Microservices Contract Job Trends in the North West

Microservices
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Microservices skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 2 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 57 34 53
Rank change year-on-year -23 +19 +47
Contract jobs citing Microservices 143 111 72
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.80% 5.06% 3.01%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.56% 5.74% 3.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 80 81 53
10th Percentile £400 £335 £425
25th Percentile £449 £375 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £469 £525
Median % change year-on-year +11.94% -10.67% -4.55%
75th Percentile £640 £545 £656
90th Percentile £688 £671 £850
England median daily rate £537 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +2.29% -4.55% -12.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 4 1
10th Percentile £61.38 £69.00 -
25th Percentile £62.50 £71.25 -
Median hourly rate £71.00 £75.00 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -5.33% +63.47% +13.78%
75th Percentile £95.00 £77.81 -
90th Percentile - £78.38 -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £67.00 £43.69
% change year-on-year -2.99% +53.35% -39.74%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North West

Microservices falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 3,133 1,933 2,022
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 83.15% 88.06% 84.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,826 1,241 1,236
10th Percentile £279 £278 £301
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.38% -7.50% -
75th Percentile £594 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £671 £675
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 319 126 184
10th Percentile £17.25 £13.50 £10.95
25th Percentile £25.38 £18.87 £16.06
Median hourly rate £50.00 £27.90 £33.61
Median % change year-on-year +79.20% -16.97% +1.83%
75th Percentile £74.26 £57.57 £51.91
90th Percentile £85.00 £74.38 £70.90
England median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +78.93% -40.82% -

Microservices
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microservices relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Microservices job vacancy trend in the North West

Microservices
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Microservices.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Microservices

Microservices
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microservices in the North West over the 6 months to 2 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microservices in the North West

Microservices
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Microservices.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Microservices

Microservices
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microservices in the North West over the 6 months to 2 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microservices in the North West

Microservices
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microservices within the North West region over the 6 months to 2 August 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
Manchester +3 120 £530 - 62
Cheshire -35 17 £498 +23.76% 16
Merseyside -17 4 £575 +39.39% 1
Cumbria - 1 £357 - 3
Microservices
England

