Azure Contract Job Trends in the South West

Microsoft Azure
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South West requiring Azure skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 8 12
Rank change year-on-year +2 +4 -5
Contract jobs citing Azure 423 250 273
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 11.36% 12.66% 10.30%
As % of the Cloud Services category 43.43% 41.25% 38.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 294 193 202
10th Percentile £401 £302 £363
25th Percentile £450 £375 £451
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £639 £650 £600
90th Percentile £736 £704 £699
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 1
10th Percentile £93.28 £23.10 -
25th Percentile £94.40 £36.00 £77.50
Median hourly rate £96.27 £65.00 £85.00
Median % change year-on-year +48.10% -23.53% +360.70%
75th Percentile £98.13 £75.00 £92.50
90th Percentile £99.25 £76.50 -
England median hourly rate £52.50 £33.39 £38.50
% change year-on-year +57.26% -13.29% -16.63%

All Cloud Computing Skills
South 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 South West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for cloud computing skills 974 606 709
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 26.17% 30.70% 26.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 639 419 465
10th Percentile £336 £213 £228
25th Percentile £425 £350 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +12.63% -9.52% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £588 £613
90th Percentile £730 £693 £685
England median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 34 42
10th Percentile £14.00 £18.13 £25.73
25th Percentile £15.24 £18.60 £33.50
Median hourly rate £19.33 £18.87 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -73.04% +101.18%
75th Percentile £46.42 £34.31 -
90th Percentile £86.51 £37.05 -
England median hourly rate £33.99 £26.30 £33.00
% change year-on-year +29.24% -20.30% -

Azure
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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

Azure job vacancy trend in the South West

Azure
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Azure.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Azure

Azure
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Azure in the South West over the 6 months to 18 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Azure in the South West

Azure
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Azure.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Azure

Azure
Contract Job Locations in the South 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 South West region over the 6 months to 18 September 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
Bristol 0 115 £550 +23.04% 104
Somerset +2 106 £475 +11.76% 79
Devon +9 59 £530 +1.44% 46
Gloucestershire -5 47 £550 +4.76% 114
Wiltshire -5 41 £520 -5.45% 41
Dorset -1 30 £675 +34.33% 30
Azure
England

