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 April 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
13 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 4 4
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 440 351 413
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 13.82% 18.20% 15.01%
As % of the Vendors category 32.81% 34.14% 37.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 307 243 220
10th Percentile £151 £201 £179
25th Percentile £238 £325 £296
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £416 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year -7.56% - -5.26%
75th Percentile £523 £538 £566
90th Percentile £601 £635 £650
England median daily rate £492 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +3.58% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 25 107
10th Percentile £18.73 £17.44 £10.95
25th Percentile £20.86 £21.05 £11.07
Median hourly rate £25.38 £28.75 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.72% +98.28% -45.28%
75th Percentile £74.26 £33.75 £17.72
90th Percentile - - £26.39
England median hourly rate £20.09 £21.46 £15.00
% change year-on-year -6.38% +43.07% -31.03%

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 1,341 1,028 1,114
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 42.13% 53.29% 40.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 840 675 688
10th Percentile £213 £255 £275
25th Percentile £375 £394 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £467 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.70% - +2.56%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £585
90th Percentile £653 £659 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £518
% change year-on-year -4.76% +1.45% -3.72%
Number of hourly rates quoted 89 51 147
10th Percentile £19.75 £19.00 £10.95
25th Percentile £22.68 £25.26 £11.90
Median hourly rate £30.49 £32.50 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -6.18% +102.37% -57.17%
75th Percentile £67.00 £61.88 £25.25
90th Percentile £79.30 £86.00 £46.00
England median hourly rate £27.50 £28.75 £22.50
% change year-on-year -4.35% +27.78% -41.56%

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 April 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 13 April 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 13 April 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 -6 197 £425 -5.56% 176
Cheshire -4 97 £447 -0.33% 59
Merseyside +3 82 £140 -44.00% 48
Lancashire -10 34 £425 -19.05% 94
Cumbria -2 23 £494 +4.02% 9
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 57 (12.95%) SharePoint
2 55 (12.50%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (2.95%) Confluence
4 9 (2.05%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.91%) Apache
5 4 (0.91%) CMS
6 2 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.45%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.45%) IIS
7 1 (0.23%) CICS
7 1 (0.23%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.23%) SAS
7 1 (0.23%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 75 (17.05%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (5.91%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (2.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (2.27%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (1.82%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.91%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.68%) Trello
8 1 (0.23%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.23%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.23%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 14 (3.18%) Remedy ITSM
2 6 (1.36%) Advent Geneva
3 5 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.68%) Primavera
4 3 (0.68%) SAP MM
5 2 (0.45%) NEC Housing
5 2 (0.45%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.23%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.23%) Infor M3
6 1 (0.23%) Maximo
6 1 (0.23%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 159 (36.14%) Microsoft 365
2 154 (35.00%) Azure
3 62 (14.09%) Entra ID
4 50 (11.36%) Power Platform
5 31 (7.05%) Dynamics 365
6 27 (6.14%) AWS
7 24 (5.45%) Azure DevOps
