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 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
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 9 5
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 364 310 389
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 14.06% 15.09% 16.96%
As % of the Vendors category 33.33% 32.22% 38.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 271 200 303
10th Percentile £263 £275 £303
25th Percentile £425 £367 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £530
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -5.66% -1.85%
75th Percentile £651 £630 £639
90th Percentile £750 £720 £723
London median daily rate £513 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.50% - -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% -25.44%

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 1,092 962 998
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 42.18% 46.81% 43.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 750 623 715
10th Percentile £350 £317 £344
25th Percentile £450 £421 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% +2.23% -2.18%
75th Percentile £652 £675 £650
90th Percentile £750 £751 £750
London median daily rate £525 £525 £530
% change year-on-year - -0.94% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 18 12
10th Percentile - £23.23 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.75 £26.91 £20.00
Median hourly rate £22.50 £32.83 £34.25
Median % change year-on-year -31.45% -4.16% +37.00%
75th Percentile £41.25 £62.00 £103.75
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% -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 4 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 4 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 4 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 +2 332 £550 +10.00% 263
Southwark +2 9 £600 - 2
West End of London -8 7 £475 +90.00% 4
City of Westminster -13 5 £543 -1.36% 10
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 48 (13.19%) SharePoint
2 26 (7.14%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (1.92%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (1.65%) Apache
5 5 (1.37%) Apache Spark
5 5 (1.37%) Confluence
6 2 (0.55%) IIS
7 1 (0.27%) Exchange Server 2013
7 1 (0.27%) nginx
Applications
1 29 (7.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (4.95%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (3.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.10%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.82%) 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
Business Applications
1 14 (3.85%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (2.20%) Aladdin
3 3 (0.82%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.82%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.55%) Dynamics NAV
4 2 (0.55%) iTrent
4 2 (0.55%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.55%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.55%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.27%) Exchequer
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
1 155 (42.58%) Azure
2 78 (21.43%) Microsoft 365
3 72 (19.78%) Power Platform
4 51 (14.01%) Entra ID
5 35 (9.62%) Azure DevOps
6 30 (8.24%) AWS
7 29 (7.97%) Dynamics 365
8 27 (7.42%) Power Automate
9 24 (6.59%) PowerApps
10 23 (6.32%) Microsoft Copilot
11 21 (5.77%) Azure Data Factory
12 20 (5.49%) GCP
13 19 (5.22%) Microsoft Purview
13 19 (5.22%) SaaS
14 17 (4.67%) GitHub
15 15 (4.12%) OneDrive
16 14 (3.85%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 13 (3.57%) Serverless
18 11 (3.02%) Azure AI
18 11 (3.02%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 27 (7.42%) DNS
2 20 (5.49%) DHCP
3 17 (4.67%) Firewall
4 13 (3.57%) TCP/IP
5 12 (3.30%) VPN
6 6 (1.65%) LAN
6 6 (1.65%) WAN
7 5 (1.37%) Unified Communications
8 4 (1.10%) Network Security
9 3 (0.82%) Internet
9 3 (0.82%) SMTP
9 3 (0.82%) Structured Cabling
9 3 (0.82%) VLAN
9 3 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
10 2 (0.55%) DKIM
10 2 (0.55%) DMARC
10 2 (0.55%) Intranet
10 2 (0.55%) Multicast
