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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 8 13
Rank change year-on-year +3 +5 -9
Contract jobs citing Azure 448 257 290
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 14.06% 13.06% 10.53%
As % of the Cloud Services category 43.71% 40.22% 32.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 352 201 222
10th Percentile £313 £263 £326
25th Percentile £402 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £586
90th Percentile £643 £671 £650
England median daily rate £525 £525 £545
% change year-on-year - -3.67% -3.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 2 2
10th Percentile £19.25 £67.63 £16.40
25th Percentile - £67.81 £16.63
Median hourly rate £25.38 £71.25 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year -64.38% +295.83% -72.52%
75th Percentile £46.32 £75.31 £19.13
90th Percentile £90.00 £75.88 £19.20
England median hourly rate £57.50 £44.25 £35.00
% change year-on-year +29.94% +26.43% -36.36%

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 1,025 639 884
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 32.17% 32.47% 32.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 692 498 640
10th Percentile £230 £244 £284
25th Percentile £375 £400 £391
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £471 £473 £487
Median % change year-on-year -0.42% -3.03% -2.55%
75th Percentile £581 £558 £575
90th Percentile £650 £638 £638
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 12 65
10th Percentile £23.95 - £13.00
25th Percentile £25.38 £26.88 -
Median hourly rate £62.50 £28.88 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +116.45% +79.79% -56.94%
75th Percentile £77.50 £50.66 £20.00
90th Percentile £95.00 £75.88 £43.75
England median hourly rate £46.00 £25.50 £20.77
% change year-on-year +80.39% +22.77% -35.70%

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 1 May 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 1 May 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 1 May 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 £500 -1.96% 193
Cheshire +8 122 £538 +26.47% 34
Merseyside +5 53 £140 -65.00% 23
Lancashire 0 25 £500 +2.56% 86
Cumbria -11 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 27 (6.03%) Microsoft Exchange
1 27 (6.03%) SharePoint
2 18 (4.02%) Confluence
3 3 (0.67%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.67%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.45%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
4 2 (0.45%) SAS
5 1 (0.22%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.22%) CMS
5 1 (0.22%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.22%) IIS
5 1 (0.22%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.22%) OpenStack
Applications
1 7 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.12%) 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%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.67%) Elite 3E
3 2 (0.45%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.22%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.22%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 190 (42.41%) AWS
2 95 (21.21%) GCP
3 75 (16.74%) Microsoft 365
4 68 (15.18%) Entra ID
5 63 (14.06%) Azure DevOps
6 52 (11.61%) Power Platform
7 26 (5.80%) GitHub
8 23 (5.13%) Azure Data Factory
9 22 (4.91%) Dynamics 365
10 19 (4.24%) Serverless
11 18 (4.02%) GitHub Actions
11 18 (4.02%) Power Automate
12 17 (3.79%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 16 (3.57%) OneDrive
13 16 (3.57%) PowerApps
14 13 (2.90%) Azure AKS
15 12 (2.68%) Azure Logic Apps
15 12 (2.68%) Azure Monitor
15 12 (2.68%) SaaS
16 11 (2.46%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 47 (10.49%) Firewall
2 32 (7.14%) DNS
3 16 (3.57%) Network Security
4 15 (3.35%) VPN
5 12 (2.68%) Wi-Fi
6 10 (2.23%) Kerberos
6 10 (2.23%) SD-WAN
6 10 (2.23%) WAN
7 9 (2.01%) BGP
7 9 (2.01%) OSPF
