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 March 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
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 2 5
Rank change year-on-year -9 +3 -2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 351 234 265
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.36% 17.65% 13.64%
As % of the Vendors category 25.47% 35.45% 30.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 255 177 186
10th Percentile £224 £178 £194
25th Percentile £335 £235 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £425 £432
Median % change year-on-year +11.76% -1.62% -4.00%
75th Percentile £574 £550 £575
90th Percentile £680 £638 £688
England median daily rate £492 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +3.58% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 12 28
10th Percentile £15.05 £12.19 £10.80
25th Percentile £15.71 £12.25 £11.30
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.50 £16.83
Median % change year-on-year -10.20% +45.62% +5.35%
75th Percentile £25.00 £31.76 £23.88
90th Percentile £27.00 £35.00 £35.78
England median hourly rate £19.91 £24.18 £16.06
% change year-on-year -17.66% +50.56% -23.52%

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 1,378 660 869
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 48.52% 49.77% 44.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 900 434 555
10th Percentile £293 £200 £235
25th Percentile £400 £375 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +11.11% -5.26%
75th Percentile £563 £600 £600
90th Percentile £645 £700 £688
England median daily rate £503 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -4.29% +1.94% -4.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 24 58
10th Percentile £16.06 £12.25 £11.11
25th Percentile £20.06 £17.40 £13.44
Median hourly rate £25.08 £19.50 £19.23
Median % change year-on-year +28.59% +1.43% +8.49%
75th Percentile £30.56 £30.17 £26.98
90th Percentile £65.72 £34.03 £46.25
England median hourly rate £25.00 £30.45 £25.00
% change year-on-year -17.90% +21.80% -28.57%

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 March 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 14 March 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 14 March 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 -1 126 £473 +6.48% 71
Warwickshire -6 64 £500 -2.53% 16
Shropshire -27 37 £450 +21.95% 21
Coventry -8 33 £413 +91.86% 12
Worcestershire +4 27 £700 -22.22% 19
Staffordshire -1 17 £220 -43.23% 29
Herefordshire -7 12 £700 -22.22% 8
Solihull -2 8 £425 +143.55% 5
Dudley - 5 £400 - 6
Smethwick - 3 - -
Wolverhampton -3 2 £267 +54.09% 11
Brierley Hill - 2 £446 - 2
Walsall - 1 £160 - 3
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 24 (6.84%) SharePoint
2 12 (3.42%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (2.28%) Confluence
4 3 (0.85%) Jupyter
5 2 (0.57%) SAS
6 1 (0.28%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 41 (11.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 38 (10.83%) Microsoft Office
3 17 (4.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (3.99%) Microsoft Project
5 11 (3.13%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.28%) Oracle Smart View
6 1 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 16 (4.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 11 (3.13%) Dynamics NAV
3 4 (1.14%) Workday HCM
4 3 (0.85%) Maximo
5 2 (0.57%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.28%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.28%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.28%) Primavera
6 1 (0.28%) SAP BPC
6 1 (0.28%) SAP EHS
6 1 (0.28%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.28%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 123 (35.04%) Azure
2 69 (19.66%) Power Platform
3 56 (15.95%) Microsoft 365
4 49 (13.96%) AWS
5 40 (11.40%) Dynamics 365
5 40 (11.40%) Entra ID
6 26 (7.41%) Azure DevOps
7 23 (6.55%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 20 (5.70%) Azure Data Factory
