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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 8 13
Rank change year-on-year +2 +5 -6
Contract jobs citing Azure 400 269 254
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 10.75% 13.48% 10.10%
As % of the Cloud Services category 42.74% 41.45% 36.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 269 203 176
10th Percentile £406 £325 £350
25th Percentile £463 £408 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £520 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.77% +4.00% -10.31%
75th Percentile £644 £675 £600
90th Percentile £740 £731 £713
England median daily rate £530 £525 £538
% change year-on-year +0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 5 1
10th Percentile £66.25 £31.70 -
25th Percentile £71.88 £57.50 £77.50
Median hourly rate £83.77 £65.00 £85.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.87% -23.53% +444.00%
75th Percentile £94.40 £77.50 £92.50
90th Percentile £97.76 £87.25 -
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 936 649 693
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 25.15% 32.52% 27.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 604 445 430
10th Percentile £363 £222 £249
25th Percentile £456 £363 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £536
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -6.76% -2.50%
75th Percentile £650 £613 £638
90th Percentile £738 £700 £700
England median daily rate £525 £503 £525
% change year-on-year +4.48% -4.29% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 31 43
10th Percentile £14.36 - £25.26
25th Percentile £16.62 - £33.00
Median hourly rate £24.98 £18.87 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +32.35% -73.04% +112.12%
75th Percentile £55.00 £35.05 -
90th Percentile £85.75 £64.50 -
England median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +29.22% -28.14% +8.36%

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 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 16 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 16 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 -2 110 £553 +16.42% 51
Somerset +2 94 £500 +8.11% 23
Devon +11 61 £530 +0.95% 26
Gloucestershire -7 45 £550 -8.33% 48
Wiltshire -4 40 £580 +5.45% 17
Dorset -5 23 £575 +14.43% 18
Avon - 2 - - 27
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 32 (8.00%) Confluence
2 25 (6.25%) SharePoint
3 10 (2.50%) Apache Spark
4 6 (1.50%) Microsoft Exchange
5 5 (1.25%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (1.00%) Apache
7 1 (0.25%) ColdFusion
7 1 (0.25%) JBoss
7 1 (0.25%) Oracle Coherence
7 1 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.25%) Traefik
Applications
1 6 (1.50%) MS Visio
2 3 (0.75%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.75%) Trello
3 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.25%) PTC Creo
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
1 1 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
1 1 (0.25%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 169 (42.25%) AWS
2 81 (20.25%) Azure DevOps
3 72 (18.00%) GCP
4 52 (13.00%) Entra ID
5 41 (10.25%) Microsoft 365
6 28 (7.00%) GitHub
6 28 (7.00%) Power Platform
7 18 (4.50%) Azure Data Factory
8 14 (3.50%) Azure AKS
8 14 (3.50%) GitHub Actions
9 13 (3.25%) Serverless
10 11 (2.75%) Azure Functions
10 11 (2.75%) Azure Key Vault
11 10 (2.50%) Azure Sentinel
11 10 (2.50%) SaaS
12 9 (2.25%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 9 (2.25%) Cloud Computing
13 8 (2.00%) Azure Monitor
13 8 (2.00%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 7 (1.75%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 37 (9.25%) Firewall
2 24 (6.00%) DNS
3 18 (4.50%) TCP/IP
4 16 (4.00%) DHCP
4 16 (4.00%) WAN
5 13 (3.25%) VPN
6 11 (2.75%) VLAN
7 9 (2.25%) BGP
8 8 (2.00%) Network Security
8 8 (2.00%) VSAN
9 5 (1.25%) Cisco IOS
9 5 (1.25%) LAN
9 5 (1.25%) Wireless
10 4 (1.00%) OSPF
10 4 (1.00%) SAN
11 3 (0.75%) Intrusion Detection
11 3 (0.75%) NAS
