Microservices Contract Job Trends

Microservices
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Microservices skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 55 68 72
Rank change year-on-year +13 +4 -32
Contract jobs citing Microservices 1,555 1,083 1,292
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.27% 3.16% 2.91%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.82% 3.59% 3.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,053 690 954
10th Percentile £358 £385 £410
25th Percentile £425 £459 £471
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £564 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.91% -1.91% -4.17%
75th Percentile £625 £653 £675
90th Percentile £700 £763 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £573
% change year-on-year - -12.66% +4.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 8 7
10th Percentile £62.88 £26.13 £42.55
25th Percentile £66.25 £33.44 £60.44
Median hourly rate £67.50 £40.08 £76.53
Median % change year-on-year +68.42% -47.63% +5.56%
75th Percentile £78.75 £59.23 -
90th Percentile £87.50 £73.97 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.00 £63.79 £76.53
% change year-on-year +5.04% -16.65% +3.42%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Microservices falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 32,245 30,148 39,308
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.48% 87.93% 88.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,297 18,397 26,233
10th Percentile £300 £306 £308
25th Percentile £406 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £531
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.13% -3.45%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £744 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,086 1,007 1,510
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £14.41
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.30 £19.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.79
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -25.79% +25.12%
75th Percentile £48.75 £62.53 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £73.85 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £32.39 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.99% -27.21% +39.06%

Microservices
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microservices relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Microservices job vacancy trend in the UK

Microservices
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microservices.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microservices

Microservices
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microservices over the 6 months to 15 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microservices in the UK

Microservices
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microservices.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Microservices

Microservices
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microservices over the 6 months to 15 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Microservices in the UK

Microservices
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microservices within the UK over the 6 months to 15 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
England +14 1,357 £525 -8.70% 1,446
London +11 707 £550 -6.38% 263
UK excluding London +13 659 £500 - 1,340
Work from Home +17 413 £525 -0.47% 780
North of England +29 307 £488 -11.36% 303
Yorkshire +25 141 £515 -4.98% 118
North West +25 132 £435 -20.91% 154
Midlands +19 106 £503 +5.84% 222
South East -22 98 £520 -9.57% 370
West Midlands +25 79 £525 +5.00% 121
Scotland +1 74 £464 -5.84% 70
South West +26 59 £588 +9.30% 155
North East +4 40 £525 -4.55% 31
East Midlands -6 27 £402 -14.01% 88
East of England -21 26 £625 +56.25% 185
Wales +5 8 £469 +130.06% 41
Northern Ireland -16 3 £438 - 13

