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 19 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 53 33 54
Rank change year-on-year -20 +21 +51
Contract jobs citing Microservices 147 115 80
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.99% 5.32% 3.03%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.77% 6.06% 3.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 87 85 58
10th Percentile £400 £337 £419
25th Percentile £450 £391 £448
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £465 £525
Median % change year-on-year +13.98% -11.43% -4.55%
75th Percentile £640 £545 £655
90th Percentile £687 £624 £850
England median daily rate £545 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +3.81% -4.55% -13.39%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 4 2
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 -
90th Percentile - £78.38 -
England median hourly rate £77.50 £67.00 £49.19
% change year-on-year +15.67% +36.21% -32.15%

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 3,084 1,898 2,227
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 83.65% 87.87% 84.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,822 1,241 1,369
10th Percentile £298 £278 £300
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £450 £493
Median % change year-on-year +7.84% -8.72% -1.40%
75th Percentile £588 £570 £585
90th Percentile £675 £669 £675
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 292 121 239
10th Percentile £17.25 £13.50 £10.95
25th Percentile £25.38 £18.87 £15.50
Median hourly rate £55.72 £28.75 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +93.81% +6.48% -6.90%
75th Percentile £76.00 £59.90 £47.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £76.25 £68.78
England median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.50
% change year-on-year +86.88% -34.68% -9.41%

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 19 July 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 19 July 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 19 July 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 +5 129 £530 - 45
Cheshire -41 13 £492 +25.19% 9
Lancashire -11 2 £650 +8.33% 7
Merseyside -15 1 £575 +39.39% 2
Cumbria - 1 £357 -
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 4 (2.72%) Confluence
2 1 (0.68%) Adobe Experience Manager
2 1 (0.68%) Camunda
2 1 (0.68%) JBoss
2 1 (0.68%) Mule
2 1 (0.68%) Mule ESB
2 1 (0.68%) WebLogic
Cloud Services
1 81 (55.10%) AWS
2 50 (34.01%) Azure
3 23 (15.65%) GCP
4 22 (14.97%) GitHub
4 22 (14.97%) Serverless
5 13 (8.84%) AWS Lambda
5 13 (8.84%) GitHub Actions
6 10 (6.80%) Amazon SQS
7 7 (4.76%) Amazon ECS
7 7 (4.76%) Amazon EKS
7 7 (4.76%) Amazon EventBridge
8 5 (3.40%) Azure Service Bus
8 5 (3.40%) GitHub Copilot
9 4 (2.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 4 (2.72%) Anthropic Claude
9 4 (2.72%) Azure AKS
9 4 (2.72%) Google Gemini
10 3 (2.04%) Amazon EC2
10 3 (2.04%) Amazon S3
10 3 (2.04%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.36%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (17.69%) MongoDB
2 13 (8.84%) NoSQL
3 12 (8.16%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (6.80%) DynamoDB
5 9 (6.12%) SQL Server
6 8 (5.44%) Relational Database
7 7 (4.76%) MySQL
8 3 (2.04%) Amazon Aurora
8 3 (2.04%) DocumentDB
9 1 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 25 (17.01%) Git
2 18 (12.24%) Selenium
3 16 (10.88%) GitLab
4 14 (9.52%) Jenkins
5 11 (7.48%) Mockito
6 9 (6.12%) JIRA
6 9 (6.12%) JUnit
7 8 (5.44%) REST Assured
8 7 (4.76%) Cucumber
8 7 (4.76%) Postman
9 6 (4.08%) Gatling
10 5 (3.40%) Cypress.io
10 5 (3.40%) JMeter
10 5 (3.40%) Serenity BDD
10 5 (3.40%) SonarQube
11 4 (2.72%) Claude Code
11 4 (2.72%) Mocha
12 3 (2.04%) Sonatype Nexus
13 2 (1.36%) CircleCI
14 1 (0.68%) Robot Framework
General
1 41 (27.89%) Public Sector
2 29 (19.73%) Social Skills
3 22 (14.97%) Finance
4 11 (7.48%) Retail
5 9 (6.12%) Banking
6 6 (4.08%) Military
7 4 (2.72%) Analytical Skills
8 3 (2.04%) Retail Banking
9 2 (1.36%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.68%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.68%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 60 (40.82%) Developer
