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 18 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 11 9
Rank change year-on-year +7 -2 -2
Contract jobs citing Azure 451 210 353
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 12.67% 11.22% 11.32%
As % of the Cloud Services category 45.69% 37.77% 43.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 284 163 270
10th Percentile £375 £322 £335
25th Percentile £430 £369 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £500 £503
Median % change year-on-year +7.95% -0.50% -8.64%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £594
90th Percentile £735 £700 £676
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 5 1
10th Percentile - £18.70 -
25th Percentile £56.25 £25.00 £77.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £65.00 £85.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.54% -23.53% +41.67%
75th Percentile £58.75 £77.50 £92.50
90th Percentile - £78.22 -
England median hourly rate £57.50 £43.23 £42.34
% change year-on-year +33.02% +2.09% -29.32%

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 987 556 812
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 27.73% 29.70% 26.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 611 396 575
10th Percentile £313 £225 £245
25th Percentile £413 £355 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -9.52% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £588 £600
90th Percentile £705 £675 £675
England median daily rate £523 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.00% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 40 49
10th Percentile £14.36 £18.13 £13.63
25th Percentile £17.75 £18.51 £14.25
Median hourly rate £57.50 £18.87 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +204.72% -73.04% +36.59%
75th Percentile £58.75 £27.38 -
90th Percentile - £37.50 -
England median hourly rate £39.50 £25.15 £22.00
% change year-on-year +57.06% +14.32% -33.33%

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 18 July 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 18 July 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 18 July 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 +4 135 £500 - 44
Bristol +3 112 £550 +26.44% 48
Gloucestershire 0 59 £500 -18.37% 40
Devon +8 48 £519 -0.15% 29
Wiltshire -7 44 £500 -14.89% 21
Dorset +5 29 £675 +63.64% 5
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 (5.10%) SharePoint
2 20 (4.43%) Confluence
3 11 (2.44%) IIS
4 10 (2.22%) Apache Spark
5 6 (1.33%) Apache
6 4 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
8 2 (0.44%) nginx
9 1 (0.22%) Apache Superset
9 1 (0.22%) ColdFusion
9 1 (0.22%) JBoss
9 1 (0.22%) Oracle Coherence
9 1 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 4 (0.89%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (0.89%) Trello
2 3 (0.67%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.22%) InDesign
3 1 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.22%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.44%) Maximo
1 2 (0.44%) Unit4 Business World
2 1 (0.22%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.22%) SAP EHS
2 1 (0.22%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 181 (40.13%) AWS
2 74 (16.41%) Azure DevOps
3 68 (15.08%) GCP
4 57 (12.64%) Entra ID
5 31 (6.87%) GitHub
6 30 (6.65%) Microsoft 365
7 26 (5.76%) Power Platform
8 19 (4.21%) Azure Data Factory
9 18 (3.99%) Azure Key Vault
10 17 (3.77%) Azure Monitor
11 16 (3.55%) GitHub Actions
11 16 (3.55%) Serverless
12 11 (2.44%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 11 (2.44%) Cloud Computing
13 10 (2.22%) PaaS
13 10 (2.22%) SaaS
14 9 (2.00%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 9 (2.00%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 9 (2.00%) Snowflake
15 8 (1.77%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 27 (5.99%) Firewall
2 20 (4.43%) DNS
3 14 (3.10%) VPN
4 13 (2.88%) TCP/IP
4 13 (2.88%) WAN
5 11 (2.44%) DHCP
6 9 (2.00%) BGP
7 7 (1.55%) VLAN
8 5 (1.11%) Network Security
8 5 (1.11%) SAN
