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 15 May 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
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 10 5
Rank change year-on-year +1 -5 +5
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 314 285 388
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 12.81% 14.47% 16.20%
As % of the Vendors category 31.03% 32.13% 37.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 227 180 301
10th Percentile £306 £263 £258
25th Percentile £425 £362 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% +0.94%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £663
90th Percentile £755 £711 £763
London median daily rate £515 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +3.00% - -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 4 4
10th Percentile £22.67 £23.34 -
25th Percentile £25.43 £25.34 £12.75
Median hourly rate £31.38 £27.76 £15.25
Median % change year-on-year +13.05% +82.03% -70.95%
75th Percentile £37.24 £68.68 £20.25
90th Percentile £39.95 £139.97 £24.30
London median hourly rate £27.71 £23.80 £18.80
% change year-on-year +16.43% +26.63% -27.71%

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 1,012 887 1,023
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 41.29% 45.03% 42.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 650 560 753
10th Percentile £362 £303 £300
25th Percentile £438 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.55% - -
75th Percentile £674 £675 £675
90th Percentile £768 £751 £785
London median daily rate £525 £545 £550
% change year-on-year -3.67% -0.91% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 12 6
10th Percentile - £24.02 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.75 £27.16 £13.56
Median hourly rate £22.27 £30.04 £19.75
Median % change year-on-year -25.87% +52.08% -5.95%
75th Percentile £34.13 £48.75 £23.75
90th Percentile £41.86 £96.38 £25.38
London median hourly rate £35.50 £29.07 £22.50
% change year-on-year +22.12% +29.20% -21.05%

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 15 May 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 15 May 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 15 May 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 +4 298 £525 +5.00% 216
West End of London +1 7 £500 +11.11% 6
Kensington and Chelsea 0 4 £588 - 2
City of Westminster -5 4 £560 -11.11% 7
Southwark -2 1 £188 -21.33% 2
Lambeth - 1 £350 - 3
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 32 (10.19%) SharePoint
2 15 (4.78%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (2.55%) Confluence
4 5 (1.59%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.32%) Apache
5 1 (0.32%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.32%) SAS
Applications
1 30 (9.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (7.96%) Microsoft Office
3 17 (5.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (4.78%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.96%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.32%) Adobe After Effects
6 1 (0.32%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.32%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.32%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (2.87%) Aladdin
1 9 (2.87%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.64%) Exchequer
2 2 (0.64%) NetSuite
2 2 (0.64%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.32%) BASE24
3 1 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.32%) iTrent
3 1 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.32%) SAP FI-AR
3 1 (0.32%) SAP MM
3 1 (0.32%) SAP Oil and Gas
3 1 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
3 1 (0.32%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 125 (39.81%) Azure
2 69 (21.97%) Microsoft 365
3 64 (20.38%) Power Platform
4 29 (9.24%) Entra ID
5 26 (8.28%) Dynamics 365
6 23 (7.32%) Power Automate
7 22 (7.01%) Azure DevOps
8 21 (6.69%) AWS
9 20 (6.37%) PowerApps
10 19 (6.05%) Microsoft Purview
11 16 (5.10%) Microsoft Copilot
12 14 (4.46%) GitHub
13 12 (3.82%) GCP
