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 July 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 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 3 7
Rank change year-on-year -4 +4 -3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 229 168 165
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 11.76% 17.20% 12.50%
As % of the Vendors category 31.63% 36.05% 34.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 153 115 120
10th Percentile £193 £206 £283
25th Percentile £363 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £425 £481
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -11.69% +1.32%
75th Percentile £538 £544 £578
90th Percentile £600 £618 £650
North West median daily rate £450 £434 £450
% change year-on-year +3.69% -3.56% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 18 15
10th Percentile £24.45 £13.00 £13.31
25th Percentile £28.50 £14.52 £14.91
Median hourly rate £30.00 £22.32 £25.25
Median % change year-on-year +34.44% -11.62% +47.14%
75th Percentile £178.75 £22.63 £29.50
90th Percentile - £23.77 £43.25
North West median hourly rate £29.00 £22.63 £16.06
% change year-on-year +28.15% +40.91% -19.70%

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 724 466 475
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 37.17% 47.70% 35.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 434 295 318
10th Percentile £275 £292 £325
25th Percentile £395 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £576 £600 £588
90th Percentile £650 £716 £671
North West median daily rate £485 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.11% -5.00% +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 29 32
10th Percentile £22.66 £13.00 £13.31
25th Percentile £24.19 £19.07 £15.92
Median hourly rate £30.00 £22.32 £25.63
Median % change year-on-year +34.44% -12.92% +44.61%
75th Percentile £75.38 £33.00 £51.56
90th Percentile £90.50 £60.75 £68.49
North West median hourly rate £29.96 £28.75 £16.06
% change year-on-year +4.21% +79.02% -39.40%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 -5 7 £400 +63.27% 9
Salford +1 3 £334 -16.56% 6
Oldham +2 2 £205 +2.50% 11
Bury - 1 - - 5
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 23 (10.04%) SharePoint
2 11 (4.80%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (4.37%) Confluence
4 2 (0.87%) Apache
4 2 (0.87%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.87%) CMS
4 2 (0.87%) IIS
5 1 (0.44%) CICS
5 1 (0.44%) SharePoint 2013
5 1 (0.44%) WebSphere
Applications
1 28 (12.23%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (9.61%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (5.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (4.80%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (3.06%) MS Visio
6 4 (1.75%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.44%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.44%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 6 (2.62%) Primavera
1 6 (2.62%) SAP MM
2 5 (2.18%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (1.75%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (1.31%) Elite 3E
5 2 (0.87%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.44%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.44%) Infor M3
6 1 (0.44%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 93 (40.61%) Azure
2 71 (31.00%) Microsoft 365
3 37 (16.16%) Power Platform
4 32 (13.97%) Entra ID
5 30 (13.10%) Microsoft Copilot
6 22 (9.61%) AWS
7 18 (7.86%) Power Automate
8 17 (7.42%) Azure DevOps
9 16 (6.99%) PowerApps
10 12 (5.24%) Dynamics 365
11 10 (4.37%) GCP
11 10 (4.37%) Microsoft Purview
12 8 (3.49%) Azure Monitor
13 7 (3.06%) OneDrive
13 7 (3.06%) OpenShift
13 7 (3.06%) Serverless
14 5 (2.18%) Azure AKS
15 4 (1.75%) Azure Logic Apps
15 4 (1.75%) GitHub
16 3 (1.31%) Azure Storage
