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 29 July 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
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 9 5
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 359 307 383
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 13.86% 14.95% 16.67%
As % of the Vendors category 33.43% 31.91% 38.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 266 195 299
10th Percentile £228 £278 £262
25th Percentile £425 £375 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £530
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -5.66% -2.30%
75th Percentile £655 £632 £643
90th Percentile £750 £723 £728
London median daily rate £510 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.00% - -7.41%
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 £24.00 £23.80
% change year-on-year +6.25% +0.84% -23.44%

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 1,074 962 1,002
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 41.45% 46.84% 43.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 735 617 718
10th Percentile £334 £325 £338
25th Percentile £450 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £539
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% +2.04% -2.00%
75th Percentile £656 £675 £650
90th Percentile £750 £763 £750
London median daily rate £525 £525 £530
% change year-on-year - -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 18 11
10th Percentile - £23.23 £18.50
25th Percentile £18.75 £26.91 £23.75
Median hourly rate £22.50 £32.83 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year -31.45% -20.90% +66.00%
75th Percentile £41.25 £62.00 £115.00
90th Percentile £63.75 £75.90 £137.50
London median hourly rate £35.50 £26.30 £27.50
% change year-on-year +34.98% -4.36% -14.06%

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 29 July 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 29 July 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 29 July 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 +1 329 £550 +10.00% 181
Southwark +2 9 £600 - 1
West End of London -7 5 £395 +58.00% 7
City of Westminster -15 5 £543 -1.36% 5
Kensington and Chelsea 0 3 £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 45 (12.53%) SharePoint
2 25 (6.96%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (1.95%) Apache Airflow
4 5 (1.39%) Apache
4 5 (1.39%) Confluence
5 4 (1.11%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.56%) IIS
7 1 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
7 1 (0.28%) nginx
Applications
1 28 (7.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (4.74%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (2.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.11%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.84%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.28%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.28%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.28%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.28%) Final Cut Pro
6 1 (0.28%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 13 (3.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (2.79%) Aladdin
3 3 (0.84%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.84%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.56%) iTrent
4 2 (0.56%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.56%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.56%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
5 1 (0.28%) Exchequer
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle Retail
5 1 (0.28%) SAP CRM
5 1 (0.28%) SAP FI-AR
5 1 (0.28%) SAP MM
5 1 (0.28%) SAP Oil and Gas
5 1 (0.28%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 145 (40.39%) Azure
2 78 (21.73%) Microsoft 365
3 68 (18.94%) Power Platform
4 49 (13.65%) Entra ID
5 32 (8.91%) Azure DevOps
6 28 (7.80%) AWS
7 27 (7.52%) Dynamics 365
8 25 (6.96%) Power Automate
9 22 (6.13%) Microsoft Copilot
10 21 (5.85%) PowerApps
11 19 (5.29%) SaaS
12 18 (5.01%) Microsoft Purview
13 17 (4.74%) Azure Data Factory
13 17 (4.74%) GCP
13 17 (4.74%) GitHub
14 14 (3.90%) OneDrive
15 12 (3.34%) Serverless
16 11 (3.06%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 10 (2.79%) Azure AI
