Microsoft Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Microsoft
Central London > City of London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the City of 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 March 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 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 6 6
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +6
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 287 281 340
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 13.71% 15.92% 14.53%
As % of the Vendors category 30.73% 36.21% 34.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 219 179 268
10th Percentile £325 £254 £334
25th Percentile £413 £397 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% +0.05%
75th Percentile £625 £647 £675
90th Percentile £738 £710 £766
Central London median daily rate £525 £502 £550
% change year-on-year +4.58% -8.73% +3.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 2
10th Percentile £22.67 - -
25th Percentile £25.43 - £12.75
Median hourly rate £31.38 £112.00 £13.50
Median % change year-on-year -71.98% +729.63% -48.08%
75th Percentile £37.24 £149.75 £14.25
90th Percentile £39.95 £172.40 -
Central London median hourly rate £25.47 £112.00 £13.50
% change year-on-year -77.26% +729.63% -48.08%

All Vendors
City of 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 the City of London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 934 776 995
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 44.62% 43.97% 42.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 620 495 722
10th Percentile £357 £313 £312
25th Percentile £425 £456 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.55% - -1.79%
75th Percentile £675 £675 £675
90th Percentile £775 £750 £775
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £540
% change year-on-year - +1.85% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 6 6
10th Percentile - £32.81 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.75 £36.28 £13.81
Median hourly rate £20.36 £77.25 £20.75
Median % change year-on-year -73.65% +272.29% -1.19%
75th Percentile £33.76 £112.00 £23.75
90th Percentile £41.94 £149.75 £36.25
Central London median hourly rate £25.47 £38.58 £18.97
% change year-on-year -33.97% +103.40% -9.69%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microsoft relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

Microsoft job vacancy trend in the City of London

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Microsoft.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in the City of London over the 6 months to 20 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the City of London

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Microsoft.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in the City of London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in the City of London over the 6 months to 20 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the City of London

