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 23 July 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
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 12 9
Rank change year-on-year +1 -3 -2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 133 70 173
As % of all contract jobs in Reading 11.69% 12.11% 14.67%
As % of the Vendors category 22.70% 20.11% 28.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 80 45 113
10th Percentile £201 £177 £207
25th Percentile £450 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £568 £475 £573
Median % change year-on-year +19.47% -17.03% +5.05%
75th Percentile £650 £550 £608
90th Percentile £700 £640 £649
Berkshire median daily rate £500 £493 £525
% change year-on-year +1.52% -6.19% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 2 8
10th Percentile £30.38 £27.69 £44.66
25th Percentile £44.61 £29.10 £56.44
Median hourly rate £88.00 £32.89 £58.40
Median % change year-on-year +167.56% -43.68% +61.45%
75th Percentile £110.75 £36.38 £60.72
90th Percentile - £37.60 £63.37
Berkshire median hourly rate £80.00 £23.69 £58.17
% change year-on-year +237.77% -59.28% +158.54%

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 586 348 607
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Reading 51.49% 60.21% 51.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 343 233 334
10th Percentile £310 £350 £276
25th Percentile £450 £450 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £591
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% +3.73%
75th Percentile £644 £638 £675
90th Percentile £733 £700 £749
Berkshire median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% +4.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 14 22
10th Percentile £31.30 - £14.50
25th Percentile £81.00 £14.75 £28.79
Median hourly rate £88.00 £18.13 £59.55
Median % change year-on-year +385.52% -69.56% -7.93%
75th Percentile - £36.38 £61.60
90th Percentile £110.75 £44.78 £68.04
Berkshire median hourly rate £87.16 £20.75 £58.30
% change year-on-year +320.05% -64.41% -0.77%

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 23 July 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 23 July 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 19 (14.29%) SharePoint
2 4 (3.01%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.50%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.75%) Confluence
Applications
1 27 (20.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 21 (15.79%) Microsoft Office
3 15 (11.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (3.76%) MS Visio
5 2 (1.50%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 12 (9.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (1.50%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.75%) iTrent
3 1 (0.75%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 55 (41.35%) Azure
2 18 (13.53%) Microsoft 365
3 16 (12.03%) Entra ID
3 16 (12.03%) Power Platform
4 14 (10.53%) AWS
5 11 (8.27%) Azure DevOps
5 11 (8.27%) OneDrive
6 5 (3.76%) Microsoft Purview
6 5 (3.76%) PowerApps
7 4 (3.01%) Azure Logic Apps
7 4 (3.01%) Azure Sentinel
7 4 (3.01%) SaaS
8 3 (2.26%) Dynamics 365
8 3 (2.26%) Power Automate
9 2 (1.50%) Azure Data Factory
9 2 (1.50%) Azure Monitor
9 2 (1.50%) GCP
9 2 (1.50%) GitHub
9 2 (1.50%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (1.50%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 11 (8.27%) TCP/IP
2 7 (5.26%) DHCP
2 7 (5.26%) DNS
3 6 (4.51%) LAN
4 5 (3.76%) MPLS
4 5 (3.76%) WAN
5 4 (3.01%) BGP
5 4 (3.01%) Internet
5 4 (3.01%) SNMP
5 4 (3.01%) TACACS
6 3 (2.26%) SD-WAN
6 3 (2.26%) Unified Communications
6 3 (2.26%) Wireless
7 2 (1.50%) Firewall
7 2 (1.50%) IPsec
7 2 (1.50%) MQTT
7 2 (1.50%) Wi-Fi
8 1 (0.75%) PBX
8 1 (0.75%) TETRA
8 1 (0.75%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (8.27%) Power BI
2 6 (4.51%) SQL Server
3 2 (1.50%) Oracle Reports
4 1 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (0.75%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.75%) Data Warehouse
4 1 (0.75%) Metadata
4 1 (0.75%) MS Access
4 1 (0.75%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 1 (0.75%) Git
1 1 (0.75%) JIRA
General
1 44 (33.08%) Social Skills
2 22 (16.54%) Aerospace
3 17 (12.78%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (9.02%) Finance
5 10 (7.52%) Public Sector
6 8 (6.02%) Telecoms
7 6 (4.51%) Legal
8 5 (3.76%) Influencing Skills
9 4 (3.01%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (1.50%) Advertising
10 2 (1.50%) Aviation
10 2 (1.50%) Police
11 1 (0.75%) Documentation Skills
11 1 (0.75%) Local Government
11 1 (0.75%) Marketing
11 1 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 25 (18.80%) Architect
