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 17 October 2025, 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
17 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 6 4 3
Rank change year-on-year -2 -1 +5
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 307 302 335
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 16.18% 16.09% 16.57%
As % of the Vendors category 30.28% 33.33% 32.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 219 207 249
10th Percentile £197 £172 £160
25th Percentile £300 £280 £258
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £435 £400
Median % change year-on-year +2.76% +8.75% -8.57%
75th Percentile £588 £559 £538
90th Percentile £653 £627 £688
England median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 4 19
10th Percentile £15.98 £15.68 £17.50
25th Percentile £25.55 £22.03 £17.75
Median hourly rate £30.00 £30.56 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.84% +32.88% +53.33%
75th Percentile £46.25 £35.00 £25.50
90th Percentile £50.00 - £36.05
England median hourly rate £22.32 £19.59 £23.00
% change year-on-year +13.91% -14.83% +22.49%

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 1,014 906 1,021
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 53.45% 48.27% 50.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 642 591 644
10th Percentile £263 £220 £214
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £464
Median % change year-on-year - +7.82% -6.31%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £600
90th Percentile £662 £713 £688
England median daily rate £510 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.86% - -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 13 21
10th Percentile £15.71 £14.40 £17.50
25th Percentile £19.69 £15.22 £17.75
Median hourly rate £30.00 £26.13 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.83% +13.59% +39.39%
75th Percentile £35.63 £35.00 £34.50
90th Percentile £50.00 £57.75 £42.25
England median hourly rate £25.00 £35.36 £44.50
% change year-on-year -29.30% -20.54% +82.68%

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 17 October 2025.

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 17 October 2025.

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 17 October 2025. 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 -1 106 £400 -11.11% 106
Warwickshire -6 67 £475 -17.39% 32
Coventry +10 31 £313 -37.50% 23
Shropshire -17 27 £506 +18.56% 11
Worcestershire -4 21 £575 +177.11% 21
Staffordshire +4 18 £200 -25.58% 60
Solihull +1 18 £510 +13.84% 8
Herefordshire -1 7 £650 +2.36% 12
Wolverhampton -1 4 £344 +0.73% 19
Walsall +1 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 20 (6.51%) SharePoint
2 10 (3.26%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (2.93%) SAS
4 7 (2.28%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (1.95%) Confluence
6 5 (1.63%) Oracle Workflow
7 3 (0.98%) Apache
7 3 (0.98%) IIS
8 2 (0.65%) Apache Spark
8 2 (0.65%) FileNet
9 1 (0.33%) Apache Pig
9 1 (0.33%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 1 (0.33%) WebLogic
Applications
1 53 (17.26%) Microsoft Office
2 43 (14.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (6.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (5.54%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (1.95%) Adobe Captivate
5 6 (1.95%) Maya
6 3 (0.98%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.65%) Trello
8 1 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.33%) Moqups
8 1 (0.33%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.33%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 9 (2.93%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.95%) SAP PM
3 2 (0.65%) Dynamics NAV
3 2 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.33%) MIS ActiveH
4 1 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.33%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.33%) Oracle HRMS
4 1 (0.33%) Primavera
4 1 (0.33%) SAP BPC
4 1 (0.33%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 108 (35.18%) Azure
2 53 (17.26%) Microsoft 365
3 44 (14.33%) Power Platform
4 40 (13.03%) AWS
5 26 (8.47%) Dynamics 365
6 25 (8.14%) Azure DevOps
6 25 (8.14%) Entra ID
7 21 (6.84%) Azure Data Factory
