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 21 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 10 8
Rank change year-on-year +4 -2 -2
Contract jobs citing Azure 335 229 378
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 12.13% 12.62% 12.16%
As % of the Cloud Services category 45.27% 39.76% 45.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 225 180 304
10th Percentile £330 £348 £275
25th Percentile £425 £425 £439
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £530 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.49% +0.95% -7.89%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £650
90th Percentile £700 £700 £720
England median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 1 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £56.25 - £14.93
Median hourly rate £57.50 £25.00 £15.35
Median % change year-on-year +130.00% +62.87% -78.07%
75th Percentile £58.75 - £15.78
90th Percentile £59.13 - -
England median hourly rate £57.50 £35.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +64.29% -24.21% -19.69%

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 740 576 834
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 26.79% 31.74% 26.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 506 405 632
10th Percentile £227 £225 £213
25th Percentile £400 £413 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £535 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% +7.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £700
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 11 30
10th Percentile £19.65 £15.16 -
25th Percentile £52.61 £18.98 £14.25
Median hourly rate £57.50 £26.50 £15.47
Median % change year-on-year +116.98% +71.30% -72.09%
75th Percentile £58.75 £28.99 £30.16
90th Percentile £59.50 £68.75 £78.00
England median hourly rate £37.58 £27.50 £21.57
% change year-on-year +36.65% +27.49% -13.72%

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 21 February 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Azure in the South West over the 6 months to 21 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Azure in the South West

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 21 February 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
Gloucestershire 0 106 £475 -19.15% 39
Somerset +7 73 £525 -6.67% 35
Bristol -9 63 £523 -0.38% 75
Wiltshire +13 50 £525 -16.83% 30
Dorset +1 19 £650 +20.93% 21
Devon -4 13 £500 +21.21% 26
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 20 (5.97%) SharePoint
2 17 (5.07%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (1.49%) Apache
3 5 (1.49%) Confluence
4 3 (0.90%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.60%) Documentum
6 1 (0.30%) CMS
6 1 (0.30%) IIS
6 1 (0.30%) nginx
6 1 (0.30%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 5 (1.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.30%) PTC Creo
3 1 (0.30%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 8 (2.39%) Maximo
2 6 (1.79%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.60%) NetSuite
3 2 (0.60%) Primavera
3 2 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.60%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 98 (29.25%) AWS
2 82 (24.48%) Azure DevOps
3 46 (13.73%) GitHub
4 43 (12.84%) Entra ID
5 39 (11.64%) Microsoft 365
6 37 (11.04%) GCP
7 23 (6.87%) Azure Data Factory
8 22 (6.57%) Power Platform
9 21 (6.27%) Azure Sentinel
10 15 (4.48%) Azure Monitor
10 15 (4.48%) OpenShift
11 13 (3.88%) GitHub Actions
12 12 (3.58%) Azure AKS
12 12 (3.58%) Azure Key Vault
13 11 (3.28%) Serverless
14 8 (2.39%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 8 (2.39%) Dynamics 365
14 8 (2.39%) OneDrive
15 6 (1.79%) ShareGate
16 5 (1.49%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 19 (5.67%) VPN
2 15 (4.48%) Firewall
3 10 (2.99%) DHCP
4 8 (2.39%) DNS
5 7 (2.09%) Network Security
6 5 (1.49%) LAN
6 5 (1.49%) WAN
