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 8 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
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 6 4
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 472 301 299
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 13.28% 16.12% 15.78%
As % of the Vendors category 30.45% 30.53% 33.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 324 219 203
10th Percentile £213 £165 £162
25th Percentile £362 £288 £255
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £428 £440 £425
Median % change year-on-year -2.84% +3.53% +6.25%
75th Percentile £501 £588 £538
90th Percentile £634 £650 £634
England median daily rate £493 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.68% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 21 4
10th Percentile £14.04 £18.00 £15.68
25th Percentile £17.46 £27.21 £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 £50.00 £35.00
90th Percentile £33.75 - -
England median hourly rate £18.50 £22.63 £18.13
% change year-on-year -18.25% +24.82% -21.17%

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 1,550 986 906
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 43.60% 52.81% 47.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,003 634 590
10th Percentile £313 £250 £213
25th Percentile £402 £389 £361
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £587 £613
90th Percentile £675 £653 £713
England median daily rate £519 £507 £525
% change year-on-year +2.37% -3.43% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 99 35 14
10th Percentile £13.49 £15.34 £14.48
25th Percentile £17.48 £19.13 £17.32
Median hourly rate £20.62 £30.00 £28.81
Median % change year-on-year -31.28% +4.12% +25.27%
75th Percentile £33.99 £36.25 £42.88
90th Percentile £53.75 £50.00 £56.63
England median hourly rate £25.75 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +2.41% -28.16% -20.16%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 0 141 £500 +25.00% 200
Warwickshire -1 94 £450 - 63
Coventry 0 91 £425 +38.78% 49
Shropshire -21 55 £445 -13.17% 34
Staffordshire -4 23 £388 +93.75% 74
Worcestershire +6 17 £175 -69.57% 44
Herefordshire +9 12 £500 -23.08% 23
Walsall +2 4 £600 - 13
Solihull -29 4 £228 -58.64% 16
West Bromwich - 3 - - 2
Dudley - 2 £388 - 15
Halesowen - 1 - - 2
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 58 (12.29%) SharePoint
2 26 (5.51%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.64%) Apache
3 3 (0.64%) IIS
4 2 (0.42%) CloudStack
4 2 (0.42%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.21%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.21%) Appian
5 1 (0.21%) CMS
5 1 (0.21%) Confluence
5 1 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
5 1 (0.21%) SAS
Applications
1 62 (13.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 54 (11.44%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (3.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (1.69%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (1.06%) Chatbot
5 5 (1.06%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.85%) Adobe Creative Suite
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 32 (6.78%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.06%) SAP PSCD
2 5 (1.06%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.85%) ResourceLink
4 3 (0.64%) Primavera
4 3 (0.64%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.21%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.21%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 1 (0.21%) MIS ActiveH
Cloud Services
1 206 (43.64%) Azure
2 138 (29.24%) Microsoft 365
3 78 (16.53%) Power Platform
4 74 (15.68%) Entra ID
5 65 (13.77%) Dynamics 365
6 56 (11.86%) Azure DevOps
7 55 (11.65%) Power Automate
8 37 (7.84%) AWS
9 30 (6.36%) Microsoft Purview
10 29 (6.14%) PowerApps
