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 9 May 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
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 327 254 506
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 9.84% 14.94% 15.95%
As % of the Vendors category 32.34% 33.12% 39.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 235 173 333
10th Percentile £180 £187 £180
25th Percentile £316 £220 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £465 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.23% -7.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
England median daily rate £495 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +4.21% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 22 49
10th Percentile £13.65 - £12.50
25th Percentile £14.00 £18.13 £13.69
Median hourly rate £19.33 £18.51 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.43% +2.83% -15.29%
75th Percentile £37.50 £23.47 £51.25
90th Percentile £65.00 £37.13 £65.00
England median hourly rate £20.20 £18.51 £15.00
% change year-on-year +9.10% +23.40% -28.45%

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 1,011 767 1,268
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 30.42% 45.12% 39.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 632 485 803
10th Percentile £263 £218 £189
25th Percentile £400 £382 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £506 £515 £505
Median % change year-on-year -1.84% +1.98% -3.81%
75th Percentile £600 £608 £620
90th Percentile £738 £688 £725
England median daily rate £500 £525 £520
% change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -2.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 152 70 177
10th Percentile £16.62 £18.13 £13.69
25th Percentile £20.00 £18.51 £36.25
Median hourly rate £57.50 £35.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.29% -26.32% -23.39%
75th Percentile £59.06 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.20 £70.00 £77.50
England median hourly rate £32.23 £26.45 £22.50
% change year-on-year +21.83% +17.56% -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 9 May 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 9 May 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 9 May 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 -15 75 £500 +52.67% 67
Gloucestershire +3 71 £400 -5.88% 39
Wiltshire -1 66 £525 -4.55% 25
Somerset 0 57 £450 +21.62% 39
Devon +2 37 £310 -9.64% 40
Dorset -14 9 £409 -13.89% 30
Cornwall -8 1 £525 - 9
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 44 (13.46%) SharePoint
2 13 (3.98%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.22%) Confluence
4 2 (0.61%) Apache
4 2 (0.61%) Oracle Workflow
4 2 (0.61%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.31%) Appian
5 1 (0.31%) CMS
5 1 (0.31%) IIS
5 1 (0.31%) Umbraco
Applications
1 50 (15.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (12.84%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (7.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (3.36%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (1.83%) MS Visio
5 6 (1.83%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.92%) Adobe Captivate
6 3 (0.92%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.61%) InDesign
7 2 (0.61%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.31%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.31%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.31%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 7 (2.14%) Dynamics CRM
1 7 (2.14%) NetSuite
2 5 (1.53%) Maximo
3 3 (0.92%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.92%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.61%) assyst
4 2 (0.61%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
5 1 (0.31%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 117 (35.78%) Azure
2 63 (19.27%) Microsoft 365
3 49 (14.98%) Power Platform
4 28 (8.56%) Azure DevOps
