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 July 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 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 5 4
Rank change year-on-year -3 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 393 239 269
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.65% 15.63% 13.04%
As % of the Vendors category 25.96% 33.01% 29.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 299 150 183
10th Percentile £250 £171 £179
25th Percentile £359 £235 £299
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £392 £420
Median % change year-on-year +14.87% -6.73% -2.33%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £523
90th Percentile £623 £601 £649
England median daily rate £494 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 20 19
10th Percentile £18.27 £14.84 £10.50
25th Percentile £19.34 £28.55 £11.06
Median hourly rate £25.00 £31.94 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.73% +128.14% -22.22%
75th Percentile £70.00 £50.00 £26.50
90th Percentile £70.30 - £55.25
England median hourly rate £22.57 £22.41 £16.06
% change year-on-year +0.70% +39.52% -27.82%

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 1,514 724 906
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 44.89% 47.35% 43.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,039 454 606
10th Percentile £313 £200 £250
25th Percentile £400 £316 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £460 £450
Median % change year-on-year +1.96% +2.22% -5.26%
75th Percentile £557 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
England median daily rate £510 £513 £517
% change year-on-year -0.49% -0.87% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 30 51
10th Percentile £17.83 £14.99 £11.06
25th Percentile £21.41 £24.75 £13.63
Median hourly rate £33.98 £30.00 £19.95
Median % change year-on-year +13.27% +50.38% -11.33%
75th Percentile £52.50 £42.93 £28.75
90th Percentile £66.29 £50.00 £56.25
England median hourly rate £35.00 £25.50 £25.00
% change year-on-year +37.25% +2.00% -30.56%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 +3 120 £450 +13.64% 107
Warwickshire -1 95 £493 +64.17% 31
Coventry -2 63 £448 +59.11% 23
Shropshire -34 37 £425 -4.82% 23
Worcestershire +3 15 £475 -47.22% 21
Solihull -21 11 £425 -9.67% 9
Staffordshire -4 10 £354 +152.68% 31
Herefordshire +1 9 £700 -22.22% 7
Dudley - 5 £400 - 8
Walsall +2 4 £600 -
West Bromwich - 3 - - 6
Brierley Hill - 2 £446 -
Wolverhampton -5 1 - - 6
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 36 (9.16%) SharePoint
2 15 (3.82%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (2.04%) Confluence
4 6 (1.53%) SAS
5 4 (1.02%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.76%) Apache
6 3 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.76%) IIS
6 3 (0.76%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.51%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.51%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.25%) Appian
8 1 (0.25%) CMS
Applications
1 47 (11.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (10.43%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (4.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (3.31%) MS Visio
5 11 (2.80%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.25%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 20 (5.09%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.27%) SAP PSCD
3 3 (0.76%) Primavera
4 2 (0.51%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.25%) SAP EHS
5 1 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.25%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 151 (38.42%) Azure
2 78 (19.85%) Microsoft 365
3 65 (16.54%) Power Platform
4 46 (11.70%) Entra ID
5 38 (9.67%) AWS
6 37 (9.41%) Azure DevOps
7 34 (8.65%) Dynamics 365
8 29 (7.38%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 27 (6.87%) Microsoft Purview
10 23 (5.85%) Azure Data Factory
11 21 (5.34%) Power Automate
12 19 (4.83%) OneDrive
13 15 (3.82%) Microsoft Copilot
14 12 (3.05%) GCP
14 12 (3.05%) PowerApps
14 12 (3.05%) Serverless
15 11 (2.80%) GitHub
16 10 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
17 6 (1.53%) Azure Sentinel