11 28 (5.93%) OneDrive
12 26 (5.51%) Azure Data Factory
13 25 (5.30%) Serverless
14 22 (4.66%) Microsoft Copilot
15 20 (4.24%) Azure Functions
15 20 (4.24%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 15 (3.18%) GCP
17 11 (2.33%) PaaS
18 10 (2.12%) Copilot Studio
19 9 (1.91%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 35 (7.42%) DNS
2 30 (6.36%) DHCP
3 27 (5.72%) Firewall
4 25 (5.30%) VPN
5 16 (3.39%) TCP/IP
6 14 (2.97%) Wi-Fi
7 12 (2.54%) LAN
8 9 (1.91%) Wireless
9 8 (1.69%) 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%) SAN
11 5 (1.06%) SD-WAN
12 4 (0.85%) Internet
12 4 (0.85%) Structured Cabling
12 4 (0.85%) VoIP
13 3 (0.64%) DNSSEC
13 3 (0.64%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (8.69%) SQL Server
2 33 (6.99%) Power BI
3 18 (3.81%) PostgreSQL
4 14 (2.97%) Data Warehouse
5 12 (2.54%) MySQL
6 10 (2.12%) Azure SQL Database
7 7 (1.48%) Data Lake
7 7 (1.48%) Power Query
7 7 (1.48%) Relational Database
7 7 (1.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 6 (1.27%) Oracle Reports
9 5 (1.06%) Data Vault
9 5 (1.06%) Metadata
10 4 (0.85%) Delta Lake
10 4 (0.85%) Oracle BI Publisher
11 3 (0.64%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.64%) MongoDB
11 3 (0.64%) NoSQL
12 2 (0.42%) GIS
12 2 (0.42%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 16 (3.39%) JIRA
2 13 (2.75%) Git
2 13 (2.75%) Team Foundation Server
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 (0.64%) 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
1 188 (39.83%) Social Skills
2 68 (14.41%) Finance
3 61 (12.92%) Analytical Skills
4 56 (11.86%) Public Sector
5 37 (7.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 30 (6.36%) Organisational Skills
7 20 (4.24%) Legal
8 13 (2.75%) Manufacturing
9 9 (1.91%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (1.69%) Billing
11 7 (1.48%) Documentation Skills
12 6 (1.27%) Marketing
13 5 (1.06%) Banking
13 5 (1.06%) General Ledger
13 5 (1.06%) Retail
13 5 (1.06%) Telecoms
14 4 (0.85%) Back Office
15 3 (0.64%) Law
16 2 (0.42%) Investment Banking
17 1 (0.21%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 61 (12.92%) Analyst
2 58 (12.29%) Developer
3 52 (11.02%) Senior
4 35 (7.42%) Lead
5 32 (6.78%) Architect
6 31 (6.57%) Data Engineer
7 30 (6.36%) Administrator
8 28 (5.93%) Support Engineer
9 24 (5.08%) Consultant
10 23 (4.87%) Azure Engineer
11 22 (4.66%) Solutions Architect
12 20 (4.24%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 20 (4.24%) IT Support
13 19 (4.03%) Dynamics 365 Developer
14 15 (3.18%) IT Engineer
15 14 (2.97%) IT Support Engineer
16 12 (2.54%) Junior
16 12 (2.54%) Senior Analyst
16 12 (2.54%) Senior Developer
17 11 (2.33%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (5.72%) JSON
2 24 (5.08%) XML
3 22 (4.66%) SOAP
4 19 (4.03%) REST
5 17 (3.60%) Terraform
6 12 (2.54%) ActiveX
7 11 (2.33%) Gherkin
7 11 (2.33%) XSLT
8 9 (1.91%) Microsoft Graph
9 7 (1.48%) PySpark
10 6 (1.27%) .NET
10 6 (1.27%) LangChain
10 6 (1.27%) OAuth
10 6 (1.27%) OpenID
10 6 (1.27%) Semantic Kernel
11 5 (1.06%) JDBC
11 5 (1.06%) Oracle Fusion
11 5 (1.06%) SAML
11 5 (1.06%) SAP PI
12 4 (0.85%) LangGraph
Miscellaneous
1 39 (8.26%) Management Information System
2 32 (6.78%) Onboarding
3 16 (3.39%) Cloud Native
3 16 (3.39%) Product Ownership
4 15 (3.18%) Hybrid Cloud
5 14 (2.97%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (2.33%) Data Structures
6 11 (2.33%) Taxonomies
7 10 (2.12%) Virtual Team
8 9 (1.91%) Smartphone
9 8 (1.69%) AI Agents
9 8 (1.69%) Cyber Threat
9 8 (1.69%) SCADA
10 7 (1.48%) CMDB
10 7 (1.48%) Data Centre
10 7 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (1.48%) Operational Technology
11 6 (1.27%) PKI
11 6 (1.27%) Security Operations Centre
12 5 (1.06%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 110 (23.31%) Windows
2 34 (7.20%) Windows Server
