Microsoft Contract Job Trends in the North West

Microsoft
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the North West requiring knowledge or experience of Microsoft products and/or services. It includes a benchmarking guide to contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Microsoft over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

The figures below represent the IT contractor job market in general and are not representative of contractor rates within the Microsoft Corporation.

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 4 4
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 429 352 408
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 13.47% 17.89% 14.81%
As % of the Vendors category 32.01% 33.40% 37.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 298 235 213
10th Percentile £151 £200 £178
25th Percentile £300 £320 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £420 £438 £450
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -2.78% -5.26%
75th Percentile £524 £525 £575
90th Percentile £613 £575 £653
England median daily rate £493 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +3.68% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 29 109
10th Percentile £18.95 £13.00 £10.95
25th Percentile £25.00 £17.44 £11.07
Median hourly rate £25.38 £27.13 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.43% +87.07% -45.28%
75th Percentile £74.26 £33.75 £17.72
90th Percentile £178.75 £34.60 £26.41
England median hourly rate £20.09 £19.00 £15.00
% change year-on-year +5.74% +26.67% -31.03%

All Vendors
North West

Microsoft falls under the Vendor Products and Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of all vendor products and services in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 1,340 1,054 1,098
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 42.06% 53.56% 39.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 830 675 647
10th Percentile £219 £250 £269
25th Percentile £375 £393 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -1.00% -
75th Percentile £581 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £650 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £520
% change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 54 149
10th Percentile £19.55 £16.43 £10.95
25th Percentile £22.68 £24.46 £12.00
Median hourly rate £31.36 £32.50 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -3.52% +102.37% -57.17%
75th Percentile £62.44 £60.00 £26.39
90th Percentile £85.70 £86.00 £46.18
England median hourly rate £30.63 £27.13 £22.50
% change year-on-year +12.90% +20.56% -44.10%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microsoft relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Microsoft job vacancy trend in the North West

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Microsoft.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in the North West over the 6 months to 1 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the North West

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Microsoft.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in the North West over the 6 months to 1 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the North West

Microsoft
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 Microsoft within the North West region over the 6 months to 1 May 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 -7 195 £430 -3.04% 166
Cheshire -5 91 £447 +2.17% 44
Merseyside +3 82 £146 -32.21% 34
Cumbria +4 32 £483 +1.68% 16
Lancashire -15 21 £388 -24.39% 79
Microsoft
England

