Microsoft Contract Job Trends in South Wales

Microsoft
Wales > South Wales

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in South Wales requiring knowledge or experience of Microsoft products and/or services. It includes a benchmarking guide to contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Microsoft over the 6 months leading up to 5 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

The figures below represent the IT contractor job market in general and are not representative of contractor rates within the Microsoft Corporation.

6 months to
5 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 3 12
Rank change year-on-year 0 +9 -9
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 56 64 47
As % of all contract jobs in South Wales 16.67% 20.25% 13.70%
As % of the Vendors category 44.80% 52.89% 36.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 41 37 38
10th Percentile £180 £162 £175
25th Percentile £290 £180 £285
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £308 £450 £319
Median % change year-on-year -31.67% +41.29% -29.22%
75th Percentile £509 £550 £548
90th Percentile £575 £594 £647
Wales median daily rate £295 £425 £315
% change year-on-year -30.59% +35.03% -28.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 2 1
10th Percentile £13.88 £22.81 -
25th Percentile £15.11 £23.28 £152.00
Median hourly rate £20.00 £25.30 £154.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.95% -83.57% +757.70%
75th Percentile £26.42 £27.03 £156.00
90th Percentile £31.50 £27.31 -
Wales median hourly rate £21.00 £25.60 £154.00
% change year-on-year -17.97% -83.38% +673.48%

All Vendors
South Wales

Microsoft falls under the Vendor Products and Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of all vendor products and services in South Wales.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 125 121 129
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in South Wales 37.20% 38.29% 37.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 80 81 92
10th Percentile £278 £175 £193
25th Percentile £293 £213 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £425 £488
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% -12.82% +5.98%
75th Percentile £569 £550 £600
90th Percentile £639 £650 £650
Wales median daily rate £410 £454 £389
% change year-on-year -9.64% +16.72% -13.61%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 8 4
10th Percentile £12.82 £24.67 -
25th Percentile £14.83 £26.09 £22.06
Median hourly rate £20.25 £37.50 £25.54
Median % change year-on-year -46.00% +46.83% +42.24%
75th Percentile £30.94 £43.44 £59.44
90th Percentile £86.25 £51.50 £117.37
Wales median hourly rate £21.00 £37.28 £25.54
% change year-on-year -43.67% +45.97% +28.28%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in South Wales

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microsoft relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in South Wales.

Microsoft job vacancy trend in South Wales

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in South Wales

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in South Wales citing Microsoft.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in South Wales citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in South Wales

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in South Wales over the 6 months to 5 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in South Wales

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in South Wales

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in South Wales citing Microsoft.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in South Wales citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in South Wales

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in South Wales over the 6 months to 5 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in South Wales

Microsoft
Contract Job Locations in South Wales

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft within the South Wales region over the 6 months to 5 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
Cardiff -1 45 £308 -41.71% 35
Glamorgan - 5 - - 46
Newport +5 4 £550 +197.30% 15
Caerphilly +1 2 £160 - 6
Microsoft
Wales

