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

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 11 8
Rank change year-on-year +5 -3 -2
Contract jobs citing Azure 349 231 377
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 12.72% 12.57% 12.14%
As % of the Cloud Services category 46.97% 39.69% 45.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 241 181 302
10th Percentile £300 £350 £269
25th Percentile £425 £450 £439
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £535 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% +1.90% -7.89%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £700 £719
England median daily rate £520 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -3.26% -2.27% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 1 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £56.25 - £14.93
Median hourly rate £57.50 £25.00 £15.35
Median % change year-on-year +130.00% +62.87% -78.07%
75th Percentile £58.75 - £15.78
90th Percentile £59.50 - -
England median hourly rate £57.50 £35.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +64.29% -24.21% -17.90%

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 743 582 833
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 27.09% 31.68% 26.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 516 407 627
10th Percentile £227 £225 £213
25th Percentile £400 £416 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -9.09%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £700
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 10 30
10th Percentile £19.07 £14.89 -
25th Percentile £46.30 £21.12 £14.25
Median hourly rate £57.50 £26.81 £15.47
Median % change year-on-year +114.45% +73.32% -73.10%
75th Percentile £58.75 £28.99 £30.16
90th Percentile £59.88 £68.75 £78.00
England median hourly rate £37.00 £27.50 £22.00
% change year-on-year +34.55% +25.00% -12.00%

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 18 February 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 18 February 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 18 February 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 0 121 £475 -19.15% 43
Somerset +7 74 £525 -6.67% 37
Bristol -6 63 £517 -2.41% 74
Wiltshire +13 50 £525 -16.83% 30
Dorset -1 19 £650 +20.93% 20
Devon -7 12 £500 +21.21% 26
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 25 (7.16%) SharePoint
2 17 (4.87%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (1.43%) Confluence
4 4 (1.15%) Apache
5 3 (0.86%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.57%) Documentum
6 2 (0.57%) nginx
7 1 (0.29%) CMS
7 1 (0.29%) IIS
7 1 (0.29%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 5 (1.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
2 2 (0.57%) Windchill
3 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.29%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 8 (2.29%) Maximo
2 6 (1.72%) NEC Housing
3 3 (0.86%) Teamcenter
4 2 (0.57%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.57%) Primavera
4 2 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 97 (27.79%) AWS
2 85 (24.36%) Azure DevOps
3 50 (14.33%) GitHub
4 45 (12.89%) Entra ID
5 40 (11.46%) Microsoft 365
6 38 (10.89%) GCP
7 23 (6.59%) Azure Data Factory
8 22 (6.30%) Azure Sentinel
8 22 (6.30%) Power Platform
9 16 (4.58%) OpenShift
10 15 (4.30%) Azure Monitor
11 14 (4.01%) GitHub Actions
12 13 (3.72%) Azure AKS
13 12 (3.44%) Azure Key Vault
14 11 (3.15%) Serverless
15 8 (2.29%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 8 (2.29%) Dynamics 365
15 8 (2.29%) OneDrive
16 6 (1.72%) ShareGate
17 5 (1.43%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 24 (6.88%) VPN
2 15 (4.30%) Firewall
3 10 (2.87%) DHCP
4 9 (2.58%) DNS
5 7 (2.01%) Network Security
6 5 (1.43%) LAN
6 5 (1.43%) WAN
7 4 (1.15%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.86%) Kerberos
8 3 (0.86%) VLAN
9 2 (0.57%) HTTP
