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 16 October 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
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 6 4
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 473 309 304
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 13.23% 16.28% 16.14%
As % of the Vendors category 30.30% 30.50% 33.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 320 221 209
10th Percentile £213 £165 £168
25th Percentile £360 £300 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £445 £434
Median % change year-on-year -4.49% +2.48% +8.56%
75th Percentile £501 £588 £550
90th Percentile £626 £650 £626
England median daily rate £494 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +4.00% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 22 4
10th Percentile £14.14 £15.98 £15.68
25th Percentile £17.48 £25.55 £22.03
Median hourly rate £19.41 £30.00 £30.56
Median % change year-on-year -35.30% -1.84% +42.15%
75th Percentile £21.75 £46.25 £35.00
90th Percentile £33.75 £50.00 -
England median hourly rate £18.25 £22.50 £20.00
% change year-on-year -18.89% +12.50% -13.04%

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 1,561 1,013 909
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 43.68% 53.37% 48.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,001 644 594
10th Percentile £313 £263 £213
25th Percentile £402 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.50% - +8.11%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £613
90th Percentile £675 £656 £713
England median daily rate £519 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +2.27% -3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 102 36 13
10th Percentile £13.46 £15.71 £14.40
25th Percentile £17.48 £19.69 £15.22
Median hourly rate £20.56 £30.00 £26.13
Median % change year-on-year -31.48% +14.83% +13.59%
75th Percentile £32.88 £35.63 £35.00
90th Percentile £51.23 £50.00 £57.75
England median hourly rate £25.28 £25.04 £35.00
% change year-on-year +0.98% -28.46% -21.35%

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 16 October 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 16 October 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 16 October 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 +1 142 £500 +25.00% 66
Warwickshire +1 93 £438 -5.41% 17
Coventry 0 90 £425 +36.00% 10
Shropshire -27 55 £445 -13.17% 9
Staffordshire -3 24 £220 +10.00% 33
Worcestershire +6 18 £175 -69.57% 8
Herefordshire +12 13 £500 -23.08% 9
Walsall +2 4 £600 - 1
Solihull -29 4 £228 -55.39% 11
West Bromwich - 2 - -
Dudley - 2 £388 - 4
Halesowen - 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 59 (12.47%) SharePoint
2 28 (5.92%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.42%) Apache
3 2 (0.42%) CloudStack
3 2 (0.42%) Skype for Business
4 1 (0.21%) Appian
4 1 (0.21%) CMS
4 1 (0.21%) Confluence
4 1 (0.21%) IIS
4 1 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
4 1 (0.21%) SAS
Applications
1 61 (12.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 56 (11.84%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (2.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (1.27%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (1.06%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.85%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 4 (0.85%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.85%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.21%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.21%) Navisworks
7 1 (0.21%) ProjectWise
7 1 (0.21%) Revit
Business Applications
1 37 (7.82%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.06%) SAP PSCD
2 5 (1.06%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.85%) ResourceLink
4 3 (0.63%) Primavera
4 3 (0.63%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.21%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.21%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 1 (0.21%) MIS ActiveH
