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 3 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
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 5 6
Rank change year-on-year -6 +1 -3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 351 234 236
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 10.99% 16.70% 12.13%
As % of the Vendors category 24.53% 34.31% 28.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 257 156 159
10th Percentile £217 £168 £184
25th Percentile £363 £235 £269
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% - -8.83%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £563
90th Percentile £624 £600 £673
England median daily rate £500 £476 £488
% change year-on-year +5.04% -2.36% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 13 22
10th Percentile £18.27 £12.83 £10.54
25th Percentile £19.34 £18.50 £11.08
Median hourly rate £25.00 £33.88 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.21% +142.00% -16.21%
75th Percentile £70.00 £50.00 £26.50
90th Percentile £70.30 - £53.38
England median hourly rate £20.69 £18.87 £15.00
% change year-on-year +9.64% +25.80% -30.23%

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 1,431 682 820
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 44.80% 48.68% 42.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 973 430 540
10th Percentile £313 £192 £250
25th Percentile £400 £313 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £468 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -1.47% +5.56% -7.69%
75th Percentile £550 £588 £624
90th Percentile £645 £675 £700
England median daily rate £505 £520 £515
% change year-on-year -2.88% +0.97% -2.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 26 54
10th Percentile £20.31 £14.45 £11.08
25th Percentile £25.11 £18.13 £13.25
Median hourly rate £33.99 £24.83 £16.82
Median % change year-on-year +36.89% +47.62% -9.08%
75th Percentile £53.75 £34.71 £28.31
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £55.88
England median hourly rate £32.50 £27.13 £23.80
% change year-on-year +19.82% +13.97% -39.01%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 +9.09% 117
Warwickshire -8 76 £500 +42.86% 37
Coventry -3 43 £450 +105.71% 29
Shropshire -32 33 £425 -6.18% 13
Worcestershire +7 14 £588 -34.72% 23
Staffordshire -1 12 £388 +50.49% 37
Solihull -18 11 £425 -9.67% 5
Herefordshire 0 10 £700 -22.22% 11
Dudley - 5 £400 - 8
West Bromwich - 3 - -
Smethwick - 2 - -
Brierley Hill - 2 £446 - 1
Wolverhampton -6 1 - - 8
Walsall - 1 £600 - 3
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 (7.69%) SharePoint
2 15 (4.27%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (2.56%) Confluence
4 5 (1.42%) SAS
5 4 (1.14%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.85%) Apache
6 3 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.85%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.57%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.57%) IIS
7 2 (0.57%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.28%) Appian
8 1 (0.28%) CMS
Applications
1 42 (11.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (9.97%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (4.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (3.70%) MS Visio
5 11 (3.13%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.28%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 19 (5.41%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.85%) Dynamics NAV
2 3 (0.85%) Primavera
3 2 (0.57%) Maximo
3 2 (0.57%) Remedy ITSM
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
1 129 (36.75%) Azure
2 64 (18.23%) Microsoft 365
3 62 (17.66%) Power Platform
4 38 (10.83%) Entra ID
5 35 (9.97%) AWS
6 28 (7.98%) Dynamics 365
7 27 (7.69%) Azure DevOps
8 26 (7.41%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 21 (5.98%) Azure Data Factory
10 18 (5.13%) Microsoft Purview
11 15 (4.27%) OneDrive
12 12 (3.42%) Power Automate
13 11 (3.13%) Microsoft Copilot
14 10 (2.85%) GitHub
14 10 (2.85%) Serverless
15 9 (2.56%) GCP
15 9 (2.56%) GitHub Actions
