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 30 June 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
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 9 6
Rank change year-on-year +4 -3 -4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 119 55 105
As % of all contract jobs in Birmingham 12.78% 10.62% 13.57%
As % of the Vendors category 28.81% 24.34% 30.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 87 42 77
10th Percentile £210 £106 £190
25th Percentile £325 £234 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £398 £425
Median % change year-on-year +13.07% -6.35% -6.85%
75th Percentile £539 £467 £494
90th Percentile £629 £594 £638
West Midlands median daily rate £450 £388 £415
% change year-on-year +16.13% -6.63% -3.49%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 12
10th Percentile - - £11.28
25th Percentile - £56.88 £13.81
Median hourly rate £19.34 £58.75 £22.98
Median % change year-on-year -67.08% +155.71% +43.73%
75th Percentile £22.17 £60.63 £33.63
90th Percentile £23.87 - £56.13
West Midlands median hourly rate £25.00 £31.94 £14.44
% change year-on-year -21.73% +121.27% -19.81%

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 413 226 347
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Birmingham 44.36% 43.63% 44.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 258 153 243
10th Percentile £311 £150 £263
25th Percentile £393 £300 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -6.25%
75th Percentile £542 £600 £578
90th Percentile £616 £689 £685
West Midlands median daily rate £469 £463 £450
% change year-on-year +1.41% +2.78% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 4 21
10th Percentile £15.11 £19.33 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.53 £20.57 £14.13
Median hourly rate £22.17 £26.40 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.01% +1.52% +20.36%
75th Percentile £32.99 £37.87 £37.50
90th Percentile £51.25 £51.52 £55.00
West Midlands median hourly rate £33.99 £30.00 £19.95
% change year-on-year +13.30% +50.38% -11.33%

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 30 June 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 11 (9.24%) SharePoint
2 7 (5.88%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (2.52%) Apache Spark
3 3 (2.52%) SAS
4 2 (1.68%) Apache
4 2 (1.68%) CloudStack
5 1 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.84%) Confluence
Applications
1 8 (6.72%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (5.04%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (4.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (1.68%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 12 (10.08%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (1.68%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.84%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.84%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 50 (42.02%) Azure
2 30 (25.21%) Microsoft 365
3 19 (15.97%) Dynamics 365
3 19 (15.97%) Entra ID
3 19 (15.97%) Power Platform
4 13 (10.92%) AWS
5 10 (8.40%) Azure DevOps
6 7 (5.88%) Microsoft Purview
7 6 (5.04%) OneDrive
8 5 (4.20%) Azure Data Factory
8 5 (4.20%) Azure Sentinel
9 3 (2.52%) Amazon S3
9 3 (2.52%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 3 (2.52%) IaaS
9 3 (2.52%) Microsoft Copilot
10 2 (1.68%) Azure AKS
10 2 (1.68%) GCP
10 2 (1.68%) GitHub
10 2 (1.68%) OpenShift
10 2 (1.68%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 12 (10.08%) DNS
2 11 (9.24%) DHCP
2 11 (9.24%) VPN
3 8 (6.72%) Firewall
4 7 (5.88%) Network Security
5 4 (3.36%) SAN
5 4 (3.36%) TCP/IP
6 3 (2.52%) NAS
7 2 (1.68%) Remote Desktop
7 2 (1.68%) Structured Cabling
8 1 (0.84%) BIG-IP
8 1 (0.84%) Fibre Channel
8 1 (0.84%) iSCSI
8 1 (0.84%) LAN
8 1 (0.84%) VLAN
8 1 (0.84%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (8.40%) Power BI
2 6 (5.04%) Data Warehouse
3 4 (3.36%) Data Lake
4 3 (2.52%) Amazon Redshift
4 3 (2.52%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (2.52%) Metadata
4 3 (2.52%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (2.52%) Relational Database
4 3 (2.52%) SQL Server
5 2 (1.68%) Data Vault
6 1 (0.84%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.84%) Base SAS
6 1 (0.84%) GIS
6 1 (0.84%) Hadoop
6 1 (0.84%) Parquet
6 1 (0.84%) SAS Enterprise Guide
6 1 (0.84%) Spark SQL
6 1 (0.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.84%) WebFOCUS
Development Applications
1 7 (5.88%) JIRA
2 4 (3.36%) Git
3 2 (1.68%) JMeter
4 1 (0.84%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.84%) Maven
4 1 (0.84%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.84%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 28 (23.53%) Social Skills
2 16 (13.45%) Finance
3 14 (11.76%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (8.40%) Banking
5 7 (5.88%) Games
6 6 (5.04%) Public Sector
7 5 (4.20%) Legal
8 4 (3.36%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (3.36%) Retail
9 2 (1.68%) Investment Banking
9 2 (1.68%) Law
9 2 (1.68%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.68%) Publishing