Cloud Services
1 207 (43.76%) Azure
2 138 (29.18%) Microsoft 365
3 80 (16.91%) Power Platform
4 77 (16.28%) Entra ID
5 70 (14.80%) Dynamics 365
6 56 (11.84%) Azure DevOps
7 54 (11.42%) Power Automate
8 37 (7.82%) AWS
9 30 (6.34%) OneDrive
10 28 (5.92%) PowerApps
11 27 (5.71%) Microsoft Purview
12 25 (5.29%) Serverless
13 24 (5.07%) Azure Data Factory
14 22 (4.65%) Microsoft Copilot
15 20 (4.23%) Azure Functions
16 18 (3.81%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 15 (3.17%) GCP
18 11 (2.33%) PaaS
19 9 (1.90%) Azure Logic Apps
19 9 (1.90%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 32 (6.77%) DNS
2 28 (5.92%) DHCP
3 26 (5.50%) Firewall
4 25 (5.29%) VPN
5 17 (3.59%) TCP/IP
6 14 (2.96%) Wi-Fi
7 12 (2.54%) LAN
8 8 (1.69%) Wireless
9 7 (1.48%) WAN
10 6 (1.27%) Cisco IOS
10 6 (1.27%) Network Security
10 6 (1.27%) Unified Communications
10 6 (1.27%) VLAN
11 5 (1.06%) Internet
11 5 (1.06%) SAN
11 5 (1.06%) SD-WAN
12 4 (0.85%) Structured Cabling
12 4 (0.85%) VoIP
13 3 (0.63%) DNSSEC
13 3 (0.63%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (8.88%) SQL Server
2 35 (7.40%) Power BI
3 18 (3.81%) PostgreSQL
4 16 (3.38%) Data Warehouse
5 12 (2.54%) MySQL
6 10 (2.11%) Azure SQL Database
7 8 (1.69%) Data Lake
7 8 (1.69%) Power Query
8 7 (1.48%) Relational Database
8 7 (1.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 6 (1.27%) Metadata
9 6 (1.27%) Oracle Reports
10 5 (1.06%) Data Vault
11 4 (0.85%) Oracle BI Publisher
12 3 (0.63%) Data Mining
12 3 (0.63%) Delta Lake
12 3 (0.63%) MongoDB
12 3 (0.63%) NoSQL
13 2 (0.42%) GIS
13 2 (0.42%) MS Access
Development Applications
1 16 (3.38%) JIRA
2 13 (2.75%) Team Foundation Server
3 12 (2.54%) Git
3 12 (2.54%) Visual Studio
4 11 (2.33%) Cypress.io
4 11 (2.33%) Postman
4 11 (2.33%) Selenium
4 11 (2.33%) WebDriver
5 8 (1.69%) Cucumber
6 3 (0.63%) Protractor
7 2 (0.42%) Jenkins
8 1 (0.21%) GitLab
8 1 (0.21%) MLflow
8 1 (0.21%) NUnit
8 1 (0.21%) Oracle Forms
8 1 (0.21%) Rational Rhapsody
8 1 (0.21%) Zephyr
General
1 189 (39.96%) Social Skills
2 68 (14.38%) Finance
3 62 (13.11%) Analytical Skills
4 56 (11.84%) Public Sector
5 38 (8.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 34 (7.19%) Organisational Skills
7 20 (4.23%) Legal
8 15 (3.17%) Manufacturing
9 8 (1.69%) Billing
9 8 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
11 6 (1.27%) General Ledger
11 6 (1.27%) Marketing
12 5 (1.06%) Banking
12 5 (1.06%) Retail
12 5 (1.06%) Telecoms
13 4 (0.85%) Back Office
14 3 (0.63%) Law
15 2 (0.42%) Investment Banking
16 1 (0.21%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 61 (12.90%) Analyst
1 61 (12.90%) Developer
2 49 (10.36%) Senior
3 36 (7.61%) Lead
4 31 (6.55%) Architect
5 29 (6.13%) Administrator
5 29 (6.13%) Data Engineer
5 29 (6.13%) Support Engineer
6 24 (5.07%) Azure Engineer
7 23 (4.86%) Consultant
8 22 (4.65%) Solutions Architect
9 20 (4.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 20 (4.23%) IT Support
10 19 (4.02%) Dynamics 365 Developer
11 15 (3.17%) IT Engineer
12 14 (2.96%) IT Support Engineer
13 12 (2.54%) Junior
13 12 (2.54%) Senior Analyst
13 12 (2.54%) Senior Developer
14 11 (2.33%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (6.13%) JSON
2 24 (5.07%) XML
3 22 (4.65%) SOAP
4 21 (4.44%) REST
5 18 (3.81%) Terraform
6 12 (2.54%) ActiveX
7 11 (2.33%) Gherkin
7 11 (2.33%) XSLT
8 9 (1.90%) Microsoft Graph
9 8 (1.69%) OAuth
9 8 (1.69%) OpenID
10 7 (1.48%) .NET
11 6 (1.27%) LangChain
11 6 (1.27%) SAML
11 6 (1.27%) Semantic Kernel
12 5 (1.06%) JDBC
12 5 (1.06%) Oracle Fusion
12 5 (1.06%) PySpark
12 5 (1.06%) SAP PI
13 4 (0.85%) IDoc
Miscellaneous
1 41 (8.67%) Management Information System
2 38 (8.03%) Onboarding
3 17 (3.59%) Cloud Native
4 16 (3.38%) Product Ownership
5 15 (3.17%) Hybrid Cloud
6 14 (2.96%) Enterprise Software
7 11 (2.33%) Data Structures
7 11 (2.33%) Taxonomies
8 10 (2.11%) Smartphone
8 10 (2.11%) Virtual Team
9 8 (1.69%) AI Agents
9 8 (1.69%) Cyber Threat
9 8 (1.69%) SCADA
