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 21 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
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 330 255 497
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 9.78% 15.12% 15.70%
As % of the Vendors category 32.67% 33.82% 39.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 230 167 331
10th Percentile £177 £194 £180
25th Percentile £314 £220 £309
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £454 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.88% -9.20% -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £592 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £475 £485
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.06% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 26 48
10th Percentile £13.65 £18.13 £12.50
25th Percentile £14.93 £18.15 £13.69
Median hourly rate £19.33 £18.51 £17.07
Median % change year-on-year +4.43% +8.47% -58.63%
75th Percentile £37.50 £31.00 £51.25
90th Percentile £64.38 £37.50 £65.00
England median hourly rate £20.35 £18.85 £15.00
% change year-on-year +7.96% +25.67% -28.57%

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 1,010 754 1,270
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 29.93% 44.72% 40.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 603 470 814
10th Percentile £263 £215 £200
25th Percentile £394 £364 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £511 £503
Median % change year-on-year -2.20% +1.69% -4.24%
75th Percentile £588 £606 £625
90th Percentile £700 £675 £725
England median daily rate £501 £523 £515
% change year-on-year -4.21% +1.46% -3.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 154 74 182
10th Percentile £16.62 £18.15 £13.71
25th Percentile £19.79 £18.60 £36.56
Median hourly rate £51.18 £35.00 £48.25
Median % change year-on-year +46.24% -27.46% -22.18%
75th Percentile £58.75 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £70.00 £77.50
England median hourly rate £32.50 £26.45 £22.50
% change year-on-year +22.87% +17.56% -40.00%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -12 84 £500 +72.41% 81
Gloucestershire +4 66 £400 +33.33% 38
Wiltshire -2 64 £538 -2.27% 33
Somerset +1 59 £450 +38.46% 34
Devon +2 37 £310 -38.10% 32
Dorset -18 9 £409 -13.89% 30
Cornwall -5 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 46 (13.94%) SharePoint
2 11 (3.33%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.91%) Confluence
4 2 (0.61%) Oracle Workflow
4 2 (0.61%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.30%) Apache
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 48 (14.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (13.03%) Microsoft Office
3 23 (6.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (3.94%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (1.52%) MS Visio
5 5 (1.52%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.91%) Adobe Captivate
6 3 (0.91%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.61%) InDesign
7 2 (0.61%) InfoPath
8 1 (0.30%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.30%) PTC Creo
8 1 (0.30%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 9 (2.73%) NetSuite
2 6 (1.82%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (1.52%) Maximo
3 5 (1.52%) Oracle Payables
3 5 (1.52%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.61%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.30%) assyst
5 1 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
5 1 (0.30%) SAP Hybris
5 1 (0.30%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.30%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 119 (36.06%) Azure
2 63 (19.09%) Microsoft 365
3 46 (13.94%) Power Platform
4 25 (7.58%) Azure DevOps
5 23 (6.97%) Entra ID
6 20 (6.06%) Dynamics 365
7 18 (5.45%) AWS
7 18 (5.45%) GitHub
