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 21 February 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
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 6 6
Rank change year-on-year 0 0 +5
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 317 317 376
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 14.81% 15.25% 14.42%
As % of the Vendors category 31.99% 34.68% 34.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 203 282
10th Percentile £308 £230 £263
25th Percentile £404 £397 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £549 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.38% -0.27% +3.77%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £675
90th Percentile £724 £711 £774
London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -6.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 3 2
10th Percentile £19.66 - -
25th Percentile £21.98 - £12.75
Median hourly rate £25.47 £112.00 £13.50
Median % change year-on-year -77.26% +729.63% -49.06%
75th Percentile - £149.75 £14.25
90th Percentile £33.61 £172.40 -
London median hourly rate £23.13 £25.34 £19.50
% change year-on-year -8.71% +29.95% -21.86%

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 991 914 1,088
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 46.29% 43.96% 41.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 674 587 778
10th Percentile £350 £313 £286
25th Percentile £425 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £532 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.23% - -
75th Percentile £669 £673 £675
90th Percentile £773 £750 £775
London median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 5 11
10th Percentile £18.75 £35.10 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.34 £41.25 £14.88
Median hourly rate £25.47 £112.00 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -77.26% +489.47% -9.52%
75th Percentile £38.06 - £23.75
90th Percentile £45.83 £157.30 £48.75
London median hourly rate £27.00 £35.00 £26.25
% change year-on-year -22.86% +33.33% +5.00%

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 21 February 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 21 February 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 21 February 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 -1 290 £503 -7.37% 169
West End of London +6 6 £500 +11.11% 3
Camden +5 4 £400 -11.11% 6
City of Westminster -1 4 £560 +6.16% 3
Kensington and Chelsea - 4 £588 - 1
Southwark -3 1 £188 -54.78% 2
Lambeth - 1 £350 - 2
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 (11.04%) SharePoint
2 17 (5.36%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (3.79%) Confluence
4 2 (0.63%) Apache
4 2 (0.63%) CMS
5 1 (0.32%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.32%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.32%) Ethereum
5 1 (0.32%) Hyperledger
5 1 (0.32%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.32%) NServiceBus
5 1 (0.32%) SAS
Applications
1 43 (13.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 27 (8.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 25 (7.89%) MS Visio
4 22 (6.94%) Microsoft Office
5 7 (2.21%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.95%) 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 (3.15%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.89%) Aladdin
3 3 (0.95%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.63%) Exchequer
4 2 (0.63%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.63%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.32%) BASE24
5 1 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 128 (40.38%) Azure
2 82 (25.87%) Microsoft 365
3 53 (16.72%) Power Platform
4 39 (12.30%) Entra ID
5 30 (9.46%) AWS
6 24 (7.57%) Power Automate
7 23 (7.26%) Dynamics 365
8 21 (6.62%) Microsoft Purview
9 20 (6.31%) PowerApps
10 16 (5.05%) Azure DevOps
11 13 (4.10%) GitHub
12 12 (3.79%) GCP
13 11 (3.47%) Microsoft Copilot
14 10 (3.15%) Azure Sentinel
14 10 (3.15%) SaaS
15 9 (2.84%) Azure Data Factory
15 9 (2.84%) Serverless
15 9 (2.84%) Snowflake
