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 18 January 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
18 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 3 4
Rank change year-on-year -5 +1 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 306 278 254
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 13.09% 17.65% 14.18%
As % of the Vendors category 24.94% 36.06% 30.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 237 202 185
10th Percentile £172 £190 £181
25th Percentile £304 £308 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £435 £438
Median % change year-on-year +11.49% -0.57% -2.78%
75th Percentile £575 £573 £600
90th Percentile £651 £634 £688
England median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 12 18
10th Percentile £14.90 £12.18 £14.38
25th Percentile £15.69 £16.92 £17.75
Median hourly rate £17.17 £27.56 £21.48
Median % change year-on-year -37.71% +28.35% +46.29%
75th Percentile £22.13 £31.76 £23.00
90th Percentile £29.25 £35.00 £29.95
England median hourly rate £19.50 £22.27 £19.98
% change year-on-year -12.44% +11.49% -4.56%

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 1,227 771 846
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 52.50% 48.95% 47.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 790 501 511
10th Percentile £263 £208 £213
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -4.04%
75th Percentile £581 £612 £600
90th Percentile £650 £713 £680
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 21 29
10th Percentile £14.43 £12.18 £14.42
25th Percentile £17.10 £18.13 £17.75
Median hourly rate £22.00 £23.60 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.78% +4.89% +34.59%
75th Percentile £27.21 £30.68 £26.98
90th Percentile £62.99 £35.00 £41.90
England median hourly rate £23.79 £30.00 £38.45
% change year-on-year -20.71% -21.98% +20.33%

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 18 January 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 18 January 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 18 January 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 +1 130 £475 +0.21% 74
Warwickshire -8 49 £550 -3.00% 32
Shropshire -23 33 £500 -10.95% 30
Coventry -8 27 £310 +51.22% 20
Worcestershire -5 22 £625 +56.25% 15
Staffordshire 0 17 £203 -49.38% 24
Herefordshire -12 10 £650 +9.70% 6
Solihull +1 6 £600 +73.91% 8
Smethwick - 3 - -
Wolverhampton -1 2 £346 +2.52% 10
Walsall +2 1 £160 - 6
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 17 (5.56%) SharePoint
2 9 (2.94%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (2.94%) SAS
3 6 (1.96%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (1.96%) Confluence
4 4 (1.31%) Oracle Workflow
5 3 (0.98%) Apache
6 1 (0.33%) Apache Pig
6 1 (0.33%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.33%) FileNet
6 1 (0.33%) HCL Notes
6 1 (0.33%) IIS
6 1 (0.33%) WebLogic
Applications
1 38 (12.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (12.09%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (4.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 11 (3.59%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (2.61%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.98%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.33%) Moqups
7 1 (0.33%) Oracle Smart View
7 1 (0.33%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (4.25%) Dynamics CRM
2 11 (3.59%) Dynamics NAV
3 4 (1.31%) Workday HCM
4 3 (0.98%) Maximo
5 1 (0.33%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.33%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.33%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.33%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 118 (38.56%) Azure
2 57 (18.63%) Microsoft 365
3 51 (16.67%) Power Platform
4 49 (16.01%) AWS
5 39 (12.75%) Dynamics 365
6 27 (8.82%) Entra ID
7 25 (8.17%) Azure DevOps
7 25 (8.17%) Power Automate
8 20 (6.54%) PowerApps
9 18 (5.88%) Azure Data Factory
9 18 (5.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 16 (5.23%) Serverless
11 14 (4.58%) GCP
