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 14 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
14 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 3 22
Rank change year-on-year -1 +19 -17
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 96 74 61
As % of all contract jobs in Hertfordshire 11.94% 21.33% 7.03%
As % of the Vendors category 29.00% 42.53% 20.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 34 48 35
10th Percentile £168 £421 £188
25th Percentile £230 £472 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £550 £540
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% +1.85% +8.00%
75th Percentile £601 £575 £700
90th Percentile £696 £600 £725
East of England median daily rate £375 £500 £434
% change year-on-year -25.00% +15.34% +2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 10 18
10th Percentile £16.35 £17.50 £13.86
25th Percentile £18.50 £52.81 £14.31
Median hourly rate £19.64 £65.00 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year -69.78% +48.57% +26.81%
75th Percentile £20.35 - £65.00
90th Percentile £65.00 £65.08 -
East of England median hourly rate £20.00 £16.23 £15.00
% change year-on-year +23.23% +8.20% +10.46%

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 331 174 291
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Hertfordshire 41.17% 50.14% 33.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 168 102 162
10th Percentile £325 £413 £200
25th Percentile £425 £463 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.27% +10.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £650 £575 £575
90th Percentile £750 £634 £701
East of England median daily rate £500 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 32 69
10th Percentile £16.62 £16.92 £14.38
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.25 £35.75
Median hourly rate £22.63 £51.25 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -55.84% -21.15% +31.31%
75th Percentile £40.00 £65.00 £80.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £76.25 £85.00
East of England median hourly rate £22.50 £18.85 £17.20
% change year-on-year +19.36% +9.59% -20.02%

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 14 June 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 14 June 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 14 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
Hatfield +2 40 £400 -28.57% 5
Stevenage -7 34 £558 +1.36% 6
Watford -13 4 £550 +22.22% 16
Hemel Hempstead - 3 £575 - 15
Hertford - 2 £475 - 6
Welwyn Garden City -2 1 £675 +20.00% 1
St Albans - 1 £375 - 5
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 (3.13%) SharePoint
2 2 (2.08%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (1.04%) Apache
3 1 (1.04%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 20 (20.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (18.75%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (18.75%) Spreadsheet
3 3 (3.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (2.08%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (2.08%) MS Visio
4 2 (2.08%) Trello
Business Applications
1 1 (1.04%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 13 (13.54%) Microsoft 365
2 11 (11.46%) Azure
3 5 (5.21%) AWS
3 5 (5.21%) Entra ID
3 5 (5.21%) OneDrive
4 4 (4.17%) Power Platform
5 3 (3.13%) SaaS
6 2 (2.08%) Asana
6 2 (2.08%) Google Workspace
6 2 (2.08%) Microsoft Purview
6 2 (2.08%) OCI
6 2 (2.08%) Serverless
7 1 (1.04%) Amazon Bedrock
7 1 (1.04%) Azure Sentinel
7 1 (1.04%) Copilot Studio
7 1 (1.04%) dbt
7 1 (1.04%) Google Gemini
7 1 (1.04%) Microsoft Copilot
7 1 (1.04%) Snowflake
7 1 (1.04%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 9 (9.38%) TCP/IP
2 7 (7.29%) Ethernet
3 5 (5.21%) Firewall
4 4 (4.17%) DNS
5 3 (3.13%) WAN
6 2 (2.08%) DHCP
6 2 (2.08%) iSCSI
6 2 (2.08%) LAN
6 2 (2.08%) NAS
6 2 (2.08%) SAN
7 1 (1.04%) HTTPS
7 1 (1.04%) Intranet
7 1 (1.04%) Network Security
7 1 (1.04%) SSL
7 1 (1.04%) Structured Cabling
7 1 (1.04%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (4.17%) Power BI
2 2 (2.08%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.04%) Data Lake
3 1 (1.04%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
3 1 (1.04%) Metadata
3 1 (1.04%) MS Access
3 1 (1.04%) NoSQL
3 1 (1.04%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (1.04%) Snowflake Schema
3 1 (1.04%) SQL Server
3 1 (1.04%) Star Schema
3 1 (1.04%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (8.33%) Eclipse
1 8 (8.33%) Visual Studio
2 3 (3.13%) Git
2 3 (3.13%) GitLab
3 2 (2.08%) Jenkins
4 1 (1.04%) Snyk
General
1 56 (58.33%) Social Skills
2 20 (20.83%) Organisational Skills
