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 28 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
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -3 0 -2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 414 258 262
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.97% 15.71% 13.65%
As % of the Vendors category 26.30% 33.68% 29.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 318 169 180
10th Percentile £261 £186 £165
25th Percentile £375 £250 £289
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £375 £410
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% -8.54% +2.50%
75th Percentile £525 £538 £520
90th Percentile £620 £613 £638
England median daily rate £492 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +3.58% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 22 13
10th Percentile £19.34 £15.41 £10.59
25th Percentile £21.25 £27.66 £11.06
Median hourly rate £21.50 £30.00 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.33% +114.29% -24.32%
75th Percentile £28.75 £50.00 £38.75
90th Percentile £70.16 - £56.00
England median hourly rate £24.33 £22.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year +7.51% +39.43% -25.38%

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 1,574 766 877
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 45.52% 46.65% 45.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,084 485 616
10th Percentile £315 £208 £256
25th Percentile £402 £325 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £460 £469
Median % change year-on-year +1.96% -1.87% -1.32%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £641 £688
England median daily rate £510 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +0.49% -3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 31 28
10th Percentile £18.54 £15.13 £11.02
25th Percentile £21.25 £24.83 £13.81
Median hourly rate £30.27 £30.00 £16.51
Median % change year-on-year +0.90% +81.76% -26.64%
75th Percentile £51.25 £42.61 £40.44
90th Percentile £66.80 £50.00 £59.63
England median hourly rate £35.91 £25.15 £27.50
% change year-on-year +42.78% -8.55% -30.47%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +1 121 £450 +38.46% 105
Warwickshire -5 87 £450 +28.57% 30
Coventry -1 71 £425 +47.83% 20
Shropshire -27 51 £447 +0.11% 20
Worcestershire +2 13 £450 -21.74% 17
Staffordshire -4 12 £400 +185.71% 28
Solihull -26 9 £425 -9.67% 5
Herefordshire +2 8 £700 -22.22% 6
Dudley - 5 £400 - 8
Walsall +2 4 £600 - 5
West Bromwich - 3 - - 6
Brierley Hill - 2 £446 - 1
Wolverhampton -5 1 - - 10
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 39 (9.42%) SharePoint
2 12 (2.90%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (1.69%) Confluence
4 5 (1.21%) SAS
5 4 (0.97%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.72%) Apache
6 3 (0.72%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.72%) IIS
6 3 (0.72%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.48%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.48%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.24%) Appian
8 1 (0.24%) CMS
Applications
1 44 (10.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (9.90%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (4.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (2.66%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (2.66%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.24%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.24%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.24%) Navisworks
6 1 (0.24%) ProjectWise
6 1 (0.24%) Revit
Business Applications
1 26 (6.28%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.21%) SAP PSCD
3 3 (0.72%) Primavera
4 2 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.24%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 1 (0.24%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.24%) SAP EHS
5 1 (0.24%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 164 (39.61%) Azure
2 87 (21.01%) Microsoft 365
3 75 (18.12%) Power Platform
4 50 (12.08%) Dynamics 365
5 46 (11.11%) Azure DevOps
6 39 (9.42%) Entra ID
7 37 (8.94%) AWS
8 34 (8.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 33 (7.97%) Microsoft Purview
9 33 (7.97%) Power Automate
