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 9 June 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
9 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 3,449 4,872 6,444
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 14.15% 13.10% 13.66%
As % of the Vendors category 29.81% 31.17% 32.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,251 3,188 4,725
10th Percentile £213 £195 £203
25th Percentile £348 £349 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £626
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 235 446 179
10th Percentile £14.20 £11.07 £13.13
25th Percentile £15.62 £13.26 £15.61
Median hourly rate £19.00 £15.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.67% -31.82% +25.28%
75th Percentile £31.00 £25.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £56.05 £55.68 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £20.00 £15.58 £23.50
% change year-on-year +28.41% -33.72% +30.56%

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 11,569 15,630 19,996
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 47.45% 42.04% 42.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,340 9,910 13,718
10th Percentile £275 £266 £265
25th Percentile £404 £407 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £515 £530
Median % change year-on-year -0.13% -2.83% +0.95%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 516 1,053 551
10th Percentile £14.84 £12.27 £14.75
25th Percentile £17.50 £14.48 £18.63
Median hourly rate £27.25 £22.58 £37.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.68% -38.97% +72.09%
75th Percentile £53.75 £58.49 £60.31
90th Percentile £70.00 £70.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £26.39 £22.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year +17.27% -47.06% +97.67%

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 9 June 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 9 June 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 9 June 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 -4 1,485 £525 +5.00% 3,092
North of England -2 555 £425 -5.56% 1,521
South East 0 466 £459 -1.34% 2,246
North West -2 357 £425 -8.36% 852
Midlands -2 334 £400 -1.23% 986
South West 0 275 £431 -13.75% 602
West Midlands 0 238 £400 -5.88% 512
East of England +2 221 £500 +16.96% 587
Yorkshire 0 154 £413 -2.94% 460
East Midlands 0 94 £380 -5.00% 440
North East -1 44 £340 -10.05% 214
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
1 366 (10.61%) SharePoint
2 274 (7.94%) Microsoft Exchange
3 84 (2.44%) Confluence
4 34 (0.99%) Skype for Business
5 25 (0.72%) CMS
5 25 (0.72%) IIS
6 19 (0.55%) Apache
6 19 (0.55%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.43%) Tomcat
8 10 (0.29%) Mattermost
9 9 (0.26%) IBM Domino
9 9 (0.26%) SAS
10 8 (0.23%) Headless CMS
11 7 (0.20%) Drupal
11 7 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2010
11 7 (0.20%) JBoss
12 6 (0.17%) Apache Airflow
12 6 (0.17%) BizTalk Server
12 6 (0.17%) Exchange Server 2013
12 6 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 499 (14.47%) Microsoft Office
2 368 (10.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 178 (5.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 79 (2.29%) Microsoft Project
5 75 (2.17%) MS Visio
6 24 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
7 19 (0.55%) Chatbot
