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 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
11 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -6 0 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 356 235 254
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.01% 16.21% 12.57%
As % of the Vendors category 24.52% 33.19% 29.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 266 152 167
10th Percentile £216 £166 £187
25th Percentile £365 £235 £287
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £425
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% -5.88% -2.02%
75th Percentile £540 £538 £544
90th Percentile £624 £600 £673
England median daily rate £498 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +4.74% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 16 22
10th Percentile £18.27 £13.69 £10.54
25th Percentile £19.34 £23.38 £11.08
Median hourly rate £25.00 £31.94 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.73% +128.14% -16.21%
75th Percentile £70.00 £50.00 £26.50
90th Percentile £70.30 - £53.38
England median hourly rate £21.35 £19.00 £15.00
% change year-on-year +12.37% +26.67% -31.82%

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 1,452 708 864
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 44.93% 48.83% 42.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,004 436 565
10th Percentile £313 £200 £252
25th Percentile £400 £313 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -1.26% +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £550 £588 £619
90th Percentile £650 £673 £700
England median daily rate £505 £515 £518
% change year-on-year -1.94% -0.61% -1.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 30 54
10th Percentile £20.31 £14.99 £11.08
25th Percentile £25.00 £18.22 £13.25
Median hourly rate £33.99 £28.27 £16.82
Median % change year-on-year +20.23% +68.07% -14.19%
75th Percentile £53.75 £36.87 £28.31
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £55.88
England median hourly rate £33.99 £27.13 £23.80
% change year-on-year +25.31% +13.97% -39.82%

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 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 11 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 11 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 +2 121 £450 +12.50% 78
Warwickshire -6 81 £500 +53.85% 31
Coventry -3 46 £450 +80.36% 24
Shropshire -35 32 £425 -6.18% 11
Worcestershire +5 14 £588 -34.72% 24
Staffordshire 0 11 £354 +152.68% 28
Solihull -18 11 £425 -7.61% 8
Herefordshire +1 9 £700 -22.22% 5
Dudley - 5 £400 - 7
West Bromwich - 3 - -
Walsall - 2 £600 - 2
Brierley Hill - 2 £446 - 1
Wolverhampton -6 1 - - 8
Smethwick - 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 27 (7.58%) SharePoint
2 15 (4.21%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (2.25%) Confluence
4 6 (1.69%) SAS
5 4 (1.12%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.84%) Apache
6 3 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.84%) IIS
6 3 (0.84%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.56%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.56%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.28%) Appian
8 1 (0.28%) CMS
Applications
1 43 (12.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (9.83%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (4.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (3.65%) MS Visio
5 10 (2.81%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.28%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 18 (5.06%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.84%) Primavera
3 2 (0.56%) Dynamics NAV
3 2 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.28%) Maximo
4 1 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.28%) SAP EHS
4 1 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.28%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 132 (37.08%) Azure
2 65 (18.26%) Microsoft 365
3 60 (16.85%) Power Platform
4 40 (11.24%) Entra ID
5 38 (10.67%) AWS
6 27 (7.58%) Azure DevOps
6 27 (7.58%) Dynamics 365
7 26 (7.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 21 (5.90%) Azure Data Factory
