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 18 July 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
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 412 269 483
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 11.58% 14.37% 15.49%
As % of the Vendors category 35.92% 33.58% 36.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 267 158 318
10th Percentile £206 £200 £180
25th Percentile £361 £235 £327
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £436 £500
Median % change year-on-year +8.88% -12.75% -4.31%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £600
90th Percentile £727 £629 £724
England median daily rate £497 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +4.66% -3.55% -1.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 43 39
10th Percentile £13.72 £18.13 £12.74
25th Percentile £14.36 £18.51 £14.12
Median hourly rate £19.33 £18.87 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -60.27% +99.12%
75th Percentile £30.38 £29.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £64.75 £36.75 £69.00
England median hourly rate £22.79 £22.63 £16.13
% change year-on-year +0.68% +40.34% -24.51%

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 1,147 801 1,331
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 32.23% 42.79% 42.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 666 469 854
10th Percentile £300 £220 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -
75th Percentile £600 £623 £638
90th Percentile £700 £678 £721
England median daily rate £510 £513 £515
% change year-on-year -0.49% -0.49% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 101 180
10th Percentile £15.24 £17.79 £23.08
25th Percentile £19.43 £18.87 £40.00
Median hourly rate £50.50 £27.40 £62.25
Median % change year-on-year +84.31% -55.98% +10.20%
75th Percentile £58.75 £67.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £74.68 £70.00 £75.25
England median hourly rate £35.50 £25.15 £26.00
% change year-on-year +41.15% -3.27% -30.67%

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 18 July 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 18 July 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 18 July 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 -2 114 £500 +40.85% 73
Somerset 0 80 £470 +67.68% 48
Gloucestershire +5 74 £410 +47.48% 48
Wiltshire +1 69 £550 - 30
Devon +1 39 £310 -38.10% 30
Dorset -4 22 £409 -3.76% 22
Cornwall -4 2 £525 - 4
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 57 (13.83%) SharePoint
2 17 (4.13%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (3.16%) Confluence
4 3 (0.73%) Apache
4 3 (0.73%) Skype for Business
5 2 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.49%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.24%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.24%) Appian
6 1 (0.24%) CMS
6 1 (0.24%) ColdFusion
6 1 (0.24%) IIS
6 1 (0.24%) JBoss
6 1 (0.24%) Umbraco
Applications
1 57 (13.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 51 (12.38%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (6.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (4.13%) Microsoft Project
5 9 (2.18%) MS Visio
6 8 (1.94%) Spreadsheet
7 3 (0.73%) Adobe Captivate
8 2 (0.49%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.24%) InDesign
9 1 (0.24%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 12 (2.91%) NetSuite
2 8 (1.94%) Oracle Payables
2 8 (1.94%) Oracle Receivables
3 5 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.49%) assyst
4 2 (0.49%) Dynamics AX
4 2 (0.49%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle General Ledger
5 1 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.24%) SAP Hybris
5 1 (0.24%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 155 (37.62%) Azure
2 92 (22.33%) Microsoft 365
3 47 (11.41%) Entra ID
4 43 (10.44%) Power Platform
5 29 (7.04%) AWS
6 28 (6.80%) Azure DevOps
7 21 (5.10%) GitHub
8 19 (4.61%) Dynamics 365
9 13 (3.16%) SaaS
