Microsoft Contract Job Trends in Manchester

Microsoft
North West > Manchester

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in Manchester citing 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 23 October 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 23 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	8	2	11
Rank change year-on-year	-6	+9	-8
Contract jobs citing Microsoft	255	196	124
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester	12.41%	18.53%	10.76%
As % of the Vendors category	33.64%	38.36%	26.05%
Number of daily rates quoted	169	140	82
10^th Percentile	£253	£270	£339
25^th Percentile	£400	£360	£400
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£481	£447	£450
Median % change year-on-year	+7.55%	-0.61%	+5.88%
75^th Percentile	£525	£530	£582
90^th Percentile	£610	£613	£674
North West median daily rate	£464	£431	£450
% change year-on-year	+7.72%	-4.33%	+5.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted	17	31	9
10^th Percentile	£18.77	£16.50	£26.00
25^th Percentile	£19.00	£19.07	£29.50
Median hourly rate	£29.00	£22.32	£32.50
Median % change year-on-year	+29.96%	-31.34%	+84.87%
75^th Percentile	£30.00	£31.40	£33.75
90^th Percentile	£73.50	-	£37.75
North West median hourly rate	£17.69	£22.32	£30.50
% change year-on-year	-20.73%	-26.84%	+35.38%

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 citing vendor products and services in Manchester.

	6 months to 23 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies citing vendor products and services	758	511	476
As % of all contract jobs advertised in Manchester	36.89%	48.30%	41.32%
Number of daily rates quoted	436	344	267
10^th Percentile	£275	£305	£363
25^th Percentile	£400	£399	£413
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£492	£454	£500
Median % change year-on-year	+8.43%	-9.25%	+3.52%
75^th Percentile	£575	£612	£575
90^th Percentile	£650	£709	£675
North West median daily rate	£495	£464	£500
% change year-on-year	+6.74%	-7.25%	-
Number of hourly rates quoted	72	42	18
10^th Percentile	£19.00	£16.37	£15.89
25^th Percentile	£24.19	£19.07	£23.63
Median hourly rate	£35.50	£22.41	£31.75
Median % change year-on-year	+58.43%	-29.43%	+79.18%
75^th Percentile	£65.42	£31.40	£41.56
90^th Percentile	£78.58	£32.93	£64.13
North West median hourly rate	£29.00	£22.63	£35.00
% change year-on-year	+28.15%	-35.34%	-

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 Daily Rate Trend in Manchester

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 23 October 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.

Microsoft Hourly Rate Histogram in Manchester

Hourly rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in Manchester over the 6 months to 23 October 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 23 October 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	Job Ads Past 6 Months	Median Daily Rate Past 6 Months	Median Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year	Live Jobs
Bolton	-4	8	£160	-59.62%	8
Oldham	+4	4	-	-	4
Rochdale	-	2	-	-	8
Microsoft North West

Microsoft Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester

For the 6 months to 23 October 2026, contractor job vacancies citing Microsoft also mentioned the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the Manchester region citing Microsoft.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Azure	46.3%	118
2	Microsoft 365	39.6%	101
3	Power Platform	27.8%	71
4	Active Directory	25.5%	65
5	Windows	23.9%	61
6	SharePoint	20.4%	52
7	Security Cleared	19.6%	50
8	Entra ID	19.2%	49
9	Degree	18.0%	46
10	ITIL	17.3%	44
10	PowerShell	17.3%	44
12	Stakeholder Management	16.5%	42
13	SQL	16.1%	41
14	Problem-Solving	15.3%	39
14	SC Cleared	15.3%	39
16	BPSS Clearance	14.5%	37
16	DevOps	14.5%	37
16	Power BI	14.5%	37
19	Business Intelligence	14.1%	36
20	Microsoft Copilot	13.7%	35
20	Power Automate	13.7%	35
22	PowerApps	13.3%	34
23	Microsoft Intune	12.5%	32
24	Agile	12.2%	31
24	Microsoft Exchange	12.2%	31
26	Customer Service	11.4%	29
27	ServiceNow	11.0%	28
28	CI/CD	10.6%	27
28	Continuous Improvement	10.6%	27
28	Windows Server	10.6%	27

Microsoft Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Manchester by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Vendors

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	ServiceNow	11.0%	28
2	BeyondTrust	9.4%	24
3	SAP	5.1%	13
4	Google	4.3%	11
5	VMware	3.9%	10
6	Okta	3.5%	9
6	Splunk	3.5%	9
8	Databricks	3.1%	8
8	Oracle	3.1%	8
10	Apple	2.4%	6
10	Cisco	2.4%	6
12	CyberArk	2.0%	5
12	Perforce	2.0%	5
14	Citrix	1.6%	4
14	Clearswift	1.6%	4
14	IBM	1.6%	4
14	Proofpoint	1.6%	4
14	UiPath	1.6%	4
19	Red Hat	1.2%	3
19	Salesforce	1.2%	3