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 22 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 9 8 5
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 -3
Contract jobs citing Azure 315 241 382
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 12.60% 11.28% 14.57%
As % of the Cloud Services category 36.54% 36.40% 39.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 238 156 295
10th Percentile £304 £250 £272
25th Percentile £394 £388 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -10.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £582
90th Percentile £625 £666 £650
England median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% -3.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 3 25
10th Percentile - - £18.05
25th Percentile £15.50 - £21.25
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 £49.25 £35.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +40.71% -24.21% -12.04%

All Cloud 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 862 662 957
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 34.48% 30.98% 36.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 644 429 719
10th Percentile £216 £250 £265
25th Percentile £358 £375 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.89% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £539 £565 £575
90th Percentile £638 £646 £650
England median daily rate £500 £530 £525
% change year-on-year -5.66% +0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 13 53
10th Percentile £15.50 £18.16 £15.75
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.05 £17.72
Median hourly rate £40.00 £29.00 £23.61
Median % change year-on-year +37.93% +22.83% -32.54%
75th Percentile £69.25 £58.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £72.37 £75.95 £50.84
England median hourly rate £26.50 £29.00 £24.31
% change year-on-year -8.62% +19.32% +8.02%

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 22 December 2025.

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 22 December 2025.

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 22 December 2025. 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 -1 171 £450 -10.00% 325
Cheshire +10 87 £481 +18.75% 144
Merseyside -4 37 £300 +20.00% 83
Lancashire -4 16 £450 -10.00% 152
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 25 (7.94%) SharePoint
2 17 (5.40%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (2.22%) Exchange Server 2013
3 7 (2.22%) SAS
3 7 (2.22%) Skype for Business
4 6 (1.90%) Confluence
5 4 (1.27%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.95%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.95%) IIS
7 2 (0.63%) Apache
7 2 (0.63%) NetWeaver
7 2 (0.63%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 17 (5.40%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (2.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (2.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (2.22%) MS Visio
4 6 (1.90%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (1.90%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.59%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.32%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 129 (40.95%) AWS
2 92 (29.21%) GCP
3 71 (22.54%) Microsoft 365
4 47 (14.92%) Azure DevOps
4 47 (14.92%) Power Platform
5 30 (9.52%) Entra ID
5 30 (9.52%) GitHub
6 19 (6.03%) SaaS
7 14 (4.44%) Power Automate
8 13 (4.13%) PowerApps
8 13 (4.13%) Serverless
9 12 (3.81%) Azure Logic Apps
9 12 (3.81%) GitHub Actions
9 12 (3.81%) Google Tag Manager
10 11 (3.49%) Datadog
10 11 (3.49%) Dynamics 365
10 11 (3.49%) Google Analytics
11 10 (3.17%) Figma
11 10 (3.17%) OneDrive
11 10 (3.17%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 20 (6.35%) Firewall
2 15 (4.76%) DNS
3 10 (3.17%) TCP/IP
