Microsoft 365 Contract Job Trends in the North of England

Microsoft 365 (M365, Office 365, O365)
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North of England requiring Microsoft 365 skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 44 36
Rank change year-on-year +8 -8 -9
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 365 399 208 194
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 5.27% 5.20% 4.72%
As % of the Cloud Services category 15.96% 14.74% 14.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 260 127 127
10th Percentile £155 £134 £159
25th Percentile £189 £181 £191
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £270 £235 £300
Median % change year-on-year +14.89% -21.67% -
75th Percentile £488 £449 £494
90th Percentile £556 £541 £608
England median daily rate £400 £325 £400
% change year-on-year +23.08% -18.75% +11.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 13 11
10th Percentile £13.56 - £12.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £12.82 £15.35
Median hourly rate £19.00 £16.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.75% -20.00% +14.29%
75th Percentile £28.75 £18.87 £21.75
90th Percentile £178.75 - £22.00
England median hourly rate £17.75 £19.37 £21.19
% change year-on-year -8.37% -8.59% +11.50%

All Cloud Computing Skills
North of England

Microsoft 365 falls under the Cloud Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring cloud computing skills in the North of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for cloud computing skills 2,500 1,411 1,296
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 33.05% 35.30% 31.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,620 1,005 856
10th Percentile £277 £300 £288
25th Percentile £400 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £485
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -7.22% -3.00%
75th Percentile £588 £538 £575
90th Percentile £675 £620 £650
England median daily rate £525 £501 £525
% change year-on-year +4.90% -4.67% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 125 27 23
10th Percentile £17.10 £12.82 £12.00
25th Percentile £25.38 £15.50 £17.44
Median hourly rate £65.00 £36.00 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +80.56% +63.64% -31.78%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.63 £46.18
90th Percentile £77.00 £79.75 £67.40
England median hourly rate £33.99 £26.30 £33.00
% change year-on-year +29.24% -20.30% -

Microsoft 365
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microsoft 365 relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England.

Microsoft 365 job vacancy trend in the North of England

Microsoft 365
Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Microsoft 365.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365
Daily Rate Histogram in the North of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft 365 in the North of England over the 6 months to 16 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft 365 in the North of England

Microsoft 365
Hourly Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Microsoft 365.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North of England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft 365 in the North of England over the 6 months to 16 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft 365 in the North of England

Microsoft 365
Contract Job Locations in the North of England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft 365 within the North of England region over the 6 months to 16 September 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
North West +20 235 £300 -17.81% 201
Yorkshire -12 143 £225 +2.27% 119
North East -35 24 £273 +39.74% 47
Microsoft 365
England

