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 28 March 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
28 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 3 5
Rank change year-on-year 0 +2 -2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 122 92 114
As % of all contract jobs in Birmingham 14.10% 17.79% 14.82%
As % of the Vendors category 30.27% 36.95% 34.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 82 81 85
10th Percentile £213 £190 £194
25th Percentile £328 £325 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £466 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +3.61% - -2.70%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £575
90th Percentile £600 £650 £663
West Midlands median daily rate £473 £425 £432
% change year-on-year +11.18% -1.62% -6.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 4 14
10th Percentile £19.91 £29.37 £11.08
25th Percentile £20.76 £29.92 £13.25
Median hourly rate £22.17 £30.45 £16.98
Median % change year-on-year -27.19% +79.38% +6.19%
75th Percentile £23.59 £38.16 £26.50
90th Percentile £24.43 £51.64 £55.88
West Midlands median hourly rate £22.17 £29.00 £15.26
% change year-on-year -23.55% +90.04% -4.45%

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 403 249 328
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Birmingham 46.59% 48.16% 42.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 243 190 212
10th Percentile £270 £189 £263
25th Percentile £400 £363 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £513 £433
Median % change year-on-year -7.32% +18.50% -6.99%
75th Percentile £552 £617 £575
90th Percentile £618 £700 £686
West Midlands median daily rate £475 £500 £450
% change year-on-year -5.00% +11.11% -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 7 22
10th Percentile £18.37 £20.15 £11.34
25th Percentile £19.84 £25.13 £14.00
Median hourly rate £22.75 £30.00 £25.33
Median % change year-on-year -24.17% +18.46% +22.31%
75th Percentile £28.62 £30.68 £35.31
90th Percentile £46.80 £42.66 £55.00
West Midlands median hourly rate £25.15 £19.50 £19.23
% change year-on-year +28.97% +1.43% +7.64%

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 28 March 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 5 (4.10%) SharePoint
2 1 (0.82%) Confluence
2 1 (0.82%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.82%) SAS
Applications
1 10 (8.20%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (7.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.82%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 13 (10.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (8.20%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.82%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.82%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.82%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.82%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 43 (35.25%) Azure
2 32 (26.23%) Power Platform
3 30 (24.59%) Dynamics 365
4 22 (18.03%) Microsoft 365
5 13 (10.66%) AWS
6 11 (9.02%) Entra ID
7 9 (7.38%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (4.92%) Azure Sentinel
8 6 (4.92%) Microsoft Purview
8 6 (4.92%) Power Automate
8 6 (4.92%) PowerApps
9 4 (3.28%) Azure Data Factory
9 4 (3.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 4 (3.28%) Copilot Studio
10 3 (2.46%) Azure Key Vault
10 3 (2.46%) Azure Monitor
10 3 (2.46%) GitHub
10 3 (2.46%) Microsoft Copilot
10 3 (2.46%) OpenShift
10 3 (2.46%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 10 (8.20%) Network Security
1 10 (8.20%) VPN
2 9 (7.38%) Firewall
3 6 (4.92%) DNS
4 3 (2.46%) DHCP
4 3 (2.46%) TCP/IP
4 3 (2.46%) Unified Communications
5 2 (1.64%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (13.11%) Power BI
2 6 (4.92%) Data Warehouse
3 5 (4.10%) PostgreSQL
4 3 (2.46%) Power Query
5 2 (1.64%) Amazon Redshift
5 2 (1.64%) GIS
5 2 (1.64%) Relational Database
5 2 (1.64%) SQL Server
6 1 (0.82%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.82%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.82%) Data Vault
6 1 (0.82%) Delta Lake
6 1 (0.82%) Metadata
6 1 (0.82%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.82%) Tableau
6 1 (0.82%) WebFOCUS
Development Applications
1 8 (6.56%) JIRA
2 7 (5.74%) Git
3 3 (2.46%) Jenkins
4 2 (1.64%) GitLab
4 2 (1.64%) JMeter
5 1 (0.82%) CircleCI
5 1 (0.82%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.82%) Selenium
General
1 42 (34.43%) Social Skills
2 14 (11.48%) Finance
3 12 (9.84%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (5.74%) Games
4 7 (5.74%) Legal
5 4 (3.28%) Banking
5 4 (3.28%) Public Sector
6 3 (2.46%) Documentation Skills
6 3 (2.46%) Law
6 3 (2.46%) Manufacturing
7 2 (1.64%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (0.82%) Automotive
