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 26 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
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 5 4
Rank change year-on-year -2 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 394 339 390
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 11.87% 17.47% 14.62%
As % of the Vendors category 29.23% 33.60% 38.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 269 217 204
10th Percentile £152 £200 £180
25th Percentile £308 £313 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £428 £425 £450
Median % change year-on-year +0.71% -5.56% -5.26%
75th Percentile £532 £525 £578
90th Percentile £613 £575 £650
England median daily rate £500 £479 £486
% change year-on-year +4.44% -1.54% -2.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 34 106
10th Percentile £17.92 £12.87 £10.95
25th Percentile - £14.11 £11.07
Median hourly rate £25.38 £27.13 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.43% +87.07% -45.28%
75th Percentile £71.63 £31.21 £17.72
90th Percentile £178.75 £54.53 £26.50
England median hourly rate £20.43 £18.85 £15.00
% change year-on-year +8.38% +25.67% -29.31%

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 1,348 1,009 1,025
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 40.60% 52.01% 38.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 805 644 605
10th Percentile £275 £250 £259
25th Percentile £389 £388 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.50% -1.55% +5.26%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £582
90th Percentile £675 £650 £648
England median daily rate £505 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -3.81% +1.94% -3.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 59 149
10th Percentile £19.49 £13.00 £10.95
25th Percentile £23.30 £18.22 £12.00
Median hourly rate £31.36 £31.76 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -1.27% +97.76% -57.17%
75th Percentile £61.37 £60.00 £26.50
90th Percentile £85.90 £86.00 £46.18
England median hourly rate £32.50 £25.50 £22.50
% change year-on-year +27.45% +13.33% -43.11%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -8 180 £436 +2.47% 197
Cheshire -6 82 £458 +7.82% 53
Merseyside +2 69 £140 -44.00% 34
Cumbria -4 35 £458 -1.51% 15
Lancashire -14 20 £375 -28.57% 77
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 43 (10.91%) Microsoft Exchange
1 43 (10.91%) SharePoint
2 13 (3.30%) Confluence
3 12 (3.05%) Skype for Business
4 5 (1.27%) CMS
5 3 (0.76%) IIS
6 2 (0.51%) Apache
6 2 (0.51%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.25%) CICS
7 1 (0.25%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.25%) WebSphere
Applications
1 59 (14.97%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (6.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (2.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (2.03%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (1.78%) MS Visio
6 4 (1.02%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.25%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.25%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.25%) Trello
Business Applications
1 17 (4.31%) Remedy ITSM
2 5 (1.27%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.76%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.76%) Primavera
3 3 (0.76%) SAP MM
4 2 (0.51%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.51%) Elite 3E
4 2 (0.51%) NEC Housing
4 2 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.25%) Infor M3
5 1 (0.25%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.25%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 147 (37.31%) Azure
2 133 (33.76%) Microsoft 365
3 51 (12.94%) Entra ID
4 48 (12.18%) Power Platform
5 37 (9.39%) Dynamics 365
6 32 (8.12%) AWS
7 27 (6.85%) Microsoft Copilot
8 24 (6.09%) Azure DevOps
9 18 (4.57%) Power Automate
9 18 (4.57%) PowerApps
10 15 (3.81%) OneDrive
11 13 (3.30%) GCP
11 13 (3.30%) Microsoft Purview
12 11 (2.79%) Serverless
13 9 (2.28%) Azure AKS
