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 3 months leading up to 10 July 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.

3 months to
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 3 6
Rank change year-on-year 0 +3 -5
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 88 71 53
As % of all contract jobs in the East Midlands 14.77% 17.11% 13.32%
As % of the Vendors category 35.48% 41.76% 31.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 53 47 35
10th Percentile £175 £194 £188
25th Percentile £263 £250 £304
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £424 £363 £392
Median % change year-on-year +16.97% -7.41% +4.40%
75th Percentile £500 £423 £462
90th Percentile £579 £501 £564
England median daily rate £485 £461 £498
% change year-on-year +5.21% -7.38% -0.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 8 4
10th Percentile £17.59 £17.86 £12.72
25th Percentile £17.97 £23.49 £12.74
Median hourly rate £21.86 £25.15 £13.53
Median % change year-on-year -13.08% +85.88% -37.30%
75th Percentile £31.75 - £14.54
90th Percentile £33.75 - £14.81
England median hourly rate £24.00 £22.63 £18.44
% change year-on-year +6.05% +22.72% -14.23%

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 248 170 166
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East Midlands 41.61% 40.96% 41.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 131 112 108
10th Percentile £225 £250 £263
25th Percentile £345 £313 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £410 £450
Median % change year-on-year +19.51% -8.89% -5.76%
75th Percentile £584 £525 £588
90th Percentile £656 £698 £628
England median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 18 5
10th Percentile £13.51 £17.66 £12.72
25th Percentile £16.35 £18.60 £12.75
Median hourly rate £17.87 £23.19 £13.54
Median % change year-on-year -22.93% +71.25% -54.87%
75th Percentile £22.00 £25.15 £15.00
90th Percentile £44.96 - £31.59
England median hourly rate £34.00 £24.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +41.65% -40.00% +23.84%

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 3 months to 10 July 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 3 months to 10 July 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 3 months to 10 July 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 3 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Nottinghamshire 0 22 £423 +40.83% 53
Northamptonshire +6 20 £346 -7.67% 35
Lincolnshire 0 16 £205 - 43
Leicestershire -7 12 £275 +10.00% 41
Derbyshire -2 10 £538 +31.10% 30
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 19 (11.45%) Microsoft Exchange
2 14 (8.43%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.81%) Apache Superset
3 3 (1.81%) Confluence
4 1 (0.60%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.60%) CMS
4 1 (0.60%) Exchange Server 2010
4 1 (0.60%) SAS
4 1 (0.60%) Tomcat
Applications
1 22 (13.25%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (12.05%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (5.42%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (3.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (1.20%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.60%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.60%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.60%) Trello
Business Applications
1 5 (3.01%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (1.81%) SAP CRM
3 2 (1.20%) Maximo
4 1 (0.60%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 59 (35.54%) Azure
2 32 (19.28%) Microsoft 365
3 24 (14.46%) Entra ID
4 18 (10.84%) Power Platform
5 11 (6.63%) AWS
6 10 (6.02%) Azure DevOps
7 8 (4.82%) Azure AKS
