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 25 December 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
25 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 4 6 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 +1 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 421 302 380
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 16.65% 14.01% 14.36%
As % of the Vendors category 32.97% 29.32% 31.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 285 189 247
10th Percentile £153 £205 £200
25th Percentile £300 £325 £255
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £450 £413
Median % change year-on-year -11.11% +9.09% -5.71%
75th Percentile £480 £518 £538
90th Percentile £575 £641 £619
England median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 25 53
10th Percentile £15.55 £17.20 £15.75
25th Percentile £19.07 £24.18 £17.14
Median hourly rate £22.32 £30.40 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.60% +1.33% +59.40%
75th Percentile £31.45 £33.75 £46.18
90th Percentile £72.83 £46.18 £53.24
England median hourly rate £20.26 £22.27 £23.00
% change year-on-year -9.05% -3.17% +12.36%

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 1,277 1,030 1,221
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 50.49% 47.80% 46.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 827 571 806
10th Percentile £217 £303 £240
25th Percentile £358 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year -8.00% -2.20% +7.63%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
England median daily rate £508 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.33% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 92 45 88
10th Percentile £16.59 £16.00 £16.23
25th Percentile £19.67 £24.00 £17.72
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +62.79%
75th Percentile £55.42 £46.18 £46.18
90th Percentile £73.52 £79.35 £56.50
England median hourly rate £23.60 £30.52 £45.88
% change year-on-year -22.67% -33.48% +69.93%

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 25 December 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 25 December 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 25 December 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 -3 181 £414 -8.00% 241
Cheshire 0 125 £429 +0.88% 113
Merseyside +3 61 £152 -39.40% 60
Lancashire +6 35 £400 -15.79% 155
Cumbria +13 17 £470 -1.05% 4
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 56 (13.30%) SharePoint
2 44 (10.45%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (3.33%) Confluence
4 12 (2.85%) Apache
4 12 (2.85%) IIS
4 12 (2.85%) Skype for Business
5 11 (2.61%) JBoss
6 10 (2.38%) iPlanet
6 10 (2.38%) WebSphere
6 10 (2.38%) WebSphere Application Server
7 8 (1.90%) Apache Airflow
8 7 (1.66%) Exchange Server 2013
9 6 (1.43%) CMS
10 5 (1.19%) Exchange Server 2010
11 2 (0.48%) NetWeaver
11 2 (0.48%) SAS
12 1 (0.24%) Apache Spark
12 1 (0.24%) CICS
12 1 (0.24%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 84 (19.95%) Microsoft Office
2 49 (11.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (4.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (3.56%) MS Visio
5 5 (1.19%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.95%) Trello
7 3 (0.71%) Sketch
8 2 (0.48%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.48%) Siemens NX
9 1 (0.24%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 9 (2.14%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.66%) Advent Geneva
3 5 (1.19%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.48%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.24%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.24%) Maximo
5 1 (0.24%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.24%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.24%) Primavera
5 1 (0.24%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 124 (29.45%) Microsoft 365
2 111 (26.37%) Azure
3 52 (12.35%) Power Platform
4 45 (10.69%) AWS
5 32 (7.60%) Entra ID
6 20 (4.75%) GCP
7 19 (4.51%) OneDrive
8 16 (3.80%) Dynamics 365
8 16 (3.80%) Power Automate
8 16 (3.80%) PowerApps
9 15 (3.56%) Azure DevOps
10 13 (3.09%) SaaS
11 12 (2.85%) OpenShift