10 12 (2.91%) Azure Key Vault
10 12 (2.91%) Power Automate
11 11 (2.67%) Serverless
12 10 (2.43%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 9 (2.18%) Azure Data Factory
13 9 (2.18%) Azure ExpressRoute
13 9 (2.18%) Cloud Computing
13 9 (2.18%) PaaS
13 9 (2.18%) PowerApps
14 8 (1.94%) Azure Sentinel
14 8 (1.94%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 16 (3.88%) DNS
2 15 (3.64%) Firewall
3 13 (3.16%) WAN
4 11 (2.67%) DHCP
4 11 (2.67%) TCP/IP
5 10 (2.43%) VPN
6 8 (1.94%) SAN
6 8 (1.94%) Skype
7 7 (1.70%) Ethernet
8 5 (1.21%) BGP
8 5 (1.21%) VoIP
9 4 (0.97%) Wi-Fi
10 2 (0.49%) LAN
10 2 (0.49%) NAS
10 2 (0.49%) Network Security
10 2 (0.49%) SSL
10 2 (0.49%) VLAN
11 1 (0.24%) HTTP
11 1 (0.24%) SMTP
11 1 (0.24%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (7.77%) Power BI
2 24 (5.83%) SQL Server
3 14 (3.40%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (2.43%) Geospatial Data
5 9 (2.18%) Metadata
6 8 (1.94%) Azure SQL Database
7 6 (1.46%) Relational Database
8 5 (1.21%) Data Lake
8 5 (1.21%) Oracle Database
9 4 (0.97%) GIS
9 4 (0.97%) MySQL
9 4 (0.97%) Redis
9 4 (0.97%) Star Schema
10 3 (0.73%) Data Warehouse
10 3 (0.73%) Delta Lake
10 3 (0.73%) NoSQL
11 2 (0.49%) Electronic Patient Records
11 2 (0.49%) Spatial Data
11 2 (0.49%) Tableau
12 1 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 33 (8.01%) JIRA
2 15 (3.64%) Git
3 10 (2.43%) Visual Studio
4 9 (2.18%) MSI
5 6 (1.46%) AdminStudio
5 6 (1.46%) Eclipse
5 6 (1.46%) InstallShield
6 5 (1.21%) GitLab
7 4 (0.97%) Visual Studio Code
8 1 (0.24%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.24%) HP UFT
8 1 (0.24%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.24%) Selenium
8 1 (0.24%) webpack
General
1 156 (37.86%) Social Skills
2 54 (13.11%) Analytical Skills
3 50 (12.14%) Finance
4 38 (9.22%) Public Sector
5 34 (8.25%) Organisational Skills
6 32 (7.77%) Military
7 17 (4.13%) Legal
8 13 (3.16%) Documentation Skills
9 11 (2.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 9 (2.18%) General Ledger
11 8 (1.94%) Aerospace
11 8 (1.94%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (1.46%) Local Government
12 6 (1.46%) Marketing
13 5 (1.21%) Manufacturing
13 5 (1.21%) Retail
14 2 (0.49%) Aviation
14 2 (0.49%) Influencing Skills
14 2 (0.49%) Investment Banking
14 2 (0.49%) Police
Job Titles
1 54 (13.11%) Architect
2 45 (10.92%) Lead
3 34 (8.25%) Consultant
3 34 (8.25%) Developer
4 28 (6.80%) Analyst
4 28 (6.80%) Support Engineer
5 24 (5.83%) Senior
6 18 (4.37%) Administrator
6 18 (4.37%) Data Engineer
7 17 (4.13%) Project Officer
8 16 (3.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 16 (3.88%) IT Support
9 14 (3.40%) IT Engineer
10 13 (3.16%) Technical Architect
11 12 (2.91%) Azure Consultant
11 12 (2.91%) DBA
11 12 (2.91%) Desktop Support
11 12 (2.91%) Solutions Architect
12 10 (2.43%) Project Manager
12 10 (2.43%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (7.28%) .NET
2 20 (4.85%) .NET Framework
2 20 (4.85%) REST
3 14 (3.40%) HTML
4 13 (3.16%) .NET Core
4 13 (3.16%) CSS
4 13 (3.16%) RESTful
5 12 (2.91%) CSS3
5 12 (2.91%) HTML5
6 11 (2.67%) GeoJSON
7 9 (2.18%) ATL
7 9 (2.18%) COM
7 9 (2.18%) MFC
7 9 (2.18%) Web Services
8 8 (1.94%) JDO
8 8 (1.94%) SailPoint
8 8 (1.94%) WPF
9 6 (1.46%) JSON
9 6 (1.46%) LDAP
9 6 (1.46%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 32 (7.77%) Onboarding
2 26 (6.31%) Cloud Native
3 17 (4.13%) Product Ownership
4 15 (3.64%) Legacy Systems
5 14 (3.40%) Blackberry
6 13 (3.16%) Virtual Team
7 12 (2.91%) Hybrid Cloud
7 12 (2.91%) Management Information System
8 11 (2.67%) Self-Motivation
9 10 (2.43%) Enterprise Software
10 8 (1.94%) Legacy Applications
11 7 (1.70%) Data Structures
11 7 (1.70%) Driving Licence
12 5 (1.21%) Data Centre
12 5 (1.21%) Freedom of Information
12 5 (1.21%) PKI
12 5 (1.21%) Wiki
13 4 (0.97%) AI Agents
13 4 (0.97%) Low-Code
13 4 (0.97%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 109 (26.46%) Windows
2 36 (8.74%) Windows 10
