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 25 September 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
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 6 4
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 466 293 288
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 13.03% 16.06% 15.11%
As % of the Vendors category 29.66% 31.14% 31.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 331 213 192
10th Percentile £231 £166 £170
25th Percentile £361 £294 £255
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £440 £425
Median % change year-on-year -3.41% +3.53% +6.25%
75th Percentile £501 £575 £538
90th Percentile £625 £638 £635
England median daily rate £488 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 20 4
10th Percentile £14.14 £20.25 £15.68
25th Percentile £17.47 £28.55 £22.03
Median hourly rate £19.41 £30.00 £30.56
Median % change year-on-year -35.30% -1.84% +35.83%
75th Percentile £21.75 £50.00 £40.00
90th Percentile £42.38 - £49.00
England median hourly rate £19.00 £22.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year -16.04% +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 1,571 941 910
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 43.92% 51.59% 47.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,029 612 595
10th Percentile £313 £243 £239
25th Percentile £403 £385 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £585 £624
90th Percentile £675 £650 £716
England median daily rate £514 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +1.28% -3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 97 30 13
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.99 £14.40
25th Percentile £17.57 £21.63 £15.22
Median hourly rate £21.50 £30.00 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.33% -4.76% +36.96%
75th Percentile £33.99 £36.88 £48.75
90th Percentile £53.75 £50.00 £59.00
England median hourly rate £27.50 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +9.34% -28.14% -20.27%

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 25 September 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 25 September 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 25 September 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 +1 141 £466 +16.50% 219
Coventry +1 93 £425 +38.78% 43
Warwickshire -1 93 £450 +3.45% 70
Shropshire -24 56 £445 -13.17% 33
Staffordshire -5 22 £413 +194.64% 78
Worcestershire +1 11 £300 -47.83% 43
Herefordshire +7 9 £500 -23.08% 31
Solihull -30 5 £228 -59.56% 18
Walsall +2 4 £600 - 5
West Bromwich - 3 - - 2
Dudley - 2 £388 - 9
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 59 (12.66%) SharePoint
2 24 (5.15%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.86%) Apache Spark
3 4 (0.86%) SAS
4 3 (0.64%) Apache
4 3 (0.64%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.64%) IIS
4 3 (0.64%) Oracle Workflow
5 2 (0.43%) CloudStack
5 2 (0.43%) CMS
5 2 (0.43%) Skype for Business
6 1 (0.21%) Appian
6 1 (0.21%) Confluence
Applications
1 58 (12.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 49 (10.52%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (3.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (1.72%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (1.07%) Chatbot
5 5 (1.07%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.86%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 4 (0.86%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.21%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.21%) Navisworks
7 1 (0.21%) ProjectWise
7 1 (0.21%) Revit
Business Applications
1 29 (6.22%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.07%) SAP PSCD
3 4 (0.86%) ResourceLink
3 4 (0.86%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.64%) Primavera
4 3 (0.64%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.21%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.21%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 1 (0.21%) MIS ActiveH
Cloud Services
1 211 (45.28%) Azure
2 135 (28.97%) Microsoft 365
3 78 (16.74%) Power Platform
4 71 (15.24%) Entra ID
5 58 (12.45%) Dynamics 365
6 56 (12.02%) Azure DevOps
7 55 (11.80%) Power Automate
