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 12 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 11 9
Rank change year-on-year +6 -2 -4
Contract jobs citing Azure 360 213 379
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 11.39% 12.43% 11.82%
As % of the Cloud Services category 45.69% 40.88% 45.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 245 178 306
10th Percentile £326 £343 £213
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £508
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +3.45% -8.14%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £594
90th Percentile £688 £700 £706
England median daily rate £525 £525 £540
% change year-on-year - -2.78% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 2 0
10th Percentile - £30.37 -
25th Percentile £56.25 £38.43 -
Median hourly rate £57.50 £51.85 -
Median % change year-on-year +10.90% - -
75th Percentile £58.75 £65.28 -
90th Percentile - £73.33 -
England median hourly rate £57.50 £53.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year +7.48% +52.86% -35.39%

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 788 521 834
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 24.94% 30.41% 26.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 541 396 639
10th Percentile £250 £230 £208
25th Percentile £400 £406 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £600
90th Percentile £688 £688 £695
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 72 20 25
10th Percentile £16.62 £18.13 £12.50
25th Percentile £26.31 £18.41 £14.00
Median hourly rate £57.50 £25.75 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year +123.30% +77.59% -74.78%
75th Percentile £58.75 £36.38 £14.75
90th Percentile - £68.75 £19.80
England median hourly rate £42.69 £26.50 £20.77
% change year-on-year +61.08% +27.59% -24.47%

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 12 April 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 12 April 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 12 April 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 +2 98 £475 -9.52% 68
Somerset +6 92 £525 -4.55% 51
Bristol -10 70 £550 +12.82% 73
Wiltshire +4 56 £525 -13.40% 21
Dorset +2 23 £675 +35.00% 24
Devon -15 10 £450 - 36
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 19 (5.28%) SharePoint
2 11 (3.06%) IIS
3 6 (1.67%) Apache
3 6 (1.67%) Confluence
3 6 (1.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (1.11%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.56%) Documentum
6 1 (0.28%) Apache Superset
6 1 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 4 (1.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.28%) InDesign
3 1 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.28%) PTC Creo
3 1 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.28%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (2.50%) Maximo
2 6 (1.67%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.56%) Primavera
3 2 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.56%) Unit4 Business World
4 1 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.28%) SAP EHS
4 1 (0.28%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 99 (27.50%) AWS
2 86 (23.89%) Azure DevOps
3 45 (12.50%) GCP
4 41 (11.39%) Entra ID
5 35 (9.72%) GitHub
6 24 (6.67%) Azure Data Factory
7 23 (6.39%) Azure Monitor
7 23 (6.39%) Power Platform
8 21 (5.83%) Microsoft 365
9 15 (4.17%) Azure Sentinel
10 12 (3.33%) OpenShift
11 11 (3.06%) Azure AKS
11 11 (3.06%) Azure Key Vault
11 11 (3.06%) GitHub Actions
11 11 (3.06%) Serverless
12 10 (2.78%) PaaS
13 9 (2.50%) Dynamics 365
14 8 (2.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 7 (1.94%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 7 (1.94%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 19 (5.28%) VPN
2 11 (3.06%) Firewall
3 8 (2.22%) DHCP
3 8 (2.22%) Network Security
4 7 (1.94%) DNS
5 4 (1.11%) LAN
6 3 (0.83%) WAN
7 2 (0.56%) HTTP
7 2 (0.56%) NGFW
7 2 (0.56%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.56%) VLAN
