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 September 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 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 5 6
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 452 291 411
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 12.14% 15.11% 15.47%
As % of the Vendors category 36.31% 36.93% 35.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 274 177 259
10th Percentile £211 £186 £180
25th Percentile £355 £235 £328
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £400 £500
Median % change year-on-year +17.50% -20.00% -2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £569 £619
90th Percentile £730 £618 £740
England median daily rate £488 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +2.63% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 43 20
10th Percentile £12.82 £18.13 £12.50
25th Percentile £14.00 £18.51 £15.50
Median hourly rate £17.50 £18.87 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.26% -70.97% +145.28%
75th Percentile £25.75 £33.38 -
90th Percentile £44.09 £37.50 £85.00
England median hourly rate £19.41 £22.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year -14.23% +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 1,245 788 1,170
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 33.45% 40.91% 44.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 739 450 711
10th Percentile £305 £213 £269
25th Percentile £413 £350 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £611 £619 £634
90th Percentile £716 £675 £700
England median daily rate £513 £501 £525
% change year-on-year +2.40% -4.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 175 100 101
10th Percentile £13.79 £12.62 £15.50
25th Percentile £16.62 £18.44 £55.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £18.87 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +72.23% -73.04% +23.92%
75th Percentile £56.22 £43.61 -
90th Percentile £76.05 £70.00 £74.00
England median hourly rate £30.27 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +20.36% -28.14% -17.65%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 -3 138 £500 +11.11% 165
Somerset 0 87 £450 +100.00% 71
Wiltshire +2 75 £513 -10.87% 55
Gloucestershire +1 72 £425 +30.77% 143
Devon -1 42 £317 +15.36% 63
Dorset -3 24 £515 +21.18% 62
Cornwall -2 2 £525 +138.64% 7
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 69 (15.27%) SharePoint
2 27 (5.97%) Microsoft Exchange
3 17 (3.76%) Confluence
4 5 (1.11%) CMS
5 3 (0.66%) Sitecore CMS
6 2 (0.44%) Apache
6 2 (0.44%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.22%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.22%) Appian
7 1 (0.22%) ColdFusion
7 1 (0.22%) JBoss
7 1 (0.22%) Moodle
7 1 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.22%) Totara
7 1 (0.22%) Umbraco
Applications
1 67 (14.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 64 (14.16%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (6.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (3.54%) Microsoft Project
5 9 (1.99%) MS Visio
6 5 (1.11%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (2.21%) NetSuite
2 8 (1.77%) Oracle Payables
2 8 (1.77%) Oracle Receivables
3 7 (1.55%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.66%) Dynamics NAV
4 3 (0.66%) Magento
4 3 (0.66%) SAP CRM
4 3 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.44%) assyst
5 2 (0.44%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.44%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.22%) Oracle General Ledger
6 1 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.22%) SAP Hybris
6 1 (0.22%) SAP MM
6 1 (0.22%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 160 (35.40%) Azure
2 108 (23.89%) Microsoft 365
3 52 (11.50%) Power Platform
4 51 (11.28%) Entra ID
5 32 (7.08%) AWS
6 29 (6.42%) Azure DevOps
7 24 (5.31%) Dynamics 365
8 20 (4.42%) GitHub
9 15 (3.32%) PowerApps
9 15 (3.32%) SaaS
10 14 (3.10%) Microsoft Copilot
10 14 (3.10%) Power Automate
11 12 (2.65%) OneDrive
12 11 (2.43%) Microsoft Purview
12 11 (2.43%) Serverless
