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 27 January 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
27 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 6 6
Rank change year-on-year 0 0 +7
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 316 326 410
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 15.31% 15.49% 15.47%
As % of the Vendors category 32.08% 35.90% 36.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 250 209 315
10th Percentile £305 £229 £274
25th Percentile £400 £382 £434
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% -3.64% +2.33%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £675
90th Percentile £706 £710 £738
London median daily rate £505 £500 £513
% change year-on-year +1.00% -2.44% -5.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 2 1
10th Percentile £18.72 - -
25th Percentile £19.85 - £12.75
Median hourly rate £25.47 £112.00 £13.50
Median % change year-on-year -77.26% +729.63% -34.15%
75th Percentile - - £14.25
90th Percentile £31.98 - -
London median hourly rate £24.58 £24.18 £19.50
% change year-on-year +1.63% +24.00% -10.53%

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 985 908 1,109
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 47.72% 43.14% 41.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 682 574 805
10th Percentile £341 £304 £300
25th Percentile £422 £451 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -
75th Percentile £662 £650 £675
90th Percentile £756 £738 £775
London median daily rate £525 £540 £550
% change year-on-year -2.78% -1.82% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 5 10
10th Percentile £18.96 £16.91 £12.70
25th Percentile £20.08 £25.40 £17.00
Median hourly rate £25.47 £42.50 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -40.07% +123.68% -7.78%
75th Percentile £29.77 £112.00 £23.75
90th Percentile £41.92 - £51.63
London median hourly rate £25.77 £31.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -16.87% +3.33% +20.00%

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 27 January 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 27 January 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 27 January 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 0 290 £500 -5.35% 145
West End of London +6 4 £500 +11.11% 6
Camden +2 4 £400 -11.11% 8
City of Westminster -3 4 £513 -2.84% 6
Kensington and Chelsea - 4 £588 - 2
Southwark -3 1 £525 +120.27% 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 37 (11.71%) SharePoint
2 20 (6.33%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (4.43%) Confluence
4 2 (0.63%) CMS
5 1 (0.32%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.32%) Apache
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 46 (14.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (9.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 24 (7.59%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (7.59%) MS Visio
4 9 (2.85%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.32%) Adobe After Effects
6 1 (0.32%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.32%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.32%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (4.11%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.95%) NetSuite
2 3 (0.95%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.63%) Aladdin
3 2 (0.63%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.32%) BASE24
4 1 (0.32%) Exchequer
4 1 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 134 (42.41%) Azure
2 86 (27.22%) Microsoft 365
3 57 (18.04%) Power Platform
4 41 (12.97%) Entra ID
5 31 (9.81%) AWS
6 24 (7.59%) Dynamics 365
6 24 (7.59%) Power Automate
7 22 (6.96%) PowerApps
8 21 (6.65%) Microsoft Purview
9 18 (5.70%) Azure DevOps
10 16 (5.06%) GitHub
11 12 (3.80%) GCP
12 11 (3.48%) GitHub Actions
12 11 (3.48%) Microsoft Copilot
12 11 (3.48%) SaaS
13 10 (3.16%) Azure Sentinel
13 10 (3.16%) IaaS
14 9 (2.85%) Serverless
