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 24 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
24 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 12 5
Rank change year-on-year +2 -7 +5
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 312 273 389
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 12.48% 14.38% 16.16%
As % of the Vendors category 30.65% 31.45% 37.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 225 174 306
10th Percentile £278 £263 £256
25th Percentile £425 £361 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £500 £541
Median % change year-on-year +6.00% -7.62% +0.65%
75th Percentile £650 £625 £669
90th Percentile £770 £717 £756
London median daily rate £515 £513 £500
% change year-on-year +0.49% +2.50% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 4 4
10th Percentile - £23.34 -
25th Percentile £20.82 £25.34 £12.75
Median hourly rate £22.27 £27.76 £15.25
Median % change year-on-year -19.79% +82.03% -70.95%
75th Percentile £23.71 £68.68 £20.25
90th Percentile - £139.97 £24.30
London median hourly rate £27.36 £23.80 £18.80
% change year-on-year +14.94% +26.63% -29.74%

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 1,018 868 1,033
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 40.74% 45.71% 42.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 662 543 760
10th Percentile £350 £304 £300
25th Percentile £438 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% - -
75th Percentile £674 £675 £675
90th Percentile £774 £751 £775
London median daily rate £525 £550 £539
% change year-on-year -4.55% +2.04% -5.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 12 6
10th Percentile - £24.02 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.75 £27.16 £13.56
Median hourly rate £19.50 £30.04 £19.75
Median % change year-on-year -35.08% +52.08% -14.13%
75th Percentile £25.77 £48.75 £23.75
90th Percentile £38.40 £96.38 £25.38
London median hourly rate £35.50 £28.60 £22.50
% change year-on-year +24.13% +27.11% -13.46%

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 24 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
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 24 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 +4 295 £528 +5.50% 227
West End of London -1 7 £500 +33.33% 8
Kensington and Chelsea -1 4 £588 -
City of Westminster -5 4 £560 -11.11% 7
Southwark -2 1 £188 -21.33% 1
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 31 (9.94%) SharePoint
2 13 (4.17%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (2.56%) Confluence
4 5 (1.60%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.32%) Apache
5 1 (0.32%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.32%) SAS
Applications
1 26 (8.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (8.01%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (4.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (4.17%) MS Visio
5 5 (1.60%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.32%) Adobe After Effects
6 1 (0.32%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.32%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.32%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (2.88%) Aladdin
2 8 (2.56%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.64%) Exchequer
3 2 (0.64%) NetSuite
3 2 (0.64%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.32%) BASE24
4 1 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.32%) iTrent
4 1 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.32%) SAP FI-AR
4 1 (0.32%) SAP MM
4 1 (0.32%) SAP Oil and Gas
4 1 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
4 1 (0.32%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 123 (39.42%) Azure
2 68 (21.79%) Microsoft 365
3 63 (20.19%) Power Platform
4 28 (8.97%) Dynamics 365
4 28 (8.97%) Entra ID
5 22 (7.05%) Azure DevOps
6 21 (6.73%) Power Automate
