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 29 March 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
29 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 6 5
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 328 262 490
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 10.88% 15.38% 15.20%
As % of the Vendors category 32.67% 33.63% 36.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 243 190 330
10th Percentile £205 £205 £185
25th Percentile £350 £221 £296
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £594 £599 £594
90th Percentile £725 £714 £700
England median daily rate £492 £477 £488
% change year-on-year +3.14% -2.15% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 11 52
10th Percentile £14.19 £18.20 £12.53
25th Percentile £20.94 £18.51 £13.69
Median hourly rate £32.75 £25.00 £15.95
Median % change year-on-year +31.00% +56.79% -72.19%
75th Percentile £62.81 £37.00 £48.72
90th Percentile £65.00 £37.50 £51.25
England median hourly rate £19.91 £22.50 £15.65
% change year-on-year -11.51% +43.77% -26.18%

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 1,004 779 1,335
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 33.30% 45.72% 41.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 640 532 855
10th Percentile £274 £220 £205
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.14% - -
75th Percentile £600 £613 £638
90th Percentile £726 £699 £725
England median daily rate £500 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -4.76% +1.94% -4.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 132 43 176
10th Percentile £18.87 £18.51 £13.69
25th Percentile £23.50 £25.13 £27.50
Median hourly rate £57.50 £62.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.00% +31.58% -24.88%
75th Percentile £60.00 £68.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £74.68 £74.00 £77.50
England median hourly rate £25.40 £29.07 £24.00
% change year-on-year -12.63% +21.13% -31.97%

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 29 March 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 29 March 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 29 March 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
Wiltshire -2 104 £550 - 33
Gloucestershire +2 73 £410 -3.53% 69
Bristol -14 72 £512 +42.58% 76
Somerset -3 41 £475 +5.56% 57
Devon +6 22 £220 +10.00% 45
Dorset -18 5 £380 -20.00% 35
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 (14.02%) SharePoint
2 30 (9.15%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (3.96%) Skype for Business
4 6 (1.83%) Confluence
5 2 (0.61%) Apache
5 2 (0.61%) Oracle Application Server
5 2 (0.61%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.30%) CMS
6 1 (0.30%) IIS
6 1 (0.30%) SharePoint Server
6 1 (0.30%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 33 (10.06%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (9.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (3.35%) Microsoft Project
4 9 (2.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (2.44%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (1.83%) Adobe Captivate
6 6 (1.83%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 5 (1.52%) MS Visio
8 2 (0.61%) InDesign
8 2 (0.61%) InfoPath
9 1 (0.30%) Adobe Illustrator
9 1 (0.30%) PTC Creo
9 1 (0.30%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 7 (2.13%) Maximo
2 5 (1.52%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (1.22%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.30%) assyst
5 1 (0.30%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
5 1 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.30%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 106 (32.32%) Azure
2 68 (20.73%) Microsoft 365
3 37 (11.28%) Power Platform
4 35 (10.67%) Entra ID
5 28 (8.54%) Azure DevOps
6 24 (7.32%) AWS
7 20 (6.10%) Power Automate
8 18 (5.49%) GitHub
9 16 (4.88%) Dynamics 365
10 15 (4.57%) Azure Monitor
10 15 (4.57%) PowerApps
11 14 (4.27%) Azure Sentinel
12 10 (3.05%) Azure Key Vault
