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 9 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 35 48 48
Rank change year-on-year +13 0 +20
Contract jobs citing Microservices 171 88 91
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 5.37% 4.54% 3.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 6.39% 5.01% 3.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 116 61 63
10th Percentile £354 £391 £417
25th Percentile £400 £405 £489
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -15.09% -3.64% +2.33%
75th Percentile £571 £588 £625
90th Percentile £650 £638 £850
England median daily rate £525 £544 £550
% change year-on-year -3.45% -1.14% -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 £74.26 £63.79 £48.43
% change year-on-year +16.42% +31.71% -32.11%

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 2,678 1,756 2,409
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 84.13% 90.66% 86.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,673 1,146 1,561
10th Percentile £258 £300 £311
25th Percentile £375 £391 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.16% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £650 £662 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 243 111 251
10th Percentile £19.52 £16.25 £10.95
25th Percentile £25.38 £22.72 £13.41
Median hourly rate £45.46 £31.52 £23.50
Median % change year-on-year +44.23% +34.13% -34.72%
75th Percentile £71.91 £60.00 £45.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.59 £51.91
England median hourly rate £40.00 £32.50 £34.00
% change year-on-year +23.08% -4.41% -9.33%

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 9 April 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 9 April 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 9 April 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 +11 123 £500 -5.66% 56
Cheshire +6 42 £402 +2.29% 9
Lancashire -22 4 £650 +10.64% 13
Merseyside -20 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 6 (3.51%) Confluence
2 3 (1.75%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.58%) Apache
3 1 (0.58%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.58%) Camunda
3 1 (0.58%) JBoss
3 1 (0.58%) Tomcat
Business Applications
1 3 (1.75%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 110 (64.33%) AWS
2 53 (30.99%) Azure
3 35 (20.47%) Serverless
4 26 (15.20%) GitHub
5 25 (14.62%) GCP
6 20 (11.70%) AWS Lambda
7 15 (8.77%) GitHub Actions
8 13 (7.60%) Amazon EKS
8 13 (7.60%) Amazon SQS
9 12 (7.02%) Apigee
10 9 (5.26%) Amazon ECS
11 8 (4.68%) Kong
12 7 (4.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 7 (4.09%) Amazon EventBridge
13 6 (3.51%) Amazon S3
13 6 (3.51%) GitHub Copilot
14 4 (2.34%) Azure AKS
14 4 (2.34%) Azure Service Bus
14 4 (2.34%) IaaS
14 4 (2.34%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.34%) HTTP
1 4 (2.34%) HTTPS
2 2 (1.17%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (13.45%) NoSQL
2 22 (12.87%) PostgreSQL
3 19 (11.11%) MongoDB
4 15 (8.77%) DynamoDB
5 13 (7.60%) MySQL
6 11 (6.43%) DocumentDB
7 8 (4.68%) Relational Database
8 4 (2.34%) Amazon Aurora
8 4 (2.34%) Redis
8 4 (2.34%) SQL Server
9 1 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
9 1 (0.58%) Big Data
9 1 (0.58%) Data Warehouse
9 1 (0.58%) DataStage
9 1 (0.58%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 36 (21.05%) Git
2 28 (16.37%) GitLab
3 16 (9.36%) Jenkins
4 13 (7.60%) JIRA
5 9 (5.26%) JUnit
5 9 (5.26%) Mockito
6 8 (4.68%) CircleCI
6 8 (4.68%) Cypress.io
6 8 (4.68%) Mocha
7 7 (4.09%) Postman
7 7 (4.09%) Selenium
8 6 (3.51%) SonarQube
9 4 (2.34%) JMeter
10 3 (1.75%) Jasmine
11 2 (1.17%) Gatling
11 2 (1.17%) REST Assured
11 2 (1.17%) Serenity BDD
12 1 (0.58%) Cucumber
12 1 (0.58%) Gradle
12 1 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 52 (30.41%) Public Sector
2 41 (23.98%) Finance
3 32 (18.71%) Social Skills
4 12 (7.02%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (7.02%) Banking
5 6 (3.51%) Retail
6 3 (1.75%) Billing
6 3 (1.75%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (1.17%) Military
8 1 (0.58%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.58%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 86 (50.29%) Developer
2 48 (28.07%) Java Developer
3 31 (18.13%) Architect
4 30 (17.54%) Senior
