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 13 October 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
13 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 8 4
Rank change year-on-year +5 -4 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 400 273 459
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 18.20% 11.32% 16.13%
As % of the Vendors category 35.91% 27.08% 35.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 269 151 297
10th Percentile £204 £246 £200
25th Percentile £350 £363 £255
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £450 £425
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% +5.88% -
75th Percentile £500 £572 £538
90th Percentile £605 £638 £619
England median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.66% -2.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 23 57
10th Percentile £12.96 £16.64 £15.75
25th Percentile £15.50 £24.18 £17.14
Median hourly rate £22.32 £31.00 £22.53
Median % change year-on-year -28.02% +37.59% +21.78%
75th Percentile £31.40 £41.09 £46.18
90th Percentile £63.40 £46.18 £50.70
England median hourly rate £22.63 £20.00 £23.00
% change year-on-year +13.15% -13.04% +24.32%

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 1,114 1,008 1,304
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 50.68% 41.79% 45.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 726 517 840
10th Percentile £300 £313 £225
25th Percentile £380 £413 £369
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £609 £588 £593
90th Percentile £710 £675 £675
England median daily rate £507 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.52% - -2.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 86 51 97
10th Percentile £13.00 £16.00 £16.22
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.18 £17.50
Median hourly rate £22.63 £35.36 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -36.00% +1.03% +49.64%
75th Percentile £46.36 £46.18 £46.18
90th Percentile £68.63 £55.79 £50.70
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.16% -21.35% +84.04%

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 13 October 2025.

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 13 October 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 13 October 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 +9 186 £450 - 265
Cheshire +3 134 £428 -10.56% 105
Lancashire +1 31 £463 +12.12% 188
Merseyside -1 31 £400 +60.00% 71
Cumbria +14 10 £400 -15.79% 11
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 38 (9.50%) SharePoint
2 20 (5.00%) Confluence
2 20 (5.00%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (4.50%) JBoss
4 16 (4.00%) Skype for Business
5 15 (3.75%) Apache
6 14 (3.50%) IIS
6 14 (3.50%) WebSphere
7 10 (2.50%) iPlanet
7 10 (2.50%) WebSphere Application Server
8 8 (2.00%) Mattermost
9 7 (1.75%) Exchange Server 2013
10 6 (1.50%) Apache Airflow
10 6 (1.50%) Tomcat
11 5 (1.25%) CMS
11 5 (1.25%) Exchange Server 2010
12 2 (0.50%) NetWeaver
12 2 (0.50%) WebLogic
13 1 (0.25%) CICS
13 1 (0.25%) SAS
Applications
1 58 (14.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 56 (14.00%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (5.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (4.00%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.75%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.75%) Siemens NX
5 3 (0.75%) Sketch
6 2 (0.50%) Simulink
7 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.25%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (3.00%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.25%) assyst
3 3 (0.75%) Teamcenter
4 2 (0.50%) Kondor
4 2 (0.50%) Maximo
4 2 (0.50%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.25%) Advent Geneva
5 1 (0.25%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.25%) Primavera
5 1 (0.25%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 94 (23.50%) Azure
2 88 (22.00%) Microsoft 365
3 50 (12.50%) Power Platform
4 49 (12.25%) AWS
5 16 (4.00%) Entra ID
5 16 (4.00%) OneDrive
5 16 (4.00%) OpenShift
5 16 (4.00%) Power Automate
5 16 (4.00%) SaaS
6 15 (3.75%) Dynamics 365
7 13 (3.25%) Azure DevOps
8 12 (3.00%) PowerApps
