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 11 December 2025, 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
11 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 5 4 4
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 189 167 241
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 16.70% 14.61% 15.07%
As % of the Vendors category 34.94% 32.62% 36.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 136 115 187
10th Percentile £300 £213 £225
25th Percentile £329 £359 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £450 £425
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% +5.88% -
75th Percentile £525 £568 £544
90th Percentile £622 £683 £619
North West median daily rate £418 £450 £400
% change year-on-year -7.22% +12.50% -5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 12 17
10th Percentile £19.07 £28.60 £15.75
25th Percentile £19.75 £29.88 £16.25
Median hourly rate £22.32 £32.50 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -31.34% +83.41% -4.22%
75th Percentile £31.40 £33.75 £20.00
90th Percentile - - £30.00
North West median hourly rate £22.32 £31.75 £26.25
% change year-on-year -29.72% +20.95% +50.00%

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 541 512 660
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 47.79% 44.79% 41.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 372 302 471
10th Percentile £306 £326 £248
25th Percentile £380 £405 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -8.16% -2.00% +2.56%
75th Percentile £611 £575 £588
90th Percentile £688 £675 £690
North West median daily rate £455 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -9.00% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 19 24
10th Percentile £19.01 £15.93 £15.75
25th Percentile £19.52 £29.00 £16.28
Median hourly rate £22.41 £32.50 £18.61
Median % change year-on-year -31.05% +74.64% -7.55%
75th Percentile £29.22 £33.75 £43.59
90th Percentile £31.40 £56.00 £53.20
North West median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £34.00
% change year-on-year -22.63% -4.41% +70.00%

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 11 December 2025.

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 11 December 2025.

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 11 December 2025. 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 14 £396 +93.29% 12
Oldham -2 2 £225 -43.75% 3
Rochdale - 1 - - 8
Stockport - 1 - - 8
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 14 (7.41%) SharePoint
2 7 (3.70%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (3.17%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (2.65%) CMS
5 4 (2.12%) Apache
6 3 (1.59%) Confluence
6 3 (1.59%) IIS
6 3 (1.59%) JBoss
7 2 (1.06%) iPlanet
7 2 (1.06%) SAS
7 2 (1.06%) WebSphere
7 2 (1.06%) WebSphere Application Server
8 1 (0.53%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.53%) CICS
Applications
1 31 (16.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (15.87%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (3.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (2.12%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (2.12%) Trello
5 3 (1.59%) Sketch
6 2 (1.06%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.53%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.53%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 7 (3.70%) Advent Geneva
2 4 (2.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.53%) Maximo
3 1 (0.53%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.53%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 54 (28.57%) Azure
2 36 (19.05%) Power Platform
3 31 (16.40%) Microsoft 365
4 19 (10.05%) AWS
5 15 (7.94%) Power Automate
5 15 (7.94%) PowerApps
6 14 (7.41%) GCP
7 12 (6.35%) Dynamics 365
7 12 (6.35%) Entra ID
