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

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 11 9
Rank change year-on-year +7 -2 -2
Contract jobs citing Azure 443 216 361
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 12.46% 11.48% 11.28%
As % of the Cloud Services category 45.62% 38.30% 43.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 277 171 278
10th Percentile £370 £313 £330
25th Percentile £425 £369 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £500 £503
Median % change year-on-year +7.60% -0.50% -8.64%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £594
90th Percentile £733 £700 £691
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 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 971 564 827
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 27.32% 29.98% 25.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 598 404 587
10th Percentile £312 £225 £246
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 £600 £600
90th Percentile £701 £675 £685
England median daily rate £520 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +1.46% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 41 51
10th Percentile £14.36 £18.13 £13.85
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% +33.33%
75th Percentile £58.75 £27.25 -
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 16 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 16 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 16 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 +4 130 £480 -4.00% 87
Bristol +3 112 £550 +26.07% 49
Gloucestershire -1 57 £475 -17.39% 52
Devon +8 48 £519 -0.15% 37
Wiltshire -6 44 £500 -16.67% 23
Dorset +4 29 £675 +58.82% 19
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 (4.97%) SharePoint
2 18 (4.06%) Confluence
3 11 (2.48%) IIS
4 9 (2.03%) Apache Spark
5 5 (1.13%) Apache
6 4 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
8 2 (0.45%) nginx
9 1 (0.23%) Apache Superset
9 1 (0.23%) ColdFusion
9 1 (0.23%) Oracle Coherence
9 1 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 4 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.45%) Trello
4 1 (0.23%) InDesign
4 1 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.23%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.45%) Maximo
1 2 (0.45%) Unit4 Business World
2 1 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
2 1 (0.23%) SAP EHS
2 1 (0.23%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 177 (39.95%) AWS
2 71 (16.03%) Azure DevOps
3 65 (14.67%) GCP
4 57 (12.87%) Entra ID
5 30 (6.77%) GitHub
5 30 (6.77%) Microsoft 365
6 26 (5.87%) Power Platform
7 18 (4.06%) Azure Data Factory
8 17 (3.84%) Azure Key Vault
8 17 (3.84%) Azure Monitor
9 16 (3.61%) GitHub Actions
10 15 (3.39%) Serverless
11 11 (2.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 11 (2.48%) Cloud Computing
12 10 (2.26%) SaaS
13 9 (2.03%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 9 (2.03%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 9 (2.03%) PaaS
14 8 (1.81%) Azure Sentinel
15 7 (1.58%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 26 (5.87%) Firewall
2 19 (4.29%) DNS
3 14 (3.16%) VPN
4 13 (2.93%) WAN
5 12 (2.71%) TCP/IP
6 10 (2.26%) DHCP
7 9 (2.03%) BGP
8 7 (1.58%) VLAN
9 5 (1.13%) Network Security
9 5 (1.13%) SAN
10 4 (0.90%) NAS
10 4 (0.90%) OSPF
10 4 (0.90%) VSAN
11 3 (0.68%) LAN
11 3 (0.68%) Software-Defined Networking
12 2 (0.45%) Reverse Proxy
12 2 (0.45%) SSL
13 1 (0.23%) AMQP
13 1 (0.23%) Calico
13 1 (0.23%) DMVPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (6.77%) SQL Server
2 23 (5.19%) Power BI
3 16 (3.61%) PostgreSQL
4 15 (3.39%) Data Warehouse
5 10 (2.26%) Geospatial Data
6 8 (1.81%) Azure SQL Database
6 8 (1.81%) Data Lake
6 8 (1.81%) MongoDB
