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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 11 8
Rank change year-on-year +5 -3 -2
Contract jobs citing Azure 341 226 396
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 11.86% 13.50% 12.26%
As % of the Cloud Services category 45.53% 41.62% 47.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 224 184 314
10th Percentile £340 £330 £220
25th Percentile £425 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £510
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.94% -11.30%
75th Percentile £591 £638 £625
90th Percentile £688 £700 £718
England median daily rate £525 £538 £540
% change year-on-year -2.33% -0.46% -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 749 543 841
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 26.05% 32.44% 26.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 508 407 640
10th Percentile £227 £228 £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 £588 £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 63 11 26
10th Percentile £18.95 £15.16 £14.00
25th Percentile £52.61 £18.32 £14.25
Median hourly rate £57.50 £26.50 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year +116.98% +82.76% -72.82%
75th Percentile £58.75 £28.99 £17.47
90th Percentile £59.75 £68.75 £35.20
England median hourly rate £37.58 £26.81 £21.00
% change year-on-year +40.16% +27.68% -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 9 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 9 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 9 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 +1 103 £475 -20.83% 57
Somerset +4 80 £525 -10.64% 50
Bristol -8 66 £524 -0.19% 69
Wiltshire +2 53 £525 -13.40% 27
Dorset -3 17 £650 +30.00% 22
Devon -5 14 £513 +24.24% 38
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 22 (6.45%) SharePoint
2 16 (4.69%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (1.76%) Confluence
4 5 (1.47%) Apache
5 3 (0.88%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.59%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.59%) Documentum
7 1 (0.29%) CMS
7 1 (0.29%) IIS
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.29%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 5 (1.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.59%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.29%) InDesign
3 1 (0.29%) PTC Creo
3 1 (0.29%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (2.64%) Maximo
2 6 (1.76%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.59%) Primavera
3 2 (0.59%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.29%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.29%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 92 (26.98%) AWS
2 88 (25.81%) Azure DevOps
3 47 (13.78%) GitHub
4 46 (13.49%) Entra ID
5 39 (11.44%) GCP
6 36 (10.56%) Microsoft 365
7 25 (7.33%) Power Platform
8 24 (7.04%) Azure Data Factory
9 19 (5.57%) Azure Sentinel
10 15 (4.40%) Azure Monitor
10 15 (4.40%) GitHub Actions
11 14 (4.11%) Azure Key Vault
11 14 (4.11%) OpenShift
12 12 (3.52%) Serverless
13 11 (3.23%) Azure AKS
14 9 (2.64%) Dynamics 365
15 8 (2.35%) OneDrive
16 7 (2.05%) Azure ExpressRoute
17 6 (1.76%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 6 (1.76%) ShareGate
Communications & Networking
1 17 (4.99%) VPN
2 14 (4.11%) Firewall
3 9 (2.64%) DHCP
4 6 (1.76%) DNS
4 6 (1.76%) Network Security
5 4 (1.17%) LAN
5 4 (1.17%) TCP/IP
5 4 (1.17%) WAN
6 3 (0.88%) HTTP
6 3 (0.88%) Kerberos
7 2 (0.59%) NAS
7 2 (0.59%) SAN
7 2 (0.59%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.59%) VLAN
8 1 (0.29%) 5G
8 1 (0.29%) DKIM
8 1 (0.29%) DMARC
8 1 (0.29%) Hyperconnected
8 1 (0.29%) NGFW
8 1 (0.29%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (7.92%) PostgreSQL
2 22 (6.45%) Power BI
3 13 (3.81%) Elasticsearch
