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 22 March 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
22 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 5 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 +1 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 310 325 373
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 13.65% 16.13% 14.51%
As % of the Vendors category 30.69% 35.91% 34.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 235 213 293
10th Percentile £323 £259 £263
25th Percentile £413 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% +3.77%
75th Percentile £614 £625 £670
90th Percentile £738 £702 £760
London median daily rate £513 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.50% - -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 2 2
10th Percentile £19.66 £42.41 -
25th Percentile £21.98 £62.43 £12.75
Median hourly rate £25.47 £102.04 £13.50
Median % change year-on-year -75.04% +655.81% -48.08%
75th Percentile - £147.89 £14.25
90th Percentile £33.61 £171.66 -
London median hourly rate £22.41 £25.25 £19.50
% change year-on-year -11.25% +29.49% -29.09%

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 1,010 905 1,092
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 44.47% 44.91% 42.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 675 594 792
10th Percentile £356 £313 £290
25th Percentile £427 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year - +2.23% -2.18%
75th Percentile £663 £662 £675
90th Percentile £775 £738 £775
London median daily rate £525 £540 £540
% change year-on-year -2.78% - -4.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 6 8
10th Percentile - £29.07 £12.60
25th Percentile £18.75 £29.55 £12.75
Median hourly rate £25.47 £32.83 £18.97
Median % change year-on-year -22.41% +73.08% -9.69%
75th Percentile £27.00 £41.48 £23.75
90th Percentile £44.16 £115.63 £31.25
London median hourly rate £26.75 £31.42 £25.00
% change year-on-year -14.87% +25.69% -2.76%

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 22 March 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 22 March 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 22 March 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 -1 287 £525 +5.00% 219
West End of London +9 7 £500 +11.11% 10
City of Westminster +2 5 £560 +31.76% 6
Camden +4 4 £400 -11.11% 6
Kensington and Chelsea +3 4 £588 - 1
Southwark -2 1 £188 -54.78% 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 35 (11.29%) SharePoint
2 15 (4.84%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (3.23%) Confluence
4 5 (1.61%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.65%) Apache
6 1 (0.32%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.32%) CMS
6 1 (0.32%) Ethereum
6 1 (0.32%) Hyperledger
6 1 (0.32%) SAS
Applications
1 34 (10.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (8.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 24 (7.74%) MS Visio
4 21 (6.77%) Microsoft Office
5 7 (2.26%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.32%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.32%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.32%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.32%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (3.23%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (2.26%) Aladdin
3 2 (0.65%) Exchequer
3 2 (0.65%) NetSuite
3 2 (0.65%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.32%) BASE24
4 1 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
4 1 (0.32%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 133 (42.90%) Azure
2 80 (25.81%) Microsoft 365
3 58 (18.71%) Power Platform
4 37 (11.94%) Entra ID
5 30 (9.68%) AWS
6 25 (8.06%) Power Automate
7 23 (7.42%) Dynamics 365
8 22 (7.10%) PowerApps
9 21 (6.77%) Azure DevOps
10 20 (6.45%) Microsoft Purview
11 15 (4.84%) GitHub
12 14 (4.52%) Microsoft Copilot
13 13 (4.19%) SaaS
14 12 (3.87%) GCP
15 11 (3.55%) Snowflake
