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 2 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 8 13
Rank change year-on-year +2 +5 -6
Contract jobs citing Azure 413 251 257
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 11.05% 12.73% 10.07%
As % of the Cloud Services category 42.71% 40.48% 37.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 279 191 183
10th Percentile £405 £308 £353
25th Percentile £455 £409 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £512 £505
Median % change year-on-year +7.53% +1.29% -8.18%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £600
90th Percentile £738 £713 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £540
% change year-on-year - -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 1
10th Percentile £68.51 £27.40 -
25th Percentile £77.52 £46.75 £77.50
Median hourly rate £92.53 £64.00 £85.00
Median % change year-on-year +44.58% -24.71% +434.59%
75th Percentile £96.27 £73.75 £92.50
90th Percentile £98.51 £76.00 -
England median hourly rate £52.50 £34.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +54.41% -2.86% -24.21%

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 967 620 693
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 25.87% 31.46% 27.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 619 426 440
10th Percentile £336 £213 £232
25th Percentile £438 £353 £418
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £488 £525
Median % change year-on-year +10.77% -7.14% -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £600 £625
90th Percentile £738 £700 £700
England median daily rate £525 £505 £530
% change year-on-year +3.96% -4.72% -3.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 33 43
10th Percentile £14.00 £18.20 £25.26
25th Percentile £16.00 - £33.00
Median hourly rate £19.50 £18.87 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.34% -73.04% +112.12%
75th Percentile £54.40 £33.75 -
90th Percentile £82.00 £55.20 -
England median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +29.22% -28.14% +7.99%

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 2 October 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 2 October 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 2 October 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
Bristol -2 109 £550 +15.79% 138
Somerset +3 104 £475 +11.76% 85
Devon +10 61 £530 +0.95% 60
Gloucestershire -5 46 £550 -4.35% 163
Wiltshire -4 40 £535 -5.93% 53
Dorset +1 27 £675 +34.33% 44
Avon - 2 - - 66
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 29 (7.02%) Confluence
2 25 (6.05%) SharePoint
3 10 (2.42%) Apache Spark
4 6 (1.45%) Microsoft Exchange
5 5 (1.21%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.97%) Apache
7 2 (0.48%) nginx
8 1 (0.24%) ColdFusion
8 1 (0.24%) IIS
8 1 (0.24%) JBoss
8 1 (0.24%) Oracle Coherence
8 1 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.24%) Traefik
Applications
1 5 (1.21%) MS Visio
2 3 (0.73%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.73%) Trello
3 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.24%) ResourceLink
1 1 (0.24%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 179 (43.34%) AWS
2 77 (18.64%) GCP
3 76 (18.40%) Azure DevOps
4 50 (12.11%) Entra ID
5 38 (9.20%) Microsoft 365
6 29 (7.02%) GitHub
7 26 (6.30%) Power Platform
8 18 (4.36%) Azure Data Factory
9 15 (3.63%) Azure AKS
10 14 (3.39%) GitHub Actions
10 14 (3.39%) Serverless
11 12 (2.91%) Azure Key Vault
12 10 (2.42%) SaaS
13 9 (2.18%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 9 (2.18%) Azure Functions
13 9 (2.18%) Azure Monitor
13 9 (2.18%) Azure Sentinel
13 9 (2.18%) Cloud Computing
13 9 (2.18%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 8 (1.94%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 34 (8.23%) Firewall
2 23 (5.57%) DNS
3 17 (4.12%) TCP/IP
4 16 (3.87%) DHCP
5 15 (3.63%) WAN
6 12 (2.91%) VPN
7 11 (2.66%) VLAN
8 9 (2.18%) BGP
9 8 (1.94%) VSAN
10 5 (1.21%) Cisco IOS
10 5 (1.21%) LAN
10 5 (1.21%) Network Security
10 5 (1.21%) Wireless
11 4 (0.97%) OSPF
11 4 (0.97%) SAN
