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 18 February 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
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 2 4
Rank change year-on-year -6 +2 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 329 267 266
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.54% 18.49% 14.08%
As % of the Vendors category 25.84% 36.88% 30.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 242 196 189
10th Percentile £203 £190 £190
25th Percentile £316 £276 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £434 £427
Median % change year-on-year +9.99% +1.79% -5.22%
75th Percentile £575 £567 £575
90th Percentile £657 £625 £688
England median daily rate £480 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +1.05% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 12 25
10th Percentile £15.21 £12.18 £10.67
25th Percentile £15.73 £16.92 £11.13
Median hourly rate £23.50 £29.73 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.94% +65.14% +16.20%
75th Percentile £26.25 £35.00 £23.00
90th Percentile £31.50 - £26.50
England median hourly rate £19.34 £23.80 £17.72
% change year-on-year -18.75% +34.31% -14.46%

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 1,273 724 867
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 48.53% 50.14% 45.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 811 468 534
10th Percentile £268 £200 £219
25th Percentile £400 £375 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% +5.26% -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £700 £688
England median daily rate £501 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.67% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 22 51
10th Percentile £15.05 £12.48 £11.06
25th Percentile £17.79 £18.13 £13.63
Median hourly rate £25.00 £21.80 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.68% -3.11% +26.98%
75th Percentile £28.61 £31.49 £26.50
90th Percentile £49.00 £35.00 £41.75
England median hourly rate £23.83 £31.35 £27.52
% change year-on-year -23.99% +13.92% -17.25%

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 18 February 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 18 February 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 18 February 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 -1 133 £475 +0.21% 81
Warwickshire -7 63 £550 +2.80% 23
Shropshire -25 32 £480 +10.34% 15
Coventry -8 30 £325 +49.43% 13
Worcestershire +1 24 £650 - 14
Staffordshire -1 16 £213 -46.88% 30
Herefordshire -9 11 £650 -27.78% 10
Solihull -2 5 £500 +186.53% 6
Wolverhampton -1 3 £346 +33.52% 11
Smethwick - 3 - -
Brierley Hill - 2 £446 - 3
Walsall - 1 £160 - 4
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 18 (5.47%) SharePoint
2 10 (3.04%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (1.82%) Confluence
4 2 (0.61%) Apache
5 1 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.30%) Apache Pig
5 1 (0.30%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.30%) HCL Notes
5 1 (0.30%) IIS
5 1 (0.30%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.30%) SAS
Applications
1 39 (11.85%) Microsoft Office
2 38 (11.55%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (5.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (3.65%) Microsoft Project
5 9 (2.74%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.30%) Oracle Smart View
6 1 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.30%) Trello
Business Applications
1 17 (5.17%) Dynamics CRM
2 11 (3.34%) Dynamics NAV
3 4 (1.22%) Workday HCM
4 3 (0.91%) Maximo
5 2 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.30%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.30%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.30%) SAP BPC
6 1 (0.30%) SAP EHS
6 1 (0.30%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.30%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 124 (37.69%) Azure
2 60 (18.24%) Microsoft 365
3 55 (16.72%) Power Platform
4 48 (14.59%) AWS
5 42 (12.77%) Dynamics 365
6 38 (11.55%) Entra ID
7 27 (8.21%) Azure DevOps
8 22 (6.69%) Power Automate
9 18 (5.47%) Azure Data Factory
10 17 (5.17%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 17 (5.17%) GCP
