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

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 7 11
Rank change year-on-year +1 +4 -8
Contract jobs citing Azure 418 277 315
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 13.98% 13.77% 11.10%
As % of the Cloud Services category 42.01% 40.09% 33.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 339 205 251
10th Percentile £312 £238 £313
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £486 £500 £489
Median % change year-on-year -2.89% +2.25% -6.86%
75th Percentile £586 £580 £575
90th Percentile £640 £700 £650
England median daily rate £525 £530 £540
% change year-on-year -0.94% -1.85% -4.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 3 7
10th Percentile £15.50 £67.75 £17.15
25th Percentile £22.32 £68.13 £18.50
Median hourly rate £25.38 £72.50 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -64.99% +222.22% -67.86%
75th Percentile £60.05 £76.88 £46.18
90th Percentile £90.00 £77.25 -
England median hourly rate £57.50 £53.50 £46.12
% change year-on-year +7.48% +16.01% -22.88%

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 995 691 947
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 33.29% 34.36% 33.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 705 516 698
10th Percentile £220 £230 £281
25th Percentile £369 £389 £386
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £572 £575 £550
90th Percentile £638 £650 £638
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 16 73
10th Percentile £18.90 £22.61 £15.50
25th Percentile £25.38 £26.20 £16.06
Median hourly rate £62.00 £28.75 £17.29
Median % change year-on-year +115.65% +66.33% -67.38%
75th Percentile £76.75 £50.66 £26.50
90th Percentile £91.00 £76.88 £46.18
England median hourly rate £37.58 £26.00 £21.19
% change year-on-year +44.54% +22.73% -15.26%

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 March 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 March 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 March 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 -2 220 £492 -3.53% 158
Cheshire +8 125 £526 +28.35% 58
Merseyside +1 53 £138 -45.00% 33
Lancashire -14 14 £500 - 93
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 33 (7.89%) SharePoint
2 26 (6.22%) Microsoft Exchange
3 18 (4.31%) Confluence
4 7 (1.67%) SAS
5 5 (1.20%) OpenStack
6 4 (0.96%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.48%) IIS
8 1 (0.24%) Apache
8 1 (0.24%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.24%) CMS
8 1 (0.24%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 8 (1.91%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.20%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.48%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.48%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (1.20%) Payment Gateway
2 4 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.48%) Elite 3E
3 2 (0.48%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.24%) Dynamics NAV
Cloud Services
1 172 (41.15%) AWS
2 99 (23.68%) GCP
3 88 (21.05%) Microsoft 365
4 68 (16.27%) Entra ID
5 63 (15.07%) Azure DevOps
6 60 (14.35%) Power Platform
7 32 (7.66%) GitHub
8 24 (5.74%) Power Automate
9 23 (5.50%) PowerApps
10 22 (5.26%) Dynamics 365
10 22 (5.26%) GitHub Actions
11 19 (4.55%) Serverless
12 17 (4.07%) Azure Data Factory
13 15 (3.59%) OneDrive
14 14 (3.35%) AWS CloudFormation
14 14 (3.35%) Azure Logic Apps
14 14 (3.35%) OpenShift
15 13 (3.11%) Azure AKS
15 13 (3.11%) Azure Monitor
15 13 (3.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 46 (11.00%) Firewall
2 24 (5.74%) DNS
3 13 (3.11%) Network Security
4 11 (2.63%) VPN
5 10 (2.39%) Wi-Fi
6 9 (2.15%) Kerberos
6 9 (2.15%) TCP/IP
7 7 (1.67%) DHCP
7 7 (1.67%) VLAN
8 5 (1.20%) Internet
9 4 (0.96%) HTTP
9 4 (0.96%) NetScaler
9 4 (0.96%) WAN
10 3 (0.72%) BGP
10 3 (0.72%) OSPF
10 3 (0.72%) SD-WAN
