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 8 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
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 5 4
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 414 341 394
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 12.95% 17.47% 14.65%
As % of the Vendors category 31.22% 33.17% 37.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 289 226 206
10th Percentile £152 £200 £178
25th Percentile £300 £320 £287
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £420 £425 £450
Median % change year-on-year -1.18% -5.56% -5.26%
75th Percentile £525 £525 £575
90th Percentile £612 £575 £658
England median daily rate £495 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +4.21% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 29 107
10th Percentile £19.33 £13.00 £10.95
25th Percentile £25.19 £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 £39.08 £26.50
England median hourly rate £20.09 £18.77 £15.00
% change year-on-year +7.06% +25.10% -28.45%

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 1,326 1,028 1,060
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 41.49% 52.66% 39.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 813 661 623
10th Percentile £226 £250 £264
25th Percentile £374 £391 £392
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.63% -1.60% +2.56%
75th Percentile £581 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £653 £686
England median daily rate £500 £525 £520
% change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -2.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 54 149
10th Percentile £19.75 £13.36 £10.95
25th Percentile £22.76 £23.55 £12.00
Median hourly rate £31.36 £32.50 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -3.52% +102.37% -57.17%
75th Percentile £61.89 £62.25 £26.39
90th Percentile £85.90 £86.00 £46.18
England median hourly rate £31.93 £26.45 £22.50
% change year-on-year +20.72% +17.56% -43.75%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 -7 194 £433 +1.76% 178
Cheshire -5 87 £447 +2.17% 47
Merseyside +4 77 £140 -37.78% 34
Cumbria +1 29 £458 -2.55% 19
Lancashire -12 19 £350 -31.71% 84
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 44 (10.63%) SharePoint
2 42 (10.14%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (3.14%) Confluence
4 9 (2.17%) Skype for Business
5 5 (1.21%) CMS
6 3 (0.72%) Apache
6 3 (0.72%) IIS
7 2 (0.48%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.24%) CICS
8 1 (0.24%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 65 (15.70%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (5.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (2.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (2.17%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (1.69%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.97%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.48%) Trello
8 1 (0.24%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.24%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 17 (4.11%) Remedy ITSM
2 5 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.72%) Advent Geneva
3 3 (0.72%) Primavera
3 3 (0.72%) SAP MM
4 2 (0.48%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.48%) Elite 3E
4 2 (0.48%) NEC Housing
4 2 (0.48%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.24%) Infor M3
5 1 (0.24%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.24%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 148 (35.75%) Azure
2 139 (33.57%) Microsoft 365
3 52 (12.56%) Entra ID
4 48 (11.59%) Power Platform
5 37 (8.94%) Dynamics 365
6 31 (7.49%) AWS
7 24 (5.80%) Azure DevOps
7 24 (5.80%) Microsoft Copilot
8 17 (4.11%) GCP
9 16 (3.86%) OneDrive
9 16 (3.86%) Power Automate
9 16 (3.86%) PowerApps
10 14 (3.38%) Microsoft Purview
11 10 (2.42%) Serverless
12 9 (2.17%) Azure AKS
13 8 (1.93%) GitHub
14 7 (1.69%) Azure Logic Apps
14 7 (1.69%) GitHub Actions
14 7 (1.69%) SaaS
15 6 (1.45%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 22 (5.31%) VPN