8 7 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 7 (0.20%) AutoCAD
9 5 (0.14%) Trello
10 4 (0.12%) Acrobat
10 4 (0.12%) Adobe Captivate
10 4 (0.12%) Maya
11 2 (0.058%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.058%) InfoPath
11 2 (0.058%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.058%) Revit
12 1 (0.029%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.029%) Maple
12 1 (0.029%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 129 (3.74%) Dynamics CRM
2 30 (0.87%) SAP S/4HANA
3 9 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
4 8 (0.23%) Dynamics AX
4 8 (0.23%) Kondor
5 6 (0.17%) Endur
5 6 (0.17%) SAP PM
5 6 (0.17%) SAP PS
5 6 (0.17%) Shopify
5 6 (0.17%) Unit4 Business World
6 5 (0.14%) Aladdin
6 5 (0.14%) assyst
6 5 (0.14%) Maximo
6 5 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
6 5 (0.14%) SAP ERP
6 5 (0.14%) SAP GRC
7 4 (0.12%) CA PPM
7 4 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
7 4 (0.12%) NetSuite
7 4 (0.12%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 1,180 (34.21%) Azure
2 827 (23.98%) Microsoft 365
3 430 (12.47%) Power Platform
4 381 (11.05%) Entra ID
5 272 (7.89%) AWS
6 226 (6.55%) Dynamics 365
7 194 (5.62%) Azure DevOps
8 164 (4.76%) Power Automate
9 161 (4.67%) PowerApps
10 120 (3.48%) GCP
11 115 (3.33%) SaaS
12 108 (3.13%) OneDrive
13 103 (2.99%) IaaS
14 94 (2.73%) Serverless
15 92 (2.67%) Microsoft Purview
16 82 (2.38%) Azure Data Factory
17 80 (2.32%) PaaS
18 74 (2.15%) Azure Sentinel
19 63 (1.83%) Azure Logic Apps
20 53 (1.54%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 271 (7.86%) Firewall
2 219 (6.35%) DNS
3 191 (5.54%) VPN
4 120 (3.48%) DHCP
5 93 (2.70%) Network Security
6 91 (2.64%) WAN
7 90 (2.61%) TCP/IP
8 85 (2.46%) Wi-Fi
9 83 (2.41%) LAN
10 79 (2.29%) SAN
11 45 (1.30%) Skype
12 38 (1.10%) WebEx
13 35 (1.01%) Internet
13 35 (1.01%) Wireless
14 33 (0.96%) Unified Communications
15 32 (0.93%) MPLS
16 31 (0.90%) Ethernet
16 31 (0.90%) Remote Desktop
16 31 (0.90%) VLAN
17 27 (0.78%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 253 (7.34%) Power BI
2 225 (6.52%) SQL Server
3 83 (2.41%) Data Warehouse
4 60 (1.74%) Azure SQL Database
5 55 (1.59%) Data Lake
6 53 (1.54%) Big Data
7 49 (1.42%) Tableau
8 43 (1.25%) Metadata
8 43 (1.25%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 42 (1.22%) NoSQL
10 40 (1.16%) Relational Database
11 38 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 33 (0.96%) PostgreSQL
13 28 (0.81%) Oracle Database
14 25 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
15 23 (0.67%) Power Query
16 22 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
16 22 (0.64%) GIS
17 21 (0.61%) MySQL
18 19 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 173 (5.02%) JIRA
2 98 (2.84%) Git
3 61 (1.77%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.13%) Visual Studio
5 38 (1.10%) GitLab
6 25 (0.72%) MSI
7 23 (0.67%) Postman
8 18 (0.52%) Selenium
9 13 (0.38%) Maven
9 13 (0.38%) Sonatype Nexus
10 12 (0.35%) Visual Studio Code
11 11 (0.32%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.32%) Eclipse
11 11 (0.32%) ERwin
11 11 (0.32%) SonarQube
12 9 (0.26%) TeamCity
13 8 (0.23%) JUnit
14 7 (0.20%) LoadRunner
14 7 (0.20%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
14 7 (0.20%) Subversion
General
1 1,320 (38.27%) Social Skills
2 742 (21.51%) Finance
3 431 (12.50%) Analytical Skills
