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 18 July 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
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -3 +1 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 468 384 396
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 12.69% 17.87% 14.92%
As % of the Vendors category 31.18% 35.52% 38.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 310 251 227
10th Percentile £185 £200 £190
25th Percentile £344 £350 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £431 £450
Median % change year-on-year +4.41% -4.22% -5.26%
75th Percentile £538 £525 £575
90th Percentile £611 £604 £643
England median daily rate £497 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +4.66% -3.55% -1.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 42 86
10th Percentile £17.32 £12.84 -
25th Percentile £25.38 £17.44 £10.95
Median hourly rate £29.00 £22.63 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +28.15% +40.91% -18.68%
75th Percentile £66.38 £31.21 £17.76
90th Percentile £178.75 £63.40 £26.50
England median hourly rate £22.79 £22.63 £16.13
% change year-on-year +0.68% +40.34% -24.51%

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 1,501 1,081 1,025
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 40.70% 50.30% 38.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 885 698 619
10th Percentile £275 £284 £261
25th Percentile £400 £384 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.11% -5.00% +2.56%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £580
90th Percentile £663 £665 £643
England median daily rate £510 £513 £515
% change year-on-year -0.49% -0.49% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 113 69 131
10th Percentile £17.25 £13.00 £10.95
25th Percentile £22.68 £19.07 £12.85
Median hourly rate £29.96 £28.75 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +4.21% +79.02% -39.40%
75th Percentile £67.00 £60.00 £33.75
90th Percentile £86.00 £70.42 £50.00
England median hourly rate £35.50 £25.15 £26.00
% change year-on-year +41.15% -3.27% -30.67%

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 18 July 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 18 July 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 18 July 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 -4 227 £449 +5.53% 164
Cheshire 0 113 £492 +12.59% 50
Merseyside -2 53 £148 -63.13% 39
Cumbria -3 34 £458 +0.11% 10
Lancashire -8 30 £425 -8.11% 79
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 54 (11.54%) SharePoint
2 36 (7.69%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (2.99%) Confluence
4 9 (1.92%) Skype for Business
5 3 (0.64%) CMS
5 3 (0.64%) IIS
6 2 (0.43%) Apache
6 2 (0.43%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.21%) CICS
7 1 (0.21%) SharePoint 2013
7 1 (0.21%) WebSphere
Applications
1 57 (12.18%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (7.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (2.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (2.56%) Microsoft Project
5 9 (1.92%) MS Visio
6 5 (1.07%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.43%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.21%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.21%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.21%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.21%) Revit
Business Applications
1 13 (2.78%) Remedy ITSM
2 11 (2.35%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (1.28%) Primavera
3 6 (1.28%) SAP MM
4 5 (1.07%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
6 3 (0.64%) Elite 3E
7 2 (0.43%) Dynamics AX
8 1 (0.21%) Adobe Campaign
8 1 (0.21%) Infor M3
8 1 (0.21%) Integrated Workplace Management System
8 1 (0.21%) NEC Housing
8 1 (0.21%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 187 (39.96%) Azure
2 140 (29.91%) Microsoft 365
3 74 (15.81%) Power Platform
4 61 (13.03%) Entra ID
5 42 (8.97%) Microsoft Copilot
6 38 (8.12%) AWS
7 37 (7.91%) Dynamics 365
8 31 (6.62%) Azure DevOps
9 26 (5.56%) Power Automate
10 25 (5.34%) PowerApps
11 15 (3.21%) GCP
12 14 (2.99%) Microsoft Purview
12 14 (2.99%) OneDrive