10 2 (0.55%) Reverse Proxy
10 2 (0.55%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (12.91%) Power BI
2 24 (6.59%) Data Warehouse
3 21 (5.77%) SQL Server
4 12 (3.30%) Azure SQL Database
5 8 (2.20%) Data Lake
5 8 (2.20%) Power Query
5 8 (2.20%) Star Schema
6 7 (1.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 6 (1.65%) Metadata
8 5 (1.37%) Semantic Layer
8 5 (1.37%) Tableau
9 4 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
9 4 (1.10%) Amazon Redshift
9 4 (1.10%) Big Data
9 4 (1.10%) NoSQL
9 4 (1.10%) Snowflake Schema
10 3 (0.82%) PostgreSQL
10 3 (0.82%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.82%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 3 (0.82%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 16 (4.40%) JIRA
2 9 (2.47%) Git
3 6 (1.65%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.10%) GitLab
4 4 (1.10%) Visual Studio
5 3 (0.82%) Artifactory
5 3 (0.82%) Bitbucket
5 3 (0.82%) JUnit
6 2 (0.55%) Fiddler
6 2 (0.55%) MSI
6 2 (0.55%) Selenium
6 2 (0.55%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.27%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.27%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.27%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.27%) ERwin
7 1 (0.27%) Jasmine
7 1 (0.27%) Karma Test Runner
7 1 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.27%) WebDriver
General
1 113 (31.04%) Social Skills
2 106 (29.12%) Finance
3 50 (13.74%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (8.24%) Banking
5 18 (4.95%) Public Sector
6 12 (3.30%) Retail
7 11 (3.02%) General Ledger
8 9 (2.47%) Law
8 9 (2.47%) Telecoms
9 6 (1.65%) Front Office
9 6 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (1.65%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (1.65%) Legal
9 6 (1.65%) Marketing
10 5 (1.37%) Documentation Skills
10 5 (1.37%) Investment Banking
11 4 (1.10%) Back Office
11 4 (1.10%) Financial Institution
11 4 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.82%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 54 (14.84%) Architect
2 42 (11.54%) Analyst
3 41 (11.26%) Developer
4 33 (9.07%) Consultant
5 31 (8.52%) Senior
6 26 (7.14%) Support Engineer
7 19 (5.22%) Data Architect
8 17 (4.67%) Lead
8 17 (4.67%) Solutions Architect
9 16 (4.40%) Data Engineer
10 12 (3.30%) IT Support
10 12 (3.30%) Project Manager
11 11 (3.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 10 (2.75%) Business Analyst
12 10 (2.75%) Dynamics 365 Developer
12 10 (2.75%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
13 9 (2.47%) Cloud Engineer
13 9 (2.47%) IT Engineer
13 9 (2.47%) Platform Engineer
14 8 (2.20%) Azure Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (3.57%) PySpark
2 12 (3.30%) .NET
2 12 (3.30%) REST
3 9 (2.47%) Middleware
4 7 (1.92%) JSON
4 7 (1.92%) SAML
5 6 (1.65%) .NET Framework
5 6 (1.65%) HTML
5 6 (1.65%) OAuth
5 6 (1.65%) XML
6 5 (1.37%) CSS
6 5 (1.37%) Kafka
6 5 (1.37%) OpenID
6 5 (1.37%) SOAP
6 5 (1.37%) Spring
7 4 (1.10%) HTML5 Canvas
7 4 (1.10%) XSLT
8 3 (0.82%) ASP.NET
8 3 (0.82%) OAuth2
8 3 (0.82%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 23 (6.32%) Onboarding
2 18 (4.95%) Cloud Native
3 13 (3.57%) AI Agents
4 11 (3.02%) Legacy Systems
5 10 (2.75%) Management Information System
5 10 (2.75%) Video Conferencing
6 9 (2.47%) Enterprise Software
6 9 (2.47%) PKI
6 9 (2.47%) Product Ownership
7 8 (2.20%) Data Structures
7 8 (2.20%) Distributed Systems
8 7 (1.92%) Security Posture
9 6 (1.65%) Clustering
9 6 (1.65%) Low-Code
9 6 (1.65%) Virtual Team
10 5 (1.37%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 4 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
11 4 (1.10%) Data Centre
11 4 (1.10%) Equities
11 4 (1.10%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 63 (17.31%) Windows
2 18 (4.95%) Windows Server
3 14 (3.85%) Mac OS
4 10 (2.75%) Linux
4 10 (2.75%) Windows 10
5 3 (0.82%) Android
5 3 (0.82%) Windows 7
5 3 (0.82%) Windows Server 2012
6 2 (0.55%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.55%) Unix
6 2 (0.55%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.27%) OpenVMS
