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 29 September 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
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 4 8
Rank change year-on-year -1 +4 -5
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 568 385 270
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 14.57% 17.92% 11.38%
As % of the Vendors category 34.72% 34.90% 27.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 365 259 151
10th Percentile £187 £206 £225
25th Percentile £318 £350 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £438 £450
Median % change year-on-year +8.22% -2.67% +5.88%
75th Percentile £537 £500 £588
90th Percentile £602 £605 £653
England median daily rate £490 £475 £498
% change year-on-year +3.16% -4.62% -0.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 58 19
10th Percentile £13.10 £12.95 £15.90
25th Percentile £14.29 £15.97 £22.24
Median hourly rate £24.77 £22.32 £31.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.00% -28.02% +37.69%
75th Percentile £30.00 £31.40 £46.18
90th Percentile £82.82 £63.40 £46.69
England median hourly rate £18.58 £22.63 £16.90
% change year-on-year -17.92% +33.89% -24.98%

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 1,636 1,103 980
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 41.97% 51.33% 41.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 963 724 513
10th Percentile £250 £307 £313
25th Percentile £400 £393 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £592 £604 £600
90th Percentile £663 £700 £675
England median daily rate £514 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +1.28% -3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 127 82 46
10th Percentile £14.35 £13.00 £15.81
25th Percentile £18.71 £17.80 £22.83
Median hourly rate £29.00 £23.63 £35.36
Median % change year-on-year +22.75% -33.19% +1.03%
75th Percentile £57.50 £51.16 £46.18
90th Percentile £85.00 £67.25 £55.79
England median hourly rate £26.37 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +4.83% -28.14% -20.24%

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 29 September 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 29 September 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 29 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 -6 244 £488 +8.33% 404
Cheshire +2 152 £454 +7.02% 95
Merseyside +4 63 £213 -50.00% 86
Cumbria +4 54 £485 +17.58% 20
Lancashire -5 48 £333 -30.00% 93
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 93 (16.37%) SharePoint
2 58 (10.21%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (2.82%) Skype for Business
4 15 (2.64%) SharePoint Server
5 6 (1.06%) Confluence
6 2 (0.35%) CMS
6 2 (0.35%) IIS
7 1 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2010
7 1 (0.18%) Mendix
7 1 (0.18%) SharePoint 2010
7 1 (0.18%) SharePoint 2013
7 1 (0.18%) WebSphere
Applications
1 77 (13.56%) Microsoft Office
2 47 (8.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (3.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (2.99%) MS Visio
5 9 (1.58%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.88%) AutoCAD
7 4 (0.70%) Navisworks
7 4 (0.70%) ProjectWise
7 4 (0.70%) Revit
8 2 (0.35%) Chatbot
9 1 (0.18%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 14 (2.46%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (1.58%) Remedy ITSM
3 7 (1.23%) Oracle Payables
4 4 (0.70%) Integrated Workplace Management System
4 4 (0.70%) Primavera
4 4 (0.70%) SAP MM
4 4 (0.70%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.35%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.35%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.18%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.18%) Cloudability
6 1 (0.18%) Oracle Utilities
6 1 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
6 1 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 206 (36.27%) Azure
2 194 (34.15%) Microsoft 365
3 115 (20.25%) Power Platform
4 89 (15.67%) Entra ID
5 47 (8.27%) AWS
6 45 (7.92%) Microsoft Copilot
7 35 (6.16%) Power Automate
8 34 (5.99%) PowerApps
9 33 (5.81%) Azure DevOps
10 32 (5.63%) Dynamics 365
11 29 (5.11%) OneDrive
12 22 (3.87%) GCP
13 20 (3.52%) Azure AI
14 16 (2.82%) Azure Monitor
15 13 (2.29%) Azure Sentinel
16 11 (1.94%) SaaS
17 9 (1.58%) Serverless
18 8 (1.41%) Microsoft Purview
