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 1 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
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 5 6
Rank change year-on-year -4 +1 -3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 359 236 235
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.17% 16.69% 12.11%
As % of the Vendors category 24.93% 34.25% 28.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 261 158 159
10th Percentile £220 £169 £184
25th Percentile £363 £235 £269
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £400
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% - -8.57%
75th Percentile £540 £538 £563
90th Percentile £619 £608 £673
England median daily rate £498 £477 £488
% change year-on-year +4.30% -2.15% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 14 22
10th Percentile £14.11 £13.11 £10.54
25th Percentile £19.34 £18.88 £11.08
Median hourly rate £25.00 £31.94 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.73% +128.14% -16.21%
75th Percentile £60.00 £47.99 £26.50
90th Percentile £70.26 £50.00 £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 1,440 689 818
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 44.79% 48.73% 42.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 972 436 539
10th Percentile £313 £190 £250
25th Percentile £400 £313 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £468 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -1.53% +5.56% -9.55%
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 61 27 54
10th Percentile £20.31 £14.59 £11.08
25th Percentile £25.00 £18.13 £13.25
Median hourly rate £33.99 £24.66 £16.82
Median % change year-on-year +37.83% +46.61% -9.08%
75th Percentile £53.75 £34.43 £28.31
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £55.88
England median hourly rate £32.50 £26.75 £23.80
% change year-on-year +21.50% +12.39% -39.82%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 +2 123 £450 +9.09% 116
Warwickshire -8 77 £500 +42.86% 43
Coventry -3 44 £450 +105.71% 27
Shropshire -28 36 £425 -6.18% 15
Worcestershire +7 14 £588 -34.72% 19
Staffordshire -1 12 £388 +50.49% 37
Solihull -18 11 £425 -9.67% 5
Herefordshire 0 10 £700 -22.22% 10
Dudley - 5 £400 - 8
Smethwick - 3 - -
West Bromwich - 3 - -
Brierley Hill - 2 £446 - 1
Wolverhampton -6 1 - - 8
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 (7.52%) SharePoint
2 15 (4.18%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (2.51%) Confluence
4 5 (1.39%) SAS
5 4 (1.11%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.84%) Apache
6 3 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.84%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.56%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.56%) IIS
7 2 (0.56%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.28%) Appian
8 1 (0.28%) CMS
Applications
1 43 (11.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 36 (10.03%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (4.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (3.90%) MS Visio
5 11 (3.06%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.28%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 19 (5.29%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.84%) Dynamics NAV
2 3 (0.84%) Maximo
2 3 (0.84%) Primavera
3 2 (0.56%) 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 (35.93%) Azure
2 66 (18.38%) Power Platform
3 64 (17.83%) Microsoft 365
4 38 (10.58%) Entra ID
5 35 (9.75%) AWS
6 28 (7.80%) Dynamics 365
7 27 (7.52%) Azure DevOps
8 26 (7.24%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 21 (5.85%) Azure Data Factory
10 18 (5.01%) Microsoft Purview
11 16 (4.46%) Power Automate
12 15 (4.18%) OneDrive
13 12 (3.34%) PowerApps
14 10 (2.79%) GitHub
14 10 (2.79%) Microsoft Copilot
14 10 (2.79%) Serverless
15 9 (2.51%) GCP
15 9 (2.51%) GitHub Actions
16 8 (2.23%) Azure Sentinel
17 6 (1.67%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 32 (8.91%) DNS
