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 18 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
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 9 5
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 378 317 396
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 14.86% 15.49% 17.26%
As % of the Vendors category 34.58% 32.51% 39.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 280 204 307
10th Percentile £230 £277 £300
25th Percentile £413 £363 £432
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £500 £533
Median % change year-on-year +7.25% -6.10% -1.84%
75th Percentile £645 £625 £639
90th Percentile £750 £703 £710
London median daily rate £515 £500 £502
% change year-on-year +3.00% -0.42% -8.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 5 4
10th Percentile £20.83 £20.12 £19.30
25th Percentile £22.82 £22.00 £24.25
Median hourly rate £26.13 £26.45 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.21% -2.04% -
75th Percentile £30.57 £29.07 £43.38
90th Percentile £33.23 £29.78 £72.85
London median hourly rate £25.50 £23.73 £23.80
% change year-on-year +7.48% -0.32% -19.32%

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 1,093 975 998
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 42.96% 47.63% 43.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 757 635 704
10th Percentile £335 £313 £338
25th Percentile £448 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% +2.23% -2.18%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £750
London median daily rate £525 £525 £530
% change year-on-year - -0.94% -3.72%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 19 13
10th Percentile - £19.60 £16.50
25th Percentile £18.75 £25.10 £20.50
Median hourly rate £23.16 £29.07 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.33% +7.67% +20.00%
75th Percentile £38.13 £54.46 £92.50
90th Percentile £64.00 £64.11 £137.50
London median hourly rate £35.50 £26.30 £27.50
% change year-on-year +34.98% -4.36% -17.81%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +3 346 £550 +10.00% 233
Southwark +1 8 £600 - 5
West End of London -10 5 £353 -6.00% 6
City of Westminster -16 5 £500 -13.04% 10
Kensington and Chelsea 0 4 £150 - 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 49 (12.96%) SharePoint
2 29 (7.67%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (1.85%) Apache
3 7 (1.85%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (1.59%) Apache Spark
5 5 (1.32%) Confluence
6 2 (0.53%) IIS
7 1 (0.26%) Exchange Server 2013
7 1 (0.26%) nginx
7 1 (0.26%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 32 (8.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (6.08%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (3.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.06%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.79%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.26%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.26%) Adobe Premiere
6 1 (0.26%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.26%) Final Cut Pro
6 1 (0.26%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 17 (4.50%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.59%) Aladdin
3 3 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.79%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.53%) Dynamics NAV
4 2 (0.53%) iTrent
4 2 (0.53%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.53%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.53%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.26%) Advent Moxy
5 1 (0.26%) Advent Portfolio Exchange
5 1 (0.26%) Exchequer
5 1 (0.26%) Integrated Workplace Management System
5 1 (0.26%) Oracle Retail
5 1 (0.26%) SAP CRM
5 1 (0.26%) SAP FI-AR
5 1 (0.26%) SAP MM
5 1 (0.26%) SAP Oil and Gas
5 1 (0.26%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 163 (43.12%) Azure
2 81 (21.43%) Microsoft 365
3 75 (19.84%) Power Platform
4 50 (13.23%) Entra ID
5 40 (10.58%) Azure DevOps
6 34 (8.99%) Dynamics 365
7 30 (7.94%) AWS
8 26 (6.88%) Power Automate
9 25 (6.61%) Azure Data Factory
10 24 (6.35%) Microsoft Copilot
10 24 (6.35%) PowerApps
11 21 (5.56%) GCP
11 21 (5.56%) SaaS
12 19 (5.03%) GitHub
12 19 (5.03%) Microsoft Purview
13 18 (4.76%) OneDrive
