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 28 May 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
28 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 5 6
Rank change year-on-year -5 +1 -2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 358 230 231
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.15% 16.70% 11.96%
As % of the Vendors category 24.93% 34.64% 28.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 260 156 158
10th Percentile £247 £168 £187
25th Percentile £363 £235 £281
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £410
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% -2.44% -8.38%
75th Percentile £540 £538 £563
90th Percentile £615 £613 £673
England median daily rate £498 £480 £488
% change year-on-year +3.65% -1.54% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 11 22
10th Percentile £14.10 £12.25 £10.54
25th Percentile £19.34 £16.81 £11.08
Median hourly rate £25.00 £25.00 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year - +78.57% -16.21%
75th Percentile £30.00 £45.99 £26.50
90th Percentile £70.12 £50.00 £53.38
England median hourly rate £20.69 £18.86 £15.00
% change year-on-year +9.70% +25.73% -28.96%

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 1,436 664 814
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 44.74% 48.22% 42.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 966 426 535
10th Percentile £313 £184 £252
25th Percentile £400 £307 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £466 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -1.91% +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £550 £586 £625
90th Percentile £645 £673 £700
England median daily rate £505 £521 £518
% change year-on-year -3.07% +0.68% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 21 55
10th Percentile £20.31 £13.78 £11.09
25th Percentile £25.00 £18.13 £13.25
Median hourly rate £33.99 £19.00 £16.82
Median % change year-on-year +78.89% +12.96% -9.08%
75th Percentile £53.75 £31.76 £27.86
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £55.75
England median hourly rate £32.50 £26.18 £22.50
% change year-on-year +24.14% +16.36% -41.56%

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 28 May 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 28 May 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 28 May 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 +1 127 £450 +9.09% 99
Warwickshire -6 75 £500 +60.00% 25
Coventry -3 41 £450 +106.90% 17
Shropshire -22 36 £425 -6.18% 18
Worcestershire +4 14 £588 -34.72% 22
Staffordshire 0 12 £388 +50.49% 30
Solihull -16 11 £425 -9.67% 7
Herefordshire 0 10 £625 -30.56% 4
Dudley - 5 £400 - 6
Smethwick - 3 - -
West Bromwich - 3 - - 1
Brierley Hill - 2 £446 - 1
Wolverhampton -6 1 - - 9
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 (7.54%) SharePoint
2 15 (4.19%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (2.51%) Confluence
4 5 (1.40%) SAS
5 4 (1.12%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.84%) Apache
6 3 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.84%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.56%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.56%) IIS
7 2 (0.56%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.28%) Appian
8 1 (0.28%) CMS
Applications
1 41 (11.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (9.50%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (4.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (3.91%) MS Visio
5 11 (3.07%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.28%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 19 (5.31%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (1.12%) Dynamics NAV
3 3 (0.84%) Maximo
3 3 (0.84%) Primavera
4 2 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.28%) SAP EHS
5 1 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.28%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 128 (35.75%) Azure
2 69 (19.27%) Power Platform
3 63 (17.60%) Microsoft 365
4 36 (10.06%) Entra ID
5 35 (9.78%) AWS
6 29 (8.10%) Dynamics 365
