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 16 April 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
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 7 5
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +7
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 310 312 387
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 13.06% 15.69% 15.62%
As % of the Vendors category 30.51% 34.63% 36.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 229 199 301
10th Percentile £323 £262 £260
25th Percentile £413 £396 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% +3.53%
75th Percentile £632 £619 £673
90th Percentile £738 £701 £775
London median daily rate £510 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.00% - -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 3 4
10th Percentile £19.66 £26.97 -
25th Percentile £21.98 £27.76 £12.75
Median hourly rate £25.47 £29.07 £15.25
Median % change year-on-year -12.38% +90.62% -53.08%
75th Percentile - £108.29 £20.25
90th Percentile £33.61 £155.81 £24.30
London median hourly rate £25.47 £23.90 £19.50
% change year-on-year +6.57% +22.56% -24.15%

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 1,016 901 1,061
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 42.80% 45.30% 42.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 670 585 779
10th Percentile £356 £313 £300
25th Percentile £425 £445 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -
75th Percentile £650 £663 £675
90th Percentile £750 £750 £775
London median daily rate £525 £540 £550
% change year-on-year -2.78% -1.82% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 9 8
10th Percentile £18.65 £28.55 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.75 £29.07 £15.19
Median hourly rate £25.47 £34.65 £18.97
Median % change year-on-year -26.49% +82.70% -9.69%
75th Percentile £27.00 £63.75 £23.75
90th Percentile £44.16 £117.50 £24.73
London median hourly rate £32.50 £29.07 £24.50
% change year-on-year +11.80% +18.65% -4.71%

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 16 April 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 16 April 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 16 April 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 +1 290 £525 +5.00% 202
West End of London +3 6 £550 +22.22% 4
City of Westminster 0 5 £560 +3.70% 4
Kensington and Chelsea +3 4 £588 - 2
Camden +2 3 - - 3
Southwark -3 1 £188 -21.33% 1
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 35 (11.29%) SharePoint
2 16 (5.16%) Microsoft Exchange
3 9 (2.90%) Confluence
4 5 (1.61%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.65%) Apache
5 2 (0.65%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.32%) SAS
Applications
1 32 (10.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 21 (6.77%) MS Visio
3 20 (6.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (6.13%) Microsoft Office
5 6 (1.94%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.32%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.32%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.32%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.32%) Trello
Business Applications
1 11 (3.55%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (2.58%) Aladdin
3 2 (0.65%) Exchequer
3 2 (0.65%) NetSuite
3 2 (0.65%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.32%) BASE24
4 1 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.32%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.32%) SAP FI-AR
4 1 (0.32%) SAP MM
4 1 (0.32%) SAP Oil and Gas
4 1 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
4 1 (0.32%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 128 (41.29%) Azure
2 73 (23.55%) Microsoft 365
3 62 (20.00%) Power Platform
4 32 (10.32%) Entra ID
5 29 (9.35%) Dynamics 365
6 26 (8.39%) Power Automate
7 25 (8.06%) AWS
8 23 (7.42%) PowerApps
9 22 (7.10%) Azure DevOps
10 16 (5.16%) Microsoft Copilot
11 15 (4.84%) GitHub
12 12 (3.87%) GCP
12 12 (3.87%) Microsoft Purview
12 12 (3.87%) SaaS
