Microsoft Contracts 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 6 July 2025, 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
6 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 4 2 5
Rank change year-on-year -2 +3 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 375 423 490
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North West 17.78% 15.35% 15.85%
As % of the Vendors category 35.28% 38.99% 37.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 247 235 331
10th Percentile £205 £196 £200
25th Percentile £350 £325 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% -5.26% +11.76%
75th Percentile £525 £588 £563
90th Percentile £585 £650 £638
England median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 100 35
10th Percentile £12.82 £10.95 £14.84
25th Percentile £16.33 £11.00 £16.44
Median hourly rate £23.61 £16.05 £22.53
Median % change year-on-year +47.06% -28.75% +33.59%
75th Percentile £31.41 £17.86 £43.32
90th Percentile £63.40 £26.50 £50.92
England median hourly rate £22.32 £16.06 £22.00
% change year-on-year +38.95% -27.00% +25.71%

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 1,063 1,085 1,302
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 50.40% 39.38% 42.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 700 639 827
10th Percentile £295 £267 £263
25th Percentile £381 £394 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £481
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +3.95% +0.47%
75th Percentile £575 £587 £575
90th Percentile £666 £650 £656
England median daily rate £513 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -1.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 150 76
10th Percentile £13.00 £10.95 £15.74
25th Percentile £19.35 £12.40 £17.72
Median hourly rate £30.52 £16.06 £28.20
Median % change year-on-year +90.01% -43.05% +40.54%
75th Percentile £60.75 £33.87 £43.75
90th Percentile £82.28 £46.44 £49.52
England median hourly rate £25.40 £25.00 £32.75
% change year-on-year +1.60% -23.66% +52.33%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Job postings citing Microsoft as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Job vacancy trend for Microsoft in the North West

Microsoft
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the North West

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Microsoft in the North West.

Daily rate trend for Microsoft in the North West

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in the North West over the 6 months to 6 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the North West

Microsoft
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Microsoft in the North West.

Hourly rate trend for Microsoft in the North West

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in the North West over the 6 months to 6 July 2025.

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 6 July 2025. 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 +3 163 £425 -10.53% 516
Cheshire -3 93 £437 -15.96% 122
Lancashire -2 47 £500 - 308
Merseyside -1 32 £400 +53.85% 80
Cumbria +3 29 £465 -7.74% 24
Microsoft
England

