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 16 May 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
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 5 6
Rank change year-on-year +2 +1 -2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 130 74 95
As % of all contract jobs in Birmingham 14.07% 14.40% 12.91%
As % of the Vendors category 32.75% 30.58% 30.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 88 61 69
10th Percentile £210 £160 £190
25th Percentile £325 £263 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% - -10.53%
75th Percentile £505 £525 £494
90th Percentile £600 £600 £638
West Midlands median daily rate £450 £400 £400
% change year-on-year +12.50% - -11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 14
10th Percentile - - £11.08
25th Percentile - £56.88 £13.25
Median hourly rate £19.34 £58.75 £16.98
Median % change year-on-year -67.08% +246.10% +6.19%
75th Percentile £22.17 £60.63 £26.50
90th Percentile £23.87 - £55.88
West Midlands median hourly rate £25.00 £19.50 £14.00
% change year-on-year +28.21% +39.29% -16.21%

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 397 242 307
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Birmingham 42.97% 47.08% 41.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 236 172 205
10th Percentile £294 £151 £263
25th Percentile £400 £323 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £513 £450
Median % change year-on-year -7.32% +13.89% -7.69%
75th Percentile £538 £600 £600
90th Percentile £600 £689 £700
West Midlands median daily rate £469 £479 £450
% change year-on-year -1.99% +6.33% -8.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 3 23
10th Percentile £15.44 £19.06 £11.55
25th Percentile £19.34 £19.88 £14.00
Median hourly rate £20.00 £22.50 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -11.11% -8.72% +25.75%
75th Percentile £26.91 £42.19 £33.13
90th Percentile £37.25 £53.25 £53.10
West Midlands median hourly rate £33.99 £18.51 £18.39
% change year-on-year +83.60% +0.68% -11.21%

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 16 May 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 (8.46%) SharePoint
2 5 (3.85%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (2.31%) Apache Spark
4 2 (1.54%) Apache
4 2 (1.54%) CloudStack
4 2 (1.54%) SAS
5 1 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.77%) Confluence
Applications
1 9 (6.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (4.62%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (3.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (1.54%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.77%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 12 (9.23%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (6.92%) Dynamics NAV
3 2 (1.54%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.77%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.77%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 47 (36.15%) Azure
2 31 (23.85%) Microsoft 365
3 28 (21.54%) Power Platform
4 23 (17.69%) Dynamics 365
5 19 (14.62%) Entra ID
6 12 (9.23%) AWS
7 8 (6.15%) Azure Sentinel
8 7 (5.38%) Microsoft Purview
9 6 (4.62%) OneDrive
9 6 (4.62%) PowerApps
10 5 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (3.85%) Power Automate
11 4 (3.08%) Copilot Studio
11 4 (3.08%) OpenShift
12 3 (2.31%) Amazon S3
12 3 (2.31%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 3 (2.31%) Microsoft Copilot
13 2 (1.54%) Amazon SageMaker
13 2 (1.54%) Azure AKS
13 2 (1.54%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 11 (8.46%) DNS
1 11 (8.46%) VPN
2 10 (7.69%) DHCP
3 7 (5.38%) Firewall
3 7 (5.38%) Network Security
4 4 (3.08%) SAN
4 4 (3.08%) TCP/IP
5 3 (2.31%) NAS
6 2 (1.54%) Remote Desktop
6 2 (1.54%) SSL
6 2 (1.54%) Structured Cabling
7 1 (0.77%) BIG-IP
7 1 (0.77%) Fibre Channel
7 1 (0.77%) iSCSI
7 1 (0.77%) LAN
7 1 (0.77%) VLAN
7 1 (0.77%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (10.77%) Power BI
2 6 (4.62%) Data Warehouse
3 4 (3.08%) Data Lake
4 3 (2.31%) Amazon Redshift
4 3 (2.31%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (2.31%) Power Query
4 3 (2.31%) SQL Server
5 2 (1.54%) Data Vault
5 2 (1.54%) Metadata
5 2 (1.54%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.77%) Delta Lake
6 1 (0.77%) GIS
6 1 (0.77%) Hadoop
6 1 (0.77%) Parquet
6 1 (0.77%) Spark SQL
6 1 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.77%) Tableau
6 1 (0.77%) WebFOCUS
Development Applications
1 7 (5.38%) Git
1 7 (5.38%) JIRA
2 2 (1.54%) JMeter
3 1 (0.77%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.77%) Maven
3 1 (0.77%) SonarQube
General
1 37 (28.46%) Social Skills
2 14 (10.77%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (9.23%) Finance
4 8 (6.15%) Banking
5 7 (5.38%) Games
6 6 (4.62%) Legal
7 4 (3.08%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (2.31%) Public Sector
9 2 (1.54%) Documentation Skills
9 2 (1.54%) Investment Banking
9 2 (1.54%) Law
9 2 (1.54%) Manufacturing
9 2 (1.54%) Retail
10 1 (0.77%) Automotive
