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 26 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 11 9
Rank change year-on-year +6 -2 -4
Contract jobs citing Azure 347 215 375
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 11.69% 12.65% 11.73%
As % of the Cloud Services category 46.14% 40.49% 45.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 228 177 299
10th Percentile £317 £353 £213
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -11.50%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £600
90th Percentile £688 £700 £712
England median daily rate £523 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -0.38% -2.78% -4.42%
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 £44.25 £46.06
% change year-on-year +29.94% -3.92% -16.26%

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 752 531 830
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 25.33% 31.24% 25.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 505 405 631
10th Percentile £255 £238 £210
25th Percentile £403 £406 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £600
90th Percentile £688 £700 £700
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 13 27
10th Percentile £16.62 £18.20 £12.50
25th Percentile £37.18 £18.51 £14.00
Median hourly rate £57.50 £26.50 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year +116.98% +82.76% -74.78%
75th Percentile £58.75 £37.50 £15.74
90th Percentile £60.00 £68.75 £21.26
England median hourly rate £40.00 £26.50 £21.00
% change year-on-year +50.94% +26.19% -16.00%

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 26 March 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 26 March 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 26 March 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 +1 104 £475 -13.64% 68
Somerset +5 90 £550 - 51
Bristol -7 62 £525 - 73
Wiltshire 0 53 £525 -12.50% 21
Dorset -2 17 £675 +35.00% 24
Devon -10 11 £450 +9.09% 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 (5.48%) SharePoint
2 11 (3.17%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (2.88%) IIS
4 6 (1.73%) Apache
5 5 (1.44%) Confluence
6 4 (1.15%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.58%) Documentum
8 1 (0.29%) Apache Superset
8 1 (0.29%) CMS
8 1 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.29%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.29%) InDesign
3 1 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.29%) PTC Creo
3 1 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.29%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (2.59%) Maximo
2 6 (1.73%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.58%) Primavera
3 2 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.58%) Unit4 Business World
4 1 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.29%) SAP EHS
4 1 (0.29%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 97 (27.95%) AWS
2 90 (25.94%) Azure DevOps
3 43 (12.39%) Entra ID
4 42 (12.10%) GitHub
5 39 (11.24%) GCP
6 27 (7.78%) Microsoft 365
7 24 (6.92%) Azure Data Factory
8 22 (6.34%) Azure Monitor
9 21 (6.05%) Power Platform
10 15 (4.32%) Azure Sentinel
11 14 (4.03%) Azure Key Vault
11 14 (4.03%) GitHub Actions
12 12 (3.46%) OpenShift
13 11 (3.17%) Serverless
14 10 (2.88%) Azure AKS
15 9 (2.59%) Dynamics 365
16 7 (2.02%) Azure ExpressRoute
16 7 (2.02%) OneDrive
16 7 (2.02%) PaaS
17 6 (1.73%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 18 (5.19%) VPN
2 12 (3.46%) Firewall
3 9 (2.59%) DHCP
4 8 (2.31%) DNS
4 8 (2.31%) Network Security
5 4 (1.15%) LAN
5 4 (1.15%) WAN
6 3 (0.86%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.58%) HTTP
7 2 (0.58%) NAS
7 2 (0.58%) NGFW
7 2 (0.58%) SAN
7 2 (0.58%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.58%) VLAN
8 1 (0.29%) 5G
8 1 (0.29%) AMQP
8 1 (0.29%) Hyperconnected
8 1 (0.29%) Remote Desktop
8 1 (0.29%) tcpdump
8 1 (0.29%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (5.76%) PostgreSQL
