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 28 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 8 13
Rank change year-on-year +2 +5 -6
Contract jobs citing Azure 408 253 259
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 10.96% 12.86% 10.08%
As % of the Cloud Services category 42.86% 40.68% 37.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 280 194 186
10th Percentile £403 £302 £363
25th Percentile £450 £402 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £523
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -4.31% -5.00%
75th Percentile £650 £650 £600
90th Percentile £738 £709 £700
England median daily rate £526 £525 £540
% change year-on-year +0.24% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 4 1
10th Percentile £93.28 £27.40 -
25th Percentile £94.40 £46.75 £77.50
Median hourly rate £96.27 £64.00 £85.00
Median % change year-on-year +50.41% -24.71% +434.59%
75th Percentile £98.13 £73.75 £92.50
90th Percentile £99.25 £76.00 -
England median hourly rate £52.50 £34.24 £35.00
% change year-on-year +53.33% -2.17% -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 952 622 692
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 25.56% 31.62% 26.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 619 428 442
10th Percentile £325 £213 £250
25th Percentile £430 £352 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £475 £533
Median % change year-on-year +13.16% -10.80% -3.18%
75th Percentile £650 £600 £625
90th Percentile £730 £700 £688
England median daily rate £525 £501 £532
% change year-on-year +4.90% -5.92% -3.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 35 43
10th Percentile £14.00 £18.13 £25.26
25th Percentile £15.28 £18.69 £33.00
Median hourly rate £19.37 £18.87 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.62% -73.04% +112.12%
75th Percentile £48.75 £28.75 -
90th Percentile £87.26 £50.40 -
England median hourly rate £31.50 £25.15 £34.47
% change year-on-year +25.25% -27.03% +4.44%

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 28 September 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
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 28 September 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 -1 108 £550 +18.92% 81
Somerset +1 103 £475 +11.76% 71
Devon +9 60 £528 +0.48% 29
Gloucestershire -4 46 £550 - 106
Wiltshire -5 38 £550 -3.30% 33
Dorset +1 29 £675 +34.33% 22
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 (7.11%) Confluence
2 28 (6.86%) SharePoint
3 10 (2.45%) Apache Spark
4 6 (1.47%) Microsoft Exchange
5 5 (1.23%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.98%) Apache
7 2 (0.49%) nginx
8 1 (0.25%) ColdFusion
8 1 (0.25%) IIS
8 1 (0.25%) JBoss
8 1 (0.25%) Oracle Coherence
8 1 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.25%) Traefik
Applications
1 5 (1.23%) MS Visio
2 3 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.74%) Trello
3 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
1 1 (0.25%) ResourceLink
1 1 (0.25%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 178 (43.63%) AWS
2 75 (18.38%) Azure DevOps
2 75 (18.38%) GCP
3 50 (12.25%) Entra ID
4 38 (9.31%) Microsoft 365
5 28 (6.86%) GitHub
6 23 (5.64%) Power Platform
7 16 (3.92%) Azure Data Factory
8 15 (3.68%) Azure AKS
9 14 (3.43%) Serverless
10 12 (2.94%) Azure Key Vault
10 12 (2.94%) GitHub Actions
11 10 (2.45%) SaaS
12 9 (2.21%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 9 (2.21%) Azure Functions
12 9 (2.21%) Azure Monitor
12 9 (2.21%) Azure Sentinel
12 9 (2.21%) Cloud Computing
12 9 (2.21%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 8 (1.96%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 33 (8.09%) Firewall
2 22 (5.39%) DNS
3 16 (3.92%) TCP/IP
4 15 (3.68%) DHCP
4 15 (3.68%) WAN
5 14 (3.43%) VPN
6 10 (2.45%) VLAN
7 9 (2.21%) BGP
8 8 (1.96%) VSAN
9 5 (1.23%) Cisco IOS
9 5 (1.23%) LAN
9 5 (1.23%) Network Security
9 5 (1.23%) Wireless
10 4 (0.98%) OSPF
