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 30 June 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
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 4 2
Rank change year-on-year -3 -2 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 435 365 419
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 12.25% 17.90% 15.16%
As % of the Vendors category 30.33% 35.27% 38.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 285 239 228
10th Percentile £185 £205 £198
25th Percentile £351 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £425 £451
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -5.82% -3.73%
75th Percentile £538 £525 £591
90th Percentile £619 £600 £651
England median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 38 101
10th Percentile £18.68 £12.82 £10.95
25th Percentile £25.38 £14.11 £11.00
Median hourly rate £29.00 £25.86 £16.05
Median % change year-on-year +12.16% +61.14% -28.78%
75th Percentile £71.63 £31.41 £17.78
90th Percentile £178.75 £63.40 £26.50
England median hourly rate £22.64 £22.50 £16.00
% change year-on-year +0.60% +40.63% -27.27%

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 1,434 1,035 1,095
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 40.37% 50.76% 39.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 835 683 643
10th Percentile £285 £301 £270
25th Percentile £400 £386 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.32% -5.00% +4.82%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £670 £650
England median daily rate £510 £513 £520
% change year-on-year -0.49% -1.44% -0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 65 150
10th Percentile £17.73 £13.00 £10.95
25th Percentile £23.34 £22.16 £12.10
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% +99.25% -44.04%
75th Percentile £62.88 £63.00 £28.56
90th Percentile £85.00 £83.55 £46.18
England median hourly rate £35.00 £26.39 £24.65
% change year-on-year +32.65% +7.04% -32.47%

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 30 June 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 30 June 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 30 June 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 -4 215 £450 +5.88% 153
Cheshire -2 98 £469 +7.38% 56
Merseyside -1 54 £140 -65.00% 47
Cumbria -4 36 £472 +1.51% 13
Lancashire -13 24 £413 -21.43% 91
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 43 (9.89%) SharePoint
2 38 (8.74%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (3.68%) Confluence
4 12 (2.76%) Skype for Business
5 4 (0.92%) CMS
6 3 (0.69%) IIS
7 2 (0.46%) Apache
7 2 (0.46%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.23%) CICS
8 1 (0.23%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.23%) SharePoint 2013
8 1 (0.23%) WebSphere
Applications
1 56 (12.87%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (7.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (2.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (2.53%) Microsoft Project
5 9 (2.07%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.92%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.23%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.23%) MicroStation
Business Applications
1 13 (2.99%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (1.84%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (1.38%) Primavera
3 6 (1.38%) SAP MM
4 5 (1.15%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.92%) SAP S/4HANA
6 3 (0.69%) Elite 3E
7 2 (0.46%) Dynamics AX
8 1 (0.23%) Infor M3
8 1 (0.23%) NEC Housing
8 1 (0.23%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 171 (39.31%) Azure
2 134 (30.80%) Microsoft 365
3 69 (15.86%) Power Platform
4 58 (13.33%) Entra ID
5 37 (8.51%) AWS
5 37 (8.51%) Dynamics 365
5 37 (8.51%) Microsoft Copilot
6 31 (7.13%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (5.98%) Power Automate
8 25 (5.75%) PowerApps
9 14 (3.22%) GCP
9 14 (3.22%) Microsoft Purview
9 14 (3.22%) OneDrive
10 13 (2.99%) Serverless
11 11 (2.53%) Azure AKS
