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 10 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
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -3 0 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 404 248 270
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.79% 15.64% 13.13%
As % of the Vendors category 26.22% 33.29% 29.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 308 156 183
10th Percentile £255 £181 £171
25th Percentile £363 £235 £269
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £375 £415
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -9.64% -2.35%
75th Percentile £530 £538 £520
90th Percentile £620 £606 £649
England median daily rate £492 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +3.58% -2.56% -2.50%
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 £22.63 £22.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year +0.58% +40.10% -27.00%

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 1,541 745 911
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 44.95% 46.97% 44.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,057 469 613
10th Percentile £314 £200 £235
25th Percentile £401 £319 £353
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £460 £450
Median % change year-on-year +1.96% +2.22% -5.26%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £647 £675 £688
England median daily rate £510 £513 £513
% change year-on-year -0.49% - -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 30 52
10th Percentile £17.87 £14.99 £11.08
25th Percentile £21.95 £24.75 £13.81
Median hourly rate £33.98 £30.00 £18.39
Median % change year-on-year +13.27% +63.18% -18.29%
75th Percentile £51.88 £42.93 £28.75
90th Percentile £66.03 £50.00 £56.13
England median hourly rate £35.50 £25.15 £25.00
% change year-on-year +41.15% +0.60% -31.51%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 +16.13% 92
Warwickshire 0 97 £500 +53.85% 29
Coventry -1 66 £425 +51.11% 9
Shropshire -31 41 £440 +2.33% 16
Worcestershire +3 15 £475 -47.22% 18
Staffordshire -2 11 £388 +176.79% 29
Solihull -19 11 £425 -9.67% 9
Herefordshire +3 9 £700 -22.22% 4
Dudley - 5 £400 - 8
Walsall +2 4 £600 -
West Bromwich - 3 - - 3
Brierley Hill - 2 £446 -
Wolverhampton -6 1 - - 9
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 35 (8.66%) SharePoint
2 15 (3.71%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.98%) Confluence
4 6 (1.49%) SAS
5 4 (0.99%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.74%) Apache
6 3 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.74%) IIS
6 3 (0.74%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.50%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.25%) Appian
8 1 (0.25%) CMS
Applications
1 47 (11.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (10.40%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (4.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (3.22%) MS Visio
5 11 (2.72%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.25%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 21 (5.20%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.24%) SAP PSCD
3 3 (0.74%) Primavera
4 2 (0.50%) 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
1 155 (38.37%) Azure
2 81 (20.05%) Microsoft 365
3 66 (16.34%) Power Platform
4 47 (11.63%) Entra ID
5 39 (9.65%) Azure DevOps
6 38 (9.41%) AWS
7 36 (8.91%) Dynamics 365
8 30 (7.43%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 27 (6.68%) Microsoft Purview
10 24 (5.94%) Azure Data Factory
11 22 (5.45%) Power Automate
12 19 (4.70%) OneDrive
13 15 (3.71%) Microsoft Copilot
14 13 (3.22%) GCP
14 13 (3.22%) PowerApps
14 13 (3.22%) Serverless
15 11 (2.72%) GitHub
16 10 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
17 6 (1.49%) Azure AKS
17 6 (1.49%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 31 (7.67%) DNS
2 28 (6.93%) VPN
3 23 (5.69%) Firewall
4 22 (5.45%) DHCP
5 13 (3.22%) LAN
6 10 (2.48%) WAN
7 9 (2.23%) Network Security