16 8 (2.28%) Azure Sentinel
16 8 (2.28%) PowerApps
17 6 (1.71%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 30 (8.55%) DNS
2 29 (8.26%) VPN
3 24 (6.84%) Firewall
4 22 (6.27%) DHCP
5 13 (3.70%) LAN
6 11 (3.13%) Network Security
7 9 (2.56%) SSL
7 9 (2.56%) WAN
8 8 (2.28%) TCP/IP
9 7 (1.99%) HTTP
9 7 (1.99%) Wi-Fi
10 6 (1.71%) BIG-IP
10 6 (1.71%) HTTPS
10 6 (1.71%) Wireless
11 5 (1.42%) Cisco ASA
11 5 (1.42%) Cisco Nexus
11 5 (1.42%) Ethereal
11 5 (1.42%) Intrusion Detection
11 5 (1.42%) IPsec
11 5 (1.42%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (10.83%) Power BI
2 22 (6.27%) Data Warehouse
3 14 (3.99%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (3.42%) SQL Server
5 8 (2.28%) Azure SQL Database
5 8 (2.28%) Delta Lake
6 7 (1.99%) Data Lake
6 7 (1.99%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
6 7 (1.99%) NoSQL
7 6 (1.71%) Relational Database
8 5 (1.42%) Metadata
8 5 (1.42%) MySQL
9 4 (1.14%) Oracle Database
9 4 (1.14%) Redis
10 3 (0.85%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.85%) Power Query
10 3 (0.85%) SAP Data Services
10 3 (0.85%) Tableau
11 2 (0.57%) SAS Visual Analytics
11 2 (0.57%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 31 (8.83%) JIRA
2 8 (2.28%) Git
3 6 (1.71%) Team Foundation Server
3 6 (1.71%) Visual Studio
4 5 (1.42%) GitLab
5 4 (1.14%) MLflow
6 3 (0.85%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.57%) JMeter
7 2 (0.57%) MSI
7 2 (0.57%) NUnit
7 2 (0.57%) Selenium
7 2 (0.57%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.28%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.28%) Maven
8 1 (0.28%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.28%) Zephyr
General
1 109 (31.05%) Social Skills
2 44 (12.54%) Finance
3 39 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (6.27%) Public Sector
5 12 (3.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 10 (2.85%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (2.56%) Manufacturing
8 8 (2.28%) Banking
8 8 (2.28%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (1.99%) Games
9 7 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (1.71%) Police
11 5 (1.42%) Law
11 5 (1.42%) Legal
12 4 (1.14%) Electronics
12 4 (1.14%) Marketing
12 4 (1.14%) Retail
13 3 (0.85%) Local Government
13 3 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.57%) Billing
Job Titles
1 50 (14.25%) Analyst
2 35 (9.97%) Developer
3 32 (9.12%) Architect
3 32 (9.12%) Senior
4 25 (7.12%) Data Engineer
5 18 (5.13%) Consultant
6 16 (4.56%) Business Analyst
7 15 (4.27%) Administrator
7 15 (4.27%) Support Engineer
8 14 (3.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 13 (3.70%) Lead
10 12 (3.42%) IT Support
10 12 (3.42%) Solutions Architect
11 11 (3.13%) Data Architect
12 10 (2.85%) Azure Engineer
12 10 (2.85%) IT Engineer
13 8 (2.28%) Network Engineer
13 8 (2.28%) Security Consultant
13 8 (2.28%) Senior Data Engineer
14 7 (1.99%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (5.41%) PySpark
2 9 (2.56%) .NET
2 9 (2.56%) SailPoint
3 8 (2.28%) XML
4 7 (1.99%) FastAPI
4 7 (1.99%) SAML
5 6 (1.71%) ActiveX
5 6 (1.71%) LDAP
5 6 (1.71%) SOAP
6 5 (1.42%) JSON
6 5 (1.42%) REST
7 4 (1.14%) .NET Framework
7 4 (1.14%) ADO
7 4 (1.14%) Flask
7 4 (1.14%) GraphQL
7 4 (1.14%) gRPC
7 4 (1.14%) Kafka
7 4 (1.14%) Middleware
7 4 (1.14%) WebSockets
7 4 (1.14%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (7.12%) Cloud Native
2 23 (6.55%) Onboarding
3 15 (4.27%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (2.85%) Security Operations Centre
4 10 (2.85%) Self-Motivation
5 9 (2.56%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (2.28%) SCADA
7 6 (1.71%) Data Centre
7 6 (1.71%) Management Information System
7 6 (1.71%) Operational Technology
7 6 (1.71%) Product Ownership
7 6 (1.71%) Security Posture
8 4 (1.14%) CSOC
8 4 (1.14%) Cyber Threat
8 4 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.14%) Public Cloud
9 3 (0.85%) CMDB
9 3 (0.85%) IoT
9 3 (0.85%) PKI
9 3 (0.85%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 79 (22.51%) Windows
2 26 (7.41%) Windows 10