4 11 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
5 10 (2.93%) SQL Server
6 9 (2.64%) Metadata
6 9 (2.64%) Redis
7 6 (1.76%) Azure SQL Database
8 4 (1.17%) Data Lake
8 4 (1.17%) MongoDB
8 4 (1.17%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.88%) Delta Lake
9 3 (0.88%) GIS
9 3 (0.88%) Power Query
9 3 (0.88%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.59%) Looker
10 2 (0.59%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.59%) Spatial Data
10 2 (0.59%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 29 (8.50%) Oracle APEX
2 22 (6.45%) Git
3 16 (4.69%) JIRA
4 10 (2.93%) SonarQube
5 9 (2.64%) GitLab
6 8 (2.35%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.59%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.29%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.29%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.29%) JUnit
8 1 (0.29%) Maven
8 1 (0.29%) Mocha
8 1 (0.29%) Postman
8 1 (0.29%) REST Assured
8 1 (0.29%) Snyk
8 1 (0.29%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.29%) TestNG
8 1 (0.29%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.29%) webpack
General
1 97 (28.45%) Social Skills
2 29 (8.50%) Public Sector
3 25 (7.33%) Finance
4 14 (4.11%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (2.64%) Documentation Skills
6 6 (1.76%) Legal
6 6 (1.76%) Telecoms
7 5 (1.47%) Marketing
8 4 (1.17%) Back Office
8 4 (1.17%) Banking
8 4 (1.17%) Local Government
8 4 (1.17%) Military
9 3 (0.88%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.59%) Electronics
10 2 (0.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.59%) Retail
11 1 (0.29%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.29%) Law
11 1 (0.29%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.29%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 66 (19.35%) Developer
2 57 (16.72%) Senior
3 48 (14.08%) Consultant
4 40 (11.73%) Implementation Consultant
5 33 (9.68%) Architect
6 31 (9.09%) Senior Developer
7 27 (7.92%) Data Engineer
8 23 (6.74%) Analyst
9 21 (6.16%) DevOps Engineer
9 21 (6.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 20 (5.87%) Azure Engineer
11 12 (3.52%) Data Architect
11 12 (3.52%) Desktop Engineer
11 12 (3.52%) Desktop Support
11 12 (3.52%) Desktop Support Engineer
11 12 (3.52%) Lead
11 12 (3.52%) Senior Data Engineer
11 12 (3.52%) Support Engineer
12 10 (2.93%) Azure Architect
12 10 (2.93%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (6.45%) REST
2 17 (4.99%) Kafka
3 14 (4.11%) ARM Templates
4 12 (3.52%) Keycloak
5 11 (3.23%) .NET
6 10 (2.93%) OAuth
6 10 (2.93%) React
6 10 (2.93%) YAML
7 9 (2.64%) FastAPI
7 9 (2.64%) Flask
7 9 (2.64%) GraphQL
7 9 (2.64%) gRPC
7 9 (2.64%) Node.js
7 9 (2.64%) SAML
7 9 (2.64%) SOAP
7 9 (2.64%) WebSockets
8 7 (2.05%) AngularJS
8 7 (2.05%) CSS
8 7 (2.05%) HTML
8 7 (2.05%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 32 (9.38%) Hybrid Cloud
2 26 (7.62%) Cloud Native
3 15 (4.40%) Product Ownership
4 10 (2.93%) Enterprise Software
5 9 (2.64%) Public Cloud
6 8 (2.35%) Onboarding
7 6 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.76%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.47%) Data Centre
9 4 (1.17%) CMDB
9 4 (1.17%) FMCG
9 4 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.88%) Data Structures
10 3 (0.88%) Management Information System
10 3 (0.88%) Private Cloud
10 3 (0.88%) Virtual Team
11 2 (0.59%) iPad
11 2 (0.59%) iPhone
11 2 (0.59%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 42 (12.32%) Windows
2 20 (5.87%) Linux
3 15 (4.40%) Windows Server
4 6 (1.76%) Windows 10
5 4 (1.17%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (0.59%) Debian
6 2 (0.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.59%) Rocky
6 2 (0.59%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.29%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (40.76%) DevOps
2 87 (25.51%) Agile
