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

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 11 9
Rank change year-on-year +7 -2 -1
Contract jobs citing Azure 442 207 328
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 12.48% 10.88% 11.15%
As % of the Cloud Services category 45.06% 36.77% 42.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 284 158 247
10th Percentile £379 £324 £313
25th Percentile £431 £366 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £534 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.75% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £619 £623 £590
90th Percentile £729 £700 £675
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 4 1
10th Percentile - £27.40 -
25th Percentile £56.25 £46.75 £77.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £70.00 £85.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.86% -17.65% +41.67%
75th Percentile £58.75 £77.80 £92.50
90th Percentile - £78.34 -
England median hourly rate £57.50 £41.45 £35.00
% change year-on-year +38.72% +18.43% -41.47%

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 981 563 773
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 27.70% 29.58% 26.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 613 397 557
10th Percentile £319 £223 £246
25th Percentile £413 £355 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £525
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -9.52% -2.33%
75th Percentile £613 £588 £608
90th Percentile £700 £675 £675
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 85 39 46
10th Percentile £14.14 £18.13 £13.30
25th Percentile £17.25 £18.51 £30.75
Median hourly rate £47.50 £18.87 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +151.72% -73.04% +33.33%
75th Percentile £58.75 £29.13 -
90th Percentile £74.50 £37.50 -
England median hourly rate £37.50 £25.58 £22.00
% change year-on-year +46.63% +16.25% -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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +5 134 £480 -1.54% 49
Bristol +3 110 £550 +26.44% 65
Gloucestershire +1 53 £500 -18.37% 45
Devon +9 49 £519 -0.15% 34
Wiltshire -5 43 £500 -9.09% 27
Dorset +6 28 £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 (5.20%) SharePoint
2 22 (4.98%) Confluence
3 11 (2.49%) IIS
4 9 (2.04%) Apache Spark
5 5 (1.13%) Apache
6 3 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.45%) nginx
8 1 (0.23%) Apache Superset
8 1 (0.23%) ColdFusion
8 1 (0.23%) JBoss
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle Coherence
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.23%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 4 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (0.90%) Trello
2 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.45%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.23%) InDesign
4 1 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
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
1 178 (40.27%) AWS
2 73 (16.52%) Azure DevOps
3 67 (15.16%) GCP
4 56 (12.67%) Entra ID
5 30 (6.79%) GitHub
5 30 (6.79%) Microsoft 365
6 27 (6.11%) Power Platform
7 18 (4.07%) Azure Data Factory
7 18 (4.07%) Azure Key Vault
8 17 (3.85%) Azure Monitor
9 16 (3.62%) Serverless
10 14 (3.17%) GitHub Actions
11 11 (2.49%) Cloud Computing
12 10 (2.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 10 (2.26%) PaaS
12 10 (2.26%) Snowflake
13 9 (2.04%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 9 (2.04%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 9 (2.04%) SaaS
14 8 (1.81%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 26 (5.88%) Firewall
2 19 (4.30%) DNS
3 14 (3.17%) VPN
4 12 (2.71%) TCP/IP
