Microsoft Contract Job Trends 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 8 June 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
8 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 8 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,015 3,446 4,892
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.87% 14.14% 13.11%
As % of the Vendors category 29.20% 29.79% 31.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,369 2,252 3,206
10th Percentile £210 £213 £195
25th Percentile £375 £348 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £495 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.21% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 319 234 446
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.60 £15.62 £13.26
Median hourly rate £21.00 £18.94 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.91% +26.23% -30.23%
75th Percentile £35.22 £30.91 £25.00
90th Percentile £65.70 £56.44 £55.68
UK median hourly rate £20.43 £20.00 £15.58
% change year-on-year +2.15% +28.41% -32.87%

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 17,175 11,566 15,680
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 40.64% 47.47% 42.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,040 7,346 9,962
10th Percentile £313 £276 £266
25th Percentile £413 £405 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £515 £518
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% -0.48% -2.36%
75th Percentile £608 £625 £630
90th Percentile £700 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £501 £515
% change year-on-year -0.15% -2.77% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 914 504 1,042
10th Percentile £15.82 £14.84 £12.25
25th Percentile £19.01 £17.79 £14.48
Median hourly rate £33.98 £27.39 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year +24.07% +15.07% -38.18%
75th Percentile £60.00 £54.06 £58.70
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £26.45 £23.22
% change year-on-year +22.87% +13.93% -45.38%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microsoft relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Microsoft job vacancy trend in England

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Microsoft.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in England over the 6 months to 8 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in England

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Microsoft.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in England over the 6 months to 8 June 2026.

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 8 June 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
London -2 2,243 £513 -2.38% 1,064
North of England -3 774 £450 +5.88% 713
South East -1 691 £475 +3.54% 901
Midlands -5 504 £450 +12.50% 457
North West -3 400 £436 +2.59% 399
South West -2 357 £450 +4.35% 365
Yorkshire -2 354 £475 +15.15% 218
West Midlands -8 352 £450 +12.50% 258
East of England 0 307 £375 -25.00% 337
East Midlands 0 145 £407 +7.04% 200
North East -36 22 £450 +32.35% 99
Microsoft
UK

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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
1 554 (11.05%) SharePoint
2 359 (7.16%) Microsoft Exchange
3 98 (1.95%) Confluence
4 40 (0.80%) Apache Spark
5 25 (0.50%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.44%) Apache
7 19 (0.38%) CMS
8 15 (0.30%) Skype for Business
9 14 (0.28%) IIS
10 12 (0.24%) HCL Notes
11 10 (0.20%) Mendix
12 8 (0.16%) SAS
13 6 (0.12%) Camunda
14 5 (0.100%) Appian
14 5 (0.100%) nginx
14 5 (0.100%) OpenEdge
14 5 (0.100%) Oracle Workflow
