Microsoft Contract Job Trends in the East Midlands

Microsoft
England > East Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the East Midlands 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 1 October 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
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 4 5
Rank change year-on-year +2 +1 -4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 213 149 98
As % of all contract jobs in the East Midlands 15.78% 18.06% 12.86%
As % of the Vendors category 40.19% 41.05% 30.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 97 96 51
10th Percentile £164 £194 £189
25th Percentile £263 £288 £268
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £371 £375
Median % change year-on-year +17.92% -1.07% -16.67%
75th Percentile £538 £469 £450
90th Percentile £592 £531 £538
England median daily rate £490 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +3.16% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 39 13 15
10th Percentile £12.83 £16.78 £12.75
25th Percentile £13.28 £21.25 £14.09
Median hourly rate £17.97 £25.15 £17.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.55% +47.94% +29.18%
75th Percentile £25.75 - -
90th Percentile £33.75 - £40.39
England median hourly rate £18.58 £22.63 £17.00
% change year-on-year -17.92% +33.12% -24.55%

All Vendors
East Midlands

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 East Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 530 363 317
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East Midlands 39.26% 44.00% 41.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 243 245 186
10th Percentile £230 £211 £263
25th Percentile £394 £340 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £425 £475
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% -10.53% -0.52%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £559
90th Percentile £661 £638 £626
England median daily rate £514 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +1.28% -3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 98 26 16
10th Percentile £13.25 £17.12 £12.75
25th Percentile £14.50 £18.60 £14.37
Median hourly rate £17.87 £21.28 £17.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.00% +25.15% +9.68%
75th Percentile £25.38 £25.15 £17.37
90th Percentile £35.34 - £48.83
England median hourly rate £26.14 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +3.94% -28.14% -20.18%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in the East Midlands

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

Microsoft job vacancy trend in the East Midlands

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in the East Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing Microsoft.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in the East Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in the East Midlands over the 6 months to 1 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the East Midlands

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in the East Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing Microsoft.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East Midlands citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in the East Midlands

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in the East Midlands over the 6 months to 1 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the East Midlands

Microsoft
Contract Job Locations in the East Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft within the East Midlands region over the 6 months to 1 October 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
Derbyshire +1 56 £550 +34.15% 52
Leicestershire -1 42 £275 +10.00% 77
Northamptonshire +6 39 £375 - 77
Nottinghamshire 0 38 £433 +5.67% 85
Lincolnshire +2 32 £425 -32.00% 65
Microsoft
England