8 1 (0.82%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.82%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 17 (13.93%) Analyst
2 16 (13.11%) Architect
3 15 (12.30%) Developer
4 7 (5.74%) Business Analyst
4 7 (5.74%) CRM Specialist
4 7 (5.74%) Support Engineer
5 6 (4.92%) Solutions Architect
6 5 (4.10%) Administrator
6 5 (4.10%) Dynamics 365 Analyst
6 5 (4.10%) Dynamics 365 Business Analyst
6 5 (4.10%) IT Engineer
6 5 (4.10%) IT Support
7 4 (3.28%) Consultant
7 4 (3.28%) IT Support Engineer
7 4 (3.28%) Project Manager
7 4 (3.28%) Security Architect
7 4 (3.28%) Senior
8 3 (2.46%) Enterprise Architect
8 3 (2.46%) Network Engineer
8 3 (2.46%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (2.46%) FastAPI
1 3 (2.46%) OpenTelemetry
2 2 (1.64%) .NET
2 2 (1.64%) ADO
2 2 (1.64%) REST
3 1 (0.82%) .NET Core
3 1 (0.82%) Azure Blueprints
3 1 (0.82%) Middleware
3 1 (0.82%) OAuth
3 1 (0.82%) Playwright
3 1 (0.82%) PySpark
3 1 (0.82%) RESTful
3 1 (0.82%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 8 (6.56%) Onboarding
2 7 (5.74%) Security Posture
3 4 (3.28%) Cloud Native
4 3 (2.46%) Driving Licence
4 3 (2.46%) e-Learning
4 3 (2.46%) Handset
4 3 (2.46%) Security Operations Centre
4 3 (2.46%) Self-Motivation
5 2 (1.64%) Cyber Defence
5 2 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
5 2 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (1.64%) Hybrid Cloud
5 2 (1.64%) Life Science
5 2 (1.64%) PKI
6 1 (0.82%) Data Centre
6 1 (0.82%) Data Structures
6 1 (0.82%) Legacy Applications
6 1 (0.82%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.82%) Manufacturing Execution System
6 1 (0.82%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 19 (15.57%) Windows
2 8 (6.56%) Windows Server
3 7 (5.74%) Windows 10
4 2 (1.64%) Linux
4 2 (1.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 21 (17.21%) Agile
2 18 (14.75%) CI/CD
3 17 (13.93%) Business Intelligence
3 17 (13.93%) DevOps
4 15 (12.30%) Continuous Improvement
5 14 (11.48%) CRM
6 13 (10.66%) Analytics
7 12 (9.84%) Migration
7 12 (9.84%) Problem-Solving
8 10 (8.20%) Customer Service
8 10 (8.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 9 (7.38%) Decision-Making
10 8 (6.56%) Change Management
10 8 (6.56%) Containerisation
10 8 (6.56%) Data Modelling
10 8 (6.56%) SIEM
11 7 (5.74%) ITSM
11 7 (5.74%) Roadmaps
11 7 (5.74%) Security Architecture
11 7 (5.74%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 16 (13.11%) Python
2 10 (8.20%) SQL
3 8 (6.56%) PowerShell
4 5 (4.10%) C#
5 4 (3.28%) R
6 3 (2.46%) Bicep
6 3 (2.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 3 (2.46%) PL/SQL
7 2 (1.64%) Bash
7 2 (1.64%) Go
7 2 (1.64%) Java
7 2 (1.64%) Kusto Query Language
7 2 (1.64%) Scala
7 2 (1.64%) VB
8 1 (0.82%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.82%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 12 (9.84%) Security Cleared
2 11 (9.02%) SC Cleared
3 8 (6.56%) Degree
4 5 (4.10%) Microsoft Certification
5 4 (3.28%) CISSP
6 3 (2.46%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (2.46%) ISTQB
7 2 (1.64%) Azure Certification
7 2 (1.64%) CISM
7 2 (1.64%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 2 (1.64%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 1 (0.82%) AAT
8 1 (0.82%) ACCA
8 1 (0.82%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.82%) CIMA
8 1 (0.82%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.82%) IIBA
8 1 (0.82%) ITIL Certification
8 1 (0.82%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (4.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (3.28%) GDPR
3 3 (2.46%) SLA
4 2 (1.64%) Cyber Essentials
4 2 (1.64%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.64%) GxP
4 2 (1.64%) NIST
4 2 (1.64%) QA
5 1 (0.82%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.82%) NCSC
5 1 (0.82%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.82%) PMO
System Software
1 16 (13.11%) Active Directory
2 5 (4.10%) Docker
3 1 (0.82%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 10 (8.20%) Terraform
2 9 (7.38%) Microsoft Intune
3 8 (6.56%) Kubernetes
4 4 (3.28%) Ansible
4 4 (3.28%) Grafana
5 3 (2.46%) Control-M
5 3 (2.46%) IBM Guardium
5 3 (2.46%) Nessus
5 3 (2.46%) Prometheus
6 2 (1.64%) HP ALM
6 2 (1.64%) HP Quality Center
7 1 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 9 (7.38%) ServiceNow
2 5 (4.10%) Tenable
3 4 (3.28%) Databricks
3 4 (3.28%) Okta
3 4 (3.28%) SAP
4 3 (2.46%) Informatica
4 3 (2.46%) Oracle
4 3 (2.46%) Splunk
4 3 (2.46%) Workday
5 2 (1.64%) Barracuda Networks
5 2 (1.64%) Google
5 2 (1.64%) HP
6 1 (0.82%) Atlassian
6 1 (0.82%) Cisco
6 1 (0.82%) Cognos
6 1 (0.82%) Fortinet
6 1 (0.82%) Red Hat
6 1 (0.82%) Sage
6 1 (0.82%) SolarWinds
6 1 (0.82%) Veeam