8 5 (1.11%) VSAN
9 4 (0.89%) NAS
9 4 (0.89%) OSPF
10 3 (0.67%) LAN
10 3 (0.67%) Software-Defined Networking
11 2 (0.44%) Reverse Proxy
11 2 (0.44%) SSL
12 1 (0.22%) HTTP
12 1 (0.22%) Kerberos
12 1 (0.22%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (6.65%) SQL Server
2 23 (5.10%) Power BI
3 16 (3.55%) Data Warehouse
3 16 (3.55%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (2.22%) Geospatial Data
5 9 (2.00%) Data Lake
6 8 (1.77%) Azure SQL Database
6 8 (1.77%) MongoDB
6 8 (1.77%) Oracle Database
7 7 (1.55%) NoSQL
8 6 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
8 6 (1.33%) Metadata
9 5 (1.11%) Big Data
9 5 (1.11%) Delta Lake
10 4 (0.89%) Redis
10 4 (0.89%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.89%) Star Schema
11 3 (0.67%) GIS
11 3 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 3 (0.67%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 32 (7.10%) JIRA
2 31 (6.87%) Git
3 21 (4.66%) GitLab
4 16 (3.55%) Jenkins
5 9 (2.00%) MSI
6 3 (0.67%) AdminStudio
6 3 (0.67%) InstallShield
6 3 (0.67%) JUnit
6 3 (0.67%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 3 (0.67%) Visual Studio Code
7 2 (0.44%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.44%) MLflow
7 2 (0.44%) Selenium
7 2 (0.44%) Spinnaker
7 2 (0.44%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.22%) Appium
8 1 (0.22%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.22%) Gradle
8 1 (0.22%) TestNG
8 1 (0.22%) WebDriver
General
1 71 (15.74%) Social Skills
2 42 (9.31%) Public Sector
3 29 (6.43%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (4.88%) Finance
5 16 (3.55%) Legal
6 9 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (1.77%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (1.77%) Military
8 6 (1.33%) Local Government
8 6 (1.33%) Organisational Skills
9 5 (1.11%) Marketing
10 4 (0.89%) Banking
10 4 (0.89%) Police
11 3 (0.67%) Advertising
11 3 (0.67%) Investment Banking
11 3 (0.67%) Retail
12 2 (0.44%) Aviation
12 2 (0.44%) Publishing
13 1 (0.22%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.22%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 64 (14.19%) Architect
1 64 (14.19%) Consultant
2 40 (8.87%) Developer
3 38 (8.43%) Implementation Consultant
4 35 (7.76%) Lead
5 28 (6.21%) Senior
6 27 (5.99%) Product Manager
7 25 (5.54%) Data Engineer
8 24 (5.32%) DevOps Engineer
8 24 (5.32%) Digital Product Manager
9 22 (4.88%) Azure Engineer
10 21 (4.66%) Technical Architect
11 16 (3.55%) Data Architect
12 15 (3.33%) Analyst
12 15 (3.33%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 15 (3.33%) Solutions Architect
13 14 (3.10%) Azure Architect
14 13 (2.88%) Azure Consultant
14 13 (2.88%) Site Engineer
14 13 (2.88%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (9.31%) .NET
2 27 (5.99%) .NET Framework
3 24 (5.32%) REST
4 18 (3.99%) RESTful
5 14 (3.10%) Kafka
5 14 (3.10%) React
6 13 (2.88%) .NET Core
7 11 (2.44%) GeoJSON
7 11 (2.44%) SailPoint
7 11 (2.44%) Spring Boot
8 10 (2.22%) LDAP
9 9 (2.00%) ATL
9 9 (2.00%) COM
9 9 (2.00%) MFC
9 9 (2.00%) Node.js
9 9 (2.00%) Spring
10 8 (1.77%) CSS
10 8 (1.77%) CSS3
10 8 (1.77%) HTML
10 8 (1.77%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 50 (11.09%) Cloud Native
2 39 (8.65%) Legacy Systems
3 23 (5.10%) Onboarding
4 20 (4.43%) Product Ownership
5 18 (3.99%) Enterprise Software
6 15 (3.33%) Public Cloud
7 12 (2.66%) Hybrid Cloud
8 11 (2.44%) Data Structures
8 11 (2.44%) Self-Motivation
9 9 (2.00%) Data Centre
10 8 (1.77%) Linux Command Line
11 6 (1.33%) Legacy Code
11 6 (1.33%) PKI
12 5 (1.11%) Wiki
13 4 (0.89%) Augmented Reality
13 4 (0.89%) Enterprise Cloud
13 4 (0.89%) Legacy Applications
13 4 (0.89%) Management Information System
13 4 (0.89%) Virtual Reality
14 3 (0.67%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 71 (15.74%) Windows
2 37 (8.20%) Linux
3 22 (4.88%) Windows Server
4 17 (3.77%) Windows 10
5 7 (1.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (1.33%) Android
7 4 (0.89%) Rocky
7 4 (0.89%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.67%) Debian