4 12 (2.71%) WAN
5 10 (2.26%) DHCP
6 9 (2.04%) BGP
7 7 (1.58%) VLAN
8 5 (1.13%) VSAN
9 4 (0.90%) Network Security
9 4 (0.90%) OSPF
9 4 (0.90%) SAN
10 3 (0.68%) NAS
10 3 (0.68%) Software-Defined Networking
11 2 (0.45%) LAN
11 2 (0.45%) Reverse Proxy
11 2 (0.45%) SSL
12 1 (0.23%) HTTP
12 1 (0.23%) Kerberos
12 1 (0.23%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (6.56%) SQL Server
2 24 (5.43%) Power BI
3 15 (3.39%) Data Warehouse
3 15 (3.39%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (2.49%) Geospatial Data
5 9 (2.04%) Data Lake
6 8 (1.81%) Azure SQL Database
6 8 (1.81%) Oracle Database
7 7 (1.58%) Metadata
7 7 (1.58%) MongoDB
8 6 (1.36%) Amazon RDS
8 6 (1.36%) NoSQL
9 5 (1.13%) Big Data
10 4 (0.90%) Delta Lake
10 4 (0.90%) Relational Database
10 4 (0.90%) Tableau
11 3 (0.68%) GIS
11 3 (0.68%) Redis
11 3 (0.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 3 (0.68%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 33 (7.47%) JIRA
2 31 (7.01%) Git
3 21 (4.75%) GitLab
4 16 (3.62%) Jenkins
5 10 (2.26%) MSI
6 3 (0.68%) AdminStudio
6 3 (0.68%) InstallShield
6 3 (0.68%) JUnit
6 3 (0.68%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 3 (0.68%) Visual Studio Code
7 2 (0.45%) MLflow
7 2 (0.45%) Selenium
7 2 (0.45%) Spinnaker
7 2 (0.45%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.23%) Appium
8 1 (0.23%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.23%) NUnit
8 1 (0.23%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.23%) TestNG
8 1 (0.23%) webpack
General
1 68 (15.38%) Social Skills
2 46 (10.41%) Public Sector
3 28 (6.33%) Analytical Skills
4 23 (5.20%) Finance
5 15 (3.39%) Legal
6 9 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (1.81%) Local Government
7 8 (1.81%) Military
8 7 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (1.36%) Organisational Skills
10 5 (1.13%) Marketing
11 4 (0.90%) Banking
11 4 (0.90%) Police
11 4 (0.90%) Retail
12 3 (0.68%) Advertising
12 3 (0.68%) Investment Banking
13 2 (0.45%) Aviation
13 2 (0.45%) Publishing
14 1 (0.23%) Influencing Skills
14 1 (0.23%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 65 (14.71%) Architect
2 55 (12.44%) Consultant
3 43 (9.73%) Developer
4 36 (8.14%) Lead
5 29 (6.56%) Implementation Consultant
6 28 (6.33%) Senior
7 27 (6.11%) Product Manager
8 24 (5.43%) Digital Product Manager
9 23 (5.20%) Data Engineer
10 21 (4.75%) DevOps Engineer
11 20 (4.52%) Technical Architect
12 19 (4.30%) Azure Engineer
13 17 (3.85%) Data Architect
14 15 (3.39%) Analyst
14 15 (3.39%) Solutions Architect
15 14 (3.17%) Azure Architect
15 14 (3.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 13 (2.94%) Azure Consultant
16 13 (2.94%) Site Engineer
16 13 (2.94%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (10.18%) .NET
2 29 (6.56%) .NET Framework
3 25 (5.66%) REST
4 19 (4.30%) RESTful
5 15 (3.39%) .NET Core
6 14 (3.17%) React
7 12 (2.71%) GeoJSON
7 12 (2.71%) Kafka
8 11 (2.49%) SailPoint
9 10 (2.26%) ATL
9 10 (2.26%) COM
9 10 (2.26%) CSS
9 10 (2.26%) HTML
9 10 (2.26%) MFC
9 10 (2.26%) Node.js
9 10 (2.26%) Spring Boot
10 9 (2.04%) CSS3
10 9 (2.04%) HTML5
10 9 (2.04%) LDAP
10 9 (2.04%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 50 (11.31%) Cloud Native
2 39 (8.82%) Legacy Systems
3 24 (5.43%) Onboarding
4 19 (4.30%) Product Ownership
5 18 (4.07%) Enterprise Software
6 14 (3.17%) Public Cloud
7 11 (2.49%) Data Centre
7 11 (2.49%) Data Structures
7 11 (2.49%) Hybrid Cloud
7 11 (2.49%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (1.81%) Linux Command Line
9 6 (1.36%) Legacy Code
9 6 (1.36%) PKI
9 6 (1.36%) Wiki
10 4 (0.90%) Augmented Reality
10 4 (0.90%) Enterprise Cloud
