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 15 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
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 4 4
Rank change year-on-year +1 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 137 89 99
As % of all contract jobs in Birmingham 15.12% 15.08% 13.94%
As % of the Vendors category 33.58% 30.17% 27.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 96 73 73
10th Percentile £211 £122 £190
25th Percentile £375 £263 £206
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £456 £396 £450
Median % change year-on-year +15.21% -12.00% +5.88%
75th Percentile £623 £511 £525
90th Percentile £679 £610 £573
West Midlands median daily rate £430 £425 £425
% change year-on-year +1.18% - +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% +37.50%
75th Percentile - £49.97 £40.84
90th Percentile - £56.36 £49.34
West Midlands median hourly rate £19.41 £31.94 £30.56
% change year-on-year -39.23% +4.51% +43.82%

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 408 295 364
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Birmingham 45.03% 50.00% 51.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 238 198 262
10th Percentile £300 £157 £206
25th Percentile £390 £313 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £470 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.38% -6.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £573 £628
90th Percentile £678 £633 £750
West Midlands median daily rate £469 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -6.30% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 3 7
10th Percentile £13.40 £20.46 £13.71
25th Percentile £15.32 £24.15 £19.61
Median hourly rate £19.34 £30.29 £26.13
Median % change year-on-year -36.15% +15.94% +24.40%
75th Percentile £43.27 £45.46 £50.25
90th Percentile £51.25 £54.56 £57.00
West Midlands median hourly rate £21.50 £30.00 £31.50
% change year-on-year -28.33% -4.76% +38.46%

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 15 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 19 (13.87%) SharePoint
2 16 (11.68%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (2.19%) Apache Spark
4 2 (1.46%) Apache
4 2 (1.46%) CloudStack
4 2 (1.46%) SAS
5 1 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.73%) CMS
Applications
1 9 (6.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (3.65%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (2.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (2.19%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.73%) AutoCAD
4 1 (0.73%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.73%) Navisworks
4 1 (0.73%) ProjectWise
4 1 (0.73%) Revit
Business Applications
1 3 (2.19%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (1.46%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.73%) Integrated Workplace Management System
3 1 (0.73%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 67 (48.91%) Azure
2 54 (39.42%) Microsoft 365
3 39 (28.47%) Entra ID
4 18 (13.14%) OneDrive
5 15 (10.95%) Dynamics 365
6 14 (10.22%) Power Platform
7 13 (9.49%) AWS
8 9 (6.57%) Azure DevOps
9 8 (5.84%) Azure Sentinel
9 8 (5.84%) Microsoft Purview
10 5 (3.65%) Azure Data Factory
10 5 (3.65%) Power Automate
11 4 (2.92%) GCP
11 4 (2.92%) IaaS
12 3 (2.19%) Azure AKS
12 3 (2.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 2 (1.46%) OpenShift