7 20 (6.41%) AWS
8 19 (6.09%) Microsoft Purview
9 18 (5.77%) PowerApps
10 16 (5.13%) Microsoft Copilot
11 13 (4.17%) GitHub
11 13 (4.17%) SaaS
12 12 (3.85%) GCP
13 11 (3.53%) Azure Data Factory
14 9 (2.88%) Azure AI
15 8 (2.56%) Snowflake
16 7 (2.24%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 7 (2.24%) Copilot Studio
16 7 (2.24%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 12 (3.85%) DNS
2 11 (3.53%) Firewall
3 7 (2.24%) Network Security
3 7 (2.24%) VPN
4 5 (1.60%) DHCP
5 3 (0.96%) LAN
5 3 (0.96%) TCP/IP
5 3 (0.96%) WAN
6 2 (0.64%) Intranet
6 2 (0.64%) Multicast
6 2 (0.64%) Unified Communications
6 2 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
7 1 (0.32%) IPsec
7 1 (0.32%) iSCSI
7 1 (0.32%) Reverse Proxy
7 1 (0.32%) SAN
7 1 (0.32%) SD-WAN
7 1 (0.32%) Structured Cabling
7 1 (0.32%) Wireless
7 1 (0.32%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (11.86%) Power BI
2 15 (4.81%) SQL Server
3 13 (4.17%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (4.17%) Metadata
4 8 (2.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 8 (2.56%) Tableau
5 6 (1.92%) PostgreSQL
6 5 (1.60%) Azure SQL Database
6 5 (1.60%) Snowflake Schema
7 4 (1.28%) Data Lake
7 4 (1.28%) Relational Database
8 3 (0.96%) MySQL
8 3 (0.96%) Semantic Layer
9 2 (0.64%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.64%) Metadata Repository
9 2 (0.64%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
9 2 (0.64%) Power Query
9 2 (0.64%) Star Schema
10 1 (0.32%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 15 (4.81%) JIRA
2 6 (1.92%) 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%) 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%) TestRail
5 1 (0.32%) Zephyr
General
1 94 (30.13%) Social Skills
2 88 (28.21%) Finance
3 48 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (8.01%) Banking
5 22 (7.05%) Public Sector
6 10 (3.21%) Investment Banking
6 10 (3.21%) Legal
7 8 (2.56%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (2.24%) Front Office
8 7 (2.24%) Retail
9 6 (1.92%) Telecoms
10 5 (1.60%) Documentation Skills
10 5 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 5 (1.60%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (1.28%) General Ledger
11 4 (1.28%) Marketing
11 4 (1.28%) Military
11 4 (1.28%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.96%) Law
12 3 (0.96%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 47 (15.06%) Architect
2 46 (14.74%) Analyst
3 39 (12.50%) Senior
4 27 (8.65%) Developer
5 22 (7.05%) Consultant
6 21 (6.73%) Business Analyst
7 14 (4.49%) Data Architect
7 14 (4.49%) Data Engineer
8 13 (4.17%) Project Manager
9 12 (3.85%) Support Engineer
10 11 (3.53%) Azure Engineer
10 11 (3.53%) Cloud Engineer
10 11 (3.53%) Lead
10 11 (3.53%) Solutions Architect
11 9 (2.88%) IT Support
12 8 (2.56%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 8 (2.56%) Microsoft Engineer
12 8 (2.56%) Technical Architect
13 7 (2.24%) IT Engineer
13 7 (2.24%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (2.24%) JSON
1 7 (2.24%) Middleware
2 6 (1.92%) PySpark
3 5 (1.60%) .NET
3 5 (1.60%) Kafka
3 5 (1.60%) REST
4 4 (1.28%) CSS
4 4 (1.28%) HTML
4 4 (1.28%) RESTful
4 4 (1.28%) XML
5 3 (0.96%) Microsoft Graph
5 3 (0.96%) Playwright
5 3 (0.96%) SAML
6 2 (0.64%) GraphQL
6 2 (0.64%) HTML5 Canvas
6 2 (0.64%) J2EE
6 2 (0.64%) OAuth
6 2 (0.64%) OpenID
6 2 (0.64%) React
6 2 (0.64%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 14 (4.49%) Onboarding
2 11 (3.53%) Cloud Native
3 10 (3.21%) Security Posture
4 9 (2.88%) AI Agents
5 6 (1.92%) Equities
5 6 (1.92%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 6 (1.92%) Management Information System
5 6 (1.92%) Product Ownership
6 5 (1.60%) Data Structures
6 5 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
6 5 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
6 5 (1.60%) Hybrid Cloud
7 4 (1.28%) Cloud Security Posture
