Microsoft Contract Job Trends in Central London

Microsoft
London > Central London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in Central London 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 August 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 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 9 5
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 379 308 390
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 14.48% 15.02% 17.00%
As % of the Vendors category 33.84% 32.05% 39.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 280 200 303
10th Percentile £259 £275 £313
25th Percentile £418 £367 £432
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -6.98% -0.92%
75th Percentile £650 £630 £648
90th Percentile £750 £720 £712
London median daily rate £510 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.00% - -8.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 5 4
10th Percentile £21.05 £23.78 £19.30
25th Percentile £23.38 £26.45 £24.25
Median hourly rate £28.00 £28.50 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.75% +5.56% -48.57%
75th Percentile £31.88 £30.25 £43.38
90th Percentile £33.75 £124.60 £72.85
London median hourly rate £25.50 £23.73 £23.80
% change year-on-year +7.48% -0.32% -25.44%

All Vendors
Central London

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 Central London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 1,120 961 995
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 42.80% 46.86% 43.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 770 621 709
10th Percentile £338 £315 £348
25th Percentile £450 £413 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £540
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% +1.85% -1.82%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £656
90th Percentile £750 £751 £750
London median daily rate £525 £525 £530
% change year-on-year - -0.94% -4.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 18 12
10th Percentile - £23.23 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.75 £26.91 £20.00
Median hourly rate £22.50 £32.83 £34.25
Median % change year-on-year -31.45% -4.16% -5.52%
75th Percentile £41.25 £62.00 £103.75
90th Percentile £63.75 £75.90 £137.50
London median hourly rate £35.50 £26.31 £27.75
% change year-on-year +34.93% -5.19% -20.71%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in Central London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microsoft relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London.

Microsoft job vacancy trend in Central London

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in Central London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing Microsoft.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in Central London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in Central London over the 6 months to 8 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in Central London

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in Central London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing Microsoft.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in Central London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in Central London over the 6 months to 8 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in Central London

Microsoft
Contract Job Locations in Central London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft within the Central London region over the 6 months to 8 August 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
City of London +4 346 £550 +10.00% 274
Southwark +2 9 £600 - 3
West End of London -8 7 £475 +90.00% 14
City of Westminster -15 5 £543 -1.36% 27
Kensington and Chelsea 0 4 £150 - 2
Lambeth - 1 £350 -
Microsoft
London