2 31 (8.64%) VPN
3 26 (7.24%) Firewall
4 22 (6.13%) DHCP
5 15 (4.18%) LAN
6 13 (3.62%) SSL
7 11 (3.06%) Network Security
7 11 (3.06%) WAN
8 9 (2.51%) HTTP
9 8 (2.23%) BIG-IP
9 8 (2.23%) HTTPS
9 8 (2.23%) TCP/IP
9 8 (2.23%) Wireless
10 7 (1.95%) Cisco ASA
10 7 (1.95%) Cisco Nexus
10 7 (1.95%) Ethereal
10 7 (1.95%) IPsec
10 7 (1.95%) Wi-Fi
10 7 (1.95%) Wireshark
11 5 (1.39%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (11.70%) Power BI
2 25 (6.96%) Data Warehouse
3 15 (4.18%) SQL Server
4 14 (3.90%) PostgreSQL
5 8 (2.23%) Azure SQL Database
5 8 (2.23%) Delta Lake
6 7 (1.95%) Data Lake
6 7 (1.95%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
6 7 (1.95%) NoSQL
7 6 (1.67%) Relational Database
8 5 (1.39%) Metadata
8 5 (1.39%) MySQL
8 5 (1.39%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 4 (1.11%) Oracle Database
9 4 (1.11%) Power Query
9 4 (1.11%) Redis
10 3 (0.84%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.84%) SAP Data Services
10 3 (0.84%) Tableau
11 2 (0.56%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 31 (8.64%) JIRA
2 9 (2.51%) Git
3 6 (1.67%) Team Foundation Server
3 6 (1.67%) Visual Studio
4 5 (1.39%) GitLab
5 4 (1.11%) MLflow
6 3 (0.84%) Jenkins
7 2 (0.56%) JMeter
7 2 (0.56%) MSI
7 2 (0.56%) NUnit
7 2 (0.56%) Selenium
7 2 (0.56%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.28%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.28%) Maven
8 1 (0.28%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.28%) Zephyr
General
1 111 (30.92%) Social Skills
2 44 (12.26%) Finance
3 42 (11.70%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (6.13%) Public Sector
5 13 (3.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 11 (3.06%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (2.51%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (2.51%) Manufacturing
8 8 (2.23%) Banking
9 7 (1.95%) Games
9 7 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (1.67%) Police
11 5 (1.39%) Law
11 5 (1.39%) Legal
12 4 (1.11%) Electronics
12 4 (1.11%) Local Government
12 4 (1.11%) Marketing
12 4 (1.11%) Retail
13 3 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.56%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 51 (14.21%) Analyst
2 38 (10.58%) Developer
3 32 (8.91%) Architect
3 32 (8.91%) Senior
4 25 (6.96%) Data Engineer
5 18 (5.01%) Consultant
6 16 (4.46%) Administrator
6 16 (4.46%) Business Analyst
7 15 (4.18%) Support Engineer
8 14 (3.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 13 (3.62%) Lead
10 12 (3.34%) IT Support
10 12 (3.34%) Solutions Architect
11 11 (3.06%) Data Architect
12 10 (2.79%) Azure Engineer
12 10 (2.79%) IT Engineer
12 10 (2.79%) Network Engineer
13 8 (2.23%) Security Consultant
13 8 (2.23%) Senior Data Engineer
14 7 (1.95%) Desktop Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (5.29%) PySpark
2 9 (2.51%) .NET
2 9 (2.51%) SailPoint
2 9 (2.51%) SAML
3 8 (2.23%) LDAP
3 8 (2.23%) XML
4 7 (1.95%) FastAPI
5 6 (1.67%) ActiveX
5 6 (1.67%) SOAP
6 5 (1.39%) JSON
6 5 (1.39%) REST
7 4 (1.11%) .NET Framework
7 4 (1.11%) ADO
7 4 (1.11%) Flask
7 4 (1.11%) gRPC
7 4 (1.11%) Kafka
7 4 (1.11%) Middleware
7 4 (1.11%) OpenTelemetry
7 4 (1.11%) WebSockets
7 4 (1.11%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (6.96%) Cloud Native
2 23 (6.41%) Onboarding
3 14 (3.90%) Hybrid Cloud
4 10 (2.79%) Security Operations Centre
4 10 (2.79%) Self-Motivation
5 9 (2.51%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (2.23%) SCADA
7 6 (1.67%) Data Centre
7 6 (1.67%) Management Information System
7 6 (1.67%) Operational Technology
7 6 (1.67%) Product Ownership
7 6 (1.67%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.39%) PKI
9 4 (1.11%) CSOC
9 4 (1.11%) Cyber Threat
9 4 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.84%) CMDB
10 3 (0.84%) IoT
10 3 (0.84%) Public Cloud
10 3 (0.84%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 79 (22.01%) Windows
2 26 (7.24%) Windows 10
