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 29 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 34 44 51
Rank change year-on-year +10 +7 +8
Contract jobs citing Microservices 168 84 94
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.41% 4.25% 3.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.38% 4.68% 3.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 113 59 64
10th Percentile £353 £391 £417
25th Percentile £400 £405 £489
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -15.09% -3.64% +1.85%
75th Percentile £570 £588 £625
90th Percentile £650 £638 £850
England median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 5 5
10th Percentile £58.75 £62.64 -
25th Percentile £66.51 £67.50 -
Median hourly rate £76.00 £75.00 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year +1.33% +63.47% +31.09%
75th Percentile £95.00 £77.50 £48.43
90th Percentile - £78.25 -
England median hourly rate £74.63 £44.50 £48.43
% change year-on-year +67.71% -8.11% -32.03%

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 2,634 1,793 2,452
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 84.86% 90.69% 86.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,654 1,149 1,591
10th Percentile £227 £275 £313
25th Percentile £371 £390 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.21% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £572 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £656 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 238 114 258
10th Percentile £19.18 £16.61 £10.99
25th Percentile £25.15 £22.78 £13.50
Median hourly rate £45.46 £31.64 £23.86
Median % change year-on-year +43.68% +32.63% -36.22%
75th Percentile £71.13 £59.98 £45.00
90th Percentile £82.18 £80.04 £52.17
England median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year +10.77% -1.52% -12.00%

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 29 March 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 29 March 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 29 March 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 +16 118 £500 -6.98% 56
Cheshire +1 44 £402 +2.29% 9
Lancashire -20 4 £650 +10.64% 13
Merseyside -19 1 £450 +1.41% 7
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 (4.17%) Confluence
2 3 (1.79%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.60%) Apache
3 1 (0.60%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.60%) Camunda
3 1 (0.60%) JBoss
3 1 (0.60%) Tomcat
Business Applications
1 5 (2.98%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 108 (64.29%) AWS
2 50 (29.76%) Azure
3 36 (21.43%) Serverless
4 26 (15.48%) GCP
4 26 (15.48%) GitHub
5 22 (13.10%) AWS Lambda
6 15 (8.93%) Amazon SQS
6 15 (8.93%) GitHub Actions
7 13 (7.74%) Amazon EKS
8 12 (7.14%) Apigee
9 11 (6.55%) Amazon ECS
10 9 (5.36%) Amazon EventBridge
11 8 (4.76%) Kong
12 7 (4.17%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 6 (3.57%) Amazon S3
13 6 (3.57%) GitHub Copilot
14 5 (2.98%) AWS Step Functions
15 4 (2.38%) Amazon MSK
15 4 (2.38%) Azure AKS
15 4 (2.38%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.38%) HTTP
1 4 (2.38%) HTTPS
2 2 (1.19%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (13.69%) NoSQL
2 21 (12.50%) MongoDB
3 19 (11.31%) PostgreSQL
4 17 (10.12%) DynamoDB
5 13 (7.74%) DocumentDB
5 13 (7.74%) MySQL
6 8 (4.76%) Relational Database
7 5 (2.98%) Amazon Aurora
8 4 (2.38%) Redis
8 4 (2.38%) SQL Server
9 2 (1.19%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (1.19%) Hadoop
10 1 (0.60%) Apache Cassandra
10 1 (0.60%) Big Data
10 1 (0.60%) Data Warehouse
10 1 (0.60%) DataStage
Development Applications
1 35 (20.83%) Git
2 27 (16.07%) GitLab
3 15 (8.93%) Jenkins
4 13 (7.74%) JIRA
5 9 (5.36%) JUnit
5 9 (5.36%) Mockito
6 8 (4.76%) CircleCI
6 8 (4.76%) Cypress.io
6 8 (4.76%) Mocha
7 7 (4.17%) Postman
7 7 (4.17%) Selenium
8 5 (2.98%) SonarQube
9 4 (2.38%) JMeter
10 3 (1.79%) Jasmine
11 2 (1.19%) Gatling
11 2 (1.19%) REST Assured
11 2 (1.19%) Serenity BDD
12 1 (0.60%) Cucumber
12 1 (0.60%) Gradle
12 1 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 48 (28.57%) Public Sector
2 39 (23.21%) Finance
3 35 (20.83%) Social Skills
4 14 (8.33%) Banking
5 12 (7.14%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (2.38%) Retail
7 3 (1.79%) Billing
7 3 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (0.60%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.60%) Military
8 1 (0.60%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 80 (47.62%) Developer