7 1 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.27%) SUSE
7 1 (0.27%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
7 1 (0.27%) VMS
7 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
7 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2008
7 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 72 (19.78%) DevOps
2 63 (17.31%) Problem-Solving
3 62 (17.03%) Analytics
3 62 (17.03%) Stakeholder Management
4 58 (15.93%) CI/CD
4 58 (15.93%) Migration
5 54 (14.84%) Business Intelligence
6 52 (14.29%) Agile
7 50 (13.74%) Data Modelling
8 49 (13.46%) AI
9 45 (12.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 36 (9.89%) Data Governance
11 28 (7.69%) Continuous Improvement
11 28 (7.69%) ITIL
11 28 (7.69%) Roadmaps
12 27 (7.42%) Project Delivery
13 26 (7.14%) Data Engineering
13 26 (7.14%) Decision-Making
13 26 (7.14%) Validation
14 23 (6.32%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 61 (16.76%) SQL
2 39 (10.71%) Python
3 30 (8.24%) PowerShell
4 15 (4.12%) Java
5 13 (3.57%) C#
6 11 (3.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 9 (2.47%) JavaScript
8 8 (2.20%) T-SQL
9 7 (1.92%) Bash
9 7 (1.92%) Bicep
10 5 (1.37%) Kusto Query Language
10 5 (1.37%) TypeScript
11 2 (0.55%) C++
11 2 (0.55%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.27%) COBOL
12 1 (0.27%) Google Apps Script
12 1 (0.27%) R
12 1 (0.27%) RPG
12 1 (0.27%) X++
Qualifications
1 66 (18.13%) Security Cleared
2 47 (12.91%) SC Cleared
3 26 (7.14%) Degree
4 20 (5.49%) DV Cleared
5 15 (4.12%) Microsoft Certification
6 8 (2.20%) Azure Certification
6 8 (2.20%) CISSP
7 6 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (1.65%) CISM
7 6 (1.65%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (1.65%) PMI Certification
8 5 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (1.37%) DBS Check
9 4 (1.10%) A+ Certification
10 3 (0.82%) CCNP
10 3 (0.82%) CompTIA Security+
11 2 (0.55%) CCNA
11 2 (0.55%) CompTIA CySA+
11 2 (0.55%) Network+ Certification
11 2 (0.55%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (7.69%) Data Quality
2 22 (6.04%) QA
3 15 (4.12%) GDPR
4 12 (3.30%) NIST
4 12 (3.30%) SLA
5 11 (3.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (1.92%) Cyber Essentials
6 7 (1.92%) NCSC
6 7 (1.92%) PMO
7 6 (1.65%) Accessibility
8 5 (1.37%) GRC
9 4 (1.10%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.55%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27005
10 2 (0.55%) P3O
10 2 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.27%) COBIT
11 1 (0.27%) GAAP
11 1 (0.27%) MiFID
11 1 (0.27%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 61 (16.76%) Active Directory
2 13 (3.57%) Docker
3 6 (1.65%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (1.37%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (1.10%) BitLocker
5 4 (1.10%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.82%) Microsoft App-V
6 3 (0.82%) Terminal Services
6 3 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.82%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.55%) IAG
8 1 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.27%) zsh
Systems Management
1 34 (9.34%) Microsoft Intune
2 20 (5.49%) Terraform
3 15 (4.12%) Kubernetes
4 11 (3.02%) SCCM
5 9 (2.47%) Ansible
5 9 (2.47%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (1.37%) Jamf Pro
7 4 (1.10%) Puppet
8 3 (0.82%) Grafana
8 3 (0.82%) Nagios
8 3 (0.82%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.82%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.82%) vMotion
9 2 (0.55%) WSUS
10 1 (0.27%) Data Guard
10 1 (0.27%) ITRS Geneos
10 1 (0.27%) NetBackup
10 1 (0.27%) PingFederate
10 1 (0.27%) Salt
10 1 (0.27%) SELinux
Vendors
1 30 (8.24%) ServiceNow
2 21 (5.77%) Databricks
3 20 (5.49%) Google
4 17 (4.67%) Oracle
4 17 (4.67%) SAP
5 11 (3.02%) Citrix
6 9 (2.47%) Cisco
6 9 (2.47%) Salesforce
7 8 (2.20%) Apple
7 8 (2.20%) VMware
8 7 (1.92%) Foundry
8 7 (1.92%) OpenAI
8 7 (1.92%) Workday
9 6 (1.65%) Bloomberg
10 5 (1.37%) HP
10 5 (1.37%) Informatica
11 4 (1.10%) Okta
11 4 (1.10%) Remedy
11 4 (1.10%) Splunk
11 4 (1.10%) Zscaler