9 11 (2.75%) GCP
10 10 (2.50%) GitHub
10 10 (2.50%) Microsoft Purview
11 8 (2.00%) Azure Sentinel
12 6 (1.50%) Azure Logic Apps
12 6 (1.50%) Figma
13 5 (1.25%) Lucidchart
14 4 (1.00%) Google Tag Manager
Communications & Networking
1 18 (4.50%) Firewall
2 16 (4.00%) Skype
3 14 (3.50%) Unified Communications
4 13 (3.25%) Network Security
5 12 (3.00%) DNS
6 10 (2.50%) Kerberos
6 10 (2.50%) WebEx
7 9 (2.25%) LAN
8 8 (2.00%) Softphone
9 6 (1.50%) TCP/IP
9 6 (1.50%) Wi-Fi
10 5 (1.25%) Internet
10 5 (1.25%) VPN
10 5 (1.25%) WAN
11 4 (1.00%) DHCP
11 4 (1.00%) SSL
12 3 (0.75%) SSH
13 2 (0.50%) ATM
13 2 (0.50%) VoIP
13 2 (0.50%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (8.00%) Power BI
2 16 (4.00%) SQL Server
3 12 (3.00%) Oracle Database
4 10 (2.50%) Relational Database
5 7 (1.75%) Data Lake
5 7 (1.75%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (1.50%) DB2
7 4 (1.00%) BigQuery
7 4 (1.00%) Looker
7 4 (1.00%) MS Access
7 4 (1.00%) MySQL
8 3 (0.75%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.75%) Tableau
9 2 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.50%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.50%) Big Data
9 2 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 2 (0.50%) Star Schema
10 1 (0.25%) Cognos Report Studio
10 1 (0.25%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 31 (7.75%) JIRA
2 27 (6.75%) Git
3 22 (5.50%) Jenkins
4 12 (3.00%) Sonatype Nexus
5 11 (2.75%) Bitbucket Server
5 11 (2.75%) CA Release Automation
6 8 (2.00%) GitLab
7 5 (1.25%) Gradle
7 5 (1.25%) JUnit
8 4 (1.00%) Selenium
8 4 (1.00%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.75%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.75%) Maven
9 3 (0.75%) Subversion
10 2 (0.50%) Cucumber
10 2 (0.50%) Hudson
10 2 (0.50%) Storybook
10 2 (0.50%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.50%) Xcode
11 1 (0.25%) MLflow
General
1 160 (40.00%) Social Skills
2 122 (30.50%) Finance
3 77 (19.25%) Analytical Skills
4 37 (9.25%) Public Sector
5 33 (8.25%) Banking
6 20 (5.00%) Organisational Skills
7 14 (3.50%) Legal
8 13 (3.25%) Manufacturing
9 12 (3.00%) Documentation Skills
9 12 (3.00%) Presentation Skills
10 10 (2.50%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (1.50%) Aerospace
11 6 (1.50%) Retail
12 5 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.25%) Military
12 5 (1.25%) Publishing
12 5 (1.25%) Telecoms
13 3 (0.75%) Aviation
13 3 (0.75%) Financial Institution
13 3 (0.75%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 89 (22.25%) Analyst
2 42 (10.50%) Developer
3 34 (8.50%) Support Analyst
4 26 (6.50%) IT Support
5 25 (6.25%) Architect
6 23 (5.75%) Administrator
7 19 (4.75%) Senior
8 17 (4.25%) Lead
8 17 (4.25%) Support Engineer
9 16 (4.00%) Business Analyst
10 15 (3.75%) Operations Analyst
10 15 (3.75%) SAP Administrator
10 15 (3.75%) SAP Support
10 15 (3.75%) Security Engineer
11 14 (3.50%) Consultant
11 14 (3.50%) Desktop Support
11 14 (3.50%) Operational Support Analyst
11 14 (3.50%) Operations Support Analyst
11 14 (3.50%) Support Technician
12 11 (2.75%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (4.25%) REST
2 14 (3.50%) OAuth
3 12 (3.00%) HTML
3 12 (3.00%) LDAP
3 12 (3.00%) SOAP
4 11 (2.75%) SAML
4 11 (2.75%) Web Services
5 10 (2.50%) OpenID
6 9 (2.25%) Spring Boot
6 9 (2.25%) XMPP
7 8 (2.00%) .NET
7 8 (2.00%) JSON
7 8 (2.00%) Spring
8 7 (1.75%) CSS
8 7 (1.75%) Kafka
8 7 (1.75%) RESTful
9 6 (1.50%) React
9 6 (1.50%) SailPoint
10 4 (1.00%) AngularJS
10 4 (1.00%) HTML5 Canvas
Miscellaneous
1 24 (6.00%) Onboarding
2 18 (4.50%) Management Information System
3 15 (3.75%) Enterprise Software
3 15 (3.75%) Product Ownership
4 12 (3.00%) Low-Code
5 9 (2.25%) Cloud Native
6 8 (2.00%) Mobile App
7 7 (1.75%) Data Centre
8 6 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (1.50%) CMDB
8 6 (1.50%) Video Conferencing
9 5 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (1.00%) Clustering
10 4 (1.00%) Security Operations Centre
10 4 (1.00%) Security Posture
11 3 (0.75%) Distributed Computing
11 3 (0.75%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 3 (0.75%) PKI
11 3 (0.75%) Shadow IT