10 3 (0.72%) Wireshark
11 2 (0.48%) LAN
11 2 (0.48%) Unified Communications
12 1 (0.24%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (5.98%) Power BI
2 23 (5.50%) Data Warehouse
3 16 (3.83%) SQL Server
4 10 (2.39%) Metadata
5 8 (1.91%) Data Lake
5 8 (1.91%) PostgreSQL
6 7 (1.67%) MySQL
6 7 (1.67%) NoSQL
7 6 (1.44%) Azure SQL Database
7 6 (1.44%) Looker
7 6 (1.44%) MongoDB
8 5 (1.20%) BigQuery
9 3 (0.72%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
9 3 (0.72%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.72%) Snowflake Schema
9 3 (0.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 2 (0.48%) Big Data
10 2 (0.48%) RDBMS
10 2 (0.48%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 2 (0.48%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 37 (8.85%) JIRA
2 27 (6.46%) Git
3 18 (4.31%) GitLab
3 18 (4.31%) Jenkins
4 10 (2.39%) Postman
5 6 (1.44%) Cucumber
5 6 (1.44%) SonarQube
6 5 (1.20%) Bitbucket
6 5 (1.20%) Selenium
6 5 (1.20%) Snyk
7 3 (0.72%) CircleCI
7 3 (0.72%) JMeter
8 2 (0.48%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.48%) Fiddler
9 1 (0.24%) JUnit
9 1 (0.24%) Mockito
9 1 (0.24%) MSI
9 1 (0.24%) Spinnaker
9 1 (0.24%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 1 (0.24%) Visual Studio
General
1 110 (26.32%) Social Skills
2 79 (18.90%) Public Sector
3 77 (18.42%) Finance
4 42 (10.05%) Banking
5 39 (9.33%) Analytical Skills
6 21 (5.02%) Legal
7 13 (3.11%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (2.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 9 (2.15%) Law
8 9 (2.15%) Retail
9 5 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (0.96%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (0.72%) Games
11 3 (0.72%) Local Government
11 3 (0.72%) Military
12 2 (0.48%) Financial Institution
12 2 (0.48%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.48%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.24%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.24%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 72 (17.22%) Architect
2 70 (16.75%) Developer
3 41 (9.81%) Senior
4 36 (8.61%) Analyst
5 34 (8.13%) Lead
6 32 (7.66%) Security Engineer
7 25 (5.98%) Azure Engineer
8 22 (5.26%) Java Developer
9 20 (4.78%) Data Engineer
9 20 (4.78%) DevOps Engineer
10 18 (4.31%) Platform Engineer
10 18 (4.31%) Solutions Architect
11 16 (3.83%) 1st Line Support
12 15 (3.59%) Azure Developer
12 15 (3.59%) IT Support
13 10 (2.39%) .NET Developer
13 10 (2.39%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 10 (2.39%) Security Architect
13 10 (2.39%) Support Engineer
14 9 (2.15%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (8.37%) Spring Boot
2 33 (7.89%) Spring
3 31 (7.42%) REST
4 21 (5.02%) .NET
5 20 (4.78%) React
5 20 (4.78%) RESTful
6 14 (3.35%) HTML
7 13 (3.11%) JSON
7 13 (3.11%) OAuth
8 12 (2.87%) Kafka
9 10 (2.39%) AngularJS
10 9 (2.15%) LDAP
11 8 (1.91%) .NET Core
11 8 (1.91%) ARM Templates
11 8 (1.91%) Node.js
11 8 (1.91%) RabbitMQ
12 7 (1.67%) HTML5 Canvas
12 7 (1.67%) JMS
12 7 (1.67%) LangChain
12 7 (1.67%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 44 (10.53%) Cloud Native
2 35 (8.37%) Onboarding
3 14 (3.35%) Distributed Systems
3 14 (3.35%) Product Ownership
3 14 (3.35%) Security Posture
4 10 (2.39%) Data Centre
4 10 (2.39%) Private Cloud
5 8 (1.91%) Data Protection Act
6 7 (1.67%) Credit Risk
6 7 (1.67%) Hybrid Cloud
6 7 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
6 7 (1.67%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 6 (1.44%) Cloud Security Posture
7 6 (1.44%) Management Information System
7 6 (1.44%) Public Cloud
8 5 (1.20%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 5 (1.20%) e-Learning
8 5 (1.20%) Enterprise Cloud
8 5 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.20%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 57 (13.64%) Windows
2 31 (7.42%) Windows 10