9 18 (5.06%) Microsoft Purview
10 16 (4.49%) OneDrive
11 13 (3.65%) Microsoft Copilot
12 12 (3.37%) GCP
12 12 (3.37%) Power Automate
13 10 (2.81%) GitHub
14 9 (2.53%) GitHub Actions
14 9 (2.53%) Serverless
15 8 (2.25%) PowerApps
16 6 (1.69%) Azure Sentinel
16 6 (1.69%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 30 (8.43%) DNS
2 29 (8.15%) VPN
3 23 (6.46%) DHCP
3 23 (6.46%) Firewall
4 14 (3.93%) LAN
5 10 (2.81%) Network Security
5 10 (2.81%) WAN
6 9 (2.53%) Wi-Fi
7 8 (2.25%) SSL
7 8 (2.25%) TCP/IP
8 6 (1.69%) HTTP
9 5 (1.40%) BIG-IP
9 5 (1.40%) HTTPS
9 5 (1.40%) Intrusion Detection
9 5 (1.40%) Wireless
10 4 (1.12%) Cisco ASA
10 4 (1.12%) Cisco IOS
10 4 (1.12%) Ethereal
10 4 (1.12%) VLAN
10 4 (1.12%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (10.67%) Power BI
2 22 (6.18%) Data Warehouse
3 14 (3.93%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (3.65%) SQL Server
5 8 (2.25%) Azure SQL Database
5 8 (2.25%) Delta Lake
6 7 (1.97%) Data Lake
6 7 (1.97%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
6 7 (1.97%) NoSQL
7 6 (1.69%) MySQL
7 6 (1.69%) Relational Database
8 5 (1.40%) Metadata
9 4 (1.12%) Oracle Database
9 4 (1.12%) Redis
10 3 (0.84%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.84%) Power Query
10 3 (0.84%) SAP Data Services
10 3 (0.84%) SAS Enterprise Guide
10 3 (0.84%) Tableau
11 2 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 30 (8.43%) JIRA
2 8 (2.25%) Git
3 6 (1.69%) Team Foundation Server
3 6 (1.69%) Visual Studio
4 4 (1.12%) GitLab
4 4 (1.12%) MLflow
5 2 (0.56%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.56%) JMeter
5 2 (0.56%) MSI
5 2 (0.56%) NUnit
5 2 (0.56%) Selenium
5 2 (0.56%) WebDriver
6 1 (0.28%) CircleCI
6 1 (0.28%) Maven
6 1 (0.28%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.28%) Zephyr
General
1 110 (30.90%) Social Skills
2 47 (13.20%) Finance
3 38 (10.67%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (5.90%) Public Sector
5 12 (3.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 10 (2.81%) Banking
7 9 (2.53%) Manufacturing
7 9 (2.53%) Organisational Skills
8 8 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (1.97%) Games
9 7 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (1.69%) Police
11 5 (1.40%) Law
11 5 (1.40%) Legal
11 5 (1.40%) Retail
12 4 (1.12%) Electronics
12 4 (1.12%) Marketing
12 4 (1.12%) Telecoms
13 3 (0.84%) Local Government
13 3 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 53 (14.89%) Analyst
2 39 (10.96%) Developer
3 33 (9.27%) Architect
4 32 (8.99%) Senior
5 25 (7.02%) Data Engineer
6 18 (5.06%) Consultant
7 16 (4.49%) Business Analyst
8 15 (4.21%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 14 (3.93%) Lead
9 14 (3.93%) Solutions Architect
9 14 (3.93%) Support Engineer
10 13 (3.65%) Administrator
11 11 (3.09%) Data Architect
11 11 (3.09%) IT Support
12 10 (2.81%) Azure Engineer
13 8 (2.25%) Cloud Engineer
13 8 (2.25%) IT Engineer
13 8 (2.25%) Security Consultant
13 8 (2.25%) Senior Data Engineer
14 7 (1.97%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (5.34%) PySpark
2 9 (2.53%) SailPoint
3 8 (2.25%) .NET
3 8 (2.25%) XML
4 7 (1.97%) FastAPI
5 6 (1.69%) ActiveX
5 6 (1.69%) SAML
5 6 (1.69%) SOAP
6 5 (1.40%) JSON
6 5 (1.40%) LDAP
6 5 (1.40%) REST
7 4 (1.12%) .NET Framework
7 4 (1.12%) ADO
7 4 (1.12%) Flask
7 4 (1.12%) GraphQL
7 4 (1.12%) gRPC
7 4 (1.12%) Kafka
7 4 (1.12%) OpenTelemetry
7 4 (1.12%) WebSockets
7 4 (1.12%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (7.02%) Cloud Native
1 25 (7.02%) Onboarding
2 17 (4.78%) Hybrid Cloud
3 10 (2.81%) Security Operations Centre
3 10 (2.81%) Self-Motivation
4 9 (2.53%) Enterprise Software
5 8 (2.25%) Data Centre
5 8 (2.25%) SCADA
6 6 (1.69%) Management Information System
6 6 (1.69%) Operational Technology
6 6 (1.69%) Product Ownership
6 6 (1.69%) Security Posture
7 5 (1.40%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.12%) CSOC
8 4 (1.12%) Cyber Threat
8 4 (1.12%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.12%) Smartphone
9 3 (0.84%) CMDB
9 3 (0.84%) IoT
9 3 (0.84%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 79 (22.19%) Windows
2 26 (7.30%) Windows 10
3 24 (6.74%) Linux
