Microsoft Contract Job Trends in the South West

Microsoft
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South West requiring knowledge or experience of Microsoft products and/or services. It includes a benchmarking guide to contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Microsoft over the 6 months leading up to 28 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

The figures below represent the IT contractor job market in general and are not representative of contractor rates within the Microsoft Corporation.

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 6 5
Rank change year-on-year +1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 360 269 450
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 12.70% 15.15% 14.32%
As % of the Vendors category 36.07% 32.25% 33.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 261 189 300
10th Percentile £213 £190 £205
25th Percentile £375 £223 £316
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £600
90th Percentile £725 £725 £713
England median daily rate £490 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.16% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 8 53
10th Percentile £15.60 £16.49 £13.14
25th Percentile £19.15 £23.30 £14.54
Median hourly rate £25.46 £27.13 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.14% -42.89% -26.92%
75th Percentile £60.00 £30.99 £51.25
90th Percentile £64.95 £37.00 -
England median hourly rate £19.91 £23.99 £17.50
% change year-on-year -17.01% +37.09% -15.52%

All Vendors
South West

Microsoft falls under the Vendor Products and Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring knowledge or experience of all vendor products and services in the South West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 998 834 1,325
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 35.22% 46.99% 42.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 627 533 841
10th Percentile £275 £215 £213
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £516 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.76% -1.73% -
75th Percentile £600 £619 £646
90th Percentile £725 £699 £725
England median daily rate £508 £525 £520
% change year-on-year -3.33% +0.96% -3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 136 38 169
10th Percentile £18.87 £18.42 £14.54
25th Percentile £23.16 £25.26 £37.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £62.50 £48.72
Median % change year-on-year -8.00% +28.28% -25.05%
75th Percentile £60.00 £68.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £71.33 £70.00
England median hourly rate £24.00 £31.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -22.58% +19.23% -21.21%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microsoft relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West.

Microsoft job vacancy trend in the South West

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Microsoft.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in the South West over the 6 months to 28 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the South West

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Microsoft.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in the South West over the 6 months to 28 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the South West

Microsoft
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 Microsoft within the South West region over the 6 months to 28 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
Wiltshire +2 119 £555 +0.91% 36
Bristol -8 75 £525 +75.00% 59
Gloucestershire +5 69 £425 - 45
Somerset -1 51 £475 +4.11% 50
Devon +12 28 £275 +42.86% 41
Dorset -13 8 £394 -21.15% 29
Microsoft
England