17 6 (1.53%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 31 (7.89%) DNS
2 30 (7.63%) VPN
3 24 (6.11%) Firewall
4 23 (5.85%) DHCP
5 13 (3.31%) LAN
6 10 (2.54%) Network Security
6 10 (2.54%) WAN
7 9 (2.29%) TCP/IP
7 9 (2.29%) Wi-Fi
8 8 (2.04%) SSL
9 6 (1.53%) Cisco IOS
9 6 (1.53%) HTTP
10 5 (1.27%) BIG-IP
10 5 (1.27%) HTTPS
10 5 (1.27%) Intrusion Detection
10 5 (1.27%) Wireless
11 4 (1.02%) Cisco ASA
11 4 (1.02%) Cisco Nexus
11 4 (1.02%) Ethereal
11 4 (1.02%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (10.94%) Power BI
2 24 (6.11%) Data Warehouse
3 19 (4.83%) SQL Server
4 16 (4.07%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (3.05%) Azure SQL Database
6 10 (2.54%) Delta Lake
7 8 (2.04%) Data Lake
7 8 (2.04%) NoSQL
8 7 (1.78%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
8 7 (1.78%) Metadata
8 7 (1.78%) Relational Database
9 6 (1.53%) MySQL
10 5 (1.27%) Oracle Database
11 4 (1.02%) Redis
12 3 (0.76%) Amazon Redshift
12 3 (0.76%) Power Query
12 3 (0.76%) SAP Data Services
12 3 (0.76%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 3 (0.76%) Tableau
13 2 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 31 (7.89%) JIRA
2 8 (2.04%) Git
3 7 (1.78%) Team Foundation Server
4 6 (1.53%) Selenium
4 6 (1.53%) Visual Studio
4 6 (1.53%) WebDriver
5 4 (1.02%) Cypress.io
5 4 (1.02%) GitLab
5 4 (1.02%) MLflow
5 4 (1.02%) Postman
6 2 (0.51%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.51%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.51%) JMeter
6 2 (0.51%) MSI
6 2 (0.51%) NUnit
6 2 (0.51%) Protractor
7 1 (0.25%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.25%) Maven
7 1 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.25%) Zephyr
General
1 125 (31.81%) Social Skills
2 54 (13.74%) Finance
3 45 (11.45%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (7.63%) Public Sector
5 18 (4.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 12 (3.05%) Organisational Skills
7 10 (2.54%) Banking
7 10 (2.54%) Manufacturing
8 8 (2.04%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (1.78%) Games
9 7 (1.78%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (1.78%) Legal
10 6 (1.53%) Police
11 5 (1.27%) Law
11 5 (1.27%) Retail
12 4 (1.02%) Electronics
12 4 (1.02%) Marketing
13 3 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.76%) Publishing
14 2 (0.51%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 57 (14.50%) Analyst
2 43 (10.94%) Developer
3 36 (9.16%) Senior
4 35 (8.91%) Architect
5 26 (6.62%) Data Engineer
6 25 (6.36%) Consultant
7 22 (5.60%) Lead
8 16 (4.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 14 (3.56%) Solutions Architect
10 13 (3.31%) Azure Engineer
10 13 (3.31%) Data Architect
10 13 (3.31%) Support Engineer
11 12 (3.05%) Business Analyst
12 11 (2.80%) Administrator
13 10 (2.54%) IT Support
14 9 (2.29%) Senior Data Engineer
15 8 (2.04%) Cloud Engineer
15 8 (2.04%) Dynamics 365 Developer
15 8 (2.04%) IT Engineer
15 8 (2.04%) PMO Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (5.09%) PySpark
2 11 (2.80%) JSON
2 11 (2.80%) SOAP
3 10 (2.54%) REST
3 10 (2.54%) XML
4 9 (2.29%) .NET
4 9 (2.29%) SailPoint
5 7 (1.78%) FastAPI
6 6 (1.53%) ActiveX
6 6 (1.53%) SAML
7 5 (1.27%) ADO
7 5 (1.27%) JDBC
7 5 (1.27%) Kafka
7 5 (1.27%) LDAP
7 5 (1.27%) SAP PI
8 4 (1.02%) .NET Framework
8 4 (1.02%) Flask
8 4 (1.02%) Gherkin
8 4 (1.02%) WebSockets
8 4 (1.02%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 28 (7.12%) Onboarding
2 27 (6.87%) Cloud Native
3 17 (4.33%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (2.54%) Enterprise Software
4 10 (2.54%) SCADA
4 10 (2.54%) Security Operations Centre
5 9 (2.29%) Management Information System
5 9 (2.29%) Product Ownership
5 9 (2.29%) Self-Motivation
6 8 (2.04%) Data Centre
7 7 (1.78%) Operational Technology
7 7 (1.78%) Smartphone
8 6 (1.53%) Security Posture
9 5 (1.27%) CMDB
9 5 (1.27%) Public Cloud
10 4 (1.02%) CSOC
10 4 (1.02%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (1.02%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.02%) IoT
10 4 (1.02%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 86 (21.88%) Windows
2 28 (7.12%) Linux
3 27 (6.87%) Windows 10
4 24 (6.11%) Windows Server
5 11 (2.80%) Mac OS