17 10 (2.79%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 25 (6.96%) DNS
2 20 (5.57%) DHCP
3 15 (4.18%) Firewall
4 13 (3.62%) TCP/IP
5 12 (3.34%) VPN
6 6 (1.67%) LAN
6 6 (1.67%) WAN
7 5 (1.39%) Unified Communications
8 4 (1.11%) Network Security
9 3 (0.84%) Internet
9 3 (0.84%) SMTP
9 3 (0.84%) Structured Cabling
9 3 (0.84%) VLAN
9 3 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
10 2 (0.56%) DKIM
10 2 (0.56%) DMARC
10 2 (0.56%) Intranet
10 2 (0.56%) Multicast
10 2 (0.56%) Reverse Proxy
10 2 (0.56%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (12.26%) Power BI
2 21 (5.85%) Data Warehouse
3 18 (5.01%) SQL Server
4 9 (2.51%) Azure SQL Database
5 8 (2.23%) Data Lake
6 6 (1.67%) Metadata
6 6 (1.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 6 (1.67%) Star Schema
7 5 (1.39%) Power Query
7 5 (1.39%) Semantic Layer
7 5 (1.39%) Tableau
8 4 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
8 4 (1.11%) Amazon Redshift
8 4 (1.11%) Big Data
8 4 (1.11%) NoSQL
8 4 (1.11%) Snowflake Schema
9 3 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
9 3 (0.84%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.84%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 3 (0.84%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 15 (4.18%) JIRA
2 8 (2.23%) Git
3 4 (1.11%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.84%) Artifactory
4 3 (0.84%) Bitbucket
4 3 (0.84%) JUnit
4 3 (0.84%) Visual Studio
5 2 (0.56%) Fiddler
5 2 (0.56%) GitLab
5 2 (0.56%) MSI
5 2 (0.56%) Selenium
5 2 (0.56%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.28%) Appium
6 1 (0.28%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 1 (0.28%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.28%) ER Studio
6 1 (0.28%) Jasmine
6 1 (0.28%) Karma Test Runner
6 1 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (0.28%) WebDriver
General
1 109 (30.36%) Social Skills
2 104 (28.97%) Finance
3 48 (13.37%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (8.64%) Banking
5 19 (5.29%) Public Sector
6 10 (2.79%) General Ledger
6 10 (2.79%) Retail
7 9 (2.51%) Law
7 9 (2.51%) Telecoms
8 6 (1.67%) Front Office
8 6 (1.67%) Investment Banking
8 6 (1.67%) Legal
9 5 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
9 5 (1.39%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (1.39%) Marketing
10 4 (1.11%) Back Office
10 4 (1.11%) Financial Institution
10 4 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.11%) Organisational Skills
11 3 (0.84%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 53 (14.76%) Architect
2 43 (11.98%) Analyst
3 37 (10.31%) Developer
4 33 (9.19%) Consultant
5 31 (8.64%) Senior
6 26 (7.24%) Support Engineer
7 17 (4.74%) Data Architect
7 17 (4.74%) Lead
7 17 (4.74%) Solutions Architect
8 15 (4.18%) Data Engineer
9 13 (3.62%) IT Support
10 11 (3.06%) Business Analyst
10 11 (3.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 11 (3.06%) Project Manager
11 10 (2.79%) IT Engineer
11 10 (2.79%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
12 9 (2.51%) Cloud Engineer
12 9 (2.51%) Dynamics 365 Developer
12 9 (2.51%) IT Support Engineer
12 9 (2.51%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (3.34%) .NET
1 12 (3.34%) PySpark
1 12 (3.34%) REST
2 10 (2.79%) Middleware
3 7 (1.95%) JSON
3 7 (1.95%) SAML
4 6 (1.67%) HTML
4 6 (1.67%) OAuth
4 6 (1.67%) XML
5 5 (1.39%) .NET Framework
5 5 (1.39%) CSS
5 5 (1.39%) Kafka
5 5 (1.39%) OpenID
5 5 (1.39%) SOAP
5 5 (1.39%) Spring
6 4 (1.11%) Microsoft Graph
6 4 (1.11%) XSLT
7 3 (0.84%) ASP.NET
7 3 (0.84%) GraphQL
7 3 (0.84%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 21 (5.85%) Onboarding
2 19 (5.29%) Cloud Native
3 11 (3.06%) Legacy Systems
4 10 (2.79%) AI Agents
4 10 (2.79%) Video Conferencing
5 9 (2.51%) Enterprise Software
5 9 (2.51%) Management Information System
5 9 (2.51%) PKI
5 9 (2.51%) Product Ownership
6 8 (2.23%) Distributed Systems
7 7 (1.95%) Data Structures
7 7 (1.95%) Security Posture
8 6 (1.67%) Clustering
8 6 (1.67%) Low-Code
8 6 (1.67%) Virtual Team
9 5 (1.39%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 4 (1.11%) Data Centre
10 4 (1.11%) Equities
10 4 (1.11%) PMI
10 4 (1.11%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 61 (16.99%) Windows