3 24 (6.69%) Linux
4 23 (6.41%) Windows Server
5 9 (2.51%) Mac OS
6 5 (1.39%) Apple iOS
7 4 (1.11%) Android
7 4 (1.11%) Ubuntu
7 4 (1.11%) Unix
8 3 (0.84%) CatOS
8 3 (0.84%) Windows 7
8 3 (0.84%) Windows Server 2012
8 3 (0.84%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 70 (19.50%) Problem-Solving
2 68 (18.94%) Agile
3 56 (15.60%) CI/CD
4 53 (14.76%) Migration
5 50 (13.93%) DevOps
6 46 (12.81%) Analytics
7 44 (12.26%) AI
8 43 (11.98%) Business Intelligence
9 42 (11.70%) Continuous Improvement
10 35 (9.75%) Customer Service
11 34 (9.47%) Stakeholder Management
12 30 (8.36%) ETL
12 30 (8.36%) ITIL
13 29 (8.08%) Data Modelling
14 28 (7.80%) Validation
15 27 (7.52%) Containerisation
15 27 (7.52%) Cybersecurity
15 27 (7.52%) Infrastructure as Code
16 26 (7.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 23 (6.41%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 61 (16.99%) SQL
2 39 (10.86%) Python
3 20 (5.57%) PowerShell
4 12 (3.34%) Bicep
4 12 (3.34%) Java
5 9 (2.51%) Kusto Query Language
6 8 (2.23%) C#
6 8 (2.23%) VB
6 8 (2.23%) VBA
7 7 (1.95%) PL/SQL
8 6 (1.67%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 6 (1.67%) JavaScript
8 6 (1.67%) VB6
9 5 (1.39%) Go
10 3 (0.84%) MATLAB
10 3 (0.84%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.56%) Scala
11 2 (0.56%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.56%) VBScript
12 1 (0.28%) R
Qualifications
1 53 (14.76%) Security Cleared
2 38 (10.58%) SC Cleared
3 36 (10.03%) Degree
4 15 (4.18%) CISSP
4 15 (4.18%) Microsoft Certification
5 12 (3.34%) Cisco Certification
6 10 (2.79%) CISM
7 9 (2.51%) AWS Certification
7 9 (2.51%) BPSS Clearance
7 9 (2.51%) DV Cleared
8 7 (1.95%) ISTQB
9 6 (1.67%) Azure Certification
10 5 (1.39%) CCNA
10 5 (1.39%) CCNP
10 5 (1.39%) Master's Degree
11 4 (1.11%) DBS Check
11 4 (1.11%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (1.11%) OCP
11 4 (1.11%) Oracle Certification
11 4 (1.11%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (6.41%) Data Quality
2 15 (4.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 14 (3.90%) QA
4 13 (3.62%) GDPR
5 12 (3.34%) NIST
6 11 (3.06%) SLA
7 10 (2.79%) PMO
8 7 (1.95%) Accessibility
9 4 (1.11%) GRC
10 3 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 3 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 3 (0.84%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.56%) GxP
11 2 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.28%) HIPAA
12 1 (0.28%) ISO 14001
12 1 (0.28%) ISO 9001
12 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 1 (0.28%) NIST 800
12 1 (0.28%) WCAG
System Software
1 71 (19.78%) Active Directory
2 27 (7.52%) Docker
3 24 (6.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (2.79%) vSphere
5 9 (2.51%) Hyper-V
6 7 (1.95%) VMware NSX
7 6 (1.67%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (1.11%) Snort
9 3 (0.84%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.56%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.56%) Microsoft App-V
10 2 (0.56%) XenApp
10 2 (0.56%) XenDesktop
11 1 (0.28%) NFS
Systems Management
1 38 (10.58%) Kubernetes
2 28 (7.80%) Microsoft Intune
3 22 (6.13%) Terraform
4 17 (4.74%) SCCM
4 17 (4.74%) Single Sign-On
5 12 (3.34%) Grafana
5 12 (3.34%) Prometheus
6 5 (1.39%) Ansible
7 4 (1.11%) CSIRT
8 3 (0.84%) Control-M
8 3 (0.84%) HP ALM
8 3 (0.84%) IBM Guardium
8 3 (0.84%) Nessus
8 3 (0.84%) QRadar
9 2 (0.56%) Check_MK
9 2 (0.56%) Failover Clustering
9 2 (0.56%) HP Quality Center
9 2 (0.56%) SCOM
9 2 (0.56%) WMI
9 2 (0.56%) WSUS
Vendors
1 32 (8.91%) ServiceNow
2 26 (7.24%) Cisco
2 26 (7.24%) VMware
3 23 (6.41%) Databricks
3 23 (6.41%) Oracle
4 17 (4.74%) SAP
5 14 (3.90%) Splunk
6 10 (2.79%) F5
7 9 (2.51%) CheckPoint
7 9 (2.51%) Palo Alto
8 8 (2.23%) SolarWinds
9 7 (1.95%) Informatica
9 7 (1.95%) Okta
10 6 (1.67%) Fortinet
11 4 (1.11%) Citrix
11 4 (1.11%) UiPath
11 4 (1.11%) Veeam
12 3 (0.84%) BeyondTrust
12 3 (0.84%) Canon
12 3 (0.84%) CrowdStrike