3 10 (3.17%) Wi-Fi
4 9 (2.86%) Internet
5 7 (2.22%) Skype
6 6 (1.90%) Network Security
6 6 (1.90%) VLAN
6 6 (1.90%) VPN
7 5 (1.59%) SAN
7 5 (1.59%) Unified Communications
7 5 (1.59%) WAN
8 4 (1.27%) LAN
9 3 (0.95%) BGP
9 3 (0.95%) Cisco IOS
9 3 (0.95%) DHCP
9 3 (0.95%) iSCSI
9 3 (0.95%) NetScaler
9 3 (0.95%) NX-OS
9 3 (0.95%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (8.57%) Power BI
2 15 (4.76%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (4.13%) BigQuery
4 11 (3.49%) Looker
4 11 (3.49%) SQL Server
5 10 (3.17%) PostgreSQL
6 9 (2.86%) Azure SQL Database
6 9 (2.86%) Relational Database
7 6 (1.90%) Amazon RDS
7 6 (1.90%) Data Lake
7 6 (1.90%) Metadata
7 6 (1.90%) MySQL
7 6 (1.90%) NoSQL
8 5 (1.59%) DynamoDB
8 5 (1.59%) RDBMS
8 5 (1.59%) Redis
9 4 (1.27%) Amazon Aurora
9 4 (1.27%) Pinecone
10 2 (0.63%) Amazon Athena
10 2 (0.63%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 30 (9.52%) JIRA
2 29 (9.21%) Git
3 23 (7.30%) Jenkins
4 16 (5.08%) GitLab
5 10 (3.17%) Gradle
6 9 (2.86%) SonarQube
7 8 (2.54%) Postman
8 6 (1.90%) Storybook
8 6 (1.90%) Xcode
9 5 (1.59%) Bitbucket
9 5 (1.59%) Cucumber
9 5 (1.59%) Selenium
9 5 (1.59%) Snyk
10 4 (1.27%) JUnit
10 4 (1.27%) Maven
10 4 (1.27%) SonarLint
11 3 (0.95%) CircleCI
11 3 (0.95%) Cypress.io
12 2 (0.63%) Fiddler
12 2 (0.63%) git-flow
General
1 100 (31.75%) Social Skills
2 73 (23.17%) Public Sector
3 46 (14.60%) Finance
4 42 (13.33%) Analytical Skills
5 36 (11.43%) Banking
6 10 (3.17%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (2.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (2.54%) Legal
9 7 (2.22%) Military
10 6 (1.90%) Law
11 5 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
11 5 (1.59%) Marketing
11 5 (1.59%) Retail
12 4 (1.27%) Games
13 3 (0.95%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.95%) Telecoms
14 2 (0.63%) Japanese Language
14 2 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
15 1 (0.32%) Electronics
15 1 (0.32%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 58 (18.41%) Developer
2 52 (16.51%) Architect
3 35 (11.11%) Analyst
4 28 (8.89%) Senior
5 20 (6.35%) Java Developer
6 17 (5.40%) Solutions Architect
7 15 (4.76%) Azure Engineer
7 15 (4.76%) IT Support
7 15 (4.76%) Lead
8 14 (4.44%) Security Engineer
9 12 (3.81%) Azure Developer
9 12 (3.81%) Platform Engineer
9 12 (3.81%) Support Engineer
9 12 (3.81%) Technical Architect
10 11 (3.49%) Data Engineer
10 11 (3.49%) Support Analyst
11 10 (3.17%) DevOps Engineer
11 10 (3.17%) Senior Developer
12 8 (2.54%) Change Manager
12 8 (2.54%) Performance Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (10.16%) Spring Boot
2 26 (8.25%) Spring
3 18 (5.71%) REST
4 14 (4.44%) .NET
4 14 (4.44%) RESTful
5 13 (4.13%) JSON
6 12 (3.81%) OAuth
6 12 (3.81%) React
7 11 (3.49%) HTML
8 10 (3.17%) AngularJS
9 9 (2.86%) JMS
9 9 (2.86%) Node.js
10 7 (2.22%) D3.js
10 7 (2.22%) React Native
11 6 (1.90%) Elastic Stack
11 6 (1.90%) Kafka
11 6 (1.90%) LangChain
11 6 (1.90%) SVG
12 5 (1.59%) J2EE
12 5 (1.59%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 30 (9.52%) Onboarding
2 25 (7.94%) Cloud Native
3 14 (4.44%) Distributed Systems
3 14 (4.44%) Product Ownership
4 12 (3.81%) Data Protection Act
5 11 (3.49%) Low-Code
6 9 (2.86%) Mobile App
6 9 (2.86%) SWIFT Messaging Network
7 7 (2.22%) Credit Risk
7 7 (2.22%) Data Centre
7 7 (2.22%) Enterprise Software
7 7 (2.22%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (1.59%) Clustering
8 5 (1.59%) NHS
8 5 (1.59%) N-Tier
8 5 (1.59%) Replication
8 5 (1.59%) Video Conferencing
9 4 (1.27%) Distributed Computing
9 4 (1.27%) Private Cloud
9 4 (1.27%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 49 (15.56%) Windows
2 20 (6.35%) Windows 10
3 14 (4.44%) Linux
4 10 (3.17%) Windows Server
5 9 (2.86%) Android
6 8 (2.54%) Apple iOS
