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 15 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
15 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 5 4 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 +3 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 337 389 484
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the North West 17.31% 14.68% 15.56%
As % of the Vendors category 33.27% 37.80% 37.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 220 202 335
10th Percentile £200 £180 £200
25th Percentile £318 £301 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% -5.26% +15.15%
75th Percentile £525 £575 £550
90th Percentile £575 £653 £650
England median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% +0.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 107 25
10th Percentile £13.00 £10.95 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.44 £11.07 £16.25
Median hourly rate £27.13 £14.50 £26.50
Median % change year-on-year +87.07% -45.28% +47.22%
75th Percentile £32.97 £17.72 £38.75
90th Percentile £44.98 £26.50 £49.15
England median hourly rate £18.63 £15.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year +24.20% -28.57% +13.51%

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 1,013 1,029 1,276
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 52.03% 38.83% 41.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 656 603 838
10th Percentile £250 £268 £275
25th Percentile £388 £393 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £496 £500 £486
Median % change year-on-year -0.89% +2.83% +2.37%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £654 £675 £652
England median daily rate £525 £518 £534
% change year-on-year +1.45% -3.09% +1.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 148 59
10th Percentile £13.00 £10.95 £16.09
25th Percentile £19.00 £11.95 £21.32
Median hourly rate £32.50 £16.06 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +102.37% -57.17% +78.23%
75th Percentile £60.00 £26.39 £46.03
90th Percentile £86.00 £46.18 £52.30
England median hourly rate £26.45 £22.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year +17.56% -40.00% +75.32%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +5 154 £425 -10.53% 489
Cheshire -3 77 £425 -15.00% 117
Lancashire -1 36 £513 +7.89% 198
Merseyside -1 36 £238 -23.69% 69
Cumbria -4 28 £465 -10.58% 25
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 72 (21.36%) Microsoft Exchange
2 59 (17.51%) SharePoint
3 14 (4.15%) Skype for Business
4 8 (2.37%) Confluence
5 6 (1.78%) Mattermost
6 4 (1.19%) Exchange Server 2010
6 4 (1.19%) IIS
7 3 (0.89%) SAS
7 3 (0.89%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.59%) JBoss
8 2 (0.59%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.59%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.30%) BizTalk Server
9 1 (0.30%) CICS
9 1 (0.30%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 46 (13.65%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (7.42%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (4.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (2.97%) MS Visio
5 9 (2.67%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (2.37%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.30%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 12 (3.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (2.08%) Kondor
3 4 (1.19%) Remedy ITSM
4 3 (0.89%) Finacle
5 2 (0.59%) assyst
5 2 (0.59%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.59%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.59%) Unit4 Business World
6 1 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.30%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 127 (37.69%) Azure
2 109 (32.34%) Microsoft 365
3 62 (18.40%) Entra ID
4 28 (8.31%) Power Platform
5 16 (4.75%) Dynamics 365
5 16 (4.75%) OneDrive
6 14 (4.15%) AWS
7 13 (3.86%) GCP
7 13 (3.86%) IaaS
7 13 (3.86%) PowerApps
7 13 (3.86%) SaaS
8 12 (3.56%) Power Automate
9 10 (2.97%) Microsoft Purview
10 8 (2.37%) Azure Data Factory
11 7 (2.08%) Azure DevOps
12 4 (1.19%) Google Workspace
12 4 (1.19%) Serverless