Communications & Networking
1 13 (5.68%) Firewall
2 7 (3.06%) Network Security
3 6 (2.62%) SSL
4 5 (2.18%) DNS
4 5 (2.18%) VPN
5 4 (1.75%) TCP/IP
6 3 (1.31%) NAS
6 3 (1.31%) SAN
6 3 (1.31%) VLAN
6 3 (1.31%) WAN
7 2 (0.87%) DHCP
7 2 (0.87%) LAN
7 2 (0.87%) VSAN
7 2 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
8 1 (0.44%) BGP
8 1 (0.44%) Internet
8 1 (0.44%) Intrusion Detection
8 1 (0.44%) Kerberos
8 1 (0.44%) NGFW
8 1 (0.44%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (9.61%) Power BI
2 19 (8.30%) SQL Server
3 11 (4.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 7 (3.06%) Relational Database
5 6 (2.62%) MySQL
5 6 (2.62%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (1.75%) Metadata
6 4 (1.75%) MongoDB
7 3 (1.31%) Data Lake
7 3 (1.31%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (1.31%) NoSQL
7 3 (1.31%) Oracle Reports
7 3 (1.31%) RDBMS
8 2 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.87%) Power Query
8 2 (0.87%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 2 (0.87%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 1 (0.44%) BusinessObjects
9 1 (0.44%) DataStage
Development Applications
1 14 (6.11%) JIRA
2 7 (3.06%) Git
3 1 (0.44%) Jenkins
General
1 73 (31.88%) Social Skills
2 50 (21.83%) Finance
3 34 (14.85%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (10.48%) Public Sector
5 19 (8.30%) Banking
6 14 (6.11%) Manufacturing
7 12 (5.24%) Legal
8 8 (3.49%) Organisational Skills
9 7 (3.06%) Retail
9 7 (3.06%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.75%) Games
10 4 (1.75%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (1.75%) Marketing
11 3 (1.31%) Documentation Skills
12 2 (0.87%) Agriculture
12 2 (0.87%) Aviation
12 2 (0.87%) Law
12 2 (0.87%) Military
12 2 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.44%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 29 (12.66%) Analyst
2 23 (10.04%) IT Support
3 19 (8.30%) Architect
4 18 (7.86%) Support Engineer
5 15 (6.55%) Developer
5 15 (6.55%) IT Engineer
5 15 (6.55%) IT Support Engineer
6 14 (6.11%) Lead
7 13 (5.68%) DBA
7 13 (5.68%) Designer
8 11 (4.80%) Content Designer
8 11 (4.80%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
8 11 (4.80%) Support Analyst
9 10 (4.37%) IT Analyst
9 10 (4.37%) Senior
9 10 (4.37%) SQL DBA
10 9 (3.93%) Microsoft Engineer
10 9 (3.93%) Security Engineer
11 8 (3.49%) Solutions Architect
12 7 (3.06%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (3.06%) Spring
1 7 (3.06%) Spring Boot
2 6 (2.62%) REST
3 5 (2.18%) .NET
4 4 (1.75%) JSON
4 4 (1.75%) Kafka
4 4 (1.75%) Node.js
4 4 (1.75%) SAML
4 4 (1.75%) XML
5 3 (1.31%) Microsoft Graph
6 2 (0.87%) A2A Protocol
6 2 (0.87%) ARM Templates
6 2 (0.87%) AWS CDK
6 2 (0.87%) Model Context Protocol
6 2 (0.87%) Next.js
6 2 (0.87%) OAuth
6 2 (0.87%) PySpark
6 2 (0.87%) React
6 2 (0.87%) SailPoint
6 2 (0.87%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 20 (8.73%) Onboarding
2 13 (5.68%) Cloud Native
3 8 (3.49%) Management Information System
3 8 (3.49%) Security Posture
4 6 (2.62%) Clustering
4 6 (2.62%) Product Ownership
4 6 (2.62%) Replication
5 5 (2.18%) Data Centre
5 5 (2.18%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
6 4 (1.75%) Animation
6 4 (1.75%) Cloud Security Posture
6 4 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (1.75%) Linux Command Line
7 3 (1.31%) Hybrid Cloud
7 3 (1.31%) Life Science
8 2 (0.87%) Driving Licence
8 2 (0.87%) Enterprise Cloud
8 2 (0.87%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (0.87%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 48 (20.96%) Windows
2 29 (12.66%) Windows 10
3 12 (5.24%) Linux
3 12 (5.24%) Windows Server
4 5 (2.18%) Unix
5 4 (1.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.75%) VMS
6 2 (0.87%) AIX
6 2 (0.87%) Solaris
6 2 (0.87%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.44%) HPUX
