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 11 August 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
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 5 4
Rank change year-on-year -4 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 423 270 262
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.09% 15.94% 14.07%
As % of the Vendors category 26.45% 33.17% 30.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 322 178 178
10th Percentile £258 £165 £164
25th Percentile £375 £263 £271
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £418
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% -4.19% +4.38%
75th Percentile £520 £541 £520
90th Percentile £622 £613 £638
England median daily rate £490 £475 £498
% change year-on-year +3.16% -4.62% -0.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 21 8
10th Percentile £15.95 £15.13 £13.78
25th Percentile £17.74 £27.21 £15.24
Median hourly rate £21.50 £30.00 £31.81
Median % change year-on-year -28.33% -5.70% +67.43%
75th Percentile £21.75 £50.00 £55.31
90th Percentile £70.09 - £56.25
England median hourly rate £21.50 £22.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year -4.99% +39.43% -26.23%

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 1,599 814 860
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 45.70% 48.05% 46.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,092 520 599
10th Percentile £317 £230 £263
25th Percentile £402 £350 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.11% - -
75th Percentile £550 £575 £613
90th Percentile £655 £638 £698
England median daily rate £510 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +0.52% -3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 29 20
10th Percentile £14.35 £14.86 £13.93
25th Percentile £19.82 £24.66 £15.17
Median hourly rate £27.30 £30.00 £25.06
Median % change year-on-year -9.00% +19.70% +11.39%
75th Percentile £49.00 £43.25 £47.88
90th Percentile £64.15 £50.00 £57.38
England median hourly rate £34.00 £25.15 £30.00
% change year-on-year +35.19% -16.17% -20.00%

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 11 August 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 11 August 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 11 August 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 +1 124 £450 +22.55% 165
Warwickshire -4 88 £450 +12.50% 31
Coventry 0 79 £425 +44.68% 31
Shropshire -28 49 £447 -13.20% 19
Staffordshire -4 12 £413 +194.64% 43
Worcestershire 0 10 £450 -21.74% 25
Solihull -30 9 £425 -11.64% 6
Herefordshire +3 8 £700 -22.22% 9
Dudley - 6 £400 - 9
Walsall +2 4 £600 - 8
West Bromwich - 3 - - 3
Brierley Hill - 2 £446 - 2
Halesowen - 1 - - 1
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 (9.22%) SharePoint
2 14 (3.31%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (1.18%) SAS
4 4 (0.95%) Apache Spark
4 4 (0.95%) Confluence
5 3 (0.71%) Apache
5 3 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.71%) IIS
5 3 (0.71%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.47%) CloudStack
6 2 (0.47%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.24%) Appian
7 1 (0.24%) CMS
Applications
1 45 (10.64%) Microsoft Excel
2 38 (8.98%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (3.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (2.36%) MS Visio
5 9 (2.13%) Microsoft Project
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
6 1 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 24 (5.67%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.18%) SAP PSCD
3 3 (0.71%) Primavera
4 2 (0.47%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.24%) Dynamics AX
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 S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 178 (42.08%) Azure
2 91 (21.51%) Microsoft 365
3 78 (18.44%) Power Platform
4 50 (11.82%) Azure DevOps
4 50 (11.82%) Dynamics 365
5 46 (10.87%) Entra ID
6 38 (8.98%) Power Automate
7 37 (8.75%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 35 (8.27%) Microsoft Purview
9 33 (7.80%) AWS
9 33 (7.80%) Azure Data Factory
10 24 (5.67%) PowerApps
11 22 (5.20%) OneDrive