3 14 (14.58%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (7.29%) Military
4 7 (7.29%) Presentation Skills
5 6 (6.25%) Legal
6 5 (5.21%) Finance
7 2 (2.08%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (2.08%) Manufacturing
7 2 (2.08%) Public Sector
8 1 (1.04%) Law
8 1 (1.04%) Local Government
8 1 (1.04%) Retail
Job Titles
1 26 (27.08%) IT Support
2 16 (16.67%) Administrator
3 12 (12.50%) Technical Support
4 10 (10.42%) Analyst
5 6 (6.25%) IT Administrator
5 6 (6.25%) Service Analyst
5 6 (6.25%) Service Desk Analyst
6 5 (5.21%) C# Software Engineer
6 5 (5.21%) Consultant
6 5 (5.21%) Security Officer
6 5 (5.21%) Software Engineer
7 4 (4.17%) Architect
7 4 (4.17%) Microsoft Consultant
8 3 (3.13%) Business Consultant
8 3 (3.13%) C++ Software Engineer
8 3 (3.13%) Developer
8 3 (3.13%) IT Engineer
8 3 (3.13%) Lead
8 3 (3.13%) Project Manager
8 3 (3.13%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (7.29%) Node.js
1 7 (7.29%) Web Services
2 3 (3.13%) LDAP
3 2 (2.08%) Middleware
3 2 (2.08%) Oracle Fusion
4 1 (1.04%) OAuth
4 1 (1.04%) OAuth2
4 1 (1.04%) OpenID
4 1 (1.04%) REST
4 1 (1.04%) SailPoint
4 1 (1.04%) SAML
4 1 (1.04%) Spring
4 1 (1.04%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 5 (5.21%) Insider Threat
2 4 (4.17%) Onboarding
3 3 (3.13%) Data Centre
3 3 (3.13%) Management Information System
3 3 (3.13%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (1.04%) Clustering
4 1 (1.04%) e-Learning
4 1 (1.04%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (1.04%) Enterprise Storage
4 1 (1.04%) Hybrid Cloud
4 1 (1.04%) LIMS
4 1 (1.04%) NHS
4 1 (1.04%) Operational Technology
4 1 (1.04%) PKI
4 1 (1.04%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 21 (21.88%) Windows
2 16 (16.67%) Linux
3 4 (4.17%) Windows Server
4 2 (2.08%) CentOS
4 2 (2.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (1.04%) Android
5 1 (1.04%) Data ONTAP
5 1 (1.04%) VMS
5 1 (1.04%) Windows 10
5 1 (1.04%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (30.21%) Time Management
2 19 (19.79%) Customer Service
3 13 (13.54%) ITIL
4 12 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
5 11 (11.46%) CI/CD
6 10 (10.42%) Agile
7 9 (9.38%) Continuous Improvement
7 9 (9.38%) Continuous Integration
8 8 (8.33%) Continuous Delivery
8 8 (8.33%) Digital Twin
8 8 (8.33%) Stakeholder Management
8 8 (8.33%) Synthetic Environment
8 8 (8.33%) TDD
8 8 (8.33%) Unit Testing
9 7 (7.29%) Data Protection
10 6 (6.25%) Information Security
10 6 (6.25%) Software Engineering
10 6 (6.25%) Validation
10 6 (6.25%) Verification and Validation
10 6 (6.25%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 8 (8.33%) C#
1 8 (8.33%) C++
1 8 (8.33%) JavaScript
2 5 (5.21%) PowerShell
3 4 (4.17%) Python
3 4 (4.17%) SQL
4 2 (2.08%) MATLAB
4 2 (2.08%) Shell Script
5 1 (1.04%) Bash
5 1 (1.04%) Java
5 1 (1.04%) R
5 1 (1.04%) TypeScript
5 1 (1.04%) VB
Qualifications
1 24 (25.00%) Security Cleared
2 23 (23.96%) SC Cleared
3 8 (8.33%) DV Cleared
4 7 (7.29%) Degree
5 5 (5.21%) CTC Cleared
6 3 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (3.13%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (2.08%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (2.08%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 2 (2.08%) Master's Degree
7 2 (2.08%) PMI Certification
7 2 (2.08%) PMP
7 2 (2.08%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 1 (1.04%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 1 (1.04%) CCAB
8 1 (1.04%) CCSP
8 1 (1.04%) CIPFA
8 1 (1.04%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (1.04%) CISSP
8 1 (1.04%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (34.38%) SLA
2 2 (2.08%) GDPR
2 2 (2.08%) GxP
2 2 (2.08%) PMO
3 1 (1.04%) Accessibility
3 1 (1.04%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (1.04%) QA
System Software
1 10 (10.42%) Active Directory
2 6 (6.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (2.08%) Hyper-V
3 2 (2.08%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (1.04%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 9 (9.38%) ServiceCenter
2 5 (5.21%) Ansible
3 4 (4.17%) vCenter Server
4 3 (3.13%) Terraform
5 2 (2.08%) Check_MK
5 2 (2.08%) Podman
5 2 (2.08%) Red Hat Satellite
5 2 (2.08%) TeamSite
6 1 (1.04%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (1.04%) SCCM
Vendors
1 10 (10.42%) Apple
2 9 (9.38%) Dell
2 9 (9.38%) HP
3 8 (8.33%) VMware
4 6 (6.25%) ServiceNow
5 5 (5.21%) Oracle
5 5 (5.21%) Salesforce
5 5 (5.21%) SAP
6 3 (3.13%) Freshdesk
6 3 (3.13%) Google
7 2 (2.08%) Red Hat
8 1 (1.04%) Citrix
8 1 (1.04%) CyberArk
8 1 (1.04%) Facebook
8 1 (1.04%) NetApp
8 1 (1.04%) New Relic
8 1 (1.04%) OpenAI
8 1 (1.04%) Remedy
8 1 (1.04%) Splunk
8 1 (1.04%) Wyse