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

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 11 9
Rank change year-on-year +6 -2 -4
Contract jobs citing Azure 363 216 383
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 11.54% 12.63% 11.92%
As % of the Cloud Services category 46.01% 41.22% 45.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 246 179 309
10th Percentile £316 £355 £213
25th Percentile £431 £417 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £510
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +2.94% -7.27%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £594
90th Percentile £688 £703 £706
England median daily rate £525 £525 £540
% change year-on-year - -2.78% -4.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 2 0
10th Percentile - £30.37 -
25th Percentile £56.25 £38.43 -
Median hourly rate £57.50 £51.85 -
Median % change year-on-year +10.90% - -
75th Percentile £58.75 £65.28 -
90th Percentile - £73.33 -
England median hourly rate £57.50 £53.50 £36.75
% change year-on-year +7.48% +45.58% -27.59%

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 789 524 837
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 25.09% 30.64% 26.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 540 396 640
10th Percentile £249 £250 £210
25th Percentile £402 £408 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £484 £511 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.38% +2.25% -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £600
90th Percentile £688 £688 £700
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 20 26
10th Percentile £16.62 £18.13 £12.50
25th Percentile £29.75 £18.41 £14.00
Median hourly rate £57.50 £25.75 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year +123.30% +77.59% -73.84%
75th Percentile £58.75 £36.38 £15.38
90th Percentile - £68.75 £21.00
England median hourly rate £42.69 £26.50 £20.87
% change year-on-year +61.08% +26.98% -21.19%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 98 £475 -9.52% 68
Somerset +6 96 £525 -4.55% 51
Bristol -13 71 £550 +12.82% 73
Wiltshire +1 55 £525 -13.40% 21
Dorset 0 22 £675 +35.00% 24
Devon -13 10 £450 - 36
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 21 (5.79%) SharePoint
2 11 (3.03%) IIS
3 7 (1.93%) Microsoft Exchange
4 6 (1.65%) Apache
4 6 (1.65%) Confluence
5 4 (1.10%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.55%) Documentum
7 1 (0.28%) Apache Superset
7 1 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 4 (1.10%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.28%) InDesign
3 1 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.28%) PTC Creo
3 1 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.28%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (2.48%) Maximo
2 6 (1.65%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.55%) Primavera
3 2 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.55%) Unit4 Business World
4 1 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.28%) SAP EHS
4 1 (0.28%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 101 (27.82%) AWS
2 88 (24.24%) Azure DevOps
3 45 (12.40%) GCP
4 42 (11.57%) Entra ID
5 35 (9.64%) GitHub
6 24 (6.61%) Azure Data Factory
7 23 (6.34%) Azure Monitor
8 22 (6.06%) Microsoft 365
8 22 (6.06%) Power Platform
9 15 (4.13%) Azure Sentinel
10 12 (3.31%) Azure Key Vault
10 12 (3.31%) OpenShift
11 11 (3.03%) Azure AKS
11 11 (3.03%) GitHub Actions
11 11 (3.03%) Serverless
12 10 (2.75%) PaaS
13 9 (2.48%) Dynamics 365
14 7 (1.93%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 7 (1.93%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 7 (1.93%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 20 (5.51%) VPN
2 12 (3.31%) Firewall
3 9 (2.48%) DHCP
4 8 (2.20%) DNS
4 8 (2.20%) Network Security
5 4 (1.10%) LAN
5 4 (1.10%) WAN
6 3 (0.83%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.55%) HTTP
7 2 (0.55%) NAS
7 2 (0.55%) NGFW