13 9 (2.28%) GitHub
14 7 (1.78%) Azure Logic Apps
14 7 (1.78%) GitHub Actions
14 7 (1.78%) SaaS
15 6 (1.52%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 21 (5.33%) Skype
2 19 (4.82%) VPN
3 18 (4.57%) DNS
3 18 (4.57%) Firewall
4 17 (4.31%) Wi-Fi
5 12 (3.05%) WAN
6 11 (2.79%) LAN
7 10 (2.54%) DHCP
7 10 (2.54%) Network Security
7 10 (2.54%) VLAN
8 4 (1.02%) TCP/IP
8 4 (1.02%) WebEx
9 2 (0.51%) Internet
9 2 (0.51%) Kerberos
9 2 (0.51%) SD-WAN
9 2 (0.51%) VSAN
10 1 (0.25%) BGP
10 1 (0.25%) SAN
10 1 (0.25%) SSL
10 1 (0.25%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (6.60%) Power BI
2 15 (3.81%) SQL Server
3 9 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (1.27%) Relational Database
4 5 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 3 (0.76%) BusinessObjects
5 3 (0.76%) Data Warehouse
5 3 (0.76%) Looker
5 3 (0.76%) Metadata
5 3 (0.76%) MongoDB
5 3 (0.76%) MySQL
5 3 (0.76%) NoSQL
5 3 (0.76%) Oracle Reports
5 3 (0.76%) RDBMS
5 3 (0.76%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 2 (0.51%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.51%) BigQuery
6 2 (0.51%) Data Lake
6 2 (0.51%) Power Query
6 2 (0.51%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 17 (4.31%) JIRA
2 9 (2.28%) Git
3 3 (0.76%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.76%) MSI
4 2 (0.51%) GitLab
5 1 (0.25%) Axure RP
5 1 (0.25%) Claude Code
5 1 (0.25%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.25%) Postman
5 1 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 121 (30.71%) Social Skills
2 85 (21.57%) Finance
3 50 (12.69%) Analytical Skills
3 50 (12.69%) Public Sector
4 48 (12.18%) Banking
5 43 (10.91%) Legal
6 18 (4.57%) Organisational Skills
7 11 (2.79%) Local Government
8 9 (2.28%) Retail
8 9 (2.28%) Telecoms
9 6 (1.52%) Manufacturing
10 5 (1.27%) Documentation Skills
10 5 (1.27%) Influencing Skills
10 5 (1.27%) Military
11 4 (1.02%) Billing
11 4 (1.02%) Investment Banking
12 3 (0.76%) Law
12 3 (0.76%) Marketing
12 3 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.76%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 59 (14.97%) Analyst
2 37 (9.39%) IT Support
3 34 (8.63%) Architect
4 32 (8.12%) 1st Line Support
5 26 (6.60%) Developer
6 24 (6.09%) IT Analyst
6 24 (6.09%) Support Analyst
7 20 (5.08%) IT Support Analyst
8 18 (4.57%) Security Engineer
9 17 (4.31%) Lead
10 16 (4.06%) Wintel Engineer
11 15 (3.81%) Support Engineer
12 14 (3.55%) Administrator
13 13 (3.30%) Project Manager
13 13 (3.30%) Senior
14 12 (3.05%) Business Analyst
14 12 (3.05%) IT Engineer
14 12 (3.05%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
14 12 (3.05%) Microsoft Engineer
14 12 (3.05%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (2.28%) Spring
1 9 (2.28%) Spring Boot
2 8 (2.03%) .NET
2 8 (2.03%) REST
3 7 (1.78%) XML
4 6 (1.52%) Software Packaging
5 5 (1.27%) OAuth
6 4 (1.02%) HTML
6 4 (1.02%) JSON
6 4 (1.02%) Microsoft Graph
6 4 (1.02%) SAML
7 3 (0.76%) ARM Templates
7 3 (0.76%) HTML5 Canvas
7 3 (0.76%) Kafka
7 3 (0.76%) LDAP
7 3 (0.76%) OpenID
7 3 (0.76%) Oracle Fusion
7 3 (0.76%) PySpark
7 3 (0.76%) XMPP
8 2 (0.51%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 27 (6.85%) Onboarding
2 20 (5.08%) Replication
3 18 (4.57%) Clustering
4 15 (3.81%) Cloud Native
5 13 (3.30%) Product Ownership
6 12 (3.05%) Management Information System
7 8 (2.03%) Security Posture
8 7 (1.78%) Data Centre
9 6 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.27%) Driving Licence
11 4 (1.02%) Cloud Security Posture
11 4 (1.02%) Cyber Threat
11 4 (1.02%) Legacy Systems
11 4 (1.02%) Linux Command Line
11 4 (1.02%) Operational Technology
12 3 (0.76%) AI Agents
12 3 (0.76%) Analytical Mindset
12 3 (0.76%) Housing Association
12 3 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
12 3 (0.76%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 139 (35.28%) Windows
2 72 (18.27%) Windows 10
3 27 (6.85%) Windows Server
4 18 (4.57%) Linux
5 13 (3.30%) Windows 7
6 11 (2.79%) Mac OS
7 9 (2.28%) Apple iOS
