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 14 November 2025, 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
14 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 7 4 4
Rank change year-on-year -3 0 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 301 315 316
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 14.34% 16.51% 16.42%
As % of the Vendors category 26.54% 34.24% 32.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 230 218 235
10th Percentile £200 £190 £161
25th Percentile £304 £319 £267
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £425
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% +5.88% -4.49%
75th Percentile £588 £567 £550
90th Percentile £653 £635 £688
England median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 9 18
10th Percentile £17.78 £12.03 £17.50
25th Percentile £28.55 £25.56 £17.75
Median hourly rate £30.00 £30.45 £21.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% +41.63% +46.46%
75th Percentile £50.00 £35.00 £23.00
90th Percentile - - £34.50
England median hourly rate £22.00 £22.09 £23.00
% change year-on-year -0.41% -3.96% +17.95%

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 1,134 920 984
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 54.03% 48.22% 51.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 737 604 638
10th Percentile £263 £233 £220
25th Percentile £400 £380 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £465
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% +7.53% -6.06%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £588
90th Percentile £653 £713 £675
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 18 20
10th Percentile £16.13 £14.15 £17.50
25th Percentile £20.44 £23.70 £17.75
Median hourly rate £30.00 £30.23 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.74% +31.41% +41.67%
75th Percentile £38.94 £35.00 £29.63
90th Percentile £50.00 £52.13 £43.53
England median hourly rate £25.00 £33.75 £44.50
% change year-on-year -25.93% -24.16% +73.08%

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 14 November 2025.

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 14 November 2025.

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 14 November 2025. 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 -1 108 £433 +3.97% 137
Warwickshire -7 62 £550 -3.00% 40
Shropshire -25 29 £500 +14.94% 21
Coventry +2 26 £310 -34.74% 39
Worcestershire +1 25 £575 +177.11% 34
Staffordshire +2 20 £200 -41.82% 53
Solihull -1 11 £575 +34.98% 12
Herefordshire -8 7 £650 +2.36% 14
Wolverhampton -1 4 £265 -22.42% 20
Walsall +3 2 £160 - 12
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 20 (6.64%) SharePoint
2 12 (3.99%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (2.99%) SAS
4 7 (2.33%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (1.99%) Confluence
6 5 (1.66%) Oracle Workflow
7 3 (1.00%) Apache
8 2 (0.66%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.66%) FileNet
9 1 (0.33%) Apache Pig
9 1 (0.33%) HCL Notes
9 1 (0.33%) IIS
9 1 (0.33%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 1 (0.33%) WebLogic
Applications
1 54 (17.94%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (13.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (6.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (4.98%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (1.99%) Adobe Captivate
5 6 (1.99%) Maya
6 3 (1.00%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.33%) Moqups
7 1 (0.33%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.33%) Oracle Smart View
7 1 (0.33%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (3.32%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (1.00%) Workday HCM
3 2 (0.66%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.33%) Elite 3E
4 1 (0.33%) MIS ActiveH
4 1 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.33%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.33%) Oracle HRMS
4 1 (0.33%) Primavera
4 1 (0.33%) SAP BPC
4 1 (0.33%) SAP GRC
4 1 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 101 (33.55%) Azure
2 55 (18.27%) Microsoft 365
3 44 (14.62%) AWS
3 44 (14.62%) Power Platform
4 29 (9.63%) Dynamics 365
5 25 (8.31%) Azure DevOps
5 25 (8.31%) Entra ID
6 19 (6.31%) Power Automate
6 19 (6.31%) PowerApps