6 8 (1.81%) Oracle Database
7 6 (1.35%) Amazon RDS
7 6 (1.35%) NoSQL
8 5 (1.13%) Big Data
8 5 (1.13%) Delta Lake
8 5 (1.13%) Metadata
9 4 (0.90%) Redis
9 4 (0.90%) Relational Database
9 4 (0.90%) Star Schema
10 3 (0.68%) GIS
10 3 (0.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (0.68%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 30 (6.77%) Git
1 30 (6.77%) JIRA
2 20 (4.51%) GitLab
3 15 (3.39%) Jenkins
4 9 (2.03%) MSI
5 3 (0.68%) AdminStudio
5 3 (0.68%) InstallShield
5 3 (0.68%) JUnit
5 3 (0.68%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 3 (0.68%) Visual Studio Code
6 2 (0.45%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.45%) MLflow
6 2 (0.45%) Selenium
6 2 (0.45%) Spinnaker
6 2 (0.45%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.23%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.23%) Gradle
7 1 (0.23%) NUnit
7 1 (0.23%) TestNG
7 1 (0.23%) WebDriver
General
1 67 (15.12%) Social Skills
2 39 (8.80%) Public Sector
3 29 (6.55%) Analytical Skills
4 20 (4.51%) Finance
5 16 (3.61%) Legal
6 9 (2.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (1.81%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (1.81%) Military
8 6 (1.35%) Local Government
8 6 (1.35%) Organisational Skills
9 5 (1.13%) Marketing
10 4 (0.90%) Banking
10 4 (0.90%) Police
11 3 (0.68%) Advertising
11 3 (0.68%) Investment Banking
11 3 (0.68%) Retail
12 2 (0.45%) Aviation
12 2 (0.45%) Publishing
13 1 (0.23%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.23%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 65 (14.67%) Consultant
2 62 (14.00%) Architect
3 39 (8.80%) Implementation Consultant
4 38 (8.58%) Developer
5 35 (7.90%) Lead
6 28 (6.32%) Senior
7 27 (6.09%) Product Manager
8 25 (5.64%) Data Engineer
9 24 (5.42%) DevOps Engineer
9 24 (5.42%) Digital Product Manager
10 22 (4.97%) Azure Engineer
11 21 (4.74%) Technical Architect
12 15 (3.39%) Analyst
12 15 (3.39%) Solutions Architect
13 14 (3.16%) Azure Architect
13 14 (3.16%) Data Architect
13 14 (3.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 13 (2.93%) Azure Consultant
14 13 (2.93%) Site Engineer
14 13 (2.93%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (9.26%) .NET
2 26 (5.87%) .NET Framework
3 22 (4.97%) REST
4 18 (4.06%) RESTful
5 14 (3.16%) React
6 13 (2.93%) Kafka
7 12 (2.71%) .NET Core
8 11 (2.48%) GeoJSON
8 11 (2.48%) SailPoint
8 11 (2.48%) Spring Boot
9 10 (2.26%) LDAP
10 9 (2.03%) ATL
10 9 (2.03%) COM
10 9 (2.03%) MFC
10 9 (2.03%) Node.js
10 9 (2.03%) Spring
11 8 (1.81%) CSS3
11 8 (1.81%) GraphQL
11 8 (1.81%) HTML5
11 8 (1.81%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 48 (10.84%) Cloud Native
2 39 (8.80%) Legacy Systems
3 23 (5.19%) Onboarding
4 18 (4.06%) Enterprise Software
4 18 (4.06%) Product Ownership
5 15 (3.39%) Public Cloud
6 12 (2.71%) Hybrid Cloud
7 11 (2.48%) Data Structures
7 11 (2.48%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.81%) Data Centre
8 8 (1.81%) Linux Command Line
9 6 (1.35%) Legacy Code
10 5 (1.13%) PKI
11 4 (0.90%) Augmented Reality
11 4 (0.90%) Enterprise Cloud
11 4 (0.90%) Legacy Applications
11 4 (0.90%) Management Information System
11 4 (0.90%) Virtual Reality
11 4 (0.90%) Wiki
12 3 (0.68%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 70 (15.80%) Windows
2 36 (8.13%) Linux
3 22 (4.97%) Windows Server
4 17 (3.84%) Windows 10
5 7 (1.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (1.35%) Android
7 4 (0.90%) Rocky
7 4 (0.90%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.68%) Debian
8 3 (0.68%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.68%) Unix
9 2 (0.45%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.23%) CentOS
10 1 (0.23%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 126 (28.44%) DevOps
2 124 (27.99%) Agile