Microsoft
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 50 (11.66%) SharePoint
2 44 (10.26%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (3.03%) Confluence
4 9 (2.10%) Skype for Business
5 5 (1.17%) CMS
6 3 (0.70%) Apache
6 3 (0.70%) IIS
7 2 (0.47%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.23%) CICS
8 1 (0.23%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.23%) SAS
Applications
1 70 (16.32%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (6.06%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (2.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (2.10%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (1.63%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.93%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.47%) Trello
8 1 (0.23%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.23%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.23%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 16 (3.73%) Remedy ITSM
2 5 (1.17%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.93%) Advent Geneva
4 3 (0.70%) Primavera
4 3 (0.70%) SAP MM
5 2 (0.47%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.47%) Elite 3E
5 2 (0.47%) NEC Housing
5 2 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.23%) Infor M3
6 1 (0.23%) Maximo
6 1 (0.23%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 149 (34.73%) Azure
2 146 (34.03%) Microsoft 365
3 54 (12.59%) Entra ID
4 46 (10.72%) Power Platform
5 35 (8.16%) Dynamics 365
6 30 (6.99%) AWS
7 25 (5.83%) Microsoft Copilot
8 22 (5.13%) Azure DevOps
9 17 (3.96%) GCP
9 17 (3.96%) OneDrive
10 16 (3.73%) Microsoft Purview
10 16 (3.73%) Power Automate
10 16 (3.73%) PowerApps
11 11 (2.56%) Serverless
12 9 (2.10%) Azure AKS
13 8 (1.86%) SaaS
14 7 (1.63%) Azure Logic Apps
14 7 (1.63%) GitHub
15 6 (1.40%) Azure Data Factory
15 6 (1.40%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 27 (6.29%) VPN
2 25 (5.83%) DNS
3 22 (5.13%) Wi-Fi
4 21 (4.90%) Firewall
5 19 (4.43%) Skype
5 19 (4.43%) WAN
6 17 (3.96%) LAN
7 15 (3.50%) DHCP
7 15 (3.50%) VLAN
8 11 (2.56%) Network Security
9 6 (1.40%) WebEx
10 3 (0.70%) Cisco ASA
10 3 (0.70%) Internet
10 3 (0.70%) SD-WAN
10 3 (0.70%) TCP/IP
11 2 (0.47%) Cisco Nexus
11 2 (0.47%) Kerberos
11 2 (0.47%) MPLS
11 2 (0.47%) SSL
11 2 (0.47%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (5.83%) Power BI
2 22 (5.13%) SQL Server
3 12 (2.80%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (2.56%) Relational Database
5 9 (2.10%) MySQL
6 7 (1.63%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 5 (1.17%) Looker
7 5 (1.17%) Metadata
7 5 (1.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (0.93%) BigQuery
8 4 (0.93%) BusinessObjects
8 4 (0.93%) Data Warehouse
8 4 (0.93%) DB2
8 4 (0.93%) MongoDB
8 4 (0.93%) NoSQL
8 4 (0.93%) RDBMS
9 3 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
9 3 (0.70%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.70%) Oracle Reports
10 2 (0.47%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 19 (4.43%) JIRA
2 8 (1.86%) Git
3 4 (0.93%) MSI
4 3 (0.70%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.47%) GitLab
6 1 (0.23%) Axure RP
6 1 (0.23%) Claude Code
6 1 (0.23%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.23%) InstallShield
6 1 (0.23%) Octopus Deploy
6 1 (0.23%) Postman
6 1 (0.23%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 154 (35.90%) Social Skills
2 93 (21.68%) Finance
3 55 (12.82%) Public Sector
4 54 (12.59%) Analytical Skills
5 51 (11.89%) Banking
6 47 (10.96%) Legal
7 21 (4.90%) Organisational Skills
8 13 (3.03%) Local Government
9 11 (2.56%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (2.56%) Retail
10 9 (2.10%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (1.17%) Manufacturing
13 4 (0.93%) Billing
13 4 (0.93%) Marketing
13 4 (0.93%) Military
14 3 (0.70%) Law
14 3 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.70%) Retail Banking
15 2 (0.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 62 (14.45%) Analyst
2 50 (11.66%) IT Support
3 39 (9.09%) Architect
4 33 (7.69%) 1st Line Support
5 29 (6.76%) Developer
6 25 (5.83%) Administrator
7 24 (5.59%) IT Analyst
8 23 (5.36%) Support Analyst
9 22 (5.13%) Support Engineer
10 20 (4.66%) IT Support Analyst
11 19 (4.43%) IT Engineer
11 19 (4.43%) IT Support Engineer
11 19 (4.43%) Lead
12 17 (3.96%) Senior
13 14 (3.26%) 2nd Line Support
13 14 (3.26%) Project Manager
13 14 (3.26%) Security Engineer
13 14 (3.26%) Wintel Engineer
14 13 (3.03%) Business Analyst
15 12 (2.80%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (3.03%) .NET
2 10 (2.33%) REST
2 10 (2.33%) XML
3 9 (2.10%) Spring
3 9 (2.10%) Spring Boot
4 7 (1.63%) OAuth
5 6 (1.40%) JSON
5 6 (1.40%) Software Packaging
6 5 (1.17%) Kafka
6 5 (1.17%) XMPP
7 4 (0.93%) HTML
7 4 (0.93%) SAML
8 3 (0.70%) ARM Templates
8 3 (0.70%) HTML5 Canvas
8 3 (0.70%) LDAP
8 3 (0.70%) Microsoft Graph
8 3 (0.70%) OpenID
8 3 (0.70%) Oracle Fusion
8 3 (0.70%) PySpark
9 2 (0.47%) SPFx
