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 6 April 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
6 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 5 6
Rank change year-on-year -1 +1 -5
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 144 71 95
As % of all contract jobs in the East Midlands 14.08% 14.03% 12.42%
As % of the Vendors category 30.90% 31.42% 30.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 104 53 57
10th Percentile £131 £177 £152
25th Percentile £204 £200 £188
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £377 £425 £425
Median % change year-on-year -11.35% - +13.33%
75th Percentile £475 £525 £620
90th Percentile £547 £545 £688
England median daily rate £492 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +3.58% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 4 19
10th Percentile £12.94 £13.57 £12.75
25th Percentile £13.25 £14.55 £14.00
Median hourly rate £14.88 £16.93 £14.27
Median % change year-on-year -12.13% +18.62% -7.94%
75th Percentile £24.09 £20.11 £19.38
90th Percentile £26.76 £21.84 £26.50
England median hourly rate £20.09 £21.78 £15.00
% change year-on-year -7.74% +45.17% -31.03%

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 466 226 314
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East Midlands 45.55% 44.66% 41.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 295 158 198
10th Percentile £190 £223 £166
25th Percentile £355 £330 £356
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £436 £450 £481
Median % change year-on-year -3.11% -6.35% +6.78%
75th Percentile £540 £538 £600
90th Percentile £625 £627 £663
England median daily rate £500 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -4.76% +1.94% -4.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 12 26
10th Percentile £12.95 £13.76 £10.90
25th Percentile £14.96 £13.81 £12.40
Median hourly rate £16.35 £14.80 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.51% +5.68% -25.33%
75th Percentile £25.00 £20.11 £16.29
90th Percentile £70.00 £30.88 £25.11
England median hourly rate £26.61 £29.00 £22.79
% change year-on-year -8.26% +27.25% -40.03%

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 6 April 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 6 April 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 6 April 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 +2 46 £424 -10.68% 57
Nottinghamshire +1 45 £220 -50.28% 34
Leicestershire +4 28 £131 -47.53% 46
Derbyshire -7 17 £425 +112.50% 32
Lincolnshire -14 6 £425 +136.11% 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 (14.58%) SharePoint
2 18 (12.50%) Microsoft Exchange
3 5 (3.47%) Confluence
4 3 (2.08%) Apache Superset
5 2 (1.39%) CMS
6 1 (0.69%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.69%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.69%) Exchange Server 2010
6 1 (0.69%) IIS
6 1 (0.69%) Tomcat
Applications
1 16 (11.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (10.42%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (6.25%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (3.47%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (3.47%) MS Visio
5 4 (2.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.69%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 2 (1.39%) Maximo
2 1 (0.69%) assyst
2 1 (0.69%) Dynamics AX
2 1 (0.69%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.69%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 43 (29.86%) Microsoft 365
2 40 (27.78%) Azure
3 21 (14.58%) Entra ID
4 17 (11.81%) Power Platform
5 10 (6.94%) AWS
5 10 (6.94%) PowerApps
6 9 (6.25%) Azure DevOps
7 8 (5.56%) GCP
8 6 (4.17%) Microsoft Purview
9 4 (2.78%) Power Automate
10 3 (2.08%) Amazon GuardDuty
10 3 (2.08%) AWS CloudFormation
10 3 (2.08%) Azure AKS
10 3 (2.08%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 3 (2.08%) Azure Monitor
10 3 (2.08%) Azure Service Bus
10 3 (2.08%) IaaS
10 3 (2.08%) OneDrive
10 3 (2.08%) PaaS
10 3 (2.08%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 7 (4.86%) Network Security
2 5 (3.47%) DNS
2 5 (3.47%) Firewall
2 5 (3.47%) VLAN
3 3 (2.08%) DHCP
3 3 (2.08%) Reverse Proxy
4 2 (1.39%) VPN
5 1 (0.69%) Unified Communications
5 1 (0.69%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (4.86%) PostgreSQL
1 7 (4.86%) Power BI
2 5 (3.47%) SQL Server
3 4 (2.78%) Azure SQL Database
3 4 (2.78%) Relational Database
3 4 (2.78%) Tableau
4 3 (2.08%) Metabase
4 3 (2.08%) Parquet
5 2 (1.39%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (1.39%) EDMS
5 2 (1.39%) Electronic Patient Records
5 2 (1.39%) Metadata
5 2 (1.39%) Power Query
6 1 (0.69%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.69%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.69%) MySQL
6 1 (0.69%) RDBMS
6 1 (0.69%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.69%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 1 (0.69%) VLDB
Development Applications
1 8 (5.56%) JIRA
2 6 (4.17%) Git
General
1 46 (31.94%) Social Skills
2 21 (14.58%) Finance
3 14 (9.72%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (6.25%) Law
5 7 (4.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 4 (2.78%) Banking
7 3 (2.08%) Legal
7 3 (2.08%) Public Sector
8 2 (1.39%) Aerospace
8 2 (1.39%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.39%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.39%) Marketing