8 23 (5.23%) Microsoft Copilot
9 22 (5.00%) PowerApps
10 21 (4.77%) Power Automate
11 18 (4.09%) OneDrive
12 16 (3.64%) GCP
13 15 (3.41%) Microsoft Purview
14 13 (2.95%) Serverless
15 9 (2.05%) Azure AKS
15 9 (2.05%) Azure Logic Apps
16 8 (1.82%) SaaS
17 7 (1.59%) Azure Functions
17 7 (1.59%) GitHub
17 7 (1.59%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 28 (6.36%) VPN
2 25 (5.68%) Firewall
3 23 (5.23%) DNS
4 22 (5.00%) Wi-Fi
5 19 (4.32%) Skype
5 19 (4.32%) WAN
6 17 (3.86%) LAN
6 17 (3.86%) VLAN
7 13 (2.95%) DHCP
8 12 (2.73%) Network Security
9 11 (2.50%) WebEx
10 3 (0.68%) Cisco ASA
10 3 (0.68%) SD-WAN
10 3 (0.68%) Unified Communications
11 2 (0.45%) Cisco Nexus
11 2 (0.45%) Internet
11 2 (0.45%) Kerberos
11 2 (0.45%) MPLS
11 2 (0.45%) SSL
11 2 (0.45%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (5.45%) SQL Server
2 23 (5.23%) Power BI
3 14 (3.18%) Relational Database
4 12 (2.73%) PostgreSQL
5 11 (2.50%) MySQL
6 8 (1.82%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 6 (1.36%) DB2
8 5 (1.14%) Data Warehouse
8 5 (1.14%) Looker
9 4 (0.91%) BigQuery
9 4 (0.91%) BusinessObjects
9 4 (0.91%) Data Lake
9 4 (0.91%) Metadata
9 4 (0.91%) MongoDB
9 4 (0.91%) NoSQL
9 4 (0.91%) RDBMS
9 4 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
10 3 (0.68%) Oracle Reports
10 3 (0.68%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 21 (4.77%) JIRA
2 9 (2.05%) Git
3 4 (0.91%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.68%) GitLab
5 1 (0.23%) Axure RP
5 1 (0.23%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.23%) InstallShield
5 1 (0.23%) MSI
5 1 (0.23%) Octopus Deploy
5 1 (0.23%) Postman
General
1 163 (37.05%) Social Skills
2 93 (21.14%) Finance
3 59 (13.41%) Public Sector
4 58 (13.18%) Analytical Skills
5 54 (12.27%) Legal
6 48 (10.91%) Banking
7 24 (5.45%) Organisational Skills
8 14 (3.18%) Documentation Skills
8 14 (3.18%) Local Government
9 8 (1.82%) Retail
10 7 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (1.59%) Telecoms
11 5 (1.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (1.14%) Manufacturing
12 4 (0.91%) Billing
13 3 (0.68%) Law
13 3 (0.68%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.68%) Retail Banking
14 2 (0.45%) Military
14 2 (0.45%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 58 (13.18%) Analyst
2 57 (12.95%) IT Support
3 36 (8.18%) Developer
4 34 (7.73%) Architect
5 33 (7.50%) 1st Line Support
6 28 (6.36%) Administrator
7 26 (5.91%) IT Engineer
7 26 (5.91%) Support Engineer
8 24 (5.45%) IT Support Engineer
9 22 (5.00%) Support Analyst
10 21 (4.77%) IT Analyst
11 20 (4.55%) Senior
12 19 (4.32%) IT Support Analyst
12 19 (4.32%) Lead
13 13 (2.95%) Project Manager
13 13 (2.95%) Security Engineer
14 12 (2.73%) Business Analyst
14 12 (2.73%) DBA
14 12 (2.73%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
14 12 (2.73%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (3.86%) .NET
2 10 (2.27%) REST
2 10 (2.27%) XML
2 10 (2.27%) XMPP
3 9 (2.05%) OAuth
3 9 (2.05%) Spring
3 9 (2.05%) Spring Boot
4 8 (1.82%) JSON
5 5 (1.14%) HTML
5 5 (1.14%) HTML5 Canvas
5 5 (1.14%) Kafka
5 5 (1.14%) SAML
6 4 (0.91%) OpenID
7 3 (0.68%) ARM Templates
7 3 (0.68%) LDAP
7 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Graph
7 3 (0.68%) Oracle Fusion
7 3 (0.68%) RESTful
8 2 (0.45%) AWS CDK
8 2 (0.45%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 27 (6.14%) Onboarding
2 22 (5.00%) Product Ownership
3 15 (3.41%) Cloud Native
4 14 (3.18%) Driving Licence
5 11 (2.50%) Clustering
5 11 (2.50%) Management Information System
6 10 (2.27%) Replication
7 8 (1.82%) Data Centre
7 8 (1.82%) Data Protection Act
7 8 (1.82%) Security Posture
8 6 (1.36%) Virtual Team
9 5 (1.14%) Fat Client
9 5 (1.14%) Thin Client
10 4 (0.91%) Cloud Security Posture
10 4 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (0.68%) AI Agents
11 3 (0.68%) Analytical Mindset
11 3 (0.68%) Housing Association
11 3 (0.68%) Legacy Systems
11 3 (0.68%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 148 (33.64%) Windows
2 82 (18.64%) Windows 10
3 26 (5.91%) Windows Server
4 21 (4.77%) Linux
5 11 (2.50%) Android
6 10 (2.27%) Apple iOS
6 10 (2.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (2.05%) Windows 7
