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 28 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 69 37 59
Rank change year-on-year -32 +22 +45
Contract jobs citing Microservices 129 112 64
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.32% 5.17% 2.67%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.03% 5.84% 3.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 74 83 43
10th Percentile £419 £334 £425
25th Percentile £463 £385 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £435 £550
Median % change year-on-year +20.69% -20.91% +12.82%
75th Percentile £575 £539 £603
90th Percentile £650 £664 £710
England median daily rate £533 £530 £563
% change year-on-year +0.47% -5.86% -6.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £62.50 - £82.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 - £85.00
75th Percentile £67.50 - £87.50
90th Percentile £71.30 - -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £67.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year -2.99% +61.45% -44.67%

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 3,200 1,918 2,001
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 82.33% 88.55% 83.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,820 1,274 1,111
10th Percentile £295 £270 £294
25th Percentile £403 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £453 £489
Median % change year-on-year +10.38% -7.36% -2.20%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £579
90th Percentile £675 £680 £675
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 342 134 109
10th Percentile £14.90 £13.61 £16.45
25th Percentile £21.60 £17.30 £29.50
Median hourly rate £45.97 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +82.78% -40.83% +21.43%
75th Percentile £71.50 £47.12 £62.50
90th Percentile £82.93 £66.58 £73.75
England median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +63.02% -41.51% -3.37%

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 28 September 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 28 September 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 -6 106 £525 +5.00% 116
Cheshire -28 16 £500 +19.05% 11
Merseyside -16 4 £575 +12.75% 4
Cumbria - 1 £357 - 3
Lancashire - 1 £538 - 13
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 8 (6.20%) Confluence
2 5 (3.88%) Camunda
3 1 (0.78%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.78%) JBoss
3 1 (0.78%) Mule
3 1 (0.78%) Mule ESB
3 1 (0.78%) nginx
3 1 (0.78%) WebLogic
Cloud Services
1 75 (58.14%) AWS
2 31 (24.03%) Azure
3 21 (16.28%) GCP
4 16 (12.40%) GitHub
4 16 (12.40%) Serverless
5 12 (9.30%) GitHub Actions
6 9 (6.98%) AWS Lambda
7 8 (6.20%) Amazon ECS
7 8 (6.20%) Amazon SQS
8 7 (5.43%) Amazon EKS
8 7 (5.43%) OpenShift
9 6 (4.65%) Anthropic Claude
9 6 (4.65%) GitHub Copilot
9 6 (4.65%) Google Gemini
10 4 (3.10%) Azure AKS
11 3 (2.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 3 (2.33%) Amazon EventBridge
11 3 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
11 3 (2.33%) Azure Functions
11 3 (2.33%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.33%) HTTP
2 1 (0.78%) Firewall
2 1 (0.78%) Network Security
2 1 (0.78%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (10.85%) MongoDB
2 13 (10.08%) NoSQL
3 12 (9.30%) SQL Server
4 9 (6.98%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (5.43%) DynamoDB
5 7 (5.43%) Relational Database
6 5 (3.88%) MySQL
7 2 (1.55%) Amazon Aurora
8 1 (0.78%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 20 (15.50%) Git
2 15 (11.63%) Jenkins
2 15 (11.63%) JUnit
3 14 (10.85%) Mockito
3 14 (10.85%) Selenium
4 13 (10.08%) GitLab
5 12 (9.30%) REST Assured
6 11 (8.53%) Cucumber
7 9 (6.98%) JIRA
7 9 (6.98%) SonarQube
8 7 (5.43%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (4.65%) Claude Code
9 6 (4.65%) Maven
10 5 (3.88%) Gradle
11 4 (3.10%) Bitbucket Server
11 4 (3.10%) Gatling
11 4 (3.10%) Postman
12 3 (2.33%) Serenity BDD
13 2 (1.55%) Cypress.io
14 1 (0.78%) TestNG
General
1 31 (24.03%) Finance
2 28 (21.71%) Social Skills
3 24 (18.60%) Public Sector
4 14 (10.85%) Banking
5 12 (9.30%) Retail
6 9 (6.98%) Military
7 4 (3.10%) Analytical Skills
8 3 (2.33%) Retail Banking
9 2 (1.55%) iGaming
9 2 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.78%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.78%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.78%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 40 (31.01%) Developer