8 15 (4.55%) Power Automate
9 12 (3.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 12 (3.64%) PowerApps
10 11 (3.33%) Azure Data Factory
11 10 (3.03%) PaaS
12 9 (2.73%) Azure Monitor
12 9 (2.73%) Azure Sentinel
12 9 (2.73%) SaaS
13 7 (2.12%) Azure AKS
13 7 (2.12%) GCP
14 6 (1.82%) GitHub Actions
14 6 (1.82%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (5.15%) VPN
2 14 (4.24%) Firewall
3 11 (3.33%) DHCP
3 11 (3.33%) DNS
4 6 (1.82%) Skype
4 6 (1.82%) TCP/IP
5 5 (1.52%) Ethernet
6 4 (1.21%) WAN
7 3 (0.91%) LAN
7 3 (0.91%) VoIP
7 3 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (0.91%) Wireless
8 2 (0.61%) Cisco IOS
8 2 (0.61%) H.323
8 2 (0.61%) Network Security
8 2 (0.61%) RTP
8 2 (0.61%) Unified Communications
8 2 (0.61%) VLAN
9 1 (0.30%) Internet
9 1 (0.30%) WAAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (10.30%) Power BI
2 15 (4.55%) SQL Server
3 6 (1.82%) Relational Database
4 4 (1.21%) Azure SQL Database
4 4 (1.21%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (1.21%) Delta Lake
4 4 (1.21%) GIS
4 4 (1.21%) MySQL
4 4 (1.21%) PostgreSQL
4 4 (1.21%) Redis
4 4 (1.21%) Star Schema
5 3 (0.91%) Metadata
5 3 (0.91%) NoSQL
5 3 (0.91%) Power Query
6 2 (0.61%) Electronic Patient Records
6 2 (0.61%) Spatial Data
6 2 (0.61%) Tableau
7 1 (0.30%) MS Access
7 1 (0.30%) Semantic Layer
7 1 (0.30%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 23 (6.97%) JIRA
2 8 (2.42%) Visual Studio
3 6 (1.82%) AdminStudio
3 6 (1.82%) Git
3 6 (1.82%) InstallShield
4 5 (1.52%) Eclipse
5 4 (1.21%) GitLab
5 4 (1.21%) Visual Studio Code
6 1 (0.30%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.30%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.30%) HP UFT
6 1 (0.30%) MSI
6 1 (0.30%) Selenium
6 1 (0.30%) webpack
General
1 130 (39.39%) Social Skills
2 54 (16.36%) Analytical Skills
3 45 (13.64%) Finance
4 32 (9.70%) Organisational Skills
5 27 (8.18%) Public Sector
6 22 (6.67%) Military
7 16 (4.85%) Legal
8 10 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (2.42%) Presentation Skills
10 7 (2.12%) Marketing
11 6 (1.82%) General Ledger
12 5 (1.52%) Local Government
12 5 (1.52%) Manufacturing
13 4 (1.21%) Aerospace
13 4 (1.21%) Back Office
13 4 (1.21%) Police
13 4 (1.21%) Retail
14 3 (0.91%) Banking
15 2 (0.61%) Investment Banking
16 1 (0.30%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 39 (11.82%) Architect
2 31 (9.39%) Support Engineer
3 25 (7.58%) Developer
4 22 (6.67%) Analyst
5 20 (6.06%) Administrator
6 19 (5.76%) Lead
7 18 (5.45%) Consultant
7 18 (5.45%) Data Engineer
8 17 (5.15%) Desktop Support
9 16 (4.85%) Desktop Engineer
9 16 (4.85%) Desktop Support Engineer
9 16 (4.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 16 (4.85%) Project Officer
9 16 (4.85%) Senior
10 14 (4.24%) IT Support
11 13 (3.94%) Azure Engineer
12 12 (3.64%) Solutions Architect
13 11 (3.33%) DevOps Engineer
13 11 (3.33%) Project Support Officer
13 11 (3.33%) Support Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (5.15%) .NET
2 12 (3.64%) REST
3 10 (3.03%) Web Services
4 9 (2.73%) .NET Framework
5 8 (2.42%) JDO
6 6 (1.82%) ARM Templates
6 6 (1.82%) HTML
7 5 (1.52%) CSS
7 5 (1.52%) JSON
7 5 (1.52%) Node.js
7 5 (1.52%) OAuth
7 5 (1.52%) OpenID
8 4 (1.21%) CSS3
8 4 (1.21%) Flask
8 4 (1.21%) HTML5
8 4 (1.21%) SAML
8 4 (1.21%) SOAP
8 4 (1.21%) Spring
8 4 (1.21%) Spring MVC
8 4 (1.21%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 17 (5.15%) Hybrid Cloud
2 15 (4.55%) Cloud Native
2 15 (4.55%) Product Ownership
3 14 (4.24%) Blackberry
4 11 (3.33%) Enterprise Software
5 10 (3.03%) Self-Motivation
6 9 (2.73%) Management Information System
6 9 (2.73%) Onboarding
6 9 (2.73%) Virtual Team
7 8 (2.42%) Data Structures
7 8 (2.42%) Legacy Applications
7 8 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
8 6 (1.82%) Driving Licence
