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 24 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 59 60
Rank change year-on-year +24 +1 -14
Contract jobs citing Microservices 159 68 78
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.74% 3.35% 2.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.63% 3.77% 3.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 113 48 50
10th Percentile £353 £391 £412
25th Percentile £400 £420 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £544 £550
Median % change year-on-year -17.20% -1.18% -
75th Percentile £539 £604 £625
90th Percentile £596 £638 -
England median daily rate £525 £570 £558
% change year-on-year -7.89% +2.24% -10.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 2 5
10th Percentile £58.75 £61.70 -
25th Percentile £62.63 £65.17 -
Median hourly rate £75.13 £74.39 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% +62.15% +31.09%
75th Percentile £90.25 £82.67 £48.43
90th Percentile £95.00 £85.57 -
England median hourly rate £74.26 £32.00 £55.47
% change year-on-year +132.06% -42.31% -20.76%

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 2,399 1,804 2,433
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 86.58% 89.00% 87.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,546 1,086 1,597
10th Percentile £216 £275 £306
25th Percentile £358 £381 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £564 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £656 £675
England median daily rate £501 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.67% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 200 104 228
10th Percentile £16.32 £18.04 £12.67
25th Percentile £22.85 £23.36 £16.05
Median hourly rate £44.00 £31.64 £26.53
Median % change year-on-year +39.06% +19.28% -29.27%
75th Percentile £63.40 £56.51 £46.18
90th Percentile £76.00 £79.66 £54.13
England median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -21.43% - -

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 24 February 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 24 February 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 24 February 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 +31 111 £489 -11.14% 51
Cheshire 0 42 £402 -1.95% 10
Lancashire -19 4 £650 +8.33% 15
Merseyside -19 1 £450 +1.41% 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 8 (5.03%) Confluence
2 3 (1.89%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.63%) Apache
3 1 (0.63%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.63%) JBoss
3 1 (0.63%) Tomcat
Business Applications
1 5 (3.14%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 100 (62.89%) AWS
2 43 (27.04%) Azure
3 34 (21.38%) Serverless
4 24 (15.09%) AWS Lambda
4 24 (15.09%) GitHub
5 23 (14.47%) GCP
6 17 (10.69%) Amazon SQS
7 14 (8.81%) GitHub Actions
8 12 (7.55%) Amazon EKS
9 10 (6.29%) Amazon ECS
9 10 (6.29%) Apigee
10 8 (5.03%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 8 (5.03%) Amazon EventBridge
10 8 (5.03%) Kong
11 7 (4.40%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (3.77%) Amazon MSK
12 6 (3.77%) Amazon S3
13 5 (3.14%) Amazon EC2
13 5 (3.14%) Azure AKS
13 5 (3.14%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.52%) HTTP
1 4 (2.52%) HTTPS
2 2 (1.26%) Firewall
2 2 (1.26%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (13.84%) NoSQL
2 20 (12.58%) MongoDB
3 14 (8.81%) DocumentDB
3 14 (8.81%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (7.55%) DynamoDB
5 11 (6.92%) MySQL
6 7 (4.40%) Relational Database
7 5 (3.14%) Redis
8 4 (2.52%) Amazon Aurora
9 3 (1.89%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (1.26%) Apache Cassandra
10 2 (1.26%) Hadoop
10 2 (1.26%) SQL Server
11 1 (0.63%) Big Data
11 1 (0.63%) Data Warehouse
11 1 (0.63%) DataStage
Development Applications
1 33 (20.75%) Git
2 29 (18.24%) GitLab
3 16 (10.06%) Jenkins
4 12 (7.55%) JIRA
5 8 (5.03%) CircleCI
5 8 (5.03%) Cypress.io
5 8 (5.03%) JUnit
5 8 (5.03%) Mocha
5 8 (5.03%) Mockito
6 7 (4.40%) Postman
6 7 (4.40%) Selenium
7 6 (3.77%) SonarQube
8 4 (2.52%) JMeter
9 3 (1.89%) Jasmine
9 3 (1.89%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (1.26%) Bitbucket
10 2 (1.26%) Gatling
10 2 (1.26%) REST Assured
10 2 (1.26%) Serenity BDD
11 1 (0.63%) Gradle
General
1 47 (29.56%) Public Sector
2 41 (25.79%) Finance
3 35 (22.01%) Social Skills
4 15 (9.43%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (9.43%) Banking