16 10 (3.23%) Amazon S3
16 10 (3.23%) Azure Data Factory
16 10 (3.23%) Azure Sentinel
17 9 (2.90%) Copilot Studio
17 9 (2.90%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 13 (4.19%) Firewall
2 11 (3.55%) DNS
2 11 (3.55%) VPN
3 10 (3.23%) Network Security
4 7 (2.26%) WAN
5 6 (1.94%) LAN
6 5 (1.61%) DHCP
7 3 (0.97%) Softphone
7 3 (0.97%) Structured Cabling
7 3 (0.97%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (0.65%) Intranet
8 2 (0.65%) Intrusion Detection
8 2 (0.65%) SD-WAN
8 2 (0.65%) Unified Communications
9 1 (0.32%) Extranet
9 1 (0.32%) IPv4
9 1 (0.32%) iSCSI
9 1 (0.32%) SAN
9 1 (0.32%) SSL
9 1 (0.32%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (10.65%) Power BI
2 15 (4.84%) Metadata
3 14 (4.52%) SQL Server
4 13 (4.19%) Data Warehouse
5 9 (2.90%) Tableau
6 8 (2.58%) Data Lake
6 8 (2.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 6 (1.94%) PostgreSQL
7 6 (1.94%) Relational Database
8 5 (1.61%) Azure SQL Database
8 5 (1.61%) Snowflake Schema
9 3 (0.97%) Amazon Redshift
9 3 (0.97%) MySQL
9 3 (0.97%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.65%) Metadata Repository
10 2 (0.65%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.65%) RDBMS
10 2 (0.65%) SQLPlus
10 2 (0.65%) Star Schema
11 1 (0.32%) OLTP
Development Applications
1 12 (3.87%) JIRA
2 8 (2.58%) Git
3 4 (1.29%) GitLab
3 4 (1.29%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.65%) ERwin
4 2 (0.65%) Postman
4 2 (0.65%) Toad
5 1 (0.32%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.32%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.32%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.32%) gulp
5 1 (0.32%) Hardhat
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%) webpack
5 1 (0.32%) Zephyr
General
1 104 (33.55%) Social Skills
2 83 (26.77%) Finance
3 50 (16.13%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (9.03%) Banking
5 25 (8.06%) Public Sector
6 11 (3.55%) Investment Banking
7 10 (3.23%) Legal
7 10 (3.23%) Organisational Skills
8 8 (2.58%) Front Office
8 8 (2.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (2.58%) Presentation Skills
9 6 (1.94%) Influencing Skills
10 5 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
10 5 (1.61%) Marketing
11 4 (1.29%) Financial Institution
11 4 (1.29%) Military
11 4 (1.29%) Telecoms
12 3 (0.97%) Manufacturing
12 3 (0.97%) Retail
13 2 (0.65%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 46 (14.84%) Analyst
2 40 (12.90%) Senior
3 36 (11.61%) Architect
4 35 (11.29%) Developer
5 24 (7.74%) Business Analyst
6 19 (6.13%) Consultant
7 18 (5.81%) Data Engineer
8 15 (4.84%) Lead
9 13 (4.19%) Project Manager
10 12 (3.87%) IT Engineer
10 12 (3.87%) Support Engineer
11 10 (3.23%) IT Support
11 10 (3.23%) IT Support Engineer
11 10 (3.23%) Microsoft Engineer
12 9 (2.90%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 9 (2.90%) Azure Engineer
12 9 (2.90%) Cloud Engineer
13 8 (2.58%) Azure Architect
13 8 (2.58%) Technical Architect
14 7 (2.26%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (2.58%) REST
2 6 (1.94%) .NET
2 6 (1.94%) Microsoft Graph
2 6 (1.94%) Middleware
2 6 (1.94%) React
3 5 (1.61%) Kafka
3 5 (1.61%) OAuth
4 4 (1.29%) CSS
4 4 (1.29%) HTML
4 4 (1.29%) Node.js
4 4 (1.29%) Playwright
4 4 (1.29%) PySpark
4 4 (1.29%) RESTful
4 4 (1.29%) SAML
5 3 (0.97%) LangChain
5 3 (0.97%) Pandas
5 3 (0.97%) scikit-learn
5 3 (0.97%) SPFx
5 3 (0.97%) XML
5 3 (0.97%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 19 (6.13%) Cloud Native
2 16 (5.16%) Onboarding
3 12 (3.87%) Security Posture
4 10 (3.23%) Management Information System
5 8 (2.58%) Hybrid Cloud
5 8 (2.58%) Product Ownership
6 7 (2.26%) AI Agents
7 5 (1.61%) Data Structures
7 5 (1.61%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 5 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
8 4 (1.29%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (1.29%) Equities
8 4 (1.29%) Fixed Income
8 4 (1.29%) Virtual Team
9 3 (0.97%) BYOD