Microsoft 365
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of 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
1 145 (36.34%) SharePoint
2 82 (20.55%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (3.51%) SharePoint Server
4 5 (1.25%) Confluence
5 3 (0.75%) CMS
6 1 (0.25%) IIS
6 1 (0.25%) Mendix
6 1 (0.25%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 24 (6.02%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (2.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.75%) Acrobat
3 3 (0.75%) Chatbot
3 3 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.75%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 8 (2.01%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.75%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.25%) SAP R/3
3 1 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.25%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 152 (38.10%) Azure
2 116 (29.07%) Entra ID
3 71 (17.79%) Power Platform
4 59 (14.79%) OneDrive
5 54 (13.53%) Microsoft Copilot
6 34 (8.52%) Power Automate
6 34 (8.52%) PowerApps
7 17 (4.26%) AWS
7 17 (4.26%) Azure AI
8 14 (3.51%) Azure DevOps
8 14 (3.51%) GCP
9 13 (3.26%) SaaS
10 10 (2.51%) GitHub
10 10 (2.51%) Google Workspace
10 10 (2.51%) Microsoft Purview
11 9 (2.26%) Copilot Studio
12 8 (2.01%) Dynamics 365
12 8 (2.01%) Miro
13 7 (1.75%) GitHub Actions
13 7 (1.75%) Google Drive
Communications & Networking
1 35 (8.77%) VPN
2 31 (7.77%) DNS
3 22 (5.51%) DHCP
4 21 (5.26%) Firewall
5 17 (4.26%) VLAN
6 14 (3.51%) LAN
6 14 (3.51%) Wi-Fi
7 13 (3.26%) TCP/IP
8 12 (3.01%) Wireless
9 9 (2.26%) SAN
9 9 (2.26%) VoIP
9 9 (2.26%) WAN
9 9 (2.26%) WLAN
10 7 (1.75%) BGP
10 7 (1.75%) Cisco ASA
10 7 (1.75%) Cisco Nexus
10 7 (1.75%) OSPF
11 6 (1.50%) Cisco Firepower
12 5 (1.25%) NAS
12 5 (1.25%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (6.02%) Power BI
2 7 (1.75%) SQL Server
3 6 (1.50%) Amazon RDS
4 4 (1.00%) Metadata
5 3 (0.75%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.50%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.50%) Data Lake
6 2 (0.50%) EDRMS
7 1 (0.25%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.25%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 17 (4.26%) JIRA
2 5 (1.25%) MSI
3 3 (0.75%) Browser DevTools
3 3 (0.75%) Fiddler
4 2 (0.50%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.50%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 2 (0.50%) Terragrunt
4 2 (0.50%) Zephyr
5 1 (0.25%) Claude Code
General
1 157 (39.35%) Social Skills
2 46 (11.53%) Analytical Skills
3 38 (9.52%) Public Sector
4 34 (8.52%) Legal
5 31 (7.77%) Finance
6 14 (3.51%) Manufacturing
6 14 (3.51%) Organisational Skills
7 11 (2.76%) Law
8 9 (2.26%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (1.75%) Telecoms
10 6 (1.50%) Banking
11 5 (1.25%) Games
11 5 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (1.00%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.00%) Local Government
12 4 (1.00%) Pharmaceutical
12 4 (1.00%) Police
12 4 (1.00%) Retail
13 3 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.50%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 93 (23.31%) IT Support
2 64 (16.04%) Support Engineer
3 54 (13.53%) IT Engineer
4 53 (13.28%) IT Support Engineer
5 48 (12.03%) Analyst
6 30 (7.52%) 2nd Line Support
7 26 (6.52%) Service Analyst
7 26 (6.52%) Service Desk Analyst
8 25 (6.27%) Architect
9 23 (5.76%) Senior
10 22 (5.51%) 2nd Line Engineer
11 20 (5.01%) 1st Line Support
12 19 (4.76%) IT Analyst
13 17 (4.26%) 2nd Line Support Engineer
13 17 (4.26%) Lead
14 16 (4.01%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
15 15 (3.76%) Administrator
15 15 (3.76%) Deployment Engineer
15 15 (3.76%) Designer
15 15 (3.76%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (3.01%) Microsoft Graph
2 9 (2.26%) Terraform
3 8 (2.01%) OAuth
4 5 (1.25%) OpenID
4 5 (1.25%) SAML
4 5 (1.25%) YAML
5 3 (0.75%) FIDO
5 3 (0.75%) JSON
5 3 (0.75%) OAuth2
6 2 (0.50%) LDAP
6 2 (0.50%) ODBC
6 2 (0.50%) React
6 2 (0.50%) REST
6 2 (0.50%) SPFx
6 2 (0.50%) XSLT
7 1 (0.25%) A2A Protocol
7 1 (0.25%) EDI
7 1 (0.25%) HTML5 Canvas
7 1 (0.25%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 35 (8.77%) Onboarding
2 17 (4.26%) Driving Licence
3 15 (3.76%) Enterprise Software