10 7 (1.48%) Data Centre
10 7 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (1.48%) Operational Technology
11 6 (1.27%) CMDB
11 6 (1.27%) Driving Licence
11 6 (1.27%) iPhone
11 6 (1.27%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 110 (23.26%) Windows
2 32 (6.77%) Windows Server
3 26 (5.50%) Windows 10
4 23 (4.86%) Linux
5 15 (3.17%) macOS
6 12 (2.54%) Android
7 8 (1.69%) Ubuntu
8 6 (1.27%) Apple iOS
9 5 (1.06%) SUSE
9 5 (1.06%) Unix
10 4 (0.85%) CentOS
11 3 (0.63%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 2 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.21%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (21.78%) Problem-Solving
2 76 (16.07%) Stakeholder Management
3 75 (15.86%) DevOps
4 67 (14.16%) Continuous Improvement
5 65 (13.74%) Agile
6 62 (13.11%) AI
7 58 (12.26%) Customer Service
8 56 (11.84%) Migration
8 56 (11.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 50 (10.57%) CRM
10 47 (9.94%) ITSM
11 46 (9.73%) Data Modelling
11 46 (9.73%) Technical Leadership
12 42 (8.88%) CI/CD
13 41 (8.67%) Mentoring
14 40 (8.46%) ITIL
15 39 (8.25%) Business Intelligence
16 37 (7.82%) Analytics
17 36 (7.61%) Validation
18 34 (7.19%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 48 (10.15%) SQL
2 34 (7.19%) C#
2 34 (7.19%) JavaScript
3 26 (5.50%) PowerShell
4 25 (5.29%) Python
5 16 (3.38%) Java
6 13 (2.75%) VBA
7 12 (2.54%) VB
7 12 (2.54%) VB6
8 6 (1.27%) Kusto Query Language
8 6 (1.27%) T-SQL
9 5 (1.06%) ABAP
9 5 (1.06%) Bicep
9 5 (1.06%) PL/SQL
10 4 (0.85%) Bash
10 4 (0.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 2 (0.42%) Search Processing Language
11 2 (0.42%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.21%) C++
12 1 (0.21%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 71 (15.01%) Security Cleared
2 55 (11.63%) SC Cleared
3 46 (9.73%) Microsoft Certification
4 22 (4.65%) Degree
5 20 (4.23%) BPSS Clearance
6 15 (3.17%) Azure Certification
7 14 (2.96%) CISSP
8 12 (2.54%) ISTQB
9 9 (1.90%) DBS Check
9 9 (1.90%) OCP
9 9 (1.90%) Oracle Certification
10 7 (1.48%) A+ Certification
10 7 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
11 6 (1.27%) AWS Certification
11 6 (1.27%) CISM
12 5 (1.06%) CCNP
12 5 (1.06%) Network+ Certification
13 3 (0.63%) ACCA
13 3 (0.63%) CIMA
13 3 (0.63%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (7.19%) Accessibility
2 29 (6.13%) Data Quality
3 28 (5.92%) GDPR
4 19 (4.02%) SLA
4 19 (4.02%) WCAG
5 18 (3.81%) NIST
5 18 (3.81%) QA
6 16 (3.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 15 (3.17%) PMO
8 9 (1.90%) PCI DSS
9 8 (1.69%) GRC
10 4 (0.85%) ISO 19650
11 2 (0.42%) NCSC
12 1 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials
12 1 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.21%) ISO 22301
12 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 17025
12 1 (0.21%) NIST 800
12 1 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 84 (17.76%) Active Directory
2 23 (4.86%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (3.38%) Hyper-V
3 16 (3.38%) vSphere
4 14 (2.96%) VMware ESXi
5 8 (1.69%) Docker
6 5 (1.06%) Firmware
7 4 (0.85%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.21%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 54 (11.42%) Microsoft Intune
2 24 (5.07%) SCCM
3 20 (4.23%) Single Sign-On
4 10 (2.11%) Kubernetes
5 6 (1.27%) Jamf Pro
6 3 (0.63%) Grafana
6 3 (0.63%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.63%) QRadar
7 2 (0.42%) Ansible
7 2 (0.42%) Check_MK
7 2 (0.42%) WMI
8 1 (0.21%) Argo
8 1 (0.21%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 42 (8.88%) ServiceNow
2 29 (6.13%) Oracle
3 27 (5.71%) VMware
4 26 (5.50%) Cisco
5 25 (5.29%) SAP
6 14 (2.96%) Splunk
7 10 (2.11%) OpenAI
8 9 (1.90%) Apple
8 9 (1.90%) Databricks
8 9 (1.90%) Palo Alto
8 9 (1.90%) UiPath
9 8 (1.69%) Fortinet
10 7 (1.48%) Adobe
10 7 (1.48%) BeyondTrust
10 7 (1.48%) Red Hat
10 7 (1.48%) Samsung
11 6 (1.27%) Canon
12 5 (1.06%) Autodesk
12 5 (1.06%) IBM
12 5 (1.06%) MathWorks