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 23 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 8 9
Rank change year-on-year -1 +1 -7
Contract jobs citing Azure 330 238 336
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 12.76% 11.29% 12.20%
As % of the Cloud Services category 36.87% 35.52% 35.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 253 160 248
10th Percentile £301 £230 £274
25th Percentile £375 £375 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £488
Median % change year-on-year - -7.69% -7.14%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £575
90th Percentile £613 £700 £641
England median daily rate £516 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -1.71% -4.55% -4.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 3 20
10th Percentile - - £17.60
25th Percentile £15.50 - £20.75
Median hourly rate £18.87 £46.18 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -59.14% - -34.03%
75th Percentile £56.54 £61.84 -
90th Percentile £67.25 £71.24 -
England median hourly rate £56.50 £35.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +61.43% -24.21% -12.04%

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 895 670 936
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 34.60% 31.78% 34.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 658 453 690
10th Percentile £218 £250 £265
25th Percentile £358 £390 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £475 £487
Median % change year-on-year -5.84% -2.51% -2.55%
75th Percentile £537 £575 £575
90th Percentile £625 £650 £650
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 12 52
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.80 £15.50
25th Percentile £18.59 £21.05 £17.72
Median hourly rate £41.34 £26.59 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year +55.48% +2.27% -48.00%
75th Percentile £67.25 £49.14 £46.18
90th Percentile £73.38 £75.55 £51.42
England median hourly rate £30.00 £28.00 £23.61
% change year-on-year +7.14% +18.59% +1.99%

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 23 January 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 23 January 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 23 January 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 +1 177 £450 -10.00% 207
Cheshire +10 90 £465 +30.62% 80
Merseyside -7 43 £138 -45.00% 45
Lancashire -5 16 £450 -14.29% 125
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 26 (7.88%) SharePoint
2 20 (6.06%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (3.03%) Confluence
4 7 (2.12%) Exchange Server 2013
4 7 (2.12%) SAS
4 7 (2.12%) Skype for Business
5 4 (1.21%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.91%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.91%) IIS
7 2 (0.61%) Apache
8 1 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.30%) CMS
8 1 (0.30%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 17 (5.15%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (2.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.73%) MS Visio
3 8 (2.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.30%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 5 (1.52%) Dynamics CRM
1 5 (1.52%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.61%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.30%) Elite 3E
Cloud Services
1 138 (41.82%) AWS
2 98 (29.70%) GCP
3 69 (20.91%) Microsoft 365
4 50 (15.15%) Azure DevOps
4 50 (15.15%) Power Platform
5 30 (9.09%) GitHub
6 29 (8.79%) Entra ID
7 15 (4.55%) Power Automate
7 15 (4.55%) SaaS
8 14 (4.24%) PowerApps
8 14 (4.24%) Serverless
9 13 (3.94%) AWS CloudFormation
9 13 (3.94%) Dynamics 365
10 12 (3.64%) GitHub Actions
10 12 (3.64%) Google Tag Manager
11 11 (3.33%) Datadog
11 11 (3.33%) Google Analytics
12 10 (3.03%) Azure Logic Apps
