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 16 December 2025, 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
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 10 18 5
Rank change year-on-year +8 -13 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 102 101 193
As % of all contract jobs in Reading 13.97% 9.82% 18.81%
As % of the Vendors category 21.12% 19.42% 36.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 76 78 166
10th Percentile £255 £354 £205
25th Percentile £384 £430 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £575 £500
Median % change year-on-year -16.52% +15.00% +0.60%
75th Percentile £588 £650 £588
90th Percentile £638 £692 £638
Berkshire median daily rate £480 £525 £468
% change year-on-year -8.57% +12.18% +2.02%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 1 3
10th Percentile - - £25.45
25th Percentile £14.50 - £38.37
Median hourly rate £59.50 £42.50 £60.14
Median % change year-on-year +40.00% -29.33% +65.40%
75th Percentile £90.50 - £62.70
90th Percentile £100.00 - £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 483 520 534
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Reading 66.16% 50.53% 52.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 352 336 371
10th Percentile £314 £384 £205
25th Percentile £460 £513 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £525
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +14.29% -4.36%
75th Percentile £625 £660 £623
90th Percentile £663 £719 £688
Berkshire median daily rate £513 £575 £500
% change year-on-year -10.87% +15.00% -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 5 14
10th Percentile £14.50 £27.35 £59.09
25th Percentile £14.75 £29.00 £60.88
Median hourly rate £65.00 £42.50 £63.29
Median % change year-on-year +52.94% -32.85% +19.42%
75th Percentile £84.00 £74.87 £65.19
90th Percentile £97.50 £82.45 £67.36
Berkshire median hourly rate £22.00 £56.75 £61.79
% change year-on-year -61.23% -8.16% +113.07%

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 16 December 2025.

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 16 December 2025.

