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 31 August 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
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 6 4
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 432 272 272
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.54% 15.40% 14.31%
As % of the Vendors category 27.76% 32.04% 31.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 315 183 181
10th Percentile £250 £165 £170
25th Percentile £375 £275 £255
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £420 £415
Median % change year-on-year +5.95% +1.20% -2.35%
75th Percentile £501 £541 £525
90th Percentile £609 £613 £638
England median daily rate £488 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +2.79% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 20 5
10th Percentile £13.98 £17.71 £12.16
25th Percentile £17.37 £28.55 £13.25
Median hourly rate £19.41 £30.00 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year -35.30% +114.29% -28.21%
75th Percentile £21.75 £50.00 £26.69
90th Percentile £60.35 - £43.68
England median hourly rate £20.88 £22.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year -7.74% +39.43% -26.23%

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 1,556 849 863
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 45.15% 48.07% 45.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,021 550 585
10th Percentile £325 £235 £250
25th Percentile £406 £368 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £481 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.39% -3.90% +2.56%
75th Percentile £573 £575 £625
90th Percentile £675 £638 £713
England median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 26 14
10th Percentile £13.50 £16.56 £13.48
25th Percentile £17.74 £27.66 £14.44
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.00 £25.06
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +19.70% +25.31%
75th Percentile £40.03 £48.31 £43.50
90th Percentile £61.40 £50.00 £53.13
England median hourly rate £32.00 £25.15 £30.00
% change year-on-year +27.24% -16.17% -27.31%

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 31 August 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 31 August 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 31 August 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 0 130 £450 +13.64% 130
Coventry 0 85 £425 +36.00% 31
Warwickshire 0 85 £450 +12.50% 47
Shropshire -19 51 £446 -13.40% 17
Staffordshire -5 15 £400 +185.71% 41
Worcestershire +1 9 £425 -26.09% 35
Solihull -22 8 £409 -25.68% 14
Herefordshire +5 7 £500 -23.08% 15
Dudley - 7 £400 - 11
Walsall +2 4 £600 - 4
West Bromwich - 3 - - 3
Halesowen - 1 - - 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 48 (11.11%) SharePoint
2 21 (4.86%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (1.16%) SAS
4 4 (0.93%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.69%) Apache
5 3 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.69%) Confluence
5 3 (0.69%) IIS
6 2 (0.46%) CloudStack
6 2 (0.46%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.23%) Appian
7 1 (0.23%) CMS
7 1 (0.23%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 52 (12.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (9.95%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (3.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (2.08%) Microsoft Project
4 9 (2.08%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.46%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.46%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.23%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.23%) Navisworks
6 1 (0.23%) ProjectWise
6 1 (0.23%) Revit
6 1 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 19 (4.40%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.16%) SAP PSCD
3 3 (0.69%) Primavera
3 3 (0.69%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.23%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.23%) Integrated Workplace Management System
4 1 (0.23%) MIS ActiveH
4 1 (0.23%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 185 (42.82%) Azure
2 110 (25.46%) Microsoft 365
3 76 (17.59%) Power Platform
4 56 (12.96%) Entra ID
5 52 (12.04%) Azure DevOps
