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 15 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
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 9 5
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 352 312 399
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 13.36% 15.21% 16.66%
As % of the Vendors category 32.47% 32.10% 37.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 254 200 312
10th Percentile £240 £275 £264
25th Percentile £431 £373 £429
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -6.98% -0.46%
75th Percentile £655 £626 £638
90th Percentile £750 £725 £736
London median daily rate £510 £505 £500
% change year-on-year +1.09% +0.90% -7.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 5 6
10th Percentile - £23.78 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.50 £26.45 £13.56
Median hourly rate £21.00 £28.50 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.32% +29.55% -58.10%
75th Percentile £22.50 £30.25 £27.00
90th Percentile - £124.60 £59.75
London median hourly rate £25.50 £23.00 £20.38
% change year-on-year +10.87% +12.88% -21.63%

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 1,084 972 1,059
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 41.14% 47.39% 44.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 734 618 762
10th Percentile £350 £312 £319
25th Percentile £442 £423 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.82% - -
75th Percentile £655 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £754 £775
London median daily rate £525 £526 £525
% change year-on-year -0.10% +0.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 18 12
10th Percentile - £23.23 £13.08
25th Percentile £18.75 £26.91 £17.88
Median hourly rate £21.75 £32.83 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year -33.74% +21.57% +8.00%
75th Percentile £41.69 £62.00 £69.06
90th Percentile £63.88 £75.90 £133.00
London median hourly rate £35.50 £27.40 £25.00
% change year-on-year +29.56% +9.60% -21.68%

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 15 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
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 15 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 +3 325 £550 +10.00% 140
Southwark +2 9 £600 - 2
West End of London -8 6 £550 +120.00% 7
City of Westminster -13 5 £543 -1.36% 5
Kensington and Chelsea -2 1 £525 - 2
Lambeth - 1 £350 - 1
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 40 (11.36%) SharePoint
2 19 (5.40%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (1.99%) Apache Airflow
4 5 (1.42%) Confluence
5 2 (0.57%) Apache
5 2 (0.57%) IIS
6 1 (0.28%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.28%) nginx
Applications
1 26 (7.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (4.55%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (3.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (1.42%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (1.42%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.28%) Adobe Illustrator
5 1 (0.28%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.28%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.28%) Final Cut Pro
5 1 (0.28%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 13 (3.69%) Dynamics CRM
2 11 (3.13%) Aladdin
3 2 (0.57%) iTrent
3 2 (0.57%) SAP ERP
3 2 (0.57%) SAP GRC
3 2 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.28%) Exchequer
4 1 (0.28%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.28%) Oracle Retail
4 1 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.28%) SAP CRM
4 1 (0.28%) SAP FI-AR
4 1 (0.28%) SAP MM
4 1 (0.28%) SAP Oil and Gas
4 1 (0.28%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 139 (39.49%) Azure
2 77 (21.88%) Microsoft 365
3 66 (18.75%) Power Platform
4 47 (13.35%) Entra ID
5 31 (8.81%) AWS
6 29 (8.24%) Dynamics 365
7 23 (6.53%) Power Automate
7 23 (6.53%) SaaS
8 22 (6.25%) Azure DevOps
9 20 (5.68%) Microsoft Copilot
9 20 (5.68%) Microsoft Purview
10 18 (5.11%) GCP
10 18 (5.11%) PowerApps
11 13 (3.69%) GitHub
12 12 (3.41%) Azure Data Factory
13 11 (3.13%) OneDrive
14 10 (2.84%) Azure AI
14 10 (2.84%) Serverless
15 9 (2.56%) Azure Logic Apps
