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 20 August 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
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 9 5
Rank change year-on-year +2 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 374 314 399
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 14.76% 15.45% 17.39%
As % of the Vendors category 34.41% 32.67% 39.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 277 203 307
10th Percentile £263 £276 £300
25th Percentile £413 £363 £432
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £533
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -6.10% -1.84%
75th Percentile £650 £625 £638
90th Percentile £750 £703 £710
London median daily rate £515 £500 £505
% change year-on-year +3.00% -0.99% -8.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 5 4
10th Percentile £20.83 £20.12 £19.30
25th Percentile £22.82 £22.00 £24.25
Median hourly rate £26.13 £26.45 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.21% -2.04% -
75th Percentile £30.57 £29.07 £43.38
90th Percentile £33.23 £29.78 £72.85
London median hourly rate £25.50 £24.00 £23.80
% change year-on-year +6.25% +0.84% -19.32%

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 1,087 961 1,001
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 42.90% 47.27% 43.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 760 623 699
10th Percentile £337 £313 £340
25th Percentile £450 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £540 £538
Median % change year-on-year +1.85% +0.37% -2.18%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £750
London median daily rate £525 £525 £530
% change year-on-year - -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 19 13
10th Percentile - £19.60 £16.50
25th Percentile £18.75 £25.10 £20.50
Median hourly rate £23.16 £29.07 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.33% +7.67% +20.00%
75th Percentile £38.13 £54.46 £92.50
90th Percentile £64.00 £64.11 £137.50
London median hourly rate £35.50 £26.30 £27.50
% change year-on-year +34.98% -4.36% -21.43%

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 20 August 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 20 August 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 20 August 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 +3 343 £550 +10.00% 240
Southwark 0 8 £600 +14.29% 7
City of Westminster -16 5 £500 -13.04% 14
Kensington and Chelsea 0 4 £150 - 2
West End of London -11 4 £475 +26.67% 13
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 49 (13.10%) SharePoint
2 30 (8.02%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (2.14%) Apache Airflow
4 7 (1.87%) Apache
5 6 (1.60%) Apache Spark
5 6 (1.60%) Confluence
6 2 (0.53%) IIS
7 1 (0.27%) Exchange Server 2013
7 1 (0.27%) nginx
7 1 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 32 (8.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 22 (5.88%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (3.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.07%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.53%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.27%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.27%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.27%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.27%) Final Cut Pro
6 1 (0.27%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 19 (5.08%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.60%) Aladdin
3 3 (0.80%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.80%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.53%) Dynamics NAV
4 2 (0.53%) iTrent
4 2 (0.53%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.53%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.53%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.27%) Advent Moxy
5 1 (0.27%) Advent Portfolio Exchange
5 1 (0.27%) Exchequer
5 1 (0.27%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 1 (0.27%) Oracle Retail
5 1 (0.27%) SAP CRM
5 1 (0.27%) SAP FI-AR
5 1 (0.27%) SAP MM
5 1 (0.27%) SAP Oil and Gas
5 1 (0.27%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 163 (43.58%) Azure
2 80 (21.39%) Microsoft 365
3 75 (20.05%) Power Platform
4 49 (13.10%) Entra ID
5 42 (11.23%) Azure DevOps
6 36 (9.63%) Dynamics 365
7 31 (8.29%) AWS
8 27 (7.22%) Power Automate