10 1 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.77%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 21 (16.15%) Analyst
2 14 (10.77%) Architect
2 14 (10.77%) Developer
3 11 (8.46%) IT Support
4 10 (7.69%) Support Engineer
5 9 (6.92%) IT Engineer
6 8 (6.15%) Consultant
7 7 (5.38%) CRM Specialist
7 7 (5.38%) IT Support Engineer
8 6 (4.62%) Azure Engineer
8 6 (4.62%) Business Analyst
8 6 (4.62%) Data Engineer
8 6 (4.62%) Security Consultant
8 6 (4.62%) Solutions Architect
9 5 (3.85%) Dynamics 365 Analyst
9 5 (3.85%) Dynamics 365 Business Analyst
9 5 (3.85%) Security Engineer
9 5 (3.85%) Service Analyst
9 5 (3.85%) Service Desk Analyst
10 4 (3.08%) Senior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (3.08%) OpenTelemetry
2 3 (2.31%) ADO
2 3 (2.31%) FastAPI
2 3 (2.31%) JSON
3 2 (1.54%) Elastic Stack
3 2 (1.54%) PySpark
3 2 (1.54%) YAML
4 1 (0.77%) .NET
4 1 (0.77%) .NET Core
4 1 (0.77%) Apache Avro
4 1 (0.77%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.77%) JSON Schema
4 1 (0.77%) Kafka
4 1 (0.77%) Loki
4 1 (0.77%) Node.js
4 1 (0.77%) Protocol Buffers
4 1 (0.77%) RESTful
4 1 (0.77%) SailPoint
4 1 (0.77%) SLSA
Miscellaneous
1 11 (8.46%) Onboarding
2 7 (5.38%) Security Posture
3 6 (4.62%) Security Operations Centre
4 4 (3.08%) Cloud Native
4 4 (3.08%) Hybrid Cloud
5 3 (2.31%) Data Centre
5 3 (2.31%) Management Information System
5 3 (2.31%) Self-Motivation
6 2 (1.54%) Cyber Defence
6 2 (1.54%) e-Learning
6 2 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
6 2 (1.54%) Life Science
6 2 (1.54%) PKI
6 2 (1.54%) Public Cloud
6 2 (1.54%) Replication
7 1 (0.77%) Algorithms
7 1 (0.77%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.77%) Data Structures
7 1 (0.77%) Enterprise Storage
7 1 (0.77%) Learning Management System
Operating Systems
1 26 (20.00%) Windows
2 12 (9.23%) Windows 10
3 8 (6.15%) Windows Server
4 4 (3.08%) Linux
5 2 (1.54%) Apple iOS
5 2 (1.54%) Mac OS
5 2 (1.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (1.54%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (13.85%) Agile
1 18 (13.85%) Migration
2 17 (13.08%) CI/CD
3 15 (11.54%) Business Intelligence
4 14 (10.77%) DevOps
5 13 (10.00%) Problem-Solving
6 12 (9.23%) CRM
6 12 (9.23%) Customer Service
6 12 (9.23%) ITSM
7 11 (8.46%) Analytics
8 10 (7.69%) Security Operations
8 10 (7.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 9 (6.92%) Continuous Improvement
9 9 (6.92%) Data Modelling
9 9 (6.92%) Roadmaps
9 9 (6.92%) Threat Detection
10 8 (6.15%) Decision-Making
10 8 (6.15%) SIEM
11 7 (5.38%) Containerisation
11 7 (5.38%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 20 (15.38%) Python
2 13 (10.00%) SQL
3 9 (6.92%) PowerShell
4 4 (3.08%) Bicep
4 4 (3.08%) Kusto Query Language
4 4 (3.08%) R
5 3 (2.31%) C#
5 3 (2.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 3 (2.31%) Java
5 3 (2.31%) PL/SQL
5 3 (2.31%) Scala
6 2 (1.54%) VB
7 1 (0.77%) Bash
7 1 (0.77%) Groovy
7 1 (0.77%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.77%) VBA
Qualifications
1 9 (6.92%) CISSP
2 8 (6.15%) Security Cleared
3 7 (5.38%) Degree
3 7 (5.38%) SC Cleared
4 5 (3.85%) CISM
5 4 (3.08%) AWS Certification
6 3 (2.31%) ISTQB
6 3 (2.31%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (1.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (1.54%) Azure Certification
7 2 (1.54%) CCNP
7 2 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (1.54%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 2 (1.54%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 2 (1.54%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 1 (0.77%) AAT
8 1 (0.77%) ACCA
8 1 (0.77%) CIMA
8 1 (0.77%) IIBA
8 1 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (4.62%) GDPR
1 6 (4.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 6 (4.62%) SLA
2 5 (3.85%) NIST
3 3 (2.31%) Data Quality
3 3 (2.31%) GRC
4 2 (1.54%) GxP
4 2 (1.54%) PMO
4 2 (1.54%) QA
5 1 (0.77%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.77%) P3O
5 1 (0.77%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 25 (19.23%) Active Directory
2 5 (3.85%) Docker
3 3 (2.31%) Hyper-V
3 3 (2.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.54%) Virtual Desktop
4 2 (1.54%) vSphere
5 1 (0.77%) NFS
Systems Management
1 16 (12.31%) Microsoft Intune
2 10 (7.69%) Kubernetes
2 10 (7.69%) Terraform
3 7 (5.38%) Grafana
4 6 (4.62%) Prometheus
5 4 (3.08%) Ansible
6 3 (2.31%) Control-M
6 3 (2.31%) IBM Guardium
6 3 (2.31%) Nessus
7 2 (1.54%) Check_MK
7 2 (1.54%) HP ALM
7 2 (1.54%) HP Quality Center
8 1 (0.77%) Argo
8 1 (0.77%) SCCM
8 1 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 14 (10.77%) ServiceNow
2 5 (3.85%) Okta
2 5 (3.85%) Splunk
2 5 (3.85%) Tenable
3 4 (3.08%) Cisco
3 4 (3.08%) Informatica
3 4 (3.08%) SAP
3 4 (3.08%) Veeam
4 3 (2.31%) CrowdStrike
4 3 (2.31%) Databricks
4 3 (2.31%) Fortinet
4 3 (2.31%) Oracle
4 3 (2.31%) VMware
5 2 (1.54%) Barracuda Networks
5 2 (1.54%) BeyondTrust
5 2 (1.54%) Commvault
5 2 (1.54%) HP
5 2 (1.54%) Remedy
5 2 (1.54%) Workday
6 1 (0.77%) Dell