Microservices
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 92 (5.92%) Confluence
2 35 (2.25%) Apache
3 22 (1.41%) CMS
4 17 (1.09%) Mule
5 16 (1.03%) Apache Spark
6 14 (0.90%) Anypoint
6 14 (0.90%) JBoss
7 12 (0.77%) OpenStack
7 12 (0.77%) WebLogic
8 10 (0.64%) nginx
9 8 (0.51%) Jupyter
10 7 (0.45%) Camunda
10 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
10 7 (0.45%) SharePoint
11 6 (0.39%) Drupal
12 5 (0.32%) Cloud Foundry
12 5 (0.32%) WebSphere
13 4 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 4 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
13 4 (0.26%) WordPress
Applications
1 14 (0.90%) Chatbot
2 6 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (0.39%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.064%) FrameMaker
5 1 (0.064%) Revit
5 1 (0.064%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (0.84%) Remedy ITSM
2 9 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
3 8 (0.51%) Payment Gateway
4 6 (0.39%) Aladdin
5 5 (0.32%) Fidessa
5 5 (0.32%) Oracle Retail
6 4 (0.26%) Endur
6 4 (0.26%) thinkFolio
7 3 (0.19%) Distributed Ledger
8 2 (0.13%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
8 2 (0.13%) Shopify
9 1 (0.064%) Bloomberg AIM
9 1 (0.064%) Finacle
9 1 (0.064%) FLEXCUBE
9 1 (0.064%) Magento
9 1 (0.064%) Oracle Applications
9 1 (0.064%) Oracle BPM
9 1 (0.064%) R3 Corda
9 1 (0.064%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 840 (54.02%) AWS
2 509 (32.73%) Azure
3 304 (19.55%) Serverless
4 273 (17.56%) GCP
5 261 (16.78%) GitHub
6 162 (10.42%) AWS Lambda
7 138 (8.87%) Azure DevOps
8 137 (8.81%) GitHub Actions
9 94 (6.05%) Amazon S3
10 90 (5.79%) Amazon ECS
11 83 (5.34%) Amazon EKS
12 80 (5.14%) Azure AKS
13 78 (5.02%) Amazon EC2
14 72 (4.63%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 71 (4.57%) Amazon SQS
16 70 (4.50%) AWS CloudFormation
17 64 (4.12%) OpenShift
18 41 (2.64%) SaaS
19 39 (2.51%) Azure Service Bus
20 38 (2.44%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.54%) SSL
2 20 (1.29%) HTTP
3 19 (1.22%) Firewall
4 13 (0.84%) AMQP
5 7 (0.45%) DSL
5 7 (0.45%) Internet
5 7 (0.45%) Network Security
6 6 (0.39%) BGP
6 6 (0.39%) DNS
6 6 (0.39%) LAN
6 6 (0.39%) MPLS
6 6 (0.39%) WAN
7 5 (0.32%) Kerberos
7 5 (0.32%) OpenLDAP
8 4 (0.26%) HTTPS
8 4 (0.26%) SAN
8 4 (0.26%) VPN
9 3 (0.19%) MQTT
10 2 (0.13%) S/MIME
10 2 (0.13%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 227 (14.60%) NoSQL
2 214 (13.76%) PostgreSQL
3 195 (12.54%) MongoDB
4 117 (7.52%) Relational Database
5 89 (5.72%) SQL Server
6 81 (5.21%) Apache Cassandra
7 77 (4.95%) MySQL
8 63 (4.05%) Redis
9 62 (3.99%) DynamoDB
10 60 (3.86%) Amazon RDS
11 36 (2.32%) Big Data
12 33 (2.12%) RDBMS
13 28 (1.80%) Azure SQL Database
14 24 (1.54%) Amazon Aurora
14 24 (1.54%) Elasticsearch
15 23 (1.48%) Hadoop
16 20 (1.29%) DocumentDB
17 15 (0.96%) Oracle Database
18 13 (0.84%) BigQuery
19 12 (0.77%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 285 (18.33%) Jenkins
2 282 (18.14%) Git
3 211 (13.57%) GitLab
4 173 (11.13%) JIRA
5 118 (7.59%) JUnit
6 78 (5.02%) Mockito
7 64 (4.12%) Cucumber
8 51 (3.28%) Selenium
9 50 (3.22%) Maven
10 45 (2.89%) Bitbucket
11 43 (2.77%) SonarQube
12 41 (2.64%) Liquibase
13 37 (2.38%) Cypress.io
14 35 (2.25%) Postman
15 31 (1.99%) Sonatype Nexus
