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 20 August 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
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 5 5
Rank change year-on-year +1 0 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 455 294 429
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 12.43% 15.21% 15.53%
As % of the Vendors category 37.60% 36.03% 36.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 287 176 279
10th Percentile £228 £184 £180
25th Percentile £361 £220 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £406 £500
Median % change year-on-year +15.69% -18.75% -
75th Percentile £588 £570 £600
90th Percentile £730 £659 £727
England median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 43 31
10th Percentile £12.78 £18.13 £12.50
25th Percentile £14.00 £18.51 £13.69
Median hourly rate £17.50 £18.87 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.26% -60.27% +99.12%
75th Percentile £25.75 £28.38 £65.00
90th Percentile £64.25 £36.75 £85.00
England median hourly rate £21.43 £22.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year -5.32% +39.43% -26.23%

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 1,210 816 1,188
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 33.06% 42.21% 43.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 726 471 771
10th Percentile £302 £213 £225
25th Percentile £406 £353 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £524 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.20% -2.38% -
75th Percentile £612 £621 £638
90th Percentile £725 £688 £700
England median daily rate £513 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 160 108 131
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.10 £13.69
25th Percentile £16.65 £18.51 £45.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £21.76 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.39% -68.92% +23.92%
75th Percentile £59.06 £65.25 -
90th Percentile £77.58 £70.00 £77.50
England median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £29.00
% change year-on-year +29.22% -13.28% -26.68%

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 20 August 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 20 August 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 20 August 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 -2 135 £500 +23.08% 164
Somerset -1 88 £450 +63.64% 76
Wiltshire +5 77 £550 - 50
Gloucestershire +1 77 £410 +26.15% 148
Devon +1 41 £338 -15.63% 66
Dorset -1 23 £515 +21.18% 58
Cornwall -4 2 £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 70 (15.38%) SharePoint
2 25 (5.49%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (3.52%) Confluence
4 5 (1.10%) CMS
5 4 (0.88%) Skype for Business
6 3 (0.66%) Sitecore CMS
7 2 (0.44%) Apache
7 2 (0.44%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
8 1 (0.22%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.22%) Appian
8 1 (0.22%) ColdFusion
8 1 (0.22%) IIS
8 1 (0.22%) JBoss
8 1 (0.22%) Moodle
8 1 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.22%) Totara
8 1 (0.22%) Umbraco
Applications
1 64 (14.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 61 (13.41%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (6.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (4.18%) Microsoft Project
5 9 (1.98%) MS Visio
6 8 (1.76%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.44%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.22%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 10 (2.20%) NetSuite
2 8 (1.76%) Oracle Payables
2 8 (1.76%) Oracle Receivables
3 7 (1.54%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.66%) Dynamics NAV
4 3 (0.66%) Magento
4 3 (0.66%) SAP CRM
5 2 (0.44%) assyst
5 2 (0.44%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.22%) Oracle General Ledger
6 1 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.22%) SAP Hybris
6 1 (0.22%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 164 (36.04%) Azure
2 105 (23.08%) Microsoft 365
3 53 (11.65%) Entra ID
3 53 (11.65%) Power Platform
4 31 (6.81%) Azure DevOps
5 30 (6.59%) AWS
6 24 (5.27%) Dynamics 365
7 23 (5.05%) GitHub
8 15 (3.30%) PowerApps
