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

6 months to
30 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 10 9
Rank change year-on-year +5 -1 -5
Contract jobs citing Azure 385 196 362
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 11.72% 11.64% 11.32%
As % of the Cloud Services category 45.83% 39.76% 44.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 165 290
10th Percentile £350 £318 £213
25th Percentile £430 £415 £421
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.06% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £591 £623 £588
90th Percentile £688 £700 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £545
% change year-on-year - -3.67% -3.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 3 0
10th Percentile - £16.60 -
25th Percentile £56.25 £19.75 -
Median hourly rate £57.50 £25.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +130.00% - -
75th Percentile £58.75 £51.85 -
90th Percentile - £67.96 -
England median hourly rate £57.50 £53.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year +7.48% +52.86% -36.36%

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 840 493 816
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 25.57% 29.28% 25.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 556 372 616
10th Percentile £300 £235 £205
25th Percentile £405 £406 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £594
90th Percentile £688 £687 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 26 29
10th Percentile £14.00 £18.13 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.25 £18.13 £14.00
Median hourly rate £57.50 £18.51 £14.50
Median % change year-on-year +210.64% +27.66% -72.82%
75th Percentile £58.75 £34.50 £68.75
90th Percentile - £53.13 £70.00
England median hourly rate £45.25 £25.98 £20.77
% change year-on-year +74.21% +25.06% -35.70%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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
Somerset +6 105 £525 -4.55% 41
Gloucestershire +2 84 £475 -9.52% 40
Bristol -6 71 £550 +22.63% 54
Wiltshire +5 60 £525 -12.50% 37
Dorset +3 27 £675 +35.00% 20
Devon -4 25 £513 +2.68% 40
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 18 (4.68%) SharePoint
2 11 (2.86%) IIS
3 6 (1.56%) Apache
4 5 (1.30%) Apache Spark
4 5 (1.30%) Confluence
4 5 (1.30%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.52%) nginx
7 1 (0.26%) Apache Superset
7 1 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 4 (1.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.26%) InDesign
2 1 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.26%) PTC Creo
2 1 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
2 1 (0.26%) Trello
Business Applications
1 8 (2.08%) Maximo
2 6 (1.56%) NEC Housing
3 2 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.52%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.52%) Unit4 Business World
4 1 (0.26%) Primavera
4 1 (0.26%) SAP EHS
4 1 (0.26%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 121 (31.43%) AWS
2 87 (22.60%) Azure DevOps
3 55 (14.29%) GCP
4 36 (9.35%) Entra ID
5 33 (8.57%) GitHub
6 24 (6.23%) Power Platform
7 23 (5.97%) Azure Data Factory
8 20 (5.19%) Azure Monitor
8 20 (5.19%) Microsoft 365
9 14 (3.64%) Azure Sentinel
10 12 (3.12%) Serverless
11 11 (2.86%) Azure AKS
11 11 (2.86%) GitHub Actions
11 11 (2.86%) OpenShift
11 11 (2.86%) PaaS
12 10 (2.60%) Azure Key Vault
12 10 (2.60%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 9 (2.34%) Dynamics 365
14 7 (1.82%) IaaS
15 6 (1.56%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 18 (4.68%) VPN
2 13 (3.38%) Firewall
3 8 (2.08%) DHCP
4 7 (1.82%) DNS
5 6 (1.56%) Network Security
6 4 (1.04%) LAN
7 3 (0.78%) WAN
8 2 (0.52%) HTTP
8 2 (0.52%) NGFW
8 2 (0.52%) Reverse Proxy
8 2 (0.52%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.52%) VLAN
9 1 (0.26%) AMQP
9 1 (0.26%) Cisco ASA
9 1 (0.26%) Cisco Nexus
9 1 (0.26%) Hyperconnected
9 1 (0.26%) NAS
9 1 (0.26%) Remote Desktop
9 1 (0.26%) SD-WAN