7 4 (1.19%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.90%) Kerberos
8 3 (0.90%) VLAN
9 2 (0.60%) HTTP
9 2 (0.60%) NAS
9 2 (0.60%) SAN
9 2 (0.60%) SD-WAN
10 1 (0.30%) 5G
10 1 (0.30%) Cisco ASA
10 1 (0.30%) DKIM
10 1 (0.30%) DMARC
10 1 (0.30%) Hyperconnected
10 1 (0.30%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (7.46%) PostgreSQL
2 20 (5.97%) Power BI
3 14 (4.18%) Elasticsearch
4 10 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
4 10 (2.99%) SQL Server
5 8 (2.39%) Redis
6 7 (2.09%) Metadata
7 5 (1.49%) Azure SQL Database
8 4 (1.19%) Data Lake
8 4 (1.19%) MongoDB
8 4 (1.19%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.90%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.60%) Looker
10 2 (0.60%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.60%) Power Query
10 2 (0.60%) Tableau
11 1 (0.30%) Amazon RDS
11 1 (0.30%) DynamoDB
11 1 (0.30%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 30 (8.96%) Oracle APEX
2 21 (6.27%) Git
3 15 (4.48%) JIRA
4 11 (3.28%) SonarQube
5 9 (2.69%) GitLab
6 8 (2.39%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.60%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.30%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.30%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.30%) JUnit
8 1 (0.30%) Maven
8 1 (0.30%) Mocha
8 1 (0.30%) Oracle Forms
8 1 (0.30%) Postman
8 1 (0.30%) REST Assured
8 1 (0.30%) Snyk
8 1 (0.30%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.30%) TestNG
General
1 98 (29.25%) Social Skills
2 30 (8.96%) Public Sector
3 25 (7.46%) Finance
4 15 (4.48%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (2.99%) Documentation Skills
6 7 (2.09%) Telecoms
7 5 (1.49%) Banking
7 5 (1.49%) Legal
8 4 (1.19%) Back Office
8 4 (1.19%) Manufacturing
8 4 (1.19%) Marketing
8 4 (1.19%) Military
9 3 (0.90%) Electronics
9 3 (0.90%) Local Government
10 1 (0.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.30%) Law
10 1 (0.30%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.30%) Retail
10 1 (0.30%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 62 (18.51%) Developer
2 56 (16.72%) Senior
3 43 (12.84%) Consultant
4 35 (10.45%) Implementation Consultant
5 32 (9.55%) Architect
6 31 (9.25%) Senior Developer
7 26 (7.76%) Data Engineer
8 25 (7.46%) Analyst
9 22 (6.57%) Azure Engineer
9 22 (6.57%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 20 (5.97%) DevOps Engineer
11 12 (3.58%) Data Architect
11 12 (3.58%) Lead
11 12 (3.58%) Senior Data Engineer
12 11 (3.28%) Cloud Engineer
12 11 (3.28%) Support Engineer
13 10 (2.99%) Desktop Engineer
13 10 (2.99%) Desktop Support
13 10 (2.99%) Desktop Support Engineer
13 10 (2.99%) DevSecOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (5.67%) REST
2 17 (5.07%) Kafka
3 15 (4.48%) ARM Templates
4 13 (3.88%) OAuth
5 12 (3.58%) Keycloak
6 11 (3.28%) SOAP
6 11 (3.28%) YAML
7 10 (2.99%) OAuth2
7 10 (2.99%) SAML
8 9 (2.69%) .NET
8 9 (2.69%) Node.js
8 9 (2.69%) React
9 8 (2.39%) FastAPI
9 8 (2.39%) Flask
9 8 (2.39%) GraphQL
9 8 (2.39%) gRPC
9 8 (2.39%) OpenID
9 8 (2.39%) RESTful
9 8 (2.39%) WebSockets
10 7 (2.09%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 33 (9.85%) Hybrid Cloud
2 23 (6.87%) Cloud Native
3 15 (4.48%) Product Ownership
4 10 (2.99%) Enterprise Software
5 8 (2.39%) Data Centre
6 7 (2.09%) Onboarding
6 7 (2.09%) Public Cloud
7 6 (1.79%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.49%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (1.19%) CMDB
9 4 (1.19%) Cyber Defence
9 4 (1.19%) FMCG
9 4 (1.19%) Management Information System
10 3 (0.90%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.90%) Enterprise Cloud
10 3 (0.90%) Private Cloud
10 3 (0.90%) Virtual Team
11 2 (0.60%) Data Fabric
11 2 (0.60%) Distributed Computing
11 2 (0.60%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 46 (13.73%) Windows
2 20 (5.97%) Linux
3 18 (5.37%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.19%) Unix
4 4 (1.19%) Windows 10