2 28 (21.71%) Senior
3 26 (20.16%) Architect
4 25 (19.38%) Software Engineer
5 21 (16.28%) Java Developer
6 20 (15.50%) Lead
7 15 (11.63%) Java Engineer
8 13 (10.08%) Solutions Architect
9 12 (9.30%) AWS Engineer
9 12 (9.30%) Full-Stack Developer
10 11 (8.53%) Java Software Engineer
11 10 (7.75%) Lead Developer
12 9 (6.98%) AWS Software Engineer
12 9 (6.98%) Senior Developer
12 9 (6.98%) Senior Software Engineer
13 7 (5.43%) Principal Engineer
13 7 (5.43%) Software Developer
13 7 (5.43%) Test Engineer
14 6 (4.65%) Engineering Specialist
14 6 (4.65%) Senior Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (34.88%) Spring Boot
2 42 (32.56%) Spring
3 34 (26.36%) REST
4 30 (23.26%) Kafka
5 28 (21.71%) React
6 27 (20.93%) Node.js
7 16 (12.40%) Terraform
8 14 (10.85%) RESTful
9 12 (9.30%) AngularJS
10 11 (8.53%) .NET
11 9 (6.98%) Next.js
12 8 (6.20%) HTML
13 7 (5.43%) CSS
13 7 (5.43%) Nunjucks
14 6 (4.65%) Playwright
15 5 (3.88%) ActiveMQ
15 5 (3.88%) JAX-RS
15 5 (3.88%) JPA
16 4 (3.10%) Hibernate
16 4 (3.10%) Spring Security
Miscellaneous
1 47 (36.43%) Cloud Native
2 26 (20.16%) Distributed Systems
3 10 (7.75%) Product Ownership
4 8 (6.20%) Public Cloud
5 7 (5.43%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (4.65%) Onboarding
7 5 (3.88%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (3.10%) Data Structures
8 4 (3.10%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (3.10%) Greenfield Project
8 4 (3.10%) Mainframe
9 3 (2.33%) AI Agents
9 3 (2.33%) Culture of Ownership
9 3 (2.33%) Distributed Architecture
9 3 (2.33%) Private Cloud
10 2 (1.55%) Legacy Applications
10 2 (1.55%) Virtual Team
11 1 (0.78%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 1 (0.78%) Marketing Technology
11 1 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 12 (9.30%) Linux
2 5 (3.88%) Unix
3 3 (2.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.78%) Android
4 1 (0.78%) Mac OS X
4 1 (0.78%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (61.24%) CI/CD
2 65 (50.39%) Agile
3 62 (48.06%) Software Engineering
4 54 (41.86%) DevOps
5 52 (40.31%) Test Automation
6 40 (31.01%) Event-Driven
7 37 (28.68%) Event-Driven Architecture
8 32 (24.81%) Observability
9 27 (20.93%) Continuous Improvement
10 26 (20.16%) Technical Leadership
11 24 (18.60%) Containerisation
12 23 (17.83%) Full-Stack Development
12 23 (17.83%) TDD
13 21 (16.28%) Mentoring
14 20 (15.50%) Infrastructure as Code
15 18 (13.95%) Code Quality
16 17 (13.18%) Problem-Solving
17 16 (12.40%) SDLC
18 15 (11.63%) API Design
18 15 (11.63%) BDD
Programming Languages
1 82 (63.57%) Java
2 21 (16.28%) JavaScript
3 20 (15.50%) SQL
4 16 (12.40%) TypeScript
5 12 (9.30%) Python
6 7 (5.43%) C#
7 5 (3.88%) Go
8 2 (1.55%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.78%) Perl
9 1 (0.78%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 31 (24.03%) Security Cleared
2 22 (17.05%) SC Cleared
3 7 (5.43%) Degree
4 6 (4.65%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (3.10%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (1.55%) CEH
6 2 (1.55%) Microsoft Certified Professional
7 1 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 1 (0.78%) CCSP
7 1 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.78%) CISM
7 1 (0.78%) CISSP
7 1 (0.78%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.78%) OSCP
7 1 (0.78%) SANS
7 1 (0.78%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (8.53%) QA
2 10 (7.75%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.55%) NIST
4 1 (0.78%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.78%) COBIT
4 1 (0.78%) GDPR
4 1 (0.78%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 1 (0.78%) Software Quality Assurance
4 1 (0.78%) WCAG
System Software
1 40 (31.01%) Docker
Systems Management
1 42 (32.56%) Kubernetes
2 8 (6.20%) Grafana
2 8 (6.20%) Prometheus
3 4 (3.10%) Istio
4 1 (0.78%) Network Intrusion Detection System
4 1 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 11 (8.53%) Google
2 4 (3.10%) IBM
2 4 (3.10%) Microsoft
2 4 (3.10%) Veracode
3 3 (2.33%) Oracle
3 3 (2.33%) Splunk
4 1 (0.78%) Adobe
4 1 (0.78%) BiZZdesign
4 1 (0.78%) CheckPoint
4 1 (0.78%) Cisco
4 1 (0.78%) F5
4 1 (0.78%) Foundry
4 1 (0.78%) Intel
4 1 (0.78%) OpenAI
4 1 (0.78%) Sage
4 1 (0.78%) SAP