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 26 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 10
Rank change year-on-year 0 +2 -9
Contract jobs citing Azure 364 263 313
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 13.04% 12.77% 11.35%
As % of the Cloud Services category 38.68% 37.52% 32.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 288 187 236
10th Percentile £300 £230 £313
25th Percentile £400 £396 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £476 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +0.11% -4.04% -5.71%
75th Percentile £577 £575 £575
90th Percentile £631 £700 £638
England median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 1 12
10th Percentile - - £16.40
25th Percentile £15.50 £72.50 £18.88
Median hourly rate £16.00 £75.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -78.67% +62.41% -34.03%
75th Percentile £45.84 £77.50 -
90th Percentile £77.41 - -
England median hourly rate £57.50 £35.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +64.29% -24.21% -19.69%

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 941 701 957
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 33.72% 34.03% 34.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 674 501 694
10th Percentile £213 £238 £268
25th Percentile £358 £385 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -2.71% -2.35%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £551
90th Percentile £627 £650 £650
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 11 76
10th Percentile £15.50 £21.05 £14.25
25th Percentile £21.46 £22.61 £16.06
Median hourly rate £60.00 £28.75 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +108.70% +62.25% -64.56%
75th Percentile £76.38 £30.63 £43.75
90th Percentile £86.50 £77.50 £71.87
England median hourly rate £39.50 £27.50 £21.46
% change year-on-year +43.64% +28.15% -14.16%

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 26 February 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 26 February 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 26 February 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 -3 198 £500 - 120
Cheshire +7 99 £500 +40.45% 25
Merseyside -4 47 £138 -45.00% 26
Lancashire -13 15 £500 -4.76% 28
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 31 (8.52%) SharePoint
2 27 (7.42%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (4.12%) Confluence
4 7 (1.92%) SAS
5 5 (1.37%) OpenStack
6 4 (1.10%) Exchange Server 2013
6 4 (1.10%) Skype for Business
7 3 (0.82%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.55%) IIS
9 1 (0.27%) Apache
9 1 (0.27%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.27%) CMS
9 1 (0.27%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 14 (3.85%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.65%) MS Visio
4 5 (1.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.55%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 5 (1.37%) Dynamics CRM
1 5 (1.37%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.55%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.27%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.27%) Elite 3E
Cloud Services
1 148 (40.66%) AWS
2 93 (25.55%) GCP
3 88 (24.18%) Microsoft 365
4 63 (17.31%) Power Platform
5 51 (14.01%) Entra ID
6 44 (12.09%) Azure DevOps
7 24 (6.59%) GitHub
7 24 (6.59%) Power Automate
8 23 (6.32%) PowerApps
9 19 (5.22%) Dynamics 365
10 16 (4.40%) OpenShift
11 14 (3.85%) Azure Logic Apps
11 14 (3.85%) OneDrive
12 13 (3.57%) GitHub Actions
12 13 (3.57%) Serverless
13 12 (3.30%) AWS CloudFormation
13 12 (3.30%) Azure Data Factory
13 12 (3.30%) SaaS
14 11 (3.02%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 10 (2.75%) Google Tag Manager
Communications & Networking
1 38 (10.44%) Firewall
2 17 (4.67%) DNS
3 13 (3.57%) Wi-Fi
4 8 (2.20%) Internet
4 8 (2.20%) VPN