7 17 (5.65%) Azure Data Factory
7 17 (5.65%) Serverless
8 16 (5.32%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 14 (4.65%) GitHub
9 14 (4.65%) GitHub Actions
9 14 (4.65%) SaaS
10 12 (3.99%) GCP
11 10 (3.32%) Azure Key Vault
11 10 (3.32%) Microsoft Purview
11 10 (3.32%) PaaS
12 7 (2.33%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 25 (8.31%) DNS
2 23 (7.64%) Firewall
3 22 (7.31%) DHCP
4 15 (4.98%) TCP/IP
4 15 (4.98%) VPN
5 8 (2.66%) Wireless
6 7 (2.33%) WAN
7 6 (1.99%) LAN
7 6 (1.99%) Network Security
8 5 (1.66%) Cisco IOS
8 5 (1.66%) PuTTY
8 5 (1.66%) Unified Communications
8 5 (1.66%) VoIP
8 5 (1.66%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (1.66%) WLAN
9 3 (1.00%) Internet
10 2 (0.66%) Remote Desktop
10 2 (0.66%) VLAN
10 2 (0.66%) WebEx
10 2 (0.66%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (8.31%) Power BI
2 12 (3.99%) Data Warehouse
3 11 (3.65%) PostgreSQL
4 8 (2.66%) Redis
5 7 (2.33%) Data Mining
5 7 (2.33%) SQL Server
6 6 (1.99%) SAS Enterprise Guide
6 6 (1.99%) SAS Visual Analytics
7 5 (1.66%) Tableau
8 4 (1.33%) Data Lake
8 4 (1.33%) Metadata
8 4 (1.33%) Oracle Database
8 4 (1.33%) SAS Data Integration Studio
9 3 (1.00%) Hadoop
9 3 (1.00%) NoSQL
9 3 (1.00%) Pentaho
10 2 (0.66%) Apache Hive
10 2 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.66%) OLTP
10 2 (0.66%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 16 (5.32%) JIRA
2 15 (4.98%) Git
3 12 (3.99%) GitLab
4 9 (2.99%) Jenkins
5 4 (1.33%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.66%) CircleCI
6 2 (0.66%) Liquibase
6 2 (0.66%) MLflow
6 2 (0.66%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.33%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.33%) InstallShield
7 1 (0.33%) Jaeger
7 1 (0.33%) MSI
7 1 (0.33%) NUnit
7 1 (0.33%) PVCS
7 1 (0.33%) Selenium
7 1 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.33%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.33%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.33%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 121 (40.20%) Social Skills
2 51 (16.94%) Analytical Skills
3 44 (14.62%) Finance
4 22 (7.31%) Public Sector
5 16 (5.32%) Manufacturing
5 16 (5.32%) Organisational Skills
6 12 (3.99%) Legal
7 11 (3.65%) Automotive
8 9 (2.99%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (2.99%) Presentation Skills
9 7 (2.33%) Banking
9 7 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.99%) Games
11 4 (1.33%) Law
12 3 (1.00%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (1.00%) Marketing
13 1 (0.33%) Advertising
13 1 (0.33%) Aeronautics
13 1 (0.33%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.33%) Environmental Health
Job Titles
1 52 (17.28%) Analyst
2 27 (8.97%) Architect
3 21 (6.98%) Developer
4 20 (6.64%) Senior
5 19 (6.31%) Lead
6 18 (5.98%) Administrator
7 17 (5.65%) Support Engineer
8 15 (4.98%) Support Analyst
9 13 (4.32%) Project Manager
10 12 (3.99%) 2nd Line Support
10 12 (3.99%) IT Support
11 11 (3.65%) Data Analyst
12 10 (3.32%) Consultant
13 9 (2.99%) IT Analyst
13 9 (2.99%) Python Developer
14 8 (2.66%) 2nd Line Support Analyst
14 8 (2.66%) Backend Developer
14 8 (2.66%) Data Engineer
14 8 (2.66%) Enterprise Architect
14 8 (2.66%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (5.32%) REST
2 13 (4.32%) .NET
3 12 (3.99%) Flask
4 11 (3.65%) FastAPI
5 10 (3.32%) HTML
6 8 (2.66%) GraphQL
6 8 (2.66%) WebSockets
7 7 (2.33%) CSS
7 7 (2.33%) Django
7 7 (2.33%) gRPC
8 6 (1.99%) Unreal Engine
8 6 (1.99%) V-Ray
9 4 (1.33%) Middleware
9 4 (1.33%) NumPy
9 4 (1.33%) Pandas
10 3 (1.00%) .NET Framework
10 3 (1.00%) LDAP
10 3 (1.00%) OAuth
10 3 (1.00%) RESTful
10 3 (1.00%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 18 (5.98%) Onboarding
2 14 (4.65%) Cloud Native
3 11 (3.65%) Self-Motivation
4 10 (3.32%) Driving Licence
4 10 (3.32%) Security Posture
5 9 (2.99%) Data Centre
5 9 (2.99%) Product Ownership
6 7 (2.33%) SCADA
7 6 (1.99%) Animation
7 6 (1.99%) Virtual Reality
8 5 (1.66%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 5 (1.66%) Video Conferencing
8 5 (1.66%) Virtual Team
9 4 (1.33%) Legacy Applications
9 4 (1.33%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (1.33%) Operational Technology
9 4 (1.33%) PKI
10 3 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (1.00%) Hybrid Cloud
