Azure Contract Job Trends in the North West

Microsoft Azure
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Azure skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 7 12
Rank change year-on-year +2 +5 -9
Contract jobs citing Azure 449 264 296
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 14.14% 13.69% 10.77%
As % of the Cloud Services category 44.41% 41.06% 33.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 359 201 229
10th Percentile £313 £263 £318
25th Percentile £406 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £581 £575 £583
90th Percentile £638 £700 £650
England median daily rate £525 £525 £545
% change year-on-year - -3.67% -3.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 3 2
10th Percentile £24.77 £67.75 £16.40
25th Percentile £25.38 £68.13 £16.63
Median hourly rate £34.03 £72.50 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year -53.06% +302.78% -73.43%
75th Percentile £67.15 £76.88 £19.13
90th Percentile £90.00 £77.25 £19.20
England median hourly rate £57.50 £60.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -4.96% +72.86% -33.87%

All Cloud Computing Skills
North West

Azure falls under the Cloud Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring cloud computing skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for cloud computing skills 1,011 643 892
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 31.83% 33.35% 32.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 699 498 653
10th Percentile £234 £235 £287
25th Percentile £375 £393 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £470 £489
Median % change year-on-year -1.06% -3.89% -2.20%
75th Percentile £575 £563 £569
90th Percentile £650 £638 £638
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 12 66
10th Percentile £23.95 - £13.00
25th Percentile £25.38 £26.88 -
Median hourly rate £64.50 £34.80 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +85.37% +116.66% -56.94%
75th Percentile £77.50 £73.44 £21.13
90th Percentile £95.00 £77.38 £43.75
England median hourly rate £45.23 £26.81 £20.77
% change year-on-year +68.69% +29.09% -24.47%

Azure
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Azure relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Azure job vacancy trend in the North West

Azure
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Azure.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Azure

Azure
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Azure in the North West over the 6 months to 17 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Azure in the North West

Azure
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Azure.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Azure

Azure
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Azure in the North West over the 6 months to 17 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Azure in the North West

Azure
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Azure within the North West region over the 6 months to 17 April 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Manchester -3 237 £492 -5.84% 176
Cheshire +7 130 £538 +26.47% 41
Merseyside +10 54 £140 -44.00% 32
Lancashire -11 18 £500 - 83
Cumbria -7 3 £525 - 1
Azure
England