5 4 (2.52%) Influencing Skills
6 3 (1.89%) Billing
6 3 (1.89%) Retail
7 1 (0.63%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.63%) Military
7 1 (0.63%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 74 (46.54%) Developer
2 38 (23.90%) Java Developer
3 29 (18.24%) Senior
4 27 (16.98%) Architect
5 20 (12.58%) Lead
6 17 (10.69%) Software Engineer
7 16 (10.06%) Full-Stack Developer
7 16 (10.06%) Solutions Architect
8 14 (8.81%) Senior Developer
9 10 (6.29%) Backend Developer
9 10 (6.29%) Lead Developer
10 9 (5.66%) Full-Stack Engineer
11 8 (5.03%) Analyst
11 8 (5.03%) Business Analyst
12 7 (4.40%) Node.js Developer
13 6 (3.77%) Cloud Engineer
13 6 (3.77%) Senior Backend Developer
13 6 (3.77%) Senior Software Engineer
13 6 (3.77%) Technical Analyst
13 6 (3.77%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 67 (42.14%) Spring
2 64 (40.25%) Spring Boot
3 40 (25.16%) React
4 35 (22.01%) Kafka
5 34 (21.38%) Node.js
6 33 (20.75%) REST
7 29 (18.24%) RESTful
8 21 (13.21%) AngularJS
9 17 (10.69%) OAuth
10 15 (9.43%) Hibernate
11 13 (8.18%) Jest
11 13 (8.18%) Playwright
12 11 (6.92%) JAX-RS
12 11 (6.92%) JWT
12 11 (6.92%) OAuth2
13 10 (6.29%) .NET
13 10 (6.29%) JSON
13 10 (6.29%) XML
14 8 (5.03%) ActiveMQ
14 8 (5.03%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 34 (21.38%) Cloud Native
2 24 (15.09%) Distributed Systems
3 14 (8.81%) Onboarding
4 11 (6.92%) Mobile App
5 10 (6.29%) Product Ownership
6 5 (3.14%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (1.89%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.26%) Algorithms
8 2 (1.26%) Data Structures
8 2 (1.26%) Greenfield Project
8 2 (1.26%) Mobile Banking
8 2 (1.26%) Virtual Team
9 1 (0.63%) NHS
9 1 (0.63%) Online Banking
9 1 (0.63%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.63%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 14 (8.81%) Linux
2 11 (6.92%) Unix
3 7 (4.40%) Mac OS X
4 1 (0.63%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (51.57%) Agile
2 70 (44.03%) CI/CD
3 62 (38.99%) DevOps
4 43 (27.04%) Problem-Solving
5 41 (25.79%) Test Automation
6 39 (24.53%) Containerisation
7 37 (23.27%) TDD
8 31 (19.50%) Full-Stack Development
9 30 (18.87%) Event-Driven
9 30 (18.87%) Software Engineering
10 24 (15.09%) API Design
11 23 (14.47%) Mentoring
12 21 (13.21%) Continuous Improvement
13 20 (12.58%) Observability
14 19 (11.95%) Event-Driven Architecture
15 17 (10.69%) API Development
15 17 (10.69%) Architectural Patterns
16 16 (10.06%) BDD
16 16 (10.06%) Computer Science
16 16 (10.06%) Integration Patterns
Programming Languages
1 101 (63.52%) Java
2 31 (19.50%) TypeScript
3 22 (13.84%) SQL
4 16 (10.06%) JavaScript
5 12 (7.55%) Python
6 11 (6.92%) Kotlin
7 6 (3.77%) C#
8 4 (2.52%) Go
9 3 (1.89%) Bash
9 3 (1.89%) PowerShell
9 3 (1.89%) Ruby
10 2 (1.26%) Perl
10 2 (1.26%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.63%) PHP
Qualifications
1 25 (15.72%) Security Cleared
2 22 (13.84%) BPSS Clearance
3 16 (10.06%) Computer Science Degree
3 16 (10.06%) Degree
4 12 (7.55%) SC Cleared
5 7 (4.40%) AWS Certification
6 3 (1.89%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (1.26%) Azure Certification
7 2 (1.26%) CBAP
7 2 (1.26%) CSPO
7 2 (1.26%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (7.55%) Accessibility
2 10 (6.29%) ISO 20022
3 7 (4.40%) PCI DSS
3 7 (4.40%) WCAG
4 4 (2.52%) QA
5 3 (1.89%) GDPR
6 1 (0.63%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.63%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.63%) HL7
6 1 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.63%) NIST
6 1 (0.63%) PSD2
6 1 (0.63%) SEPA
System Software
1 52 (32.70%) Docker
2 3 (1.89%) ISA Server
3 2 (1.26%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 43 (27.04%) Kubernetes
2 23 (14.47%) Terraform
3 7 (4.40%) Grafana
3 7 (4.40%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.63%) Ansible
4 1 (0.63%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 12 (7.55%) Microsoft
2 9 (5.66%) Google
2 9 (5.66%) Splunk
3 7 (4.40%) Oracle
4 6 (3.77%) MuleSoft
5 5 (3.14%) Ping Identity
5 5 (3.14%) Virgin Media
6 3 (1.89%) Adobe
6 3 (1.89%) Guidewire
7 2 (1.26%) Atlassian
7 2 (1.26%) Databricks
7 2 (1.26%) Foundry
7 2 (1.26%) IBM
7 2 (1.26%) IBM Sterling
7 2 (1.26%) OpenAI
7 2 (1.26%) PagerDuty
8 1 (0.63%) Dynatrace
8 1 (0.63%) Informatica
8 1 (0.63%) Red Hat
8 1 (0.63%) Salesforce