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 7 May 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
7 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 2 10
Rank change year-on-year -7 +8 -2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 196 163 164
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 11.52% 18.01% 11.01%
As % of the Vendors category 31.21% 38.26% 31.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 144 124 109
10th Percentile £198 £208 £251
25th Percentile £326 £348 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £430 £425 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.24% -10.53% -
75th Percentile £538 £538 £550
90th Percentile £600 £647 £650
North West median daily rate £416 £425 £450
% change year-on-year -2.24% -5.56% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 8 29
10th Percentile £19.60 - £11.79
25th Percentile £23.69 £13.00 £12.00
Median hourly rate £46.00 £32.50 £14.27
Median % change year-on-year +41.54% +127.83% -14.17%
75th Percentile £178.75 £33.75 £25.25
90th Percentile - - £26.50
North West median hourly rate £25.38 £28.75 £14.50
% change year-on-year -11.72% +98.28% -45.28%

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 628 426 517
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 36.90% 47.07% 34.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 405 295 346
10th Percentile £310 £266 £319
25th Percentile £380 £400 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £581 £575 £599
90th Percentile £650 £700 £723
North West median daily rate £469 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -5.36% -0.89% +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 13 41
10th Percentile £19.75 £13.00 £11.79
25th Percentile £22.68 £14.20 £12.40
Median hourly rate £45.00 £32.50 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +38.46% +83.41% -45.64%
75th Percentile £80.31 £60.00 £26.50
90th Percentile £178.75 - £60.00
North West median hourly rate £32.23 £32.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -0.85% +102.37% -57.17%

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 7 May 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 7 May 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 7 May 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 4 £400 +110.53% 6
Salford +1 3 £334 -52.32% 4
Oldham 0 3 £205 +2.50% 5
Stockport -3 2 £155 -61.25% 6
Bury - 1 - - 2
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 20 (10.20%) SharePoint
2 11 (5.61%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (4.59%) Confluence
4 3 (1.53%) Apache
5 2 (1.02%) Apache Spark
5 2 (1.02%) CMS
5 2 (1.02%) IIS
6 1 (0.51%) CICS
6 1 (0.51%) SAS
Applications
1 30 (15.31%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (9.18%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (4.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (4.59%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (2.55%) MS Visio
5 4 (2.04%) Chatbot
6 2 (1.02%) Trello
7 1 (0.51%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.51%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.51%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 3 (1.53%) Advent Geneva
1 3 (1.53%) Dynamics CRM
1 3 (1.53%) Primavera
1 3 (1.53%) SAP MM
2 2 (1.02%) Dynamics AX
2 2 (1.02%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.51%) Infor M3
3 1 (0.51%) Maximo
3 1 (0.51%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.51%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.51%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 73 (37.24%) Azure
2 52 (26.53%) Microsoft 365
3 30 (15.31%) Entra ID
3 30 (15.31%) Power Platform
4 18 (9.18%) AWS
4 18 (9.18%) Microsoft Copilot
5 17 (8.67%) Dynamics 365
6 13 (6.63%) Azure DevOps
6 13 (6.63%) Power Automate
7 12 (6.12%) PowerApps
8 11 (5.61%) GCP
8 11 (5.61%) Microsoft Purview