4 4 (1.19%) Windows Server 2016
5 3 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.90%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.60%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.60%) Debian
6 2 (0.60%) Rocky
6 2 (0.60%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 133 (39.70%) DevOps
2 86 (25.67%) Agile
3 57 (17.01%) CI/CD
4 46 (13.73%) Scrum
5 45 (13.43%) Validation
6 42 (12.54%) ERP
7 40 (11.94%) Problem-Solving
8 39 (11.64%) Containerisation
9 36 (10.75%) PLM
10 34 (10.15%) Infrastructure as Code
10 34 (10.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 33 (9.85%) Collaborative Working
12 30 (8.96%) Analytics
12 30 (8.96%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 29 (8.66%) ETL
13 29 (8.66%) Software Delivery
14 28 (8.36%) ITIL
15 27 (8.06%) Business Intelligence
15 27 (8.06%) Requirements Analysis
15 27 (8.06%) Web Application Development
Programming Languages
1 77 (22.99%) SQL
2 62 (18.51%) Python
3 50 (14.93%) JavaScript
4 43 (12.84%) PowerShell
5 36 (10.75%) PL/SQL
6 23 (6.87%) Go
7 19 (5.67%) Bicep
8 12 (3.58%) Java
8 12 (3.58%) TypeScript
9 8 (2.39%) Bash
10 7 (2.09%) C#
11 3 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.90%) Ruby
11 3 (0.90%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.30%) Scala
Qualifications
1 162 (48.36%) Security Cleared
2 151 (45.07%) SC Cleared
3 35 (10.45%) Azure Certification
4 33 (9.85%) DV Cleared
5 13 (3.88%) Degree
5 13 (3.88%) Microsoft Certification
6 10 (2.99%) CISM
6 10 (2.99%) CISSP
7 8 (2.39%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 6 (1.79%) AWS Certification
9 5 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (0.90%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 2 (0.60%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (0.60%) BPSS Clearance
12 1 (0.30%) CBAP
12 1 (0.30%) CCNA
12 1 (0.30%) Cisco Certification
12 1 (0.30%) GIAC
12 1 (0.30%) IIBA
12 1 (0.30%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (6.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 20 (5.97%) GDPR
3 17 (5.07%) NCSC
3 17 (5.07%) NIST
4 13 (3.88%) QA
5 10 (2.99%) Data Quality
6 9 (2.69%) NIST 800
7 3 (0.90%) Government Security Classifications
7 3 (0.90%) PSD2
7 3 (0.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.60%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.60%) SLA
8 2 (0.60%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.30%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.30%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.30%) GRC
9 1 (0.30%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.30%) WCAG
System Software
1 65 (19.40%) Active Directory
2 44 (13.13%) Docker
3 13 (3.88%) Hyper-V
4 9 (2.69%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (1.49%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.60%) vSphere
8 1 (0.30%) KVM
8 1 (0.30%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.30%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 59 (17.61%) Kubernetes
2 46 (13.73%) Terraform
3 22 (6.57%) Microsoft Intune
4 18 (5.37%) Single Sign-On
5 12 (3.58%) Grafana
6 11 (3.28%) SCCM
7 10 (2.99%) Prometheus
8 9 (2.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 9 (2.69%) Ansible
9 3 (0.90%) Argo
9 3 (0.90%) Kibana
10 2 (0.60%) CA Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.60%) logstash
10 2 (0.60%) PingFederate
10 2 (0.60%) Puppet
11 1 (0.30%) Failover Clustering
11 1 (0.30%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.30%) HP ALM
11 1 (0.30%) Icinga
11 1 (0.30%) WSUS
Vendors
1 105 (31.34%) Microsoft
2 42 (12.54%) Oracle
3 35 (10.45%) Siemens
4 18 (5.37%) Databricks
5 12 (3.58%) Google
5 12 (3.58%) VMware
6 11 (3.28%) Red Hat
7 9 (2.69%) ServiceNow
8 8 (2.39%) IBM
8 8 (2.39%) SAP
9 7 (2.09%) NEC
10 5 (1.49%) Cisco
10 5 (1.49%) ForgeRock
10 5 (1.49%) Ping Identity
10 5 (1.49%) Salesforce
11 4 (1.19%) NetApp
12 2 (0.60%) Citrix
12 2 (0.60%) Dell
12 2 (0.60%) Micro Focus
12 2 (0.60%) NetIQ