9 2 (0.57%) NAS
9 2 (0.57%) SAN
9 2 (0.57%) SD-WAN
9 2 (0.57%) SMTP
10 1 (0.29%) BGP
10 1 (0.29%) NGFW
10 1 (0.29%) OSPF
10 1 (0.29%) WAAS
10 1 (0.29%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (7.45%) PostgreSQL
2 20 (5.73%) Power BI
3 15 (4.30%) Elasticsearch
4 11 (3.15%) SQL Server
5 10 (2.87%) Data Warehouse
6 8 (2.29%) Redis
7 7 (2.01%) Metadata
8 5 (1.43%) Azure SQL Database
8 5 (1.43%) MongoDB
9 4 (1.15%) Data Lake
9 4 (1.15%) NoSQL
10 3 (0.86%) Delta Lake
11 2 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
11 2 (0.57%) Looker
11 2 (0.57%) MySQL
11 2 (0.57%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.57%) Power Query
11 2 (0.57%) Tableau
12 1 (0.29%) Amazon RDS
12 1 (0.29%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 30 (8.60%) Oracle APEX
2 20 (5.73%) Git
3 17 (4.87%) JIRA
4 12 (3.44%) SonarQube
5 9 (2.58%) GitLab
5 9 (2.58%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.57%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.29%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.29%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.29%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.29%) JUnit
7 1 (0.29%) Maven
7 1 (0.29%) Mocha
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.29%) Postman
7 1 (0.29%) REST Assured
7 1 (0.29%) Snyk
7 1 (0.29%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.29%) TestNG
General
1 108 (30.95%) Social Skills
2 34 (9.74%) Public Sector
3 25 (7.16%) Finance
4 15 (4.30%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (3.15%) Documentation Skills
6 7 (2.01%) Telecoms
7 5 (1.43%) Banking
7 5 (1.43%) Legal
8 4 (1.15%) Back Office
8 4 (1.15%) Manufacturing
8 4 (1.15%) Military
9 3 (0.86%) Electronics
9 3 (0.86%) Local Government
9 3 (0.86%) Marketing
10 1 (0.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.29%) Law
10 1 (0.29%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.29%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 64 (18.34%) Developer
2 58 (16.62%) Senior
3 40 (11.46%) Consultant
4 32 (9.17%) Architect
4 32 (9.17%) Implementation Consultant
5 31 (8.88%) Senior Developer
6 26 (7.45%) Data Engineer
7 25 (7.16%) Analyst
7 25 (7.16%) Azure Engineer
8 24 (6.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 21 (6.02%) DevOps Engineer
10 16 (4.58%) Desktop Engineer
10 16 (4.58%) Support Engineer
11 15 (4.30%) Desktop Support
11 15 (4.30%) Desktop Support Engineer
12 12 (3.44%) Lead
12 12 (3.44%) Senior Data Engineer
13 11 (3.15%) Cloud Engineer
13 11 (3.15%) Data Architect
13 11 (3.15%) DevSecOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (5.73%) REST
2 19 (5.44%) ARM Templates
3 17 (4.87%) Kafka
4 13 (3.72%) OAuth
5 12 (3.44%) Keycloak
5 12 (3.44%) YAML
6 11 (3.15%) SOAP
7 10 (2.87%) Node.js
7 10 (2.87%) OAuth2
7 10 (2.87%) React
7 10 (2.87%) SAML
8 9 (2.58%) .NET
8 9 (2.58%) OpenID
9 8 (2.29%) AngularJS
9 8 (2.29%) FastAPI
9 8 (2.29%) Flask
9 8 (2.29%) GraphQL
9 8 (2.29%) gRPC
9 8 (2.29%) RESTful
9 8 (2.29%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 35 (10.03%) Hybrid Cloud
2 25 (7.16%) Cloud Native
3 14 (4.01%) Product Ownership
4 10 (2.87%) Enterprise Software
5 8 (2.29%) Data Centre
6 7 (2.01%) Onboarding
6 7 (2.01%) Public Cloud
7 6 (1.72%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (1.15%) CMDB
9 4 (1.15%) Cyber Defence
9 4 (1.15%) FMCG
9 4 (1.15%) Management Information System
10 3 (0.86%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.86%) Enterprise Cloud
10 3 (0.86%) iPad
10 3 (0.86%) iPhone
10 3 (0.86%) Private Cloud
10 3 (0.86%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (0.86%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 59 (16.91%) Windows
2 22 (6.30%) Linux
3 21 (6.02%) Windows Server
4 11 (3.15%) Windows 10
5 5 (1.43%) Windows Server 2016
6 4 (1.15%) Unix
6 4 (1.15%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (0.86%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.29%) Debian