19 7 (1.23%) AWS CloudFormation
19 7 (1.23%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 33 (5.81%) VPN
2 31 (5.46%) DNS
3 24 (4.23%) Firewall
4 22 (3.87%) Skype
5 21 (3.70%) Network Security
6 20 (3.52%) DHCP
7 13 (2.29%) LAN
8 12 (2.11%) TCP/IP
8 12 (2.11%) VLAN
9 11 (1.94%) SSL
9 11 (1.94%) WAN
10 9 (1.58%) Wi-Fi
11 8 (1.41%) SAN
12 4 (0.70%) NAS
12 4 (0.70%) NetScaler
13 3 (0.53%) PABX
13 3 (0.53%) SSH
13 3 (0.53%) VoIP
14 2 (0.35%) Internet
14 2 (0.35%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (12.50%) Power BI
2 48 (8.45%) SQL Server
3 30 (5.28%) MySQL
4 20 (3.52%) PostgreSQL
5 17 (2.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 10 (1.76%) Power Query
7 6 (1.06%) Data Warehouse
7 6 (1.06%) Metadata
8 4 (0.70%) Data Lake
8 4 (0.70%) Oracle Database
8 4 (0.70%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 3 (0.53%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.53%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 3 (0.53%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.35%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.35%) EDMS
10 2 (0.35%) EDRMS
10 2 (0.35%) MongoDB
10 2 (0.35%) Oracle Database 12c
11 1 (0.18%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 15 (2.64%) JIRA
2 9 (1.58%) Git
3 8 (1.41%) Jenkins
4 7 (1.23%) GitLab
4 7 (1.23%) MSI
5 2 (0.35%) Claude Code
5 2 (0.35%) MSTest
5 2 (0.35%) NUnit
5 2 (0.35%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 2 (0.35%) Toad
6 1 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.18%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 190 (33.45%) Social Skills
2 92 (16.20%) Finance
3 73 (12.85%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (5.28%) Public Sector
5 29 (5.11%) Banking
5 29 (5.11%) Manufacturing
6 24 (4.23%) Organisational Skills
7 18 (3.17%) Documentation Skills
8 16 (2.82%) Legal
9 11 (1.94%) Retail
10 8 (1.41%) Military
11 7 (1.23%) Local Government
12 6 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
12 6 (1.06%) Investment Banking
12 6 (1.06%) Marketing
12 6 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (0.88%) Games
13 5 (0.88%) Telecoms
14 3 (0.53%) Advertising
14 3 (0.53%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 56 (9.86%) IT Support
1 56 (9.86%) Support Engineer
2 47 (8.27%) Analyst
3 43 (7.57%) Architect
4 40 (7.04%) IT Engineer
4 40 (7.04%) IT Support Engineer
5 38 (6.69%) DBA
6 37 (6.51%) Developer
7 35 (6.16%) Administrator
8 32 (5.63%) Lead
9 25 (4.40%) Security Engineer
9 25 (4.40%) SQL DBA
10 24 (4.23%) Consultant
11 22 (3.87%) Cloud Engineer
11 22 (3.87%) Service Analyst
12 21 (3.70%) Senior
13 19 (3.35%) Desktop Engineer
14 17 (2.99%) Service Desk Analyst
15 14 (2.46%) Coordinator
16 13 (2.29%) SharePoint Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (5.46%) Terraform
2 10 (1.76%) Microsoft Graph
3 9 (1.58%) SAML
4 8 (1.41%) Software Packaging
5 7 (1.23%) ARM Templates
6 6 (1.06%) REST
7 5 (0.88%) .NET
7 5 (0.88%) Azure Blueprints
7 5 (0.88%) SailPoint
8 4 (0.70%) JSON
9 3 (0.53%) A2A Protocol
9 3 (0.53%) HTML5 Canvas
9 3 (0.53%) Kafka
9 3 (0.53%) Model Context Protocol
9 3 (0.53%) PySpark
9 3 (0.53%) React
10 2 (0.35%) LangChain
10 2 (0.35%) Next.js
10 2 (0.35%) Oracle Streams
10 2 (0.35%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 42 (7.39%) Onboarding
2 36 (6.34%) Management Information System
3 24 (4.23%) Clustering
3 24 (4.23%) Replication
4 20 (3.52%) Cloud Native
5 14 (2.46%) Enterprise Software
6 13 (2.29%) CMDB
6 13 (2.29%) Security Posture
7 9 (1.58%) Data Centre
7 9 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
7 9 (1.58%) Driving Licence
7 9 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
7 9 (1.58%) PKI
8 8 (1.41%) AI Agents
9 7 (1.23%) Handset
9 7 (1.23%) Product Ownership
10 6 (1.06%) Blackberry
10 6 (1.06%) Enterprise Cloud
11 5 (0.88%) Cyber Threat
11 5 (0.88%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 186 (32.75%) Windows
2 67 (11.80%) Windows 10
3 51 (8.98%) Windows Server
4 28 (4.93%) Linux
5 18 (3.17%) Solaris
5 18 (3.17%) Windows 7
6 14 (2.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (2.29%) Android
7 13 (2.29%) Apple iOS
7 13 (2.29%) Unix
8 10 (1.76%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.88%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.70%) AIX
10 4 (0.70%) VMS
11 3 (0.53%) HPUX
