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 14 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 39 54
Rank change year-on-year -1 +15 +43
Contract jobs citing Microservices 156 99 87
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.51% 4.95% 3.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.41% 5.53% 3.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 99 74 59
10th Percentile £380 £358 £406
25th Percentile £436 £393 £454
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £496 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.81% -9.82% -
75th Percentile £574 £555 £653
90th Percentile £650 £615 £850
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -15.38%
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 £77.50 £55.00 £47.16
% change year-on-year +40.91% +16.64% -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 2,885 1,790 2,362
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 83.33% 89.59% 84.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,725 1,184 1,443
10th Percentile £300 £305 £308
25th Percentile £400 £383 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £461 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.98% -7.75% -
75th Percentile £588 £553 £586
90th Percentile £675 £666 £675
England median daily rate £516 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -0.77% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 249 99 273
10th Percentile £17.13 £13.36 £11.00
25th Percentile £25.38 £19.53 £14.13
Median hourly rate £51.00 £31.76 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +60.58% +5.87% -1.77%
75th Percentile £76.00 £63.40 £46.18
90th Percentile £85.00 £83.63 £66.61
England median hourly rate £47.00 £27.53 £37.50
% change year-on-year +70.72% -26.59% +5.63%

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 14 June 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 14 June 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 14 June 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 +11 125 £525 -0.94% 51
Cheshire -27 25 £447 +13.74% 7
Lancashire -14 3 £650 +10.64% 19
Merseyside -14 1 £575 +39.39% 3
Cumbria - 1 £357 - 1
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 (3.21%) Confluence
2 2 (1.28%) JBoss
3 1 (0.64%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.64%) Apache
3 1 (0.64%) Camunda
3 1 (0.64%) Mule
3 1 (0.64%) Mule ESB
3 1 (0.64%) Tomcat
3 1 (0.64%) WebLogic
Cloud Services
1 89 (57.05%) AWS
2 51 (32.69%) Azure
3 24 (15.38%) GCP
3 24 (15.38%) Serverless
4 21 (13.46%) GitHub
5 12 (7.69%) AWS Lambda
5 12 (7.69%) GitHub Actions
6 9 (5.77%) Amazon EKS
7 8 (5.13%) Amazon SQS
8 6 (3.85%) Amazon EventBridge
9 5 (3.21%) Amazon ECS
9 5 (3.21%) Apigee
9 5 (3.21%) Azure Service Bus
9 5 (3.21%) Kong
10 4 (2.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 4 (2.56%) Azure AKS
10 4 (2.56%) IaaS
10 4 (2.56%) OpenShift
10 4 (2.56%) PaaS
11 3 (1.92%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.28%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (12.82%) MongoDB
2 18 (11.54%) NoSQL
3 17 (10.90%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (7.05%) DynamoDB
5 8 (5.13%) MySQL
5 8 (5.13%) Relational Database
6 7 (4.49%) SQL Server
7 5 (3.21%) DocumentDB
8 3 (1.92%) Amazon Aurora
9 1 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 25 (16.03%) Git
2 21 (13.46%) GitLab
3 18 (11.54%) Selenium
4 17 (10.90%) Jenkins
5 13 (8.33%) JUnit
6 11 (7.05%) JIRA
7 8 (5.13%) Cypress.io
7 8 (5.13%) Mockito
7 8 (5.13%) REST Assured
8 7 (4.49%) Cucumber
8 7 (4.49%) Mocha
8 7 (4.49%) Postman
9 6 (3.85%) Gatling
10 5 (3.21%) CircleCI
10 5 (3.21%) JMeter
10 5 (3.21%) Serenity BDD
10 5 (3.21%) SonarQube
11 4 (2.56%) Sonatype Nexus
12 1 (0.64%) Maven
12 1 (0.64%) Robot Framework
General
1 42 (26.92%) Public Sector
2 33 (21.15%) Social Skills
3 31 (19.87%) Finance
4 13 (8.33%) Banking
5 9 (5.77%) Analytical Skills
6 8 (5.13%) Retail
7 4 (2.56%) Military
8 3 (1.92%) Billing
8 3 (1.92%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (1.92%) Retail Banking
9 2 (1.28%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.64%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.64%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 61 (39.10%) Developer
2 36 (23.08%) Architect
3 34 (21.79%) Java Developer