13 2 (1.46%) PaaS
13 2 (1.46%) PowerApps
13 2 (1.46%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 14 (10.22%) DNS
2 13 (9.49%) DHCP
3 11 (8.03%) VPN
4 8 (5.84%) Firewall
4 8 (5.84%) TCP/IP
5 4 (2.92%) SAN
5 4 (2.92%) Wi-Fi
6 3 (2.19%) NAS
6 3 (2.19%) Wireless
7 2 (1.46%) Network Security
7 2 (1.46%) Remote Desktop
7 2 (1.46%) Structured Cabling
7 2 (1.46%) VLAN
8 1 (0.73%) BIG-IP
8 1 (0.73%) Fibre Channel
8 1 (0.73%) iSCSI
8 1 (0.73%) LAN
8 1 (0.73%) Unified Communications
8 1 (0.73%) Value-Added Service
8 1 (0.73%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (8.76%) Power BI
2 4 (2.92%) Data Lake
2 4 (2.92%) Data Warehouse
2 4 (2.92%) SQL Server
3 3 (2.19%) Azure SQL Database
3 3 (2.19%) Metadata
4 1 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
4 1 (0.73%) Amazon Redshift
4 1 (0.73%) Base SAS
4 1 (0.73%) BigQuery
4 1 (0.73%) Data Mining
4 1 (0.73%) Data Vault
4 1 (0.73%) Hadoop
4 1 (0.73%) Parquet
4 1 (0.73%) PowerPivot
4 1 (0.73%) Relational Database
4 1 (0.73%) SAS Enterprise Guide
4 1 (0.73%) Spark SQL
4 1 (0.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 2 (1.46%) Git
1 2 (1.46%) Jenkins
1 2 (1.46%) JIRA
2 1 (0.73%) Maven
2 1 (0.73%) SonarQube
2 1 (0.73%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 31 (22.63%) Social Skills
2 25 (18.25%) Finance
3 11 (8.03%) Legal
4 10 (7.30%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (6.57%) Banking
6 6 (4.38%) Public Sector
7 4 (2.92%) Retail
8 3 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (2.19%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.46%) Investment Banking
9 2 (1.46%) Law
9 2 (1.46%) Marketing
9 2 (1.46%) Publishing
10 1 (0.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.73%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.73%) Military
10 1 (0.73%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 21 (15.33%) Architect
2 16 (11.68%) Analyst
3 14 (10.22%) Solutions Architect
4 13 (9.49%) Support Engineer
5 12 (8.76%) Lead
6 11 (8.03%) Consultant
6 11 (8.03%) IT Support
7 10 (7.30%) Data Engineer
7 10 (7.30%) Senior
8 9 (6.57%) Azure Engineer
8 9 (6.57%) IT Engineer
9 7 (5.11%) IT Support Engineer
9 7 (5.11%) Security Consultant
10 6 (4.38%) Microsoft Consultant
10 6 (4.38%) Support Analyst
11 5 (3.65%) Cybersecurity Specialist
11 5 (3.65%) Developer
11 5 (3.65%) PowerShell Engineer
11 5 (3.65%) Security Engineer
11 5 (3.65%) Security Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (8.76%) Terraform
2 4 (2.92%) JSON
2 4 (2.92%) Microsoft Graph
3 3 (2.19%) REST
4 2 (1.46%) .NET
4 2 (1.46%) ADO
4 2 (1.46%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (1.46%) SailPoint
4 2 (1.46%) YAML
5 1 (0.73%) Apache Avro
5 1 (0.73%) ARM Templates
5 1 (0.73%) ASP.NET
5 1 (0.73%) JSON Schema
5 1 (0.73%) Kafka
5 1 (0.73%) Loki
5 1 (0.73%) OpenTelemetry
5 1 (0.73%) Protocol Buffers
5 1 (0.73%) PySpark
5 1 (0.73%) SAML
5 1 (0.73%) SLSA
Miscellaneous
1 11 (8.03%) Onboarding
2 9 (6.57%) Management Information System
3 7 (5.11%) Hybrid Cloud
4 5 (3.65%) Security Operations Centre
4 5 (3.65%) Security Posture
5 4 (2.92%) iPhone
5 4 (2.92%) Mobile App
5 4 (2.92%) Public Cloud
6 3 (2.19%) Cloud Native
6 3 (2.19%) Cyber Threat
6 3 (2.19%) Data Centre
6 3 (2.19%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (1.46%) Replication
7 2 (1.46%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (1.46%) Video Conferencing