9 9 (4.59%) OneDrive
10 7 (3.57%) Serverless
11 6 (3.06%) Azure AKS
12 5 (2.55%) Azure Logic Apps
12 5 (2.55%) Google Analytics
12 5 (2.55%) Google Tag Manager
13 4 (2.04%) Azure Functions
14 3 (1.53%) Azure Storage
Communications & Networking
1 14 (7.14%) Firewall
2 8 (4.08%) Network Security
3 6 (3.06%) DNS
4 4 (2.04%) TCP/IP
4 4 (2.04%) WAN
4 4 (2.04%) Wi-Fi
5 3 (1.53%) DHCP
6 2 (1.02%) LAN
6 2 (1.02%) SD-WAN
6 2 (1.02%) VPN
7 1 (0.51%) BGP
7 1 (0.51%) Cisco ISE
7 1 (0.51%) HTTP
7 1 (0.51%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (0.51%) Kerberos
7 1 (0.51%) NGFW
7 1 (0.51%) SSL
7 1 (0.51%) VSAN
7 1 (0.51%) WebEx
7 1 (0.51%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (6.63%) Power BI
2 9 (4.59%) Relational Database
2 9 (4.59%) SQL Server
3 7 (3.57%) PostgreSQL
4 4 (2.04%) Metadata
4 4 (2.04%) MongoDB
4 4 (2.04%) NoSQL
4 4 (2.04%) RDBMS
5 3 (1.53%) BigQuery
5 3 (1.53%) BusinessObjects
5 3 (1.53%) DB2
5 3 (1.53%) Looker
5 3 (1.53%) MySQL
5 3 (1.53%) Oracle Reports
5 3 (1.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 2 (1.02%) Data Lake
6 2 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 1 (0.51%) Data Mining
7 1 (0.51%) DataStage
7 1 (0.51%) MS Access
Development Applications
1 12 (6.12%) JIRA
2 4 (2.04%) Git
3 1 (0.51%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 71 (36.22%) Social Skills
2 53 (27.04%) Finance
3 30 (15.31%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (14.29%) Public Sector
5 23 (11.73%) Banking
6 13 (6.63%) Legal
7 9 (4.59%) Telecoms
8 7 (3.57%) Organisational Skills
9 6 (3.06%) Retail
10 5 (2.55%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (2.04%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (1.53%) Law
12 3 (1.53%) Manufacturing
13 2 (1.02%) Agriculture
13 2 (1.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 2 (1.02%) Marketing
13 2 (1.02%) Presentation Skills
14 1 (0.51%) Corporate Banking
14 1 (0.51%) Local Government
14 1 (0.51%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 38 (19.39%) Analyst
2 18 (9.18%) Developer
3 17 (8.67%) Architect
3 17 (8.67%) IT Support
4 14 (7.14%) Lead
5 13 (6.63%) Support Analyst
6 12 (6.12%) IT Analyst
6 12 (6.12%) Senior
7 11 (5.61%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
8 10 (5.10%) Microsoft Engineer
9 9 (4.59%) IT Support Analyst
9 9 (4.59%) Security Engineer
9 9 (4.59%) Support Engineer
10 7 (3.57%) Administrator
10 7 (3.57%) IT Engineer
10 7 (3.57%) IT Support Engineer
10 7 (3.57%) Project Manager
11 6 (3.06%) Consultant
12 5 (2.55%) Business Analyst
12 5 (2.55%) DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (4.08%) .NET
1 8 (4.08%) Spring
1 8 (4.08%) Spring Boot
2 7 (3.57%) REST
3 6 (3.06%) XML
4 5 (2.55%) Kafka
5 4 (2.04%) JSON
6 2 (1.02%) ARM Templates
6 2 (1.02%) AWS CDK
6 2 (1.02%) HTML5 Canvas
6 2 (1.02%) LangChain
6 2 (1.02%) LDAP
6 2 (1.02%) Microsoft Graph
6 2 (1.02%) Node.js
6 2 (1.02%) OAuth
6 2 (1.02%) PySpark
6 2 (1.02%) Software Packaging
7 1 (0.51%) Oracle Fusion
7 1 (0.51%) PyTorch
7 1 (0.51%) SPFx
Miscellaneous
1 17 (8.67%) Onboarding
2 10 (5.10%) Cloud Native
3 8 (4.08%) Security Posture
4 6 (3.06%) Data Centre
4 6 (3.06%) Data Protection Act
4 6 (3.06%) Product Ownership
5 5 (2.55%) Management Information System
6 4 (2.04%) Cloud Security Posture
7 3 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
7 3 (1.53%) Driving Licence
7 3 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (1.53%) Linux Command Line
7 3 (1.53%) Virtual Team
8 2 (1.02%) Greenfield Project
8 2 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
8 2 (1.02%) iPhone
8 2 (1.02%) Life Science
8 2 (1.02%) Mainframe
8 2 (1.02%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 38 (19.39%) Windows
2 29 (14.80%) Windows 10
3 13 (6.63%) Linux
4 6 (3.06%) Unix
5 4 (2.04%) Mac OS
5 4 (2.04%) Windows Server
6 3 (1.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (1.02%) AIX