8 10 (5.29%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (4.76%) Google Tag Manager
10 8 (4.23%) Google Analytics
11 6 (3.17%) Figma
11 6 (3.17%) GitHub
12 5 (2.65%) SaaS
13 4 (2.12%) Azure Sentinel
13 4 (2.12%) Microsoft Copilot
13 4 (2.12%) OneDrive
14 3 (1.59%) Copilot Studio
14 3 (1.59%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 9 (4.76%) Network Security
2 5 (2.65%) Firewall
3 4 (2.12%) VPN
4 3 (1.59%) SSL
4 3 (1.59%) Wi-Fi
5 2 (1.06%) DNS
5 2 (1.06%) Kerberos
5 2 (1.06%) TCP/IP
5 2 (1.06%) VoIP
6 1 (0.53%) DHCP
6 1 (0.53%) HTTP
6 1 (0.53%) IP Telephony
6 1 (0.53%) LAN
6 1 (0.53%) Remote Desktop
6 1 (0.53%) SSH
6 1 (0.53%) VLAN
6 1 (0.53%) WAN
6 1 (0.53%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (13.23%) Power BI
2 12 (6.35%) Relational Database
3 11 (5.82%) SQL Server
4 8 (4.23%) MySQL
5 7 (3.70%) BigQuery
5 7 (3.70%) DB2
5 7 (3.70%) Looker
5 7 (3.70%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 6 (3.17%) Data Lake
7 4 (2.12%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (1.59%) Oracle Database
9 2 (1.06%) BusinessObjects
9 2 (1.06%) Metadata
9 2 (1.06%) NoSQL
9 2 (1.06%) PostgreSQL
9 2 (1.06%) Power Query
9 2 (1.06%) Snowflake Schema
9 2 (1.06%) Tableau
10 1 (0.53%) Oracle Discoverer
10 1 (0.53%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 10 (5.29%) JIRA
2 6 (3.17%) Git
3 5 (2.65%) GitLab
4 3 (1.59%) Jenkins
5 2 (1.06%) Bitbucket Server
5 2 (1.06%) CA Release Automation
5 2 (1.06%) Gradle
5 2 (1.06%) Selenium
5 2 (1.06%) Storybook
5 2 (1.06%) Xcode
6 1 (0.53%) Browser DevTools
6 1 (0.53%) MSI
6 1 (0.53%) Octopus Deploy
6 1 (0.53%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 65 (34.39%) Social Skills
2 52 (27.51%) Finance
3 33 (17.46%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (14.29%) Public Sector
5 11 (5.82%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (5.29%) Banking
7 6 (3.17%) Manufacturing
8 5 (2.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (2.12%) Retail
10 3 (1.59%) Aerospace
10 3 (1.59%) Aviation
10 3 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (1.06%) Military
11 2 (1.06%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.53%) Billing
12 1 (0.53%) Games
12 1 (0.53%) Law
12 1 (0.53%) Legal
12 1 (0.53%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 35 (18.52%) Analyst
2 26 (13.76%) Administrator
2 26 (13.76%) Developer
3 15 (7.94%) SAP Administrator
3 15 (7.94%) SAP Support
4 12 (6.35%) Senior
5 11 (5.82%) Lead
6 9 (4.76%) Support Analyst
7 8 (4.23%) Architect
7 8 (4.23%) Consultant
8 7 (3.70%) Microsoft Developer
9 6 (3.17%) Business Analyst
9 6 (3.17%) Deskside Analyst
9 6 (3.17%) Deskside Support
9 6 (3.17%) Deskside Support Analyst
9 6 (3.17%) Desktop Support
9 6 (3.17%) DevOps Engineer
9 6 (3.17%) Performance Analyst
9 6 (3.17%) SOC Analyst
9 6 (3.17%) Technology Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (5.29%) .NET
2 6 (3.17%) HTML
2 6 (3.17%) HTML5 Canvas
2 6 (3.17%) JSON
3 5 (2.65%) Kafka
3 5 (2.65%) OAuth
4 3 (1.59%) LDAP
4 3 (1.59%) OpenID
4 3 (1.59%) REST
4 3 (1.59%) SAML
5 2 (1.06%) D3.js
5 2 (1.06%) ISPF
5 2 (1.06%) LangChain
5 2 (1.06%) Microsoft Graph
5 2 (1.06%) PySpark
5 2 (1.06%) React Native
5 2 (1.06%) SVG
5 2 (1.06%) XML
6 1 (0.53%) React
6 1 (0.53%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 17 (8.99%) Onboarding
2 7 (3.70%) Virtual Team
3 6 (3.17%) Data Centre
4 5 (2.65%) Cloud Native
4 5 (2.65%) Clustering
4 5 (2.65%) Data Protection Act
4 5 (2.65%) Mobile App
5 4 (2.12%) Analytical Mindset
5 4 (2.12%) Low-Code
5 4 (2.12%) Product Ownership
6 3 (1.59%) Mainframe
6 3 (1.59%) Security Operations Centre
6 3 (1.59%) Security Posture
6 3 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (1.06%) Distributed Computing
7 2 (1.06%) Driving Licence
7 2 (1.06%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (1.06%) Life Science