5 25 (7.65%) Entra ID
6 22 (6.73%) Dynamics 365
7 19 (5.81%) GitHub
8 17 (5.20%) AWS
9 16 (4.89%) Power Automate
10 13 (3.98%) PowerApps
11 12 (3.67%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 11 (3.36%) Azure Data Factory
12 11 (3.36%) Azure Monitor
13 10 (3.06%) PaaS
14 9 (2.75%) Azure AKS
14 9 (2.75%) Azure Sentinel
14 9 (2.75%) SaaS
15 8 (2.45%) GCP
15 8 (2.45%) Serverless
16 6 (1.83%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (5.20%) VPN
2 15 (4.59%) Firewall
3 12 (3.67%) DNS
4 11 (3.36%) DHCP
5 6 (1.83%) TCP/IP
6 5 (1.53%) Ethernet
7 4 (1.22%) Skype
7 4 (1.22%) WAN
8 3 (0.92%) LAN
8 3 (0.92%) VLAN
8 3 (0.92%) VoIP
8 3 (0.92%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (0.92%) Wireless
9 2 (0.61%) Cisco IOS
9 2 (0.61%) H.323
9 2 (0.61%) HTTP
9 2 (0.61%) Network Security
9 2 (0.61%) RTP
9 2 (0.61%) Unified Communications
10 1 (0.31%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (10.70%) Power BI
2 13 (3.98%) SQL Server
3 5 (1.53%) Relational Database
4 4 (1.22%) Azure SQL Database
4 4 (1.22%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (1.22%) Delta Lake
4 4 (1.22%) Metadata
4 4 (1.22%) MySQL
4 4 (1.22%) PostgreSQL
4 4 (1.22%) Redis
4 4 (1.22%) Star Schema
5 3 (0.92%) GIS
5 3 (0.92%) Power Query
6 2 (0.61%) Data Lake
6 2 (0.61%) Electronic Patient Records
6 2 (0.61%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.61%) Spatial Data
6 2 (0.61%) Tableau
7 1 (0.31%) Semantic Layer
7 1 (0.31%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 26 (7.95%) JIRA
2 7 (2.14%) Git
2 7 (2.14%) Visual Studio
3 5 (1.53%) AdminStudio
3 5 (1.53%) Eclipse
3 5 (1.53%) InstallShield
4 4 (1.22%) GitLab
4 4 (1.22%) Visual Studio Code
5 3 (0.92%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.31%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.31%) HP UFT
6 1 (0.31%) MSI
6 1 (0.31%) Selenium
6 1 (0.31%) webpack
General
1 132 (40.37%) Social Skills
2 51 (15.60%) Analytical Skills
3 41 (12.54%) Finance
4 32 (9.79%) Organisational Skills
5 30 (9.17%) Public Sector
6 23 (7.03%) Military
7 16 (4.89%) Legal
8 11 (3.36%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (2.45%) Presentation Skills
10 7 (2.14%) Marketing
11 5 (1.53%) Manufacturing
11 5 (1.53%) Police
12 4 (1.22%) Back Office
12 4 (1.22%) Banking
12 4 (1.22%) General Ledger
12 4 (1.22%) Local Government
13 2 (0.61%) Aerospace
13 2 (0.61%) Investment Banking
13 2 (0.61%) Retail
14 1 (0.31%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 43 (13.15%) Architect
2 29 (8.87%) Support Engineer
3 28 (8.56%) Developer
4 23 (7.03%) Analyst
5 20 (6.12%) Administrator
6 18 (5.50%) Data Engineer
7 17 (5.20%) Desktop Support
8 16 (4.89%) Desktop Engineer
8 16 (4.89%) Desktop Support Engineer
8 16 (4.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 16 (4.89%) Lead
8 16 (4.89%) Project Officer
8 16 (4.89%) Senior
9 14 (4.28%) Solutions Architect
10 13 (3.98%) Azure Engineer
10 13 (3.98%) IT Support
11 12 (3.67%) Consultant
12 11 (3.36%) Project Support Officer
12 11 (3.36%) Support Officer
13 10 (3.06%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (5.50%) .NET
2 13 (3.98%) REST
3 9 (2.75%) .NET Framework
3 9 (2.75%) ARM Templates
4 8 (2.45%) JDO
4 8 (2.45%) Web Services
5 7 (2.14%) OAuth
6 6 (1.83%) JSON
6 6 (1.83%) OAuth2
6 6 (1.83%) SAML
7 5 (1.53%) CSS
7 5 (1.53%) HTML
7 5 (1.53%) Node.js
7 5 (1.53%) OpenID
8 4 (1.22%) CSS3
8 4 (1.22%) Flask
8 4 (1.22%) HTML5
8 4 (1.22%) React
8 4 (1.22%) Spring MVC
8 4 (1.22%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 18 (5.50%) Hybrid Cloud
2 17 (5.20%) Cloud Native
3 15 (4.59%) Product Ownership
4 14 (4.28%) Blackberry
5 10 (3.06%) Enterprise Software
5 10 (3.06%) Onboarding
5 10 (3.06%) Self-Motivation
6 9 (2.75%) Management Information System
7 8 (2.45%) Data Structures
7 8 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
8 7 (2.14%) Legacy Applications
8 7 (2.14%) Virtual Team
9 6 (1.83%) Driving Licence
10 5 (1.53%) Low-Code
