Microsoft Contract Job Trends in the South East

Microsoft
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East 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 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
23 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 7 3
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 +2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 604 475 870
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 13.49% 14.46% 16.72%
As % of the Vendors category 27.53% 28.75% 32.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 434 326 603
10th Percentile £200 £200 £163
25th Percentile £264 £334 £213
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £460
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -2.17% +2.22%
75th Percentile £569 £575 £575
90th Percentile £640 £650 £650
England median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 14 49
10th Percentile £12.50 £15.08 £11.89
25th Percentile £14.50 £18.64 £14.00
Median hourly rate £17.50 £25.00 £23.22
Median % change year-on-year -30.00% +7.69% +25.49%
75th Percentile £21.00 £39.48 £55.00
90th Percentile £49.46 £57.62 £61.66
England median hourly rate £19.18 £22.27 £19.50
% change year-on-year -13.90% +14.21% -7.19%

All Vendors
South East

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 the South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 2,194 1,652 2,650
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 49.02% 50.30% 50.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,582 1,066 1,691
10th Percentile £255 £235 £205
25th Percentile £406 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.57% +1.60% -0.10%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £603
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 138 50 146
10th Percentile £12.68 £19.82 £13.17
25th Percentile £16.50 £24.18 £21.00
Median hourly rate £22.50 £40.25 £54.53
Median % change year-on-year -44.10% -26.19% +48.38%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.44 £64.69
90th Percentile £83.20 £74.88 £76.53
England median hourly rate £23.50 £30.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -21.67% -14.29% +7.69%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Microsoft job vacancy trend in the South East

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Microsoft.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in the South East over the 6 months to 23 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the South East

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Microsoft.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Microsoft

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in the South East over the 6 months to 23 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the South East

Microsoft
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft within the South East region over the 6 months to 23 January 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
Thames Valley +2 291 £475 +1.06% 312
Berkshire +3 193 £480 -4.00% 163
Hampshire -1 138 £535 +7.00% 151
Surrey +7 75 £263 -16.67% 121
Buckinghamshire -2 72 £470 +9.30% 95
West Sussex -7 34 £290 -33.18% 74
Kent 0 28 £450 +111.76% 112
East Sussex +8 26 £600 +14.29% 61
Oxfordshire 0 26 £275 -18.52% 55
Sussex 0 11 £463 +5.11% 9
Microsoft
England

