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 26 December 2025, 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
26 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 4 5
Rank change year-on-year -4 +1 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 179 159 232
As % of all contract jobs in Manchester 14.73% 14.90% 14.86%
As % of the Vendors category 32.90% 32.58% 36.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 128 113 179
10th Percentile £300 £232 £225
25th Percentile £325 £375 £266
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £408 £450 £443
Median % change year-on-year -9.33% +1.69% +4.12%
75th Percentile £488 £525 £544
90th Percentile £591 £700 £625
North West median daily rate £400 £450 £413
% change year-on-year -11.11% +9.09% -5.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 11 18
10th Percentile £19.07 £28.50 £14.60
25th Percentile £19.58 £30.63 £15.75
Median hourly rate £22.32 £32.50 £17.59
Median % change year-on-year -31.34% +84.76% -10.94%
75th Percentile £31.40 £33.75 £19.24
90th Percentile - - £30.00
North West median hourly rate £22.32 £30.40 £26.25
% change year-on-year -26.60% +15.81% +39.48%

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 544 488 633
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Manchester 44.77% 45.74% 40.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 368 291 449
10th Percentile £311 £337 £248
25th Percentile £380 £400 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +2.56%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £593
90th Percentile £678 £688 £700
North West median daily rate £460 £500 £510
% change year-on-year -8.00% -1.96% +7.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 13 26
10th Percentile £18.99 £18.50 £14.23
25th Percentile £19.45 £30.00 £15.88
Median hourly rate £22.32 £32.50 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year -31.34% +83.41% -72.74%
75th Percentile £30.15 £33.75 £45.78
90th Percentile £31.40 - £57.50
North West median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +62.79%

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 26 December 2025.

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 26 December 2025.

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 26 December 2025. 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 12 £396 +93.29% 52
Stockport -1 2 £155 -61.25% 41
Oldham -2 2 £225 -43.75% 1
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 13 (7.26%) SharePoint
2 7 (3.91%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (3.35%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (2.79%) CMS
5 3 (1.68%) Apache
5 3 (1.68%) Confluence
5 3 (1.68%) IIS
6 2 (1.12%) iPlanet
6 2 (1.12%) JBoss
6 2 (1.12%) SAS
6 2 (1.12%) WebSphere
6 2 (1.12%) WebSphere Application Server
7 1 (0.56%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 31 (17.32%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (15.08%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (2.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (2.23%) Microsoft Project
3 4 (2.23%) Trello
4 3 (1.68%) MS Visio
4 3 (1.68%) Sketch
5 1 (0.56%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.56%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 7 (3.91%) Advent Geneva
2 5 (2.79%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.56%) Maximo
3 1 (0.56%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.56%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 55 (30.73%) Azure
2 36 (20.11%) Power Platform
3 32 (17.88%) Microsoft 365
4 21 (11.73%) AWS
5 16 (8.94%) GCP
6 15 (8.38%) Entra ID
7 14 (7.82%) Power Automate
7 14 (7.82%) PowerApps
8 13 (7.26%) Dynamics 365