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Central London 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 49 (12.93%) SharePoint
2 28 (7.39%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (1.85%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (1.58%) Apache
5 5 (1.32%) Apache Spark
5 5 (1.32%) Confluence
6 2 (0.53%) IIS
7 1 (0.26%) Exchange Server 2013
7 1 (0.26%) nginx
Applications
1 31 (8.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 21 (5.54%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (3.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.06%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.79%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.26%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.26%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.26%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.26%) Final Cut Pro
6 1 (0.26%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 17 (4.49%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (2.11%) Aladdin
3 3 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.79%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.53%) Dynamics NAV
4 2 (0.53%) iTrent
4 2 (0.53%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.53%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.53%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.26%) Exchequer
5 1 (0.26%) Oracle Retail
5 1 (0.26%) SAP CRM
5 1 (0.26%) SAP FI-AR
5 1 (0.26%) SAP MM
5 1 (0.26%) SAP Oil and Gas
5 1 (0.26%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 161 (42.48%) Azure
2 81 (21.37%) Microsoft 365
3 77 (20.32%) Power Platform
4 52 (13.72%) Entra ID
5 37 (9.76%) Azure DevOps
6 35 (9.23%) Dynamics 365
7 30 (7.92%) AWS
8 29 (7.65%) Power Automate
9 26 (6.86%) PowerApps
10 24 (6.33%) Microsoft Copilot
11 22 (5.80%) Azure Data Factory
12 21 (5.54%) GCP
13 20 (5.28%) SaaS
14 19 (5.01%) GitHub
14 19 (5.01%) Microsoft Purview
15 16 (4.22%) OneDrive
16 15 (3.96%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 13 (3.43%) Serverless
18 11 (2.90%) Azure AI
18 11 (2.90%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 27 (7.12%) DNS
2 20 (5.28%) DHCP
3 17 (4.49%) Firewall
4 13 (3.43%) TCP/IP
5 12 (3.17%) VPN
6 6 (1.58%) LAN
6 6 (1.58%) WAN
7 5 (1.32%) Unified Communications
8 4 (1.06%) Network Security
9 3 (0.79%) Internet
9 3 (0.79%) SMTP
9 3 (0.79%) Structured Cabling
9 3 (0.79%) VLAN
9 3 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
10 2 (0.53%) DKIM
10 2 (0.53%) DMARC
10 2 (0.53%) Intranet
10 2 (0.53%) Multicast
10 2 (0.53%) Reverse Proxy
10 2 (0.53%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (12.66%) Power BI
2 25 (6.60%) Data Warehouse
3 22 (5.80%) SQL Server
4 13 (3.43%) Azure SQL Database
5 9 (2.37%) Data Lake
5 9 (2.37%) Star Schema
6 8 (2.11%) Power Query
7 7 (1.85%) Metadata
7 7 (1.85%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 6 (1.58%) Semantic Layer
9 5 (1.32%) Tableau
10 4 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
10 4 (1.06%) Amazon Redshift
10 4 (1.06%) Big Data
10 4 (1.06%) NoSQL
10 4 (1.06%) Snowflake Schema
10 4 (1.06%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 3 (0.79%) PostgreSQL
11 3 (0.79%) Relational Database
11 3 (0.79%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 16 (4.22%) JIRA
2 11 (2.90%) Git
3 7 (1.85%) Jenkins
4 5 (1.32%) Visual Studio
5 4 (1.06%) GitLab
6 3 (0.79%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.79%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.79%) JUnit
6 3 (0.79%) Selenium
7 2 (0.53%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.53%) Fiddler
7 2 (0.53%) MSI
7 2 (0.53%) TeamCity
7 2 (0.53%) Visual Studio Code
8 1 (0.26%) Appium
8 1 (0.26%) ER Studio
8 1 (0.26%) Jasmine
8 1 (0.26%) Karma Test Runner
8 1 (0.26%) Postman
8 1 (0.26%) SoapUI
General
1 119 (31.40%) Social Skills
2 109 (28.76%) Finance
3 51 (13.46%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (8.18%) Banking
5 19 (5.01%) Public Sector
6 12 (3.17%) Retail
7 11 (2.90%) General Ledger
8 10 (2.64%) Telecoms
9 9 (2.37%) Law
10 8 (2.11%) Organisational Skills
11 7 (1.85%) Marketing
12 6 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
12 6 (1.58%) Front Office
12 6 (1.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 6 (1.58%) Influencing Skills
12 6 (1.58%) Legal
13 5 (1.32%) Investment Banking
14 4 (1.06%) Back Office
14 4 (1.06%) Financial Institution
15 3 (0.79%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 56 (14.78%) Architect
2 43 (11.35%) Analyst
2 43 (11.35%) Developer
3 35 (9.23%) Consultant
4 31 (8.18%) Senior
5 28 (7.39%) Support Engineer
6 19 (5.01%) Data Architect
7 18 (4.75%) Solutions Architect
8 17 (4.49%) Lead
9 16 (4.22%) Data Engineer
10 13 (3.43%) IT Support
11 12 (3.17%) Project Manager
12 11 (2.90%) Business Analyst
12 11 (2.90%) Dynamics 365 Developer
12 11 (2.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 10 (2.64%) IT Engineer
13 10 (2.64%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
13 10 (2.64%) Platform Engineer
14 9 (2.37%) Cloud Engineer
14 9 (2.37%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (3.69%) .NET
1 14 (3.69%) PySpark
2 13 (3.43%) REST
3 10 (2.64%) Middleware
4 8 (2.11%) HTML
4 8 (2.11%) JSON