7 4 (1.28%) Fixed Income
7 4 (1.28%) PMI
7 4 (1.28%) Reference Data
7 4 (1.28%) Virtual Team
8 3 (0.96%) Clustering
8 3 (0.96%) Low-Code
8 3 (0.96%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 33 (10.58%) Windows
2 7 (2.24%) Mac OS
3 6 (1.92%) Windows 10
4 4 (1.28%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.96%) Linux
6 2 (0.64%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.32%) Android
7 1 (0.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.32%) SUSE
7 1 (0.32%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
7 1 (0.32%) VMS
7 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (16.03%) Analytics
2 46 (14.74%) Migration
2 46 (14.74%) Problem-Solving
3 44 (14.10%) Stakeholder Management
4 43 (13.78%) AI
4 43 (13.78%) Business Intelligence
5 42 (13.46%) Agile
6 41 (13.14%) CI/CD
7 40 (12.82%) DevOps
8 35 (11.22%) Data Modelling
9 33 (10.58%) Data Governance
10 32 (10.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 27 (8.65%) Roadmaps
12 23 (7.37%) Data Engineering
13 22 (7.05%) Continuous Improvement
13 22 (7.05%) Decision-Making
13 22 (7.05%) Validation
14 20 (6.41%) Project Delivery
15 19 (6.09%) Cloud Security
15 19 (6.09%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 50 (16.03%) SQL
2 33 (10.58%) Python
3 25 (8.01%) PowerShell
4 11 (3.53%) Java
5 9 (2.88%) C#
6 7 (2.24%) Kusto Query Language
7 4 (1.28%) Bash
7 4 (1.28%) Bicep
7 4 (1.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 4 (1.28%) T-SQL
8 3 (0.96%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.64%) C
9 2 (0.64%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.32%) C++
10 1 (0.32%) COBOL
10 1 (0.32%) Google Apps Script
10 1 (0.32%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.32%) ProC
10 1 (0.32%) VB
10 1 (0.32%) XPath
Qualifications
1 45 (14.42%) Security Cleared
2 32 (10.26%) SC Cleared
3 22 (7.05%) Degree
4 11 (3.53%) Microsoft Certification
5 8 (2.56%) Azure Certification
5 8 (2.56%) DV Cleared
6 6 (1.92%) CISSP
6 6 (1.92%) PMI Certification
7 5 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (1.60%) CISM
8 4 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (1.28%) DBS Check
9 3 (0.96%) CompTIA Security+
9 3 (0.96%) PMP
10 2 (0.64%) CCNP
10 2 (0.64%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.64%) CompTIA CySA+
10 2 (0.64%) GIAC
10 2 (0.64%) Network+ Certification
10 2 (0.64%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (7.69%) Data Quality
2 18 (5.77%) GDPR
3 12 (3.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 11 (3.53%) QA
5 10 (3.21%) PMO
6 8 (2.56%) Cyber Essentials
6 8 (2.56%) NIST
7 4 (1.28%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.28%) SLA
8 3 (0.96%) GRC
8 3 (0.96%) IFRS
8 3 (0.96%) MiFID
8 3 (0.96%) NCSC
8 3 (0.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.64%) ISO 20022
9 2 (0.64%) P3O
10 1 (0.32%) ISO 22301
10 1 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27005
10 1 (0.32%) UCITS
System Software
1 31 (9.94%) Active Directory
2 12 (3.85%) Docker
3 9 (2.88%) Virtual Desktop
4 2 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.32%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 23 (7.37%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (3.85%) Terraform
3 11 (3.53%) Kubernetes
4 7 (2.24%) 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%) 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%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.32%) WSUS
Vendors
1 25 (8.01%) Databricks
2 12 (3.85%) Salesforce
3 11 (3.53%) Oracle
3 11 (3.53%) SAP
3 11 (3.53%) ServiceNow
4 10 (3.21%) Google
5 7 (2.24%) Citrix
5 7 (2.24%) Foundry
5 7 (2.24%) Workday
6 6 (1.92%) Informatica
7 5 (1.60%) Charles River
7 5 (1.60%) Palo Alto
8 4 (1.28%) Cisco
8 4 (1.28%) iManage
8 4 (1.28%) OpenAI
9 3 (0.96%) Anaplan
9 3 (0.96%) Bloomberg
9 3 (0.96%) MuleSoft
9 3 (0.96%) Splunk
9 3 (0.96%) Trend Micro