11 3 (0.53%) Oracle Linux
11 3 (0.53%) SUSE
11 3 (0.53%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.53%) Windows Server 2019
12 2 (0.35%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (19.37%) ITIL
2 101 (17.78%) Problem-Solving
3 79 (13.91%) Stakeholder Management
4 77 (13.56%) Customer Service
5 66 (11.62%) Continuous Improvement
6 65 (11.44%) Business Intelligence
7 63 (11.09%) Service Management
8 53 (9.33%) DevOps
9 52 (9.15%) Analytics
9 52 (9.15%) Migration
10 47 (8.27%) ITSM
11 44 (7.75%) Agile
11 44 (7.75%) AI
12 43 (7.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 40 (7.04%) Infrastructure as Code
13 40 (7.04%) User Experience
14 39 (6.87%) CI/CD
15 36 (6.34%) Cybersecurity
16 34 (5.99%) Change Management
17 33 (5.81%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 114 (20.07%) PowerShell
2 78 (13.73%) SQL
3 53 (9.33%) Python
4 21 (3.70%) T-SQL
5 19 (3.35%) VBScript
6 15 (2.64%) Bash
6 15 (2.64%) Bicep
6 15 (2.64%) VB
7 12 (2.11%) C#
8 10 (1.76%) Java
9 9 (1.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 8 (1.41%) JavaScript
11 5 (0.88%) Kusto Query Language
11 5 (0.88%) Search Processing Language
12 2 (0.35%) TypeScript
13 1 (0.18%) Go
13 1 (0.18%) Google Apps Script
13 1 (0.18%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 134 (23.59%) Security Cleared
2 108 (19.01%) SC Cleared
3 76 (13.38%) Degree
4 59 (10.39%) Microsoft Certification
5 51 (8.98%) BPSS Clearance
6 25 (4.40%) Azure Certification
7 20 (3.52%) CISSP
8 14 (2.46%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 13 (2.29%) AWS Certification
10 11 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
11 9 (1.58%) MCSE
12 8 (1.41%) DBS Check
12 8 (1.41%) MCSA
12 8 (1.41%) VCAP
12 8 (1.41%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 7 (1.23%) A+ Certification
14 6 (1.06%) Cisco Certification
15 5 (0.88%) GCFA
15 5 (0.88%) GCIH
15 5 (0.88%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (4.75%) SLA
2 24 (4.23%) Data Quality
3 15 (2.64%) GDPR
4 10 (1.76%) PMO
5 8 (1.41%) GRC
5 8 (1.41%) NIST
6 7 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (1.23%) PCI DSS
7 5 (0.88%) Accessibility
7 5 (0.88%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (0.88%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 5 (0.88%) WCAG
8 4 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 4 (0.70%) ISO 19650
8 4 (0.70%) QA
9 2 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.35%) NCSC
9 2 (0.35%) P3O
10 1 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
10 1 (0.18%) ITGC
System Software
1 144 (25.35%) Active Directory
2 30 (5.28%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (4.05%) Virtual Machines
4 17 (2.99%) BitLocker
5 14 (2.46%) Hyper-V
6 13 (2.29%) Docker
7 12 (2.11%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (1.94%) VMware ESXi
8 11 (1.94%) vSphere
9 6 (1.06%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.70%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 4 (0.70%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.53%) NFS
12 2 (0.35%) GPFS
12 2 (0.35%) XenApp
12 2 (0.35%) XenDesktop
13 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 1 (0.18%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 1 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
13 1 (0.18%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 55 (9.68%) SCCM
2 54 (9.51%) Microsoft Intune
3 26 (4.58%) Ansible
4 18 (3.17%) Kubernetes
5 17 (2.99%) Progress Chef
6 14 (2.46%) Single Sign-On
7 11 (1.94%) SCOM
8 10 (1.76%) vCenter Server
9 5 (0.88%) CASB
9 5 (0.88%) Failover Clustering
10 4 (0.70%) Data Guard
10 4 (0.70%) SysTrack
11 3 (0.53%) Grafana
11 3 (0.53%) Microsoft Clustering
11 3 (0.53%) WSUS
12 2 (0.35%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
12 2 (0.35%) Nagios
12 2 (0.35%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 2 (0.35%) vRealize
12 2 (0.35%) VxRail
Vendors
1 101 (17.78%) ServiceNow
2 36 (6.34%) VMware
3 32 (5.63%) Oracle
4 27 (4.75%) Cisco
5 26 (4.58%) BeyondTrust
5 26 (4.58%) Splunk
6 22 (3.87%) Google
7 18 (3.17%) SAP
8 16 (2.82%) iManage
9 15 (2.64%) Red Hat
10 13 (2.29%) Remedy
11 11 (1.94%) CyberArk
12 10 (1.76%) Databricks
13 9 (1.58%) Citrix
14 7 (1.23%) Ribbon
15 6 (1.06%) CrowdStrike
16 5 (0.88%) Bomgar
16 5 (0.88%) HP
16 5 (0.88%) Okta
16 5 (0.88%) UiPath