7 2 (0.55%) SAN
7 2 (0.55%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.55%) VLAN
8 1 (0.28%) 5G
8 1 (0.28%) AMQP
8 1 (0.28%) Hyperconnected
8 1 (0.28%) Remote Desktop
8 1 (0.28%) tcpdump
8 1 (0.28%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (5.23%) Power BI
1 19 (5.23%) SQL Server
2 16 (4.41%) Data Warehouse
2 16 (4.41%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (2.75%) Elasticsearch
4 8 (2.20%) Metadata
5 6 (1.65%) Azure SQL Database
6 5 (1.38%) Delta Lake
6 5 (1.38%) MongoDB
6 5 (1.38%) Redis
7 4 (1.10%) Star Schema
8 3 (0.83%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.83%) GIS
8 3 (0.83%) NoSQL
8 3 (0.83%) Power Query
9 2 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.55%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.55%) Data Vault
9 2 (0.55%) Spatial Data
9 2 (0.55%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 28 (7.71%) Oracle APEX
2 20 (5.51%) Git
3 16 (4.41%) GitLab
4 14 (3.86%) JIRA
5 10 (2.75%) Jenkins
6 5 (1.38%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.83%) AdminStudio
7 3 (0.83%) InstallShield
7 3 (0.83%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.55%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.55%) JUnit
8 2 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.28%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.28%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.28%) Mocha
9 1 (0.28%) Selenium
9 1 (0.28%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.28%) TestNG
9 1 (0.28%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.28%) webpack
General
1 85 (23.42%) Social Skills
2 28 (7.71%) Finance
3 25 (6.89%) Public Sector
4 15 (4.13%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (2.75%) Legal
6 6 (1.65%) Telecoms
7 5 (1.38%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (1.38%) Marketing
8 4 (1.10%) Back Office
8 4 (1.10%) Banking
8 4 (1.10%) Local Government
9 3 (0.83%) Manufacturing
9 3 (0.83%) Military
9 3 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (0.83%) Retail
10 2 (0.55%) Electronics
10 2 (0.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.28%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.28%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.28%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 59 (16.25%) Senior
2 55 (15.15%) Developer
3 49 (13.50%) Consultant
4 41 (11.29%) Architect
5 40 (11.02%) Implementation Consultant
6 31 (8.54%) Azure Engineer
7 30 (8.26%) Data Engineer
8 29 (7.99%) DevOps Engineer
8 29 (7.99%) Senior Developer
9 18 (4.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 16 (4.41%) Lead
10 16 (4.41%) Support Engineer
11 15 (4.13%) Azure Architect
11 15 (4.13%) Desktop Engineer
11 15 (4.13%) Desktop Support
11 15 (4.13%) Desktop Support Engineer
12 14 (3.86%) Analyst
12 14 (3.86%) Data Architect
13 12 (3.31%) Cloud Engineer
13 12 (3.31%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (6.34%) .NET
2 18 (4.96%) Kafka
2 18 (4.96%) REST
3 15 (4.13%) .NET Framework
4 12 (3.31%) ARM Templates
5 11 (3.03%) Keycloak
6 7 (1.93%) GraphQL
6 7 (1.93%) SailPoint
7 6 (1.65%) Flask
7 6 (1.65%) OAuth
7 6 (1.65%) PySpark
7 6 (1.65%) RabbitMQ
7 6 (1.65%) SOAP
8 5 (1.38%) FastAPI
8 5 (1.38%) gRPC
8 5 (1.38%) Middleware
8 5 (1.38%) Node.js
8 5 (1.38%) React
8 5 (1.38%) SAML
8 5 (1.38%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 28 (7.71%) Hybrid Cloud
2 25 (6.89%) Cloud Native
3 20 (5.51%) Product Ownership
4 16 (4.41%) Enterprise Software
5 15 (4.13%) Legacy Systems
6 13 (3.58%) Public Cloud
7 9 (2.48%) Data Structures
8 8 (2.20%) Self-Motivation
9 6 (1.65%) Legacy Code
10 5 (1.38%) Data Centre
10 5 (1.38%) Security Posture
11 4 (1.10%) FMCG
11 4 (1.10%) Private Cloud
11 4 (1.10%) Wiki
12 3 (0.83%) Data Protection Act
12 3 (0.83%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (0.83%) Legacy Applications
12 3 (0.83%) Management Information System
12 3 (0.83%) Onboarding