7 2 (1.02%) Solaris
7 2 (1.02%) VMS
7 2 (1.02%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.51%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.51%) HPUX
8 1 (0.51%) Oracle Linux
8 1 (0.51%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 32 (16.33%) ITIL
2 31 (15.82%) Agile
3 28 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
4 27 (13.78%) DevOps
5 24 (12.24%) Stakeholder Management
6 22 (11.22%) CI/CD
6 22 (11.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 20 (10.20%) Migration
8 19 (9.69%) Roadmaps
9 18 (9.18%) Analytics
9 18 (9.18%) Customer Service
10 16 (8.16%) Change Management
11 15 (7.65%) Business Intelligence
12 14 (7.14%) Identity Access Management
12 14 (7.14%) Project Delivery
12 14 (7.14%) Risk Management
12 14 (7.14%) User Experience
13 13 (6.63%) Data Loss Prevention
13 13 (6.63%) Data Protection
13 13 (6.63%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 26 (13.27%) SQL
2 20 (10.20%) PowerShell
3 18 (9.18%) Python
4 14 (7.14%) Java
5 6 (3.06%) Bash
5 6 (3.06%) JavaScript
6 5 (2.55%) Bicep
6 5 (2.55%) C#
7 3 (1.53%) TypeScript
8 2 (1.02%) COBOL
8 2 (1.02%) VBA
9 1 (0.51%) C++
9 1 (0.51%) CLIST
9 1 (0.51%) JCL
9 1 (0.51%) PHP
9 1 (0.51%) REXX
9 1 (0.51%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 29 (14.80%) Degree
2 20 (10.20%) Microsoft Certification
3 12 (6.12%) Security Cleared
4 10 (5.10%) A+ Certification
5 9 (4.59%) Computer Science Degree
5 9 (4.59%) Network+ Certification
6 8 (4.08%) SC Cleared
7 6 (3.06%) Azure Certification
8 5 (2.55%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (2.55%) CISSP
9 4 (2.04%) PMI Certification
10 3 (1.53%) PMP
11 2 (1.02%) AWS Certification
11 2 (1.02%) CompTIA Security+
11 2 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (1.02%) MCSA
11 2 (1.02%) MCSE
11 2 (1.02%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 1 (0.51%) Chartered Engineer
12 1 (0.51%) IIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (8.16%) GDPR
2 10 (5.10%) Data Quality
3 8 (4.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 6 (3.06%) Accessibility
4 6 (3.06%) QA
5 5 (2.55%) PMO
6 4 (2.04%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (1.53%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (1.53%) NIST
8 2 (1.02%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (1.02%) HIPAA
8 2 (1.02%) SLA
9 1 (0.51%) GRC
9 1 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (0.51%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.51%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.51%) WCAG
System Software
1 49 (25.00%) Active Directory
2 17 (8.67%) Docker
3 4 (2.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (1.53%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (1.02%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.51%) ACF2
6 1 (0.51%) GPFS
6 1 (0.51%) NFS
6 1 (0.51%) RACF
6 1 (0.51%) Time Sharing Option
6 1 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.51%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 20 (10.20%) Microsoft Intune
2 17 (8.67%) Kubernetes
3 7 (3.57%) Terraform
4 5 (2.55%) SCCM
5 2 (1.02%) AirWatch
5 2 (1.02%) CASB
5 2 (1.02%) Grafana
5 2 (1.02%) Progress Chef
5 2 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 1 (0.51%) Ansible
6 1 (0.51%) CA Endevor
6 1 (0.51%) Nessus
6 1 (0.51%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.51%) Tivoli
6 1 (0.51%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 1 (0.51%) vRealize
6 1 (0.51%) VxRail
Vendors
1 11 (5.61%) Google
2 8 (4.08%) Oracle
2 8 (4.08%) SAP
3 6 (3.06%) Cisco
3 6 (3.06%) Red Hat
4 5 (2.55%) VMware
5 4 (2.04%) ServiceNow
6 3 (1.53%) Advent
6 3 (1.53%) Citrix
6 3 (1.53%) HP
6 3 (1.53%) IBM
7 2 (1.02%) Adobe
7 2 (1.02%) Bloomberg
7 2 (1.02%) Databricks
7 2 (1.02%) Infoblox
7 2 (1.02%) Okta
7 2 (1.02%) Remedy
7 2 (1.02%) Salesforce
7 2 (1.02%) Splunk
7 2 (1.02%) Varonis