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

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 11 9
Rank change year-on-year +5 -2 -3
Contract jobs citing Azure 328 225 397
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 11.43% 13.58% 12.26%
As % of the Cloud Services category 44.69% 41.51% 47.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 211 183 315
10th Percentile £350 £330 £222
25th Percentile £434 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £525 £510
Median % change year-on-year -2.57% +2.94% -11.30%
75th Percentile £600 £631 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £717
England median daily rate £525 £536 £540
% change year-on-year -2.10% -0.69% -4.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 1 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £56.25 - £14.93
Median hourly rate £57.50 £25.00 £15.35
Median % change year-on-year +130.00% +62.87% -78.07%
75th Percentile £58.75 - £15.78
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £57.50 £35.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +64.29% -24.21% -21.26%

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 734 542 844
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 25.57% 32.71% 26.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 489 406 643
10th Percentile £227 £225 £213
25th Percentile £400 £409 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £631 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £700
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 11 26
10th Percentile £19.02 £15.16 £14.00
25th Percentile £54.00 £18.32 £14.25
Median hourly rate £57.50 £26.50 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year +116.98% +82.76% -73.84%
75th Percentile £58.75 £28.99 £17.47
90th Percentile £62.70 £68.75 £35.20
England median hourly rate £39.75 £26.50 £21.00
% change year-on-year +50.00% +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 11 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 11 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 11 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 97 £475 -19.15% 48
Somerset +4 77 £550 -6.38% 40
Bristol -15 65 £523 -0.38% 60
Wiltshire +4 53 £525 -13.40% 24
Dorset -2 16 £613 +22.50% 22
Devon -7 12 £513 +24.24% 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 18 (5.49%) SharePoint
2 13 (3.96%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (1.52%) Apache
3 5 (1.52%) Confluence
4 3 (0.91%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.61%) Documentum
5 2 (0.61%) IIS
6 1 (0.30%) CMS
6 1 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.30%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.30%) InDesign
3 1 (0.30%) PTC Creo
3 1 (0.30%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (2.74%) Maximo
2 6 (1.83%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.61%) Primavera
3 2 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.30%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 87 (26.52%) AWS
2 86 (26.22%) Azure DevOps
3 46 (14.02%) GitHub
4 42 (12.80%) Entra ID
5 38 (11.59%) GCP
6 31 (9.45%) Microsoft 365
7 24 (7.32%) Azure Data Factory
8 23 (7.01%) Power Platform
9 16 (4.88%) Azure Monitor
9 16 (4.88%) Azure Sentinel
10 15 (4.57%) GitHub Actions
11 14 (4.27%) Azure Key Vault
11 14 (4.27%) OpenShift
12 12 (3.66%) Serverless
13 10 (3.05%) Azure AKS
14 9 (2.74%) Dynamics 365
15 7 (2.13%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 7 (2.13%) OneDrive
16 6 (1.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 6 (1.83%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (5.18%) VPN
2 12 (3.66%) Firewall
3 9 (2.74%) DHCP
4 6 (1.83%) DNS
4 6 (1.83%) Network Security
5 4 (1.22%) LAN
5 4 (1.22%) TCP/IP
5 4 (1.22%) WAN
6 3 (0.91%) HTTP
7 2 (0.61%) NAS
7 2 (0.61%) SAN
7 2 (0.61%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.61%) VLAN
8 1 (0.30%) 5G
8 1 (0.30%) Cisco ASA
8 1 (0.30%) DKIM
