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

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 11 9
Rank change year-on-year +7 -2 -2
Contract jobs citing Azure 442 205 317
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 12.31% 10.81% 11.23%
As % of the Cloud Services category 44.83% 36.67% 42.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 289 159 235
10th Percentile £398 £325 £338
25th Percentile £450 £369 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year +8.00% -0.99% -8.18%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £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 21 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% +41.90%
75th Percentile £58.75 £77.80 £92.50
90th Percentile - £78.34 -
England median hourly rate £57.50 £41.45 £35.00
% change year-on-year +38.72% +18.43% -37.78%

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 986 559 747
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 27.47% 29.48% 26.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 619 394 531
10th Percentile £325 £214 £250
25th Percentile £421 £353 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -9.52% -4.55%
75th Percentile £616 £588 £613
90th Percentile £709 £675 £675
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 39 43
10th Percentile £14.00 £18.13 £12.97
25th Percentile £16.62 £18.51 £33.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £18.87 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.73% -73.04% +76.99%
75th Percentile £58.75 £29.13 -
90th Percentile £95.02 £37.50 -
England median hourly rate £35.71 £26.00 £23.80
% change year-on-year +37.35% +9.24% -27.88%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 £478 -4.50% 45
Bristol 0 109 £550 +27.91% 105
Gloucestershire 0 56 £515 -18.42% 67
Devon +8 52 £513 -1.27% 45
Wiltshire -8 42 £500 -9.09% 25
Dorset +6 29 £675 +63.64% 12
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 (5.20%) Confluence
1 23 (5.20%) SharePoint
2 11 (2.49%) IIS
3 9 (2.04%) Apache Spark
4 6 (1.36%) 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
1 186 (42.08%) AWS
2 74 (16.74%) Azure DevOps
3 70 (15.84%) GCP
4 59 (13.35%) Entra ID
5 33 (7.47%) Microsoft 365
6 32 (7.24%) GitHub
7 27 (6.11%) Power Platform
8 19 (4.30%) Azure Key Vault
9 17 (3.85%) Azure Monitor
9 17 (3.85%) Serverless
10 15 (3.39%) Azure Data Factory
11 14 (3.17%) GitHub Actions
12 12 (2.71%) PaaS
13 11 (2.49%) Cloud Computing
14 10 (2.26%) SaaS
15 9 (2.04%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 9 (2.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 9 (2.04%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 9 (2.04%) Snowflake
16 8 (1.81%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 28 (6.33%) Firewall
2 20 (4.52%) DNS
3 14 (3.17%) VPN
4 13 (2.94%) TCP/IP
5 12 (2.71%) WAN
6 11 (2.49%) DHCP
7 9 (2.04%) BGP
8 7 (1.58%) VLAN
8 7 (1.58%) VSAN
9 4 (0.90%) Network Security
9 4 (0.90%) OSPF
9 4 (0.90%) SAN
10 3 (0.68%) NAS
10 3 (0.68%) Software-Defined Networking
11 2 (0.45%) Intrusion Detection
11 2 (0.45%) LAN
11 2 (0.45%) Reverse Proxy
11 2 (0.45%) SSL
12 1 (0.23%) SSH
12 1 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (6.79%) SQL Server
2 23 (5.20%) Power BI
3 15 (3.39%) PostgreSQL
4 14 (3.17%) Data Warehouse
5 13 (2.94%) Geospatial Data
6 9 (2.04%) Data Lake
7 8 (1.81%) Azure SQL Database
7 8 (1.81%) Oracle Database
8 7 (1.58%) Metadata
8 7 (1.58%) MongoDB
9 6 (1.36%) Amazon RDS
9 6 (1.36%) 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 (8.14%) Git
2 35 (7.92%) JIRA
3 24 (5.43%) GitLab
4 19 (4.30%) Jenkins
5 12 (2.71%) 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 76 (17.19%) Social Skills
2 51 (11.54%) Public Sector
3 27 (6.11%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (5.43%) Finance
5 13 (2.94%) Legal
6 10 (2.26%) Military
7 9 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 9 (2.04%) Local Government
8 7 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (1.36%) Organisational Skills
10 5 (1.13%) Marketing
10 5 (1.13%) Retail
11 4 (0.90%) Banking
11 4 (0.90%) Police
12 3 (0.68%) Advertising
12 3 (0.68%) Aviation
12 3 (0.68%) Investment Banking
13 2 (0.45%) Publishing
14 1 (0.23%) Aerospace
14 1 (0.23%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 69 (15.61%) Architect
2 49 (11.09%) Developer
3 46 (10.41%) Consultant
4 34 (7.69%) Lead
5 31 (7.01%) Senior
6 27 (6.11%) Product Manager
7 24 (5.43%) Digital Product Manager
8 21 (4.75%) Data Engineer
8 21 (4.75%) DevOps Engineer
9 20 (4.52%) Technical Architect
10 19 (4.30%) Implementation Consultant
11 17 (3.85%) Solutions Architect