8 39 (8.37%) AWS
9 31 (6.65%) PowerApps
10 29 (6.22%) Microsoft Purview
10 29 (6.22%) OneDrive
11 27 (5.79%) Azure Data Factory
12 26 (5.58%) Serverless
13 22 (4.72%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 20 (4.29%) Azure Functions
14 20 (4.29%) Microsoft Copilot
15 14 (3.00%) GCP
16 9 (1.93%) Azure Sentinel
16 9 (1.93%) GitHub
17 8 (1.72%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 37 (7.94%) DNS
2 33 (7.08%) DHCP
3 25 (5.36%) Firewall
3 25 (5.36%) VPN
4 16 (3.43%) TCP/IP
5 13 (2.79%) Wi-Fi
6 11 (2.36%) LAN
7 9 (1.93%) Wireless
8 7 (1.50%) WAN
9 6 (1.29%) Cisco IOS
9 6 (1.29%) SAN
9 6 (1.29%) Unified Communications
10 5 (1.07%) VLAN
11 4 (0.86%) Network Security
11 4 (0.86%) SD-WAN
11 4 (0.86%) SSL
11 4 (0.86%) VoIP
12 3 (0.64%) DNSSEC
12 3 (0.64%) NAS
12 3 (0.64%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (9.23%) SQL Server
2 36 (7.73%) Power BI
3 18 (3.86%) PostgreSQL
4 15 (3.22%) Data Warehouse
5 12 (2.58%) MySQL
6 10 (2.15%) Azure SQL Database
7 9 (1.93%) Data Lake
8 7 (1.50%) Power Query
8 7 (1.50%) Relational Database
9 6 (1.29%) Metadata
9 6 (1.29%) Oracle Reports
9 6 (1.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 5 (1.07%) Data Vault
10 5 (1.07%) Delta Lake
11 4 (0.86%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 4 (0.86%) Tableau
12 3 (0.64%) Data Mining
12 3 (0.64%) MongoDB
12 3 (0.64%) NoSQL
12 3 (0.64%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 17 (3.65%) JIRA
2 14 (3.00%) Git
3 12 (2.58%) Team Foundation Server
4 11 (2.36%) Cypress.io
4 11 (2.36%) Postman
4 11 (2.36%) Selenium
4 11 (2.36%) Visual Studio
4 11 (2.36%) WebDriver
5 8 (1.72%) Cucumber
6 3 (0.64%) GitLab
6 3 (0.64%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.64%) Protractor
7 2 (0.43%) NUnit
8 1 (0.21%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.21%) Maven
8 1 (0.21%) MLflow
8 1 (0.21%) Oracle Forms
8 1 (0.21%) Rational Rhapsody
8 1 (0.21%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.21%) Zephyr
General
1 183 (39.27%) Social Skills
2 64 (13.73%) Finance
3 57 (12.23%) Analytical Skills
4 53 (11.37%) Public Sector
5 37 (7.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 26 (5.58%) Organisational Skills
7 19 (4.08%) Legal
8 11 (2.36%) Manufacturing
9 9 (1.93%) Banking
9 9 (1.93%) Documentation Skills
9 9 (1.93%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (1.50%) Billing
11 5 (1.07%) Marketing
11 5 (1.07%) Retail
12 4 (0.86%) Law
12 4 (0.86%) Telecoms
13 3 (0.64%) Back Office
14 2 (0.43%) Investment Banking
14 2 (0.43%) Publishing
15 1 (0.21%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 62 (13.30%) Analyst
2 58 (12.45%) Developer
3 55 (11.80%) Senior
4 35 (7.51%) Data Engineer
4 35 (7.51%) Lead
5 31 (6.65%) Architect
6 28 (6.01%) Administrator
7 26 (5.58%) Support Engineer
8 25 (5.36%) Consultant
9 23 (4.94%) Azure Engineer
10 22 (4.72%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 20 (4.29%) IT Support
12 19 (4.08%) Dynamics 365 Developer
12 19 (4.08%) Solutions Architect
13 14 (3.00%) IT Engineer
14 13 (2.79%) IT Support Engineer
14 13 (2.79%) Senior Data Engineer
15 12 (2.58%) Senior Analyst
15 12 (2.58%) Senior Developer
16 11 (2.36%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (6.44%) JSON
2 23 (4.94%) XML
3 21 (4.51%) SOAP
4 19 (4.08%) Terraform
5 18 (3.86%) REST
6 11 (2.36%) ActiveX
6 11 (2.36%) Gherkin
6 11 (2.36%) XSLT
7 10 (2.15%) PySpark
8 9 (1.93%) Microsoft Graph
9 7 (1.50%) .NET
10 6 (1.29%) OAuth
10 6 (1.29%) OpenID
11 5 (1.07%) JDBC
11 5 (1.07%) LangChain
11 5 (1.07%) Oracle Fusion
11 5 (1.07%) SAML
11 5 (1.07%) SAP PI
11 5 (1.07%) Semantic Kernel
12 4 (0.86%) IDoc
Miscellaneous
1 37 (7.94%) Management Information System
2 31 (6.65%) Onboarding
3 19 (4.08%) Cloud Native
4 15 (3.22%) Hybrid Cloud
4 15 (3.22%) Product Ownership
5 12 (2.58%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (2.36%) Data Structures
6 11 (2.36%) Taxonomies
7 10 (2.15%) Virtual Team
8 9 (1.93%) CMDB
8 9 (1.93%) SCADA
9 8 (1.72%) Cyber Threat
9 8 (1.72%) Smartphone
10 7 (1.50%) Operational Technology
10 7 (1.50%) Self-Motivation
11 6 (1.29%) AI Agents
11 6 (1.29%) PKI
12 5 (1.07%) Legacy Systems
