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 23 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
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -7 0 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 369 235 270
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.12% 15.94% 13.15%
As % of the Vendors category 24.90% 33.43% 30.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 282 148 176
10th Percentile £250 £169 £186
25th Percentile £352 £235 £292
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £398 £410
Median % change year-on-year +13.07% -2.93% -5.48%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £525
90th Percentile £618 £600 £650
England median daily rate £498 £475 £498
% change year-on-year +4.74% -4.52% -0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 20 21
10th Percentile £18.27 £14.84 £10.50
25th Percentile £19.34 £26.66 £11.06
Median hourly rate £25.00 £31.94 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.73% +128.14% -19.85%
75th Percentile £70.00 £50.00 £26.50
90th Percentile £70.30 - £55.00
England median hourly rate £22.63 £19.23 £15.94
% change year-on-year +17.69% +20.68% -29.18%

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 1,482 703 890
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 44.67% 47.69% 43.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,033 436 582
10th Percentile £313 £200 £250
25th Percentile £400 £313 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -1.26% +5.56% -5.26%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £609
90th Percentile £645 £670 £700
England median daily rate £505 £513 £520
% change year-on-year -1.46% -1.44% -0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 30 53
10th Percentile £19.34 £14.99 £11.07
25th Percentile £22.50 £22.10 £13.25
Median hourly rate £33.99 £30.00 £16.82
Median % change year-on-year +13.30% +78.36% -18.76%
75th Percentile £53.75 £42.93 £28.75
90th Percentile £67.32 £50.00 £56.00
England median hourly rate £34.23 £27.13 £24.14
% change year-on-year +26.19% +12.37% -35.63%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 +3 118 £440 +10.00% 66
Warwickshire -6 87 £485 +76.36% 30
Coventry -1 56 £450 +65.90% 18
Shropshire -39 31 £425 -11.96% 11
Worcestershire +5 15 £475 -47.22% 18
Solihull -22 11 £425 -9.67% 10
Staffordshire -4 10 £354 +152.68% 23
Herefordshire +1 9 £700 -22.22% 4
Dudley - 5 £400 - 10
Walsall - 3 £600 - 3
West Bromwich - 3 - - 1
Brierley Hill - 2 £446 -
Wolverhampton -5 1 - - 7
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 33 (8.94%) SharePoint
2 15 (4.07%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (2.17%) Confluence
4 6 (1.63%) SAS
5 4 (1.08%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.81%) Apache
6 3 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.81%) IIS
6 3 (0.81%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.54%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.54%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.27%) Appian
8 1 (0.27%) CMS
Applications
1 45 (12.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 36 (9.76%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (4.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (3.52%) MS Visio
5 10 (2.71%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.27%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 20 (5.42%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.81%) Primavera
3 2 (0.54%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.27%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.27%) SAP EHS
4 1 (0.27%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.27%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 138 (37.40%) Azure
2 71 (19.24%) Microsoft 365
3 61 (16.53%) Power Platform
4 41 (11.11%) Entra ID
5 38 (10.30%) AWS
6 31 (8.40%) Azure DevOps
6 31 (8.40%) Dynamics 365
7 27 (7.32%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 24 (6.50%) Microsoft Purview
9 21 (5.69%) Azure Data Factory
10 18 (4.88%) OneDrive
11 15 (4.07%) Microsoft Copilot
11 15 (4.07%) Power Automate
12 12 (3.25%) GCP
13 10 (2.71%) GitHub