9 5 (1.52%) Low-Code
10 4 (1.21%) Augmented Reality
10 4 (1.21%) Freedom of Information
10 4 (1.21%) Virtual Reality
10 4 (1.21%) Wiki
11 3 (0.91%) Mobile App
12 2 (0.61%) iPad
Operating Systems
1 94 (28.48%) Windows
2 29 (8.79%) Windows 10
3 27 (8.18%) Android
4 19 (5.76%) Windows Server
5 17 (5.15%) Apple iOS
6 13 (3.94%) Linux
7 4 (1.21%) Mac OS
7 4 (1.21%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (25.15%) Problem-Solving
2 49 (14.85%) Agile
3 40 (12.12%) DevOps
4 39 (11.82%) Continuous Improvement
5 38 (11.52%) ITIL
6 37 (11.21%) Analytics
6 37 (11.21%) Stakeholder Management
7 33 (10.00%) CI/CD
8 30 (9.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 29 (8.79%) Project Management
10 28 (8.48%) Migration
11 27 (8.18%) PRINCE2
11 27 (8.18%) Project Delivery
12 24 (7.27%) Customer Service
12 24 (7.27%) Data Modelling
12 24 (7.27%) Decision-Making
12 24 (7.27%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 23 (6.97%) Business Intelligence
13 23 (6.97%) Change Management
14 19 (5.76%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 37 (11.21%) PowerShell
1 37 (11.21%) SQL
2 26 (7.88%) Python
3 19 (5.76%) JavaScript
4 16 (4.85%) C#
5 11 (3.33%) Bicep
6 10 (3.03%) Java
7 6 (1.82%) C++
8 4 (1.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 4 (1.21%) Go
9 3 (0.91%) PHP
9 3 (0.91%) T-SQL
10 2 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.61%) TypeScript
10 2 (0.61%) VBA
11 1 (0.30%) Bash
11 1 (0.30%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.30%) VB
Qualifications
1 150 (45.45%) Security Cleared
2 117 (35.45%) SC Cleared
3 40 (12.12%) DV Cleared
4 34 (10.30%) Degree
5 20 (6.06%) Azure Certification
5 20 (6.06%) Microsoft Certification
6 10 (3.03%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 7 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (1.82%) PMP
9 5 (1.52%) ACCA
9 5 (1.52%) CIMA
9 5 (1.52%) CISM
9 5 (1.52%) CISSP
9 5 (1.52%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 3 (0.91%) ACSP
10 3 (0.91%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (0.91%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (0.61%) CBAP
11 2 (0.61%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.30%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (4.85%) Data Quality
2 9 (2.73%) PMO
3 8 (2.42%) Accessibility
4 7 (2.12%) GDPR
4 7 (2.12%) NIST
5 6 (1.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (1.82%) QA
5 6 (1.82%) SLA
6 5 (1.52%) NIST 800
7 2 (0.61%) HL7
7 2 (0.61%) 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
System Software
1 68 (20.61%) Active Directory
2 13 (3.94%) Hyper-V
3 10 (3.03%) Virtual Desktop
4 9 (2.73%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (2.12%) Docker
6 3 (0.91%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.30%) VMware Workstation
8 1 (0.30%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 42 (12.73%) Microsoft Intune
2 24 (7.27%) Terraform
3 15 (4.55%) Kubernetes
4 13 (3.94%) SCCM
4 13 (3.94%) Single Sign-On
5 8 (2.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 6 (1.82%) Ansible
7 4 (1.21%) Grafana
7 4 (1.21%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.91%) VxRail
9 2 (0.61%) Cisco CUCM
9 2 (0.61%) McAfee ePO
10 1 (0.30%) CA Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.30%) Failover Clustering
10 1 (0.30%) Puppet
10 1 (0.30%) SCOM
10 1 (0.30%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.30%) WSUS
Vendors
1 31 (9.39%) VMware
2 16 (4.85%) Citrix
3 14 (4.24%) MobileIron
4 12 (3.64%) SAP
5 11 (3.33%) Apple
5 11 (3.33%) Google
6 10 (3.03%) Oracle
6 10 (3.03%) ServiceNow
7 9 (2.73%) Databricks
8 8 (2.42%) Adobe
8 8 (2.42%) McAfee
9 7 (2.12%) NetApp
9 7 (2.12%) Starlink
10 6 (1.82%) HP
10 6 (1.82%) Red Hat
11 5 (1.52%) Cisco
11 5 (1.52%) Dell
11 5 (1.52%) IBM
12 4 (1.21%) InterSystems
13 3 (0.91%) Workday