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 22 September 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
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 4 5
Rank change year-on-year +2 +1 -4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 208 141 106
As % of all contract jobs in the East Midlands 15.64% 17.78% 13.47%
As % of the Vendors category 39.47% 40.87% 30.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 100 92 58
10th Percentile £133 £189 £182
25th Percentile £260 £260 £267
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £365 £383
Median % change year-on-year +16.52% -4.83% -14.83%
75th Percentile £537 £452 £475
90th Percentile £581 £525 £664
England median daily rate £490 £472 £500
% change year-on-year +3.87% -5.65% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 12 17
10th Percentile £12.83 £16.57 £12.75
25th Percentile £13.31 £23.49 £13.52
Median hourly rate £17.97 £25.15 £16.63
Median % change year-on-year -28.55% +51.23% +26.37%
75th Percentile £25.75 - £17.00
90th Percentile £33.75 - £33.09
England median hourly rate £19.03 £22.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year -15.91% +39.43% -27.87%

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 527 345 351
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East Midlands 39.62% 43.51% 44.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 248 232 212
10th Percentile £221 £213 £263
25th Percentile £375 £331 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £420 £500
Median % change year-on-year +19.05% -16.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £525 £588
90th Percentile £656 £644 £638
England median daily rate £513 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 95 25 18
10th Percentile £13.31 £14.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £14.53 £18.50 £13.80
Median hourly rate £17.87 £21.30 £16.82
Median % change year-on-year -16.10% +26.67% -15.93%
75th Percentile £25.75 £25.15 £17.00
90th Percentile £57.50 - £46.36
England median hourly rate £29.00 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +15.31% -28.14% -20.27%

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 22 September 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 22 September 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 22 September 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 +2 50 £525 +28.05% 67
Northamptonshire +7 41 £375 -1.32% 84
Nottinghamshire -1 41 £423 +3.23% 94
Leicestershire -1 39 £275 +10.00% 82
Lincolnshire +1 31 £425 -19.43% 75
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 (7.21%) SharePoint
2 13 (6.25%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.92%) Oracle Workflow
4 3 (1.44%) Confluence
5 2 (0.96%) Apache Superset
6 1 (0.48%) CMS
6 1 (0.48%) SAS
Applications
1 41 (19.71%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (16.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (2.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (1.44%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.48%) FrameMaker
5 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.48%) Trello
Business Applications
1 6 (2.88%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (1.44%) SAP CRM
2 3 (1.44%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.96%) Dynamics NAV
4 1 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.48%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 67 (32.21%) Azure
2 46 (22.12%) Microsoft 365
3 28 (13.46%) Entra ID
4 27 (12.98%) Power Platform
5 14 (6.73%) Dynamics 365
6 12 (5.77%) Power Automate
7 11 (5.29%) Azure DevOps
7 11 (5.29%) Microsoft Copilot
8 6 (2.88%) AWS
8 6 (2.88%) Azure AKS
9 5 (2.40%) Azure Service Bus
9 5 (2.40%) PowerApps
9 5 (2.40%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
10 4 (1.92%) Azure Data Factory
10 4 (1.92%) GCP
10 4 (1.92%) GitHub
11 3 (1.44%) Algolia
11 3 (1.44%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (1.44%) Azure Logic Apps
11 3 (1.44%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 10 (4.81%) DHCP
1 10 (4.81%) DNS
1 10 (4.81%) VPN
2 8 (3.85%) Firewall
2 8 (3.85%) Network Security
3 6 (2.88%) LAN
3 6 (2.88%) WAN
4 5 (2.40%) SAN
4 5 (2.40%) VLAN
5 4 (1.92%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.48%) BGP
6 1 (0.48%) Ethernet
6 1 (0.48%) IPsec
6 1 (0.48%) OSPF
6 1 (0.48%) Remote Desktop
6 1 (0.48%) Reverse Proxy
6 1 (0.48%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (10.10%) Power BI
2 11 (5.29%) SQL Server
3 4 (1.92%) Azure SQL Database
3 4 (1.92%) PostgreSQL
3 4 (1.92%) Power Query
4 3 (1.44%) Data Lake
4 3 (1.44%) Metadata
5 2 (0.96%) Metabase
5 2 (0.96%) Parquet
5 2 (0.96%) Relational Database
5 2 (0.96%) Star Schema
6 1 (0.48%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.48%) Big Data
6 1 (0.48%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.48%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.48%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.48%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 5 (2.40%) JIRA
2 4 (1.92%) Oracle Forms
3 2 (0.96%) Git
3 2 (0.96%) GitLab
General
1 92 (44.23%) Social Skills
2 31 (14.90%) Organisational Skills
3 30 (14.42%) Analytical Skills
4 23 (11.06%) Finance
5 15 (7.21%) Manufacturing
6 14 (6.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 14 (6.73%) Public Sector
7 13 (6.25%) Retail
8 8 (3.85%) Law
8 8 (3.85%) Police
9 6 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
10 5 (2.40%) Automotive