12 10 (2.38%) Google Tag Manager
13 9 (2.14%) Google Analytics
14 8 (1.90%) GitHub
15 7 (1.66%) Azure Logic Apps
15 7 (1.66%) Microsoft Purview
16 6 (1.43%) Azure Sentinel
16 6 (1.43%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 18 (4.28%) DNS
1 18 (4.28%) VPN
2 17 (4.04%) Firewall
2 17 (4.04%) Skype
3 16 (3.80%) Wi-Fi
4 15 (3.56%) LAN
5 14 (3.33%) WAN
6 10 (2.38%) Kerberos
6 10 (2.38%) VLAN
7 9 (2.14%) Unified Communications
7 9 (2.14%) WebEx
8 8 (1.90%) Network Security
9 7 (1.66%) DHCP
9 7 (1.66%) Internet
10 3 (0.71%) SSH
10 3 (0.71%) SSL
10 3 (0.71%) TCP/IP
10 3 (0.71%) Wireless
11 2 (0.48%) Cisco ASA
11 2 (0.48%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (7.36%) Power BI
2 18 (4.28%) SQL Server
3 14 (3.33%) Relational Database
4 11 (2.61%) MySQL
4 11 (2.61%) Oracle Database
5 9 (2.14%) Looker
6 8 (1.90%) BigQuery
6 8 (1.90%) DB2
7 7 (1.66%) Data Warehouse
7 7 (1.66%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 6 (1.43%) Data Lake
9 5 (1.19%) MS Access
9 5 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
10 3 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
10 3 (0.71%) Metadata
10 3 (0.71%) Power Query
10 3 (0.71%) Star Schema
10 3 (0.71%) Tableau
11 2 (0.48%) Big Data
11 2 (0.48%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 27 (6.41%) JIRA
2 18 (4.28%) Git
3 16 (3.80%) Jenkins
4 11 (2.61%) Bitbucket Server
4 11 (2.61%) CA Release Automation
5 9 (2.14%) Sonatype Nexus
6 7 (1.66%) GitLab
7 2 (0.48%) Gradle
7 2 (0.48%) MSI
7 2 (0.48%) Selenium
7 2 (0.48%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.48%) Storybook
7 2 (0.48%) Xcode
8 1 (0.24%) Axure RP
8 1 (0.24%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.24%) Browser DevTools
8 1 (0.24%) InstallShield
8 1 (0.24%) MLflow
8 1 (0.24%) Snyk
8 1 (0.24%) TeamCity
General
1 170 (40.38%) Social Skills
2 93 (22.09%) Finance
3 67 (15.91%) Analytical Skills
4 50 (11.88%) Public Sector
5 29 (6.89%) Banking
5 29 (6.89%) Legal
6 19 (4.51%) Organisational Skills
7 15 (3.56%) Documentation Skills
7 15 (3.56%) Manufacturing
8 9 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
9 6 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (1.43%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (1.43%) Local Government
10 5 (1.19%) Military
10 5 (1.19%) Telecoms
11 4 (0.95%) Aerospace
11 4 (0.95%) Marketing
12 3 (0.71%) Aviation
12 3 (0.71%) Retail
13 2 (0.48%) Japanese Language
Job Titles
1 73 (17.34%) Analyst
2 43 (10.21%) IT Support
3 39 (9.26%) Administrator
4 29 (6.89%) Developer
5 26 (6.18%) Support Analyst
6 24 (5.70%) Senior
7 23 (5.46%) Support Engineer
8 22 (5.23%) IT Engineer
9 19 (4.51%) Architect
9 19 (4.51%) Lead
10 18 (4.28%) IT Support Engineer
11 16 (3.80%) 2nd Line Support
11 16 (3.80%) Support Technician
12 15 (3.56%) 1st Line Support
12 15 (3.56%) SAP Administrator
12 15 (3.56%) SAP Support
13 14 (3.33%) Consultant
14 13 (3.09%) Business Analyst
15 12 (2.85%) DevOps Engineer
15 12 (2.85%) IT Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (4.28%) OAuth
2 13 (3.09%) .NET
3 12 (2.85%) LDAP
3 12 (2.85%) SAML
4 11 (2.61%) HTML
4 11 (2.61%) OpenID
5 10 (2.38%) JSON
6 8 (1.90%) REST
6 8 (1.90%) XMPP
7 5 (1.19%) HTML5 Canvas
7 5 (1.19%) Kafka
7 5 (1.19%) Web Services
7 5 (1.19%) XML
8 4 (0.95%) CSS
8 4 (0.95%) PySpark
8 4 (0.95%) SOAP
9 3 (0.71%) LangChain
9 3 (0.71%) React
9 3 (0.71%) RESTful
9 3 (0.71%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 30 (7.13%) Onboarding
2 19 (4.51%) Product Ownership
3 12 (2.85%) Driving Licence
4 10 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
5 9 (2.14%) Clustering
5 9 (2.14%) Low-Code
6 8 (1.90%) Data Centre
7 7 (1.66%) Virtual Team
8 6 (1.43%) Cloud Native
8 6 (1.43%) Management Information System
8 6 (1.43%) Mobile App
8 6 (1.43%) Video Conferencing
9 5 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
9 5 (1.19%) CMDB
9 5 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.19%) Replication
9 5 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (0.95%) Security Posture
11 3 (0.71%) Distributed Computing
11 3 (0.71%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Operating Systems
1 135 (32.07%) Windows