16 8 (2.52%) AWS Lambda
16 8 (2.52%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.42%) DNS
2 13 (4.10%) Firewall
2 13 (4.10%) VPN
3 8 (2.52%) Network Security
3 8 (2.52%) WAN
4 7 (2.21%) LAN
5 6 (1.89%) DHCP
6 5 (1.58%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (0.95%) Softphone
7 3 (0.95%) Structured Cabling
8 2 (0.63%) HTTP
8 2 (0.63%) Intranet
8 2 (0.63%) Intrusion Detection
8 2 (0.63%) SD-WAN
8 2 (0.63%) Unified Communications
9 1 (0.32%) Extranet
9 1 (0.32%) IPv4
9 1 (0.32%) IPv6
9 1 (0.32%) MPLS
9 1 (0.32%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (9.78%) Power BI
2 15 (4.73%) Metadata
2 15 (4.73%) SQL Server
3 11 (3.47%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (2.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 8 (2.52%) Data Lake
6 7 (2.21%) PostgreSQL
6 7 (2.21%) Tableau
7 6 (1.89%) Relational Database
8 4 (1.26%) Azure SQL Database
9 3 (0.95%) MySQL
10 2 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.63%) Metadata Repository
10 2 (0.63%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.63%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.63%) RDBMS
10 2 (0.63%) Snowflake Schema
10 2 (0.63%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 2 (0.63%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 2 (0.63%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 18 (5.68%) JIRA
2 8 (2.52%) Git
3 4 (1.26%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.95%) GitLab
5 2 (0.63%) ERwin
5 2 (0.63%) Postman
5 2 (0.63%) Toad
6 1 (0.32%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.32%) Cucumber
6 1 (0.32%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.32%) Hardhat
6 1 (0.32%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.32%) PowerBuilder
6 1 (0.32%) Selenium
6 1 (0.32%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.32%) SpecFlow
6 1 (0.32%) Terragrunt
6 1 (0.32%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.32%) webpack
6 1 (0.32%) Zephyr
General
1 110 (34.70%) Social Skills
2 87 (27.44%) Finance
3 50 (15.77%) Analytical Skills
4 29 (9.15%) Banking
5 25 (7.89%) Public Sector
6 13 (4.10%) Investment Banking
7 12 (3.79%) Legal
8 11 (3.47%) Organisational Skills
9 10 (3.15%) Front Office
10 9 (2.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (2.52%) Presentation Skills
12 7 (2.21%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
14 4 (1.26%) Marketing
14 4 (1.26%) Military
14 4 (1.26%) Telecoms
15 3 (0.95%) Financial Institution
15 3 (0.95%) Manufacturing
15 3 (0.95%) Retail
16 2 (0.63%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 46 (14.51%) Analyst
2 42 (13.25%) Senior
3 37 (11.67%) Architect
4 34 (10.73%) Developer
5 24 (7.57%) Business Analyst
6 18 (5.68%) Consultant
7 17 (5.36%) Lead
8 16 (5.05%) Data Engineer
9 13 (4.10%) Project Manager
9 13 (4.10%) Support Engineer
10 12 (3.79%) IT Engineer
11 11 (3.47%) Solutions Architect
12 10 (3.15%) IT Support
12 10 (3.15%) Microsoft Engineer
13 9 (2.84%) IT Support Engineer
14 8 (2.52%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 8 (2.52%) Azure Engineer
14 8 (2.52%) Cloud Engineer
14 8 (2.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 7 (2.21%) Azure Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (2.52%) .NET
1 8 (2.52%) React
2 7 (2.21%) REST
3 6 (1.89%) Microsoft Graph
3 6 (1.89%) Middleware
3 6 (1.89%) Node.js
4 5 (1.58%) HTML
4 5 (1.58%) JSON
4 5 (1.58%) OAuth
5 4 (1.26%) AngularJS
5 4 (1.26%) CSS
5 4 (1.26%) RESTful
5 4 (1.26%) SAML
5 4 (1.26%) XML
6 3 (0.95%) NumPy
6 3 (0.95%) OpenID
6 3 (0.95%) Pandas
6 3 (0.95%) PySpark
6 3 (0.95%) scikit-learn
6 3 (0.95%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 21 (6.62%) Cloud Native
2 17 (5.36%) Onboarding
3 12 (3.79%) Management Information System
4 11 (3.47%) Security Posture
5 8 (2.52%) Hybrid Cloud
5 8 (2.52%) Product Ownership
6 7 (2.21%) Data Structures
7 6 (1.89%) AI Agents
8 5 (1.58%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 5 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (1.26%) BYOD
9 4 (1.26%) Derivative
9 4 (1.26%) Equities
9 4 (1.26%) Fixed Income