15 4 (0.080%) ArcGIS
15 4 (0.080%) ThingWorx
15 4 (0.080%) Tomcat
Applications
1 457 (9.11%) Microsoft Office
2 452 (9.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 198 (3.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 109 (2.17%) Microsoft Project
5 74 (1.48%) MS Visio
6 46 (0.92%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.28%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.100%) Acrobat
8 5 (0.100%) Adobe Illustrator
8 5 (0.100%) PTC Creo
8 5 (0.100%) Trello
9 4 (0.080%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 3 (0.060%) Adobe Captivate
10 3 (0.060%) InDesign
10 3 (0.060%) SOLIDWORKS
11 2 (0.040%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.040%) InfoPath
11 2 (0.040%) MicroStation
11 2 (0.040%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.040%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 174 (3.47%) Dynamics CRM
2 48 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
3 24 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.34%) NetSuite
5 15 (0.30%) Aladdin
6 14 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
7 12 (0.24%) Teamcenter
8 11 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
9 10 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.20%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 9 (0.18%) Maximo
10 9 (0.18%) Sage X3
11 8 (0.16%) Loan IQ
12 7 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
13 6 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
13 6 (0.12%) Primavera
13 6 (0.12%) SAP MM
14 5 (0.100%) Dynamics NAV
14 5 (0.100%) Oracle ERP
14 5 (0.100%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 2,111 (42.09%) Azure
2 1,307 (26.06%) Microsoft 365
3 814 (16.23%) Power Platform
4 693 (13.82%) Entra ID
5 436 (8.69%) AWS
6 392 (7.82%) Azure DevOps
7 370 (7.38%) Dynamics 365
8 280 (5.58%) Power Automate
9 272 (5.42%) Microsoft Purview
10 245 (4.89%) Microsoft Copilot
11 243 (4.85%) PowerApps
12 222 (4.43%) GitHub
13 199 (3.97%) OneDrive
14 189 (3.77%) SaaS
15 158 (3.15%) Azure Data Factory
16 150 (2.99%) GCP
17 148 (2.95%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 136 (2.71%) Serverless
19 133 (2.65%) PaaS
20 121 (2.41%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 268 (5.34%) DNS
2 242 (4.83%) Firewall
3 193 (3.85%) VPN
4 171 (3.41%) DHCP
5 119 (2.37%) Wi-Fi
6 115 (2.29%) WAN
7 108 (2.15%) LAN
7 108 (2.15%) Network Security
8 106 (2.11%) TCP/IP
9 49 (0.98%) VLAN
10 46 (0.92%) Kerberos
11 35 (0.70%) SD-WAN
12 34 (0.68%) Wireless
13 33 (0.66%) SAN
14 30 (0.60%) Unified Communications
15 28 (0.56%) Skype
15 28 (0.56%) SSL
16 23 (0.46%) HTTP
16 23 (0.46%) IPsec
17 22 (0.44%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 513 (10.23%) Power BI
2 249 (4.97%) SQL Server
3 153 (3.05%) Data Warehouse
4 128 (2.55%) Data Lake
5 100 (1.99%) PostgreSQL
6 99 (1.97%) Azure SQL Database
7 94 (1.87%) Metadata
8 68 (1.36%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 64 (1.28%) Relational Database
10 45 (0.90%) NoSQL
11 44 (0.88%) Power Query
12 42 (0.84%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 41 (0.82%) Tableau
14 38 (0.76%) Delta Lake
14 38 (0.76%) MySQL
15 34 (0.68%) Star Schema
16 30 (0.60%) Oracle Database
17 29 (0.58%) Spark SQL
18 28 (0.56%) SQL Server Analysis Services
19 23 (0.46%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 265 (5.28%) JIRA
2 135 (2.69%) Git
3 58 (1.16%) Jenkins
4 53 (1.06%) GitLab
5 31 (0.62%) Visual Studio
6 24 (0.48%) Artifactory
7 19 (0.38%) Eclipse
8 17 (0.34%) MSI
9 13 (0.26%) ERwin
9 13 (0.26%) MLflow
10 12 (0.24%) Selenium
11 11 (0.22%) Maven