8 1 (0.30%) DMARC
8 1 (0.30%) Hyperconnected
8 1 (0.30%) NGFW
8 1 (0.30%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (8.23%) PostgreSQL
2 20 (6.10%) Power BI
3 12 (3.66%) Data Warehouse
3 12 (3.66%) Elasticsearch
4 11 (3.35%) SQL Server
5 9 (2.74%) Redis
6 7 (2.13%) Metadata
7 6 (1.83%) Azure SQL Database
8 4 (1.22%) Data Lake
8 4 (1.22%) MongoDB
8 4 (1.22%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.91%) Delta Lake
9 3 (0.91%) GIS
9 3 (0.91%) Power Query
9 3 (0.91%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.61%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.61%) Looker
10 2 (0.61%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.61%) Spatial Data
10 2 (0.61%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 29 (8.84%) Oracle APEX
2 22 (6.71%) Git
3 14 (4.27%) JIRA
4 9 (2.74%) GitLab
4 9 (2.74%) SonarQube
5 8 (2.44%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.61%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.30%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.30%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.30%) JUnit
7 1 (0.30%) Maven
7 1 (0.30%) Mocha
7 1 (0.30%) Postman
7 1 (0.30%) REST Assured
7 1 (0.30%) Snyk
7 1 (0.30%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.30%) TestNG
7 1 (0.30%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.30%) webpack
General
1 89 (27.13%) Social Skills
2 27 (8.23%) Public Sector
3 26 (7.93%) Finance
4 13 (3.96%) Analytical Skills
5 6 (1.83%) Documentation Skills
5 6 (1.83%) Legal
5 6 (1.83%) Telecoms
6 5 (1.52%) Marketing
7 4 (1.22%) Back Office
7 4 (1.22%) Banking
7 4 (1.22%) Local Government
7 4 (1.22%) Military
8 3 (0.91%) Manufacturing
9 2 (0.61%) Electronics
9 2 (0.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 2 (0.61%) Retail
10 1 (0.30%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.30%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.30%) Publishing
10 1 (0.30%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 66 (20.12%) Developer
2 57 (17.38%) Senior
3 48 (14.63%) Consultant
4 40 (12.20%) Implementation Consultant
5 32 (9.76%) Architect
6 31 (9.45%) Senior Developer
7 28 (8.54%) Data Engineer
8 21 (6.40%) Azure Engineer
8 21 (6.40%) DevOps Engineer
8 21 (6.40%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 19 (5.79%) Analyst
10 13 (3.96%) Data Architect
11 12 (3.66%) Lead
11 12 (3.66%) Senior Data Engineer
12 11 (3.35%) Desktop Engineer
12 11 (3.35%) Desktop Support
12 11 (3.35%) Desktop Support Engineer
12 11 (3.35%) Support Engineer
13 10 (3.05%) Azure Architect
13 10 (3.05%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (6.71%) REST
2 17 (5.18%) Kafka
3 14 (4.27%) ARM Templates
4 12 (3.66%) .NET
4 12 (3.66%) Keycloak
5 9 (2.74%) FastAPI
5 9 (2.74%) Flask
5 9 (2.74%) GraphQL
5 9 (2.74%) gRPC
5 9 (2.74%) React
5 9 (2.74%) SOAP
5 9 (2.74%) WebSockets
5 9 (2.74%) YAML
6 8 (2.44%) Node.js
6 8 (2.44%) OAuth
7 7 (2.13%) AngularJS
7 7 (2.13%) CSS
7 7 (2.13%) HTML
7 7 (2.13%) OAuth2
7 7 (2.13%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 32 (9.76%) Hybrid Cloud
2 25 (7.62%) Cloud Native
3 14 (4.27%) Product Ownership
4 10 (3.05%) Enterprise Software
5 8 (2.44%) Onboarding
5 8 (2.44%) Public Cloud
6 6 (1.83%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (1.83%) Security Posture
7 5 (1.52%) Data Centre
8 4 (1.22%) CMDB
8 4 (1.22%) FMCG
8 4 (1.22%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (0.91%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (0.91%) Data Structures
9 3 (0.91%) Private Cloud
9 3 (0.91%) Virtual Team
10 2 (0.61%) iPad
10 2 (0.61%) iPhone
10 2 (0.61%) Management Information System
10 2 (0.61%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 40 (12.20%) Windows
2 20 (6.10%) Linux
3 16 (4.88%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.22%) Windows 10
4 4 (1.22%) Windows Server 2016
5 2 (0.61%) Debian
5 2 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.61%) Rocky