7 26 (7.26%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (7.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 21 (5.87%) Azure Data Factory
9 18 (5.03%) Microsoft Purview
9 18 (5.03%) Power Automate
10 14 (3.91%) OneDrive
10 14 (3.91%) PowerApps
11 10 (2.79%) GitHub
11 10 (2.79%) Serverless
12 9 (2.51%) GitHub Actions
12 9 (2.51%) Microsoft Copilot
13 8 (2.23%) Azure Sentinel
13 8 (2.23%) GCP
14 6 (1.68%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 30 (8.38%) DNS
2 29 (8.10%) VPN
3 24 (6.70%) Firewall
4 20 (5.59%) DHCP
5 14 (3.91%) LAN
6 13 (3.63%) SSL
7 11 (3.07%) Network Security
8 10 (2.79%) WAN
9 9 (2.51%) HTTP
10 8 (2.23%) BIG-IP
10 8 (2.23%) HTTPS
10 8 (2.23%) TCP/IP
11 7 (1.96%) Cisco ASA
11 7 (1.96%) Cisco Nexus
11 7 (1.96%) Ethereal
11 7 (1.96%) IPsec
11 7 (1.96%) Wireless
11 7 (1.96%) Wireshark
12 6 (1.68%) Wi-Fi
13 5 (1.40%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 45 (12.57%) Power BI
2 25 (6.98%) Data Warehouse
3 15 (4.19%) SQL Server
4 14 (3.91%) PostgreSQL
5 8 (2.23%) Azure SQL Database
5 8 (2.23%) Delta Lake
6 7 (1.96%) Data Lake
6 7 (1.96%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
6 7 (1.96%) NoSQL
7 6 (1.68%) Power Query
7 6 (1.68%) Relational Database
8 5 (1.40%) Metadata
8 5 (1.40%) MySQL
8 5 (1.40%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 4 (1.12%) Oracle Database
9 4 (1.12%) Redis
10 3 (0.84%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.84%) SAP Data Services
10 3 (0.84%) Tableau
11 2 (0.56%) SAS Data Integration Studio
Development Applications
1 31 (8.66%) JIRA
2 11 (3.07%) Git
3 6 (1.68%) Team Foundation Server
3 6 (1.68%) Visual Studio
4 5 (1.40%) GitLab
5 4 (1.12%) MLflow
6 3 (0.84%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.56%) JMeter
7 2 (0.56%) MSI
7 2 (0.56%) NUnit
7 2 (0.56%) Selenium
7 2 (0.56%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.28%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.28%) Maven
8 1 (0.28%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.28%) Zephyr
General
1 110 (30.73%) Social Skills
2 42 (11.73%) Analytical Skills
2 42 (11.73%) Finance
3 21 (5.87%) Public Sector
4 12 (3.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 11 (3.07%) Organisational Skills
6 9 (2.51%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (2.51%) Manufacturing
7 8 (2.23%) Banking
8 7 (1.96%) Games
8 7 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (1.68%) Police
10 5 (1.40%) Law
11 4 (1.12%) Electronics
11 4 (1.12%) Legal
11 4 (1.12%) Local Government
11 4 (1.12%) Marketing
11 4 (1.12%) Retail
12 3 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.56%) Billing
Job Titles
1 51 (14.25%) Analyst
2 39 (10.89%) Developer
3 32 (8.94%) Architect
4 31 (8.66%) Senior
5 25 (6.98%) Data Engineer
6 18 (5.03%) Consultant
7 17 (4.75%) Administrator
8 16 (4.47%) Business Analyst
9 15 (4.19%) Support Engineer
10 13 (3.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 13 (3.63%) Lead
11 12 (3.35%) IT Support
11 12 (3.35%) Solutions Architect
12 11 (3.07%) Data Architect
13 10 (2.79%) Azure Engineer
13 10 (2.79%) IT Engineer
13 10 (2.79%) Network Engineer
14 8 (2.23%) Data Manager
14 8 (2.23%) Security Consultant
14 8 (2.23%) Senior Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (5.31%) PySpark
2 9 (2.51%) .NET
2 9 (2.51%) SailPoint
2 9 (2.51%) SAML
3 8 (2.23%) LDAP
3 8 (2.23%) XML
4 7 (1.96%) FastAPI
5 6 (1.68%) ActiveX
5 6 (1.68%) SOAP
6 5 (1.40%) REST
7 4 (1.12%) .NET Framework
7 4 (1.12%) Flask
7 4 (1.12%) GraphQL
7 4 (1.12%) gRPC
7 4 (1.12%) JSON
7 4 (1.12%) Kafka
7 4 (1.12%) Middleware
7 4 (1.12%) OpenTelemetry
7 4 (1.12%) WebSockets
7 4 (1.12%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (6.98%) Cloud Native
2 22 (6.15%) Onboarding
3 13 (3.63%) Hybrid Cloud
4 9 (2.51%) Enterprise Software
4 9 (2.51%) Security Operations Centre
4 9 (2.51%) Self-Motivation
5 8 (2.23%) SCADA
6 6 (1.68%) Data Centre
6 6 (1.68%) Management Information System
6 6 (1.68%) Operational Technology
6 6 (1.68%) Security Posture
7 5 (1.40%) Product Ownership
8 4 (1.12%) CSOC
8 4 (1.12%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.12%) PKI
