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 4 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
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 -2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 413 262 259
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.98% 15.75% 13.89%
As % of the Vendors category 26.24% 33.42% 29.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 316 172 177
10th Percentile £260 £173 £163
25th Percentile £375 £256 £298
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £415
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% -3.61% +0.61%
75th Percentile £520 £541 £520
90th Percentile £621 £613 £638
England median daily rate £490 £475 £498
% change year-on-year +3.16% -4.52% -0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 21 10
10th Percentile £17.88 £15.13 £11.28
25th Percentile £19.82 £27.21 £13.44
Median hourly rate £21.50 £30.00 £14.83
Median % change year-on-year -28.33% +102.36% -23.97%
75th Percentile £27.94 £50.00 £50.94
90th Percentile £70.16 - £56.25
England median hourly rate £23.08 £22.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year +1.99% +39.43% -27.87%

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 1,574 784 865
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 45.68% 47.14% 46.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,078 502 601
10th Percentile £316 £225 £263
25th Percentile £402 £350 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £472 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.64% -0.63% -
75th Percentile £550 £575 £624
90th Percentile £656 £645 £706
England median daily rate £511 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +0.10% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 29 23
10th Percentile £17.57 £14.86 £13.05
25th Percentile £20.31 £24.66 £14.06
Median hourly rate £30.25 £30.00 £16.82
Median % change year-on-year +0.82% +78.36% -27.66%
75th Percentile £51.25 £43.25 £42.13
90th Percentile £66.54 £50.00 £56.25
England median hourly rate £35.53 £25.15 £29.00
% change year-on-year +41.27% -13.28% -26.77%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 +2 121 £450 +24.14% 127
Warwickshire -5 85 £450 +12.50% 30
Coventry 0 78 £425 +51.11% 28
Shropshire -24 49 £447 -7.41% 18
Worcestershire -2 11 £450 -21.74% 22
Staffordshire -4 11 £413 +194.64% 45
Herefordshire +2 8 £700 -22.22% 8
Solihull -28 8 £425 -9.67% 6
Dudley - 5 £400 - 10
Walsall +2 4 £600 - 8
West Bromwich - 3 - - 4
Brierley Hill - 2 £446 - 1
Wolverhampton -6 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 39 (9.44%) SharePoint
2 13 (3.15%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (1.21%) Confluence
3 5 (1.21%) SAS
4 4 (0.97%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.73%) Apache
5 3 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.73%) IIS
5 3 (0.73%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.48%) CloudStack
6 2 (0.48%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.24%) Appian
7 1 (0.24%) CMS
Applications
1 40 (9.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 37 (8.96%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (3.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (2.42%) MS Visio
5 9 (2.18%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.24%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.24%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.24%) Navisworks
7 1 (0.24%) ProjectWise
7 1 (0.24%) Revit
Business Applications
1 25 (6.05%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.21%) SAP PSCD
3 3 (0.73%) Primavera
4 2 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
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 EHS
5 1 (0.24%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.24%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 171 (41.40%) Azure
2 87 (21.07%) Microsoft 365
3 76 (18.40%) Power Platform
4 50 (12.11%) Dynamics 365
5 48 (11.62%) Azure DevOps
6 42 (10.17%) Entra ID
7 36 (8.72%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 36 (8.72%) Power Automate
8 35 (8.47%) AWS
9 34 (8.23%) Microsoft Purview
10 29 (7.02%) Azure Data Factory
11 23 (5.57%) PowerApps
12 21 (5.08%) OneDrive