12 10 (3.03%) OneDrive
12 10 (3.03%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 18 (5.45%) Firewall
2 15 (4.55%) DNS
3 14 (4.24%) Wi-Fi
4 10 (3.03%) Internet
4 10 (3.03%) TCP/IP
4 10 (3.03%) VLAN
5 7 (2.12%) Skype
6 6 (1.82%) VPN
6 6 (1.82%) WAN
7 5 (1.52%) Network Security
7 5 (1.52%) Unified Communications
8 4 (1.21%) LAN
9 3 (0.91%) BGP
9 3 (0.91%) Cisco IOS
9 3 (0.91%) DHCP
9 3 (0.91%) iSCSI
9 3 (0.91%) NX-OS
9 3 (0.91%) SAN
9 3 (0.91%) WLAN
10 2 (0.61%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (8.18%) Power BI
2 15 (4.55%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (3.94%) BigQuery
4 12 (3.64%) SQL Server
5 11 (3.33%) Looker
6 9 (2.73%) Azure SQL Database
6 9 (2.73%) Relational Database
7 7 (2.12%) PostgreSQL
8 6 (1.82%) Data Lake
8 6 (1.82%) Metadata
8 6 (1.82%) NoSQL
9 5 (1.52%) Amazon RDS
9 5 (1.52%) DynamoDB
9 5 (1.52%) MySQL
9 5 (1.52%) RDBMS
10 4 (1.21%) Amazon Aurora
10 4 (1.21%) Redis
11 2 (0.61%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.61%) Snowflake Schema
12 1 (0.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 35 (10.61%) JIRA
2 32 (9.70%) Git
3 20 (6.06%) Jenkins
4 13 (3.94%) GitLab
5 10 (3.03%) Gradle
6 9 (2.73%) Postman
6 9 (2.73%) SonarQube
7 6 (1.82%) Cucumber
7 6 (1.82%) Storybook
7 6 (1.82%) Xcode
8 5 (1.52%) Bitbucket
8 5 (1.52%) Snyk
9 4 (1.21%) JUnit
9 4 (1.21%) Maven
9 4 (1.21%) Selenium
9 4 (1.21%) SonarLint
10 3 (0.91%) CircleCI
10 3 (0.91%) Cypress.io
11 2 (0.61%) Fiddler
11 2 (0.61%) git-flow
General
1 111 (33.64%) Social Skills
2 79 (23.94%) Public Sector
3 50 (15.15%) Finance
4 40 (12.12%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (12.12%) Banking
5 12 (3.64%) Legal
6 10 (3.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 7 (2.12%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (2.12%) Law
8 6 (1.82%) Influencing Skills
8 6 (1.82%) Military
8 6 (1.82%) Retail
9 5 (1.52%) Games
9 5 (1.52%) Marketing
10 4 (1.21%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.61%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.61%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.30%) Advertising
12 1 (0.30%) Electronics
12 1 (0.30%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 72 (21.82%) Developer
2 53 (16.06%) Architect
3 37 (11.21%) Analyst
4 29 (8.79%) Senior
5 24 (7.27%) Java Developer
6 19 (5.76%) IT Support
7 16 (4.85%) Lead
8 15 (4.55%) Azure Engineer
8 15 (4.55%) Solutions Architect
8 15 (4.55%) Support Analyst
9 14 (4.24%) Azure Developer
10 13 (3.94%) Data Engineer
10 13 (3.94%) Security Engineer
11 12 (3.64%) Platform Engineer
11 12 (3.64%) Support Engineer
12 11 (3.33%) Data Scientist
12 11 (3.33%) DevOps Engineer
12 11 (3.33%) Technical Architect
13 10 (3.03%) Senior Developer
14 9 (2.73%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (11.52%) Spring Boot
2 32 (9.70%) Spring
3 27 (8.18%) REST
4 17 (5.15%) .NET
4 17 (5.15%) RESTful
5 15 (4.55%) React
6 14 (4.24%) HTML
6 14 (4.24%) JSON
7 12 (3.64%) OAuth
8 11 (3.33%) JMS
9 9 (2.73%) AngularJS
10 7 (2.12%) Node.js
10 7 (2.12%) React Native
11 6 (1.82%) D3.js
11 6 (1.82%) Elastic Stack
11 6 (1.82%) HTML5 Canvas
11 6 (1.82%) Kafka
11 6 (1.82%) PySpark
11 6 (1.82%) SVG
11 6 (1.82%) XGBoost
Miscellaneous
1 31 (9.39%) Cloud Native
2 29 (8.79%) Onboarding
3 16 (4.85%) Distributed Systems
4 15 (4.55%) Product Ownership
5 11 (3.33%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 9 (2.73%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (2.73%) Low-Code
7 8 (2.42%) Mobile App
8 7 (2.12%) Credit Risk
8 7 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
8 7 (2.12%) Private Cloud
9 6 (1.82%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.52%) e-Learning
10 5 (1.52%) NHS
10 5 (1.52%) N-Tier
10 5 (1.52%) Replication
10 5 (1.52%) Video Conferencing
10 5 (1.52%) Virtual Team