4 14 (3.51%) CMDB
5 13 (3.26%) Management Information System
6 11 (2.76%) Data Centre
7 10 (2.51%) Analytical Mindset
8 8 (2.01%) Blackberry
8 8 (2.01%) Mobile App
9 7 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
9 7 (1.75%) Video Conferencing
10 6 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
10 6 (1.50%) Handset
10 6 (1.50%) Product Ownership
11 5 (1.25%) Animation
11 5 (1.25%) PKI
12 4 (1.00%) Smartphone
13 3 (0.75%) Enterprise Storage
13 3 (0.75%) Freedom of Information
13 3 (0.75%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 224 (56.14%) Windows
2 81 (20.30%) Windows 10
3 50 (12.53%) Windows Server
4 25 (6.27%) Android
5 21 (5.26%) Apple iOS
6 8 (2.01%) Mac OS
7 7 (1.75%) Linux
8 5 (1.25%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.50%) Windows 7
9 2 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
9 2 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.25%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.25%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (24.81%) Problem-Solving
2 94 (23.56%) ITIL
3 93 (23.31%) Customer Service
4 48 (12.03%) Service Management
5 42 (10.53%) Continuous Improvement
6 38 (9.52%) ITSM
7 34 (8.52%) Migration
8 33 (8.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 32 (8.02%) Agile
10 29 (7.27%) Incident Management
11 28 (7.02%) AI
11 28 (7.02%) User Experience
12 26 (6.52%) Computer Science
12 26 (6.52%) DevOps
13 25 (6.27%) Stakeholder Management
14 23 (5.76%) Analytics
14 23 (5.76%) Cybersecurity
15 22 (5.51%) Data Protection
16 21 (5.26%) Identity Access Management
17 20 (5.01%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 41 (10.28%) PowerShell
2 10 (2.51%) Python
3 8 (2.01%) SQL
4 5 (1.25%) T-SQL
5 4 (1.00%) JavaScript
6 3 (0.75%) TypeScript
7 2 (0.50%) Bicep
7 2 (0.50%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.25%) Bash
8 1 (0.25%) C
8 1 (0.25%) C#
8 1 (0.25%) Google Apps Script
Qualifications
1 66 (16.54%) Degree
2 53 (13.28%) Security Cleared
3 37 (9.27%) SC Cleared
4 29 (7.27%) Microsoft Certification
5 25 (6.27%) Computer Science Degree
6 16 (4.01%) BPSS Clearance
7 10 (2.51%) A+ Certification
7 10 (2.51%) Network+ Certification
8 9 (2.26%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 8 (2.01%) Cisco Certification
9 8 (2.01%) DBS Check
10 7 (1.75%) CCNP
11 6 (1.50%) DV Cleared
12 5 (1.25%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 4 (1.00%) Azure Certification
14 3 (0.75%) PMI Certification
14 3 (0.75%) PMP
15 2 (0.50%) ITIL Certification
15 2 (0.50%) MCSE
15 2 (0.50%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (5.76%) SLA
2 7 (1.75%) Cyber Essentials
3 6 (1.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
3 6 (1.50%) Data Quality
3 6 (1.50%) GDPR
4 5 (1.25%) Accessibility
4 5 (1.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (1.25%) NIST
4 5 (1.25%) WCAG
5 4 (1.00%) GRC
5 4 (1.00%) QA
6 2 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
6 2 (0.50%) IASME
6 2 (0.50%) PMO
7 1 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 196 (49.12%) Active Directory
2 23 (5.76%) VMware Infrastructure
3 21 (5.26%) Hyper-V
4 16 (4.01%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.50%) Docker
7 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 1 (0.25%) Terminal Services
7 1 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
7 1 (0.25%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 84 (21.05%) Microsoft Intune
2 27 (6.77%) SCCM
3 15 (3.76%) Jamf Pro
4 10 (2.51%) Single Sign-On
5 4 (1.00%) WSUS
6 3 (0.75%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
7 2 (0.50%) FortiGate
7 2 (0.50%) Kubernetes
8 1 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.25%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.25%) Tivoli
8 1 (0.25%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 298 (74.69%) Microsoft
2 68 (17.04%) ServiceNow
3 30 (7.52%) Cisco
4 28 (7.02%) VMware
5 21 (5.26%) iManage
6 16 (4.01%) Google
7 15 (3.76%) Citrix
8 13 (3.26%) Apple
8 13 (3.26%) Bomgar
9 12 (3.01%) Remedy
10 9 (2.26%) CyberArk
10 9 (2.26%) Sophos
11 8 (2.01%) Splunk
12 7 (1.75%) BeyondTrust
12 7 (1.75%) CheckPoint
12 7 (1.75%) Meraki
12 7 (1.75%) Okta
12 7 (1.75%) Ribbon
13 5 (1.25%) Adobe
13 5 (1.25%) SAP