2 21 (5.07%) Firewall
3 19 (4.59%) DNS
3 19 (4.59%) Skype
4 17 (4.11%) Wi-Fi
5 14 (3.38%) WAN
6 12 (2.90%) LAN
7 11 (2.66%) Network Security
8 10 (2.42%) DHCP
8 10 (2.42%) VLAN
9 5 (1.21%) WebEx
10 4 (0.97%) TCP/IP
11 3 (0.72%) Cisco ASA
11 3 (0.72%) Internet
11 3 (0.72%) SD-WAN
12 2 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
12 2 (0.48%) Kerberos
12 2 (0.48%) MPLS
12 2 (0.48%) SSL
12 2 (0.48%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (6.28%) Power BI
2 18 (4.35%) SQL Server
3 10 (2.42%) Relational Database
4 9 (2.17%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (1.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 5 (1.21%) Looker
6 5 (1.21%) MySQL
6 5 (1.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 4 (0.97%) BigQuery
7 4 (0.97%) Data Warehouse
7 4 (0.97%) Metadata
7 4 (0.97%) MongoDB
7 4 (0.97%) NoSQL
7 4 (0.97%) RDBMS
8 3 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (0.72%) BusinessObjects
8 3 (0.72%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.72%) DB2
8 3 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
9 2 (0.48%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 18 (4.35%) JIRA
2 9 (2.17%) Git
3 4 (0.97%) MSI
4 3 (0.72%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.48%) GitLab
6 1 (0.24%) Axure RP
6 1 (0.24%) Claude Code
6 1 (0.24%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.24%) InstallShield
6 1 (0.24%) Octopus Deploy
6 1 (0.24%) Postman
6 1 (0.24%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 143 (34.54%) Social Skills
2 94 (22.71%) Finance
3 55 (13.29%) Analytical Skills
4 52 (12.56%) Public Sector
5 51 (12.32%) Banking
6 46 (11.11%) Legal
7 21 (5.07%) Organisational Skills
8 11 (2.66%) Local Government
9 10 (2.42%) Documentation Skills
9 10 (2.42%) Retail
10 9 (2.17%) Telecoms
11 5 (1.21%) Influencing Skills
11 5 (1.21%) Manufacturing
12 4 (0.97%) Billing
12 4 (0.97%) Military
13 3 (0.72%) Investment Banking
13 3 (0.72%) Law
13 3 (0.72%) Marketing
13 3 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.72%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 63 (15.22%) Analyst
2 45 (10.87%) IT Support
3 36 (8.70%) Architect
4 33 (7.97%) 1st Line Support
5 29 (7.00%) Developer
6 24 (5.80%) IT Analyst
6 24 (5.80%) Support Analyst
7 20 (4.83%) Administrator
7 20 (4.83%) IT Support Analyst
8 18 (4.35%) Lead
8 18 (4.35%) Support Engineer
9 17 (4.11%) Senior
10 15 (3.62%) IT Engineer
10 15 (3.62%) IT Support Engineer
10 15 (3.62%) Security Engineer
11 14 (3.38%) 2nd Line Support
11 14 (3.38%) Project Manager
11 14 (3.38%) Wintel Engineer
12 13 (3.14%) Business Analyst
13 12 (2.90%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (2.90%) .NET
2 9 (2.17%) REST
2 9 (2.17%) Spring
2 9 (2.17%) Spring Boot
2 9 (2.17%) XML
3 6 (1.45%) JSON
3 6 (1.45%) OAuth
3 6 (1.45%) Software Packaging
4 5 (1.21%) Kafka
5 4 (0.97%) HTML
5 4 (0.97%) SAML
5 4 (0.97%) XMPP
6 3 (0.72%) ARM Templates
6 3 (0.72%) HTML5 Canvas
6 3 (0.72%) LDAP
6 3 (0.72%) Microsoft Graph
6 3 (0.72%) OpenID
6 3 (0.72%) Oracle Fusion
6 3 (0.72%) PySpark
7 2 (0.48%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 27 (6.52%) Onboarding
2 17 (4.11%) Replication
3 16 (3.86%) Clustering
4 15 (3.62%) Cloud Native
5 13 (3.14%) Product Ownership
6 10 (2.42%) Management Information System
7 8 (1.93%) Driving Licence
7 8 (1.93%) Security Posture
8 7 (1.69%) Data Centre
9 6 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (0.97%) Cloud Security Posture
10 4 (0.97%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (0.97%) Fat Client
10 4 (0.97%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (0.97%) Operational Technology
10 4 (0.97%) Thin Client
11 3 (0.72%) AI Agents
11 3 (0.72%) Analytical Mindset
11 3 (0.72%) Housing Association
11 3 (0.72%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 143 (34.54%) Windows
2 74 (17.87%) Windows 10
3 28 (6.76%) Windows Server
4 19 (4.59%) Linux
5 10 (2.42%) Windows 7
6 9 (2.17%) Apple iOS
6 9 (2.17%) Mac OS
7 7 (1.69%) Unix
8 6 (1.45%) Android
