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 6 August 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
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 6 6
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 897 550 644
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 13.43% 15.71% 12.96%
As % of the Vendors category 30.76% 29.83% 26.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 561 371 425
10th Percentile £203 £200 £200
25th Percentile £355 £256 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - +2.15%
75th Percentile £588 £581 £600
90th Percentile £675 £625 £670
England median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 99 44 46
10th Percentile £13.78 £13.65 £11.71
25th Percentile £16.68 £14.20 £12.10
Median hourly rate £32.50 £16.68 £38.75
Median % change year-on-year +94.84% -56.95% +115.28%
75th Percentile £77.50 £32.05 £57.65
90th Percentile £108.55 £80.23 £61.60
England median hourly rate £22.50 £22.57 £16.23
% change year-on-year -0.29% +39.03% -27.87%

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 2,916 1,844 2,386
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 43.67% 52.69% 48.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,828 1,221 1,439
10th Percentile £281 £210 £255
25th Percentile £425 £375 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £609 £600 £626
90th Percentile £700 £650 £700
England median daily rate £510 £510 £525
% change year-on-year - -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 232 119 141
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.20 £14.50
25th Percentile £28.80 £15.00 £22.58
Median hourly rate £56.00 £19.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +194.74% -66.87% +27.44%
75th Percentile £83.00 £38.42 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.20 £70.00
England median hourly rate £35.50 £25.15 £29.00
% change year-on-year +41.15% -13.28% -26.77%

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 6 August 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 6 August 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 6 August 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 +1 469 £500 +11.11% 352
Berkshire +3 252 £500 +5.26% 161
Hampshire -5 201 £500 -8.26% 177
Surrey +4 121 £438 +75.00% 152
Buckinghamshire -5 117 £510 +10.27% 106
Oxfordshire 0 100 £450 +80.00% 92
West Sussex -5 56 £380 +72.73% 58
Kent -1 29 £350 +33.33% 82
East Sussex +4 10 £298 -53.33% 45
Middlesex - 3 - - 21
Home Counties 0 1 - -
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 94 (10.48%) SharePoint
2 67 (7.47%) Microsoft Exchange
3 16 (1.78%) Confluence
4 2 (0.22%) Apache
4 2 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.22%) ArcGIS
4 2 (0.22%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.11%) Apache Superset
5 1 (0.11%) IIS
5 1 (0.11%) nginx
5 1 (0.11%) SharePoint 2010
5 1 (0.11%) SharePoint 2013
5 1 (0.11%) Smallworld
5 1 (0.11%) Tomcat
Applications
1 115 (12.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 101 (11.26%) Microsoft Office
3 52 (5.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 43 (4.79%) Microsoft Project
5 14 (1.56%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.11%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.11%) Adobe Captivate
7 1 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.11%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.11%) InDesign
7 1 (0.11%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.11%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.11%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.11%) Trello
Business Applications
1 17 (1.90%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.56%) NEC Housing
3 5 (0.56%) SAP PSCD
4 4 (0.45%) Primavera
4 4 (0.45%) SAP Business One
5 3 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
6 2 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.11%) Dynamics AX
7 1 (0.11%) iTrent
7 1 (0.11%) Maximo
7 1 (0.11%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle Assets