10 4 (0.98%) SAN
11 3 (0.74%) Intrusion Detection
11 3 (0.74%) NAS
11 3 (0.74%) Software-Defined Networking
12 2 (0.49%) Cisco ASA
12 2 (0.49%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (5.64%) SQL Server
2 18 (4.41%) Power BI
3 14 (3.43%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (3.19%) Geospatial Data
5 12 (2.94%) Elasticsearch
6 9 (2.21%) Data Lake
7 8 (1.96%) Oracle Database
8 7 (1.72%) Azure SQL Database
9 6 (1.47%) Big Data
9 6 (1.47%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (1.47%) NoSQL
10 5 (1.23%) Amazon RDS
10 5 (1.23%) Metadata
10 5 (1.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 4 (0.98%) Hadoop
11 4 (0.98%) MongoDB
12 3 (0.74%) EDRMS
12 3 (0.74%) Relational Database
13 2 (0.49%) Amazon Redshift
13 2 (0.49%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 48 (11.76%) Git
2 37 (9.07%) JIRA
3 30 (7.35%) GitLab
3 30 (7.35%) Jenkins
4 11 (2.70%) MSI
5 3 (0.74%) Claude Code
5 3 (0.74%) Selenium
5 3 (0.74%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (0.49%) Appium
6 2 (0.49%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.49%) JUnit
6 2 (0.49%) Spinnaker
6 2 (0.49%) Visual Studio Team System
7 1 (0.25%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.25%) Gatling
7 1 (0.25%) NeoLoad
7 1 (0.25%) Snyk
7 1 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.25%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 73 (17.89%) Social Skills
2 57 (13.97%) Public Sector
3 24 (5.88%) Analytical Skills
4 23 (5.64%) Finance
5 12 (2.94%) Local Government
6 10 (2.45%) Military
7 8 (1.96%) Banking
7 8 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (1.96%) Legal
8 5 (1.23%) Retail
9 4 (0.98%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (0.98%) Police
10 3 (0.74%) Advertising
10 3 (0.74%) Aviation
10 3 (0.74%) Investment Banking
11 2 (0.49%) Marketing
12 1 (0.25%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.25%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.25%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 67 (16.42%) Architect
2 54 (13.24%) Developer
3 37 (9.07%) Senior
4 29 (7.11%) Lead
5 26 (6.37%) Product Manager
6 25 (6.13%) Consultant
6 25 (6.13%) DevOps Engineer
7 24 (5.88%) Digital Product Manager
8 21 (5.15%) Solutions Architect
9 20 (4.90%) Data Engineer
9 20 (4.90%) Technical Architect
10 18 (4.41%) Azure Engineer
11 16 (3.92%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 15 (3.68%) Software Developer
13 14 (3.43%) Analyst
13 14 (3.43%) Azure Architect
13 14 (3.43%) Azure Consultant
13 14 (3.43%) Azure DevOps Engineer
14 13 (3.19%) DBA
15 12 (2.94%) .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (22.30%) Terraform
2 38 (9.31%) .NET
3 23 (5.64%) REST
4 22 (5.39%) .NET Framework
5 21 (5.15%) RESTful
6 19 (4.66%) React
7 18 (4.41%) .NET Core
8 17 (4.17%) CSS
8 17 (4.17%) HTML
9 14 (3.43%) Kafka
10 13 (3.19%) GeoJSON
11 11 (2.70%) ATL
11 11 (2.70%) COM
11 11 (2.70%) CSS3
11 11 (2.70%) HTML5
11 11 (2.70%) MFC
11 11 (2.70%) WPF
12 10 (2.45%) ARM Templates
12 10 (2.45%) Node.js
12 10 (2.45%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 58 (14.22%) Cloud Native
2 34 (8.33%) Legacy Systems
3 26 (6.37%) Onboarding
4 25 (6.13%) Product Ownership
5 16 (3.92%) Hybrid Cloud
5 16 (3.92%) Wiki
6 14 (3.43%) Enterprise Software
7 12 (2.94%) Data Centre
8 11 (2.70%) Linux Command Line
8 11 (2.70%) Public Cloud
9 9 (2.21%) Security Operations Centre
10 8 (1.96%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (1.72%) Cyber Threat
11 7 (1.72%) Enterprise Cloud
12 6 (1.47%) PKI
13 5 (1.23%) AI Agents
14 4 (0.98%) Data Structures
14 4 (0.98%) Team-Oriented Environment
15 3 (0.74%) Driving Licence
15 3 (0.74%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 60 (14.71%) Windows
2 29 (7.11%) Linux
3 19 (4.66%) Windows Server
4 10 (2.45%) Windows 10
5 6 (1.47%) Unix
6 5 (1.23%) Android
6 5 (1.23%) Mac OS
7 4 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.74%) Rocky
