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 4 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
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 5 5
Rank change year-on-year +1 0 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 446 289 420
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 12.16% 15.23% 15.82%
As % of the Vendors category 36.44% 37.05% 36.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 273 173 271
10th Percentile £215 £185 £180
25th Percentile £356 £235 £306
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £400 £500
Median % change year-on-year +17.50% -20.00% -2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £564 £613
90th Percentile £730 £623 £738
England median daily rate £489 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +2.95% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 43 22
10th Percentile £12.79 £18.13 £12.50
25th Percentile £14.00 £18.51 £14.14
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 £44.74 £37.50 £85.00
England median hourly rate £20.51 £22.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year -9.39% +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 1,224 780 1,155
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 33.38% 41.10% 43.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 731 446 728
10th Percentile £305 £213 £220
25th Percentile £413 £344 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £619 £630
90th Percentile £719 £675 £700
England median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 167 101 106
10th Percentile £13.86 £13.35 £13.77
25th Percentile £16.62 £18.51 £55.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £18.87 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +72.23% -73.04% +23.92%
75th Percentile £56.75 £51.90 -
90th Percentile £80.05 £70.00 £75.00
England median hourly rate £32.00 £25.15 £32.75
% change year-on-year +27.24% -23.21% -21.65%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -3 137 £500 +11.11% 174
Somerset 0 87 £450 +100.00% 72
Wiltshire +2 74 £513 -9.09% 63
Gloucestershire +1 71 £418 +28.46% 150
Devon -4 39 £317 +15.36% 74
Dorset -2 24 £515 +21.18% 67
Cornwall -2 2 £525 +138.64% 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 69 (15.47%) SharePoint
2 27 (6.05%) Microsoft Exchange
3 17 (3.81%) Confluence
4 5 (1.12%) CMS
5 3 (0.67%) Sitecore CMS
6 2 (0.45%) Apache
6 2 (0.45%) 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 64 (14.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 62 (13.90%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (6.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (3.81%) Microsoft Project
5 9 (2.02%) MS Visio
6 6 (1.35%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 10 (2.24%) NetSuite
2 8 (1.79%) Oracle Payables
2 8 (1.79%) Oracle Receivables
3 7 (1.57%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.67%) Dynamics NAV
4 3 (0.67%) Magento
4 3 (0.67%) SAP CRM
5 2 (0.45%) assyst
5 2 (0.45%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.22%) Oracle General Ledger
6 1 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.22%) SAP HR
6 1 (0.22%) SAP Hybris
6 1 (0.22%) SAP MM
6 1 (0.22%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 159 (35.65%) Azure
2 107 (23.99%) Microsoft 365
3 52 (11.66%) Power Platform
4 49 (10.99%) Entra ID
5 32 (7.17%) AWS
6 29 (6.50%) Azure DevOps
7 24 (5.38%) Dynamics 365
8 20 (4.48%) GitHub
9 15 (3.36%) PowerApps
9 15 (3.36%) SaaS
10 14 (3.14%) Microsoft Copilot
10 14 (3.14%) Power Automate
11 12 (2.69%) OneDrive
12 11 (2.47%) Microsoft Purview
12 11 (2.47%) Serverless
13 10 (2.24%) Azure Key Vault
14 9 (2.02%) Azure ExpressRoute
14 9 (2.02%) Cloud Computing
14 9 (2.02%) PaaS
15 8 (1.79%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 22 (4.93%) DNS