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in South Wales 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 11 (19.64%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (12.50%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.79%) Exchange Server 2010
Applications
1 20 (35.71%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (8.93%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (7.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (7.14%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (3.57%) Dynamics AX
1 2 (3.57%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (3.57%) Odoo
Cloud Services
1 20 (35.71%) Azure
2 19 (33.93%) Microsoft 365
3 8 (14.29%) Power Platform
4 6 (10.71%) GitHub
5 4 (7.14%) Dynamics 365
5 4 (7.14%) Power Automate
5 4 (7.14%) PowerApps
6 3 (5.36%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (5.36%) GCP
6 3 (5.36%) GitHub Actions
6 3 (5.36%) Microsoft Purview
7 2 (3.57%) Azure Data Factory
7 2 (3.57%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 1 (1.79%) AWS
8 1 (1.79%) Azure Functions
8 1 (1.79%) Azure Key Vault
8 1 (1.79%) Azure Machine Learning
8 1 (1.79%) Azure Sentinel
8 1 (1.79%) Entra ID
8 1 (1.79%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 10 (17.86%) Wi-Fi
2 3 (5.36%) DNS
3 1 (1.79%) DHCP
3 1 (1.79%) Network Security
3 1 (1.79%) TCP/IP
3 1 (1.79%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (8.93%) Power BI
2 3 (5.36%) Spotfire
2 3 (5.36%) Tableau
3 2 (3.57%) Azure SQL Database
3 2 (3.57%) Data Lake
3 2 (3.57%) Data Warehouse
3 2 (3.57%) SQL Server
3 2 (3.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 3 (5.36%) Cucumber
1 3 (5.36%) Postman
2 2 (3.57%) Cypress.io
3 1 (1.79%) Git
3 1 (1.79%) JIRA
3 1 (1.79%) JMeter
3 1 (1.79%) MSTest
3 1 (1.79%) Selenium
3 1 (1.79%) Visual Studio
General
1 31 (55.36%) Social Skills
2 6 (10.71%) Organisational Skills
3 5 (8.93%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (8.93%) Manufacturing
3 5 (8.93%) Public Sector
4 4 (7.14%) Finance
5 3 (5.36%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (5.36%) Legal
6 2 (3.57%) Law
7 1 (1.79%) Aerospace
7 1 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (1.79%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (1.79%) Welsh Language
Job Titles
1 19 (33.93%) Analyst
2 10 (17.86%) Support Analyst
3 5 (8.93%) 1st Line Support
3 5 (8.93%) Consultant
4 4 (7.14%) IT Support
4 4 (7.14%) Lead
4 4 (7.14%) Senior
4 4 (7.14%) Support Engineer
5 3 (5.36%) Business Analyst
5 3 (5.36%) Data Analyst
5 3 (5.36%) IT Engineer
5 3 (5.36%) IT Support Engineer
6 2 (3.57%) Developer
6 2 (3.57%) ERP Consultant
6 2 (3.57%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 2 (3.57%) Project Manager
6 2 (3.57%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
6 2 (3.57%) SharePoint Developer
6 2 (3.57%) Test Engineer
6 2 (3.57%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (5.36%) Playwright
1 3 (5.36%) React
1 3 (5.36%) SPFx
2 2 (3.57%) .NET
2 2 (3.57%) .NET Core
2 2 (3.57%) .NET Framework
2 2 (3.57%) ADO
2 2 (3.57%) Entity Framework
2 2 (3.57%) Jest
2 2 (3.57%) Next.js
2 2 (3.57%) REST
3 1 (1.79%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 10 (17.86%) NHS
2 4 (7.14%) Management Information System
3 3 (5.36%) Algorithms
3 3 (5.36%) Product Ownership
4 2 (3.57%) Data Structures
4 2 (3.57%) Onboarding
5 1 (1.79%) AI Agents
5 1 (1.79%) Client/Server
5 1 (1.79%) Cloud Security Posture
5 1 (1.79%) Driving Licence
5 1 (1.79%) PKI
5 1 (1.79%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 21 (37.50%) Windows
2 3 (5.36%) Windows 10
3 2 (3.57%) Windows 7
3 2 (3.57%) Windows Server
4 1 (1.79%) Mac OS
4 1 (1.79%) Windows Server 2012
4 1 (1.79%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (1.79%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (17.86%) Agile
1 10 (17.86%) Mobile Device Management
1 10 (17.86%) Problem-Solving
2 8 (14.29%) Migration
3 7 (12.50%) CI/CD
3 7 (12.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 6 (10.71%) DevOps
5 5 (8.93%) Analytics
5 5 (8.93%) Change Management
5 5 (8.93%) Machine Learning
5 5 (8.93%) Scrum
5 5 (8.93%) Test Automation
5 5 (8.93%) Test Strategy
6 4 (7.14%) Business Intelligence
6 4 (7.14%) Case Management
6 4 (7.14%) Data Science
6 4 (7.14%) ERP
7 3 (5.36%) Actionable Insight
7 3 (5.36%) Data Loss Prevention
7 3 (5.36%) Prescriptive Analytics
Programming Languages
1 8 (14.29%) SQL
2 6 (10.71%) Python
3 4 (7.14%) PowerShell
4 3 (5.36%) R
4 3 (5.36%) Ruby
4 3 (5.36%) TypeScript
5 2 (3.57%) T-SQL
6 1 (1.79%) C#
6 1 (1.79%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 5 (8.93%) Degree
2 4 (7.14%) Master's Degree
2 4 (7.14%) SC Cleared
2 4 (7.14%) Security Cleared
3 1 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
3 1 (1.79%) CompTIA Security+
3 1 (1.79%) HND
3 1 (1.79%) ISTQB
3 1 (1.79%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
3 1 (1.79%) Microsoft Certification
3 1 (1.79%) PMI Certification
3 1 (1.79%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (7.14%) QA
2 2 (3.57%) Accessibility
2 2 (3.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 2 (3.57%) WCAG
3 1 (1.79%) HMG Security Policy Framework
3 1 (1.79%) NIST
3 1 (1.79%) PMO
System Software
1 13 (23.21%) Active Directory
2 3 (5.36%) Docker
3 2 (3.57%) BitLocker
3 2 (3.57%) Firmware
3 2 (3.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (1.79%) Hyper-V
4 1 (1.79%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 3 (5.36%) SCCM
2 2 (3.57%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (1.79%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
3 1 (1.79%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 11 (19.64%) Apple
1 11 (19.64%) HP
2 10 (17.86%) MobileIron
3 4 (7.14%) ServiceNow
4 3 (5.36%) Freshdesk
4 3 (5.36%) Google
4 3 (5.36%) TIBCO
5 2 (3.57%) McAfee
5 2 (3.57%) VMware
6 1 (1.79%) Foundry
6 1 (1.79%) Veeam