Microsoft
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North West by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 47 (12.53%) Microsoft Exchange
2 44 (11.73%) SharePoint
3 17 (4.53%) Skype for Business
4 11 (2.93%) Confluence
5 8 (2.13%) JBoss
5 8 (2.13%) Mattermost
6 6 (1.60%) Tomcat
7 5 (1.33%) Apache
8 4 (1.07%) Exchange Server 2010
8 4 (1.07%) IIS
8 4 (1.07%) WebSphere
9 3 (0.80%) SAS
10 2 (0.53%) CICS
10 2 (0.53%) WebLogic
11 1 (0.27%) NetWeaver
11 1 (0.27%) nginx
Applications
1 39 (10.40%) Microsoft Office
2 38 (10.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (4.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (2.93%) MS Visio
5 5 (1.33%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (1.07%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.53%) Simulink
8 1 (0.27%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.27%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.27%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 10 (2.67%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.87%) Kondor
3 5 (1.33%) assyst
4 2 (0.53%) Finacle
4 2 (0.53%) Maximo
4 2 (0.53%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.53%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.53%) Unit4 Business World
5 1 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.27%) Shopify
5 1 (0.27%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 105 (28.00%) Azure
2 92 (24.53%) Microsoft 365
3 42 (11.20%) Entra ID
4 38 (10.13%) Power Platform
5 25 (6.67%) AWS
6 16 (4.27%) Power Automate
7 15 (4.00%) Dynamics 365
7 15 (4.00%) SaaS
8 13 (3.47%) PowerApps
9 12 (3.20%) OneDrive
10 11 (2.93%) Microsoft Purview
11 10 (2.67%) GCP
12 8 (2.13%) Azure Data Factory
13 7 (1.87%) Azure DevOps
13 7 (1.87%) Azure Sentinel
13 7 (1.87%) IaaS
14 5 (1.33%) OpenShift
15 4 (1.07%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 4 (1.07%) Google Workspace
15 4 (1.07%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 27 (7.20%) Firewall
2 26 (6.93%) DHCP
3 21 (5.60%) DNS
3 21 (5.60%) VPN
4 19 (5.07%) Skype
5 18 (4.80%) LAN
6 16 (4.27%) Network Security
7 12 (3.20%) Unified Communications
8 10 (2.67%) WebEx
9 8 (2.13%) Softphone
9 8 (2.13%) TCP/IP
9 8 (2.13%) WAN
10 7 (1.87%) SAN
10 7 (1.87%) Wi-Fi
11 6 (1.60%) Intrusion Detection
12 4 (1.07%) PSTN
12 4 (1.07%) SMTP
12 4 (1.07%) VLAN
13 3 (0.80%) DMZ
13 3 (0.80%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (7.47%) Power BI
2 21 (5.60%) SQL Server
3 8 (2.13%) Relational Database
4 7 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
5 5 (1.33%) DB2
5 5 (1.33%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 4 (1.07%) Data Lake
6 4 (1.07%) PostgreSQL
7 3 (0.80%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.80%) Dremio
7 3 (0.80%) Metadata
7 3 (0.80%) MongoDB
7 3 (0.80%) RDBMS
7 3 (0.80%) Tableau
8 2 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.53%) Delta Lake
8 2 (0.53%) MySQL
8 2 (0.53%) NoSQL
8 2 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 1 (0.27%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 16 (4.27%) JIRA
2 15 (4.00%) Git
3 8 (2.13%) Jenkins
4 6 (1.60%) GitLab
5 5 (1.33%) JUnit
5 5 (1.33%) Visual Studio
6 4 (1.07%) Hudson
6 4 (1.07%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (1.07%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 3 (0.80%) Gradle
7 3 (0.80%) Maven
7 3 (0.80%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.80%) Subversion
8 2 (0.53%) Babel
8 2 (0.53%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.53%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.53%) eggPlant
8 2 (0.53%) Selenium
8 2 (0.53%) webpack
9 1 (0.27%) Grunt
General
1 144 (38.40%) Social Skills
2 100 (26.67%) Finance
3 59 (15.73%) Analytical Skills
4 36 (9.60%) Public Sector
5 33 (8.80%) Banking
6 18 (4.80%) Documentation Skills
6 18 (4.80%) Legal
7 16 (4.27%) Organisational Skills
8 10 (2.67%) Manufacturing
8 10 (2.67%) Presentation Skills
8 10 (2.67%) Telecoms
9 8 (2.13%) Retail
10 7 (1.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.60%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (1.60%) Marketing
12 5 (1.33%) Military
13 4 (1.07%) Aerospace
13 4 (1.07%) French Language
13 4 (1.07%) Publishing
14 3 (0.80%) Japanese Language
Job Titles
1 73 (19.47%) Analyst
2 33 (8.80%) Support Engineer
3 32 (8.53%) Architect
3 32 (8.53%) Developer
4 29 (7.73%) IT Support
5 21 (5.60%) Support Analyst
6 17 (4.53%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
6 17 (4.53%) Senior
7 16 (4.27%) Administrator
7 16 (4.27%) IT Engineer
8 14 (3.73%) Desktop Support
9 13 (3.47%) Business Analyst
10 12 (3.20%) Consultant
10 12 (3.20%) Data Analyst
10 12 (3.20%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 10 (2.67%) 1st Line Support
11 10 (2.67%) IT Support Engineer
11 10 (2.67%) Project Manager
11 10 (2.67%) Solutions Architect
12 9 (2.40%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (4.00%) REST
2 11 (2.93%) SOAP
3 10 (2.67%) .NET
4 8 (2.13%) Spring Boot
4 8 (2.13%) Web Services
4 8 (2.13%) XMPP
5 7 (1.87%) RESTful
5 7 (1.87%) Spring
6 6 (1.60%) CSS
6 6 (1.60%) HTML
6 6 (1.60%) React