Azure
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 30 (6.68%) SharePoint
2 27 (6.01%) Microsoft Exchange
3 20 (4.45%) Confluence
4 5 (1.11%) SAS
5 4 (0.89%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.67%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.45%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
8 1 (0.22%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.22%) CMS
8 1 (0.22%) Headless CMS
8 1 (0.22%) IIS
8 1 (0.22%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.22%) OpenStack
Applications
1 7 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.11%) Microsoft Project
3 3 (0.67%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.45%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.45%) Trello
5 1 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.67%) Elite 3E
2 3 (0.67%) Payment Gateway
3 2 (0.45%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.45%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 188 (41.87%) AWS
2 102 (22.72%) GCP
3 82 (18.26%) Microsoft 365
4 71 (15.81%) Entra ID
5 64 (14.25%) Azure DevOps
6 56 (12.47%) Power Platform
7 27 (6.01%) GitHub
8 23 (5.12%) Azure Data Factory
8 23 (5.12%) Dynamics 365
9 19 (4.23%) Power Automate
10 18 (4.01%) GitHub Actions
10 18 (4.01%) PowerApps
10 18 (4.01%) Serverless
11 17 (3.79%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 16 (3.56%) OneDrive
13 13 (2.90%) Azure AKS
13 13 (2.90%) Azure Logic Apps
13 13 (2.90%) Azure Monitor
14 12 (2.67%) Microsoft Copilot
14 12 (2.67%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 44 (9.80%) Firewall
2 28 (6.24%) DNS
3 15 (3.34%) Network Security
4 14 (3.12%) VPN
5 10 (2.23%) Kerberos
6 9 (2.00%) TCP/IP
7 8 (1.78%) DHCP
7 8 (1.78%) Wi-Fi
8 7 (1.56%) VLAN
9 4 (0.89%) HTTP
9 4 (0.89%) NetScaler
9 4 (0.89%) WAN
9 4 (0.89%) Wireshark
10 3 (0.67%) BGP
10 3 (0.67%) Internet
10 3 (0.67%) OSPF
10 3 (0.67%) SD-WAN
11 2 (0.45%) NAS
11 2 (0.45%) SAN
11 2 (0.45%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (5.57%) Power BI
2 23 (5.12%) Data Warehouse
3 21 (4.68%) SQL Server
4 14 (3.12%) PostgreSQL
5 13 (2.90%) Metadata
6 10 (2.23%) Data Lake
7 9 (2.00%) NoSQL
8 7 (1.56%) MongoDB
8 7 (1.56%) MySQL
9 6 (1.34%) Azure SQL Database
10 5 (1.11%) Looker
10 5 (1.11%) Snowflake Schema
10 5 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 4 (0.89%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
11 4 (0.89%) BigQuery
12 3 (0.67%) Data Vault
12 3 (0.67%) RDBMS
12 3 (0.67%) Relational Database
12 3 (0.67%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 3 (0.67%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 42 (9.35%) JIRA
2 24 (5.35%) Git
3 15 (3.34%) GitLab
4 11 (2.45%) Postman
5 10 (2.23%) Jenkins
6 7 (1.56%) Cucumber
6 7 (1.56%) Selenium
7 3 (0.67%) Cypress.io
7 3 (0.67%) JMeter
7 3 (0.67%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.45%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.45%) Fiddler
8 2 (0.45%) Snyk
9 1 (0.22%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.22%) JUnit
9 1 (0.22%) Mockito
9 1 (0.22%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.22%) Robot Framework
9 1 (0.22%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 1 (0.22%) Visual Studio
General
1 110 (24.50%) Social Skills
2 87 (19.38%) Finance
3 81 (18.04%) Public Sector
4 46 (10.24%) Banking
5 42 (9.35%) Analytical Skills
6 25 (5.57%) Legal
7 12 (2.67%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (2.23%) Retail
9 9 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 9 (2.00%) Law
10 6 (1.34%) Military
11 5 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (0.89%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (0.89%) Local Government
13 3 (0.67%) Financial Institution
14 2 (0.45%) Health Technology
14 2 (0.45%) Manufacturing
14 2 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
14 2 (0.45%) Telecoms
15 1 (0.22%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 81 (18.04%) Architect
2 64 (14.25%) Developer
3 46 (10.24%) Senior
4 41 (9.13%) Analyst
5 40 (8.91%) Lead
6 33 (7.35%) Security Engineer
7 30 (6.68%) Azure Engineer
8 23 (5.12%) Data Engineer
8 23 (5.12%) Java Developer
9 20 (4.45%) Solutions Architect
10 18 (4.01%) DevOps Engineer
11 17 (3.79%) 1st Line Support
11 17 (3.79%) Platform Engineer
12 14 (3.12%) Azure Developer
13 12 (2.67%) Lead Developer
14 11 (2.45%) Azure DevOps Engineer
14 11 (2.45%) Security Architect
14 11 (2.45%) Systems Analyst
14 11 (2.45%) Technical Architect
15 10 (2.23%) Azure Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 37 (8.24%) Spring
2 34 (7.57%) Spring Boot
3 32 (7.13%) REST
4 21 (4.68%) .NET
4 21 (4.68%) RESTful
5 20 (4.45%) React
6 19 (4.23%) OAuth
7 14 (3.12%) Node.js
8 12 (2.67%) Kafka
9 11 (2.45%) OpenID
10 10 (2.23%) HTML
10 10 (2.23%) PySpark
10 10 (2.23%) SAML
11 9 (2.00%) AngularJS
11 9 (2.00%) ARM Templates
11 9 (2.00%) JSON
11 9 (2.00%) LDAP
12 8 (1.78%) RabbitMQ
13 7 (1.56%) Nunjucks
