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 30 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 62 31 55
Rank change year-on-year -31 +24 +39
Contract jobs citing Microservices 139 124 70
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.52% 5.61% 2.90%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.24% 6.32% 3.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 79 87 50
10th Percentile £419 £337 £425
25th Percentile £450 £388 £457
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £465 £525
Median % change year-on-year +12.90% -11.43% -4.55%
75th Percentile £609 £545 £647
90th Percentile £650 £651 £850
England median daily rate £533 £525 £575
% change year-on-year +1.43% -8.70% -8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 4 0
10th Percentile - £69.00 -
25th Percentile £62.50 £71.25 -
Median hourly rate £65.00 £75.00 -
Median % change year-on-year -13.33% - -
75th Percentile £67.50 £77.81 -
90th Percentile £71.30 £78.38 -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £67.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year -2.99% +61.45% -42.76%

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 3,279 1,962 2,039
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 82.97% 88.70% 84.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,912 1,278 1,226
10th Percentile £290 £300 £311
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £594 £575 £588
90th Percentile £680 £663 £675
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 336 131 136
10th Percentile £16.26 £13.50 £10.98
25th Percentile £25.38 £17.44 £19.80
Median hourly rate £45.25 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +79.92% -37.63% +15.21%
75th Percentile £72.75 £52.50 £54.45
90th Percentile £84.38 £72.50 £70.90
England median hourly rate £43.56 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +73.20% -41.51% +1.18%

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 30 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
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 30 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 -4 112 £528 -0.47% 73
Cheshire -30 21 £500 +24.38% 7
Merseyside -18 4 £575 +12.75% 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 6 (4.32%) Confluence
2 5 (3.60%) Camunda
3 1 (0.72%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.72%) JBoss
3 1 (0.72%) Mule
3 1 (0.72%) Mule ESB
3 1 (0.72%) nginx
3 1 (0.72%) WebLogic
Cloud Services
1 86 (61.87%) AWS
2 37 (26.62%) Azure
3 22 (15.83%) Serverless
4 20 (14.39%) GCP
5 17 (12.23%) GitHub
6 12 (8.63%) AWS Lambda
6 12 (8.63%) GitHub Actions
7 10 (7.19%) Amazon ECS
8 9 (6.47%) Amazon EKS
8 9 (6.47%) Amazon SQS
9 7 (5.04%) GitHub Copilot
10 6 (4.32%) Anthropic Claude
10 6 (4.32%) Google Gemini
10 6 (4.32%) OpenShift
11 4 (2.88%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 4 (2.88%) Amazon EventBridge
11 4 (2.88%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (2.88%) Azure AKS
11 4 (2.88%) Azure Functions
12 3 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.16%) HTTP
2 1 (0.72%) Firewall
2 1 (0.72%) Network Security
2 1 (0.72%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (12.23%) MongoDB
1 17 (12.23%) NoSQL
2 14 (10.07%) PostgreSQL
3 12 (8.63%) SQL Server
4 11 (7.91%) DynamoDB
5 7 (5.04%) MySQL
5 7 (5.04%) Relational Database
6 3 (2.16%) Amazon Aurora
7 1 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 23 (16.55%) Git
2 15 (10.79%) Mockito
3 14 (10.07%) Jenkins
3 14 (10.07%) JUnit
4 13 (9.35%) GitLab
5 12 (8.63%) Selenium
6 11 (7.91%) JIRA
7 9 (6.47%) REST Assured
7 9 (6.47%) SonarQube
8 8 (5.76%) Cucumber
9 6 (4.32%) Claude Code
9 6 (4.32%) Sonatype Nexus
10 5 (3.60%) Maven
11 4 (2.88%) Gatling
11 4 (2.88%) Gradle
11 4 (2.88%) Postman
12 3 (2.16%) Bitbucket Server
12 3 (2.16%) Serenity BDD
13 2 (1.44%) Cypress.io
14 1 (0.72%) JMeter
General
1 31 (22.30%) Finance
2 27 (19.42%) Social Skills
3 24 (17.27%) Public Sector
4 15 (10.79%) Banking
5 12 (8.63%) Retail
6 7 (5.04%) Military
7 4 (2.88%) Analytical Skills
8 3 (2.16%) Retail Banking
9 2 (1.44%) iGaming
10 1 (0.72%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.72%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.72%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.72%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 48 (34.53%) Developer
2 28 (20.14%) Java Developer
