Microsoft Contracts in England

Microsoft
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England 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 April 2025, 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 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 3,386 4,859 6,858
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 13.91% 13.05% 13.59%
As % of the Vendors category 29.32% 30.98% 32.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,275 3,223 5,039
10th Percentile £213 £189 £205
25th Percentile £350 £325 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £598 £629
90th Percentile £675 £700 £719
UK median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 198 422 188
10th Percentile £14.20 £11.06 £13.29
25th Percentile £15.62 £13.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £19.49 £15.00 £21.75
Median % change year-on-year +29.90% -31.03% +17.57%
75th Percentile £30.57 £25.00 £43.78
90th Percentile £58.10 £51.25 £64.65
UK median hourly rate £20.00 £15.42 £23.50
% change year-on-year +29.70% -34.38% +26.68%

All Vendors
England

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 England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 11,548 15,682 21,096
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 47.44% 42.13% 41.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,449 9,975 14,526
10th Percentile £287 £256 £270
25th Percentile £408 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £538
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -3.26% +2.38%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £515 £518 £525
% change year-on-year -0.48% -1.43% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 470 1,003 599
10th Percentile £14.84 £12.03 £15.19
25th Percentile £18.10 £14.27 £18.75
Median hourly rate £27.13 £22.50 £39.55
Median % change year-on-year +20.56% -43.11% +88.33%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.68 £64.50
90th Percentile £76.25 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £27.13 £22.15 £43.75
% change year-on-year +22.46% -49.37% +108.33%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing Microsoft as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Microsoft in England

Microsoft
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Microsoft in England.

Daily rate trend for Microsoft in England

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in England over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in England

Microsoft
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Microsoft in England.

Hourly rate trend for Microsoft in England

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in England over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in England

Microsoft
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft within the England region over the 6 months to 30 April 2025. 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
London -3 1,565 £500 - 1,755
North of England -2 513 £419 -1.53% 915
South East -1 453 £491 +5.48% 854
North West 0 351 £431 -4.17% 523
Midlands 0 284 £400 -5.88% 546
South West -1 254 £465 -7.00% 354
West Midlands +4 218 £400 -5.88% 341
East of England +3 194 £444 +4.11% 323
Yorkshire -3 113 £400 +5.96% 293
East Midlands 0 65 £425 +8.70% 201
North East 0 50 £350 +64.71% 110
Microsoft
UK

