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 26 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 33 56
Rank change year-on-year -21 +23 +53
Contract jobs citing Microservices 145 110 75
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.90% 5.01% 3.00%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.68% 5.70% 3.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 84 80 54
10th Percentile £400 £335 £425
25th Percentile £449 £374 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £467 £525
Median % change year-on-year +12.42% -11.05% -4.55%
75th Percentile £640 £545 £655
90th Percentile £683 £626 £850
England median daily rate £538 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +2.38% -4.55% -13.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 4 2
10th Percentile £60.63 £69.00 -
25th Percentile £66.13 £71.25 -
Median hourly rate £86.00 £75.00 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year +14.67% +63.47% +13.45%
75th Percentile £95.00 £77.81 -
90th Percentile - £78.38 -
England median hourly rate £72.22 £67.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year +7.79% +46.03% -36.72%

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 3,095 1,929 2,121
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 83.22% 87.92% 84.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,823 1,249 1,304
10th Percentile £291 £270 £300
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +8.89% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £594 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £671 £675
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 299 123 206
10th Percentile £17.25 £13.50 £10.95
25th Percentile £25.38 £18.87 £16.06
Median hourly rate £56.44 £28.75 £29.00
Median % change year-on-year +96.31% -0.86% -3.33%
75th Percentile £76.00 £56.88 £50.44
90th Percentile £85.00 £74.75 £70.33
England median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £40.33
% change year-on-year +86.88% -37.63% -5.12%

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 26 July 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 26 July 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 26 July 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 +3 121 £528 -0.47% 55
Cheshire -32 16 £498 +23.76% 11
Merseyside -12 4 £575 +39.39% 1
Lancashire -7 2 £650 +8.33% 7
Cumbria - 1 £357 -
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 (3.45%) Confluence
2 2 (1.38%) Camunda
3 1 (0.69%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.69%) JBoss
3 1 (0.69%) Mule
3 1 (0.69%) Mule ESB
3 1 (0.69%) WebLogic
Cloud Services
1 83 (57.24%) AWS
2 43 (29.66%) Azure
3 22 (15.17%) Serverless
4 20 (13.79%) GCP
5 18 (12.41%) GitHub
6 12 (8.28%) AWS Lambda
7 11 (7.59%) GitHub Actions
8 10 (6.90%) Amazon ECS
9 9 (6.21%) Amazon EKS
9 9 (6.21%) Amazon SQS
10 6 (4.14%) GitHub Copilot
11 5 (3.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 5 (3.45%) Amazon EventBridge
11 5 (3.45%) Anthropic Claude
11 5 (3.45%) Azure Service Bus
11 5 (3.45%) Google Gemini
12 3 (2.07%) AWS CloudFormation
12 3 (2.07%) Azure AI
12 3 (2.07%) BrowserStack
12 3 (2.07%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.38%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (17.24%) MongoDB
2 15 (10.34%) NoSQL
3 14 (9.66%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (8.97%) DynamoDB
5 9 (6.21%) SQL Server
6 8 (5.52%) Relational Database
7 7 (4.83%) MySQL
8 3 (2.07%) Amazon Aurora
9 1 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
9 1 (0.69%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 22 (15.17%) Git
2 15 (10.34%) Selenium
3 14 (9.66%) Mockito
4 13 (8.97%) GitLab
4 13 (8.97%) Jenkins
5 10 (6.90%) JIRA
6 9 (6.21%) JUnit
7 8 (5.52%) Cucumber
7 8 (5.52%) REST Assured
8 6 (4.14%) Gatling
9 5 (3.45%) Claude Code
9 5 (3.45%) Serenity BDD
9 5 (3.45%) SonarQube
10 4 (2.76%) Postman
11 3 (2.07%) Cypress.io
11 3 (2.07%) Sonatype Nexus
12 2 (1.38%) JMeter
13 1 (0.69%) Eclipse
13 1 (0.69%) IntelliJ
13 1 (0.69%) Mocha
General
1 34 (23.45%) Public Sector
2 28 (19.31%) Finance
3 27 (18.62%) Social Skills
4 13 (8.97%) Retail
5 12 (8.28%) Banking
6 7 (4.83%) Military
7 4 (2.76%) Analytical Skills
8 3 (2.07%) Retail Banking