11 3 (0.75%) Software-Defined Networking
12 2 (0.50%) NX-OS
12 2 (0.50%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (5.75%) Power BI
2 22 (5.50%) SQL Server
3 15 (3.75%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (3.25%) Elasticsearch
4 13 (3.25%) Geospatial Data
5 10 (2.50%) Data Lake
6 9 (2.25%) Azure SQL Database
7 8 (2.00%) Oracle Database
8 7 (1.75%) Metadata
8 7 (1.75%) Power Query
9 6 (1.50%) Amazon RDS
9 6 (1.50%) Big Data
9 6 (1.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (1.00%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (1.00%) Hadoop
11 3 (0.75%) EDRMS
11 3 (0.75%) MongoDB
11 3 (0.75%) NoSQL
12 2 (0.50%) Relational Database
12 2 (0.50%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 48 (12.00%) Git
2 39 (9.75%) JIRA
3 35 (8.75%) Jenkins
4 32 (8.00%) GitLab
5 11 (2.75%) MSI
6 3 (0.75%) Claude Code
6 3 (0.75%) Selenium
6 3 (0.75%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 2 (0.50%) Appium
7 2 (0.50%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.50%) JUnit
7 2 (0.50%) MLflow
7 2 (0.50%) Postman
7 2 (0.50%) Spinnaker
7 2 (0.50%) Visual Studio Team System
8 1 (0.25%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.25%) Gradle
8 1 (0.25%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.25%) NeoLoad
8 1 (0.25%) Oracle Forms
General
1 70 (17.50%) Social Skills
2 62 (15.50%) Public Sector
3 25 (6.25%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (5.25%) Finance
5 12 (3.00%) Local Government
6 10 (2.50%) Military
7 8 (2.00%) Banking
7 8 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 7 (1.75%) Legal
9 6 (1.50%) Documentation Skills
10 4 (1.00%) Police
10 4 (1.00%) Retail
11 3 (0.75%) Advertising
11 3 (0.75%) Aviation
11 3 (0.75%) Investment Banking
11 3 (0.75%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.50%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.50%) Marketing
13 1 (0.25%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.25%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 61 (15.25%) Architect
2 55 (13.75%) Developer
3 41 (10.25%) Senior
4 31 (7.75%) Consultant
5 30 (7.50%) DevOps Engineer
6 29 (7.25%) Lead
7 26 (6.50%) Product Manager
8 24 (6.00%) Digital Product Manager
9 21 (5.25%) Azure Consultant
10 20 (5.00%) Data Engineer
11 19 (4.75%) Solutions Architect
12 18 (4.50%) Azure Engineer
12 18 (4.50%) Software Developer
13 16 (4.00%) Azure DevOps Engineer
14 15 (3.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 14 (3.50%) Analyst
15 14 (3.50%) Technical Architect
16 13 (3.25%) DBA
17 11 (2.75%) Data Architect
17 11 (2.75%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (23.75%) Terraform
2 32 (8.00%) .NET
3 21 (5.25%) REST
4 20 (5.00%) RESTful
5 17 (4.25%) .NET Core
5 17 (4.25%) CSS
5 17 (4.25%) HTML
6 16 (4.00%) .NET Framework
7 14 (3.50%) Kafka
7 14 (3.50%) React
8 13 (3.25%) GeoJSON
9 11 (2.75%) ATL
9 11 (2.75%) COM
9 11 (2.75%) CSS3
9 11 (2.75%) HTML5
9 11 (2.75%) MFC
9 11 (2.75%) WPF
10 10 (2.50%) ARM Templates
11 8 (2.00%) Playwright
12 7 (1.75%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 58 (14.50%) Cloud Native
2 29 (7.25%) Legacy Systems
3 26 (6.50%) Onboarding
4 24 (6.00%) Product Ownership
5 16 (4.00%) Hybrid Cloud
6 14 (3.50%) Wiki
7 13 (3.25%) Enterprise Software
8 12 (3.00%) Data Centre
8 12 (3.00%) Linux Command Line
9 9 (2.25%) Enterprise Cloud
9 9 (2.25%) Security Operations Centre
10 7 (1.75%) Cyber Threat
10 7 (1.75%) PKI
11 6 (1.50%) Public Cloud
11 6 (1.50%) Self-Motivation
12 5 (1.25%) AI Agents
12 5 (1.25%) Virtual Team
13 4 (1.00%) Team-Oriented Environment
14 3 (0.75%) Low-Code
14 3 (0.75%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 58 (14.50%) Windows
2 28 (7.00%) Linux
3 20 (5.00%) Windows Server
4 8 (2.00%) Windows 10
5 7 (1.75%) Unix
6 5 (1.25%) Android
6 5 (1.25%) macOS
7 4 (1.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.75%) Rocky
8 3 (0.75%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.50%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.50%) Debian
