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 20 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 41 66 71
Rank change year-on-year +25 +5 -38
Contract jobs citing Microservices 129 57 68
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.14% 2.65% 2.59%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.82% 3.06% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 95 36 48
10th Percentile £341 £405 £399
25th Percentile £385 £430 £480
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £435 £495 £550
Median % change year-on-year -12.12% -10.00% +0.92%
75th Percentile £546 £588 £625
90th Percentile £633 £626 £644
England median daily rate £525 £575 £583
% change year-on-year -8.70% -1.29% -3.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 2
10th Percentile - £61.70 £38.38
25th Percentile - £65.17 £39.63
Median hourly rate £74.26 £74.39 £43.10
Median % change year-on-year -0.18% +72.59% -
75th Percentile - £82.67 £45.19
90th Percentile - £85.57 £45.60
England median hourly rate £67.50 £40.08 £76.53
% change year-on-year +68.42% -47.63% +4.84%

All Process and 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 2,217 1,865 2,341
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 88.33% 86.58% 89.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,445 1,047 1,599
10th Percentile £213 £265 £300
25th Percentile £358 £389 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £565 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £656 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -3.81% -3.67% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 196 106 156
10th Percentile £16.43 £16.00 £15.88
25th Percentile £20.73 £21.10 £18.00
Median hourly rate £31.75 £31.25 £35.73
Median % change year-on-year +1.60% -12.53% +34.66%
75th Percentile £53.13 £51.91 £47.41
90th Percentile £69.72 £68.96 £65.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +23.61%

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 20 December 2025.