7 4 (1.27%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.95%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.63%) Unix
9 2 (0.63%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.32%) VMS
10 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 107 (33.97%) DevOps
2 85 (26.98%) CI/CD
3 75 (23.81%) Agile
4 64 (20.32%) Problem-Solving
5 52 (16.51%) Containerisation
6 48 (15.24%) Analytics
7 37 (11.75%) Microservices
8 36 (11.43%) Migration
9 35 (11.11%) Infrastructure as Code
9 35 (11.11%) Stakeholder Management
10 33 (10.48%) Business Intelligence
10 33 (10.48%) User Experience
11 31 (9.84%) Continuous Improvement
11 31 (9.84%) Machine Learning
12 30 (9.52%) AI
13 27 (8.57%) Validation
14 26 (8.25%) Mentoring
14 26 (8.25%) Roadmaps
15 25 (7.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 22 (6.98%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 69 (21.90%) Python
2 55 (17.46%) SQL
3 46 (14.60%) Java
4 24 (7.62%) PowerShell
5 19 (6.03%) C#
5 19 (6.03%) JavaScript
6 16 (5.08%) Bash
6 16 (5.08%) TypeScript
7 7 (2.22%) R
8 6 (1.90%) Bicep
9 5 (1.59%) Go
9 5 (1.59%) Kusto Query Language
10 4 (1.27%) T-SQL
11 3 (0.95%) Perl
11 3 (0.95%) PHP
11 3 (0.95%) Scala
12 2 (0.63%) C++
12 2 (0.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.32%) C
13 1 (0.32%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 47 (14.92%) Security Cleared
2 32 (10.16%) SC Cleared
3 29 (9.21%) Degree
4 17 (5.40%) Azure Certification
5 13 (4.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 11 (3.49%) CISSP
7 8 (2.54%) CISM
7 8 (2.54%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (1.90%) AWS Certification
9 5 (1.59%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (1.59%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (0.95%) CCDP
10 3 (0.95%) CCNP
10 3 (0.95%) MCP
10 3 (0.95%) PMI Certification
11 2 (0.63%) CBAP
11 2 (0.63%) GCIA
11 2 (0.63%) GCIH
11 2 (0.63%) GIAC
11 2 (0.63%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (8.89%) QA
2 25 (7.94%) Accessibility
3 20 (6.35%) Data Quality
4 17 (5.40%) GDPR
4 17 (5.40%) ISO 20022
5 13 (4.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (4.13%) PSD2
6 12 (3.81%) NIST
7 9 (2.86%) SEPA
8 6 (1.90%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.63%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.63%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.63%) WCAG
10 1 (0.32%) GRC
10 1 (0.32%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.32%) HL7
10 1 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.32%) SOC 1
System Software
1 61 (19.37%) Active Directory
2 57 (18.10%) Docker
3 14 (4.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (2.54%) vSphere
5 4 (1.27%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.63%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.32%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 55 (17.46%) Kubernetes
2 36 (11.43%) Terraform
3 33 (10.48%) Microsoft Intune
4 22 (6.98%) SCCM
5 9 (2.86%) Ansible
6 8 (2.54%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (2.22%) Grafana
7 7 (2.22%) Prometheus
8 5 (1.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 5 (1.59%) Fluentd
9 3 (0.95%) Jamf Pro
10 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Clustering
11 1 (0.32%) AirWatch
11 1 (0.32%) Istio
11 1 (0.32%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 111 (35.24%) Microsoft
2 31 (9.84%) Google
3 29 (9.21%) ServiceNow
4 18 (5.71%) VMware
5 16 (5.08%) Oracle
6 13 (4.13%) Virgin Media
7 11 (3.49%) F5
8 9 (2.86%) Cisco
8 9 (2.86%) Citrix
9 8 (2.54%) Databricks
10 7 (2.22%) Palo Alto
10 7 (2.22%) Pega
10 7 (2.22%) SolarWinds
10 7 (2.22%) Splunk
11 6 (1.90%) Meraki
11 6 (1.90%) Veeam
12 5 (1.59%) Bomgar
12 5 (1.59%) Checkmarx
12 5 (1.59%) iManage
12 5 (1.59%) Veracode