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 4 January 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 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -6 +1 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 305 285 266
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 13.31% 17.71% 14.90%
As % of the Vendors category 25.42% 36.54% 30.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 235 207 190
10th Percentile £200 £190 £174
25th Percentile £305 £316 £259
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £438 £425
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% +2.94% -5.56%
75th Percentile £588 £573 £575
90th Percentile £655 £635 £688
England median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 12 19
10th Percentile £15.05 £12.18 £14.55
25th Percentile £15.71 £16.92 £17.50
Median hourly rate £18.00 £27.56 £18.50
Median % change year-on-year -34.69% +48.99% +23.33%
75th Percentile £26.75 £31.76 £23.00
90th Percentile £32.00 £35.00 £29.30
England median hourly rate £20.00 £22.27 £22.00
% change year-on-year -10.19% +1.23% +7.32%

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 1,200 780 871
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 52.38% 48.48% 48.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 768 507 534
10th Percentile £266 £207 £208
25th Percentile £400 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -4.04%
75th Percentile £582 £611 £600
90th Percentile £650 £713 £685
England median daily rate £501 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.53% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 21 24
10th Percentile £14.59 £12.18 £15.51
25th Percentile £17.39 £18.13 £17.69
Median hourly rate £23.50 £23.60 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -0.42% +4.89% +32.86%
75th Percentile £27.91 £30.68 £24.81
90th Percentile £59.49 £35.00 £40.10
England median hourly rate £23.83 £30.00 £44.75
% change year-on-year -20.58% -32.96% +62.73%

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 4 January 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 4 January 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 4 January 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 0 128 £473 -0.11% 72
Warwickshire -8 48 £550 -3.00% 16
Shropshire -20 32 £500 +0.35% 28
Coventry -8 25 £310 +44.19% 22
Worcestershire -1 24 £588 +46.88% 19
Staffordshire 0 18 £203 -49.38% 36
Herefordshire -11 10 £650 +2.36% 6
Solihull +2 6 £600 +73.91% 7
Smethwick - 3 - -
Wolverhampton 0 2 £346 +2.52% 29
Walsall +4 1 £160 - 8
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 17 (5.57%) SharePoint
2 9 (2.95%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (2.95%) SAS
3 7 (2.30%) Apache Airflow
3 7 (2.30%) Confluence
4 4 (1.31%) Oracle Workflow
5 3 (0.98%) Apache
6 2 (0.66%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.66%) FileNet
7 1 (0.33%) Apache Pig
7 1 (0.33%) HCL Notes
7 1 (0.33%) IIS
7 1 (0.33%) WebLogic
Applications
1 41 (13.44%) Microsoft Excel
1 41 (13.44%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (5.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (4.59%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (1.97%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.98%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.33%) Moqups
6 1 (0.33%) Oracle Smart View
6 1 (0.33%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (4.26%) Dynamics CRM
2 11 (3.61%) Dynamics NAV
3 4 (1.31%) Workday HCM
4 3 (0.98%) Maximo
5 1 (0.33%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.33%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.33%) Primavera
5 1 (0.33%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.33%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 113 (37.05%) Azure
2 54 (17.70%) Microsoft 365
3 52 (17.05%) Power Platform
4 47 (15.41%) AWS
5 37 (12.13%) Dynamics 365
6 25 (8.20%) Entra ID
7 24 (7.87%) Power Automate
8 23 (7.54%) Azure DevOps
9 22 (7.21%) PowerApps
10 16 (5.25%) Azure Data Factory
10 16 (5.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 16 (5.25%) Serverless