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 (7.84%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (3.92%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.98%) Confluence
3 1 (0.98%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 14 (13.73%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (7.84%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (6.86%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (3.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (1.96%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.98%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.98%) Oracle EBS
1 1 (0.98%) Oracle ERP
1 1 (0.98%) SAP HCM
1 1 (0.98%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 26 (25.49%) Azure
2 20 (19.61%) Microsoft 365
3 17 (16.67%) Entra ID
4 15 (14.71%) AWS
5 14 (13.73%) OneDrive
6 8 (7.84%) SaaS
7 7 (6.86%) Power Platform
8 5 (4.90%) Power Automate
9 4 (3.92%) AWS CloudFormation
9 4 (3.92%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (3.92%) IaaS
10 3 (2.94%) Dynamics 365
10 3 (2.94%) GitHub
10 3 (2.94%) Microsoft Copilot
10 3 (2.94%) Microsoft Purview
10 3 (2.94%) PaaS
11 2 (1.96%) Contentstack
11 2 (1.96%) Copilot Studio
11 2 (1.96%) GitHub Actions
11 2 (1.96%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 10 (9.80%) Unified Communications
2 9 (8.82%) 4G
2 9 (8.82%) Wi-Fi
3 8 (7.84%) Firewall
4 6 (5.88%) DNS
4 6 (5.88%) TCP/IP
5 5 (4.90%) DHCP
6 4 (3.92%) Network Security
6 4 (3.92%) WebEx
7 3 (2.94%) IPsec
7 3 (2.94%) SD-WAN
8 2 (1.96%) BGP
8 2 (1.96%) MPLS
8 2 (1.96%) SNMP
8 2 (1.96%) TACACS
8 2 (1.96%) WAN
9 1 (0.98%) Broadband
9 1 (0.98%) H.323
9 1 (0.98%) SSL
9 1 (0.98%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.96%) Power BI
1 2 (1.96%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
2 1 (0.98%) Apache Cassandra
2 1 (0.98%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (0.98%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (0.98%) GIS
2 1 (0.98%) Metadata
2 1 (0.98%) MongoDB
2 1 (0.98%) MySQL
2 1 (0.98%) NoSQL
2 1 (0.98%) Oracle Reports
2 1 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (0.98%) RDBMS
2 1 (0.98%) Relational Database
2 1 (0.98%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 5 (4.90%) JIRA
2 2 (1.96%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.98%) Android Studio
3 1 (0.98%) Bitbucket
3 1 (0.98%) Subversion
General
1 42 (41.18%) Social Skills
2 12 (11.76%) Analytical Skills
3 9 (8.82%) Finance
4 8 (7.84%) Organisational Skills
4 8 (7.84%) Public Sector
5 6 (5.88%) Legal
6 4 (3.92%) Marketing
7 2 (1.96%) Billing
7 2 (1.96%) Telecoms
8 1 (0.98%) Aerospace
8 1 (0.98%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.98%) Electronics
8 1 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (0.98%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 13 (12.75%) Analyst
1 13 (12.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 12 (11.76%) Architect
2 12 (11.76%) Senior
3 9 (8.82%) SOC Analyst
3 9 (8.82%) Solutions Architect
4 8 (7.84%) Consultant
5 7 (6.86%) Cybersecurity Architect
5 7 (6.86%) Infrastructure Support
5 7 (6.86%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
5 7 (6.86%) Project Manager
5 7 (6.86%) Security Architect
5 7 (6.86%) Support Engineer
6 6 (5.88%) Security Solutions Architect
6 6 (5.88%) Windows Engineer
6 6 (5.88%) Windows Infrastructure Engineer
6 6 (5.88%) Windows Support Engineer
7 5 (4.90%) Lead
7 5 (4.90%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
8 4 (3.92%) Accounts Payable Clerk
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (3.92%) SailPoint
2 3 (2.94%) OAuth
2 3 (2.94%) OpenID
2 3 (2.94%) SAML
3 2 (1.96%) NETCONF
3 2 (1.96%) OAuth2
3 2 (1.96%) OpenConfig
3 2 (1.96%) React
3 2 (1.96%) RESTCONF
3 2 (1.96%) YANG
4 1 (0.98%) .NET
4 1 (0.98%) .NET Core
4 1 (0.98%) ADO
4 1 (0.98%) ARM Templates
4 1 (0.98%) ASP.NET
4 1 (0.98%) Elastic Stack
4 1 (0.98%) GraphQL
4 1 (0.98%) Microsoft Graph
4 1 (0.98%) PySpark
4 1 (0.98%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 11 (10.78%) Security Operations Centre
2 9 (8.82%) PKI
3 8 (7.84%) Operational Technology
4 7 (6.86%) Management Information System
5 6 (5.88%) Cyber Threat
6 5 (4.90%) Driving Licence
6 5 (4.90%) Handset
6 5 (4.90%) Onboarding
7 3 (2.94%) Data Centre
7 3 (2.94%) Hybrid Cloud
7 3 (2.94%) Product Ownership
7 3 (2.94%) Replication
7 3 (2.94%) SCADA
7 3 (2.94%) Security Posture
8 2 (1.96%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (1.96%) Cyber Defence
8 2 (1.96%) IoT
8 2 (1.96%) Linux Command Line
8 2 (1.96%) PMI
8 2 (1.96%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 33 (32.35%) Windows
2 16 (15.69%) Linux
3 12 (11.76%) Windows 10
4 2 (1.96%) Mac OS
4 2 (1.96%) Unix
4 2 (1.96%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.98%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (22.55%) Problem-Solving
2 20 (19.61%) Cybersecurity
2 20 (19.61%) SIEM
3 18 (17.65%) Infrastructure Engineering
4 13 (12.75%) Incident Response
4 13 (12.75%) Security Operations
5 12 (11.76%) Continuous Improvement
5 12 (11.76%) Risk Management
6 11 (10.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 11 (10.78%) Stakeholder Management
7 10 (9.80%) Threat Intelligence
8 9 (8.82%) Agile
8 9 (8.82%) Change Management
8 9 (8.82%) CI/CD
8 9 (8.82%) Cyber Resilience
8 9 (8.82%) Cyber Threat Intelligence
8 9 (8.82%) Forensic Analysis
8 9 (8.82%) PRINCE2
8 9 (8.82%) Project Management
9 8 (7.84%) Identity Management
Programming Languages
1 23 (22.55%) PowerShell
2 22 (21.57%) Python
3 6 (5.88%) Bash
4 4 (3.92%) SQL
5 2 (1.96%) Java
6 1 (0.98%) C#
6 1 (0.98%) Go
6 1 (0.98%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.98%) Kusto Query Language
6 1 (0.98%) Perl
6 1 (0.98%) PHP
6 1 (0.98%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 41 (40.20%) Security Cleared
2 30 (29.41%) SC Cleared
3 16 (15.69%) CISSP
4 10 (9.80%) Degree
4 10 (9.80%) GCFA
4 10 (9.80%) GCIH
5 9 (8.82%) Microsoft Certification
6 8 (7.84%) GCIA
7 7 (6.86%) Azure Certification
7 7 (6.86%) PMI Certification
8 6 (5.88%) CFCE
8 6 (5.88%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (5.88%) GIAC
9 5 (4.90%) AWS Certification
9 5 (4.90%) PMP
10 4 (3.92%) TOGAF Certification
10 4 (3.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 3 (2.94%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 3 (2.94%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (2.94%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (10.78%) NIST
2 9 (8.82%) GDPR
3 8 (7.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (6.86%) PMO
5 4 (3.92%) HIPAA
6 3 (2.94%) Accessibility
7 2 (1.96%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (1.96%) SLA
8 1 (0.98%) Data Quality
8 1 (0.98%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.98%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.98%) NCSC
8 1 (0.98%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.98%) QA
System Software
1 33 (32.35%) Active Directory
2 6 (5.88%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (4.90%) Hyper-V
4 4 (3.92%) Docker
5 1 (0.98%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.98%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.98%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.98%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 14 (13.73%) SCCM
2 9 (8.82%) Single Sign-On
3 8 (7.84%) Terraform
4 6 (5.88%) Ansible
5 5 (4.90%) Kubernetes
5 5 (4.90%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (3.92%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 3 (2.94%) Cisco CUCM
8 2 (1.96%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (1.96%) EnCase
8 2 (1.96%) FTK
9 1 (0.98%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 16 (15.69%) ServiceNow
2 11 (10.78%) CrowdStrike
3 9 (8.82%) Splunk
4 6 (5.88%) ArcSight
4 6 (5.88%) Cisco
4 6 (5.88%) VMware
5 5 (4.90%) LogRhythm
6 4 (3.92%) CyberArk
6 4 (3.92%) Fortinet
7 3 (2.94%) Databricks
7 3 (2.94%) Tenable
8 2 (1.96%) CheckPoint
8 2 (1.96%) Darktrace
8 2 (1.96%) F5
8 2 (1.96%) Juniper
8 2 (1.96%) Oracle
8 2 (1.96%) Salesforce
8 2 (1.96%) SAP
9 1 (0.98%) Intel
9 1 (0.98%) Progress