5 7 (1.85%) .NET Framework
5 7 (1.85%) SAML
5 7 (1.85%) XML
6 6 (1.58%) CSS
6 6 (1.58%) Kafka
6 6 (1.58%) OAuth
7 5 (1.32%) HTML5 Canvas
7 5 (1.32%) OpenID
7 5 (1.32%) SOAP
7 5 (1.32%) Spring
8 4 (1.06%) XSLT
9 3 (0.79%) ASP.NET
9 3 (0.79%) OAuth2
9 3 (0.79%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 24 (6.33%) Onboarding
2 19 (5.01%) Cloud Native
3 13 (3.43%) AI Agents
4 11 (2.90%) Legacy Systems
4 11 (2.90%) Video Conferencing
5 10 (2.64%) Management Information System
5 10 (2.64%) Product Ownership
6 9 (2.37%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (2.37%) PKI
7 8 (2.11%) Data Structures
7 8 (2.11%) Distributed Systems
8 7 (1.85%) Security Posture
9 6 (1.58%) Clustering
9 6 (1.58%) Low-Code
9 6 (1.58%) Virtual Team
10 5 (1.32%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 4 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
11 4 (1.06%) Data Centre
11 4 (1.06%) Equities
11 4 (1.06%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 66 (17.41%) Windows
2 19 (5.01%) Windows Server
3 16 (4.22%) Mac OS
4 12 (3.17%) Windows 10
5 10 (2.64%) Linux
6 4 (1.06%) Windows 7
7 3 (0.79%) Android
7 3 (0.79%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.79%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.53%) Unix
8 2 (0.53%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.26%) OpenVMS
9 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.26%) SUSE
9 1 (0.26%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.26%) VMS
9 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (19.79%) DevOps
2 66 (17.41%) Problem-Solving
3 65 (17.15%) Stakeholder Management
4 63 (16.62%) Analytics
5 61 (16.09%) CI/CD
6 58 (15.30%) Migration
7 55 (14.51%) Agile
7 55 (14.51%) Business Intelligence
8 52 (13.72%) Data Modelling
9 50 (13.19%) AI
10 46 (12.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 37 (9.76%) Data Governance
12 31 (8.18%) Continuous Improvement
13 30 (7.92%) ITIL
14 29 (7.65%) Roadmaps
15 28 (7.39%) Project Delivery
16 27 (7.12%) Decision-Making
17 26 (6.86%) CRM
17 26 (6.86%) Data Engineering
17 26 (6.86%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 64 (16.89%) SQL
2 42 (11.08%) Python
3 30 (7.92%) PowerShell
4 16 (4.22%) Java
5 15 (3.96%) C#
6 12 (3.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 11 (2.90%) JavaScript
8 8 (2.11%) T-SQL
9 7 (1.85%) Bash
9 7 (1.85%) Bicep
9 7 (1.85%) TypeScript
10 5 (1.32%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.53%) C++
11 2 (0.53%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.26%) COBOL
12 1 (0.26%) Google Apps Script
12 1 (0.26%) R
12 1 (0.26%) RPG
12 1 (0.26%) X++
Qualifications
1 70 (18.47%) Security Cleared
2 49 (12.93%) SC Cleared
3 27 (7.12%) Degree
4 20 (5.28%) DV Cleared
5 15 (3.96%) Microsoft Certification
6 8 (2.11%) Azure Certification
6 8 (2.11%) CISSP
7 7 (1.85%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (1.58%) CISM
8 6 (1.58%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (1.58%) PMI Certification
9 5 (1.32%) A+ Certification
9 5 (1.32%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (1.32%) DBS Check
10 3 (0.79%) CCNP
10 3 (0.79%) CompTIA Security+
11 2 (0.53%) CCNA
11 2 (0.53%) GIAC
11 2 (0.53%) Network+ Certification
11 2 (0.53%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (7.65%) Data Quality
2 22 (5.80%) QA
3 16 (4.22%) GDPR
4 13 (3.43%) SLA
5 12 (3.17%) NIST
6 11 (2.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 9 (2.37%) PMO
8 7 (1.85%) Cyber Essentials
8 7 (1.85%) NCSC
9 6 (1.58%) Accessibility
10 5 (1.32%) GRC
11 4 (1.06%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.53%) P3O
12 2 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.26%) COBIT
13 1 (0.26%) GAAP
13 1 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 1 (0.26%) MiFID
System Software
1 64 (16.89%) Active Directory
2 15 (3.96%) Docker
3 6 (1.58%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (1.32%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (1.06%) BitLocker
5 4 (1.06%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.79%) Microsoft App-V
6 3 (0.79%) Terminal Services
6 3 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.79%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.53%) IAG
8 1 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.26%) zsh
Systems Management
1 35 (9.23%) Microsoft Intune
2 21 (5.54%) Terraform
3 17 (4.49%) Kubernetes
4 12 (3.17%) SCCM
5 9 (2.37%) Ansible
5 9 (2.37%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (1.32%) Jamf Pro
7 4 (1.06%) Grafana
7 4 (1.06%) Prometheus
7 4 (1.06%) Puppet
8 3 (0.79%) Nagios
8 3 (0.79%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.79%) vMotion
8 3 (0.79%) WSUS
9 1 (0.26%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.26%) ITRS Geneos
9 1 (0.26%) NetBackup
9 1 (0.26%) PingFederate
9 1 (0.26%) Salt
9 1 (0.26%) SELinux
Vendors
1 31 (8.18%) ServiceNow
2 22 (5.80%) Google
3 21 (5.54%) Databricks
4 17 (4.49%) Oracle
4 17 (4.49%) SAP
5 11 (2.90%) Citrix
6 10 (2.64%) Apple
6 10 (2.64%) Cisco
7 9 (2.37%) Salesforce
8 8 (2.11%) VMware
9 7 (1.85%) Foundry
9 7 (1.85%) OpenAI
9 7 (1.85%) Workday
10 6 (1.58%) Bloomberg
10 6 (1.58%) HP
11 5 (1.32%) Informatica
12 4 (1.06%) Okta
12 4 (1.06%) Remedy
12 4 (1.06%) Symantec
12 4 (1.06%) Zscaler