8 1 (0.29%) Rocky
8 1 (0.29%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (39.83%) DevOps
2 90 (25.79%) Agile
3 61 (17.48%) CI/CD
4 48 (13.75%) Scrum
5 44 (12.61%) Validation
6 43 (12.32%) Problem-Solving
7 41 (11.75%) Containerisation
8 39 (11.17%) Infrastructure as Code
9 38 (10.89%) ERP
10 34 (9.74%) PLM
10 34 (9.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 33 (9.46%) Collaborative Working
11 33 (9.46%) ITIL
12 32 (9.17%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 30 (8.60%) Analytics
14 29 (8.31%) Migration
14 29 (8.31%) Software Delivery
15 27 (7.74%) Business Intelligence
15 27 (7.74%) ETL
15 27 (7.74%) Requirements Analysis
Programming Languages
1 77 (22.06%) SQL
2 64 (18.34%) Python
3 50 (14.33%) JavaScript
4 49 (14.04%) PowerShell
5 36 (10.32%) PL/SQL
6 23 (6.59%) Go
7 20 (5.73%) Bicep
8 13 (3.72%) Java
9 12 (3.44%) TypeScript
10 11 (3.15%) Bash
11 7 (2.01%) C#
12 3 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 3 (0.86%) Ruby
12 3 (0.86%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.57%) C
14 1 (0.29%) C++
14 1 (0.29%) Scala
14 1 (0.29%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 176 (50.43%) Security Cleared
2 164 (46.99%) SC Cleared
3 38 (10.89%) Azure Certification
4 36 (10.32%) DV Cleared
5 14 (4.01%) Microsoft Certification
6 13 (3.72%) Degree
7 10 (2.87%) CISM
7 10 (2.87%) CISSP
8 8 (2.29%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 6 (1.72%) AWS Certification
10 4 (1.15%) Computer Science Degree
10 4 (1.15%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.86%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 2 (0.57%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (0.57%) BPSS Clearance
12 2 (0.57%) Network+ Certification
13 1 (0.29%) CCNA
13 1 (0.29%) Cisco Certification
13 1 (0.29%) GCIH
13 1 (0.29%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (6.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 19 (5.44%) GDPR
3 18 (5.16%) NCSC
4 17 (4.87%) NIST
5 12 (3.44%) QA
6 10 (2.87%) Data Quality
7 9 (2.58%) NIST 800
8 3 (0.86%) Government Security Classifications
8 3 (0.86%) PSD2
8 3 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.57%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.57%) SLA
9 2 (0.57%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.29%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.29%) GRC
10 1 (0.29%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.29%) WCAG
System Software
1 71 (20.34%) Active Directory
2 47 (13.47%) Docker
3 13 (3.72%) Hyper-V
4 9 (2.58%) Virtual Desktop
4 9 (2.58%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (1.72%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.57%) vSphere
7 1 (0.29%) KVM
7 1 (0.29%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 1 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.29%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 61 (17.48%) Kubernetes
2 53 (15.19%) Terraform
3 27 (7.74%) Microsoft Intune
4 19 (5.44%) Single Sign-On
5 13 (3.72%) Grafana
5 13 (3.72%) SCCM
6 11 (3.15%) Ansible
6 11 (3.15%) Prometheus
7 9 (2.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 4 (1.15%) Kibana
9 3 (0.86%) Argo
9 3 (0.86%) logstash
10 2 (0.57%) CA Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.57%) PingFederate
10 2 (0.57%) Podman
10 2 (0.57%) Puppet
11 1 (0.29%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.29%) HP ALM
11 1 (0.29%) Icinga
11 1 (0.29%) WSUS
Vendors
1 115 (32.95%) Microsoft
2 42 (12.03%) Oracle
3 32 (9.17%) Siemens
4 18 (5.16%) Databricks
5 12 (3.44%) Google
5 12 (3.44%) Red Hat
5 12 (3.44%) VMware
6 10 (2.87%) ServiceNow
7 8 (2.29%) IBM
8 7 (2.01%) NEC
8 7 (2.01%) NetApp
8 7 (2.01%) SAP
9 5 (1.43%) Cisco
9 5 (1.43%) ForgeRock
9 5 (1.43%) Ping Identity
9 5 (1.43%) Salesforce
10 4 (1.15%) Starlink
11 3 (0.86%) McAfee
12 2 (0.57%) NetIQ
12 2 (0.57%) OpenText