3 61 (17.89%) CI/CD
4 47 (13.78%) ERP
5 46 (13.49%) Scrum
6 45 (13.20%) Validation
7 43 (12.61%) Problem-Solving
8 40 (11.73%) Containerisation
8 40 (11.73%) PLM
9 35 (10.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 33 (9.68%) Analytics
10 33 (9.68%) Infrastructure as Code
11 31 (9.09%) Collaborative Working
11 31 (9.09%) ETL
12 29 (8.50%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 29 (8.50%) ITIL
12 29 (8.50%) Software Delivery
13 28 (8.21%) Business Intelligence
13 28 (8.21%) Migration
14 27 (7.92%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 80 (23.46%) SQL
2 66 (19.35%) Python
3 50 (14.66%) JavaScript
4 43 (12.61%) PowerShell
5 36 (10.56%) PL/SQL
6 24 (7.04%) Go
7 19 (5.57%) Bicep
8 14 (4.11%) TypeScript
9 12 (3.52%) Java
10 10 (2.93%) C#
11 8 (2.35%) Bash
12 4 (1.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 4 (1.17%) T-SQL
13 3 (0.88%) Ruby
14 1 (0.29%) C++
14 1 (0.29%) Scala
Qualifications
1 163 (47.80%) Security Cleared
2 149 (43.70%) SC Cleared
3 36 (10.56%) Azure Certification
4 31 (9.09%) DV Cleared
5 17 (4.99%) Degree
6 14 (4.11%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (2.35%) CISM
7 8 (2.35%) CISSP
7 8 (2.35%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (2.05%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 6 (1.76%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.88%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 3 (0.88%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.88%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (0.59%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (0.59%) ISTQB
11 2 (0.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 1 (0.29%) CBAP
12 1 (0.29%) IIBA
12 1 (0.29%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (6.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 20 (5.87%) GDPR
3 16 (4.69%) NIST
4 15 (4.40%) NCSC
5 14 (4.11%) QA
6 11 (3.23%) Data Quality
7 8 (2.35%) NIST 800
8 3 (0.88%) Government Security Classifications
8 3 (0.88%) PSD2
8 3 (0.88%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.59%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.59%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.59%) SLA
10 1 (0.29%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.29%) GRC
10 1 (0.29%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.29%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.29%) WCAG
System Software
1 63 (18.48%) Active Directory
2 45 (13.20%) Docker
3 12 (3.52%) Hyper-V
4 8 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (1.47%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (1.47%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.59%) vSphere
7 1 (0.29%) KVM
7 1 (0.29%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 1 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.29%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 60 (17.60%) Kubernetes
2 46 (13.49%) Terraform
3 24 (7.04%) Microsoft Intune
4 16 (4.69%) Single Sign-On
5 13 (3.81%) Grafana
6 11 (3.23%) Prometheus
6 11 (3.23%) SCCM
7 10 (2.93%) Ansible
8 9 (2.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 3 (0.88%) Argo
10 2 (0.59%) CA Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.59%) Kibana
10 2 (0.59%) Puppet
11 1 (0.29%) Failover Clustering
11 1 (0.29%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.29%) HP ALM
11 1 (0.29%) Icinga
11 1 (0.29%) logstash
11 1 (0.29%) PingFederate
11 1 (0.29%) WSUS
Vendors
1 111 (32.55%) Microsoft
2 43 (12.61%) Oracle
3 40 (11.73%) Siemens
4 20 (5.87%) Databricks
5 13 (3.81%) Google
6 10 (2.93%) Red Hat
6 10 (2.93%) VMware
7 9 (2.64%) IBM
7 9 (2.64%) ServiceNow
8 8 (2.35%) NEC
8 8 (2.35%) SAP
9 5 (1.47%) Cisco
9 5 (1.47%) ForgeRock
10 4 (1.17%) NetApp
10 4 (1.17%) Ping Identity
10 4 (1.17%) Salesforce
11 3 (0.88%) Starlink
12 2 (0.59%) McAfee
12 2 (0.59%) Okta
12 2 (0.59%) Palo Alto