Microsoft
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 61 (16.94%) SharePoint
2 54 (15.00%) Microsoft Exchange
3 21 (5.83%) Skype for Business
4 5 (1.39%) Confluence
5 4 (1.11%) SharePoint Server
6 3 (0.83%) Oracle Application Server
7 2 (0.56%) Apache
8 1 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.28%) CMS
8 1 (0.28%) IIS
8 1 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.28%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 37 (10.28%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (8.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (2.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (2.50%) Microsoft Project
4 7 (1.94%) Adobe Captivate
4 7 (1.94%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 6 (1.67%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.83%) MS Visio
7 2 (0.56%) InDesign
8 1 (0.28%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.28%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.28%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.28%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.28%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 8 (2.22%) Maximo
2 6 (1.67%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.56%) NetSuite
3 2 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.56%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.28%) assyst
4 1 (0.28%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 109 (30.28%) Azure
2 86 (23.89%) Microsoft 365
3 40 (11.11%) Entra ID
3 40 (11.11%) Power Platform
4 31 (8.61%) AWS
5 29 (8.06%) Azure DevOps
6 19 (5.28%) Azure Sentinel
7 18 (5.00%) Power Automate
8 16 (4.44%) Azure Monitor
8 16 (4.44%) Dynamics 365
9 15 (4.17%) GitHub
10 14 (3.89%) PowerApps
11 13 (3.61%) Azure Key Vault
12 11 (3.06%) Azure AKS
12 11 (3.06%) OneDrive
12 11 (3.06%) Serverless
13 10 (2.78%) GCP
13 10 (2.78%) GitHub Actions
13 10 (2.78%) SaaS
14 8 (2.22%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 53 (14.72%) DNS
2 32 (8.89%) DHCP
3 29 (8.06%) Firewall
4 28 (7.78%) Skype
5 21 (5.83%) TCP/IP
6 18 (5.00%) VPN
7 10 (2.78%) Unified Communications
8 5 (1.39%) Network Security
9 3 (0.83%) Ethernet
9 3 (0.83%) HTTP
9 3 (0.83%) Kerberos
9 3 (0.83%) LAN
9 3 (0.83%) VLAN
9 3 (0.83%) VoIP
9 3 (0.83%) WAN
9 3 (0.83%) Wireless
10 2 (0.56%) Cisco IOS
10 2 (0.56%) H.323
10 2 (0.56%) RTP
10 2 (0.56%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (8.06%) Power BI
2 17 (4.72%) SQL Server
3 13 (3.61%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (2.50%) Redis
5 7 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (1.67%) Metadata
7 5 (1.39%) Star Schema
8 4 (1.11%) Azure SQL Database
9 3 (0.83%) MySQL
9 3 (0.83%) Oracle ODI
9 3 (0.83%) Oracle Reports
10 2 (0.56%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.56%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.56%) GIS
10 2 (0.56%) Looker
10 2 (0.56%) Power Query
10 2 (0.56%) Tableau
11 1 (0.28%) Elasticsearch
11 1 (0.28%) Relational Database
11 1 (0.28%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 29 (8.06%) JIRA
2 8 (2.22%) Git
3 7 (1.94%) MSI
4 4 (1.11%) Artifactory
4 4 (1.11%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.83%) DBeaver
5 3 (0.83%) Eclipse
5 3 (0.83%) GitLab
5 3 (0.83%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.28%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.28%) Maven
6 1 (0.28%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.28%) webpack
General
1 155 (43.06%) Social Skills
2 64 (17.78%) Analytical Skills
3 40 (11.11%) Finance
4 36 (10.00%) Public Sector
5 20 (5.56%) Documentation Skills
6 14 (3.89%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (2.50%) Legal
7 9 (2.50%) Manufacturing
7 9 (2.50%) Marketing
7 9 (2.50%) Telecoms
8 8 (2.22%) Military
9 6 (1.67%) Banking
10 5 (1.39%) Electronics
11 4 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.11%) Police
12 3 (0.83%) Back Office
13 2 (0.56%) Law
13 2 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
14 1 (0.28%) Advertising
14 1 (0.28%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 38 (10.56%) Architect
2 36 (10.00%) Support Engineer
3 34 (9.44%) Analyst
3 34 (9.44%) Developer
4 27 (7.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 20 (5.56%) Microsoft Engineer
6 19 (5.28%) Administrator
7 16 (4.44%) Azure Engineer
7 16 (4.44%) Solutions Architect
8 14 (3.89%) Desktop Engineer
8 14 (3.89%) Desktop Support
8 14 (3.89%) Desktop Support Engineer
9 13 (3.61%) Consultant
9 13 (3.61%) Data Engineer
10 11 (3.06%) Senior
11 10 (2.78%) Backend Developer
11 10 (2.78%) IT Support
11 10 (2.78%) Wintel Engineer
12 9 (2.50%) Designer
12 9 (2.50%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (6.94%) OAuth
2 24 (6.67%) SAML
3 22 (6.11%) OAuth2
3 22 (6.11%) OpenID
4 19 (5.28%) REST
5 13 (3.61%) ARM Templates
6 9 (2.50%) FastAPI
6 9 (2.50%) Flask
6 9 (2.50%) GraphQL
6 9 (2.50%) gRPC
6 9 (2.50%) WebSockets
7 8 (2.22%) CSS