8 6 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.97%) Solaris
9 4 (0.97%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.72%) AIX
11 2 (0.48%) HPUX
11 2 (0.48%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.48%) SUSE
11 2 (0.48%) VMS
11 2 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (15.70%) Problem-Solving
2 58 (14.01%) Customer Service
3 56 (13.53%) Agile
4 47 (11.35%) ITIL
5 46 (11.11%) DevOps
6 43 (10.39%) Migration
7 35 (8.45%) ITSM
8 34 (8.21%) CI/CD
8 34 (8.21%) Stakeholder Management
9 31 (7.49%) Change Management
10 30 (7.25%) Analytics
11 29 (7.00%) Project Delivery
11 29 (7.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 28 (6.76%) AI
12 28 (6.76%) Business Intelligence
12 28 (6.76%) Service Management
13 27 (6.52%) Identity Access Management
14 26 (6.28%) Roadmaps
15 23 (5.56%) Continuous Improvement
15 23 (5.56%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 71 (17.15%) PowerShell
2 42 (10.14%) SQL
3 29 (7.00%) Python
4 18 (4.35%) Java
5 9 (2.17%) Bash
5 9 (2.17%) C#
5 9 (2.17%) VBScript
6 8 (1.93%) JavaScript
6 8 (1.93%) VB
7 7 (1.69%) Bicep
8 6 (1.45%) T-SQL
9 4 (0.97%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.72%) C++
10 3 (0.72%) VBA
11 2 (0.48%) COBOL
12 1 (0.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.24%) JCL
12 1 (0.24%) Perl
12 1 (0.24%) PHP
12 1 (0.24%) REXX
Qualifications
1 62 (14.98%) Security Cleared
2 55 (13.29%) Degree
3 54 (13.04%) SC Cleared
4 38 (9.18%) Microsoft Certification
5 16 (3.86%) MCSA
5 16 (3.86%) MCSE
6 14 (3.38%) VCAP
6 14 (3.38%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 12 (2.90%) Azure Certification
8 11 (2.66%) A+ Certification
9 10 (2.42%) BPSS Clearance
9 10 (2.42%) CISSP
9 10 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
10 9 (2.17%) Network+ Certification
11 8 (1.93%) AWS Certification
12 5 (1.21%) PMI Certification
13 4 (0.97%) DBS Check
13 4 (0.97%) ITIL Certification
14 3 (0.72%) CompTIA Security+
14 3 (0.72%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (4.35%) GDPR
2 12 (2.90%) Data Quality
3 11 (2.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.66%) QA
4 8 (1.93%) Accessibility
4 8 (1.93%) NIST
5 7 (1.69%) SLA
6 6 (1.45%) PMO
7 4 (0.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.48%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.48%) GRC
9 2 (0.48%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.48%) NCSC
9 2 (0.48%) WCAG
10 1 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 1 (0.24%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.24%) SOC 2
System Software
1 107 (25.85%) Active Directory
2 21 (5.07%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (4.83%) Docker
3 20 (4.83%) Virtual Machines
4 17 (4.11%) VMware ESXi
5 15 (3.62%) vSphere
6 9 (2.17%) BitLocker
7 4 (0.97%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.48%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.48%) Microsoft App-V
9 1 (0.24%) ACF2
9 1 (0.24%) GPFS
9 1 (0.24%) NFS
9 1 (0.24%) RACF
9 1 (0.24%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 24 (5.80%) Microsoft Intune
2 23 (5.56%) SCCM
3 20 (4.83%) Kubernetes
4 18 (4.35%) Ansible
5 16 (3.86%) vCenter Server
6 12 (2.90%) Terraform
7 8 (1.93%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 5 (1.21%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (0.97%) Grafana
10 3 (0.72%) Progress Chef
10 3 (0.72%) Prometheus
11 2 (0.48%) AirWatch
11 2 (0.48%) Argo
11 2 (0.48%) CA Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.48%) CASB
11 2 (0.48%) Istio
11 2 (0.48%) linkerd
11 2 (0.48%) Norton AntiVirus
12 1 (0.24%) Tivoli
12 1 (0.24%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 42 (10.14%) ServiceNow
2 38 (9.18%) Cisco
3 22 (5.31%) VMware
4 19 (4.59%) Remedy
5 17 (4.11%) Bomgar
5 17 (4.11%) Citrix
5 17 (4.11%) iManage
6 13 (3.14%) Oracle
7 12 (2.90%) Google
8 11 (2.66%) SAP
9 9 (2.17%) Splunk
10 8 (1.93%) Red Hat
11 7 (1.69%) BeyondTrust
12 5 (1.21%) CrowdStrike
13 4 (0.97%) HP
14 3 (0.72%) Advent
14 3 (0.72%) IBM
14 3 (0.72%) Infoblox
14 3 (0.72%) McAfee
14 3 (0.72%) Salesforce