3 24 (6.84%) Linux
4 23 (6.55%) Windows Server
5 9 (2.56%) Mac OS
6 5 (1.42%) Apple iOS
7 4 (1.14%) Android
7 4 (1.14%) Ubuntu
7 4 (1.14%) Unix
8 3 (0.85%) Windows 7
8 3 (0.85%) Windows Server 2012
8 3 (0.85%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.57%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.28%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (18.80%) Agile
1 66 (18.80%) Problem-Solving
2 54 (15.38%) CI/CD
3 52 (14.81%) Migration
4 50 (14.25%) DevOps
5 45 (12.82%) Analytics
6 44 (12.54%) AI
7 42 (11.97%) Continuous Improvement
8 39 (11.11%) Business Intelligence
9 34 (9.69%) Customer Service
9 34 (9.69%) Stakeholder Management
10 30 (8.55%) ITIL
11 28 (7.98%) Infrastructure as Code
11 28 (7.98%) Validation
12 27 (7.69%) Containerisation
12 27 (7.69%) ETL
13 25 (7.12%) Cybersecurity
13 25 (7.12%) Data Modelling
13 25 (7.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 23 (6.55%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 60 (17.09%) SQL
2 38 (10.83%) Python
3 20 (5.70%) PowerShell
4 12 (3.42%) Bicep
4 12 (3.42%) Java
5 9 (2.56%) Kusto Query Language
6 8 (2.28%) C#
6 8 (2.28%) VB
6 8 (2.28%) VBA
7 7 (1.99%) PL/SQL
8 6 (1.71%) JavaScript
8 6 (1.71%) VB6
9 5 (1.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 5 (1.42%) Go
10 3 (0.85%) MATLAB
10 3 (0.85%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.57%) Scala
11 2 (0.57%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.57%) VBScript
12 1 (0.28%) Bash
Qualifications
1 54 (15.38%) Security Cleared
2 39 (11.11%) SC Cleared
3 36 (10.26%) Degree
4 14 (3.99%) Microsoft Certification
5 13 (3.70%) CISSP
6 12 (3.42%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (2.56%) AWS Certification
7 9 (2.56%) DV Cleared
8 8 (2.28%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (2.28%) CISM
9 7 (1.99%) ISTQB
10 6 (1.71%) Azure Certification
11 5 (1.42%) CCNA
11 5 (1.42%) CCNP
11 5 (1.42%) Master's Degree
12 4 (1.14%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (1.14%) OCP
12 4 (1.14%) Oracle Certification
12 4 (1.14%) PhD
13 3 (0.85%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (6.55%) Data Quality
2 15 (4.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 14 (3.99%) QA
4 12 (3.42%) GDPR
4 12 (3.42%) NIST
5 11 (3.13%) SLA
6 10 (2.85%) PMO
7 7 (1.99%) Accessibility
8 4 (1.14%) GRC
9 3 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 12207
9 3 (0.85%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 2 (0.57%) GxP
10 2 (0.57%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.28%) FATCA
11 1 (0.28%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.28%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.28%) ISO 22301
11 1 (0.28%) P3O
System Software
1 69 (19.66%) Active Directory
2 27 (7.69%) Docker
3 21 (5.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (2.56%) Hyper-V
4 9 (2.56%) vSphere
5 6 (1.71%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (1.42%) VMware NSX
7 4 (1.14%) Snort
8 3 (0.85%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
9 2 (0.57%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.57%) Microsoft App-V
9 2 (0.57%) XenApp
9 2 (0.57%) XenDesktop
10 1 (0.28%) NFS
Systems Management
1 36 (10.26%) Kubernetes
2 28 (7.98%) Microsoft Intune
3 22 (6.27%) Terraform
4 17 (4.84%) SCCM
5 15 (4.27%) Single Sign-On
6 12 (3.42%) Grafana
6 12 (3.42%) Prometheus
7 4 (1.14%) Ansible
7 4 (1.14%) CSIRT
8 3 (0.85%) Control-M
8 3 (0.85%) HP ALM
8 3 (0.85%) IBM Guardium
8 3 (0.85%) Nessus
8 3 (0.85%) QRadar
9 2 (0.57%) Check_MK
9 2 (0.57%) Failover Clustering
9 2 (0.57%) HP Quality Center
9 2 (0.57%) SCOM
9 2 (0.57%) WMI
9 2 (0.57%) WSUS
Vendors
1 32 (9.12%) ServiceNow
2 23 (6.55%) Cisco
2 23 (6.55%) Databricks
2 23 (6.55%) VMware
3 22 (6.27%) Oracle
4 18 (5.13%) SAP
5 14 (3.99%) Splunk
6 8 (2.28%) F5
6 8 (2.28%) SolarWinds
7 7 (1.99%) CheckPoint
7 7 (1.99%) Informatica
7 7 (1.99%) Okta
7 7 (1.99%) Palo Alto
8 6 (1.71%) Fortinet
9 5 (1.42%) UiPath
10 4 (1.14%) Citrix
10 4 (1.14%) Veeam
11 3 (0.85%) Apple
11 3 (0.85%) HP
11 3 (0.85%) Remedy