8 7 (4.22%) GCP
9 5 (3.01%) Azure Service Bus
9 5 (3.01%) Dynamics 365
9 5 (3.01%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
10 4 (2.41%) Azure Data Factory
10 4 (2.41%) GitHub
10 4 (2.41%) Microsoft Copilot
10 4 (2.41%) OCI
10 4 (2.41%) Serverless
11 3 (1.81%) Algolia
11 3 (1.81%) AWS CloudFormation
11 3 (1.81%) Azure Functions
11 3 (1.81%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 11 (6.63%) Network Security
2 7 (4.22%) DNS
2 7 (4.22%) Firewall
3 6 (3.61%) DHCP
3 6 (3.61%) VLAN
4 5 (3.01%) LAN
4 5 (3.01%) WAN
5 4 (2.41%) Reverse Proxy
5 4 (2.41%) TCP/IP
6 2 (1.20%) SAN
7 1 (0.60%) Ethernet
7 1 (0.60%) Unified Communications
7 1 (0.60%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (7.23%) Power BI
2 9 (5.42%) SQL Server
3 8 (4.82%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (3.61%) Azure SQL Database
5 4 (2.41%) Relational Database
6 3 (1.81%) Metabase
6 3 (1.81%) Parquet
7 2 (1.20%) Data Lake
7 2 (1.20%) MongoDB
7 2 (1.20%) Star Schema
8 1 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.60%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.60%) Big Data
8 1 (0.60%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.60%) Metadata
8 1 (0.60%) MySQL
8 1 (0.60%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.60%) Snowflake Schema
8 1 (0.60%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 1 (0.60%) VLDB
Development Applications
1 5 (3.01%) JIRA
2 2 (1.20%) Git
2 2 (1.20%) GitLab
General
1 56 (33.73%) Social Skills
2 22 (13.25%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (7.83%) Finance
4 12 (7.23%) Organisational Skills
4 12 (7.23%) Public Sector
5 10 (6.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 7 (4.22%) Law
7 6 (3.61%) Manufacturing
7 6 (3.61%) Retail
8 4 (2.41%) Banking
9 3 (1.81%) Aerospace
9 3 (1.81%) Police
10 2 (1.20%) Automotive
10 2 (1.20%) Billing
10 2 (1.20%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.60%) Agriculture
11 1 (0.60%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.60%) Marketing
11 1 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 32 (19.28%) Analyst
2 22 (13.25%) Developer
3 21 (12.65%) Architect
4 15 (9.04%) Administrator
5 11 (6.63%) .NET Developer
5 11 (6.63%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 11 (6.63%) IT Support
5 11 (6.63%) Senior
5 11 (6.63%) Service Analyst
5 11 (6.63%) Service Desk Analyst
6 10 (6.02%) Lead
7 9 (5.42%) Cloud Engineer
7 9 (5.42%) Systems Administrator
8 8 (4.82%) Support Engineer
9 7 (4.22%) Data Analyst
10 6 (3.61%) Consultant
10 6 (3.61%) Desktop Support
10 6 (3.61%) Lead Developer
10 6 (3.61%) Senior Architect
10 6 (3.61%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (7.83%) .NET
2 9 (5.42%) REST
3 7 (4.22%) Node.js
4 4 (2.41%) Kafka
4 4 (2.41%) React
5 3 (1.81%) Middleware
5 3 (1.81%) OAuth
5 3 (1.81%) OAuth2
5 3 (1.81%) OpenID
5 3 (1.81%) Plotly
5 3 (1.81%) RabbitMQ
5 3 (1.81%) SAML
6 2 (1.20%) Lightning Web Components
6 2 (1.20%) SOAP
6 2 (1.20%) Software Packaging
7 1 (0.60%) HTML
7 1 (0.60%) ISPF
7 1 (0.60%) J2EE
7 1 (0.60%) Web Services
7 1 (0.60%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 9 (5.42%) Cloud Native
2 6 (3.61%) Product Ownership
3 5 (3.01%) Distributed Systems
3 5 (3.01%) Management Information System
3 5 (3.01%) Onboarding
4 4 (2.41%) Driving Licence
4 4 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (1.81%) Data Structures
5 3 (1.81%) Hybrid Cloud
5 3 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (1.20%) Low-Code
6 2 (1.20%) Security Posture
6 2 (1.20%) Smartphone
7 1 (0.60%) Clustering
7 1 (0.60%) CMDB
7 1 (0.60%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.60%) Device Driver
7 1 (0.60%) Mainframe