2 23 (17.29%) Lead
3 15 (11.28%) Analyst
4 14 (10.53%) Solutions Architect
5 11 (8.27%) Consultant
6 8 (6.02%) Change Manager
6 8 (6.02%) Senior
7 7 (5.26%) Business Analyst
8 6 (4.51%) IT Support
9 5 (3.76%) Cloud Engineer
9 5 (3.76%) Lead Architect
9 5 (3.76%) Lead Solutions Architect
9 5 (3.76%) SIEM Engineer
10 4 (3.01%) IT Engineer
10 4 (3.01%) Support Assistant
10 4 (3.01%) Systems Engineer
10 4 (3.01%) Systems Support
11 3 (2.26%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 3 (2.26%) Security Analyst
11 3 (2.26%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (3.01%) 802.1X
1 4 (3.01%) NETCONF
1 4 (3.01%) OpenConfig
1 4 (3.01%) RESTCONF
1 4 (3.01%) YANG
2 3 (2.26%) Microsoft Graph
2 3 (2.26%) PySpark
2 3 (2.26%) Software Packaging
2 3 (2.26%) Streamlit
3 2 (1.50%) .NET
3 2 (1.50%) ADO
3 2 (1.50%) OAuth
3 2 (1.50%) OpenID
3 2 (1.50%) Oracle Fusion
3 2 (1.50%) SAML
3 2 (1.50%) XML
4 1 (0.75%) .NET Framework
4 1 (0.75%) Entity Framework
4 1 (0.75%) REST
4 1 (0.75%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 19 (14.29%) Onboarding
2 11 (8.27%) Data Centre
3 10 (7.52%) Operational Technology
4 8 (6.02%) Hybrid Cloud
5 6 (4.51%) Cloud Native
6 4 (3.01%) Analytical Mindset
6 4 (3.01%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (3.01%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (2.26%) Product Ownership
7 3 (2.26%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (2.26%) Video Conferencing
8 2 (1.50%) CMDB
8 2 (1.50%) Private Cloud
8 2 (1.50%) Public Cloud
8 2 (1.50%) Security Posture
9 1 (0.75%) Data Structures
9 1 (0.75%) Digital Media
9 1 (0.75%) iPad
9 1 (0.75%) iPhone
9 1 (0.75%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 22 (16.54%) Windows
2 13 (9.77%) Mac OS
3 7 (5.26%) Apple iOS
3 7 (5.26%) Linux
4 1 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.75%) Windows 10
4 1 (0.75%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (20.30%) Stakeholder Management
2 24 (18.05%) Roadmaps
3 23 (17.29%) Cybersecurity
3 23 (17.29%) Digital Transformation Programme
3 23 (17.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 20 (15.04%) DevOps
4 20 (15.04%) Problem-Solving
5 19 (14.29%) ITIL
6 17 (12.78%) Technical Leadership
7 16 (12.03%) Decision-Making
7 16 (12.03%) Enterprise Architecture
7 16 (12.03%) ITSM
8 15 (11.28%) Risk Management
9 14 (10.53%) Analytics
9 14 (10.53%) Architecture Roadmap
10 13 (9.77%) Agile
10 13 (9.77%) Data Protection
10 13 (9.77%) Project Management
10 13 (9.77%) Service Management
10 13 (9.77%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 18 (13.53%) Python
2 15 (11.28%) PowerShell
3 13 (9.77%) SQL
4 6 (4.51%) Kusto Query Language
5 4 (3.01%) Bash
6 2 (1.50%) C#
6 2 (1.50%) T-SQL
7 1 (0.75%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 57 (42.86%) Security Cleared
2 51 (38.35%) SC Cleared
3 17 (12.78%) Degree
4 16 (12.03%) Azure Certification
5 9 (6.77%) PMI Certification
5 9 (6.77%) PMP
6 4 (3.01%) AWS Certification
6 4 (3.01%) CCIE
6 4 (3.01%) Cisco Certification
6 4 (3.01%) JNCIE
6 4 (3.01%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (2.26%) DV Cleared
8 2 (1.50%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.75%) APMG
9 1 (0.75%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.75%) CISA
9 1 (0.75%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (3.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (3.01%) GRC
2 4 (3.01%) NCSC
2 4 (3.01%) NIST
2 4 (3.01%) SLA
3 3 (2.26%) GDPR
3 3 (2.26%) PMO
4 2 (1.50%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.50%) NIST 800
5 1 (0.75%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.75%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.75%) QA
5 1 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 15 (11.28%) Active Directory
2 3 (2.26%) Virtual Desktop
2 3 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (1.50%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.75%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 18 (13.53%) Microsoft Intune
2 7 (5.26%) Ansible
2 7 (5.26%) Terraform
3 6 (4.51%) Jamf Pro
3 6 (4.51%) SCCM
4 4 (3.01%) FortiGate
5 3 (2.26%) Progress Chef
5 3 (2.26%) Puppet
6 1 (0.75%) Kubernetes
6 1 (0.75%) QRadar
6 1 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 18 (13.53%) SAP
2 16 (12.03%) ServiceNow
3 8 (6.02%) Cisco
4 5 (3.76%) Fortinet
4 5 (3.76%) Oracle
4 5 (3.76%) VMware
5 4 (3.01%) Citrix
5 4 (3.01%) F5
5 4 (3.01%) Juniper
6 3 (2.26%) Databricks
6 3 (2.26%) Google
6 3 (2.26%) Salesforce
7 2 (1.50%) Avaya
7 2 (1.50%) BiZZdesign
7 2 (1.50%) Splunk
7 2 (1.50%) Workday
8 1 (0.75%) Apple
8 1 (0.75%) IBM
8 1 (0.75%) McAfee
8 1 (0.75%) Mitel