8 1 (0.28%) AMQP
8 1 (0.28%) Cisco ASA
8 1 (0.28%) Cisco ISE
8 1 (0.28%) Cisco Nexus
8 1 (0.28%) MQTT
8 1 (0.28%) NAS
8 1 (0.28%) Remote Desktop
8 1 (0.28%) tcpdump
8 1 (0.28%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (5.56%) Power BI
2 19 (5.28%) SQL Server
3 16 (4.44%) Data Warehouse
3 16 (4.44%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (2.78%) Elasticsearch
5 8 (2.22%) Metadata
6 6 (1.67%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (1.39%) Delta Lake
7 5 (1.39%) MongoDB
7 5 (1.39%) Redis
8 4 (1.11%) Star Schema
9 3 (0.83%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.83%) GIS
9 3 (0.83%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.83%) Power Query
9 3 (0.83%) Tableau
10 2 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.56%) Data Vault
10 2 (0.56%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.56%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 28 (7.78%) Oracle APEX
2 20 (5.56%) Git
3 17 (4.72%) GitLab
4 13 (3.61%) JIRA
5 11 (3.06%) Jenkins
6 5 (1.39%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.83%) AdminStudio
7 3 (0.83%) InstallShield
7 3 (0.83%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.56%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.56%) JUnit
8 2 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.28%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.28%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.28%) Mocha
9 1 (0.28%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.28%) Selenium
9 1 (0.28%) Snyk
9 1 (0.28%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.28%) TestNG
General
1 85 (23.61%) Social Skills
2 27 (7.50%) Finance
3 25 (6.94%) Public Sector
4 15 (4.17%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (2.78%) Legal
6 5 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
6 5 (1.39%) Marketing
6 5 (1.39%) Telecoms
7 4 (1.11%) Back Office
7 4 (1.11%) Banking
7 4 (1.11%) Local Government
8 3 (0.83%) Manufacturing
8 3 (0.83%) Military
8 3 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (0.83%) Retail
9 2 (0.56%) Electronics
9 2 (0.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.28%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.28%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.28%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 59 (16.39%) Senior
2 56 (15.56%) Developer
3 49 (13.61%) Consultant
4 40 (11.11%) Implementation Consultant
5 37 (10.28%) Architect
6 32 (8.89%) Azure Engineer
7 31 (8.61%) Data Engineer
8 29 (8.06%) DevOps Engineer
8 29 (8.06%) Senior Developer
9 18 (5.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 16 (4.44%) Lead
10 16 (4.44%) Support Engineer
11 15 (4.17%) Desktop Engineer
11 15 (4.17%) Desktop Support
11 15 (4.17%) Desktop Support Engineer
12 14 (3.89%) Analyst
12 14 (3.89%) Data Architect
13 13 (3.61%) Azure Architect
13 13 (3.61%) Cloud Engineer
14 12 (3.33%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (6.39%) .NET
2 18 (5.00%) Kafka
2 18 (5.00%) REST
3 15 (4.17%) .NET Framework
4 12 (3.33%) ARM Templates
4 12 (3.33%) Keycloak
5 7 (1.94%) GraphQL
5 7 (1.94%) PySpark
5 7 (1.94%) SailPoint
6 6 (1.67%) Flask
6 6 (1.67%) OAuth
6 6 (1.67%) RabbitMQ
6 6 (1.67%) SOAP
7 5 (1.39%) Middleware
7 5 (1.39%) Node.js
7 5 (1.39%) React
7 5 (1.39%) SAML
7 5 (1.39%) Spring
7 5 (1.39%) WebSockets
7 5 (1.39%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 28 (7.78%) Hybrid Cloud
2 26 (7.22%) Cloud Native
3 19 (5.28%) Product Ownership
4 16 (4.44%) Enterprise Software
5 15 (4.17%) Legacy Systems
6 14 (3.89%) Public Cloud
7 9 (2.50%) Data Structures
8 8 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
9 6 (1.67%) Legacy Code
10 5 (1.39%) Data Centre
10 5 (1.39%) Security Posture
11 4 (1.11%) FMCG
11 4 (1.11%) Private Cloud
12 3 (0.83%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (0.83%) Legacy Applications
12 3 (0.83%) Management Information System
13 2 (0.56%) Data Fabric