12 13 (4.25%) GitHub
12 13 (4.25%) GitHub Actions
13 11 (3.59%) Azure Key Vault
13 11 (3.59%) SaaS
14 10 (3.27%) Microsoft Purview
15 9 (2.94%) Azure Logic Apps
15 9 (2.94%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 25 (8.17%) VPN
2 23 (7.52%) Firewall
3 20 (6.54%) DNS
4 14 (4.58%) TCP/IP
5 12 (3.92%) DHCP
5 12 (3.92%) Network Security
6 8 (2.61%) LAN
6 8 (2.61%) WAN
7 7 (2.29%) SSL
7 7 (2.29%) Wireless
7 7 (2.29%) Wireshark
8 5 (1.63%) BIG-IP
8 5 (1.63%) Cisco ASA
8 5 (1.63%) Cisco Nexus
8 5 (1.63%) Ethereal
8 5 (1.63%) HTTP
8 5 (1.63%) HTTPS
8 5 (1.63%) IPsec
9 4 (1.31%) Unified Communications
9 4 (1.31%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (10.13%) Power BI
2 13 (4.25%) Data Warehouse
3 11 (3.59%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (3.27%) SQL Server
5 8 (2.61%) Redis
6 7 (2.29%) Data Mining
6 7 (2.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 6 (1.96%) SAS Enterprise Guide
7 6 (1.96%) SAS Visual Analytics
8 5 (1.63%) Oracle Database
9 4 (1.31%) Data Lake
9 4 (1.31%) SAS Data Integration Studio
10 3 (0.98%) Pentaho
10 3 (0.98%) Power Query
11 2 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
11 2 (0.65%) Apache Hive
11 2 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
11 2 (0.65%) Hadoop
11 2 (0.65%) NoSQL
11 2 (0.65%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 17 (5.56%) JIRA
2 16 (5.23%) Git
3 13 (4.25%) GitLab
4 10 (3.27%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.98%) Bitbucket
5 3 (0.98%) InstallShield
5 3 (0.98%) MSI
6 2 (0.65%) CircleCI
6 2 (0.65%) Liquibase
7 1 (0.33%) AdminStudio
7 1 (0.33%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.33%) Jaeger
7 1 (0.33%) MLflow
7 1 (0.33%) Selenium
7 1 (0.33%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.33%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.33%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 123 (40.20%) Social Skills
2 46 (15.03%) Analytical Skills
3 42 (13.73%) Finance
4 22 (7.19%) Public Sector
5 17 (5.56%) Organisational Skills
6 12 (3.92%) Documentation Skills
7 11 (3.59%) Legal
8 6 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 5 (1.63%) Manufacturing
9 5 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (1.31%) Banking
10 4 (1.31%) Law
11 2 (0.65%) Aeronautics
11 2 (0.65%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.65%) Local Government
11 2 (0.65%) Marketing
11 2 (0.65%) Publishing
11 2 (0.65%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.33%) Advertising
12 1 (0.33%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 35 (11.44%) Analyst
2 32 (10.46%) Developer
3 31 (10.13%) Architect
4 20 (6.54%) Administrator
5 17 (5.56%) Senior
5 17 (5.56%) Support Engineer
6 16 (5.23%) IT Support
7 11 (3.59%) 2nd Line Support
7 11 (3.59%) Project Manager
8 10 (3.27%) IT Analyst
8 10 (3.27%) IT Engineer
8 10 (3.27%) Network Engineer
9 9 (2.94%) IT Support Analyst
9 9 (2.94%) Python Developer
9 9 (2.94%) Support Analyst
10 8 (2.61%) 1st Line Support
10 8 (2.61%) 1st/2nd Line Support
10 8 (2.61%) Azure Architect
10 8 (2.61%) Consultant
10 8 (2.61%) Enterprise Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (4.90%) REST
2 11 (3.59%) .NET
2 11 (3.59%) FastAPI
2 11 (3.59%) Flask
3 9 (2.94%) LDAP
4 8 (2.61%) GraphQL
4 8 (2.61%) WebSockets
5 7 (2.29%) gRPC
6 6 (1.96%) Middleware
7 5 (1.63%) SAML
8 3 (0.98%) HTML
8 3 (0.98%) NumPy
8 3 (0.98%) OAuth
8 3 (0.98%) Pandas
8 3 (0.98%) RESTful
8 3 (0.98%) SailPoint
9 2 (0.65%) Elastic Stack
9 2 (0.65%) OpenTelemetry
9 2 (0.65%) Oracle Fusion
9 2 (0.65%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 25 (8.17%) Onboarding
2 14 (4.58%) Cloud Native
3 13 (4.25%) Security Posture
4 11 (3.59%) Driving Licence
5 10 (3.27%) Self-Motivation
6 7 (2.29%) Operational Technology
7 6 (1.96%) Data Centre
7 6 (1.96%) Product Ownership
7 6 (1.96%) SCADA
7 6 (1.96%) Team-Oriented Environment
8 4 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (1.31%) Hybrid Cloud
8 4 (1.31%) Legacy Applications
8 4 (1.31%) Legacy Systems
8 4 (1.31%) PKI
9 3 (0.98%) Algorithms