9 2 (1.38%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.69%) Health Technology
10 1 (0.69%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.69%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 57 (39.31%) Developer
2 35 (24.14%) Java Developer
3 29 (20.00%) Architect
4 28 (19.31%) Lead
4 28 (19.31%) Senior
5 21 (14.48%) Software Engineer
6 15 (10.34%) Solutions Architect
7 14 (9.66%) Senior Developer
8 13 (8.97%) Lead Developer
9 12 (8.28%) Full-Stack Developer
10 10 (6.90%) AWS Engineer
10 10 (6.90%) Java Engineer
10 10 (6.90%) Principal Engineer
10 10 (6.90%) Software Developer
11 9 (6.21%) Java Software Engineer
11 9 (6.21%) Test Engineer
12 8 (5.52%) Full-Stack Engineer
12 8 (5.52%) Senior Software Engineer
13 7 (4.83%) AWS Software Engineer
13 7 (4.83%) Lead Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (27.59%) Spring
2 36 (24.83%) Spring Boot
3 34 (23.45%) React
4 30 (20.69%) Kafka
4 30 (20.69%) Node.js
5 24 (16.55%) REST
6 21 (14.48%) AngularJS
6 21 (14.48%) RESTful
7 18 (12.41%) .NET
8 11 (7.59%) ActiveMQ
8 11 (7.59%) JAX-RS
9 9 (6.21%) Nunjucks
10 8 (5.52%) Next.js
10 8 (5.52%) Playwright
11 7 (4.83%) HTML
11 7 (4.83%) OAuth
12 6 (4.14%) CSS
12 6 (4.14%) Vue
13 5 (3.45%) .NET Core
13 5 (3.45%) Spring Cloud
Miscellaneous
1 44 (30.34%) Cloud Native
2 22 (15.17%) Distributed Systems
3 14 (9.66%) Product Ownership
4 10 (6.90%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (4.14%) Onboarding
5 6 (4.14%) Public Cloud
6 4 (2.76%) Enterprise Software
6 4 (2.76%) Mainframe
6 4 (2.76%) Mobile App
6 4 (2.76%) Private Cloud
7 3 (2.07%) Culture of Ownership
7 3 (2.07%) Legacy Applications
7 3 (2.07%) Virtual Team
8 2 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (1.38%) Distributed Architecture
8 2 (1.38%) Greenfield Project
9 1 (0.69%) NHS
9 1 (0.69%) PMI
9 1 (0.69%) Replication
9 1 (0.69%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 18 (12.41%) Linux
2 13 (8.97%) Unix
3 8 (5.52%) Mac OS X
4 2 (1.38%) Mac OS
4 2 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (54.48%) Agile
2 78 (53.79%) CI/CD
3 63 (43.45%) DevOps
4 55 (37.93%) Test Automation
5 47 (32.41%) Event-Driven
6 42 (28.97%) Software Engineering
7 39 (26.90%) Event-Driven Architecture
8 34 (23.45%) Observability
9 32 (22.07%) TDD
10 31 (21.38%) Technical Leadership
11 30 (20.69%) Mentoring
12 29 (20.00%) Continuous Improvement
12 29 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
13 28 (19.31%) Containerisation
14 26 (17.93%) BDD
14 26 (17.93%) Infrastructure as Code
15 25 (17.24%) Full-Stack Development
16 20 (13.79%) Code Quality
17 19 (13.10%) API Design
18 18 (12.41%) Architectural Patterns
Programming Languages
1 80 (55.17%) Java
2 19 (13.10%) JavaScript
3 17 (11.72%) SQL
4 16 (11.03%) TypeScript
5 13 (8.97%) C#
6 12 (8.28%) Python
7 4 (2.76%) Go
7 4 (2.76%) Kotlin
8 1 (0.69%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 34 (23.45%) Security Cleared
2 23 (15.86%) SC Cleared
3 12 (8.28%) BPSS Clearance
4 5 (3.45%) Degree
5 4 (2.76%) (ISC)2 CCSP
5 4 (2.76%) Cisco Certification
5 4 (2.76%) CISSP
6 2 (1.38%) CCSP
6 2 (1.38%) CEH
6 2 (1.38%) CISM
6 2 (1.38%) GIAC
6 2 (1.38%) Microsoft Certified Professional
6 2 (1.38%) OSCP
6 2 (1.38%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.69%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.69%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.69%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (11.03%) QA
2 11 (7.59%) Accessibility
3 4 (2.76%) NIST
4 2 (1.38%) COBIT
4 2 (1.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.38%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.69%) GDPR
5 1 (0.69%) GRC
5 1 (0.69%) ISO 20022
5 1 (0.69%) PSD2
5 1 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.69%) SEPA
5 1 (0.69%) Software Quality Assurance
5 1 (0.69%) WCAG
System Software
1 51 (35.17%) Docker
Systems Management
1 39 (26.90%) Kubernetes
2 27 (18.62%) Terraform
3 12 (8.28%) Grafana
4 10 (6.90%) Prometheus
5 3 (2.07%) Istio
6 2 (1.38%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 9 (6.21%) Google
2 6 (4.14%) Microsoft
3 5 (3.45%) Splunk
4 3 (2.07%) Foundry
4 3 (2.07%) OpenAI
5 2 (1.38%) Databricks
5 2 (1.38%) MuleSoft
5 2 (1.38%) Oracle
6 1 (0.69%) Adobe
6 1 (0.69%) Atlassian
6 1 (0.69%) Sage
6 1 (0.69%) SAP