10 27 (6.52%) Azure Data Factory
11 21 (5.07%) PowerApps
12 19 (4.59%) OneDrive
13 14 (3.38%) Microsoft Copilot
13 14 (3.38%) Serverless
14 13 (3.14%) GCP
15 9 (2.17%) GitHub
15 9 (2.17%) GitHub Actions
16 6 (1.45%) Azure Functions
16 6 (1.45%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 27 (6.52%) DNS
2 24 (5.80%) VPN
3 20 (4.83%) DHCP
3 20 (4.83%) Firewall
4 11 (2.66%) LAN
5 9 (2.17%) Wi-Fi
6 7 (1.69%) TCP/IP
6 7 (1.69%) WAN
7 6 (1.45%) Cisco IOS
7 6 (1.45%) Network Security
7 6 (1.45%) SSL
8 5 (1.21%) Intrusion Detection
9 4 (0.97%) SAN
10 3 (0.72%) BIG-IP
10 3 (0.72%) NAS
10 3 (0.72%) SD-WAN
10 3 (0.72%) Structured Cabling
10 3 (0.72%) Wireless
11 2 (0.48%) Remote Desktop
11 2 (0.48%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (10.63%) Power BI
2 29 (7.00%) SQL Server
3 28 (6.76%) Data Warehouse
4 21 (5.07%) PostgreSQL
5 14 (3.38%) Azure SQL Database
6 12 (2.90%) MySQL
7 10 (2.42%) Data Lake
7 10 (2.42%) Delta Lake
8 8 (1.93%) NoSQL
8 8 (1.93%) Relational Database
9 7 (1.69%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
9 7 (1.69%) Metadata
10 6 (1.45%) Data Vault
11 5 (1.21%) Oracle Database
11 5 (1.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 3 (0.72%) Power Query
12 3 (0.72%) Redis
12 3 (0.72%) SAP Data Services
12 3 (0.72%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 3 (0.72%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 27 (6.52%) JIRA
2 12 (2.90%) Team Foundation Server
3 11 (2.66%) Visual Studio
4 10 (2.42%) Selenium
4 10 (2.42%) WebDriver
5 8 (1.93%) Cypress.io
5 8 (1.93%) Postman
6 7 (1.69%) Git
7 5 (1.21%) Cucumber
8 4 (0.97%) MLflow
9 3 (0.72%) GitLab
9 3 (0.72%) Jenkins
9 3 (0.72%) Protractor
10 2 (0.48%) MSI
10 2 (0.48%) NUnit
11 1 (0.24%) CircleCI
11 1 (0.24%) JMeter
11 1 (0.24%) Maven
11 1 (0.24%) SonarQube
11 1 (0.24%) Zephyr
General
1 134 (32.37%) Social Skills
2 60 (14.49%) Finance
3 42 (10.14%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (9.66%) Public Sector
5 26 (6.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 13 (3.14%) Organisational Skills
7 10 (2.42%) Banking
7 10 (2.42%) Manufacturing
8 8 (1.93%) Legal
9 7 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (1.69%) Games
9 7 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (1.45%) Marketing
11 5 (1.21%) Law
11 5 (1.21%) Retail
12 4 (0.97%) Billing
12 4 (0.97%) Electronics
13 3 (0.72%) Local Government
13 3 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.48%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 60 (14.49%) Analyst
2 50 (12.08%) Developer
3 46 (11.11%) Senior
4 38 (9.18%) Data Engineer
5 33 (7.97%) Architect
6 29 (7.00%) Lead
7 27 (6.52%) Consultant
8 20 (4.83%) Azure Engineer
9 15 (3.62%) Administrator
9 15 (3.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 13 (3.14%) Solutions Architect
11 12 (2.90%) Business Analyst
11 12 (2.90%) Data Architect
11 12 (2.90%) Senior Data Engineer
12 11 (2.66%) DBA
12 11 (2.66%) Support Engineer
12 11 (2.66%) Test Analyst
13 9 (2.17%) Dynamics 365 Developer
13 9 (2.17%) Senior Analyst
13 9 (2.17%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (4.83%) PySpark
2 16 (3.86%) JSON
2 16 (3.86%) SOAP
3 15 (3.62%) XML
4 11 (2.66%) ActiveX
5 9 (2.17%) .NET
5 9 (2.17%) REST
6 8 (1.93%) Gherkin
7 5 (1.21%) JDBC
7 5 (1.21%) Kafka
7 5 (1.21%) SAP PI
7 5 (1.21%) YAML
8 4 (0.97%) .NET Framework
8 4 (0.97%) ADO
8 4 (0.97%) FastAPI
8 4 (0.97%) IDoc
8 4 (0.97%) Microsoft Graph
9 3 (0.72%) Flask
9 3 (0.72%) GraphQL
9 3 (0.72%) gRPC
Miscellaneous
1 25 (6.04%) Cloud Native
2 23 (5.56%) Onboarding
3 17 (4.11%) Hybrid Cloud
4 13 (3.14%) Management Information System
5 10 (2.42%) Product Ownership
5 10 (2.42%) SCADA
5 10 (2.42%) Security Operations Centre
6 9 (2.17%) Enterprise Software
7 7 (1.69%) Data Centre
7 7 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
7 7 (1.69%) Smartphone
8 6 (1.45%) CMDB
9 5 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.21%) Data Structures
9 5 (1.21%) Operational Technology
9 5 (1.21%) PKI
9 5 (1.21%) Public Cloud
9 5 (1.21%) Security Posture
9 5 (1.21%) Virtual Team
10 4 (0.97%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 83 (20.05%) Windows
2 27 (6.52%) Linux
3 24 (5.80%) Windows 10
