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 27 April 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
27 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 6 5
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 333 258 499
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 10.25% 15.19% 15.65%
As % of the Vendors category 32.52% 33.20% 38.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 247 178 330
10th Percentile £181 £195 £175
25th Percentile £316 £220 £260
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £464 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.96% -7.25% -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £660 £675 £688
England median daily rate £493 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +3.68% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 21 47
10th Percentile £13.65 - £12.50
25th Percentile £14.00 £18.13 £13.69
Median hourly rate £22.53 £18.51 £15.89
Median % change year-on-year +21.69% +16.49% -68.22%
75th Percentile £37.81 £25.00 £51.25
90th Percentile £65.00 £37.50 £57.80
England median hourly rate £20.33 £19.99 £15.00
% change year-on-year +1.70% +33.23% -31.82%

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 1,024 777 1,295
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 31.51% 45.73% 40.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 661 511 822
10th Percentile £263 £220 £186
25th Percentile £400 £389 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £513
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.10% -2.29%
75th Percentile £588 £608 £625
90th Percentile £725 £688 £725
England median daily rate £500 £525 £518
% change year-on-year -4.76% +1.35% -3.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 142 64 173
10th Percentile £16.62 £18.13 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.66 £18.51 £27.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £35.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.97% -25.26% -24.74%
75th Percentile £59.69 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.36 £70.00 £77.50
England median hourly rate £30.32 £27.50 £22.50
% change year-on-year +10.25% +22.22% -43.75%

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 27 April 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 27 April 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 27 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
Wiltshire -1 76 £538 -2.27% 31
Bristol -16 71 £500 +52.67% 54
Gloucestershire -1 70 £410 -0.67% 47
Somerset +1 57 £450 +21.62% 38
Devon +1 38 £220 -35.77% 42
Dorset -18 9 £409 -13.89% 35
Cornwall -8 1 £525 - 8
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 46 (13.81%) SharePoint
2 16 (4.80%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.20%) Confluence
4 2 (0.60%) Apache
4 2 (0.60%) Oracle Workflow
4 2 (0.60%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.30%) Appian
5 1 (0.30%) CMS
5 1 (0.30%) IIS
5 1 (0.30%) Umbraco
Applications
1 49 (14.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 44 (13.21%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (6.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (3.30%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (2.10%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (1.50%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.90%) Adobe Captivate
7 3 (0.90%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 2 (0.60%) InDesign
8 2 (0.60%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.30%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.30%) PTC Creo
9 1 (0.30%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 7 (2.10%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.80%) Maximo
2 6 (1.80%) NetSuite
3 2 (0.60%) Dynamics AX
3 2 (0.60%) Oracle Payables
3 2 (0.60%) Oracle Receivables
3 2 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.30%) assyst
4 1 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
4 1 (0.30%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 115 (34.53%) Azure
2 64 (19.22%) Microsoft 365
