Microsoft Job Trends in the North West

Microsoft
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies advertised in the North West requiring knowledge or experience of Microsoft products and/or services. It includes a benchmarking guide to the annual salaries offered in vacancies that cited Microsoft over the 6 months leading up to 13 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

The figures below represent the IT labour market in general and are not representative of salaries within the Microsoft Corporation.

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 25 4
Rank change year-on-year +21 -21 -1
Permanent jobs citing Microsoft 1,175 590 1,638
As % of all permanent jobs in the North West 10.97% 12.55% 14.92%
As % of the Vendors category 48.96% 29.90% 48.38%
Number of salaries quoted 779 431 1,326
10th Percentile £27,500 £25,480 £24,807
25th Percentile £32,000 £30,375 £30,625
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £43,000 £42,500 £45,000
Median % change year-on-year +1.18% -5.56% -4.26%
75th Percentile £60,000 £57,500 £62,500
90th Percentile £77,085 £73,886 £76,250
England median annual salary £50,000 £48,500 £47,500
% change year-on-year +3.09% +2.11% -9.52%

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 permanent job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of all vendor products and services in the North West.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 2,400 1,973 3,386
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the North West 22.40% 41.96% 30.85%
Number of salaries quoted 1,679 884 2,533
10th Percentile £28,500 £25,480 £26,250
25th Percentile £35,875 £32,500 £34,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £47,500 £47,500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -9.52%
75th Percentile £70,000 £63,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £89,000 £87,425 £80,000
England median annual salary £57,239 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +4.07% +10.00% -13.04%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Microsoft relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Microsoft job vacancy trend in the North West

Microsoft
Salary Trend in the North West

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Microsoft.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Salary Histogram in the North West

Salary distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in the North West over the 6 months to 13 June 2026.

