Microsoft Contracts 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 1 May 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
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 4 4 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 +3 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 352 408 492
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North West 17.89% 14.81% 15.40%
As % of the Vendors category 33.65% 37.23% 38.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 235 213 348
10th Percentile £200 £178 £210
25th Percentile £320 £300 £357
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% -5.26% +17.72%
75th Percentile £525 £575 £565
90th Percentile £575 £653 £675
England median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 109 23
10th Percentile £13.00 £10.95 £14.01
25th Percentile £17.44 £11.07 £16.75
Median hourly rate £27.13 £14.50 £26.50
Median % change year-on-year +87.07% -45.28% +45.80%
75th Percentile £33.75 £17.72 £38.75
90th Percentile £34.60 £26.41 £51.07
England median hourly rate £19.00 £15.00 £21.75
% change year-on-year +26.67% -31.03% +17.57%

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 1,046 1,096 1,290
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 53.15% 39.78% 40.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 675 645 866
10th Percentile £250 £269 £288
25th Percentile £393 £394 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% - +7.53%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £587
90th Percentile £650 £688 £675
England median daily rate £525 £518 £538
% change year-on-year +1.30% -3.58% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 149 57
10th Percentile £16.43 £10.95 £15.41
25th Percentile £24.46 £12.00 £22.41
Median hourly rate £32.50 £16.06 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +102.37% -57.17% +97.73%
75th Percentile £60.00 £26.39 £49.40
90th Percentile £86.00 £46.18 £54.57
England median hourly rate £27.13 £22.50 £39.55
% change year-on-year +20.56% -43.11% +88.33%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Job postings citing Microsoft as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Job vacancy trend for Microsoft in the North West

Microsoft
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the North West

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Microsoft in the North West.

Daily rate trend for Microsoft in the North West

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in the North West over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the North West

Microsoft
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Microsoft in the North West.

Hourly rate trend for Microsoft in the North West

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in the North West over the 6 months to 1 May 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 1 May 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 +8 177 £444 -1.66% 356
Cheshire -3 73 £438 -10.26% 103
Merseyside 0 35 £215 -30.92% 53
Lancashire -1 34 £513 +7.89% 174
Cumbria -7 27 £475 -7.77% 19
Microsoft
England