8 19 (6.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 16 (5.21%) GCP
9 16 (5.21%) GitHub
9 16 (5.21%) GitHub Actions
9 16 (5.21%) Serverless
10 14 (4.56%) Microsoft Purview
10 14 (4.56%) Power Automate
10 14 (4.56%) PowerApps
11 12 (3.91%) SaaS
12 10 (3.26%) Azure Key Vault
13 9 (2.93%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 9 (2.93%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 28 (9.12%) Firewall
2 25 (8.14%) DNS
3 24 (7.82%) DHCP
4 14 (4.56%) VPN
5 12 (3.91%) TCP/IP
6 11 (3.58%) Wireless
7 7 (2.28%) WAN
8 6 (1.95%) LAN
9 5 (1.63%) Cisco IOS
9 5 (1.63%) Network Security
9 5 (1.63%) PuTTY
9 5 (1.63%) WLAN
10 4 (1.30%) Unified Communications
10 4 (1.30%) VLAN
10 4 (1.30%) VoIP
10 4 (1.30%) Wi-Fi
11 3 (0.98%) Internet
11 3 (0.98%) Remote Desktop
11 3 (0.98%) Telepresence
12 2 (0.65%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (9.45%) Power BI
2 13 (4.23%) SQL Server
3 11 (3.58%) Data Warehouse
3 11 (3.58%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (3.26%) Azure SQL Database
5 8 (2.61%) Delta Lake
5 8 (2.61%) NoSQL
5 8 (2.61%) Oracle Database
5 8 (2.61%) Redis
6 7 (2.28%) Data Mining
6 7 (2.28%) GIS
6 7 (2.28%) Tableau
7 6 (1.95%) SAS Enterprise Guide
7 6 (1.95%) SAS Visual Analytics
8 4 (1.30%) Metadata
8 4 (1.30%) SAS Data Integration Studio
9 3 (0.98%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.98%) Hadoop
9 3 (0.98%) Pentaho
10 2 (0.65%) Apache Hive
Development Applications
1 16 (5.21%) JIRA
2 11 (3.58%) GitLab
3 10 (3.26%) Git
4 9 (2.93%) Jenkins
5 4 (1.30%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.65%) CircleCI
6 2 (0.65%) Liquibase
6 2 (0.65%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.33%) InstallShield
7 1 (0.33%) Jaeger
7 1 (0.33%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.33%) MLflow
7 1 (0.33%) MSI
7 1 (0.33%) NUnit
7 1 (0.33%) PVCS
7 1 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.33%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.33%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.33%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 125 (40.72%) Social Skills
2 52 (16.94%) Analytical Skills
3 51 (16.61%) Finance
4 28 (9.12%) Public Sector
5 19 (6.19%) Organisational Skills
6 16 (5.21%) Manufacturing
7 14 (4.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 12 (3.91%) Automotive
9 10 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
9 10 (3.26%) Legal
10 9 (2.93%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (2.28%) Banking
12 6 (1.95%) Games
13 3 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.98%) Law
13 3 (0.98%) Marketing
14 2 (0.65%) Advertising
15 1 (0.33%) Aerospace
15 1 (0.33%) Billing
15 1 (0.33%) Environmental Health
Job Titles
1 59 (19.22%) Analyst
2 28 (9.12%) Architect
3 21 (6.84%) Developer
4 20 (6.51%) Senior
5 18 (5.86%) Administrator
5 18 (5.86%) Support Engineer
6 17 (5.54%) Lead
6 17 (5.54%) Support Analyst
7 15 (4.89%) Project Manager
8 11 (3.58%) 2nd Line Support
8 11 (3.58%) Consultant
8 11 (3.58%) Data Analyst
8 11 (3.58%) IT Support
9 9 (2.93%) IT Analyst
10 8 (2.61%) 2nd Line Support Analyst
10 8 (2.61%) Backend Developer
10 8 (2.61%) Data Architect
10 8 (2.61%) Data Engineer
10 8 (2.61%) Python Developer
11 7 (2.28%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (5.21%) .NET
2 13 (4.23%) REST
3 12 (3.91%) HTML
4 9 (2.93%) Flask
5 8 (2.61%) FastAPI
5 8 (2.61%) GraphQL
5 8 (2.61%) WebSockets
6 7 (2.28%) CSS
6 7 (2.28%) Django
6 7 (2.28%) gRPC
6 7 (2.28%) Kafka
7 6 (1.95%) Middleware
7 6 (1.95%) Unreal Engine
7 6 (1.95%) V-Ray
8 3 (0.98%) .NET Framework
8 3 (0.98%) Elastic Stack
8 3 (0.98%) LDAP
8 3 (0.98%) OAuth
8 3 (0.98%) RESTful
9 2 (0.65%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 21 (6.84%) Onboarding
2 17 (5.54%) Cloud Native
3 13 (4.23%) SCADA
4 12 (3.91%) Self-Motivation
5 9 (2.93%) Data Centre
5 9 (2.93%) IoT
5 9 (2.93%) Product Ownership
6 8 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.95%) Animation
7 6 (1.95%) Driving Licence
7 6 (1.95%) Video Conferencing
7 6 (1.95%) Virtual Reality
7 6 (1.95%) Virtual Team
8 5 (1.63%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.63%) Team-Oriented Environment