13 17 (4.12%) Serverless
14 14 (3.39%) Microsoft Copilot
15 12 (2.91%) GCP
16 10 (2.42%) GitHub
16 10 (2.42%) GitHub Actions
17 8 (1.94%) Azure Functions
18 6 (1.45%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 28 (6.78%) DNS
2 24 (5.81%) VPN
3 21 (5.08%) DHCP
4 18 (4.36%) Firewall
5 10 (2.42%) LAN
6 8 (1.94%) TCP/IP
7 7 (1.69%) WAN
7 7 (1.69%) Wi-Fi
8 6 (1.45%) Cisco IOS
8 6 (1.45%) SSL
9 4 (0.97%) Network Security
9 4 (0.97%) SAN
10 3 (0.73%) BIG-IP
10 3 (0.73%) Intrusion Detection
10 3 (0.73%) NAS
10 3 (0.73%) SD-WAN
10 3 (0.73%) Structured Cabling
10 3 (0.73%) Wireless
11 2 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
11 2 (0.48%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (10.65%) Power BI
2 30 (7.26%) SQL Server
3 29 (7.02%) Data Warehouse
4 21 (5.08%) PostgreSQL
5 14 (3.39%) Azure SQL Database
6 12 (2.91%) Data Lake
7 11 (2.66%) Delta Lake
7 11 (2.66%) MySQL
8 9 (2.18%) NoSQL
9 7 (1.69%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 6 (1.45%) Data Vault
10 6 (1.45%) Metadata
10 6 (1.45%) Relational Database
10 6 (1.45%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 5 (1.21%) Oracle Database
12 3 (0.73%) Power Query
12 3 (0.73%) Redis
12 3 (0.73%) SAP Data Services
12 3 (0.73%) SAS Enterprise Guide
12 3 (0.73%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 21 (5.08%) JIRA
2 12 (2.91%) Team Foundation Server
3 11 (2.66%) Selenium
3 11 (2.66%) Visual Studio
3 11 (2.66%) WebDriver
4 9 (2.18%) Cypress.io
4 9 (2.18%) Postman
5 7 (1.69%) Git
6 6 (1.45%) Cucumber
7 4 (0.97%) MLflow
8 3 (0.73%) GitLab
8 3 (0.73%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.73%) Protractor
9 2 (0.48%) MSI
9 2 (0.48%) NUnit
10 1 (0.24%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.24%) Maven
10 1 (0.24%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.24%) Zephyr
General
1 130 (31.48%) Social Skills
2 57 (13.80%) Finance
3 41 (9.93%) Public Sector
4 39 (9.44%) Analytical Skills
5 28 (6.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 13 (3.15%) Organisational Skills
7 10 (2.42%) Banking
8 8 (1.94%) Legal
8 8 (1.94%) Manufacturing
9 7 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
10 6 (1.45%) Games
10 6 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (1.45%) Marketing
11 5 (1.21%) Law
11 5 (1.21%) Retail
12 4 (0.97%) Billing
12 4 (0.97%) Electronics
13 2 (0.48%) Local Government
13 2 (0.48%) Publishing
13 2 (0.48%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 58 (14.04%) Analyst
2 52 (12.59%) Developer
3 48 (11.62%) Senior
4 42 (10.17%) Data Engineer
5 35 (8.47%) Architect
6 28 (6.78%) Consultant
7 27 (6.54%) Lead
8 21 (5.08%) Azure Engineer
9 15 (3.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 15 (3.63%) Solutions Architect
10 14 (3.39%) Administrator
11 13 (3.15%) Data Architect
11 13 (3.15%) Senior Data Engineer
12 11 (2.66%) Test Analyst
13 10 (2.42%) DBA
13 10 (2.42%) Dynamics 365 Developer
13 10 (2.42%) Senior Analyst
14 9 (2.18%) Azure Data Engineer
14 9 (2.18%) Cloud Engineer
14 9 (2.18%) Junior Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (4.84%) PySpark
2 16 (3.87%) JSON
2 16 (3.87%) SOAP
3 14 (3.39%) XML
4 11 (2.66%) ActiveX
5 10 (2.42%) REST
6 9 (2.18%) .NET
6 9 (2.18%) Gherkin
7 6 (1.45%) Kafka
8 5 (1.21%) JDBC
8 5 (1.21%) SAP PI
8 5 (1.21%) YAML
9 4 (0.97%) .NET Framework
9 4 (0.97%) FastAPI
9 4 (0.97%) IDoc
9 4 (0.97%) Microsoft Graph
10 3 (0.73%) Flask
10 3 (0.73%) GraphQL
10 3 (0.73%) gRPC
10 3 (0.73%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 25 (6.05%) Cloud Native
2 19 (4.60%) Onboarding
3 17 (4.12%) Hybrid Cloud
4 13 (3.15%) Management Information System
5 12 (2.91%) Product Ownership
6 11 (2.66%) SCADA
7 9 (2.18%) Enterprise Software
8 8 (1.94%) CMDB
8 8 (1.94%) Security Operations Centre
9 7 (1.69%) Data Centre
9 7 (1.69%) Smartphone
10 6 (1.45%) Data Structures
10 6 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
11 5 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
11 5 (1.21%) IoT
11 5 (1.21%) Operational Technology
11 5 (1.21%) PKI
11 5 (1.21%) Public Cloud
11 5 (1.21%) Security Posture
12 4 (0.97%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 80 (19.37%) Windows
2 24 (5.81%) Linux