12 10 (0.20%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.18%) Gatling
13 9 (0.18%) JMeter
13 9 (0.18%) Team Foundation Server
14 8 (0.16%) AdminStudio
14 8 (0.16%) Browser DevTools
14 8 (0.16%) InstallShield
15 7 (0.14%) Android Studio
General
1 1,634 (32.58%) Social Skills
2 1,024 (20.42%) Finance
3 534 (10.65%) Analytical Skills
4 416 (8.30%) Public Sector
5 281 (5.60%) Banking
6 221 (4.41%) Organisational Skills
7 216 (4.31%) Legal
8 127 (2.53%) Documentation Skills
9 97 (1.93%) Law
10 92 (1.83%) Retail
11 82 (1.64%) Manufacturing
12 78 (1.56%) Presentation Skills
13 77 (1.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 70 (1.40%) Marketing
15 69 (1.38%) Local Government
16 68 (1.36%) Military
17 64 (1.28%) Telecoms
18 54 (1.08%) Investment Banking
19 51 (1.02%) Influencing Skills
20 43 (0.86%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 621 (12.38%) Architect
2 549 (10.95%) Analyst
3 435 (8.67%) Senior
4 415 (8.28%) Developer
5 326 (6.50%) IT Support
6 318 (6.34%) Lead
7 272 (5.42%) Consultant
8 246 (4.91%) Support Engineer
9 208 (4.15%) Data Engineer
10 177 (3.53%) Azure Engineer
11 173 (3.45%) Solutions Architect
12 172 (3.43%) Project Manager
13 171 (3.41%) IT Engineer
14 165 (3.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 163 (3.25%) Business Analyst
16 146 (2.91%) Administrator
17 130 (2.59%) IT Support Engineer
18 114 (2.27%) Security Engineer
19 97 (1.93%) IT Analyst
19 97 (1.93%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 199 (3.97%) .NET
2 152 (3.03%) REST
3 122 (2.43%) Microsoft Graph
4 100 (1.99%) OAuth
5 95 (1.89%) PySpark
6 93 (1.85%) SAML
7 81 (1.62%) JSON
8 72 (1.44%) LDAP
8 72 (1.44%) OpenID
8 72 (1.44%) Web Services
9 64 (1.28%) React
10 60 (1.20%) Middleware
11 53 (1.06%) SailPoint
12 51 (1.02%) XML
13 50 (1.00%) OAuth2
14 46 (0.92%) Node.js
15 45 (0.90%) CSS
16 44 (0.88%) ARM Templates
17 43 (0.86%) HTML
18 40 (0.80%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 278 (5.54%) Onboarding
2 212 (4.23%) Cloud Native
3 154 (3.07%) Product Ownership
4 100 (1.99%) Management Information System
5 90 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
6 89 (1.77%) Data Centre
7 88 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
8 86 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
8 86 (1.71%) Security Posture
9 75 (1.50%) AI Agents
10 69 (1.38%) PKI
10 69 (1.38%) Replication
10 69 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
11 61 (1.22%) Virtual Team
12 56 (1.12%) Data Protection Act
13 55 (1.10%) Data Structures
14 53 (1.06%) Low-Code
15 46 (0.92%) Clustering
15 46 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
16 41 (0.82%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 1,105 (22.03%) Windows
2 303 (6.04%) Windows 10
3 272 (5.42%) Windows Server
4 232 (4.63%) Linux
5 104 (2.07%) Apple iOS
6 102 (2.03%) Mac OS
7 94 (1.87%) Android
8 42 (0.84%) Windows 7
9 36 (0.72%) Unix
10 35 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 34 (0.68%) Windows Server 2016
12 27 (0.54%) Windows Server 2019
13 22 (0.44%) VMS
14 20 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
15 15 (0.30%) Windows Server 2003
16 14 (0.28%) Ubuntu
17 10 (0.20%) CentOS
18 6 (0.12%) AIX
19 5 (0.100%) Solaris
19 5 (0.100%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 835 (16.65%) Problem-Solving
2 800 (15.95%) DevOps
3 728 (14.52%) Agile
4 705 (14.06%) Migration
5 672 (13.40%) CI/CD
6 548 (10.93%) Business Intelligence
7 542 (10.81%) Stakeholder Management
8 541 (10.79%) Analytics
9 533 (10.63%) AI
10 471 (9.39%) Continuous Improvement