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 20 December 2025. 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 +25 81 £450 -18.18% 35
Cheshire +10 40 £390 -14.29% 4
Merseyside -3 7 £480 +1.05% 5
Lancashire -12 1 - - 15
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 7 (5.43%) Confluence
2 5 (3.88%) JBoss
3 3 (2.33%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 3 (2.33%) Tomcat
3 3 (2.33%) WebSphere
4 2 (1.55%) Mule
4 2 (1.55%) Mule ESB
5 1 (0.78%) Anypoint
5 1 (0.78%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.78%) nginx
5 1 (0.78%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.78%) WebLogic
Applications
1 1 (0.78%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 5 (3.88%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.78%) Finacle
Cloud Services
1 82 (63.57%) AWS
2 38 (29.46%) Azure
3 34 (26.36%) Serverless
4 30 (23.26%) GCP
5 28 (21.71%) AWS Lambda
6 22 (17.05%) Amazon SQS
7 21 (16.28%) GitHub
8 17 (13.18%) Amazon ECS
9 13 (10.08%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 13 (10.08%) Apigee
10 12 (9.30%) Amazon EventBridge
11 10 (7.75%) Amazon EC2
11 10 (7.75%) Datadog
11 10 (7.75%) SaaS
12 9 (6.98%) Amazon EKS
12 9 (6.98%) AWS Step Functions
12 9 (6.98%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (6.20%) AWS CloudFormation
13 8 (6.20%) OpenShift
14 7 (5.43%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (3.10%) HTTP
1 4 (3.10%) HTTPS
2 3 (2.33%) Firewall
2 3 (2.33%) SAN
3 1 (0.78%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.78%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (15.50%) NoSQL
2 18 (13.95%) PostgreSQL
3 17 (13.18%) DynamoDB
4 16 (12.40%) MongoDB
4 16 (12.40%) MySQL
5 14 (10.85%) Relational Database
6 12 (9.30%) Redis
7 10 (7.75%) Amazon Aurora
8 9 (6.98%) Amazon RDS
8 9 (6.98%) DocumentDB
9 8 (6.20%) RDBMS
10 5 (3.88%) BigQuery
11 4 (3.10%) Apache Cassandra
12 3 (2.33%) SQL Server
13 2 (1.55%) Elasticsearch
13 2 (1.55%) Hadoop
14 1 (0.78%) Big Data
14 1 (0.78%) Data Warehouse
14 1 (0.78%) DataStage
14 1 (0.78%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 34 (26.36%) Git
2 22 (17.05%) Jenkins
3 17 (13.18%) GitLab
3 17 (13.18%) SonarQube
4 14 (10.85%) JIRA
5 10 (7.75%) JUnit
6 8 (6.20%) Maven
6 8 (6.20%) Postman
6 8 (6.20%) Sonatype Nexus
7 7 (5.43%) Mockito
8 6 (4.65%) Gradle
9 5 (3.88%) Bitbucket
9 5 (3.88%) SonarLint
10 4 (3.10%) CircleCI
11 3 (2.33%) Cucumber
11 3 (2.33%) Cypress.io
11 3 (2.33%) Jasmine
11 3 (2.33%) Selenium
11 3 (2.33%) TeamCity
12 2 (1.55%) Mocha
General
1 37 (28.68%) Public Sector
2 35 (27.13%) Social Skills
3 33 (25.58%) Finance
4 20 (15.50%) Banking
5 12 (9.30%) Analytical Skills
6 2 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (1.55%) Military
6 2 (1.55%) Retail
7 1 (0.78%) Automotive
7 1 (0.78%) Digital Healthcare
7 1 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (0.78%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (0.78%) Wholesale Banking
Job Titles
1 54 (41.86%) Developer
2 30 (23.26%) Java Developer
3 26 (20.16%) Architect
4 22 (17.05%) Senior
5 17 (13.18%) Software Engineer
6 13 (10.08%) Solutions Architect
7 12 (9.30%) Lead
8 11 (8.53%) Full-Stack Developer
9 10 (7.75%) Senior Developer
10 9 (6.98%) Java Architect
10 9 (6.98%) Technical Architect
11 8 (6.20%) Java Technical Architect
11 8 (6.20%) Senior Java Developer
12 6 (4.65%) AWS Engineer
12 6 (4.65%) Backend Developer
12 6 (4.65%) Cloud Engineer
13 5 (3.88%) Analyst
13 5 (3.88%) Business Analyst
13 5 (3.88%) DevOps Engineer
13 5 (3.88%) Lead Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (48.06%) Spring Boot
2 53 (41.09%) Spring
3 34 (26.36%) RESTful
4 33 (25.58%) React
5 30 (23.26%) Kafka
6 27 (20.93%) Node.js
7 20 (15.50%) AngularJS
8 17 (13.18%) REST
9 15 (11.63%) Hibernate
9 15 (11.63%) JSON
9 15 (11.63%) OAuth
10 14 (10.85%) JWT
11 12 (9.30%) OAuth2
12 10 (7.75%) .NET
12 10 (7.75%) XML
13 9 (6.98%) JAX-RS
13 9 (6.98%) Jest
14 8 (6.20%) J2EE
14 8 (6.20%) NestJS
15 7 (5.43%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 20 (15.50%) Cloud Native
2 18 (13.95%) Distributed Systems
3 12 (9.30%) Onboarding
3 12 (9.30%) Product Ownership
4 8 (6.20%) Data Protection Act
5 6 (4.65%) Mobile App
5 6 (4.65%) N-Tier
6 3 (2.33%) Greenfield Project
6 3 (2.33%) Legacy Applications
6 3 (2.33%) Private Cloud
7 2 (1.55%) Algorithms
7 2 (1.55%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (0.78%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (0.78%) Mobile Banking
8 1 (0.78%) NHS
8 1 (0.78%) PKI
8 1 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (0.78%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 1 (0.78%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 16 (12.40%) Linux
2 10 (7.75%) Unix
3 7 (5.43%) Windows
4 6 (4.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (2.33%) Windows Server
6 2 (1.55%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (48.84%) CI/CD
2 61 (47.29%) Agile
3 48 (37.21%) DevOps
4 46 (35.66%) Containerisation
5 37 (28.68%) Problem-Solving
6 36 (27.91%) TDD
7 26 (20.16%) API Design
7 26 (20.16%) Software Engineering
8 25 (19.38%) Full-Stack Development
8 25 (19.38%) Test Automation
9 22 (17.05%) Event-Driven
9 22 (17.05%) Mentoring
10 20 (15.50%) Design Patterns
11 18 (13.95%) BDD
11 18 (13.95%) Stakeholder Management
12 17 (13.18%) API Development
12 17 (13.18%) SDLC
13 16 (12.40%) Event-Driven Architecture
13 16 (12.40%) MVC
14 14 (10.85%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 85 (65.89%) Java
2 24 (18.60%) SQL
3 22 (17.05%) Python
4 16 (12.40%) TypeScript
5 14 (10.85%) JavaScript
6 6 (4.65%) Bash
6 6 (4.65%) C#
7 5 (3.88%) Kotlin
7 5 (3.88%) Perl
8 3 (2.33%) PL/SQL
8 3 (2.33%) PowerShell
9 2 (1.55%) PHP
9 2 (1.55%) Ruby
9 2 (1.55%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.78%) Go
Qualifications
1 21 (16.28%) Security Cleared
2 16 (12.40%) Degree
3 14 (10.85%) Computer Science Degree
4 10 (7.75%) BPSS Clearance
5 6 (4.65%) AWS Certification
6 5 (3.88%) SC Cleared
7 3 (2.33%) TOGAF Certification
8 2 (1.55%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.55%) CBAP
8 2 (1.55%) CSPO
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (7.75%) ISO 20022
2 7 (5.43%) Accessibility
2 7 (5.43%) PCI DSS
3 3 (2.33%) GDPR
3 3 (2.33%) QA
3 3 (2.33%) WCAG
4 1 (0.78%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.78%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.78%) HL7
4 1 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.78%) NIST
4 1 (0.78%) PSD2
4 1 (0.78%) SEPA
System Software
1 54 (41.86%) Docker
2 4 (3.10%) Active Directory
3 3 (2.33%) ISA Server
4 2 (1.55%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 46 (35.66%) Kubernetes
2 24 (18.60%) Terraform
3 3 (2.33%) Kibana
3 3 (2.33%) Progress Chef
3 3 (2.33%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.78%) Ansible
4 1 (0.78%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 13 (10.08%) Oracle
1 13 (10.08%) Splunk
2 9 (6.98%) Google
3 6 (4.65%) AppDynamics
3 6 (4.65%) Gigya
3 6 (4.65%) Red Hat
4 5 (3.88%) IBM
4 5 (3.88%) Ping Identity
4 5 (3.88%) Virgin Media
5 4 (3.10%) Dynatrace
5 4 (3.10%) Microsoft
5 4 (3.10%) MuleSoft
6 3 (2.33%) Adobe
6 3 (2.33%) Citrix
6 3 (2.33%) Cloudera
6 3 (2.33%) F5
6 3 (2.33%) HP
6 3 (2.33%) VMware
7 2 (1.55%) IBM Sterling
7 2 (1.55%) Veracode