11 3 (0.75%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 97 (24.25%) Windows
2 40 (10.00%) Linux
3 22 (5.50%) Windows 10
3 22 (5.50%) Windows Server
4 18 (4.50%) Unix
5 14 (3.50%) Apple iOS
6 10 (2.50%) Android
7 4 (1.00%) Mac OS
7 4 (1.00%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.50%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.25%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.25%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.25%) Windows 8
9 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.25%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (23.00%) Problem-Solving
2 68 (17.00%) ITIL
3 56 (14.00%) Agile
4 55 (13.75%) Stakeholder Management
5 51 (12.75%) DevOps
6 45 (11.25%) Customer Service
7 42 (10.50%) Change Management
8 41 (10.25%) ITSM
9 39 (9.75%) Business Intelligence
10 37 (9.25%) Service Management
11 36 (9.00%) Cybersecurity
11 36 (9.00%) Migration
11 36 (9.00%) Project Management
12 33 (8.25%) Analytics
12 33 (8.25%) CI/CD
13 28 (7.00%) Problem Management
14 26 (6.50%) Continuous Improvement
15 24 (6.00%) Validation
16 23 (5.75%) User Experience
17 22 (5.50%) AI
Programming Languages
1 45 (11.25%) SQL
2 26 (6.50%) PowerShell
3 25 (6.25%) Python
4 18 (4.50%) Java
5 14 (3.50%) JavaScript
6 11 (2.75%) Shell Script
7 10 (2.50%) Groovy
8 7 (1.75%) Kusto Query Language
9 5 (1.25%) C#
9 5 (1.25%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.75%) VBA
11 2 (0.50%) Apex Code
11 2 (0.50%) Bash
11 2 (0.50%) C++
11 2 (0.50%) PHP
11 2 (0.50%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.25%) Korn
12 1 (0.25%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.25%) Ruby
12 1 (0.25%) Scala
Qualifications
1 60 (15.00%) Security Cleared
2 53 (13.25%) Degree
3 43 (10.75%) SC Cleared
4 25 (6.25%) Microsoft Certification
5 22 (5.50%) BPSS Clearance
6 13 (3.25%) ITIL Certification
7 11 (2.75%) Azure Certification
8 8 (2.00%) CISSP
8 8 (2.00%) Computer Science Degree
9 6 (1.50%) AWS Certification
9 6 (1.50%) CISM
10 5 (1.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 4 (1.00%) A+ Certification
12 3 (0.75%) CBAP
12 3 (0.75%) CISA
12 3 (0.75%) GSEC
12 3 (0.75%) MCT
12 3 (0.75%) PMI Certification
13 2 (0.50%) GCIA
13 2 (0.50%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (4.50%) Accessibility
2 17 (4.25%) QA
3 11 (2.75%) GDPR
3 11 (2.75%) NIST
4 10 (2.50%) Data Quality
5 6 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (1.50%) PCI DSS
6 4 (1.00%) HIPAA
6 4 (1.00%) PMO
6 4 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (1.00%) SLA
7 2 (0.50%) Basel III
7 2 (0.50%) GRC
7 2 (0.50%) ISO 8583
7 2 (0.50%) MiFID
8 1 (0.25%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.25%) NCSC
8 1 (0.25%) P3O
8 1 (0.25%) PMBOK
8 1 (0.25%) SEPA
System Software
1 74 (18.50%) Active Directory
2 16 (4.00%) Docker
3 8 (2.00%) Tivoli Directory Server
4 4 (1.00%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.50%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.50%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.25%) Time Sharing Option
6 1 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.25%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 31 (7.75%) SCCM
2 27 (6.75%) Microsoft Intune
3 12 (3.00%) Progress Chef
4 10 (2.50%) CA Single Sign-On
4 10 (2.50%) CA Wily
4 10 (2.50%) Kubernetes
5 8 (2.00%) SCOM
5 8 (2.00%) Tivoli
6 6 (1.50%) QRadar
6 6 (1.50%) Single Sign-On
6 6 (1.50%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
7 4 (1.00%) Ansible
8 3 (0.75%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (0.75%) Microsoft Clustering
8 3 (0.75%) Norton AntiVirus
8 3 (0.75%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.50%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.50%) Backup Exec
9 2 (0.50%) Nessus
9 2 (0.50%) WSUS
Vendors
1 42 (10.50%) ServiceNow
2 27 (6.75%) Oracle
2 27 (6.75%) Splunk
3 25 (6.25%) SAP
4 20 (5.00%) IBM
5 12 (3.00%) AppDynamics
5 12 (3.00%) Cisco
6 11 (2.75%) Google
7 10 (2.50%) Broadcom
8 9 (2.25%) Red Hat
8 9 (2.25%) VMware
9 7 (1.75%) Apple
9 7 (1.75%) Zscaler
10 6 (1.50%) Veeam
11 5 (1.25%) Citrix
11 5 (1.25%) Darktrace
11 5 (1.25%) Symantec
12 4 (1.00%) ArcSight
12 4 (1.00%) CyberArk
12 4 (1.00%) Salesforce