Microsoft
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 435 (12.85%) SharePoint
2 294 (8.68%) Microsoft Exchange
3 92 (2.72%) Confluence
4 34 (1.00%) Skype for Business
5 27 (0.80%) IIS
6 20 (0.59%) Apache Spark
6 20 (0.59%) CMS
7 14 (0.41%) Tomcat
8 13 (0.38%) Apache
9 10 (0.30%) Exchange Server 2013
10 8 (0.24%) Exchange Server 2010
10 8 (0.24%) SAS
11 7 (0.21%) Drupal
12 6 (0.18%) BizTalk Server
12 6 (0.18%) Mattermost
12 6 (0.18%) SharePoint Server
12 6 (0.18%) WebSphere
13 5 (0.15%) Anypoint
13 5 (0.15%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
13 5 (0.15%) JBoss
Applications
1 532 (15.71%) Microsoft Office
2 376 (11.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 195 (5.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 83 (2.45%) MS Visio
5 77 (2.27%) Microsoft Project
6 20 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
7 18 (0.53%) Chatbot
8 8 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.18%) InfoPath
10 5 (0.15%) AutoCAD
10 5 (0.15%) Trello
11 4 (0.12%) Acrobat
12 3 (0.089%) Camtasia
13 2 (0.059%) 1Password
13 2 (0.059%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.059%) CANalyzer
13 2 (0.059%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.030%) Adobe Premiere
14 1 (0.030%) CATIA
14 1 (0.030%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 124 (3.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 27 (0.80%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.32%) Kondor
4 10 (0.30%) Dynamics AX
5 8 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.18%) NetSuite
6 6 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
6 6 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
6 6 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
7 5 (0.15%) SAP ERP
7 5 (0.15%) SAP GRC
7 5 (0.15%) Shopify
7 5 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 4 (0.12%) CA PPM
8 4 (0.12%) Oracle Financials
8 4 (0.12%) Raiser’s Edge
8 4 (0.12%) SAP PS
9 3 (0.089%) Dynamics NAV
9 3 (0.089%) Finacle
9 3 (0.089%) SAP Retail
Cloud Services
1 1,201 (35.47%) Azure
2 868 (25.63%) Microsoft 365
3 444 (13.11%) Power Platform
4 394 (11.64%) Entra ID
5 256 (7.56%) AWS
6 228 (6.73%) Dynamics 365
7 187 (5.52%) PowerApps
8 183 (5.40%) Power Automate
9 174 (5.14%) Azure DevOps
10 133 (3.93%) OneDrive
11 115 (3.40%) SaaS
12 105 (3.10%) IaaS
13 99 (2.92%) GCP
14 94 (2.78%) Serverless
15 90 (2.66%) PaaS
16 83 (2.45%) Microsoft Purview
17 79 (2.33%) Azure Data Factory
18 67 (1.98%) Azure Sentinel
19 59 (1.74%) Azure Logic Apps
20 54 (1.59%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 252 (7.44%) Firewall
2 204 (6.02%) DNS
3 201 (5.94%) VPN
4 126 (3.72%) DHCP
5 109 (3.22%) Wi-Fi
6 100 (2.95%) WAN
7 95 (2.81%) Network Security
8 92 (2.72%) LAN
9 78 (2.30%) TCP/IP
10 53 (1.57%) SAN
11 47 (1.39%) Skype
12 45 (1.33%) VLAN
13 37 (1.09%) MPLS
14 35 (1.03%) Remote Desktop
15 33 (0.97%) Wireless
16 32 (0.95%) SMTP
17 30 (0.89%) Internet
18 26 (0.77%) SSL
18 26 (0.77%) WebEx
19 25 (0.74%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 258 (7.62%) Power BI
2 230 (6.79%) SQL Server
3 82 (2.42%) Data Warehouse
4 60 (1.77%) Data Lake
5 54 (1.59%) Big Data
5 54 (1.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 50 (1.48%) Relational Database
7 49 (1.45%) Azure SQL Database
8 46 (1.36%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 44 (1.30%) Tableau
10 43 (1.27%) NoSQL
11 40 (1.18%) Metadata
12 34 (1.00%) PostgreSQL
13 24 (0.71%) Power Query
14 23 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
15 21 (0.62%) MS Access
16 20 (0.59%) Oracle Database
17 19 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
18 18 (0.53%) MySQL
19 17 (0.50%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 177 (5.23%) JIRA