13 12 (3.82%) SaaS
14 11 (3.50%) Azure Data Factory
15 10 (3.18%) Azure AI
15 10 (3.18%) Snowflake
16 8 (2.55%) Copilot Studio
17 7 (2.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 7 (2.23%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 13 (4.14%) DNS
2 12 (3.82%) Firewall
3 9 (2.87%) VPN
4 7 (2.23%) Network Security
5 6 (1.91%) DHCP
6 3 (0.96%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.64%) Intranet
7 2 (0.64%) LAN
7 2 (0.64%) Multicast
7 2 (0.64%) Unified Communications
7 2 (0.64%) WAN
7 2 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
8 1 (0.32%) IPsec
8 1 (0.32%) iSCSI
8 1 (0.32%) Reverse Proxy
8 1 (0.32%) SAN
8 1 (0.32%) SD-WAN
8 1 (0.32%) SSL
8 1 (0.32%) Wireless
8 1 (0.32%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (11.78%) Power BI
2 15 (4.78%) SQL Server
3 13 (4.14%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (4.14%) Metadata
4 8 (2.55%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 8 (2.55%) Tableau
5 6 (1.91%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (1.91%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.59%) Azure SQL Database
6 5 (1.59%) Data Lake
6 5 (1.59%) Snowflake Schema
7 3 (0.96%) MySQL
7 3 (0.96%) Semantic Layer
8 2 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.64%) Metadata Repository
8 2 (0.64%) Oracle Database
8 2 (0.64%) Power Query
8 2 (0.64%) RDBMS
8 2 (0.64%) SQLPlus
8 2 (0.64%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 14 (4.46%) JIRA
2 6 (1.91%) Git
3 3 (0.96%) GitLab
3 3 (0.96%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.64%) ERwin
4 2 (0.64%) Postman
4 2 (0.64%) Toad
4 2 (0.64%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.32%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.32%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.32%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.32%) Fiddler
5 1 (0.32%) MSI
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.32%) PowerBuilder
5 1 (0.32%) Selenium
5 1 (0.32%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.32%) SpecFlow
5 1 (0.32%) Terragrunt
5 1 (0.32%) Zephyr
General
1 96 (30.57%) Social Skills
2 84 (26.75%) Finance
3 48 (15.29%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (7.64%) Banking
4 24 (7.64%) Public Sector
5 10 (3.18%) Investment Banking
5 10 (3.18%) Legal
6 7 (2.23%) Front Office
6 7 (2.23%) Organisational Skills
7 6 (1.91%) Presentation Skills
7 6 (1.91%) Retail
7 6 (1.91%) Telecoms
8 5 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (1.59%) Military
9 4 (1.27%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (1.27%) Manufacturing
9 4 (1.27%) Marketing
10 3 (0.96%) Back Office
10 3 (0.96%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 50 (15.92%) Architect
2 47 (14.97%) Analyst
3 41 (13.06%) Senior
4 29 (9.24%) Developer
5 24 (7.64%) Consultant
6 22 (7.01%) Business Analyst
7 14 (4.46%) Data Architect
7 14 (4.46%) Data Engineer
8 13 (4.14%) Support Engineer
9 12 (3.82%) Azure Engineer
10 11 (3.50%) Project Manager
10 11 (3.50%) Solutions Architect
11 10 (3.18%) Lead
12 9 (2.87%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 9 (2.87%) Cloud Engineer
12 9 (2.87%) IT Support
12 9 (2.87%) Microsoft Engineer
13 8 (2.55%) IT Engineer
13 8 (2.55%) Technical Architect
14 7 (2.23%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.91%) JSON
1 6 (1.91%) Middleware
1 6 (1.91%) PySpark
2 5 (1.59%) .NET
2 5 (1.59%) Kafka
2 5 (1.59%) REST
3 4 (1.27%) CSS
3 4 (1.27%) HTML
3 4 (1.27%) RESTful
4 3 (0.96%) Microsoft Graph
4 3 (0.96%) Playwright
4 3 (0.96%) XML
5 2 (0.64%) GraphQL
5 2 (0.64%) HTML5 Canvas
5 2 (0.64%) J2EE
5 2 (0.64%) OAuth
5 2 (0.64%) React
5 2 (0.64%) SAML
5 2 (0.64%) Ultra Messaging
5 2 (0.64%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 16 (5.10%) Onboarding
2 14 (4.46%) Cloud Native
3 9 (2.87%) AI Agents
4 8 (2.55%) Product Ownership
4 8 (2.55%) Security Posture
5 6 (1.91%) Equities
5 6 (1.91%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 6 (1.91%) Hybrid Cloud
5 6 (1.91%) Management Information System
6 5 (1.59%) Data Structures