10 3 (1.00%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 71 (23.59%) Windows
2 18 (5.98%) Windows 10
2 18 (5.98%) Windows Server
3 15 (4.98%) Linux
4 5 (1.66%) Mac OS
5 2 (0.66%) Android
5 2 (0.66%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.33%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.33%) SUSE
6 1 (0.33%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.33%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (19.27%) DevOps
2 50 (16.61%) Agile
3 47 (15.61%) ITIL
3 47 (15.61%) Migration
4 43 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
5 41 (13.62%) Analytics
5 41 (13.62%) CI/CD
6 33 (10.96%) Change Management
6 33 (10.96%) Continuous Improvement
7 29 (9.63%) Business Intelligence
8 27 (8.97%) Project Management
8 27 (8.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 24 (7.97%) Containerisation
9 24 (7.97%) Customer Service
9 24 (7.97%) Stakeholder Management
10 22 (7.31%) Cybersecurity
11 21 (6.98%) Data Management
11 21 (6.98%) Decision-Making
12 20 (6.64%) Service Management
12 20 (6.64%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 43 (14.29%) SQL
2 27 (8.97%) PowerShell
2 27 (8.97%) Python
3 12 (3.99%) Go
4 11 (3.65%) Java
4 11 (3.65%) JavaScript
5 7 (2.33%) C#
5 7 (2.33%) C++
6 5 (1.66%) Kusto Query Language
7 4 (1.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 3 (1.00%) Scala
8 3 (1.00%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.66%) Bash
9 2 (0.66%) VB
10 1 (0.33%) Groovy
10 1 (0.33%) Perl
10 1 (0.33%) R
10 1 (0.33%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.33%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.33%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 61 (20.27%) Security Cleared
2 53 (17.61%) SC Cleared
3 33 (10.96%) Degree
4 28 (9.30%) Microsoft Certification
5 12 (3.99%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (3.65%) AWS Certification
6 11 (3.65%) DV Cleared
7 10 (3.32%) Azure Certification
8 8 (2.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 7 (2.33%) MCP
10 6 (1.99%) CCNA
10 6 (1.99%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (1.99%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 5 (1.66%) CCNP
11 5 (1.66%) MCDST
12 4 (1.33%) BPSS Clearance
12 4 (1.33%) MCSE
13 3 (1.00%) CISSP
13 3 (1.00%) HNC
14 2 (0.66%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (2.99%) Data Quality
1 9 (2.99%) PMO
1 9 (2.99%) QA
2 8 (2.66%) Accessibility
3 7 (2.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (1.66%) Cyber Essentials
4 5 (1.66%) GDPR
4 5 (1.66%) NIST
4 5 (1.66%) SLA
5 3 (1.00%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 3 (1.00%) NCSC
6 1 (0.33%) COSHH
6 1 (0.33%) GRC
6 1 (0.33%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.33%) ISO 14001
6 1 (0.33%) ISO 22301
6 1 (0.33%) NEBOSH
6 1 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 55 (18.27%) Active Directory
2 28 (9.30%) Docker
3 7 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.66%) Firmware
5 4 (1.33%) vSphere
6 2 (0.66%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.66%) Microsoft App-V
6 2 (0.66%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.33%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.33%) HDFS
7 1 (0.33%) Snort
7 1 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.33%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 29 (9.63%) Kubernetes
2 26 (8.64%) SCCM
3 16 (5.32%) Microsoft Intune
4 12 (3.99%) Terraform
5 11 (3.65%) Grafana
5 11 (3.65%) Prometheus
6 7 (2.33%) Ansible
7 4 (1.33%) QRadar
7 4 (1.33%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (1.00%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.66%) CSIRT
9 2 (0.66%) SCOM
9 2 (0.66%) vRealize
10 1 (0.33%) Argo
10 1 (0.33%) Hadoop YARN
10 1 (0.33%) Istio
10 1 (0.33%) PowerCLI
10 1 (0.33%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.33%) VxRail
Vendors
1 22 (7.31%) ServiceNow
2 21 (6.98%) Cisco
3 20 (6.64%) Oracle
4 13 (4.32%) Splunk
5 11 (3.65%) Adobe
6 10 (3.32%) SAP
7 9 (2.99%) VMware
8 7 (2.33%) AppDynamics
8 7 (2.33%) IBM
9 6 (1.99%) Apple
9 6 (1.99%) Autodesk
9 6 (1.99%) CyberArk
9 6 (1.99%) iManage
10 5 (1.66%) Atlassian
10 5 (1.66%) Citrix
10 5 (1.66%) Dynatrace
10 5 (1.66%) Mitel
10 5 (1.66%) Peregrine
10 5 (1.66%) Remedy
11 4 (1.33%) Virgin Media