Microsoft Contract Job Trends in Staffordshire

Microsoft
West Midlands > Staffordshire

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in Staffordshire 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 August 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 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 3 8
Rank change year-on-year -3 +5 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 15 16 12
As % of all contract jobs in Staffordshire 11.45% 25.00% 9.68%
As % of the Vendors category 27.78% 42.11% 24.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 9 6 8
10th Percentile £190 £138 £123
25th Percentile £320 - £132
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £413 £140 £180
Median % change year-on-year +194.64% -22.22% +2.86%
75th Percentile £488 - £300
90th Percentile £494 - £341
West Midlands median daily rate £447 £400 £418
% change year-on-year +11.75% -4.19% +1.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 8 1
10th Percentile - £12.25 -
25th Percentile £17.74 £24.81 £36.25
Median hourly rate £19.41 £30.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -35.30% -20.00% -
75th Percentile £21.08 £31.00 £38.75
90th Percentile - - -
West Midlands median hourly rate £19.41 £30.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -35.30% -20.00% +102.70%

All Vendors
Staffordshire

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 Staffordshire.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 54 38 49
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Staffordshire 41.22% 59.38% 39.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 35 17 31
10th Percentile £200 £139 £160
25th Percentile £334 £140 £298
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £350 £425
Median % change year-on-year +32.14% -17.65% -5.56%
75th Percentile £825 £475 £476
90th Percentile £892 £492 £600
West Midlands median daily rate £463 £475 £475
% change year-on-year -2.63% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 11 3
10th Percentile - £12.25 £38.25
25th Percentile £17.74 £21.39 £41.25
Median hourly rate £19.41 £30.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -35.30% -36.84% -
75th Percentile £21.08 £31.00 £58.13
90th Percentile - £37.50 £63.75
West Midlands median hourly rate £25.15 £30.00 £28.81
% change year-on-year -16.18% +4.12% +28.06%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in Staffordshire

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microsoft relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Staffordshire.

Microsoft job vacancy trend in Staffordshire

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in Staffordshire

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Staffordshire citing Microsoft.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Staffordshire citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in Staffordshire

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in Staffordshire over the 6 months to 18 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in Staffordshire

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in Staffordshire

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Staffordshire citing Microsoft.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Staffordshire citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Contract Job Locations in Staffordshire

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft within the Staffordshire region over the 6 months to 18 August 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
Uttoxeter +2 4 £306 +118.75%
Burton-upon-Trent - 3 - - 5
Stoke-on-Trent -4 2 £425 - 11
Stafford -7 2 £320 - 4
Lichfield - 1 - -
Microsoft
West Midlands

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Staffordshire 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 1 (6.67%) Apache
1 1 (6.67%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 6 (40.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (13.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (6.67%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (6.67%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 4 (26.67%) Azure
2 3 (20.00%) Microsoft 365
3 2 (13.33%) Entra ID
4 1 (6.67%) AWS
4 1 (6.67%) Azure Data Factory
4 1 (6.67%) Azure DevOps
4 1 (6.67%) Azure Storage
4 1 (6.67%) Azure Synapse Analytics
4 1 (6.67%) Dynamics 365
4 1 (6.67%) Microsoft Purview
4 1 (6.67%) OCI
4 1 (6.67%) Power Automate
4 1 (6.67%) Power Platform
4 1 (6.67%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 2 (13.33%) DNS
1 2 (13.33%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (13.33%) Delta Lake
2 1 (6.67%) Spark SQL
2 1 (6.67%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 2 (13.33%) JIRA
2 1 (6.67%) Git
General
1 7 (46.67%) Social Skills
2 2 (13.33%) Electronics
2 2 (13.33%) Organisational Skills
3 1 (6.67%) Documentation Skills
3 1 (6.67%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 5 (33.33%) Administrator
2 3 (20.00%) Systems Administrator
3 2 (13.33%) Azure Engineer
3 2 (13.33%) Azure Infrastructure Engineer
3 2 (13.33%) Consultant
3 2 (13.33%) Data Engineer
3 2 (13.33%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 2 (13.33%) Lead
3 2 (13.33%) Senior
3 2 (13.33%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
3 2 (13.33%) Senior Windows Engineer
3 2 (13.33%) Windows Engineer
3 2 (13.33%) Windows Infrastructure Engineer
4 1 (6.67%) Data Analytics Engineer
4 1 (6.67%) Dynamics 365 Consultant
4 1 (6.67%) Infrastructure Specialist
4 1 (6.67%) SAP Manager
4 1 (6.67%) SAP Project Manager
4 1 (6.67%) Validation Consultant
4 1 (6.67%) Validation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (13.33%) PySpark
2 1 (6.67%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 2 (13.33%) Management Information System
1 2 (13.33%) PKI
2 1 (6.67%) Data Fabric
2 1 (6.67%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 3 (20.00%) Windows
2 2 (13.33%) Windows Server
3 1 (6.67%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (20.00%) Agile
1 3 (20.00%) Data Entry
1 3 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
2 2 (13.33%) Analytics
2 2 (13.33%) CI/CD
2 2 (13.33%) Continuous Improvement
2 2 (13.33%) Customer Engagement
2 2 (13.33%) Customer Service
2 2 (13.33%) Data Governance
2 2 (13.33%) Data Modelling
2 2 (13.33%) Data Pipeline
2 2 (13.33%) GAP Analysis
2 2 (13.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 2 (13.33%) Scrum
2 2 (13.33%) SDLC
2 2 (13.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
2 2 (13.33%) Stakeholder Management
2 2 (13.33%) Test Management
2 2 (13.33%) Verification and Validation
2 2 (13.33%) V-Model
Programming Languages
1 2 (13.33%) MATLAB
1 2 (13.33%) SQL
2 1 (6.67%) C#
2 1 (6.67%) JavaScript
2 1 (6.67%) Python
Qualifications
1 2 (13.33%) Azure Certification
1 2 (13.33%) Degree
1 2 (13.33%) Security Cleared
2 1 (6.67%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (13.33%) ISO/IEC 12207
1 2 (13.33%) ISO/IEC 15288
2 1 (6.67%) Accessibility
2 1 (6.67%) Actionable Recommendations
2 1 (6.67%) Data Quality
2 1 (6.67%) Government Security Classifications
2 1 (6.67%) ISO 22301
2 1 (6.67%) NIST
2 1 (6.67%) NIST 800
2 1 (6.67%) SOC 2
2 1 (6.67%) WCAG
System Software
1 2 (13.33%) Active Directory
1 2 (13.33%) Hyper-V
2 1 (6.67%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 1 (6.67%) Microsoft Intune
1 1 (6.67%) SCCM
Vendors
1 3 (20.00%) VMware
2 2 (13.33%) Databricks
3 1 (6.67%) NetApp
3 1 (6.67%) Oracle
3 1 (6.67%) SAP