12 3 (0.73%) Intrusion Detection
12 3 (0.73%) NAS
12 3 (0.73%) Software-Defined Networking
13 2 (0.48%) NetScaler
13 2 (0.48%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (5.57%) SQL Server
2 21 (5.08%) Power BI
3 15 (3.63%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (3.15%) Elasticsearch
4 13 (3.15%) Geospatial Data
5 9 (2.18%) Data Lake
6 8 (1.94%) Oracle Database
7 7 (1.69%) Azure SQL Database
8 6 (1.45%) Big Data
8 6 (1.45%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (1.45%) NoSQL
8 6 (1.45%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 5 (1.21%) Amazon RDS
9 5 (1.21%) Metadata
10 4 (0.97%) Hadoop
10 4 (0.97%) MongoDB
10 4 (0.97%) Power Query
11 3 (0.73%) EDRMS
11 3 (0.73%) Relational Database
12 2 (0.48%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 47 (11.38%) Git
2 37 (8.96%) JIRA
3 33 (7.99%) GitLab
3 33 (7.99%) Jenkins
4 11 (2.66%) MSI
5 3 (0.73%) Claude Code
5 3 (0.73%) Selenium
5 3 (0.73%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (0.48%) Appium
6 2 (0.48%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.48%) JUnit
6 2 (0.48%) Postman
6 2 (0.48%) Spinnaker
6 2 (0.48%) Visual Studio Team System
7 1 (0.24%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.24%) Gradle
7 1 (0.24%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.24%) NeoLoad
7 1 (0.24%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.24%) Visual Studio
General
1 73 (17.68%) Social Skills
2 59 (14.29%) Public Sector
3 24 (5.81%) Analytical Skills
4 23 (5.57%) Finance
5 12 (2.91%) Local Government
6 10 (2.42%) Military
7 8 (1.94%) Banking
7 8 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (1.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (1.94%) Legal
8 5 (1.21%) Retail
9 4 (0.97%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (0.97%) Police
10 3 (0.73%) Advertising
10 3 (0.73%) Aviation
10 3 (0.73%) Investment Banking
11 2 (0.48%) Marketing
12 1 (0.24%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.24%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.24%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 67 (16.22%) Architect
2 58 (14.04%) Developer
3 38 (9.20%) Senior
4 29 (7.02%) Lead
5 26 (6.30%) Consultant
5 26 (6.30%) DevOps Engineer
5 26 (6.30%) Product Manager
6 24 (5.81%) Digital Product Manager
7 21 (5.08%) Data Engineer
7 21 (5.08%) Solutions Architect
8 20 (4.84%) Technical Architect
9 18 (4.36%) Azure Engineer
10 16 (3.87%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 16 (3.87%) Software Developer
11 15 (3.63%) Azure Consultant
12 14 (3.39%) Analyst
12 14 (3.39%) Azure Architect
12 14 (3.39%) Azure DevOps Engineer
13 13 (3.15%) DBA
14 12 (2.91%) .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (22.76%) Terraform
2 38 (9.20%) .NET
3 24 (5.81%) REST
4 22 (5.33%) RESTful
5 21 (5.08%) .NET Framework
6 19 (4.60%) React
7 18 (4.36%) .NET Core
8 17 (4.12%) CSS
8 17 (4.12%) HTML
9 15 (3.63%) Kafka
10 13 (3.15%) GeoJSON
11 11 (2.66%) ATL
11 11 (2.66%) COM
11 11 (2.66%) CSS3
11 11 (2.66%) HTML5
11 11 (2.66%) MFC
11 11 (2.66%) WPF
12 10 (2.42%) ARM Templates
12 10 (2.42%) Node.js
13 9 (2.18%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 58 (14.04%) Cloud Native
2 34 (8.23%) Legacy Systems
3 26 (6.30%) Onboarding
4 24 (5.81%) Product Ownership
5 17 (4.12%) Hybrid Cloud
6 15 (3.63%) Wiki
7 14 (3.39%) Enterprise Software
8 12 (2.91%) Data Centre
8 12 (2.91%) Linux Command Line
9 10 (2.42%) Public Cloud
10 9 (2.18%) Security Operations Centre
11 7 (1.69%) Cyber Threat
11 7 (1.69%) Enterprise Cloud
11 7 (1.69%) PKI
12 6 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
13 5 (1.21%) AI Agents
14 4 (0.97%) Data Structures
14 4 (0.97%) Team-Oriented Environment
15 3 (0.73%) Augmented Reality
15 3 (0.73%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 59 (14.29%) Windows
2 29 (7.02%) Linux
3 21 (5.08%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.94%) Windows 10
5 7 (1.69%) Unix
6 5 (1.21%) Android
6 5 (1.21%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.73%) Rocky
