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 17 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 37 47
Rank change year-on-year +9 +10 +42
Contract jobs citing Microservices 175 100 102
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.34% 5.09% 3.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.39% 5.65% 4.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 113 73 71
10th Percentile £353 £372 £417
25th Percentile £402 £405 £486
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.00% -9.09% +10.00%
75th Percentile £570 £563 £625
90th Percentile £650 £615 £850
England median daily rate £525 £530 £558
% change year-on-year -0.94% -4.93% -11.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 4 5
10th Percentile £58.75 £69.00 -
25th Percentile £63.06 £71.25 -
Median hourly rate £85.50 £75.00 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year +14.00% +63.47% +31.09%
75th Percentile £95.00 £77.81 £48.43
90th Percentile - £78.38 -
England median hourly rate £75.00 £50.00 £47.16
% change year-on-year +50.00% +6.03% -34.96%

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 2,740 1,770 2,298
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 83.54% 90.03% 86.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,678 1,154 1,459
10th Percentile £297 £300 £310
25th Percentile £381 £388 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £467 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.68% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £581 £575 £593
90th Percentile £653 £663 £689
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 230 104 255
10th Percentile £17.13 £15.23 £10.97
25th Percentile £25.38 £22.74 £13.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £31.88 £25.60
Median % change year-on-year +72.52% +24.53% -27.92%
75th Percentile £74.26 £63.10 £46.03
90th Percentile £85.00 £85.03 £62.50
England median hourly rate £47.00 £29.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year +62.07% -20.55% +1.39%

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 17 May 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 17 May 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 17 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
Manchester +8 134 £500 -5.66% 49
Cheshire -11 35 £402 - 13
Lancashire -11 3 £650 +10.64% 11
Merseyside -17 1 £450 +1.41% 6
Cumbria - 1 £357 - 2
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 (2.86%) Confluence
2 4 (2.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 2 (1.14%) JBoss
4 1 (0.57%) Apache
4 1 (0.57%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.57%) Camunda
4 1 (0.57%) Mule
4 1 (0.57%) Mule ESB
4 1 (0.57%) Tomcat
4 1 (0.57%) WebLogic
Cloud Services
1 105 (60.00%) AWS
2 50 (28.57%) Azure
3 30 (17.14%) Serverless
4 28 (16.00%) GitHub
5 23 (13.14%) GCP
6 15 (8.57%) AWS Lambda
7 14 (8.00%) GitHub Actions
8 11 (6.29%) Amazon SQS
9 9 (5.14%) Amazon EKS
10 8 (4.57%) Apigee
11 7 (4.00%) Kong
12 6 (3.43%) Amazon EventBridge
12 6 (3.43%) Amazon S3
13 5 (2.86%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 5 (2.86%) Amazon ECS
13 5 (2.86%) Azure Service Bus
13 5 (2.86%) GitHub Copilot
14 4 (2.29%) AWS Step Functions
14 4 (2.29%) Azure AKS
14 4 (2.29%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.14%) Network Security
2 1 (0.57%) HTTP
2 1 (0.57%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (12.57%) NoSQL
2 21 (12.00%) MongoDB
2 21 (12.00%) PostgreSQL
3 14 (8.00%) DynamoDB
4 12 (6.86%) MySQL
5 11 (6.29%) Relational Database
6 8 (4.57%) DocumentDB
7 5 (2.86%) SQL Server
8 3 (1.71%) Amazon Aurora
8 3 (1.71%) Redis
9 1 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
9 1 (0.57%) Big Data
9 1 (0.57%) Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.57%) DataStage
9 1 (0.57%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 33 (18.86%) Git
2 29 (16.57%) GitLab
3 18 (10.29%) Jenkins
4 15 (8.57%) Selenium
5 13 (7.43%) JUnit
6 12 (6.86%) JIRA
7 10 (5.71%) Cypress.io
8 9 (5.14%) Mockito
9 8 (4.57%) CircleCI
9 8 (4.57%) Mocha
10 7 (4.00%) Postman
10 7 (4.00%) SonarQube
11 6 (3.43%) Cucumber
11 6 (3.43%) Gatling
11 6 (3.43%) REST Assured
12 5 (2.86%) JMeter
12 5 (2.86%) Serenity BDD
13 3 (1.71%) Jasmine
13 3 (1.71%) Sonatype Nexus
14 1 (0.57%) Gradle
General
1 54 (30.86%) Public Sector
2 38 (21.71%) Finance
3 33 (18.86%) Social Skills
4 13 (7.43%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (6.86%) Banking
6 8 (4.57%) Retail
7 4 (2.29%) Military
8 3 (1.71%) Billing
8 3 (1.71%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (1.71%) Retail Banking
9 2 (1.14%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.57%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.57%) Marketing