7 1 (0.60%) Replication
7 1 (0.60%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 45 (27.11%) Windows
2 17 (10.24%) Windows 10
3 9 (5.42%) Windows Server
4 5 (3.01%) Linux
5 3 (1.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (1.20%) Apple iOS
6 2 (1.20%) CentOS
6 2 (1.20%) Windows 7
6 2 (1.20%) Windows 8
7 1 (0.60%) Data ONTAP
7 1 (0.60%) MVS
7 1 (0.60%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.60%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.60%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 42 (25.30%) Problem-Solving
2 28 (16.87%) CI/CD
3 26 (15.66%) DevOps
4 21 (12.65%) Continuous Improvement
4 21 (12.65%) Customer Service
5 18 (10.84%) Stakeholder Management
6 16 (9.64%) Infrastructure as Code
7 15 (9.04%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 14 (8.43%) Data Modelling
9 13 (7.83%) Agile
9 13 (7.83%) Asset Management
9 13 (7.83%) Decision-Making
9 13 (7.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 12 (7.23%) Business Intelligence
10 12 (7.23%) CRM
11 11 (6.63%) Validation
11 11 (6.63%) Visualisation
12 10 (6.02%) Migration
13 9 (5.42%) AI
13 9 (5.42%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 17 (10.24%) C#
2 14 (8.43%) SQL
3 11 (6.63%) PowerShell
4 8 (4.82%) JavaScript
5 5 (3.01%) Bicep
5 5 (3.01%) Python
6 4 (2.41%) Kusto Query Language
7 3 (1.81%) MATLAB
7 3 (1.81%) Rust
8 2 (1.20%) Apex Code
8 2 (1.20%) SOQL
8 2 (1.20%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.60%) Java
9 1 (0.60%) JCL
9 1 (0.60%) REXX
9 1 (0.60%) SOSL
9 1 (0.60%) VBA
Qualifications
1 19 (11.45%) Security Cleared
2 12 (7.23%) SC Cleared
3 11 (6.63%) Degree
4 6 (3.61%) Microsoft Certification
5 5 (3.01%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (1.81%) Azure Certification
6 3 (1.81%) CISM
6 3 (1.81%) CISSP
6 3 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (1.20%) Master's Degree
7 2 (1.20%) MCSA
7 2 (1.20%) MCSE
7 2 (1.20%) Oracle Certification
8 1 (0.60%) CompTIA Security+
8 1 (0.60%) CREST Certified
8 1 (0.60%) CRISC
8 1 (0.60%) ECSA
8 1 (0.60%) IIBA
8 1 (0.60%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 1 (0.60%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (3.01%) GDPR
1 5 (3.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (2.41%) NIST
2 4 (2.41%) PCI DSS
2 4 (2.41%) PMO
2 4 (2.41%) SLA
3 3 (1.81%) Data Quality
3 3 (1.81%) GRC
3 3 (1.81%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
3 3 (1.81%) QA
3 3 (1.81%) SOC 2
4 1 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 1 (0.60%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 40 (24.10%) Active Directory
2 7 (4.22%) Docker
3 4 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (1.20%) Firmware
4 2 (1.20%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.20%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.60%) BitLocker
5 1 (0.60%) Job Entry Subsystem
5 1 (0.60%) NFS
5 1 (0.60%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 15 (9.04%) Microsoft Intune
1 15 (9.04%) Terraform
2 10 (6.02%) SCCM
3 8 (4.82%) Kubernetes
4 4 (2.41%) Ansible
4 4 (2.41%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (1.81%) VxRail
6 2 (1.20%) SCOM
7 1 (0.60%) Control-M
7 1 (0.60%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.60%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 11 (6.63%) SAP
2 9 (5.42%) Oracle
2 9 (5.42%) Salesforce
3 5 (3.01%) Databricks
3 5 (3.01%) ServiceNow
4 4 (2.41%) HP
4 4 (2.41%) Splunk
4 4 (2.41%) VMware
5 3 (1.81%) Apple
5 3 (1.81%) MuleSoft
6 2 (1.20%) Adobe
6 2 (1.20%) CyberArk
6 2 (1.20%) NetApp
6 2 (1.20%) Samsung
6 2 (1.20%) SolarWinds
7 1 (0.60%) BMC
7 1 (0.60%) Citrix
7 1 (0.60%) Dell
7 1 (0.60%) Intel
7 1 (0.60%) Sage