Microsoft Contract Job Trends in Reading

Microsoft
Berkshire > Reading

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in Reading 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 9 January 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
9 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 19 5
Rank change year-on-year +11 -14 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 99 88 187
As % of all contract jobs in Reading 13.85% 9.65% 19.32%
As % of the Vendors category 21.52% 20.00% 37.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 77 69 166
10th Percentile £255 £357 £205
25th Percentile £363 £425 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year -12.73% +10.00% +2.35%
75th Percentile £575 £650 £577
90th Percentile £609 £700 £631
Berkshire median daily rate £480 £505 £452
% change year-on-year -4.95% +11.85% +0.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 1 3
10th Percentile - - £52.98
25th Percentile £14.50 - £55.57
Median hourly rate £67.25 £42.50 £60.14
Median % change year-on-year +58.24% -29.33% +65.40%
75th Percentile £92.75 - £62.70
90th Percentile £100.55 - £64.08
Berkshire median hourly rate £20.79 £56.75 £57.57
% change year-on-year -63.36% -1.43% +58.33%

All Vendors
Reading

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 Reading.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 460 440 504
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Reading 64.34% 48.25% 52.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 345 282 367
10th Percentile £306 £383 £213
25th Percentile £450 £500 £391
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £525
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +14.29% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £656 £621
90th Percentile £663 £700 £688
Berkshire median daily rate £500 £550 £500
% change year-on-year -9.13% +10.05% -6.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 4 13
10th Percentile £14.50 £27.08 £58.98
25th Percentile £57.69 £28.31 £60.82
Median hourly rate £81.00 £35.75 £63.29
Median % change year-on-year +126.57% -43.51% +15.07%
75th Percentile £94.94 £50.59 £65.00
90th Percentile £99.75 £65.16 £66.20
Berkshire median hourly rate £40.44 £56.75 £61.65
% change year-on-year -28.74% -7.95% +12.08%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in Reading

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

Microsoft job vacancy trend in Reading

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in Reading

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Reading citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in Reading

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in Reading over the 6 months to 9 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in Reading

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in Reading

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Reading citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in Reading

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in Reading over the 6 months to 9 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in Reading