6 50 (11.57%) Dynamics 365
7 43 (9.95%) Power Automate
8 34 (7.87%) AWS
8 34 (7.87%) Microsoft Purview
9 32 (7.41%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 31 (7.18%) Azure Data Factory
11 29 (6.71%) OneDrive
12 27 (6.25%) PowerApps
13 18 (4.17%) Serverless
14 15 (3.47%) Microsoft Copilot
15 12 (2.78%) GCP
16 10 (2.31%) GitHub
16 10 (2.31%) GitHub Actions
17 9 (2.08%) Azure Functions
18 8 (1.85%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 37 (8.56%) DNS
2 30 (6.94%) DHCP
3 26 (6.02%) VPN
4 22 (5.09%) Firewall
5 13 (3.01%) TCP/IP
6 11 (2.55%) LAN
6 11 (2.55%) Wi-Fi
7 8 (1.85%) WAN
8 6 (1.39%) Cisco IOS
8 6 (1.39%) SSL
9 5 (1.16%) SAN
10 4 (0.93%) Network Security
10 4 (0.93%) SD-WAN
10 4 (0.93%) Wireless
11 3 (0.69%) BIG-IP
11 3 (0.69%) NAS
11 3 (0.69%) Structured Cabling
11 3 (0.69%) Unified Communications
11 3 (0.69%) VLAN
11 3 (0.69%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (9.95%) Power BI
2 35 (8.10%) SQL Server
3 25 (5.79%) Data Warehouse
4 19 (4.40%) PostgreSQL
5 13 (3.01%) Azure SQL Database
6 11 (2.55%) Data Lake
6 11 (2.55%) MySQL
7 10 (2.31%) Delta Lake
8 7 (1.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 6 (1.39%) Data Vault
9 6 (1.39%) Metadata
9 6 (1.39%) NoSQL
10 5 (1.16%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 5 (1.16%) Oracle Database
10 5 (1.16%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.93%) Tableau
12 3 (0.69%) Data Mining
12 3 (0.69%) Redis
12 3 (0.69%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 2 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 18 (4.17%) JIRA
2 12 (2.78%) Team Foundation Server
3 11 (2.55%) Visual Studio
4 10 (2.31%) Selenium
4 10 (2.31%) WebDriver
5 9 (2.08%) Cypress.io
5 9 (2.08%) Postman
6 8 (1.85%) Git
7 6 (1.39%) Cucumber
8 4 (0.93%) MLflow
9 3 (0.69%) GitLab
9 3 (0.69%) Jenkins
9 3 (0.69%) Protractor
10 2 (0.46%) MSI
10 2 (0.46%) NUnit
11 1 (0.23%) CircleCI
11 1 (0.23%) Maven
11 1 (0.23%) Rational Rhapsody
11 1 (0.23%) SonarQube
11 1 (0.23%) Zephyr
General
1 153 (35.42%) Social Skills
2 61 (14.12%) Finance
3 46 (10.65%) Public Sector
4 44 (10.19%) Analytical Skills
5 33 (7.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 21 (4.86%) Organisational Skills
7 14 (3.24%) Legal
8 13 (3.01%) Manufacturing
9 10 (2.31%) Banking
10 7 (1.62%) Documentation Skills
10 7 (1.62%) Marketing
11 6 (1.39%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (1.16%) Retail
13 4 (0.93%) Billing
13 4 (0.93%) Law
14 3 (0.69%) Telecoms
15 2 (0.46%) Electronics
15 2 (0.46%) Investment Banking
15 2 (0.46%) Local Government
15 2 (0.46%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 56 (12.96%) Analyst
1 56 (12.96%) Developer
2 51 (11.81%) Senior
3 39 (9.03%) Data Engineer
4 31 (7.18%) Architect
5 28 (6.48%) Lead
6 26 (6.02%) Consultant
7 24 (5.56%) Administrator
8 22 (5.09%) Azure Engineer
9 18 (4.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 18 (4.17%) Solutions Architect
10 15 (3.47%) Dynamics 365 Developer
10 15 (3.47%) Support Engineer
11 13 (3.01%) Senior Data Engineer
12 11 (2.55%) IT Support
12 11 (2.55%) Senior Analyst
13 10 (2.31%) Data Architect
13 10 (2.31%) Support Technician
13 10 (2.31%) Test Analyst
14 9 (2.08%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (4.86%) JSON
1 21 (4.86%) Terraform
2 18 (4.17%) PySpark
3 16 (3.70%) SOAP
3 16 (3.70%) XML
4 11 (2.55%) ActiveX
5 10 (2.31%) REST
6 9 (2.08%) Gherkin
7 8 (1.85%) .NET
8 7 (1.62%) Microsoft Graph
9 6 (1.39%) Kafka
10 5 (1.16%) JDBC
10 5 (1.16%) SAP PI
10 5 (1.16%) XSLT
11 4 (0.93%) IDoc
11 4 (0.93%) YAML
12 3 (0.69%) CSS
12 3 (0.69%) OAuth
12 3 (0.69%) OpenID
12 3 (0.69%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 22 (5.09%) Onboarding
2 21 (4.86%) Management Information System
3 20 (4.63%) Cloud Native
4 16 (3.70%) Hybrid Cloud
4 16 (3.70%) Product Ownership
5 13 (3.01%) SCADA
6 9 (2.08%) CMDB
7 8 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
8 7 (1.62%) Cyber Threat
8 7 (1.62%) Operational Technology
8 7 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
8 7 (1.62%) Smartphone
9 6 (1.39%) Data Centre
9 6 (1.39%) Data Structures
9 6 (1.39%) IoT
9 6 (1.39%) PKI
9 6 (1.39%) Virtual Team
10 5 (1.16%) Public Cloud
10 5 (1.16%) Security Operations Centre