3 105 (23.70%) CI/CD
4 69 (15.58%) Infrastructure as Code
5 54 (12.19%) Containerisation
6 53 (11.96%) Roadmaps
7 51 (11.51%) Continuous Improvement
8 49 (11.06%) Problem-Solving
9 46 (10.38%) Analytics
9 46 (10.38%) ERP
10 45 (10.16%) Migration
11 44 (9.93%) Stakeholder Management
12 42 (9.48%) Microservices
13 40 (9.03%) Data Modelling
13 40 (9.03%) PLM
14 38 (8.58%) Technical Leadership
15 36 (8.13%) Decision-Making
16 34 (7.67%) Data Pipeline
17 31 (7.00%) Test Automation
18 30 (6.77%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 72 (16.25%) Python
2 69 (15.58%) SQL
3 37 (8.35%) PowerShell
4 30 (6.77%) Java
5 27 (6.09%) C#
6 24 (5.42%) Bash
7 22 (4.97%) JavaScript
8 17 (3.84%) TypeScript
9 15 (3.39%) Bicep
9 15 (3.39%) Go
10 5 (1.13%) BeanShell
10 5 (1.13%) PL/SQL
11 4 (0.90%) R
11 4 (0.90%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.68%) C++
13 2 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 2 (0.45%) Kotlin
13 2 (0.45%) Scala
13 2 (0.45%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.23%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 193 (43.57%) Security Cleared
2 143 (32.28%) SC Cleared
3 51 (11.51%) DV Cleared
4 21 (4.74%) Degree
5 14 (3.16%) Azure Certification
6 13 (2.93%) Microsoft Certification
7 11 (2.48%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
8 9 (2.03%) CISSP
9 6 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
10 5 (1.13%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 5 (1.13%) CCNA
11 4 (0.90%) CISM
11 4 (0.90%) ISTQB
11 4 (0.90%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (0.90%) TOGAF Certification
12 3 (0.68%) ACSP
12 3 (0.68%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 2 (0.45%) AWS Certification
13 2 (0.45%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (6.32%) QA
2 21 (4.74%) Data Quality
3 15 (3.39%) NCSC
4 13 (2.93%) GDPR
5 9 (2.03%) Accessibility
5 9 (2.03%) SLA
6 8 (1.81%) WCAG
7 7 (1.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (1.13%) ISO 9000
8 5 (1.13%) NIST
9 3 (0.68%) SNOMED CT
10 2 (0.45%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.45%) HL7
10 2 (0.45%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.23%) GRC
11 1 (0.23%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.23%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.23%) PMO
System Software
1 62 (14.00%) Active Directory
2 55 (12.42%) Docker
3 20 (4.51%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (4.06%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (2.93%) Hyper-V
6 9 (2.03%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (1.81%) vSphere
8 5 (1.13%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.45%) KVM
9 2 (0.45%) VirtualBox
9 2 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.23%) NFS
Systems Management
1 76 (17.16%) Kubernetes
2 72 (16.25%) Terraform
3 31 (7.00%) Ansible
4 23 (5.19%) Microsoft Intune
5 18 (4.06%) Grafana
6 15 (3.39%) Prometheus
7 12 (2.71%) Argo
8 11 (2.48%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (1.58%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 6 (1.35%) FortiGate
11 5 (1.13%) OPNET
12 4 (0.90%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 4 (0.90%) Istio
12 4 (0.90%) Proxmox
12 4 (0.90%) SCCM
13 3 (0.68%) Progress Chef
14 2 (0.45%) Data Guard
14 2 (0.45%) linkerd
14 2 (0.45%) Oracle RMAN
14 2 (0.45%) Puppet
Vendors
1 153 (34.54%) Microsoft
2 39 (8.80%) Siemens
3 24 (5.42%) Oracle
4 21 (4.74%) VMware
5 19 (4.29%) Databricks
6 13 (2.93%) Google
7 9 (2.03%) CyberArk
8 8 (1.81%) Cisco
9 7 (1.58%) InterSystems
9 7 (1.58%) SAP
9 7 (1.58%) Starlink
10 6 (1.35%) McAfee
11 5 (1.13%) Dynatrace
11 5 (1.13%) NetApp
11 5 (1.13%) Red Hat
11 5 (1.13%) Splunk
11 5 (1.13%) Zscaler
12 4 (0.90%) Apple
12 4 (0.90%) MuleSoft
13 3 (0.68%) IBM