Microsoft
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the North West by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 79 (22.44%) Microsoft Exchange
2 74 (21.02%) SharePoint
3 13 (3.69%) Skype for Business
4 6 (1.70%) Confluence
5 5 (1.42%) Mattermost
6 4 (1.14%) Exchange Server 2010
7 3 (0.85%) IIS
7 3 (0.85%) SAS
7 3 (0.85%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.57%) JBoss
8 2 (0.57%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.57%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.28%) BizTalk Server
9 1 (0.28%) CICS
9 1 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 49 (13.92%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (8.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (3.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (3.13%) MS Visio
5 10 (2.84%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (2.84%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 13 (3.69%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.99%) Kondor
3 4 (1.14%) Remedy ITSM
4 3 (0.85%) Finacle
5 2 (0.57%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.57%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.57%) Unit4 Business World
6 1 (0.28%) assyst
6 1 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.28%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 132 (37.50%) Azure
2 127 (36.08%) Microsoft 365
3 67 (19.03%) Entra ID
4 42 (11.93%) Power Platform
5 28 (7.95%) PowerApps
6 21 (5.97%) Power Automate
7 20 (5.68%) Dynamics 365
8 17 (4.83%) OneDrive
9 16 (4.55%) SaaS
10 15 (4.26%) IaaS
11 13 (3.69%) AWS
11 13 (3.69%) GCP
12 10 (2.84%) Microsoft Purview
13 8 (2.27%) Azure Data Factory
14 7 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
15 5 (1.42%) PaaS
16 4 (1.14%) Google Workspace
17 3 (0.85%) Azure Sentinel
17 3 (0.85%) Serverless
18 2 (0.57%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 30 (8.52%) DHCP
1 30 (8.52%) Firewall
2 29 (8.24%) DNS
3 26 (7.39%) VPN
4 23 (6.53%) LAN
5 19 (5.40%) Skype
6 17 (4.83%) Network Security
7 13 (3.69%) WAN
7 13 (3.69%) Wi-Fi
8 11 (3.13%) Intrusion Detection
9 10 (2.84%) TCP/IP
10 9 (2.56%) Unified Communications
11 7 (1.99%) SAN
12 6 (1.70%) WebEx
13 5 (1.42%) Softphone
13 5 (1.42%) VLAN
14 4 (1.14%) Internet
14 4 (1.14%) PSTN
14 4 (1.14%) Remote Desktop
14 4 (1.14%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (6.82%) SQL Server
2 22 (6.25%) Power BI
3 6 (1.70%) Metadata
4 5 (1.42%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (1.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 4 (1.14%) Azure SQL Database
5 4 (1.14%) PostgreSQL
6 3 (0.85%) Delta Lake
6 3 (0.85%) Dremio
6 3 (0.85%) MongoDB
6 3 (0.85%) Tableau
7 2 (0.57%) Data Lake
7 2 (0.57%) Data Mining
7 2 (0.57%) DB2
7 2 (0.57%) Essbase
7 2 (0.57%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.57%) RDBMS
7 2 (0.57%) Relational Database
7 2 (0.57%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 1 (0.28%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 9 (2.56%) Git
2 7 (1.99%) JIRA
3 5 (1.42%) Babel
3 5 (1.42%) Hudson
3 5 (1.42%) Visual Studio
3 5 (1.42%) webpack
4 4 (1.14%) GitLab
4 4 (1.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 2 (0.57%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.57%) eggPlant
5 2 (0.57%) Subversion
6 1 (0.28%) ERwin
6 1 (0.28%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.28%) MSI
6 1 (0.28%) Selenium
6 1 (0.28%) SonarQube
General
1 136 (38.64%) Social Skills
2 55 (15.63%) Finance
3 51 (14.49%) Public Sector
4 39 (11.08%) Analytical Skills
5 28 (7.95%) Banking
6 21 (5.97%) Legal
7 20 (5.68%) Telecoms
8 12 (3.41%) Organisational Skills
9 11 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (3.13%) Marketing
10 10 (2.84%) Manufacturing
11 8 (2.27%) Military
12 7 (1.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 7 (1.99%) Pharmaceutical
13 6 (1.70%) Local Government
13 6 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
14 4 (1.14%) French Language
15 3 (0.85%) Investment Banking
15 3 (0.85%) Law
15 3 (0.85%) Retail
Job Titles
1 55 (15.63%) Analyst
2 45 (12.78%) Support Engineer
3 32 (9.09%) Architect
4 26 (7.39%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
5 24 (6.82%) Developer
6 23 (6.53%) IT Support
7 18 (5.11%) Senior
8 16 (4.55%) IT Engineer
9 15 (4.26%) Support Analyst
10 13 (3.69%) Project Manager
10 13 (3.69%) Service Analyst
11 12 (3.41%) 2nd Line Support
11 12 (3.41%) Administrator
11 12 (3.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 11 (3.13%) 1st Line Support
12 11 (3.13%) Desktop Support
12 11 (3.13%) IT Support Engineer
12 11 (3.13%) Solutions Architect
12 11 (3.13%) Systems Engineer
13 10 (2.84%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (4.26%) CSS
1 15 (4.26%) HTML
2 12 (3.41%) React
3 10 (2.84%) .NET
4 9 (2.56%) REST
5 7 (1.99%) RESTful
6 6 (1.70%) SPFx
7 5 (1.42%) HTML5
7 5 (1.42%) XMPP
8 4 (1.14%) ADO
9 3 (0.85%) OAuth
9 3 (0.85%) SOAP
9 3 (0.85%) Software Packaging
9 3 (0.85%) Web Services
10 2 (0.57%) JSON
10 2 (0.57%) MDX