16 30 (1.93%) Gradle
17 23 (1.48%) Artifactory
18 16 (1.03%) REST Assured
19 15 (0.96%) SpecFlow
20 14 (0.90%) TeamCity
General
1 478 (30.74%) Social Skills
2 330 (21.22%) Finance
3 242 (15.56%) Public Sector
4 226 (14.53%) Banking
5 112 (7.20%) Analytical Skills
6 35 (2.25%) Financial Institution
7 27 (1.74%) Front Office
7 27 (1.74%) Investment Banking
8 25 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
9 23 (1.48%) Military
9 23 (1.48%) Retail
10 22 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 22 (1.41%) Telecoms
11 21 (1.35%) Influencing Skills
12 20 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
13 13 (0.84%) Back Office
14 10 (0.64%) Marketing
15 8 (0.51%) Legal
16 7 (0.45%) Automotive
16 7 (0.45%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 635 (40.84%) Developer
2 321 (20.64%) Senior
3 291 (18.71%) Java Developer
4 275 (17.68%) Architect
5 160 (10.29%) Senior Developer
6 140 (9.00%) Software Engineer
7 115 (7.40%) Lead
8 99 (6.37%) Solutions Architect
9 88 (5.66%) Full-Stack Developer
10 84 (5.40%) Senior Java Developer
11 73 (4.69%) DevOps Engineer
12 62 (3.99%) Java Engineer
13 58 (3.73%) AWS Engineer
14 55 (3.54%) Technical Architect
15 50 (3.22%) Backend Developer
16 47 (3.02%) C# Developer
17 42 (2.70%) Senior Software Engineer
18 40 (2.57%) .NET Developer
18 40 (2.57%) Full-Stack Engineer
18 40 (2.57%) Lead Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 373 (23.99%) Spring
2 371 (23.86%) Spring Boot
3 361 (23.22%) Kafka
4 346 (22.25%) RESTful
5 320 (20.58%) REST
6 278 (17.88%) React
7 239 (15.37%) Node.js
8 198 (12.73%) .NET
9 195 (12.54%) AngularJS
10 133 (8.55%) HTML
11 96 (6.17%) JSON
12 93 (5.98%) CSS
13 90 (5.79%) OAuth
13 90 (5.79%) RabbitMQ
14 83 (5.34%) gRPC
15 68 (4.37%) OAuth2
16 64 (4.12%) Hibernate
16 64 (4.12%) SOAP
17 61 (3.92%) .NET Core
18 60 (3.86%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 301 (19.36%) Cloud Native
2 225 (14.47%) Distributed Systems
3 108 (6.95%) Product Ownership
4 57 (3.67%) Onboarding
5 46 (2.96%) Public Cloud
6 33 (2.12%) Data Protection Act
7 29 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
8 28 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
9 27 (1.74%) Algorithms
9 27 (1.74%) Hybrid Cloud
10 22 (1.41%) Greenfield Project
10 22 (1.41%) Mobile App
11 18 (1.16%) Derivative
12 17 (1.09%) AI Agents
12 17 (1.09%) Data Structures
12 17 (1.09%) Legacy Applications
13 16 (1.03%) Virtual Team
14 14 (0.90%) Management Information System
15 13 (0.84%) NHS
16 12 (0.77%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 158 (10.16%) Linux
2 66 (4.24%) Unix
3 21 (1.35%) Mac OS X
3 21 (1.35%) Windows
4 19 (1.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (0.58%) Android
6 8 (0.51%) CentOS
7 5 (0.32%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.32%) Windows Server
8 2 (0.13%) VMS
9 1 (0.064%) Solaris
9 1 (0.064%) Windows Embedded Compact
9 1 (0.064%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 820 (52.73%) CI/CD
2 755 (48.55%) Agile
3 653 (41.99%) DevOps
4 465 (29.90%) Containerisation
5 355 (22.83%) Problem-Solving
6 336 (21.61%) Software Engineering
7 277 (17.81%) Test Automation
8 249 (16.01%) TDD
9 240 (15.43%) Infrastructure as Code
10 229 (14.73%) Event-Driven
11 219 (14.08%) Full-Stack Development
