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 8 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 11 9
Rank change year-on-year +7 -2 -1
Contract jobs citing Azure 444 207 318
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 12.36% 10.95% 11.33%
As % of the Cloud Services category 44.89% 36.57% 42.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 291 160 235
10th Percentile £400 £325 £338
25th Percentile £450 £372 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year +8.00% -0.99% -8.18%
75th Percentile £638 £628 £594
90th Percentile £738 £700 £683
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 4 1
10th Percentile - £27.40 -
25th Percentile £56.25 £46.75 £77.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £85.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.86% -17.65% +41.67%
75th Percentile £58.75 £77.80 £92.50
90th Percentile £62.13 £78.34 -
England median hourly rate £57.50 £41.45 £35.00
% change year-on-year +38.72% +18.43% -34.88%

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 989 566 746
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 27.53% 29.95% 26.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 622 396 530
10th Percentile £331 £213 £249
25th Percentile £423 £352 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -9.52% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £588 £611
90th Percentile £725 £675 £675
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 39 43
10th Percentile £14.00 £18.13 £12.97
25th Percentile £16.62 £18.51 £33.00
Median hourly rate £36.25 £18.87 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +92.10% -73.04% +87.79%
75th Percentile £58.75 £29.13 -
90th Percentile £95.64 £37.50 -
England median hourly rate £35.50 £26.00 £23.80
% change year-on-year +36.54% +9.24% -29.79%

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 8 August 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 8 August 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 8 August 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
Somerset +5 129 £475 -5.00% 47
Bristol -1 110 £550 +27.91% 163
Gloucestershire 0 56 £515 -20.77% 69
Devon +8 52 £513 -1.27% 45
Wiltshire -11 42 £500 -9.09% 24
Dorset +6 29 £675 +63.64% 16
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 23 (5.18%) Confluence
1 23 (5.18%) SharePoint
2 11 (2.48%) IIS
3 9 (2.03%) Apache Spark
4 6 (1.35%) Apache
5 4 (0.90%) Microsoft Exchange
6 3 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.45%) nginx
8 1 (0.23%) Apache Superset
8 1 (0.23%) ColdFusion
8 1 (0.23%) JBoss
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle Coherence
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.23%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 4 (0.90%) Trello
2 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.68%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.23%) InDesign
3 1 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.45%) Maximo
1 2 (0.45%) Unit4 Business World
2 1 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.23%) ResourceLink
2 1 (0.23%) SAP EHS
2 1 (0.23%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 187 (42.12%) AWS
2 74 (16.67%) Azure DevOps
3 71 (15.99%) GCP
4 59 (13.29%) Entra ID
5 33 (7.43%) GitHub
5 33 (7.43%) Microsoft 365
6 27 (6.08%) Power Platform
7 19 (4.28%) Azure Key Vault
8 17 (3.83%) Azure Monitor
8 17 (3.83%) Serverless
9 15 (3.38%) Azure Data Factory
9 15 (3.38%) GitHub Actions
10 12 (2.70%) PaaS
11 11 (2.48%) Cloud Computing
12 10 (2.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 10 (2.25%) SaaS
13 9 (2.03%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 9 (2.03%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 9 (2.03%) Snowflake
14 8 (1.80%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 29 (6.53%) Firewall
2 21 (4.73%) DNS
3 14 (3.15%) TCP/IP
3 14 (3.15%) VPN
4 12 (2.70%) DHCP
4 12 (2.70%) WAN
5 9 (2.03%) BGP
6 8 (1.80%) VLAN