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the East Midlands 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 15 (7.04%) SharePoint
2 12 (5.63%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.88%) Oracle Workflow
4 2 (0.94%) Confluence
5 1 (0.47%) Apache Superset
5 1 (0.47%) CMS
5 1 (0.47%) SAS
Applications
1 45 (21.13%) Microsoft Office
2 38 (17.84%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (2.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (1.41%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.47%) FrameMaker
5 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.47%) Trello
Business Applications
1 8 (3.76%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (1.41%) SAP CRM
2 3 (1.41%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.94%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.47%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 68 (31.92%) Azure
2 48 (22.54%) Microsoft 365
3 30 (14.08%) Entra ID
4 27 (12.68%) Power Platform
5 14 (6.57%) Dynamics 365
6 12 (5.63%) Power Automate
7 11 (5.16%) Azure DevOps
7 11 (5.16%) Microsoft Copilot
8 7 (3.29%) AWS
9 6 (2.82%) Azure AKS
10 5 (2.35%) Azure Service Bus
10 5 (2.35%) PowerApps
10 5 (2.35%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
11 4 (1.88%) Azure Data Factory
11 4 (1.88%) GCP
11 4 (1.88%) GitHub
12 3 (1.41%) Algolia
12 3 (1.41%) Amazon EKS
12 3 (1.41%) Azure Logic Apps
12 3 (1.41%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 12 (5.63%) VPN
2 10 (4.69%) DHCP
2 10 (4.69%) DNS
3 8 (3.76%) Firewall
3 8 (3.76%) Network Security
4 6 (2.82%) LAN
4 6 (2.82%) WAN
5 5 (2.35%) SAN
5 5 (2.35%) VLAN
6 4 (1.88%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.47%) BGP
7 1 (0.47%) Ethernet
7 1 (0.47%) IPsec
7 1 (0.47%) OSPF
7 1 (0.47%) Remote Desktop
7 1 (0.47%) Reverse Proxy
7 1 (0.47%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (9.86%) Power BI
2 10 (4.69%) SQL Server
3 4 (1.88%) Azure SQL Database
3 4 (1.88%) Power Query
4 3 (1.41%) Data Lake
4 3 (1.41%) Metadata
4 3 (1.41%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (0.94%) Star Schema
6 1 (0.47%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.47%) Big Data
6 1 (0.47%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.47%) Metabase
6 1 (0.47%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.47%) Parquet
6 1 (0.47%) Relational Database
6 1 (0.47%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.47%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 4 (1.88%) JIRA
1 4 (1.88%) Oracle Forms
2 2 (0.94%) Git
2 2 (0.94%) GitLab
General
1 96 (45.07%) Social Skills
2 31 (14.55%) Organisational Skills
3 30 (14.08%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (10.33%) Finance
5 17 (7.98%) Manufacturing
6 15 (7.04%) Public Sector
7 14 (6.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 13 (6.10%) Retail
9 8 (3.76%) Police
10 6 (2.82%) Documentation Skills
10 6 (2.82%) Law
11 5 (2.35%) Automotive
11 5 (2.35%) Banking
12 3 (1.41%) Electronics
13 2 (0.94%) Aerospace
13 2 (0.94%) Fire and Rescue
14 1 (0.47%) Billing
14 1 (0.47%) Influencing Skills
14 1 (0.47%) Legal
14 1 (0.47%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 29 (13.62%) Developer
2 25 (11.74%) Analyst
3 22 (10.33%) Administrator
4 18 (8.45%) Architect
5 13 (6.10%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 12 (5.63%) Consultant
7 11 (5.16%) Data Analyst
7 11 (5.16%) Senior
8 10 (4.69%) .NET Developer
9 9 (4.23%) Coordinator
9 9 (4.23%) IT Engineer
9 9 (4.23%) Lead
9 9 (4.23%) Solutions Architect
10 8 (3.76%) Support Engineer
10 8 (3.76%) Windows Engineer
11 7 (3.29%) Cloud Engineer
11 7 (3.29%) Deployment Engineer
11 7 (3.29%) IT Support
12 6 (2.82%) Azure Developer
12 6 (2.82%) Lead Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (6.57%) .NET
2 9 (4.23%) Terraform
3 5 (2.35%) Node.js
3 5 (2.35%) React
3 5 (2.35%) REST
4 4 (1.88%) Oracle Fusion
5 3 (1.41%) Kafka
5 3 (1.41%) RabbitMQ
5 3 (1.41%) XML
6 2 (0.94%) ARM Templates
6 2 (0.94%) OAuth
6 2 (0.94%) Software Packaging
7 1 (0.47%) AngularJS
7 1 (0.47%) Express.js
7 1 (0.47%) Lightning Web Components
