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 21 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 45 68 86
Rank change year-on-year +23 +18 -56
Contract jobs citing Microservices 118 56 61
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.82% 2.40% 2.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.46% 2.85% 2.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 91 35 45
10th Percentile £334 £428 £386
25th Percentile £369 £455 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £435 £508 £550
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% -7.73% -
75th Percentile £563 £581 £625
90th Percentile £650 £633 £688
England median daily rate £525 £575 £600
% change year-on-year -8.70% -4.17% -
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 £67.00 £46.83 £75.77
% change year-on-year +43.08% -38.19% +4.14%

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 2,160 1,962 2,425
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 88.24% 84.06% 88.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,427 1,061 1,660
10th Percentile £213 £294 £270
25th Percentile £358 £390 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +1.01%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £598
90th Percentile £675 £650 £675
England median daily rate £505 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -3.81% -3.67% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 190 114 159
10th Percentile £15.18 £16.33 £16.00
25th Percentile £19.07 £24.18 £18.00
Median hourly rate £29.60 £35.36 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.29% +1.03% +55.56%
75th Percentile £46.71 £51.91 £46.18
90th Percentile £70.29 £70.90 £64.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £37.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -32.03% -16.85% +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 21 November 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 21 November 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 +20 63 £525 -4.55% 97
Cheshire +3 48 £402 -12.13% 14
Merseyside 0 6 £510 +7.37% 7
Lancashire -10 1 - - 47
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 11 (9.32%) JBoss
2 9 (7.63%) Confluence
3 8 (6.78%) Tomcat
4 3 (2.54%) WebSphere
5 2 (1.69%) Mule
5 2 (1.69%) Mule ESB
6 1 (0.85%) Anypoint
6 1 (0.85%) nginx
6 1 (0.85%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.85%) WebLogic
Applications
1 1 (0.85%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 5 (4.24%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.85%) Finacle
Cloud Services
1 74 (62.71%) AWS
2 32 (27.12%) Azure
3 28 (23.73%) Serverless
4 26 (22.03%) GCP
5 25 (21.19%) AWS Lambda
6 22 (18.64%) GitHub
7 20 (16.95%) Amazon SQS
8 17 (14.41%) Amazon ECS
9 14 (11.86%) OpenShift
10 12 (10.17%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 12 (10.17%) Amazon EventBridge
10 12 (10.17%) Apigee
11 10 (8.47%) Amazon EC2
11 10 (8.47%) Datadog
11 10 (8.47%) SaaS
12 9 (7.63%) Amazon EKS
13 8 (6.78%) AWS CloudFormation
14 7 (5.93%) GitHub Actions
14 7 (5.93%) PaaS
15 6 (5.08%) Amazon MSK
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.54%) Firewall
1 3 (2.54%) HTTP
1 3 (2.54%) HTTPS
1 3 (2.54%) SAN
2 2 (1.69%) X.509
3 1 (0.85%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (14.41%) MongoDB
2 16 (13.56%) NoSQL
2 16 (13.56%) PostgreSQL
3 14 (11.86%) DynamoDB
3 14 (11.86%) MySQL
4 13 (11.02%) Relational Database
5 10 (8.47%) Amazon Aurora
5 10 (8.47%) Redis
6 9 (7.63%) Amazon RDS
6 9 (7.63%) RDBMS
7 7 (5.93%) DocumentDB
8 5 (4.24%) BigQuery
9 4 (3.39%) Apache Cassandra
9 4 (3.39%) SQL Server
10 3 (2.54%) Elasticsearch
11 1 (0.85%) Hadoop
11 1 (0.85%) Oracle Database
11 1 (0.85%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 37 (31.36%) Git
2 34 (28.81%) Jenkins
3 26 (22.03%) JIRA
4 20 (16.95%) JUnit
5 18 (15.25%) GitLab
6 17 (14.41%) SonarQube
7 15 (12.71%) Sonatype Nexus
8 14 (11.86%) Maven
9 11 (9.32%) Gradle
10 10 (8.47%) Cucumber
11 8 (6.78%) Mockito
12 7 (5.93%) Postman
13 6 (5.08%) Bitbucket
14 5 (4.24%) SonarLint
15 4 (3.39%) Selenium
15 4 (3.39%) TeamCity
16 3 (2.54%) Bitbucket Server
16 3 (2.54%) CA Release Automation
17 2 (1.69%) Artifactory
17 2 (1.69%) SpecFlow
General
1 33 (27.97%) Social Skills
2 27 (22.88%) Public Sector
3 26 (22.03%) Finance
4 21 (17.80%) Banking