9 9 (5.03%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (5.03%) Google Tag Manager
10 8 (4.47%) Google Analytics
11 6 (3.35%) Figma
11 6 (3.35%) GitHub
12 5 (2.79%) SaaS
13 4 (2.23%) Microsoft Copilot
13 4 (2.23%) OneDrive
14 3 (1.68%) Copilot Studio
14 3 (1.68%) OCI
14 3 (1.68%) Smartsheet
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.79%) Firewall
1 5 (2.79%) Network Security
2 4 (2.23%) VPN
2 4 (2.23%) Wi-Fi
3 2 (1.12%) DNS
3 2 (1.12%) Kerberos
3 2 (1.12%) SSL
3 2 (1.12%) TCP/IP
3 2 (1.12%) VoIP
3 2 (1.12%) WAN
3 2 (1.12%) WebEx
4 1 (0.56%) Cisco ISE
4 1 (0.56%) DHCP
4 1 (0.56%) HTTP
4 1 (0.56%) IP Telephony
4 1 (0.56%) LAN
4 1 (0.56%) Remote Desktop
4 1 (0.56%) SSH
4 1 (0.56%) VLAN
4 1 (0.56%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (13.97%) Power BI
2 11 (6.15%) Relational Database
3 10 (5.59%) SQL Server
4 8 (4.47%) MySQL
5 7 (3.91%) BigQuery
5 7 (3.91%) DB2
5 7 (3.91%) Looker
5 7 (3.91%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 6 (3.35%) Data Lake
7 4 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (1.68%) Oracle Database
9 2 (1.12%) BusinessObjects
9 2 (1.12%) Metadata
9 2 (1.12%) NoSQL
9 2 (1.12%) PostgreSQL
9 2 (1.12%) Power Query
9 2 (1.12%) Snowflake Schema
9 2 (1.12%) Tableau
10 1 (0.56%) Oracle Discoverer
10 1 (0.56%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 9 (5.03%) JIRA
2 6 (3.35%) Git
3 5 (2.79%) GitLab
4 3 (1.68%) Jenkins
5 2 (1.12%) Bitbucket Server
5 2 (1.12%) CA Release Automation
5 2 (1.12%) Gradle
5 2 (1.12%) Storybook
5 2 (1.12%) Xcode
6 1 (0.56%) Browser DevTools
6 1 (0.56%) MSI
6 1 (0.56%) Octopus Deploy
6 1 (0.56%) Selenium
6 1 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 64 (35.75%) Social Skills
2 45 (25.14%) Finance
3 30 (16.76%) Public Sector
4 29 (16.20%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (5.59%) Banking
5 10 (5.59%) Documentation Skills
6 6 (3.35%) Manufacturing
7 5 (2.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.68%) Aerospace
8 3 (1.68%) Aviation
8 3 (1.68%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
8 3 (1.68%) Retail
9 2 (1.12%) Legal
9 2 (1.12%) Military
9 2 (1.12%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.56%) Agriculture
10 1 (0.56%) Games
10 1 (0.56%) Law
10 1 (0.56%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 31 (17.32%) Analyst
2 26 (14.53%) Developer
3 24 (13.41%) Administrator
4 13 (7.26%) SAP Administrator
4 13 (7.26%) SAP Support
5 12 (6.70%) Senior
6 11 (6.15%) Lead
7 9 (5.03%) Support Analyst
8 8 (4.47%) Architect
8 8 (4.47%) Consultant
9 7 (3.91%) Business Analyst
9 7 (3.91%) Microsoft Developer
10 6 (3.35%) Deskside Analyst
10 6 (3.35%) Deskside Support
10 6 (3.35%) Deskside Support Analyst
10 6 (3.35%) Desktop Support
10 6 (3.35%) DevOps Engineer
10 6 (3.35%) Performance Analyst
10 6 (3.35%) Technology Support Analyst
11 5 (2.79%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (5.59%) .NET
2 6 (3.35%) HTML
3 5 (2.79%) HTML5 Canvas
3 5 (2.79%) JSON
3 5 (2.79%) OAuth
4 4 (2.23%) Kafka
5 3 (1.68%) LDAP
5 3 (1.68%) OpenID
5 3 (1.68%) REST
5 3 (1.68%) SAML
6 2 (1.12%) D3.js
6 2 (1.12%) LangChain
6 2 (1.12%) PySpark
6 2 (1.12%) React Native
6 2 (1.12%) SVG
6 2 (1.12%) XML
7 1 (0.56%) Microsoft Graph
7 1 (0.56%) React
7 1 (0.56%) Spark Streaming
7 1 (0.56%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 15 (8.38%) Onboarding
2 7 (3.91%) Virtual Team
3 6 (3.35%) Data Centre
3 6 (3.35%) Data Protection Act
4 5 (2.79%) Clustering
4 5 (2.79%) Mobile App
5 4 (2.23%) Cloud Native
5 4 (2.23%) Low-Code
6 3 (1.68%) Analytical Mindset
6 3 (1.68%) Security Posture
6 3 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (1.12%) CMDB
7 2 (1.12%) Distributed Computing
7 2 (1.12%) Driving Licence
7 2 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (1.12%) Life Science