5 7 (1.92%) DHCP
5 7 (1.92%) Kerberos
6 6 (1.65%) TCP/IP
6 6 (1.65%) VLAN
7 5 (1.37%) Network Security
7 5 (1.37%) Unified Communications
8 4 (1.10%) NetScaler
8 4 (1.10%) Skype
9 3 (0.82%) WAN
10 2 (0.55%) SD-WAN
10 2 (0.55%) Wireshark
11 1 (0.27%) BGP
11 1 (0.27%) LAN
11 1 (0.27%) OSPF
11 1 (0.27%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (7.14%) Power BI
2 20 (5.49%) Data Warehouse
3 15 (4.12%) SQL Server
4 9 (2.47%) Looker
5 8 (2.20%) Data Lake
6 7 (1.92%) BigQuery
6 7 (1.92%) Metadata
7 6 (1.65%) Relational Database
8 5 (1.37%) NoSQL
9 4 (1.10%) Azure SQL Database
9 4 (1.10%) MongoDB
9 4 (1.10%) MySQL
9 4 (1.10%) PostgreSQL
10 2 (0.55%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.55%) RDBMS
10 2 (0.55%) Snowflake Schema
10 2 (0.55%) Spark SQL
10 2 (0.55%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 2 (0.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 1 (0.27%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 34 (9.34%) JIRA
2 26 (7.14%) Git
3 14 (3.85%) GitLab
3 14 (3.85%) Jenkins
4 9 (2.47%) Postman
5 5 (1.37%) Bitbucket
5 5 (1.37%) Cucumber
5 5 (1.37%) Selenium
5 5 (1.37%) Snyk
5 5 (1.37%) SonarQube
6 3 (0.82%) CircleCI
6 3 (0.82%) JMeter
7 2 (0.55%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.55%) Fiddler
7 2 (0.55%) git-flow
8 1 (0.27%) Gradle
8 1 (0.27%) Mockito
8 1 (0.27%) MSI
8 1 (0.27%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.27%) Xcode
General
1 112 (30.77%) Social Skills
2 73 (20.05%) Public Sector
3 66 (18.13%) Finance
4 39 (10.71%) Analytical Skills
5 34 (9.34%) Banking
6 19 (5.22%) Legal
7 10 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (2.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (2.20%) Law
8 8 (2.20%) Retail
9 4 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
9 4 (1.10%) Military
9 4 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
9 4 (1.10%) Telecoms
10 3 (0.82%) Games
10 3 (0.82%) Marketing
11 2 (0.55%) Financial Institution
11 2 (0.55%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.27%) Advertising
12 1 (0.27%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 70 (19.23%) Developer
2 55 (15.11%) Architect
3 36 (9.89%) Senior
4 32 (8.79%) Analyst
5 30 (8.24%) Security Engineer
6 27 (7.42%) Lead
7 20 (5.49%) Java Developer
8 18 (4.95%) Azure Engineer
8 18 (4.95%) IT Support
9 16 (4.40%) Data Engineer
9 16 (4.40%) Solutions Architect
10 15 (4.12%) 1st Line Support
10 15 (4.12%) Azure Developer
11 14 (3.85%) Platform Engineer
12 13 (3.57%) DevOps Engineer
12 13 (3.57%) Support Analyst
13 10 (2.75%) Cloud Engineer
13 10 (2.75%) Data Scientist
13 10 (2.75%) Support Engineer
14 9 (2.47%) Lead Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (8.79%) Spring Boot
2 31 (8.52%) Spring
3 27 (7.42%) REST
4 21 (5.77%) .NET
5 19 (5.22%) React
6 18 (4.95%) RESTful
7 17 (4.67%) HTML
8 14 (3.85%) JSON
9 11 (3.02%) Kafka
10 9 (2.47%) Node.js
11 8 (2.20%) AngularJS
11 8 (2.20%) HTML5 Canvas
11 8 (2.20%) PySpark
12 7 (1.92%) .NET Core
12 7 (1.92%) ARM Templates
12 7 (1.92%) CSS
12 7 (1.92%) JMS
12 7 (1.92%) LangChain
12 7 (1.92%) LDAP
12 7 (1.92%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 37 (10.16%) Cloud Native
2 29 (7.97%) Onboarding
3 14 (3.85%) Distributed Systems
3 14 (3.85%) Security Posture
4 13 (3.57%) Product Ownership
5 10 (2.75%) Private Cloud
6 9 (2.47%) Low-Code
7 8 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
8 7 (1.92%) Credit Risk
8 7 (1.92%) Data Centre
8 7 (1.92%) Data Protection Act
8 7 (1.92%) Hybrid Cloud
8 7 (1.92%) Legacy Systems
8 7 (1.92%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 6 (1.65%) Cloud Security Posture
9 6 (1.65%) Management Information System
10 5 (1.37%) e-Learning
10 5 (1.37%) Public Cloud
10 5 (1.37%) Video Conferencing
10 5 (1.37%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 56 (15.38%) Windows