5 16 (13.56%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (3.39%) Military
7 2 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (1.69%) Retail
8 1 (0.85%) Automotive
8 1 (0.85%) Digital Healthcare
8 1 (0.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.85%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.85%) Wholesale Banking
Job Titles
1 47 (39.83%) Developer
2 33 (27.97%) Java Developer
3 24 (20.34%) Architect
4 18 (15.25%) Senior
4 18 (15.25%) Software Engineer
5 14 (11.86%) Lead
6 11 (9.32%) Solutions Architect
7 9 (7.63%) Java Architect
7 9 (7.63%) Technical Architect
8 8 (6.78%) Java Technical Architect
8 8 (6.78%) Senior Developer
9 7 (5.93%) Lead Software Engineer
9 7 (5.93%) Senior Java Developer
10 6 (5.08%) AWS Developer
10 6 (5.08%) AWS Engineer
10 6 (5.08%) Cloud Engineer
11 5 (4.24%) Analyst
11 5 (4.24%) Business Analyst
12 4 (3.39%) Infrastructure Architect
12 4 (3.39%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 59 (50.00%) Spring Boot
2 47 (39.83%) Spring
3 36 (30.51%) Kafka
4 34 (28.81%) RESTful
5 28 (23.73%) React
6 25 (21.19%) REST
7 18 (15.25%) Node.js
8 14 (11.86%) JSON
9 13 (11.02%) JWT
10 12 (10.17%) AngularJS
11 11 (9.32%) Hibernate
12 10 (8.47%) SOAP
13 9 (7.63%) .NET
13 9 (7.63%) OAuth
13 9 (7.63%) XML
14 8 (6.78%) J2EE
14 8 (6.78%) JAX-RS
15 6 (5.08%) ActiveMQ
15 6 (5.08%) OAuth2
15 6 (5.08%) Spring Security
Miscellaneous
1 19 (16.10%) Cloud Native
2 18 (15.25%) Distributed Systems
3 9 (7.63%) Product Ownership
4 7 (5.93%) Onboarding
5 6 (5.08%) Data Protection Act
5 6 (5.08%) N-Tier
6 3 (2.54%) Greenfield Project
6 3 (2.54%) Legacy Applications
6 3 (2.54%) Private Cloud
7 2 (1.69%) Algorithms
7 2 (1.69%) Data Structures
7 2 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (1.69%) PKI
8 1 (0.85%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.85%) Low-Code
8 1 (0.85%) Mobile App
8 1 (0.85%) Mobile Banking
8 1 (0.85%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 1 (0.85%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 22 (18.64%) Linux
2 14 (11.86%) Unix
3 8 (6.78%) Windows
4 7 (5.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (2.54%) Windows Server
6 2 (1.69%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (49.15%) Agile
2 57 (48.31%) CI/CD
3 39 (33.05%) Containerisation
3 39 (33.05%) DevOps
4 35 (29.66%) TDD
5 33 (27.97%) Problem-Solving
6 27 (22.88%) Software Engineering
7 22 (18.64%) Mentoring
8 20 (16.95%) API Development
9 19 (16.10%) Design Patterns
9 19 (16.10%) Stakeholder Management
10 17 (14.41%) Event-Driven
11 16 (13.56%) API Design
12 15 (12.71%) AI
12 15 (12.71%) BDD
12 15 (12.71%) SDLC
12 15 (12.71%) Technical Leadership
12 15 (12.71%) Test Automation
13 14 (11.86%) Architectural Patterns
13 14 (11.86%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 79 (66.95%) Java
2 30 (25.42%) SQL
3 26 (22.03%) Python
4 8 (6.78%) JavaScript
4 8 (6.78%) TypeScript
5 6 (5.08%) Bash
5 6 (5.08%) C#
5 6 (5.08%) Perl
5 6 (5.08%) Shell Script
6 3 (2.54%) PL/SQL
6 3 (2.54%) PowerShell
7 2 (1.69%) PHP
7 2 (1.69%) Ruby
8 1 (0.85%) Go
Qualifications
1 16 (13.56%) Security Cleared
2 13 (11.02%) Degree
3 11 (9.32%) BPSS Clearance
3 11 (9.32%) Computer Science Degree
4 5 (4.24%) AWS Certification
5 4 (3.39%) SC Cleared
6 2 (1.69%) CBAP
6 2 (1.69%) CSPO
6 2 (1.69%) TOGAF Certification
7 1 (0.85%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (7.63%) ISO 20022
1 9 (7.63%) QA
2 7 (5.93%) PCI DSS
3 4 (3.39%) Accessibility
4 2 (1.69%) GDPR
5 1 (0.85%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.85%) NIST
5 1 (0.85%) SEPA
System Software
1 49 (41.53%) Docker
2 5 (4.24%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.69%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 44 (37.29%) Kubernetes
2 23 (19.49%) Terraform
3 4 (3.39%) Kibana
3 4 (3.39%) Progress Chef
4 3 (2.54%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.85%) Ansible
Vendors
1 16 (13.56%) Oracle
2 10 (8.47%) Splunk
3 9 (7.63%) Microsoft
4 8 (6.78%) Google
5 7 (5.93%) AppDynamics
5 7 (5.93%) Red Hat
6 6 (5.08%) Gigya
7 5 (4.24%) IBM
7 5 (4.24%) Ping Identity
8 4 (3.39%) Cloudera
8 4 (3.39%) Dynatrace
8 4 (3.39%) MuleSoft
9 3 (2.54%) Citrix
9 3 (2.54%) F5
9 3 (2.54%) HP
9 3 (2.54%) Veracode
9 3 (2.54%) Virgin Media
9 3 (2.54%) VMware
10 2 (1.69%) Atlassian
10 2 (1.69%) IBM Sterling