7 1 (0.47%) MACH
7 1 (0.47%) MERN Stack
7 1 (0.47%) OAuth2
7 1 (0.47%) OpenID
7 1 (0.47%) Plotly
Miscellaneous
1 14 (6.57%) Management Information System
2 13 (6.10%) Driving Licence
3 11 (5.16%) CMDB
4 6 (2.82%) Hybrid Cloud
4 6 (2.82%) Onboarding
5 5 (2.35%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (1.88%) Distributed Systems
6 4 (1.88%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (1.41%) Cloud Native
7 3 (1.41%) Data Structures
7 3 (1.41%) SCADA
7 3 (1.41%) Security Posture
7 3 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (0.94%) AI Agents
8 2 (0.94%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (0.94%) Freedom of Information
8 2 (0.94%) Freedom of Information Act
8 2 (0.94%) Low-Code
8 2 (0.94%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 52 (24.41%) Windows
2 20 (9.39%) Windows 10
3 15 (7.04%) Windows Server
4 6 (2.82%) Linux
5 3 (1.41%) Apple iOS
5 3 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.94%) CentOS
7 1 (0.47%) Android
7 1 (0.47%) MVS
7 1 (0.47%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.47%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (26.29%) Problem-Solving
2 36 (16.90%) Migration
3 31 (14.55%) Continuous Improvement
4 24 (11.27%) Decision-Making
5 23 (10.80%) CRM
6 21 (9.86%) Business Intelligence
7 19 (8.92%) ERP
7 19 (8.92%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 19 (8.92%) Stakeholder Management
8 18 (8.45%) DevOps
9 17 (7.98%) CI/CD
9 17 (7.98%) Customer Service
10 16 (7.51%) AI
10 16 (7.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 15 (7.04%) Data Modelling
11 15 (7.04%) Logistics
12 13 (6.10%) Data Entry
12 13 (6.10%) Process Improvement
12 13 (6.10%) Visualisation
13 12 (5.63%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 15 (7.04%) SQL
2 12 (5.63%) C#
3 8 (3.76%) JavaScript
3 8 (3.76%) PowerShell
4 6 (2.82%) Python
5 4 (1.88%) Kusto Query Language
6 2 (0.94%) ABAP
6 2 (0.94%) Bicep
7 1 (0.47%) Apex Code
7 1 (0.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 1 (0.47%) JCL
7 1 (0.47%) MATLAB
7 1 (0.47%) R
7 1 (0.47%) REXX
7 1 (0.47%) Rust
7 1 (0.47%) SOQL
7 1 (0.47%) SOSL
7 1 (0.47%) TypeScript
7 1 (0.47%) X++
Qualifications
1 41 (19.25%) Security Cleared
2 32 (15.02%) SC Cleared
3 13 (6.10%) Degree
4 5 (2.35%) Microsoft Certification
5 4 (1.88%) CISM
5 4 (1.88%) CISSP
5 4 (1.88%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.41%) ACCA
6 3 (1.41%) CIMA
6 3 (1.41%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.94%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.94%) CRISC
7 2 (0.94%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
7 2 (0.94%) MCSA
7 2 (0.94%) MCSE
7 2 (0.94%) Oracle Certification
8 1 (0.47%) CCNP
8 1 (0.47%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 1 (0.47%) NVQ Level 3
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (5.63%) Data Quality
2 7 (3.29%) QA
3 3 (1.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (1.41%) PMO
4 2 (0.94%) GDPR
4 2 (0.94%) NIST
4 2 (0.94%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.47%) ISO 22301
5 1 (0.47%) SLA
System Software
1 43 (20.19%) Active Directory
2 7 (3.29%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (2.82%) Docker
4 2 (0.94%) Firmware
4 2 (0.94%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.47%) BitLocker
5 1 (0.47%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.47%) Job Entry Subsystem
5 1 (0.47%) NFS
5 1 (0.47%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 23 (10.80%) Microsoft Intune
2 18 (8.45%) SCCM
3 4 (1.88%) Kubernetes
4 3 (1.41%) VxRail
5 2 (0.94%) Ansible
5 2 (0.94%) SCOM
5 2 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.47%) Control-M
6 1 (0.47%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 22 (10.33%) SAP
2 12 (5.63%) Oracle
3 8 (3.76%) Salesforce
3 8 (3.76%) VMware
4 6 (2.82%) Apple
5 5 (2.35%) Databricks
6 4 (1.88%) Aruba
7 3 (1.41%) AVEVA
7 3 (1.41%) CheckPoint
7 3 (1.41%) MuleSoft
7 3 (1.41%) Sage
7 3 (1.41%) Samsung
7 3 (1.41%) ServiceNow
8 2 (0.94%) CyberArk
8 2 (0.94%) Google
8 2 (0.94%) NetApp
8 2 (0.94%) SolarWinds
9 1 (0.47%) F5
9 1 (0.47%) Fortinet
9 1 (0.47%) Planview