2 35 (23.81%) Java Developer
3 30 (20.41%) Architect
3 30 (20.41%) Lead
4 29 (19.73%) Senior
5 19 (12.93%) Software Engineer
6 16 (10.88%) Lead Developer
7 15 (10.20%) Solutions Architect
8 13 (8.84%) Senior Developer
9 12 (8.16%) Full-Stack Developer
9 12 (8.16%) Software Developer
10 10 (6.80%) Full-Stack Engineer
10 10 (6.80%) Senior Software Engineer
11 9 (6.12%) Test Engineer
12 8 (5.44%) Lead Java Developer
12 8 (5.44%) Principal Engineer
13 7 (4.76%) Backend Developer
14 6 (4.08%) AWS Engineer
14 6 (4.08%) Lead Test Engineer
15 5 (3.40%) Full-Stack Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (27.89%) React
1 41 (27.89%) Spring
2 37 (25.17%) Spring Boot
3 35 (23.81%) Node.js
4 30 (20.41%) Kafka
5 25 (17.01%) REST
6 22 (14.97%) AngularJS
7 20 (13.61%) RESTful
8 18 (12.24%) .NET
9 10 (6.80%) ActiveMQ
9 10 (6.80%) JAX-RS
9 10 (6.80%) Playwright
10 9 (6.12%) Nunjucks
11 7 (4.76%) HTML
11 7 (4.76%) Next.js
11 7 (4.76%) OAuth
11 7 (4.76%) RabbitMQ
11 7 (4.76%) Vue
12 6 (4.08%) CSS
12 6 (4.08%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 41 (27.89%) Cloud Native
2 15 (10.20%) Product Ownership
3 14 (9.52%) Distributed Systems
4 10 (6.80%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (4.08%) Onboarding
5 6 (4.08%) Public Cloud
6 5 (3.40%) Mobile App
7 4 (2.72%) Mainframe
7 4 (2.72%) Private Cloud
8 3 (2.04%) Culture of Ownership
8 3 (2.04%) Legacy Applications
9 2 (1.36%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (1.36%) Distributed Architecture
9 2 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (1.36%) Greenfield Project
9 2 (1.36%) Virtual Team
10 1 (0.68%) NHS
10 1 (0.68%) PMI
10 1 (0.68%) Replication
10 1 (0.68%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 17 (11.56%) Linux
2 12 (8.16%) Unix
3 8 (5.44%) Mac OS X
4 2 (1.36%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 80 (54.42%) Agile
2 77 (52.38%) CI/CD
3 64 (43.54%) DevOps
4 56 (38.10%) Test Automation
5 46 (31.29%) Event-Driven
6 36 (24.49%) Event-Driven Architecture
6 36 (24.49%) Software Engineering
7 33 (22.45%) TDD
8 32 (21.77%) Containerisation
9 30 (20.41%) Observability
10 29 (19.73%) Technical Leadership
11 28 (19.05%) Continuous Improvement
11 28 (19.05%) Full-Stack Development
11 28 (19.05%) Problem-Solving
12 25 (17.01%) Infrastructure as Code
12 25 (17.01%) Mentoring
13 24 (16.33%) BDD
14 19 (12.93%) Pair Programming
15 18 (12.24%) Architectural Patterns
16 17 (11.56%) API Development
Programming Languages
1 82 (55.78%) Java
2 25 (17.01%) TypeScript
3 23 (15.65%) JavaScript
4 14 (9.52%) SQL
5 13 (8.84%) C#
6 9 (6.12%) Python
7 7 (4.76%) Go
8 5 (3.40%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.68%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 34 (23.13%) Security Cleared
2 23 (15.65%) SC Cleared
3 13 (8.84%) BPSS Clearance
4 5 (3.40%) Degree
5 4 (2.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
5 4 (2.72%) Cisco Certification
5 4 (2.72%) CISSP
6 2 (1.36%) CCSP
6 2 (1.36%) CEH
6 2 (1.36%) CISM
6 2 (1.36%) GIAC
6 2 (1.36%) Microsoft Certified Professional
6 2 (1.36%) OSCP
6 2 (1.36%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.68%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.68%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.68%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (9.52%) Accessibility
2 13 (8.84%) QA
3 4 (2.72%) NIST
4 3 (2.04%) WCAG
5 2 (1.36%) COBIT
5 2 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (1.36%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.68%) GDPR
6 1 (0.68%) GRC
6 1 (0.68%) ISO 20022
6 1 (0.68%) PSD2
6 1 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.68%) SEPA
System Software
1 50 (34.01%) Docker
Systems Management
1 41 (27.89%) Kubernetes
2 26 (17.69%) Terraform
3 15 (10.20%) Grafana
4 12 (8.16%) Prometheus
5 3 (2.04%) Istio
6 2 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 10 (6.80%) Microsoft
2 9 (6.12%) Google
3 5 (3.40%) Splunk
4 3 (2.04%) Foundry
4 3 (2.04%) OpenAI
5 2 (1.36%) Databricks
5 2 (1.36%) MuleSoft
5 2 (1.36%) Oracle
5 2 (1.36%) PagerDuty
6 1 (0.68%) Adobe
6 1 (0.68%) Atlassian
6 1 (0.68%) SAP