Microsoft Contract Job Trends in Oxfordshire

Microsoft
South East > Oxfordshire

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in Oxfordshire 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 1 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
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 3 3
Rank change year-on-year 0 0 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 65 23 30
As % of all contract jobs in Oxfordshire 22.18% 21.70% 13.22%
As % of the Vendors category 54.62% 41.07% 34.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 40 13 17
10th Percentile £203 - -
25th Percentile £231 £250 £128
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £338 £375 £375
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% - -6.25%
75th Percentile £500 £475 £475
90th Percentile £564 £500 £526
South East median daily rate £478 £492 £465
% change year-on-year -2.85% +5.70% -1.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 5 3
10th Percentile - - £16.05
25th Percentile £12.78 £13.08 £16.13
Median hourly rate £27.50 £25.00 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% +42.86% -
75th Percentile £53.75 £26.50 £18.75
90th Percentile - £27.65 -
South East median hourly rate £20.79 £15.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year +38.60% -28.57% +2.59%

All Vendors
Oxfordshire

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 Oxfordshire.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 119 56 88
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Oxfordshire 40.61% 52.83% 38.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 63 28 60
10th Percentile £203 - £128
25th Percentile £250 £250 £319
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £488 £450
Median % change year-on-year -12.82% +8.33% +1.41%
75th Percentile £500 £513 £525
90th Percentile £595 £666 £558
South East median daily rate £510 £514 £500
% change year-on-year -0.78% +2.80% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 9 9
10th Percentile £12.93 £13.08 £16.10
25th Percentile £18.79 £23.50 £16.25
Median hourly rate £27.50 £25.30 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.70% +44.57% -28.57%
75th Percentile £52.51 £46.30 £26.03
90th Percentile £53.75 - £26.92
South East median hourly rate £47.54 £24.66 £48.75
% change year-on-year +92.78% -49.42% +8.33%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in Oxfordshire

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

Microsoft job vacancy trend in Oxfordshire

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in Oxfordshire

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Oxfordshire citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in Oxfordshire

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in Oxfordshire over the 6 months to 1 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in Oxfordshire

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in Oxfordshire

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Oxfordshire citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in Oxfordshire

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in Oxfordshire over the 6 months to 1 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in Oxfordshire

Microsoft
Contract Job Locations in Oxfordshire

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft within the Oxfordshire region over the 6 months to 1 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
Oxford +1 10 £500 +70.21% 19
Abingdon -2 6 £451 - 9
Kidlington -3 5 £238 -47.22% 1
Bicester - 4 £210 - 1
Carterton - 4 - -
Banbury - 4 £190 - 3
Witney - 4 - -
Wantage - 1 £250 - 2
Microsoft
South East