10 17 (5.17%) PowerApps
10 17 (5.17%) Serverless
11 15 (4.56%) GitHub
12 14 (4.26%) GitHub Actions
13 13 (3.95%) Azure Key Vault
14 11 (3.34%) Microsoft Purview
15 9 (2.74%) Azure Sentinel
15 9 (2.74%) SaaS
16 8 (2.43%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 27 (8.21%) VPN
2 23 (6.99%) DNS
3 22 (6.69%) Firewall
4 15 (4.56%) Network Security
5 14 (4.26%) DHCP
6 13 (3.95%) TCP/IP
7 9 (2.74%) LAN
7 9 (2.74%) SSL
8 7 (2.13%) HTTP
8 7 (2.13%) WAN
8 7 (2.13%) Wireless
9 6 (1.82%) HTTPS
9 6 (1.82%) Wireshark
10 5 (1.52%) BIG-IP
10 5 (1.52%) Cisco ASA
10 5 (1.52%) Cisco Nexus
10 5 (1.52%) Ethereal
10 5 (1.52%) Intrusion Detection
10 5 (1.52%) IPsec
11 4 (1.22%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (10.03%) Power BI
2 16 (4.86%) Data Warehouse
3 15 (4.56%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (3.34%) SQL Server
5 9 (2.74%) Redis
6 7 (2.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 6 (1.82%) Data Mining
7 6 (1.82%) Relational Database
8 4 (1.22%) Data Lake
8 4 (1.22%) NoSQL
8 4 (1.22%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.91%) Metadata
9 3 (0.91%) Power Query
10 2 (0.61%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.61%) Apache Hive
10 2 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.61%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.61%) Hadoop
10 2 (0.61%) InfluxDB
10 2 (0.61%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 22 (6.69%) JIRA
2 14 (4.26%) Git
3 10 (3.04%) GitLab
4 7 (2.13%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.91%) InstallShield
5 3 (0.91%) MSI
6 2 (0.61%) CircleCI
6 2 (0.61%) JMeter
6 2 (0.61%) Liquibase
7 1 (0.30%) AdminStudio
7 1 (0.30%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.30%) Jaeger
7 1 (0.30%) MLflow
7 1 (0.30%) Selenium
7 1 (0.30%) SonarQube
General
1 121 (36.78%) Social Skills
2 51 (15.50%) Finance
3 49 (14.89%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (5.47%) Public Sector
5 16 (4.86%) Organisational Skills
6 9 (2.74%) Legal
7 8 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (2.43%) Manufacturing
8 7 (2.13%) Law
9 6 (1.82%) Games
9 6 (1.82%) Police
10 4 (1.22%) Banking
10 4 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (0.91%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (0.91%) Local Government
11 3 (0.91%) Marketing
11 3 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.61%) Aeronautics
12 2 (0.61%) Publishing
12 2 (0.61%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 43 (13.07%) Analyst
2 36 (10.94%) Developer
3 32 (9.73%) Architect
4 20 (6.08%) Senior
5 18 (5.47%) Support Engineer
6 15 (4.56%) Administrator
6 15 (4.56%) IT Support
7 13 (3.95%) Python Developer
8 12 (3.65%) Lead
9 11 (3.34%) Business Analyst
9 11 (3.34%) Consultant
9 11 (3.34%) Project Manager
10 10 (3.04%) Engagement Manager
11 9 (2.74%) 2nd Line Support
11 9 (2.74%) Backend Developer
11 9 (2.74%) Data Engineer
11 9 (2.74%) IT Analyst
11 9 (2.74%) Network Engineer
11 9 (2.74%) SAP Manager
12 8 (2.43%) IT Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (5.17%) REST
2 15 (4.56%) FastAPI
3 12 (3.65%) Flask
4 11 (3.34%) SailPoint
5 10 (3.04%) LDAP
6 9 (2.74%) GraphQL
6 9 (2.74%) WebSockets
7 8 (2.43%) gRPC
8 7 (2.13%) SAML
9 6 (1.82%) Middleware
10 5 (1.52%) .NET
10 5 (1.52%) OpenTelemetry
11 4 (1.22%) ADO
11 4 (1.22%) OAuth
11 4 (1.22%) RESTful
12 3 (0.91%) NumPy
12 3 (0.91%) Pandas
13 2 (0.61%) Oracle Fusion
13 2 (0.61%) RabbitMQ
13 2 (0.61%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 34 (10.33%) Onboarding
2 17 (5.17%) Cloud Native
3 13 (3.95%) Security Posture
4 12 (3.65%) Self-Motivation
5 8 (2.43%) Product Ownership
5 8 (2.43%) Security Operations Centre
6 7 (2.13%) Driving Licence
6 7 (2.13%) Hybrid Cloud
7 6 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
7 6 (1.82%) Operational Technology
7 6 (1.82%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 5 (1.52%) Data Centre
9 4 (1.22%) CSOC
9 4 (1.22%) Legacy Applications
9 4 (1.22%) PKI
9 4 (1.22%) SCADA
10 3 (0.91%) CCTV
10 3 (0.91%) Handset
10 3 (0.91%) Management Information System
10 3 (0.91%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 66 (20.06%) Windows
