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 6 February 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
6 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 2 7
Rank change year-on-year -4 +5 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 167 178 190
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 13.07% 17.10% 11.81%
As % of the Vendors category 33.20% 37.08% 31.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 130 134 133
10th Percentile £300 £209 £225
25th Percentile £325 £348 £268
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £406 £450 £413
Median % change year-on-year -9.78% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £488 £525 £525
90th Percentile £575 £700 £621
North West median daily rate £400 £450 £400
% change year-on-year -11.11% +12.50% -14.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 8 32
10th Percentile £18.13 - £11.81
25th Percentile £19.75 £31.25 £12.63
Median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £15.16
Median % change year-on-year -8.92% +114.45% -22.28%
75th Percentile £31.40 £33.75 £25.25
90th Percentile £31.83 - £26.50
North West median hourly rate £25.15 £27.13 £17.61
% change year-on-year -7.28% +54.03% -11.95%

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 503 480 613
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 39.36% 46.11% 38.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 366 311 424
10th Percentile £311 £313 £263
25th Percentile £368 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £491
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -3.31% +0.77%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £582
90th Percentile £672 £688 £696
North West median daily rate £460 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -8.00% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 11 39
10th Percentile £16.37 - £11.79
25th Percentile £19.75 £31.25 £12.79
Median hourly rate £27.08 £32.50 £16.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.69% +96.97% -74.62%
75th Percentile £31.40 £33.75 £26.50
90th Percentile £32.17 £60.00 £43.38
North West median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £19.54
% change year-on-year -8.92% +66.33% -30.71%

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 6 February 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 6 February 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 6 February 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 +2 5 £185 -1.33% 5
Oldham -2 2 £225 -43.75% 4
Stockport -2 2 £155 -61.25% 12
Salford +2 1 - - 6
Rochdale - 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 11 (6.59%) SharePoint
2 7 (4.19%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (3.59%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (2.40%) CMS
5 2 (1.20%) Apache
5 2 (1.20%) Confluence
5 2 (1.20%) IIS
5 2 (1.20%) SAS
6 1 (0.60%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.60%) iPlanet
6 1 (0.60%) JBoss
6 1 (0.60%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.60%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 24 (14.37%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (8.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (3.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (2.99%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (2.99%) MS Visio
5 4 (2.40%) Trello
6 3 (1.80%) Sketch
7 1 (0.60%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.60%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 7 (4.19%) Advent Geneva
2 5 (2.99%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (1.20%) Primavera
3 2 (1.20%) SAP MM
4 1 (0.60%) Infor M3
4 1 (0.60%) Maximo
4 1 (0.60%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.60%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.60%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 58 (34.73%) Azure
2 36 (21.56%) Power Platform
3 29 (17.37%) Microsoft 365
4 20 (11.98%) AWS
5 16 (9.58%) GCP
6 15 (8.98%) Entra ID
6 15 (8.98%) Power Automate
