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

6 months to
27 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 9 8 6
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 -4
Contract jobs citing Azure 316 246 388
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 12.46% 11.36% 14.49%
As % of the Cloud Services category 35.99% 36.28% 40.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 241 162 296
10th Percentile £300 £250 £273
25th Percentile £381 £379 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -10.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £550 £563 £582
90th Percentile £625 £673 £650
England median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% -3.41%
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 878 678 960
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 34.62% 31.32% 35.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 657 446 718
10th Percentile £214 £250 £265
25th Percentile £358 £375 £397
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.89% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £538 £559 £582
90th Percentile £638 £645 £650
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -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 £27.21 £29.00 £23.43
% change year-on-year -6.17% +23.80% +4.11%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -2 172 £450 -10.00% 422
Cheshire +6 85 £465 +14.74% 165
Merseyside -3 39 £200 -20.00% 100
Lancashire -3 16 £450 -10.00% 151
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 (7.91%) SharePoint
2 18 (5.70%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (2.53%) Confluence
4 7 (2.22%) Exchange Server 2013
4 7 (2.22%) SAS
4 7 (2.22%) Skype for Business
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
8 1 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 17 (5.38%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (2.53%) MS Visio
3 7 (2.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (1.58%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 6 (1.90%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.58%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.32%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 131 (41.46%) AWS
2 92 (29.11%) GCP
3 70 (22.15%) Microsoft 365
4 48 (15.19%) Azure DevOps
4 48 (15.19%) Power Platform
5 31 (9.81%) GitHub
6 30 (9.49%) Entra ID
7 15 (4.75%) SaaS
8 14 (4.43%) Power Automate
9 13 (4.11%) GitHub Actions
9 13 (4.11%) PowerApps
9 13 (4.11%) Serverless
10 12 (3.80%) Dynamics 365
10 12 (3.80%) Google Tag Manager
11 11 (3.48%) Datadog
11 11 (3.48%) Google Analytics
12 10 (3.16%) AWS CloudFormation
12 10 (3.16%) Azure Logic Apps
12 10 (3.16%) OneDrive
12 10 (3.16%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 19 (6.01%) Firewall
2 15 (4.75%) DNS
3 11 (3.48%) Wi-Fi
4 10 (3.16%) TCP/IP
5 9 (2.85%) Internet
6 7 (2.22%) Skype
6 7 (2.22%) VLAN
7 6 (1.90%) Network Security
7 6 (1.90%) VPN
8 5 (1.58%) Unified Communications
8 5 (1.58%) WAN
9 4 (1.27%) LAN
10 3 (0.95%) BGP
10 3 (0.95%) Cisco IOS
10 3 (0.95%) DHCP
10 3 (0.95%) iSCSI
10 3 (0.95%) NX-OS
10 3 (0.95%) SAN
10 3 (0.95%) WLAN
11 2 (0.63%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (8.54%) Power BI
2 15 (4.75%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (4.11%) BigQuery
4 11 (3.48%) Looker
4 11 (3.48%) SQL Server
5 10 (3.16%) PostgreSQL
6 9 (2.85%) Azure SQL Database
6 9 (2.85%) 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 (1.58%) DynamoDB
8 5 (1.58%) RDBMS
8 5 (1.58%) Redis
9 4 (1.27%) Amazon Aurora
10 3 (0.95%) Pinecone
11 2 (0.63%) Amazon Athena
11 2 (0.63%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 32 (10.13%) JIRA
2 30 (9.49%) Git
3 24 (7.59%) Jenkins
4 16 (5.06%) GitLab
5 10 (3.16%) Gradle
6 9 (2.85%) SonarQube
7 8 (2.53%) Postman
8 6 (1.90%) Storybook
8 6 (1.90%) Xcode
9 5 (1.58%) Bitbucket
9 5 (1.58%) Cucumber
9 5 (1.58%) Selenium
9 5 (1.58%) 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
1 105 (33.23%) Social Skills
2 74 (23.42%) Public Sector
3 44 (13.92%) Finance
4 40 (12.66%) Analytical Skills
5 35 (11.08%) Banking
6 10 (3.16%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (3.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 9 (2.85%) Legal
8 7 (2.22%) Military
9 6 (1.90%) Law
10 5 (1.58%) Influencing Skills
10 5 (1.58%) Marketing
10 5 (1.58%) Retail
11 4 (1.27%) Games
12 3 (0.95%) Manufacturing
12 3 (0.95%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
14 1 (0.32%) Japanese Language
14 1 (0.32%) Local Government
14 1 (0.32%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 60 (18.99%) Developer
2 49 (15.51%) Architect
3 35 (11.08%) Analyst
4 29 (9.18%) Senior
5 20 (6.33%) Java Developer
6 16 (5.06%) IT Support
6 16 (5.06%) Solutions Architect
7 15 (4.75%) Azure Engineer
8 14 (4.43%) Lead