2 16 (4.46%) Windows Server
3 14 (3.90%) Mac OS
4 10 (2.79%) Windows 10
5 8 (2.23%) Linux
6 3 (0.84%) Android
6 3 (0.84%) Windows 7
6 3 (0.84%) Windows Server 2012
7 2 (0.56%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.56%) Unix
7 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.28%) OpenVMS
8 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.28%) SUSE
8 1 (0.28%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 1 (0.28%) VMS
8 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
8 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (18.38%) DevOps
2 60 (16.71%) Analytics
3 58 (16.16%) Problem-Solving
4 57 (15.88%) Migration
4 57 (15.88%) Stakeholder Management
5 52 (14.48%) Business Intelligence
6 51 (14.21%) Agile
6 51 (14.21%) CI/CD
7 47 (13.09%) Data Modelling
8 45 (12.53%) AI
9 40 (11.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 34 (9.47%) Data Governance
11 29 (8.08%) Continuous Improvement
11 29 (8.08%) ITIL
11 29 (8.08%) Roadmaps
12 27 (7.52%) Data Engineering
13 26 (7.24%) Decision-Making
13 26 (7.24%) Validation
14 24 (6.69%) Asset Management
14 24 (6.69%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 57 (15.88%) SQL
2 36 (10.03%) Python
3 28 (7.80%) PowerShell
4 16 (4.46%) Java
5 12 (3.34%) C#
6 9 (2.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 8 (2.23%) JavaScript
8 6 (1.67%) Bicep
8 6 (1.67%) T-SQL
9 5 (1.39%) Bash
9 5 (1.39%) Kusto Query Language
10 4 (1.11%) TypeScript
11 2 (0.56%) C++
11 2 (0.56%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.28%) COBOL
12 1 (0.28%) Google Apps Script
12 1 (0.28%) R
12 1 (0.28%) RPG
12 1 (0.28%) X++
Qualifications
1 63 (17.55%) Security Cleared
2 45 (12.53%) SC Cleared
3 27 (7.52%) Degree
4 20 (5.57%) DV Cleared
5 13 (3.62%) Microsoft Certification
6 8 (2.23%) Azure Certification
7 7 (1.95%) CISSP
8 6 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (1.67%) CISM
8 6 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (1.67%) PMI Certification
9 5 (1.39%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (1.39%) DBS Check
10 4 (1.11%) A+ Certification
11 3 (0.84%) CCNP
11 3 (0.84%) CompTIA Security+
12 2 (0.56%) CCNA
12 2 (0.56%) CompTIA CySA+
12 2 (0.56%) Network+ Certification
12 2 (0.56%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (7.80%) Data Quality
2 22 (6.13%) QA
3 17 (4.74%) GDPR
4 12 (3.34%) SLA
5 11 (3.06%) NIST
6 9 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 7 (1.95%) Cyber Essentials
7 7 (1.95%) NCSC
8 6 (1.67%) Accessibility
8 6 (1.67%) PMO
9 5 (1.39%) GRC
10 4 (1.11%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.56%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 2 (0.56%) P3O
11 2 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.28%) COBIT
12 1 (0.28%) GAAP
12 1 (0.28%) MiFID
12 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 60 (16.71%) Active Directory
2 11 (3.06%) Docker
3 6 (1.67%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (1.39%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (1.11%) BitLocker
5 4 (1.11%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.84%) Microsoft App-V
6 3 (0.84%) Terminal Services
6 3 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.84%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.56%) IAG
8 1 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.28%) zsh
Systems Management
1 33 (9.19%) Microsoft Intune
2 17 (4.74%) Terraform
3 13 (3.62%) Kubernetes
4 11 (3.06%) SCCM
5 9 (2.51%) Single Sign-On
6 7 (1.95%) Ansible
7 5 (1.39%) Jamf Pro
8 4 (1.11%) Puppet
9 3 (0.84%) Grafana
9 3 (0.84%) Nagios
9 3 (0.84%) Prometheus
9 3 (0.84%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.84%) vMotion
10 2 (0.56%) WSUS
11 1 (0.28%) Autotask
11 1 (0.28%) Data Guard
11 1 (0.28%) ITRS Geneos
11 1 (0.28%) NetBackup
11 1 (0.28%) PingFederate
11 1 (0.28%) SELinux
Vendors
1 27 (7.52%) ServiceNow
2 21 (5.85%) Databricks
3 18 (5.01%) Google
4 17 (4.74%) SAP
5 16 (4.46%) Oracle
6 11 (3.06%) Citrix
6 11 (3.06%) Salesforce
7 9 (2.51%) Cisco
8 8 (2.23%) Apple
8 8 (2.23%) VMware
9 7 (1.95%) OpenAI
9 7 (1.95%) Workday
10 6 (1.67%) Foundry
11 5 (1.39%) Bloomberg
11 5 (1.39%) HP
11 5 (1.39%) Informatica
12 4 (1.11%) Okta
12 4 (1.11%) Remedy
12 4 (1.11%) Splunk
12 4 (1.11%) Zscaler