3 24 (6.74%) Windows Server
4 9 (2.53%) Mac OS
5 5 (1.40%) Android
5 5 (1.40%) Apple iOS
6 4 (1.12%) Ubuntu
6 4 (1.12%) Unix
7 3 (0.84%) Windows 7
7 3 (0.84%) Windows Server 2012
7 3 (0.84%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.56%) SUSE
8 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.28%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (18.26%) Problem-Solving
2 62 (17.42%) Agile
3 55 (15.45%) Migration
4 53 (14.89%) CI/CD
5 51 (14.33%) DevOps
6 44 (12.36%) AI
6 44 (12.36%) Analytics
7 43 (12.08%) Continuous Improvement
8 38 (10.67%) Business Intelligence
9 34 (9.55%) Stakeholder Management
10 32 (8.99%) Customer Service
11 29 (8.15%) Infrastructure as Code
11 29 (8.15%) ITIL
12 28 (7.87%) Validation
13 27 (7.58%) ETL
14 26 (7.30%) Containerisation
14 26 (7.30%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 25 (7.02%) Data Modelling
16 24 (6.74%) Cybersecurity
17 23 (6.46%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 59 (16.57%) SQL
2 35 (9.83%) Python
3 18 (5.06%) PowerShell
4 12 (3.37%) Bicep
5 11 (3.09%) Java
6 9 (2.53%) Kusto Query Language
7 8 (2.25%) VB
7 8 (2.25%) VBA
8 7 (1.97%) C#
8 7 (1.97%) PL/SQL
9 6 (1.69%) VB6
10 5 (1.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 5 (1.40%) JavaScript
11 4 (1.12%) Go
12 3 (0.84%) MATLAB
12 3 (0.84%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.56%) Scala
13 2 (0.56%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.56%) VBScript
14 1 (0.28%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 53 (14.89%) Security Cleared
2 40 (11.24%) SC Cleared
3 34 (9.55%) Degree
4 14 (3.93%) Microsoft Certification
5 13 (3.65%) CISSP
6 12 (3.37%) Cisco Certification
7 11 (3.09%) AWS Certification
8 9 (2.53%) DV Cleared
9 8 (2.25%) Azure Certification
9 8 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (2.25%) CISM
10 7 (1.97%) ISTQB
11 5 (1.40%) CCNA
11 5 (1.40%) CCNP
11 5 (1.40%) Master's Degree
12 4 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (1.12%) OCP
12 4 (1.12%) Oracle Certification
12 4 (1.12%) PhD
13 3 (0.84%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (6.46%) Data Quality
2 15 (4.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 14 (3.93%) QA
4 12 (3.37%) GDPR
4 12 (3.37%) NIST
4 12 (3.37%) SLA
5 11 (3.09%) PMO
6 7 (1.97%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.12%) GRC
8 3 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 12207
8 3 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 15288
9 2 (0.56%) GxP
9 2 (0.56%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.28%) Basel III
10 1 (0.28%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.28%) ISO 14001
10 1 (0.28%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 1 (0.28%) WCAG
System Software
1 70 (19.66%) Active Directory
2 26 (7.30%) Docker
3 22 (6.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (2.81%) Hyper-V
4 10 (2.81%) vSphere
5 7 (1.97%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (1.12%) Snort
6 4 (1.12%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.84%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.56%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.56%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.56%) XenApp
8 2 (0.56%) XenDesktop
9 1 (0.28%) NFS
Systems Management
1 35 (9.83%) Kubernetes
2 31 (8.71%) Microsoft Intune
3 22 (6.18%) Terraform
4 19 (5.34%) SCCM
5 14 (3.93%) Single Sign-On
6 11 (3.09%) Grafana
6 11 (3.09%) Prometheus
7 4 (1.12%) CSIRT
8 3 (0.84%) Ansible
8 3 (0.84%) Control-M
8 3 (0.84%) HP ALM
8 3 (0.84%) IBM Guardium
8 3 (0.84%) Nessus
8 3 (0.84%) QRadar
9 2 (0.56%) Check_MK
9 2 (0.56%) HP Quality Center
9 2 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.56%) SCOM
9 2 (0.56%) WMI
9 2 (0.56%) WSUS
Vendors
1 33 (9.27%) ServiceNow
2 26 (7.30%) VMware
3 25 (7.02%) Cisco
4 24 (6.74%) Databricks
5 23 (6.46%) Oracle
6 20 (5.62%) SAP
7 12 (3.37%) Splunk
8 7 (1.97%) F5
8 7 (1.97%) Okta
8 7 (1.97%) SolarWinds
8 7 (1.97%) UiPath
9 6 (1.69%) CheckPoint
9 6 (1.69%) Fortinet
9 6 (1.69%) Informatica
9 6 (1.69%) Palo Alto
10 5 (1.40%) Red Hat
11 4 (1.12%) Canon
11 4 (1.12%) Citrix
11 4 (1.12%) Veeam
12 3 (0.84%) MobileIron