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of 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 29 (10.10%) SharePoint
2 11 (3.83%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (3.48%) Confluence
4 5 (1.74%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.70%) Apache
6 1 (0.35%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.35%) CMS
6 1 (0.35%) Ethereum
6 1 (0.35%) Hyperledger
6 1 (0.35%) SAS
Applications
1 29 (10.10%) Microsoft Excel
2 21 (7.32%) MS Visio
3 20 (6.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (6.62%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (1.05%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.35%) Adobe After Effects
7 1 (0.35%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.35%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.35%) Trello
Business Applications
1 8 (2.79%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (2.44%) Aladdin
3 2 (0.70%) Exchequer
3 2 (0.70%) NetSuite
3 2 (0.70%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.35%) BASE24
4 1 (0.35%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.35%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.35%) Veritas eDiscovery
4 1 (0.35%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 116 (40.42%) Azure
2 67 (23.34%) Microsoft 365
3 53 (18.47%) Power Platform
4 31 (10.80%) Entra ID
5 29 (10.10%) AWS
6 20 (6.97%) Power Automate
7 19 (6.62%) Microsoft Purview
8 18 (6.27%) PowerApps
9 17 (5.92%) Dynamics 365
10 16 (5.57%) Azure DevOps
11 15 (5.23%) GitHub
12 13 (4.53%) Microsoft Copilot
12 13 (4.53%) SaaS
13 12 (4.18%) GCP
14 11 (3.83%) Snowflake
15 10 (3.48%) Amazon S3
15 10 (3.48%) Azure Data Factory
15 10 (3.48%) Azure Sentinel
16 9 (3.14%) Copilot Studio
17 8 (2.79%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 11 (3.83%) DNS
2 9 (3.14%) Firewall
3 8 (2.79%) Network Security
3 8 (2.79%) VPN
4 6 (2.09%) WAN
5 5 (1.74%) DHCP
5 5 (1.74%) LAN
6 3 (1.05%) Structured Cabling
7 2 (0.70%) Intranet
7 2 (0.70%) Intrusion Detection
7 2 (0.70%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.70%) Unified Communications
7 2 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
8 1 (0.35%) Extranet
8 1 (0.35%) IPsec
8 1 (0.35%) iSCSI
8 1 (0.35%) SAN
8 1 (0.35%) SSL
8 1 (0.35%) TCP/IP
8 1 (0.35%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (11.15%) Power BI
2 15 (5.23%) Metadata
3 13 (4.53%) Data Warehouse
4 10 (3.48%) SQL Server
5 9 (3.14%) Tableau
6 8 (2.79%) Data Lake
7 6 (2.09%) PostgreSQL
7 6 (2.09%) Relational Database
8 5 (1.74%) Snowflake Schema
9 4 (1.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (1.05%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (1.05%) Azure SQL Database
10 3 (1.05%) MySQL
10 3 (1.05%) NoSQL
11 2 (0.70%) Metadata Repository
11 2 (0.70%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.70%) RDBMS
11 2 (0.70%) SQLPlus
11 2 (0.70%) Star Schema
12 1 (0.35%) OLTP
Development Applications
1 11 (3.83%) JIRA
2 8 (2.79%) Git
3 4 (1.39%) GitLab
3 4 (1.39%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.70%) ERwin
4 2 (0.70%) Toad
5 1 (0.35%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.35%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.35%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.35%) gulp
5 1 (0.35%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.35%) PowerBuilder
5 1 (0.35%) Selenium
5 1 (0.35%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.35%) SpecFlow
5 1 (0.35%) TestRail
5 1 (0.35%) Visual Studio Code
5 1 (0.35%) webpack
5 1 (0.35%) Zephyr
General
1 94 (32.75%) Social Skills
2 82 (28.57%) Finance
3 50 (17.42%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (9.41%) Banking
5 23 (8.01%) Public Sector
6 11 (3.83%) Investment Banking
7 10 (3.48%) Organisational Skills
8 9 (3.14%) Legal
9 8 (2.79%) Front Office
9 8 (2.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (2.79%) Presentation Skills
10 6 (2.09%) Influencing Skills
11 5 (1.74%) Documentation Skills
12 4 (1.39%) Financial Institution
12 4 (1.39%) Military
12 4 (1.39%) Telecoms
13 3 (1.05%) Manufacturing
13 3 (1.05%) Marketing
14 2 (0.70%) International Banking
14 2 (0.70%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 42 (14.63%) Analyst
2 36 (12.54%) Architect
3 33 (11.50%) Senior
4 31 (10.80%) Developer
5 24 (8.36%) Business Analyst
6 19 (6.62%) Consultant
7 18 (6.27%) Data Engineer
8 14 (4.88%) Lead
9 12 (4.18%) Project Manager
10 11 (3.83%) IT Engineer
10 11 (3.83%) Support Engineer
11 10 (3.48%) Microsoft Engineer
12 9 (3.14%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 9 (3.14%) Azure Engineer
12 9 (3.14%) IT Support
12 9 (3.14%) IT Support Engineer
13 8 (2.79%) Azure Architect
13 8 (2.79%) Technical Architect
14 7 (2.44%) Cloud Engineer
