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

6 months to
28 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 11 9
Rank change year-on-year +6 -2 -3
Contract jobs citing Azure 353 211 381
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 11.74% 12.52% 11.88%
As % of the Cloud Services category 46.20% 40.27% 45.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 234 174 304
10th Percentile £324 £355 £213
25th Percentile £426 £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 £599
90th Percentile £688 £700 £710
England median daily rate £525 £525 £540
% change year-on-year - -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 £36.75
% change year-on-year +29.94% +20.41% -34.67%

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 764 524 833
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 25.40% 31.10% 25.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 516 397 633
10th Percentile £256 £242 £210
25th Percentile £402 £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 67 15 27
10th Percentile £16.62 £18.28 £12.50
25th Percentile £32.04 £18.51 £14.00
Median hourly rate £57.50 £27.13 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year +111.98% +87.07% -74.78%
75th Percentile £58.75 £37.50 £15.74
90th Percentile £59.25 £68.75 £21.26
England median hourly rate £40.25 £27.19 £21.00
% change year-on-year +48.05% +29.46% -17.58%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +6 90 £550 - 51
Bristol -9 66 £525 - 73
Wiltshire -1 54 £525 -12.50% 21
Dorset -1 17 £675 +35.00% 24
Devon -6 10 £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 20 (5.67%) SharePoint
2 10 (2.83%) IIS
2 10 (2.83%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (1.70%) Apache
3 6 (1.70%) Confluence
4 4 (1.13%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.57%) Documentum
6 1 (0.28%) Apache Superset
6 1 (0.28%) CMS
6 1 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.28%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 4 (1.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.57%) 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 (2.55%) Maximo
2 6 (1.70%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.57%) Primavera
3 2 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.57%) Unit4 Business World
4 1 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.28%) SAP EHS
4 1 (0.28%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 101 (28.61%) AWS
2 91 (25.78%) Azure DevOps
3 42 (11.90%) Entra ID
3 42 (11.90%) GitHub
4 40 (11.33%) GCP
5 27 (7.65%) Microsoft 365
6 24 (6.80%) Azure Data Factory
7 22 (6.23%) Azure Monitor
8 21 (5.95%) Power Platform
9 15 (4.25%) Azure Sentinel
10 14 (3.97%) Azure Key Vault
10 14 (3.97%) GitHub Actions
11 12 (3.40%) OpenShift
11 12 (3.40%) Serverless
12 10 (2.83%) Azure AKS
13 9 (2.55%) Dynamics 365
14 8 (2.27%) PaaS
15 7 (1.98%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 7 (1.98%) OneDrive
16 6 (1.70%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 18 (5.10%) VPN
2 12 (3.40%) Firewall
3 9 (2.55%) DHCP
4 8 (2.27%) DNS
4 8 (2.27%) Network Security
5 4 (1.13%) LAN
5 4 (1.13%) WAN
6 3 (0.85%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.57%) HTTP
7 2 (0.57%) NAS
7 2 (0.57%) NGFW
7 2 (0.57%) SAN
7 2 (0.57%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.57%) VLAN
8 1 (0.28%) 5G
8 1 (0.28%) AMQP
8 1 (0.28%) Cisco ASA
8 1 (0.28%) Hyperconnected
8 1 (0.28%) Remote Desktop
8 1 (0.28%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (5.67%) PostgreSQL
2 18 (5.10%) Power BI
3 17 (4.82%) SQL Server
4 15 (4.25%) Data Warehouse
5 12 (3.40%) Elasticsearch
6 8 (2.27%) Metadata
7 7 (1.98%) Redis
8 6 (1.70%) Azure SQL Database
9 5 (1.42%) Delta Lake
9 5 (1.42%) MongoDB
10 4 (1.13%) Star Schema