11 4 (1.22%) Augmented Reality
11 4 (1.22%) Freedom of Information
11 4 (1.22%) Virtual Reality
11 4 (1.22%) Wiki
12 3 (0.92%) Mobile App
13 2 (0.61%) iPad
Operating Systems
1 98 (29.97%) Windows
2 29 (8.87%) Windows 10
3 25 (7.65%) Android
4 22 (6.73%) Windows Server
5 16 (4.89%) Apple iOS
6 14 (4.28%) Linux
7 4 (1.22%) Mac OS
7 4 (1.22%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 78 (23.85%) Problem-Solving
2 50 (15.29%) Agile
3 40 (12.23%) DevOps
4 38 (11.62%) Analytics
4 38 (11.62%) Continuous Improvement
5 35 (10.70%) CI/CD
6 34 (10.40%) ITIL
6 34 (10.40%) Stakeholder Management
7 31 (9.48%) Migration
7 31 (9.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 29 (8.87%) Project Delivery
8 29 (8.87%) Project Management
9 26 (7.95%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 25 (7.65%) Data Modelling
11 24 (7.34%) Business Intelligence
11 24 (7.34%) PRINCE2
12 23 (7.03%) Customer Service
13 22 (6.73%) Change Management
14 21 (6.42%) Decision-Making
15 20 (6.12%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 40 (12.23%) PowerShell
2 36 (11.01%) SQL
3 29 (8.87%) Python
4 21 (6.42%) JavaScript
5 17 (5.20%) C#
6 13 (3.98%) Bicep
7 10 (3.06%) Java
8 6 (1.83%) C++
9 4 (1.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 4 (1.22%) Go
9 4 (1.22%) TypeScript
10 3 (0.92%) PHP
10 3 (0.92%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.61%) VBA
12 1 (0.31%) Bash
12 1 (0.31%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.31%) VB
Qualifications
1 156 (47.71%) Security Cleared
2 118 (36.09%) SC Cleared
3 45 (13.76%) DV Cleared
4 33 (10.09%) Degree
5 23 (7.03%) Microsoft Certification
6 22 (6.73%) Azure Certification
7 10 (3.06%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 6 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
9 5 (1.53%) CISM
9 5 (1.53%) CISSP
9 5 (1.53%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 4 (1.22%) PMP
11 3 (0.92%) ACCA
11 3 (0.92%) ACSP
11 3 (0.92%) CIMA
11 3 (0.92%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.92%) ITIL Certification
12 2 (0.61%) APMP
12 2 (0.61%) CBAP
12 2 (0.61%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (5.20%) Data Quality
2 10 (3.06%) PMO
3 8 (2.45%) Accessibility
3 8 (2.45%) GDPR
4 7 (2.14%) NIST
5 6 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (1.53%) NIST 800
7 4 (1.22%) QA
8 3 (0.92%) SLA
9 2 (0.61%) HL7
9 2 (0.61%) SNOMED CT
10 1 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.31%) GRC
10 1 (0.31%) ISO 22301
10 1 (0.31%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 71 (21.71%) Active Directory
2 13 (3.98%) Hyper-V
3 10 (3.06%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.75%) Docker
4 9 (2.75%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.92%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.31%) KVM
6 1 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.31%) VMware Workstation
6 1 (0.31%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 41 (12.54%) Microsoft Intune
2 27 (8.26%) Terraform
3 17 (5.20%) Kubernetes
4 15 (4.59%) Single Sign-On
5 12 (3.67%) SCCM
6 10 (3.06%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 7 (2.14%) Ansible
8 4 (1.22%) Grafana
8 4 (1.22%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.92%) VxRail
10 2 (0.61%) Cisco CUCM
10 2 (0.61%) McAfee ePO
11 1 (0.31%) CA Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
11 1 (0.31%) Norton AntiVirus
11 1 (0.31%) Puppet
11 1 (0.31%) SCOM
11 1 (0.31%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.31%) WSUS
Vendors
1 31 (9.48%) VMware
2 16 (4.89%) Citrix
3 14 (4.28%) MobileIron
4 12 (3.67%) ServiceNow
5 11 (3.36%) Google
6 10 (3.06%) Databricks
6 10 (3.06%) SAP
7 9 (2.75%) Apple
7 9 (2.75%) McAfee
8 8 (2.45%) Adobe
8 8 (2.45%) Oracle
9 7 (2.14%) Red Hat
9 7 (2.14%) Starlink
10 6 (1.83%) Cisco
10 6 (1.83%) NetApp
11 5 (1.53%) IBM
12 4 (1.22%) Dell
12 4 (1.22%) HP
12 4 (1.22%) InterSystems
13 3 (0.92%) Workday