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

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 11 9
Rank change year-on-year +6 -2 -5
Contract jobs citing Azure 360 213 371
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 11.35% 12.41% 11.71%
As % of the Cloud Services category 45.80% 40.73% 45.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 244 178 300
10th Percentile £324 £343 £213
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £594
90th Percentile £688 £700 £706
England median daily rate £525 £525 £543
% change year-on-year - -3.23% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 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 786 523 820
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 24.78% 30.48% 25.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 538 396 628
10th Percentile £259 £240 £209
25th Percentile £400 £406 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £505 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.94% +1.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £600
90th Percentile £688 £688 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 72 22 24
10th Percentile £14.65 £18.13 £12.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.22 £13.96
Median hourly rate £57.50 £21.76 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year +164.31% +50.03% -74.78%
75th Percentile £58.75 £35.63 £14.96
90th Percentile - £65.63 £20.10
England median hourly rate £43.61 £26.50 £20.77
% change year-on-year +64.57% +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 15 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 15 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 15 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 95 £475 -9.52% 57
Somerset +6 93 £525 -4.55% 48
Bristol -10 69 £550 +12.82% 73
Wiltshire +4 58 £525 -13.40% 27
Dorset +1 23 £675 +35.00% 12
Devon -11 11 £450 - 32
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%) nginx
6 1 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 5 (1.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.28%) InDesign
2 1 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.28%) PTC Creo
2 1 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
2 1 (0.28%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (2.50%) Maximo
2 6 (1.67%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.56%) Unit4 Business World
4 1 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.28%) Primavera
4 1 (0.28%) SAP EHS
4 1 (0.28%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 100 (27.78%) AWS
2 86 (23.89%) Azure DevOps
3 46 (12.78%) GCP
4 41 (11.39%) Entra ID
5 32 (8.89%) GitHub
6 23 (6.39%) Azure Data Factory
6 23 (6.39%) Azure Monitor
6 23 (6.39%) Power Platform
7 21 (5.83%) Microsoft 365
8 15 (4.17%) Azure Sentinel
9 12 (3.33%) OpenShift
10 11 (3.06%) Azure AKS
10 11 (3.06%) Azure Key Vault
10 11 (3.06%) Serverless
11 10 (2.78%) GitHub Actions
11 10 (2.78%) PaaS
12 9 (2.50%) Dynamics 365
13 8 (2.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 7 (1.94%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 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%) Hyperconnected
8 1 (0.28%) OSPF
8 1 (0.28%) Remote Desktop
8 1 (0.28%) SAN
8 1 (0.28%) SD-WAN
8 1 (0.28%) SMTP
8 1 (0.28%) Wireless
8 1 (0.28%) Wireshark
8 1 (0.28%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (5.56%) Power BI
1 20 (5.56%) SQL Server
2 16 (4.44%) Data Warehouse
3 14 (3.89%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (2.50%) Elasticsearch
5 8 (2.22%) Metadata
6 6 (1.67%) Azure SQL Database
6 6 (1.67%) MongoDB
7 5 (1.39%) Delta Lake
8 4 (1.11%) NoSQL
8 4 (1.11%) Redis
8 4 (1.11%) Star Schema
9 3 (0.83%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.83%) GIS
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 18 (5.00%) GitLab
4 14 (3.89%) JIRA
5 11 (3.06%) Jenkins
6 4 (1.11%) 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
8 2 (0.56%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.28%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.28%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.28%) Mocha
