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 30 June 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
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 381 233 269
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.37% 15.70% 13.11%
As % of the Vendors category 25.38% 33.38% 29.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 292 145 180
10th Percentile £250 £168 £177
25th Percentile £350 £235 £272
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £388 £415
Median % change year-on-year +16.13% -6.63% -3.49%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £525
90th Percentile £622 £600 £650
England median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 20 20
10th Percentile £18.27 £14.84 £10.50
25th Percentile £19.34 £28.55 £11.06
Median hourly rate £25.00 £31.94 £14.44
Median % change year-on-year -21.73% +121.27% -19.81%
75th Percentile £70.00 £50.00 £26.50
90th Percentile £70.30 - £55.13
England median hourly rate £22.64 £22.50 £16.00
% change year-on-year +0.60% +40.63% -27.27%

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 1,501 698 899
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 44.78% 47.04% 43.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,035 433 596
10th Percentile £313 £200 £250
25th Percentile £400 £313 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £463 £450
Median % change year-on-year +1.41% +2.78% -5.26%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £645 £674 £688
England median daily rate £510 £513 £520
% change year-on-year -0.49% -1.44% -0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 30 53
10th Percentile £18.28 £14.99 £11.10
25th Percentile £22.50 £24.75 £14.00
Median hourly rate £33.99 £30.00 £19.95
Median % change year-on-year +13.30% +50.38% -11.33%
75th Percentile £53.75 £42.93 £28.75
90th Percentile £66.80 £50.00 £56.00
England median hourly rate £35.00 £26.39 £24.65
% change year-on-year +32.65% +7.04% -32.47%

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 30 June 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 30 June 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 30 June 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 +4 119 £450 +13.07% 69
Warwickshire -1 92 £493 +64.17% 16
Coventry -1 60 £450 +60.00% 16
Shropshire -36 32 £421 -12.74% 12
Worcestershire +3 15 £475 -47.22% 23
Solihull -22 11 £425 -7.61% 9
Staffordshire -3 10 £354 +152.68% 27
Herefordshire +1 9 £700 -22.22% 4
Dudley - 5 £400 - 9
Walsall +2 4 £600 -
West Bromwich - 3 - - 8
Brierley Hill - 2 £446 -
Wolverhampton -5 1 - - 8
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 (9.19%) SharePoint
2 15 (3.94%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (2.10%) Confluence
4 6 (1.57%) SAS
5 4 (1.05%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.79%) Apache
6 3 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.79%) IIS
6 3 (0.79%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.52%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.52%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.26%) Appian
8 1 (0.26%) CMS
Applications
1 47 (12.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (9.71%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (4.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (3.67%) MS Visio
5 10 (2.62%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.26%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 21 (5.51%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.79%) Primavera
3 2 (0.52%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.26%) SAP EHS
4 1 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.26%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 145 (38.06%) Azure
2 74 (19.42%) Microsoft 365
3 62 (16.27%) Power Platform
4 43 (11.29%) Entra ID
5 38 (9.97%) AWS
6 35 (9.19%) Azure DevOps
7 33 (8.66%) Dynamics 365
8 28 (7.35%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 24 (6.30%) Microsoft Purview
10 22 (5.77%) Azure Data Factory
11 19 (4.99%) Power Automate
12 18 (4.72%) OneDrive
13 15 (3.94%) Microsoft Copilot
14 12 (3.15%) GCP
15 11 (2.89%) Serverless
16 10 (2.62%) GitHub
16 10 (2.62%) PowerApps
17 9 (2.36%) GitHub Actions