11 15 (4.92%) GCP
12 14 (4.59%) GitHub
12 14 (4.59%) GitHub Actions
13 11 (3.61%) Azure Key Vault
13 11 (3.61%) SaaS
14 10 (3.28%) Microsoft Purview
15 9 (2.95%) Azure Logic Apps
16 8 (2.62%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 19 (6.23%) Firewall
1 19 (6.23%) VPN
2 16 (5.25%) DNS
3 15 (4.92%) TCP/IP
4 10 (3.28%) DHCP
5 8 (2.62%) Network Security
6 6 (1.97%) LAN
7 5 (1.64%) SSL
7 5 (1.64%) VoIP
7 5 (1.64%) WAN
7 5 (1.64%) Wireless
7 5 (1.64%) Wireshark
8 4 (1.31%) Unified Communications
9 3 (0.98%) BIG-IP
9 3 (0.98%) Cisco ASA
9 3 (0.98%) Cisco Nexus
9 3 (0.98%) Ethereal
9 3 (0.98%) IPsec
9 3 (0.98%) VLAN
9 3 (0.98%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (10.16%) Power BI
2 15 (4.92%) Data Warehouse
3 12 (3.93%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (3.28%) SQL Server
5 8 (2.62%) Redis
6 7 (2.30%) Data Mining
7 6 (1.97%) SAS Enterprise Guide
7 6 (1.97%) SAS Visual Analytics
7 6 (1.97%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 5 (1.64%) Oracle Database
9 4 (1.31%) Data Lake
9 4 (1.31%) SAS Data Integration Studio
10 3 (0.98%) Hadoop
10 3 (0.98%) Metadata
10 3 (0.98%) NoSQL
10 3 (0.98%) Pentaho
10 3 (0.98%) Power Query
11 2 (0.66%) Apache Hive
11 2 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
11 2 (0.66%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 17 (5.57%) Git
1 17 (5.57%) JIRA
2 14 (4.59%) GitLab
3 11 (3.61%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.31%) Bitbucket
5 3 (0.98%) InstallShield
5 3 (0.98%) MSI
6 2 (0.66%) CircleCI
6 2 (0.66%) Liquibase
6 2 (0.66%) MLflow
6 2 (0.66%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.33%) AdminStudio
7 1 (0.33%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.33%) Jaeger
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
1 120 (39.34%) Social Skills
2 45 (14.75%) Analytical Skills
3 41 (13.44%) Finance
4 20 (6.56%) Public Sector
5 19 (6.23%) Organisational Skills
6 12 (3.93%) Legal
7 11 (3.61%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (2.30%) Presentation Skills
9 6 (1.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (1.97%) Manufacturing
10 5 (1.64%) Banking
11 4 (1.31%) Law
12 2 (0.66%) Aeronautics
12 2 (0.66%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.66%) Local Government
12 2 (0.66%) Marketing
12 2 (0.66%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.33%) Advertising
13 1 (0.33%) Automotive
13 1 (0.33%) Environmental Health
Job Titles
1 38 (12.46%) Analyst
2 29 (9.51%) Architect
2 29 (9.51%) Developer
3 22 (7.21%) Administrator
4 17 (5.57%) Senior
5 15 (4.92%) Support Engineer
6 14 (4.59%) IT Support
7 11 (3.61%) 2nd Line Support
8 10 (3.28%) IT Analyst
8 10 (3.28%) Project Manager
9 9 (2.95%) IT Support Analyst
9 9 (2.95%) Python Developer
9 9 (2.95%) Support Analyst
10 8 (2.62%) 1st Line Support
10 8 (2.62%) 1st/2nd Line Support
10 8 (2.62%) Consultant
10 8 (2.62%) Data Engineer
10 8 (2.62%) Enterprise Architect
10 8 (2.62%) IT Engineer
10 8 (2.62%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (5.25%) REST
2 12 (3.93%) Flask
3 11 (3.61%) .NET
3 11 (3.61%) FastAPI
4 8 (2.62%) GraphQL
4 8 (2.62%) WebSockets
5 7 (2.30%) gRPC
5 7 (2.30%) LDAP
6 6 (1.97%) Middleware
7 4 (1.31%) NumPy
7 4 (1.31%) Pandas
8 3 (0.98%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.98%) HTML
8 3 (0.98%) OAuth
8 3 (0.98%) RESTful
8 3 (0.98%) SailPoint
8 3 (0.98%) SAML
9 2 (0.66%) .NET Framework
9 2 (0.66%) ADO
9 2 (0.66%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 21 (6.89%) Onboarding
2 14 (4.59%) Cloud Native
3 13 (4.26%) Security Posture
4 12 (3.93%) Driving Licence
5 10 (3.28%) Self-Motivation
6 9 (2.95%) Data Centre
7 7 (2.30%) SCADA
8 6 (1.97%) Product Ownership
8 6 (1.97%) Team-Oriented Environment
9 5 (1.64%) Operational Technology
10 4 (1.31%) Hybrid Cloud
10 4 (1.31%) Legacy Applications
10 4 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (1.31%) PKI
11 3 (0.98%) Algorithms
11 3 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
11 3 (0.98%) Handset
11 3 (0.98%) Renewable Energy
11 3 (0.98%) Security Operations Centre
