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 30 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
30 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 5 6
Rank change year-on-year -1 +1 -5
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 141 74 99
As % of all contract jobs in the East Midlands 13.97% 14.48% 12.98%
As % of the Vendors category 30.72% 31.90% 31.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 103 57 62
10th Percentile £131 £152 £154
25th Percentile £205 £200 £194
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £380 £410 £438
Median % change year-on-year -7.32% -6.29% +20.69%
75th Percentile £475 £525 £620
90th Percentile £550 £545 £686
England median daily rate £492 £477 £488
% change year-on-year +3.14% -2.15% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 4 18
10th Percentile £12.94 £13.57 £12.75
25th Percentile - £14.55 £14.00
Median hourly rate £13.25 £16.93 £14.27
Median % change year-on-year -21.73% +18.62% -7.94%
75th Percentile £23.50 £20.11 £19.69
90th Percentile £25.36 £21.84 £26.50
England median hourly rate £19.91 £22.39 £15.58
% change year-on-year -11.06% +43.72% -25.83%

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 459 232 317
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East Midlands 45.49% 45.40% 41.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 293 165 201
10th Percentile £190 £200 £166
25th Percentile £358 £341 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% -5.26% +6.74%
75th Percentile £550 £537 £600
90th Percentile £635 £620 £664
England median daily rate £500 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -4.76% +1.94% -4.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 12 25
10th Percentile £12.95 £13.76 £10.90
25th Percentile £14.96 £13.81 £12.28
Median hourly rate £16.35 £14.80 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.51% +5.68% -25.33%
75th Percentile £24.49 £20.11 £16.63
90th Percentile £36.68 £30.88 £25.39
England median hourly rate £25.38 £29.07 £24.00
% change year-on-year -12.69% +21.13% -31.43%

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 30 March 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 30 March 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 30 March 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
Northamptonshire -1 45 £425 -5.56% 57
Nottinghamshire -1 43 £220 -46.34% 34
Leicestershire +5 28 £131 -47.53% 46
Derbyshire -9 14 £425 +112.50% 32
Lincolnshire -9 9 £588 +250.75% 33
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 21 (14.89%) SharePoint
2 18 (12.77%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (3.55%) Confluence
4 2 (1.42%) Apache Superset
4 2 (1.42%) CMS
5 1 (0.71%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.71%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.71%) Exchange Server 2010
5 1 (0.71%) IIS
5 1 (0.71%) Tomcat
Applications
1 16 (11.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (10.64%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (6.38%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (3.55%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (3.55%) MS Visio
5 4 (2.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (2.84%) Dynamics AX
2 2 (1.42%) Maximo
3 1 (0.71%) assyst
3 1 (0.71%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 42 (29.79%) Microsoft 365
2 38 (26.95%) Azure
3 20 (14.18%) Entra ID
4 16 (11.35%) Power Platform