12 17 (4.02%) Serverless
13 15 (3.55%) Microsoft Copilot
14 11 (2.60%) GCP
15 10 (2.36%) GitHub
15 10 (2.36%) GitHub Actions
16 8 (1.89%) Azure Functions
17 7 (1.65%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 32 (7.57%) DNS
2 25 (5.91%) DHCP
2 25 (5.91%) VPN
3 19 (4.49%) Firewall
4 11 (2.60%) LAN
5 10 (2.36%) TCP/IP
6 9 (2.13%) Wi-Fi
7 8 (1.89%) WAN
8 6 (1.42%) Cisco IOS
8 6 (1.42%) SSL
9 5 (1.18%) Network Security
10 4 (0.95%) SAN
10 4 (0.95%) SD-WAN
11 3 (0.71%) BIG-IP
11 3 (0.71%) Intrusion Detection
11 3 (0.71%) NAS
11 3 (0.71%) SNMP
11 3 (0.71%) Structured Cabling
11 3 (0.71%) Wireless
12 2 (0.47%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (10.64%) Power BI
2 30 (7.09%) Data Warehouse
2 30 (7.09%) SQL Server
3 21 (4.96%) PostgreSQL
4 14 (3.31%) Azure SQL Database
5 13 (3.07%) Data Lake
6 12 (2.84%) MySQL
7 11 (2.60%) Delta Lake
8 8 (1.89%) NoSQL
9 7 (1.65%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
9 7 (1.65%) Metadata
9 7 (1.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 6 (1.42%) Data Vault
10 6 (1.42%) Relational Database
11 5 (1.18%) Oracle Database
12 3 (0.71%) Power Query
12 3 (0.71%) Redis
12 3 (0.71%) SAP Data Services
12 3 (0.71%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 3 (0.71%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 19 (4.49%) JIRA
2 12 (2.84%) Team Foundation Server
3 11 (2.60%) Selenium
3 11 (2.60%) Visual Studio
3 11 (2.60%) WebDriver
4 9 (2.13%) Cypress.io
4 9 (2.13%) Postman
5 7 (1.65%) Git
6 6 (1.42%) Cucumber
7 4 (0.95%) MLflow
8 3 (0.71%) GitLab
8 3 (0.71%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.71%) Protractor
9 2 (0.47%) MSI
9 2 (0.47%) NUnit
10 1 (0.24%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.24%) Maven
10 1 (0.24%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.24%) Zephyr
General
1 139 (32.86%) Social Skills
2 60 (14.18%) Finance
3 42 (9.93%) Analytical Skills
3 42 (9.93%) Public Sector
4 30 (7.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 16 (3.78%) Organisational Skills
6 11 (2.60%) Manufacturing
7 10 (2.36%) Banking
7 10 (2.36%) Legal
8 7 (1.65%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (1.65%) Marketing
9 6 (1.42%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (1.42%) Law
10 5 (1.18%) Games
10 5 (1.18%) Retail
11 4 (0.95%) Billing
12 3 (0.71%) Electronics
13 2 (0.47%) Local Government
13 2 (0.47%) Publishing
13 2 (0.47%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 59 (13.95%) Analyst
2 53 (12.53%) Developer
3 47 (11.11%) Senior
4 42 (9.93%) Data Engineer
5 34 (8.04%) Architect
6 28 (6.62%) Consultant
7 27 (6.38%) Lead
8 21 (4.96%) Azure Engineer
9 19 (4.49%) Administrator
10 15 (3.55%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 15 (3.55%) Solutions Architect
11 13 (3.07%) Data Architect
11 13 (3.07%) Senior Data Engineer
12 11 (2.60%) Dynamics 365 Developer
12 11 (2.60%) Support Engineer
12 11 (2.60%) Test Analyst
13 10 (2.36%) DBA
13 10 (2.36%) IT Support
13 10 (2.36%) Senior Analyst
14 9 (2.13%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (4.96%) PySpark
2 17 (4.02%) JSON
3 16 (3.78%) SOAP
4 14 (3.31%) XML
5 11 (2.60%) ActiveX
6 10 (2.36%) REST
7 9 (2.13%) .NET
7 9 (2.13%) Gherkin
8 6 (1.42%) Kafka
9 5 (1.18%) JDBC
9 5 (1.18%) SAP PI
9 5 (1.18%) YAML
10 4 (0.95%) .NET Framework
10 4 (0.95%) IDoc
10 4 (0.95%) Microsoft Graph
11 3 (0.71%) FastAPI
11 3 (0.71%) Flask
11 3 (0.71%) GraphQL
11 3 (0.71%) gRPC
11 3 (0.71%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 25 (5.91%) Cloud Native
2 21 (4.96%) Onboarding
3 16 (3.78%) Hybrid Cloud
4 14 (3.31%) Product Ownership
5 13 (3.07%) Management Information System
5 13 (3.07%) SCADA
6 9 (2.13%) CMDB
7 8 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
7 8 (1.89%) Security Operations Centre
8 7 (1.65%) Data Centre
8 7 (1.65%) Operational Technology
8 7 (1.65%) Smartphone
9 6 (1.42%) Data Structures
9 6 (1.42%) IoT
9 6 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (1.18%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.18%) PKI
10 5 (1.18%) Public Cloud
10 5 (1.18%) Security Posture
11 4 (0.95%) iPhone
Operating Systems