Salary histogram for Microsoft in the North West

Microsoft
Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft within the North West region over the 6 months to 13 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Manchester +6 561 £50,000 +11.11% 213
Lancashire +45 200 £32,500 -31.84% 85
Cheshire +30 187 £55,000 +29.41% 64
Merseyside +6 170 £40,000 +48.15% 38
Cumbria -4 53 £33,250 -6.86% 19
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
1 129 (10.98%) SharePoint
2 89 (7.57%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.02%) Jupyter
4 10 (0.85%) WordPress
5 8 (0.68%) IIS
6 7 (0.60%) Confluence
7 4 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.34%) Skype for Business
8 2 (0.17%) CMS
9 1 (0.085%) OpenEdge
Applications
1 166 (14.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 126 (10.72%) Microsoft Office
3 29 (2.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (1.11%) Chatbot
5 10 (0.85%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.085%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.085%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.085%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 18 (1.53%) Dynamics CRM
2 12 (1.02%) Cloudability
3 9 (0.77%) Magento
4 8 (0.68%) Dynamics NAV
5 5 (0.43%) Dynamics AX
5 5 (0.43%) SAP PM
6 3 (0.26%) BambooHR
7 2 (0.17%) NEC Housing
8 1 (0.085%) Infor LN
8 1 (0.085%) Primavera
8 1 (0.085%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.085%) SAP IBP
Cloud Services
1 602 (51.23%) Azure
2 392 (33.36%) Microsoft 365
3 211 (17.96%) Power Platform
4 105 (8.94%) Entra ID
5 96 (8.17%) AWS
6 82 (6.98%) Dynamics 365
7 79 (6.72%) Azure AI
8 54 (4.60%) Azure DevOps
9 50 (4.26%) GitHub
10 47 (4.00%) PowerApps
11 45 (3.83%) Power Automate
12 32 (2.72%) Microsoft Copilot
13 31 (2.64%) OneDrive
14 30 (2.55%) SaaS
15 26 (2.21%) Microsoft Purview
16 18 (1.53%) GCP
17 17 (1.45%) Boomi
18 16 (1.36%) Azure Sentinel
19 15 (1.28%) Azure Logic Apps
20 14 (1.19%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 103 (8.77%) Firewall
2 87 (7.40%) DNS
3 73 (6.21%) DHCP
4 57 (4.85%) VPN
5 43 (3.66%) VLAN
6 34 (2.89%) Wi-Fi
6 34 (2.89%) Wireless
7 24 (2.04%) TCP/IP
7 24 (2.04%) VoIP
8 22 (1.87%) WAN
9 19 (1.62%) Internet
10 16 (1.36%) SD-WAN
11 13 (1.11%) LAN
11 13 (1.11%) Network Security
12 11 (0.94%) Structured Cabling
13 7 (0.60%) NGFW
13 7 (0.60%) SAN
14 6 (0.51%) IP Telephony
15 5 (0.43%) Broadband
15 5 (0.43%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 149 (12.68%) Power BI
2 92 (7.83%) Tableau
3 61 (5.19%) SQL Server
4 31 (2.64%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 24 (2.04%) Azure SQL Database
6 19 (1.62%) Data Mining
7 17 (1.45%) MongoDB
8 14 (1.19%) Data Lake
9 10 (0.85%) Relational Database
10 9 (0.77%) Data Warehouse
10 9 (0.77%) Looker
11 8 (0.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 5 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
13 4 (0.34%) Amazon RDS
13 4 (0.34%) PostgreSQL
14 3 (0.26%) MySQL
14 3 (0.26%) NoSQL
14 3 (0.26%) OLAP
14 3 (0.26%) PowerPivot
14 3 (0.26%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 38 (3.23%) Git
2 29 (2.47%) JIRA
3 12 (1.02%) Visual Studio Code
4 8 (0.68%) Postman
5 6 (0.51%) NUnit
6 3 (0.26%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.26%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 2 (0.17%) GitLab
7 2 (0.17%) MSTest
7 2 (0.17%) Octopus Deploy
7 2 (0.17%) Rational DOORS
7 2 (0.17%) Terragrunt
8 1 (0.085%) MLflow
General
1 529 (45.02%) Social Skills
2 137 (11.66%) Finance
3 129 (10.98%) Analytical Skills
4 90 (7.66%) Retail
5 67 (5.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 46 (3.91%) Organisational Skills
7 45 (3.83%) Law
8 42 (3.57%) Manufacturing
8 42 (3.57%) Marketing
9 36 (3.06%) Legal
10 23 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
10 23 (1.96%) Public Sector
11 19 (1.62%) Multimedia
12 12 (1.02%) Documentation Skills
13 10 (0.85%) Games
13 10 (0.85%) Telecoms
14 8 (0.68%) French Language
14 8 (0.68%) Police
14 8 (0.68%) Presentation Skills
15 7 (0.60%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 296 (25.19%) Analyst
2 159 (13.53%) IT Support
3 141 (12.00%) Junior
4 131 (11.15%) Junior Analyst
5 129 (10.98%) Developer
6 121 (10.30%) Senior
7 106 (9.02%) Support Engineer
8 93 (7.91%) IT Engineer
9 90 (7.66%) Data Analyst
10 83 (7.06%) IT Support Engineer
11 71 (6.04%) Security Analyst
12 68 (5.79%) Lead
13 67 (5.70%) Cybersecurity Analyst
14 65 (5.53%) Junior Data Analyst
14 65 (5.53%) Junior Security Analyst
15 60 (5.11%) Ethical Hacker
16 59 (5.02%) IT Technician
17 55 (4.68%) Architect
18 51 (4.34%) Trainee
19 45 (3.83%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (5.45%) .NET
2 40 (3.40%) HTML
3 39 (3.32%) .NET Core
3 39 (3.32%) ASP.NET
3 39 (3.32%) CSS
4 25 (2.13%) REST
5 22 (1.87%) ASP.NET Core
6 21 (1.79%) EDI
6 21 (1.79%) Microsoft Graph
6 21 (1.79%) Middleware
7 19 (1.62%) .NET Framework
8 17 (1.45%) Entity Framework
9 15 (1.28%) XML
10 13 (1.11%) JSON
11 12 (1.02%) Matplotlib
11 12 (1.02%) NumPy