Azure
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South 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 31 (7.33%) SharePoint
2 29 (6.86%) Confluence
3 11 (2.60%) Apache Spark
4 6 (1.42%) Microsoft Exchange
5 5 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.95%) Apache
7 2 (0.47%) nginx
8 1 (0.24%) ColdFusion
8 1 (0.24%) IIS
8 1 (0.24%) JBoss
8 1 (0.24%) Oracle Coherence
8 1 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 5 (1.18%) MS Visio
2 3 (0.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.71%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.71%) Trello
3 1 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.47%) Unit4 Business World
2 1 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.24%) ResourceLink
2 1 (0.24%) SAP EHS
2 1 (0.24%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 183 (43.26%) AWS
2 81 (19.15%) Azure DevOps
3 77 (18.20%) GCP
4 50 (11.82%) Entra ID
5 39 (9.22%) Microsoft 365
6 29 (6.86%) GitHub
7 24 (5.67%) Power Platform
8 15 (3.55%) Azure AKS
8 15 (3.55%) Azure Key Vault
8 15 (3.55%) Serverless
9 14 (3.31%) Azure Data Factory
10 12 (2.84%) GitHub Actions
11 10 (2.36%) Cloud Computing
11 10 (2.36%) SaaS
12 9 (2.13%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 9 (2.13%) Azure Monitor
12 9 (2.13%) Azure Sentinel
12 9 (2.13%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 9 (2.13%) PaaS
13 8 (1.89%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 33 (7.80%) Firewall
2 22 (5.20%) DNS
3 16 (3.78%) TCP/IP
4 15 (3.55%) DHCP
5 14 (3.31%) VPN
5 14 (3.31%) WAN
6 10 (2.36%) VLAN
7 9 (2.13%) BGP
8 8 (1.89%) VSAN
9 6 (1.42%) Network Security
10 4 (0.95%) Cisco IOS
10 4 (0.95%) LAN
10 4 (0.95%) OSPF
10 4 (0.95%) SAN
10 4 (0.95%) Wireless
11 3 (0.71%) Intrusion Detection
11 3 (0.71%) NAS
11 3 (0.71%) Software-Defined Networking
12 2 (0.47%) Cisco ASA
12 2 (0.47%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (4.96%) SQL Server
2 20 (4.73%) Power BI
3 13 (3.07%) Geospatial Data
3 13 (3.07%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (2.60%) Elasticsearch
5 9 (2.13%) Data Lake
6 8 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
6 8 (1.89%) Oracle Database
7 7 (1.65%) Azure SQL Database
7 7 (1.65%) Big Data
7 7 (1.65%) MongoDB
8 6 (1.42%) Amazon RDS
8 6 (1.42%) Metadata
8 6 (1.42%) NoSQL
9 5 (1.18%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.95%) Hadoop
10 4 (0.95%) Relational Database
11 3 (0.71%) Data Vault
11 3 (0.71%) EDRMS
11 3 (0.71%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 50 (11.82%) Git
2 38 (8.98%) JIRA
3 33 (7.80%) GitLab
4 31 (7.33%) Jenkins
5 11 (2.60%) MSI
6 3 (0.71%) Claude Code
6 3 (0.71%) JUnit
6 3 (0.71%) Selenium
6 3 (0.71%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 2 (0.47%) Appium
7 2 (0.47%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.47%) MLflow
7 2 (0.47%) Spinnaker
7 2 (0.47%) Visual Studio Code
7 2 (0.47%) Visual Studio Team System
8 1 (0.24%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.24%) Gradle
8 1 (0.24%) NeoLoad
8 1 (0.24%) TestNG
8 1 (0.24%) WebDriver
General
1 79 (18.68%) Social Skills
2 59 (13.95%) Public Sector
3 27 (6.38%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (6.15%) Finance
5 12 (2.84%) Local Government
6 10 (2.36%) Military
7 9 (2.13%) Legal
8 8 (1.89%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (1.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 7 (1.65%) Banking
10 6 (1.42%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (1.18%) Retail
12 4 (0.95%) Police
13 3 (0.71%) Advertising
13 3 (0.71%) Aviation
13 3 (0.71%) Investment Banking
14 2 (0.47%) Marketing
15 1 (0.24%) Aerospace
15 1 (0.24%) Manufacturing
15 1 (0.24%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 69 (16.31%) Architect
2 54 (12.77%) Developer
3 35 (8.27%) Senior
4 29 (6.86%) DevOps Engineer
4 29 (6.86%) Lead
5 27 (6.38%) Product Manager
6 26 (6.15%) Consultant
7 24 (5.67%) Digital Product Manager
8 22 (5.20%) Solutions Architect
9 20 (4.73%) Azure Engineer
9 20 (4.73%) Technical Architect
10 19 (4.49%) Data Engineer
11 16 (3.78%) Azure DevOps Engineer
11 16 (3.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 15 (3.55%) Analyst
12 15 (3.55%) Azure Architect
13 14 (3.31%) Azure Consultant
13 14 (3.31%) Software Developer
14 13 (3.07%) DBA
15 12 (2.84%) .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (21.99%) Terraform
2 37 (8.75%) .NET
3 23 (5.44%) REST
4 22 (5.20%) .NET Framework
5 21 (4.96%) RESTful
6 18 (4.26%) .NET Core
6 18 (4.26%) React
7 17 (4.02%) CSS
7 17 (4.02%) HTML
8 16 (3.78%) Kafka
9 13 (3.07%) GeoJSON
10 11 (2.60%) ATL
10 11 (2.60%) COM
10 11 (2.60%) CSS3
10 11 (2.60%) HTML5
10 11 (2.60%) MFC
10 11 (2.60%) WPF
11 10 (2.36%) ARM Templates
11 10 (2.36%) Node.js
11 10 (2.36%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 57 (13.48%) Cloud Native
2 35 (8.27%) Legacy Systems