13 12 (2.56%) Serverless
14 11 (2.35%) Azure AKS
14 11 (2.35%) Azure Monitor
14 11 (2.35%) GitHub
15 8 (1.71%) Azure Logic Apps
15 8 (1.71%) GitHub Actions
15 8 (1.71%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 27 (5.77%) DNS
2 22 (4.70%) Firewall
3 18 (3.85%) VPN
4 14 (2.99%) Skype
5 12 (2.56%) DHCP
5 12 (2.56%) Network Security
6 10 (2.14%) TCP/IP
7 8 (1.71%) Wi-Fi
8 7 (1.50%) LAN
8 7 (1.50%) WAN
9 6 (1.28%) SSL
10 3 (0.64%) SAN
10 3 (0.64%) SSH
10 3 (0.64%) VLAN
10 3 (0.64%) WebEx
11 2 (0.43%) Internet
11 2 (0.43%) Kerberos
11 2 (0.43%) NAS
11 2 (0.43%) VSAN
12 1 (0.21%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (10.68%) Power BI
2 37 (7.91%) SQL Server
3 16 (3.42%) PostgreSQL
4 14 (2.99%) MySQL
4 14 (2.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 8 (1.71%) Power Query
5 8 (1.71%) Relational Database
6 7 (1.50%) Data Warehouse
7 5 (1.07%) MongoDB
7 5 (1.07%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 4 (0.85%) Data Lake
8 4 (0.85%) Metadata
8 4 (0.85%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 3 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
9 3 (0.64%) BusinessObjects
9 3 (0.64%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
9 3 (0.64%) RDBMS
10 2 (0.43%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.43%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 23 (4.91%) JIRA
2 13 (2.78%) Git
3 5 (1.07%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.64%) GitLab
4 3 (0.64%) MSI
5 2 (0.43%) Claude Code
5 2 (0.43%) Toad
6 1 (0.21%) Postman
6 1 (0.21%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 141 (30.13%) Social Skills
2 96 (20.51%) Finance
3 60 (12.82%) Analytical Skills
4 46 (9.83%) Public Sector
5 45 (9.62%) Banking
6 37 (7.91%) Legal
7 18 (3.85%) Manufacturing
8 16 (3.42%) Organisational Skills
9 14 (2.99%) Local Government
10 9 (1.92%) Retail
11 8 (1.71%) Documentation Skills
12 7 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
12 7 (1.50%) Investment Banking
12 7 (1.50%) Telecoms
13 6 (1.28%) Military
14 5 (1.07%) Marketing
14 5 (1.07%) Presentation Skills
15 4 (0.85%) Corporate Banking
15 4 (0.85%) Retail Banking
16 3 (0.64%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 50 (10.68%) Analyst
2 39 (8.33%) Architect
3 34 (7.26%) Developer
3 34 (7.26%) IT Support
4 29 (6.20%) Support Engineer
5 27 (5.77%) Lead
6 26 (5.56%) DBA
7 25 (5.34%) IT Engineer
7 25 (5.34%) IT Support Engineer
8 24 (5.13%) Administrator
9 20 (4.27%) Security Engineer
10 18 (3.85%) 1st Line Support
11 16 (3.42%) Senior
12 15 (3.21%) SQL DBA
13 14 (2.99%) Project Manager
14 13 (2.78%) Designer
14 13 (2.78%) IT Analyst
14 13 (2.78%) Service Analyst
15 12 (2.56%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
15 12 (2.56%) Wintel Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (2.14%) Spring
1 10 (2.14%) Spring Boot
2 8 (1.71%) .NET
2 8 (1.71%) REST
3 6 (1.28%) JSON
3 6 (1.28%) Microsoft Graph
3 6 (1.28%) Software Packaging
3 6 (1.28%) XML
4 5 (1.07%) ARM Templates
4 5 (1.07%) Kafka
4 5 (1.07%) SAML
5 4 (0.85%) HTML5 Canvas
5 4 (0.85%) Node.js
5 4 (0.85%) OAuth
5 4 (0.85%) SailPoint
6 3 (0.64%) LangChain
6 3 (0.64%) LDAP
6 3 (0.64%) PySpark
6 3 (0.64%) XMPP
7 2 (0.43%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 33 (7.05%) Onboarding
2 25 (5.34%) Cloud Native
3 22 (4.70%) Replication
4 20 (4.27%) Clustering
5 17 (3.63%) Management Information System
6 11 (2.35%) Product Ownership
7 10 (2.14%) Security Posture
8 9 (1.92%) Data Centre
9 8 (1.71%) AI Agents
9 8 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (1.50%) Driving Licence
11 6 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
11 6 (1.28%) Enterprise Cloud
12 5 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
12 5 (1.07%) Linux Command Line
13 4 (0.85%) Cloud Security Posture
13 4 (0.85%) Enterprise Software
13 4 (0.85%) Greenfield Project
13 4 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
13 4 (0.85%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 130 (27.78%) Windows
2 65 (13.89%) Windows 10
3 28 (5.98%) Windows Server
4 23 (4.91%) Linux
5 10 (2.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 10 (2.14%) Windows 7