2 79 (2.33%) Git
3 45 (1.33%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.18%) Visual Studio
5 30 (0.89%) GitLab
6 17 (0.50%) Postman
7 14 (0.41%) ERwin
8 13 (0.38%) MSI
8 13 (0.38%) Selenium
9 12 (0.35%) Bitbucket
9 12 (0.35%) Visual Studio Code
10 10 (0.30%) PowerDesigner
11 9 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
11 9 (0.27%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 8 (0.24%) Eclipse
12 8 (0.24%) Hudson
12 8 (0.24%) Maven
12 8 (0.24%) SonarQube
13 7 (0.21%) LoadRunner
14 6 (0.18%) JUnit
General
1 1,283 (37.89%) Social Skills
2 669 (19.76%) Finance
3 409 (12.08%) Analytical Skills
4 334 (9.86%) Public Sector
5 188 (5.55%) Banking
6 126 (3.72%) Telecoms
7 114 (3.37%) Legal
8 105 (3.10%) Organisational Skills
9 97 (2.86%) Marketing
10 95 (2.81%) Presentation Skills
11 87 (2.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 82 (2.42%) Manufacturing
13 74 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
14 71 (2.10%) Retail
15 53 (1.57%) Local Government
16 38 (1.12%) Law
17 37 (1.09%) Military
18 35 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
19 29 (0.86%) Influencing Skills
20 28 (0.83%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 466 (13.76%) Analyst
2 386 (11.40%) Architect
3 312 (9.21%) Developer
4 274 (8.09%) Support Engineer
5 229 (6.76%) Senior
6 175 (5.17%) Consultant
7 174 (5.14%) Lead
8 145 (4.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 138 (4.08%) IT Support
10 125 (3.69%) Solutions Architect
11 117 (3.46%) Desktop Support
12 112 (3.31%) Desktop Engineer
13 110 (3.25%) IT Engineer
13 110 (3.25%) Service Analyst
14 109 (3.22%) Project Manager
15 95 (2.81%) Business Analyst
16 92 (2.72%) Service Desk Analyst
17 88 (2.60%) Azure Engineer
17 88 (2.60%) Support Analyst
18 85 (2.51%) Desktop Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 172 (5.08%) .NET
2 99 (2.92%) HTML
3 87 (2.57%) CSS
4 62 (1.83%) REST
5 53 (1.57%) .NET Framework
5 53 (1.57%) React
5 53 (1.57%) Web Services
6 41 (1.21%) SOAP
7 38 (1.12%) OAuth
8 37 (1.09%) JSON
9 34 (1.00%) .NET Core
10 33 (0.97%) ASP.NET
10 33 (0.97%) SailPoint
11 32 (0.95%) RESTful
12 31 (0.92%) XML
13 30 (0.89%) Middleware
13 30 (0.89%) SAML
14 29 (0.86%) AngularJS
15 24 (0.71%) ARM Templates
16 22 (0.65%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 123 (3.63%) Management Information System
2 98 (2.89%) Onboarding
3 88 (2.60%) Self-Motivation
4 81 (2.39%) Product Ownership
5 79 (2.33%) PKI
6 66 (1.95%) Data Centre
7 65 (1.92%) Driving Licence
8 63 (1.86%) Security Posture
9 57 (1.68%) Cloud Native
10 51 (1.51%) Video Conferencing
11 39 (1.15%) Hybrid Cloud
11 39 (1.15%) Public Cloud
12 36 (1.06%) Enterprise Software
13 35 (1.03%) Data Protection Act
14 33 (0.97%) iPhone
14 33 (0.97%) Smartphone
15 29 (0.86%) Legacy Systems
16 28 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
16 28 (0.83%) Clustering
17 26 (0.77%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 886 (26.17%) Windows
2 272 (8.03%) Windows 10
3 245 (7.24%) Windows Server
4 207 (6.11%) Linux
5 64 (1.89%) Apple iOS
6 63 (1.86%) Mac OS
7 60 (1.77%) Unix
8 56 (1.65%) Android
9 48 (1.42%) Windows Server 2016
10 40 (1.18%) Windows 7
11 38 (1.12%) Windows Server 2019
12 36 (1.06%) Windows Server 2012
13 25 (0.74%) Windows Server 2003
14 21 (0.62%) VMS
15 16 (0.47%) Ubuntu
16 12 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
17 11 (0.32%) CentOS
18 10 (0.30%) Windows Server 2008
19 8 (0.24%) Windows XP
20 6 (0.18%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 818 (24.16%) Problem-Solving
2 558 (16.48%) Agile
3 411 (12.14%) Migration
4 380 (11.22%) ITIL
5 352 (10.40%) DevOps