2 18 (5.19%) Power BI
3 17 (4.90%) SQL Server
4 15 (4.32%) Data Warehouse
5 12 (3.46%) Elasticsearch
6 7 (2.02%) Metadata
6 7 (2.02%) Redis
7 6 (1.73%) Azure SQL Database
8 4 (1.15%) Delta Lake
8 4 (1.15%) MongoDB
8 4 (1.15%) Star Schema
9 3 (0.86%) GIS
9 3 (0.86%) Power Query
10 2 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.58%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.58%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.58%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.58%) Snowflake Schema
10 2 (0.58%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 28 (8.07%) Oracle APEX
2 19 (5.48%) Git
3 16 (4.61%) JIRA
4 13 (3.75%) GitLab
5 10 (2.88%) Jenkins
6 7 (2.02%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.86%) AdminStudio
7 3 (0.86%) InstallShield
8 2 (0.58%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.58%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.58%) Visual Studio Code
9 1 (0.29%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.29%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.29%) MLflow
9 1 (0.29%) Mocha
9 1 (0.29%) Postman
9 1 (0.29%) REST Assured
9 1 (0.29%) Snyk
9 1 (0.29%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.29%) webpack
General
1 86 (24.78%) Social Skills
2 30 (8.65%) Public Sector
3 27 (7.78%) Finance
4 15 (4.32%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (2.59%) Legal
6 6 (1.73%) Telecoms
7 5 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (1.44%) Marketing
8 4 (1.15%) Back Office
8 4 (1.15%) Banking
8 4 (1.15%) Local Government
8 4 (1.15%) Military
9 3 (0.86%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.58%) Electronics
10 2 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.58%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (0.58%) Retail
11 1 (0.29%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.29%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.29%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 59 (17.00%) Senior
2 58 (16.71%) Developer
3 49 (14.12%) Consultant
4 40 (11.53%) Implementation Consultant
5 33 (9.51%) Architect
6 31 (8.93%) Data Engineer
7 29 (8.36%) DevOps Engineer
7 29 (8.36%) Senior Developer
8 28 (8.07%) Azure Engineer
9 19 (5.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 16 (4.61%) Analyst
11 15 (4.32%) Lead
12 14 (4.03%) Data Architect
12 14 (4.03%) Support Engineer
13 13 (3.75%) Desktop Engineer
13 13 (3.75%) Desktop Support
13 13 (3.75%) Desktop Support Engineer
14 12 (3.46%) Senior Data Engineer
15 11 (3.17%) Site Reliability Engineer
16 10 (2.88%) Azure DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (5.76%) REST
2 19 (5.48%) .NET
2 19 (5.48%) Kafka
3 14 (4.03%) ARM Templates
4 12 (3.46%) Keycloak
5 10 (2.88%) .NET Framework
6 8 (2.31%) SOAP
7 7 (2.02%) FastAPI
7 7 (2.02%) Flask
7 7 (2.02%) GraphQL
7 7 (2.02%) gRPC
7 7 (2.02%) WebSockets
7 7 (2.02%) YAML
8 6 (1.73%) Middleware
9 5 (1.44%) OAuth
9 5 (1.44%) OAuth2
9 5 (1.44%) PySpark
9 5 (1.44%) RabbitMQ
9 5 (1.44%) RESTful
10 4 (1.15%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 32 (9.22%) Hybrid Cloud
2 21 (6.05%) Cloud Native
3 19 (5.48%) Product Ownership
4 14 (4.03%) Enterprise Software
5 11 (3.17%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (2.59%) Public Cloud
7 8 (2.31%) Data Structures
8 6 (1.73%) Legacy Code
8 6 (1.73%) Onboarding
8 6 (1.73%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (1.44%) Data Centre
9 5 (1.44%) Security Posture
10 4 (1.15%) CMDB
10 4 (1.15%) FMCG
11 3 (0.86%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (0.86%) Legacy Applications
11 3 (0.86%) Management Information System
11 3 (0.86%) Private Cloud
12 2 (0.58%) Data Fabric
12 2 (0.58%) Distributed Computing
Operating Systems
1 52 (14.99%) Windows
2 26 (7.49%) Linux
3 23 (6.63%) Windows Server
4 9 (2.59%) Windows 10
5 6 (1.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.15%) Windows Server 2016