Microservices
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 5 (3.50%) Confluence
2 2 (1.40%) Camunda
3 1 (0.70%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.70%) JBoss
3 1 (0.70%) Mule
3 1 (0.70%) Mule ESB
3 1 (0.70%) WebLogic
Cloud Services
1 83 (58.04%) AWS
2 41 (28.67%) Azure
3 22 (15.38%) Serverless
4 20 (13.99%) GCP
5 16 (11.19%) GitHub
6 12 (8.39%) AWS Lambda
7 11 (7.69%) Amazon ECS
7 11 (7.69%) GitHub Actions
8 10 (6.99%) Amazon EKS
8 10 (6.99%) Amazon SQS
9 7 (4.90%) GitHub Copilot
10 6 (4.20%) Anthropic Claude
10 6 (4.20%) Google Gemini
11 5 (3.50%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 5 (3.50%) Amazon EventBridge
11 5 (3.50%) Azure Service Bus
12 4 (2.80%) AWS CloudFormation
13 3 (2.10%) Azure AKS
13 3 (2.10%) OpenShift
14 2 (1.40%) Azure Monitor
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (16.08%) MongoDB
2 17 (11.89%) NoSQL
3 15 (10.49%) PostgreSQL
4 14 (9.79%) DynamoDB
5 9 (6.29%) SQL Server
6 8 (5.59%) MySQL
7 6 (4.20%) Relational Database
8 3 (2.10%) Amazon Aurora
9 1 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
9 1 (0.70%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 22 (15.38%) Git
2 16 (11.19%) Mockito
3 13 (9.09%) Selenium
4 11 (7.69%) GitLab
5 10 (6.99%) Jenkins
5 10 (6.99%) JIRA
5 10 (6.99%) JUnit
6 8 (5.59%) Cucumber
7 6 (4.20%) Claude Code
7 6 (4.20%) REST Assured
8 5 (3.50%) SonarQube
9 4 (2.80%) Gatling
9 4 (2.80%) Postman
10 3 (2.10%) Cypress.io
10 3 (2.10%) Serenity BDD
10 3 (2.10%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.70%) Eclipse
11 1 (0.70%) IntelliJ
11 1 (0.70%) JMeter
11 1 (0.70%) Robot Framework
General
1 32 (22.38%) Public Sector
2 28 (19.58%) Finance
3 27 (18.88%) Social Skills
4 14 (9.79%) Retail
5 12 (8.39%) Banking
6 7 (4.90%) Military
7 4 (2.80%) Analytical Skills
8 3 (2.10%) Retail Banking
9 1 (0.70%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.70%) Health Technology
9 1 (0.70%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.70%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 56 (39.16%) Developer
2 35 (24.48%) Java Developer
3 29 (20.28%) Senior
4 27 (18.88%) Architect
5 26 (18.18%) Lead
6 23 (16.08%) Software Engineer
7 15 (10.49%) Senior Developer
8 14 (9.79%) Solutions Architect
9 13 (9.09%) Lead Developer
10 12 (8.39%) AWS Engineer
10 12 (8.39%) Full-Stack Developer
10 12 (8.39%) Java Engineer
11 11 (7.69%) Java Software Engineer
12 10 (6.99%) Principal Engineer
12 10 (6.99%) Software Developer
13 9 (6.29%) AWS Software Engineer
14 8 (5.59%) Full-Stack Engineer
14 8 (5.59%) Senior Software Engineer
15 7 (4.90%) Senior Java Developer
15 7 (4.90%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (28.67%) Spring
2 37 (25.87%) Spring Boot
3 35 (24.48%) React
4 30 (20.98%) Kafka
4 30 (20.98%) Node.js
5 25 (17.48%) REST
6 23 (16.08%) RESTful
7 21 (14.69%) AngularJS
8 18 (12.59%) .NET
9 12 (8.39%) ActiveMQ
9 12 (8.39%) JAX-RS
10 9 (6.29%) Next.js
10 9 (6.29%) Nunjucks
11 7 (4.90%) HTML
11 7 (4.90%) OAuth
12 6 (4.20%) CSS
12 6 (4.20%) Playwright
12 6 (4.20%) Vue
13 5 (3.50%) .NET Core
13 5 (3.50%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 46 (32.17%) Cloud Native
2 25 (17.48%) Distributed Systems
3 14 (9.79%) Product Ownership
4 10 (6.99%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (4.20%) Public Cloud
6 5 (3.50%) Onboarding
7 4 (2.80%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (2.80%) Mainframe
7 4 (2.80%) Private Cloud
8 3 (2.10%) Culture of Ownership
8 3 (2.10%) Data Protection Act
8 3 (2.10%) Legacy Applications
8 3 (2.10%) Mobile App
8 3 (2.10%) Virtual Team
9 2 (1.40%) Distributed Architecture
9 2 (1.40%) Greenfield Project
10 1 (0.70%) AI Agents
10 1 (0.70%) Low-Code
10 1 (0.70%) Marketing Technology
10 1 (0.70%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 18 (12.59%) Linux
2 13 (9.09%) Unix
3 7 (4.90%) Mac OS X
4 2 (1.40%) Mac OS
4 2 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 80 (55.94%) CI/CD
2 79 (55.24%) Agile
3 60 (41.96%) DevOps
4 53 (37.06%) Test Automation
5 47 (32.87%) Software Engineering
6 46 (32.17%) Event-Driven
7 41 (28.67%) Event-Driven Architecture
8 32 (22.38%) Observability
8 32 (22.38%) TDD
9 31 (21.68%) Continuous Improvement
9 31 (21.68%) Technical Leadership
10 29 (20.28%) Mentoring
10 29 (20.28%) Problem-Solving
11 28 (19.58%) Infrastructure as Code
12 27 (18.88%) Containerisation
13 25 (17.48%) BDD
13 25 (17.48%) Full-Stack Development
14 21 (14.69%) Code Quality
15 19 (13.29%) API Design
16 18 (12.59%) Architectural Patterns
Programming Languages
1 80 (55.94%) Java
2 19 (13.29%) JavaScript
3 18 (12.59%) SQL
4 16 (11.19%) TypeScript
5 13 (9.09%) C#
6 12 (8.39%) Python
7 4 (2.80%) Go
8 3 (2.10%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.70%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 31 (21.68%) Security Cleared
2 21 (14.69%) SC Cleared
3 12 (8.39%) BPSS Clearance
4 5 (3.50%) Degree
5 4 (2.80%) (ISC)2 CCSP
5 4 (2.80%) Cisco Certification
5 4 (2.80%) CISSP
6 2 (1.40%) CCSP
6 2 (1.40%) CEH
6 2 (1.40%) CISM
6 2 (1.40%) GIAC
6 2 (1.40%) Microsoft Certified Professional
6 2 (1.40%) OSCP
6 2 (1.40%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.70%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.70%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.70%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (11.19%) QA
2 8 (5.59%) Accessibility
3 4 (2.80%) NIST
4 2 (1.40%) COBIT
4 2 (1.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.40%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.70%) GDPR
5 1 (0.70%) GRC
5 1 (0.70%) ISO 20022
5 1 (0.70%) PSD2
5 1 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.70%) SEPA
5 1 (0.70%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.70%) WCAG
System Software
1 50 (34.97%) Docker
Systems Management
1 41 (28.67%) Kubernetes
2 29 (20.28%) Terraform
3 9 (6.29%) Grafana
4 8 (5.59%) Prometheus
5 3 (2.10%) Istio
6 2 (1.40%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 9 (6.29%) Google
2 6 (4.20%) Microsoft
3 3 (2.10%) Splunk
4 2 (1.40%) MuleSoft
4 2 (1.40%) Oracle
5 1 (0.70%) Adobe
5 1 (0.70%) Atlassian
5 1 (0.70%) Foundry
5 1 (0.70%) OpenAI
5 1 (0.70%) Sage
5 1 (0.70%) SAP