14 16 (4.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 14 (3.70%) Serverless
16 12 (3.17%) Azure Logic Apps
17 10 (2.65%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 28 (7.41%) DNS
2 22 (5.82%) DHCP
3 18 (4.76%) Firewall
4 14 (3.70%) TCP/IP
5 13 (3.44%) VPN
6 5 (1.32%) LAN
6 5 (1.32%) Unified Communications
6 5 (1.32%) WAN
7 4 (1.06%) Network Security
7 4 (1.06%) VLAN
8 3 (0.79%) Internet
8 3 (0.79%) SMTP
8 3 (0.79%) Structured Cabling
8 3 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
9 2 (0.53%) DKIM
9 2 (0.53%) DMARC
9 2 (0.53%) Intranet
9 2 (0.53%) Multicast
9 2 (0.53%) Reverse Proxy
9 2 (0.53%) Value-Added Service
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (12.43%) Power BI
2 25 (6.61%) Data Warehouse
3 19 (5.03%) SQL Server
4 13 (3.44%) Azure SQL Database
5 10 (2.65%) Data Lake
6 9 (2.38%) Metadata
6 9 (2.38%) Star Schema
7 8 (2.12%) Power Query
8 5 (1.32%) Semantic Layer
8 5 (1.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 5 (1.32%) Tableau
9 4 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
9 4 (1.06%) Amazon Redshift
9 4 (1.06%) Big Data
9 4 (1.06%) Snowflake Schema
10 3 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
10 3 (0.79%) NoSQL
10 3 (0.79%) PostgreSQL
10 3 (0.79%) Relational Database
10 3 (0.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 16 (4.23%) JIRA
2 9 (2.38%) Git
3 7 (1.85%) Jenkins
4 5 (1.32%) Visual Studio
5 4 (1.06%) GitLab
5 4 (1.06%) Selenium
6 3 (0.79%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.79%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.79%) JUnit
7 2 (0.53%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.53%) Fiddler
7 2 (0.53%) MSI
7 2 (0.53%) TeamCity
7 2 (0.53%) Visual Studio Code
8 1 (0.26%) Appium
8 1 (0.26%) eggPlant
8 1 (0.26%) ER Studio
8 1 (0.26%) Jasmine
8 1 (0.26%) Karma Test Runner
8 1 (0.26%) SoapUI
General
1 117 (30.95%) Social Skills
2 110 (29.10%) Finance
3 49 (12.96%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (8.99%) Banking
5 21 (5.56%) Public Sector
6 13 (3.44%) Retail
7 11 (2.91%) General Ledger
7 11 (2.91%) Telecoms
8 9 (2.38%) Law
8 9 (2.38%) Organisational Skills
9 8 (2.12%) Legal
10 7 (1.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (1.85%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (1.85%) Marketing
11 6 (1.59%) Front Office
11 6 (1.59%) Investment Banking
12 5 (1.32%) Documentation Skills
13 4 (1.06%) Back Office
13 4 (1.06%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.79%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 57 (15.08%) Architect
2 42 (11.11%) Analyst
2 42 (11.11%) Developer
3 35 (9.26%) Consultant
4 30 (7.94%) Support Engineer
5 29 (7.67%) Senior
6 19 (5.03%) Data Architect
7 17 (4.50%) Lead
7 17 (4.50%) Solutions Architect
8 15 (3.97%) Data Engineer
9 14 (3.70%) IT Support
10 12 (3.17%) IT Engineer
11 11 (2.91%) Dynamics 365 Developer
11 11 (2.91%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 11 (2.91%) Platform Engineer
12 10 (2.65%) Business Analyst
12 10 (2.65%) IT Support Engineer
12 10 (2.65%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
12 10 (2.65%) Project Manager
13 9 (2.38%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (4.76%) PySpark
2 15 (3.97%) .NET
3 13 (3.44%) REST
4 10 (2.65%) Middleware
5 8 (2.12%) HTML
6 7 (1.85%) .NET Framework
6 7 (1.85%) JSON
6 7 (1.85%) SAML
6 7 (1.85%) XML
7 6 (1.59%) Kafka
7 6 (1.59%) OAuth
7 6 (1.59%) SOAP
8 5 (1.32%) CSS
8 5 (1.32%) OpenID
9 4 (1.06%) Spring
9 4 (1.06%) XSLT
10 3 (0.79%) ASP.NET
10 3 (0.79%) OAuth2
10 3 (0.79%) RESTful
10 3 (0.79%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 26 (6.88%) Onboarding
2 19 (5.03%) Cloud Native
3 14 (3.70%) AI Agents
4 13 (3.44%) Video Conferencing
5 12 (3.17%) Management Information System
6 11 (2.91%) Legacy Systems
7 9 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
7 9 (2.38%) PKI
7 9 (2.38%) Product Ownership
8 8 (2.12%) Data Structures
9 7 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
9 7 (1.85%) Low-Code
10 6 (1.59%) Clustering
10 6 (1.59%) Security Posture
11 4 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
11 4 (1.06%) Data Centre
11 4 (1.06%) Equities
11 4 (1.06%) PMI
11 4 (1.06%) Virtual Team
12 3 (0.79%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 68 (17.99%) Windows
2 19 (5.03%) Windows Server