4 288 (8.35%) Public Sector
5 175 (5.07%) Banking
6 135 (3.91%) Telecoms
7 123 (3.57%) Organisational Skills
8 121 (3.51%) Legal
9 108 (3.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 98 (2.84%) Presentation Skills
11 84 (2.44%) Manufacturing
11 84 (2.44%) Marketing
12 80 (2.32%) Documentation Skills
12 80 (2.32%) Retail
13 58 (1.68%) Local Government
14 35 (1.01%) Law
15 32 (0.93%) Influencing Skills
15 32 (0.93%) Military
16 27 (0.78%) Electronics
16 27 (0.78%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 518 (15.02%) Analyst
2 395 (11.45%) Architect
3 306 (8.87%) Developer
4 266 (7.71%) Support Engineer
5 209 (6.06%) Senior
6 202 (5.86%) Consultant
7 166 (4.81%) Lead
8 158 (4.58%) IT Support
9 127 (3.68%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 126 (3.65%) Desktop Support
10 126 (3.65%) Solutions Architect
11 115 (3.33%) IT Engineer
12 112 (3.25%) Project Manager
13 108 (3.13%) Business Analyst
13 108 (3.13%) Support Analyst
14 106 (3.07%) Desktop Engineer
15 96 (2.78%) Service Analyst
16 88 (2.55%) Azure Engineer
17 85 (2.46%) Desktop Support Engineer
18 81 (2.35%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 172 (4.99%) .NET
2 106 (3.07%) HTML
3 84 (2.44%) CSS
4 75 (2.17%) REST
5 60 (1.74%) Web Services
6 55 (1.59%) .NET Framework
6 55 (1.59%) React
7 45 (1.30%) .NET Core
8 44 (1.28%) JSON
9 42 (1.22%) XML
10 41 (1.19%) OAuth
10 41 (1.19%) SOAP
11 37 (1.07%) AngularJS
12 34 (0.99%) SailPoint
13 32 (0.93%) RESTful
14 31 (0.90%) ASP.NET
15 30 (0.87%) ARM Templates
16 27 (0.78%) Middleware
16 27 (0.78%) SAML
17 26 (0.75%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 130 (3.77%) Management Information System
2 99 (2.87%) Self-Motivation
3 93 (2.70%) Onboarding
4 77 (2.23%) Product Ownership
5 75 (2.17%) PKI
6 70 (2.03%) Driving Licence
6 70 (2.03%) Security Posture
7 66 (1.91%) Data Centre
8 59 (1.71%) Cloud Native
9 42 (1.22%) Video Conferencing
10 38 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
10 38 (1.10%) Smartphone
11 37 (1.07%) Hybrid Cloud
11 37 (1.07%) iPhone
12 35 (1.01%) Enterprise Software
13 32 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
14 28 (0.81%) Clustering
15 27 (0.78%) Analytical Mindset
15 27 (0.78%) Virtual Team
16 26 (0.75%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 907 (26.30%) Windows
2 270 (7.83%) Windows 10
3 252 (7.31%) Windows Server
4 194 (5.62%) Linux
5 78 (2.26%) Mac OS
6 68 (1.97%) Android
7 67 (1.94%) Apple iOS
8 61 (1.77%) Windows Server 2019
9 60 (1.74%) Windows Server 2016
10 53 (1.54%) Unix
11 49 (1.42%) Windows 7
12 37 (1.07%) Windows Server 2012
13 24 (0.70%) Windows Server 2003
14 20 (0.58%) VMS
15 15 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
16 13 (0.38%) Ubuntu
17 9 (0.26%) CentOS
17 9 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
18 8 (0.23%) Windows XP
19 6 (0.17%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 828 (24.01%) Problem-Solving
2 563 (16.32%) Agile
3 408 (11.83%) ITIL
4 402 (11.66%) DevOps
5 395 (11.45%) Migration
6 373 (10.81%) Customer Service
7 282 (8.18%) Stakeholder Management
8 281 (8.15%) Project Management
9 272 (7.89%) Business Intelligence
10 234 (6.78%) Cybersecurity
11 219 (6.35%) Analytics
12 212 (6.15%) CI/CD
13 184 (5.33%) Continuous Improvement
13 184 (5.33%) Project Delivery
14 178 (5.16%) ITSM
15 176 (5.10%) Service Delivery
16 169 (4.90%) CRM