13 10 (3.23%) Azure Data Factory
14 9 (2.90%) Azure AI
14 9 (2.90%) Copilot Studio
14 9 (2.90%) Snowflake
15 8 (2.58%) GitHub Actions
15 8 (2.58%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 13 (4.19%) Firewall
2 12 (3.87%) DNS
3 11 (3.55%) VPN
4 8 (2.58%) Network Security
5 5 (1.61%) DHCP
6 4 (1.29%) LAN
6 4 (1.29%) WAN
7 3 (0.97%) Softphone
7 3 (0.97%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (0.65%) Intranet
8 2 (0.65%) Unified Communications
9 1 (0.32%) Extranet
9 1 (0.32%) IPsec
9 1 (0.32%) IPv4
9 1 (0.32%) IPv6
9 1 (0.32%) iSCSI
9 1 (0.32%) Reverse Proxy
9 1 (0.32%) SAN
9 1 (0.32%) SSL
9 1 (0.32%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (10.97%) Power BI
2 14 (4.52%) Metadata
2 14 (4.52%) SQL Server
3 13 (4.19%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (2.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 8 (2.58%) Tableau
5 7 (2.26%) Data Lake
6 6 (1.94%) PostgreSQL
6 6 (1.94%) Relational Database
7 5 (1.61%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (1.61%) Snowflake Schema
8 3 (0.97%) Amazon Redshift
8 3 (0.97%) MySQL
8 3 (0.97%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.65%) Delta Lake
9 2 (0.65%) Metadata Repository
9 2 (0.65%) Oracle Database
9 2 (0.65%) Power Query
9 2 (0.65%) RDBMS
9 2 (0.65%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 13 (4.19%) JIRA
2 6 (1.94%) Git
3 5 (1.61%) GitLab
4 3 (0.97%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.65%) ERwin
5 2 (0.65%) Postman
5 2 (0.65%) Toad
6 1 (0.32%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.32%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.32%) Cucumber
6 1 (0.32%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.32%) PowerBuilder
6 1 (0.32%) Selenium
6 1 (0.32%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.32%) SpecFlow
6 1 (0.32%) Terragrunt
6 1 (0.32%) TestRail
6 1 (0.32%) Zephyr
General
1 100 (32.26%) Social Skills
2 83 (26.77%) Finance
3 50 (16.13%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (7.74%) Public Sector
5 21 (6.77%) Banking
6 9 (2.90%) Investment Banking
6 9 (2.90%) Legal
7 8 (2.58%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (2.26%) Presentation Skills
8 7 (2.26%) Telecoms
9 6 (1.94%) Front Office
9 6 (1.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 5 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
10 5 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
10 5 (1.61%) Military
11 4 (1.29%) Law
11 4 (1.29%) Marketing
11 4 (1.29%) Retail
12 3 (0.97%) Manufacturing
13 2 (0.65%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 46 (14.84%) Analyst
2 41 (13.23%) Senior
3 40 (12.90%) Architect
4 31 (10.00%) Developer
5 25 (8.06%) Business Analyst
6 24 (7.74%) Consultant
7 16 (5.16%) Data Engineer
8 14 (4.52%) Project Manager
9 13 (4.19%) Lead
9 13 (4.19%) Support Engineer
10 11 (3.55%) Azure Engineer
10 11 (3.55%) Cloud Engineer
11 10 (3.23%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 10 (3.23%) IT Engineer
12 9 (2.90%) Microsoft Engineer
12 9 (2.90%) Technical Architect
13 8 (2.58%) Azure Architect
13 8 (2.58%) IT Support
13 8 (2.58%) IT Support Engineer
14 7 (2.26%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.94%) Middleware
1 6 (1.94%) REST
2 5 (1.61%) .NET
2 5 (1.61%) Kafka
2 5 (1.61%) Microsoft Graph
3 4 (1.29%) CSS
3 4 (1.29%) HTML
3 4 (1.29%) JSON
3 4 (1.29%) OAuth
3 4 (1.29%) PySpark
3 4 (1.29%) React
3 4 (1.29%) RESTful
4 3 (0.97%) LangChain
4 3 (0.97%) NumPy
4 3 (0.97%) Pandas
4 3 (0.97%) Playwright
4 3 (0.97%) SAML
4 3 (0.97%) scikit-learn
4 3 (0.97%) XML
4 3 (0.97%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (5.81%) Cloud Native
2 17 (5.48%) Onboarding
3 9 (2.90%) Product Ownership
4 8 (2.58%) AI Agents
4 8 (2.58%) Hybrid Cloud
5 7 (2.26%) Security Posture
6 6 (1.94%) Management Information System
7 5 (1.61%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 5 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.61%) PMI
8 4 (1.29%) Data Structures
8 4 (1.29%) Equities
8 4 (1.29%) Fixed Income
8 4 (1.29%) Virtual Team