8 15 (3.30%) SaaS
9 14 (3.08%) Power Automate
10 13 (2.86%) Azure Key Vault
11 12 (2.64%) Serverless
12 11 (2.42%) Microsoft Copilot
12 11 (2.42%) Microsoft Purview
12 11 (2.42%) OneDrive
13 10 (2.20%) PaaS
14 9 (1.98%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 9 (1.98%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 9 (1.98%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 20 (4.40%) WAN
2 18 (3.96%) DNS
3 16 (3.52%) Firewall
4 12 (2.64%) DHCP
5 11 (2.42%) Skype
5 11 (2.42%) VPN
6 10 (2.20%) TCP/IP
7 9 (1.98%) LAN
8 8 (1.76%) SAN
9 7 (1.54%) Ethernet
10 5 (1.10%) BGP
10 5 (1.10%) VoIP
10 5 (1.10%) Wi-Fi
11 3 (0.66%) Kerberos
11 3 (0.66%) VLAN
11 3 (0.66%) VSAN
12 2 (0.44%) NAS
12 2 (0.44%) SSL
13 1 (0.22%) S/MIME
13 1 (0.22%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (8.57%) Power BI
2 24 (5.27%) SQL Server
3 13 (2.86%) Geospatial Data
3 13 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (2.42%) Metadata
5 8 (1.76%) Azure SQL Database
6 7 (1.54%) GIS
7 6 (1.32%) Relational Database
8 5 (1.10%) Data Lake
8 5 (1.10%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.66%) Data Warehouse
9 3 (0.66%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.66%) Redis
9 3 (0.66%) Spatial Data
9 3 (0.66%) Star Schema
9 3 (0.66%) Tableau
10 2 (0.44%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
10 2 (0.44%) MySQL
10 2 (0.44%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 37 (8.13%) JIRA
2 23 (5.05%) Git
3 12 (2.64%) MSI
4 10 (2.20%) Visual Studio
5 6 (1.32%) AdminStudio
5 6 (1.32%) Eclipse
5 6 (1.32%) GitLab
5 6 (1.32%) InstallShield
6 4 (0.88%) Visual Studio Code
7 1 (0.22%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.22%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.22%) HP UFT
7 1 (0.22%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (0.22%) Selenium
7 1 (0.22%) webpack
General
1 181 (39.78%) Social Skills
2 59 (12.97%) Analytical Skills
3 54 (11.87%) Finance
4 52 (11.43%) Public Sector
5 39 (8.57%) Organisational Skills
6 34 (7.47%) Military
7 16 (3.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 15 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
8 15 (3.30%) Legal
9 13 (2.86%) Local Government
10 11 (2.42%) Aerospace
10 11 (2.42%) Retail
11 9 (1.98%) General Ledger
12 8 (1.76%) Presentation Skills
13 6 (1.32%) Manufacturing
13 6 (1.32%) Marketing
14 5 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
15 3 (0.66%) Aviation
16 2 (0.44%) Advertising
16 2 (0.44%) Police
Job Titles
1 65 (14.29%) Architect
2 50 (10.99%) Lead
3 42 (9.23%) Consultant
4 36 (7.91%) Developer
5 31 (6.81%) Senior
6 29 (6.37%) Support Engineer
7 27 (5.93%) Analyst
8 21 (4.62%) IT Support
9 20 (4.40%) Administrator
10 17 (3.74%) Project Officer
10 17 (3.74%) Solutions Architect
11 15 (3.30%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 15 (3.30%) IT Engineer
12 14 (3.08%) Desktop Support
12 14 (3.08%) Microsoft Consultant
12 14 (3.08%) Technical Architect
13 13 (2.86%) Data Engineer
14 12 (2.64%) Azure Consultant
14 12 (2.64%) DBA
14 12 (2.64%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (8.57%) Terraform
2 35 (7.69%) .NET
3 25 (5.49%) .NET Framework
4 24 (5.27%) REST
5 19 (4.18%) HTML
6 18 (3.96%) .NET Core
7 16 (3.52%) RESTful
8 14 (3.08%) CSS
8 14 (3.08%) GeoJSON
9 13 (2.86%) CSS3
9 13 (2.86%) HTML5
10 12 (2.64%) ATL
10 12 (2.64%) COM
10 12 (2.64%) MFC
11 11 (2.42%) WPF
12 9 (1.98%) LDAP
12 9 (1.98%) Web Services
13 8 (1.76%) SailPoint
14 7 (1.54%) OAuth
14 7 (1.54%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 36 (7.91%) Onboarding
2 28 (6.15%) Cloud Native
3 22 (4.84%) Product Ownership
4 20 (4.40%) Legacy Systems
5 14 (3.08%) Virtual Team
6 13 (2.86%) Enterprise Software
6 13 (2.86%) Management Information System
7 12 (2.64%) Hybrid Cloud
8 11 (2.42%) Self-Motivation
9 10 (2.20%) Wiki
10 9 (1.98%) EPoS
11 7 (1.54%) Blackberry
12 6 (1.32%) Clustering
12 6 (1.32%) Data Centre
12 6 (1.32%) Driving Licence
12 6 (1.32%) Legacy Applications
12 6 (1.32%) Low-Code
13 5 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
13 5 (1.10%) Data Structures
13 5 (1.10%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 114 (25.05%) Windows