8 2 (1.39%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.69%) Billing
9 1 (0.69%) Corporate Banking
9 1 (0.69%) Digital Healthcare
9 1 (0.69%) Retail
9 1 (0.69%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 34 (23.61%) Analyst
2 19 (13.19%) Desktop Support
3 15 (10.42%) Architect
4 14 (9.72%) Developer
5 13 (9.03%) Service Analyst
5 13 (9.03%) Service Desk Analyst
6 12 (8.33%) Senior
7 10 (6.94%) Administrator
8 9 (6.25%) IT Support
9 8 (5.56%) Power Platform Developer
9 8 (5.56%) Support Engineer
10 7 (4.86%) Desktop Support Technician
10 7 (4.86%) Desktop Technician
10 7 (4.86%) Support Technician
11 6 (4.17%) Business Analyst
11 6 (4.17%) Desktop Engineer
11 6 (4.17%) Desktop Support Engineer
11 6 (4.17%) Systems Administrator
12 5 (3.47%) Data Analyst
12 5 (3.47%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (6.94%) REST
2 5 (3.47%) .NET
3 3 (2.08%) HTML
3 3 (2.08%) Middleware
3 3 (2.08%) OAuth
3 3 (2.08%) OAuth2
3 3 (2.08%) OpenID
3 3 (2.08%) Plotly
3 3 (2.08%) SAML
4 2 (1.39%) ASP.NET
4 2 (1.39%) CSS
4 2 (1.39%) FHIR
4 2 (1.39%) Kafka
4 2 (1.39%) Lightning Web Components
4 2 (1.39%) Node.js
4 2 (1.39%) RESTful
4 2 (1.39%) SOAP
4 2 (1.39%) Visualforce
5 1 (0.69%) Web Services
5 1 (0.69%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 13 (9.03%) Smartphone
2 10 (6.94%) Product Ownership
3 9 (6.25%) Cloud Native
4 5 (3.47%) Data Structures
4 5 (3.47%) Management Information System
4 5 (3.47%) Onboarding
5 4 (2.78%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (2.08%) Driving Licence
6 3 (2.08%) e-Learning
6 3 (2.08%) PMI
6 3 (2.08%) Web Conferencing
7 2 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
7 2 (1.39%) NHS
7 2 (1.39%) Operational Technology
8 1 (0.69%) Device Driver
8 1 (0.69%) Distributed Systems
8 1 (0.69%) Mobile App
8 1 (0.69%) Replication
8 1 (0.69%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 52 (36.11%) Windows
2 28 (19.44%) Windows 10
3 8 (5.56%) Apple iOS
4 4 (2.78%) Windows 7
4 4 (2.78%) Windows 8
4 4 (2.78%) Windows Server
5 2 (1.39%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.69%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.69%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (27.78%) Problem-Solving
2 31 (21.53%) Customer Service
3 25 (17.36%) Stakeholder Management
4 24 (16.67%) Migration
5 22 (15.28%) DevOps
6 21 (14.58%) CI/CD
6 21 (14.58%) Continuous Improvement
7 15 (10.42%) Infrastructure as Code
8 14 (9.72%) Change Management
9 11 (7.64%) Data Migration
9 11 (7.64%) Digital Strategy
10 10 (6.94%) Agile
10 10 (6.94%) Analytics
10 10 (6.94%) Collaborative Working
10 10 (6.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 9 (6.25%) Asset Management
11 9 (6.25%) Project Delivery
12 8 (5.56%) BCP
12 8 (5.56%) Incident Response
13 7 (4.86%) SOAR
Programming Languages
1 15 (10.42%) SQL
2 12 (8.33%) PowerShell
3 10 (6.94%) C#
4 8 (5.56%) Python
5 5 (3.47%) Bicep
6 3 (2.08%) Bash
6 3 (2.08%) JavaScript
6 3 (2.08%) MATLAB
6 3 (2.08%) R
6 3 (2.08%) Rust
7 2 (1.39%) Apex Code
7 2 (1.39%) TypeScript
7 2 (1.39%) VBA
8 1 (0.69%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.69%) Java
8 1 (0.69%) SOQL
8 1 (0.69%) Swift
Qualifications
1 7 (4.86%) Degree
1 7 (4.86%) Microsoft Certification
2 6 (4.17%) Security Cleared
3 4 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
3 4 (2.78%) SC Cleared
4 3 (2.08%) PMI Certification
5 2 (1.39%) Azure Certification
5 2 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (1.39%) DV Cleared
5 2 (1.39%) PMP
6 1 (0.69%) AAT
6 1 (0.69%) ACCA
6 1 (0.69%) CBAP
6 1 (0.69%) CIMA
6 1 (0.69%) IIBA
6 1 (0.69%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.69%) MBA
6 1 (0.69%) SAFe Agilist
6 1 (0.69%) VCAP
6 1 (0.69%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.94%) GDPR
2 5 (3.47%) GRC
2 5 (3.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 5 (3.47%) PCI DSS
3 4 (2.78%) QA
3 4 (2.78%) SLA
4 3 (2.08%) Data Quality
4 3 (2.08%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 3 (2.08%) NIST
4 3 (2.08%) SOC 2
5 2 (1.39%) PMO
6 1 (0.69%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.69%) Basel III
6 1 (0.69%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (0.69%) HL7
6 1 (0.69%) ISO 8583
6 1 (0.69%) PSD2
System Software
1 47 (32.64%) Active Directory
2 5 (3.47%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (2.08%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.39%) Docker
5 1 (0.69%) BitLocker
5 1 (0.69%) Firmware
5 1 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.69%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.69%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 24 (16.67%) SCCM
2 20 (13.89%) Microsoft Intune
3 15 (10.42%) Terraform
4 5 (3.47%) Kubernetes
5 3 (2.08%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (1.39%) Ansible
7 1 (0.69%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 6 (4.17%) HP
2 5 (3.47%) VMware
3 4 (2.78%) Databricks
3 4 (2.78%) Google
3 4 (2.78%) Salesforce
3 4 (2.78%) SAP
3 4 (2.78%) ServiceNow
3 4 (2.78%) Tenable
4 3 (2.08%) Citrix
4 3 (2.08%) Dynatrace
4 3 (2.08%) iManage
4 3 (2.08%) Splunk
5 2 (1.39%) Adobe
5 2 (1.39%) Oracle
6 1 (0.69%) Apple
6 1 (0.69%) Dell
6 1 (0.69%) Informatica
6 1 (0.69%) Intel
6 1 (0.69%) NetApp
6 1 (0.69%) Sage