13 10 (2.71%) Serverless
14 9 (2.44%) GitHub Actions
14 9 (2.44%) PowerApps
15 6 (1.63%) Azure Key Vault
15 6 (1.63%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 30 (8.13%) DNS
1 30 (8.13%) VPN
2 23 (6.23%) DHCP
2 23 (6.23%) Firewall
3 12 (3.25%) LAN
4 10 (2.71%) Network Security
4 10 (2.71%) WAN
5 9 (2.44%) Wi-Fi
6 8 (2.17%) SSL
6 8 (2.17%) TCP/IP
7 6 (1.63%) Cisco IOS
7 6 (1.63%) HTTP
8 5 (1.36%) BIG-IP
8 5 (1.36%) HTTPS
8 5 (1.36%) Intrusion Detection
8 5 (1.36%) Wireless
9 4 (1.08%) Cisco ASA
9 4 (1.08%) Ethereal
9 4 (1.08%) IPsec
9 4 (1.08%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (10.57%) Power BI
2 24 (6.50%) Data Warehouse
3 15 (4.07%) SQL Server
4 14 (3.79%) PostgreSQL
5 8 (2.17%) Azure SQL Database
5 8 (2.17%) Delta Lake
6 7 (1.90%) Data Lake
6 7 (1.90%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
6 7 (1.90%) Metadata
6 7 (1.90%) NoSQL
6 7 (1.90%) Relational Database
7 6 (1.63%) MySQL
8 4 (1.08%) Oracle Database
8 4 (1.08%) Redis
9 3 (0.81%) Amazon Redshift
9 3 (0.81%) Power Query
9 3 (0.81%) SAP Data Services
9 3 (0.81%) SAS Enterprise Guide
9 3 (0.81%) Tableau
10 2 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 30 (8.13%) JIRA
2 8 (2.17%) Git
3 7 (1.90%) Team Foundation Server
4 6 (1.63%) Visual Studio
5 4 (1.08%) GitLab
5 4 (1.08%) MLflow
5 4 (1.08%) Selenium
5 4 (1.08%) WebDriver
6 2 (0.54%) Cypress.io
6 2 (0.54%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.54%) JMeter
6 2 (0.54%) MSI
6 2 (0.54%) NUnit
6 2 (0.54%) Postman
7 1 (0.27%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.27%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.27%) Maven
7 1 (0.27%) Protractor
7 1 (0.27%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.27%) Zephyr
General
1 114 (30.89%) Social Skills
2 47 (12.74%) Finance
3 40 (10.84%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (7.05%) Public Sector
5 14 (3.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 11 (2.98%) Organisational Skills
7 10 (2.71%) Banking
7 10 (2.71%) Manufacturing
8 8 (2.17%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (1.90%) Games
9 7 (1.90%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (1.63%) Legal
10 6 (1.63%) Police
11 5 (1.36%) Law
11 5 (1.36%) Retail
12 4 (1.08%) Electronics
12 4 (1.08%) Marketing
13 3 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.81%) Publishing
14 2 (0.54%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 56 (15.18%) Analyst
2 41 (11.11%) Developer
3 34 (9.21%) Senior
4 33 (8.94%) Architect
5 25 (6.78%) Data Engineer
6 18 (4.88%) Consultant
6 18 (4.88%) Lead
7 15 (4.07%) Business Analyst
7 15 (4.07%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 13 (3.52%) Solutions Architect
8 13 (3.52%) Support Engineer
9 12 (3.25%) Data Architect
10 11 (2.98%) Administrator
10 11 (2.98%) Azure Engineer
11 10 (2.71%) IT Support
12 8 (2.17%) Cloud Engineer
12 8 (2.17%) IT Engineer
12 8 (2.17%) Security Consultant
12 8 (2.17%) Senior Data Engineer
12 8 (2.17%) Support Technician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (5.15%) PySpark
2 9 (2.44%) SailPoint
2 9 (2.44%) XML
3 8 (2.17%) .NET
4 7 (1.90%) FastAPI
4 7 (1.90%) JSON
5 6 (1.63%) ActiveX
5 6 (1.63%) SAML
5 6 (1.63%) SOAP
6 5 (1.36%) ADO
6 5 (1.36%) LDAP
6 5 (1.36%) REST
7 4 (1.08%) .NET Framework
7 4 (1.08%) Flask
7 4 (1.08%) GraphQL
7 4 (1.08%) gRPC
7 4 (1.08%) Kafka
7 4 (1.08%) OpenTelemetry
7 4 (1.08%) WebSockets
7 4 (1.08%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 27 (7.32%) Onboarding
2 25 (6.78%) Cloud Native
3 17 (4.61%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (2.71%) Security Operations Centre
5 9 (2.44%) Enterprise Software
5 9 (2.44%) Self-Motivation
6 8 (2.17%) Management Information System
6 8 (2.17%) SCADA
7 7 (1.90%) Data Centre
7 7 (1.90%) Product Ownership
8 6 (1.63%) Operational Technology
8 6 (1.63%) Security Posture
8 6 (1.63%) Smartphone
9 5 (1.36%) CMDB
9 5 (1.36%) Public Cloud
10 4 (1.08%) CSOC
10 4 (1.08%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (0.81%) IoT
11 3 (0.81%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 81 (21.95%) Windows
2 27 (7.32%) Windows 10
