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 26 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
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 2 5
Rank change year-on-year -9 +3 -2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 346 231 257
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.04% 17.51% 13.07%
As % of the Vendors category 25.27% 36.04% 30.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 244 174 177
10th Percentile £258 £190 £195
25th Percentile £337 £242 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £425 £427
Median % change year-on-year +11.76% -0.35% -6.52%
75th Percentile £573 £542 £575
90th Percentile £676 £638 £680
England median daily rate £495 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +4.21% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 13 26
10th Percentile £14.10 £12.19 £10.72
25th Percentile £15.67 £12.25 £11.18
Median hourly rate £19.34 £29.00 £15.26
Median % change year-on-year -33.31% +90.04% -4.45%
75th Percentile £25.00 £35.00 £23.00
90th Percentile £38.00 £40.58 £32.63
England median hourly rate £19.91 £23.30 £15.87
% change year-on-year -14.53% +46.76% -24.45%

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 1,369 641 851
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 47.65% 48.60% 43.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 900 435 544
10th Percentile £302 £200 £250
25th Percentile £400 £363 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +11.11% -7.93%
75th Percentile £559 £600 £600
90th Percentile £644 £689 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -4.76% +1.94% -4.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 25 56
10th Percentile £15.78 £12.25 £11.09
25th Percentile £21.94 £18.13 £13.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £20.00 £18.50
Median % change year-on-year +25.75% +8.11% +4.40%
75th Percentile £47.50 £30.68 £26.98
90th Percentile £70.00 £35.00 £48.75
England median hourly rate £25.38 £29.07 £24.00
% change year-on-year -12.69% +21.13% -31.48%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -2 122 £473 +8.00% 82
Warwickshire -6 67 £500 -2.53% 26
Coventry -7 38 £450 +114.29% 19
Shropshire -30 33 £450 +16.79% 17
Worcestershire +3 23 £700 -22.22% 19
Staffordshire -1 15 £300 -22.58% 34
Herefordshire -8 11 £700 -22.22% 10
Solihull -5 9 £425 +143.55% 6
Dudley - 5 £400 - 5
Smethwick - 3 - -
Wolverhampton -3 2 £267 - 8
Brierley Hill - 2 £446 -
Walsall - 1 £160 - 2
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 21 (6.07%) SharePoint
2 13 (3.76%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (2.31%) Confluence
4 3 (0.87%) Jupyter
5 2 (0.58%) SAS
6 1 (0.29%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 39 (11.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (10.69%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (4.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (3.76%) MS Visio
5 10 (2.89%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 16 (4.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 11 (3.18%) Dynamics NAV
3 4 (1.16%) Workday HCM
4 3 (0.87%) Maximo
5 2 (0.58%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.29%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.29%) Primavera
6 1 (0.29%) SAP BPC
6 1 (0.29%) SAP EHS
6 1 (0.29%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.29%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 122 (35.26%) Azure
2 69 (19.94%) Power Platform
3 56 (16.18%) Microsoft 365
4 43 (12.43%) AWS
5 39 (11.27%) Dynamics 365
6 37 (10.69%) Entra ID
7 25 (7.23%) Azure DevOps
8 23 (6.65%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 20 (5.78%) Power Automate
10 18 (5.20%) Azure Data Factory
11 17 (4.91%) Microsoft Purview
11 17 (4.91%) Serverless
12 14 (4.05%) GitHub
12 14 (4.05%) PowerApps
13 13 (3.76%) GitHub Actions
14 10 (2.89%) Azure Key Vault
14 10 (2.89%) GCP
