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 12 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
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 7 6
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +6
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 286 277 342
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 14.04% 15.50% 14.62%
As % of the Vendors category 31.05% 35.56% 34.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 220 178 264
10th Percentile £318 £252 £325
25th Percentile £413 £384 £432
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -6.45% +1.38%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £675
90th Percentile £738 £711 £775
Central London median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
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% -34.15%
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% -34.15%

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 921 779 1,001
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 45.21% 43.59% 42.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 610 500 722
10th Percentile £353 £313 £312
25th Percentile £425 £455 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.82% - -1.79%
75th Percentile £674 £675 £675
90th Percentile £775 £750 £775
Central London median daily rate £538 £550 £538
% change year-on-year -2.27% +2.23% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 5 8
10th Percentile - £35.10 £12.75
25th Percentile £18.75 £41.25 £15.94
Median hourly rate £21.31 £112.00 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -80.97% +489.47% -8.23%
75th Percentile £37.76 - £23.75
90th Percentile £42.50 £157.30 £31.25
Central London median hourly rate £25.47 £77.25 £19.00
% change year-on-year -67.03% +306.58% -9.52%

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 12 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 12 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 (10.14%) SharePoint
2 10 (3.50%) Confluence
2 10 (3.50%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.40%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.70%) Apache
5 1 (0.35%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.35%) CMS
5 1 (0.35%) Ethereum
5 1 (0.35%) Hyperledger
5 1 (0.35%) SAS
Applications
1 31 (10.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 22 (7.69%) MS Visio
3 21 (7.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (6.99%) 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 (2.80%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (2.45%) 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%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.35%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.35%) Veritas eDiscovery
4 1 (0.35%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 109 (38.11%) Azure
2 68 (23.78%) Microsoft 365
3 53 (18.53%) Power Platform
4 33 (11.54%) Entra ID
5 27 (9.44%) AWS
6 21 (7.34%) Power Automate
7 20 (6.99%) Microsoft Purview
8 19 (6.64%) PowerApps
9 18 (6.29%) Dynamics 365
10 15 (5.24%) GitHub
11 14 (4.90%) Azure DevOps
12 13 (4.55%) Microsoft Copilot
13 12 (4.20%) SaaS
14 10 (3.50%) Azure Sentinel
14 10 (3.50%) GCP
14 10 (3.50%) Snowflake
15 9 (3.15%) Amazon S3
15 9 (3.15%) Azure Data Factory
15 9 (3.15%) Copilot Studio
16 8 (2.80%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 11 (3.85%) DNS
2 10 (3.50%) Firewall
2 10 (3.50%) VPN
3 7 (2.45%) Network Security
4 6 (2.10%) WAN
5 5 (1.75%) DHCP
5 5 (1.75%) LAN
6 3 (1.05%) Structured Cabling
6 3 (1.05%) Wi-Fi
7 2 (0.70%) Intranet
7 2 (0.70%) Intrusion Detection
7 2 (0.70%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.70%) Unified Communications
8 1 (0.35%) Extranet
8 1 (0.35%) HTTP
8 1 (0.35%) Hyperconnected