13 2 (0.56%) Distributed Computing
13 2 (0.56%) Greenfield Project
13 2 (0.56%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 50 (13.89%) Windows
2 26 (7.22%) Linux
3 22 (6.11%) Windows Server
4 11 (3.06%) Windows 10
5 6 (1.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.83%) Debian
6 3 (0.83%) Rocky
6 3 (0.83%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.28%) Android
8 1 (0.28%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (40.00%) DevOps
2 94 (26.11%) Agile
3 66 (18.33%) CI/CD
4 48 (13.33%) ERP
5 45 (12.50%) Scrum
5 45 (12.50%) Validation
6 43 (11.94%) Problem-Solving
7 41 (11.39%) Infrastructure as Code
8 40 (11.11%) Analytics
8 40 (11.11%) PLM
9 34 (9.44%) Containerisation
10 32 (8.89%) ETL
11 31 (8.61%) Collaborative Working
11 31 (8.61%) ITIL
12 30 (8.33%) Business Intelligence
12 30 (8.33%) Continuous Improvement
13 29 (8.06%) Data Engineering
13 29 (8.06%) Data Modelling
13 29 (8.06%) Software Delivery
14 28 (7.78%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 76 (21.11%) SQL
2 56 (15.56%) Python
3 41 (11.39%) JavaScript
3 41 (11.39%) PowerShell
4 35 (9.72%) PL/SQL
5 19 (5.28%) Bicep
5 19 (5.28%) Go
6 13 (3.61%) C#
6 13 (3.61%) Java
7 10 (2.78%) Bash
7 10 (2.78%) TypeScript
8 5 (1.39%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 4 (1.11%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.28%) C++
10 1 (0.28%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.28%) Scala
10 1 (0.28%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 169 (46.94%) Security Cleared
2 148 (41.11%) SC Cleared
3 35 (9.72%) Azure Certification
4 25 (6.94%) DV Cleared
5 18 (5.00%) Microsoft Certification
6 13 (3.61%) Degree
7 7 (1.94%) CISM
7 7 (1.94%) CISSP
7 7 (1.94%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 6 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (0.83%) AWS Certification
9 3 (0.83%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (0.83%) ISTQB
9 3 (0.83%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 3 (0.83%) ITIL Certification
9 3 (0.83%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (0.56%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 1 (0.28%) CSPO
11 1 (0.28%) PMI Certification
11 1 (0.28%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.83%) QA
2 15 (4.17%) Data Quality
3 13 (3.61%) NIST
4 12 (3.33%) GDPR
4 12 (3.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (2.22%) NIST 800
6 7 (1.94%) NCSC
7 2 (0.56%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 2 (0.56%) HL7
7 2 (0.56%) JSP 440
7 2 (0.56%) SNOMED CT
8 1 (0.28%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.28%) PMO
8 1 (0.28%) SLA
8 1 (0.28%) WCAG
System Software
1 54 (15.00%) Active Directory
2 39 (10.83%) Docker
3 9 (2.50%) Hyper-V
4 7 (1.94%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (1.39%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.56%) vSphere
8 1 (0.28%) KVM
8 1 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.28%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 57 (15.83%) Kubernetes
2 50 (13.89%) Terraform
3 24 (6.67%) Microsoft Intune
4 16 (4.44%) Ansible
5 13 (3.61%) Grafana
6 11 (3.06%) Prometheus
6 11 (3.06%) Single Sign-On
7 9 (2.50%) SCCM
8 6 (1.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 4 (1.11%) Argo
10 3 (0.83%) Puppet
11 2 (0.56%) CA Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.56%) Cilium
11 2 (0.56%) Progress Chef
12 1 (0.28%) Docker Swarm
12 1 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
12 1 (0.28%) FortiGate
12 1 (0.28%) Kibana
12 1 (0.28%) Kubeflow
12 1 (0.28%) logstash
Vendors
1 108 (30.00%) Microsoft
2 40 (11.11%) Siemens
3 39 (10.83%) Oracle
4 23 (6.39%) Databricks
5 12 (3.33%) Google
6 11 (3.06%) SAP
7 10 (2.78%) Red Hat
8 9 (2.50%) IBM
9 8 (2.22%) NEC
9 8 (2.22%) VMware
10 7 (1.94%) Starlink
11 6 (1.67%) McAfee
12 5 (1.39%) Cisco
12 5 (1.39%) NetApp
12 5 (1.39%) ServiceNow
13 3 (0.83%) MuleSoft
14 2 (0.56%) Broadcom
14 2 (0.56%) CyberArk
14 2 (0.56%) Palo Alto
14 2 (0.56%) Tenable