11 436 (8.69%) ITIL
12 433 (8.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 389 (7.76%) Customer Service
14 380 (7.58%) Data Modelling
15 354 (7.06%) Roadmaps
16 343 (6.84%) Cybersecurity
17 308 (6.14%) Project Delivery
18 307 (6.12%) Decision-Making
19 291 (5.80%) Infrastructure as Code
20 288 (5.74%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 642 (12.80%) SQL
2 608 (12.12%) PowerShell
3 502 (10.01%) Python
4 222 (4.43%) C#
5 169 (3.37%) Java
6 163 (3.25%) JavaScript
7 116 (2.31%) Bicep
8 87 (1.73%) T-SQL
9 76 (1.52%) Kusto Query Language
10 69 (1.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 61 (1.22%) Bash
12 52 (1.04%) TypeScript
13 33 (0.66%) VBA
14 30 (0.60%) VB
15 22 (0.44%) PL/SQL
16 20 (0.40%) C++
17 18 (0.36%) Scala
18 15 (0.30%) VBScript
19 12 (0.24%) Shell Script
20 10 (0.20%) X++
Qualifications
1 978 (19.50%) Security Cleared
2 762 (15.19%) SC Cleared
3 495 (9.87%) Degree
4 251 (5.00%) Microsoft Certification
5 175 (3.49%) DV Cleared
6 169 (3.37%) Azure Certification
7 110 (2.19%) Computer Science Degree
8 104 (2.07%) CISSP
9 77 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
10 74 (1.48%) Cisco Certification
11 59 (1.18%) CISM
12 52 (1.04%) PMP
13 49 (0.98%) PMI Certification
14 43 (0.86%) Master's Degree
15 40 (0.80%) MCSE
16 38 (0.76%) AWS Certification
17 35 (0.70%) CCNP
17 35 (0.70%) MCSA
18 33 (0.66%) DBS Check
19 28 (0.56%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 254 (5.06%) Data Quality
2 220 (4.39%) GDPR
3 165 (3.29%) QA
4 158 (3.15%) SLA
5 141 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 118 (2.35%) NIST
7 100 (1.99%) PMO
8 74 (1.48%) Cyber Essentials
9 55 (1.10%) Accessibility
10 50 (1.00%) NCSC
11 37 (0.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 30 (0.60%) GRC
13 29 (0.58%) PCI DSS
14 28 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 20 (0.40%) NIST 800
16 19 (0.38%) MiFID
17 13 (0.26%) FINRA
17 13 (0.26%) SOC 2
18 12 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 42001
18 12 (0.24%) WCAG
System Software
1 991 (19.76%) Active Directory
2 194 (3.87%) Docker
3 182 (3.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 89 (1.77%) Hyper-V
5 74 (1.48%) Virtual Machines
6 72 (1.44%) Virtual Desktop
7 60 (1.20%) VMware ESXi
8 55 (1.10%) vSphere
9 32 (0.64%) BitLocker
10 21 (0.42%) Microsoft App-V
11 18 (0.36%) VMware NSX
12 16 (0.32%) Firmware
13 7 (0.14%) NFS
14 6 (0.12%) RACF
15 5 (0.100%) IAG
15 5 (0.100%) VMware Workstation
16 4 (0.080%) Snort
16 4 (0.080%) XenDesktop
17 3 (0.060%) Squid
17 3 (0.060%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 423 (8.43%) Microsoft Intune
2 297 (5.92%) Terraform
3 228 (4.55%) Kubernetes
4 181 (3.61%) SCCM
5 113 (2.25%) Single Sign-On
6 111 (2.21%) Ansible
7 79 (1.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 54 (1.08%) vCenter Server
9 47 (0.94%) Jamf Pro
10 32 (0.64%) Grafana
11 30 (0.60%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.48%) SCOM
13 17 (0.34%) FortiGate
13 17 (0.34%) Puppet
14 15 (0.30%) AirWatch
15 14 (0.28%) WSUS
16 13 (0.26%) QRadar
16 13 (0.26%) vMotion
17 12 (0.24%) HAProxy
17 12 (0.24%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 285 (5.68%) ServiceNow
2 248 (4.95%) VMware
3 196 (3.91%) SAP
4 192 (3.83%) Oracle
5 188 (3.75%) Databricks
6 175 (3.49%) Cisco
7 141 (2.81%) Google
8 111 (2.21%) Salesforce
9 104 (2.07%) Citrix
10 82 (1.64%) Splunk
11 71 (1.42%) OpenAI
12 67 (1.34%) Apple
12 67 (1.34%) Foundry
13 52 (1.04%) CyberArk
14 50 (1.00%) CrowdStrike
15 49 (0.98%) HP
16 47 (0.94%) Okta
17 41 (0.82%) Dell
18 38 (0.76%) Remedy
18 38 (0.76%) Workday