2 29 (7.97%) Windows 10
3 20 (5.49%) Linux
4 5 (1.37%) Windows Server
4 5 (1.37%) Windows Server 2019
5 4 (1.10%) Mac OS
5 4 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.10%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (0.55%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.27%) Android
7 1 (0.27%) VMS
7 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (32.97%) DevOps
2 106 (29.12%) CI/CD
3 95 (26.10%) Agile
4 71 (19.51%) Problem-Solving
5 52 (14.29%) Containerisation
6 50 (13.74%) Analytics
7 43 (11.81%) Microservices
8 37 (10.16%) Roadmaps
9 36 (9.89%) Infrastructure as Code
9 36 (9.89%) Observability
10 35 (9.62%) User Experience
11 34 (9.34%) Machine Learning
12 33 (9.07%) Business Intelligence
12 33 (9.07%) Continuous Improvement
12 33 (9.07%) Migration
13 32 (8.79%) Mentoring
14 31 (8.52%) Customer Service
15 30 (8.24%) Data Modelling
16 29 (7.97%) AI
17 26 (7.14%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 84 (23.08%) Python
2 57 (15.66%) SQL
3 55 (15.11%) Java
4 41 (11.26%) PowerShell
5 30 (8.24%) JavaScript
6 28 (7.69%) C#
7 20 (5.49%) Bash
8 19 (5.22%) TypeScript
9 8 (2.20%) Go
10 7 (1.92%) Bicep
10 7 (1.92%) R
11 4 (1.10%) C++
12 2 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 2 (0.55%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.55%) PHP
12 2 (0.55%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.55%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.27%) C
13 1 (0.27%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.27%) Scala
Qualifications
1 44 (12.09%) Security Cleared
2 29 (7.97%) Degree
3 26 (7.14%) SC Cleared
4 19 (5.22%) Azure Certification
4 19 (5.22%) BPSS Clearance
5 16 (4.40%) CISSP
6 14 (3.85%) AWS Certification
7 10 (2.75%) CISM
7 10 (2.75%) Microsoft Certification
8 5 (1.37%) ITIL Certification
9 4 (1.10%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (1.10%) IBM Certification
10 3 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.55%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 2 (0.55%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (0.55%) CCIE
11 2 (0.55%) DV Cleared
11 2 (0.55%) PMI Certification
11 2 (0.55%) PMP
11 2 (0.55%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.77%) QA
2 20 (5.49%) Data Quality
3 18 (4.95%) Accessibility
4 16 (4.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 15 (4.12%) ISO 20022
6 14 (3.85%) GDPR
7 13 (3.57%) NIST
8 8 (2.20%) PSD2
9 7 (1.92%) SEPA
10 5 (1.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 5 (1.37%) HIPAA
11 4 (1.10%) PCI DSS
12 3 (0.82%) Cyber Essentials
13 1 (0.27%) GRC
13 1 (0.27%) HL7
13 1 (0.27%) NEBOSH
13 1 (0.27%) SLA
13 1 (0.27%) SOC 2
13 1 (0.27%) Solvency II
13 1 (0.27%) WCAG
System Software
1 88 (24.18%) Active Directory
2 62 (17.03%) Docker
3 12 (3.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.47%) vSphere
5 5 (1.37%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.27%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 64 (17.58%) Kubernetes
2 44 (12.09%) Terraform
3 33 (9.07%) Microsoft Intune
4 21 (5.77%) SCCM
5 11 (3.02%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (2.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 10 (2.75%) Ansible
7 9 (2.47%) Grafana
8 8 (2.20%) Prometheus
9 5 (1.37%) Fluentd
10 4 (1.10%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.82%) Jamf Pro
12 2 (0.55%) CA Single Sign-On
13 1 (0.27%) Istio
Vendors
1 146 (40.11%) Microsoft
2 40 (10.99%) Google
3 32 (8.79%) ServiceNow
4 18 (4.95%) Databricks
5 15 (4.12%) Oracle
6 14 (3.85%) Bomgar
6 14 (3.85%) iManage
6 14 (3.85%) VMware
7 12 (3.30%) Virgin Media
8 8 (2.20%) F5
8 8 (2.20%) IBM
9 7 (1.92%) OpenAI
9 7 (1.92%) Pega
9 7 (1.92%) Splunk
10 5 (1.37%) Checkmarx
10 5 (1.37%) Cribl.io
10 5 (1.37%) Foundry
10 5 (1.37%) Varonis
10 5 (1.37%) Veeam
10 5 (1.37%) Veracode