Microsoft
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 61 (10.10%) SharePoint
2 49 (8.11%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (2.15%) Skype for Business
4 8 (1.32%) Confluence
5 7 (1.16%) Exchange Server 2010
5 7 (1.16%) Mattermost
6 6 (0.99%) Exchange Server 2013
6 6 (0.99%) SharePoint Server
7 5 (0.83%) Exchange Server 2003
7 5 (0.83%) Exchange Server 2007
7 5 (0.83%) Office Communications Server
8 3 (0.50%) MS Project Server
9 2 (0.33%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.33%) CMS
9 2 (0.33%) GeoServer
9 2 (0.33%) Smallworld
10 1 (0.17%) BizTalk Server
10 1 (0.17%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 121 (20.03%) Microsoft Office
2 65 (10.76%) Microsoft Excel
3 25 (4.14%) Microsoft Project
4 20 (3.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 9 (1.49%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.17%) SOLIDWORKS
6 1 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 11 (1.82%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.16%) Remedy ITSM
3 4 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.50%) Dynamics AX
5 2 (0.33%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.33%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.33%) SAP CO
5 2 (0.33%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.33%) SAP FI/CO
6 1 (0.17%) iTrent
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.17%) Sage 50
6 1 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.17%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.17%) SAP WM
6 1 (0.17%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 167 (27.65%) Azure
2 142 (23.51%) Microsoft 365
3 70 (11.59%) Entra ID
4 64 (10.60%) AWS
5 58 (9.60%) Power Platform
6 31 (5.13%) Dynamics 365
7 29 (4.80%) SaaS
8 26 (4.30%) Microsoft Purview
9 23 (3.81%) OneDrive
10 22 (3.64%) Power Automate
11 20 (3.31%) Azure DevOps
11 20 (3.31%) PowerApps
12 18 (2.98%) GitHub
13 17 (2.81%) Sauce Labs
14 16 (2.65%) Google Workspace
15 15 (2.48%) GCP
16 14 (2.32%) Serverless
17 12 (1.99%) Azure Functions
18 11 (1.82%) Copilot Studio
18 11 (1.82%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 52 (8.61%) DNS
2 43 (7.12%) DHCP
3 36 (5.96%) Firewall
4 23 (3.81%) TCP/IP
5 19 (3.15%) Wi-Fi
6 18 (2.98%) Wireless
7 17 (2.81%) VPN
8 15 (2.48%) VLAN
9 12 (1.99%) Unified Communications
10 11 (1.82%) SAN
11 9 (1.49%) 4G
11 9 (1.49%) Network Security
12 8 (1.32%) Skype
13 7 (1.16%) WebEx
14 6 (0.99%) VSAN
15 5 (0.83%) DDNS
15 5 (0.83%) Kerberos
15 5 (0.83%) WAN
16 4 (0.66%) SSL
16 4 (0.66%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (6.46%) Power BI
1 39 (6.46%) SQL Server
2 27 (4.47%) Relational Database
3 20 (3.31%) MySQL
4 15 (2.48%) Oracle Database
5 12 (1.99%) Azure SQL Database
6 9 (1.49%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
6 9 (1.49%) Metadata
7 8 (1.32%) Data Warehouse
8 7 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
9 6 (0.99%) RDBMS
10 5 (0.83%) Data Lake
11 4 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
11 4 (0.66%) MongoDB
11 4 (0.66%) Oracle Reports
12 3 (0.50%) GIS
12 3 (0.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 3 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 2 (0.33%) Apache Cassandra
13 2 (0.33%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 20 (3.31%) Android Studio
2 18 (2.98%) Browser DevTools
3 17 (2.81%) Eclipse
3 17 (2.81%) Xcode
4 13 (2.15%) JIRA
5 9 (1.49%) Jenkins
6 8 (1.32%) Git
7 5 (0.83%) JUnit
8 4 (0.66%) Gradle
9 3 (0.50%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.50%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.50%) Maven
9 3 (0.50%) MSI
9 3 (0.50%) Subversion
10 2 (0.33%) JMeter
10 2 (0.33%) Oracle APEX
10 2 (0.33%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.17%) Gatling
11 1 (0.17%) Postman
General
1 229 (37.91%) Social Skills
2 96 (15.89%) Finance
3 72 (11.92%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (9.93%) Organisational Skills
5 47 (7.78%) Public Sector
6 17 (2.81%) Manufacturing
7 13 (2.15%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (1.66%) Influencing Skills
8 10 (1.66%) Retail
9 9 (1.49%) Legal
10 8 (1.32%) Telecoms
11 7 (1.16%) Marketing
11 7 (1.16%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (0.83%) Military
13 4 (0.66%) Banking
13 4 (0.66%) Billing
13 4 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.50%) Automotive
14 3 (0.50%) Aviation
14 3 (0.50%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 94 (15.56%) Architect
2 77 (12.75%) Support Engineer
3 71 (11.75%) Analyst
4 54 (8.94%) IT Support
5 43 (7.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 42 (6.95%) Senior
7 28 (4.64%) Developer
8 25 (4.14%) IT Engineer
9 22 (3.64%) Solutions Architect
9 22 (3.64%) Technical Support
10 21 (3.48%) Infrastructure Support
10 21 (3.48%) IT Support Engineer
11 20 (3.31%) Infrastructure Support Engineer
11 20 (3.31%) Support Officer
11 20 (3.31%) Technical Engineer
11 20 (3.31%) Technical Support Engineer
12 19 (3.15%) Consultant
12 19 (3.15%) Infrastructure Architect
12 19 (3.15%) Lead
13 18 (2.98%) UX Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.48%) React
2 20 (3.31%) GraphQL
3 19 (3.15%) .NET
4 18 (2.98%) Ajax
4 18 (2.98%) AngularJS
4 18 (2.98%) CSS
5 10 (1.66%) REST
6 8 (1.32%) LDAP
6 8 (1.32%) OAuth