7 9 (2.23%) SSL
7 9 (2.23%) TCP/IP
7 9 (2.23%) Wi-Fi
8 6 (1.49%) Cisco IOS
8 6 (1.49%) HTTP
9 5 (1.24%) BIG-IP
9 5 (1.24%) HTTPS
9 5 (1.24%) Intrusion Detection
9 5 (1.24%) Wireless
10 4 (0.99%) Cisco ASA
10 4 (0.99%) Ethereal
10 4 (0.99%) IPsec
10 4 (0.99%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (10.64%) Power BI
2 25 (6.19%) SQL Server
3 24 (5.94%) Data Warehouse
4 21 (5.20%) PostgreSQL
5 13 (3.22%) Azure SQL Database
6 10 (2.48%) Delta Lake
6 10 (2.48%) MySQL
7 8 (1.98%) Data Lake
7 8 (1.98%) Metadata
7 8 (1.98%) NoSQL
8 7 (1.73%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
8 7 (1.73%) Relational Database
9 5 (1.24%) Oracle Database
10 4 (0.99%) Redis
11 3 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.74%) Power Query
11 3 (0.74%) SAP Data Services
11 3 (0.74%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 3 (0.74%) Tableau
12 2 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 31 (7.67%) JIRA
2 8 (1.98%) Git
3 7 (1.73%) Selenium
3 7 (1.73%) Team Foundation Server
3 7 (1.73%) WebDriver
4 6 (1.49%) Visual Studio
5 5 (1.24%) Cypress.io
5 5 (1.24%) Postman
6 4 (0.99%) GitLab
6 4 (0.99%) MLflow
7 3 (0.74%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.50%) Jenkins
8 2 (0.50%) JMeter
8 2 (0.50%) MSI
8 2 (0.50%) NUnit
8 2 (0.50%) Protractor
9 1 (0.25%) CircleCI
9 1 (0.25%) Maven
9 1 (0.25%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.25%) Zephyr
General
1 129 (31.93%) Social Skills
2 57 (14.11%) Finance
3 47 (11.63%) Analytical Skills
4 32 (7.92%) Public Sector
5 21 (5.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 13 (3.22%) Organisational Skills
7 10 (2.48%) Banking
7 10 (2.48%) Manufacturing
8 8 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (1.73%) Games
9 7 (1.73%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (1.73%) Legal
10 6 (1.49%) Marketing
10 6 (1.49%) Police
11 5 (1.24%) Law
11 5 (1.24%) Retail
12 4 (0.99%) Electronics
13 3 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.50%) Publishing
14 2 (0.50%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 59 (14.60%) Analyst
2 42 (10.40%) Developer
3 40 (9.90%) Senior
4 35 (8.66%) Architect
5 27 (6.68%) Data Engineer
6 25 (6.19%) Consultant
6 25 (6.19%) Lead
7 17 (4.21%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 15 (3.71%) Administrator
9 14 (3.47%) Azure Engineer
9 14 (3.47%) Solutions Architect
10 13 (3.22%) Data Architect
11 12 (2.97%) Business Analyst
11 12 (2.97%) Support Engineer
12 10 (2.48%) IT Support
12 10 (2.48%) Senior Data Engineer
13 9 (2.23%) DBA
13 9 (2.23%) Dynamics 365 Developer
13 9 (2.23%) Support Technician
14 8 (1.98%) Security Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (4.95%) PySpark
2 12 (2.97%) JSON
3 11 (2.72%) SOAP
4 10 (2.48%) REST
4 10 (2.48%) XML
5 9 (2.23%) .NET
5 9 (2.23%) SailPoint
6 7 (1.73%) FastAPI
7 6 (1.49%) ActiveX
7 6 (1.49%) SAML
8 5 (1.24%) ADO
8 5 (1.24%) Gherkin
8 5 (1.24%) JDBC
8 5 (1.24%) Kafka
8 5 (1.24%) LDAP
8 5 (1.24%) SAP PI
9 4 (0.99%) Flask
9 4 (0.99%) GraphQL
9 4 (0.99%) OpenTelemetry
9 4 (0.99%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 27 (6.68%) Cloud Native
2 26 (6.44%) Onboarding
3 17 (4.21%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (2.48%) Management Information System
4 10 (2.48%) Product Ownership
4 10 (2.48%) SCADA
4 10 (2.48%) Security Operations Centre
5 9 (2.23%) Enterprise Software
5 9 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
6 8 (1.98%) Data Centre
7 7 (1.73%) Operational Technology
7 7 (1.73%) Smartphone
8 6 (1.49%) Security Posture
9 5 (1.24%) CMDB
9 5 (1.24%) Public Cloud
10 4 (0.99%) CSOC
10 4 (0.99%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (0.99%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (0.99%) IoT
10 4 (0.99%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 87 (21.53%) Windows
2 28 (6.93%) Linux
3 27 (6.68%) Windows 10
4 24 (5.94%) Windows Server
5 11 (2.72%) Mac OS
6 9 (2.23%) Unix
7 7 (1.73%) Android
8 5 (1.24%) Apple iOS