2 18 (4.04%) WAN
3 16 (3.59%) DHCP
3 16 (3.59%) Firewall
4 11 (2.47%) Skype
5 10 (2.24%) VPN
6 9 (2.02%) LAN
7 8 (1.79%) SAN
8 7 (1.57%) TCP/IP
9 5 (1.12%) BGP
9 5 (1.12%) VoIP
10 4 (0.90%) Ethernet
10 4 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
11 3 (0.67%) Kerberos
11 3 (0.67%) VLAN
12 2 (0.45%) NAS
12 2 (0.45%) SSL
12 2 (0.45%) VSAN
13 1 (0.22%) NX-OS
13 1 (0.22%) RS-232
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (8.30%) Power BI
2 24 (5.38%) SQL Server
3 13 (2.91%) Geospatial Data
4 11 (2.47%) PostgreSQL
5 10 (2.24%) Metadata
6 7 (1.57%) Azure SQL Database
7 6 (1.35%) Relational Database
8 5 (1.12%) Data Lake
8 5 (1.12%) GIS
8 5 (1.12%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.67%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.67%) Tableau
10 2 (0.45%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.45%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.45%) EDRMS
10 2 (0.45%) Electronic Patient Records
10 2 (0.45%) MySQL
10 2 (0.45%) Spatial Data
10 2 (0.45%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 1 (0.22%) Dremio
Development Applications
1 36 (8.07%) JIRA
2 24 (5.38%) Git
3 11 (2.47%) MSI
4 7 (1.57%) Visual Studio
5 6 (1.35%) AdminStudio
5 6 (1.35%) GitLab
5 6 (1.35%) InstallShield
6 4 (0.90%) Visual Studio Code
7 3 (0.67%) Eclipse
8 2 (0.45%) 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
1 179 (40.13%) Social Skills
2 56 (12.56%) Analytical Skills
3 55 (12.33%) Finance
4 53 (11.88%) Public Sector
5 42 (9.42%) Organisational Skills
6 33 (7.40%) Military
7 16 (3.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 15 (3.36%) Documentation Skills
9 14 (3.14%) Legal
10 12 (2.69%) Aerospace
10 12 (2.69%) Local Government
11 11 (2.47%) Retail
12 9 (2.02%) General Ledger
13 6 (1.35%) Manufacturing
13 6 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
14 5 (1.12%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (1.12%) Marketing
15 4 (0.90%) Banking
16 3 (0.67%) Aviation
17 2 (0.45%) Police
Job Titles
1 60 (13.45%) Architect
2 47 (10.54%) Lead
3 46 (10.31%) Consultant
4 31 (6.95%) Senior
5 30 (6.73%) Developer
6 28 (6.28%) Analyst
7 26 (5.83%) Support Engineer
8 21 (4.71%) Administrator
8 21 (4.71%) IT Support
9 19 (4.26%) Solutions Architect
10 17 (3.81%) Microsoft Consultant
11 15 (3.36%) IT Engineer
11 15 (3.36%) Project Officer
12 14 (3.14%) Technical Architect
13 13 (2.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 12 (2.69%) Azure Consultant
14 12 (2.69%) Coordinator
14 12 (2.69%) DBA
14 12 (2.69%) Desktop Support
14 12 (2.69%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (8.97%) Terraform
2 34 (7.62%) .NET
3 24 (5.38%) .NET Framework
4 19 (4.26%) HTML
4 19 (4.26%) REST
5 18 (4.04%) .NET Core
6 16 (3.59%) RESTful
7 14 (3.14%) CSS
8 13 (2.91%) CSS3
8 13 (2.91%) GeoJSON
8 13 (2.91%) HTML5
9 11 (2.47%) ATL
9 11 (2.47%) COM
9 11 (2.47%) MFC
9 11 (2.47%) WPF
10 9 (2.02%) LDAP
11 8 (1.79%) SailPoint
12 7 (1.57%) JDO
12 7 (1.57%) OAuth
12 7 (1.57%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 37 (8.30%) Onboarding
2 26 (5.83%) Cloud Native
3 24 (5.38%) Product Ownership
4 20 (4.48%) Legacy Systems
5 15 (3.36%) Enterprise Software
5 15 (3.36%) Management Information System
6 13 (2.91%) Hybrid Cloud
6 13 (2.91%) Virtual Team
7 11 (2.47%) Wiki
8 9 (2.02%) EPoS
8 9 (2.02%) Self-Motivation
9 8 (1.79%) AI Agents
10 7 (1.57%) Low-Code
10 7 (1.57%) PKI
11 6 (1.35%) Data Centre
11 6 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
11 6 (1.35%) Driving Licence
11 6 (1.35%) Freedom of Information
11 6 (1.35%) Legacy Applications
12 5 (1.12%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 104 (23.32%) Windows
2 42 (9.42%) Windows 10
3 24 (5.38%) Windows Server
4 19 (4.26%) Android
5 15 (3.36%) Linux