4 22 (5.31%) Windows Server
5 11 (2.66%) Mac OS
6 7 (1.69%) Android
6 7 (1.69%) Unix
7 5 (1.21%) SUSE
7 5 (1.21%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.97%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.72%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.48%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.48%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.24%) CentOS
11 1 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (19.81%) Problem-Solving
2 76 (18.36%) Agile
3 69 (16.67%) DevOps
4 57 (13.77%) CI/CD
4 57 (13.77%) Migration
5 53 (12.80%) AI
6 52 (12.56%) Continuous Improvement
7 48 (11.59%) Analytics
7 48 (11.59%) Stakeholder Management
8 47 (11.35%) Business Intelligence
9 41 (9.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 39 (9.42%) Data Modelling
11 38 (9.18%) Validation
12 34 (8.21%) CRM
12 34 (8.21%) ETL
13 31 (7.49%) Technical Leadership
14 30 (7.25%) Customer Service
14 30 (7.25%) Infrastructure as Code
15 29 (7.00%) ITIL
16 28 (6.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 69 (16.67%) SQL
2 37 (8.94%) Python
3 20 (4.83%) Java
4 17 (4.11%) C#
4 17 (4.11%) JavaScript
5 16 (3.86%) PowerShell
6 13 (3.14%) VBA
7 12 (2.90%) Bicep
7 12 (2.90%) VB
8 11 (2.66%) VB6
9 9 (2.17%) Kusto Query Language
10 6 (1.45%) T-SQL
11 5 (1.21%) ABAP
11 5 (1.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 5 (1.21%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.72%) Bash
12 3 (0.72%) Go
12 3 (0.72%) MATLAB
13 2 (0.48%) Scala
13 2 (0.48%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 77 (18.60%) Security Cleared
2 63 (15.22%) SC Cleared
3 29 (7.00%) Degree
4 27 (6.52%) Microsoft Certification
5 15 (3.62%) BPSS Clearance
6 14 (3.38%) ISTQB
7 11 (2.66%) CISSP
8 10 (2.42%) AWS Certification
8 10 (2.42%) OCP
8 10 (2.42%) Oracle Certification
9 9 (2.17%) Azure Certification
9 9 (2.17%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.69%) DV Cleared
11 6 (1.45%) CISM
12 5 (1.21%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 5 (1.21%) Master's Degree
13 4 (0.97%) CCNA
13 4 (0.97%) ITIL Certification
13 4 (0.97%) PhD
14 3 (0.72%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (6.52%) Data Quality
2 22 (5.31%) Accessibility
2 22 (5.31%) GDPR
3 21 (5.07%) QA
4 17 (4.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (3.14%) SLA
6 12 (2.90%) NIST
7 11 (2.66%) PMO
8 9 (2.17%) WCAG
9 4 (0.97%) GRC
10 3 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 3 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 15288
11 2 (0.48%) NCSC
11 2 (0.48%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.24%) Basel III
12 1 (0.24%) FATCA
12 1 (0.24%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.24%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.24%) P3O
System Software
1 58 (14.01%) Active Directory
2 21 (5.07%) Docker
3 20 (4.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (3.14%) Hyper-V
5 10 (2.42%) vSphere
6 8 (1.93%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.97%) Snort
7 4 (0.97%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.48%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.48%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.48%) XenApp
8 2 (0.48%) XenDesktop
9 1 (0.24%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.24%) Firmware
9 1 (0.24%) NFS
Systems Management
1 34 (8.21%) Microsoft Intune
2 32 (7.73%) Kubernetes
3 23 (5.56%) Terraform
4 22 (5.31%) SCCM
5 15 (3.62%) Single Sign-On
6 8 (1.93%) Grafana
7 7 (1.69%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.97%) Ansible
8 4 (0.97%) CSIRT
8 4 (0.97%) Jamf Pro
9 3 (0.72%) QRadar
10 2 (0.48%) Check_MK
10 2 (0.48%) Failover Clustering
10 2 (0.48%) HP ALM
10 2 (0.48%) WMI
10 2 (0.48%) WSUS
11 1 (0.24%) Control-M
11 1 (0.24%) HP Quality Center
11 1 (0.24%) Nessus
11 1 (0.24%) SCOM
Vendors
1 36 (8.70%) Oracle
2 35 (8.45%) ServiceNow
3 30 (7.25%) SAP
4 27 (6.52%) Databricks
5 26 (6.28%) VMware
6 21 (5.07%) Cisco
7 12 (2.90%) Splunk
8 9 (2.17%) UiPath
9 8 (1.93%) Red Hat
10 7 (1.69%) Apple
11 6 (1.45%) Canon
11 6 (1.45%) Citrix
11 6 (1.45%) Informatica
11 6 (1.45%) Okta
12 5 (1.21%) F5
12 5 (1.21%) Fortinet
12 5 (1.21%) IBM
12 5 (1.21%) MathWorks
12 5 (1.21%) Siemens
12 5 (1.21%) webMethods