3 18 (4.76%) Mac OS
4 14 (3.70%) Windows 10
5 12 (3.17%) Linux
6 4 (1.06%) Android
6 4 (1.06%) Apple iOS
6 4 (1.06%) Windows 7
7 3 (0.79%) Unix
7 3 (0.79%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.53%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.26%) OpenVMS
9 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.26%) SUSE
9 1 (0.26%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
9 1 (0.26%) VMS
9 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 80 (21.16%) DevOps
2 68 (17.99%) Stakeholder Management
3 66 (17.46%) Analytics
4 62 (16.40%) Problem-Solving
5 60 (15.87%) CI/CD
5 60 (15.87%) Migration
6 57 (15.08%) Agile
7 54 (14.29%) Business Intelligence
8 50 (13.23%) AI
8 50 (13.23%) Data Modelling
9 49 (12.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 39 (10.32%) Data Governance
11 32 (8.47%) Continuous Improvement
12 31 (8.20%) ITIL
13 29 (7.67%) Roadmaps
14 28 (7.41%) Validation
15 27 (7.14%) Project Delivery
16 26 (6.88%) CRM
16 26 (6.88%) Decision-Making
17 25 (6.61%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 66 (17.46%) SQL
2 46 (12.17%) Python
3 29 (7.67%) PowerShell
4 17 (4.50%) Java
5 14 (3.70%) C#
6 13 (3.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 10 (2.65%) JavaScript
8 7 (1.85%) Bash
8 7 (1.85%) Bicep
8 7 (1.85%) TypeScript
9 6 (1.59%) T-SQL
10 4 (1.06%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.53%) C++
11 2 (0.53%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.53%) R
12 1 (0.26%) COBOL
12 1 (0.26%) Korn
12 1 (0.26%) RPG
12 1 (0.26%) VB.NET
12 1 (0.26%) XMLA
Qualifications
1 72 (19.05%) Security Cleared
2 51 (13.49%) SC Cleared
3 24 (6.35%) Degree
4 20 (5.29%) DV Cleared
5 16 (4.23%) Microsoft Certification
6 10 (2.65%) Azure Certification
7 7 (1.85%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (1.85%) CISSP
8 6 (1.59%) PMI Certification
9 5 (1.32%) A+ Certification
9 5 (1.32%) Cisco Certification
9 5 (1.32%) CISM
9 5 (1.32%) DBS Check
10 4 (1.06%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.79%) CCNP
11 3 (0.79%) CompTIA Security+
12 2 (0.53%) CCNA
12 2 (0.53%) GIAC
12 2 (0.53%) Network+ Certification
12 2 (0.53%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (9.26%) Data Quality
2 25 (6.61%) QA
3 16 (4.23%) GDPR
4 15 (3.97%) SLA
5 12 (3.17%) NIST
6 11 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 10 (2.65%) PMO
8 8 (2.12%) Accessibility
9 7 (1.85%) NCSC
10 6 (1.59%) Cyber Essentials
11 5 (1.32%) GRC
12 3 (0.79%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 2 (0.53%) Government Security Classifications
13 2 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 2 (0.53%) P3O
13 2 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 1 (0.26%) COBIT
14 1 (0.26%) GAAP
14 1 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 1 (0.26%) MiFID
System Software
1 65 (17.20%) Active Directory
2 15 (3.97%) Docker
3 6 (1.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.32%) Virtual Desktop
5 4 (1.06%) BitLocker
5 4 (1.06%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.79%) Microsoft App-V
6 3 (0.79%) Terminal Services
6 3 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.79%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.53%) IAG
8 1 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.26%) zsh
Systems Management
1 36 (9.52%) Microsoft Intune
2 23 (6.08%) Terraform
3 16 (4.23%) Kubernetes
4 14 (3.70%) SCCM
5 9 (2.38%) Ansible
5 9 (2.38%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (1.32%) Jamf Pro
7 4 (1.06%) Grafana
7 4 (1.06%) Prometheus
7 4 (1.06%) Puppet
8 3 (0.79%) Nagios
8 3 (0.79%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.79%) vMotion
8 3 (0.79%) WSUS
9 1 (0.26%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.26%) ITRS Geneos
9 1 (0.26%) NetBackup
9 1 (0.26%) PingFederate
9 1 (0.26%) Salt
9 1 (0.26%) SELinux
Vendors
1 33 (8.73%) ServiceNow
2 25 (6.61%) Databricks
3 22 (5.82%) Google
4 19 (5.03%) Oracle
4 19 (5.03%) SAP
5 11 (2.91%) Cisco
6 10 (2.65%) Apple
6 10 (2.65%) VMware
7 9 (2.38%) Citrix
7 9 (2.38%) Salesforce
8 7 (1.85%) Foundry
8 7 (1.85%) Workday
9 6 (1.59%) Bloomberg
9 6 (1.59%) HP
9 6 (1.59%) OpenAI
10 5 (1.32%) Informatica
10 5 (1.32%) Symantec
11 4 (1.06%) iManage
11 4 (1.06%) Okta
12 3 (0.79%) Dynatrace