10 1 (0.57%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 81 (46.29%) Developer
2 43 (24.57%) Java Developer
3 32 (18.29%) Architect
4 31 (17.71%) Senior
5 27 (15.43%) Lead
6 20 (11.43%) Full-Stack Developer
6 20 (11.43%) Software Engineer
7 16 (9.14%) Senior Developer
8 14 (8.00%) Lead Developer
8 14 (8.00%) Solutions Architect
9 13 (7.43%) Backend Developer
10 10 (5.71%) Full-Stack Engineer
11 9 (5.14%) Senior Software Engineer
11 9 (5.14%) Software Developer
12 8 (4.57%) Test Engineer
13 7 (4.00%) Full-Stack Java Developer
13 7 (4.00%) Lead Java Developer
13 7 (4.00%) Principal Engineer
14 6 (3.43%) Node.js Developer
14 6 (3.43%) Senior Backend Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (38.86%) Spring
2 62 (35.43%) Spring Boot
3 48 (27.43%) React
4 39 (22.29%) Node.js
5 32 (18.29%) REST
6 31 (17.71%) AngularJS
6 31 (17.71%) RESTful
7 30 (17.14%) Kafka
8 19 (10.86%) OAuth
9 18 (10.29%) Playwright
10 15 (8.57%) .NET
10 15 (8.57%) Jest
11 12 (6.86%) OAuth2
12 10 (5.71%) HTML
12 10 (5.71%) Spring Cloud
13 9 (5.14%) CSS
13 9 (5.14%) Hibernate
13 9 (5.14%) JAX-RS
13 9 (5.14%) Nunjucks
14 8 (4.57%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 44 (25.14%) Cloud Native
2 18 (10.29%) Distributed Systems
2 18 (10.29%) Product Ownership
3 14 (8.00%) Mobile App
4 12 (6.86%) Onboarding
5 7 (4.00%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (2.86%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.71%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.71%) Virtual Team
8 2 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.14%) Legacy Applications
8 2 (1.14%) Mainframe
8 2 (1.14%) NHS
9 1 (0.57%) Distributed Architecture
9 1 (0.57%) Mobile Banking
9 1 (0.57%) Online Banking
9 1 (0.57%) PMI
9 1 (0.57%) Replication
9 1 (0.57%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.57%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 15 (8.57%) Linux
2 12 (6.86%) Unix
3 8 (4.57%) Mac OS X
4 2 (1.14%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 89 (50.86%) Agile
2 87 (49.71%) CI/CD
3 72 (41.14%) DevOps
4 60 (34.29%) Test Automation
5 46 (26.29%) Problem-Solving
6 45 (25.71%) Event-Driven
7 39 (22.29%) Full-Stack Development
8 37 (21.14%) TDD
9 35 (20.00%) Containerisation
9 35 (20.00%) Event-Driven Architecture
10 32 (18.29%) Continuous Improvement
10 32 (18.29%) Software Engineering
11 28 (16.00%) API Design
12 27 (15.43%) Observability
13 24 (13.71%) Mentoring
14 23 (13.14%) Technical Leadership
15 22 (12.57%) BDD
16 20 (11.43%) Infrastructure as Code
16 20 (11.43%) Integration Patterns
17 19 (10.86%) Architectural Patterns
Programming Languages
1 109 (62.29%) Java
2 32 (18.29%) TypeScript
3 30 (17.14%) JavaScript
4 24 (13.71%) SQL
5 14 (8.00%) Kotlin
6 11 (6.29%) C#
7 8 (4.57%) Python
8 4 (2.29%) Go
9 2 (1.14%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.57%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.57%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 35 (20.00%) Security Cleared
2 20 (11.43%) SC Cleared
3 19 (10.86%) BPSS Clearance
4 15 (8.57%) Degree
5 11 (6.29%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (2.29%) AWS Certification
7 3 (1.71%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 3 (1.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 3 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (1.71%) CISSP
8 2 (1.14%) GIAC
8 2 (1.14%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.57%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.57%) CCSP
9 1 (0.57%) CEH
9 1 (0.57%) CISM
9 1 (0.57%) OSCP
9 1 (0.57%) PMP
9 1 (0.57%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (10.29%) Accessibility
2 12 (6.86%) QA
3 8 (4.57%) WCAG
4 3 (1.71%) NIST
5 2 (1.14%) GDPR
5 2 (1.14%) ISO 20022
5 2 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (1.14%) PSD2
6 1 (0.57%) COBIT
6 1 (0.57%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.57%) GRC
6 1 (0.57%) HL7
6 1 (0.57%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.57%) SEPA
System Software
1 56 (32.00%) Docker
2 3 (1.71%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 43 (24.57%) Kubernetes
2 22 (12.57%) Terraform
3 14 (8.00%) Grafana
4 11 (6.29%) Prometheus
5 2 (1.14%) Istio
5 2 (1.14%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.57%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 11 (6.29%) Microsoft
2 9 (5.14%) Splunk
3 7 (4.00%) MuleSoft
4 6 (3.43%) Google
4 6 (3.43%) Oracle
5 4 (2.29%) Adobe
6 3 (1.71%) Guidewire
6 3 (1.71%) OpenAI
7 2 (1.14%) Atlassian
7 2 (1.14%) Databricks
7 2 (1.14%) Foundry
7 2 (1.14%) PagerDuty
7 2 (1.14%) Virgin Media
8 1 (0.57%) Ab Initio
8 1 (0.57%) Informatica
8 1 (0.57%) SAP