9 26 (6.95%) Azure Data Factory
10 25 (6.68%) PowerApps
11 23 (6.15%) Microsoft Copilot
12 22 (5.88%) GCP
13 21 (5.61%) SaaS
14 20 (5.35%) GitHub
15 19 (5.08%) Microsoft Purview
16 18 (4.81%) OneDrive
17 16 (4.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 16 (4.28%) Serverless
18 12 (3.21%) Azure Logic Apps
19 11 (2.94%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 28 (7.49%) DNS
2 22 (5.88%) DHCP
3 18 (4.81%) Firewall
4 14 (3.74%) TCP/IP
5 13 (3.48%) VPN
6 5 (1.34%) LAN
6 5 (1.34%) Unified Communications
6 5 (1.34%) WAN
7 4 (1.07%) Network Security
7 4 (1.07%) SMTP
7 4 (1.07%) VLAN
8 3 (0.80%) Internet
8 3 (0.80%) Structured Cabling
8 3 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
9 2 (0.53%) DKIM
9 2 (0.53%) DMARC
9 2 (0.53%) Intranet
9 2 (0.53%) Multicast
9 2 (0.53%) Reverse Proxy
9 2 (0.53%) Value-Added Service
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (12.57%) Power BI
2 26 (6.95%) Data Warehouse
3 19 (5.08%) SQL Server
4 13 (3.48%) Azure SQL Database
5 10 (2.67%) Data Lake
6 9 (2.41%) Metadata
6 9 (2.41%) Star Schema
7 8 (2.14%) Power Query
8 5 (1.34%) Amazon RDS
8 5 (1.34%) Amazon Redshift
8 5 (1.34%) Semantic Layer
8 5 (1.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 5 (1.34%) Tableau
9 4 (1.07%) Big Data
9 4 (1.07%) Snowflake Schema
10 3 (0.80%) BigQuery
10 3 (0.80%) Elasticsearch
10 3 (0.80%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 3 (0.80%) PostgreSQL
10 3 (0.80%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 18 (4.81%) JIRA
2 10 (2.67%) Git
3 7 (1.87%) Jenkins
4 6 (1.60%) Visual Studio
5 4 (1.07%) Bitbucket
5 4 (1.07%) GitLab
5 4 (1.07%) Selenium
6 3 (0.80%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.80%) JUnit
6 3 (0.80%) Visual Studio Code
7 2 (0.53%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 2 (0.53%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.53%) Fiddler
7 2 (0.53%) MSI
7 2 (0.53%) TeamCity
8 1 (0.27%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.27%) Rational Functional Tester
8 1 (0.27%) SilkTest
8 1 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
8 1 (0.27%) WebDriver
General
1 113 (30.21%) Social Skills
2 110 (29.41%) Finance
3 50 (13.37%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (9.09%) Banking
5 22 (5.88%) Public Sector
6 13 (3.48%) Retail
7 11 (2.94%) General Ledger
7 11 (2.94%) Telecoms
8 9 (2.41%) Law
8 9 (2.41%) Legal
8 9 (2.41%) Organisational Skills
9 8 (2.14%) Marketing
10 7 (1.87%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (1.60%) Front Office
11 6 (1.60%) Investment Banking
12 5 (1.34%) Documentation Skills
12 5 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (1.07%) Back Office
13 4 (1.07%) Financial Institution
13 4 (1.07%) Military
Job Titles
1 56 (14.97%) Architect
2 43 (11.50%) Developer
3 40 (10.70%) Analyst
4 34 (9.09%) Consultant
5 29 (7.75%) Support Engineer
6 28 (7.49%) Senior
7 20 (5.35%) Data Architect
8 17 (4.55%) Lead
8 17 (4.55%) Solutions Architect
9 15 (4.01%) Data Engineer
10 14 (3.74%) IT Support
11 13 (3.48%) Dynamics 365 Developer
12 12 (3.21%) IT Engineer
13 11 (2.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 11 (2.94%) Platform Engineer
13 11 (2.94%) Project Manager
14 10 (2.67%) IT Support Engineer
14 10 (2.67%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
15 9 (2.41%) Azure Engineer
15 9 (2.41%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (6.42%) Terraform
2 18 (4.81%) PySpark
3 16 (4.28%) .NET
4 14 (3.74%) REST
5 9 (2.41%) Middleware
6 8 (2.14%) .NET Framework
6 8 (2.14%) HTML
7 7 (1.87%) JSON
7 7 (1.87%) SAML
7 7 (1.87%) XML
8 6 (1.60%) Kafka
8 6 (1.60%) OAuth
8 6 (1.60%) SOAP
9 5 (1.34%) CSS
9 5 (1.34%) OpenID
10 4 (1.07%) ASP.NET Web API
10 4 (1.07%) HTML5 Canvas
10 4 (1.07%) Spring
10 4 (1.07%) XSLT
11 3 (0.80%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 25 (6.68%) Onboarding
2 19 (5.08%) Cloud Native
3 15 (4.01%) AI Agents
4 14 (3.74%) Video Conferencing
5 12 (3.21%) Management Information System
6 10 (2.67%) Legacy Systems
7 9 (2.41%) Enterprise Software
7 9 (2.41%) PKI
7 9 (2.41%) Product Ownership
8 7 (1.87%) Data Structures
8 7 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
8 7 (1.87%) Low-Code
9 6 (1.60%) Clustering
9 6 (1.60%) Security Posture
10 4 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
10 4 (1.07%) Data Centre
