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 8 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 68 61
Rank change year-on-year +28 -7 -30
Contract jobs citing Microservices 126 55 78
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.05% 2.62% 2.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.76% 3.00% 3.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 93 35 53
10th Percentile £353 £405 £408
25th Percentile £400 £431 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -9.09% +4.76%
75th Percentile £538 £588 £625
90th Percentile £620 £626 -
England median daily rate £525 £575 £580
% change year-on-year -8.70% -0.86% -5.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 4
10th Percentile - £61.70 £40.05
25th Percentile - £65.17 £43.80
Median hourly rate £74.26 £74.39 £47.16
Median % change year-on-year -0.18% +57.76% -
75th Percentile - £82.67 £48.43
90th Percentile - £85.57 -
England median hourly rate £68.00 £39.00 £62.48
% change year-on-year +74.36% -37.58% -14.99%

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 2,189 1,835 2,303
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 87.77% 87.26% 87.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,423 1,046 1,570
10th Percentile £213 £270 £306
25th Percentile £358 £390 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +0.76%
75th Percentile £550 £571 £600
90th Percentile £650 £656 £676
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 192 94 151
10th Percentile £16.58 £16.00 £16.25
25th Percentile £21.60 £21.05 £18.70
Median hourly rate £41.68 £29.62 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.74% -25.96% +14.29%
75th Percentile £56.89 £46.18 £46.91
90th Percentile £69.94 £69.28 £65.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +27.14%

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 8 January 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
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 8 January 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 +28 81 £450 -18.18% 47
Cheshire +3 38 £402 -12.61% 17
Merseyside -7 6 £480 +1.05% 9
Lancashire -16 1 - - 16
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 (3.97%) Confluence
2 3 (2.38%) Adobe Experience Manager
2 3 (2.38%) Tomcat
3 2 (1.59%) JBoss
3 2 (1.59%) Mule
3 2 (1.59%) Mule ESB
4 1 (0.79%) Anypoint
4 1 (0.79%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.79%) nginx
4 1 (0.79%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.79%) WebLogic
Business Applications
1 5 (3.97%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.79%) Finacle
Cloud Services
1 86 (68.25%) AWS
2 34 (26.98%) Azure
3 33 (26.19%) Serverless
4 28 (22.22%) AWS Lambda
5 27 (21.43%) GCP
6 22 (17.46%) Amazon SQS
6 22 (17.46%) GitHub
7 17 (13.49%) Amazon ECS
8 16 (12.70%) Apigee
9 13 (10.32%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 12 (9.52%) Amazon EventBridge
11 10 (7.94%) Amazon EC2
11 10 (7.94%) Datadog
11 10 (7.94%) GitHub Actions
12 9 (7.14%) Amazon EKS
12 9 (7.14%) AWS Step Functions
12 9 (7.14%) Kong
13 8 (6.35%) AWS CloudFormation
14 6 (4.76%) Amazon MSK
14 6 (4.76%) AWS Fargate
Communications & Networking
1 4 (3.17%) HTTP
1 4 (3.17%) HTTPS
2 3 (2.38%) Firewall
3 1 (0.79%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.79%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (18.25%) NoSQL
2 20 (15.87%) PostgreSQL
3 17 (13.49%) DynamoDB
3 17 (13.49%) MySQL
4 14 (11.11%) MongoDB
5 12 (9.52%) Redis
6 11 (8.73%) Relational Database
7 10 (7.94%) Amazon Aurora
8 9 (7.14%) Amazon RDS
8 9 (7.14%) DocumentDB
9 5 (3.97%) BigQuery
9 5 (3.97%) RDBMS
10 4 (3.17%) Apache Cassandra
11 2 (1.59%) Hadoop
12 1 (0.79%) Big Data
12 1 (0.79%) Data Warehouse
12 1 (0.79%) DataStage
12 1 (0.79%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 32 (25.40%) Git
2 19 (15.08%) Jenkins
3 16 (12.70%) GitLab
4 12 (9.52%) SonarQube
5 10 (7.94%) JIRA
6 9 (7.14%) JUnit
7 8 (6.35%) Postman
8 6 (4.76%) Gradle
8 6 (4.76%) Maven
9 5 (3.97%) CircleCI
9 5 (3.97%) Mockito
9 5 (3.97%) SonarLint
10 4 (3.17%) Cypress.io
11 3 (2.38%) Jasmine
11 3 (2.38%) Mocha
11 3 (2.38%) Sonatype Nexus
12 2 (1.59%) Bitbucket
12 2 (1.59%) Cucumber
13 1 (0.79%) Selenium
13 1 (0.79%) SpecFlow
General
1 37 (29.37%) Public Sector
2 34 (26.98%) Finance
3 33 (26.19%) Social Skills
4 15 (11.90%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (11.90%) Banking
5 2 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (0.79%) Digital Healthcare