7 2 (1.12%) Mainframe
7 2 (1.12%) Product Ownership
8 1 (0.56%) Fat Client
8 1 (0.56%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 28 (15.64%) Windows
2 10 (5.59%) Linux
3 9 (5.03%) Windows 10
4 6 (3.35%) Unix
5 5 (2.79%) Android
5 5 (2.79%) Apple iOS
5 5 (2.79%) Mac OS
6 4 (2.23%) Windows Server
7 1 (0.56%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 31 (17.32%) Problem-Solving
2 28 (15.64%) Change Management
3 27 (15.08%) Business Intelligence
4 25 (13.97%) Analytics
4 25 (13.97%) Stakeholder Management
5 23 (12.85%) User Experience
6 20 (11.17%) Agile
7 19 (10.61%) DevOps
8 18 (10.06%) ITIL
9 17 (9.50%) Data Analysis
10 16 (8.94%) Validation
11 15 (8.38%) Actionable Insight
12 14 (7.82%) CI/CD
12 14 (7.82%) Migration
13 13 (7.26%) Continuous Improvement
14 12 (6.70%) Customer Service
14 12 (6.70%) Digital Transformation Programme
15 11 (6.15%) Data Protection
15 11 (6.15%) Decision-Making
15 11 (6.15%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 29 (16.20%) SQL
2 11 (6.15%) PowerShell
2 11 (6.15%) Python
3 7 (3.91%) JavaScript
4 5 (2.79%) Java
5 4 (2.23%) C#
5 4 (2.23%) TypeScript
6 3 (1.68%) Bash
7 2 (1.12%) Groovy
7 2 (1.12%) PHP
7 2 (1.12%) PL/SQL
7 2 (1.12%) T-SQL
7 2 (1.12%) VBA
8 1 (0.56%) CLIST
8 1 (0.56%) COBOL
8 1 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.56%) JCL
8 1 (0.56%) REXX
8 1 (0.56%) Scala
8 1 (0.56%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 20 (11.17%) Security Cleared
2 15 (8.38%) SC Cleared
3 14 (7.82%) Degree
4 11 (6.15%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (6.15%) Microsoft Certification
5 3 (1.68%) CISSP
5 3 (1.68%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (1.68%) PMI Certification
5 3 (1.68%) PMP
6 2 (1.12%) Azure Certification
6 2 (1.12%) CISA
6 2 (1.12%) CISM
6 2 (1.12%) GSEC
6 2 (1.12%) MCSA
6 2 (1.12%) MCSE
6 2 (1.12%) MCT
7 1 (0.56%) CCNP
7 1 (0.56%) GCIA
7 1 (0.56%) GCIH
7 1 (0.56%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (10.61%) Accessibility
2 14 (7.82%) Data Quality
3 12 (6.70%) QA
4 10 (5.59%) GDPR
5 7 (3.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (2.23%) NIST
7 3 (1.68%) PCI DSS
8 2 (1.12%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.56%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.56%) PMBOK
9 1 (0.56%) PMO
9 1 (0.56%) PSD2
9 1 (0.56%) WCAG
System Software
1 21 (11.73%) Active Directory
2 7 (3.91%) Docker
3 4 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (1.68%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.56%) ACF2
5 1 (0.56%) RACF
5 1 (0.56%) Time Sharing Option
5 1 (0.56%) Tivoli Directory Server
5 1 (0.56%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 20 (11.17%) Microsoft Intune
2 9 (5.03%) SCCM
3 8 (4.47%) Kubernetes
4 4 (2.23%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (1.68%) QRadar
6 2 (1.12%) CA Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.12%) CA Wily
6 2 (1.12%) Grafana
6 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Clustering
6 2 (1.12%) Progress Chef
6 2 (1.12%) Terraform
6 2 (1.12%) Tivoli
7 1 (0.56%) Ansible
7 1 (0.56%) CA Endevor
7 1 (0.56%) CASB
7 1 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (0.56%) Nessus
7 1 (0.56%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.56%) Tivoli Storage Manager
7 1 (0.56%) WSUS
Vendors
1 16 (8.94%) SAP
2 15 (8.38%) Google
3 9 (5.03%) Oracle
4 8 (4.47%) Splunk
5 7 (3.91%) Advent
6 6 (3.35%) Apple
6 6 (3.35%) Citrix
7 4 (2.23%) IBM
7 4 (2.23%) VMware
8 3 (1.68%) Hopewiser
8 3 (1.68%) ServiceNow
9 2 (1.12%) AppDynamics
9 2 (1.12%) ArcSight
9 2 (1.12%) BMC
9 2 (1.12%) Broadcom
9 2 (1.12%) Cisco
9 2 (1.12%) Confluent
9 2 (1.12%) Salesforce
10 1 (0.56%) Ekahau
10 1 (0.56%) Zscaler