3 50 (15.02%) Power Platform
4 28 (8.41%) Entra ID
5 27 (8.11%) Azure DevOps
6 21 (6.31%) Dynamics 365
7 20 (6.01%) Power Automate
8 19 (5.71%) AWS
9 17 (5.11%) GitHub
10 16 (4.80%) PowerApps
11 14 (4.20%) Azure Sentinel
12 12 (3.60%) Azure Monitor
13 10 (3.00%) Azure AKS
14 9 (2.70%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 9 (2.70%) GCP
14 9 (2.70%) PaaS
14 9 (2.70%) SaaS
15 8 (2.40%) Azure Data Factory
15 8 (2.40%) Serverless
16 6 (1.80%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 20 (6.01%) VPN
2 19 (5.71%) Firewall
3 14 (4.20%) DNS
4 11 (3.30%) DHCP
5 6 (1.80%) TCP/IP
6 5 (1.50%) Skype
7 4 (1.20%) Ethernet
7 4 (1.20%) WAN
8 3 (0.90%) LAN
8 3 (0.90%) Network Security
8 3 (0.90%) Unified Communications
8 3 (0.90%) VLAN
8 3 (0.90%) VoIP
8 3 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (0.90%) Wireless
9 2 (0.60%) Cisco IOS
9 2 (0.60%) H.323
9 2 (0.60%) HTTP
9 2 (0.60%) RTP
10 1 (0.30%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (10.51%) Power BI
2 13 (3.90%) SQL Server
3 5 (1.50%) Relational Database
4 4 (1.20%) Azure SQL Database
4 4 (1.20%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (1.20%) Delta Lake
4 4 (1.20%) Metadata
4 4 (1.20%) MySQL
4 4 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
4 4 (1.20%) Redis
4 4 (1.20%) Star Schema
5 3 (0.90%) GIS
5 3 (0.90%) Power Query
6 2 (0.60%) Data Lake
6 2 (0.60%) Electronic Patient Records
6 2 (0.60%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.60%) Spatial Data
6 2 (0.60%) Tableau
7 1 (0.30%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.30%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 27 (8.11%) JIRA
2 6 (1.80%) Git
2 6 (1.80%) Visual Studio
3 4 (1.20%) AdminStudio
3 4 (1.20%) Eclipse
3 4 (1.20%) GitLab
3 4 (1.20%) InstallShield
3 4 (1.20%) Visual Studio Code
4 3 (0.90%) Artifactory
4 3 (0.90%) MSI
5 1 (0.30%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.30%) HP UFT
5 1 (0.30%) Selenium
5 1 (0.30%) webpack
General
1 134 (40.24%) Social Skills
2 53 (15.92%) Analytical Skills
3 41 (12.31%) Finance
4 34 (10.21%) Public Sector
5 30 (9.01%) Organisational Skills
6 23 (6.91%) Military
7 16 (4.80%) Legal
8 14 (4.20%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (2.40%) Presentation Skills
10 7 (2.10%) Manufacturing
11 6 (1.80%) Marketing
12 4 (1.20%) Back Office
12 4 (1.20%) Banking
12 4 (1.20%) Local Government
12 4 (1.20%) Police
13 3 (0.90%) General Ledger
14 2 (0.60%) Electronics
14 2 (0.60%) Investment Banking
14 2 (0.60%) Telecoms
15 1 (0.30%) Retail
Job Titles
1 45 (13.51%) Architect
2 31 (9.31%) Developer
3 29 (8.71%) Support Engineer
4 24 (7.21%) Analyst
5 20 (6.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 18 (5.41%) Administrator
7 17 (5.11%) Project Officer
7 17 (5.11%) Senior
8 16 (4.80%) Data Engineer
8 16 (4.80%) Desktop Engineer
8 16 (4.80%) Desktop Support
8 16 (4.80%) Desktop Support Engineer
9 15 (4.50%) Azure Engineer
9 15 (4.50%) Solutions Architect
10 14 (4.20%) IT Support
11 12 (3.60%) Lead
12 11 (3.30%) Project Support Officer
12 11 (3.30%) Support Officer
13 10 (3.00%) Consultant
13 10 (3.00%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (5.11%) .NET
2 12 (3.60%) REST
3 11 (3.30%) ARM Templates
4 10 (3.00%) OAuth
5 9 (2.70%) OAuth2
5 9 (2.70%) SAML
6 8 (2.40%) .NET Framework
6 8 (2.40%) CSS
6 8 (2.40%) HTML
6 8 (2.40%) JDO
7 7 (2.10%) OpenID
7 7 (2.10%) Web Services
8 5 (1.50%) JSON
9 4 (1.20%) CSS3
9 4 (1.20%) Flask
9 4 (1.20%) HTML5
9 4 (1.20%) React
9 4 (1.20%) Spring
9 4 (1.20%) Spring MVC
9 4 (1.20%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 19 (5.71%) Hybrid Cloud
2 14 (4.20%) Blackberry
2 14 (4.20%) Cloud Native
3 12 (3.60%) Product Ownership
4 11 (3.30%) Enterprise Software
5 10 (3.00%) Onboarding
5 10 (3.00%) Self-Motivation
6 9 (2.70%) Management Information System
7 8 (2.40%) Data Structures
8 7 (2.10%) Low-Code
8 7 (2.10%) Virtual Team
9 6 (1.80%) Legacy Applications
9 6 (1.80%) Legacy Systems
10 5 (1.50%) Driving Licence
11 4 (1.20%) Freedom of Information
11 4 (1.20%) PKI
12 3 (0.90%) Data Centre