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Oxfordshire 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 6 (9.23%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (7.69%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.54%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 4 (6.15%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.54%) MS Visio
2 1 (1.54%) Trello
Cloud Services
1 40 (61.54%) Microsoft 365
2 26 (40.00%) Azure
2 26 (40.00%) Entra ID
3 10 (15.38%) OneDrive
4 5 (7.69%) Microsoft Purview
5 4 (6.15%) SaaS
6 3 (4.62%) IaaS
6 3 (4.62%) PaaS
7 2 (3.08%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (3.08%) GitHub
7 2 (3.08%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (3.08%) Power Platform
8 1 (1.54%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (1.54%) Azure Functions
8 1 (1.54%) Azure Key Vault
8 1 (1.54%) Azure Logic Apps
8 1 (1.54%) Azure Sentinel
8 1 (1.54%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 1 (1.54%) Serverless
8 1 (1.54%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 8 (12.31%) Wi-Fi
2 5 (7.69%) LAN
2 5 (7.69%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (3.08%) Power BI
2 1 (1.54%) Data Lake
2 1 (1.54%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (1.54%) Delta Lake
2 1 (1.54%) Metadata
2 1 (1.54%) Semantic Layer
2 1 (1.54%) Spark SQL
2 1 (1.54%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 1 (1.54%) Git
1 1 (1.54%) JIRA
1 1 (1.54%) Visual Studio
General
1 24 (36.92%) Social Skills
2 9 (13.85%) Public Sector
3 6 (9.23%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (6.15%) Documentation Skills
4 4 (6.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 4 (6.15%) Military
5 2 (3.08%) Aviation
5 2 (3.08%) Marketing
5 2 (3.08%) Police
6 1 (1.54%) Finance
6 1 (1.54%) Legal
6 1 (1.54%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (1.54%) Retail
Job Titles
1 25 (38.46%) IT Support
2 24 (36.92%) Support Engineer
3 22 (33.85%) IT Engineer
4 21 (32.31%) IT Support Engineer
5 8 (12.31%) IAM Specialist
6 7 (10.77%) Senior
7 6 (9.23%) Analyst
8 5 (7.69%) 1st/2nd Line Support
8 5 (7.69%) 2nd Line Support
8 5 (7.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 5 (7.69%) Security Engineer
9 4 (6.15%) Microsoft 365 Engineer
9 4 (6.15%) Senior IT Engineer
9 4 (6.15%) Senior IT Support
9 4 (6.15%) Senior Support Engineer
10 3 (4.62%) 1st Line Support
10 3 (4.62%) 1st Line Support Engineer
10 3 (4.62%) Architect
10 3 (4.62%) Security Specialist
10 3 (4.62%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (15.38%) OAuth
1 10 (15.38%) OAuth2
1 10 (15.38%) OpenID
1 10 (15.38%) SAML
2 9 (13.85%) SailPoint
3 6 (9.23%) LDAP
3 6 (9.23%) Web Services
4 1 (1.54%) Kafka
4 1 (1.54%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 7 (10.77%) Onboarding
2 5 (7.69%) Self-Motivation
3 4 (6.15%) Cloud Security Posture
3 4 (6.15%) Security Posture
4 3 (4.62%) Cyber Defence
4 3 (4.62%) Driving Licence
4 3 (4.62%) Operational Technology
5 2 (3.08%) CMDB
6 1 (1.54%) AI Agents
6 1 (1.54%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (1.54%) Data Fabric
6 1 (1.54%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (1.54%) IoT
6 1 (1.54%) Management Information System
6 1 (1.54%) SCADA
6 1 (1.54%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 28 (43.08%) Windows
2 6 (9.23%) Linux
3 4 (6.15%) Windows 10
4 3 (4.62%) Unix
4 3 (4.62%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (41.54%) Customer Service
2 14 (21.54%) Cybersecurity
2 14 (21.54%) RBAC
3 9 (13.85%) Analytics
4 8 (12.31%) Change Control
4 8 (12.31%) ITSM
4 8 (12.31%) Runbook
4 8 (12.31%) SIEM
5 7 (10.77%) Identity Access Management
5 7 (10.77%) Information Security
5 7 (10.77%) User Experience
5 7 (10.77%) Zero Trust
6 6 (9.23%) API Integration
6 6 (9.23%) Attestation
6 6 (9.23%) CI/CD
6 6 (9.23%) Computer Science
6 6 (9.23%) Problem-Solving
6 6 (9.23%) Risk Analytics
7 5 (7.69%) Break/Fix
7 5 (7.69%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 13 (20.00%) PowerShell
2 7 (10.77%) Python
3 2 (3.08%) SQL
4 1 (1.54%) Bicep
4 1 (1.54%) C#
Qualifications
1 24 (36.92%) Security Cleared
2 21 (32.31%) SC Cleared
3 9 (13.85%) Degree
3 9 (13.85%) Microsoft Certification
4 2 (3.08%) (ISC)2 CCSP
4 2 (3.08%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (3.08%) CESG Certified Professional
4 2 (3.08%) Cisco Certification
4 2 (3.08%) CISM
4 2 (3.08%) CISSP
4 2 (3.08%) CRISC
4 2 (3.08%) GIAC
4 2 (3.08%) GSEC
4 2 (3.08%) SANS
4 2 (3.08%) SSCP
5 1 (1.54%) Azure Certification
5 1 (1.54%) CCSP
5 1 (1.54%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (16.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 11 (16.92%) NIST
2 3 (4.62%) Cyber Essentials
2 3 (4.62%) Data Quality
2 3 (4.62%) ISO 31000
3 2 (3.08%) NCSC
4 1 (1.54%) GDPR
System Software
1 33 (50.77%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.54%) Docker
2 1 (1.54%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 10 (15.38%) Microsoft Intune
2 5 (7.69%) Jamf Pro
3 3 (4.62%) Single Sign-On
3 3 (4.62%) Terraform
4 2 (3.08%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 2 (3.08%) SCCM
5 1 (1.54%) Ansible
5 1 (1.54%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 2 (3.08%) Databricks
2 1 (1.54%) BeyondTrust
2 1 (1.54%) CyberArk
2 1 (1.54%) Google
2 1 (1.54%) Splunk
2 1 (1.54%) Xero