7 7 (1.16%) ARM Templates
7 7 (1.16%) SAML
8 6 (0.99%) Spring
9 5 (0.83%) ADO
9 5 (0.83%) Middleware
9 5 (0.83%) OpenID
10 4 (0.66%) OAuth2
10 4 (0.66%) SailPoint
11 3 (0.50%) Microsoft Graph
11 3 (0.50%) PySpark
11 3 (0.50%) Vert.x
Miscellaneous
1 33 (5.46%) PKI
2 29 (4.80%) Analytical Mindset
2 29 (4.80%) Onboarding
3 22 (3.64%) Mobile App
4 16 (2.65%) Enterprise Software
4 16 (2.65%) Management Information System
4 16 (2.65%) Self-Motivation
5 15 (2.48%) Driving Licence
5 15 (2.48%) Product Ownership
6 14 (2.32%) Replication
7 13 (2.15%) Fat Client
7 13 (2.15%) Thin Client
8 12 (1.99%) Operational Technology
9 10 (1.66%) Video Conferencing
10 9 (1.49%) Data Centre
10 9 (1.49%) Security Operations Centre
11 8 (1.32%) Cloud Native
12 7 (1.16%) Cyber Defence
13 5 (0.83%) CMDB
13 5 (0.83%) Handset
Operating Systems
1 193 (31.95%) Windows
2 78 (12.91%) Linux
3 40 (6.62%) Windows 10
4 29 (4.80%) Windows Server
5 22 (3.64%) Android
5 22 (3.64%) Unix
6 13 (2.15%) Mac OS
7 12 (1.99%) Windows 7
8 7 (1.16%) Windows Server 2016
8 7 (1.16%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.99%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.83%) Windows Server 2003
11 3 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 2 (0.33%) Apple iOS
12 2 (0.33%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.17%) CentOS
13 1 (0.17%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (17.05%) Problem-Solving
2 78 (12.91%) Agile
3 73 (12.09%) ITIL
4 66 (10.93%) Cybersecurity
5 65 (10.76%) Customer Service
6 53 (8.77%) Business Intelligence
7 52 (8.61%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 52 (8.61%) Stakeholder Management
8 47 (7.78%) DevOps
9 45 (7.45%) Project Management
10 43 (7.12%) Continuous Improvement
10 43 (7.12%) Migration
11 39 (6.46%) Project Delivery
12 38 (6.29%) Time Management
13 37 (6.13%) CI/CD
14 34 (5.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 32 (5.30%) Roadmaps
15 32 (5.30%) SIEM
15 32 (5.30%) Validation
16 31 (5.13%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 71 (11.75%) Python
2 70 (11.59%) PowerShell
3 63 (10.43%) SQL
4 31 (5.13%) Java
5 28 (4.64%) JavaScript
6 19 (3.15%) Perl
7 13 (2.15%) Bash
7 13 (2.15%) C#
8 4 (0.66%) Kusto Query Language
8 4 (0.66%) PL/SQL
8 4 (0.66%) X++
9 2 (0.33%) Go
9 2 (0.33%) PHP
9 2 (0.33%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.17%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.17%) VB
Qualifications
1 203 (33.61%) Security Cleared
2 129 (21.36%) SC Cleared
3 68 (11.26%) DV Cleared
4 57 (9.44%) Degree
5 35 (5.79%) Microsoft Certification
6 20 (3.31%) Azure Certification
6 20 (3.31%) CISSP
7 11 (1.82%) ITIL Certification
7 11 (1.82%) Network+ Certification
7 11 (1.82%) Server+ Certification
8 10 (1.66%) GIAC
9 9 (1.49%) CISM
10 8 (1.32%) Computer Science Degree
10 8 (1.32%) DBS Check
10 8 (1.32%) PMI Certification
10 8 (1.32%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 7 (1.16%) A+ Certification
11 7 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
11 7 (1.16%) Master's Degree
12 6 (0.99%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (4.14%) GDPR
1 25 (4.14%) PMO
2 23 (3.81%) NIST
3 18 (2.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 16 (2.65%) SLA
5 13 (2.15%) Data Quality
6 9 (1.49%) QA
7 6 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
8 4 (0.66%) Accessibility
9 3 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.50%) NCSC
9 3 (0.50%) P3O
9 3 (0.50%) PCI DSS
9 3 (0.50%) RMADS
10 2 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 19770
10 2 (0.33%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.17%) COSHH
11 1 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.17%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.17%) PSD2
System Software
1 161 (26.66%) Active Directory
2 46 (7.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (3.31%) Hyper-V
4 11 (1.82%) vSphere
5 8 (1.32%) Docker
5 8 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (1.16%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.83%) Brightmail
7 5 (0.83%) ISA Server
8 4 (0.66%) VMware NSX
9 3 (0.50%) DFS Replication
9 3 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.33%) NFS
11 1 (0.17%) Sendmail
11 1 (0.17%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 42 (6.95%) SCCM
2 38 (6.29%) Microsoft Intune
3 20 (3.31%) Single Sign-On
4 14 (2.32%) Ansible
4 14 (2.32%) Terraform
4 14 (2.32%) WMI
5 12 (1.99%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 10 (1.66%) Kubernetes
7 9 (1.49%) Jamf Pro
8 8 (1.32%) SCOM
9 7 (1.16%) HP SiteScope
10 6 (0.99%) Microsoft Clustering
10 6 (0.99%) vCenter Server
11 3 (0.50%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.50%) Grafana
11 3 (0.50%) PaperCut
11 3 (0.50%) Puppet
11 3 (0.50%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 2 (0.33%) FTK
12 2 (0.33%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 65 (10.76%) VMware
2 49 (8.11%) ServiceNow
3 43 (7.12%) Oracle
4 36 (5.96%) Splunk
5 24 (3.97%) SAP
6 22 (3.64%) Cisco
7 16 (2.65%) Citrix
8 15 (2.48%) Databricks
9 9 (1.49%) CrowdStrike
9 9 (1.49%) Thales
10 7 (1.16%) CyberArk
10 7 (1.16%) Remedy
10 7 (1.16%) Tenable
11 6 (0.99%) Informatica
12 5 (0.83%) F5
12 5 (0.83%) Fortinet
12 5 (0.83%) Google
12 5 (0.83%) Tanium
12 5 (0.83%) Virgin Media
13 4 (0.66%) Darktrace