11 3 (0.98%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 60 (19.67%) Windows
2 19 (6.23%) Windows 10
3 18 (5.90%) Windows Server
4 15 (4.92%) Linux
5 5 (1.64%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.66%) Android
6 2 (0.66%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.66%) CatOS
6 2 (0.66%) Mac OS X
6 2 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.33%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 60 (19.67%) DevOps
2 56 (18.36%) Agile
3 53 (17.38%) CI/CD
4 51 (16.72%) Problem-Solving
5 49 (16.07%) Migration
6 44 (14.43%) Analytics
7 42 (13.77%) ITIL
8 36 (11.80%) Business Intelligence
9 35 (11.48%) Continuous Improvement
10 30 (9.84%) Change Management
11 29 (9.51%) Customer Service
12 27 (8.85%) Cybersecurity
12 27 (8.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 27 (8.85%) Stakeholder Management
13 26 (8.52%) Containerisation
13 26 (8.52%) Decision-Making
14 22 (7.21%) Data Modelling
14 22 (7.21%) Service Management
15 21 (6.89%) CRM
15 21 (6.89%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 40 (13.11%) SQL
2 36 (11.80%) Python
3 25 (8.20%) PowerShell
4 14 (4.59%) Go
5 12 (3.93%) JavaScript
6 8 (2.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 7 (2.30%) C#
7 7 (2.30%) Java
8 6 (1.97%) Kusto Query Language
9 5 (1.64%) R
9 5 (1.64%) Shell Script
10 4 (1.31%) Scala
11 3 (0.98%) Bash
11 3 (0.98%) VB
11 3 (0.98%) VBScript
12 2 (0.66%) TypeScript
13 1 (0.33%) C++
13 1 (0.33%) Perl
13 1 (0.33%) Search Processing Language
13 1 (0.33%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 63 (20.66%) Security Cleared
2 57 (18.69%) SC Cleared
3 33 (10.82%) Microsoft Certification
4 26 (8.52%) Degree
5 12 (3.93%) Azure Certification
6 11 (3.61%) AWS Certification
7 10 (3.28%) Computer Science Degree
8 9 (2.95%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 9 (2.95%) DV Cleared
9 6 (1.97%) MCP
10 5 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
10 5 (1.64%) CISSP
10 5 (1.64%) DBS Check
10 5 (1.64%) MCDST
11 4 (1.31%) MCSE
12 3 (0.98%) CISM
12 3 (0.98%) HNC
13 2 (0.66%) CCNP
13 2 (0.66%) Cisco Certification
13 2 (0.66%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (3.93%) QA
2 7 (2.30%) Accessibility
3 6 (1.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (1.64%) Data Quality
4 5 (1.64%) GDPR
4 5 (1.64%) PMO
5 4 (1.31%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (1.31%) SLA
6 3 (0.98%) NCSC
7 2 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 2 (0.66%) ISO 9001
7 2 (0.66%) NIST
8 1 (0.33%) COSHH
8 1 (0.33%) GxP
8 1 (0.33%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.33%) ISO 14001
8 1 (0.33%) ISO 22301
8 1 (0.33%) NEBOSH
8 1 (0.33%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 49 (16.07%) Active Directory
2 31 (10.16%) Docker
3 12 (3.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.64%) vSphere
5 4 (1.31%) Firmware
5 4 (1.31%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.98%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.66%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.33%) HDFS
8 1 (0.33%) Snort
8 1 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 34 (11.15%) Kubernetes
2 23 (7.54%) SCCM
3 14 (4.59%) Terraform
4 13 (4.26%) Grafana
4 13 (4.26%) Prometheus
5 12 (3.93%) Ansible
6 11 (3.61%) Microsoft Intune
7 5 (1.64%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (1.31%) QRadar
9 3 (0.98%) vRealize
10 2 (0.66%) CSIRT
10 2 (0.66%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.66%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.66%) Puppet
10 2 (0.66%) SCOM
11 1 (0.33%) Argo
11 1 (0.33%) Hadoop YARN
11 1 (0.33%) Istio
11 1 (0.33%) VxRail
11 1 (0.33%) WSUS
Vendors
1 28 (9.18%) ServiceNow
2 20 (6.56%) Oracle
3 16 (5.25%) Cisco
4 15 (4.92%) Splunk
5 13 (4.26%) VMware
6 12 (3.93%) SAP
7 6 (1.97%) CyberArk
7 6 (1.97%) IBM
7 6 (1.97%) iManage
8 5 (1.64%) Adobe
8 5 (1.64%) Atlassian
8 5 (1.64%) CheckPoint
8 5 (1.64%) Databricks
8 5 (1.64%) F5
8 5 (1.64%) Mitel
8 5 (1.64%) Workday
9 4 (1.31%) AppDynamics
9 4 (1.31%) Palo Alto
9 4 (1.31%) SolarWinds
9 4 (1.31%) Virgin Media