11 4 (1.21%) Hybrid Cloud
11 4 (1.21%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 47 (14.24%) Windows
2 23 (6.97%) Windows 10
3 12 (3.64%) Linux
4 9 (2.73%) Android
5 8 (2.42%) Apple iOS
6 6 (1.82%) Windows Server
7 4 (1.21%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.91%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.61%) VMS
9 2 (0.61%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 116 (35.15%) DevOps
2 97 (29.39%) CI/CD
3 83 (25.15%) Agile
4 71 (21.52%) Problem-Solving
5 54 (16.36%) Containerisation
6 45 (13.64%) Analytics
7 39 (11.82%) Microservices
8 37 (11.21%) User Experience
9 36 (10.91%) Migration
10 33 (10.00%) Business Intelligence
10 33 (10.00%) Continuous Improvement
10 33 (10.00%) Infrastructure as Code
11 31 (9.39%) Stakeholder Management
12 30 (9.09%) Machine Learning
13 29 (8.79%) Mentoring
14 27 (8.18%) Roadmaps
14 27 (8.18%) SDLC
15 26 (7.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 26 (7.88%) Validation
16 24 (7.27%) AI
Programming Languages
1 73 (22.12%) Python
2 55 (16.67%) Java
3 54 (16.36%) SQL
4 25 (7.58%) JavaScript
5 23 (6.97%) C#
6 21 (6.36%) PowerShell
7 19 (5.76%) TypeScript
8 16 (4.85%) Bash
9 7 (2.12%) R
10 6 (1.82%) Bicep
10 6 (1.82%) Go
11 4 (1.21%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.91%) C++
12 3 (0.91%) Perl
12 3 (0.91%) Scala
13 2 (0.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 2 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.61%) PHP
14 1 (0.30%) C
14 1 (0.30%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 48 (14.55%) Security Cleared
2 28 (8.48%) SC Cleared
3 25 (7.58%) Degree
4 18 (5.45%) BPSS Clearance
5 17 (5.15%) Azure Certification
6 12 (3.64%) CISSP
7 9 (2.73%) AWS Certification
7 9 (2.73%) CISM
8 6 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (1.52%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
10 4 (1.21%) IBM Certification
10 4 (1.21%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.91%) CCDP
11 3 (0.91%) CCNP
11 3 (0.91%) DV Cleared
12 2 (0.61%) CCIE
12 2 (0.61%) GIAC
12 2 (0.61%) PMI Certification
12 2 (0.61%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (8.18%) Accessibility
2 25 (7.58%) QA
3 21 (6.36%) Data Quality
4 19 (5.76%) ISO 20022
5 15 (4.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 15 (4.55%) PSD2
6 14 (4.24%) GDPR
7 13 (3.94%) NIST
8 11 (3.33%) SEPA
9 6 (1.82%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.61%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.61%) WCAG
11 1 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.30%) GRC
11 1 (0.30%) HL7
11 1 (0.30%) NEBOSH
11 1 (0.30%) SOC 1
11 1 (0.30%) SOC 2
System Software
1 65 (19.70%) Active Directory
2 60 (18.18%) Docker
3 14 (4.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (2.42%) vSphere
5 3 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.61%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.30%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 59 (17.88%) Kubernetes
2 38 (11.52%) Terraform
3 34 (10.30%) Microsoft Intune
4 23 (6.97%) SCCM
5 10 (3.03%) Ansible
6 8 (2.42%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (2.12%) Grafana
7 7 (2.12%) Prometheus
8 5 (1.52%) Fluentd
9 4 (1.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 3 (0.91%) Jamf Pro
11 1 (0.30%) AirWatch
11 1 (0.30%) Istio
11 1 (0.30%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 117 (35.45%) Microsoft
2 31 (9.39%) Google
3 30 (9.09%) ServiceNow
4 17 (5.15%) Oracle
5 16 (4.85%) VMware
6 13 (3.94%) Virgin Media
7 9 (2.73%) Cisco
7 9 (2.73%) Databricks
7 9 (2.73%) F5
8 8 (2.42%) Bomgar
8 8 (2.42%) iManage
9 7 (2.12%) Palo Alto
9 7 (2.12%) Pega
9 7 (2.12%) SolarWinds
9 7 (2.12%) Splunk
10 6 (1.82%) Citrix
10 6 (1.82%) Meraki
10 6 (1.82%) Veeam
11 5 (1.52%) IBM
11 5 (1.52%) Veracode