Microsoft Contract Job Trends in Hertfordshire

Microsoft
East of England > Hertfordshire

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in Hertfordshire 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 15 May 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
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 4 24
Rank change year-on-year +1 +20 -19
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 120 63 59
As % of all contract jobs in Hertfordshire 14.32% 19.21% 7.07%
As % of the Vendors category 35.09% 41.18% 21.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 33 41 37
10th Percentile £193 £413 £192
25th Percentile £320 £475 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £550 £540
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% +1.85% +8.00%
75th Percentile £601 £575 £701
90th Percentile £698 £600 £725
East of England median daily rate £375 £475 £440
% change year-on-year -21.05% +8.08% +3.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 6 15
10th Percentile £16.35 £33.81 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.49 £52.81 £14.26
Median hourly rate £18.50 £63.75 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year -70.98% +325.00% -64.71%
75th Percentile £20.29 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £51.99 £65.38 -
East of England median hourly rate £18.50 £16.23 £14.80
% change year-on-year +13.99% +9.66% -4.67%

All Vendors
Hertfordshire

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 Hertfordshire.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 342 153 272
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Hertfordshire 40.81% 46.65% 32.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 161 90 150
10th Percentile £325 £424 £180
25th Percentile £425 £466 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £550 £475
Median % change year-on-year -7.82% +15.79% -
75th Percentile £650 £575 £600
90th Percentile £750 £639 £714
East of England median daily rate £500 £518 £500
% change year-on-year -3.47% +3.60% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 125 32 68
10th Percentile £16.35 £16.95 £14.87
25th Percentile £18.27 £19.88 £42.69
Median hourly rate £20.09 £65.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -69.09% - -
75th Percentile £24.55 £85.00 £80.00
90th Percentile £70.00 - £85.00
East of England median hourly rate £20.35 £18.85 £17.40
% change year-on-year +7.96% +8.33% -15.66%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in Hertfordshire

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

Microsoft job vacancy trend in Hertfordshire

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in Hertfordshire

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Hertfordshire citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in Hertfordshire

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in Hertfordshire over the 6 months to 15 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in Hertfordshire

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in Hertfordshire

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Hertfordshire citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in Hertfordshire

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in Hertfordshire over the 6 months to 15 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in Hertfordshire

Microsoft
Contract Job Locations in Hertfordshire

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft within the Hertfordshire region over the 6 months to 15 May 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
Hatfield +2 65 £400 -28.57% 6
Stevenage -7 37 £511 -7.05% 6
Hemel Hempstead -10 3 £575 +43.75% 17
Welwyn Garden City -1 2 £675 +20.00% 3
Watford -8 2 - - 15
Hertford - 2 £475 - 5
St Albans - 1 £375 - 9
Microsoft
East of England