7 9 (2.01%) TCP/IP
8 8 (1.79%) DHCP
9 7 (1.56%) VLAN
10 6 (1.34%) BIG-IP
10 6 (1.34%) Ethernet VPN
10 6 (1.34%) VXLAN
11 5 (1.12%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 5 (1.12%) WLAN
12 4 (0.89%) HTTP
12 4 (0.89%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (6.03%) Power BI
2 21 (4.69%) SQL Server
3 19 (4.24%) Data Warehouse
4 14 (3.13%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (2.68%) Metadata
6 10 (2.23%) Data Lake
7 8 (1.79%) NoSQL
8 7 (1.56%) MongoDB
8 7 (1.56%) MySQL
9 6 (1.34%) Azure SQL Database
9 6 (1.34%) Snowflake Schema
10 5 (1.12%) Looker
10 5 (1.12%) 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%) Oracle Database
12 3 (0.67%) RDBMS
12 3 (0.67%) Relational Database
12 3 (0.67%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 41 (9.15%) JIRA
2 24 (5.36%) Git
3 18 (4.02%) GitLab
4 11 (2.46%) Postman
5 9 (2.01%) Jenkins
6 7 (1.56%) Cucumber
7 6 (1.34%) Selenium
8 3 (0.67%) Cypress.io
8 3 (0.67%) JMeter
9 2 (0.45%) Claude Code
9 2 (0.45%) ClearCase
9 2 (0.45%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.45%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.22%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.22%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.22%) Robot Framework
10 1 (0.22%) Snyk
10 1 (0.22%) Spinnaker
10 1 (0.22%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 1 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 100 (22.32%) Social Skills
2 81 (18.08%) Public Sector
3 80 (17.86%) Finance
4 42 (9.38%) Banking
5 32 (7.14%) Analytical Skills
6 25 (5.58%) Legal
7 10 (2.23%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (2.23%) Retail
8 9 (2.01%) Law
9 8 (1.79%) Military
10 6 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (1.12%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (0.89%) Health Technology
12 4 (0.89%) Local Government
13 3 (0.67%) Influencing Skills
14 2 (0.45%) Financial Institution
14 2 (0.45%) Manufacturing
14 2 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
14 2 (0.45%) Telecoms
15 1 (0.22%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 76 (16.96%) Architect
2 62 (13.84%) Developer
3 49 (10.94%) Senior
4 43 (9.60%) Analyst
5 40 (8.93%) Lead
6 31 (6.92%) Security Engineer
7 29 (6.47%) Azure Engineer
8 23 (5.13%) Data Engineer
9 22 (4.91%) Java Developer
10 19 (4.24%) DevOps Engineer
11 18 (4.02%) Platform Engineer
11 18 (4.02%) Solutions Architect
12 17 (3.79%) 1st Line Support
13 16 (3.57%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 13 (2.90%) Azure Developer
14 13 (2.90%) Lead Developer
14 13 (2.90%) Security Architect
14 13 (2.90%) Systems Analyst
15 11 (2.46%) Azure Platform Engineer
15 11 (2.46%) Cloud Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (7.37%) Spring
2 32 (7.14%) REST
3 30 (6.70%) Spring Boot
4 21 (4.69%) .NET
5 19 (4.24%) React
5 19 (4.24%) RESTful
6 16 (3.57%) OAuth
7 14 (3.13%) Node.js
8 12 (2.68%) Kafka
9 10 (2.23%) AngularJS
9 10 (2.23%) OpenID
9 10 (2.23%) PySpark
10 9 (2.01%) ARM Templates
10 9 (2.01%) HTML
10 9 (2.01%) LDAP
10 9 (2.01%) SAML
11 8 (1.79%) JSON
11 8 (1.79%) RabbitMQ
12 7 (1.56%) LangChain
12 7 (1.56%) Nunjucks
Miscellaneous
1 52 (11.61%) Cloud Native
2 27 (6.03%) Onboarding
3 19 (4.24%) Data Centre
4 16 (3.57%) Hybrid Cloud
4 16 (3.57%) Security Posture
5 14 (3.13%) Product Ownership
6 12 (2.68%) Enterprise Cloud
7 11 (2.46%) Private Cloud
8 10 (2.23%) Distributed Systems
9 9 (2.01%) Legacy Systems
9 9 (2.01%) Management Information System
10 8 (1.79%) Data Protection Act
11 7 (1.56%) Cloud Security Posture
11 7 (1.56%) Public Cloud
11 7 (1.56%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 6 (1.34%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 6 (1.34%) Linux Command Line
12 6 (1.34%) Virtual Team
13 5 (1.12%) Enterprise Software
13 5 (1.12%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 59 (13.17%) Windows
2 28 (6.25%) Windows 10
3 18 (4.02%) Linux