2 56 (13.30%) Windows 10
3 31 (7.36%) Windows Server
4 25 (5.94%) Linux
5 20 (4.75%) Apple iOS
6 19 (4.51%) Android
7 15 (3.56%) Unix
8 8 (1.90%) Mac OS
9 7 (1.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 6 (1.43%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.24%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.24%) Solaris
11 1 (0.24%) Windows 8
11 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.24%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (20.90%) Problem-Solving
2 61 (14.49%) Customer Service
3 52 (12.35%) Stakeholder Management
4 50 (11.88%) Agile
5 48 (11.40%) Change Management
6 47 (11.16%) Migration
7 43 (10.21%) DevOps
8 42 (9.98%) ITIL
9 41 (9.74%) Analytics
9 41 (9.74%) Business Intelligence
10 35 (8.31%) ITSM
10 35 (8.31%) Project Management
10 35 (8.31%) User Experience
11 33 (7.84%) Cybersecurity
11 33 (7.84%) Service Management
12 31 (7.36%) CI/CD
12 31 (7.36%) Validation
13 30 (7.13%) Continuous Improvement
14 26 (6.18%) Digital Transformation Programme
15 25 (5.94%) AI
Programming Languages
1 43 (10.21%) SQL
2 40 (9.50%) PowerShell
3 29 (6.89%) Python
4 12 (2.85%) Bash
5 10 (2.38%) Groovy
5 10 (2.38%) JavaScript
6 9 (2.14%) Perl
7 8 (1.90%) C#
7 8 (1.90%) Java
7 8 (1.90%) Shell Script
8 5 (1.19%) Kusto Query Language
8 5 (1.19%) VB
8 5 (1.19%) VBScript
9 4 (0.95%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.71%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.48%) JCL
11 2 (0.48%) PHP
11 2 (0.48%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.48%) REXX
11 2 (0.48%) VBA
Qualifications
1 78 (18.53%) Security Cleared
2 59 (14.01%) SC Cleared
3 58 (13.78%) Degree
4 24 (5.70%) BPSS Clearance
5 23 (5.46%) Microsoft Certification
6 11 (2.61%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (1.90%) DV Cleared
8 7 (1.66%) CISSP
9 6 (1.43%) Azure Certification
9 6 (1.43%) CCNP
9 6 (1.43%) Cisco Certification
9 6 (1.43%) MCSA
9 6 (1.43%) MCSE
9 6 (1.43%) PMI Certification
10 5 (1.19%) AWS Certification
10 5 (1.19%) CISM
10 5 (1.19%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 5 (1.19%) PMP
11 4 (0.95%) A+ Certification
11 4 (0.95%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (5.23%) Accessibility
2 20 (4.75%) QA
3 15 (3.56%) Data Quality
3 15 (3.56%) GDPR
4 10 (2.38%) NIST
5 9 (2.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (1.19%) PCI DSS
7 4 (0.95%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.48%) ISO 8583
8 2 (0.48%) PMO
8 2 (0.48%) WCAG
9 1 (0.24%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.24%) GRC
9 1 (0.24%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.24%) P3O
9 1 (0.24%) PMBOK
9 1 (0.24%) PSD2
9 1 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.24%) SEPA
System Software
1 99 (23.52%) Active Directory
2 17 (4.04%) Docker
3 10 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (1.90%) Tivoli Directory Server
5 5 (1.19%) BitLocker
5 5 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (1.19%) VMware ESXi
5 5 (1.19%) vSphere
6 3 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.48%) Time Sharing Option
8 1 (0.24%) ACF2
8 1 (0.24%) RACF
Systems Management
1 43 (10.21%) SCCM
2 40 (9.50%) Microsoft Intune
3 12 (2.85%) Kubernetes
4 11 (2.61%) Single Sign-On
5 10 (2.38%) CA Single Sign-On
5 10 (2.38%) CA Wily
5 10 (2.38%) Progress Chef
6 9 (2.14%) Tivoli
7 8 (1.90%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 6 (1.43%) Ansible
9 5 (1.19%) Norton AntiVirus
9 5 (1.19%) QRadar
9 5 (1.19%) vCenter Server
10 3 (0.71%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 3 (0.71%) Terraform
11 2 (0.48%) CA Endevor
11 2 (0.48%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.48%) Grafana
11 2 (0.48%) Microsoft Clustering
11 2 (0.48%) Nessus
Vendors
1 39 (9.26%) ServiceNow
2 25 (5.94%) SAP
3 23 (5.46%) Oracle
4 22 (5.23%) Cisco
5 20 (4.75%) Citrix
5 20 (4.75%) Splunk
6 17 (4.04%) Google
7 16 (3.80%) IBM
8 15 (3.56%) VMware
9 11 (2.61%) AppDynamics
10 10 (2.38%) Broadcom
11 9 (2.14%) Apple
12 7 (1.66%) Advent
12 7 (1.66%) Red Hat
13 6 (1.43%) McAfee
13 6 (1.43%) Remedy
14 5 (1.19%) Bomgar
14 5 (1.19%) iManage
14 5 (1.19%) Symantec
15 4 (0.95%) Palo Alto