Microsoft Contract Job Trends in Essex

Microsoft
East of England > Essex

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in Essex 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 17 December 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
17 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 6 1 7
Rank change year-on-year -5 +6 -6
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 17 22 26
As % of all contract jobs in Essex 14.29% 25.58% 13.61%
As % of the Vendors category 43.59% 50.00% 39.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 13 13 20
10th Percentile - £166 £178
25th Percentile £185 £180 £190
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £230 £245 £316
Median % change year-on-year -6.12% -22.35% -25.76%
75th Percentile £425 £318 £578
90th Percentile £506 £344 £649
East of England median daily rate £425 £431 £500
% change year-on-year -1.45% -13.75% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 4
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £20.50
Median hourly rate £12.75 £20.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -36.25% -4.76% +31.25%
75th Percentile - - £26.20
90th Percentile - - £34.67
East of England median hourly rate £18.95 £16.23 £20.00
% change year-on-year +16.73% -18.85% -11.11%

All Vendors
Essex

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 Essex.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 39 44 66
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Essex 32.77% 51.16% 34.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 25 26 44
10th Percentile £185 £171 £182
25th Percentile £200 £234 £221
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £375 £275 £438
Median % change year-on-year +36.36% -37.14% -2.78%
75th Percentile £465 £350 £539
90th Percentile £518 £619 £605
East of England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - +3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 1 11
10th Percentile - - £20.50
25th Percentile £12.75 - £30.41
Median hourly rate £17.38 £20.00 £47.75
Median % change year-on-year -13.13% -58.12% +127.38%
75th Percentile £23.58 - £55.53
90th Percentile £49.31 - £60.00
East of England median hourly rate £19.91 £16.69 £41.06
% change year-on-year +19.29% -59.35% +58.67%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in Essex

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

Microsoft job vacancy trend in Essex

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in Essex

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Essex citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in Essex

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in Essex over the 6 months to 17 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in Essex

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in Essex

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Essex citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Contract Job Locations in Essex

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft within the Essex region over the 6 months to 17 December 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
Colchester 0 4 £190 - 12
Chelmsford -2 3 £230 - 11
Maldon - 3 - -
Braintree -1 2 £425 +136.11% 1
Basildon - 2 £195 - 14
Witham - 1 £505 -
Microsoft
East of England

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Essex 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 1 (5.88%) Microsoft Exchange
1 1 (5.88%) SharePoint
Applications
1 8 (47.06%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (29.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (5.88%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 3 (17.65%) Shopify
2 1 (5.88%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 10 (58.82%) Microsoft 365
2 5 (29.41%) Azure
3 4 (23.53%) OneDrive
4 3 (17.65%) Power Platform
5 2 (11.76%) Power Automate
6 1 (5.88%) Azure AKS
6 1 (5.88%) Azure Data Factory
6 1 (5.88%) Azure Functions
6 1 (5.88%) Azure Logic Apps
6 1 (5.88%) PowerApps
6 1 (5.88%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 5 (29.41%) TCP/IP
2 4 (23.53%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (5.88%) Azure SQL Database
1 1 (5.88%) Big Data
1 1 (5.88%) Data Warehouse
1 1 (5.88%) MongoDB
1 1 (5.88%) Power BI
1 1 (5.88%) Power Query
1 1 (5.88%) SQL Server
1 1 (5.88%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 1 (5.88%) JIRA
General
1 11 (64.71%) Social Skills
2 3 (17.65%) Local Government
2 3 (17.65%) Marketing
2 3 (17.65%) Public Sector
2 3 (17.65%) Retail
3 2 (11.76%) Finance
4 1 (5.88%) Agriculture
4 1 (5.88%) Analytical Skills
4 1 (5.88%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 6 (35.29%) Support Engineer
2 5 (29.41%) IT Engineer
2 5 (29.41%) IT Support
2 5 (29.41%) IT Support Engineer
3 4 (23.53%) Field Engineer
3 4 (23.53%) Field Support Engineer
3 4 (23.53%) Senior
4 3 (17.65%) Administrator
4 3 (17.65%) Web Administrator
5 2 (11.76%) Analyst
5 2 (11.76%) Architect
5 2 (11.76%) Developer
5 2 (11.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 2 (11.76%) Senior Developer
5 2 (11.76%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
5 2 (11.76%) Senior Windows Engineer
5 2 (11.76%) VMware Engineer
5 2 (11.76%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
5 2 (11.76%) Windows Engineer
5 2 (11.76%) Windows Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (11.76%) HTML
1 2 (11.76%) JSON
2 1 (5.88%) Express.js
2 1 (5.88%) HTML5 Canvas
2 1 (5.88%) MERN Stack
2 1 (5.88%) Node.js
2 1 (5.88%) React
Miscellaneous
1 4 (23.53%) Driving Licence
1 4 (23.53%) Self-Motivation
2 2 (11.76%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 1 (5.88%) Cloud Native
3 1 (5.88%) Distributed Systems
3 1 (5.88%) Hybrid Cloud
3 1 (5.88%) Legacy Systems
3 1 (5.88%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 8 (47.06%) Windows
2 6 (35.29%) Windows 10
3 4 (23.53%) Apple iOS
4 2 (11.76%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (41.18%) Logistics
2 5 (29.41%) Customer Service
3 4 (23.53%) AI
4 3 (17.65%) E-Commerce
4 3 (17.65%) Problem-Solving
5 2 (11.76%) Change Management
5 2 (11.76%) CI/CD
5 2 (11.76%) Clean Code
5 2 (11.76%) Continuous Improvement
5 2 (11.76%) DevOps
5 2 (11.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
5 2 (11.76%) Service Delivery
6 1 (5.88%) Business Intelligence
6 1 (5.88%) CRM
6 1 (5.88%) ERP
6 1 (5.88%) ETL
6 1 (5.88%) ITSM
6 1 (5.88%) PRINCE2
6 1 (5.88%) Project Management
6 1 (5.88%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 4 (23.53%) SQL
2 2 (11.76%) JavaScript
3 1 (5.88%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 4 (23.53%) Microsoft Certification
2 2 (11.76%) Degree
3 1 (5.88%) A+ Certification
3 1 (5.88%) Azure Certification
3 1 (5.88%) Computer Science Degree
3 1 (5.88%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (5.88%) Data Quality
1 1 (5.88%) HMG Security Policy Framework
1 1 (5.88%) ISO 22301
1 1 (5.88%) ISO/IEC 20000
1 1 (5.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 6 (35.29%) Active Directory
Vendors
1 2 (11.76%) VMware
2 1 (5.88%) Databricks
2 1 (5.88%) ServiceNow