12 10 (3.05%) Serverless
13 9 (2.74%) Azure AKS
13 9 (2.74%) GitHub Actions
14 8 (2.44%) GCP
15 7 (2.13%) OneDrive
15 7 (2.13%) OpenShift
15 7 (2.13%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 32 (9.76%) DNS
2 26 (7.93%) Firewall
3 20 (6.10%) DHCP
4 19 (5.79%) VPN
5 17 (5.18%) Skype
6 16 (4.88%) TCP/IP
7 5 (1.52%) Network Security
7 5 (1.52%) Unified Communications
8 4 (1.22%) Ethernet
8 4 (1.22%) WAN
9 3 (0.91%) LAN
9 3 (0.91%) VLAN
9 3 (0.91%) VoIP
9 3 (0.91%) Wireless
10 2 (0.61%) Cisco IOS
10 2 (0.61%) H.323
10 2 (0.61%) HTTP
10 2 (0.61%) RTP
11 1 (0.30%) Internet
11 1 (0.30%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (7.62%) Power BI
2 14 (4.27%) SQL Server
3 9 (2.74%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (2.13%) Redis
5 6 (1.83%) Star Schema
6 5 (1.52%) Data Warehouse
6 5 (1.52%) Metadata
7 4 (1.22%) Azure SQL Database
7 4 (1.22%) Delta Lake
8 3 (0.91%) GIS
8 3 (0.91%) MySQL
8 3 (0.91%) Power Query
9 2 (0.61%) Data Lake
9 2 (0.61%) Electronic Patient Records
9 2 (0.61%) Oracle ODI
9 2 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
9 2 (0.61%) Spatial Data
10 1 (0.30%) Snowflake Schema
10 1 (0.30%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 1 (0.30%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 28 (8.54%) JIRA
2 9 (2.74%) Git
3 4 (1.22%) AdminStudio
3 4 (1.22%) Artifactory
3 4 (1.22%) Eclipse
3 4 (1.22%) GitLab
3 4 (1.22%) InstallShield
3 4 (1.22%) Jenkins
3 4 (1.22%) Visual Studio
4 3 (0.91%) MSI
4 3 (0.91%) Visual Studio Code
5 2 (0.61%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.61%) DBeaver
6 1 (0.30%) Maven
6 1 (0.30%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.30%) webpack
General
1 142 (43.29%) Social Skills
2 58 (17.68%) Analytical Skills
3 41 (12.50%) Finance
4 32 (9.76%) Public Sector
5 17 (5.18%) Documentation Skills
6 15 (4.57%) Legal
7 12 (3.66%) Organisational Skills
8 9 (2.74%) Manufacturing
8 9 (2.74%) Military
9 8 (2.44%) Marketing
10 7 (2.13%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.83%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (1.52%) Banking
13 4 (1.22%) Electronics
13 4 (1.22%) Police
14 3 (0.91%) Back Office
14 3 (0.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.91%) Local Government
15 2 (0.61%) General Ledger
16 1 (0.30%) Retail
Job Titles
1 38 (11.59%) Architect
2 35 (10.67%) Support Engineer
3 33 (10.06%) Developer
4 28 (8.54%) Analyst
5 21 (6.40%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 17 (5.18%) Microsoft Engineer
6 17 (5.18%) Solutions Architect
7 15 (4.57%) Azure Engineer
7 15 (4.57%) Desktop Engineer
7 15 (4.57%) Desktop Support
7 15 (4.57%) Desktop Support Engineer
8 14 (4.27%) Senior
9 13 (3.96%) Administrator
9 13 (3.96%) Data Engineer
10 11 (3.35%) Consultant
10 11 (3.35%) IT Support
11 10 (3.05%) DevOps Engineer
12 8 (2.44%) Business Analyst
12 8 (2.44%) Designer
12 8 (2.44%) Project Officer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (6.10%) OAuth
1 20 (6.10%) OAuth2
2 19 (5.79%) REST
2 19 (5.79%) SAML
3 17 (5.18%) OpenID
4 12 (3.66%) ARM Templates
5 10 (3.05%) CSS
5 10 (3.05%) HTML
6 8 (2.44%) .NET
7 7 (2.13%) FastAPI
7 7 (2.13%) Flask
7 7 (2.13%) GraphQL
7 7 (2.13%) gRPC
7 7 (2.13%) JSON
7 7 (2.13%) Web Services
7 7 (2.13%) WebSockets
8 6 (1.83%) JDO
9 5 (1.52%) SOAP
10 4 (1.22%) Spring
10 4 (1.22%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 21 (6.40%) Hybrid Cloud
2 17 (5.18%) Onboarding
3 14 (4.27%) Blackberry
4 13 (3.96%) Cloud Native
5 12 (3.66%) Product Ownership
6 11 (3.35%) Enterprise Software
7 9 (2.74%) Management Information System
7 9 (2.74%) Replication
8 7 (2.13%) Data Structures
8 7 (2.13%) Private Cloud
9 6 (1.83%) Driving Licence
9 6 (1.83%) Mobile App
9 6 (1.83%) PKI
9 6 (1.83%) Self-Motivation
9 6 (1.83%) Virtual Team
10 5 (1.52%) Legacy Applications
10 5 (1.52%) Low-Code
11 4 (1.22%) Security Posture
12 2 (0.61%) Data Centre
12 2 (0.61%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 116 (35.37%) Windows
2 41 (12.50%) Windows Server