13 10 (2.21%) Azure Key Vault
14 9 (1.99%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 9 (1.99%) Cloud Computing
14 9 (1.99%) PaaS
15 8 (1.77%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 22 (4.87%) DNS
2 19 (4.20%) WAN
3 16 (3.54%) DHCP
3 16 (3.54%) Firewall
4 11 (2.43%) Skype
4 11 (2.43%) VPN
5 10 (2.21%) LAN
6 8 (1.77%) SAN
7 7 (1.55%) TCP/IP
8 5 (1.11%) BGP
8 5 (1.11%) VoIP
9 4 (0.88%) Ethernet
9 4 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
10 3 (0.66%) Kerberos
10 3 (0.66%) VLAN
11 2 (0.44%) Cisco IOS
11 2 (0.44%) NAS
11 2 (0.44%) SSL
11 2 (0.44%) VSAN
11 2 (0.44%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (8.19%) Power BI
2 24 (5.31%) SQL Server
3 13 (2.88%) Geospatial Data
4 11 (2.43%) PostgreSQL
5 10 (2.21%) Metadata
6 7 (1.55%) Azure SQL Database
7 6 (1.33%) Relational Database
8 5 (1.11%) Data Lake
8 5 (1.11%) GIS
8 5 (1.11%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.66%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.66%) Tableau
10 2 (0.44%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.44%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.44%) EDRMS
10 2 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
10 2 (0.44%) MySQL
10 2 (0.44%) Oracle Reports
10 2 (0.44%) Spatial Data
10 2 (0.44%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 35 (7.74%) JIRA
2 24 (5.31%) Git
3 11 (2.43%) MSI
4 7 (1.55%) Visual Studio
5 6 (1.33%) AdminStudio
5 6 (1.33%) GitLab
5 6 (1.33%) InstallShield
6 4 (0.88%) Visual Studio Code
7 3 (0.66%) Eclipse
8 2 (0.44%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.22%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.22%) HP UFT
9 1 (0.22%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.22%) Selenium
General
1 180 (39.82%) Social Skills
2 56 (12.39%) Analytical Skills
3 55 (12.17%) Finance
4 53 (11.73%) Public Sector
5 43 (9.51%) Organisational Skills
6 33 (7.30%) Military
7 16 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
7 16 (3.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 14 (3.10%) Legal
9 13 (2.88%) Aerospace
10 12 (2.65%) Local Government
11 11 (2.43%) Retail
12 9 (1.99%) General Ledger
13 7 (1.55%) Manufacturing
14 6 (1.33%) Presentation Skills
15 5 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
15 5 (1.11%) Marketing
16 4 (0.88%) Banking
17 3 (0.66%) Aviation
18 2 (0.44%) Police
Job Titles
1 60 (13.27%) Architect
2 47 (10.40%) Consultant
2 47 (10.40%) Lead
3 31 (6.86%) Senior
4 30 (6.64%) Developer
5 29 (6.42%) Analyst
6 26 (5.75%) Support Engineer
7 24 (5.31%) Administrator
8 22 (4.87%) IT Support
9 19 (4.20%) Solutions Architect
10 18 (3.98%) Microsoft Consultant
11 15 (3.32%) IT Engineer
12 14 (3.10%) Project Officer
12 14 (3.10%) Technical Architect
13 13 (2.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 12 (2.65%) Azure Consultant
14 12 (2.65%) Coordinator
14 12 (2.65%) DBA
14 12 (2.65%) Desktop Support
14 12 (2.65%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (8.85%) Terraform
2 34 (7.52%) .NET
3 24 (5.31%) .NET Framework
4 19 (4.20%) HTML
4 19 (4.20%) REST
5 18 (3.98%) .NET Core
6 16 (3.54%) RESTful
7 14 (3.10%) CSS
8 13 (2.88%) CSS3
8 13 (2.88%) GeoJSON
8 13 (2.88%) HTML5
9 11 (2.43%) ATL
9 11 (2.43%) COM
9 11 (2.43%) MFC
9 11 (2.43%) WPF
10 9 (1.99%) LDAP
11 8 (1.77%) SailPoint
12 7 (1.55%) JDO
12 7 (1.55%) OAuth
12 7 (1.55%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 37 (8.19%) Onboarding
2 26 (5.75%) Cloud Native
3 24 (5.31%) Product Ownership
4 20 (4.42%) Legacy Systems
5 16 (3.54%) Management Information System
6 15 (3.32%) Enterprise Software
7 13 (2.88%) Hybrid Cloud
8 12 (2.65%) Virtual Team
9 11 (2.43%) Self-Motivation
9 11 (2.43%) Wiki
10 9 (1.99%) EPoS
11 8 (1.77%) AI Agents
12 7 (1.55%) Driving Licence
12 7 (1.55%) Low-Code
12 7 (1.55%) PKI
13 6 (1.33%) Data Centre
13 6 (1.33%) Data Protection Act
13 6 (1.33%) Freedom of Information
13 6 (1.33%) Legacy Applications
14 5 (1.11%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 105 (23.23%) Windows
2 43 (9.51%) Windows 10
3 24 (5.31%) Windows Server
4 19 (4.20%) Android
5 15 (3.32%) Linux