2 43 (9.45%) Windows 10
3 27 (5.93%) Android
4 22 (4.84%) Windows Server
5 20 (4.40%) Linux
6 10 (2.20%) Apple iOS
7 6 (1.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.66%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.44%) VMS
9 2 (0.44%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.22%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (20.66%) Problem-Solving
2 76 (16.70%) Continuous Improvement
3 70 (15.38%) Agile
4 68 (14.95%) Stakeholder Management
5 53 (11.65%) DevOps
6 52 (11.43%) CI/CD
7 51 (11.21%) Project Delivery
8 50 (10.99%) Migration
9 49 (10.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 41 (9.01%) Technical Leadership
11 40 (8.79%) Customer Service
11 40 (8.79%) ITIL
12 37 (8.13%) Project Management
13 36 (7.91%) Decision-Making
14 35 (7.69%) PRINCE2
15 34 (7.47%) Roadmaps
16 33 (7.25%) Infrastructure as Code
17 32 (7.03%) Validation
18 29 (6.37%) Data Protection
18 29 (6.37%) Knowledge Transfer
Programming Languages
1 50 (10.99%) SQL
2 35 (7.69%) Python
3 34 (7.47%) C#
4 31 (6.81%) PowerShell
5 28 (6.15%) JavaScript
6 19 (4.18%) Bicep
7 12 (2.64%) Java
7 12 (2.64%) TypeScript
8 8 (1.76%) Bash
8 8 (1.76%) C++
9 7 (1.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 5 (1.10%) BeanShell
11 3 (0.66%) Go
12 2 (0.44%) VB
13 1 (0.22%) C
13 1 (0.22%) PHP
13 1 (0.22%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.22%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.22%) VBA
13 1 (0.22%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 200 (43.96%) Security Cleared
2 141 (30.99%) SC Cleared
3 59 (12.97%) DV Cleared
4 37 (8.13%) Degree
5 17 (3.74%) BPSS Clearance
5 17 (3.74%) Microsoft Certification
6 12 (2.64%) Azure Certification
7 10 (2.20%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 9 (1.98%) PMP
9 8 (1.76%) ACCA
9 8 (1.76%) CIMA
10 5 (1.10%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (1.10%) DBS Check
11 4 (0.88%) CISSP
11 4 (0.88%) TOGAF Certification
12 3 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 3 (0.66%) ACSP
13 2 (0.44%) A+ Certification
13 2 (0.44%) CCNA
13 2 (0.44%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (4.84%) Data Quality
2 17 (3.74%) Accessibility
2 17 (3.74%) QA
3 16 (3.52%) NCSC
4 15 (3.30%) SLA
5 14 (3.08%) GDPR
5 14 (3.08%) PMO
6 11 (2.42%) WCAG
7 5 (1.10%) ISO 9000
8 4 (0.88%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.66%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.66%) NIST
10 2 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.44%) HL7
10 2 (0.44%) SNOMED CT
11 1 (0.22%) Def Stans
11 1 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.22%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 80 (17.58%) Active Directory
2 25 (5.49%) Docker
3 16 (3.52%) Virtual Desktop
4 14 (3.08%) Hyper-V
5 12 (2.64%) VMware Infrastructure
6 7 (1.54%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.88%) VMware NSX
8 3 (0.66%) vSphere
9 2 (0.44%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 1 (0.22%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.22%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.22%) zsh
Systems Management
1 38 (8.35%) Microsoft Intune
2 26 (5.71%) Kubernetes
3 23 (5.05%) SCCM
4 7 (1.54%) Ansible
5 6 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (1.10%) Failover Clustering
6 5 (1.10%) FortiGate
6 5 (1.10%) Grafana
6 5 (1.10%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 5 (1.10%) WSUS
7 4 (0.88%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (0.66%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.66%) VxRail
9 2 (0.44%) Argo
9 2 (0.44%) McAfee ePO
10 1 (0.22%) FreeIPA
10 1 (0.22%) Podman
10 1 (0.22%) PTC Integrity
10 1 (0.22%) SELinux
10 1 (0.22%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 25 (5.49%) Oracle
2 24 (5.27%) VMware
3 16 (3.52%) ServiceNow
4 15 (3.30%) Apple
5 12 (2.64%) Cisco
5 12 (2.64%) SAP
6 11 (2.42%) Google
6 11 (2.42%) HP
6 11 (2.42%) McAfee
7 10 (2.20%) Databricks
8 9 (1.98%) Red Hat
9 7 (1.54%) Citrix
9 7 (1.54%) MobileIron
9 7 (1.54%) Starlink
10 6 (1.32%) BiZZdesign
11 5 (1.10%) CyberArk
11 5 (1.10%) Informatica
11 5 (1.10%) InterSystems
11 5 (1.10%) NetApp
11 5 (1.10%) Zscaler