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Reading 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 8 (8.08%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (7.07%) SharePoint
3 3 (3.03%) Confluence
4 1 (1.01%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 16 (16.16%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (8.08%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (6.06%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (4.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (2.02%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (1.01%) Oracle EBS
1 1 (1.01%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 22 (22.22%) Azure
2 19 (19.19%) Microsoft 365
3 17 (17.17%) Entra ID
4 14 (14.14%) OneDrive
5 13 (13.13%) AWS
6 8 (8.08%) SaaS
7 7 (7.07%) Microsoft Purview
7 7 (7.07%) Power Platform
8 5 (5.05%) Power Automate
9 4 (4.04%) AWS CloudFormation
9 4 (4.04%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (4.04%) IaaS
10 3 (3.03%) PaaS
11 2 (2.02%) Contentstack
11 2 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
11 2 (2.02%) GitHub
11 2 (2.02%) GitHub Actions
11 2 (2.02%) Google Workspace
11 2 (2.02%) PowerApps
11 2 (2.02%) Slack
Communications & Networking
1 10 (10.10%) Unified Communications
2 9 (9.09%) 4G
2 9 (9.09%) Wi-Fi
3 8 (8.08%) Firewall
4 6 (6.06%) DNS
4 6 (6.06%) TCP/IP
5 5 (5.05%) DHCP
6 4 (4.04%) Network Security
6 4 (4.04%) WebEx
7 3 (3.03%) IPsec
7 3 (3.03%) SD-WAN
8 2 (2.02%) BGP
8 2 (2.02%) MPLS
8 2 (2.02%) SNMP
8 2 (2.02%) TACACS
8 2 (2.02%) WAN
9 1 (1.01%) Broadband
9 1 (1.01%) H.323
9 1 (1.01%) SSL
9 1 (1.01%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (2.02%) Power BI
1 2 (2.02%) SQL Server
2 1 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (1.01%) Apache Cassandra
2 1 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (1.01%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (1.01%) GIS
2 1 (1.01%) Metadata
2 1 (1.01%) MongoDB
2 1 (1.01%) MySQL
2 1 (1.01%) NoSQL
2 1 (1.01%) Oracle Reports
2 1 (1.01%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (1.01%) RDBMS
2 1 (1.01%) Relational Database
2 1 (1.01%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 5 (5.05%) JIRA
2 4 (4.04%) Jenkins
3 3 (3.03%) Android Studio
3 3 (3.03%) Bitbucket
3 3 (3.03%) Subversion
General
1 39 (39.39%) Social Skills
2 11 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (8.08%) Finance
3 8 (8.08%) Organisational Skills
4 7 (7.07%) Public Sector
5 4 (4.04%) Legal
5 4 (4.04%) Marketing
6 2 (2.02%) Telecoms
7 1 (1.01%) Aerospace
7 1 (1.01%) Billing
7 1 (1.01%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.01%) Electronics
7 1 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (1.01%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 15 (15.15%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 12 (12.12%) Senior
3 10 (10.10%) Analyst
4 9 (9.09%) Architect
4 9 (9.09%) Infrastructure Support
4 9 (9.09%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
4 9 (9.09%) Support Engineer
5 7 (7.07%) Cybersecurity Architect
5 7 (7.07%) Security Architect
5 7 (7.07%) Solutions Architect
6 6 (6.06%) Consultant
6 6 (6.06%) Security Solutions Architect
6 6 (6.06%) SOC Analyst
6 6 (6.06%) Windows Engineer
6 6 (6.06%) Windows Infrastructure Engineer
6 6 (6.06%) Windows Support Engineer
7 5 (5.05%) Project Manager
7 5 (5.05%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
8 4 (4.04%) Administrator
8 4 (4.04%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (3.03%) SailPoint
2 2 (2.02%) NETCONF
2 2 (2.02%) OAuth
2 2 (2.02%) OAuth2
2 2 (2.02%) OpenConfig
2 2 (2.02%) OpenID
2 2 (2.02%) React
2 2 (2.02%) RESTCONF
2 2 (2.02%) SAML
2 2 (2.02%) YANG
3 1 (1.01%) .NET
3 1 (1.01%) .NET Core
3 1 (1.01%) ADO
3 1 (1.01%) ARM Templates
3 1 (1.01%) ASP.NET
3 1 (1.01%) Elastic Stack
3 1 (1.01%) GraphQL
3 1 (1.01%) Microsoft Graph
3 1 (1.01%) PySpark
3 1 (1.01%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 11 (11.11%) PKI
2 10 (10.10%) Security Operations Centre
3 8 (8.08%) Operational Technology
4 6 (6.06%) Management Information System
5 5 (5.05%) Cyber Threat
5 5 (5.05%) Driving Licence
5 5 (5.05%) Handset
5 5 (5.05%) Onboarding
6 3 (3.03%) Mobile App
6 3 (3.03%) Product Ownership
6 3 (3.03%) Replication
6 3 (3.03%) SCADA
7 2 (2.02%) Cyber Defence
7 2 (2.02%) Data Centre
7 2 (2.02%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (2.02%) IoT
7 2 (2.02%) Linux Command Line
7 2 (2.02%) PMI
7 2 (2.02%) Security Posture
7 2 (2.02%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 31 (31.31%) Windows
2 14 (14.14%) Linux
3 12 (12.12%) Windows 10
4 3 (3.03%) Android
5 2 (2.02%) Mac OS
5 2 (2.02%) Unix
5 2 (2.02%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (22.22%) Problem-Solving
2 20 (20.20%) Infrastructure Engineering
3 19 (19.19%) Cybersecurity
4 17 (17.17%) SIEM
5 12 (12.12%) Security Operations
6 11 (11.11%) CI/CD
6 11 (11.11%) Continuous Improvement
6 11 (11.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 11 (11.11%) Validation
7 10 (10.10%) Incident Response
7 10 (10.10%) Risk Management
8 9 (9.09%) Agile
8 9 (9.09%) Cyber Resilience
9 8 (8.08%) DevOps
9 8 (8.08%) Identity Management
9 8 (8.08%) Platform Engineering
9 8 (8.08%) PRINCE2
9 8 (8.08%) Project Management
9 8 (8.08%) Stakeholder Management
10 7 (7.07%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 19 (19.19%) PowerShell
1 19 (19.19%) Python
2 6 (6.06%) Bash
3 4 (4.04%) SQL
4 2 (2.02%) Java
5 1 (1.01%) C#
5 1 (1.01%) Go
5 1 (1.01%) JavaScript
5 1 (1.01%) Perl
5 1 (1.01%) PHP
5 1 (1.01%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 44 (44.44%) Security Cleared
2 32 (32.32%) SC Cleared
3 13 (13.13%) CISSP
4 9 (9.09%) Degree
5 8 (8.08%) Microsoft Certification
6 7 (7.07%) GCFA
6 7 (7.07%) GCIH
7 6 (6.06%) Azure Certification
7 6 (6.06%) Cisco Certification
7 6 (6.06%) PMI Certification
8 5 (5.05%) AWS Certification
8 5 (5.05%) DV Cleared
8 5 (5.05%) GCIA
8 5 (5.05%) GIAC
9 4 (4.04%) CFCE
9 4 (4.04%) PMP
9 4 (4.04%) TOGAF Certification
10 3 (3.03%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (3.03%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (3.03%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (9.09%) NIST
2 7 (7.07%) GDPR
2 7 (7.07%) PMO
3 6 (6.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (4.04%) SLA
5 3 (3.03%) Accessibility
5 3 (3.03%) HIPAA
6 2 (2.02%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (1.01%) Data Quality
7 1 (1.01%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (1.01%) ISO 9001
7 1 (1.01%) NCSC
7 1 (1.01%) NIST 800
7 1 (1.01%) QA
System Software
1 31 (31.31%) Active Directory
2 5 (5.05%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (4.04%) Docker
3 4 (4.04%) Hyper-V
4 1 (1.01%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 13 (13.13%) SCCM
2 10 (10.10%) Single Sign-On
3 7 (7.07%) Terraform
4 6 (6.06%) Ansible
4 6 (6.06%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (5.05%) Kubernetes
6 3 (3.03%) Cisco CUCM
6 3 (3.03%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
6 3 (3.03%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
7 2 (2.02%) EnCase
7 2 (2.02%) FTK
8 1 (1.01%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 16 (16.16%) ServiceNow
2 8 (8.08%) CrowdStrike
3 6 (6.06%) Cisco
3 6 (6.06%) Splunk
4 5 (5.05%) VMware
5 4 (4.04%) ArcSight
5 4 (4.04%) Fortinet
6 3 (3.03%) Atlassian
6 3 (3.03%) Coverity
6 3 (3.03%) CyberArk
6 3 (3.03%) Databricks
6 3 (3.03%) LogRhythm
6 3 (3.03%) Tenable
6 3 (3.03%) Thales
7 2 (2.02%) CheckPoint
7 2 (2.02%) Darktrace
7 2 (2.02%) F5
7 2 (2.02%) Juniper
7 2 (2.02%) Oracle
8 1 (1.01%) SAP