2 44 (26.19%) Java Developer
3 31 (18.45%) Architect
4 30 (17.86%) Senior
5 20 (11.90%) Lead
6 17 (10.12%) Software Engineer
6 17 (10.12%) Solutions Architect
7 16 (9.52%) Full-Stack Developer
7 16 (9.52%) Senior Developer
8 13 (7.74%) Backend Developer
9 10 (5.95%) Full-Stack Engineer
10 9 (5.36%) Lead Developer
11 6 (3.57%) Analyst
11 6 (3.57%) Business Analyst
11 6 (3.57%) Mobile Developer
11 6 (3.57%) Node.js Developer
11 6 (3.57%) Senior Backend Developer
11 6 (3.57%) Senior Software Engineer
11 6 (3.57%) Technical Analyst
11 6 (3.57%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (42.26%) Spring
2 67 (39.88%) Spring Boot
3 42 (25.00%) React
4 36 (21.43%) REST
4 36 (21.43%) RESTful
5 34 (20.24%) Node.js
6 30 (17.86%) Kafka
7 26 (15.48%) AngularJS
8 24 (14.29%) OAuth
9 16 (9.52%) OAuth2
10 15 (8.93%) .NET
11 14 (8.33%) Jest
12 13 (7.74%) Hibernate
12 13 (7.74%) JWT
12 13 (7.74%) Playwright
13 12 (7.14%) JAX-RS
14 10 (5.95%) JSON
14 10 (5.95%) XML
15 8 (4.76%) ActiveMQ
15 8 (4.76%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 39 (23.21%) Cloud Native
2 28 (16.67%) Distributed Systems
3 14 (8.33%) Mobile App
4 12 (7.14%) Onboarding
4 12 (7.14%) Product Ownership
5 6 (3.57%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (2.38%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (1.19%) Greenfield Project
8 2 (1.19%) Mobile Banking
8 2 (1.19%) Virtual Team
9 1 (0.60%) Algorithms
9 1 (0.60%) Data Structures
9 1 (0.60%) Legacy Applications
9 1 (0.60%) NHS
9 1 (0.60%) Online Banking
9 1 (0.60%) PMI
9 1 (0.60%) Private Cloud
9 1 (0.60%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.60%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 13 (7.74%) Linux
2 12 (7.14%) Unix
3 8 (4.76%) Mac OS X
4 2 (1.19%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 87 (51.79%) Agile
2 78 (46.43%) CI/CD
3 65 (38.69%) DevOps
4 49 (29.17%) Test Automation
5 46 (27.38%) Problem-Solving
6 41 (24.40%) TDD
7 38 (22.62%) Event-Driven
8 37 (22.02%) Containerisation
9 33 (19.64%) Full-Stack Development
10 29 (17.26%) Event-Driven Architecture
11 28 (16.67%) Software Engineering
12 27 (16.07%) API Design
13 26 (15.48%) Mentoring
14 25 (14.88%) Continuous Improvement
15 21 (12.50%) API Development
15 21 (12.50%) Infrastructure as Code
15 21 (12.50%) Observability
16 20 (11.90%) BDD
17 18 (10.71%) Architectural Patterns
17 18 (10.71%) Integration Patterns
Programming Languages
1 104 (61.90%) Java
2 33 (19.64%) TypeScript
3 23 (13.69%) SQL
4 21 (12.50%) JavaScript
5 14 (8.33%) Kotlin
6 11 (6.55%) Python
7 9 (5.36%) C#
8 4 (2.38%) Go
9 2 (1.19%) Bash
9 2 (1.19%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.60%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.60%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 25 (14.88%) Security Cleared
2 20 (11.90%) BPSS Clearance
3 18 (10.71%) Degree
4 16 (9.52%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (5.95%) SC Cleared
6 4 (2.38%) AWS Certification
7 3 (1.79%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 3 (1.79%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 3 (1.79%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (1.79%) CISSP
8 2 (1.19%) GIAC
8 2 (1.19%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.60%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.60%) CCSP
9 1 (0.60%) CEH
9 1 (0.60%) CISM
9 1 (0.60%) OSCP
9 1 (0.60%) PMP
9 1 (0.60%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (7.74%) Accessibility
2 9 (5.36%) ISO 20022
2 9 (5.36%) QA
3 8 (4.76%) WCAG
4 6 (3.57%) PCI DSS
5 4 (2.38%) NIST
6 3 (1.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (1.19%) PSD2
8 1 (0.60%) COBIT
8 1 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.60%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.60%) GDPR
8 1 (0.60%) GRC
8 1 (0.60%) HL7
8 1 (0.60%) SEPA
System Software
1 56 (33.33%) Docker
2 3 (1.79%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 44 (26.19%) Kubernetes
2 27 (16.07%) Terraform
3 7 (4.17%) Grafana
4 6 (3.57%) Prometheus
5 2 (1.19%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.60%) Ansible
6 1 (0.60%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 11 (6.55%) Microsoft
2 9 (5.36%) Google
2 9 (5.36%) Splunk
3 8 (4.76%) MuleSoft
4 6 (3.57%) Oracle
5 5 (2.98%) Ping Identity
6 4 (2.38%) Virgin Media
7 3 (1.79%) Adobe
7 3 (1.79%) Guidewire
8 2 (1.19%) Atlassian
8 2 (1.19%) Databricks
8 2 (1.19%) Foundry
8 2 (1.19%) OpenAI
8 2 (1.19%) PagerDuty
9 1 (0.60%) Ab Initio
9 1 (0.60%) Informatica