12 3 (0.90%) Mobile App
12 3 (0.90%) Replication
12 3 (0.90%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 104 (31.23%) Windows
2 30 (9.01%) Windows 10
3 29 (8.71%) Windows Server
4 23 (6.91%) Android
5 17 (5.11%) Linux
6 16 (4.80%) Apple iOS
7 4 (1.20%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (0.90%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.90%) Windows Server 2012
9 2 (0.60%) CentOS
9 2 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 80 (24.02%) Problem-Solving
2 53 (15.92%) Agile
3 38 (11.41%) DevOps
4 37 (11.11%) ITIL
5 36 (10.81%) Continuous Improvement
6 35 (10.51%) Analytics
7 33 (9.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 31 (9.31%) CI/CD
8 31 (9.31%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 31 (9.31%) Stakeholder Management
9 30 (9.01%) Migration
10 29 (8.71%) Project Delivery
11 28 (8.41%) Project Management
12 25 (7.51%) Business Intelligence
13 24 (7.21%) Customer Service
13 24 (7.21%) PRINCE2
14 23 (6.91%) Change Management
15 22 (6.61%) Data Modelling
16 21 (6.31%) Identity Access Management
16 21 (6.31%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 47 (14.11%) PowerShell
2 38 (11.41%) SQL
3 26 (7.81%) Python
4 23 (6.91%) JavaScript
5 15 (4.50%) C#
6 14 (4.20%) Bicep
7 10 (3.00%) Java
8 5 (1.50%) C++
9 4 (1.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 4 (1.20%) Go
9 4 (1.20%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.90%) PHP
10 3 (0.90%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.60%) VBA
12 1 (0.30%) Bash
12 1 (0.30%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.30%) VB
Qualifications
1 162 (48.65%) Security Cleared
2 118 (35.44%) SC Cleared
3 50 (15.02%) DV Cleared
4 39 (11.71%) Degree
5 29 (8.71%) Microsoft Certification
6 22 (6.61%) Azure Certification
7 9 (2.70%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 7 (2.10%) CISSP
9 6 (1.80%) CISM
9 6 (1.80%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 5 (1.50%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (0.90%) APMP
11 3 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.90%) ITIL Certification
11 3 (0.90%) MCSE
11 3 (0.90%) PMP
12 2 (0.60%) ACCA
12 2 (0.60%) CBAP
12 2 (0.60%) CIMA
12 2 (0.60%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (5.11%) Data Quality
2 11 (3.30%) PMO
3 8 (2.40%) GDPR
3 8 (2.40%) NIST
4 7 (2.10%) Accessibility
4 7 (2.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (1.80%) NIST 800
6 4 (1.20%) QA
7 2 (0.60%) HL7
7 2 (0.60%) SNOMED CT
8 1 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.30%) GRC
8 1 (0.30%) ISO 22301
8 1 (0.30%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.30%) NCSC
8 1 (0.30%) SLA
System Software
1 79 (23.72%) Active Directory
2 13 (3.90%) Hyper-V
3 10 (3.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.70%) Docker
5 6 (1.80%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.90%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.30%) KVM
7 1 (0.30%) UAG
7 1 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.30%) VMware Workstation
7 1 (0.30%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 44 (13.21%) Microsoft Intune
2 30 (9.01%) Terraform
3 19 (5.71%) Kubernetes
3 19 (5.71%) Single Sign-On
4 13 (3.90%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 11 (3.30%) SCCM
6 8 (2.40%) Ansible
7 4 (1.20%) Grafana
7 4 (1.20%) Prometheus
7 4 (1.20%) WSUS
8 3 (0.90%) VxRail
9 2 (0.60%) Cisco CUCM
9 2 (0.60%) McAfee ePO
9 2 (0.60%) Puppet
10 1 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.30%) Failover Clustering
10 1 (0.30%) Norton AntiVirus
10 1 (0.30%) SCOM
10 1 (0.30%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 31 (9.31%) VMware
2 16 (4.80%) Citrix
3 14 (4.20%) MobileIron
4 13 (3.90%) ServiceNow
5 11 (3.30%) Google
6 10 (3.00%) Red Hat
6 10 (3.00%) SAP
7 9 (2.70%) Databricks
7 9 (2.70%) McAfee
8 8 (2.40%) Adobe
9 7 (2.10%) Cisco
9 7 (2.10%) Oracle
9 7 (2.10%) Starlink
10 6 (1.80%) Apple
10 6 (1.80%) IBM
11 5 (1.50%) Blue Prism
11 5 (1.50%) NetApp
12 4 (1.20%) Dell
12 4 (1.20%) InterSystems
13 3 (0.90%) HP