2 28 (20.14%) Senior
3 26 (18.71%) Architect
3 26 (18.71%) Software Engineer
4 22 (15.83%) Lead
5 15 (10.79%) Java Engineer
6 14 (10.07%) Solutions Architect
7 13 (9.35%) AWS Engineer
8 12 (8.63%) Full-Stack Developer
9 11 (7.91%) Java Software Engineer
9 11 (7.91%) Senior Developer
10 10 (7.19%) Lead Developer
10 10 (7.19%) Principal Engineer
11 9 (6.47%) AWS Software Engineer
11 9 (6.47%) Senior Software Engineer
11 9 (6.47%) Software Developer
12 6 (4.32%) Backend Developer
12 6 (4.32%) Senior Java Developer
12 6 (4.32%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (36.69%) Spring
2 50 (35.97%) Spring Boot
3 32 (23.02%) React
3 32 (23.02%) REST
4 31 (22.30%) Kafka
5 26 (18.71%) Node.js
6 21 (15.11%) Terraform
7 19 (13.67%) RESTful
8 16 (11.51%) AngularJS
9 15 (10.79%) .NET
10 12 (8.63%) HTML
11 10 (7.19%) CSS
12 9 (6.47%) Next.js
12 9 (6.47%) Nunjucks
13 7 (5.04%) ActiveMQ
13 7 (5.04%) JAX-RS
14 5 (3.60%) JPA
14 5 (3.60%) Middleware
14 5 (3.60%) OAuth
14 5 (3.60%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 49 (35.25%) Cloud Native
2 27 (19.42%) Distributed Systems
3 12 (8.63%) Product Ownership
4 8 (5.76%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (4.32%) Data Protection Act
5 6 (4.32%) Public Cloud
6 5 (3.60%) Onboarding
7 4 (2.88%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (2.88%) Mainframe
7 4 (2.88%) Private Cloud
8 3 (2.16%) Culture of Ownership
8 3 (2.16%) Data Structures
8 3 (2.16%) Greenfield Project
8 3 (2.16%) Legacy Applications
8 3 (2.16%) Mobile App
9 2 (1.44%) Distributed Architecture
9 2 (1.44%) Virtual Team
10 1 (0.72%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 1 (0.72%) Marketing Technology
10 1 (0.72%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 12 (8.63%) Linux
2 7 (5.04%) Unix
3 2 (1.44%) Mac OS X
3 2 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.72%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (58.99%) CI/CD
2 69 (49.64%) Agile
3 59 (42.45%) Software Engineering
4 57 (41.01%) DevOps
5 55 (39.57%) Test Automation
6 45 (32.37%) Event-Driven
7 42 (30.22%) Event-Driven Architecture
8 29 (20.86%) Continuous Improvement
8 29 (20.86%) Observability
8 29 (20.86%) Technical Leadership
9 27 (19.42%) TDD
10 25 (17.99%) Full-Stack Development
11 24 (17.27%) Containerisation
11 24 (17.27%) Mentoring
11 24 (17.27%) Problem-Solving
12 23 (16.55%) Infrastructure as Code
13 22 (15.83%) Code Quality
14 19 (13.67%) API Design
14 19 (13.67%) BDD
15 17 (12.23%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 89 (64.03%) Java
2 24 (17.27%) JavaScript
3 22 (15.83%) SQL
4 15 (10.79%) TypeScript
5 12 (8.63%) Python
6 10 (7.19%) C#
7 4 (2.88%) Go
7 4 (2.88%) Kotlin
8 1 (0.72%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 29 (20.86%) Security Cleared
2 19 (13.67%) SC Cleared
3 9 (6.47%) Degree
4 6 (4.32%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (2.88%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (2.16%) CEH
7 2 (1.44%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 2 (1.44%) CCSP
7 2 (1.44%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (1.44%) CISM
7 2 (1.44%) CISSP
7 2 (1.44%) Microsoft Certified Professional
7 2 (1.44%) OSCP
7 2 (1.44%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.72%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.72%) PMP
8 1 (0.72%) SANS
8 1 (0.72%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (10.79%) QA
2 9 (6.47%) Accessibility
3 5 (3.60%) NIST
4 2 (1.44%) COBIT
4 2 (1.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.44%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.72%) GDPR
5 1 (0.72%) GRC
5 1 (0.72%) ISO 20022
5 1 (0.72%) PSD2
5 1 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.72%) SEPA
5 1 (0.72%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.72%) WCAG
System Software
1 48 (34.53%) Docker
Systems Management
1 46 (33.09%) Kubernetes
2 8 (5.76%) Grafana
2 8 (5.76%) Prometheus
3 4 (2.88%) Istio
4 2 (1.44%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (0.72%) Network Intrusion Detection System
Vendors
1 9 (6.47%) Google
2 4 (2.88%) Microsoft
2 4 (2.88%) Oracle
3 3 (2.16%) IBM
3 3 (2.16%) Splunk
3 3 (2.16%) Veracode
4 1 (0.72%) Adobe
4 1 (0.72%) BiZZdesign
4 1 (0.72%) CheckPoint
4 1 (0.72%) Cisco
4 1 (0.72%) F5
4 1 (0.72%) Foundry
4 1 (0.72%) Intel
4 1 (0.72%) OpenAI
4 1 (0.72%) Sage
4 1 (0.72%) SAP