6 9 (2.29%) Unix
7 7 (1.78%) Android
8 5 (1.27%) Apple iOS
8 5 (1.27%) SUSE
8 5 (1.27%) Ubuntu
9 4 (1.02%) Windows 7
10 3 (0.76%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.76%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.25%) CatOS
12 1 (0.25%) CentOS
12 1 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (21.12%) Problem-Solving
2 70 (17.81%) Agile
3 61 (15.52%) DevOps
4 60 (15.27%) CI/CD
5 54 (13.74%) Migration
6 52 (13.23%) AI
7 51 (12.98%) Continuous Improvement
8 48 (12.21%) Analytics
9 43 (10.94%) Business Intelligence
10 37 (9.41%) Stakeholder Management
11 34 (8.65%) Customer Service
12 32 (8.14%) Infrastructure as Code
12 32 (8.14%) ITIL
13 31 (7.89%) Validation
14 29 (7.38%) Data Modelling
14 29 (7.38%) ETL
14 29 (7.38%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 29 (7.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 28 (7.12%) ITSM
16 27 (6.87%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 65 (16.54%) SQL
2 38 (9.67%) Python
3 20 (5.09%) PowerShell
4 16 (4.07%) Java
5 14 (3.56%) Bicep
6 13 (3.31%) C#
7 9 (2.29%) JavaScript
7 9 (2.29%) Kusto Query Language
8 8 (2.04%) VB
8 8 (2.04%) VBA
9 7 (1.78%) PL/SQL
10 6 (1.53%) VB6
11 5 (1.27%) ABAP
11 5 (1.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 4 (1.02%) Go
13 3 (0.76%) MATLAB
13 3 (0.76%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.51%) Bash
14 2 (0.51%) Scala
14 2 (0.51%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 72 (18.32%) Security Cleared
2 57 (14.50%) SC Cleared
3 33 (8.40%) Degree
4 17 (4.33%) Microsoft Certification
5 13 (3.31%) CISSP
6 11 (2.80%) AWS Certification
6 11 (2.80%) ISTQB
7 10 (2.54%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (2.29%) DV Cleared
9 8 (2.04%) Azure Certification
9 8 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (2.04%) CISM
10 5 (1.27%) CCNA
10 5 (1.27%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 5 (1.27%) Master's Degree
11 4 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (1.02%) OCP
11 4 (1.02%) Oracle Certification
11 4 (1.02%) PhD
12 3 (0.76%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (6.36%) Data Quality
2 18 (4.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 17 (4.33%) GDPR
3 17 (4.33%) QA
4 15 (3.82%) Accessibility
5 14 (3.56%) SLA
6 13 (3.31%) NIST
6 13 (3.31%) PMO
7 5 (1.27%) WCAG
8 4 (1.02%) GRC
9 3 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 12207
9 3 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 2 (0.51%) NCSC
10 2 (0.51%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.25%) Basel III
11 1 (0.25%) GxP
11 1 (0.25%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.25%) ISO 9001
11 1 (0.25%) SOC 2
System Software
1 75 (19.08%) Active Directory
2 27 (6.87%) Docker
3 23 (5.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (2.80%) Hyper-V
5 10 (2.54%) vSphere
6 7 (1.78%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (1.02%) Snort
7 4 (1.02%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (1.02%) VMware NSX
8 3 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.51%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.51%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.51%) XenApp
9 2 (0.51%) XenDesktop
10 1 (0.25%) Firmware
10 1 (0.25%) NFS
Systems Management
1 37 (9.41%) Microsoft Intune
2 36 (9.16%) Kubernetes
3 24 (6.11%) Terraform
4 23 (5.85%) SCCM
5 14 (3.56%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (2.80%) Grafana
6 11 (2.80%) Prometheus
7 4 (1.02%) CSIRT
7 4 (1.02%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (0.76%) Ansible
8 3 (0.76%) Control-M
8 3 (0.76%) HP ALM
8 3 (0.76%) IBM Guardium
8 3 (0.76%) Nessus
8 3 (0.76%) QRadar
9 2 (0.51%) Failover Clustering
9 2 (0.51%) HP Quality Center
9 2 (0.51%) SCOM
9 2 (0.51%) WMI
9 2 (0.51%) WSUS
Vendors
1 35 (8.91%) ServiceNow
2 30 (7.63%) SAP
3 29 (7.38%) Oracle
4 27 (6.87%) VMware
5 26 (6.62%) Databricks
6 25 (6.36%) Cisco
7 12 (3.05%) Splunk
8 9 (2.29%) UiPath
9 8 (2.04%) Red Hat
10 7 (1.78%) F5
10 7 (1.78%) Informatica
10 7 (1.78%) Okta
11 6 (1.53%) Canon
11 6 (1.53%) CheckPoint
11 6 (1.53%) Fortinet
11 6 (1.53%) Palo Alto
11 6 (1.53%) SolarWinds
12 5 (1.27%) Apple
12 5 (1.27%) MathWorks
12 5 (1.27%) webMethods