12 5 (1.07%) Mobile App
12 5 (1.07%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 110 (23.61%) Windows
2 36 (7.73%) Windows Server
3 30 (6.44%) Windows 10
4 24 (5.15%) Linux
5 15 (3.22%) Mac OS
6 10 (2.15%) Android
7 8 (1.72%) Ubuntu
8 5 (1.07%) Apple iOS
8 5 (1.07%) SUSE
8 5 (1.07%) Unix
9 4 (0.86%) CentOS
10 3 (0.64%) Windows 7
10 3 (0.64%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.64%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 2 (0.43%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (21.46%) Problem-Solving
2 77 (16.52%) DevOps
3 72 (15.45%) Stakeholder Management
4 66 (14.16%) Agile
5 63 (13.52%) Continuous Improvement
6 59 (12.66%) AI
6 59 (12.66%) Migration
7 58 (12.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 52 (11.16%) Customer Service
9 48 (10.30%) CI/CD
9 48 (10.30%) Data Modelling
10 47 (10.09%) ITSM
10 47 (10.09%) Technical Leadership
11 42 (9.01%) Mentoring
12 41 (8.80%) ITIL
13 39 (8.37%) Business Intelligence
14 38 (8.15%) CRM
15 36 (7.73%) Analytics
16 35 (7.51%) Validation
17 34 (7.30%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 53 (11.37%) SQL
2 35 (7.51%) JavaScript
3 33 (7.08%) C#
4 31 (6.65%) Python
5 23 (4.94%) PowerShell
6 17 (3.65%) Java
7 13 (2.79%) VBA
8 11 (2.36%) VB
8 11 (2.36%) VB6
9 7 (1.50%) Bicep
9 7 (1.50%) Kusto Query Language
10 6 (1.29%) PL/SQL
11 5 (1.07%) ABAP
11 5 (1.07%) T-SQL
12 4 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 3 (0.64%) Bash
14 2 (0.43%) C++
14 2 (0.43%) Search Processing Language
14 2 (0.43%) TypeScript
15 1 (0.21%) C
Qualifications
1 75 (16.09%) Security Cleared
2 60 (12.88%) SC Cleared
3 45 (9.66%) Microsoft Certification
4 26 (5.58%) Degree
5 20 (4.29%) BPSS Clearance
6 16 (3.43%) Azure Certification
7 14 (3.00%) CISSP
8 12 (2.58%) ISTQB
9 9 (1.93%) OCP
9 9 (1.93%) Oracle Certification
10 8 (1.72%) DBS Check
11 7 (1.50%) Cisco Certification
11 7 (1.50%) CISM
12 6 (1.29%) AWS Certification
13 5 (1.07%) A+ Certification
13 5 (1.07%) CCNP
14 4 (0.86%) ITIL Certification
14 4 (0.86%) Network+ Certification
15 3 (0.64%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 2 (0.43%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (7.51%) Accessibility
2 29 (6.22%) GDPR
3 27 (5.79%) Data Quality
4 20 (4.29%) WCAG
5 19 (4.08%) QA
6 17 (3.65%) NIST
6 17 (3.65%) SLA
7 15 (3.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 14 (3.00%) PMO
9 9 (1.93%) GRC
10 8 (1.72%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.64%) ISO 19650
12 2 (0.43%) NCSC
13 1 (0.21%) Basel III
13 1 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials
13 1 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 1 (0.21%) HL7
13 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 17025
13 1 (0.21%) NIST 800
13 1 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 84 (18.03%) Active Directory
2 27 (5.79%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (3.43%) Hyper-V
3 16 (3.43%) vSphere
4 14 (3.00%) VMware ESXi
5 13 (2.79%) Docker
6 4 (0.86%) Firmware
6 4 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.43%) XenApp
7 2 (0.43%) XenDesktop
8 1 (0.21%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.21%) NFS
8 1 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.21%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 51 (10.94%) Microsoft Intune
2 25 (5.36%) SCCM
3 19 (4.08%) Single Sign-On
4 15 (3.22%) Kubernetes
5 6 (1.29%) Jamf Pro
6 3 (0.64%) Ansible
6 3 (0.64%) Grafana
6 3 (0.64%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.64%) QRadar
7 2 (0.43%) Check_MK
7 2 (0.43%) Failover Clustering
7 2 (0.43%) WMI
7 2 (0.43%) WSUS
8 1 (0.21%) AirWatch
8 1 (0.21%) Argo
8 1 (0.21%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.21%) SCOM
Vendors
1 44 (9.44%) ServiceNow
2 33 (7.08%) VMware
3 32 (6.87%) Oracle
4 27 (5.79%) Cisco
5 23 (4.94%) SAP
6 13 (2.79%) Splunk
7 12 (2.58%) Databricks
8 9 (1.93%) OpenAI
8 9 (1.93%) UiPath
9 8 (1.72%) Apple
9 8 (1.72%) Palo Alto
10 7 (1.50%) Adobe
10 7 (1.50%) Fortinet
10 7 (1.50%) Red Hat
11 6 (1.29%) Canon
11 6 (1.29%) Samsung
12 5 (1.07%) BeyondTrust
12 5 (1.07%) IBM
12 5 (1.07%) MathWorks
12 5 (1.07%) SolarWinds