11 11 (2.53%) GitHub
12 10 (2.30%) Azure Monitor
13 9 (2.07%) Azure Logic Apps
14 8 (1.84%) GitHub Actions
14 8 (1.84%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 24 (5.52%) DNS
2 21 (4.83%) Firewall
3 20 (4.60%) VPN
4 18 (4.14%) Skype
5 14 (3.22%) Wi-Fi
6 12 (2.76%) DHCP
7 11 (2.53%) Network Security
8 10 (2.30%) LAN
8 10 (2.30%) WAN
9 9 (2.07%) VLAN
10 7 (1.61%) TCP/IP
11 6 (1.38%) SSL
12 3 (0.69%) SAN
12 3 (0.69%) SSH
12 3 (0.69%) WebEx
13 2 (0.46%) Internet
13 2 (0.46%) Kerberos
13 2 (0.46%) NAS
13 2 (0.46%) VSAN
14 1 (0.23%) PABX
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (10.57%) Power BI
2 32 (7.36%) SQL Server
3 14 (3.22%) MySQL
3 14 (3.22%) PostgreSQL
3 14 (3.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 8 (1.84%) Power Query
4 8 (1.84%) Relational Database
5 5 (1.15%) MongoDB
5 5 (1.15%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 4 (0.92%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (0.92%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 3 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.69%) BusinessObjects
7 3 (0.69%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.69%) Metadata
7 3 (0.69%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.69%) Oracle Reports
7 3 (0.69%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.23%) Data Vault
8 1 (0.23%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 22 (5.06%) JIRA
2 13 (2.99%) Git
3 5 (1.15%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.69%) GitLab
4 3 (0.69%) MSI
5 2 (0.46%) Claude Code
6 1 (0.23%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.23%) Postman
6 1 (0.23%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 129 (29.66%) Social Skills
2 89 (20.46%) Finance
3 59 (13.56%) Analytical Skills
4 49 (11.26%) Public Sector
5 46 (10.57%) Banking
6 34 (7.82%) Legal
7 17 (3.91%) Manufacturing
8 16 (3.68%) Organisational Skills
9 14 (3.22%) Local Government
10 10 (2.30%) Retail
11 9 (2.07%) Telecoms
12 6 (1.38%) Documentation Skills
12 6 (1.38%) Influencing Skills
12 6 (1.38%) Investment Banking
13 5 (1.15%) Military
14 4 (0.92%) Billing
14 4 (0.92%) Retail Banking
15 3 (0.69%) Corporate Banking
15 3 (0.69%) Games
15 3 (0.69%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 52 (11.95%) Analyst
2 41 (9.43%) Architect
3 34 (7.82%) IT Support
4 33 (7.59%) Developer
5 24 (5.52%) Administrator
5 24 (5.52%) Lead
6 22 (5.06%) DBA
7 21 (4.83%) Support Engineer
8 19 (4.37%) 1st Line Support
8 19 (4.37%) Security Engineer
9 18 (4.14%) IT Engineer
9 18 (4.14%) IT Support Engineer
9 18 (4.14%) Support Analyst
10 17 (3.91%) IT Analyst
11 14 (3.22%) IT Support Analyst
12 13 (2.99%) Project Manager
12 13 (2.99%) SQL DBA
13 12 (2.76%) Designer
13 12 (2.76%) Solutions Architect
13 12 (2.76%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (2.30%) Spring
1 10 (2.30%) Spring Boot
2 9 (2.07%) REST
3 8 (1.84%) .NET
4 6 (1.38%) JSON
4 6 (1.38%) Microsoft Graph
4 6 (1.38%) Software Packaging
4 6 (1.38%) XML
5 5 (1.15%) HTML5 Canvas
5 5 (1.15%) Kafka
5 5 (1.15%) OAuth
6 4 (0.92%) ARM Templates
6 4 (0.92%) Node.js
6 4 (0.92%) SailPoint
6 4 (0.92%) SAML
7 3 (0.69%) LangChain
7 3 (0.69%) LDAP
7 3 (0.69%) OpenID
7 3 (0.69%) React
7 3 (0.69%) XMPP
Miscellaneous
1 30 (6.90%) Onboarding
2 22 (5.06%) Cloud Native
3 20 (4.60%) Clustering
3 20 (4.60%) Replication
4 16 (3.68%) Management Information System
5 11 (2.53%) Product Ownership
6 9 (2.07%) Security Posture
7 8 (1.84%) Legacy Systems
8 7 (1.61%) Data Centre
9 6 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
9 6 (1.38%) Enterprise Cloud
10 5 (1.15%) AI Agents
10 5 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
10 5 (1.15%) Driving Licence
11 4 (0.92%) Cloud Security Posture
11 4 (0.92%) Cyber Threat
11 4 (0.92%) Hybrid Cloud
11 4 (0.92%) Linux Command Line
11 4 (0.92%) Operational Technology
11 4 (0.92%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 125 (28.74%) Windows
2 61 (14.02%) Windows 10
3 26 (5.98%) Windows Server
4 20 (4.60%) Linux
5 13 (2.99%) Windows 7