13 7 (1.56%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 48 (10.69%) Cloud Native
2 30 (6.68%) Onboarding
3 16 (3.56%) Security Posture
4 15 (3.34%) Product Ownership
5 14 (3.12%) Distributed Systems
6 11 (2.45%) Data Centre
6 11 (2.45%) Private Cloud
7 10 (2.23%) Enterprise Cloud
7 10 (2.23%) Hybrid Cloud
7 10 (2.23%) Legacy Systems
8 9 (2.00%) Data Protection Act
8 9 (2.00%) Management Information System
9 7 (1.56%) Cloud Security Posture
9 7 (1.56%) Public Cloud
9 7 (1.56%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 6 (1.34%) Linux Command Line
11 5 (1.11%) Credit Risk
11 5 (1.11%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 5 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
11 5 (1.11%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 56 (12.47%) Windows
2 29 (6.46%) Windows 10
3 17 (3.79%) Linux
4 9 (2.00%) Windows Server
5 7 (1.56%) VMS
6 6 (1.34%) Mac OS
6 6 (1.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (1.11%) Windows Server 2019
8 4 (0.89%) Windows Server 2012
9 3 (0.67%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.45%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.22%) Unix
11 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (31.18%) DevOps
2 121 (26.95%) CI/CD
3 117 (26.06%) Agile
4 79 (17.59%) Problem-Solving
5 66 (14.70%) Analytics
6 54 (12.03%) Microservices
7 53 (11.80%) Containerisation
7 53 (11.80%) Migration
8 52 (11.58%) Continuous Improvement
9 44 (9.80%) Infrastructure as Code
10 43 (9.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 40 (8.91%) Data Modelling
12 39 (8.69%) Roadmaps
12 39 (8.69%) Stakeholder Management
13 38 (8.46%) Cloud Security
14 36 (8.02%) Mentoring
14 36 (8.02%) Observability
15 34 (7.57%) Test Automation
16 33 (7.35%) Data Pipeline
17 32 (7.13%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 98 (21.83%) Python
2 69 (15.37%) SQL
3 67 (14.92%) Java
4 55 (12.25%) PowerShell
5 27 (6.01%) C#
5 27 (6.01%) JavaScript
6 19 (4.23%) Bash
6 19 (4.23%) Bicep
7 13 (2.90%) TypeScript
8 8 (1.78%) Go
9 6 (1.34%) T-SQL
10 5 (1.11%) R
11 4 (0.89%) C++
11 4 (0.89%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.45%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.45%) Scala
13 1 (0.22%) C
13 1 (0.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.22%) PHP
13 1 (0.22%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 51 (11.36%) Security Cleared
2 31 (6.90%) Azure Certification
3 29 (6.46%) SC Cleared
4 25 (5.57%) Degree
5 23 (5.12%) CISSP
6 21 (4.68%) Cisco Certification
7 20 (4.45%) BPSS Clearance
8 19 (4.23%) AWS Certification
9 11 (2.45%) CISM
9 11 (2.45%) Microsoft Certification
10 10 (2.23%) CCNA
11 9 (2.00%) CCNP
12 5 (1.11%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 5 (1.11%) ITIL Certification
12 5 (1.11%) PMI Certification
12 5 (1.11%) PMP
13 4 (0.89%) CCIE
13 4 (0.89%) Computer Science Degree
13 4 (0.89%) GIAC
13 4 (0.89%) IBM Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (6.90%) Data Quality
2 30 (6.68%) NIST
3 23 (5.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 21 (4.68%) QA
5 18 (4.01%) GDPR
6 13 (2.90%) Accessibility
6 13 (2.90%) ISO 20022
7 8 (1.78%) PSD2
8 7 (1.56%) SEPA
9 6 (1.34%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 6 (1.34%) HIPAA
10 4 (0.89%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
11 3 (0.67%) GRC
11 3 (0.67%) NCSC
12 2 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.45%) SLA
12 2 (0.45%) Solvency II
12 2 (0.45%) WCAG
13 1 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 90 (20.04%) Active Directory
2 68 (15.14%) Docker
3 11 (2.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.00%) Virtual Desktop
5 8 (1.78%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (1.78%) vSphere
6 3 (0.67%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.67%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.45%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.22%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 76 (16.93%) Kubernetes
2 57 (12.69%) Terraform
3 25 (5.57%) Microsoft Intune
4 15 (3.34%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 14 (3.12%) Ansible
6 13 (2.90%) Grafana
6 13 (2.90%) Single Sign-On
7 12 (2.67%) Prometheus
8 10 (2.23%) SCCM
9 6 (1.34%) Argo
10 4 (0.89%) Jamf Pro
10 4 (0.89%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.67%) Fluentd
11 3 (0.67%) Istio
11 3 (0.67%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.45%) CA Single Sign-On
12 2 (0.45%) linkerd
12 2 (0.45%) PowerCLI
12 2 (0.45%) vMotion
12 2 (0.45%) vRealize
Vendors
1 153 (34.08%) Microsoft
2 35 (7.80%) Google
3 28 (6.24%) ServiceNow
4 19 (4.23%) Databricks
5 17 (3.79%) Bomgar
5 17 (3.79%) iManage
6 16 (3.56%) Oracle
7 14 (3.12%) Splunk
7 14 (3.12%) VMware
8 11 (2.45%) Infoblox
8 11 (2.45%) Virgin Media
9 8 (1.78%) Cisco
9 8 (1.78%) IBM
10 7 (1.56%) CyberArk
10 7 (1.56%) SAP
11 6 (1.34%) Foundry
11 6 (1.34%) OpenAI
11 6 (1.34%) Red Hat
11 6 (1.34%) Varonis
12 5 (1.11%) Pega