9 3 (0.97%) Clustering
9 3 (0.97%) Distributed Systems
9 3 (0.97%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (0.97%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 2 (0.65%) Cloud Security Posture
10 2 (0.65%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 28 (9.03%) Windows
2 9 (2.90%) Windows 10
3 6 (1.94%) Mac OS
4 4 (1.29%) Linux
4 4 (1.29%) Unix
4 4 (1.29%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.65%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.32%) Android
6 1 (0.32%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.32%) VMS
6 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (15.16%) Problem-Solving
1 47 (15.16%) Stakeholder Management
2 45 (14.52%) Agile
3 44 (14.19%) Migration
4 43 (13.87%) AI
5 41 (13.23%) Analytics
5 41 (13.23%) CI/CD
6 40 (12.90%) Business Intelligence
7 39 (12.58%) DevOps
8 33 (10.65%) Data Governance
8 33 (10.65%) Data Modelling
9 31 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 24 (7.74%) Decision-Making
10 24 (7.74%) Roadmaps
11 22 (7.10%) Continuous Improvement
12 21 (6.77%) ETL
13 20 (6.45%) Business Strategy
13 20 (6.45%) Data Engineering
14 19 (6.13%) Change Management
15 18 (5.81%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 51 (16.45%) SQL
2 36 (11.61%) Python
3 27 (8.71%) PowerShell
4 11 (3.55%) C#
5 9 (2.90%) Java
6 6 (1.94%) Kusto Query Language
7 4 (1.29%) Bash
7 4 (1.29%) JavaScript
8 3 (0.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 3 (0.97%) PL/SQL
8 3 (0.97%) Shell Script
8 3 (0.97%) T-SQL
9 2 (0.65%) Bicep
9 2 (0.65%) C
9 2 (0.65%) Perl
9 2 (0.65%) PHP
9 2 (0.65%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.32%) COBOL
10 1 (0.32%) ProC
10 1 (0.32%) VB
Qualifications
1 47 (15.16%) Security Cleared
2 32 (10.32%) SC Cleared
3 23 (7.42%) Degree
4 15 (4.84%) Microsoft Certification
5 11 (3.55%) Azure Certification
6 8 (2.58%) DV Cleared
6 8 (2.58%) PMI Certification
7 5 (1.61%) BPSS Clearance
8 4 (1.29%) CISM
8 4 (1.29%) CISSP
8 4 (1.29%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (1.29%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 4 (1.29%) MCSE
8 4 (1.29%) PMP
9 3 (0.97%) CompTIA CySA+
9 3 (0.97%) CompTIA Security+
9 3 (0.97%) Microsoft Certified Professional
9 3 (0.97%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (0.65%) Network+ Certification
10 2 (0.65%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (7.10%) Data Quality
2 18 (5.81%) GDPR
3 12 (3.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (3.87%) QA
4 9 (2.90%) Cyber Essentials
5 8 (2.58%) PMO
6 4 (1.29%) Accessibility
6 4 (1.29%) NIST
6 4 (1.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.97%) IFRS
7 3 (0.97%) ISO 20022
7 3 (0.97%) MiFID
7 3 (0.97%) SLA
8 2 (0.65%) GRC
8 2 (0.65%) ISO 8583
8 2 (0.65%) NCSC
8 2 (0.65%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.32%) Basel III
9 1 (0.32%) IFRS 17
9 1 (0.32%) Solvency II
System Software
1 40 (12.90%) Active Directory
2 11 (3.55%) Docker
3 7 (2.26%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (1.61%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.65%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.32%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 29 (9.35%) Microsoft Intune
2 16 (5.16%) Terraform
3 10 (3.23%) Kubernetes
4 9 (2.90%) SCCM
5 4 (1.29%) Jamf Pro
6 3 (0.97%) Ansible
7 2 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (0.65%) Grafana
7 2 (0.65%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.32%) AirWatch
8 1 (0.32%) Autotask
8 1 (0.32%) Kibana
8 1 (0.32%) Opsgenie
8 1 (0.32%) Puppet
8 1 (0.32%) Salt
8 1 (0.32%) WSUS
Vendors
1 24 (7.74%) Databricks
2 15 (4.84%) Salesforce
3 10 (3.23%) Google
3 10 (3.23%) Oracle
3 10 (3.23%) ServiceNow
4 9 (2.90%) SAP
5 7 (2.26%) Informatica
6 6 (1.94%) Foundry
6 6 (1.94%) OpenAI
7 5 (1.61%) Citrix
7 5 (1.61%) Palo Alto
8 4 (1.29%) Apple
8 4 (1.29%) Charles River
8 4 (1.29%) Cisco
8 4 (1.29%) Splunk
9 3 (0.97%) CyberArk
9 3 (0.97%) iManage
9 3 (0.97%) LogRhythm
9 3 (0.97%) Trend Micro
9 3 (0.97%) VMware