12 16 (3.62%) Data Architect
13 15 (3.39%) Azure Engineer
13 15 (3.39%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 14 (3.17%) Azure Architect
15 13 (2.94%) Azure Consultant
15 13 (2.94%) DBA
15 13 (2.94%) Site Reliability Engineer
15 13 (2.94%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (10.86%) .NET
2 32 (7.24%) .NET Framework
3 28 (6.33%) REST
4 21 (4.75%) RESTful
5 18 (4.07%) .NET Core
6 14 (3.17%) GeoJSON
6 14 (3.17%) React
7 12 (2.71%) ATL
7 12 (2.71%) COM
7 12 (2.71%) CSS
7 12 (2.71%) HTML
7 12 (2.71%) Kafka
7 12 (2.71%) MFC
8 11 (2.49%) CSS3
8 11 (2.49%) HTML5
8 11 (2.49%) SailPoint
8 11 (2.49%) WPF
9 10 (2.26%) Node.js
9 10 (2.26%) Spring Boot
10 9 (2.04%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 54 (12.22%) Cloud Native
2 42 (9.50%) Legacy Systems
3 26 (5.88%) Onboarding
4 22 (4.98%) Product Ownership
5 19 (4.30%) Enterprise Software
6 14 (3.17%) Public Cloud
7 13 (2.94%) Data Centre
8 12 (2.71%) Hybrid Cloud
9 11 (2.49%) Self-Motivation
10 10 (2.26%) Data Structures
11 9 (2.04%) Linux Command Line
12 7 (1.58%) PKI
12 7 (1.58%) Wiki
13 6 (1.36%) Legacy Code
14 4 (0.90%) Augmented Reality
14 4 (0.90%) Enterprise Cloud
14 4 (0.90%) Virtual Reality
15 3 (0.68%) Data Protection Act
15 3 (0.68%) Management Information System
15 3 (0.68%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 76 (17.19%) Windows
2 34 (7.69%) Linux
3 25 (5.66%) Windows Server
4 17 (3.85%) Windows 10
5 8 (1.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (1.36%) Android
7 5 (1.13%) Rocky
7 5 (1.13%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.90%) Debian
9 3 (0.68%) Mac OS
9 3 (0.68%) Unix
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 (31.00%) DevOps
2 131 (29.64%) Agile
3 118 (26.70%) CI/CD
4 77 (17.42%) Infrastructure as Code
5 60 (13.57%) Containerisation
6 56 (12.67%) Roadmaps
7 55 (12.44%) Stakeholder Management
8 53 (11.99%) Continuous Improvement
8 53 (11.99%) Problem-Solving
9 46 (10.41%) Migration
10 44 (9.95%) Microservices
11 43 (9.73%) Technical Leadership
12 40 (9.05%) Analytics
13 37 (8.37%) Decision-Making
13 37 (8.37%) DevSecOps
14 36 (8.14%) Data Modelling
15 34 (7.69%) Data Pipeline
15 34 (7.69%) Test Automation
16 32 (7.24%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
17 30 (6.79%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 78 (17.65%) Python
2 64 (14.48%) SQL
3 40 (9.05%) PowerShell
4 38 (8.60%) C#
5 33 (7.47%) Java
6 27 (6.11%) Bash
7 25 (5.66%) JavaScript
8 21 (4.75%) TypeScript
9 18 (4.07%) Bicep
10 15 (3.39%) 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
1 219 (49.55%) Security Cleared
2 161 (36.43%) SC Cleared
3 54 (12.22%) DV Cleared
4 21 (4.75%) Degree
5 14 (3.17%) Azure Certification
5 14 (3.17%) Microsoft Certification
6 12 (2.71%) Cisco Certification
7 10 (2.26%) CISSP
8 8 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
9 7 (1.58%) Computer Science Degree
10 6 (1.36%) 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 26 (5.88%) QA
2 21 (4.75%) Data Quality
3 18 (4.07%) NCSC
4 13 (2.94%) Accessibility
5 11 (2.49%) WCAG
6 10 (2.26%) GDPR
6 10 (2.26%) SLA
7 6 (1.36%) 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 (14.48%) Docker
2 63 (14.25%) Active Directory
3 22 (4.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (4.07%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (3.62%) Hyper-V
6 10 (2.26%) Virtual Machines
6 10 (2.26%) vSphere
7 7 (1.58%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.45%) KVM
8 2 (0.45%) VirtualBox
9 1 (0.23%) NFS
9 1 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.23%) zsh
Systems Management
1 85 (19.23%) Kubernetes
2 80 (18.10%) Terraform
3 34 (7.69%) Ansible
4 23 (5.20%) Microsoft Intune
5 16 (3.62%) Grafana
6 14 (3.17%) Prometheus
7 12 (2.71%) Argo
8 10 (2.26%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (1.58%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 6 (1.36%) FortiGate
11 5 (1.13%) OPNET
12 4 (0.90%) Istio
12 4 (0.90%) Proxmox
12 4 (0.90%) SCCM
12 4 (0.90%) VxRail
13 3 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (0.68%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.45%) Docker Swarm
14 2 (0.45%) Kustomize
14 2 (0.45%) Podman
Vendors
1 163 (36.88%) Microsoft
2 25 (5.66%) Oracle
3 23 (5.20%) VMware
4 19 (4.30%) Databricks
4 19 (4.30%) Siemens
5 18 (4.07%) Google
6 11 (2.49%) CyberArk
7 8 (1.81%) Cisco
8 7 (1.58%) InterSystems
8 7 (1.58%) Red Hat
8 7 (1.58%) SAP
8 7 (1.58%) Starlink
9 6 (1.36%) Dynatrace
9 6 (1.36%) McAfee
10 5 (1.13%) MuleSoft
10 5 (1.13%) NetApp
10 5 (1.13%) Splunk
10 5 (1.13%) Zscaler
11 4 (0.90%) Apple
11 4 (0.90%) IBM