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 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
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 4 5
Rank change year-on-year -1 +1 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 455 312 421
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 12.22% 15.81% 15.89%
As % of the Vendors category 37.05% 38.33% 35.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 268 192 265
10th Percentile £209 £200 £180
25th Percentile £367 £263 £338
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £425 £500
Median % change year-on-year +10.59% -15.00% -2.44%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £625
90th Percentile £730 £648 £734
England median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 44 21
10th Percentile £12.78 £18.13 £12.50
25th Percentile £14.16 £18.78 £15.50
Median hourly rate £17.50 £18.87 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.26% -70.97% +108.00%
75th Percentile £25.75 £33.75 -
90th Percentile £46.24 £37.50 £85.00
England median hourly rate £19.33 £22.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year -14.58% +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 1,228 814 1,191
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 32.99% 41.24% 44.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 723 470 721
10th Percentile £310 £219 £225
25th Percentile £413 £350 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £611 £634
90th Percentile £724 £675 £700
England median daily rate £514 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +1.78% -3.81% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 182 105 97
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.78 £21.20
25th Percentile £16.62 £18.51 £61.25
Median hourly rate £26.14 £22.63 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.51% -67.67% +23.92%
75th Percentile £56.32 £65.00 -
90th Percentile £76.58 £70.00 £74.18
England median hourly rate £29.96 £25.15 £33.50
% change year-on-year +19.13% -24.93% -23.62%

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 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 18 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 18 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 -3 141 £500 +11.11% 137
Somerset -1 87 £450 +63.64% 92
Wiltshire +3 78 £535 -2.95% 66
Gloucestershire 0 67 £450 +20.00% 101
Devon +1 44 £317 +15.36% 55
Dorset -4 24 £515 +47.14% 62
Cornwall -2 2 £525 +138.64% 7
Avon -2 1 - - 67
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 74 (16.26%) SharePoint
2 28 (6.15%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (3.30%) Confluence
4 5 (1.10%) 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 72 (15.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 67 (14.73%) Microsoft Office
3 27 (5.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (3.96%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (1.54%) MS Visio
6 6 (1.32%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (2.20%) NetSuite
2 8 (1.76%) Oracle Payables
2 8 (1.76%) Oracle Receivables
3 6 (1.32%) Dynamics CRM
4 4 (0.88%) SAP HR
5 3 (0.66%) Dynamics NAV
5 3 (0.66%) Magento
5 3 (0.66%) SAP CRM
5 3 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.44%) assyst
6 2 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.22%) Dynamics AX
7 1 (0.22%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.22%) Primavera
7 1 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
7 1 (0.22%) SAP Hybris
7 1 (0.22%) SAP MM
7 1 (0.22%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 157 (34.51%) Azure
2 105 (23.08%) Microsoft 365
3 52 (11.43%) Power Platform
4 48 (10.55%) Entra ID
5 33 (7.25%) AWS
5 33 (7.25%) Azure DevOps
6 23 (5.05%) Dynamics 365
7 17 (3.74%) GitHub
8 15 (3.30%) SaaS
9 14 (3.08%) PowerApps
10 13 (2.86%) Microsoft Copilot
10 13 (2.86%) Microsoft Purview
11 12 (2.64%) OneDrive
11 12 (2.64%) Power Automate
12 11 (2.42%) Azure AKS
13 10 (2.20%) Serverless