8 7 (1.59%) Mac OS
9 5 (1.14%) Unix
10 3 (0.68%) Solaris
11 2 (0.45%) AIX
11 2 (0.45%) VMS
11 2 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.23%) HPUX
12 1 (0.23%) Oracle Linux
12 1 (0.23%) SUSE
12 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (17.05%) Problem-Solving
2 65 (14.77%) Customer Service
3 60 (13.64%) Agile
4 45 (10.23%) DevOps
5 41 (9.32%) Migration
6 40 (9.09%) ITIL
7 39 (8.86%) Service Management
8 37 (8.41%) CI/CD
8 37 (8.41%) ITSM
9 35 (7.95%) Identity Access Management
10 34 (7.73%) Change Management
11 33 (7.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 32 (7.27%) Stakeholder Management
13 29 (6.59%) Analytics
13 29 (6.59%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 27 (6.14%) AI
15 25 (5.68%) Business Intelligence
16 24 (5.45%) Project Delivery
17 23 (5.23%) Project Management
17 23 (5.23%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 72 (16.36%) PowerShell
2 48 (10.91%) SQL
3 33 (7.50%) Python
4 17 (3.86%) Java
5 16 (3.64%) Bash
6 12 (2.73%) C#
7 10 (2.27%) JavaScript
8 9 (2.05%) VB
8 9 (2.05%) VBScript
9 8 (1.82%) Perl
10 7 (1.59%) Bicep
11 5 (1.14%) T-SQL
12 4 (0.91%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.68%) C++
13 3 (0.68%) VBA
14 2 (0.45%) COBOL
14 2 (0.45%) Kusto Query Language
15 1 (0.23%) CLIST
15 1 (0.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 1 (0.23%) PHP
Qualifications
1 71 (16.14%) Security Cleared
2 61 (13.86%) SC Cleared
3 56 (12.73%) Degree
4 33 (7.50%) Microsoft Certification
5 18 (4.09%) BPSS Clearance
6 12 (2.73%) Azure Certification
7 10 (2.27%) Computer Science Degree
7 10 (2.27%) DV Cleared
7 10 (2.27%) MCSA
7 10 (2.27%) MCSE
8 8 (1.82%) A+ Certification
8 8 (1.82%) VCAP
8 8 (1.82%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 7 (1.59%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (1.59%) CISSP
9 7 (1.59%) Network+ Certification
9 7 (1.59%) PMI Certification
10 6 (1.36%) AWS Certification
10 6 (1.36%) CCNA
10 6 (1.36%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (4.32%) GDPR
2 12 (2.73%) Data Quality
2 12 (2.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.50%) QA
4 9 (2.05%) Accessibility
4 9 (2.05%) NIST
5 6 (1.36%) PMO
6 5 (1.14%) SLA
7 4 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials
7 4 (0.91%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.45%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.45%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.45%) NCSC
8 2 (0.45%) WCAG
9 1 (0.23%) GRC
9 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
9 1 (0.23%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.23%) SOC 2
System Software
1 122 (27.73%) Active Directory
2 21 (4.77%) Docker
3 14 (3.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (2.95%) Virtual Machines
5 9 (2.05%) BitLocker
5 9 (2.05%) VMware ESXi
6 8 (1.82%) vSphere
7 2 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.23%) ACF2
8 1 (0.23%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.23%) RACF
8 1 (0.23%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 31 (7.05%) Microsoft Intune
2 23 (5.23%) SCCM
3 21 (4.77%) Kubernetes
4 14 (3.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 12 (2.73%) Terraform
6 11 (2.50%) Ansible
7 9 (2.05%) Single Sign-On
7 9 (2.05%) vCenter Server
8 5 (1.14%) Grafana
9 4 (0.91%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.68%) Norton AntiVirus
10 3 (0.68%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.45%) Argo
11 2 (0.45%) CA Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.45%) CASB
11 2 (0.45%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.45%) Istio
11 2 (0.45%) linkerd
12 1 (0.23%) Jamf Pro
12 1 (0.23%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 46 (10.45%) ServiceNow
2 37 (8.41%) Cisco
3 25 (5.68%) Citrix
4 19 (4.32%) VMware
5 17 (3.86%) Bomgar
5 17 (3.86%) iManage
6 16 (3.64%) Remedy
7 15 (3.41%) Oracle
8 13 (2.95%) Google
9 11 (2.50%) SAP
10 10 (2.27%) Red Hat
11 6 (1.36%) Advent
11 6 (1.36%) Splunk
12 5 (1.14%) Palo Alto
13 4 (0.91%) BeyondTrust
13 4 (0.91%) McAfee
14 3 (0.68%) Salesforce
14 3 (0.68%) Snow
14 3 (0.68%) Symantec
14 3 (0.68%) Workday