3 32 (7.77%) Android
4 19 (4.61%) Linux
5 18 (4.37%) Windows Server
6 17 (4.13%) Apple iOS
7 6 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.73%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.49%) VMS
9 2 (0.49%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (21.84%) Problem-Solving
2 65 (15.78%) Agile
3 59 (14.32%) Continuous Improvement
4 56 (13.59%) Stakeholder Management
5 48 (11.65%) DevOps
6 46 (11.17%) CI/CD
7 45 (10.92%) Project Delivery
8 39 (9.47%) Migration
9 38 (9.22%) ITIL
10 36 (8.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 34 (8.25%) Decision-Making
12 33 (8.01%) PRINCE2
13 32 (7.77%) Analytics
13 32 (7.77%) Technical Leadership
14 31 (7.52%) Project Management
15 27 (6.55%) Roadmaps
16 26 (6.31%) Customer Service
16 26 (6.31%) Infrastructure as Code
17 25 (6.07%) Change Management
18 24 (5.83%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 54 (13.11%) SQL
2 35 (8.50%) Python
3 30 (7.28%) PowerShell
4 29 (7.04%) C#
5 25 (6.07%) JavaScript
6 16 (3.88%) Java
7 13 (3.16%) Bicep
8 9 (2.18%) TypeScript
9 8 (1.94%) C++
10 5 (1.21%) BeanShell
11 4 (0.97%) Go
12 3 (0.73%) Bash
13 2 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 2 (0.49%) VBA
14 1 (0.24%) Ada
14 1 (0.24%) Ada 95
14 1 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
14 1 (0.24%) PHP
14 1 (0.24%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.24%) VB
Qualifications
1 178 (43.20%) Security Cleared
2 128 (31.07%) SC Cleared
3 53 (12.86%) DV Cleared
4 34 (8.25%) Degree
5 16 (3.88%) Microsoft Certification
6 14 (3.40%) BPSS Clearance
7 12 (2.91%) Azure Certification
8 10 (2.43%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 9 (2.18%) PMP
10 8 (1.94%) ACCA
10 8 (1.94%) CIMA
11 4 (0.97%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (0.97%) DBS Check
12 3 (0.73%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 3 (0.73%) ACSP
12 3 (0.73%) CISSP
12 3 (0.73%) Computer Science Degree
12 3 (0.73%) ITIL Certification
13 2 (0.49%) A+ Certification
13 2 (0.49%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (4.61%) Data Quality
2 14 (3.40%) Accessibility
2 14 (3.40%) PMO
2 14 (3.40%) QA
3 13 (3.16%) SLA
4 10 (2.43%) NCSC
5 8 (1.94%) GDPR
5 8 (1.94%) WCAG
6 5 (1.21%) ISO 9000
7 3 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
7 3 (0.73%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.49%) HL7
8 2 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.49%) SNOMED CT
9 1 (0.24%) ISO 22301
9 1 (0.24%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.24%) MIL-STD-1553
9 1 (0.24%) NIST
System Software
1 78 (18.93%) Active Directory
2 19 (4.61%) Docker
3 17 (4.13%) Virtual Desktop
4 12 (2.91%) Hyper-V
5 10 (2.43%) VMware Infrastructure
6 5 (1.21%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.73%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.73%) vSphere
8 1 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.24%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 42 (10.19%) Microsoft Intune
2 34 (8.25%) Terraform
3 20 (4.85%) Kubernetes
4 19 (4.61%) SCCM
5 10 (2.43%) Single Sign-On
6 8 (1.94%) Ansible
7 6 (1.46%) Grafana
8 5 (1.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 5 (1.21%) FortiGate
8 5 (1.21%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 5 (1.21%) WSUS
9 4 (0.97%) Prometheus
10 3 (0.73%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (0.49%) Argo
11 2 (0.49%) McAfee ePO
12 1 (0.24%) CA Single Sign-On
12 1 (0.24%) PTC Integrity
12 1 (0.24%) Puppet
12 1 (0.24%) SCOM
12 1 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 30 (7.28%) VMware
2 27 (6.55%) Oracle
3 15 (3.64%) Citrix
4 14 (3.40%) MobileIron
4 14 (3.40%) ServiceNow
5 13 (3.16%) Apple
5 13 (3.16%) SAP
6 11 (2.67%) Google
6 11 (2.67%) McAfee
7 10 (2.43%) Cisco
8 9 (2.18%) HP
9 8 (1.94%) Databricks
9 8 (1.94%) Red Hat
10 7 (1.70%) Starlink
11 6 (1.46%) Adobe
11 6 (1.46%) BiZZdesign
12 5 (1.21%) Informatica
12 5 (1.21%) InterSystems
12 5 (1.21%) NetApp
12 5 (1.21%) Zscaler