14 9 (1.98%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 9 (1.98%) Azure Key Vault
14 9 (1.98%) PaaS
15 8 (1.76%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 23 (5.05%) DNS
2 20 (4.40%) WAN
3 17 (3.74%) DHCP
3 17 (3.74%) Firewall
4 11 (2.42%) LAN
4 11 (2.42%) Skype
4 11 (2.42%) VPN
5 8 (1.76%) SAN
5 8 (1.76%) TCP/IP
6 5 (1.10%) BGP
6 5 (1.10%) Ethernet
6 5 (1.10%) VoIP
6 5 (1.10%) Wireless
7 4 (0.88%) Cisco IOS
7 4 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
8 3 (0.66%) Kerberos
8 3 (0.66%) VLAN
9 2 (0.44%) Cisco ASA
9 2 (0.44%) Network Security
9 2 (0.44%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (8.35%) Power BI
2 21 (4.62%) SQL Server
3 13 (2.86%) Geospatial Data
4 12 (2.64%) Metadata
5 10 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
6 7 (1.54%) Azure SQL Database
7 6 (1.32%) Relational Database
8 5 (1.10%) Data Lake
8 5 (1.10%) GIS
8 5 (1.10%) Oracle Database
9 4 (0.88%) Oracle Reports
10 3 (0.66%) NoSQL
10 3 (0.66%) Tableau
11 2 (0.44%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.44%) EDRMS
11 2 (0.44%) MySQL
11 2 (0.44%) Spatial Data
11 2 (0.44%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 1 (0.22%) Dremio
12 1 (0.22%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 33 (7.25%) JIRA
2 29 (6.37%) Git
3 11 (2.42%) MSI
4 8 (1.76%) Visual Studio
5 6 (1.32%) GitLab
6 4 (0.88%) Eclipse
7 3 (0.66%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.44%) AdminStudio
8 2 (0.44%) Claude Code
8 2 (0.44%) InstallShield
9 1 (0.22%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.22%) HP UFT
9 1 (0.22%) Jenkins
9 1 (0.22%) Rational DOORS
9 1 (0.22%) Selenium
General
1 183 (40.22%) Social Skills
2 56 (12.31%) Finance
3 55 (12.09%) Analytical Skills
4 49 (10.77%) Public Sector
5 48 (10.55%) Organisational Skills
6 33 (7.25%) Military
7 17 (3.74%) Documentation Skills
8 16 (3.52%) Aerospace
8 16 (3.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 12 (2.64%) Retail
10 11 (2.42%) Local Government
11 10 (2.20%) Legal
12 9 (1.98%) General Ledger
12 9 (1.98%) Manufacturing
13 5 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (1.10%) Marketing
13 5 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
14 4 (0.88%) Banking
15 3 (0.66%) Aviation
16 2 (0.44%) Police
Job Titles
1 61 (13.41%) Architect
2 49 (10.77%) Consultant
3 47 (10.33%) Lead
4 29 (6.37%) Administrator
5 28 (6.15%) Senior
6 27 (5.93%) Developer
7 26 (5.71%) Analyst
7 26 (5.71%) Support Engineer
8 22 (4.84%) IT Support
9 20 (4.40%) Solutions Architect
10 18 (3.96%) Microsoft Consultant
11 16 (3.52%) DevOps Engineer
12 15 (3.30%) IT Engineer
12 15 (3.30%) Project Officer
13 14 (3.08%) Technical Architect
14 12 (2.64%) Azure Consultant
14 12 (2.64%) Azure Engineer
14 12 (2.64%) Coordinator
14 12 (2.64%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 11 (2.42%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (9.67%) Terraform
2 33 (7.25%) .NET
3 23 (5.05%) .NET Framework
4 19 (4.18%) REST
5 18 (3.96%) .NET Core
5 18 (3.96%) HTML
6 16 (3.52%) RESTful
7 13 (2.86%) CSS
7 13 (2.86%) CSS3
7 13 (2.86%) GeoJSON
7 13 (2.86%) HTML5
8 11 (2.42%) ATL
8 11 (2.42%) COM
8 11 (2.42%) MFC
8 11 (2.42%) WPF
9 9 (1.98%) ARM Templates
9 9 (1.98%) LDAP
10 8 (1.76%) SailPoint
11 7 (1.54%) OAuth
11 7 (1.54%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 36 (7.91%) Onboarding
2 25 (5.49%) Cloud Native
3 23 (5.05%) Product Ownership
4 20 (4.40%) Legacy Systems
5 17 (3.74%) Management Information System
6 16 (3.52%) Wiki
7 14 (3.08%) Hybrid Cloud
8 13 (2.86%) Enterprise Software
8 13 (2.86%) Virtual Team
9 12 (2.64%) Self-Motivation
10 9 (1.98%) AI Agents
10 9 (1.98%) EPoS
11 8 (1.76%) Driving Licence
12 7 (1.54%) Low-Code
12 7 (1.54%) PKI
13 6 (1.32%) Data Centre
13 6 (1.32%) Data Protection Act
13 6 (1.32%) Freedom of Information
14 5 (1.10%) Clustering
14 5 (1.10%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 102 (22.42%) Windows
2 38 (8.35%) Windows 10
3 25 (5.49%) Windows Server
4 17 (3.74%) Android