2 25 (7.60%) Windows 10
3 23 (6.99%) Windows Server
4 18 (5.47%) Linux
5 6 (1.82%) Mac OS
6 3 (0.91%) CatOS
6 3 (0.91%) Unix
7 2 (0.61%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.30%) Android
8 1 (0.30%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 71 (21.58%) Agile
2 64 (19.45%) Problem-Solving
3 58 (17.63%) CI/CD
4 57 (17.33%) DevOps
5 50 (15.20%) Migration
6 43 (13.07%) Analytics
6 43 (13.07%) Continuous Improvement
7 38 (11.55%) Cybersecurity
8 35 (10.64%) ITIL
9 33 (10.03%) Business Intelligence
9 33 (10.03%) Stakeholder Management
10 31 (9.42%) Change Management
10 31 (9.42%) Customer Service
11 30 (9.12%) AI
12 29 (8.81%) Containerisation
13 27 (8.21%) CRM
14 26 (7.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 25 (7.60%) Decision-Making
15 25 (7.60%) Project Management
16 23 (6.99%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 41 (12.46%) Python
2 38 (11.55%) SQL
3 22 (6.69%) PowerShell
4 15 (4.56%) Go
5 9 (2.74%) Java
6 8 (2.43%) C#
6 8 (2.43%) JavaScript
6 8 (2.43%) Kusto Query Language
7 6 (1.82%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 5 (1.52%) Shell Script
8 5 (1.52%) VB
9 4 (1.22%) R
10 3 (0.91%) Bicep
10 3 (0.91%) PL/SQL
10 3 (0.91%) Scala
10 3 (0.91%) VBScript
11 2 (0.61%) Bash
11 2 (0.61%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.30%) MATLAB
12 1 (0.30%) Perl
Qualifications
1 59 (17.93%) Security Cleared
2 49 (14.89%) SC Cleared
3 31 (9.42%) Microsoft Certification
4 29 (8.81%) Degree
5 14 (4.26%) Azure Certification
6 13 (3.95%) AWS Certification
6 13 (3.95%) DV Cleared
7 10 (3.04%) CISSP
8 8 (2.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 8 (2.43%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (2.13%) CISM
10 6 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
10 6 (1.82%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (1.82%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 5 (1.52%) DBS Check
11 5 (1.52%) MCDST
12 3 (0.91%) CCNA
12 3 (0.91%) ISTQB
12 3 (0.91%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 3 (0.91%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (5.47%) QA
2 10 (3.04%) GDPR
3 9 (2.74%) Data Quality
4 8 (2.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (1.82%) PMO
5 6 (1.82%) SLA
6 5 (1.52%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.22%) Cyber Essentials
7 4 (1.22%) NIST
8 3 (0.91%) NCSC
8 3 (0.91%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.61%) GxP
9 2 (0.61%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.61%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.30%) FATCA
10 1 (0.30%) ISO 22301
10 1 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 1 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 1 (0.30%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 65 (19.76%) Active Directory
2 31 (9.42%) Docker
3 15 (4.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (1.82%) vSphere
5 5 (1.52%) VMware NSX
6 4 (1.22%) Hyper-V
6 4 (1.22%) Snort
7 2 (0.61%) Microsoft App-V
7 2 (0.61%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.30%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.30%) HDFS
8 1 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 36 (10.94%) Kubernetes
2 20 (6.08%) SCCM
3 19 (5.78%) Terraform
4 18 (5.47%) Prometheus
5 17 (5.17%) Grafana
5 17 (5.17%) Microsoft Intune
6 11 (3.34%) Ansible
7 9 (2.74%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (1.52%) CSIRT
9 3 (0.91%) Control-M
9 3 (0.91%) HP ALM
9 3 (0.91%) IBM Guardium
9 3 (0.91%) Nessus
9 3 (0.91%) SCOM
9 3 (0.91%) vRealize
10 2 (0.61%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.61%) HP Quality Center
10 2 (0.61%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.61%) Puppet
11 1 (0.30%) QRadar
Vendors
1 32 (9.73%) ServiceNow
2 21 (6.38%) SAP
3 18 (5.47%) Cisco
4 16 (4.86%) VMware
5 14 (4.26%) Splunk
6 11 (3.34%) Oracle
7 8 (2.43%) CheckPoint
7 8 (2.43%) Databricks
8 6 (1.82%) CyberArk
8 6 (1.82%) F5
8 6 (1.82%) SolarWinds
8 6 (1.82%) Tenable
8 6 (1.82%) Workday
9 5 (1.52%) iManage
9 5 (1.52%) Mitel
9 5 (1.52%) Palo Alto
9 5 (1.52%) Virgin Media
10 4 (1.22%) HP
10 4 (1.22%) Okta
11 3 (0.91%) Citrix