15 9 (2.56%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 21 (5.97%) DNS
2 16 (4.55%) DHCP
2 16 (4.55%) Firewall
3 11 (3.13%) TCP/IP
4 10 (2.84%) VPN
5 6 (1.70%) LAN
5 6 (1.70%) WAN
6 5 (1.42%) Network Security
7 3 (0.85%) Internet
7 3 (0.85%) SMTP
7 3 (0.85%) Unified Communications
8 2 (0.57%) DKIM
8 2 (0.57%) DMARC
8 2 (0.57%) Intranet
8 2 (0.57%) Multicast
8 2 (0.57%) Reverse Proxy
8 2 (0.57%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (0.57%) Wireshark
9 1 (0.28%) iSCSI
9 1 (0.28%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (11.93%) Power BI
2 19 (5.40%) Data Warehouse
2 19 (5.40%) SQL Server
3 10 (2.84%) Metadata
4 7 (1.99%) Azure SQL Database
4 7 (1.99%) Data Lake
4 7 (1.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 6 (1.70%) Tableau
6 5 (1.42%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.42%) Semantic Layer
7 4 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (1.14%) Amazon Redshift
7 4 (1.14%) Big Data
7 4 (1.14%) NoSQL
7 4 (1.14%) PostgreSQL
7 4 (1.14%) Snowflake Schema
7 4 (1.14%) Star Schema
8 3 (0.85%) Power Query
8 3 (0.85%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 3 (0.85%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 14 (3.98%) JIRA
2 8 (2.27%) Git
3 3 (0.85%) Artifactory
3 3 (0.85%) Bitbucket
3 3 (0.85%) ERwin
3 3 (0.85%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.85%) JUnit
3 3 (0.85%) Visual Studio
4 2 (0.57%) Fiddler
4 2 (0.57%) GitLab
4 2 (0.57%) MSI
4 2 (0.57%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.28%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 1 (0.28%) ER Studio
5 1 (0.28%) Jasmine
5 1 (0.28%) Karma Test Runner
5 1 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 109 (30.97%) Social Skills
2 103 (29.26%) Finance
3 49 (13.92%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (7.67%) Banking
5 19 (5.40%) Public Sector
6 11 (3.13%) General Ledger
7 8 (2.27%) Law
7 8 (2.27%) Retail
8 7 (1.99%) Investment Banking
8 7 (1.99%) Telecoms
9 6 (1.70%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (1.70%) Legal
10 5 (1.42%) Documentation Skills
10 5 (1.42%) Front Office
10 5 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 5 (1.42%) Marketing
11 4 (1.14%) Back Office
11 4 (1.14%) Financial Institution
11 4 (1.14%) Manufacturing
11 4 (1.14%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 52 (14.77%) Architect
2 45 (12.78%) Analyst
3 34 (9.66%) Consultant
3 34 (9.66%) Developer
4 30 (8.52%) Senior
5 23 (6.53%) Support Engineer
6 16 (4.55%) Data Architect
7 15 (4.26%) Project Manager
8 14 (3.98%) Data Engineer
8 14 (3.98%) Lead
9 13 (3.69%) Solutions Architect
10 12 (3.41%) Business Analyst
10 12 (3.41%) IT Support
11 11 (3.13%) Cloud Engineer
11 11 (3.13%) IT Engineer
12 10 (2.84%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 10 (2.84%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
13 9 (2.56%) Dynamics 365 Developer
14 8 (2.27%) Microsoft Engineer
14 8 (2.27%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (3.41%) .NET
2 11 (3.13%) REST
3 9 (2.56%) Middleware
4 8 (2.27%) PySpark
5 6 (1.70%) HTML
5 6 (1.70%) JSON
5 6 (1.70%) SAML
6 5 (1.42%) .NET Framework
6 5 (1.42%) CSS
6 5 (1.42%) Kafka
6 5 (1.42%) Microsoft Graph
6 5 (1.42%) OAuth
6 5 (1.42%) Spring
6 5 (1.42%) XML
7 4 (1.14%) OpenID
7 4 (1.14%) SOAP
8 3 (0.85%) ASP.NET
8 3 (0.85%) HTML5 Canvas
8 3 (0.85%) RESTful
8 3 (0.85%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 19 (5.40%) Cloud Native
2 16 (4.55%) Onboarding
3 11 (3.13%) Legacy Systems
4 10 (2.84%) AI Agents
5 9 (2.56%) PKI
6 8 (2.27%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (2.27%) Security Posture
6 8 (2.27%) Video Conferencing
7 7 (1.99%) Distributed Systems
7 7 (1.99%) Management Information System
7 7 (1.99%) Product Ownership
8 6 (1.70%) Clustering
8 6 (1.70%) Equities
8 6 (1.70%) Virtual Team
9 5 (1.42%) Fixed Income
9 5 (1.42%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 5 (1.42%) Low-Code
10 4 (1.14%) Data Centre
10 4 (1.14%) PMI
10 4 (1.14%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 55 (15.63%) Windows
2 14 (3.98%) Mac OS
3 11 (3.13%) Windows Server
4 8 (2.27%) Linux