8 14 (4.43%) Security Engineer
9 12 (3.80%) Azure Developer
9 12 (3.80%) Data Engineer
9 12 (3.80%) Platform Engineer
9 12 (3.80%) Support Analyst
9 12 (3.80%) Support Engineer
10 11 (3.48%) DevOps Engineer
10 11 (3.48%) Technical Architect
11 10 (3.16%) Senior Developer
12 8 (2.53%) Change Manager
12 8 (2.53%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (10.13%) Spring Boot
2 26 (8.23%) Spring
3 19 (6.01%) REST
4 15 (4.75%) .NET
4 15 (4.75%) RESTful
5 14 (4.43%) JSON
6 13 (4.11%) React
7 12 (3.80%) HTML
7 12 (3.80%) OAuth
8 10 (3.16%) AngularJS
9 9 (2.85%) JMS
9 9 (2.85%) 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%) PySpark
11 6 (1.90%) SVG
12 5 (1.58%) Dropwizard
12 5 (1.58%) J2EE
Miscellaneous
1 28 (8.86%) Onboarding
2 23 (7.28%) Cloud Native
3 14 (4.43%) Distributed Systems
3 14 (4.43%) Product Ownership
4 10 (3.16%) Data Protection Act
4 10 (3.16%) Low-Code
5 9 (2.85%) Mobile App
5 9 (2.85%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 8 (2.53%) Legacy Systems
7 7 (2.22%) Credit Risk
7 7 (2.22%) Data Centre
7 7 (2.22%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.58%) Clustering
8 5 (1.58%) NHS
8 5 (1.58%) N-Tier
8 5 (1.58%) Replication
8 5 (1.58%) Video Conferencing
9 4 (1.27%) Distributed Computing
9 4 (1.27%) Private Cloud
9 4 (1.27%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 48 (15.19%) Windows
2 21 (6.65%) Windows 10
3 12 (3.80%) Linux
4 9 (2.85%) Android
5 8 (2.53%) Apple iOS
6 7 (2.22%) Windows Server
7 4 (1.27%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.95%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.63%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.32%) VMS
10 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 111 (35.13%) DevOps
2 89 (28.16%) CI/CD
3 75 (23.73%) Agile
4 65 (20.57%) Problem-Solving
5 51 (16.14%) Containerisation
6 47 (14.87%) Analytics
7 36 (11.39%) Infrastructure as Code
8 35 (11.08%) Microservices
8 35 (11.08%) Migration
9 34 (10.76%) User Experience
10 33 (10.44%) Business Intelligence
10 33 (10.44%) Stakeholder Management
11 32 (10.13%) Machine Learning
12 31 (9.81%) Continuous Improvement
13 29 (9.18%) AI
14 28 (8.86%) Mentoring
15 27 (8.54%) Validation
16 26 (8.23%) Roadmaps
17 25 (7.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 24 (7.59%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 70 (22.15%) Python
2 54 (17.09%) SQL
3 46 (14.56%) Java
4 22 (6.96%) PowerShell
5 21 (6.65%) JavaScript
6 20 (6.33%) C#
7 17 (5.38%) TypeScript
8 16 (5.06%) Bash
9 7 (2.22%) R
10 6 (1.90%) Bicep
10 6 (1.90%) Go
11 4 (1.27%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.95%) Kusto Query Language
12 3 (0.95%) Perl
12 3 (0.95%) PHP
12 3 (0.95%) Scala
13 2 (0.63%) C++
13 2 (0.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 1 (0.32%) C
14 1 (0.32%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 48 (15.19%) Security Cleared
2 32 (10.13%) SC Cleared
3 27 (8.54%) Degree
4 19 (6.01%) Azure Certification
5 13 (4.11%) BPSS Clearance
6 11 (3.48%) CISSP
7 8 (2.53%) AWS Certification
7 8 (2.53%) CISM
8 6 (1.90%) Computer Science Degree
9 5 (1.58%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (1.58%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (0.95%) CCDP
10 3 (0.95%) CCNP
10 3 (0.95%) ITIL Certification
10 3 (0.95%) MCP
10 3 (0.95%) PMI Certification
11 2 (0.63%) CBAP
11 2 (0.63%) GIAC
11 2 (0.63%) IBM Certification
11 2 (0.63%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (8.86%) QA
2 25 (7.91%) Accessibility
3 21 (6.65%) Data Quality
4 17 (5.38%) GDPR
4 17 (5.38%) ISO 20022
5 13 (4.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (4.11%) PSD2
6 12 (3.80%) NIST
7 9 (2.85%) 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 62 (19.62%) Active Directory
2 58 (18.35%) Docker
3 14 (4.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (2.53%) vSphere
5 3 (0.95%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.63%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.32%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 56 (17.72%) Kubernetes
2 39 (12.34%) Terraform
3 33 (10.44%) Microsoft Intune
4 22 (6.96%) SCCM
5 11 (3.48%) Ansible
6 8 (2.53%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (2.22%) Grafana
7 7 (2.22%) Prometheus
8 5 (1.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 5 (1.58%) 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
1 110 (34.81%) Microsoft
2 32 (10.13%) Google
3 30 (9.49%) ServiceNow
4 16 (5.06%) VMware
5 14 (4.43%) Oracle
6 13 (4.11%) Virgin Media
7 9 (2.85%) Cisco
7 9 (2.85%) Databricks
7 9 (2.85%) F5
8 7 (2.22%) Palo Alto
8 7 (2.22%) Pega
8 7 (2.22%) SolarWinds
8 7 (2.22%) Splunk
9 6 (1.90%) Bomgar
9 6 (1.90%) Citrix
9 6 (1.90%) iManage
9 6 (1.90%) Meraki
9 6 (1.90%) Veeam
10 5 (1.58%) Checkmarx
10 5 (1.58%) Veracode