11 3 (0.85%) GIS
11 3 (0.85%) Power Query
12 2 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
12 2 (0.57%) Data Lake
12 2 (0.57%) NoSQL
12 2 (0.57%) Oracle Database
12 2 (0.57%) Snowflake Schema
12 2 (0.57%) Spatial Data
12 2 (0.57%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 28 (7.93%) Oracle APEX
2 20 (5.67%) Git
3 17 (4.82%) JIRA
4 15 (4.25%) GitLab
5 11 (3.12%) Jenkins
6 7 (1.98%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.85%) AdminStudio
7 3 (0.85%) InstallShield
8 2 (0.57%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.57%) JUnit
8 2 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.57%) Visual Studio Code
9 1 (0.28%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.28%) MLflow
9 1 (0.28%) Postman
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%) webpack
General
1 87 (24.65%) Social Skills
2 30 (8.50%) Public Sector
3 27 (7.65%) Finance
4 16 (4.53%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (2.55%) Legal
6 6 (1.70%) Telecoms
7 5 (1.42%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (1.42%) Marketing
8 4 (1.13%) Back Office
8 4 (1.13%) Banking
8 4 (1.13%) Local Government
9 3 (0.85%) Manufacturing
9 3 (0.85%) Military
10 2 (0.57%) Electronics
10 2 (0.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.57%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (0.57%) Retail
11 1 (0.28%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.28%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.28%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 60 (17.00%) Senior
2 59 (16.71%) Developer
3 49 (13.88%) Consultant
4 40 (11.33%) Implementation Consultant
5 34 (9.63%) Architect
6 31 (8.78%) Data Engineer
7 30 (8.50%) DevOps Engineer
8 29 (8.22%) Azure Engineer
8 29 (8.22%) Senior Developer
9 18 (5.10%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 16 (4.53%) Analyst
11 15 (4.25%) Lead
12 14 (3.97%) Data Architect
12 14 (3.97%) Support Engineer
13 13 (3.68%) Desktop Engineer
13 13 (3.68%) Desktop Support
13 13 (3.68%) Desktop Support Engineer
14 12 (3.40%) Senior Data Engineer
15 11 (3.12%) Azure Architect
15 11 (3.12%) Azure DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (5.67%) Kafka
1 20 (5.67%) REST
2 19 (5.38%) .NET
3 14 (3.97%) ARM Templates
4 12 (3.40%) Keycloak
5 10 (2.83%) .NET Framework
6 8 (2.27%) Flask
6 8 (2.27%) SOAP
7 7 (1.98%) FastAPI
7 7 (1.98%) GraphQL
7 7 (1.98%) gRPC
7 7 (1.98%) WebSockets
7 7 (1.98%) YAML
8 6 (1.70%) Middleware
8 6 (1.70%) RabbitMQ
8 6 (1.70%) RESTful
9 5 (1.42%) OAuth
9 5 (1.42%) OAuth2
9 5 (1.42%) PySpark
10 4 (1.13%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 32 (9.07%) Hybrid Cloud
2 23 (6.52%) Cloud Native
3 19 (5.38%) Product Ownership
4 15 (4.25%) Enterprise Software
5 12 (3.40%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (2.55%) Public Cloud
7 8 (2.27%) Data Structures
8 6 (1.70%) Legacy Code
8 6 (1.70%) Onboarding
8 6 (1.70%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (1.42%) Data Centre
9 5 (1.42%) Security Posture
10 4 (1.13%) CMDB
10 4 (1.13%) FMCG
11 3 (0.85%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (0.85%) Legacy Applications
11 3 (0.85%) Management Information System
11 3 (0.85%) Private Cloud
12 2 (0.57%) Data Fabric
12 2 (0.57%) Distributed Computing
Operating Systems
1 51 (14.45%) Windows
2 26 (7.37%) Linux
3 23 (6.52%) Windows Server
4 9 (2.55%) Windows 10
5 6 (1.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.13%) Windows Server 2016
7 3 (0.85%) Debian
7 3 (0.85%) Rocky
7 3 (0.85%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.57%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.28%) Android
9 1 (0.28%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 149 (42.21%) DevOps
2 94 (26.63%) Agile
