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 4 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
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 8 5
Rank change year-on-year 0 -3 +5
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 312 301 388
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 12.76% 15.03% 16.07%
As % of the Vendors category 30.38% 33.37% 37.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 225 193 306
10th Percentile £318 £263 £259
25th Percentile £413 £400 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £504 £545
Median % change year-on-year +4.17% -7.52% +2.35%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £666
90th Percentile £750 £711 £763
London median daily rate £513 £501 £500
% change year-on-year +2.35% +0.15% -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 4 4
10th Percentile £19.20 £23.34 -
25th Percentile £20.24 £25.34 £12.75
Median hourly rate £23.87 £27.76 £15.25
Median % change year-on-year -14.02% +82.03% -70.95%
75th Percentile £29.54 £68.68 £20.25
90th Percentile £36.87 £139.97 £24.30
London median hourly rate £27.00 £23.80 £19.50
% change year-on-year +13.45% +22.05% -26.71%

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 1,027 902 1,035
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 41.99% 45.05% 42.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 663 580 765
10th Percentile £359 £312 £300
25th Percentile £438 £450 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.64% - -
75th Percentile £673 £675 £675
90th Percentile £774 £751 £775
London median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 11 7
10th Percentile £18.65 £26.45 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.75 £28.23 £14.38
Median hourly rate £22.27 £31.00 £18.93
Median % change year-on-year -28.18% +63.76% -11.95%
75th Percentile £27.00 £53.75 £23.75
90th Percentile £41.83 £100.00 £25.05
London median hourly rate £35.50 £29.00 £23.65
% change year-on-year +22.41% +22.62% -17.02%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 +3 296 £525 +5.00% 215
West End of London +1 6 £550 +22.22% 10
City of Westminster -1 5 £560 +3.70% 5
Kensington and Chelsea +2 4 £588 - 2
Camden +2 1 - - 2
Southwark -3 1 £188 -21.33%
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 34 (10.90%) SharePoint
2 16 (5.13%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (2.56%) Confluence
4 5 (1.60%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.64%) Apache
5 2 (0.64%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.32%) SAS
Applications
1 32 (10.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (7.37%) Microsoft Office
3 19 (6.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (5.45%) MS Visio
5 4 (1.28%) 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 10 (3.21%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (2.88%) Aladdin
3 2 (0.64%) Exchequer
3 2 (0.64%) NetSuite
3 2 (0.64%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.32%) BASE24
4 1 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.32%) SAP ERP
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%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
4 1 (0.32%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 127 (40.71%) Azure
2 73 (23.40%) Microsoft 365
3 64 (20.51%) Power Platform
4 30 (9.62%) Entra ID
5 28 (8.97%) Dynamics 365
6 26 (8.33%) Power Automate
7 24 (7.69%) AWS
8 22 (7.05%) Azure DevOps
8 22 (7.05%) PowerApps
9 17 (5.45%) Microsoft Copilot
10 14 (4.49%) GitHub
10 14 (4.49%) Microsoft Purview
11 12 (3.85%) GCP
11 12 (3.85%) SaaS
12 10 (3.21%) Azure AI
12 10 (3.21%) Azure Data Factory
12 10 (3.21%) Snowflake
13 8 (2.56%) Amazon S3