3 21 (5.02%) Linux
4 7 (1.67%) Windows Server
5 5 (1.20%) Windows Server 2019
6 4 (0.96%) Mac OS
6 4 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.96%) VMS
6 4 (0.96%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.24%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (33.49%) DevOps
2 123 (29.43%) CI/CD
3 109 (26.08%) Agile
4 72 (17.22%) Problem-Solving
5 61 (14.59%) Containerisation
6 59 (14.11%) Analytics
7 51 (12.20%) Infrastructure as Code
8 48 (11.48%) Microservices
9 44 (10.53%) Continuous Improvement
9 44 (10.53%) Migration
10 38 (9.09%) Observability
11 37 (8.85%) Data Modelling
11 37 (8.85%) Roadmaps
12 36 (8.61%) Mentoring
13 34 (8.13%) Test Automation
14 32 (7.66%) Cloud Security
14 32 (7.66%) DevSecOps
15 31 (7.42%) ETL
15 31 (7.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 30 (7.18%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 96 (22.97%) Python
2 61 (14.59%) SQL
3 58 (13.88%) Java
4 51 (12.20%) PowerShell
5 27 (6.46%) C#
5 27 (6.46%) JavaScript
6 26 (6.22%) Bash
7 18 (4.31%) Bicep
8 14 (3.35%) TypeScript
9 8 (1.91%) Go
10 7 (1.67%) R
11 4 (0.96%) C++
12 3 (0.72%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 2 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.48%) Scala
13 2 (0.48%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.24%) C
14 1 (0.24%) PHP
14 1 (0.24%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 44 (10.53%) Security Cleared
2 24 (5.74%) Azure Certification
2 24 (5.74%) Degree
2 24 (5.74%) SC Cleared
3 20 (4.78%) BPSS Clearance
4 16 (3.83%) AWS Certification
4 16 (3.83%) CISSP
5 15 (3.59%) Cisco Certification
6 11 (2.63%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (1.91%) CCNP
7 8 (1.91%) CISM
8 7 (1.67%) CCNA
9 5 (1.20%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 5 (1.20%) ITIL Certification
10 4 (0.96%) CCIE
10 4 (0.96%) IBM Certification
11 3 (0.72%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.72%) GIAC
11 3 (0.72%) PMI Certification
11 3 (0.72%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (5.50%) Data Quality
1 23 (5.50%) QA
2 21 (5.02%) NIST
3 17 (4.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 16 (3.83%) Accessibility
4 16 (3.83%) GDPR
5 15 (3.59%) ISO 20022
6 8 (1.91%) PSD2
7 7 (1.67%) SEPA
8 5 (1.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 5 (1.20%) HIPAA
9 4 (0.96%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.72%) NCSC
11 2 (0.48%) Solvency II
11 2 (0.48%) WCAG
12 1 (0.24%) HL7
12 1 (0.24%) NEBOSH
12 1 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.24%) SLA
System Software
1 91 (21.77%) Active Directory
2 71 (16.99%) Docker
3 13 (3.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (2.39%) vSphere
5 8 (1.91%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (1.44%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.72%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.24%) Firmware
8 1 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 74 (17.70%) Kubernetes
2 62 (14.83%) Terraform
3 28 (6.70%) Microsoft Intune
4 15 (3.59%) Grafana
5 14 (3.35%) Prometheus
5 14 (3.35%) SCCM
6 13 (3.11%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 13 (3.11%) Ansible
6 13 (3.11%) Single Sign-On
7 6 (1.44%) Argo
8 4 (0.96%) Progress Chef
9 3 (0.72%) Fluentd
9 3 (0.72%) Istio
9 3 (0.72%) Jamf Pro
10 2 (0.48%) CA Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.48%) linkerd
11 1 (0.24%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 151 (36.12%) Microsoft
2 37 (8.85%) Google
3 30 (7.18%) ServiceNow
4 18 (4.31%) Databricks
5 17 (4.07%) Oracle
6 16 (3.83%) VMware
7 15 (3.59%) Bomgar
7 15 (3.59%) iManage
8 14 (3.35%) Virgin Media
9 12 (2.87%) Splunk
10 8 (1.91%) F5
10 8 (1.91%) IBM
11 7 (1.67%) Pega
12 6 (1.44%) Cisco
12 6 (1.44%) Foundry
12 6 (1.44%) Infoblox
12 6 (1.44%) OpenAI
12 6 (1.44%) Red Hat
13 5 (1.20%) Checkmarx
13 5 (1.20%) Veracode