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 9 September 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
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 6 4
Rank change year-on-year -3 -2 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 435 278 276
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.41% 15.43% 14.59%
As % of the Vendors category 28.05% 31.48% 31.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 314 191 181
10th Percentile £250 £165 £170
25th Percentile £363 £275 £255
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £443 £420 £405
Median % change year-on-year +5.36% +3.70% +1.25%
75th Percentile £501 £545 £525
90th Percentile £611 £613 £635
England median daily rate £488 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +2.63% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 20 3
10th Percentile £13.99 £24.30 £14.26
25th Percentile £17.48 £29.00 £18.50
Median hourly rate £19.41 £31.94 £26.13
Median % change year-on-year -39.23% +22.26% +32.28%
75th Percentile £21.75 £50.00 £40.84
90th Percentile £41.05 - £49.34
England median hourly rate £19.41 £22.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year -14.23% +39.43% -26.23%

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 1,551 883 863
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 44.24% 49.00% 45.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,013 576 575
10th Percentile £316 £235 £250
25th Percentile £406 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £486 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.55% -2.75% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £625
90th Percentile £675 £641 £725
England median daily rate £513 £501 £525
% change year-on-year +2.40% -4.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 28 12
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.72 £14.33
25th Percentile £17.66 £26.66 £15.17
Median hourly rate £21.50 £30.00 £28.81
Median % change year-on-year -28.33% +4.12% +35.59%
75th Percentile £34.28 £44.94 £46.31
90th Percentile £53.75 £50.00 £54.38
England median hourly rate £30.27 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +20.36% -28.14% -17.65%

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 9 September 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 9 September 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 9 September 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 +1 132 £450 +13.64% 230
Coventry +1 87 £425 +38.78% 33
Warwickshire -4 84 £450 +11.11% 53
Shropshire -24 56 £445 -13.59% 20
Staffordshire -5 18 £400 +185.71% 50
Worcestershire +4 11 £425 -26.09% 27
Herefordshire +7 7 £500 -23.08% 15
Solihull -33 6 £350 -37.78% 17
Walsall +2 4 £600 - 2
West Bromwich - 3 - - 5
Dudley - 3 £400 - 8
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 48 (11.03%) SharePoint
2 21 (4.83%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (0.92%) Apache Spark
3 4 (0.92%) SAS
4 3 (0.69%) Apache
4 3 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.69%) IIS
4 3 (0.69%) Oracle Workflow
5 2 (0.46%) CloudStack
6 1 (0.23%) Appian
6 1 (0.23%) CMS
6 1 (0.23%) Confluence
6 1 (0.23%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.23%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 54 (12.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (10.80%) Microsoft Office
3 16 (3.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (1.84%) MS Visio
5 7 (1.61%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 2 (0.46%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.23%) AutoCAD
8 1 (0.23%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.23%) ProjectWise
8 1 (0.23%) Revit
Business Applications
1 21 (4.83%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (1.15%) SAP PSCD
3 3 (0.69%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.46%) Primavera
4 2 (0.46%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.23%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.23%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 1 (0.23%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.23%) ResourceLink
Cloud Services
1 193 (44.37%) Azure
2 119 (27.36%) Microsoft 365
3 74 (17.01%) Power Platform