5 6 (1.70%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.57%) Android
6 2 (0.57%) Unix
6 2 (0.57%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.28%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.28%) SUSE
7 1 (0.28%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
7 1 (0.28%) VMS
7 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
7 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (17.33%) Migration
2 58 (16.48%) Stakeholder Management
3 56 (15.91%) Analytics
4 53 (15.06%) DevOps
5 52 (14.77%) Problem-Solving
6 48 (13.64%) Business Intelligence
7 47 (13.35%) Agile
8 46 (13.07%) AI
9 44 (12.50%) CI/CD
10 42 (11.93%) Data Modelling
11 38 (10.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 32 (9.09%) Data Governance
13 29 (8.24%) Roadmaps
14 28 (7.95%) Data Engineering
15 27 (7.67%) Data Migration
15 27 (7.67%) Validation
16 25 (7.10%) Asset Management
16 25 (7.10%) Continuous Improvement
16 25 (7.10%) Decision-Making
16 25 (7.10%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 53 (15.06%) SQL
2 34 (9.66%) Python
3 29 (8.24%) PowerShell
4 15 (4.26%) Java
5 12 (3.41%) C#
6 8 (2.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 8 (2.27%) JavaScript
7 6 (1.70%) Kusto Query Language
7 6 (1.70%) T-SQL
8 5 (1.42%) Bash
8 5 (1.42%) Bicep
9 4 (1.14%) TypeScript
10 2 (0.57%) C++
10 2 (0.57%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.28%) COBOL
11 1 (0.28%) Google Apps Script
11 1 (0.28%) R
11 1 (0.28%) RPG
11 1 (0.28%) X++
Qualifications
1 61 (17.33%) Security Cleared
2 44 (12.50%) SC Cleared
3 29 (8.24%) Degree
4 21 (5.97%) DV Cleared
5 13 (3.69%) Microsoft Certification
6 8 (2.27%) Azure Certification
7 7 (1.99%) CISSP
8 6 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (1.70%) CISM
8 6 (1.70%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (1.70%) PMI Certification
9 5 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (1.42%) DBS Check
10 3 (0.85%) CCNP
10 3 (0.85%) CompTIA Security+
10 3 (0.85%) PMP
11 2 (0.57%) A+ Certification
11 2 (0.57%) CompTIA CySA+
11 2 (0.57%) Network+ Certification
11 2 (0.57%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (7.39%) Data Quality
2 19 (5.40%) QA
3 17 (4.83%) GDPR
4 11 (3.13%) NIST
5 9 (2.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (2.27%) Cyber Essentials
6 8 (2.27%) PMO
7 7 (1.99%) NCSC
7 7 (1.99%) SLA
8 6 (1.70%) GRC
9 5 (1.42%) Accessibility
10 4 (1.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 3 (0.85%) IFRS
12 2 (0.57%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 2 (0.57%) P3O
12 2 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.28%) EU AI Act
13 1 (0.28%) GAAP
13 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 50 (14.20%) Active Directory
2 12 (3.41%) Docker
3 6 (1.70%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (1.14%) BitLocker
4 4 (1.14%) Hyper-V
4 4 (1.14%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.85%) Microsoft App-V
5 3 (0.85%) Terminal Services
5 3 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.85%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.57%) IAG
7 1 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.28%) zsh
Systems Management
1 30 (8.52%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (4.26%) Terraform
3 13 (3.69%) Kubernetes
4 9 (2.56%) SCCM
4 9 (2.56%) Single Sign-On
5 6 (1.70%) Ansible
6 5 (1.42%) Jamf Pro
7 4 (1.14%) Puppet
8 3 (0.85%) Grafana
8 3 (0.85%) Nagios
8 3 (0.85%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.85%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.85%) vMotion
9 1 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 1 (0.28%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.28%) ITRS Geneos
9 1 (0.28%) PingFederate
9 1 (0.28%) Salt
9 1 (0.28%) SELinux
9 1 (0.28%) WSUS
Vendors
1 22 (6.25%) ServiceNow
2 19 (5.40%) Databricks
3 17 (4.83%) Google
4 15 (4.26%) Oracle
4 15 (4.26%) SAP
5 13 (3.69%) Salesforce
6 11 (3.13%) Citrix
7 8 (2.27%) Apple
8 7 (1.99%) Cisco
8 7 (1.99%) OpenAI
9 6 (1.70%) Foundry
9 6 (1.70%) Informatica
9 6 (1.70%) VMware
9 6 (1.70%) Workday
10 5 (1.42%) HP
11 4 (1.14%) Bloomberg
11 4 (1.14%) Charles River
11 4 (1.14%) Sitecore
11 4 (1.14%) Splunk
11 4 (1.14%) Zscaler