14 7 (2.44%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (2.79%) REST
2 6 (2.09%) Microsoft Graph
2 6 (2.09%) Middleware
2 6 (2.09%) React
3 5 (1.74%) .NET
3 5 (1.74%) Kafka
3 5 (1.74%) OAuth
4 4 (1.39%) Node.js
4 4 (1.39%) Playwright
4 4 (1.39%) PySpark
4 4 (1.39%) SAML
5 3 (1.05%) CSS
5 3 (1.05%) HTML
5 3 (1.05%) LangChain
5 3 (1.05%) NumPy
5 3 (1.05%) Pandas
5 3 (1.05%) RESTful
5 3 (1.05%) scikit-learn
5 3 (1.05%) SPFx
5 3 (1.05%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 19 (6.62%) Cloud Native
2 12 (4.18%) Onboarding
3 11 (3.83%) Security Posture
4 10 (3.48%) Management Information System
5 8 (2.79%) Product Ownership
6 7 (2.44%) AI Agents
7 6 (2.09%) Hybrid Cloud
8 5 (1.74%) Data Structures
8 5 (1.74%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (1.39%) Equities
9 4 (1.39%) Fixed Income
9 4 (1.39%) Virtual Team
10 3 (1.05%) Cloud Security Posture
10 3 (1.05%) Clustering
10 3 (1.05%) Data Centre
10 3 (1.05%) Derivative
10 3 (1.05%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 3 (1.05%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 2 (0.70%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 29 (10.10%) Windows
2 10 (3.48%) Windows 10
3 6 (2.09%) Mac OS
4 5 (1.74%) Unix
5 4 (1.39%) Linux
5 4 (1.39%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.70%) Android
7 1 (0.35%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.35%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.35%) VMS
7 1 (0.35%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (16.03%) Stakeholder Management
2 41 (14.29%) Problem-Solving
3 40 (13.94%) Migration
4 39 (13.59%) Agile
4 39 (13.59%) AI
5 38 (13.24%) CI/CD
6 37 (12.89%) Analytics
6 37 (12.89%) Business Intelligence
7 35 (12.20%) Data Governance
8 34 (11.85%) DevOps
9 32 (11.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 29 (10.10%) Data Modelling
11 25 (8.71%) Roadmaps
12 23 (8.01%) Change Management
13 22 (7.67%) ETL
14 20 (6.97%) Continuous Improvement
14 20 (6.97%) Data Pipeline
15 19 (6.62%) Decision-Making
15 19 (6.62%) Project Delivery
16 18 (6.27%) Business Strategy
Programming Languages
1 51 (17.77%) SQL
2 37 (12.89%) Python
3 23 (8.01%) PowerShell
4 12 (4.18%) Java
5 10 (3.48%) C#
6 6 (2.09%) Kusto Query Language
7 4 (1.39%) JavaScript
8 3 (1.05%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 3 (1.05%) PL/SQL
8 3 (1.05%) Shell Script
8 3 (1.05%) T-SQL
8 3 (1.05%) TypeScript
9 2 (0.70%) Bash
9 2 (0.70%) C
9 2 (0.70%) Perl
9 2 (0.70%) PHP
10 1 (0.35%) Apex Code
10 1 (0.35%) C++
10 1 (0.35%) R
10 1 (0.35%) XPath
Qualifications
1 46 (16.03%) Security Cleared
2 35 (12.20%) SC Cleared
3 24 (8.36%) Degree
4 11 (3.83%) Microsoft Certification
5 8 (2.79%) CISSP
6 7 (2.44%) Azure Certification
7 6 (2.09%) CISM
7 6 (2.09%) Computer Science Degree
8 5 (1.74%) DV Cleared
8 5 (1.74%) PMI Certification
9 4 (1.39%) BPSS Clearance
9 4 (1.39%) CompTIA CySA+
9 4 (1.39%) CompTIA Security+
10 3 (1.05%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 3 (1.05%) PMP
10 3 (1.05%) TOGAF Certification
11 2 (0.70%) AWS Certification
11 2 (0.70%) CISMP
11 2 (0.70%) GIAC
11 2 (0.70%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (7.32%) Data Quality
1 21 (7.32%) GDPR
2 17 (5.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (3.48%) Cyber Essentials
3 10 (3.48%) PMO
4 9 (3.14%) QA
5 8 (2.79%) NIST
6 4 (1.39%) Accessibility
6 4 (1.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (1.05%) IFRS
7 3 (1.05%) ISO 20022
7 3 (1.05%) NCSC
7 3 (1.05%) PCI DSS
7 3 (1.05%) SLA
8 2 (0.70%) Basel III
8 2 (0.70%) GRC
8 2 (0.70%) ISO 8583
8 2 (0.70%) MiFID
9 1 (0.35%) Solvency II
9 1 (0.35%) WCAG
System Software
1 37 (12.89%) Active Directory
2 12 (4.18%) Docker
3 5 (1.74%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (1.05%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.70%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.35%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 25 (8.71%) Microsoft Intune
2 14 (4.88%) Terraform
3 8 (2.79%) Kubernetes
4 6 (2.09%) SCCM
5 4 (1.39%) Ansible
5 4 (1.39%) Jamf Pro
6 2 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (0.35%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.35%) Autotask
7 1 (0.35%) Grafana
7 1 (0.35%) Kibana
7 1 (0.35%) Opsgenie
7 1 (0.35%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.35%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
7 1 (0.35%) WSUS
Vendors
1 21 (7.32%) Databricks
2 14 (4.88%) Salesforce
3 12 (4.18%) ServiceNow
4 8 (2.79%) Google
4 8 (2.79%) Oracle
5 6 (2.09%) Foundry
5 6 (2.09%) Informatica
5 6 (2.09%) OpenAI
6 5 (1.74%) Apple
6 5 (1.74%) Cisco
6 5 (1.74%) CyberArk
6 5 (1.74%) SAP
7 4 (1.39%) Citrix
7 4 (1.39%) Fortinet
7 4 (1.39%) LogRhythm
7 4 (1.39%) Splunk
8 3 (1.05%) Arista
8 3 (1.05%) Palo Alto
8 3 (1.05%) Trend Micro
8 3 (1.05%) Workday