Microsoft Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Microsoft
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the West Midlands 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 8 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
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 -2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 426 271 255
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.19% 16.06% 13.75%
As % of the Vendors category 26.68% 33.58% 29.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 326 179 174
10th Percentile £258 £165 £162
25th Percentile £375 £259 £298
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £418
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% -4.19% +4.38%
75th Percentile £519 £541 £520
90th Percentile £621 £613 £638
England median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 21 10
10th Percentile £15.95 £15.13 £13.06
25th Percentile £17.74 £27.21 £14.00
Median hourly rate £21.50 £30.00 £20.89
Median % change year-on-year -28.33% +43.63% +7.12%
75th Percentile £21.75 £50.00 £50.94
90th Percentile £70.09 - £56.25
England median hourly rate £22.46 £22.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year -0.77% +39.43% -27.87%

All Vendors
West Midlands

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 West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 1,597 807 859
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 45.68% 47.84% 46.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,095 516 599
10th Percentile £315 £230 £263
25th Percentile £401 £350 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.11% - -
75th Percentile £550 £575 £613
90th Percentile £656 £641 £700
England median daily rate £510 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +0.49% -3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 29 23
10th Percentile £16.09 £14.86 £13.40
25th Percentile £20.31 £24.66 £14.19
Median hourly rate £30.00 £30.00 £16.82
Median % change year-on-year - +78.36% -27.66%
75th Percentile £50.50 £43.25 £42.13
90th Percentile £65.25 £50.00 £56.25
England median hourly rate £35.00 £25.15 £30.00
% change year-on-year +39.17% -16.17% -24.15%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

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

Microsoft job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Microsoft.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 8 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the West Midlands

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Microsoft.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 8 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the West Midlands

Microsoft
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 8 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
Birmingham +1 125 £450 +22.55% 128
Warwickshire -2 89 £450 +12.50% 33
Coventry 0 80 £425 +44.68% 36
Shropshire -26 48 £447 -13.20% 17
Staffordshire -4 12 £413 +194.64% 48
Worcestershire -1 10 £450 -21.74% 24
Solihull -30 9 £425 -11.64% 7
Herefordshire +3 8 £700 -22.22% 14
Dudley - 6 £400 - 9
Walsall +2 4 £600 - 8
West Bromwich - 3 - - 4
Brierley Hill - 2 £446 - 2
Wolverhampton -6 1 - - 13
Halesowen - 1 - -
Microsoft
England