4 17 (3.74%) Linux
5 6 (1.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (0.88%) Mac OS
7 3 (0.66%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.44%) VMS
8 2 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.22%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 86 (18.90%) Continuous Improvement
2 79 (17.36%) Problem-Solving
3 72 (15.82%) Agile
4 70 (15.38%) Stakeholder Management
5 54 (11.87%) DevOps
6 51 (11.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 50 (10.99%) CI/CD
7 50 (10.99%) Project Delivery
8 48 (10.55%) Migration
9 46 (10.11%) Customer Service
10 40 (8.79%) Decision-Making
10 40 (8.79%) Technical Leadership
11 39 (8.57%) Infrastructure as Code
11 39 (8.57%) ITIL
12 35 (7.69%) Validation
13 34 (7.47%) PRINCE2
13 34 (7.47%) Project Management
13 34 (7.47%) Roadmaps
14 29 (6.37%) Analytics
15 28 (6.15%) DevSecOps
Programming Languages
1 46 (10.11%) SQL
2 36 (7.91%) PowerShell
3 31 (6.81%) C#
4 29 (6.37%) Python
5 25 (5.49%) Bicep
6 22 (4.84%) JavaScript
7 14 (3.08%) Bash
8 11 (2.42%) TypeScript
9 10 (2.20%) Java
10 6 (1.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 5 (1.10%) BeanShell
11 5 (1.10%) 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%) Kusto Query Language
13 1 (0.22%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.22%) VBA
13 1 (0.22%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 190 (41.76%) Security Cleared
2 131 (28.79%) SC Cleared
3 61 (13.41%) DV Cleared
4 33 (7.25%) Degree
5 15 (3.30%) BPSS Clearance
6 14 (3.08%) Microsoft Certification
7 10 (2.20%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 9 (1.98%) Azure Certification
9 8 (1.76%) ACCA
9 8 (1.76%) CIMA
9 8 (1.76%) PMP
10 5 (1.10%) CIPD
10 5 (1.10%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (1.10%) DBS Check
10 5 (1.10%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 4 (0.88%) CISSP
11 4 (0.88%) TOGAF Certification
12 3 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 3 (0.66%) MCSE
13 2 (0.44%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (6.37%) Data Quality
2 18 (3.96%) Accessibility
2 18 (3.96%) GDPR
3 17 (3.74%) SLA
4 16 (3.52%) NCSC
5 15 (3.30%) QA
6 13 (2.86%) PMO
7 11 (2.42%) WCAG
8 5 (1.10%) ISO 9000
9 4 (0.88%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.66%) Disclosure Scotland
10 3 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 3 (0.66%) NIST
11 2 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.22%) Def Stans
12 1 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.22%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.22%) MIL-STD-1553
12 1 (0.22%) NIST 800
System Software
1 80 (17.58%) Active Directory
2 28 (6.15%) Docker
3 17 (3.74%) Virtual Desktop
4 13 (2.86%) Hyper-V
4 13 (2.86%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (1.32%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (1.10%) vSphere
7 2 (0.44%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.22%) Firmware
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 29 (6.37%) Kubernetes
2 24 (5.27%) Microsoft Intune
3 23 (5.05%) SCCM
4 8 (1.76%) Ansible
4 8 (1.76%) WSUS
5 5 (1.10%) Failover Clustering
5 5 (1.10%) FortiGate
5 5 (1.10%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 4 (0.88%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 4 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.66%) Grafana
7 3 (0.66%) OPNET
7 3 (0.66%) VxRail
8 2 (0.44%) Argo
8 2 (0.44%) SCOM
9 1 (0.22%) FreeIPA
9 1 (0.22%) Podman
9 1 (0.22%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.22%) PTC Integrity
9 1 (0.22%) SELinux
Vendors
1 28 (6.15%) Oracle
2 18 (3.96%) SAP
3 17 (3.74%) VMware
4 16 (3.52%) Cisco
4 16 (3.52%) ServiceNow
5 14 (3.08%) Apple
6 11 (2.42%) Google
6 11 (2.42%) HP
7 10 (2.20%) Databricks
8 9 (1.98%) Red Hat
9 7 (1.54%) McAfee
10 6 (1.32%) BiZZdesign
10 6 (1.32%) Informatica
11 5 (1.10%) CyberArk
11 5 (1.10%) InterSystems
11 5 (1.10%) Workday
11 5 (1.10%) Zscaler
12 4 (0.88%) Atlassian
12 4 (0.88%) MuleSoft
12 4 (0.88%) NetApp