8 20 (5.70%) Power Automate
9 18 (5.13%) Serverless
10 17 (4.84%) Microsoft Purview
11 16 (4.56%) GitHub
12 15 (4.27%) GitHub Actions
13 14 (3.99%) GCP
13 14 (3.99%) PowerApps
14 13 (3.70%) Azure Key Vault
15 10 (2.85%) OneDrive
16 8 (2.28%) Azure Logic Apps
16 8 (2.28%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 27 (7.69%) VPN
2 21 (5.98%) DNS
3 20 (5.70%) Firewall
4 14 (3.99%) Network Security
5 10 (2.85%) DHCP
5 10 (2.85%) LAN
5 10 (2.85%) SSL
5 10 (2.85%) TCP/IP
6 8 (2.28%) HTTP
6 8 (2.28%) WAN
7 7 (1.99%) HTTPS
7 7 (1.99%) Wireless
8 6 (1.71%) BIG-IP
8 6 (1.71%) Cisco ASA
8 6 (1.71%) Cisco Nexus
8 6 (1.71%) Ethereal
8 6 (1.71%) IPsec
8 6 (1.71%) Wireshark
9 5 (1.42%) Intrusion Detection
9 5 (1.42%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (11.68%) Power BI
2 27 (7.69%) Data Warehouse
3 21 (5.98%) PostgreSQL
4 15 (4.27%) SQL Server
5 9 (2.56%) Redis
6 7 (1.99%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
6 7 (1.99%) Relational Database
6 7 (1.99%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 6 (1.71%) Delta Lake
7 6 (1.71%) NoSQL
7 6 (1.71%) Oracle Database
8 5 (1.42%) Data Lake
8 5 (1.42%) MySQL
9 4 (1.14%) Azure SQL Database
9 4 (1.14%) Metadata
9 4 (1.14%) Power Query
10 2 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.57%) Data Mining
10 2 (0.57%) GIS
10 2 (0.57%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 24 (6.84%) JIRA
2 12 (3.42%) Git
3 8 (2.28%) GitLab
4 6 (1.71%) Jenkins
5 5 (1.42%) MSI
6 3 (0.85%) InstallShield
6 3 (0.85%) MLflow
6 3 (0.85%) Selenium
7 2 (0.57%) CircleCI
7 2 (0.57%) JMeter
7 2 (0.57%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.28%) AdminStudio
8 1 (0.28%) Cypress.io
General
1 118 (33.62%) Social Skills
2 52 (14.81%) Finance
3 44 (12.54%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (6.84%) Public Sector
5 16 (4.56%) Organisational Skills
6 12 (3.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 10 (2.85%) Manufacturing
8 9 (2.56%) Legal
9 7 (1.99%) Games
10 6 (1.71%) Documentation Skills
10 6 (1.71%) Law
10 6 (1.71%) Police
11 5 (1.42%) Banking
11 5 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.14%) Local Government
12 4 (1.14%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.85%) Marketing
14 2 (0.57%) Automotive
14 2 (0.57%) Electronics
14 2 (0.57%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 39 (11.11%) Analyst
1 39 (11.11%) Developer
2 38 (10.83%) Architect
3 24 (6.84%) Senior
4 18 (5.13%) Administrator
5 13 (3.70%) Consultant
5 13 (3.70%) Data Engineer
5 13 (3.70%) Lead
5 13 (3.70%) Python Developer
5 13 (3.70%) Solutions Architect
5 13 (3.70%) Support Engineer
6 12 (3.42%) IT Support
6 12 (3.42%) Project Manager
7 10 (2.85%) Business Analyst
7 10 (2.85%) Data Architect
7 10 (2.85%) Engagement Manager
7 10 (2.85%) Network Engineer
7 10 (2.85%) SAP Manager
8 9 (2.56%) Backend Developer
8 9 (2.56%) Data Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (4.56%) REST
2 15 (4.27%) FastAPI
3 12 (3.42%) Flask
3 12 (3.42%) PySpark
4 11 (3.13%) SailPoint
5 9 (2.56%) GraphQL
5 9 (2.56%) gRPC
5 9 (2.56%) WebSockets
6 8 (2.28%) LDAP
6 8 (2.28%) SAML
7 7 (1.99%) .NET
8 5 (1.42%) Middleware
9 4 (1.14%) ADO
9 4 (1.14%) NumPy
9 4 (1.14%) Pandas
10 3 (0.85%) OAuth
10 3 (0.85%) OpenTelemetry
11 2 (0.57%) .NET Framework
11 2 (0.57%) Kafka
11 2 (0.57%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 31 (8.83%) Onboarding
2 19 (5.41%) Cloud Native
3 11 (3.13%) Security Posture
4 10 (2.85%) Self-Motivation
5 9 (2.56%) Hybrid Cloud
6 8 (2.28%) Driving Licence
6 8 (2.28%) Product Ownership
6 8 (2.28%) Security Operations Centre
7 7 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
7 7 (1.99%) Operational Technology
8 4 (1.14%) CSOC
8 4 (1.14%) Data Centre
8 4 (1.14%) Legacy Applications
9 3 (0.85%) CCTV
9 3 (0.85%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (0.85%) Handset
9 3 (0.85%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (0.85%) Renewable Energy
9 3 (0.85%) SCADA