8 1 (0.53%) Legacy Applications
8 1 (0.53%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 31 (16.40%) Windows
2 15 (7.94%) Linux
3 6 (3.17%) Unix
4 5 (2.65%) Android
4 5 (2.65%) Apple iOS
4 5 (2.65%) Windows 10
5 4 (2.12%) Windows Server
6 2 (1.06%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.53%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.53%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 37 (19.58%) Problem-Solving
2 28 (14.81%) Business Intelligence
2 28 (14.81%) Change Management
3 24 (12.70%) Analytics
4 23 (12.17%) Agile
5 22 (11.64%) Stakeholder Management
6 21 (11.11%) DevOps
7 20 (10.58%) User Experience
8 18 (9.52%) ITIL
9 17 (8.99%) Data Analysis
10 15 (7.94%) Actionable Insight
10 15 (7.94%) CI/CD
10 15 (7.94%) Validation
11 14 (7.41%) Project Management
12 13 (6.88%) Continuous Improvement
12 13 (6.88%) Cybersecurity
12 13 (6.88%) Incident Response
12 13 (6.88%) Migration
13 12 (6.35%) Dashboard Development
13 12 (6.35%) Digital Transformation Programme
Programming Languages
1 29 (15.34%) SQL
2 13 (6.88%) Python
3 9 (4.76%) PowerShell
4 8 (4.23%) JavaScript
5 6 (3.17%) Java
6 5 (2.65%) Kusto Query Language
7 4 (2.12%) C#
7 4 (2.12%) TypeScript
8 2 (1.06%) CLIST
8 2 (1.06%) Groovy
8 2 (1.06%) JCL
8 2 (1.06%) PHP
8 2 (1.06%) PL/SQL
8 2 (1.06%) REXX
8 2 (1.06%) T-SQL
8 2 (1.06%) VBA
9 1 (0.53%) COBOL
9 1 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.53%) Scala
9 1 (0.53%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 18 (9.52%) Security Cleared
2 16 (8.47%) Degree
3 14 (7.41%) SC Cleared
4 11 (5.82%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (5.82%) Microsoft Certification
5 4 (2.12%) CISSP
5 4 (2.12%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.59%) Azure Certification
6 3 (1.59%) CISM
7 2 (1.06%) AWS Certification
7 2 (1.06%) CISA
7 2 (1.06%) GCIA
7 2 (1.06%) GCIH
7 2 (1.06%) GSEC
7 2 (1.06%) MCSA
7 2 (1.06%) MCSE
7 2 (1.06%) MCT
7 2 (1.06%) PMI Certification
7 2 (1.06%) PMP
8 1 (0.53%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (10.05%) Accessibility
2 14 (7.41%) Data Quality
3 13 (6.88%) QA
4 7 (3.70%) GDPR
5 5 (2.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (2.65%) NIST
6 3 (1.59%) PCI DSS
6 3 (1.59%) PMO
7 2 (1.06%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.53%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 1 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.53%) PMBOK
8 1 (0.53%) PSD2
8 1 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 18 (9.52%) Active Directory
2 7 (3.70%) Docker
3 3 (1.59%) Virtual Desktop
4 2 (1.06%) Time Sharing Option
5 1 (0.53%) ACF2
5 1 (0.53%) RACF
5 1 (0.53%) Tivoli Directory Server
5 1 (0.53%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.53%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 17 (8.99%) Microsoft Intune
2 8 (4.23%) Kubernetes
3 6 (3.17%) SCCM
4 4 (2.12%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (1.59%) Ansible
5 3 (1.59%) QRadar
6 2 (1.06%) CA Endevor
6 2 (1.06%) CA Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.06%) CA Wily
6 2 (1.06%) Grafana
6 2 (1.06%) Microsoft Clustering
6 2 (1.06%) Progress Chef
6 2 (1.06%) Terraform
6 2 (1.06%) Tivoli
7 1 (0.53%) CASB
7 1 (0.53%) Nessus
7 1 (0.53%) OMEGAMON
7 1 (0.53%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.53%) Tivoli Storage Manager
7 1 (0.53%) WSUS
Vendors
1 17 (8.99%) SAP
2 12 (6.35%) Google
3 9 (4.76%) Oracle
4 8 (4.23%) Splunk
5 7 (3.70%) Advent
6 6 (3.17%) Apple
6 6 (3.17%) IBM
7 4 (2.12%) ServiceNow
8 3 (1.59%) Citrix
8 3 (1.59%) Hopewiser
9 2 (1.06%) AppDynamics
9 2 (1.06%) ArcSight
9 2 (1.06%) BMC
9 2 (1.06%) Broadcom
9 2 (1.06%) Confluent
10 1 (0.53%) BiZZdesign
10 1 (0.53%) CrowdStrike
10 1 (0.53%) Databricks
10 1 (0.53%) Samsung
10 1 (0.53%) Zscaler