14 10 (2.89%) OneDrive
15 8 (2.31%) Azure Logic Apps
15 8 (2.31%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 25 (7.23%) VPN
2 24 (6.94%) Firewall
3 20 (5.78%) DNS
4 16 (4.62%) Network Security
5 12 (3.47%) SSL
6 10 (2.89%) LAN
7 8 (2.31%) DHCP
7 8 (2.31%) HTTP
7 8 (2.31%) TCP/IP
7 8 (2.31%) WAN
8 7 (2.02%) HTTPS
8 7 (2.02%) Wireless
9 6 (1.73%) BIG-IP
9 6 (1.73%) Cisco ASA
9 6 (1.73%) Cisco Nexus
9 6 (1.73%) Ethereal
9 6 (1.73%) IPsec
9 6 (1.73%) Wireshark
10 5 (1.45%) Intrusion Detection
10 5 (1.45%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (11.85%) Power BI
2 26 (7.51%) Data Warehouse
3 19 (5.49%) PostgreSQL
4 14 (4.05%) SQL Server
5 7 (2.02%) Delta Lake
5 7 (2.02%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
5 7 (2.02%) NoSQL
5 7 (2.02%) Oracle Database
5 7 (2.02%) Redis
5 7 (2.02%) Relational Database
6 6 (1.73%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 5 (1.45%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (1.45%) Data Lake
7 5 (1.45%) MySQL
8 4 (1.16%) Metadata
8 4 (1.16%) Power Query
9 3 (0.87%) SAP Data Services
10 2 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.58%) GIS
10 2 (0.58%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 27 (7.80%) JIRA
2 12 (3.47%) Git
3 8 (2.31%) GitLab
4 5 (1.45%) Jenkins
4 5 (1.45%) MSI
5 4 (1.16%) MLflow
6 3 (0.87%) InstallShield
6 3 (0.87%) Selenium
7 2 (0.58%) JMeter
7 2 (0.58%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.29%) AdminStudio
8 1 (0.29%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.29%) Cypress.io
General
1 115 (33.24%) Social Skills
2 43 (12.43%) Analytical Skills
3 42 (12.14%) Finance
4 21 (6.07%) Public Sector
5 14 (4.05%) Organisational Skills
6 13 (3.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 10 (2.89%) Manufacturing
8 8 (2.31%) Legal
9 7 (2.02%) Games
9 7 (2.02%) Law
10 6 (1.73%) Banking
10 6 (1.73%) Police
11 5 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
11 5 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.16%) Electronics
12 4 (1.16%) Local Government
12 4 (1.16%) Marketing
12 4 (1.16%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.58%) Automotive
13 2 (0.58%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 42 (12.14%) Analyst
2 41 (11.85%) Architect
3 38 (10.98%) Developer
4 20 (5.78%) Senior
5 19 (5.49%) Administrator
6 16 (4.62%) Solutions Architect
7 13 (3.76%) Data Architect
7 13 (3.76%) Lead
8 12 (3.47%) Business Analyst
8 12 (3.47%) Consultant
8 12 (3.47%) IT Support
9 11 (3.18%) Data Engineer
9 11 (3.18%) Python Developer
9 11 (3.18%) Support Engineer
10 10 (2.89%) Network Engineer
10 10 (2.89%) Project Manager
11 9 (2.60%) IT Engineer
12 8 (2.31%) Business Intelligence Developer
12 8 (2.31%) Data Manager
13 7 (2.02%) Data Warehouse Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (3.76%) FastAPI
1 13 (3.76%) REST
2 12 (3.47%) PySpark
3 11 (3.18%) SailPoint
4 10 (2.89%) Flask
5 8 (2.31%) LDAP
5 8 (2.31%) SAML
6 7 (2.02%) .NET
6 7 (2.02%) GraphQL
6 7 (2.02%) gRPC
6 7 (2.02%) WebSockets
7 6 (1.73%) Middleware
8 4 (1.16%) ADO
8 4 (1.16%) NumPy
8 4 (1.16%) Pandas
9 3 (0.87%) Kafka
9 3 (0.87%) OAuth
9 3 (0.87%) OpenTelemetry
10 2 (0.58%) .NET Framework
10 2 (0.58%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 25 (7.23%) Onboarding
2 19 (5.49%) Cloud Native
3 11 (3.18%) Security Posture
4 10 (2.89%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (2.89%) Self-Motivation
5 9 (2.60%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (2.31%) Driving Licence
6 8 (2.31%) Product Ownership
6 8 (2.31%) Security Operations Centre
7 7 (2.02%) Operational Technology
8 6 (1.73%) SCADA
9 5 (1.45%) Data Centre
10 4 (1.16%) CSOC
10 4 (1.16%) Management Information System
11 3 (0.87%) CCTV
11 3 (0.87%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (0.87%) e-Learning
11 3 (0.87%) Handset
11 3 (0.87%) IoT