5 2 (0.61%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (41.46%) DevOps
2 84 (25.61%) Agile
3 60 (18.29%) CI/CD
4 47 (14.33%) Scrum
5 45 (13.72%) ERP
6 44 (13.41%) Validation
7 41 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
8 40 (12.20%) PLM
9 38 (11.59%) Containerisation
10 34 (10.37%) Analytics
11 31 (9.45%) ETL
11 31 (9.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 30 (9.15%) Collaborative Working
12 30 (9.15%) Infrastructure as Code
13 29 (8.84%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 29 (8.84%) Software Delivery
14 27 (8.23%) Business Intelligence
14 27 (8.23%) Data Engineering
14 27 (8.23%) ITIL
14 27 (8.23%) Web Application Development
Programming Languages
1 80 (24.39%) SQL
2 66 (20.12%) Python
3 50 (15.24%) JavaScript
4 42 (12.80%) PowerShell
5 36 (10.98%) PL/SQL
6 24 (7.32%) Go
7 18 (5.49%) Bicep
8 13 (3.96%) TypeScript
9 12 (3.66%) Java
10 10 (3.05%) C#
11 8 (2.44%) Bash
12 4 (1.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 4 (1.22%) T-SQL
13 3 (0.91%) Ruby
14 1 (0.30%) C++
14 1 (0.30%) Scala
Qualifications
1 155 (47.26%) Security Cleared
2 142 (43.29%) SC Cleared
3 35 (10.67%) Azure Certification
4 30 (9.15%) DV Cleared
5 17 (5.18%) Degree
6 14 (4.27%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (2.44%) CISM
7 8 (2.44%) CISSP
7 8 (2.44%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (2.13%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 5 (1.52%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.91%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 3 (0.91%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.91%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (0.61%) ISTQB
11 2 (0.61%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 1 (0.30%) CBAP
12 1 (0.30%) IIBA
12 1 (0.30%) PMI Certification
12 1 (0.30%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (5.49%) GDPR
1 18 (5.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 15 (4.57%) NIST
3 14 (4.27%) QA
4 13 (3.96%) NCSC
5 11 (3.35%) Data Quality
6 8 (2.44%) NIST 800
7 3 (0.91%) Government Security Classifications
7 3 (0.91%) PSD2
7 3 (0.91%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.61%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.61%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.61%) SLA
9 1 (0.30%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.30%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.30%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.30%) WCAG
System Software
1 58 (17.68%) Active Directory
2 42 (12.80%) Docker
3 12 (3.66%) Hyper-V
4 8 (2.44%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (1.52%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (1.22%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.61%) vSphere
8 1 (0.30%) KVM
8 1 (0.30%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 1 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.30%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 57 (17.38%) Kubernetes
2 45 (13.72%) Terraform
3 20 (6.10%) Microsoft Intune
4 15 (4.57%) Single Sign-On
5 13 (3.96%) Grafana
6 11 (3.35%) Prometheus
7 10 (3.05%) Ansible
8 9 (2.74%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 8 (2.44%) SCCM
10 3 (0.91%) Argo
11 2 (0.61%) CA Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.61%) Puppet
12 1 (0.30%) Failover Clustering
12 1 (0.30%) FortiGate
12 1 (0.30%) Icinga
12 1 (0.30%) Kibana
12 1 (0.30%) logstash
12 1 (0.30%) PingFederate
12 1 (0.30%) WSUS
Vendors
1 103 (31.40%) Microsoft
2 43 (13.11%) Oracle
3 40 (12.20%) Siemens
4 20 (6.10%) Databricks
5 13 (3.96%) Google
6 10 (3.05%) Red Hat
6 10 (3.05%) VMware
7 9 (2.74%) IBM
7 9 (2.74%) ServiceNow
8 8 (2.44%) NEC
8 8 (2.44%) SAP
9 5 (1.52%) Cisco
9 5 (1.52%) ForgeRock
10 4 (1.22%) NetApp
10 4 (1.22%) Ping Identity
10 4 (1.22%) Salesforce
11 3 (0.91%) Starlink
12 2 (0.61%) McAfee
12 2 (0.61%) NetIQ
12 2 (0.61%) Okta