9 3 (0.84%) CMDB
9 3 (0.84%) Cyber Threat
9 3 (0.84%) IoT
9 3 (0.84%) Public Cloud
9 3 (0.84%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 75 (20.95%) Windows
2 26 (7.26%) Windows 10
3 23 (6.42%) Linux
4 22 (6.15%) Windows Server
5 9 (2.51%) Mac OS
6 5 (1.40%) Apple iOS
7 4 (1.12%) Ubuntu
7 4 (1.12%) Unix
8 3 (0.84%) Android
8 3 (0.84%) CatOS
8 3 (0.84%) Windows 7
8 3 (0.84%) Windows Server 2012
8 3 (0.84%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 70 (19.55%) Problem-Solving
2 69 (19.27%) Agile
3 58 (16.20%) CI/CD
4 51 (14.25%) Migration
5 49 (13.69%) Analytics
5 49 (13.69%) DevOps
6 47 (13.13%) Business Intelligence
7 44 (12.29%) AI
8 41 (11.45%) Continuous Improvement
9 35 (9.78%) Customer Service
9 35 (9.78%) Stakeholder Management
10 32 (8.94%) Data Modelling
11 31 (8.66%) ETL
12 29 (8.10%) ITIL
13 28 (7.82%) Validation
14 27 (7.54%) Containerisation
15 26 (7.26%) Cybersecurity
15 26 (7.26%) Infrastructure as Code
16 25 (6.98%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 23 (6.42%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 64 (17.88%) SQL
2 41 (11.45%) Python
3 20 (5.59%) PowerShell
4 12 (3.35%) Bicep
4 12 (3.35%) Java
5 9 (2.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 8 (2.23%) Kusto Query Language
6 8 (2.23%) VB
6 8 (2.23%) VBA
7 7 (1.96%) C#
7 7 (1.96%) PL/SQL
8 6 (1.68%) VB6
9 5 (1.40%) Go
9 5 (1.40%) JavaScript
10 3 (0.84%) MATLAB
10 3 (0.84%) R
10 3 (0.84%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.56%) Scala
11 2 (0.56%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.56%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 51 (14.25%) Security Cleared
2 36 (10.06%) Degree
2 36 (10.06%) SC Cleared
3 15 (4.19%) CISSP
3 15 (4.19%) Microsoft Certification
4 11 (3.07%) Cisco Certification
5 10 (2.79%) CISM
6 9 (2.51%) AWS Certification
6 9 (2.51%) BPSS Clearance
6 9 (2.51%) DV Cleared
7 7 (1.96%) ISTQB
8 6 (1.68%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.40%) CCNA
9 5 (1.40%) Master's Degree
10 4 (1.12%) CCNP
10 4 (1.12%) DBS Check
10 4 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
10 4 (1.12%) OCP
10 4 (1.12%) Oracle Certification
10 4 (1.12%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (6.42%) Data Quality
2 14 (3.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 14 (3.91%) QA
3 13 (3.63%) GDPR
4 11 (3.07%) NIST
5 10 (2.79%) PMO
5 10 (2.79%) SLA
6 6 (1.68%) 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%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.28%) FATCA
10 1 (0.28%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.28%) ISO 22301
10 1 (0.28%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.28%) P3O
System Software
1 68 (18.99%) Active Directory
2 27 (7.54%) Docker
3 23 (6.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.51%) vSphere
5 8 (2.23%) Hyper-V
6 7 (1.96%) VMware NSX
7 5 (1.40%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (1.12%) Snort
9 3 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.56%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.56%) Microsoft App-V
10 2 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.56%) XenApp
10 2 (0.56%) XenDesktop
11 1 (0.28%) NFS
Systems Management
1 38 (10.61%) Kubernetes
2 26 (7.26%) Microsoft Intune
3 22 (6.15%) Terraform
4 16 (4.47%) SCCM
4 16 (4.47%) Single Sign-On
5 12 (3.35%) Grafana
5 12 (3.35%) Prometheus
6 5 (1.40%) Ansible
7 4 (1.12%) CSIRT
8 3 (0.84%) Control-M
8 3 (0.84%) HP ALM
8 3 (0.84%) IBM Guardium
8 3 (0.84%) Nessus
9 2 (0.56%) AirWatch
9 2 (0.56%) Check_MK
9 2 (0.56%) Failover Clustering
9 2 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
9 2 (0.56%) QRadar
9 2 (0.56%) WMI
9 2 (0.56%) WSUS
Vendors
1 31 (8.66%) ServiceNow
2 25 (6.98%) VMware
3 24 (6.70%) Cisco
4 23 (6.42%) Databricks
4 23 (6.42%) Oracle
5 17 (4.75%) SAP
6 13 (3.63%) Splunk
7 10 (2.79%) F5
8 9 (2.51%) CheckPoint
8 9 (2.51%) Palo Alto
9 8 (2.23%) Informatica
9 8 (2.23%) SolarWinds
10 7 (1.96%) Okta
11 5 (1.40%) Fortinet
12 4 (1.12%) Citrix
12 4 (1.12%) Veeam
13 3 (0.84%) Apple
13 3 (0.84%) HP
13 3 (0.84%) Remedy
13 3 (0.84%) UiPath