%) Java
6 6 (2.37%) Bash
6 6 (2.37%) Bicep
7 5 (1.98%) C#
8 4 (1.58%) JavaScript
9 3 (1.19%) VBScript
10 2 (0.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 2 (0.79%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.79%) Search Processing Language
10 2 (0.79%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.40%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 46 (18.18%) Degree
2 36 (14.23%) Security Cleared
3 31 (12.25%) SC Cleared
4 25 (9.88%) BPSS Clearance
5 22 (8.70%) Microsoft Certification
6 11 (4.35%) Azure Certification
6 11 (4.35%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (3.16%) A+ Certification
8 7 (2.77%) Network+ Certification
9 6 (2.37%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 5 (1.98%) DBS Check
11 4 (1.58%) CISSP
12 3 (1.19%) Cisco Certification
12 3 (1.19%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 3 (1.19%) PMI Certification
13 2 (0.79%) CCNA
13 2 (0.79%) GCFA
13 2 (0.79%) GCIH
13 2 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
13 2 (0.79%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (7.51%) Data Quality
2 14 (5.53%) GDPR
3 8 (3.16%) SLA
4 7 (2.77%) PMO
5 6 (2.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 5 (1.98%) Accessibility
6 5 (1.98%) NIST
6 5 (1.98%) WCAG
7 4 (1.58%) GRC
8 3 (1.19%) PCI DSS
8 3 (1.19%) QA
9 2 (0.79%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.40%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
10 1 (0.40%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.40%) ISO 19650
10 1 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 1 (0.40%) SOC 2
System Software
1 74 (29.25%) Active Directory
2 16 (6.32%) Docker
3 9 (3.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (3.16%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (1.58%) Hyper-V
6 3 (1.19%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.79%) GPFS
7 2 (0.79%) NFS
7 2 (0.79%) Oracle RAC
7 2 (0.79%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.79%) vSphere
8 1 (0.40%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.40%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.40%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 31 (12.25%) Microsoft Intune
2 16 (6.32%) Kubernetes
3 10 (3.95%) Single Sign-On
4 7 (2.77%) Ansible
4 7 (2.77%) SCOM
5 6 (2.37%) SCCM
6 5 (1.98%) Progress Chef
7 4 (1.58%) Grafana
8 3 (1.19%) CASB
9 2 (0.79%) AirWatch
9 2 (0.79%) Data Guard
9 2 (0.79%) Failover Clustering
9 2 (0.79%) vRealize
9 2 (0.79%) VxRail
10 1 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 1 (0.40%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.40%) Puppet
10 1 (0.40%) WSUS
Vendors
1 23 (9.09%) ServiceNow
2 16 (6.32%) BeyondTrust
2 16 (6.32%) SAP
3 11 (4.35%) Oracle
4 10 (3.95%) VMware
5 9 (3.56%) Google
6 8 (3.16%) Databricks
6 8 (3.16%) Red Hat
7 7 (2.77%) Splunk
8 5 (1.98%) Cisco
8 5 (1.98%) IBM
8 5 (1.98%) Perforce
9 4 (1.58%) Adobe
9 4 (1.58%) UiPath
10 3 (1.19%) CyberArk
10 3 (1.19%) HP
10 3 (1.19%) Okta
10 3 (1.19%) Salesforce
11 2 (0.79%) Infoblox
11 2 (0.79%) Proofpoint