4 63 (14.48%) Entra ID
5 54 (12.41%) Azure DevOps
6 51 (11.72%) Dynamics 365
7 45 (10.34%) Power Automate
8 34 (7.82%) Microsoft Purview
9 33 (7.59%) AWS
10 30 (6.90%) Azure Data Factory
10 30 (6.90%) OneDrive
11 29 (6.67%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 27 (6.21%) PowerApps
13 20 (4.60%) Serverless
14 16 (3.68%) Microsoft Copilot
15 12 (2.76%) GCP
16 11 (2.53%) Azure Functions
17 10 (2.30%) GitHub
17 10 (2.30%) GitHub Actions
18 8 (1.84%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 37 (8.51%) DNS
2 30 (6.90%) DHCP
3 26 (5.98%) VPN
4 23 (5.29%) Firewall
5 13 (2.99%) TCP/IP
6 12 (2.76%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (2.53%) LAN
8 8 (1.84%) WAN
9 6 (1.38%) Cisco IOS
9 6 (1.38%) SSL
10 5 (1.15%) Network Security
10 5 (1.15%) SAN
10 5 (1.15%) Wireless
11 4 (0.92%) SD-WAN
12 3 (0.69%) HTTP
12 3 (0.69%) NAS
12 3 (0.69%) SNMP
12 3 (0.69%) Structured Cabling
12 3 (0.69%) Unified Communications
12 3 (0.69%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (9.20%) Power BI
2 36 (8.28%) SQL Server
3 18 (4.14%) Data Warehouse
3 18 (4.14%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (2.99%) Azure SQL Database
5 11 (2.53%) MySQL
6 10 (2.30%) Data Lake
7 9 (2.07%) Delta Lake
8 6 (1.38%) Metadata
8 6 (1.38%) Relational Database
8 6 (1.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 5 (1.15%) Data Vault
9 5 (1.15%) NoSQL
9 5 (1.15%) Oracle Database
10 4 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
10 4 (0.92%) Power Query
10 4 (0.92%) Tableau
11 3 (0.69%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.69%) Redis
11 3 (0.69%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 16 (3.68%) JIRA
2 12 (2.76%) Team Foundation Server
3 11 (2.53%) Visual Studio
4 10 (2.30%) Git
4 10 (2.30%) Selenium
4 10 (2.30%) WebDriver
5 9 (2.07%) Cypress.io
5 9 (2.07%) Postman
6 6 (1.38%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.69%) GitLab
7 3 (0.69%) Jenkins
7 3 (0.69%) MLflow
7 3 (0.69%) Protractor
8 2 (0.46%) MSI
8 2 (0.46%) NUnit
9 1 (0.23%) Maven
9 1 (0.23%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.23%) Rational Rhapsody
9 1 (0.23%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.23%) Zephyr
General
1 161 (37.01%) Social Skills
2 59 (13.56%) Finance
3 47 (10.80%) Analytical Skills
3 47 (10.80%) Public Sector
4 32 (7.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 23 (5.29%) Organisational Skills
6 14 (3.22%) Legal
7 12 (2.76%) Manufacturing
8 9 (2.07%) Banking
8 9 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
10 6 (1.38%) Marketing
11 5 (1.15%) Billing
11 5 (1.15%) Law
12 4 (0.92%) Retail
13 3 (0.69%) Telecoms
14 2 (0.46%) Electronics
14 2 (0.46%) Investment Banking
14 2 (0.46%) Local Government
14 2 (0.46%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 60 (13.79%) Analyst
2 54 (12.41%) Developer
3 51 (11.72%) Senior
4 37 (8.51%) Data Engineer
5 31 (7.13%) Architect
6 30 (6.90%) Lead
7 26 (5.98%) Administrator
8 25 (5.75%) Consultant
9 23 (5.29%) Azure Engineer
10 20 (4.60%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 19 (4.37%) Support Engineer
12 18 (4.14%) Solutions Architect
13 16 (3.68%) Dynamics 365 Developer
14 15 (3.45%) IT Support
15 13 (2.99%) Senior Data Engineer
16 12 (2.76%) IT Engineer
17 11 (2.53%) Senior Analyst
18 10 (2.30%) Data Architect
18 10 (2.30%) IT Support Engineer
18 10 (2.30%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (5.29%) JSON
2 21 (4.83%) Terraform
3 19 (4.37%) XML
4 18 (4.14%) SOAP
5 13 (2.99%) PySpark
6 12 (2.76%) REST
7 11 (2.53%) ActiveX
8 9 (2.07%) Gherkin
9 8 (1.84%) .NET
10 7 (1.61%) Microsoft Graph
10 7 (1.61%) XSLT
11 6 (1.38%) Kafka
12 5 (1.15%) JDBC
12 5 (1.15%) SAP PI
13 4 (0.92%) IDoc
13 4 (0.92%) YAML
14 3 (0.69%) .NET Core
14 3 (0.69%) GraphQL
14 3 (0.69%) OAuth
14 3 (0.69%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 25 (5.75%) Onboarding
2 24 (5.52%) Management Information System
3 20 (4.60%) Cloud Native
4 15 (3.45%) Hybrid Cloud
4 15 (3.45%) Product Ownership
5 13 (2.99%) SCADA
6 9 (2.07%) CMDB
7 8 (1.84%) Enterprise Software
8 7 (1.61%) Cyber Threat
8 7 (1.61%) Data Structures
8 7 (1.61%) Smartphone
8 7 (1.61%) Taxonomies
8 7 (1.61%) Virtual Team
9 6 (1.38%) Data Centre