9 3 (0.97%) Cloud Security Posture
9 3 (0.97%) Clustering
9 3 (0.97%) Data Centre
9 3 (0.97%) Derivative
9 3 (0.97%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 31 (10.00%) Windows
2 11 (3.55%) Windows 10
3 6 (1.94%) Mac OS
4 5 (1.61%) Unix
5 4 (1.29%) Linux
5 4 (1.29%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.65%) Android
6 2 (0.65%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.32%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.32%) VMS
7 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 51 (16.45%) Problem-Solving
2 47 (15.16%) Stakeholder Management
3 42 (13.55%) Agile
3 42 (13.55%) CI/CD
3 42 (13.55%) Migration
4 40 (12.90%) DevOps
5 39 (12.58%) AI
5 39 (12.58%) Business Intelligence
6 38 (12.26%) Analytics
7 35 (11.29%) Data Governance
7 35 (11.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 32 (10.32%) Data Modelling
9 25 (8.06%) Roadmaps
10 23 (7.42%) Change Management
11 22 (7.10%) ETL
12 21 (6.77%) Project Delivery
13 20 (6.45%) Continuous Improvement
13 20 (6.45%) Data Pipeline
14 19 (6.13%) Cloud Security
14 19 (6.13%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 54 (17.42%) SQL
2 37 (11.94%) Python
3 27 (8.71%) PowerShell
4 12 (3.87%) Java
5 11 (3.55%) C#
6 7 (2.26%) JavaScript
6 7 (2.26%) Kusto Query Language
7 3 (0.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 3 (0.97%) PL/SQL
7 3 (0.97%) Shell Script
7 3 (0.97%) T-SQL
7 3 (0.97%) TypeScript
8 2 (0.65%) Bash
8 2 (0.65%) C
8 2 (0.65%) Perl
8 2 (0.65%) PHP
9 1 (0.32%) Apex Code
9 1 (0.32%) C++
9 1 (0.32%) R
9 1 (0.32%) XPath
Qualifications
1 47 (15.16%) Security Cleared
2 35 (11.29%) SC Cleared
3 28 (9.03%) Degree
4 17 (5.48%) Microsoft Certification
5 9 (2.90%) Azure Certification
6 8 (2.58%) CISSP
7 7 (2.26%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (1.94%) CISM
9 5 (1.61%) BPSS Clearance
9 5 (1.61%) DV Cleared
9 5 (1.61%) PMI Certification
10 4 (1.29%) CompTIA CySA+
10 4 (1.29%) CompTIA Security+
10 4 (1.29%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 4 (1.29%) MCSE
10 4 (1.29%) PMP
11 3 (0.97%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 3 (0.97%) TOGAF Certification
12 2 (0.65%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
12 2 (0.65%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (6.77%) Data Quality
1 21 (6.77%) GDPR
2 17 (5.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (3.23%) Cyber Essentials
3 10 (3.23%) PMO
4 9 (2.90%) QA
5 8 (2.58%) NIST
6 4 (1.29%) Accessibility
6 4 (1.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.97%) IFRS
7 3 (0.97%) ISO 20022
7 3 (0.97%) NCSC
7 3 (0.97%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.97%) SLA
8 2 (0.65%) Basel III
8 2 (0.65%) GRC
8 2 (0.65%) ISO 8583
8 2 (0.65%) MiFID
9 1 (0.32%) Solvency II
9 1 (0.32%) WCAG
System Software
1 44 (14.19%) Active Directory
2 12 (3.87%) Docker
3 7 (2.26%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (1.61%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.65%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.32%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 31 (10.00%) Microsoft Intune
2 14 (4.52%) Terraform
3 8 (2.58%) Kubernetes
4 6 (1.94%) SCCM
5 4 (1.29%) Ansible
5 4 (1.29%) Jamf Pro
6 2 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (0.32%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.32%) Autotask
7 1 (0.32%) Grafana
7 1 (0.32%) Kibana
7 1 (0.32%) Opsgenie
7 1 (0.32%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.32%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
7 1 (0.32%) WSUS
Vendors
1 21 (6.77%) Databricks
2 14 (4.52%) Salesforce
3 12 (3.87%) ServiceNow
4 9 (2.90%) Google
5 8 (2.58%) Oracle
6 7 (2.26%) Palo Alto
7 6 (1.94%) Foundry
7 6 (1.94%) Informatica
7 6 (1.94%) OpenAI
8 5 (1.61%) Apple
8 5 (1.61%) Cisco
8 5 (1.61%) Citrix
8 5 (1.61%) CyberArk
8 5 (1.61%) SAP
8 5 (1.61%) Zscaler
9 4 (1.29%) Fortinet
9 4 (1.29%) LogRhythm
9 4 (1.29%) Splunk
10 3 (0.97%) HP
10 3 (0.97%) Trend Micro