18 6 (1.57%) Azure Key Vault
18 6 (1.57%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 30 (7.87%) DNS
1 30 (7.87%) VPN
2 23 (6.04%) DHCP
2 23 (6.04%) Firewall
3 13 (3.41%) LAN
4 10 (2.62%) Network Security
4 10 (2.62%) WAN
5 9 (2.36%) Wi-Fi
6 8 (2.10%) SSL
6 8 (2.10%) TCP/IP
7 6 (1.57%) Cisco IOS
7 6 (1.57%) HTTP
8 5 (1.31%) BIG-IP
8 5 (1.31%) HTTPS
8 5 (1.31%) Intrusion Detection
8 5 (1.31%) Wireless
9 4 (1.05%) IPsec
9 4 (1.05%) SAN
9 4 (1.05%) SMTP
9 4 (1.05%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (10.50%) Power BI
2 24 (6.30%) Data Warehouse
3 18 (4.72%) SQL Server
4 15 (3.94%) PostgreSQL
5 10 (2.62%) Azure SQL Database
6 9 (2.36%) Delta Lake
7 8 (2.10%) Data Lake
8 7 (1.84%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
8 7 (1.84%) Metadata
8 7 (1.84%) NoSQL
8 7 (1.84%) Relational Database
9 6 (1.57%) MySQL
10 4 (1.05%) Oracle Database
10 4 (1.05%) Redis
11 3 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.79%) Power Query
11 3 (0.79%) SAP Data Services
11 3 (0.79%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 3 (0.79%) Tableau
12 2 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 31 (8.14%) JIRA
2 8 (2.10%) Git
3 7 (1.84%) Team Foundation Server
4 6 (1.57%) Selenium
4 6 (1.57%) Visual Studio
4 6 (1.57%) WebDriver
5 4 (1.05%) Cypress.io
5 4 (1.05%) GitLab
5 4 (1.05%) MLflow
5 4 (1.05%) Postman
6 2 (0.52%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.52%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.52%) JMeter
6 2 (0.52%) MSI
6 2 (0.52%) NUnit
6 2 (0.52%) Protractor
7 1 (0.26%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.26%) Maven
7 1 (0.26%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.26%) Zephyr
General
1 119 (31.23%) Social Skills
2 51 (13.39%) Finance
3 43 (11.29%) Analytical Skills
4 29 (7.61%) Public Sector
5 17 (4.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 12 (3.15%) Organisational Skills
7 10 (2.62%) Banking
7 10 (2.62%) Manufacturing
8 8 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (1.84%) Games
9 7 (1.84%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (1.84%) Legal
10 6 (1.57%) Police
11 5 (1.31%) Law
11 5 (1.31%) Retail
12 4 (1.05%) Electronics
12 4 (1.05%) Marketing
13 3 (0.79%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.79%) Publishing
14 2 (0.52%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 59 (15.49%) Analyst
2 42 (11.02%) Developer
3 36 (9.45%) Senior
4 33 (8.66%) Architect
5 26 (6.82%) Data Engineer
6 20 (5.25%) Consultant
6 20 (5.25%) Lead
7 15 (3.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 14 (3.67%) Business Analyst
9 13 (3.41%) Azure Engineer
9 13 (3.41%) Solutions Architect
9 13 (3.41%) Support Engineer
10 12 (3.15%) Data Architect
11 11 (2.89%) Administrator
12 10 (2.62%) IT Support
13 9 (2.36%) Senior Data Engineer
14 8 (2.10%) Cloud Engineer
14 8 (2.10%) IT Engineer
14 8 (2.10%) PMO Analyst
14 8 (2.10%) Security Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (5.25%) PySpark
2 10 (2.62%) JSON
2 10 (2.62%) XML
3 9 (2.36%) .NET
3 9 (2.36%) SailPoint
4 7 (1.84%) FastAPI
5 6 (1.57%) ActiveX
5 6 (1.57%) SAML
5 6 (1.57%) SOAP
6 5 (1.31%) ADO
6 5 (1.31%) LDAP
6 5 (1.31%) REST
7 4 (1.05%) .NET Framework
7 4 (1.05%) Flask
7 4 (1.05%) Gherkin
7 4 (1.05%) gRPC
7 4 (1.05%) Kafka
7 4 (1.05%) OpenTelemetry
7 4 (1.05%) WebSockets
7 4 (1.05%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 28 (7.35%) Onboarding
2 26 (6.82%) Cloud Native
3 17 (4.46%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (2.62%) Enterprise Software
4 10 (2.62%) Security Operations Centre
5 9 (2.36%) Management Information System
5 9 (2.36%) Self-Motivation
6 8 (2.10%) Data Centre
6 8 (2.10%) Product Ownership
6 8 (2.10%) SCADA
7 7 (1.84%) Smartphone
8 6 (1.57%) Operational Technology
8 6 (1.57%) Security Posture
9 5 (1.31%) CMDB
9 5 (1.31%) Public Cloud
10 4 (1.05%) CSOC
10 4 (1.05%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (1.05%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.05%) Virtual Team
11 3 (0.79%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 84 (22.05%) Windows
2 27 (7.09%) Linux
2 27 (7.09%) Windows 10
3 23 (6.04%) Windows Server
4 10 (2.62%) Mac OS
5 7 (1.84%) Android