3 26 (7.05%) Linux
4 23 (6.23%) Windows Server
5 9 (2.44%) Mac OS
6 7 (1.90%) Android
7 5 (1.36%) Apple iOS
8 4 (1.08%) SUSE
8 4 (1.08%) Ubuntu
8 4 (1.08%) Unix
9 3 (0.81%) Windows 7
9 3 (0.81%) Windows Server 2012
9 3 (0.81%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.27%) CatOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (19.78%) Problem-Solving
2 66 (17.89%) Agile
3 55 (14.91%) CI/CD
3 55 (14.91%) DevOps
3 55 (14.91%) Migration
4 46 (12.47%) AI
4 46 (12.47%) Continuous Improvement
5 44 (11.92%) Analytics
6 39 (10.57%) Business Intelligence
7 38 (10.30%) Stakeholder Management
8 32 (8.67%) Customer Service
9 30 (8.13%) Infrastructure as Code
10 28 (7.59%) ITIL
10 28 (7.59%) Validation
11 27 (7.32%) Data Modelling
11 27 (7.32%) ETL
12 26 (7.05%) Containerisation
12 26 (7.05%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 25 (6.78%) Cybersecurity
14 24 (6.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 60 (16.26%) SQL
2 36 (9.76%) Python
3 18 (4.88%) PowerShell
4 13 (3.52%) Bicep
5 11 (2.98%) Java
6 9 (2.44%) C#
6 9 (2.44%) Kusto Query Language
7 8 (2.17%) VB
7 8 (2.17%) VBA
8 7 (1.90%) PL/SQL
9 6 (1.63%) JavaScript
9 6 (1.63%) VB6
10 5 (1.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 4 (1.08%) Go
12 3 (0.81%) MATLAB
12 3 (0.81%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.54%) Scala
13 2 (0.54%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.54%) VBScript
14 1 (0.27%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 62 (16.80%) Security Cleared
2 48 (13.01%) SC Cleared
3 32 (8.67%) Degree
4 14 (3.79%) Microsoft Certification
5 13 (3.52%) CISSP
6 11 (2.98%) AWS Certification
7 10 (2.71%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (2.44%) DV Cleared
8 9 (2.44%) ISTQB
9 8 (2.17%) Azure Certification
9 8 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (2.17%) CISM
10 5 (1.36%) CCNA
10 5 (1.36%) Master's Degree
11 4 (1.08%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 4 (1.08%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (1.08%) OCP
11 4 (1.08%) Oracle Certification
11 4 (1.08%) PhD
12 3 (0.81%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (6.50%) Data Quality
2 16 (4.34%) QA
3 15 (4.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (3.79%) GDPR
4 14 (3.79%) SLA
5 12 (3.25%) NIST
5 12 (3.25%) PMO
6 10 (2.71%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.08%) GRC
8 3 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 12207
8 3 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 3 (0.81%) WCAG
9 2 (0.54%) GxP
9 2 (0.54%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.27%) Basel III
10 1 (0.27%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.27%) ISO 14001
10 1 (0.27%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 71 (19.24%) Active Directory
2 26 (7.05%) Docker
3 22 (5.96%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (2.71%) Hyper-V
4 10 (2.71%) vSphere
5 7 (1.90%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (1.08%) Snort
6 4 (1.08%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.81%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.54%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.54%) Microsoft App-V
8 2 (0.54%) XenApp
8 2 (0.54%) XenDesktop
9 1 (0.27%) NFS
Systems Management
1 35 (9.49%) Kubernetes
2 33 (8.94%) Microsoft Intune
3 22 (5.96%) SCCM
3 22 (5.96%) Terraform
4 14 (3.79%) Single Sign-On
5 11 (2.98%) Grafana
5 11 (2.98%) Prometheus
6 4 (1.08%) CSIRT
7 3 (0.81%) Ansible
7 3 (0.81%) Control-M
7 3 (0.81%) HP ALM
7 3 (0.81%) IBM Guardium
7 3 (0.81%) Nessus
7 3 (0.81%) QRadar
8 2 (0.54%) Check_MK
8 2 (0.54%) HP Quality Center
8 2 (0.54%) Jamf Pro
8 2 (0.54%) SCOM
8 2 (0.54%) WMI
8 2 (0.54%) WSUS
Vendors
1 33 (8.94%) ServiceNow
2 26 (7.05%) VMware
3 25 (6.78%) Cisco
3 25 (6.78%) Databricks
3 25 (6.78%) Oracle
4 22 (5.96%) SAP
5 12 (3.25%) Splunk
6 9 (2.44%) UiPath
7 7 (1.90%) F5
7 7 (1.90%) Okta
7 7 (1.90%) Red Hat
8 6 (1.63%) Canon
8 6 (1.63%) CheckPoint
8 6 (1.63%) Fortinet
8 6 (1.63%) Informatica
8 6 (1.63%) Palo Alto
8 6 (1.63%) SolarWinds
9 4 (1.08%) IBM
9 4 (1.08%) MathWorks
9 4 (1.08%) Siemens