6 8 (1.80%) VSAN
7 4 (0.90%) Network Security
7 4 (0.90%) OSPF
7 4 (0.90%) SAN
8 3 (0.68%) NAS
8 3 (0.68%) Software-Defined Networking
9 2 (0.45%) Intrusion Detection
9 2 (0.45%) LAN
9 2 (0.45%) Reverse Proxy
9 2 (0.45%) SSL
10 1 (0.23%) SSH
10 1 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (6.76%) SQL Server
2 23 (5.18%) Power BI
3 15 (3.38%) PostgreSQL
4 14 (3.15%) Data Warehouse
5 13 (2.93%) Geospatial Data
6 9 (2.03%) Data Lake
7 8 (1.80%) Azure SQL Database
7 8 (1.80%) Metadata
7 8 (1.80%) Oracle Database
8 7 (1.58%) MongoDB
9 6 (1.35%) Amazon RDS
9 6 (1.35%) NoSQL
10 5 (1.13%) Big Data
11 4 (0.90%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 4 (0.90%) Tableau
12 3 (0.68%) Data Vault
12 3 (0.68%) Delta Lake
12 3 (0.68%) Redis
12 3 (0.68%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 36 (8.11%) Git
2 35 (7.88%) JIRA
3 25 (5.63%) GitLab
4 20 (4.50%) Jenkins
5 12 (2.70%) MSI
6 3 (0.68%) AdminStudio
6 3 (0.68%) InstallShield
6 3 (0.68%) JUnit
6 3 (0.68%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 3 (0.68%) Visual Studio Code
7 2 (0.45%) MLflow
7 2 (0.45%) Selenium
7 2 (0.45%) Spinnaker
7 2 (0.45%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.23%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.23%) Gradle
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle Forms
8 1 (0.23%) TestNG
8 1 (0.23%) WebDriver
General
1 77 (17.34%) Social Skills
2 53 (11.94%) Public Sector
3 28 (6.31%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (5.41%) Finance
5 13 (2.93%) Legal
6 11 (2.48%) Local Government
7 10 (2.25%) Military
8 9 (2.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 7 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
10 6 (1.35%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (1.13%) Marketing
11 5 (1.13%) Retail
12 4 (0.90%) Banking
12 4 (0.90%) Police
13 3 (0.68%) Advertising
13 3 (0.68%) Aviation
13 3 (0.68%) Investment Banking
14 2 (0.45%) Publishing
15 1 (0.23%) Aerospace
15 1 (0.23%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 71 (15.99%) Architect
2 49 (11.04%) Developer
3 45 (10.14%) Consultant
4 34 (7.66%) Lead
5 31 (6.98%) Senior
6 27 (6.08%) Product Manager
7 24 (5.41%) Digital Product Manager
8 21 (4.73%) Data Engineer
8 21 (4.73%) DevOps Engineer
9 20 (4.50%) Technical Architect
10 18 (4.05%) Implementation Consultant
11 17 (3.83%) Data Architect
11 17 (3.83%) Solutions Architect
12 15 (3.38%) Azure Engineer
12 15 (3.38%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 14 (3.15%) Azure Architect
14 13 (2.93%) .NET Developer
14 13 (2.93%) Azure Consultant
14 13 (2.93%) DBA
14 13 (2.93%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (10.81%) .NET
2 32 (7.21%) .NET Framework
3 28 (6.31%) REST
4 21 (4.73%) RESTful
5 18 (4.05%) .NET Core
6 14 (3.15%) GeoJSON
6 14 (3.15%) React
7 12 (2.70%) ATL
7 12 (2.70%) COM
7 12 (2.70%) CSS
7 12 (2.70%) HTML
7 12 (2.70%) Kafka
7 12 (2.70%) MFC
8 11 (2.48%) CSS3
8 11 (2.48%) HTML5
8 11 (2.48%) SailPoint
8 11 (2.48%) WPF
9 10 (2.25%) Node.js
9 10 (2.25%) Spring Boot
10 9 (2.03%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 54 (12.16%) Cloud Native
2 42 (9.46%) Legacy Systems
3 26 (5.86%) Onboarding
4 22 (4.95%) Product Ownership
5 19 (4.28%) Enterprise Software
6 14 (3.15%) Public Cloud
7 13 (2.93%) Data Centre
8 12 (2.70%) Hybrid Cloud
9 11 (2.48%) Self-Motivation
10 10 (2.25%) Data Structures
10 10 (2.25%) Linux Command Line
11 7 (1.58%) PKI
11 7 (1.58%) Wiki
12 6 (1.35%) Legacy Code
13 4 (0.90%) Augmented Reality
13 4 (0.90%) Enterprise Cloud
13 4 (0.90%) Virtual Reality
14 3 (0.68%) Data Protection Act
14 3 (0.68%) Management Information System
14 3 (0.68%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 77 (17.34%) Windows
2 35 (7.88%) Linux
3 26 (5.86%) Windows Server
4 17 (3.83%) Windows 10
5 8 (1.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (1.35%) Android
7 5 (1.13%) Rocky