9 3 (0.98%) Handset
9 3 (0.98%) Renewable Energy
9 3 (0.98%) Security Operations Centre
10 2 (0.65%) CCTV
Operating Systems
1 62 (20.26%) Windows
2 22 (7.19%) Windows 10
3 19 (6.21%) Windows Server
4 14 (4.58%) Linux
5 5 (1.63%) Mac OS
6 3 (0.98%) CatOS
7 2 (0.65%) Android
7 2 (0.65%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.65%) Mac OS X
7 2 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.65%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (19.93%) DevOps
2 57 (18.63%) Agile
3 54 (17.65%) CI/CD
4 53 (17.32%) Problem-Solving
5 48 (15.69%) Migration
6 47 (15.36%) Analytics
7 40 (13.07%) ITIL
8 34 (11.11%) Business Intelligence
8 34 (11.11%) Continuous Improvement
9 31 (10.13%) Customer Service
9 31 (10.13%) Cybersecurity
10 29 (9.48%) Change Management
11 26 (8.50%) Containerisation
11 26 (8.50%) Stakeholder Management
12 25 (8.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 23 (7.52%) Project Management
14 22 (7.19%) Decision-Making
15 21 (6.86%) AI
15 21 (6.86%) CRM
15 21 (6.86%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 38 (12.42%) SQL
2 35 (11.44%) Python
3 23 (7.52%) PowerShell
4 14 (4.58%) Go
5 12 (3.92%) JavaScript
6 9 (2.94%) C#
7 6 (1.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 6 (1.96%) Java
7 6 (1.96%) Kusto Query Language
8 5 (1.63%) R
8 5 (1.63%) Shell Script
9 4 (1.31%) Scala
10 3 (0.98%) VB
10 3 (0.98%) VBScript
11 2 (0.65%) Bash
11 2 (0.65%) Bicep
11 2 (0.65%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.33%) C++
12 1 (0.33%) Perl
12 1 (0.33%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 62 (20.26%) Security Cleared
2 54 (17.65%) SC Cleared
3 34 (11.11%) Microsoft Certification
4 26 (8.50%) Degree
5 13 (4.25%) Azure Certification
6 10 (3.27%) AWS Certification
6 10 (3.27%) Computer Science Degree
7 9 (2.94%) DV Cleared
8 8 (2.61%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 7 (2.29%) CISSP
10 6 (1.96%) MCP
11 5 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
11 5 (1.63%) CISM
11 5 (1.63%) DBS Check
11 5 (1.63%) MCDST
12 4 (1.31%) MCSE
13 2 (0.65%) CCNP
13 2 (0.65%) Cisco Certification
13 2 (0.65%) HNC
13 2 (0.65%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (4.58%) QA
2 7 (2.29%) Accessibility
3 6 (1.96%) Data Quality
3 6 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (1.63%) GDPR
4 5 (1.63%) PMO
5 4 (1.31%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (1.31%) SLA
6 3 (0.98%) NCSC
7 2 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 2 (0.65%) ISO 9001
7 2 (0.65%) NIST
8 1 (0.33%) GRC
8 1 (0.33%) GxP
8 1 (0.33%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.33%) ISO 22301
8 1 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 1 (0.33%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 55 (17.97%) Active Directory
2 31 (10.13%) Docker
3 14 (4.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.63%) VMware NSX
4 5 (1.63%) vSphere
5 4 (1.31%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.98%) Firmware
7 2 (0.65%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.33%) HDFS
8 1 (0.33%) Snort
8 1 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 32 (10.46%) Kubernetes
2 22 (7.19%) SCCM
3 16 (5.23%) Microsoft Intune
4 15 (4.90%) Terraform
5 13 (4.25%) Grafana
5 13 (4.25%) Prometheus
6 11 (3.59%) Ansible
7 7 (2.29%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (1.31%) QRadar
9 3 (0.98%) vRealize
10 2 (0.65%) CSIRT
10 2 (0.65%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.65%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.65%) Puppet
10 2 (0.65%) SCOM
11 1 (0.33%) Hadoop YARN
11 1 (0.33%) VxRail
11 1 (0.33%) WSUS
Vendors
1 27 (8.82%) ServiceNow
2 18 (5.88%) Cisco
2 18 (5.88%) Oracle
3 15 (4.90%) Splunk
3 15 (4.90%) VMware
4 12 (3.92%) SAP
5 7 (2.29%) CheckPoint
5 7 (2.29%) F5
6 6 (1.96%) CyberArk
6 6 (1.96%) Palo Alto
6 6 (1.96%) SolarWinds
7 5 (1.63%) Databricks
7 5 (1.63%) iManage
7 5 (1.63%) Mitel
7 5 (1.63%) Virgin Media
7 5 (1.63%) Workday
8 4 (1.31%) AppDynamics
8 4 (1.31%) Atlassian
8 4 (1.31%) CrowdStrike
8 4 (1.31%) IBM