15 8 (2.53%) Azure Machine Learning
15 8 (2.53%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 18 (5.70%) Firewall
2 14 (4.43%) VPN
3 13 (4.11%) DNS
4 9 (2.85%) Network Security
5 8 (2.53%) WAN
6 7 (2.22%) DHCP
6 7 (2.22%) LAN
7 5 (1.58%) Wi-Fi
8 4 (1.27%) Softphone
9 3 (0.95%) Intrusion Detection
9 3 (0.95%) Structured Cabling
10 2 (0.63%) HTTP
10 2 (0.63%) Intranet
10 2 (0.63%) SD-WAN
10 2 (0.63%) SSH
10 2 (0.63%) Unified Communications
11 1 (0.32%) Extranet
11 1 (0.32%) IPv4
11 1 (0.32%) IPv6
11 1 (0.32%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (10.76%) Power BI
2 13 (4.11%) SQL Server
3 12 (3.80%) Metadata
4 8 (2.53%) Data Lake
4 8 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (1.90%) Relational Database
6 6 (1.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 6 (1.90%) Tableau
7 3 (0.95%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (0.95%) MySQL
8 2 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.63%) Oracle Database
8 2 (0.63%) RDBMS
8 2 (0.63%) SQLPlus
9 1 (0.32%) Amazon RDS
9 1 (0.32%) Big Data
9 1 (0.32%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.32%) Impala
Development Applications
1 22 (6.96%) JIRA
2 5 (1.58%) Git
2 5 (1.58%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.95%) GitLab
4 2 (0.63%) Postman
4 2 (0.63%) Selenium
4 2 (0.63%) SonarQube
4 2 (0.63%) Toad
5 1 (0.32%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.32%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.32%) ERwin
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.32%) PowerBuilder
5 1 (0.32%) Storybook
5 1 (0.32%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.32%) Terragrunt
5 1 (0.32%) TestRail
5 1 (0.32%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.32%) webpack
5 1 (0.32%) Xcode
General
1 108 (34.18%) Social Skills
2 89 (28.16%) Finance
3 49 (15.51%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (9.81%) Banking
5 23 (7.28%) Public Sector
6 13 (4.11%) Legal
6 13 (4.11%) Organisational Skills
7 11 (3.48%) Investment Banking
8 10 (3.16%) Front Office
9 8 (2.53%) Presentation Skills
10 7 (2.22%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (1.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
12 5 (1.58%) Marketing
12 5 (1.58%) Telecoms
13 3 (0.95%) Military
13 3 (0.95%) Retail
14 2 (0.63%) Back Office
14 2 (0.63%) Law
14 2 (0.63%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 46 (14.56%) Analyst
2 37 (11.71%) Senior
3 35 (11.08%) Developer
4 33 (10.44%) Architect
5 24 (7.59%) Business Analyst
6 19 (6.01%) Lead
7 16 (5.06%) Consultant
8 13 (4.11%) Project Manager
8 13 (4.11%) Support Engineer
9 12 (3.80%) Data Engineer
9 12 (3.80%) Microsoft Engineer
10 11 (3.48%) IT Engineer
11 10 (3.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 10 (3.16%) Solutions Architect
12 9 (2.85%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 9 (2.85%) Cloud Engineer
12 9 (2.85%) IT Support
13 8 (2.53%) Azure Engineer
13 8 (2.53%) IT Support Engineer
13 8 (2.53%) Programme Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (2.85%) .NET
2 8 (2.53%) Microsoft Graph
2 8 (2.53%) React
3 6 (1.90%) Node.js
3 6 (1.90%) OAuth
3 6 (1.90%) REST
4 5 (1.58%) HTML
5 4 (1.27%) AngularJS
5 4 (1.27%) CSS
5 4 (1.27%) JSON
5 4 (1.27%) RESTful
5 4 (1.27%) SAML
5 4 (1.27%) XML
6 3 (0.95%) LangChain
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
7 2 (0.63%) Semantic Kernel
Miscellaneous
1 19 (6.01%) Cloud Native
1 19 (6.01%) Onboarding
2 13 (4.11%) Management Information System
3 10 (3.16%) Security Posture
4 9 (2.85%) Product Ownership
5 8 (2.53%) AI Agents
5 8 (2.53%) Hybrid Cloud
6 7 (2.22%) Data Structures
7 5 (1.58%) Low-Code
7 5 (1.58%) SWIFT Messaging Network
8 4 (1.27%) Derivative
8 4 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (1.27%) Equities
8 4 (1.27%) Fixed Income
8 4 (1.27%) Legacy Systems
9 3 (0.95%) Algorithms
9 3 (0.95%) BYOD
9 3 (0.95%) Data Centre
9 3 (0.95%) PMI