3 25 (5.91%) Onboarding
3 25 (5.91%) Product Ownership
4 17 (4.02%) Enterprise Software
5 16 (3.78%) Wiki
6 15 (3.55%) Hybrid Cloud
7 12 (2.84%) Data Centre
7 12 (2.84%) Linux Command Line
7 12 (2.84%) Public Cloud
8 9 (2.13%) Security Operations Centre
9 8 (1.89%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (1.65%) Cyber Threat
10 7 (1.65%) Enterprise Cloud
11 6 (1.42%) Data Structures
11 6 (1.42%) PKI
12 4 (0.95%) AI Agents
12 4 (0.95%) Team-Oriented Environment
13 3 (0.71%) Distributed Systems
13 3 (0.71%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 62 (14.66%) Windows
2 31 (7.33%) Linux
3 20 (4.73%) Windows Server
4 11 (2.60%) Windows 10
5 6 (1.42%) Unix
6 5 (1.18%) Android
6 5 (1.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.95%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.71%) Rocky
8 3 (0.71%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.47%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.47%) Debian
9 2 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.24%) CentOS
10 1 (0.24%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (34.75%) DevOps
2 133 (31.44%) CI/CD
3 132 (31.21%) Agile
4 93 (21.99%) Infrastructure as Code
5 72 (17.02%) Containerisation
6 60 (14.18%) Continuous Improvement
7 57 (13.48%) Roadmaps
8 54 (12.77%) DevSecOps
9 53 (12.53%) Stakeholder Management
10 48 (11.35%) Problem-Solving
11 41 (9.69%) Technical Leadership
12 40 (9.46%) Decision-Making
12 40 (9.46%) Deployment Automation
13 38 (8.98%) Microservices
13 38 (8.98%) Software Engineering
13 38 (8.98%) Test Automation
14 37 (8.75%) Observability
15 36 (8.51%) Platform Engineering
16 35 (8.27%) Analytics
16 35 (8.27%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 80 (18.91%) Python
2 60 (14.18%) SQL
3 41 (9.69%) C#
4 37 (8.75%) Java
4 37 (8.75%) PowerShell
5 36 (8.51%) Bash
6 27 (6.38%) JavaScript
7 26 (6.15%) Bicep
8 24 (5.67%) TypeScript
9 13 (3.07%) Go
10 5 (1.18%) BeanShell
11 4 (0.95%) PL/SQL
11 4 (0.95%) R
11 4 (0.95%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.71%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.47%) C++
13 2 (0.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 2 (0.47%) Kotlin
14 1 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
14 1 (0.24%) Rust
Qualifications
1 223 (52.72%) Security Cleared
2 157 (37.12%) SC Cleared
3 68 (16.08%) DV Cleared
4 19 (4.49%) Degree
5 16 (3.78%) CISSP
6 13 (3.07%) Azure Certification
7 12 (2.84%) Cisco Certification
8 11 (2.60%) CISM
9 10 (2.36%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (1.42%) BPSS Clearance
10 6 (1.42%) CCNA
10 6 (1.42%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (1.18%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 4 (0.95%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.95%) TOGAF Certification
13 3 (0.71%) VCAP
14 2 (0.47%) A+ Certification
14 2 (0.47%) ACSP
14 2 (0.47%) ISTQB
14 2 (0.47%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (4.96%) Data Quality
2 19 (4.49%) NCSC
2 19 (4.49%) QA
3 14 (3.31%) Accessibility
4 11 (2.60%) SLA
4 11 (2.60%) WCAG
5 7 (1.65%) GDPR
6 6 (1.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (1.18%) ISO 9000
7 5 (1.18%) NIST
8 2 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.47%) GRC
9 1 (0.24%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.24%) ISO 22301
9 1 (0.24%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.24%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.24%) PMO
System Software
1 71 (16.78%) Docker
2 57 (13.48%) Active Directory
3 28 (6.62%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (4.49%) Hyper-V
5 16 (3.78%) Virtual Desktop
6 11 (2.60%) vSphere
7 10 (2.36%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (1.65%) VMware NSX
9 3 (0.71%) VirtualBox
10 2 (0.47%) KVM
11 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.24%) NFS
11 1 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.24%) zsh
Systems Management
1 99 (23.40%) Kubernetes
2 40 (9.46%) Ansible
3 16 (3.78%) Microsoft Intune
4 13 (3.07%) Grafana
5 12 (2.84%) Argo
6 11 (2.60%) Prometheus
7 7 (1.65%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 6 (1.42%) FortiGate
8 6 (1.42%) Single Sign-On
9 5 (1.18%) OPNET
9 5 (1.18%) VxRail
10 4 (0.95%) Istio
10 4 (0.95%) Proxmox
11 2 (0.47%) CASB
11 2 (0.47%) Cilium
11 2 (0.47%) Docker Swarm
11 2 (0.47%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (0.47%) Kustomize
11 2 (0.47%) linkerd
11 2 (0.47%) Podman
Vendors
1 157 (37.12%) Microsoft
2 29 (6.86%) VMware
3 27 (6.38%) Google
4 21 (4.96%) Oracle
5 20 (4.73%) Databricks
6 12 (2.84%) Cisco
7 11 (2.60%) CyberArk
8 7 (1.65%) Splunk
9 6 (1.42%) Dynatrace
9 6 (1.42%) InterSystems
9 6 (1.42%) MuleSoft
9 6 (1.42%) Red Hat
10 5 (1.18%) Zscaler
11 4 (0.95%) Foundry
11 4 (0.95%) McAfee
11 4 (0.95%) NetApp
11 4 (0.95%) SAP
11 4 (0.95%) Starlink
12 3 (0.71%) Apple
12 3 (0.71%) Thales