13 8 (2.56%) Azure Machine Learning
13 8 (2.56%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.49%) Firewall
2 12 (3.85%) DNS
3 9 (2.88%) VPN
4 7 (2.24%) Network Security
5 5 (1.60%) DHCP
6 3 (0.96%) LAN
6 3 (0.96%) WAN
6 3 (0.96%) Wi-Fi
7 2 (0.64%) Intranet
7 2 (0.64%) Unified Communications
8 1 (0.32%) Extranet
8 1 (0.32%) IPsec
8 1 (0.32%) IPv4
8 1 (0.32%) IPv6
8 1 (0.32%) iSCSI
8 1 (0.32%) Reverse Proxy
8 1 (0.32%) SAN
8 1 (0.32%) SSL
8 1 (0.32%) TCP/IP
8 1 (0.32%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 36 (11.54%) Power BI
2 15 (4.81%) SQL Server
3 14 (4.49%) Metadata
4 13 (4.17%) Data Warehouse
5 9 (2.88%) Tableau
6 8 (2.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 7 (2.24%) Data Lake
7 7 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
8 6 (1.92%) Relational Database
9 5 (1.60%) Azure SQL Database
9 5 (1.60%) Snowflake Schema
10 3 (0.96%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.96%) MySQL
11 2 (0.64%) Delta Lake
11 2 (0.64%) Metadata Repository
11 2 (0.64%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.64%) Power Query
11 2 (0.64%) RDBMS
11 2 (0.64%) SQLPlus
11 2 (0.64%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 12 (3.85%) 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%) Toad
5 1 (0.32%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.32%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.32%) Cucumber
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%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.32%) Zephyr
General
1 103 (33.01%) Social Skills
2 84 (26.92%) Finance
3 51 (16.35%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (8.01%) Public Sector
5 20 (6.41%) Banking
6 10 (3.21%) Legal
7 8 (2.56%) Investment Banking
7 8 (2.56%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (2.24%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (2.24%) Presentation Skills
9 6 (1.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (1.92%) Telecoms
10 5 (1.60%) Front Office
10 5 (1.60%) Military
11 4 (1.28%) Law
11 4 (1.28%) Marketing
11 4 (1.28%) Retail
12 3 (0.96%) Back Office
12 3 (0.96%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.96%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 44 (14.10%) Analyst
2 43 (13.78%) Architect
3 42 (13.46%) Senior
4 29 (9.29%) Developer
5 26 (8.33%) Consultant
6 23 (7.37%) Business Analyst
7 16 (5.13%) Data Engineer
8 14 (4.49%) Support Engineer
9 12 (3.85%) Azure Engineer
9 12 (3.85%) Project Manager
10 11 (3.53%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 11 (3.53%) Lead
11 9 (2.88%) Cloud Engineer
11 9 (2.88%) IT Engineer
11 9 (2.88%) IT Support
11 9 (2.88%) Microsoft Engineer
12 8 (2.56%) Data Architect
12 8 (2.56%) Technical Architect
13 7 (2.24%) IT Support Engineer
13 7 (2.24%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.92%) JSON
1 6 (1.92%) Middleware
1 6 (1.92%) REST
2 5 (1.60%) .NET
2 5 (1.60%) Kafka
2 5 (1.60%) PySpark
3 4 (1.28%) CSS
3 4 (1.28%) HTML
3 4 (1.28%) Microsoft Graph
3 4 (1.28%) OAuth
3 4 (1.28%) RESTful
3 4 (1.28%) SAML
4 3 (0.96%) NumPy
4 3 (0.96%) OpenID
4 3 (0.96%) Pandas
4 3 (0.96%) Playwright
4 3 (0.96%) scikit-learn
4 3 (0.96%) XML
4 3 (0.96%) YAML
5 2 (0.64%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 16 (5.13%) Onboarding
2 15 (4.81%) Cloud Native
3 10 (3.21%) AI Agents
4 9 (2.88%) Product Ownership
5 8 (2.56%) Security Posture
6 7 (2.24%) Hybrid Cloud
7 6 (1.92%) Management Information System
8 5 (1.60%) Data Structures
8 5 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (1.60%) PMI
9 4 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
9 4 (1.28%) Equities
9 4 (1.28%) Fixed Income