5 11 (7.80%) PowerApps
6 10 (7.09%) AWS
7 9 (6.38%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (5.67%) GCP
9 6 (4.26%) Microsoft Purview
10 5 (3.55%) Azure Monitor
10 5 (3.55%) Dynamics 365
10 5 (3.55%) Power Automate
11 4 (2.84%) Azure Service Bus
11 4 (2.84%) Serverless
12 3 (2.13%) Amazon GuardDuty
12 3 (2.13%) AWS CloudFormation
12 3 (2.13%) Azure Functions
12 3 (2.13%) IaaS
12 3 (2.13%) OneDrive
12 3 (2.13%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 6 (4.26%) Network Security
2 5 (3.55%) DNS
3 4 (2.84%) Firewall
3 4 (2.84%) VLAN
4 3 (2.13%) DHCP
4 3 (2.13%) Reverse Proxy
5 2 (1.42%) VPN
6 1 (0.71%) Unified Communications
6 1 (0.71%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (3.55%) PostgreSQL
1 5 (3.55%) Power BI
2 4 (2.84%) SQL Server
2 4 (2.84%) Tableau
3 3 (2.13%) Azure SQL Database
3 3 (2.13%) Relational Database
4 2 (1.42%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (1.42%) EDMS
4 2 (1.42%) Electronic Patient Records
4 2 (1.42%) Metabase
4 2 (1.42%) Parquet
5 1 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
5 1 (0.71%) Big Data
5 1 (0.71%) Data Lake
5 1 (0.71%) Metadata
5 1 (0.71%) MongoDB
5 1 (0.71%) MySQL
5 1 (0.71%) Power Query
5 1 (0.71%) RDBMS
5 1 (0.71%) VLDB
Development Applications
1 8 (5.67%) JIRA
2 7 (4.96%) Git
General
1 42 (29.79%) Social Skills
2 23 (16.31%) Finance
3 13 (9.22%) Analytical Skills
4 8 (5.67%) Law
5 6 (4.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 4 (2.84%) Banking
7 3 (2.13%) Legal
7 3 (2.13%) Public Sector
8 2 (1.42%) Aerospace
8 2 (1.42%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.42%) Marketing
9 1 (0.71%) Billing
9 1 (0.71%) Corporate Banking
9 1 (0.71%) Digital Healthcare
9 1 (0.71%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.71%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.71%) Retail
9 1 (0.71%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 31 (21.99%) Analyst
2 19 (13.48%) Desktop Support
3 15 (10.64%) Architect
3 15 (10.64%) Developer
4 13 (9.22%) Service Analyst
4 13 (9.22%) Service Desk Analyst
5 12 (8.51%) Senior
6 10 (7.09%) Administrator
7 9 (6.38%) IT Support
8 8 (5.67%) Power Platform Developer
8 8 (5.67%) Support Engineer
9 7 (4.96%) Desktop Support Technician
9 7 (4.96%) Desktop Technician
9 7 (4.96%) Support Technician
10 6 (4.26%) Business Analyst
10 6 (4.26%) Desktop Engineer
10 6 (4.26%) Desktop Support Engineer
10 6 (4.26%) Lead
10 6 (4.26%) Systems Administrator
11 5 (3.55%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (6.38%) REST
2 5 (3.55%) .NET
3 4 (2.84%) HTML
4 3 (2.13%) ASP.NET
4 3 (2.13%) CSS
4 3 (2.13%) Middleware
4 3 (2.13%) OAuth
4 3 (2.13%) OAuth2
4 3 (2.13%) OpenID
4 3 (2.13%) RESTful
4 3 (2.13%) SAML
5 2 (1.42%) .NET Framework
5 2 (1.42%) AngularJS
5 2 (1.42%) ASP.NET MVC
5 2 (1.42%) FHIR
5 2 (1.42%) Kafka
5 2 (1.42%) Lightning Web Components
5 2 (1.42%) Node.js
5 2 (1.42%) React
5 2 (1.42%) Visualforce
Miscellaneous
1 13 (9.22%) Smartphone
2 10 (7.09%) Product Ownership
3 8 (5.67%) Cloud Native
4 5 (3.55%) Data Structures
4 5 (3.55%) Management Information System
4 5 (3.55%) Onboarding
5 3 (2.13%) Driving Licence
5 3 (2.13%) e-Learning
5 3 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (2.13%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (2.13%) Web Conferencing
6 2 (1.42%) Mobile App
6 2 (1.42%) NHS
6 2 (1.42%) Operational Technology
6 2 (1.42%) PMI
7 1 (0.71%) Data Fabric
7 1 (0.71%) Distributed Systems