13 3 (0.89%) PaaS
14 2 (0.59%) AWS Lambda
14 2 (0.59%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 30 (8.90%) DHCP
2 28 (8.31%) DNS
2 28 (8.31%) Firewall
3 26 (7.72%) VPN
4 22 (6.53%) LAN
5 20 (5.93%) Skype
6 17 (5.04%) Network Security
7 12 (3.56%) WAN
8 11 (3.26%) Intrusion Detection
8 11 (3.26%) TCP/IP
9 10 (2.97%) Unified Communications
9 10 (2.97%) Wi-Fi
10 7 (2.08%) SAN
10 7 (2.08%) WebEx
11 6 (1.78%) Softphone
12 4 (1.19%) Internet
12 4 (1.19%) PSTN
12 4 (1.19%) SMTP
12 4 (1.19%) VLAN
13 3 (0.89%) iSCSI
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (6.23%) SQL Server
2 20 (5.93%) Power BI
3 6 (1.78%) Metadata
4 5 (1.48%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (1.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 4 (1.19%) Azure SQL Database
5 4 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
6 3 (0.89%) Delta Lake
6 3 (0.89%) Dremio
6 3 (0.89%) MongoDB
6 3 (0.89%) Tableau
7 2 (0.59%) Data Lake
7 2 (0.59%) DB2
7 2 (0.59%) Essbase
7 2 (0.59%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.59%) RDBMS
7 2 (0.59%) Relational Database
7 2 (0.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 1 (0.30%) EDRMS
8 1 (0.30%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 9 (2.67%) JIRA
2 8 (2.37%) Git
3 5 (1.48%) Babel
3 5 (1.48%) Visual Studio
3 5 (1.48%) webpack
4 4 (1.19%) GitLab
4 4 (1.19%) Hudson
4 4 (1.19%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 2 (0.59%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.59%) eggPlant
5 2 (0.59%) Subversion
6 1 (0.30%) ERwin
6 1 (0.30%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.30%) MSI
6 1 (0.30%) Selenium
6 1 (0.30%) SonarQube
General
1 135 (40.06%) Social Skills
2 55 (16.32%) Finance
3 44 (13.06%) Public Sector
4 39 (11.57%) Analytical Skills
5 29 (8.61%) Banking
6 22 (6.53%) Legal
7 19 (5.64%) Telecoms
8 16 (4.75%) Organisational Skills
9 12 (3.56%) Documentation Skills
10 10 (2.97%) Manufacturing
11 8 (2.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (2.37%) Marketing
12 7 (2.08%) Military
13 6 (1.78%) Presentation Skills
14 4 (1.19%) French Language
14 4 (1.19%) Local Government
14 4 (1.19%) Pharmaceutical
14 4 (1.19%) Retail
15 3 (0.89%) Billing
15 3 (0.89%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 54 (16.02%) Analyst
2 39 (11.57%) Support Engineer
3 33 (9.79%) Architect
4 27 (8.01%) IT Support
5 22 (6.53%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
6 18 (5.34%) IT Engineer
7 17 (5.04%) Developer
7 17 (5.04%) Senior
8 14 (4.15%) Support Analyst
9 13 (3.86%) Administrator
10 12 (3.56%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 12 (3.56%) IT Support Engineer
10 12 (3.56%) Service Analyst
10 12 (3.56%) Solutions Architect
11 11 (3.26%) 2nd Line Support
11 11 (3.26%) Project Manager
12 10 (2.97%) 1st Line Support
12 10 (2.97%) Business Analyst
12 10 (2.97%) Consultant
13 9 (2.67%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (3.26%) .NET
2 9 (2.67%) REST
3 8 (2.37%) RESTful
4 6 (1.78%) CSS
4 6 (1.78%) HTML
4 6 (1.78%) React
4 6 (1.78%) XMPP
5 5 (1.48%) HTML5
6 4 (1.19%) ADO
7 3 (0.89%) OAuth
7 3 (0.89%) SOAP
7 3 (0.89%) Software Packaging
7 3 (0.89%) Web Services
8 2 (0.59%) JSON
8 2 (0.59%) JSP
8 2 (0.59%) MDX
8 2 (0.59%) OAuth2
8 2 (0.59%) Oracle Fusion
8 2 (0.59%) Spring
8 2 (0.59%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 22 (6.53%) Management Information System
2 8 (2.37%) Enterprise Software
3 7 (2.08%) Data Centre
3 7 (2.08%) Hybrid Cloud
4 6 (1.78%) NHS
5 5 (1.48%) Onboarding
5 5 (1.48%) Security Posture
6 4 (1.19%) Blackberry
6 4 (1.19%) Driving Licence
6 4 (1.19%) Handset
6 4 (1.19%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 3 (0.89%) Cloud Native
7 3 (0.89%) IVR
7 3 (0.89%) Product Ownership
7 3 (0.89%) Security Operations Centre
7 3 (0.89%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (0.89%) Video Conferencing
8 2 (0.59%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (0.59%) Digital Wallet
8 2 (0.59%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 124 (36.80%) Windows
2 53 (15.73%) Windows Server
3 36 (10.68%) Windows 10
4 19 (5.64%) Linux