6 345 (10.19%) Customer Service
7 270 (7.97%) Project Management
8 268 (7.91%) Business Intelligence
8 268 (7.91%) Stakeholder Management
9 221 (6.53%) Cybersecurity
10 195 (5.76%) Analytics
11 194 (5.73%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 189 (5.58%) CI/CD
13 177 (5.23%) Service Delivery
14 168 (4.96%) Collaborative Working
15 163 (4.81%) CRM
16 162 (4.78%) Roadmaps
17 160 (4.73%) Data Modelling
18 158 (4.67%) Change Management
18 158 (4.67%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 450 (13.29%) SQL
2 442 (13.05%) PowerShell
3 257 (7.59%) Python
4 188 (5.55%) C#
5 179 (5.29%) JavaScript
6 133 (3.93%) Java
7 59 (1.74%) TypeScript
8 38 (1.12%) Bicep
9 36 (1.06%) T-SQL
10 32 (0.95%) VBA
11 30 (0.89%) Bash
12 29 (0.86%) PL/SQL
13 26 (0.77%) Kusto Query Language
14 22 (0.65%) C++
15 19 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 17 (0.50%) VB
17 16 (0.47%) Delphi
17 16 (0.47%) R
18 11 (0.32%) VBScript
19 10 (0.30%) C
Qualifications
1 610 (18.02%) Security Cleared
2 468 (13.82%) SC Cleared
3 375 (11.08%) Degree
4 257 (7.59%) Microsoft Certification
5 120 (3.54%) DV Cleared
6 103 (3.04%) Azure Certification
7 72 (2.13%) Computer Science Degree
8 66 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
9 63 (1.86%) CISSP
10 62 (1.83%) A+ Certification
11 49 (1.45%) AWS Certification
12 40 (1.18%) PMI Certification
13 39 (1.15%) MCSE
14 38 (1.12%) MCSA
15 37 (1.09%) CISM
16 35 (1.03%) CCNA
17 34 (1.00%) PMP
18 30 (0.89%) CCNP
19 29 (0.86%) Dell Certification
20 28 (0.83%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (3.93%) SLA
2 99 (2.92%) GDPR
3 98 (2.89%) QA
4 80 (2.36%) Data Quality
5 69 (2.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 63 (1.86%) PMO
7 53 (1.57%) Accessibility
8 46 (1.36%) NIST
9 34 (1.00%) HIPAA
10 30 (0.89%) PCI DSS
11 22 (0.65%) SOC 2
12 20 (0.59%) GRC
12 20 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 19 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
14 12 (0.35%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 11 (0.32%) NCSC
16 10 (0.30%) GxP
17 8 (0.24%) WCAG
18 7 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
19 6 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 833 (24.60%) Active Directory
2 176 (5.20%) VMware Infrastructure
3 62 (1.83%) Virtual Machines
4 61 (1.80%) vSphere
5 55 (1.62%) Docker
6 53 (1.57%) Hyper-V
7 45 (1.33%) VMware ESXi
8 32 (0.95%) BitLocker
9 27 (0.80%) Virtual Desktop
10 24 (0.71%) Microsoft App-V
11 13 (0.38%) VMware NSX
12 12 (0.35%) Virtual Servers
13 11 (0.32%) Terminal Services
13 11 (0.32%) XenDesktop
14 10 (0.30%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 10 (0.30%) XenApp
15 6 (0.18%) DFS Replication
15 6 (0.18%) VMware Workstation
16 5 (0.15%) OpenAM
17 4 (0.12%) IAG
Systems Management
1 318 (9.39%) Microsoft Intune
2 193 (5.70%) SCCM
3 141 (4.16%) Terraform
4 101 (2.98%) Kubernetes
5 66 (1.95%) Ansible
6 52 (1.54%) Single Sign-On
7 48 (1.42%) WSUS
8 39 (1.15%) vCenter Server
9 33 (0.97%) Jamf Pro
10 24 (0.71%) Grafana
11 23 (0.68%) Puppet
12 22 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 21 (0.62%) SCOM
14 17 (0.50%) Kibana
14 17 (0.50%) Microsoft Clustering
15 16 (0.47%) CASB
16 15 (0.44%) vMotion
17 13 (0.38%) AppManager
17 13 (0.38%) Nagios
18 10 (0.30%) Nessus
Vendors
1 247 (7.29%) VMware
2 222 (6.56%) ServiceNow
3 150 (4.43%) Cisco
4 149 (4.40%) Oracle
5 131 (3.87%) Google
6 129 (3.81%) SAP
7 117 (3.46%) Citrix
8 77 (2.27%) Apple
9 73 (2.16%) Databricks
10 72 (2.13%) HP
11 64 (1.89%) Salesforce
12 63 (1.86%) Dell
13 47 (1.39%) Palo Alto
14 45 (1.33%) Splunk
15 28 (0.83%) Juniper
15 28 (0.83%) Veeam
15 28 (0.83%) Zscaler
16 27 (0.80%) Adobe
16 27 (0.80%) Atlassian
17 25 (0.74%) Red Hat