7 3 (0.86%) Debian
7 3 (0.86%) Rocky
7 3 (0.86%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.29%) Android
9 1 (0.29%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (42.07%) DevOps
2 90 (25.94%) Agile
3 66 (19.02%) CI/CD
4 49 (14.12%) ERP
4 49 (14.12%) Validation
5 48 (13.83%) Scrum
6 44 (12.68%) Problem-Solving
7 41 (11.82%) Infrastructure as Code
8 40 (11.53%) PLM
9 38 (10.95%) Analytics
10 35 (10.09%) Containerisation
11 34 (9.80%) ETL
12 32 (9.22%) ITIL
13 31 (8.93%) Collaborative Working
14 29 (8.36%) Data Engineering
14 29 (8.36%) Migration
14 29 (8.36%) Software Delivery
14 29 (8.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 28 (8.07%) Infrastructure Engineering
16 27 (7.78%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 74 (21.33%) SQL
2 62 (17.87%) Python
3 49 (14.12%) PowerShell
4 43 (12.39%) JavaScript
5 35 (10.09%) PL/SQL
6 23 (6.63%) Go
7 19 (5.48%) Bicep
8 10 (2.88%) Bash
9 9 (2.59%) Java
10 8 (2.31%) C#
10 8 (2.31%) TypeScript
11 4 (1.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 4 (1.15%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.29%) C++
12 1 (0.29%) Scala
12 1 (0.29%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 170 (48.99%) Security Cleared
2 152 (43.80%) SC Cleared
3 37 (10.66%) Azure Certification
4 26 (7.49%) DV Cleared
5 17 (4.90%) Microsoft Certification
6 13 (3.75%) Degree
7 7 (2.02%) CISM
7 7 (2.02%) CISSP
7 7 (2.02%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 6 (1.73%) Computer Science Degree
9 5 (1.44%) AWS Certification
10 4 (1.15%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (0.86%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 3 (0.86%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (0.58%) ISTQB
12 2 (0.58%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 1 (0.29%) ACSP
13 1 (0.29%) CBAP
13 1 (0.29%) IIBA
13 1 (0.29%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.48%) QA
2 17 (4.90%) GDPR
3 16 (4.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (4.03%) NIST
5 13 (3.75%) Data Quality
6 12 (3.46%) NCSC
7 8 (2.31%) NIST 800
8 3 (0.86%) Government Security Classifications
9 2 (0.58%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.58%) HL7
9 2 (0.58%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.58%) PSD2
9 2 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.58%) SNOMED CT
10 1 (0.29%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.29%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.29%) PMO
10 1 (0.29%) SLA
10 1 (0.29%) WCAG
System Software
1 59 (17.00%) Active Directory
2 42 (12.10%) Docker
3 11 (3.17%) Hyper-V
4 8 (2.31%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (2.02%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (1.44%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.58%) vSphere
8 1 (0.29%) KVM
8 1 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.29%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 59 (17.00%) Kubernetes
2 52 (14.99%) Terraform
3 25 (7.20%) Microsoft Intune
4 15 (4.32%) Ansible
5 14 (4.03%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (3.75%) Grafana
7 11 (3.17%) Prometheus
8 10 (2.88%) SCCM
9 9 (2.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 3 (0.86%) Argo
10 3 (0.86%) Puppet
11 2 (0.58%) CA Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.58%) Progress Chef
12 1 (0.29%) Failover Clustering
12 1 (0.29%) FortiGate
12 1 (0.29%) Icinga
12 1 (0.29%) Kibana
12 1 (0.29%) Kubeflow
12 1 (0.29%) logstash
12 1 (0.29%) WSUS
Vendors
1 105 (30.26%) Microsoft
2 42 (12.10%) Oracle
3 40 (11.53%) Siemens
4 21 (6.05%) Databricks
5 10 (2.88%) Google
5 10 (2.88%) Red Hat
5 10 (2.88%) SAP
5 10 (2.88%) VMware
6 9 (2.59%) IBM
7 8 (2.31%) NEC
7 8 (2.31%) ServiceNow
8 6 (1.73%) NetApp
9 5 (1.44%) Cisco
9 5 (1.44%) Starlink
10 4 (1.15%) McAfee
10 4 (1.15%) MuleSoft
11 3 (0.86%) F5
11 3 (0.86%) Fortinet
11 3 (0.86%) Salesforce
11 3 (0.86%) Tenable