5 25 (14.62%) Lead
6 19 (11.11%) Full-Stack Developer
7 17 (9.94%) Solutions Architect
8 16 (9.36%) Senior Developer
9 14 (8.19%) Lead Developer
9 14 (8.19%) Software Engineer
10 13 (7.60%) Backend Developer
11 10 (5.85%) Full-Stack Engineer
12 8 (4.68%) Lead Java Developer
12 8 (4.68%) Software Developer
13 7 (4.09%) Full-Stack Java Developer
14 6 (3.51%) Angular Developer
14 6 (3.51%) Node.js Developer
14 6 (3.51%) Senior Backend Developer
14 6 (3.51%) Senior Software Engineer
14 6 (3.51%) Technical Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (42.11%) Spring
2 66 (38.60%) Spring Boot
3 47 (27.49%) React
4 38 (22.22%) Node.js
4 38 (22.22%) REST
4 38 (22.22%) RESTful
5 29 (16.96%) AngularJS
6 27 (15.79%) Kafka
7 24 (14.04%) OAuth
8 16 (9.36%) OAuth2
9 15 (8.77%) .NET
10 14 (8.19%) Jest
11 13 (7.60%) Hibernate
11 13 (7.60%) JWT
11 13 (7.60%) Playwright
12 12 (7.02%) JAX-RS
13 10 (5.85%) JSON
13 10 (5.85%) XML
14 9 (5.26%) HTML
15 8 (4.68%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 40 (23.39%) Cloud Native
2 24 (14.04%) Distributed Systems
3 14 (8.19%) Mobile App
3 14 (8.19%) Product Ownership
4 12 (7.02%) Onboarding
5 6 (3.51%) Data Protection Act
5 6 (3.51%) Legacy Systems
6 3 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.17%) Mobile Banking
7 2 (1.17%) NHS
7 2 (1.17%) Virtual Team
8 1 (0.58%) Algorithms
8 1 (0.58%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.58%) Greenfield Project
8 1 (0.58%) Legacy Applications
8 1 (0.58%) Mainframe
8 1 (0.58%) PMI
8 1 (0.58%) Private Cloud
8 1 (0.58%) Public Cloud
8 1 (0.58%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 14 (8.19%) Linux
2 12 (7.02%) Unix
3 8 (4.68%) Mac OS X
4 2 (1.17%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (51.46%) Agile
2 81 (47.37%) CI/CD
3 65 (38.01%) DevOps
4 50 (29.24%) Test Automation
5 46 (26.90%) Problem-Solving
6 41 (23.98%) Event-Driven
7 38 (22.22%) TDD
8 37 (21.64%) Full-Stack Development
9 36 (21.05%) Containerisation
10 32 (18.71%) Event-Driven Architecture
11 28 (16.37%) API Design
11 28 (16.37%) Software Engineering
12 27 (15.79%) Continuous Improvement
13 26 (15.20%) Mentoring
14 23 (13.45%) Observability
15 22 (12.87%) API Development
16 21 (12.28%) Infrastructure as Code
17 20 (11.70%) BDD
17 20 (11.70%) Code Quality
18 19 (11.11%) Design Patterns
Programming Languages
1 106 (61.99%) Java
2 35 (20.47%) TypeScript
3 25 (14.62%) JavaScript
4 23 (13.45%) SQL
5 14 (8.19%) Kotlin
6 10 (5.85%) C#
6 10 (5.85%) Python
7 3 (1.75%) Go
8 2 (1.17%) Bash
8 2 (1.17%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.58%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 29 (16.96%) Security Cleared
2 21 (12.28%) BPSS Clearance
3 18 (10.53%) Degree
4 16 (9.36%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (7.60%) SC Cleared
6 4 (2.34%) AWS Certification
7 3 (1.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 3 (1.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 3 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (1.75%) CISSP
8 2 (1.17%) GIAC
8 2 (1.17%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.58%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.58%) CCSP
9 1 (0.58%) CEH
9 1 (0.58%) CISM
9 1 (0.58%) OSCP
9 1 (0.58%) PMP
9 1 (0.58%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (8.19%) Accessibility
2 11 (6.43%) QA
3 8 (4.68%) WCAG
4 7 (4.09%) ISO 20022
5 3 (1.75%) NIST
5 3 (1.75%) PCI DSS
6 2 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (1.17%) PSD2
7 1 (0.58%) COBIT
7 1 (0.58%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.58%) GDPR
7 1 (0.58%) GRC
7 1 (0.58%) HL7
7 1 (0.58%) SEPA
System Software
1 57 (33.33%) Docker
2 3 (1.75%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 46 (26.90%) Kubernetes
2 26 (15.20%) Terraform
3 8 (4.68%) Grafana
4 7 (4.09%) Prometheus
5 2 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.58%) Ansible
6 1 (0.58%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 11 (6.43%) Microsoft
2 9 (5.26%) Splunk
3 8 (4.68%) MuleSoft
4 7 (4.09%) Google
5 6 (3.51%) Oracle
6 5 (2.92%) Ping Identity
7 4 (2.34%) Virgin Media
8 3 (1.75%) Adobe
8 3 (1.75%) Guidewire
8 3 (1.75%) OpenAI
9 2 (1.17%) Atlassian
9 2 (1.17%) Databricks
9 2 (1.17%) Foundry
9 2 (1.17%) PagerDuty
10 1 (0.58%) Ab Initio
10 1 (0.58%) Informatica