11 3 (0.87%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 62 (17.92%) Windows
2 23 (6.65%) Windows Server
3 19 (5.49%) Linux
3 19 (5.49%) Windows 10
4 4 (1.16%) Unix
5 3 (0.87%) CatOS
5 3 (0.87%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.58%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.29%) Android
7 1 (0.29%) Windows 7
7 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 80 (23.12%) Agile
2 65 (18.79%) Problem-Solving
3 61 (17.63%) CI/CD
4 51 (14.74%) Analytics
4 51 (14.74%) Continuous Improvement
5 50 (14.45%) DevOps
6 43 (12.43%) Business Intelligence
6 43 (12.43%) Migration
7 38 (10.98%) AI
8 33 (9.54%) Cybersecurity
8 33 (9.54%) Stakeholder Management
9 31 (8.96%) ITIL
10 29 (8.38%) Containerisation
10 29 (8.38%) Customer Service
11 27 (7.80%) ETL
12 26 (7.51%) Decision-Making
12 26 (7.51%) Infrastructure as Code
13 25 (7.23%) Change Management
13 25 (7.23%) Identity Access Management
13 25 (7.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 58 (16.76%) SQL
2 41 (11.85%) Python
3 24 (6.94%) PowerShell
4 11 (3.18%) Go
5 9 (2.60%) Bicep
6 8 (2.31%) C#
6 8 (2.31%) Java
6 8 (2.31%) Kusto Query Language
7 7 (2.02%) PL/SQL
8 6 (1.73%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 5 (1.45%) JavaScript
9 5 (1.45%) VBScript
10 4 (1.16%) R
10 4 (1.16%) Shell Script
10 4 (1.16%) VB
11 3 (0.87%) Bash
11 3 (0.87%) MATLAB
12 2 (0.58%) Scala
12 2 (0.58%) T-SQL
12 2 (0.58%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 67 (19.36%) Security Cleared
2 52 (15.03%) SC Cleared
3 40 (11.56%) Degree
4 31 (8.96%) Microsoft Certification
5 13 (3.76%) AWS Certification
5 13 (3.76%) DV Cleared
6 11 (3.18%) Azure Certification
6 11 (3.18%) CISSP
7 9 (2.60%) BPSS Clearance
7 9 (2.60%) Cisco Certification
8 7 (2.02%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 7 (2.02%) CISM
9 6 (1.73%) Computer Science Degree
9 6 (1.73%) ISTQB
9 6 (1.73%) Master's Degree
10 5 (1.45%) CCNA
11 4 (1.16%) MCSE
11 4 (1.16%) OCP
11 4 (1.16%) Oracle Certification
11 4 (1.16%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.49%) QA
2 17 (4.91%) Data Quality
3 12 (3.47%) GDPR
3 12 (3.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 6 (1.73%) SLA
5 5 (1.45%) Accessibility
5 5 (1.45%) NIST
5 5 (1.45%) PMO
6 3 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials
6 3 (0.87%) ISO 9001
6 3 (0.87%) ISO/IEC 12207
6 3 (0.87%) ISO/IEC 15288
6 3 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 2 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 2 (0.58%) GxP
7 2 (0.58%) NCSC
8 1 (0.29%) GRC
8 1 (0.29%) ISO 14001
8 1 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 1 (0.29%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 59 (17.05%) Active Directory
2 29 (8.38%) Docker
3 16 (4.62%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (1.73%) VMware NSX
5 4 (1.16%) Microsoft App-V
5 4 (1.16%) Snort
5 4 (1.16%) vSphere
6 3 (0.87%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.29%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 39 (11.27%) Kubernetes
2 27 (7.80%) Terraform
3 17 (4.91%) Microsoft Intune
4 13 (3.76%) Grafana
4 13 (3.76%) Prometheus
4 13 (3.76%) SCCM
5 10 (2.89%) Ansible
5 10 (2.89%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (1.16%) CSIRT
7 3 (0.87%) Control-M
7 3 (0.87%) HP ALM
7 3 (0.87%) IBM Guardium
7 3 (0.87%) Nessus
7 3 (0.87%) vRealize
8 2 (0.58%) Docker Swarm
8 2 (0.58%) HP Quality Center
8 2 (0.58%) Progress Chef
8 2 (0.58%) Puppet
8 2 (0.58%) QRadar
8 2 (0.58%) SCOM
Vendors
1 28 (8.09%) ServiceNow
2 23 (6.65%) Databricks
2 23 (6.65%) Oracle
3 22 (6.36%) SAP
4 18 (5.20%) Cisco
4 18 (5.20%) VMware
5 10 (2.89%) Splunk
6 7 (2.02%) CheckPoint
6 7 (2.02%) Informatica
6 7 (2.02%) SolarWinds
7 6 (1.73%) F5
7 6 (1.73%) Okta
7 6 (1.73%) Palo Alto
7 6 (1.73%) Tenable
7 6 (1.73%) Workday
8 4 (1.16%) Citrix
9 3 (0.87%) CyberArk
9 3 (0.87%) HP
9 3 (0.87%) Virgin Media
10 2 (0.58%) BeyondTrust