17 167 (4.84%) Change Management
18 164 (4.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
19 163 (4.73%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 468 (13.57%) SQL
2 436 (12.64%) PowerShell
3 281 (8.15%) Python
4 198 (5.74%) C#
5 162 (4.70%) JavaScript
6 142 (4.12%) Java
7 54 (1.57%) Bicep
7 54 (1.57%) TypeScript
8 42 (1.22%) Bash
9 34 (0.99%) VBA
10 30 (0.87%) Kusto Query Language
11 29 (0.84%) T-SQL
12 28 (0.81%) C++
12 28 (0.81%) VB
13 22 (0.64%) PL/SQL
14 20 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 16 (0.46%) R
16 15 (0.43%) Shell Script
17 11 (0.32%) Delphi
17 11 (0.32%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 601 (17.43%) Security Cleared
2 460 (13.34%) SC Cleared
3 354 (10.26%) Degree
4 263 (7.63%) Microsoft Certification
5 116 (3.36%) Azure Certification
6 115 (3.33%) DV Cleared
7 80 (2.32%) Cisco Certification
8 69 (2.00%) Computer Science Degree
9 57 (1.65%) A+ Certification
10 55 (1.59%) CISSP
11 43 (1.25%) PMI Certification
12 42 (1.22%) MCSE
13 40 (1.16%) CCNA
13 40 (1.16%) MCSA
14 38 (1.10%) ITIL Certification
14 38 (1.10%) PMP
15 35 (1.01%) CCNP
16 34 (0.99%) AWS Certification
17 32 (0.93%) CISM
18 31 (0.90%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (3.97%) SLA
2 107 (3.10%) GDPR
3 103 (2.99%) QA
4 87 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 72 (2.09%) Data Quality
6 65 (1.88%) PMO
7 59 (1.71%) NIST
8 56 (1.62%) Accessibility
9 46 (1.33%) HIPAA
10 28 (0.81%) PCI DSS
11 27 (0.78%) SOC 2
12 24 (0.70%) GRC
13 18 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
14 17 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 15 (0.43%) NCSC
16 13 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
17 12 (0.35%) MiFID
18 10 (0.29%) GxP
19 8 (0.23%) EMIR
19 8 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 826 (23.95%) Active Directory
2 177 (5.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 60 (1.74%) vSphere
4 58 (1.68%) Virtual Machines
5 55 (1.59%) Hyper-V
6 54 (1.57%) Docker
7 49 (1.42%) VMware ESXi
8 38 (1.10%) Virtual Desktop
9 31 (0.90%) BitLocker
9 31 (0.90%) Virtual Servers
10 29 (0.84%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 28 (0.81%) Microsoft App-V
12 12 (0.35%) XenApp
12 12 (0.35%) XenDesktop
13 11 (0.32%) Terminal Services
14 9 (0.26%) DFS Replication
14 9 (0.26%) VMware NSX
15 7 (0.20%) NFS
16 6 (0.17%) Firmware
17 5 (0.14%) OpenAM
Systems Management
1 320 (9.28%) Microsoft Intune
2 215 (6.23%) SCCM
3 164 (4.76%) Terraform
4 104 (3.02%) Kubernetes
5 91 (2.64%) Ansible
6 62 (1.80%) WSUS
7 51 (1.48%) Single Sign-On
8 44 (1.28%) Jamf Pro
9 33 (0.96%) vCenter Server
10 27 (0.78%) Puppet
11 26 (0.75%) SCOM
12 22 (0.64%) Microsoft Clustering
13 18 (0.52%) Grafana
14 17 (0.49%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 16 (0.46%) CASB
16 15 (0.43%) vMotion
17 12 (0.35%) Kibana
17 12 (0.35%) Nagios
18 10 (0.29%) Prometheus
19 9 (0.26%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 255 (7.39%) ServiceNow
2 242 (7.02%) VMware
3 175 (5.07%) Cisco
4 158 (4.58%) Oracle
5 140 (4.06%) Google
6 138 (4.00%) SAP
7 129 (3.74%) Citrix
8 87 (2.52%) Apple
9 78 (2.26%) Splunk
10 77 (2.23%) HP
11 76 (2.20%) Databricks
11 76 (2.20%) Salesforce
12 64 (1.86%) Dell
13 37 (1.07%) Veeam
14 36 (1.04%) Palo Alto
15 32 (0.93%) CyberArk
15 32 (0.93%) Zscaler
16 31 (0.90%) Meraki
16 31 (0.90%) NetApp
17 30 (0.87%) Adobe