8 1 (0.35%) IPsec
8 1 (0.35%) iSCSI
8 1 (0.35%) TCP/IP
8 1 (0.35%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (11.54%) Power BI
2 15 (5.24%) Metadata
3 10 (3.50%) Data Warehouse
3 10 (3.50%) SQL Server
4 8 (2.80%) Tableau
5 7 (2.45%) Data Lake
6 6 (2.10%) PostgreSQL
6 6 (2.10%) Relational Database
7 4 (1.40%) Snowflake Schema
7 4 (1.40%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 3 (1.05%) Amazon Redshift
8 3 (1.05%) MySQL
8 3 (1.05%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.70%) Metadata Repository
9 2 (0.70%) Oracle Database
9 2 (0.70%) RDBMS
9 2 (0.70%) SQLPlus
10 1 (0.35%) PowerCenter
10 1 (0.35%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 11 (3.85%) JIRA
2 8 (2.80%) Git
3 5 (1.75%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.40%) GitLab
5 2 (0.70%) ERwin
5 2 (0.70%) Toad
6 1 (0.35%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.35%) Cucumber
6 1 (0.35%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.35%) gulp
6 1 (0.35%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.35%) PowerBuilder
6 1 (0.35%) Selenium
6 1 (0.35%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.35%) SpecFlow
6 1 (0.35%) TestRail
6 1 (0.35%) Visual Studio Code
6 1 (0.35%) webpack
6 1 (0.35%) Zephyr
General
1 96 (33.57%) Social Skills
2 82 (28.67%) Finance
3 50 (17.48%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (9.79%) Banking
5 23 (8.04%) Public Sector
6 12 (4.20%) Investment Banking
7 10 (3.50%) Legal
7 10 (3.50%) Organisational Skills
8 8 (2.80%) Front Office
8 8 (2.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (2.80%) Presentation Skills
9 6 (2.10%) Influencing Skills
10 5 (1.75%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.40%) Military
11 4 (1.40%) Telecoms
12 3 (1.05%) Financial Institution
12 3 (1.05%) Manufacturing
13 2 (0.70%) International Banking
13 2 (0.70%) Local Government
13 2 (0.70%) Retail
Job Titles
1 43 (15.03%) Analyst
2 35 (12.24%) Architect
3 31 (10.84%) Senior
4 30 (10.49%) Developer
5 24 (8.39%) Business Analyst
6 19 (6.64%) Consultant
7 17 (5.94%) Data Engineer
8 14 (4.90%) Lead
9 12 (4.20%) Project Manager
9 12 (4.20%) Support Engineer
10 11 (3.85%) IT Engineer
11 10 (3.50%) IT Support
11 10 (3.50%) Microsoft Engineer
12 9 (3.15%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 9 (3.15%) Azure Engineer
12 9 (3.15%) IT Support Engineer
13 8 (2.80%) Azure Architect
13 8 (2.80%) Technical Architect
14 7 (2.45%) Cloud Engineer
14 7 (2.45%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (2.80%) REST
2 7 (2.45%) Middleware
3 6 (2.10%) .NET
3 6 (2.10%) Microsoft Graph
3 6 (2.10%) React
4 5 (1.75%) OAuth
5 4 (1.40%) Kafka
5 4 (1.40%) Node.js
5 4 (1.40%) PySpark
5 4 (1.40%) SAML
6 3 (1.05%) HTML
6 3 (1.05%) JSON
6 3 (1.05%) LangChain
6 3 (1.05%) NumPy
6 3 (1.05%) OpenID
6 3 (1.05%) Pandas
6 3 (1.05%) RESTful
6 3 (1.05%) scikit-learn
6 3 (1.05%) YAML
7 2 (0.70%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 19 (6.64%) Cloud Native
2 13 (4.55%) Onboarding
3 10 (3.50%) Management Information System
3 10 (3.50%) Security Posture
4 8 (2.80%) Product Ownership
5 7 (2.45%) AI Agents
6 6 (2.10%) Data Structures
6 6 (2.10%) Hybrid Cloud
7 5 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
8 4 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (1.40%) Equities
8 4 (1.40%) Fixed Income
8 4 (1.40%) Virtual Team
9 3 (1.05%) BYOD
9 3 (1.05%) Cloud Security Posture
9 3 (1.05%) Data Centre
9 3 (1.05%) Derivative
9 3 (1.05%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 3 (1.05%) SWIFT Messaging Network
10 2 (0.70%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 28 (9.79%) Windows
2 11 (3.85%) Windows 10
3 5 (1.75%) Linux
3 5 (1.75%) Mac OS
3 5 (1.75%) Unix
4 3 (1.05%) Android