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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 39 (9.15%) SharePoint
2 14 (3.29%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (1.17%) SAS
4 4 (0.94%) Apache Spark
4 4 (0.94%) Confluence
5 3 (0.70%) Apache
5 3 (0.70%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.70%) IIS
5 3 (0.70%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.47%) CloudStack
6 2 (0.47%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.23%) Appian
7 1 (0.23%) CMS
Applications
1 44 (10.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (9.15%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (3.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (2.35%) MS Visio
5 9 (2.11%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.23%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.23%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.23%) Navisworks
7 1 (0.23%) ProjectWise
7 1 (0.23%) Revit
Business Applications
1 24 (5.63%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.17%) SAP PSCD
3 3 (0.70%) Primavera
4 2 (0.47%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.23%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.23%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 1 (0.23%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.23%) SAP EHS
5 1 (0.23%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.23%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 178 (41.78%) Azure
2 92 (21.60%) Microsoft 365
3 79 (18.54%) Power Platform
4 50 (11.74%) Azure DevOps
4 50 (11.74%) Dynamics 365
5 47 (11.03%) Entra ID
6 38 (8.92%) Power Automate
7 36 (8.45%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 34 (7.98%) Microsoft Purview
9 33 (7.75%) AWS
10 32 (7.51%) Azure Data Factory
11 24 (5.63%) PowerApps
12 22 (5.16%) OneDrive
13 17 (3.99%) Serverless
14 14 (3.29%) Microsoft Copilot
15 11 (2.58%) GCP
16 10 (2.35%) GitHub
16 10 (2.35%) GitHub Actions
17 8 (1.88%) Azure Functions
17 8 (1.88%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 31 (7.28%) DNS
2 25 (5.87%) VPN
3 24 (5.63%) DHCP
4 18 (4.23%) Firewall
5 10 (2.35%) LAN
6 9 (2.11%) TCP/IP
6 9 (2.11%) Wi-Fi
7 7 (1.64%) WAN
8 6 (1.41%) Cisco IOS
8 6 (1.41%) SSL
9 4 (0.94%) Network Security
9 4 (0.94%) SAN
10 3 (0.70%) BIG-IP
10 3 (0.70%) Intrusion Detection
10 3 (0.70%) NAS
10 3 (0.70%) SD-WAN
10 3 (0.70%) Structured Cabling
10 3 (0.70%) Wireless
11 2 (0.47%) Cisco Nexus
11 2 (0.47%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (10.80%) Power BI
2 30 (7.04%) Data Warehouse
2 30 (7.04%) SQL Server
3 22 (5.16%) PostgreSQL
4 14 (3.29%) Azure SQL Database
5 12 (2.82%) Data Lake
5 12 (2.82%) MySQL
6 11 (2.58%) Delta Lake
7 9 (2.11%) NoSQL
8 7 (1.64%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
8 7 (1.64%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 6 (1.41%) Data Vault
9 6 (1.41%) Metadata
9 6 (1.41%) Relational Database
10 5 (1.17%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.70%) Power Query
11 3 (0.70%) Redis
11 3 (0.70%) SAP Data Services
11 3 (0.70%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 3 (0.70%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 21 (4.93%) JIRA
2 12 (2.82%) Team Foundation Server
3 11 (2.58%) Selenium
3 11 (2.58%) Visual Studio
3 11 (2.58%) WebDriver
4 9 (2.11%) Cypress.io
4 9 (2.11%) Postman
5 7 (1.64%) Git
6 6 (1.41%) Cucumber
7 4 (0.94%) MLflow
8 3 (0.70%) GitLab
8 3 (0.70%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.70%) Protractor
9 2 (0.47%) MSI
9 2 (0.47%) NUnit
10 1 (0.23%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.23%) Maven
10 1 (0.23%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.23%) Zephyr
General
1 140 (32.86%) Social Skills
2 60 (14.08%) Finance
3 43 (10.09%) Analytical Skills
4 42 (9.86%) Public Sector
5 30 (7.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 15 (3.52%) Organisational Skills
7 11 (2.58%) Manufacturing
8 10 (2.35%) Banking
8 10 (2.35%) Legal
9 7 (1.64%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (1.64%) Marketing
10 6 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (1.41%) Law
11 5 (1.17%) Games
11 5 (1.17%) Retail
12 4 (0.94%) Billing
12 4 (0.94%) Electronics
13 2 (0.47%) Investment Banking
13 2 (0.47%) Publishing
13 2 (0.47%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 60 (14.08%) Analyst
2 53 (12.44%) Developer
3 48 (11.27%) Senior
4 42 (9.86%) Data Engineer
5 35 (8.22%) Architect
6 29 (6.81%) Consultant
7 28 (6.57%) Lead
8 21 (4.93%) Azure Engineer
9 17 (3.99%) Administrator
10 15 (3.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 15 (3.52%) Solutions Architect
11 13 (3.05%) Data Architect
11 13 (3.05%) Senior Data Engineer
12 11 (2.58%) Dynamics 365 Developer
12 11 (2.58%) Support Engineer
12 11 (2.58%) Test Analyst
13 10 (2.35%) DBA
13 10 (2.35%) IT Support
13 10 (2.35%) Senior Analyst
14 9 (2.11%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (4.93%) PySpark
2 17 (3.99%) JSON
3 16 (3.76%) SOAP
4 14 (3.29%) XML
5 11 (2.58%) ActiveX
6 10 (2.35%) REST
7 9 (2.11%) .NET