6 6 (1.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (0.88%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.66%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.44%) VMS
9 2 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.22%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (18.58%) Continuous Improvement
2 83 (18.36%) Problem-Solving
3 69 (15.27%) Stakeholder Management
4 67 (14.82%) Agile
5 51 (11.28%) DevOps
5 51 (11.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 48 (10.62%) CI/CD
6 48 (10.62%) Migration
6 48 (10.62%) Project Delivery
7 43 (9.51%) Customer Service
8 41 (9.07%) ITIL
9 40 (8.85%) Technical Leadership
10 37 (8.19%) Decision-Making
11 36 (7.96%) Infrastructure as Code
12 35 (7.74%) Roadmaps
13 34 (7.52%) Project Management
14 33 (7.30%) PRINCE2
14 33 (7.30%) Validation
15 29 (6.42%) Analytics
15 29 (6.42%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 48 (10.62%) SQL
2 34 (7.52%) PowerShell
3 31 (6.86%) Python
4 29 (6.42%) C#
5 23 (5.09%) JavaScript
6 20 (4.42%) Bicep
7 11 (2.43%) Java
7 11 (2.43%) TypeScript
8 9 (1.99%) Bash
9 6 (1.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 5 (1.11%) BeanShell
11 4 (0.88%) C++
12 2 (0.44%) VB
13 1 (0.22%) Ada
13 1 (0.22%) Ada 95
13 1 (0.22%) C
13 1 (0.22%) Go
13 1 (0.22%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.22%) VBA
13 1 (0.22%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 190 (42.04%) Security Cleared
2 135 (29.87%) SC Cleared
3 56 (12.39%) DV Cleared
4 35 (7.74%) Degree
5 16 (3.54%) Microsoft Certification
6 15 (3.32%) BPSS Clearance
7 11 (2.43%) Azure Certification
8 10 (2.21%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 9 (1.99%) PMP
10 8 (1.77%) ACCA
10 8 (1.77%) CIMA
11 5 (1.11%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (1.11%) DBS Check
12 4 (0.88%) CISSP
12 4 (0.88%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 4 (0.88%) TOGAF Certification
13 3 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 3 (0.66%) ACSP
13 3 (0.66%) CIPD
13 3 (0.66%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (5.53%) Data Quality
2 18 (3.98%) Accessibility
3 17 (3.76%) GDPR
3 17 (3.76%) QA
4 16 (3.54%) NCSC
4 16 (3.54%) SLA
5 11 (2.43%) PMO
5 11 (2.43%) WCAG
6 5 (1.11%) ISO 9000
7 4 (0.88%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.66%) Disclosure Scotland
8 3 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.66%) NIST
9 2 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.44%) HL7
9 2 (0.44%) SNOMED CT
10 1 (0.22%) Def Stans
10 1 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.22%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 82 (18.14%) Active Directory
2 24 (5.31%) Docker
3 18 (3.98%) Virtual Desktop
4 12 (2.65%) Hyper-V
4 12 (2.65%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (1.33%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.88%) vSphere
7 2 (0.44%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 1 (0.22%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.22%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.22%) zsh
Systems Management
1 28 (6.19%) Microsoft Intune
2 26 (5.75%) SCCM
3 25 (5.53%) Kubernetes
4 8 (1.77%) WSUS
5 7 (1.55%) Ansible
6 5 (1.11%) Failover Clustering
6 5 (1.11%) FortiGate
6 5 (1.11%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 5 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.88%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (0.66%) Grafana
8 3 (0.66%) OPNET
8 3 (0.66%) VxRail
9 2 (0.44%) Argo
10 1 (0.22%) FreeIPA
10 1 (0.22%) Podman
10 1 (0.22%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.22%) PTC Integrity
10 1 (0.22%) SCOM
10 1 (0.22%) SELinux
Vendors
1 26 (5.75%) Oracle
2 16 (3.54%) Apple
2 16 (3.54%) SAP
2 16 (3.54%) ServiceNow
2 16 (3.54%) VMware
3 14 (3.10%) Cisco
4 12 (2.65%) HP
5 11 (2.43%) Google
6 10 (2.21%) Databricks
7 9 (1.99%) Red Hat
8 8 (1.77%) McAfee
9 6 (1.33%) BiZZdesign
10 5 (1.11%) CyberArk
10 5 (1.11%) Informatica
10 5 (1.11%) InterSystems
10 5 (1.11%) NetApp
10 5 (1.11%) Starlink
10 5 (1.11%) Zscaler
11 4 (0.88%) Atlassian
11 4 (0.88%) MuleSoft