Microsoft Contract Job Trends in Birmingham

Microsoft
West Midlands > Birmingham

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in Birmingham 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 24 September 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
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 4 4
Rank change year-on-year +1 0 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 141 92 101
As % of all contract jobs in Birmingham 15.34% 15.31% 14.15%
As % of the Vendors category 34.39% 29.30% 26.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 100 77 74
10th Percentile £212 £125 £190
25th Percentile £375 £275 £207
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £400 £450
Median % change year-on-year +20.31% -11.11% +5.88%
75th Percentile £628 £545 £525
90th Percentile £684 £625 £573
West Midlands median daily rate £425 £440 £425
% change year-on-year -3.41% +3.53% +6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 3
10th Percentile £15.05 £21.89 £14.26
25th Percentile £16.66 £27.72 £18.50
Median hourly rate £19.34 £38.38 £26.13
Median % change year-on-year -49.60% +46.89% +41.22%
75th Percentile - £49.97 £40.84
90th Percentile - £56.36 £49.34
West Midlands median hourly rate £19.41 £30.00 £30.56
% change year-on-year -35.30% -1.84% +35.83%

All Vendors
Birmingham

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 Birmingham.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 410 314 378
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Birmingham 44.61% 52.25% 52.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 240 207 270
10th Percentile £281 £163 £206
25th Percentile £375 £362 £376
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £581 £636
90th Percentile £688 £638 £750
West Midlands median daily rate £469 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -6.20% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 4 7
10th Percentile £13.40 £17.78 £13.71
25th Percentile £15.32 £17.92 £19.61
Median hourly rate £19.34 £24.15 £26.13
Median % change year-on-year -19.90% -7.58% +33.97%
75th Percentile £43.27 £37.87 £50.25
90th Percentile £51.25 £51.52 £57.00
West Midlands median hourly rate £21.50 £30.00 £31.50
% change year-on-year -28.33% -4.76% +36.96%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in Birmingham

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

Microsoft job vacancy trend in Birmingham

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in Birmingham

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Birmingham citing Microsoft.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Birmingham citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in Birmingham

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in Birmingham over the 6 months to 24 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in Birmingham