6 15 (8.98%) PowerApps
7 13 (7.78%) Dynamics 365
8 10 (5.99%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (5.39%) Google Tag Manager
10 8 (4.79%) Google Analytics
11 6 (3.59%) Microsoft Copilot
12 5 (2.99%) Figma
12 5 (2.99%) GitHub
13 4 (2.40%) Azure AKS
14 3 (1.80%) Copilot Studio
14 3 (1.80%) Microsoft Purview
14 3 (1.80%) OCI
14 3 (1.80%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 6 (3.59%) Firewall
2 4 (2.40%) Network Security
2 4 (2.40%) Wi-Fi
3 3 (1.80%) VPN
4 2 (1.20%) VoIP
4 2 (1.20%) WAN
5 1 (0.60%) Cisco ISE
5 1 (0.60%) DHCP
5 1 (0.60%) DNS
5 1 (0.60%) HTTP
5 1 (0.60%) IP Telephony
5 1 (0.60%) Kerberos
5 1 (0.60%) LAN
5 1 (0.60%) Remote Desktop
5 1 (0.60%) SD-WAN
5 1 (0.60%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.60%) VLAN
5 1 (0.60%) WebEx
5 1 (0.60%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (14.37%) Power BI
2 11 (6.59%) Relational Database
3 10 (5.99%) SQL Server
4 7 (4.19%) BigQuery
4 7 (4.19%) DB2
4 7 (4.19%) Looker
4 7 (4.19%) MySQL
4 7 (4.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 6 (3.59%) Data Lake
6 4 (2.40%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (1.80%) BusinessObjects
8 2 (1.20%) Metadata
8 2 (1.20%) NoSQL
8 2 (1.20%) Oracle Database
8 2 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
8 2 (1.20%) Snowflake Schema
8 2 (1.20%) Tableau
9 1 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.60%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.60%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 6 (3.59%) JIRA
2 5 (2.99%) Git
2 5 (2.99%) GitLab
3 2 (1.20%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.60%) Bitbucket Server
4 1 (0.60%) Browser DevTools
4 1 (0.60%) CA Release Automation
4 1 (0.60%) Gradle
4 1 (0.60%) MSI
4 1 (0.60%) Octopus Deploy
4 1 (0.60%) Selenium
4 1 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (0.60%) Storybook
4 1 (0.60%) Xcode
General
1 64 (38.32%) Social Skills
2 40 (23.95%) Finance
3 31 (18.56%) Public Sector
4 30 (17.96%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (5.99%) Banking
5 10 (5.99%) Documentation Skills
6 6 (3.59%) Manufacturing
7 5 (2.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (2.40%) Legal
8 4 (2.40%) Telecoms
9 3 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (1.80%) Retail
10 2 (1.20%) Military
10 2 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.60%) Agriculture
11 1 (0.60%) Billing
11 1 (0.60%) Games
11 1 (0.60%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.60%) Law
11 1 (0.60%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 31 (18.56%) Analyst
1 31 (18.56%) Developer
2 15 (8.98%) Lead
3 14 (8.38%) Senior
4 12 (7.19%) Support Analyst
5 11 (6.59%) Administrator
6 7 (4.19%) Business Analyst
6 7 (4.19%) IT Support
6 7 (4.19%) Project Manager
7 6 (3.59%) Architect
7 6 (3.59%) Consultant
7 6 (3.59%) Deskside Analyst
7 6 (3.59%) Deskside Support
7 6 (3.59%) Deskside Support Analyst
7 6 (3.59%) Desktop Support
7 6 (3.59%) DevOps Engineer
7 6 (3.59%) Microsoft Developer
7 6 (3.59%) Performance Analyst
7 6 (3.59%) Technology Support Analyst
8 5 (2.99%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (7.19%) .NET
2 7 (4.19%) REST
3 6 (3.59%) HTML5 Canvas
3 6 (3.59%) Spring
3 6 (3.59%) Spring Boot
4 5 (2.99%) HTML
4 5 (2.99%) JSON
5 4 (2.40%) Kafka
6 3 (1.80%) OAuth
7 2 (1.20%) LangChain
7 2 (1.20%) OpenID
7 2 (1.20%) PySpark
7 2 (1.20%) SAML
7 2 (1.20%) XML
8 1 (0.60%) ISPF
8 1 (0.60%) LDAP
8 1 (0.60%) Microsoft Graph
8 1 (0.60%) Middleware
8 1 (0.60%) SOAP
8 1 (0.60%) SVG
Miscellaneous
1 16 (9.58%) Onboarding
2 7 (4.19%) Virtual Team
3 5 (2.99%) Data Protection Act
3 5 (2.99%) Product Ownership
4 4 (2.40%) Cloud Native
4 4 (2.40%) Data Centre
4 4 (2.40%) Low-Code
4 4 (2.40%) Mobile App
5 3 (1.80%) Clustering
5 3 (1.80%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (1.20%) CMDB
6 2 (1.20%) Distributed Computing
6 2 (1.20%) Driving Licence
6 2 (1.20%) Life Science
6 2 (1.20%) Mainframe