8 6 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 6 (1.52%) Unix
9 4 (1.02%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.76%) AIX
10 3 (0.76%) Android
10 3 (0.76%) Solaris
11 2 (0.51%) HPUX
11 2 (0.51%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.51%) SUSE
11 2 (0.51%) VMS
11 2 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (14.21%) Problem-Solving
2 55 (13.96%) Agile
3 53 (13.45%) Customer Service
4 46 (11.68%) DevOps
5 45 (11.42%) ITIL
6 39 (9.90%) ITSM
6 39 (9.90%) Migration
7 34 (8.63%) CI/CD
8 33 (8.38%) Stakeholder Management
9 32 (8.12%) Analytics
10 31 (7.87%) AI
11 30 (7.61%) Service Management
12 29 (7.36%) Project Delivery
13 28 (7.11%) Change Management
13 28 (7.11%) Roadmaps
13 28 (7.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 27 (6.85%) Identity Access Management
15 26 (6.60%) Business Intelligence
16 25 (6.35%) Continuous Improvement
17 24 (6.09%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 74 (18.78%) PowerShell
2 36 (9.14%) SQL
3 30 (7.61%) Python
4 16 (4.06%) Java
5 13 (3.30%) VBScript
6 11 (2.79%) VB
7 9 (2.28%) Bash
8 8 (2.03%) C#
8 8 (2.03%) JavaScript
9 6 (1.52%) Bicep
10 4 (1.02%) T-SQL
10 4 (1.02%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.76%) C++
11 3 (0.76%) VBA
12 2 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.25%) COBOL
13 1 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 64 (16.24%) Security Cleared
2 56 (14.21%) Degree
2 56 (14.21%) SC Cleared
3 41 (10.41%) Microsoft Certification
4 17 (4.31%) MCSA
4 17 (4.31%) MCSE
5 16 (4.06%) VCAP
5 16 (4.06%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
6 13 (3.30%) Azure Certification
7 11 (2.79%) A+ Certification
7 11 (2.79%) CISSP
7 11 (2.79%) Computer Science Degree
8 10 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
9 9 (2.28%) AWS Certification
9 9 (2.28%) Network+ Certification
10 8 (2.03%) DBS Check
11 5 (1.27%) PMI Certification
12 4 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
13 3 (0.76%) PMP
13 3 (0.76%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (4.06%) GDPR
2 10 (2.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (2.28%) Data Quality
4 8 (2.03%) Accessibility
4 8 (2.03%) NIST
4 8 (2.03%) SLA
5 7 (1.78%) QA
6 6 (1.52%) PMO
7 4 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (1.02%) WCAG
8 3 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.76%) NCSC
9 2 (0.51%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.51%) GRC
9 2 (0.51%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 1 (0.25%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.25%) SOC 2
System Software
1 103 (26.14%) Active Directory
2 23 (5.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (5.33%) Virtual Machines
4 19 (4.82%) VMware ESXi
5 18 (4.57%) Docker
5 18 (4.57%) vSphere
6 12 (3.05%) BitLocker
7 5 (1.27%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.51%) GPFS
8 2 (0.51%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.51%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.51%) NFS
Systems Management
1 25 (6.35%) SCCM
2 23 (5.84%) Microsoft Intune
3 20 (5.08%) Ansible
4 18 (4.57%) Kubernetes
4 18 (4.57%) vCenter Server
5 14 (3.55%) Terraform
6 8 (2.03%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 4 (1.02%) Grafana
7 4 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.76%) Progress Chef
8 3 (0.76%) Prometheus
9 2 (0.51%) AirWatch
9 2 (0.51%) Argo
9 2 (0.51%) CA Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.51%) CASB
9 2 (0.51%) Istio
9 2 (0.51%) linkerd
9 2 (0.51%) vRealize
9 2 (0.51%) VxRail
10 1 (0.25%) Norton AntiVirus
Vendors
1 49 (12.44%) ServiceNow
2 39 (9.90%) Cisco
3 25 (6.35%) VMware
4 20 (5.08%) Remedy
5 17 (4.31%) Bomgar
5 17 (4.31%) iManage
6 15 (3.81%) Citrix
7 14 (3.55%) Oracle
8 12 (3.05%) SAP
9 11 (2.79%) Splunk
10 9 (2.28%) Google
11 8 (2.03%) BeyondTrust
11 8 (2.03%) Red Hat
12 6 (1.52%) CrowdStrike
13 5 (1.27%) IBM
14 4 (1.02%) Databricks
14 4 (1.02%) HP
15 3 (0.76%) CyberArk
15 3 (0.76%) Infoblox
15 3 (0.76%) Salesforce