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in Birmingham

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Birmingham citing Microsoft.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Birmingham citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Birmingham 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 20 (14.18%) SharePoint
2 17 (12.06%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (2.13%) Apache Spark
4 2 (1.42%) Apache
4 2 (1.42%) CloudStack
4 2 (1.42%) SAS
5 1 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.71%) CMS
Applications
1 9 (6.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (4.26%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (2.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (2.13%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.71%) AutoCAD
4 1 (0.71%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.71%) Navisworks
4 1 (0.71%) ProjectWise
4 1 (0.71%) Revit
Business Applications
1 3 (2.13%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (1.42%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.71%) Integrated Workplace Management System
3 1 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 71 (50.35%) Azure
2 61 (43.26%) Microsoft 365
3 41 (29.08%) Entra ID
4 18 (12.77%) OneDrive
5 16 (11.35%) Power Platform
6 14 (9.93%) Dynamics 365
7 13 (9.22%) AWS
8 9 (6.38%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (6.38%) Microsoft Purview
9 8 (5.67%) Azure Sentinel
10 6 (4.26%) IaaS
11 5 (3.55%) Azure Data Factory
11 5 (3.55%) Power Automate
12 4 (2.84%) GCP
12 4 (2.84%) PaaS
13 3 (2.13%) Azure AKS
13 3 (2.13%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 3 (2.13%) PowerApps
14 2 (1.42%) SaaS
15 1 (0.71%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 13 (9.22%) DHCP
1 13 (9.22%) DNS
2 11 (7.80%) VPN
3 9 (6.38%) Firewall
4 8 (5.67%) TCP/IP
5 5 (3.55%) Wi-Fi
6 4 (2.84%) SAN
6 4 (2.84%) Wireless
7 3 (2.13%) NAS
7 3 (2.13%) VLAN
8 2 (1.42%) Remote Desktop
8 2 (1.42%) Structured Cabling
8 2 (1.42%) Unified Communications
8 2 (1.42%) VoIP
9 1 (0.71%) Fibre Channel
9 1 (0.71%) iSCSI
9 1 (0.71%) LAN
9 1 (0.71%) Value-Added Service
9 1 (0.71%) WAN
9 1 (0.71%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (8.51%) Power BI
2 4 (2.84%) Data Lake
2 4 (2.84%) Data Warehouse
2 4 (2.84%) SQL Server
3 3 (2.13%) Azure SQL Database
3 3 (2.13%) Metadata
4 1 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (0.71%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.71%) Base SAS
4 1 (0.71%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.71%) Data Mining
4 1 (0.71%) Data Vault
4 1 (0.71%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.71%) Parquet
4 1 (0.71%) PowerPivot
4 1 (0.71%) Relational Database
4 1 (0.71%) SAS Enterprise Guide
4 1 (0.71%) Spark SQL
4 1 (0.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 2 (1.42%) Git
1 2 (1.42%) Jenkins
1 2 (1.42%) JIRA
2 1 (0.71%) Maven
2 1 (0.71%) SonarQube
2 1 (0.71%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 34 (24.11%) Social Skills
2 26 (18.44%) Finance
3 11 (7.80%) Analytical Skills
3 11 (7.80%) Legal
4 8 (5.67%) Banking
4 8 (5.67%) Public Sector
5 4 (2.84%) Retail
6 3 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 3 (2.13%) Influencing Skills
6 3 (2.13%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (1.42%) Investment Banking
7 2 (1.42%) Law
7 2 (1.42%) Marketing
7 2 (1.42%) Publishing
8 1 (0.71%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.71%) Military
8 1 (0.71%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 20 (14.18%) Architect
2 17 (12.06%) Analyst
3 15 (10.64%) Support Engineer
4 14 (9.93%) Solutions Architect
5 13 (9.22%) Lead
6 12 (8.51%) IT Support
7 11 (7.80%) Consultant
7 11 (7.80%) Senior
8 10 (7.09%) Data Engineer
9 9 (6.38%) Azure Engineer
9 9 (6.38%) IT Engineer
10 8 (5.67%) IT Support Engineer
11 7 (4.96%) Security Consultant
12 6 (4.26%) Microsoft Consultant
12 6 (4.26%) Support Analyst
13 5 (3.55%) 2nd Line Support
13 5 (3.55%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
13 5 (3.55%) Desktop Support
13 5 (3.55%) Developer
13 5 (3.55%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (7.09%) Terraform
2 4 (2.84%) JSON
2 4 (2.84%) Microsoft Graph