1 82 (19.39%) Windows
2 24 (5.67%) Windows 10
2 24 (5.67%) Windows Server
3 23 (5.44%) Linux
4 12 (2.84%) Mac OS
5 7 (1.65%) Android
6 6 (1.42%) Unix
7 5 (1.18%) SUSE
7 5 (1.18%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.95%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.71%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.47%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.24%) CentOS
11 1 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 85 (20.09%) Problem-Solving
2 70 (16.55%) DevOps
3 68 (16.08%) Agile
4 55 (13.00%) CI/CD
4 55 (13.00%) Migration
5 54 (12.77%) Continuous Improvement
6 52 (12.29%) AI
6 52 (12.29%) Analytics
7 50 (11.82%) Stakeholder Management
8 48 (11.35%) Business Intelligence
9 46 (10.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 42 (9.93%) Data Modelling
11 38 (8.98%) Customer Service
12 37 (8.75%) ETL
12 37 (8.75%) Validation
13 35 (8.27%) Technical Leadership
14 34 (8.04%) ITIL
15 32 (7.57%) ITSM
16 31 (7.33%) CRM
16 31 (7.33%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 71 (16.78%) SQL
2 41 (9.69%) Python
3 21 (4.96%) JavaScript
4 20 (4.73%) C#
5 17 (4.02%) Java
6 15 (3.55%) PowerShell
7 13 (3.07%) Bicep
7 13 (3.07%) VBA
8 11 (2.60%) VB
8 11 (2.60%) VB6
9 8 (1.89%) Kusto Query Language
10 7 (1.65%) T-SQL
11 5 (1.18%) ABAP
11 5 (1.18%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 5 (1.18%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.71%) Bash
12 3 (0.71%) Go
13 2 (0.47%) MATLAB
13 2 (0.47%) Scala
13 2 (0.47%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 74 (17.49%) Security Cleared
2 60 (14.18%) SC Cleared
3 32 (7.57%) Microsoft Certification
4 25 (5.91%) Degree
5 15 (3.55%) BPSS Clearance
6 13 (3.07%) ISTQB
7 11 (2.60%) Azure Certification
8 10 (2.36%) OCP
8 10 (2.36%) Oracle Certification
9 9 (2.13%) CISSP
10 8 (1.89%) AWS Certification
11 7 (1.65%) Cisco Certification
12 5 (1.18%) CISM
12 5 (1.18%) DV Cleared
13 4 (0.95%) CCNP
13 4 (0.95%) ITIL Certification
13 4 (0.95%) Master's Degree
13 4 (0.95%) PhD
14 3 (0.71%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 2 (0.47%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (6.86%) Data Quality
2 24 (5.67%) Accessibility
3 22 (5.20%) GDPR
4 19 (4.49%) QA
5 16 (3.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 13 (3.07%) NIST
7 12 (2.84%) PMO
7 12 (2.84%) SLA
8 10 (2.36%) WCAG
9 4 (0.95%) GRC
9 4 (0.95%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 2 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 2 (0.47%) NCSC
11 1 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.24%) Basel III
11 1 (0.24%) ISO 14001
11 1 (0.24%) ISO 9001
11 1 (0.24%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 63 (14.89%) Active Directory
2 21 (4.96%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (4.26%) Docker
4 15 (3.55%) Hyper-V
5 11 (2.60%) vSphere
6 9 (2.13%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.95%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.71%) Snort
9 2 (0.47%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.47%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.47%) XenApp
9 2 (0.47%) XenDesktop
10 1 (0.24%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.24%) Firmware
10 1 (0.24%) NFS
Systems Management
1 38 (8.98%) Microsoft Intune
2 28 (6.62%) Kubernetes
3 24 (5.67%) Terraform
4 23 (5.44%) SCCM
5 14 (3.31%) Single Sign-On
6 7 (1.65%) Grafana
7 6 (1.42%) Prometheus
8 5 (1.18%) Ansible
8 5 (1.18%) Jamf Pro
9 3 (0.71%) CSIRT
9 3 (0.71%) QRadar
10 2 (0.47%) Check_MK
10 2 (0.47%) Failover Clustering
10 2 (0.47%) WMI
10 2 (0.47%) WSUS
11 1 (0.24%) AirWatch
11 1 (0.24%) Argo
11 1 (0.24%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.24%) SCOM
Vendors
1 35 (8.27%) Oracle
2 34 (8.04%) ServiceNow
3 29 (6.86%) Databricks
4 27 (6.38%) VMware
5 25 (5.91%) SAP
6 21 (4.96%) Cisco
7 11 (2.60%) Splunk
8 10 (2.36%) UiPath
9 9 (2.13%) Informatica
10 8 (1.89%) Apple
10 8 (1.89%) Red Hat
11 6 (1.42%) Canon
11 6 (1.42%) Citrix
11 6 (1.42%) Fortinet
11 6 (1.42%) Okta
11 6 (1.42%) Palo Alto
12 5 (1.18%) F5
12 5 (1.18%) IBM
12 5 (1.18%) Siemens
12 5 (1.18%) SolarWinds