6 1 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (0.79%) Manufacturing
6 1 (0.79%) Military
6 1 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (0.79%) Retail
6 1 (0.79%) Wholesale Banking
Job Titles
1 56 (44.44%) Developer
2 31 (24.60%) Java Developer
3 24 (19.05%) Senior
4 22 (17.46%) Architect
5 15 (11.90%) Software Engineer
6 12 (9.52%) Senior Developer
6 12 (9.52%) Solutions Architect
7 11 (8.73%) Full-Stack Developer
7 11 (8.73%) Lead
8 9 (7.14%) Java Architect
8 9 (7.14%) Technical Architect
9 8 (6.35%) Analyst
9 8 (6.35%) Backend Developer
9 8 (6.35%) Business Analyst
9 8 (6.35%) Java Technical Architect
9 8 (6.35%) Senior Java Developer
10 6 (4.76%) Cloud Engineer
10 6 (4.76%) Technical Analyst
10 6 (4.76%) Technical Business Analyst
11 5 (3.97%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (49.21%) Spring Boot
2 58 (46.03%) Spring
3 35 (27.78%) RESTful
4 31 (24.60%) React
5 29 (23.02%) Kafka
6 23 (18.25%) Node.js
7 22 (17.46%) REST
8 20 (15.87%) AngularJS
9 18 (14.29%) OAuth
10 17 (13.49%) JSON
10 17 (13.49%) JWT
11 13 (10.32%) Hibernate
11 13 (10.32%) XML
12 12 (9.52%) OAuth2
13 10 (7.94%) .NET
14 9 (7.14%) JAX-RS
15 8 (6.35%) J2EE
15 8 (6.35%) NestJS
15 8 (6.35%) Playwright
15 8 (6.35%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 23 (18.25%) Cloud Native
2 19 (15.08%) Distributed Systems
3 13 (10.32%) Onboarding
4 12 (9.52%) Product Ownership
5 7 (5.56%) Data Protection Act
5 7 (5.56%) Mobile App
6 6 (4.76%) N-Tier
7 2 (1.59%) Algorithms
7 2 (1.59%) Data Structures
7 2 (1.59%) Greenfield Project
8 1 (0.79%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (0.79%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.79%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (0.79%) Mobile Banking
8 1 (0.79%) NHS
8 1 (0.79%) PKI
8 1 (0.79%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (0.79%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 10 (7.94%) Linux
2 6 (4.76%) Unix
3 3 (2.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (1.59%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (49.21%) CI/CD
2 59 (46.83%) Agile
3 48 (38.10%) DevOps
4 42 (33.33%) Containerisation
5 40 (31.75%) Problem-Solving
6 35 (27.78%) TDD
7 27 (21.43%) API Design
8 25 (19.84%) Full-Stack Development
8 25 (19.84%) Software Engineering
9 24 (19.05%) Test Automation
10 22 (17.46%) Mentoring
11 21 (16.67%) Event-Driven
12 20 (15.87%) Design Patterns
13 19 (15.08%) BDD
14 18 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
15 17 (13.49%) API Development
15 17 (13.49%) Computer Science
15 17 (13.49%) SDLC
16 16 (12.70%) Event-Driven Architecture
16 16 (12.70%) MVC
Programming Languages
1 87 (69.05%) Java
2 25 (19.84%) SQL
3 18 (14.29%) Python
4 15 (11.90%) TypeScript
5 11 (8.73%) JavaScript
6 7 (5.56%) Kotlin
7 6 (4.76%) Bash
7 6 (4.76%) C#
8 3 (2.38%) PL/SQL
8 3 (2.38%) PowerShell
9 2 (1.59%) Perl
9 2 (1.59%) PHP
9 2 (1.59%) Ruby
9 2 (1.59%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.79%) Go
Qualifications
1 20 (15.87%) Security Cleared
2 19 (15.08%) Degree
3 17 (13.49%) Computer Science Degree
4 13 (10.32%) BPSS Clearance
5 6 (4.76%) AWS Certification
6 5 (3.97%) SC Cleared
7 3 (2.38%) TOGAF Certification
8 2 (1.59%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.59%) CBAP
8 2 (1.59%) CSPO
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (7.94%) ISO 20022
2 8 (6.35%) Accessibility
3 7 (5.56%) PCI DSS
4 4 (3.17%) QA
4 4 (3.17%) WCAG
5 3 (2.38%) GDPR
6 1 (0.79%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.79%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.79%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.79%) HL7
6 1 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.79%) NIST
6 1 (0.79%) PSD2
6 1 (0.79%) SEPA
System Software
1 53 (42.06%) Docker
2 3 (2.38%) ISA Server
3 2 (1.59%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 46 (36.51%) Kubernetes
2 24 (19.05%) Terraform
3 3 (2.38%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.79%) Ansible
4 1 (0.79%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 10 (7.94%) Oracle
1 10 (7.94%) Splunk
2 9 (7.14%) Google
3 7 (5.56%) MuleSoft
4 6 (4.76%) Gigya
5 5 (3.97%) Ping Identity
5 5 (3.97%) Virgin Media
6 4 (3.17%) Dynatrace
7 3 (2.38%) Adobe
7 3 (2.38%) AppDynamics
7 3 (2.38%) Microsoft
7 3 (2.38%) Red Hat
8 2 (1.59%) IBM
8 2 (1.59%) IBM Sterling
9 1 (0.79%) Ab Initio
9 1 (0.79%) Atlassian
9 1 (0.79%) Informatica
9 1 (0.79%) Pega
9 1 (0.79%) Salesforce