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 30 January 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
30 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 2 7
Rank change year-on-year -5 +5 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 168 177 196
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 13.42% 17.07% 12.27%
As % of the Vendors category 33.27% 36.80% 31.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 131 133 142
10th Percentile £268 £213 £225
25th Percentile £322 £350 £259
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £450 £401
Median % change year-on-year -11.11% +12.15% -10.83%
75th Percentile £480 £525 £525
90th Percentile £575 £700 £636
North West median daily rate £400 £450 £400
% change year-on-year -11.11% +12.50% -13.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 10 30
10th Percentile £17.78 £29.85 £11.79
25th Percentile £19.75 £31.25 £12.21
Median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £15.38
Median % change year-on-year -8.92% +111.28% -21.12%
75th Percentile £31.40 £33.75 £25.25
90th Percentile £31.83 - £26.50
North West median hourly rate £22.01 £30.00 £17.72
% change year-on-year -26.63% +69.30% -10.28%

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 505 481 620
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 40.34% 46.38% 38.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 369 307 428
10th Percentile £306 £325 £255
25th Percentile £363 £400 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -1.04% -2.04%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £582
90th Percentile £669 £693 £700
North West median daily rate £457 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -8.70% - +2.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 13 38
10th Percentile £16.50 £28.80 £11.79
25th Percentile £19.75 £31.25 £12.77
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% +83.41% -72.74%
75th Percentile £31.40 £33.75 £26.50
90th Percentile £32.25 £54.75 £46.88
North West median hourly rate £29.60 £32.50 £25.25
% change year-on-year -8.92% +28.71% -15.83%

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 30 January 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 30 January 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 30 January 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 +1 5 £396 +114.19% 7
Oldham -2 2 £225 -43.75% 4
Stockport -2 2 £155 -61.25% 8
Salford +3 1 - - 3
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 (6.55%) SharePoint
2 7 (4.17%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (3.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (2.38%) CMS
5 3 (1.79%) Apache
5 3 (1.79%) IIS
6 2 (1.19%) Confluence
6 2 (1.19%) iPlanet
6 2 (1.19%) JBoss
6 2 (1.19%) SAS
6 2 (1.19%) WebSphere
6 2 (1.19%) WebSphere Application Server
7 1 (0.60%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 23 (13.69%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (8.93%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (2.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (2.38%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (2.38%) MS Visio
4 4 (2.38%) Trello
5 3 (1.79%) Sketch
6 1 (0.60%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.60%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 7 (4.17%) Advent Geneva
2 5 (2.98%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.60%) Infor M3
3 1 (0.60%) Maximo
3 1 (0.60%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.60%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.60%) Primavera
3 1 (0.60%) SAP MM
3 1 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.60%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 57 (33.93%) Azure