9 3 (0.85%) Team-Oriented Environment
Operating Systems
1 61 (17.38%) Windows
2 20 (5.70%) Windows Server
3 18 (5.13%) Windows 10
4 16 (4.56%) Linux
5 5 (1.42%) Mac OS
6 4 (1.14%) Unix
7 3 (0.85%) CatOS
8 2 (0.57%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.28%) Android
9 1 (0.28%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 81 (23.08%) Agile
2 65 (18.52%) CI/CD
3 63 (17.95%) Problem-Solving
4 55 (15.67%) DevOps
5 51 (14.53%) Analytics
6 49 (13.96%) Migration
7 48 (13.68%) Continuous Improvement
8 43 (12.25%) Business Intelligence
9 39 (11.11%) AI
10 37 (10.54%) Cybersecurity
11 35 (9.97%) Stakeholder Management
12 34 (9.69%) ITIL
13 30 (8.55%) Change Management
13 30 (8.55%) Containerisation
14 29 (8.26%) Customer Service
15 28 (7.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 27 (7.69%) Decision-Making
17 26 (7.41%) Data Modelling
17 26 (7.41%) ETL
17 26 (7.41%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 55 (15.67%) SQL
2 41 (11.68%) Python
3 24 (6.84%) PowerShell
4 13 (3.70%) Go
5 8 (2.28%) C#
5 8 (2.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 8 (2.28%) Kusto Query Language
6 7 (1.99%) Bicep
6 7 (1.99%) Java
7 6 (1.71%) JavaScript
8 5 (1.42%) PL/SQL
8 5 (1.42%) VBScript
9 4 (1.14%) R
9 4 (1.14%) Shell Script
9 4 (1.14%) VB
10 2 (0.57%) Bash
10 2 (0.57%) MATLAB
10 2 (0.57%) Scala
10 2 (0.57%) T-SQL
10 2 (0.57%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 69 (19.66%) Security Cleared
2 54 (15.38%) SC Cleared
3 34 (9.69%) Degree
4 32 (9.12%) Microsoft Certification
5 15 (4.27%) DV Cleared
6 14 (3.99%) AWS Certification
7 12 (3.42%) Azure Certification
8 10 (2.85%) CISSP
9 8 (2.28%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (2.28%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.99%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 7 (1.99%) CISM
11 6 (1.71%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (1.71%) ISTQB
12 5 (1.42%) CCNA
12 5 (1.42%) Master's Degree
13 4 (1.14%) OCP
13 4 (1.14%) Oracle Certification
14 3 (0.85%) ITIL Certification
14 3 (0.85%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.98%) QA
2 14 (3.99%) Data Quality
3 12 (3.42%) GDPR
4 9 (2.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (1.71%) Accessibility
5 6 (1.71%) SLA
6 5 (1.42%) PMO
7 3 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (0.85%) NIST
7 3 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 2 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.57%) GxP
8 2 (0.57%) ISO 9001
8 2 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 12207
8 2 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 2 (0.57%) NCSC
9 1 (0.28%) GRC
9 1 (0.28%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 57 (16.24%) Active Directory
2 31 (8.83%) Docker
3 14 (3.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (1.71%) VMware NSX
5 4 (1.14%) Microsoft App-V
5 4 (1.14%) Snort
5 4 (1.14%) vSphere
6 2 (0.57%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.28%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 40 (11.40%) Kubernetes
2 23 (6.55%) Terraform
3 17 (4.84%) Microsoft Intune
4 15 (4.27%) Prometheus
5 14 (3.99%) Grafana
5 14 (3.99%) SCCM
6 10 (2.85%) Single Sign-On
7 8 (2.28%) Ansible
8 4 (1.14%) CSIRT
9 3 (0.85%) Control-M
9 3 (0.85%) HP ALM
9 3 (0.85%) IBM Guardium
9 3 (0.85%) Nessus
9 3 (0.85%) vRealize
10 2 (0.57%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.57%) HP Quality Center
10 2 (0.57%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.57%) Puppet
11 1 (0.28%) AirWatch
11 1 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 33 (9.40%) ServiceNow
2 25 (7.12%) SAP
3 21 (5.98%) Databricks
4 20 (5.70%) Oracle
5 17 (4.84%) Cisco
6 15 (4.27%) VMware
7 9 (2.56%) Splunk
8 7 (1.99%) CheckPoint
8 7 (1.99%) SolarWinds
9 6 (1.71%) F5
9 6 (1.71%) Informatica
9 6 (1.71%) Palo Alto
9 6 (1.71%) Tenable
9 6 (1.71%) Workday
10 5 (1.42%) Virgin Media
11 4 (1.14%) Okta
12 3 (0.85%) AppDynamics
12 3 (0.85%) Citrix
12 3 (0.85%) CyberArk
12 3 (0.85%) HP