3 27 (5.72%) Windows 10
4 23 (4.87%) Linux
5 14 (2.97%) Mac OS
6 11 (2.33%) Android
7 8 (1.69%) Ubuntu
8 5 (1.06%) Apple iOS
8 5 (1.06%) SUSE
8 5 (1.06%) Unix
9 4 (0.85%) CentOS
9 4 (0.85%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.64%) Windows 7
10 3 (0.64%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 2 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (21.61%) Problem-Solving
2 75 (15.89%) DevOps
3 74 (15.68%) Stakeholder Management
4 67 (14.19%) Continuous Improvement
5 65 (13.77%) Agile
6 60 (12.71%) AI
7 59 (12.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 57 (12.08%) Migration
9 56 (11.86%) Customer Service
10 47 (9.96%) Technical Leadership
11 45 (9.53%) CRM
11 45 (9.53%) Data Modelling
11 45 (9.53%) ITSM
12 42 (8.90%) CI/CD
13 41 (8.69%) ITIL
13 41 (8.69%) Mentoring
14 37 (7.84%) Business Intelligence
15 36 (7.63%) Roadmaps
15 36 (7.63%) Validation
16 34 (7.20%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 48 (10.17%) SQL
2 34 (7.20%) JavaScript
3 33 (6.99%) C#
4 25 (5.30%) Python
5 23 (4.87%) PowerShell
6 16 (3.39%) Java
7 13 (2.75%) VBA
8 12 (2.54%) VB
8 12 (2.54%) VB6
9 7 (1.48%) Kusto Query Language
10 6 (1.27%) T-SQL
11 5 (1.06%) ABAP
11 5 (1.06%) Bicep
11 5 (1.06%) PL/SQL
12 4 (0.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 3 (0.64%) Bash
14 2 (0.42%) Search Processing Language
14 2 (0.42%) TypeScript
15 1 (0.21%) C++
15 1 (0.21%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 72 (15.25%) Security Cleared
2 57 (12.08%) SC Cleared
3 45 (9.53%) Microsoft Certification
4 24 (5.08%) Degree
5 20 (4.24%) BPSS Clearance
6 15 (3.18%) Azure Certification
7 14 (2.97%) CISSP
8 12 (2.54%) ISTQB
9 9 (1.91%) DBS Check
9 9 (1.91%) OCP
9 9 (1.91%) Oracle Certification
10 7 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.48%) CISM
11 6 (1.27%) A+ Certification
11 6 (1.27%) AWS Certification
12 5 (1.06%) CCNP
12 5 (1.06%) Network+ Certification
13 3 (0.64%) ACCA
13 3 (0.64%) CIMA
13 3 (0.64%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (7.42%) Accessibility
2 29 (6.14%) GDPR
3 25 (5.30%) Data Quality
4 20 (4.24%) WCAG
5 19 (4.03%) NIST
5 19 (4.03%) QA
6 18 (3.81%) SLA
7 17 (3.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 15 (3.18%) PMO
9 9 (1.91%) GRC
9 9 (1.91%) PCI DSS
10 4 (0.85%) ISO 19650
11 2 (0.42%) NCSC
12 1 (0.21%) Basel III
12 1 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials
12 1 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 17025
12 1 (0.21%) NIST 800
12 1 (0.21%) P3O
12 1 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 84 (17.80%) Active Directory
2 26 (5.51%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (3.39%) Hyper-V
3 16 (3.39%) vSphere
4 14 (2.97%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (1.48%) Docker
6 4 (0.85%) Firmware
6 4 (0.85%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.42%) XenApp
7 2 (0.42%) XenDesktop
8 1 (0.21%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.21%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 53 (11.23%) Microsoft Intune
2 26 (5.51%) SCCM
3 20 (4.24%) Single Sign-On
4 9 (1.91%) Kubernetes
5 5 (1.06%) Jamf Pro
6 3 (0.64%) Grafana
6 3 (0.64%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.64%) QRadar
7 2 (0.42%) Ansible
7 2 (0.42%) Check_MK
7 2 (0.42%) Failover Clustering
7 2 (0.42%) WMI
7 2 (0.42%) WSUS
8 1 (0.21%) Argo
8 1 (0.21%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 42 (8.90%) ServiceNow
2 30 (6.36%) VMware
3 29 (6.14%) Oracle
4 27 (5.72%) Cisco
5 25 (5.30%) SAP
6 14 (2.97%) Splunk
7 10 (2.12%) Databricks
7 10 (2.12%) OpenAI
7 10 (2.12%) Palo Alto
8 9 (1.91%) UiPath
9 8 (1.69%) Apple
9 8 (1.69%) Fortinet
10 7 (1.48%) Adobe
10 7 (1.48%) Red Hat
11 6 (1.27%) Canon
11 6 (1.27%) Samsung
12 5 (1.06%) Autodesk
12 5 (1.06%) Google
12 5 (1.06%) MathWorks
12 5 (1.06%) SolarWinds