9 6 (1.38%) IoT
9 6 (1.38%) Operational Technology
9 6 (1.38%) PKI
9 6 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (1.15%) Public Cloud
10 5 (1.15%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 100 (22.99%) Windows
2 33 (7.59%) Windows Server
3 31 (7.13%) Windows 10
4 23 (5.29%) Linux
5 13 (2.99%) Mac OS
6 8 (1.84%) Android
7 7 (1.61%) Ubuntu
8 5 (1.15%) SUSE
8 5 (1.15%) Unix
9 4 (0.92%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.69%) CentOS
10 3 (0.69%) Windows 7
10 3 (0.69%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 2 (0.46%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (21.15%) Problem-Solving
2 72 (16.55%) DevOps
3 67 (15.40%) Agile
4 62 (14.25%) Stakeholder Management
5 57 (13.10%) Continuous Improvement
6 54 (12.41%) Migration
7 51 (11.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 50 (11.49%) CI/CD
9 48 (11.03%) AI
10 46 (10.57%) Data Modelling
11 45 (10.34%) Customer Service
12 42 (9.66%) Analytics
12 42 (9.66%) Technical Leadership
13 41 (9.43%) ITSM
14 40 (9.20%) Business Intelligence
14 40 (9.20%) ITIL
15 34 (7.82%) Mentoring
15 34 (7.82%) Validation
16 30 (6.90%) CRM
17 29 (6.67%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 59 (13.56%) SQL
2 32 (7.36%) Python
3 28 (6.44%) JavaScript
4 27 (6.21%) C#
5 20 (4.60%) PowerShell
6 16 (3.68%) Java
7 13 (2.99%) VBA
8 11 (2.53%) VB
8 11 (2.53%) VB6
9 10 (2.30%) Bicep
10 6 (1.38%) Kusto Query Language
11 5 (1.15%) ABAP
11 5 (1.15%) T-SQL
12 4 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 4 (0.92%) PL/SQL
13 3 (0.69%) Bash
14 2 (0.46%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.46%) VBScript
15 1 (0.23%) Go
15 1 (0.23%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 72 (16.55%) Security Cleared
2 59 (13.56%) SC Cleared
3 39 (8.97%) Microsoft Certification
4 26 (5.98%) Degree
5 18 (4.14%) BPSS Clearance
6 13 (2.99%) Azure Certification
7 12 (2.76%) ISTQB
8 10 (2.30%) CISSP
9 9 (2.07%) OCP
9 9 (2.07%) Oracle Certification
10 6 (1.38%) AWS Certification
10 6 (1.38%) CISM
10 6 (1.38%) DBS Check
11 5 (1.15%) Cisco Certification
12 4 (0.92%) A+ Certification
12 4 (0.92%) CCNP
12 4 (0.92%) Network+ Certification
13 3 (0.69%) DV Cleared
13 3 (0.69%) ITIL Certification
13 3 (0.69%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (6.90%) Accessibility
2 28 (6.44%) Data Quality
3 25 (5.75%) GDPR
4 18 (4.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 17 (3.91%) NIST
5 17 (3.91%) QA
6 14 (3.22%) SLA
6 14 (3.22%) WCAG
7 12 (2.76%) PMO
8 7 (1.61%) PCI DSS
9 5 (1.15%) GRC
10 2 (0.46%) NCSC
11 1 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 15288
11 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 17025
11 1 (0.23%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.23%) SOC 2
System Software
1 76 (17.47%) Active Directory
2 27 (6.21%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (3.68%) Hyper-V
4 15 (3.45%) Docker
5 14 (3.22%) vSphere
6 12 (2.76%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.92%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.46%) Firmware
8 2 (0.46%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.46%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.46%) XenApp
8 2 (0.46%) XenDesktop
9 1 (0.23%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.23%) NFS
Systems Management
1 47 (10.80%) Microsoft Intune
2 28 (6.44%) SCCM
3 18 (4.14%) Kubernetes
4 17 (3.91%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (1.15%) Ansible
5 5 (1.15%) Grafana
5 5 (1.15%) Jamf Pro
6 4 (0.92%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.69%) QRadar
8 2 (0.46%) Check_MK
8 2 (0.46%) Failover Clustering
8 2 (0.46%) WMI
8 2 (0.46%) WSUS
9 1 (0.23%) AirWatch
9 1 (0.23%) Argo
9 1 (0.23%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.23%) SCOM
Vendors
1 38 (8.74%) ServiceNow
2 34 (7.82%) Oracle
3 33 (7.59%) VMware
4 26 (5.98%) Cisco
5 24 (5.52%) SAP
6 20 (4.60%) Databricks
7 13 (2.99%) Splunk
8 10 (2.30%) UiPath
9 9 (2.07%) Palo Alto
10 8 (1.84%) Apple
10 8 (1.84%) Informatica
10 8 (1.84%) Red Hat
11 7 (1.61%) Fortinet
12 6 (1.38%) Adobe
12 6 (1.38%) Canon
12 6 (1.38%) Citrix
13 5 (1.15%) F5
13 5 (1.15%) IBM
13 5 (1.15%) NetApp
13 5 (1.15%) Samsung