9 1 (0.26%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (5.71%) Power BI
2 19 (4.94%) SQL Server
3 16 (4.16%) Data Warehouse
4 12 (3.12%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (1.82%) Elasticsearch
5 7 (1.82%) Metadata
5 7 (1.82%) MongoDB
6 6 (1.56%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (1.30%) Delta Lake
7 5 (1.30%) NoSQL
8 4 (1.04%) Redis
8 4 (1.04%) Star Schema
9 3 (0.78%) Big Data
9 3 (0.78%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.78%) GIS
9 3 (0.78%) Power Query
9 3 (0.78%) Tableau
10 2 (0.52%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.52%) Data Vault
10 2 (0.52%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 21 (5.45%) Git
2 20 (5.19%) GitLab
3 18 (4.68%) Oracle APEX
4 15 (3.90%) JIRA
5 11 (2.86%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.78%) AdminStudio
6 3 (0.78%) InstallShield
6 3 (0.78%) Visual Studio Code
7 2 (0.52%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.52%) JUnit
7 2 (0.52%) MLflow
7 2 (0.52%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.52%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.52%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.26%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.26%) Mocha
8 1 (0.26%) Selenium
8 1 (0.26%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.26%) TestNG
8 1 (0.26%) webpack
General
1 76 (19.74%) Social Skills
2 28 (7.27%) Finance
3 23 (5.97%) Public Sector
4 20 (5.19%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (3.12%) Legal
6 7 (1.82%) Banking
6 7 (1.82%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (1.30%) Marketing
7 5 (1.30%) Military
8 4 (1.04%) Back Office
8 4 (1.04%) Local Government
8 4 (1.04%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (0.78%) Investment Banking
9 3 (0.78%) Retail
9 3 (0.78%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.26%) Electronics
10 1 (0.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.26%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.26%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.26%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 48 (12.47%) Consultant
2 45 (11.69%) Senior
3 44 (11.43%) Developer
4 42 (10.91%) Architect
5 40 (10.39%) Implementation Consultant
6 35 (9.09%) Data Engineer
7 30 (7.79%) Azure Engineer
7 30 (7.79%) DevOps Engineer
8 20 (5.19%) Lead
9 19 (4.94%) Senior Developer
10 17 (4.42%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 16 (4.16%) Support Engineer
12 15 (3.90%) Azure Architect
12 15 (3.90%) Desktop Engineer
12 15 (3.90%) Desktop Support
12 15 (3.90%) Desktop Support Engineer
13 14 (3.64%) Analyst
14 13 (3.38%) Cloud Engineer
14 13 (3.38%) Data Architect
14 13 (3.38%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (7.27%) .NET
2 18 (4.68%) .NET Framework
2 18 (4.68%) Kafka
3 16 (4.16%) REST
4 11 (2.86%) ARM Templates
5 9 (2.34%) Keycloak
5 9 (2.34%) Node.js
5 9 (2.34%) React
6 8 (2.08%) GraphQL
6 8 (2.08%) RabbitMQ
7 6 (1.56%) OAuth
7 6 (1.56%) Playwright
7 6 (1.56%) PySpark
7 6 (1.56%) RESTful
7 6 (1.56%) SailPoint
7 6 (1.56%) WebSockets
8 5 (1.30%) Flask
8 5 (1.30%) SAML
9 4 (1.04%) LDAP
9 4 (1.04%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 30 (7.79%) Cloud Native
2 25 (6.49%) Legacy Systems
3 24 (6.23%) Hybrid Cloud
4 21 (5.45%) Product Ownership
5 16 (4.16%) Public Cloud
6 15 (3.90%) Enterprise Software
7 10 (2.60%) Self-Motivation
8 9 (2.34%) Data Structures
9 6 (1.56%) Legacy Code
10 5 (1.30%) Data Centre
10 5 (1.30%) Management Information System
11 4 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
11 4 (1.04%) FMCG
11 4 (1.04%) Legacy Applications
11 4 (1.04%) Private Cloud
11 4 (1.04%) Wiki
12 3 (0.78%) EPoS
12 3 (0.78%) Low-Code
12 3 (0.78%) Security Posture
13 2 (0.52%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 50 (12.99%) Windows
2 29 (7.53%) Linux
3 21 (5.45%) Windows Server
4 12 (3.12%) Windows 10
5 7 (1.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.04%) Debian
6 4 (1.04%) Rocky