10 5 (1.16%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 90 (20.83%) Windows
2 29 (6.71%) Windows Server
3 28 (6.48%) Windows 10
4 23 (5.32%) Linux
5 13 (3.01%) Mac OS
6 8 (1.85%) Android
7 7 (1.62%) Ubuntu
8 5 (1.16%) SUSE
8 5 (1.16%) Unix
9 4 (0.93%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.69%) CentOS
10 3 (0.69%) Windows 7
10 3 (0.69%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 2 (0.46%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 89 (20.60%) Problem-Solving
2 71 (16.44%) Agile
3 70 (16.20%) DevOps
4 60 (13.89%) Stakeholder Management
5 55 (12.73%) Continuous Improvement
5 55 (12.73%) Migration
6 52 (12.04%) CI/CD
7 50 (11.57%) AI
7 50 (11.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 46 (10.65%) Analytics
9 43 (9.95%) Customer Service
10 42 (9.72%) Business Intelligence
11 41 (9.49%) Data Modelling
11 41 (9.49%) ITSM
11 41 (9.49%) Technical Leadership
12 39 (9.03%) ITIL
13 33 (7.64%) ETL
13 33 (7.64%) Validation
14 32 (7.41%) Mentoring
15 28 (6.48%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 62 (14.35%) SQL
2 35 (8.10%) Python
3 26 (6.02%) JavaScript
4 24 (5.56%) C#
5 20 (4.63%) PowerShell
6 16 (3.70%) Java
7 13 (3.01%) VBA
8 11 (2.55%) VB
8 11 (2.55%) VB6
9 10 (2.31%) Bicep
10 6 (1.39%) Kusto Query Language
10 6 (1.39%) T-SQL
11 5 (1.16%) ABAP
12 3 (0.69%) Bash
12 3 (0.69%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 3 (0.69%) PL/SQL
13 2 (0.46%) Scala
13 2 (0.46%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.46%) VBScript
14 1 (0.23%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 72 (16.67%) Security Cleared
2 56 (12.96%) SC Cleared
3 37 (8.56%) Microsoft Certification
4 29 (6.71%) Degree
5 16 (3.70%) BPSS Clearance
6 12 (2.78%) Azure Certification
6 12 (2.78%) ISTQB
7 10 (2.31%) CISSP
8 9 (2.08%) OCP
8 9 (2.08%) Oracle Certification
9 7 (1.62%) AWS Certification
10 6 (1.39%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (1.39%) CISM
11 5 (1.16%) DBS Check
12 4 (0.93%) A+ Certification
12 4 (0.93%) DV Cleared
12 4 (0.93%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (0.93%) Master's Degree
12 4 (0.93%) Network+ Certification
12 4 (0.93%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (6.48%) Accessibility
2 26 (6.02%) Data Quality
3 24 (5.56%) GDPR
4 17 (3.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 16 (3.70%) NIST
5 16 (3.70%) QA
6 13 (3.01%) PMO
6 13 (3.01%) SLA
7 12 (2.78%) WCAG
8 7 (1.62%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.93%) GRC
10 2 (0.46%) NCSC
11 1 (0.23%) Basel III
11 1 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.23%) HL7
11 1 (0.23%) ISO 19650
11 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 15288
11 1 (0.23%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.23%) SOC 2
System Software
1 71 (16.44%) Active Directory
2 25 (5.79%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (3.94%) Docker
4 16 (3.70%) Hyper-V
5 13 (3.01%) vSphere
6 11 (2.55%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.93%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.46%) Firmware
8 2 (0.46%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.46%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.46%) XenApp
8 2 (0.46%) XenDesktop
9 1 (0.23%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.23%) NFS
Systems Management
1 43 (9.95%) Microsoft Intune
2 27 (6.25%) SCCM
3 21 (4.86%) Kubernetes
4 17 (3.94%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (1.16%) Ansible
5 5 (1.16%) Grafana
5 5 (1.16%) Jamf Pro
6 4 (0.93%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.69%) QRadar
8 2 (0.46%) Check_MK
8 2 (0.46%) Failover Clustering
8 2 (0.46%) WMI
8 2 (0.46%) WSUS
9 1 (0.23%) AirWatch
9 1 (0.23%) Argo
9 1 (0.23%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.23%) SCOM
Vendors
1 36 (8.33%) ServiceNow
2 32 (7.41%) Oracle
3 31 (7.18%) VMware
4 26 (6.02%) Cisco
5 25 (5.79%) Databricks
6 23 (5.32%) SAP
7 13 (3.01%) Splunk
8 10 (2.31%) UiPath
9 9 (2.08%) Informatica
9 9 (2.08%) Palo Alto
10 8 (1.85%) Apple
10 8 (1.85%) Red Hat
11 7 (1.62%) Fortinet
12 6 (1.39%) Canon
12 6 (1.39%) Citrix
13 5 (1.16%) Adobe
13 5 (1.16%) F5
13 5 (1.16%) IBM
13 5 (1.16%) SolarWinds
13 5 (1.16%) webMethods