9 3 (0.95%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 38 (12.03%) Windows
2 13 (4.11%) Windows 10
3 11 (3.48%) Windows Server
4 7 (2.22%) Linux
5 6 (1.90%) Unix
6 5 (1.58%) Android
6 5 (1.58%) Mac OS
7 4 (1.27%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.32%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.32%) VMS
8 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 64 (20.25%) Problem-Solving
2 53 (16.77%) Stakeholder Management
3 42 (13.29%) Agile
3 42 (13.29%) Migration
3 42 (13.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 37 (11.71%) Business Intelligence
5 34 (10.76%) Data Governance
6 32 (10.13%) DevOps
7 31 (9.81%) CI/CD
8 30 (9.49%) AI
8 30 (9.49%) Analytics
9 26 (8.23%) Change Management
10 24 (7.59%) Project Delivery
10 24 (7.59%) Roadmaps
11 21 (6.65%) Machine Learning
11 21 (6.65%) Project Management
12 20 (6.33%) Cloud Security
12 20 (6.33%) Data Modelling
13 19 (6.01%) Continuous Improvement
13 19 (6.01%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 50 (15.82%) SQL
2 34 (10.76%) Python
3 31 (9.81%) PowerShell
4 13 (4.11%) C#
5 11 (3.48%) Java
6 9 (2.85%) JavaScript
7 6 (1.90%) Kusto Query Language
8 3 (0.95%) C++
8 3 (0.95%) PL/SQL
8 3 (0.95%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.63%) Apex Code
9 2 (0.63%) C
9 2 (0.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 2 (0.63%) Perl
9 2 (0.63%) PHP
9 2 (0.63%) T-SQL
9 2 (0.63%) TypeScript
9 2 (0.63%) VBA
10 1 (0.32%) Bicep
10 1 (0.32%) LookML
Qualifications
1 42 (13.29%) Security Cleared
2 33 (10.44%) Degree
2 33 (10.44%) SC Cleared
3 22 (6.96%) Microsoft Certification
4 8 (2.53%) Computer Science Degree
5 7 (2.22%) Azure Certification
6 6 (1.90%) CISSP
6 6 (1.90%) PMI Certification
7 5 (1.58%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (1.58%) Master's Degree
7 5 (1.58%) MCSE
8 4 (1.27%) CompTIA Security+
8 4 (1.27%) MCP
8 4 (1.27%) PMP
9 3 (0.95%) CISM
9 3 (0.95%) CompTIA CySA+
9 3 (0.95%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (0.95%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (0.63%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.63%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (6.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 18 (5.70%) GDPR
3 15 (4.75%) Data Quality
4 13 (4.11%) PMO
5 11 (3.48%) Cyber Essentials
6 9 (2.85%) NIST
6 9 (2.85%) QA
7 5 (1.58%) Accessibility
8 4 (1.27%) ISO 20022
8 4 (1.27%) SLA
9 3 (0.95%) EU AI Act
9 3 (0.95%) IFRS
9 3 (0.95%) NCSC
9 3 (0.95%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.95%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.63%) Basel III
10 2 (0.63%) EMIR
10 2 (0.63%) GRC
10 2 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 2 (0.63%) PSD2
System Software
1 51 (16.14%) Active Directory
2 11 (3.48%) Docker
3 6 (1.90%) Virtual Desktop
3 6 (1.90%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.63%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.32%) HDFS
5 1 (0.32%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.32%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.32%) vSphere
5 1 (0.32%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 37 (11.71%) Microsoft Intune
2 12 (3.80%) Terraform
3 7 (2.22%) Kubernetes
3 7 (2.22%) SCCM
4 5 (1.58%) Ansible
5 3 (0.95%) Jamf Pro
5 3 (0.95%) Kibana
6 2 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (0.63%) AirWatch
6 2 (0.63%) SCOM
7 1 (0.32%) ITRS Geneos
7 1 (0.32%) logstash
7 1 (0.32%) Opsgenie
7 1 (0.32%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.32%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 17 (5.38%) Salesforce
2 15 (4.75%) Databricks
3 13 (4.11%) ServiceNow
4 11 (3.48%) Google
4 11 (3.48%) Oracle
5 9 (2.85%) Palo Alto
6 7 (2.22%) CyberArk
6 7 (2.22%) OpenAI
7 6 (1.90%) SAP
7 6 (1.90%) VMware
8 5 (1.58%) Adobe
8 5 (1.58%) Apple
8 5 (1.58%) Cisco
8 5 (1.58%) LogRhythm
9 4 (1.27%) Citrix
9 4 (1.27%) Commvault
9 4 (1.27%) Foundry
9 4 (1.27%) HP
9 4 (1.27%) Zscaler
10 3 (0.95%) Fortinet