8 3 (0.74%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.49%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.49%) Debian
9 2 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.25%) CentOS
10 1 (0.25%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (34.07%) DevOps
2 132 (32.35%) CI/CD
3 126 (30.88%) Agile
4 88 (21.57%) Infrastructure as Code
5 72 (17.65%) Containerisation
6 56 (13.73%) Continuous Improvement
6 56 (13.73%) DevSecOps
6 56 (13.73%) Roadmaps
7 52 (12.75%) Stakeholder Management
8 46 (11.27%) Problem-Solving
9 41 (10.05%) Technical Leadership
10 39 (9.56%) Decision-Making
10 39 (9.56%) Deployment Automation
11 38 (9.31%) Software Engineering
12 37 (9.07%) Microservices
12 37 (9.07%) Observability
12 37 (9.07%) Test Automation
13 36 (8.82%) Platform Engineering
14 34 (8.33%) Analytics
15 33 (8.09%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 80 (19.61%) Python
2 61 (14.95%) SQL
3 44 (10.78%) C#
4 38 (9.31%) PowerShell
5 37 (9.07%) Java
6 33 (8.09%) Bash
7 27 (6.62%) JavaScript
8 26 (6.37%) Bicep
9 25 (6.13%) TypeScript
10 14 (3.43%) Go
11 5 (1.23%) BeanShell
12 4 (0.98%) PL/SQL
12 4 (0.98%) R
13 3 (0.74%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.74%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.49%) C++
14 2 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 1 (0.25%) Kotlin
15 1 (0.25%) Rust
15 1 (0.25%) Scala
Qualifications
1 213 (52.21%) Security Cleared
2 148 (36.27%) SC Cleared
3 70 (17.16%) DV Cleared
4 19 (4.66%) Degree
5 16 (3.92%) CISSP
6 13 (3.19%) Azure Certification
7 12 (2.94%) Cisco Certification
8 11 (2.70%) CISM
9 9 (2.21%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
10 6 (1.47%) CCNA
10 6 (1.47%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (1.23%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 4 (0.98%) AWS Certification
13 3 (0.74%) TOGAF Certification
13 3 (0.74%) VCAP
14 2 (0.49%) A+ Certification
14 2 (0.49%) ACSP
14 2 (0.49%) CCSK
14 2 (0.49%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (4.90%) QA
2 18 (4.41%) Data Quality
2 18 (4.41%) NCSC
3 14 (3.43%) Accessibility
4 11 (2.70%) SLA
4 11 (2.70%) WCAG
5 7 (1.72%) GDPR
6 6 (1.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (1.23%) ISO 9000
7 5 (1.23%) NIST
8 2 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.49%) GRC
9 1 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.25%) ISO 22301
9 1 (0.25%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.25%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.25%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 70 (17.16%) Docker
2 56 (13.73%) Active Directory
3 28 (6.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (4.66%) Hyper-V
5 15 (3.68%) Virtual Desktop
6 11 (2.70%) vSphere
7 10 (2.45%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (1.72%) VMware NSX
9 3 (0.74%) VirtualBox
10 2 (0.49%) KVM
11 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.25%) NFS
11 1 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.25%) zsh
Systems Management
1 96 (23.53%) Kubernetes
2 39 (9.56%) Ansible
3 14 (3.43%) Microsoft Intune
4 12 (2.94%) Grafana
5 10 (2.45%) Prometheus
6 9 (2.21%) Argo
7 7 (1.72%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 6 (1.47%) FortiGate
8 6 (1.47%) Single Sign-On
9 5 (1.23%) Istio
9 5 (1.23%) OPNET
9 5 (1.23%) VxRail
10 4 (0.98%) Proxmox
11 2 (0.49%) CASB
11 2 (0.49%) Cilium
11 2 (0.49%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (0.49%) Kustomize
11 2 (0.49%) linkerd
11 2 (0.49%) Oracle RMAN
11 2 (0.49%) Podman
Vendors
1 153 (37.50%) Microsoft
2 29 (7.11%) Google
2 29 (7.11%) VMware
3 22 (5.39%) Oracle
4 19 (4.66%) Databricks
5 13 (3.19%) Cisco
6 11 (2.70%) CyberArk
7 7 (1.72%) Splunk
8 6 (1.47%) Dynatrace
9 5 (1.23%) InterSystems
9 5 (1.23%) Red Hat
9 5 (1.23%) Zscaler
10 4 (0.98%) Foundry
10 4 (0.98%) MuleSoft
11 3 (0.74%) Apple
11 3 (0.74%) McAfee
11 3 (0.74%) Meraki
11 3 (0.74%) NetApp
11 3 (0.74%) Starlink
11 3 (0.74%) Thales