11 12 (1.02%) Pandas
11 12 (1.02%) RESTful
11 12 (1.02%) scikit-learn
11 12 (1.02%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 93 (7.91%) Driving Licence
2 68 (5.79%) Cyberattack
3 50 (4.26%) Onboarding
4 31 (2.64%) Self-Motivation
5 28 (2.38%) Management Information System
6 27 (2.30%) Data Centre
7 21 (1.79%) Product Ownership
8 14 (1.19%) Enterprise Cloud
8 14 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
9 12 (1.02%) Algorithms
9 12 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
9 12 (1.02%) Low-Code
10 11 (0.94%) EPoS
11 10 (0.85%) Analytical Mindset
11 10 (0.85%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 9 (0.77%) Cloud Native
13 8 (0.68%) CMDB
13 8 (0.68%) Greenfield Project
13 8 (0.68%) Legacy Systems
13 8 (0.68%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 269 (22.89%) Windows
2 130 (11.06%) Windows Server
3 75 (6.38%) Windows 10
4 18 (1.53%) Apple iOS
5 13 (1.11%) Mac OS
6 11 (0.94%) Windows 7
6 11 (0.94%) Windows Server 2016
7 10 (0.85%) Android
7 10 (0.85%) Windows Server 2019
8 7 (0.60%) Windows 8
9 5 (0.43%) Linux
10 3 (0.26%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.26%) VMS
11 2 (0.17%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 254 (21.62%) Cybersecurity
2 239 (20.34%) Problem-Solving
3 210 (17.87%) Customer Service
4 177 (15.06%) Mentoring
5 157 (13.36%) AI
6 144 (12.26%) Business Intelligence
7 134 (11.40%) Continuous Improvement
8 108 (9.19%) Agile
9 102 (8.68%) Analytics
10 89 (7.57%) ITIL
11 84 (7.15%) DevOps
12 74 (6.30%) Service Delivery
13 71 (6.04%) CRM
14 68 (5.79%) Stakeholder Management
15 64 (5.45%) Decision-Making
16 61 (5.19%) Roadmaps
17 60 (5.11%) CI/CD
17 60 (5.11%) Ethical Hacking
18 55 (4.68%) User Experience
19 52 (4.43%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 231 (19.66%) SQL
2 169 (14.38%) Python
3 72 (6.13%) C#
4 63 (5.36%) PowerShell
5 48 (4.09%) JavaScript
6 17 (1.45%) R
7 15 (1.28%) Bicep
8 12 (1.02%) TypeScript
9 11 (0.94%) T-SQL
10 7 (0.60%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 6 (0.51%) Bash
11 6 (0.51%) VBScript
12 3 (0.26%) VB.NET
13 2 (0.17%) Java
13 2 (0.17%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.17%) PHP
13 2 (0.17%) VB
13 2 (0.17%) VBA
14 1 (0.085%) C++
14 1 (0.085%) Scala
Qualifications
1 250 (21.28%) Azure Certification
2 75 (6.38%) Degree
3 66 (5.62%) Microsoft Certification
4 65 (5.53%) CompTIA CySA+
4 65 (5.53%) CompTIA Security+
5 60 (5.11%) CEH
6 57 (4.85%) AWS Certification
7 37 (3.15%) DBS Check
8 35 (2.98%) SC Cleared
8 35 (2.98%) Security Cleared
9 32 (2.72%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 31 (2.64%) Network+ Certification
11 27 (2.30%) CCNA
11 27 (2.30%) Cisco Certification
12 13 (1.11%) ITIL Certification
13 12 (1.02%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 11 (0.94%) BPSS Clearance
15 9 (0.77%) CISSP
15 9 (0.77%) MCSE
16 7 (0.60%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (3.23%) SLA
2 35 (2.98%) QA
3 27 (2.30%) Cyber Essentials
4 25 (2.13%) GDPR
5 24 (2.04%) Data Quality
6 20 (1.70%) TickIT
7 19 (1.62%) NIST
8 17 (1.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 14 (1.19%) Accessibility
10 9 (0.77%) PMO
11 5 (0.43%) WCAG
12 4 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 3 (0.26%) ISO 9001
14 2 (0.17%) IFRS
15 1 (0.085%) Actionable Recommendations
15 1 (0.085%) Disclosure Scotland
15 1 (0.085%) GxP
15 1 (0.085%) IFRS 9
15 1 (0.085%) ISAE 3402
15 1 (0.085%) ISO 14001
System Software
1 182 (15.49%) Active Directory
2 57 (4.85%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (2.55%) Hyper-V
4 13 (1.11%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (0.68%) BitLocker
5 8 (0.68%) Docker
5 8 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.60%) VMware Workstation
7 4 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.26%) DFS Replication
8 3 (0.26%) Firmware
9 1 (0.085%) MetaFrame
9 1 (0.085%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 1 (0.085%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.085%) vSphere
9 1 (0.085%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 102 (8.68%) Microsoft Intune
2 32 (2.72%) SCCM
3 25 (2.13%) Terraform
4 20 (1.70%) Autotask
5 18 (1.53%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (0.94%) FortiGate
7 9 (0.77%) Jamf Pro
8 8 (0.68%) Kubernetes
9 6 (0.51%) Ansible
10 4 (0.34%) Grafana
11 3 (0.26%) Prometheus
11 3 (0.26%) Proxmox
12 2 (0.17%) cPanel
12 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Clustering
12 2 (0.17%) Plesk
13 1 (0.085%) Argo
13 1 (0.085%) Istio
13 1 (0.085%) linkerd
13 1 (0.085%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 149 (12.68%) ForeScout
2 69 (5.87%) VMware
3 54 (4.60%) Cisco
4 37 (3.15%) ServiceNow
5 35 (2.98%) Apple
6 32 (2.72%) Adobe
7 28 (2.38%) Google
8 24 (2.04%) Salesforce
9 16 (1.36%) Databricks
10 15 (1.28%) SAP
11 13 (1.11%) iManage
12 12 (1.02%) Palo Alto
13 11 (0.94%) Meraki
14 10 (0.85%) Juniper
15 8 (0.68%) Sage
15 8 (0.68%) SonicWALL
15 8 (0.68%) Ubiquiti
16 7 (0.60%) Aderant
16 7 (0.60%) ESET
17 6 (0.51%) Okta