10 1 (0.84%) Automotive
10 1 (0.84%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 17 (14.29%) Analyst
2 12 (10.08%) Architect
3 11 (9.24%) Developer
4 9 (7.56%) Consultant
4 9 (7.56%) Data Engineer
4 9 (7.56%) IT Support
5 8 (6.72%) Azure Engineer
5 8 (6.72%) Support Engineer
6 7 (5.88%) CRM Specialist
6 7 (5.88%) IT Engineer
6 7 (5.88%) Lead
6 7 (5.88%) Security Consultant
7 6 (5.04%) Security Engineer
8 5 (4.20%) IT Support Engineer
8 5 (4.20%) Senior
8 5 (4.20%) Service Analyst
8 5 (4.20%) Service Desk Analyst
8 5 (4.20%) Solutions Architect
9 4 (3.36%) Dynamics 365 Analyst
9 4 (3.36%) Dynamics 365 Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (3.36%) ADO
1 4 (3.36%) OpenTelemetry
2 3 (2.52%) FastAPI
2 3 (2.52%) JSON
3 2 (1.68%) .NET
3 2 (1.68%) Elastic Stack
3 2 (1.68%) PySpark
3 2 (1.68%) YAML
4 1 (0.84%) .NET Core
4 1 (0.84%) Apache Avro
4 1 (0.84%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.84%) ASP.NET
4 1 (0.84%) JSON Schema
4 1 (0.84%) Kafka
4 1 (0.84%) Loki
4 1 (0.84%) Node.js
4 1 (0.84%) Protocol Buffers
4 1 (0.84%) RESTful
4 1 (0.84%) SailPoint
4 1 (0.84%) SLSA
Miscellaneous
1 13 (10.92%) Onboarding
2 7 (5.88%) Hybrid Cloud
3 6 (5.04%) Security Operations Centre
4 5 (4.20%) Cloud Native
4 5 (4.20%) Security Posture
5 4 (3.36%) Public Cloud
6 3 (2.52%) Data Centre
6 3 (2.52%) Management Information System
7 2 (1.68%) e-Learning
7 2 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (1.68%) Life Science
7 2 (1.68%) Replication
7 2 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (0.84%) Algorithms
8 1 (0.84%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.84%) iPhone
8 1 (0.84%) Learning Management System
8 1 (0.84%) Mobile App
8 1 (0.84%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 24 (20.17%) Windows
2 11 (9.24%) Windows 10
3 7 (5.88%) Windows Server
4 3 (2.52%) Mac OS
5 2 (1.68%) Apple iOS
5 2 (1.68%) Linux
5 2 (1.68%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (19.33%) DevOps
2 20 (16.81%) Migration
3 15 (12.61%) Agile
3 15 (12.61%) CI/CD
3 15 (12.61%) Problem-Solving
4 12 (10.08%) Continuous Improvement
4 12 (10.08%) CRM
5 11 (9.24%) ITSM
5 11 (9.24%) Security Operations
6 10 (8.40%) Customer Service
6 10 (8.40%) Infrastructure as Code
6 10 (8.40%) Roadmaps
6 10 (8.40%) Service Management
7 9 (7.56%) Business Intelligence
7 9 (7.56%) Observability
8 8 (6.72%) Containerisation
8 8 (6.72%) Data Modelling
8 8 (6.72%) Disaster Recovery
8 8 (6.72%) SIEM
9 7 (5.88%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 16 (13.45%) Python
2 12 (10.08%) SQL
3 8 (6.72%) PowerShell
4 5 (4.20%) Bicep
4 5 (4.20%) Kusto Query Language
5 4 (3.36%) C#
6 3 (2.52%) Java
6 3 (2.52%) PL/SQL
7 2 (1.68%) Bash
7 2 (1.68%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 2 (1.68%) Scala
7 2 (1.68%) VB
8 1 (0.84%) Groovy
8 1 (0.84%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.84%) VBA
Qualifications
1 8 (6.72%) CISSP
1 8 (6.72%) Degree
2 6 (5.04%) Security Cleared
3 5 (4.20%) SC Cleared
4 4 (3.36%) AWS Certification
4 4 (3.36%) CISM
5 3 (2.52%) ISTQB
6 2 (1.68%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 2 (1.68%) Azure Certification
6 2 (1.68%) CCNP
6 2 (1.68%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (1.68%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 2 (1.68%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
6 2 (1.68%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
7 1 (0.84%) ITIL Certification
7 1 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (5.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 6 (5.04%) NIST
2 6 (5.04%) SLA
3 5 (4.20%) GDPR
4 3 (2.52%) Data Quality
4 3 (2.52%) GRC
4 3 (2.52%) PMO
4 3 (2.52%) QA
5 2 (1.68%) GxP
6 1 (0.84%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.84%) Basel III
6 1 (0.84%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.84%) NCSC
6 1 (0.84%) P3O
6 1 (0.84%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 25 (21.01%) Active Directory
2 6 (5.04%) Docker
3 3 (2.52%) Hyper-V
3 3 (2.52%) Virtual Desktop
3 3 (2.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.68%) vSphere
5 1 (0.84%) NFS
Systems Management
1 19 (15.97%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (10.08%) Terraform
3 9 (7.56%) Kubernetes
4 7 (5.88%) Grafana
5 6 (5.04%) Prometheus
6 3 (2.52%) Ansible
6 3 (2.52%) Control-M
6 3 (2.52%) IBM Guardium
6 3 (2.52%) Nessus
6 3 (2.52%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (1.68%) Check_MK
7 2 (1.68%) HP ALM
7 2 (1.68%) HP Quality Center
7 2 (1.68%) SCCM
8 1 (0.84%) Argo
8 1 (0.84%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 15 (12.61%) ServiceNow
2 5 (4.20%) Okta
3 4 (3.36%) Cisco
4 3 (2.52%) Fortinet
4 3 (2.52%) Oracle
4 3 (2.52%) SAP
4 3 (2.52%) Splunk
4 3 (2.52%) Tenable
4 3 (2.52%) Veeam
4 3 (2.52%) VMware
5 2 (1.68%) BeyondTrust
5 2 (1.68%) Commvault
5 2 (1.68%) CrowdStrike
5 2 (1.68%) Databricks
5 2 (1.68%) HP
5 2 (1.68%) Informatica
5 2 (1.68%) Remedy
5 2 (1.68%) Workday
6 1 (0.84%) Samsung
6 1 (0.84%) Sonatype