4 3 (1.05%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.70%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.35%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.35%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (16.78%) Stakeholder Management
2 41 (14.34%) Problem-Solving
3 40 (13.99%) Business Intelligence
4 39 (13.64%) Migration
5 37 (12.94%) Agile
6 36 (12.59%) AI
6 36 (12.59%) CI/CD
7 35 (12.24%) Analytics
8 33 (11.54%) Data Governance
8 33 (11.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 31 (10.84%) DevOps
10 27 (9.44%) Data Modelling
11 25 (8.74%) Roadmaps
12 24 (8.39%) Change Management
13 20 (6.99%) Continuous Improvement
13 20 (6.99%) ETL
14 19 (6.64%) Data Pipeline
14 19 (6.64%) Decision-Making
14 19 (6.64%) Machine Learning
14 19 (6.64%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 50 (17.48%) SQL
2 37 (12.94%) Python
3 24 (8.39%) PowerShell
4 12 (4.20%) Java
5 10 (3.50%) C#
6 6 (2.10%) Kusto Query Language
7 3 (1.05%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 3 (1.05%) JavaScript
7 3 (1.05%) PL/SQL
7 3 (1.05%) Shell Script
7 3 (1.05%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.70%) Bash
8 2 (0.70%) C
8 2 (0.70%) C++
8 2 (0.70%) Perl
8 2 (0.70%) PHP
9 1 (0.35%) COBOL
9 1 (0.35%) Google Apps Script
9 1 (0.35%) R
9 1 (0.35%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 45 (15.73%) Security Cleared
2 35 (12.24%) SC Cleared
3 25 (8.74%) Degree
4 10 (3.50%) Microsoft Certification
5 7 (2.45%) Azure Certification
5 7 (2.45%) CISSP
6 6 (2.10%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (1.75%) CISM
7 5 (1.75%) DV Cleared
7 5 (1.75%) PMI Certification
8 4 (1.40%) BPSS Clearance
8 4 (1.40%) CompTIA CySA+
8 4 (1.40%) CompTIA Security+
9 3 (1.05%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 3 (1.05%) PMP
9 3 (1.05%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (0.70%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.70%) CISMP
10 2 (0.70%) GIAC
10 2 (0.70%) Network+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (7.34%) Data Quality
1 21 (7.34%) GDPR
2 17 (5.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (3.85%) Cyber Essentials
4 10 (3.50%) PMO
5 9 (3.15%) QA
6 8 (2.80%) NIST
7 4 (1.40%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (1.40%) SLA
8 3 (1.05%) IFRS
8 3 (1.05%) ISO 20022
8 3 (1.05%) NCSC
8 3 (1.05%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.70%) Basel III
9 2 (0.70%) GRC
9 2 (0.70%) ISO 8583
9 2 (0.70%) MiFID
10 1 (0.35%) Solvency II
10 1 (0.35%) WCAG
System Software
1 38 (13.29%) Active Directory
2 13 (4.55%) Docker
3 5 (1.75%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (1.05%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.70%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.35%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 24 (8.39%) Microsoft Intune
2 14 (4.90%) Terraform
3 9 (3.15%) Kubernetes
4 6 (2.10%) SCCM
5 4 (1.40%) Ansible
6 3 (1.05%) Jamf Pro
7 2 (0.70%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (0.70%) Kibana
8 1 (0.35%) AirWatch
8 1 (0.35%) Autotask
8 1 (0.35%) Grafana
8 1 (0.35%) ITRS Geneos
8 1 (0.35%) logstash
8 1 (0.35%) Opsgenie
8 1 (0.35%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.35%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
8 1 (0.35%) WSUS
Vendors
1 19 (6.64%) Databricks
2 13 (4.55%) Salesforce
2 13 (4.55%) ServiceNow
3 8 (2.80%) Oracle
4 7 (2.45%) Google
4 7 (2.45%) SAP
5 6 (2.10%) CyberArk
5 6 (2.10%) Foundry
5 6 (2.10%) OpenAI
6 5 (1.75%) Cisco
6 5 (1.75%) Informatica
7 4 (1.40%) Apple
7 4 (1.40%) Citrix
7 4 (1.40%) Fortinet
7 4 (1.40%) LogRhythm
7 4 (1.40%) Splunk
8 3 (1.05%) Arista
8 3 (1.05%) Palo Alto
8 3 (1.05%) Trend Micro
8 3 (1.05%) Workday