7 8 (2.22%) HTML
8 6 (1.67%) .NET
8 6 (1.67%) JSON
8 6 (1.67%) SOAP
8 6 (1.67%) Web Services
9 5 (1.39%) JDO
9 5 (1.39%) LDAP
9 5 (1.39%) React
Miscellaneous
1 22 (6.11%) Hybrid Cloud
2 21 (5.83%) Onboarding
3 16 (4.44%) PKI
4 14 (3.89%) Blackberry
4 14 (3.89%) Cloud Native
4 14 (3.89%) Driving Licence
5 10 (2.78%) Enterprise Software
5 10 (2.78%) Management Information System
5 10 (2.78%) Replication
6 9 (2.50%) Mobile App
7 7 (1.94%) Private Cloud
7 7 (1.94%) Product Ownership
8 5 (1.39%) Low-Code
8 5 (1.39%) Virtual Team
9 4 (1.11%) Cyber Threat
9 4 (1.11%) Data Structures
9 4 (1.11%) Security Posture
10 3 (0.83%) Legacy Applications
11 2 (0.56%) Data Centre
11 2 (0.56%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 147 (40.83%) Windows
2 52 (14.44%) Windows Server
3 49 (13.61%) Windows 10
4 29 (8.06%) Linux
5 21 (5.83%) Android
6 20 (5.56%) Apple iOS
7 8 (2.22%) Windows Server 2016
8 5 (1.39%) Windows Server 2012
9 3 (0.83%) CentOS
9 3 (0.83%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.56%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2008
11 1 (0.28%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.28%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (26.94%) Problem-Solving
2 47 (13.06%) ITIL
3 46 (12.78%) Agile
4 40 (11.11%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 39 (10.83%) DevOps
5 39 (10.83%) Migration
5 39 (10.83%) RBAC
6 36 (10.00%) Stakeholder Management
7 34 (9.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 33 (9.17%) Analytics
9 31 (8.61%) Business Intelligence
10 30 (8.33%) Change Management
10 30 (8.33%) CI/CD
11 28 (7.78%) Identity Access Management
12 26 (7.22%) Knowledge Transfer
12 26 (7.22%) Service Management
13 25 (6.94%) Customer Service
14 23 (6.39%) Continuous Improvement
15 21 (5.83%) Cloud Security
16 18 (5.00%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 91 (25.28%) PowerShell
2 49 (13.61%) SQL
3 36 (10.00%) Python
4 22 (6.11%) JavaScript
5 17 (4.72%) Bicep
6 10 (2.78%) C#
7 9 (2.50%) Go
8 8 (2.22%) Java
9 6 (1.67%) TypeScript
10 5 (1.39%) T-SQL
11 4 (1.11%) C++
12 3 (0.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 2 (0.56%) Perl
13 2 (0.56%) PHP
14 1 (0.28%) Bash
14 1 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
14 1 (0.28%) PL/SQL
14 1 (0.28%) VBA
14 1 (0.28%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 201 (55.83%) Security Cleared
2 137 (38.06%) SC Cleared
3 84 (23.33%) DV Cleared
4 53 (14.72%) Microsoft Certification
5 27 (7.50%) Degree
6 21 (5.83%) Azure Certification
7 11 (3.06%) CISSP
7 11 (3.06%) MCSE
8 10 (2.78%) CISM
9 9 (2.50%) ITIL Certification
10 8 (2.22%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
11 7 (1.94%) A+ Certification
12 5 (1.39%) CCNA
12 5 (1.39%) CCNP
12 5 (1.39%) Cisco Certification
12 5 (1.39%) Master's Degree
13 3 (0.83%) ACCA
13 3 (0.83%) Computer Science Degree
13 3 (0.83%) MCSA
13 3 (0.83%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 18 (5.00%) GDPR
3 13 (3.61%) NIST
4 12 (3.33%) PMO
5 11 (3.06%) Data Quality
6 8 (2.22%) Accessibility
6 8 (2.22%) NIST 800
7 4 (1.11%) NCSC
7 4 (1.11%) SLA
8 3 (0.83%) GAAP
8 3 (0.83%) IFRS
9 2 (0.56%) PSD2
9 2 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.56%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.28%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.28%) QA
10 1 (0.28%) WCAG
System Software
1 119 (33.06%) Active Directory
2 30 (8.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (4.17%) Hyper-V
4 12 (3.33%) Docker
5 10 (2.78%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (1.67%) VMware NSX
7 5 (1.39%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 5 (1.39%) Virtual Servers
8 3 (0.83%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.28%) KVM
10 1 (0.28%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.28%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 1 (0.28%) UAG
10 1 (0.28%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 43 (11.94%) Microsoft Intune
2 35 (9.72%) Single Sign-On
3 32 (8.89%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 26 (7.22%) SCCM
5 25 (6.94%) Terraform
6 24 (6.67%) Kubernetes
7 12 (3.33%) WSUS
8 10 (2.78%) vCenter Server
9 9 (2.50%) Grafana
9 9 (2.50%) Prometheus
10 7 (1.94%) Norton AntiVirus
11 5 (1.39%) Ansible
12 3 (0.83%) VxRail
13 2 (0.56%) CA Single Sign-On
13 2 (0.56%) Cisco CUCM
13 2 (0.56%) NetBackup
13 2 (0.56%) PingFederate
13 2 (0.56%) Puppet
13 2 (0.56%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
14 1 (0.28%) McAfee ePO
Vendors
1 53 (14.72%) VMware
2 24 (6.67%) Cisco
3 17 (4.72%) Citrix
4 15 (4.17%) SAP
5 14 (3.89%) MobileIron
6 12 (3.33%) Adobe
6 12 (3.33%) Red Hat
7 11 (3.06%) SolarWinds
7 11 (3.06%) Veeam
8 9 (2.50%) Oracle
9 8 (2.22%) IBM
9 8 (2.22%) McAfee
10 7 (1.94%) ServiceNow
10 7 (1.94%) Symantec
11 6 (1.67%) Blue Prism
11 6 (1.67%) Databricks
11 6 (1.67%) Google
12 5 (1.39%) Splunk
13 4 (1.11%) Atlassian
13 4 (1.11%) ForgeRock