7 4 (1.07%) HTML5
7 4 (1.07%) JSON
7 4 (1.07%) Kafka
7 4 (1.07%) SailPoint
7 4 (1.07%) XML
8 3 (0.80%) .NET Framework
8 3 (0.80%) ADO
8 3 (0.80%) OAuth
8 3 (0.80%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 28 (7.47%) Management Information System
2 11 (2.93%) Enterprise Software
2 11 (2.93%) Product Ownership
3 8 (2.13%) Data Centre
4 7 (1.87%) Onboarding
5 5 (1.33%) Cloud Native
5 5 (1.33%) Hybrid Cloud
5 5 (1.33%) Security Posture
5 5 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (1.07%) Blackberry
6 4 (1.07%) CMDB
6 4 (1.07%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 4 (1.07%) Handset
6 4 (1.07%) Low-Code
6 4 (1.07%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 3 (0.80%) Analytical Mindset
7 3 (0.80%) Data Structures
7 3 (0.80%) Derivative
7 3 (0.80%) Security Operations Centre
7 3 (0.80%) Shadow IT
Operating Systems
1 110 (29.33%) Windows
2 44 (11.73%) Windows Server
3 33 (8.80%) Linux
4 28 (7.47%) Windows 10
5 13 (3.47%) Windows Server 2019
6 12 (3.20%) Unix
6 12 (3.20%) Windows Server 2016
7 11 (2.93%) Windows Server 2012
8 9 (2.40%) Android
9 8 (2.13%) VMS
9 8 (2.13%) Windows Server 2003
10 7 (1.87%) Windows XP
11 5 (1.33%) Windows 8
11 5 (1.33%) Windows Server 2008
12 4 (1.07%) Apple iOS
12 4 (1.07%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.53%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.53%) zOS
14 1 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (29.33%) Problem-Solving
2 68 (18.13%) ITIL
3 53 (14.13%) Agile
4 47 (12.53%) ITSM
5 37 (9.87%) Stakeholder Management
6 36 (9.60%) DevOps
6 36 (9.60%) Migration
7 34 (9.07%) Customer Service
7 34 (9.07%) Service Management
8 30 (8.00%) Cybersecurity
9 28 (7.47%) Change Management
10 27 (7.20%) Project Management
11 25 (6.67%) Analytics
11 25 (6.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 24 (6.40%) Continuous Improvement
13 23 (6.13%) Business Intelligence
14 21 (5.60%) Project Delivery
15 18 (4.80%) CI/CD
16 17 (4.53%) High Availability
16 17 (4.53%) Problem Management
Programming Languages
1 47 (12.53%) PowerShell
2 39 (10.40%) SQL
3 19 (5.07%) Python
4 14 (3.73%) Java
5 12 (3.20%) JavaScript
6 5 (1.33%) C#
6 5 (1.33%) Kusto Query Language
7 4 (1.07%) T-SQL
7 4 (1.07%) VB
7 4 (1.07%) VBScript
8 3 (0.80%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.53%) Apex Code
9 2 (0.53%) Bash
9 2 (0.53%) C++
9 2 (0.53%) JCL
9 2 (0.53%) VBA
10 1 (0.27%) Korn
10 1 (0.27%) Perl
10 1 (0.27%) R
10 1 (0.27%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 62 (16.53%) Security Cleared
2 52 (13.87%) SC Cleared
3 46 (12.27%) Microsoft Certification
4 34 (9.07%) Degree
5 17 (4.53%) Azure Certification
6 12 (3.20%) ITIL Certification
7 9 (2.40%) A+ Certification
7 9 (2.40%) BPSS Clearance
8 7 (1.87%) Computer Science Degree
9 6 (1.60%) DBS Check
9 6 (1.60%) MCSE
10 5 (1.33%) MCP
11 4 (1.07%) AWS Certification
11 4 (1.07%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 3 (0.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.80%) CCNA
12 3 (0.80%) Cisco Certification
13 2 (0.53%) GCIA
13 2 (0.53%) GCIH
13 2 (0.53%) MCSA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (2.93%) QA
1 11 (2.93%) SLA
2 8 (2.13%) Data Quality
2 8 (2.13%) GDPR
3 7 (1.87%) Accessibility
4 6 (1.60%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.33%) PMO
6 4 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.80%) Basel III
7 3 (0.80%) MiFID
8 2 (0.53%) ISO 20022
8 2 (0.53%) ISO 8583
8 2 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.53%) NIST
8 2 (0.53%) PSD2
8 2 (0.53%) SEPA
9 1 (0.27%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.27%) GRC
9 1 (0.27%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.27%) NCSC
System Software
1 87 (23.20%) Active Directory
2 16 (4.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (1.87%) BitLocker
3 7 (1.87%) Virtual Machines
4 6 (1.60%) VMware ESXi
4 6 (1.60%) vSphere
5 5 (1.33%) Docker
5 5 (1.33%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.80%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.53%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 1 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 32 (8.53%) Microsoft Intune
2 20 (5.33%) SCCM
3 15 (4.00%) WSUS
4 10 (2.67%) Single Sign-On
5 9 (2.40%) vCenter Server
6 8 (2.13%) SCOM
7 4 (1.07%) Dell DRAC
7 4 (1.07%) Kubernetes
8 3 (0.80%) Ansible
8 3 (0.80%) Backup Exec
8 3 (0.80%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (0.80%) Progress Chef
8 3 (0.80%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 2 (0.53%) CA Endevor
9 2 (0.53%) Microsoft Clustering
9 2 (0.53%) NetApp OnCommand
9 2 (0.53%) Sysdig
9 2 (0.53%) vMotion
10 1 (0.27%) Docker Swarm
10 1 (0.27%) PaperCut
Vendors
1 37 (9.87%) ServiceNow
2 30 (8.00%) VMware
3 18 (4.80%) Google
4 17 (4.53%) Oracle
5 14 (3.73%) Cisco
6 11 (2.93%) Splunk
7 10 (2.67%) Citrix
8 9 (2.40%) Dell
8 9 (2.40%) Red Hat
8 9 (2.40%) SAP
8 9 (2.40%) Zscaler
9 7 (1.87%) CyberArk
9 7 (1.87%) Veeam
10 6 (1.60%) Databricks
10 6 (1.60%) IBM
11 5 (1.33%) Canon
11 5 (1.33%) Darktrace
11 5 (1.33%) Sybase
12 4 (1.07%) CheckPoint
12 4 (1.07%) Clearswift