2 37 (22.02%) Power Platform
3 29 (17.26%) Microsoft 365
4 21 (12.50%) AWS
5 16 (9.52%) GCP
6 15 (8.93%) Entra ID
6 15 (8.93%) Power Automate
6 15 (8.93%) PowerApps
7 14 (8.33%) Dynamics 365
8 11 (6.55%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (5.36%) Google Tag Manager
10 8 (4.76%) Google Analytics
11 6 (3.57%) Figma
11 6 (3.57%) GitHub
11 6 (3.57%) Microsoft Copilot
12 3 (1.79%) Azure AKS
12 3 (1.79%) Copilot Studio
12 3 (1.79%) OCI
12 3 (1.79%) OneDrive
12 3 (1.79%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.98%) Firewall
1 5 (2.98%) Network Security
2 4 (2.38%) Wi-Fi
3 3 (1.79%) VPN
4 2 (1.19%) Kerberos
4 2 (1.19%) VoIP
4 2 (1.19%) 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%) 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 25 (14.88%) Power BI
2 11 (6.55%) Relational Database
3 10 (5.95%) SQL Server
4 7 (4.17%) BigQuery
4 7 (4.17%) DB2
4 7 (4.17%) Looker
4 7 (4.17%) MySQL
4 7 (4.17%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 6 (3.57%) Data Lake
6 4 (2.38%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (1.79%) BusinessObjects
7 3 (1.79%) Oracle Database
8 2 (1.19%) Metadata
8 2 (1.19%) NoSQL
8 2 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
8 2 (1.19%) Snowflake Schema
8 2 (1.19%) Tableau
9 1 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.60%) Cognos Report Studio
9 1 (0.60%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 6 (3.57%) Git
1 6 (3.57%) JIRA
2 5 (2.98%) GitLab
3 3 (1.79%) Jenkins
4 2 (1.19%) Bitbucket Server
4 2 (1.19%) CA Release Automation
4 2 (1.19%) Gradle
4 2 (1.19%) Storybook
4 2 (1.19%) Xcode
5 1 (0.60%) Browser DevTools
5 1 (0.60%) MSI
5 1 (0.60%) Octopus Deploy
5 1 (0.60%) Selenium
5 1 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 63 (37.50%) Social Skills
2 41 (24.40%) Finance
3 30 (17.86%) Analytical Skills
3 30 (17.86%) Public Sector
4 10 (5.95%) Documentation Skills
5 9 (5.36%) Banking
6 6 (3.57%) Manufacturing
7 5 (2.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (2.38%) Legal
8 4 (2.38%) Telecoms
9 3 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (1.79%) Retail
10 2 (1.19%) Military
10 2 (1.19%) 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 32 (19.05%) Analyst
2 30 (17.86%) Developer
3 14 (8.33%) Lead
4 13 (7.74%) Senior
5 12 (7.14%) Administrator
5 12 (7.14%) Support Analyst
6 7 (4.17%) Business Analyst
6 7 (4.17%) IT Support
7 6 (3.57%) Architect
7 6 (3.57%) Consultant
7 6 (3.57%) Deskside Analyst
7 6 (3.57%) Deskside Support
7 6 (3.57%) Deskside Support Analyst
7 6 (3.57%) Desktop Support
7 6 (3.57%) DevOps Engineer
7 6 (3.57%) Microsoft Developer
7 6 (3.57%) Performance Analyst
7 6 (3.57%) Project Manager
7 6 (3.57%) Technology Support Analyst
8 5 (2.98%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (7.14%) .NET
2 6 (3.57%) HTML5 Canvas
2 6 (3.57%) REST
3 5 (2.98%) HTML
3 5 (2.98%) JSON
3 5 (2.98%) OAuth
4 4 (2.38%) Kafka
4 4 (2.38%) Spring
4 4 (2.38%) Spring Boot
5 3 (1.79%) OpenID
5 3 (1.79%) SAML
6 2 (1.19%) D3.js
6 2 (1.19%) LangChain
6 2 (1.19%) LDAP
6 2 (1.19%) PySpark
6 2 (1.19%) React Native
6 2 (1.19%) SVG
6 2 (1.19%) XML
7 1 (0.60%) Microsoft Graph
7 1 (0.60%) Spark Streaming
Miscellaneous
1 17 (10.12%) Onboarding
2 7 (4.17%) Virtual Team
3 5 (2.98%) Data Protection Act
3 5 (2.98%) Mobile App
4 4 (2.38%) Data Centre
4 4 (2.38%) Low-Code
5 3 (1.79%) Cloud Native
5 3 (1.79%) Clustering
5 3 (1.79%) Product Ownership
5 3 (1.79%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (1.19%) CMDB
6 2 (1.19%) Distributed Computing
6 2 (1.19%) Driving Licence
6 2 (1.19%) Life Science
6 2 (1.19%) Mainframe