10 4 (0.90%) Management Information System
10 4 (0.90%) Virtual Reality
11 3 (0.68%) Legacy Applications
11 3 (0.68%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 71 (16.06%) Windows
2 32 (7.24%) Linux
3 24 (5.43%) Windows Server
4 17 (3.85%) Windows 10
5 7 (1.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (1.36%) 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
1 132 (29.86%) DevOps
2 130 (29.41%) Agile
3 109 (24.66%) CI/CD
4 69 (15.61%) Infrastructure as Code
5 54 (12.22%) Containerisation
5 54 (12.22%) Continuous Improvement
5 54 (12.22%) Roadmaps
6 50 (11.31%) Problem-Solving
6 50 (11.31%) Stakeholder Management
7 44 (9.95%) Analytics
8 43 (9.73%) Migration
9 42 (9.50%) Microservices
10 41 (9.28%) Technical Leadership
11 39 (8.82%) Data Modelling
12 38 (8.60%) Decision-Making
13 36 (8.14%) ERP
14 34 (7.69%) Data Pipeline
15 32 (7.24%) DevSecOps
15 32 (7.24%) Test Automation
16 31 (7.01%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 74 (16.74%) Python
2 68 (15.38%) SQL
3 38 (8.60%) PowerShell
4 33 (7.47%) C#
5 31 (7.01%) Java
6 24 (5.43%) Bash
7 23 (5.20%) JavaScript
8 19 (4.30%) TypeScript
9 16 (3.62%) Bicep
10 14 (3.17%) Go
11 5 (1.13%) BeanShell
11 5 (1.13%) PL/SQL
12 4 (0.90%) R
12 4 (0.90%) T-SQL
13 3 (0.68%) C++
14 2 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 2 (0.45%) Kotlin
14 2 (0.45%) Scala
14 2 (0.45%) Shell Script
15 1 (0.23%) Rust
Qualifications
1 211 (47.74%) Security Cleared
2 156 (35.29%) SC Cleared
3 53 (11.99%) DV Cleared
4 22 (4.98%) Degree
5 13 (2.94%) Azure Certification
5 13 (2.94%) Microsoft Certification
6 11 (2.49%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (2.04%) CISSP
8 8 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
9 6 (1.36%) 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%) TOGAF Certification
12 3 (0.68%) ACSP
12 3 (0.68%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 3 (0.68%) ITIL Certification
12 3 (0.68%) Master's Degree
13 2 (0.45%) CCSK
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (6.11%) QA
2 23 (5.20%) Data Quality
3 16 (3.62%) NCSC
4 12 (2.71%) GDPR
5 10 (2.26%) Accessibility
5 10 (2.26%) SLA
6 9 (2.04%) WCAG
7 6 (1.36%) 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%) GRC
10 2 (0.45%) HL7
10 2 (0.45%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.23%) ISO 22301
11 1 (0.23%) PMO
System Software
1 60 (13.57%) Active Directory
2 57 (12.90%) Docker
3 20 (4.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (4.07%) Virtual Desktop
5 14 (3.17%) Hyper-V
6 9 (2.04%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (2.04%) vSphere
7 6 (1.36%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.45%) KVM
8 2 (0.45%) VirtualBox
9 1 (0.23%) NFS
9 1 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 76 (17.19%) Kubernetes
2 72 (16.29%) Terraform
3 31 (7.01%) Ansible
4 22 (4.98%) Microsoft Intune
5 16 (3.62%) Grafana
6 14 (3.17%) Prometheus
7 12 (2.71%) Argo
8 10 (2.26%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (1.58%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 6 (1.36%) FortiGate
11 5 (1.13%) OPNET
12 4 (0.90%) Istio
12 4 (0.90%) Proxmox
12 4 (0.90%) SCCM
13 3 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
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%) VxRail
Vendors
1 153 (34.62%) Microsoft
2 29 (6.56%) Siemens
3 24 (5.43%) Oracle
4 21 (4.75%) Databricks
4 21 (4.75%) VMware
5 16 (3.62%) Google
6 10 (2.26%) CyberArk
7 7 (1.58%) Cisco
7 7 (1.58%) InterSystems
7 7 (1.58%) SAP
7 7 (1.58%) Starlink
8 6 (1.36%) McAfee
8 6 (1.36%) Red Hat
9 5 (1.13%) Dynatrace
9 5 (1.13%) NetApp
9 5 (1.13%) Splunk
9 5 (1.13%) Zscaler
10 4 (0.90%) Apple
10 4 (0.90%) IBM
10 4 (0.90%) MuleSoft