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Hertfordshire 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 3 (2.50%) SharePoint
2 2 (1.67%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.83%) Apache
3 1 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 29 (24.17%) Spreadsheet
2 22 (18.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (17.50%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (2.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (1.67%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (1.67%) MS Visio
5 2 (1.67%) Trello
Business Applications
1 1 (0.83%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 10 (8.33%) Azure
1 10 (8.33%) Microsoft 365
2 5 (4.17%) OneDrive
3 4 (3.33%) AWS
3 4 (3.33%) Entra ID
3 4 (3.33%) Power Platform
4 2 (1.67%) Asana
4 2 (1.67%) Google Workspace
4 2 (1.67%) OCI
4 2 (1.67%) SaaS
5 1 (0.83%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 1 (0.83%) AWS Lambda
5 1 (0.83%) Azure Cosmos DB
5 1 (0.83%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (0.83%) Azure Sentinel
5 1 (0.83%) dbt
5 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Purview
5 1 (0.83%) PowerApps
5 1 (0.83%) Serverless
5 1 (0.83%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 10 (8.33%) TCP/IP
2 8 (6.67%) Ethernet
3 5 (4.17%) DNS
4 4 (3.33%) Firewall
5 3 (2.50%) DHCP
6 2 (1.67%) iSCSI
6 2 (1.67%) NAS
6 2 (1.67%) SAN
6 2 (1.67%) WAN
7 1 (0.83%) HTTPS
7 1 (0.83%) Intranet
7 1 (0.83%) LAN
7 1 (0.83%) SSL
7 1 (0.83%) Structured Cabling
7 1 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (3.33%) Power BI
2 2 (1.67%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.83%) Data Lake
3 1 (0.83%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.83%) Metadata
3 1 (0.83%) MS Access
3 1 (0.83%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.83%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.83%) Snowflake Schema
3 1 (0.83%) SQL Server
3 1 (0.83%) Star Schema
3 1 (0.83%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 9 (7.50%) Eclipse
1 9 (7.50%) Visual Studio
2 3 (2.50%) Git
2 3 (2.50%) GitLab
3 2 (1.67%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.83%) Snyk
General
1 82 (68.33%) Social Skills
2 31 (25.83%) Organisational Skills
3 17 (14.17%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (8.33%) Legal
5 9 (7.50%) Presentation Skills
6 8 (6.67%) Military
7 5 (4.17%) Finance
8 4 (3.33%) Public Sector
9 3 (2.50%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (2.50%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.83%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.83%) Law
10 1 (0.83%) Local Government
10 1 (0.83%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.83%) Retail
10 1 (0.83%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 45 (37.50%) IT Support
2 18 (15.00%) Administrator
3 17 (14.17%) Technical Support
4 9 (7.50%) Security Officer
5 8 (6.67%) Analyst
5 8 (6.67%) IT Administrator
6 7 (5.83%) Desktop Support
7 6 (5.00%) C# Software Engineer
7 6 (5.00%) Software Engineer
8 5 (4.17%) Service Analyst
8 5 (4.17%) Service Desk Analyst
9 4 (3.33%) Architect
9 4 (3.33%) Consultant
9 4 (3.33%) IT Engineer
9 4 (3.33%) Microsoft Consultant
9 4 (3.33%) Senior
10 3 (2.50%) C++ Software Engineer
10 3 (2.50%) Developer
10 3 (2.50%) Lead
10 3 (2.50%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (6.67%) Node.js
1 8 (6.67%) Web Services
2 3 (2.50%) LDAP
3 2 (1.67%) Middleware
3 2 (1.67%) Oracle Fusion
4 1 (0.83%) OAuth
4 1 (0.83%) OAuth2
4 1 (0.83%) OpenID
4 1 (0.83%) REST
4 1 (0.83%) SAML
4 1 (0.83%) Spring
4 1 (0.83%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 9 (7.50%) Insider Threat
2 4 (3.33%) Data Centre
2 4 (3.33%) Onboarding
3 3 (2.50%) Management Information System
3 3 (2.50%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (0.83%) Clustering
4 1 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (0.83%) Enterprise Storage
4 1 (0.83%) Hybrid Cloud
4 1 (0.83%) LIMS
4 1 (0.83%) NHS
4 1 (0.83%) Operational Technology
4 1 (0.83%) PDA
4 1 (0.83%) PKI
4 1 (0.83%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 23 (19.17%) Windows
2 16 (13.33%) Linux
3 5 (4.17%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.67%) CentOS
4 2 (1.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (1.67%) Windows 10
4 2 (1.67%) Windows Server 2019
5 1 (0.83%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.83%) Data ONTAP
5 1 (0.83%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.83%) Mac OS X
5 1 (0.83%) VMS
5 1 (0.83%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 50 (41.67%) Time Management
2 24 (20.00%) Customer Service
3 17 (14.17%) ITIL
3 17 (14.17%) Problem-Solving
4 12 (10.00%) CI/CD
4 12 (10.00%) Continuous Improvement
5 11 (9.17%) Agile
6 10 (8.33%) Asset Management
6 10 (8.33%) Continuous Integration
6 10 (8.33%) Data Protection
7 9 (7.50%) Analytical Thinking
7 9 (7.50%) Continuous Delivery
7 9 (7.50%) Digital Twin
7 9 (7.50%) Information Security
7 9 (7.50%) Synthetic Environment
7 9 (7.50%) TDD
7 9 (7.50%) Unit Testing
8 8 (6.67%) Kalman Filter
8 8 (6.67%) Validation
9 7 (5.83%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 9 (7.50%) C#
1 9 (7.50%) C++
1 9 (7.50%) JavaScript
2 6 (5.00%) PowerShell
3 4 (3.33%) Python
3 4 (3.33%) SQL
4 2 (1.67%) MATLAB
4 2 (1.67%) Shell Script
5 1 (0.83%) Bash
5 1 (0.83%) Java
5 1 (0.83%) R
5 1 (0.83%) TypeScript
5 1 (0.83%) VB
Qualifications
1 35 (29.17%) Security Cleared
2 34 (28.33%) SC Cleared
3 12 (10.00%) DV Cleared
4 9 (7.50%) CTC Cleared
5 6 (5.00%) Degree
6 4 (3.33%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (1.67%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 2 (1.67%) Master's Degree
8 2 (1.67%) PMI Certification
8 2 (1.67%) PMP
8 2 (1.67%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 1 (0.83%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.83%) CCAB
9 1 (0.83%) CIPFA
9 1 (0.83%) CompTIA Security+
9 1 (0.83%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (45.83%) SLA
2 3 (2.50%) GxP
3 2 (1.67%) PMO
4 1 (0.83%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.83%) GDPR
4 1 (0.83%) GMP
4 1 (0.83%) QA
System Software
1 12 (10.00%) Active Directory
2 7 (5.83%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (2.50%) Hyper-V
4 2 (1.67%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.83%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 11 (9.17%) ServiceCenter
2 5 (4.17%) Ansible
3 4 (3.33%) vCenter Server
4 3 (2.50%) Terraform
5 2 (1.67%) Check_MK
5 2 (1.67%) Podman
5 2 (1.67%) Red Hat Satellite
5 2 (1.67%) SCCM
5 2 (1.67%) TeamSite
6 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
6 1 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 12 (10.00%) Apple
2 11 (9.17%) Dell
2 11 (9.17%) HP
3 9 (7.50%) VMware
4 5 (4.17%) Oracle
4 5 (4.17%) Salesforce
4 5 (4.17%) ServiceNow
5 4 (3.33%) SAP
6 3 (2.50%) Freshdesk
7 2 (1.67%) Google
7 2 (1.67%) Red Hat
8 1 (0.83%) Citrix
8 1 (0.83%) Computacenter
8 1 (0.83%) Facebook
8 1 (0.83%) NetApp
8 1 (0.83%) New Relic
8 1 (0.83%) Remedy
8 1 (0.83%) Splunk
8 1 (0.83%) Veeam
8 1 (0.83%) Wyse