7 5 (1.13%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.90%) Debian
8 4 (0.90%) Unix
9 3 (0.68%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.45%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.23%) CentOS
11 1 (0.23%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 137 (30.86%) DevOps
2 131 (29.50%) Agile
3 119 (26.80%) CI/CD
4 78 (17.57%) Infrastructure as Code
5 61 (13.74%) Containerisation
6 56 (12.61%) Roadmaps
6 56 (12.61%) Stakeholder Management
7 54 (12.16%) Continuous Improvement
8 53 (11.94%) Problem-Solving
9 47 (10.59%) Migration
10 44 (9.91%) Microservices
10 44 (9.91%) Technical Leadership
11 41 (9.23%) Analytics
12 39 (8.78%) Decision-Making
13 37 (8.33%) Data Modelling
13 37 (8.33%) DevSecOps
14 34 (7.66%) Data Pipeline
14 34 (7.66%) Test Automation
15 32 (7.21%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
15 32 (7.21%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 78 (17.57%) Python
2 64 (14.41%) SQL
3 40 (9.01%) PowerShell
4 38 (8.56%) C#
5 33 (7.43%) Java
6 27 (6.08%) Bash
7 25 (5.63%) JavaScript
8 21 (4.73%) TypeScript
9 18 (4.05%) Bicep
10 15 (3.38%) Go
11 5 (1.13%) BeanShell
11 5 (1.13%) PL/SQL
12 4 (0.90%) R
12 4 (0.90%) T-SQL
13 3 (0.68%) C++
13 3 (0.68%) Shell Script
14 2 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 2 (0.45%) Kotlin
15 1 (0.23%) Kusto Query Language
15 1 (0.23%) Rust
Qualifications
1 220 (49.55%) Security Cleared
2 161 (36.26%) SC Cleared
3 55 (12.39%) DV Cleared
4 21 (4.73%) Degree
5 14 (3.15%) Azure Certification
5 14 (3.15%) Microsoft Certification
6 12 (2.70%) Cisco Certification
7 10 (2.25%) CISSP
8 8 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
9 7 (1.58%) Computer Science Degree
10 6 (1.35%) CCNA
11 5 (1.13%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 5 (1.13%) CISM
11 5 (1.13%) TOGAF Certification
12 4 (0.90%) ISTQB
13 3 (0.68%) ACSP
13 3 (0.68%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 3 (0.68%) ITIL Certification
13 3 (0.68%) Master's Degree
13 3 (0.68%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (6.08%) QA
2 22 (4.95%) Data Quality
3 18 (4.05%) NCSC
4 13 (2.93%) Accessibility
5 11 (2.48%) WCAG
6 10 (2.25%) GDPR
6 10 (2.25%) SLA
7 6 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (1.13%) ISO 9000
8 5 (1.13%) NIST
9 3 (0.68%) SNOMED CT
10 2 (0.45%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.45%) GRC
10 2 (0.45%) HL7
10 2 (0.45%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.23%) ISO 22301
11 1 (0.23%) PMO
System Software
1 64 (14.41%) Docker
2 63 (14.19%) Active Directory
3 24 (5.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (4.05%) Virtual Desktop
5 17 (3.83%) Hyper-V
6 11 (2.48%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (2.25%) vSphere
8 7 (1.58%) VMware NSX
9 3 (0.68%) VirtualBox
10 2 (0.45%) KVM
11 1 (0.23%) NFS
11 1 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.23%) zsh
Systems Management
1 86 (19.37%) Kubernetes
2 81 (18.24%) Terraform
3 35 (7.88%) Ansible
4 23 (5.18%) Microsoft Intune
5 16 (3.60%) Grafana
6 14 (3.15%) Prometheus
7 12 (2.70%) Argo
8 10 (2.25%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (1.58%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 6 (1.35%) FortiGate
11 5 (1.13%) OPNET
11 5 (1.13%) VxRail
12 4 (0.90%) Istio
12 4 (0.90%) Proxmox
12 4 (0.90%) SCCM
13 3 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (0.68%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.45%) Docker Swarm
14 2 (0.45%) Failover Clustering
14 2 (0.45%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 165 (37.16%) Microsoft
2 25 (5.63%) Oracle
2 25 (5.63%) VMware
3 20 (4.50%) Databricks
4 18 (4.05%) Google
4 18 (4.05%) Siemens
5 11 (2.48%) CyberArk
6 8 (1.80%) Cisco
7 7 (1.58%) InterSystems
7 7 (1.58%) Red Hat
7 7 (1.58%) SAP
7 7 (1.58%) Starlink
8 6 (1.35%) Dynatrace
8 6 (1.35%) McAfee
9 5 (1.13%) MuleSoft
9 5 (1.13%) NetApp
9 5 (1.13%) Splunk
9 5 (1.13%) Zscaler
10 4 (0.90%) Apple
10 4 (0.90%) IBM