12 206 (13.25%) Scrum
13 162 (10.42%) Mentoring
14 151 (9.71%) Computer Science
15 144 (9.26%) AI
16 143 (9.20%) API Design
16 143 (9.20%) SDLC
17 140 (9.00%) BDD
18 139 (8.94%) Continuous Improvement
19 138 (8.87%) Event-Driven Architecture
Programming Languages
1 704 (45.27%) Java
2 363 (23.34%) Python
3 328 (21.09%) SQL
4 223 (14.34%) JavaScript
5 194 (12.48%) TypeScript
6 182 (11.70%) C#
7 150 (9.65%) Go
8 30 (1.93%) Bash
9 29 (1.86%) Bicep
10 26 (1.67%) Ruby
11 25 (1.61%) C++
11 25 (1.61%) Shell Script
12 24 (1.54%) Scala
13 23 (1.48%) Kotlin
14 21 (1.35%) PowerShell
15 18 (1.16%) Perl
15 18 (1.16%) PHP
15 18 (1.16%) PL/SQL
16 7 (0.45%) C
16 7 (0.45%) Rust
Qualifications
1 345 (22.19%) Security Cleared
2 259 (16.66%) SC Cleared
3 151 (9.71%) Degree
4 118 (7.59%) Computer Science Degree
5 62 (3.99%) AWS Certification
6 54 (3.47%) Master's Degree
7 47 (3.02%) BPSS Clearance
8 42 (2.70%) DV Cleared
9 30 (1.93%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 26 (1.67%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.90%) CISSP
12 13 (0.84%) TOGAF Certification
13 12 (0.77%) Cisco Certification
13 12 (0.77%) OCP
13 12 (0.77%) Oracle Certification
14 10 (0.64%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 9 (0.58%) ISTQB
15 9 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
16 6 (0.39%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 6 (0.39%) JNCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 151 (9.71%) QA
2 56 (3.60%) Accessibility
3 36 (2.32%) WCAG
4 29 (1.86%) GDPR
5 21 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 18 (1.16%) PCI DSS
7 12 (0.77%) ISO 20022
8 11 (0.71%) NCSC
9 9 (0.58%) HL7
10 8 (0.51%) Data Quality
11 6 (0.39%) HIPAA
11 6 (0.39%) MiFID
11 6 (0.39%) NIST
12 4 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
12 4 (0.26%) SOC 2
13 3 (0.19%) SLA
14 2 (0.13%) Disclosure Scotland
14 2 (0.13%) Software Quality Assurance
15 1 (0.064%) GRC
15 1 (0.064%) SEPA
System Software
1 630 (40.51%) Docker
2 31 (1.99%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
4 3 (0.19%) ISA Server
5 2 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.13%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.064%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.064%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 636 (40.90%) Kubernetes
2 317 (20.39%) Terraform
3 122 (7.85%) Grafana
4 121 (7.78%) Ansible
5 89 (5.72%) Prometheus
6 28 (1.80%) Argo
7 23 (1.48%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (1.16%) Puppet
9 15 (0.96%) Kibana
10 11 (0.71%) Progress Chef
11 8 (0.51%) Istio
12 4 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
12 4 (0.26%) Opsgenie
12 4 (0.26%) Packer
13 3 (0.19%) Consul
13 3 (0.19%) ITRS Geneos
13 3 (0.19%) Kiali
13 3 (0.19%) Kustomize
13 3 (0.19%) Podman
14 2 (0.13%) WMI
Vendors
1 140 (9.00%) Microsoft
2 97 (6.24%) Google
3 90 (5.79%) Oracle
4 82 (5.27%) Splunk
5 31 (1.99%) Databricks
5 31 (1.99%) Red Hat
6 30 (1.93%) OpenAI
7 29 (1.86%) ServiceNow
8 24 (1.54%) MuleSoft
9 22 (1.41%) Salesforce
10 20 (1.29%) SAP
11 18 (1.16%) HP
12 17 (1.09%) Atlassian
12 17 (1.09%) Dynatrace
13 15 (0.96%) Foundry
14 14 (0.90%) CA Agile Central
15 13 (0.84%) BMC
15 13 (0.84%) Ivanti
15 13 (0.84%) Remedy
16 12 (0.77%) IBM