7 9 (2.11%) Gherkin
8 6 (1.41%) Kafka
9 5 (1.17%) JDBC
9 5 (1.17%) SAP PI
9 5 (1.17%) YAML
10 4 (0.94%) .NET Framework
10 4 (0.94%) FastAPI
10 4 (0.94%) IDoc
10 4 (0.94%) Microsoft Graph
11 3 (0.70%) Flask
11 3 (0.70%) GraphQL
11 3 (0.70%) gRPC
11 3 (0.70%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 25 (5.87%) Cloud Native
2 20 (4.69%) Onboarding
3 16 (3.76%) Hybrid Cloud
4 13 (3.05%) Management Information System
4 13 (3.05%) Product Ownership
5 11 (2.58%) SCADA
6 9 (2.11%) Enterprise Software
7 8 (1.88%) CMDB
7 8 (1.88%) Security Operations Centre
8 7 (1.64%) Data Centre
8 7 (1.64%) Self-Motivation
8 7 (1.64%) Smartphone
9 6 (1.41%) Data Structures
10 5 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.17%) IoT
10 5 (1.17%) Operational Technology
10 5 (1.17%) PKI
10 5 (1.17%) Public Cloud
10 5 (1.17%) Security Posture
11 4 (0.94%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 83 (19.48%) Windows
2 25 (5.87%) Windows 10
3 24 (5.63%) Windows Server
4 23 (5.40%) Linux
5 12 (2.82%) Mac OS
6 7 (1.64%) Android
7 6 (1.41%) Unix
8 5 (1.17%) SUSE
8 5 (1.17%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.94%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.70%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.47%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.23%) CentOS
12 1 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 86 (20.19%) Problem-Solving
2 71 (16.67%) Agile
3 70 (16.43%) DevOps
4 57 (13.38%) Migration
5 56 (13.15%) CI/CD
6 55 (12.91%) Continuous Improvement
7 53 (12.44%) Analytics
8 52 (12.21%) AI
9 49 (11.50%) Business Intelligence
10 48 (11.27%) Stakeholder Management
11 45 (10.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 42 (9.86%) Data Modelling
13 38 (8.92%) Customer Service
13 38 (8.92%) ETL
14 37 (8.69%) Validation
15 34 (7.98%) Technical Leadership
16 33 (7.75%) ITIL
17 32 (7.51%) CRM
17 32 (7.51%) ITSM
18 30 (7.04%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 70 (16.43%) SQL
2 40 (9.39%) Python
3 20 (4.69%) C#
3 20 (4.69%) JavaScript
4 17 (3.99%) Java
5 15 (3.52%) PowerShell
6 13 (3.05%) Bicep
6 13 (3.05%) VBA
7 11 (2.58%) VB
7 11 (2.58%) VB6
8 8 (1.88%) Kusto Query Language
9 7 (1.64%) T-SQL
10 5 (1.17%) ABAP
10 5 (1.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 5 (1.17%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.70%) Bash
11 3 (0.70%) Go
11 3 (0.70%) MATLAB
12 2 (0.47%) Scala
12 2 (0.47%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 74 (17.37%) Security Cleared
2 60 (14.08%) SC Cleared
3 32 (7.51%) Microsoft Certification
4 27 (6.34%) Degree
5 14 (3.29%) BPSS Clearance
6 13 (3.05%) ISTQB
7 11 (2.58%) Azure Certification
8 10 (2.35%) CISSP
8 10 (2.35%) OCP
8 10 (2.35%) Oracle Certification
9 8 (1.88%) AWS Certification
10 7 (1.64%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (1.17%) CISM
11 5 (1.17%) DV Cleared
11 5 (1.17%) Master's Degree
12 4 (0.94%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (0.94%) PhD
13 3 (0.70%) CCNP
13 3 (0.70%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 2 (0.47%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (6.81%) Data Quality
2 24 (5.63%) Accessibility
2 24 (5.63%) GDPR
3 19 (4.46%) QA
4 17 (3.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 14 (3.29%) NIST
6 12 (2.82%) PMO
6 12 (2.82%) SLA
7 10 (2.35%) WCAG
8 4 (0.94%) GRC
8 4 (0.94%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 12207
9 3 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 2 (0.47%) NCSC
10 2 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.23%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.23%) P3O
11 1 (0.23%) SOC 2
System Software
1 64 (15.02%) Active Directory
2 21 (4.93%) VMware Infrastructure
3 19 (4.46%) Docker
4 15 (3.52%) Hyper-V
5 11 (2.58%) vSphere
6 9 (2.11%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.94%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.70%) Snort
9 2 (0.47%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.47%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.47%) XenApp
9 2 (0.47%) XenDesktop
10 1 (0.23%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.23%) Firmware
10 1 (0.23%) NFS
Systems Management
1 39 (9.15%) Microsoft Intune
2 29 (6.81%) Kubernetes
3 24 (5.63%) SCCM
4 23 (5.40%) Terraform
5 15 (3.52%) Single Sign-On
6 8 (1.88%) Grafana
7 7 (1.64%) Prometheus
8 5 (1.17%) Jamf Pro
9 4 (0.94%) Ansible
10 3 (0.70%) CSIRT
10 3 (0.70%) QRadar
11 2 (0.47%) Check_MK
11 2 (0.47%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (0.47%) WMI
11 2 (0.47%) WSUS
12 1 (0.23%) AirWatch
12 1 (0.23%) Control-M
12 1 (0.23%) FortiGate
12 1 (0.23%) Nessus
12 1 (0.23%) SCOM
Vendors
1 35 (8.22%) Oracle
2 34 (7.98%) ServiceNow
3 29 (6.81%) Databricks
4 27 (6.34%) VMware
5 26 (6.10%) SAP
6 20 (4.69%) Cisco
7 11 (2.58%) Splunk
8 9 (2.11%) UiPath
9 8 (1.88%) Apple
9 8 (1.88%) Informatica
9 8 (1.88%) Red Hat
10 7 (1.64%) Okta
11 6 (1.41%) Canon
11 6 (1.41%) Citrix
12 5 (1.17%) F5
12 5 (1.17%) Fortinet
12 5 (1.17%) IBM
12 5 (1.17%) MathWorks
12 5 (1.17%) Siemens
12 5 (1.17%) webMethods