13 2 (0.55%) Data Fabric
Operating Systems
1 52 (14.33%) Windows
2 27 (7.44%) Linux
3 22 (6.06%) Windows Server
4 11 (3.03%) Windows 10
5 6 (1.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.83%) Debian
6 3 (0.83%) Rocky
6 3 (0.83%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.55%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.28%) Android
8 1 (0.28%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (40.50%) DevOps
2 96 (26.45%) Agile
3 66 (18.18%) CI/CD
4 48 (13.22%) ERP
4 48 (13.22%) Scrum
5 45 (12.40%) Validation
6 43 (11.85%) Problem-Solving
7 42 (11.57%) Infrastructure as Code
8 40 (11.02%) PLM
9 39 (10.74%) Analytics
10 33 (9.09%) ETL
10 33 (9.09%) ITIL
11 32 (8.82%) Containerisation
12 31 (8.54%) Collaborative Working
13 30 (8.26%) Continuous Improvement
14 29 (7.99%) Business Intelligence
14 29 (7.99%) Data Engineering
14 29 (7.99%) Data Modelling
14 29 (7.99%) Software Delivery
15 28 (7.71%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 76 (20.94%) SQL
2 57 (15.70%) Python
3 42 (11.57%) PowerShell
4 41 (11.29%) JavaScript
5 35 (9.64%) PL/SQL
6 20 (5.51%) Bicep
7 19 (5.23%) Go
8 13 (3.58%) C#
9 12 (3.31%) Java
10 10 (2.75%) Bash
10 10 (2.75%) TypeScript
11 5 (1.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 4 (1.10%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.28%) C++
13 1 (0.28%) Kotlin
13 1 (0.28%) Scala
13 1 (0.28%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 172 (47.38%) Security Cleared
2 152 (41.87%) SC Cleared
3 35 (9.64%) Azure Certification
4 24 (6.61%) DV Cleared
5 18 (4.96%) Microsoft Certification
6 13 (3.58%) Degree
7 7 (1.93%) CISM
7 7 (1.93%) CISSP
7 7 (1.93%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 6 (1.65%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (1.10%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.83%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.83%) ISTQB
10 3 (0.83%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 3 (0.83%) ITIL Certification
10 3 (0.83%) TOGAF Certification
11 2 (0.55%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 1 (0.28%) ACSP
12 1 (0.28%) CSPO
12 1 (0.28%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.79%) QA
2 15 (4.13%) Data Quality
3 14 (3.86%) NIST
4 13 (3.58%) GDPR
4 13 (3.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 10 (2.75%) NCSC
6 8 (2.20%) NIST 800
7 3 (0.83%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.55%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.55%) HL7
8 2 (0.55%) JSP 440
8 2 (0.55%) SNOMED CT
9 1 (0.28%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.28%) PMO
9 1 (0.28%) SLA
9 1 (0.28%) WCAG
System Software
1 56 (15.43%) Active Directory
2 38 (10.47%) Docker
3 10 (2.75%) Hyper-V
4 7 (1.93%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (1.38%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.55%) vSphere
8 1 (0.28%) KVM
8 1 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.28%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 55 (15.15%) Kubernetes
2 50 (13.77%) Terraform
3 25 (6.89%) Microsoft Intune
4 17 (4.68%) Ansible
5 12 (3.31%) Grafana
5 12 (3.31%) Single Sign-On
6 10 (2.75%) Prometheus
7 9 (2.48%) SCCM
8 6 (1.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 4 (1.10%) Argo
10 3 (0.83%) Puppet
11 2 (0.55%) CA Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.55%) Progress Chef
12 1 (0.28%) Failover Clustering
12 1 (0.28%) FortiGate
12 1 (0.28%) Icinga
12 1 (0.28%) Kibana
12 1 (0.28%) Kubeflow
12 1 (0.28%) logstash
12 1 (0.28%) WSUS
Vendors
1 108 (29.75%) Microsoft
2 40 (11.02%) Siemens
3 39 (10.74%) Oracle
4 23 (6.34%) Databricks
5 11 (3.03%) Google
5 11 (3.03%) SAP
6 10 (2.75%) Red Hat
7 9 (2.48%) IBM
7 9 (2.48%) VMware
8 8 (2.20%) NEC
9 7 (1.93%) Starlink
10 6 (1.65%) McAfee
11 5 (1.38%) Cisco
11 5 (1.38%) NetApp
11 5 (1.38%) ServiceNow
12 3 (0.83%) F5
12 3 (0.83%) Fortinet
12 3 (0.83%) MuleSoft
12 3 (0.83%) Palo Alto
12 3 (0.83%) Tenable