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 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
20 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 6 6
Rank change year-on-year 0 0 +6
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 319 315 375
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 14.94% 15.14% 14.47%
As % of the Vendors category 32.19% 34.43% 34.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 253 199 281
10th Percentile £305 £229 £263
25th Percentile £400 £392 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £549 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.39% -0.27% +4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £675
90th Percentile £724 £713 £775
London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -6.15%
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 991 915 1,078
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 46.42% 43.97% 41.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 675 583 771
10th Percentile £340 £313 £288
25th Percentile £425 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -
75th Percentile £663 £667 £675
90th Percentile £772 £750 £775
London median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 4 11
10th Percentile £18.75 £62.48 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.18 £94.31 £14.88
Median hourly rate £25.47 £112.00 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -77.26% +489.47% -9.52%
75th Percentile £41.75 £130.88 £23.75
90th Percentile £46.39 £164.85 £48.75
London median hourly rate £28.30 £35.00 £26.25
% change year-on-year -19.16% +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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -1 292 £501 -7.74% 176
West End of London +6 6 £500 +11.11% 4
Camden +5 4 £400 -11.11% 7
City of Westminster -2 4 £560 +6.16% 4
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 36 (11.29%) SharePoint
2 17 (5.33%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (3.76%) Confluence
4 2 (0.63%) CMS
5 1 (0.31%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.31%) Apache
5 1 (0.31%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.31%) Ethereum
5 1 (0.31%) Hyperledger
5 1 (0.31%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.31%) NServiceBus
5 1 (0.31%) SAS
Applications
1 44 (13.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 27 (8.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 25 (7.84%) MS Visio
4 23 (7.21%) Microsoft Office
5 7 (2.19%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.94%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.31%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.31%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.31%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.31%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (3.13%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.88%) Aladdin
3 3 (0.94%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.63%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.63%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.31%) BASE24
5 1 (0.31%) Exchequer
5 1 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.31%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 131 (41.07%) Azure
2 82 (25.71%) Microsoft 365
3 53 (16.61%) Power Platform
4 41 (12.85%) Entra ID
5 30 (9.40%) AWS
6 25 (7.84%) Power Automate
7 23 (7.21%) Dynamics 365
8 22 (6.90%) Microsoft Purview
9 20 (6.27%) PowerApps
10 16 (5.02%) Azure DevOps
11 14 (4.39%) GitHub
12 13 (4.08%) Microsoft Copilot
13 12 (3.76%) GCP
14 10 (3.13%) Azure Sentinel
14 10 (3.13%) Copilot Studio
14 10 (3.13%) SaaS
15 9 (2.82%) GitHub Actions
15 9 (2.82%) Serverless
16 8 (2.51%) Azure Data Factory
16 8 (2.51%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.39%) DNS
1 14 (4.39%) Firewall
2 13 (4.08%) VPN
3 8 (2.51%) Network Security
3 8 (2.51%) WAN
4 7 (2.19%) LAN
5 6 (1.88%) DHCP