9 2 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.25%) CentOS
10 1 (0.25%) SUSE
Processes & Methodologies
1 145 (36.25%) DevOps
2 131 (32.75%) CI/CD
3 120 (30.00%) Agile
4 94 (23.50%) Infrastructure as Code
5 72 (18.00%) Containerisation
6 59 (14.75%) DevSecOps
6 59 (14.75%) Roadmaps
7 58 (14.50%) Continuous Improvement
8 54 (13.50%) Stakeholder Management
9 46 (11.50%) Problem-Solving
10 44 (11.00%) Decision-Making
11 42 (10.50%) Technical Leadership
12 41 (10.25%) Platform Engineering
13 40 (10.00%) Analytics
14 39 (9.75%) Deployment Automation
14 39 (9.75%) Software Engineering
15 35 (8.75%) Data Modelling
15 35 (8.75%) Observability
15 35 (8.75%) Test Automation
16 34 (8.50%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 86 (21.50%) Python
2 64 (16.00%) SQL
3 41 (10.25%) C#
4 39 (9.75%) PowerShell
5 37 (9.25%) Java
6 33 (8.25%) Bash
7 26 (6.50%) Bicep
8 25 (6.25%) JavaScript
9 20 (5.00%) TypeScript
10 15 (3.75%) Go
11 7 (1.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 5 (1.25%) BeanShell
13 4 (1.00%) PL/SQL
13 4 (1.00%) R
14 3 (0.75%) Shell Script
14 3 (0.75%) T-SQL
15 2 (0.50%) C++
16 1 (0.25%) C
16 1 (0.25%) Groovy
16 1 (0.25%) Scala
Qualifications
1 213 (53.25%) Security Cleared
2 147 (36.75%) SC Cleared
3 72 (18.00%) DV Cleared
4 20 (5.00%) Degree
5 18 (4.50%) CISSP
6 15 (3.75%) Azure Certification
7 14 (3.50%) Cisco Certification
8 11 (2.75%) CISM
9 9 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
9 9 (2.25%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (1.50%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 6 (1.50%) CCNA
10 6 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
11 4 (1.00%) AWS Certification
11 4 (1.00%) TOGAF Certification
12 3 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
12 3 (0.75%) VCAP
13 2 (0.50%) A+ Certification
13 2 (0.50%) ACSP
13 2 (0.50%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (5.75%) Data Quality
2 21 (5.25%) QA
3 18 (4.50%) NCSC
4 14 (3.50%) Accessibility
5 11 (2.75%) SLA
5 11 (2.75%) WCAG
6 6 (1.50%) GDPR
6 6 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (1.25%) ISO 9000
7 5 (1.25%) NIST
8 2 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.50%) GRC
9 1 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.25%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.25%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.25%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.25%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 72 (18.00%) Docker
2 54 (13.50%) Active Directory
3 30 (7.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (5.00%) Hyper-V
5 17 (4.25%) Virtual Desktop
6 11 (2.75%) vSphere
7 10 (2.50%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (1.75%) VMware NSX
9 4 (1.00%) VirtualBox
10 3 (0.75%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.50%) KVM
12 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 1 (0.25%) NFS
12 1 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
12 1 (0.25%) zsh
Systems Management
1 97 (24.25%) Kubernetes
2 44 (11.00%) Ansible
3 13 (3.25%) Microsoft Intune
4 10 (2.50%) Grafana
5 9 (2.25%) Prometheus
6 8 (2.00%) Argo
7 7 (1.75%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 7 (1.75%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (1.50%) FortiGate
9 5 (1.25%) Istio
9 5 (1.25%) OPNET
9 5 (1.25%) VxRail
10 4 (1.00%) Proxmox
11 3 (0.75%) CASB
12 2 (0.50%) Data Guard
12 2 (0.50%) Failover Clustering
12 2 (0.50%) Kustomize
12 2 (0.50%) linkerd
12 2 (0.50%) Oracle RMAN
13 1 (0.25%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 151 (37.75%) Microsoft
2 31 (7.75%) VMware
3 28 (7.00%) Google
4 24 (6.00%) Oracle
5 21 (5.25%) Databricks
6 14 (3.50%) Cisco
7 10 (2.50%) CyberArk
8 8 (2.00%) Splunk
9 6 (1.50%) Dynatrace
9 6 (1.50%) Zscaler
10 5 (1.25%) Foundry
10 5 (1.25%) InterSystems
10 5 (1.25%) MuleSoft
10 5 (1.25%) Red Hat
11 4 (1.00%) Citrix
12 3 (0.75%) Apple
12 3 (0.75%) Meraki
12 3 (0.75%) ServiceNow
12 3 (0.75%) Thales
13 2 (0.50%) BiZZdesign