3 68 (19.26%) CI/CD
4 49 (13.88%) ERP
4 49 (13.88%) Scrum
4 49 (13.88%) Validation
5 44 (12.46%) Problem-Solving
6 42 (11.90%) Infrastructure as Code
7 40 (11.33%) PLM
8 39 (11.05%) Analytics
9 36 (10.20%) Containerisation
10 34 (9.63%) ETL
11 31 (8.78%) Collaborative Working
11 31 (8.78%) ITIL
12 30 (8.50%) Data Engineering
13 29 (8.22%) Migration
13 29 (8.22%) Software Delivery
13 29 (8.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 28 (7.93%) Business Intelligence
15 27 (7.65%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 75 (21.25%) SQL
2 64 (18.13%) Python
3 48 (13.60%) PowerShell
4 43 (12.18%) JavaScript
5 35 (9.92%) PL/SQL
6 23 (6.52%) Go
7 19 (5.38%) Bicep
8 11 (3.12%) Bash
9 10 (2.83%) Java
10 8 (2.27%) C#
10 8 (2.27%) TypeScript
11 4 (1.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 4 (1.13%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.28%) C++
12 1 (0.28%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.28%) Scala
12 1 (0.28%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 172 (48.73%) Security Cleared
2 155 (43.91%) SC Cleared
3 37 (10.48%) Azure Certification
4 26 (7.37%) DV Cleared
5 17 (4.82%) Microsoft Certification
6 13 (3.68%) Degree
7 7 (1.98%) CISM
7 7 (1.98%) CISSP
7 7 (1.98%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 6 (1.70%) Computer Science Degree
9 5 (1.42%) AWS Certification
10 4 (1.13%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (0.85%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 3 (0.85%) ISTQB
11 3 (0.85%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 3 (0.85%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (0.57%) TOGAF Certification
13 1 (0.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 1 (0.28%) CSPO
13 1 (0.28%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.38%) QA
2 17 (4.82%) GDPR
3 16 (4.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (3.97%) Data Quality
4 14 (3.97%) NIST
5 12 (3.40%) NCSC
6 8 (2.27%) NIST 800
7 3 (0.85%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.57%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.57%) HL7
8 2 (0.57%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.57%) PSD2
8 2 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.57%) SNOMED CT
9 1 (0.28%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.28%) PMO
9 1 (0.28%) SLA
9 1 (0.28%) WCAG
System Software
1 58 (16.43%) Active Directory
2 43 (12.18%) Docker
3 11 (3.12%) Hyper-V
4 8 (2.27%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (1.70%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (1.42%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.57%) vSphere
8 1 (0.28%) KVM
8 1 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.28%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 61 (17.28%) Kubernetes
2 51 (14.45%) Terraform
3 24 (6.80%) Microsoft Intune
4 15 (4.25%) Ansible
5 14 (3.97%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (3.68%) Grafana
7 11 (3.12%) Prometheus
8 9 (2.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 9 (2.55%) SCCM
9 4 (1.13%) Argo
10 3 (0.85%) Puppet
11 2 (0.57%) CA Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.57%) Progress Chef
12 1 (0.28%) Docker Swarm
12 1 (0.28%) FortiGate
12 1 (0.28%) Icinga
12 1 (0.28%) Kibana
12 1 (0.28%) Kubeflow
12 1 (0.28%) logstash
12 1 (0.28%) WSUS
Vendors
1 106 (30.03%) Microsoft
2 42 (11.90%) Oracle
3 40 (11.33%) Siemens
4 22 (6.23%) Databricks
5 11 (3.12%) SAP
6 10 (2.83%) Google
6 10 (2.83%) Red Hat
6 10 (2.83%) VMware
7 9 (2.55%) IBM
8 8 (2.27%) NEC
8 8 (2.27%) ServiceNow
9 6 (1.70%) NetApp
10 5 (1.42%) Cisco
10 5 (1.42%) Starlink
11 4 (1.13%) McAfee
11 4 (1.13%) MuleSoft
12 3 (0.85%) F5
12 3 (0.85%) Fortinet
12 3 (0.85%) Palo Alto
12 3 (0.85%) Salesforce