8 3 (0.73%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.48%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.48%) Debian
9 2 (0.48%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.24%) CentOS
10 1 (0.24%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (33.90%) DevOps
2 133 (32.20%) CI/CD
3 126 (30.51%) Agile
4 91 (22.03%) Infrastructure as Code
5 74 (17.92%) Containerisation
6 57 (13.80%) Continuous Improvement
6 57 (13.80%) Roadmaps
7 56 (13.56%) DevSecOps
8 53 (12.83%) Stakeholder Management
9 45 (10.90%) Decision-Making
10 44 (10.65%) Problem-Solving
11 41 (9.93%) Technical Leadership
12 38 (9.20%) Analytics
12 38 (9.20%) Deployment Automation
12 38 (9.20%) Observability
12 38 (9.20%) Software Engineering
13 37 (8.96%) Platform Engineering
14 36 (8.72%) Microservices
14 36 (8.72%) Test Automation
15 35 (8.47%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 82 (19.85%) Python
2 64 (15.50%) SQL
3 43 (10.41%) C#
4 39 (9.44%) PowerShell
5 36 (8.72%) Java
6 34 (8.23%) Bash
7 27 (6.54%) Bicep
7 27 (6.54%) JavaScript
8 25 (6.05%) TypeScript
9 15 (3.63%) Go
10 5 (1.21%) BeanShell
10 5 (1.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 4 (0.97%) PL/SQL
11 4 (0.97%) R
12 3 (0.73%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.73%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.48%) C++
14 1 (0.24%) C
14 1 (0.24%) Groovy
14 1 (0.24%) Scala
Qualifications
1 215 (52.06%) Security Cleared
2 149 (36.08%) SC Cleared
3 72 (17.43%) DV Cleared
4 19 (4.60%) Degree
5 16 (3.87%) CISSP
6 14 (3.39%) Azure Certification
7 12 (2.91%) Cisco Certification
8 11 (2.66%) CISM
9 9 (2.18%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (1.45%) BPSS Clearance
10 6 (1.45%) CCNA
10 6 (1.45%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (1.21%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 4 (0.97%) AWS Certification
13 3 (0.73%) TOGAF Certification
13 3 (0.73%) VCAP
14 2 (0.48%) ACSP
14 2 (0.48%) CCSK
14 2 (0.48%) DBS Check
14 2 (0.48%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.08%) Data Quality
1 21 (5.08%) QA
2 18 (4.36%) NCSC
3 14 (3.39%) Accessibility
4 11 (2.66%) SLA
4 11 (2.66%) WCAG
5 7 (1.69%) GDPR
6 6 (1.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (1.21%) ISO 9000
7 5 (1.21%) NIST
8 2 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.48%) GRC
9 1 (0.24%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.24%) ISO 22301
9 1 (0.24%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.24%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.24%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 71 (17.19%) Docker
2 55 (13.32%) Active Directory
3 30 (7.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (4.84%) Hyper-V
5 17 (4.12%) Virtual Desktop
6 11 (2.66%) vSphere
7 10 (2.42%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (1.69%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.97%) VirtualBox
10 3 (0.73%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.48%) KVM
12 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.24%) NFS
12 1 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
12 1 (0.24%) zsh
Systems Management
1 98 (23.73%) Kubernetes
2 41 (9.93%) Ansible
3 12 (2.91%) Grafana
3 12 (2.91%) Microsoft Intune
4 11 (2.66%) Prometheus
5 9 (2.18%) Argo
6 7 (1.69%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 6 (1.45%) FortiGate
7 6 (1.45%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (1.21%) Istio
8 5 (1.21%) OPNET
8 5 (1.21%) VxRail
9 4 (0.97%) Proxmox
10 2 (0.48%) CASB
10 2 (0.48%) Cilium
10 2 (0.48%) Data Guard
10 2 (0.48%) Failover Clustering
10 2 (0.48%) Kustomize
10 2 (0.48%) linkerd
10 2 (0.48%) Podman
Vendors
1 152 (36.80%) Microsoft
2 31 (7.51%) VMware
3 30 (7.26%) Google
4 22 (5.33%) Oracle
5 19 (4.60%) Databricks
6 13 (3.15%) Cisco
7 11 (2.66%) CyberArk
8 8 (1.94%) Splunk
9 6 (1.45%) Dynatrace
10 5 (1.21%) InterSystems
10 5 (1.21%) Red Hat
10 5 (1.21%) Zscaler
11 4 (0.97%) Foundry
11 4 (0.97%) MuleSoft
12 3 (0.73%) Apple
12 3 (0.73%) Citrix
12 3 (0.73%) Meraki
12 3 (0.73%) NetApp
12 3 (0.73%) Thales
13 2 (0.48%) BiZZdesign