4 12 (2.68%) Windows Server
5 7 (1.56%) Mac OS
5 7 (1.56%) VMS
6 6 (1.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (1.12%) Windows Server 2019
8 4 (0.89%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.89%) Windows Server 2012
9 2 (0.45%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.22%) Unix
10 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (31.03%) DevOps
2 122 (27.23%) CI/CD
3 112 (25.00%) Agile
4 71 (15.85%) Problem-Solving
5 61 (13.62%) Migration
6 60 (13.39%) Analytics
7 51 (11.38%) Microservices
8 49 (10.94%) Infrastructure as Code
9 48 (10.71%) Containerisation
9 48 (10.71%) Continuous Improvement
10 40 (8.93%) Roadmaps
11 38 (8.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 37 (8.26%) Data Modelling
12 37 (8.26%) Stakeholder Management
13 36 (8.04%) Cloud Security
13 36 (8.04%) Test Automation
14 35 (7.81%) Zero Trust
15 34 (7.59%) Observability
16 33 (7.37%) Data Pipeline
17 32 (7.14%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 101 (22.54%) Python
2 70 (15.63%) SQL
3 63 (14.06%) Java
4 56 (12.50%) PowerShell
5 26 (5.80%) JavaScript
6 25 (5.58%) C#
7 19 (4.24%) Bash
7 19 (4.24%) Bicep
8 12 (2.68%) TypeScript
9 8 (1.79%) Go
10 6 (1.34%) T-SQL
11 4 (0.89%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.67%) C++
13 2 (0.45%) R
13 2 (0.45%) VB
13 2 (0.45%) VB6
14 1 (0.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 1 (0.22%) PL/SQL
14 1 (0.22%) Ruby
14 1 (0.22%) Scala
Qualifications
1 55 (12.28%) Security Cleared
2 32 (7.14%) SC Cleared
3 31 (6.92%) Azure Certification
4 24 (5.36%) Degree
5 21 (4.69%) Cisco Certification
5 21 (4.69%) CISSP
6 20 (4.46%) AWS Certification
6 20 (4.46%) BPSS Clearance
7 12 (2.68%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (2.23%) CCNA
9 9 (2.01%) CCNP
10 8 (1.79%) CISM
11 5 (1.12%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 5 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (0.89%) CCIE
12 4 (0.89%) Computer Science Degree
12 4 (0.89%) GIAC
12 4 (0.89%) IBM Certification
13 3 (0.67%) CEH
13 3 (0.67%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (6.92%) Data Quality
2 26 (5.80%) NIST
3 21 (4.69%) QA
4 20 (4.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 18 (4.02%) GDPR
6 14 (3.13%) Accessibility
7 10 (2.23%) ISO 20022
8 8 (1.79%) PSD2
9 7 (1.56%) SEPA
10 6 (1.34%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 6 (1.34%) HIPAA
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%) PCI DSS
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 88 (19.64%) Active Directory
2 64 (14.29%) Docker
3 12 (2.68%) Virtual Desktop
3 12 (2.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (1.79%) Virtual Machines
4 8 (1.79%) vSphere
5 3 (0.67%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.67%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.45%) Firmware
6 2 (0.45%) Microsoft App-V
6 2 (0.45%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 71 (15.85%) Kubernetes
2 63 (14.06%) Terraform
3 24 (5.36%) Microsoft Intune
4 22 (4.91%) Ansible
5 14 (3.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 13 (2.90%) Grafana
6 13 (2.90%) SCCM
7 12 (2.68%) Prometheus
8 11 (2.46%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (1.34%) Argo
10 4 (0.89%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.67%) Istio
11 3 (0.67%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.45%) CA Single Sign-On
12 2 (0.45%) Jamf Pro
12 2 (0.45%) linkerd
12 2 (0.45%) PowerCLI
12 2 (0.45%) vMotion
12 2 (0.45%) vRealize
12 2 (0.45%) WSUS
Vendors
1 149 (33.26%) Microsoft
2 34 (7.59%) Google
3 27 (6.03%) ServiceNow
4 18 (4.02%) Databricks
4 18 (4.02%) Oracle
5 17 (3.79%) Bomgar
5 17 (3.79%) iManage
5 17 (3.79%) VMware
6 15 (3.35%) Infoblox
7 14 (3.13%) Splunk
8 10 (2.23%) F5
9 9 (2.01%) Palo Alto
9 9 (2.01%) Virgin Media
10 8 (1.79%) Cisco
10 8 (1.79%) IBM
11 7 (1.56%) Aruba
11 7 (1.56%) Citrix
11 7 (1.56%) CyberArk
11 7 (1.56%) SAP
12 6 (1.34%) Varonis