10 2 (0.57%) OAuth2
10 2 (0.57%) Oracle Fusion
10 2 (0.57%) SailPoint
10 2 (0.57%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 21 (5.97%) Management Information System
2 8 (2.27%) NHS
3 7 (1.99%) Data Centre
3 7 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
3 7 (1.99%) Hybrid Cloud
4 5 (1.42%) Onboarding
4 5 (1.42%) Security Posture
5 4 (1.14%) Blackberry
5 4 (1.14%) Handset
5 4 (1.14%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 3 (0.85%) Driving Licence
6 3 (0.85%) IVR
6 3 (0.85%) Product Ownership
6 3 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (0.85%) Video Conferencing
7 2 (0.57%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (0.57%) Digital Wallet
7 2 (0.57%) Enterprise Cloud
7 2 (0.57%) Private Cloud
7 2 (0.57%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 127 (36.08%) Windows
2 53 (15.06%) Windows Server
3 38 (10.80%) Windows 10
4 17 (4.83%) Linux
5 16 (4.55%) Windows Server 2016
5 16 (4.55%) Windows Server 2019
6 12 (3.41%) Windows Server 2012
7 11 (3.13%) Android
7 11 (3.13%) VMS
8 9 (2.56%) Windows 7
9 8 (2.27%) Windows Server 2003
10 7 (1.99%) Unix
10 7 (1.99%) Windows XP
11 5 (1.42%) Apple iOS
11 5 (1.42%) Windows 8
11 5 (1.42%) Windows Server 2008
12 4 (1.14%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.28%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 107 (30.40%) Problem-Solving
2 63 (17.90%) ITIL
3 47 (13.35%) Agile
4 38 (10.80%) Migration
5 34 (9.66%) ITSM
6 31 (8.81%) Customer Service
7 28 (7.95%) DevOps
7 28 (7.95%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 26 (7.39%) Stakeholder Management
9 24 (6.82%) Cybersecurity
9 24 (6.82%) Project Delivery
10 23 (6.53%) Collaborative Working
11 22 (6.25%) Project Management
12 20 (5.68%) Analytics
13 19 (5.40%) Business Intelligence
13 19 (5.40%) Change Management
14 18 (5.11%) Continuous Improvement
14 18 (5.11%) CRM
15 17 (4.83%) Asset Management
15 17 (4.83%) Data Loss Prevention
Programming Languages
1 55 (15.63%) PowerShell
2 28 (7.95%) SQL
3 19 (5.40%) JavaScript
4 9 (2.56%) Python
5 8 (2.27%) TypeScript
6 6 (1.70%) VBScript
7 5 (1.42%) C#
7 5 (1.42%) VB
8 4 (1.14%) T-SQL
9 2 (0.57%) Bash
9 2 (0.57%) C++
9 2 (0.57%) Java
9 2 (0.57%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.57%) R
10 1 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.28%) JCL
10 1 (0.28%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 59 (16.76%) Security Cleared
2 57 (16.19%) Microsoft Certification
3 51 (14.49%) SC Cleared
4 41 (11.65%) Degree
5 21 (5.97%) Azure Certification
6 9 (2.56%) A+ Certification
6 9 (2.56%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (1.99%) AWS Certification
7 7 (1.99%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 6 (1.70%) MCP
8 6 (1.70%) MCSE
9 5 (1.42%) DBS Check
9 5 (1.42%) HNC
9 5 (1.42%) ITIL Certification
10 4 (1.14%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 3 (0.85%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (0.85%) CCNA
11 3 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
11 3 (0.85%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 2 (0.57%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (3.69%) SLA
2 11 (3.13%) Data Quality
3 10 (2.84%) QA
4 9 (2.56%) PMO
5 6 (1.70%) Accessibility
6 5 (1.42%) GDPR
6 5 (1.42%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.57%) ISO 20022
7 2 (0.57%) ISO 8583
7 2 (0.57%) PSD2
7 2 (0.57%) SEPA
8 1 (0.28%) Basel III
8 1 (0.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 1 (0.28%) GRC
8 1 (0.28%) MiFID
8 1 (0.28%) NCSC
System Software
1 112 (31.82%) Active Directory
2 22 (6.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (3.41%) vSphere
4 9 (2.56%) BitLocker
5 8 (2.27%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (1.99%) VMware ESXi
7 5 (1.42%) Hyper-V
8 4 (1.14%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.85%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 3 (0.85%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.57%) Docker
11 1 (0.28%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.28%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 49 (13.92%) Microsoft Intune
2 24 (6.82%) SCCM
3 20 (5.68%) WSUS
4 19 (5.40%) Single Sign-On
5 10 (2.84%) vCenter Server
6 6 (1.70%) SCOM
7 4 (1.14%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 4 (1.14%) Dell DRAC
8 3 (0.85%) Backup Exec
8 3 (0.85%) Kubernetes
8 3 (0.85%) Microsoft Clustering
8 3 (0.85%) NetApp OnCommand
8 3 (0.85%) vMotion
9 2 (0.57%) Sysdig
10 1 (0.28%) Docker Swarm
10 1 (0.28%) Grafana
10 1 (0.28%) PaperCut
10 1 (0.28%) Perfmon
10 1 (0.28%) Terraform
10 1 (0.28%) VxRail
Vendors
1 37 (10.51%) VMware
2 24 (6.82%) ServiceNow
3 19 (5.40%) Google
4 15 (4.26%) Cisco
5 14 (3.98%) Citrix
6 12 (3.41%) Oracle
7 8 (2.27%) CyberArk
7 8 (2.27%) Dell
7 8 (2.27%) Splunk
8 7 (1.99%) Databricks
9 6 (1.70%) Apple
10 5 (1.42%) Canon
10 5 (1.42%) CheckPoint
10 5 (1.42%) Red Hat
10 5 (1.42%) Zscaler
11 4 (1.14%) Clearswift
11 4 (1.14%) iManage
11 4 (1.14%) Remedy
11 4 (1.14%) Symantec
11 4 (1.14%) Tanium