Miscellaneous
1 27 (6.29%) Onboarding
2 17 (3.96%) Replication
3 16 (3.73%) Clustering
4 15 (3.50%) Cloud Native
5 14 (3.26%) Product Ownership
6 12 (2.80%) Driving Licence
7 10 (2.33%) Management Information System
8 8 (1.86%) Security Posture
9 7 (1.63%) Data Centre
10 6 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
11 5 (1.17%) Fat Client
11 5 (1.17%) Thin Client
12 4 (0.93%) Cloud Security Posture
12 4 (0.93%) Cyber Threat
12 4 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (0.93%) Operational Technology
12 4 (0.93%) Virtual Team
13 3 (0.70%) AI Agents
13 3 (0.70%) Analytical Mindset
13 3 (0.70%) Housing Association
Operating Systems
1 148 (34.50%) Windows
2 77 (17.95%) Windows 10
3 28 (6.53%) Windows Server
4 19 (4.43%) Linux
5 10 (2.33%) Windows 7
6 8 (1.86%) Apple iOS
6 8 (1.86%) Mac OS
7 7 (1.63%) Android
7 7 (1.63%) Unix
8 6 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.93%) Solaris
9 4 (0.93%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.70%) AIX
11 2 (0.47%) HPUX
11 2 (0.47%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.47%) SUSE
11 2 (0.47%) VMS
11 2 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (15.38%) Problem-Solving
2 63 (14.69%) Customer Service
3 55 (12.82%) Agile
4 48 (11.19%) ITIL
5 44 (10.26%) DevOps
6 41 (9.56%) Migration
7 34 (7.93%) CI/CD
7 34 (7.93%) ITSM
7 34 (7.93%) Stakeholder Management
8 31 (7.23%) Change Management
9 30 (6.99%) Service Management
10 29 (6.76%) Analytics
10 29 (6.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 28 (6.53%) AI
11 28 (6.53%) Identity Access Management
11 28 (6.53%) Project Delivery
12 27 (6.29%) Business Intelligence
13 26 (6.06%) Roadmaps
14 24 (5.59%) Disaster Recovery
15 23 (5.36%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 73 (17.02%) PowerShell
2 44 (10.26%) SQL
3 28 (6.53%) Python
4 17 (3.96%) Java
5 10 (2.33%) C#
6 9 (2.10%) Bash
6 9 (2.10%) VB
6 9 (2.10%) VBScript
7 8 (1.86%) JavaScript
8 7 (1.63%) Bicep
9 6 (1.40%) T-SQL
10 4 (0.93%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.70%) C++
11 3 (0.70%) VBA
12 2 (0.47%) COBOL
13 1 (0.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.23%) JCL
13 1 (0.23%) Perl
13 1 (0.23%) PHP
13 1 (0.23%) REXX
Qualifications
1 67 (15.62%) Security Cleared
2 56 (13.05%) Degree
3 55 (12.82%) SC Cleared
4 42 (9.79%) Microsoft Certification
5 16 (3.73%) MCSA
5 16 (3.73%) MCSE
6 14 (3.26%) VCAP
6 14 (3.26%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 12 (2.80%) Azure Certification
8 11 (2.56%) A+ Certification
8 11 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
8 11 (2.56%) Computer Science Degree
9 10 (2.33%) DV Cleared
10 9 (2.10%) CISSP
10 9 (2.10%) Network+ Certification
11 7 (1.63%) AWS Certification
12 5 (1.17%) ITIL Certification
12 5 (1.17%) PMI Certification
13 4 (0.93%) DBS Check
14 3 (0.70%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (4.43%) GDPR
2 12 (2.80%) Data Quality
2 12 (2.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.56%) QA
4 8 (1.86%) Accessibility
4 8 (1.86%) NIST
5 7 (1.63%) SLA
6 6 (1.40%) PMO
7 4 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.47%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.47%) GRC
9 2 (0.47%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.47%) NCSC
9 2 (0.47%) WCAG
10 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 1 (0.23%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.23%) SOC 2
System Software
1 115 (26.81%) Active Directory
2 21 (4.90%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (4.66%) Docker
3 20 (4.66%) Virtual Machines
4 17 (3.96%) VMware ESXi
5 15 (3.50%) vSphere
6 9 (2.10%) BitLocker
7 4 (0.93%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.47%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.47%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.23%) ACF2
9 1 (0.23%) GPFS
9 1 (0.23%) NFS
9 1 (0.23%) RACF
9 1 (0.23%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 25 (5.83%) Microsoft Intune
2 23 (5.36%) SCCM
3 20 (4.66%) Kubernetes
4 17 (3.96%) Ansible
5 16 (3.73%) vCenter Server
6 11 (2.56%) Terraform
7 8 (1.86%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 6 (1.40%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (0.93%) Grafana
10 3 (0.70%) Progress Chef
10 3 (0.70%) Prometheus
11 2 (0.47%) AirWatch
11 2 (0.47%) Argo
11 2 (0.47%) CA Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.47%) CASB
11 2 (0.47%) Istio
11 2 (0.47%) linkerd
11 2 (0.47%) Norton AntiVirus
12 1 (0.23%) Tivoli
12 1 (0.23%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 43 (10.02%) ServiceNow
2 38 (8.86%) Cisco
3 22 (5.13%) VMware
4 19 (4.43%) Citrix
5 18 (4.20%) Remedy
6 17 (3.96%) Bomgar
6 17 (3.96%) iManage
7 16 (3.73%) Oracle
8 12 (2.80%) Google
9 11 (2.56%) SAP
10 8 (1.86%) Red Hat
10 8 (1.86%) Splunk
11 6 (1.40%) BeyondTrust
12 4 (0.93%) Advent
12 4 (0.93%) CrowdStrike
12 4 (0.93%) HP
13 3 (0.70%) IBM
13 3 (0.70%) Infoblox
13 3 (0.70%) McAfee
13 3 (0.70%) Salesforce