2 24 (5.81%) Windows 10
3 22 (5.33%) Windows Server
4 11 (2.66%) Mac OS
5 7 (1.69%) Android
6 6 (1.45%) Unix
7 5 (1.21%) SUSE
7 5 (1.21%) Ubuntu
8 4 (0.97%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.73%) Windows 7
10 2 (0.48%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.48%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.24%) CentOS
11 1 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 81 (19.61%) Problem-Solving
2 70 (16.95%) Agile
3 69 (16.71%) DevOps
4 57 (13.80%) CI/CD
4 57 (13.80%) Migration
5 53 (12.83%) Continuous Improvement
6 52 (12.59%) AI
7 51 (12.35%) Analytics
8 47 (11.38%) Business Intelligence
9 45 (10.90%) Stakeholder Management
10 43 (10.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 42 (10.17%) Data Modelling
12 37 (8.96%) Validation
13 36 (8.72%) ETL
14 33 (7.99%) CRM
14 33 (7.99%) Technical Leadership
15 31 (7.51%) Customer Service
15 31 (7.51%) Infrastructure as Code
15 31 (7.51%) ITIL
16 30 (7.26%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 67 (16.22%) SQL
2 37 (8.96%) Python
3 19 (4.60%) C#
3 19 (4.60%) JavaScript
4 17 (4.12%) Java
5 15 (3.63%) PowerShell
6 13 (3.15%) Bicep
6 13 (3.15%) VBA
7 11 (2.66%) VB
7 11 (2.66%) VB6
8 8 (1.94%) Kusto Query Language
9 6 (1.45%) T-SQL
10 5 (1.21%) ABAP
10 5 (1.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 4 (0.97%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.73%) Bash
12 3 (0.73%) Go
12 3 (0.73%) MATLAB
13 2 (0.48%) Scala
13 2 (0.48%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 72 (17.43%) Security Cleared
2 59 (14.29%) SC Cleared
3 30 (7.26%) Microsoft Certification
4 27 (6.54%) Degree
5 14 (3.39%) BPSS Clearance
6 13 (3.15%) ISTQB
7 10 (2.42%) CISSP
7 10 (2.42%) OCP
7 10 (2.42%) Oracle Certification
8 9 (2.18%) AWS Certification
8 9 (2.18%) Azure Certification
9 8 (1.94%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (1.45%) DV Cleared
11 5 (1.21%) CISM
11 5 (1.21%) Master's Degree
12 4 (0.97%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (0.97%) PhD
13 3 (0.73%) CCNA
13 3 (0.73%) CCNP
13 3 (0.73%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (7.02%) Data Quality
2 23 (5.57%) Accessibility
2 23 (5.57%) GDPR
3 20 (4.84%) QA
4 17 (4.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (3.15%) NIST
6 12 (2.91%) SLA
7 11 (2.66%) PMO
8 10 (2.42%) WCAG
9 4 (0.97%) GRC
10 3 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 3 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 3 (0.73%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.48%) NCSC
11 2 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
12 1 (0.24%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.24%) NIST 800
12 1 (0.24%) SOC 2
System Software
1 61 (14.77%) Active Directory
2 21 (5.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (4.84%) Docker
4 13 (3.15%) Hyper-V
5 11 (2.66%) vSphere
6 9 (2.18%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.97%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.73%) Snort
9 2 (0.48%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.48%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.48%) XenApp
9 2 (0.48%) XenDesktop
10 1 (0.24%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.24%) Firmware
10 1 (0.24%) NFS
Systems Management
1 35 (8.47%) Microsoft Intune
2 30 (7.26%) Kubernetes
3 24 (5.81%) Terraform
4 23 (5.57%) SCCM
5 15 (3.63%) Single Sign-On
6 8 (1.94%) Grafana
7 7 (1.69%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.97%) Ansible
8 4 (0.97%) Jamf Pro
9 3 (0.73%) CSIRT
9 3 (0.73%) QRadar
10 2 (0.48%) Check_MK
10 2 (0.48%) Failover Clustering
10 2 (0.48%) WMI
10 2 (0.48%) WSUS
11 1 (0.24%) AirWatch
11 1 (0.24%) Control-M
11 1 (0.24%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.24%) Nessus
11 1 (0.24%) SCOM
Vendors
1 34 (8.23%) Oracle
1 34 (8.23%) ServiceNow
2 29 (7.02%) Databricks
3 27 (6.54%) VMware
4 26 (6.30%) SAP
5 20 (4.84%) Cisco
6 11 (2.66%) Splunk
7 9 (2.18%) UiPath
8 8 (1.94%) Red Hat
9 7 (1.69%) Apple
9 7 (1.69%) Informatica
9 7 (1.69%) Okta
10 6 (1.45%) Canon
10 6 (1.45%) Citrix
11 5 (1.21%) F5
11 5 (1.21%) Fortinet
11 5 (1.21%) IBM
11 5 (1.21%) MathWorks
11 5 (1.21%) Siemens
11 5 (1.21%) webMethods