6 5 (1.57%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (0.94%) Softphone
7 3 (0.94%) 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 (0.31%) Extranet
9 1 (0.31%) IPv4
9 1 (0.31%) IPv6
9 1 (0.31%) MPLS
9 1 (0.31%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (10.03%) Power BI
2 15 (4.70%) Metadata
2 15 (4.70%) SQL Server
3 9 (2.82%) Data Warehouse
3 9 (2.82%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 7 (2.19%) Data Lake
4 7 (2.19%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (2.19%) Tableau
5 6 (1.88%) Relational Database
6 3 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.94%) MySQL
7 2 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (0.63%) Metadata Repository
7 2 (0.63%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.63%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.63%) RDBMS
7 2 (0.63%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 2 (0.63%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 2 (0.63%) SQLPlus
8 1 (0.31%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 18 (5.64%) JIRA
2 7 (2.19%) Git
3 4 (1.25%) Jenkins
4 3 (0.94%) GitLab
5 2 (0.63%) ERwin
5 2 (0.63%) Postman
5 2 (0.63%) Toad
6 1 (0.31%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.31%) Cucumber
6 1 (0.31%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.31%) gulp
6 1 (0.31%) Hardhat
6 1 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.31%) PowerBuilder
6 1 (0.31%) Selenium
6 1 (0.31%) SpecFlow
6 1 (0.31%) Terragrunt
6 1 (0.31%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.31%) webpack
6 1 (0.31%) Zephyr
General
1 109 (34.17%) Social Skills
2 89 (27.90%) Finance
3 50 (15.67%) Analytical Skills
4 29 (9.09%) Banking
5 24 (7.52%) Public Sector
6 13 (4.08%) Investment Banking
6 13 (4.08%) Legal
7 11 (3.45%) Organisational Skills
8 10 (3.13%) Front Office
9 9 (2.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (2.51%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
12 6 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
13 4 (1.25%) Marketing
13 4 (1.25%) Telecoms
14 3 (0.94%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.94%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.94%) Military
14 3 (0.94%) Retail
15 2 (0.63%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 46 (14.42%) Analyst
2 42 (13.17%) Senior
3 37 (11.60%) Architect
4 35 (10.97%) Developer
5 24 (7.52%) Business Analyst
6 18 (5.64%) Consultant
7 17 (5.33%) Lead
8 14 (4.39%) Data Engineer
8 14 (4.39%) Support Engineer
9 13 (4.08%) Project Manager
10 12 (3.76%) IT Engineer
11 11 (3.45%) Solutions Architect
12 10 (3.13%) IT Support
12 10 (3.13%) Microsoft Engineer
13 9 (2.82%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 9 (2.82%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 9 (2.82%) IT Support Engineer
14 8 (2.51%) Cloud Engineer
14 8 (2.51%) Security Engineer
15 7 (2.19%) Azure Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (2.82%) .NET
2 8 (2.51%) React
3 7 (2.19%) REST
4 6 (1.88%) Microsoft Graph
4 6 (1.88%) Middleware
4 6 (1.88%) Node.js
5 5 (1.57%) HTML
5 5 (1.57%) JSON
5 5 (1.57%) OAuth
6 4 (1.25%) AngularJS
6 4 (1.25%) CSS
6 4 (1.25%) RESTful
6 4 (1.25%) SAML
6 4 (1.25%) XML
7 3 (0.94%) NumPy
7 3 (0.94%) OpenID
7 3 (0.94%) Pandas
7 3 (0.94%) PySpark
7 3 (0.94%) scikit-learn
7 3 (0.94%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 20 (6.27%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.96%) Onboarding
3 13 (4.08%) Management Information System
4 11 (3.45%) Security Posture
5 8 (2.51%) Hybrid Cloud
5 8 (2.51%) Product Ownership
6 7 (2.19%) AI Agents
6 7 (2.19%) Data Structures
7 5 (1.57%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 5 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
8 4 (1.25%) BYOD
8 4 (1.25%) Derivative
8 4 (1.25%) Equities
8 4 (1.25%) Fixed Income
8 4 (1.25%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 3 (0.94%) Data Centre
9 3 (0.94%) Distributed Systems