6 5 (1.31%) Apple iOS
6 5 (1.31%) SUSE
7 4 (1.05%) Ubuntu
7 4 (1.05%) Unix
7 4 (1.05%) Windows 7
8 3 (0.79%) Windows Server 2012
8 3 (0.79%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.52%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.26%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 76 (19.95%) Problem-Solving
2 69 (18.11%) Agile
3 59 (15.49%) DevOps
4 58 (15.22%) CI/CD
5 56 (14.70%) Migration
6 49 (12.86%) AI
6 49 (12.86%) Continuous Improvement
7 46 (12.07%) Analytics
8 40 (10.50%) Business Intelligence
9 38 (9.97%) Stakeholder Management
10 33 (8.66%) Customer Service
11 31 (8.14%) Infrastructure as Code
11 31 (8.14%) Validation
12 30 (7.87%) ITIL
13 28 (7.35%) Data Modelling
13 28 (7.35%) ETL
14 27 (7.09%) Containerisation
14 27 (7.09%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 27 (7.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 25 (6.56%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 62 (16.27%) SQL
2 38 (9.97%) Python
3 20 (5.25%) PowerShell
4 13 (3.41%) Bicep
5 12 (3.15%) C#
6 11 (2.89%) Java
7 9 (2.36%) Kusto Query Language
8 8 (2.10%) JavaScript
8 8 (2.10%) VB
8 8 (2.10%) VBA
9 7 (1.84%) PL/SQL
10 6 (1.57%) VB6
11 5 (1.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 4 (1.05%) Go
13 3 (0.79%) MATLAB
13 3 (0.79%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.52%) Bash
14 2 (0.52%) Scala
14 2 (0.52%) Shell Script
14 2 (0.52%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 64 (16.80%) Security Cleared
2 50 (13.12%) SC Cleared
3 33 (8.66%) Degree
4 16 (4.20%) Microsoft Certification
5 13 (3.41%) CISSP
6 11 (2.89%) AWS Certification
6 11 (2.89%) ISTQB
7 10 (2.62%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (2.36%) DV Cleared
9 8 (2.10%) Azure Certification
9 8 (2.10%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (2.10%) CISM
10 5 (1.31%) CCNA
10 5 (1.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 5 (1.31%) Master's Degree
11 4 (1.05%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (1.05%) OCP
11 4 (1.05%) Oracle Certification
11 4 (1.05%) PhD
12 3 (0.79%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (6.30%) Data Quality
2 17 (4.46%) QA
3 16 (4.20%) GDPR
3 16 (4.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (3.67%) Accessibility
4 14 (3.67%) SLA
5 13 (3.41%) NIST
5 13 (3.41%) PMO
6 5 (1.31%) WCAG
7 4 (1.05%) GRC
8 3 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 12207
8 3 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 2 (0.52%) GxP
9 2 (0.52%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.26%) Basel III
10 1 (0.26%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.26%) ISO 14001
10 1 (0.26%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 73 (19.16%) Active Directory
2 27 (7.09%) Docker
3 22 (5.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (2.62%) Hyper-V
4 10 (2.62%) vSphere
5 7 (1.84%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (1.05%) Snort
6 4 (1.05%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (1.05%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.52%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.52%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.52%) XenApp
8 2 (0.52%) XenDesktop
9 1 (0.26%) Firmware
9 1 (0.26%) NFS
Systems Management
1 36 (9.45%) Kubernetes
2 35 (9.19%) Microsoft Intune
3 23 (6.04%) Terraform
4 22 (5.77%) SCCM
5 14 (3.67%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (2.89%) Grafana
6 11 (2.89%) Prometheus
7 4 (1.05%) CSIRT
8 3 (0.79%) Ansible
8 3 (0.79%) Control-M
8 3 (0.79%) HP ALM
8 3 (0.79%) IBM Guardium
8 3 (0.79%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (0.79%) Nessus
8 3 (0.79%) QRadar
9 2 (0.52%) Check_MK
9 2 (0.52%) HP Quality Center
9 2 (0.52%) SCOM
9 2 (0.52%) WMI
9 2 (0.52%) WSUS
Vendors
1 34 (8.92%) ServiceNow
2 27 (7.09%) Oracle
3 26 (6.82%) VMware
4 25 (6.56%) Cisco
4 25 (6.56%) Databricks
5 24 (6.30%) SAP
6 12 (3.15%) Splunk
7 9 (2.36%) UiPath
8 8 (2.10%) Red Hat
9 7 (1.84%) F5
9 7 (1.84%) Okta
10 6 (1.57%) Canon
10 6 (1.57%) CheckPoint
10 6 (1.57%) Fortinet
10 6 (1.57%) Informatica
10 6 (1.57%) Palo Alto
10 6 (1.57%) SolarWinds
11 5 (1.31%) IBM
11 5 (1.31%) MathWorks
11 5 (1.31%) Siemens