8 3 (0.67%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.67%) Unix
9 2 (0.44%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.22%) CentOS
10 1 (0.22%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 133 (29.49%) DevOps
2 128 (28.38%) Agile
3 109 (24.17%) CI/CD
4 71 (15.74%) Infrastructure as Code
5 56 (12.42%) Continuous Improvement
6 55 (12.20%) Containerisation
6 55 (12.20%) Roadmaps
7 50 (11.09%) Problem-Solving
8 48 (10.64%) Stakeholder Management
9 46 (10.20%) Analytics
10 45 (9.98%) ERP
10 45 (9.98%) Migration
11 42 (9.31%) Microservices
12 41 (9.09%) Data Modelling
13 40 (8.87%) Technical Leadership
14 39 (8.65%) Decision-Making
14 39 (8.65%) PLM
15 34 (7.54%) Data Pipeline
16 32 (7.10%) Test Automation
17 31 (6.87%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 74 (16.41%) Python
2 70 (15.52%) SQL
3 38 (8.43%) PowerShell
4 31 (6.87%) Java
5 29 (6.43%) C#
6 25 (5.54%) Bash
7 22 (4.88%) JavaScript
8 17 (3.77%) TypeScript
9 15 (3.33%) Bicep
9 15 (3.33%) Go
10 5 (1.11%) BeanShell
10 5 (1.11%) PL/SQL
11 4 (0.89%) R
11 4 (0.89%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.67%) C++
13 2 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 2 (0.44%) Kotlin
13 2 (0.44%) Scala
13 2 (0.44%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.22%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 201 (44.57%) Security Cleared
2 147 (32.59%) SC Cleared
3 54 (11.97%) DV Cleared
4 22 (4.88%) Degree
5 14 (3.10%) Azure Certification
6 13 (2.88%) Microsoft Certification
7 11 (2.44%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (2.00%) BPSS Clearance
8 9 (2.00%) CISSP
9 6 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
10 5 (1.11%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 5 (1.11%) CCNA
11 4 (0.89%) CISM
11 4 (0.89%) ISTQB
11 4 (0.89%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (0.89%) TOGAF Certification
12 3 (0.67%) ACSP
12 3 (0.67%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 3 (0.67%) Master's Degree
13 2 (0.44%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (6.21%) QA
2 22 (4.88%) Data Quality
3 15 (3.33%) NCSC
4 13 (2.88%) GDPR
5 9 (2.00%) Accessibility
5 9 (2.00%) SLA
6 8 (1.77%) WCAG
7 7 (1.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (1.11%) ISO 9000
8 5 (1.11%) NIST
9 3 (0.67%) SNOMED CT
10 2 (0.44%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.44%) GRC
10 2 (0.44%) HL7
10 2 (0.44%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.22%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.22%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.22%) PMO
System Software
1 63 (13.97%) Active Directory
2 58 (12.86%) Docker
3 21 (4.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (3.99%) Virtual Desktop
5 14 (3.10%) Hyper-V
6 9 (2.00%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (2.00%) vSphere
7 6 (1.33%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.44%) KVM
8 2 (0.44%) VirtualBox
8 2 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.22%) NFS
Systems Management
1 79 (17.52%) Kubernetes
2 74 (16.41%) Terraform
3 33 (7.32%) Ansible
4 23 (5.10%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (3.99%) Grafana
6 15 (3.33%) Prometheus
7 12 (2.66%) Argo
8 11 (2.44%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (1.55%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 6 (1.33%) FortiGate
11 5 (1.11%) OPNET
12 4 (0.89%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.89%) Istio
12 4 (0.89%) Proxmox
12 4 (0.89%) SCCM
13 3 (0.67%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.44%) Data Guard
14 2 (0.44%) linkerd
14 2 (0.44%) Oracle RMAN
14 2 (0.44%) Puppet
Vendors
1 155 (34.37%) Microsoft
2 38 (8.43%) Siemens
3 24 (5.32%) Oracle
4 22 (4.88%) VMware
5 20 (4.43%) Databricks
6 15 (3.33%) Google
7 10 (2.22%) CyberArk
8 8 (1.77%) Cisco
9 7 (1.55%) InterSystems
9 7 (1.55%) SAP
9 7 (1.55%) Starlink
10 6 (1.33%) McAfee
10 6 (1.33%) Red Hat
11 5 (1.11%) Dynatrace
11 5 (1.11%) NetApp
11 5 (1.11%) Splunk
11 5 (1.11%) Zscaler
12 4 (0.89%) Apple
12 4 (0.89%) IBM
12 4 (0.89%) MuleSoft