6 9 (1.92%) Unix
7 8 (1.71%) Solaris
8 7 (1.50%) Mac OS
9 6 (1.28%) Apple iOS
9 6 (1.28%) VMS
10 5 (1.07%) AIX
11 4 (0.85%) Windows Server 2012
12 3 (0.64%) Android
12 3 (0.64%) HPUX
12 3 (0.64%) Oracle Linux
12 3 (0.64%) SUSE
13 2 (0.43%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.43%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.21%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (16.03%) ITIL
2 70 (14.96%) Problem-Solving
3 65 (13.89%) DevOps
4 56 (11.97%) Agile
5 53 (11.32%) Customer Service
6 48 (10.26%) Business Intelligence
6 48 (10.26%) CI/CD
6 48 (10.26%) Migration
7 47 (10.04%) Stakeholder Management
8 46 (9.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 42 (8.97%) Continuous Improvement
10 41 (8.76%) AI
11 40 (8.55%) ITSM
12 38 (8.12%) Analytics
12 38 (8.12%) Service Management
13 37 (7.91%) Change Management
14 30 (6.41%) Project Delivery
15 29 (6.20%) Roadmaps
16 28 (5.98%) Disaster Recovery
17 26 (5.56%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 78 (16.67%) PowerShell
2 64 (13.68%) SQL
3 43 (9.19%) Python
4 18 (3.85%) Java
5 14 (2.99%) Bicep
6 13 (2.78%) C#
6 13 (2.78%) T-SQL
7 12 (2.56%) VBScript
8 8 (1.71%) Bash
8 8 (1.71%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 8 (1.71%) JavaScript
8 8 (1.71%) VB
9 3 (0.64%) TypeScript
9 3 (0.64%) VBA
10 2 (0.43%) C++
11 1 (0.21%) COBOL
11 1 (0.21%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 88 (18.80%) Security Cleared
2 75 (16.03%) SC Cleared
3 64 (13.68%) Degree
4 50 (10.68%) Microsoft Certification
5 27 (5.77%) BPSS Clearance
6 20 (4.27%) Azure Certification
7 14 (2.99%) MCSE
8 13 (2.78%) MCSA
9 12 (2.56%) Computer Science Degree
9 12 (2.56%) VCAP
9 12 (2.56%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 11 (2.35%) CISSP
11 10 (2.14%) AWS Certification
12 9 (1.92%) A+ Certification
13 8 (1.71%) DBS Check
14 7 (1.50%) ITIL Certification
14 7 (1.50%) Network+ Certification
15 5 (1.07%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
16 4 (0.85%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 4 (0.85%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (3.42%) GDPR
2 13 (2.78%) Data Quality
3 11 (2.35%) NIST
3 11 (2.35%) PMO
4 10 (2.14%) SLA
5 7 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 6 (1.28%) Accessibility
7 5 (1.07%) QA
7 5 (1.07%) WCAG
8 4 (0.85%) NCSC
8 4 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.64%) GRC
10 2 (0.43%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.43%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.21%) ISO 19650
11 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 1 (0.21%) P3O
11 1 (0.21%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 112 (23.93%) Active Directory
2 23 (4.91%) Docker
3 22 (4.70%) Virtual Machines
4 19 (4.06%) VMware Infrastructure
5 15 (3.21%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (2.99%) vSphere
7 10 (2.14%) BitLocker
8 5 (1.07%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.85%) Hyper-V
9 4 (0.85%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.64%) NFS
11 2 (0.43%) GPFS
11 2 (0.43%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.21%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 30 (6.41%) Microsoft Intune
2 27 (5.77%) Kubernetes
2 27 (5.77%) Terraform
3 22 (4.70%) SCCM
4 19 (4.06%) Ansible
5 14 (2.99%) vCenter Server
6 8 (1.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 6 (1.28%) Grafana
7 6 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (1.07%) Progress Chef
8 5 (1.07%) SCOM
9 4 (0.85%) Data Guard
10 3 (0.64%) Prometheus
11 2 (0.43%) AirWatch
11 2 (0.43%) Argo
11 2 (0.43%) CASB
11 2 (0.43%) Istio
11 2 (0.43%) linkerd
11 2 (0.43%) vRealize
11 2 (0.43%) VxRail
Vendors
1 73 (15.60%) ServiceNow
2 31 (6.62%) Cisco
3 23 (4.91%) Oracle
4 21 (4.49%) VMware
5 18 (3.85%) Remedy
5 18 (3.85%) SAP
6 15 (3.21%) Splunk
7 13 (2.78%) Google
7 13 (2.78%) iManage
7 13 (2.78%) Red Hat
8 12 (2.56%) BeyondTrust
8 12 (2.56%) Bomgar
9 9 (1.92%) Databricks
10 7 (1.50%) Citrix
11 6 (1.28%) CrowdStrike
12 5 (1.07%) CyberArk
12 5 (1.07%) HP
12 5 (1.07%) IBM
12 5 (1.07%) UiPath
13 4 (0.85%) Salesforce