6 4 (1.04%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.52%) Android
7 2 (0.52%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.52%) Windows Server 2016
7 2 (0.52%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.26%) Unix
8 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 142 (36.88%) DevOps
2 97 (25.19%) Agile
3 82 (21.30%) CI/CD
4 48 (12.47%) Problem-Solving
5 46 (11.95%) ERP
6 43 (11.17%) Analytics
6 43 (11.17%) Infrastructure as Code
7 40 (10.39%) Continuous Improvement
7 40 (10.39%) PLM
8 37 (9.61%) Containerisation
8 37 (9.61%) Data Modelling
9 36 (9.35%) Validation
10 33 (8.57%) Scrum
11 32 (8.31%) ETL
12 31 (8.05%) Business Intelligence
12 31 (8.05%) Data Engineering
12 31 (8.05%) Migration
12 31 (8.05%) Roadmaps
13 29 (7.53%) Data Pipeline
13 29 (7.53%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 66 (17.14%) SQL
2 63 (16.36%) Python
3 40 (10.39%) PowerShell
4 34 (8.83%) JavaScript
5 25 (6.49%) PL/SQL
6 19 (4.94%) Go
7 17 (4.42%) Bicep
7 17 (4.42%) C#
8 16 (4.16%) Bash
9 14 (3.64%) Java
9 14 (3.64%) TypeScript
10 4 (1.04%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 4 (1.04%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.26%) C++
11 1 (0.26%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.26%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.26%) Scala
11 1 (0.26%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 165 (42.86%) Security Cleared
2 143 (37.14%) SC Cleared
3 30 (7.79%) Azure Certification
4 25 (6.49%) DV Cleared
5 16 (4.16%) Microsoft Certification
6 14 (3.64%) Degree
7 7 (1.82%) CISM
7 7 (1.82%) CISSP
7 7 (1.82%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (1.56%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 4 (1.04%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.78%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.78%) ISTQB
10 3 (0.78%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 3 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
10 3 (0.78%) TOGAF Certification
11 2 (0.52%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 2 (0.52%) Cisco Certification
12 1 (0.26%) CCSK
12 1 (0.26%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.45%) QA
2 18 (4.68%) Data Quality
3 13 (3.38%) GDPR
4 12 (3.12%) NIST
5 10 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (2.08%) NIST 800
7 4 (1.04%) NCSC
8 3 (0.78%) SNOMED CT
9 2 (0.52%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.52%) HL7
9 2 (0.52%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.52%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.26%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.26%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.26%) ISO 22301
10 1 (0.26%) PMO
10 1 (0.26%) SLA
System Software
1 51 (13.25%) Active Directory
2 41 (10.65%) Docker
3 9 (2.34%) Hyper-V
4 7 (1.82%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (1.56%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.52%) vSphere
8 1 (0.26%) KVM
8 1 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.26%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 60 (15.58%) Kubernetes
2 52 (13.51%) Terraform
3 25 (6.49%) Microsoft Intune
4 19 (4.94%) Ansible
5 13 (3.38%) Grafana
6 11 (2.86%) Prometheus
7 9 (2.34%) SCCM
8 8 (2.08%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (1.56%) Argo
10 4 (1.04%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.78%) Puppet
12 2 (0.52%) Cilium
12 2 (0.52%) Podman
12 2 (0.52%) Progress Chef
13 1 (0.26%) CASB
13 1 (0.26%) Docker Swarm
13 1 (0.26%) Failover Clustering
13 1 (0.26%) FortiGate
13 1 (0.26%) Kubeflow
13 1 (0.26%) logstash
Vendors
1 118 (30.65%) Microsoft
2 40 (10.39%) Siemens
3 29 (7.53%) Oracle
4 24 (6.23%) Databricks
5 15 (3.90%) Google
6 10 (2.60%) SAP
7 9 (2.34%) Red Hat
7 9 (2.34%) VMware
8 8 (2.08%) IBM
8 8 (2.08%) NEC
9 7 (1.82%) Starlink
10 6 (1.56%) InterSystems
10 6 (1.56%) McAfee
11 5 (1.30%) Cisco
11 5 (1.30%) NetApp
12 4 (1.04%) ServiceNow
13 2 (0.52%) Broadcom
13 2 (0.52%) CyberArk
13 2 (0.52%) MuleSoft
13 2 (0.52%) Splunk