3 3 (2.13%) REST
4 2 (1.42%) .NET
4 2 (1.42%) ADO
4 2 (1.42%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (1.42%) SailPoint
4 2 (1.42%) YAML
5 1 (0.71%) Apache Avro
5 1 (0.71%) ARM Templates
5 1 (0.71%) ASP.NET
5 1 (0.71%) JSON Schema
5 1 (0.71%) Kafka
5 1 (0.71%) Loki
5 1 (0.71%) OAuth
5 1 (0.71%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.71%) Protocol Buffers
5 1 (0.71%) PySpark
5 1 (0.71%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 12 (8.51%) Onboarding
2 11 (7.80%) Management Information System
3 5 (3.55%) Hybrid Cloud
3 5 (3.55%) iPhone
3 5 (3.55%) Mobile App
3 5 (3.55%) Security Operations Centre
3 5 (3.55%) Security Posture
4 4 (2.84%) Cyber Threat
4 4 (2.84%) Public Cloud
5 3 (2.13%) Cloud Native
5 3 (2.13%) Data Centre
5 3 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (2.13%) Video Conferencing
6 2 (1.42%) Acoustics
6 2 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (1.42%) Replication
6 2 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (1.42%) Virtual Team
7 1 (0.71%) Data Structures
7 1 (0.71%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 39 (27.66%) Windows
2 12 (8.51%) Windows 10
3 9 (6.38%) Windows Server
4 8 (5.67%) Mac OS
5 3 (2.13%) Linux
6 2 (1.42%) Android
6 2 (1.42%) Apple iOS
6 2 (1.42%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (19.15%) ITSM
2 25 (17.73%) DevOps
3 21 (14.89%) Problem-Solving
4 20 (14.18%) Migration
5 18 (12.77%) Customer Service
5 18 (12.77%) ITIL
6 17 (12.06%) Service Management
7 15 (10.64%) Mentoring
8 14 (9.93%) Stakeholder Management
9 13 (9.22%) Project Delivery
9 13 (9.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 12 (8.51%) CI/CD
10 12 (8.51%) Cybersecurity
10 12 (8.51%) Roadmaps
11 11 (7.80%) Continuous Improvement
11 11 (7.80%) Information Security
12 10 (7.09%) Agile
12 10 (7.09%) AI
12 10 (7.09%) Data Protection
12 10 (7.09%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 12 (8.51%) Python
2 11 (7.80%) SQL
3 8 (5.67%) PowerShell
4 6 (4.26%) Kusto Query Language
5 3 (2.13%) Bicep
5 3 (2.13%) C#
5 3 (2.13%) JavaScript
6 2 (1.42%) Bash
6 2 (1.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 1 (0.71%) Groovy
7 1 (0.71%) Java
7 1 (0.71%) Scala
7 1 (0.71%) Search Processing Language
7 1 (0.71%) VBA
Qualifications
1 14 (9.93%) Degree
2 9 (6.38%) CISSP
2 9 (6.38%) Security Cleared
3 6 (4.26%) CISM
3 6 (4.26%) Microsoft Certification
3 6 (4.26%) SC Cleared
4 4 (2.84%) A+ Certification
4 4 (2.84%) AWS Certification
4 4 (2.84%) Network+ Certification
5 3 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
5 3 (2.13%) ITIL Certification
6 2 (1.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 2 (1.42%) Azure Certification
6 2 (1.42%) CCNP
6 2 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (1.42%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 1 (0.71%) CRISC
7 1 (0.71%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.71%) GCIH
7 1 (0.71%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (7.80%) NIST
2 7 (4.96%) GDPR
2 7 (4.96%) PCI DSS
3 6 (4.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (4.26%) SLA
4 5 (3.55%) GRC
5 4 (2.84%) QA
6 3 (2.13%) Data Quality
6 3 (2.13%) PMO
7 1 (0.71%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.71%) Basel III
7 1 (0.71%) ISO 19650
7 1 (0.71%) NCSC
7 1 (0.71%) P3O
System Software
1 33 (23.40%) Active Directory
2 4 (2.84%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (2.13%) Docker
3 3 (2.13%) Hyper-V
3 3 (2.13%) Virtual Desktop
4 2 (1.42%) Firmware
4 2 (1.42%) vSphere
5 1 (0.71%) NFS
Systems Management
1 27 (19.15%) Microsoft Intune
2 7 (4.96%) SCCM
3 5 (3.55%) Jamf Pro
3 5 (3.55%) Kubernetes
4 4 (2.84%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (2.13%) Grafana
5 3 (2.13%) Prometheus
6 2 (1.42%) Ansible
6 2 (1.42%) Check_MK
7 1 (0.71%) Argo
Vendors
1 24 (17.02%) ServiceNow
2 7 (4.96%) Cisco
2 7 (4.96%) Splunk
3 6 (4.26%) Samsung
4 5 (3.55%) Apple
5 4 (2.84%) VMware
6 3 (2.13%) Databricks
6 3 (2.13%) Palo Alto
6 3 (2.13%) Remedy
6 3 (2.13%) Ribbon
6 3 (2.13%) Veeam
7 2 (1.42%) Autodesk
7 2 (1.42%) BeyondTrust
7 2 (1.42%) Citrix
7 2 (1.42%) Commvault
7 2 (1.42%) CrowdStrike
7 2 (1.42%) CyberArk
7 2 (1.42%) Fortinet
7 2 (1.42%) Google
7 2 (1.42%) Okta