6 5 (1.59%) Distributed Systems
6 5 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
6 5 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
7 4 (1.27%) Fixed Income
7 4 (1.27%) PMI
7 4 (1.27%) Reference Data
7 4 (1.27%) Video Conferencing
7 4 (1.27%) Virtual Team
8 3 (0.96%) BYOD
8 3 (0.96%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 34 (10.83%) Windows
2 8 (2.55%) Mac OS
3 7 (2.23%) Windows 10
4 4 (1.27%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.64%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.64%) Linux
5 2 (0.64%) Unix
6 1 (0.32%) Android
6 1 (0.32%) VMS
6 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (15.92%) Analytics
2 48 (15.29%) Migration
3 46 (14.65%) Problem-Solving
4 45 (14.33%) AI
5 44 (14.01%) Stakeholder Management
6 43 (13.69%) Business Intelligence
6 43 (13.69%) CI/CD
7 42 (13.38%) Agile
8 40 (12.74%) DevOps
9 37 (11.78%) Data Modelling
10 34 (10.83%) Data Governance
11 33 (10.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 28 (8.92%) Roadmaps
13 25 (7.96%) Decision-Making
14 22 (7.01%) Data Engineering
15 20 (6.37%) Continuous Improvement
15 20 (6.37%) Data Migration
15 20 (6.37%) ETL
15 20 (6.37%) Validation
16 17 (5.41%) Asset Management
Programming Languages
1 53 (16.88%) SQL
2 34 (10.83%) Python
3 27 (8.60%) PowerShell
4 11 (3.50%) Java
5 9 (2.87%) C#
6 7 (2.23%) Kusto Query Language
7 4 (1.27%) Bash
7 4 (1.27%) Bicep
7 4 (1.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 4 (1.27%) T-SQL
8 3 (0.96%) JavaScript
8 3 (0.96%) PL/SQL
9 2 (0.64%) C
9 2 (0.64%) Perl
9 2 (0.64%) PHP
9 2 (0.64%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.64%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.32%) Google Apps Script
10 1 (0.32%) ProC
10 1 (0.32%) VB
Qualifications
1 47 (14.97%) Security Cleared
2 33 (10.51%) SC Cleared
3 21 (6.69%) Degree
4 10 (3.18%) Microsoft Certification
5 8 (2.55%) DV Cleared
6 7 (2.23%) Azure Certification
7 6 (1.91%) CISSP
7 6 (1.91%) PMI Certification
8 5 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (1.59%) CISM
9 4 (1.27%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (0.96%) CompTIA Security+
10 3 (0.96%) DBS Check
10 3 (0.96%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 3 (0.96%) PMP
10 3 (0.96%) TOGAF Certification
11 2 (0.64%) CompTIA CySA+
11 2 (0.64%) GIAC
11 2 (0.64%) Network+ Certification
11 2 (0.64%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (7.64%) Data Quality
2 19 (6.05%) GDPR
3 13 (4.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 11 (3.50%) QA
5 9 (2.87%) Cyber Essentials
6 8 (2.55%) PMO
7 7 (2.23%) NIST
8 4 (1.27%) Accessibility
8 4 (1.27%) SLA
9 3 (0.96%) GRC
9 3 (0.96%) IFRS
9 3 (0.96%) MiFID
9 3 (0.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.64%) ISO 20022
10 2 (0.64%) NCSC
11 1 (0.32%) Def Stans
11 1 (0.32%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.32%) IFRS 17
11 1 (0.32%) ISO 22301
11 1 (0.32%) NIST 800
System Software
1 33 (10.51%) Active Directory
2 13 (4.14%) Docker
3 9 (2.87%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (1.59%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.32%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 24 (7.64%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (3.82%) Kubernetes
3 11 (3.50%) Terraform
4 8 (2.55%) SCCM
5 3 (0.96%) Ansible
5 3 (0.96%) Jamf Pro
6 2 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (0.64%) Grafana
6 2 (0.64%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.32%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.32%) Autotask
7 1 (0.32%) Kibana
7 1 (0.32%) Opsgenie
7 1 (0.32%) Puppet
7 1 (0.32%) Salt
7 1 (0.32%) WSUS
Vendors
1 27 (8.60%) Databricks
2 12 (3.82%) Oracle
2 12 (3.82%) Salesforce
3 10 (3.18%) Google
3 10 (3.18%) SAP
4 9 (2.87%) ServiceNow
5 8 (2.55%) Foundry
6 7 (2.23%) Citrix
6 7 (2.23%) OpenAI
7 6 (1.91%) Informatica
7 6 (1.91%) Workday
8 5 (1.59%) Charles River
8 5 (1.59%) Palo Alto
9 4 (1.27%) iManage
10 3 (0.96%) Anaplan
10 3 (0.96%) Apple
10 3 (0.96%) Bloomberg
10 3 (0.96%) Cisco
10 3 (0.96%) Splunk
10 3 (0.96%) Trend Micro