6 6 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.67%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.67%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.45%) VMS
8 2 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.22%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (18.83%) Continuous Improvement
2 83 (18.61%) Problem-Solving
3 68 (15.25%) Agile
3 68 (15.25%) Stakeholder Management
4 51 (11.43%) DevOps
4 51 (11.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 49 (10.99%) Project Delivery
6 48 (10.76%) CI/CD
6 48 (10.76%) Migration
7 41 (9.19%) Customer Service
7 41 (9.19%) ITIL
8 40 (8.97%) Technical Leadership
9 36 (8.07%) Decision-Making
9 36 (8.07%) Infrastructure as Code
10 35 (7.85%) Project Management
10 35 (7.85%) Roadmaps
11 34 (7.62%) PRINCE2
12 31 (6.95%) Validation
13 29 (6.50%) Data Protection
14 28 (6.28%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 48 (10.76%) SQL
2 33 (7.40%) PowerShell
3 31 (6.95%) Python
4 29 (6.50%) C#
5 23 (5.16%) JavaScript
6 20 (4.48%) Bicep
7 11 (2.47%) Java
7 11 (2.47%) TypeScript
8 9 (2.02%) Bash
9 6 (1.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 5 (1.12%) BeanShell
11 4 (0.90%) C++
12 2 (0.45%) 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
1 189 (42.38%) Security Cleared
2 134 (30.04%) SC Cleared
3 56 (12.56%) DV Cleared
4 35 (7.85%) Degree
5 16 (3.59%) Microsoft Certification
6 15 (3.36%) BPSS Clearance
7 11 (2.47%) Azure Certification
8 10 (2.24%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 9 (2.02%) PMP
10 8 (1.79%) ACCA
10 8 (1.79%) CIMA
11 5 (1.12%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (1.12%) DBS Check
12 4 (0.90%) CISSP
12 4 (0.90%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 4 (0.90%) TOGAF Certification
13 3 (0.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 3 (0.67%) ACSP
13 3 (0.67%) MCSE
14 2 (0.45%) CIPD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (5.38%) Data Quality
2 18 (4.04%) Accessibility
3 17 (3.81%) QA
4 16 (3.59%) GDPR
4 16 (3.59%) NCSC
4 16 (3.59%) SLA
5 12 (2.69%) PMO
6 11 (2.47%) WCAG
7 5 (1.12%) ISO 9000
8 4 (0.90%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.67%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.67%) NIST
10 2 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.45%) HL7
10 2 (0.45%) SNOMED CT
11 1 (0.22%) Def Stans
11 1 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.22%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 80 (17.94%) Active Directory
2 24 (5.38%) Docker
3 17 (3.81%) Virtual Desktop
4 12 (2.69%) Hyper-V
5 11 (2.47%) VMware Infrastructure
6 6 (1.35%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.90%) vSphere
8 2 (0.45%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 1 (0.22%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.22%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.22%) zsh
Systems Management
1 27 (6.05%) Microsoft Intune
2 26 (5.83%) SCCM
3 25 (5.61%) Kubernetes
4 8 (1.79%) WSUS
5 7 (1.57%) Ansible
6 5 (1.12%) Failover Clustering
6 5 (1.12%) FortiGate
6 5 (1.12%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 5 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.90%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 3 (0.67%) Grafana
8 3 (0.67%) OPNET
8 3 (0.67%) VxRail
9 2 (0.45%) 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 25 (5.61%) Oracle
2 16 (3.59%) Apple
2 16 (3.59%) ServiceNow
3 15 (3.36%) VMware
4 14 (3.14%) SAP
5 13 (2.91%) Cisco
6 12 (2.69%) HP
7 11 (2.47%) Google
8 10 (2.24%) Databricks
9 9 (2.02%) Red Hat
10 8 (1.79%) McAfee
11 6 (1.35%) BiZZdesign
12 5 (1.12%) CyberArk
12 5 (1.12%) Informatica
12 5 (1.12%) InterSystems
12 5 (1.12%) NetApp
12 5 (1.12%) Starlink
12 5 (1.12%) Zscaler
13 4 (0.90%) Atlassian
13 4 (0.90%) MuleSoft