7 1 (0.60%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.60%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.60%) Manufacturing Execution System
7 1 (0.60%) Renewable Energy
7 1 (0.60%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 21 (12.57%) Windows
2 10 (5.99%) Windows 10
3 8 (4.79%) Linux
4 5 (2.99%) Mac OS
5 4 (2.40%) Apple iOS
5 4 (2.40%) Unix
6 3 (1.80%) Windows Server
7 2 (1.20%) Android
8 1 (0.60%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.60%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (16.17%) Problem-Solving
2 26 (15.57%) Business Intelligence
3 24 (14.37%) Agile
4 23 (13.77%) Analytics
4 23 (13.77%) DevOps
4 23 (13.77%) Stakeholder Management
5 22 (13.17%) ITIL
6 20 (11.98%) CI/CD
6 20 (11.98%) User Experience
7 16 (9.58%) Data Analysis
8 15 (8.98%) Customer Service
8 15 (8.98%) Validation
9 14 (8.38%) Actionable Insight
9 14 (8.38%) Change Management
9 14 (8.38%) Migration
10 13 (7.78%) Service Management
11 12 (7.19%) Digital Transformation Programme
11 12 (7.19%) Project Management
12 11 (6.59%) Decision-Making
12 11 (6.59%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 29 (17.37%) SQL
2 11 (6.59%) Java
3 10 (5.99%) PowerShell
4 9 (5.39%) JavaScript
4 9 (5.39%) Python
5 6 (3.59%) C#
6 3 (1.80%) Bash
6 3 (1.80%) TypeScript
7 2 (1.20%) PL/SQL
7 2 (1.20%) T-SQL
7 2 (1.20%) VBA
8 1 (0.60%) CLIST
8 1 (0.60%) COBOL
8 1 (0.60%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.60%) Groovy
8 1 (0.60%) JCL
8 1 (0.60%) PHP
8 1 (0.60%) REXX
8 1 (0.60%) Scala
8 1 (0.60%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 13 (7.78%) Degree
2 11 (6.59%) Security Cleared
3 10 (5.99%) Microsoft Certification
4 9 (5.39%) BPSS Clearance
5 8 (4.79%) SC Cleared
6 4 (2.40%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (2.40%) PMI Certification
6 4 (2.40%) PMP
7 3 (1.80%) A+ Certification
7 3 (1.80%) Network+ Certification
8 2 (1.20%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.20%) CISM
8 2 (1.20%) CISSP
8 2 (1.20%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 1 (0.60%) APMG
9 1 (0.60%) CBAP
9 1 (0.60%) IIBA
9 1 (0.60%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.60%) SAFe Agilist
9 1 (0.60%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (11.38%) Accessibility
2 14 (8.38%) Data Quality
3 12 (7.19%) QA
4 9 (5.39%) GDPR
5 8 (4.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.80%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (1.20%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.60%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 1 (0.60%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.60%) NIST
8 1 (0.60%) PMBOK
8 1 (0.60%) PMO
8 1 (0.60%) PSD2
8 1 (0.60%) WCAG
System Software
1 21 (12.57%) Active Directory
2 10 (5.99%) Docker
3 4 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.60%) ACF2
4 1 (0.60%) RACF
4 1 (0.60%) Time Sharing Option
4 1 (0.60%) Tivoli Directory Server
4 1 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.60%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 13 (7.78%) Microsoft Intune
2 11 (6.59%) Kubernetes
3 7 (4.19%) SCCM
4 4 (2.40%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (1.20%) Grafana
5 2 (1.20%) Progress Chef
5 2 (1.20%) Terraform
5 2 (1.20%) Tivoli
6 1 (0.60%) AirWatch
6 1 (0.60%) Ansible
6 1 (0.60%) CA Endevor
6 1 (0.60%) CA Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.60%) CA Wily
6 1 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
6 1 (0.60%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.60%) QRadar
6 1 (0.60%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 1 (0.60%) WSUS
Vendors
1 13 (7.78%) Google
2 7 (4.19%) Advent
2 7 (4.19%) Oracle
3 6 (3.59%) Citrix
4 4 (2.40%) SAP
4 4 (2.40%) Splunk
4 4 (2.40%) VMware
5 3 (1.80%) Apple
5 3 (1.80%) Cisco
5 3 (1.80%) Hopewiser
5 3 (1.80%) ServiceNow
6 2 (1.20%) Confluent
6 2 (1.20%) IBM
6 2 (1.20%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.60%) Avaya
7 1 (0.60%) Cognos
7 1 (0.60%) Cribl.io
7 1 (0.60%) Databricks
7 1 (0.60%) Ekahau
7 1 (0.60%) Samsung