7 1 (0.71%) Replication
7 1 (0.71%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 50 (35.46%) Windows
2 28 (19.86%) Windows 10
3 8 (5.67%) Apple iOS
4 4 (2.84%) Windows 7
4 4 (2.84%) Windows 8
4 4 (2.84%) Windows Server
5 2 (1.42%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.71%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.71%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (26.95%) Problem-Solving
2 31 (21.99%) Customer Service
3 26 (18.44%) Stakeholder Management
4 25 (17.73%) Migration
5 22 (15.60%) DevOps
6 21 (14.89%) Continuous Improvement
7 19 (13.48%) CI/CD
8 14 (9.93%) Infrastructure as Code
9 13 (9.22%) Change Management
10 12 (8.51%) Data Migration
11 11 (7.80%) Analytics
11 11 (7.80%) Digital Strategy
11 11 (7.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 10 (7.09%) Agile
12 10 (7.09%) Collaborative Working
13 9 (6.38%) BCP
13 9 (6.38%) Project Delivery
14 8 (5.67%) Asset Management
14 8 (5.67%) Disaster Recovery
15 7 (4.96%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 15 (10.64%) SQL
2 11 (7.80%) PowerShell
3 10 (7.09%) C#
4 8 (5.67%) Python
5 5 (3.55%) Bicep
6 4 (2.84%) Bash
6 4 (2.84%) JavaScript
7 3 (2.13%) R
8 2 (1.42%) Apex Code
8 2 (1.42%) MATLAB
8 2 (1.42%) Rust
8 2 (1.42%) TypeScript
8 2 (1.42%) VBA
9 1 (0.71%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.71%) Java
9 1 (0.71%) SOQL
9 1 (0.71%) Swift
9 1 (0.71%) T-SQL
9 1 (0.71%) X++
Qualifications
1 7 (4.96%) Microsoft Certification
2 6 (4.26%) Degree
2 6 (4.26%) Security Cleared
3 4 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
4 3 (2.13%) SC Cleared
5 2 (1.42%) Azure Certification
5 2 (1.42%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (1.42%) DV Cleared
5 2 (1.42%) PMI Certification
5 2 (1.42%) PMP
6 1 (0.71%) AAT
6 1 (0.71%) ACCA
6 1 (0.71%) CBAP
6 1 (0.71%) CIMA
6 1 (0.71%) IIBA
6 1 (0.71%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.71%) MBA
6 1 (0.71%) SAFe Agilist
6 1 (0.71%) VCAP
6 1 (0.71%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (7.09%) GDPR
2 5 (3.55%) GRC
2 5 (3.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (3.55%) PCI DSS
3 4 (2.84%) SLA
4 3 (2.13%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 3 (2.13%) NIST
4 3 (2.13%) QA
4 3 (2.13%) SOC 2
5 2 (1.42%) Data Quality
5 2 (1.42%) PMO
6 1 (0.71%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.71%) Basel III
6 1 (0.71%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (0.71%) HL7
6 1 (0.71%) ISO 8583
6 1 (0.71%) PSD2
System Software
1 45 (31.91%) Active Directory
2 5 (3.55%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (2.13%) Docker
3 3 (2.13%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.71%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.71%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 23 (16.31%) SCCM
2 19 (13.48%) Microsoft Intune
3 14 (9.93%) Terraform
4 6 (4.26%) Kubernetes
5 3 (2.13%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.42%) Ansible
6 2 (1.42%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 5 (3.55%) HP
1 5 (3.55%) VMware
2 4 (2.84%) Google
2 4 (2.84%) Salesforce
2 4 (2.84%) Tenable
3 3 (2.13%) Citrix
3 3 (2.13%) Databricks
3 3 (2.13%) Dynatrace
3 3 (2.13%) iManage
3 3 (2.13%) ServiceNow
3 3 (2.13%) Splunk
4 2 (1.42%) Oracle
4 2 (1.42%) SAP
5 1 (0.71%) Adobe
5 1 (0.71%) Apple
5 1 (0.71%) Informatica
5 1 (0.71%) Intel
5 1 (0.71%) NetApp
5 1 (0.71%) Remedy
5 1 (0.71%) Sage