9 4 (1.28%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 4 (1.28%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (0.96%) BYOD
10 3 (0.96%) Clustering
10 3 (0.96%) Distributed Systems
10 3 (0.96%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 30 (9.62%) Windows
2 8 (2.56%) Windows 10
3 5 (1.60%) Mac OS
4 4 (1.28%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.96%) Linux
6 2 (0.64%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.64%) Unix
7 1 (0.32%) Android
7 1 (0.32%) VMS
7 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (15.38%) AI
1 48 (15.38%) Stakeholder Management
2 44 (14.10%) Problem-Solving
3 43 (13.78%) Agile
3 43 (13.78%) Analytics
3 43 (13.78%) Migration
4 42 (13.46%) Business Intelligence
5 39 (12.50%) CI/CD
5 39 (12.50%) DevOps
6 35 (11.22%) Data Governance
6 35 (11.22%) Data Modelling
7 30 (9.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 26 (8.33%) Roadmaps
9 25 (8.01%) Decision-Making
10 22 (7.05%) Continuous Improvement
11 21 (6.73%) Data Engineering
11 21 (6.73%) ETL
11 21 (6.73%) Machine Learning
12 20 (6.41%) Business Strategy
13 19 (6.09%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 52 (16.67%) SQL
2 34 (10.90%) Python
3 27 (8.65%) PowerShell
4 10 (3.21%) C#
5 9 (2.88%) Java
6 6 (1.92%) Kusto Query Language
7 4 (1.28%) Bash
8 3 (0.96%) Bicep
8 3 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 3 (0.96%) JavaScript
8 3 (0.96%) PL/SQL
8 3 (0.96%) T-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%) COBOL
10 1 (0.32%) ProC
10 1 (0.32%) VB
Qualifications
1 47 (15.06%) Security Cleared
2 30 (9.62%) SC Cleared
3 21 (6.73%) Degree
4 12 (3.85%) Microsoft Certification
5 9 (2.88%) DV Cleared
6 8 (2.56%) Azure Certification
7 7 (2.24%) PMI Certification
8 5 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (1.60%) CISM
8 5 (1.60%) CISSP
9 4 (1.28%) Computer Science Degree
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%) CompTIA Security+
11 2 (0.64%) GIAC
11 2 (0.64%) MCSE
11 2 (0.64%) Network+ Certification
11 2 (0.64%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (7.37%) Data Quality
2 20 (6.41%) GDPR
3 12 (3.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (3.85%) QA
4 10 (3.21%) Cyber Essentials
5 8 (2.56%) PMO
6 5 (1.60%) Accessibility
6 5 (1.60%) NIST
7 4 (1.28%) SLA
8 3 (0.96%) IFRS
8 3 (0.96%) MiFID
8 3 (0.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.64%) GRC
9 2 (0.64%) ISO 20022
9 2 (0.64%) ISO 8583
9 2 (0.64%) NCSC
9 2 (0.64%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.32%) Basel III
10 1 (0.32%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.32%) Solvency II
System Software
1 35 (11.22%) Active Directory
2 12 (3.85%) Docker
3 7 (2.24%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (1.60%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.32%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 25 (8.01%) Microsoft Intune
2 13 (4.17%) Terraform
3 11 (3.53%) Kubernetes
4 8 (2.56%) SCCM
5 4 (1.28%) Ansible
6 3 (0.96%) Jamf Pro
7 2 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (0.64%) Grafana
7 2 (0.64%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.32%) AirWatch
8 1 (0.32%) Autotask
8 1 (0.32%) Kibana
8 1 (0.32%) Opsgenie
8 1 (0.32%) Puppet
8 1 (0.32%) Salt
8 1 (0.32%) WSUS
Vendors
1 24 (7.69%) Databricks
2 13 (4.17%) Salesforce
3 11 (3.53%) Oracle
3 11 (3.53%) ServiceNow
4 10 (3.21%) Google
4 10 (3.21%) SAP
5 8 (2.56%) Foundry
6 7 (2.24%) Informatica
7 6 (1.92%) OpenAI
8 5 (1.60%) Charles River
8 5 (1.60%) Citrix
8 5 (1.60%) Palo Alto
8 5 (1.60%) Workday
9 4 (1.28%) iManage
10 3 (0.96%) Anaplan
10 3 (0.96%) Apple
10 3 (0.96%) Cisco
10 3 (0.96%) Splunk
10 3 (0.96%) Trend Micro
11 2 (0.64%) Guidewire