5 17 (5.04%) Windows Server 2016
5 17 (5.04%) Windows Server 2019
6 13 (3.86%) Windows Server 2012
7 11 (3.26%) Android
8 10 (2.97%) VMS
9 8 (2.37%) Windows Server 2003
10 7 (2.08%) Unix
10 7 (2.08%) Windows XP
11 5 (1.48%) Apple iOS
11 5 (1.48%) Windows 7
11 5 (1.48%) Windows 8
11 5 (1.48%) Windows Server 2008
12 4 (1.19%) Mac OS
13 1 (0.30%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 107 (31.75%) Problem-Solving
2 65 (19.29%) ITIL
3 44 (13.06%) Agile
4 37 (10.98%) Migration
5 35 (10.39%) ITSM
6 33 (9.79%) Customer Service
7 29 (8.61%) DevOps
8 27 (8.01%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 25 (7.42%) Stakeholder Management
10 24 (7.12%) Cybersecurity
11 22 (6.53%) Project Delivery
11 22 (6.53%) Project Management
12 21 (6.23%) Collaborative Working
13 18 (5.34%) Analytics
13 18 (5.34%) Change Management
14 17 (5.04%) Business Intelligence
14 17 (5.04%) CRM
14 17 (5.04%) High Availability
15 16 (4.75%) Asset Management
15 16 (4.75%) Data Management
Programming Languages
1 47 (13.95%) PowerShell
2 27 (8.01%) SQL
3 10 (2.97%) JavaScript
4 8 (2.37%) Python
5 6 (1.78%) VBScript
6 5 (1.48%) C#
6 5 (1.48%) Java
6 5 (1.48%) VB
7 4 (1.19%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.59%) Bash
8 2 (0.59%) C++
8 2 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
8 2 (0.59%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.30%) JCL
9 1 (0.30%) R
9 1 (0.30%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 57 (16.91%) Security Cleared
2 55 (16.32%) Microsoft Certification
3 50 (14.84%) SC Cleared
4 38 (11.28%) Degree
5 22 (6.53%) Azure Certification
6 9 (2.67%) A+ Certification
6 9 (2.67%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (2.08%) AWS Certification
7 7 (2.08%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 6 (1.78%) DBS Check
8 6 (1.78%) ITIL Certification
8 6 (1.78%) MCP
8 6 (1.78%) MCSE
9 4 (1.19%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 3 (0.89%) CCNA
10 3 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
10 3 (0.89%) HNC
10 3 (0.89%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 2 (0.59%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (0.59%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (4.15%) SLA
2 10 (2.97%) QA
3 9 (2.67%) Data Quality
3 9 (2.67%) PMO
4 5 (1.48%) GDPR
4 5 (1.48%) PCI DSS
5 4 (1.19%) Accessibility
6 2 (0.59%) ISO 20022
6 2 (0.59%) ISO 8583
6 2 (0.59%) PSD2
6 2 (0.59%) SEPA
7 1 (0.30%) Basel III
7 1 (0.30%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.30%) GRC
7 1 (0.30%) MiFID
7 1 (0.30%) NCSC
System Software
1 105 (31.16%) Active Directory
2 23 (6.82%) VMware Infrastructure
3 12 (3.56%) vSphere
4 9 (2.67%) BitLocker
4 9 (2.67%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (2.37%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (1.78%) Hyper-V
7 5 (1.48%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.89%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 3 (0.89%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.59%) Docker
10 1 (0.30%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.30%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 47 (13.95%) Microsoft Intune
2 20 (5.93%) SCCM
3 19 (5.64%) Single Sign-On
3 19 (5.64%) WSUS
4 11 (3.26%) vCenter Server
5 7 (2.08%) SCOM
6 4 (1.19%) Dell DRAC
6 4 (1.19%) Microsoft Clustering
6 4 (1.19%) NetApp OnCommand
6 4 (1.19%) vMotion
7 3 (0.89%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (0.89%) Backup Exec
8 2 (0.59%) Kubernetes
8 2 (0.59%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.59%) Sysdig
8 2 (0.59%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 1 (0.30%) Docker Swarm
9 1 (0.30%) Grafana
9 1 (0.30%) Perfmon
9 1 (0.30%) Terraform
Vendors
1 40 (11.87%) VMware
2 27 (8.01%) ServiceNow
3 19 (5.64%) Google
4 16 (4.75%) Cisco
5 15 (4.45%) Citrix
6 12 (3.56%) Oracle
7 9 (2.67%) Splunk
8 8 (2.37%) CyberArk
8 8 (2.37%) Dell
9 7 (2.08%) Databricks
10 6 (1.78%) Apple
10 6 (1.78%) Red Hat
10 6 (1.78%) Veeam
10 6 (1.78%) Zscaler
11 5 (1.48%) Canon
11 5 (1.48%) CheckPoint
12 4 (1.19%) iManage
12 4 (1.19%) Remedy
12 4 (1.19%) Symantec
12 4 (1.19%) Varonis