9 4 (1.30%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (1.30%) Legacy Applications
9 4 (1.30%) PKI
10 3 (0.98%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.98%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 68 (22.15%) Windows
2 19 (6.19%) Windows 10
3 13 (4.23%) Linux
4 11 (3.58%) Windows Server
5 7 (2.28%) Mac OS
6 5 (1.63%) Android
7 2 (0.65%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.33%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.33%) SUSE
8 1 (0.33%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.33%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (18.57%) Problem-Solving
2 56 (18.24%) DevOps
3 55 (17.92%) ITIL
4 53 (17.26%) Migration
5 49 (15.96%) Agile
6 42 (13.68%) Analytics
7 41 (13.36%) CI/CD
8 37 (12.05%) Change Management
9 34 (11.07%) Business Intelligence
10 30 (9.77%) Project Management
11 29 (9.45%) Customer Service
12 26 (8.47%) Stakeholder Management
13 24 (7.82%) Continuous Improvement
14 23 (7.49%) Containerisation
14 23 (7.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 22 (7.17%) Cybersecurity
15 22 (7.17%) Data Management
16 21 (6.84%) AI
17 20 (6.51%) Data Modelling
17 20 (6.51%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 56 (18.24%) SQL
2 31 (10.10%) Python
3 26 (8.47%) PowerShell
4 12 (3.91%) Go
5 11 (3.58%) Java
5 11 (3.58%) JavaScript
6 10 (3.26%) Kusto Query Language
7 9 (2.93%) C#
8 7 (2.28%) C++
9 5 (1.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 4 (1.30%) Bicep
11 3 (0.98%) Scala
11 3 (0.98%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.65%) Bash
12 2 (0.65%) Perl
12 2 (0.65%) VB
13 1 (0.33%) Groovy
13 1 (0.33%) R
13 1 (0.33%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.33%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 52 (16.94%) Security Cleared
2 42 (13.68%) SC Cleared
3 35 (11.40%) Degree
4 24 (7.82%) Microsoft Certification
5 15 (4.89%) Computer Science Degree
6 12 (3.91%) DV Cleared
7 8 (2.61%) Azure Certification
8 7 (2.28%) AWS Certification
8 7 (2.28%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 7 (2.28%) MCP
9 6 (1.95%) CCNA
9 6 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (1.63%) CCNP
10 5 (1.63%) MCDST
11 4 (1.30%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 4 (1.30%) MCSE
12 3 (0.98%) CISSP
12 3 (0.98%) HNC
13 2 (0.65%) DBS Check
13 2 (0.65%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (5.21%) Data Quality
2 12 (3.91%) PMO
3 9 (2.93%) GDPR
3 9 (2.93%) QA
4 8 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (1.95%) Accessibility
5 6 (1.95%) SLA
6 5 (1.63%) Cyber Essentials
6 5 (1.63%) NIST
7 3 (0.98%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 3 (0.98%) NCSC
8 1 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.33%) COSHH
8 1 (0.33%) GRC
8 1 (0.33%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.33%) ISO 14001
8 1 (0.33%) ISO 22301
8 1 (0.33%) NEBOSH
8 1 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 55 (17.92%) Active Directory
2 28 (9.12%) Docker
3 6 (1.95%) Firmware
3 6 (1.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.98%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.65%) Microsoft App-V
5 2 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.65%) vSphere
6 1 (0.33%) BitLocker
6 1 (0.33%) HDFS
6 1 (0.33%) Snort
6 1 (0.33%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 31 (10.10%) Kubernetes
2 26 (8.47%) SCCM
3 14 (4.56%) Grafana
3 14 (4.56%) Microsoft Intune
4 13 (4.23%) Terraform
5 11 (3.58%) Prometheus
6 6 (1.95%) Ansible
7 4 (1.30%) QRadar
7 4 (1.30%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.98%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.65%) CSIRT
9 2 (0.65%) Nagios
9 2 (0.65%) SCOM
10 1 (0.33%) Argo
10 1 (0.33%) Hadoop YARN
10 1 (0.33%) Istio
10 1 (0.33%) PowerCLI
10 1 (0.33%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 27 (8.79%) Cisco
2 25 (8.14%) Oracle
3 18 (5.86%) SAP
4 17 (5.54%) ServiceNow
5 13 (4.23%) Splunk
6 11 (3.58%) Adobe
7 10 (3.26%) Databricks
8 7 (2.28%) Google
8 7 (2.28%) VMware
9 6 (1.95%) Apple
9 6 (1.95%) Autodesk
9 6 (1.95%) IBM
9 6 (1.95%) iManage
9 6 (1.95%) Informatica
9 6 (1.95%) Salesforce
10 5 (1.63%) AppDynamics
10 5 (1.63%) Atlassian
10 5 (1.63%) Citrix
10 5 (1.63%) CyberArk
10 5 (1.63%) Peregrine