8 1 (0.73%) Acoustics
8 1 (0.73%) CMDB
8 1 (0.73%) Enterprise Storage
8 1 (0.73%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 37 (27.01%) Windows
2 13 (9.49%) Windows 10
3 9 (6.57%) Windows Server
4 7 (5.11%) Mac OS
5 3 (2.19%) Linux
6 2 (1.46%) Apple iOS
6 2 (1.46%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.73%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (17.52%) DevOps
1 24 (17.52%) ITSM
2 21 (15.33%) Problem-Solving
3 20 (14.60%) Migration
4 17 (12.41%) Customer Service
5 15 (10.95%) ITIL
6 14 (10.22%) Service Management
7 13 (9.49%) Mentoring
7 13 (9.49%) Project Delivery
7 13 (9.49%) Stakeholder Management
8 12 (8.76%) CI/CD
9 11 (8.03%) Cybersecurity
9 11 (8.03%) Disaster Recovery
9 11 (8.03%) Security Operations
9 11 (8.03%) SIEM
9 11 (8.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 10 (7.30%) Agile
10 10 (7.30%) Continuous Improvement
10 10 (7.30%) Information Security
10 10 (7.30%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 13 (9.49%) Python
2 11 (8.03%) SQL
3 9 (6.57%) PowerShell
4 6 (4.38%) Kusto Query Language
5 3 (2.19%) Bash
5 3 (2.19%) Bicep
5 3 (2.19%) C#
5 3 (2.19%) JavaScript
6 2 (1.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 1 (0.73%) Groovy
7 1 (0.73%) Java
7 1 (0.73%) Scala
7 1 (0.73%) Search Processing Language
7 1 (0.73%) VBA
Qualifications
1 12 (8.76%) Degree
2 9 (6.57%) CISSP
3 8 (5.84%) Security Cleared
4 5 (3.65%) CISM
4 5 (3.65%) Microsoft Certification
4 5 (3.65%) SC Cleared
5 4 (2.92%) A+ Certification
5 4 (2.92%) AWS Certification
5 4 (2.92%) Network+ Certification
6 2 (1.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 2 (1.46%) Azure Certification
6 2 (1.46%) CCNP
6 2 (1.46%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (1.46%) ITIL Certification
6 2 (1.46%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 1 (0.73%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.73%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.73%) GCIH
7 1 (0.73%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 1 (0.73%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (8.03%) NIST
2 6 (4.38%) GDPR
2 6 (4.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (4.38%) PCI DSS
3 5 (3.65%) SLA
4 4 (2.92%) GRC
4 4 (2.92%) QA
5 3 (2.19%) PMO
6 2 (1.46%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.73%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.73%) Basel III
7 1 (0.73%) ISO 19650
7 1 (0.73%) NCSC
7 1 (0.73%) P3O
System Software
1 33 (24.09%) Active Directory
2 4 (2.92%) Hyper-V
2 4 (2.92%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (2.19%) Docker
3 3 (2.19%) Virtual Desktop
4 2 (1.46%) vSphere
5 1 (0.73%) Firmware
5 1 (0.73%) NFS
Systems Management
1 26 (18.98%) Microsoft Intune
2 7 (5.11%) SCCM
3 6 (4.38%) Kubernetes
4 4 (2.92%) Ansible
4 4 (2.92%) Grafana
4 4 (2.92%) Jamf Pro
4 4 (2.92%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (2.19%) Prometheus
6 2 (1.46%) Check_MK
7 1 (0.73%) Argo
Vendors
1 21 (15.33%) ServiceNow
2 8 (5.84%) Splunk
3 7 (5.11%) Cisco
4 5 (3.65%) Samsung
5 4 (2.92%) Apple
5 4 (2.92%) Okta
5 4 (2.92%) VMware
6 3 (2.19%) Databricks
6 3 (2.19%) Palo Alto
6 3 (2.19%) Remedy
6 3 (2.19%) Ribbon
6 3 (2.19%) Veeam
7 2 (1.46%) Autodesk
7 2 (1.46%) BeyondTrust
7 2 (1.46%) Citrix
7 2 (1.46%) Commvault
7 2 (1.46%) CrowdStrike
7 2 (1.46%) CyberArk
7 2 (1.46%) Fortinet
7 2 (1.46%) Google