3 31 (9.45%) Windows 10
4 21 (6.40%) Android
5 20 (6.10%) Linux
6 16 (4.88%) Apple iOS
7 6 (1.83%) Windows Server 2016
8 4 (1.22%) Windows Server 2012
9 3 (0.91%) CentOS
10 2 (0.61%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 1 (0.30%) Windows 8
11 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (28.05%) Problem-Solving
2 47 (14.33%) Agile
3 40 (12.20%) ITIL
4 39 (11.89%) DevOps
5 36 (10.98%) Stakeholder Management
6 35 (10.67%) RBAC
7 34 (10.37%) Analytics
7 34 (10.37%) CI/CD
7 34 (10.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 31 (9.45%) Continuous Improvement
9 29 (8.84%) Change Management
9 29 (8.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 28 (8.54%) Migration
11 27 (8.23%) Identity Access Management
12 26 (7.93%) Business Intelligence
13 22 (6.71%) Knowledge Transfer
14 20 (6.10%) Customer Service
15 19 (5.79%) Project Management
16 18 (5.49%) Cloud Security
16 18 (5.49%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 78 (23.78%) PowerShell
2 40 (12.20%) SQL
3 33 (10.06%) Python
4 25 (7.62%) JavaScript
5 15 (4.57%) Bicep
6 10 (3.05%) C#
7 8 (2.44%) Java
8 7 (2.13%) Go
9 5 (1.52%) C++
9 5 (1.52%) TypeScript
10 4 (1.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.91%) PHP
11 3 (0.91%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.30%) Bash
12 1 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
12 1 (0.30%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.30%) VBA
Qualifications
1 176 (53.66%) Security Cleared
2 124 (37.80%) SC Cleared
3 70 (21.34%) DV Cleared
4 41 (12.50%) Microsoft Certification
5 24 (7.32%) Degree
6 23 (7.01%) Azure Certification
7 8 (2.44%) CISSP
8 7 (2.13%) CISM
8 7 (2.13%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 6 (1.83%) ITIL Certification
10 5 (1.52%) MCSE
11 4 (1.22%) ACCA
11 4 (1.22%) BPSS Clearance
12 3 (0.91%) APMP
12 3 (0.91%) Computer Science Degree
13 2 (0.61%) CBAP
13 2 (0.61%) PMP
13 2 (0.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 1 (0.30%) CIMA
14 1 (0.30%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (3.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 12 (3.66%) GDPR
3 11 (3.35%) Data Quality
3 11 (3.35%) PMO
4 10 (3.05%) NIST
5 7 (2.13%) Accessibility
5 7 (2.13%) NIST 800
6 3 (0.91%) GAAP
6 3 (0.91%) IFRS
6 3 (0.91%) NCSC
6 3 (0.91%) QA
7 2 (0.61%) HL7
7 2 (0.61%) PSD2
7 2 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 2 (0.61%) SLA
7 2 (0.61%) SNOMED CT
8 1 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.30%) GRC
8 1 (0.30%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.30%) WCAG
System Software
1 90 (27.44%) Active Directory
2 16 (4.88%) VMware Infrastructure
3 15 (4.57%) Hyper-V
4 10 (3.05%) Docker
5 5 (1.52%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (1.22%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (1.22%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.30%) KVM
7 1 (0.30%) UAG
7 1 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.30%) VMware Workstation
7 1 (0.30%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 42 (12.80%) Microsoft Intune
2 32 (9.76%) Single Sign-On
3 28 (8.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 28 (8.54%) Terraform
4 22 (6.71%) Kubernetes
5 15 (4.57%) SCCM
6 7 (2.13%) Grafana
6 7 (2.13%) Prometheus
7 6 (1.83%) Ansible
8 5 (1.52%) WSUS
9 4 (1.22%) Norton AntiVirus
10 3 (0.91%) VxRail
11 2 (0.61%) CA Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.61%) Cisco CUCM
11 2 (0.61%) McAfee ePO
11 2 (0.61%) NetBackup
11 2 (0.61%) Puppet
11 2 (0.61%) vCenter Server
12 1 (0.30%) SCOM
12 1 (0.30%) Symantec Endpoint Protection
Vendors
1 39 (11.89%) VMware
2 17 (5.18%) Citrix
3 14 (4.27%) MobileIron
4 13 (3.96%) SAP
5 11 (3.35%) Adobe
5 11 (3.35%) Cisco
5 11 (3.35%) Red Hat
6 10 (3.05%) McAfee
7 9 (2.74%) Databricks
8 8 (2.44%) Oracle
9 7 (2.13%) Google
9 7 (2.13%) IBM
10 6 (1.83%) ServiceNow
11 5 (1.52%) Blue Prism
11 5 (1.52%) Starlink
12 4 (1.22%) Apple
12 4 (1.22%) NetApp
12 4 (1.22%) Symantec
13 3 (0.91%) Atlassian
13 3 (0.91%) Dell