7 1 (0.44%) Oracle Linux
7 1 (0.44%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (19.65%) ITIL
2 40 (17.47%) DevOps
3 35 (15.28%) Agile
4 33 (14.41%) Problem-Solving
5 31 (13.54%) CI/CD
6 29 (12.66%) Stakeholder Management
7 25 (10.92%) Roadmaps
7 25 (10.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 22 (9.61%) Business Intelligence
8 22 (9.61%) Customer Service
9 21 (9.17%) Migration
10 20 (8.73%) Analytics
11 18 (7.86%) AI
11 18 (7.86%) Change Management
12 15 (6.55%) Infrastructure as Code
12 15 (6.55%) Knowledge Transfer
13 14 (6.11%) Data Loss Prevention
13 14 (6.11%) ERP
13 14 (6.11%) Project Management
14 13 (5.68%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 39 (17.03%) SQL
2 29 (12.66%) Python
3 27 (11.79%) PowerShell
4 12 (5.24%) Java
5 9 (3.93%) T-SQL
6 7 (3.06%) C#
7 6 (2.62%) Bicep
8 4 (1.75%) Bash
8 4 (1.75%) JavaScript
9 3 (1.31%) TypeScript
9 3 (1.31%) VBScript
10 2 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 1 (0.44%) C++
11 1 (0.44%) COBOL
11 1 (0.44%) VBA
Qualifications
1 42 (18.34%) Degree
2 25 (10.92%) Security Cleared
3 22 (9.61%) Microsoft Certification
3 22 (9.61%) SC Cleared
4 14 (6.11%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (4.80%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (4.37%) Azure Certification
7 8 (3.49%) A+ Certification
8 7 (3.06%) Network+ Certification
9 5 (2.18%) CISSP
10 3 (1.31%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 3 (1.31%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 3 (1.31%) PMI Certification
11 2 (0.87%) AWS Certification
11 2 (0.87%) CCNA
11 2 (0.87%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.87%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.87%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (0.87%) PMP
11 2 (0.87%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (6.11%) GDPR
2 12 (5.24%) Data Quality
3 7 (3.06%) PMO
4 6 (2.62%) Accessibility
5 5 (2.18%) NIST
5 5 (2.18%) WCAG
6 4 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (1.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (1.75%) SLA
7 3 (1.31%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.87%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.87%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.87%) QA
9 1 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.44%) GRC
9 1 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (0.44%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.44%) SOC 2
System Software
1 58 (25.33%) Active Directory
2 18 (7.86%) Docker
3 7 (3.06%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (2.18%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (1.31%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.87%) GPFS
6 2 (0.87%) NFS
6 2 (0.87%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.87%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.87%) vSphere
7 1 (0.44%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 22 (9.61%) Microsoft Intune
2 19 (8.30%) Kubernetes
3 15 (6.55%) Terraform
4 5 (2.18%) SCOM
5 4 (1.75%) Ansible
5 4 (1.75%) Grafana
6 3 (1.31%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.87%) AirWatch
7 2 (0.87%) CASB
7 2 (0.87%) Data Guard
7 2 (0.87%) Failover Clustering
7 2 (0.87%) Progress Chef
7 2 (0.87%) SCCM
7 2 (0.87%) vRealize
7 2 (0.87%) VxRail
8 1 (0.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.44%) Nessus
8 1 (0.44%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 16 (6.99%) SAP
1 16 (6.99%) ServiceNow
2 9 (3.93%) Oracle
3 8 (3.49%) Databricks
3 8 (3.49%) Google
3 8 (3.49%) Red Hat
4 7 (3.06%) Cisco
5 6 (2.62%) VMware
6 5 (2.18%) BeyondTrust
6 5 (2.18%) IBM
6 5 (2.18%) Splunk
7 4 (1.75%) Perforce
7 4 (1.75%) Salesforce
7 4 (1.75%) UiPath
8 3 (1.31%) Adobe
8 3 (1.31%) CyberArk
8 3 (1.31%) HP
8 3 (1.31%) Remedy
9 2 (0.87%) Dynatrace
9 2 (0.87%) Varonis