4 29 (18.59%) Lead
5 26 (16.67%) Senior
6 19 (12.18%) Software Engineer
7 18 (11.54%) Solutions Architect
8 15 (9.62%) Lead Developer
9 14 (8.97%) Senior Developer
10 13 (8.33%) Full-Stack Developer
11 11 (7.05%) Software Developer
12 9 (5.77%) Backend Developer
12 9 (5.77%) Senior Software Engineer
12 9 (5.77%) Test Engineer
13 8 (5.13%) Full-Stack Engineer
13 8 (5.13%) Lead Java Developer
14 7 (4.49%) Full-Stack Java Developer
14 7 (4.49%) Principal Engineer
15 6 (3.85%) Lead Test Engineer
15 6 (3.85%) Senior Backend Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (32.05%) Spring
2 45 (28.85%) Spring Boot
3 42 (26.92%) React
4 31 (19.87%) Node.js
5 30 (19.23%) REST
6 28 (17.95%) Kafka
7 25 (16.03%) AngularJS
8 23 (14.74%) RESTful
9 17 (10.90%) .NET
10 13 (8.33%) Playwright
11 11 (7.05%) OAuth
12 10 (6.41%) Spring Cloud
13 9 (5.77%) Jest
13 9 (5.77%) Nunjucks
14 7 (4.49%) ActiveMQ
14 7 (4.49%) HTML
14 7 (4.49%) JAX-RS
14 7 (4.49%) RabbitMQ
14 7 (4.49%) Vue
15 6 (3.85%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 45 (28.85%) Cloud Native
2 18 (11.54%) Distributed Systems
3 16 (10.26%) Product Ownership
4 9 (5.77%) Mobile App
5 8 (5.13%) Legacy Systems
6 7 (4.49%) Onboarding
7 6 (3.85%) Public Cloud
8 4 (2.56%) Mainframe
8 4 (2.56%) Private Cloud
9 3 (1.92%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (1.92%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (1.92%) Legacy Applications
9 3 (1.92%) Virtual Team
10 2 (1.28%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
11 1 (0.64%) AI Agents
11 1 (0.64%) Low-Code
11 1 (0.64%) Marketing Technology
11 1 (0.64%) Mobile Banking
11 1 (0.64%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 14 (8.97%) Linux
2 10 (6.41%) Unix
3 7 (4.49%) Mac OS X
4 2 (1.28%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 81 (51.92%) Agile
2 80 (51.28%) CI/CD
3 67 (42.95%) DevOps
4 50 (32.05%) Test Automation
5 42 (26.92%) Event-Driven
6 34 (21.79%) Problem-Solving
6 34 (21.79%) Software Engineering
7 33 (21.15%) Event-Driven Architecture
8 32 (20.51%) Containerisation
9 29 (18.59%) Full-Stack Development
10 28 (17.95%) Observability
11 27 (17.31%) Continuous Improvement
12 26 (16.67%) Technical Leadership
13 25 (16.03%) TDD
14 22 (14.10%) Infrastructure as Code
15 21 (13.46%) Mentoring
16 20 (12.82%) API Design
16 20 (12.82%) Architectural Patterns
17 19 (12.18%) Integration Patterns
18 18 (11.54%) API Development
Programming Languages
1 91 (58.33%) Java
2 26 (16.67%) TypeScript
3 25 (16.03%) JavaScript
4 21 (13.46%) SQL
5 13 (8.33%) C#
6 10 (6.41%) Python
7 9 (5.77%) Kotlin
8 6 (3.85%) Go
9 1 (0.64%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.64%) Ruby
9 1 (0.64%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 28 (17.95%) Security Cleared
2 20 (12.82%) SC Cleared
3 17 (10.90%) BPSS Clearance
4 9 (5.77%) Degree
5 5 (3.21%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (2.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 4 (2.56%) AWS Certification
6 4 (2.56%) Cisco Certification
6 4 (2.56%) CISSP
7 3 (1.92%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 2 (1.28%) CCSP
8 2 (1.28%) CEH
8 2 (1.28%) CISM
8 2 (1.28%) GIAC
8 2 (1.28%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 2 (1.28%) OSCP
8 2 (1.28%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.64%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.64%) PMP
9 1 (0.64%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (10.90%) Accessibility
2 11 (7.05%) QA
3 6 (3.85%) WCAG
4 4 (2.56%) NIST
5 2 (1.28%) COBIT
5 2 (1.28%) GDPR
5 2 (1.28%) ISO 20022
5 2 (1.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (1.28%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.28%) PSD2
6 1 (0.64%) GRC
6 1 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.64%) SEPA
System Software
1 52 (33.33%) Docker
Systems Management
1 43 (27.56%) Kubernetes
2 23 (14.74%) Terraform
3 15 (9.62%) Grafana
4 12 (7.69%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.92%) Istio
6 2 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 13 (8.33%) Microsoft
2 8 (5.13%) Google
3 5 (3.21%) MuleSoft
3 5 (3.21%) Splunk
4 3 (1.92%) Foundry
4 3 (1.92%) Guidewire
4 3 (1.92%) OpenAI
4 3 (1.92%) Oracle
5 2 (1.28%) Atlassian
5 2 (1.28%) Databricks
5 2 (1.28%) PagerDuty
6 1 (0.64%) Adobe
6 1 (0.64%) SAP