6 2 (1.19%) Security Posture
7 1 (0.60%) Cyber Threat
7 1 (0.60%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.60%) Manufacturing Execution System
7 1 (0.60%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 23 (13.69%) Windows
2 11 (6.55%) Windows 10
3 9 (5.36%) Linux
4 5 (2.98%) Apple iOS
4 5 (2.98%) Mac OS
5 4 (2.38%) Android
5 4 (2.38%) Unix
5 4 (2.38%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.60%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.60%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (16.07%) Business Intelligence
1 27 (16.07%) Problem-Solving
2 24 (14.29%) DevOps
3 23 (13.69%) Analytics
4 22 (13.10%) Agile
4 22 (13.10%) Stakeholder Management
5 20 (11.90%) ITIL
5 20 (11.90%) User Experience
6 19 (11.31%) CI/CD
7 17 (10.12%) Data Analysis
8 15 (8.93%) Customer Service
8 15 (8.93%) Validation
9 14 (8.33%) Actionable Insight
9 14 (8.33%) Migration
10 13 (7.74%) Change Management
10 13 (7.74%) Service Management
11 12 (7.14%) Continuous Improvement
11 12 (7.14%) Digital Transformation Programme
12 11 (6.55%) Dashboard Development
12 11 (6.55%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 29 (17.26%) SQL
2 10 (5.95%) PowerShell
2 10 (5.95%) Python
3 9 (5.36%) Java
3 9 (5.36%) JavaScript
4 6 (3.57%) C#
5 4 (2.38%) TypeScript
6 3 (1.79%) Bash
7 2 (1.19%) Groovy
7 2 (1.19%) PL/SQL
7 2 (1.19%) T-SQL
7 2 (1.19%) VBA
8 1 (0.60%) Bicep
8 1 (0.60%) CLIST
8 1 (0.60%) Data Analysis Expressions
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 14 (8.33%) Degree
2 11 (6.55%) Microsoft Certification
2 11 (6.55%) Security Cleared
3 8 (4.76%) SC Cleared
4 7 (4.17%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (2.38%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.79%) A+ Certification
6 3 (1.79%) Network+ Certification
7 2 (1.19%) Azure Certification
7 2 (1.19%) CISA
7 2 (1.19%) CISM
7 2 (1.19%) CISSP
7 2 (1.19%) GSEC
7 2 (1.19%) MCT
7 2 (1.19%) PMI Certification
7 2 (1.19%) PMP
8 1 (0.60%) APMG
8 1 (0.60%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.60%) SAFe Agilist
8 1 (0.60%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (11.90%) Accessibility
2 14 (8.33%) Data Quality
3 12 (7.14%) QA
4 10 (5.95%) GDPR
5 8 (4.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.79%) NIST
6 3 (1.79%) PCI DSS
7 2 (1.19%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (1.19%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.60%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 1 (0.60%) PMBOK
8 1 (0.60%) PMO
8 1 (0.60%) PSD2
8 1 (0.60%) WCAG
System Software
1 22 (13.10%) Active Directory
2 9 (5.36%) Docker
3 4 (2.38%) 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 14 (8.33%) Microsoft Intune
2 10 (5.95%) Kubernetes
3 7 (4.17%) SCCM
4 4 (2.38%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (1.79%) QRadar
6 2 (1.19%) CA Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.19%) CA Wily
6 2 (1.19%) Grafana
6 2 (1.19%) Progress Chef
6 2 (1.19%) Terraform
6 2 (1.19%) Tivoli
7 1 (0.60%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.60%) Ansible
7 1 (0.60%) CA Endevor
7 1 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (0.60%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.60%) Tivoli Storage Manager
7 1 (0.60%) WSUS
Vendors
1 13 (7.74%) Google
2 8 (4.76%) Oracle
3 7 (4.17%) Advent
3 7 (4.17%) Splunk
4 6 (3.57%) Citrix
5 4 (2.38%) Apple
5 4 (2.38%) SAP
5 4 (2.38%) VMware
6 3 (1.79%) Hopewiser
6 3 (1.79%) IBM
6 3 (1.79%) ServiceNow
7 2 (1.19%) AppDynamics
7 2 (1.19%) ArcSight
7 2 (1.19%) Broadcom
7 2 (1.19%) Cisco
7 2 (1.19%) Confluent
7 2 (1.19%) Salesforce
8 1 (0.60%) Avaya
8 1 (0.60%) Genesys
8 1 (0.60%) Juniper