10 5 (2.40%) Banking
11 3 (1.44%) Electronics
12 2 (0.96%) Aerospace
12 2 (0.96%) Fire and Rescue
13 1 (0.48%) Agriculture
13 1 (0.48%) Billing
13 1 (0.48%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.48%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 29 (13.94%) Analyst
2 28 (13.46%) Developer
3 20 (9.62%) Administrator
4 18 (8.65%) Architect
5 13 (6.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 11 (5.29%) .NET Developer
6 11 (5.29%) Consultant
6 11 (5.29%) Data Analyst
6 11 (5.29%) Senior
7 9 (4.33%) Coordinator
7 9 (4.33%) IT Engineer
7 9 (4.33%) Lead
7 9 (4.33%) Solutions Architect
8 8 (3.85%) IT Support
8 8 (3.85%) Support Engineer
9 7 (3.37%) Cloud Engineer
9 7 (3.37%) Windows Engineer
10 6 (2.88%) Azure Developer
10 6 (2.88%) Deployment Engineer
10 6 (2.88%) Lead Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (7.21%) .NET
2 9 (4.33%) Terraform
3 6 (2.88%) REST
4 5 (2.40%) Node.js
4 5 (2.40%) React
5 4 (1.92%) Oracle Fusion
6 3 (1.44%) Kafka
6 3 (1.44%) RabbitMQ
6 3 (1.44%) XML
7 2 (0.96%) ARM Templates
7 2 (0.96%) OAuth
7 2 (0.96%) Plotly
7 2 (0.96%) Software Packaging
8 1 (0.48%) ASP.NET
8 1 (0.48%) CSS
8 1 (0.48%) ISPF
8 1 (0.48%) Middleware
8 1 (0.48%) OpenID
8 1 (0.48%) SOAP
8 1 (0.48%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 14 (6.73%) Management Information System
2 13 (6.25%) Driving Licence
3 9 (4.33%) CMDB
4 6 (2.88%) Hybrid Cloud
4 6 (2.88%) Onboarding
5 5 (2.40%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (1.92%) Cloud Native
6 4 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
6 4 (1.92%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (1.44%) Data Structures
7 3 (1.44%) SCADA
7 3 (1.44%) Security Posture
7 3 (1.44%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (0.96%) AI Agents
8 2 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (0.96%) Freedom of Information
8 2 (0.96%) Freedom of Information Act
8 2 (0.96%) Low-Code
8 2 (0.96%) Public Cloud
8 2 (0.96%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 52 (25.00%) Windows
2 19 (9.13%) Windows 10
3 14 (6.73%) Windows Server
4 5 (2.40%) Linux
5 3 (1.44%) Apple iOS
5 3 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.96%) CentOS
7 1 (0.48%) Android
7 1 (0.48%) MVS
7 1 (0.48%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.48%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.48%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (26.92%) Problem-Solving
2 33 (15.87%) Migration
3 31 (14.90%) Continuous Improvement
4 24 (11.54%) Decision-Making
5 21 (10.10%) Business Intelligence
6 20 (9.62%) CRM
7 19 (9.13%) Customer Service
7 19 (9.13%) ERP
7 19 (9.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 19 (9.13%) Stakeholder Management
8 18 (8.65%) CI/CD
8 18 (8.65%) DevOps
9 16 (7.69%) AI
9 16 (7.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 15 (7.21%) Data Modelling
11 14 (6.73%) Visualisation
12 13 (6.25%) Asset Management
12 13 (6.25%) Process Improvement
13 12 (5.77%) Logistics
13 12 (5.77%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 15 (7.21%) SQL
2 13 (6.25%) C#
3 8 (3.85%) JavaScript
3 8 (3.85%) PowerShell
4 6 (2.88%) Python
5 4 (1.92%) Kusto Query Language
6 2 (0.96%) ABAP
6 2 (0.96%) Bicep
6 2 (0.96%) MATLAB
6 2 (0.96%) Rust
7 1 (0.48%) Apex Code
7 1 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 1 (0.48%) JCL
7 1 (0.48%) R
7 1 (0.48%) REXX
7 1 (0.48%) SOQL
7 1 (0.48%) SOSL
7 1 (0.48%) TypeScript
7 1 (0.48%) X++
Qualifications
1 38 (18.27%) Security Cleared
2 30 (14.42%) SC Cleared
3 13 (6.25%) Degree
4 5 (2.40%) Microsoft Certification
5 4 (1.92%) CISM
5 4 (1.92%) CISSP
5 4 (1.92%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.44%) ACCA
6 3 (1.44%) CIMA
6 3 (1.44%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.96%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.96%) CRISC
7 2 (0.96%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
7 2 (0.96%) MCSA
7 2 (0.96%) MCSE
7 2 (0.96%) Oracle Certification
8 1 (0.48%) CEH
8 1 (0.48%) CIPD
8 1 (0.48%) Network+ Certification
8 1 (0.48%) NVQ Level 3
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (5.77%) Data Quality
2 7 (3.37%) QA
3 3 (1.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (1.44%) PMO
4 2 (0.96%) GDPR
4 2 (0.96%) NIST
4 2 (0.96%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.48%) ISO 22301
5 1 (0.48%) SLA
System Software
1 43 (20.67%) Active Directory
2 7 (3.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (2.88%) Docker
4 2 (0.96%) Firmware
4 2 (0.96%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.48%) BitLocker
5 1 (0.48%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.48%) Job Entry Subsystem
5 1 (0.48%) NFS
5 1 (0.48%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 22 (10.58%) Microsoft Intune
2 15 (7.21%) SCCM
3 4 (1.92%) Kubernetes
4 3 (1.44%) VxRail
5 2 (0.96%) Ansible
5 2 (0.96%) SCOM
5 2 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.48%) Control-M
6 1 (0.48%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.48%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 21 (10.10%) SAP
2 12 (5.77%) Oracle
3 8 (3.85%) Salesforce
4 7 (3.37%) VMware
5 6 (2.88%) Apple
6 5 (2.40%) Databricks
7 4 (1.92%) Aruba
8 3 (1.44%) AVEVA
8 3 (1.44%) CheckPoint
8 3 (1.44%) MuleSoft
8 3 (1.44%) Sage
8 3 (1.44%) Samsung
8 3 (1.44%) ServiceNow
9 2 (0.96%) CyberArk
9 2 (0.96%) Google
9 2 (0.96%) SolarWinds
10 1 (0.48%) Autodesk
10 1 (0.48%) Fortinet
10 1 (0.48%) NEC
10 1 (0.48%) Planview