10 4 (1.07%) Equities
10 4 (1.07%) PMI
11 3 (0.80%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (0.80%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 67 (17.91%) Windows
2 19 (5.08%) Mac OS
2 19 (5.08%) Windows Server
3 14 (3.74%) Windows 10
4 12 (3.21%) Linux
5 5 (1.34%) Android
6 4 (1.07%) Apple iOS
6 4 (1.07%) Windows 7
7 3 (0.80%) Unix
7 3 (0.80%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.53%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.27%) OpenVMS
9 1 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.27%) SUSE
9 1 (0.27%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.27%) VMS
9 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (22.19%) DevOps
2 70 (18.72%) Stakeholder Management
3 68 (18.18%) Analytics
4 64 (17.11%) Problem-Solving
5 62 (16.58%) CI/CD
6 60 (16.04%) Agile
6 60 (16.04%) Migration
7 53 (14.17%) Business Intelligence
8 50 (13.37%) AI
8 50 (13.37%) Data Modelling
9 48 (12.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 41 (10.96%) Data Governance
11 32 (8.56%) Continuous Improvement
12 31 (8.29%) ITIL
13 28 (7.49%) Project Delivery
13 28 (7.49%) Validation
14 27 (7.22%) Data Engineering
14 27 (7.22%) Roadmaps
15 26 (6.95%) Decision-Making
15 26 (6.95%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 67 (17.91%) SQL
2 46 (12.30%) Python
3 28 (7.49%) PowerShell
4 17 (4.55%) Java
5 15 (4.01%) C#
6 13 (3.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 11 (2.94%) JavaScript
8 8 (2.14%) TypeScript
9 7 (1.87%) Bash
9 7 (1.87%) Bicep
10 6 (1.60%) T-SQL
11 4 (1.07%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.53%) C++
12 2 (0.53%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.53%) R
13 1 (0.27%) COBOL
13 1 (0.27%) Korn
13 1 (0.27%) RPG
13 1 (0.27%) VB.NET
13 1 (0.27%) XMLA
Qualifications
1 73 (19.52%) Security Cleared
2 51 (13.64%) SC Cleared
3 24 (6.42%) Degree
4 20 (5.35%) DV Cleared
5 18 (4.81%) Microsoft Certification
6 10 (2.67%) Azure Certification
7 6 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (1.60%) CISSP
7 6 (1.60%) DBS Check
7 6 (1.60%) PMI Certification
8 5 (1.34%) A+ Certification
8 5 (1.34%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (1.07%) CISM
9 4 (1.07%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (0.80%) CCNP
11 2 (0.53%) CCNA
11 2 (0.53%) CompTIA Security+
11 2 (0.53%) Network+ Certification
11 2 (0.53%) PMP
11 2 (0.53%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (9.36%) Data Quality
2 24 (6.42%) QA
3 15 (4.01%) SLA
4 14 (3.74%) GDPR
5 11 (2.94%) NIST
6 10 (2.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 10 (2.67%) PMO
7 8 (2.14%) Accessibility
8 7 (1.87%) NCSC
9 6 (1.60%) Cyber Essentials
10 5 (1.34%) GRC
11 3 (0.80%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.53%) P3O
13 1 (0.27%) Def Stans
13 1 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 1 (0.27%) ISO 22301
13 1 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 19770
13 1 (0.27%) UCITS
System Software
1 65 (17.38%) Active Directory
2 15 (4.01%) Docker
3 6 (1.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (1.07%) BitLocker
4 4 (1.07%) Hyper-V
4 4 (1.07%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.80%) Microsoft App-V
5 3 (0.80%) Terminal Services
5 3 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.80%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.53%) IAG
7 1 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.27%) zsh
Systems Management
1 35 (9.36%) Microsoft Intune
2 16 (4.28%) Kubernetes
3 15 (4.01%) SCCM
4 9 (2.41%) Ansible
4 9 (2.41%) Single Sign-On
5 6 (1.60%) Jamf Pro
6 4 (1.07%) Grafana
6 4 (1.07%) Prometheus
6 4 (1.07%) Puppet
7 3 (0.80%) Nagios
7 3 (0.80%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.80%) vMotion
7 3 (0.80%) WSUS
8 1 (0.27%) AirWatch
8 1 (0.27%) Data Guard
8 1 (0.27%) ITRS Geneos
8 1 (0.27%) NetBackup
8 1 (0.27%) PingFederate
8 1 (0.27%) Salt
8 1 (0.27%) SELinux
Vendors
1 33 (8.82%) ServiceNow
2 23 (6.15%) Databricks
3 21 (5.61%) Google
4 18 (4.81%) Oracle
4 18 (4.81%) SAP
5 11 (2.94%) Apple
5 11 (2.94%) Cisco
6 10 (2.67%) VMware
7 8 (2.14%) Citrix
8 7 (1.87%) Foundry
8 7 (1.87%) Salesforce
8 7 (1.87%) Workday
9 6 (1.60%) Bloomberg
9 6 (1.60%) HP
9 6 (1.60%) OpenAI
10 5 (1.34%) Symantec
11 4 (1.07%) IBM
11 4 (1.07%) iManage
11 4 (1.07%) Informatica
11 4 (1.07%) Okta