9 1 (0.28%) Selenium
9 1 (0.28%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.28%) TestNG
9 1 (0.28%) webpack
General
1 85 (23.61%) Social Skills
2 26 (7.22%) 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
7 4 (1.11%) Back Office
7 4 (1.11%) Banking
7 4 (1.11%) Local Government
7 4 (1.11%) Telecoms
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 57 (15.83%) Developer
1 57 (15.83%) Senior
2 49 (13.61%) Consultant
3 40 (11.11%) Implementation Consultant
4 37 (10.28%) Architect
5 32 (8.89%) Azure Engineer
6 30 (8.33%) Data Engineer
6 30 (8.33%) DevOps Engineer
7 29 (8.06%) Senior Developer
8 18 (5.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 16 (4.44%) Lead
9 16 (4.44%) Support Engineer
10 15 (4.17%) Analyst
10 15 (4.17%) Desktop Engineer
10 15 (4.17%) Desktop Support
10 15 (4.17%) Desktop Support Engineer
11 14 (3.89%) Data Architect
12 13 (3.61%) Azure Architect
12 13 (3.61%) Cloud Engineer
13 12 (3.33%) Azure Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (6.67%) .NET
2 18 (5.00%) Kafka
3 17 (4.72%) REST
4 16 (4.44%) .NET Framework
5 12 (3.33%) ARM Templates
6 11 (3.06%) Keycloak
7 7 (1.94%) PySpark
7 7 (1.94%) RabbitMQ
7 7 (1.94%) SailPoint
8 6 (1.67%) GraphQL
8 6 (1.67%) Node.js
8 6 (1.67%) OAuth
8 6 (1.67%) React
8 6 (1.67%) SOAP
9 5 (1.39%) Middleware
9 5 (1.39%) RESTful
9 5 (1.39%) SAML
9 5 (1.39%) Spring
9 5 (1.39%) Spring Boot
9 5 (1.39%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 27 (7.50%) Hybrid Cloud
2 25 (6.94%) Cloud Native
3 19 (5.28%) Product Ownership
4 17 (4.72%) 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%) Legacy Applications
11 4 (1.11%) Management Information System
11 4 (1.11%) Private Cloud
12 3 (0.83%) Distributed Systems
13 2 (0.56%) Data Fabric
13 2 (0.56%) Distributed Computing
13 2 (0.56%) Low-Code
13 2 (0.56%) Onboarding
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
1 142 (39.44%) DevOps
2 94 (26.11%) Agile
3 66 (18.33%) CI/CD
4 48 (13.33%) ERP
5 44 (12.22%) Scrum
5 44 (12.22%) 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 33 (9.17%) Containerisation
10 32 (8.89%) Collaborative Working
11 31 (8.61%) ETL
11 31 (8.61%) ITIL
12 30 (8.33%) Business Intelligence
13 29 (8.06%) Continuous Improvement
13 29 (8.06%) Data Modelling
13 29 (8.06%) Software Delivery
14 28 (7.78%) Data Engineering
14 28 (7.78%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 75 (20.83%) SQL
2 54 (15.00%) Python
3 42 (11.67%) JavaScript
3 42 (11.67%) PowerShell
4 35 (9.72%) PL/SQL
5 19 (5.28%) Bicep
6 17 (4.72%) Go
7 14 (3.89%) C#
8 13 (3.61%) Java
9 12 (3.33%) Bash
10 11 (3.06%) TypeScript
11 5 (1.39%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 4 (1.11%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.28%) C++
13 1 (0.28%) Kotlin
13 1 (0.28%) Scala
13 1 (0.28%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 167 (46.39%) Security Cleared
2 146 (40.56%) SC Cleared
3 34 (9.44%) Azure Certification
4 24 (6.67%) DV Cleared
5 18 (5.00%) Microsoft Certification
6 12 (3.33%) 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%) ACSP
11 1 (0.28%) CSPO
11 1 (0.28%) Master's Degree
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 6 (1.67%) 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 37 (10.28%) 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 56 (15.56%) Kubernetes
2 49 (13.61%) Terraform
3 24 (6.67%) Microsoft Intune
4 16 (4.44%) Ansible
5 12 (3.33%) Grafana
6 11 (3.06%) Single Sign-On
7 10 (2.78%) Prometheus
8 9 (2.50%) SCCM
9 6 (1.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 5 (1.39%) Argo
11 3 (0.83%) Puppet
12 2 (0.56%) CA Single Sign-On
12 2 (0.56%) Cilium
12 2 (0.56%) Progress Chef
13 1 (0.28%) Docker Swarm
13 1 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
13 1 (0.28%) FortiGate
13 1 (0.28%) Kubeflow
13 1 (0.28%) Podman
13 1 (0.28%) WSUS
Vendors
1 109 (30.28%) Microsoft
2 40 (11.11%) Siemens
3 39 (10.83%) Oracle
4 23 (6.39%) Databricks
5 13 (3.61%) 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%) Citrix
14 2 (0.56%) CyberArk
14 2 (0.56%) F5