9 3 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (0.94%) Low-Code
9 3 (0.94%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 34 (10.66%) Windows
2 12 (3.76%) Windows 10
3 6 (1.88%) Windows Server
4 5 (1.57%) Linux
4 5 (1.57%) Unix
5 4 (1.25%) Mac OS
6 3 (0.94%) Android
7 2 (0.63%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.31%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.31%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (19.44%) Problem-Solving
2 47 (14.73%) Stakeholder Management
3 42 (13.17%) Migration
4 41 (12.85%) Agile
5 40 (12.54%) Business Intelligence
6 39 (12.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 36 (11.29%) Analytics
8 34 (10.66%) AI
9 32 (10.03%) Data Governance
10 31 (9.72%) CI/CD
11 29 (9.09%) DevOps
12 28 (8.78%) Roadmaps
13 26 (8.15%) Data Modelling
14 22 (6.90%) Change Management
15 21 (6.58%) Machine Learning
15 21 (6.58%) Project Delivery
16 20 (6.27%) Cloud Security
17 19 (5.96%) Continuous Improvement
17 19 (5.96%) Cybersecurity
17 19 (5.96%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 51 (15.99%) SQL
2 35 (10.97%) Python
3 28 (8.78%) PowerShell
4 12 (3.76%) C#
4 12 (3.76%) Java
5 10 (3.13%) JavaScript
6 7 (2.19%) Kusto Query Language
7 4 (1.25%) T-SQL
8 3 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 3 (0.94%) PL/SQL
8 3 (0.94%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.63%) Apex Code
9 2 (0.63%) C
9 2 (0.63%) C++
9 2 (0.63%) Perl
9 2 (0.63%) PHP
10 1 (0.31%) F#
10 1 (0.31%) Korn
10 1 (0.31%) R
10 1 (0.31%) XPath
Qualifications
1 42 (13.17%) Security Cleared
2 34 (10.66%) SC Cleared
3 32 (10.03%) Degree
4 16 (5.02%) Microsoft Certification
5 8 (2.51%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (2.19%) Azure Certification
6 7 (2.19%) CISSP
7 5 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (1.57%) CISM
7 5 (1.57%) MCSE
7 5 (1.57%) PMI Certification
8 4 (1.25%) CompTIA CySA+
8 4 (1.25%) CompTIA Security+
8 4 (1.25%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 4 (1.25%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 4 (1.25%) PMP
9 3 (0.94%) DV Cleared
9 3 (0.94%) Master's Degree
9 3 (0.94%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (0.63%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (6.58%) GDPR
2 18 (5.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 17 (5.33%) Data Quality
4 11 (3.45%) Cyber Essentials
4 11 (3.45%) PMO
5 9 (2.82%) NIST
6 8 (2.51%) QA
7 4 (1.25%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.94%) IFRS
8 3 (0.94%) ISO 20022
8 3 (0.94%) NCSC
8 3 (0.94%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.63%) Basel III
9 2 (0.63%) EU AI Act
9 2 (0.63%) GRC
9 2 (0.63%) ISO 8583
9 2 (0.63%) MiFID
10 1 (0.31%) IFRS 17
10 1 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 47 (14.73%) Active Directory
2 10 (3.13%) Docker
3 7 (2.19%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (1.57%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.63%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.31%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.31%) vSphere
6 1 (0.31%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 35 (10.97%) Microsoft Intune
2 11 (3.45%) Terraform
3 7 (2.19%) Kubernetes
4 6 (1.88%) SCCM
5 4 (1.25%) 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 (0.31%) Autotask
7 1 (0.31%) ITRS Geneos
7 1 (0.31%) logstash
7 1 (0.31%) Opsgenie
7 1 (0.31%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.31%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 19 (5.96%) Databricks
2 18 (5.64%) Salesforce
3 14 (4.39%) ServiceNow
4 12 (3.76%) Google
5 9 (2.82%) Oracle
6 8 (2.51%) Palo Alto
6 8 (2.51%) SAP
7 7 (2.19%) Citrix
7 7 (2.19%) CyberArk
7 7 (2.19%) OpenAI
8 5 (1.57%) Cisco
8 5 (1.57%) LogRhythm
8 5 (1.57%) VMware
8 5 (1.57%) Zscaler
9 4 (1.25%) Adobe
9 4 (1.25%) Commvault
9 4 (1.25%) Foundry
9 4 (1.25%) Informatica
9 4 (1.25%) Remedy
10 3 (0.94%) Fortinet