9 4 (1.26%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 3 (0.95%) Data Centre
10 3 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
10 3 (0.95%) Low-Code
10 3 (0.95%) Taxonomies
10 3 (0.95%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 33 (10.41%) Windows
2 12 (3.79%) Windows 10
3 6 (1.89%) Windows Server
4 5 (1.58%) Linux
4 5 (1.58%) Unix
5 4 (1.26%) Mac OS
6 3 (0.95%) Android
7 2 (0.63%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.32%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.32%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 60 (18.93%) Problem-Solving
2 48 (15.14%) Stakeholder Management
3 41 (12.93%) Migration
4 40 (12.62%) Agile
4 40 (12.62%) Business Intelligence
4 40 (12.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 36 (11.36%) Analytics
6 34 (10.73%) AI
7 32 (10.09%) CI/CD
7 32 (10.09%) Data Governance
8 30 (9.46%) DevOps
9 28 (8.83%) Data Modelling
9 28 (8.83%) Roadmaps
10 21 (6.62%) Change Management
10 21 (6.62%) Project Delivery
11 20 (6.31%) Cloud Security
11 20 (6.31%) Data Pipeline
11 20 (6.31%) Machine Learning
12 19 (5.99%) Continuous Improvement
12 19 (5.99%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 53 (16.72%) SQL
2 36 (11.36%) Python
3 28 (8.83%) PowerShell
4 13 (4.10%) Java
5 12 (3.79%) C#
6 10 (3.15%) JavaScript
7 7 (2.21%) Kusto Query Language
8 4 (1.26%) T-SQL
9 3 (0.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 3 (0.95%) PL/SQL
9 3 (0.95%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.63%) Apex Code
10 2 (0.63%) C
10 2 (0.63%) C++
10 2 (0.63%) Perl
10 2 (0.63%) PHP
11 1 (0.32%) COBOL
11 1 (0.32%) Korn
11 1 (0.32%) R
11 1 (0.32%) XPath
Qualifications
1 43 (13.56%) Security Cleared
2 34 (10.73%) SC Cleared
3 29 (9.15%) Degree
4 15 (4.73%) Microsoft Certification
5 7 (2.21%) Azure Certification
5 7 (2.21%) CISSP
6 6 (1.89%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (1.58%) CISM
7 5 (1.58%) PMI Certification
8 4 (1.26%) CompTIA CySA+
8 4 (1.26%) CompTIA Security+
8 4 (1.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 4 (1.26%) MCSE
8 4 (1.26%) PMP
9 3 (0.95%) DV Cleared
9 3 (0.95%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 3 (0.95%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (0.63%) CISMP
10 2 (0.63%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (6.31%) GDPR
2 18 (5.68%) Data Quality
2 18 (5.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (3.47%) Cyber Essentials
3 11 (3.47%) PMO
4 8 (2.52%) NIST
4 8 (2.52%) QA
5 4 (1.26%) Accessibility
5 4 (1.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 3 (0.95%) IFRS
6 3 (0.95%) ISO 20022
6 3 (0.95%) NCSC
6 3 (0.95%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.63%) Basel III
7 2 (0.63%) GRC
7 2 (0.63%) ISO 8583
7 2 (0.63%) MiFID
8 1 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.32%) IFRS 17
8 1 (0.32%) PSD2
System Software
1 45 (14.20%) Active Directory
2 10 (3.15%) Docker
3 7 (2.21%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (1.58%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.63%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.32%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.32%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 34 (10.73%) Microsoft Intune
2 11 (3.47%) Terraform
3 7 (2.21%) Kubernetes
4 6 (1.89%) SCCM
5 4 (1.26%) Ansible
6 2 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (0.63%) AirWatch
6 2 (0.63%) Jamf Pro
6 2 (0.63%) Kibana
7 1 (0.32%) Autotask
7 1 (0.32%) ITRS Geneos
7 1 (0.32%) logstash
7 1 (0.32%) Opsgenie
7 1 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.32%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 19 (5.99%) Databricks
2 18 (5.68%) Salesforce
3 14 (4.42%) ServiceNow
4 12 (3.79%) Google
5 9 (2.84%) Oracle
6 8 (2.52%) SAP
7 7 (2.21%) CyberArk
7 7 (2.21%) Palo Alto
8 6 (1.89%) Citrix
8 6 (1.89%) OpenAI
9 5 (1.58%) LogRhythm
9 5 (1.58%) VMware
9 5 (1.58%) Zscaler
10 4 (1.26%) Adobe
10 4 (1.26%) Cisco
10 4 (1.26%) Commvault
10 4 (1.26%) Foundry
10 4 (1.26%) Informatica
10 4 (1.26%) Remedy
11 3 (0.95%) Fortinet