6 8 (1.84%) Unix
7 7 (1.61%) Mac OS
7 7 (1.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 7 (1.61%) Solaris
8 6 (1.38%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.92%) AIX
9 4 (0.92%) VMS
9 4 (0.92%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.46%) Android
10 2 (0.46%) HPUX
10 2 (0.46%) Oracle Linux
10 2 (0.46%) SUSE
10 2 (0.46%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (15.17%) Problem-Solving
2 65 (14.94%) DevOps
3 60 (13.79%) ITIL
4 54 (12.41%) Agile
5 49 (11.26%) CI/CD
6 47 (10.80%) Customer Service
6 47 (10.80%) Migration
7 44 (10.11%) Business Intelligence
8 40 (9.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 39 (8.97%) ITSM
10 38 (8.74%) Service Management
11 36 (8.28%) AI
12 35 (8.05%) Stakeholder Management
13 34 (7.82%) Change Management
14 32 (7.36%) Continuous Improvement
15 31 (7.13%) Analytics
16 30 (6.90%) Roadmaps
17 29 (6.67%) Project Delivery
18 24 (5.52%) Identity Access Management
19 23 (5.29%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 80 (18.39%) PowerShell
2 59 (13.56%) SQL
3 41 (9.43%) Python
4 17 (3.91%) Java
5 15 (3.45%) VBScript
6 13 (2.99%) C#
6 13 (2.99%) T-SQL
7 11 (2.53%) VB
8 10 (2.30%) Bicep
9 9 (2.07%) JavaScript
10 7 (1.61%) Bash
10 7 (1.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 4 (0.92%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.69%) VBA
13 2 (0.46%) C++
14 1 (0.23%) COBOL
14 1 (0.23%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 82 (18.85%) Security Cleared
2 75 (17.24%) SC Cleared
3 67 (15.40%) Degree
4 51 (11.72%) Microsoft Certification
5 19 (4.37%) Azure Certification
5 19 (4.37%) BPSS Clearance
6 14 (3.22%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (2.99%) MCSA
7 13 (2.99%) MCSE
8 12 (2.76%) VCAP
8 12 (2.76%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 11 (2.53%) A+ Certification
9 11 (2.53%) CISSP
10 9 (2.07%) AWS Certification
10 9 (2.07%) Network+ Certification
11 7 (1.61%) DBS Check
11 7 (1.61%) ITIL Certification
12 5 (1.15%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 4 (0.92%) PMI Certification
14 3 (0.69%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (3.68%) GDPR
2 12 (2.76%) Data Quality
3 10 (2.30%) NIST
3 10 (2.30%) PMO
4 9 (2.07%) SLA
5 7 (1.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 6 (1.38%) Accessibility
7 5 (1.15%) WCAG
8 4 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.69%) NCSC
9 3 (0.69%) QA
10 2 (0.46%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.46%) GRC
10 2 (0.46%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 1 (0.23%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.23%) SOC 2
System Software
1 99 (22.76%) Active Directory
2 22 (5.06%) Docker
2 22 (5.06%) Virtual Machines
3 19 (4.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (3.45%) VMware ESXi
5 14 (3.22%) vSphere
6 13 (2.99%) BitLocker
7 5 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.92%) Hyper-V
9 3 (0.69%) NFS
10 2 (0.46%) GPFS
10 2 (0.46%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.23%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 25 (5.75%) Kubernetes
1 25 (5.75%) Microsoft Intune
2 23 (5.29%) Terraform
3 21 (4.83%) SCCM
4 18 (4.14%) Ansible
5 14 (3.22%) vCenter Server
6 8 (1.84%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 6 (1.38%) Grafana
8 5 (1.15%) SCOM
9 4 (0.92%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.69%) Prometheus
11 2 (0.46%) AirWatch
11 2 (0.46%) Argo
11 2 (0.46%) CASB
11 2 (0.46%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (0.46%) Istio
11 2 (0.46%) linkerd
11 2 (0.46%) vRealize
11 2 (0.46%) VxRail
Vendors
1 62 (14.25%) ServiceNow
2 32 (7.36%) Cisco
3 21 (4.83%) VMware
4 18 (4.14%) Oracle
4 18 (4.14%) Remedy
4 18 (4.14%) SAP
5 15 (3.45%) Splunk
6 11 (2.53%) Bomgar
6 11 (2.53%) iManage
7 10 (2.30%) BeyondTrust
8 9 (2.07%) Red Hat
9 8 (1.84%) Citrix
10 7 (1.61%) Google
11 6 (1.38%) CrowdStrike
11 6 (1.38%) Databricks
12 5 (1.15%) CyberArk
12 5 (1.15%) IBM
13 4 (0.92%) HP
13 4 (0.92%) UiPath
14 3 (0.69%) Thales