8 5 (1.24%) SUSE
8 5 (1.24%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.99%) Windows 7
10 3 (0.74%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.74%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.25%) CatOS
12 1 (0.25%) CentOS
12 1 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 86 (21.29%) Problem-Solving
2 73 (18.07%) Agile
3 63 (15.59%) DevOps
4 61 (15.10%) CI/CD
5 55 (13.61%) AI
6 54 (13.37%) Continuous Improvement
6 54 (13.37%) Migration
7 48 (11.88%) Analytics
8 43 (10.64%) Business Intelligence
9 40 (9.90%) Stakeholder Management
10 33 (8.17%) Customer Service
11 32 (7.92%) Infrastructure as Code
11 32 (7.92%) ITIL
12 31 (7.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 31 (7.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 31 (7.67%) Validation
13 30 (7.43%) Data Modelling
13 30 (7.43%) ETL
14 28 (6.93%) CRM
14 28 (6.93%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 70 (17.33%) SQL
2 39 (9.65%) Python
3 20 (4.95%) PowerShell
4 16 (3.96%) Java
5 14 (3.47%) Bicep
6 13 (3.22%) C#
7 11 (2.72%) JavaScript
8 9 (2.23%) Kusto Query Language
9 8 (1.98%) VB
9 8 (1.98%) VBA
10 7 (1.73%) PL/SQL
11 6 (1.49%) VB6
12 5 (1.24%) ABAP
12 5 (1.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 4 (0.99%) Go
14 3 (0.74%) MATLAB
14 3 (0.74%) T-SQL
15 2 (0.50%) Scala
15 2 (0.50%) Shell Script
15 2 (0.50%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 77 (19.06%) Security Cleared
2 62 (15.35%) SC Cleared
3 33 (8.17%) Degree
4 23 (5.69%) Microsoft Certification
5 13 (3.22%) CISSP
6 12 (2.97%) ISTQB
7 11 (2.72%) AWS Certification
8 10 (2.48%) Cisco Certification
9 9 (2.23%) Azure Certification
9 9 (2.23%) DV Cleared
10 8 (1.98%) BPSS Clearance
10 8 (1.98%) CISM
10 8 (1.98%) OCP
10 8 (1.98%) Oracle Certification
11 5 (1.24%) CCNA
11 5 (1.24%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 5 (1.24%) Master's Degree
12 4 (0.99%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (0.99%) PhD
13 3 (0.74%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (6.44%) Data Quality
2 19 (4.70%) QA
3 18 (4.46%) GDPR
3 18 (4.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 17 (4.21%) Accessibility
5 14 (3.47%) SLA
6 13 (3.22%) NIST
6 13 (3.22%) PMO
7 6 (1.49%) WCAG
8 4 (0.99%) GRC
9 3 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 12207
9 3 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 2 (0.50%) NCSC
10 2 (0.50%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.25%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.25%) SOC 2
System Software
1 74 (18.32%) Active Directory
2 27 (6.68%) Docker
3 23 (5.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (2.97%) Hyper-V
5 10 (2.48%) vSphere
6 7 (1.73%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.99%) Snort
7 4 (0.99%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (0.99%) VMware NSX
8 3 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.50%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.50%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.50%) XenApp
9 2 (0.50%) XenDesktop
10 1 (0.25%) Firmware
10 1 (0.25%) NFS
Systems Management
1 36 (8.91%) Kubernetes
1 36 (8.91%) Microsoft Intune
2 24 (5.94%) Terraform
3 23 (5.69%) SCCM
4 14 (3.47%) Single Sign-On
5 11 (2.72%) Grafana
5 11 (2.72%) Prometheus
6 4 (0.99%) CSIRT
6 4 (0.99%) Jamf Pro
7 3 (0.74%) Ansible
7 3 (0.74%) Control-M
7 3 (0.74%) HP ALM
7 3 (0.74%) IBM Guardium
7 3 (0.74%) Nessus
7 3 (0.74%) QRadar
8 2 (0.50%) AirWatch
8 2 (0.50%) HP Quality Center
8 2 (0.50%) SCOM
8 2 (0.50%) WMI
8 2 (0.50%) WSUS
Vendors
1 35 (8.66%) ServiceNow
2 34 (8.42%) Oracle
3 30 (7.43%) SAP
4 28 (6.93%) VMware
5 27 (6.68%) Databricks
6 25 (6.19%) Cisco
7 12 (2.97%) Splunk
8 9 (2.23%) UiPath
9 8 (1.98%) Red Hat
10 7 (1.73%) F5
10 7 (1.73%) Informatica
10 7 (1.73%) Okta
11 6 (1.49%) Apple
11 6 (1.49%) Canon
11 6 (1.49%) CheckPoint
11 6 (1.49%) Fortinet
11 6 (1.49%) Palo Alto
11 6 (1.49%) SolarWinds
12 5 (1.24%) Siemens
12 5 (1.24%) webMethods