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.11%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 361 (40.25%) Azure
2 231 (25.75%) Microsoft 365
3 175 (19.51%) Entra ID
4 98 (10.93%) Power Platform
5 90 (10.03%) AWS
6 52 (5.80%) Dynamics 365
7 50 (5.57%) Azure DevOps
8 35 (3.90%) SaaS
9 32 (3.57%) GCP
10 30 (3.34%) Azure Monitor
10 30 (3.34%) OneDrive
10 30 (3.34%) Power Automate
11 29 (3.23%) IaaS
12 26 (2.90%) Azure Logic Apps
13 23 (2.56%) Microsoft Purview
14 18 (2.01%) PowerApps
15 17 (1.90%) Azure Sentinel
16 13 (1.45%) Azure Functions
16 13 (1.45%) Microsoft Copilot
16 13 (1.45%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 82 (9.14%) DNS
2 54 (6.02%) Firewall
3 51 (5.69%) DHCP
4 41 (4.57%) TCP/IP
4 41 (4.57%) VPN
5 38 (4.24%) Wi-Fi
6 31 (3.46%) LAN
7 26 (2.90%) WAN
8 16 (1.78%) Network Security
8 16 (1.78%) VLAN
9 15 (1.67%) MPLS
10 14 (1.56%) SD-WAN
11 11 (1.23%) BGP
11 11 (1.23%) Unified Communications
12 10 (1.11%) Wireless
13 9 (1.00%) DNSSEC
14 7 (0.78%) Internet
14 7 (0.78%) IPsec
14 7 (0.78%) OSPF
15 6 (0.67%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (8.14%) Power BI
2 33 (3.68%) SQL Server
3 13 (1.45%) MySQL
3 13 (1.45%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (1.11%) Data Warehouse
5 9 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
5 9 (1.00%) Metadata
6 8 (0.89%) Oracle Database
7 6 (0.67%) NoSQL
7 6 (0.67%) Relational Database
8 4 (0.45%) Data Mining
8 4 (0.45%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 4 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 3 (0.33%) MS Access
10 2 (0.22%) BusinessObjects
10 2 (0.22%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.22%) Geospatial Data
10 2 (0.22%) GIS
10 2 (0.22%) Oracle Reports
10 2 (0.22%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 28 (3.12%) JIRA
2 11 (1.23%) Git
3 7 (0.78%) MSI
4 5 (0.56%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.45%) GitLab
5 4 (0.45%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.33%) Android Studio
6 3 (0.33%) Browser DevTools
6 3 (0.33%) Eclipse
6 3 (0.33%) Robot Framework
6 3 (0.33%) Xcode
7 2 (0.22%) REST Assured
7 2 (0.22%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 1 (0.11%) ERwin
8 1 (0.11%) JUnit
8 1 (0.11%) NUnit
8 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio
General
1 301 (33.56%) Social Skills
2 127 (14.16%) Analytical Skills
3 87 (9.70%) Finance
4 85 (9.48%) Public Sector
5 62 (6.91%) Organisational Skills
6 39 (4.35%) Aerospace
7 35 (3.90%) Documentation Skills
8 28 (3.12%) Legal
9 24 (2.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 24 (2.68%) Telecoms
10 17 (1.90%) Marketing
10 17 (1.90%) Military
11 15 (1.67%) Manufacturing
12 12 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
13 9 (1.00%) French Language
13 9 (1.00%) Retail
14 8 (0.89%) Aviation
14 8 (0.89%) Local Government
15 7 (0.78%) Billing
16 6 (0.67%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 94 (10.48%) Architect
2 93 (10.37%) IT Support
3 91 (10.14%) Analyst
4 74 (8.25%) Senior
5 65 (7.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 57 (6.35%) IT Engineer
7 56 (6.24%) Support Engineer
8 54 (6.02%) Lead
9 52 (5.80%) Consultant
10 43 (4.79%) Cloud Engineer
10 43 (4.79%) Developer
10 43 (4.79%) IT Support Engineer
11 40 (4.46%) Azure Engineer
12 33 (3.68%) IT Analyst
13 32 (3.57%) Administrator
14 28 (3.12%) Project Manager
14 28 (3.12%) Support Analyst
15 27 (3.01%) Solutions Architect
16 25 (2.79%) Microsoft Engineer
17 24 (2.68%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (4.46%) OAuth
2 38 (4.24%) SAML
3 37 (4.12%) OpenID
4 32 (3.57%) .NET
5 24 (2.68%) LDAP
5 24 (2.68%) OAuth2
5 24 (2.68%) REST
6 21 (2.34%) Web Services
7 20 (2.23%) SailPoint
8 19 (2.12%) Microsoft Graph
9 16 (1.78%) ARM Templates
10 12 (1.34%) JSON
11 11 (1.23%) .NET Framework
11 11 (1.23%) React
12 10 (1.11%) Entity Framework
13 9 (1.00%) .NET Core
13 9 (1.00%) Middleware
14 8 (0.89%) RESTful
14 8 (0.89%) XML
15 7 (0.78%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 85 (9.48%) Onboarding
2 44 (4.91%) Hybrid Cloud
3 32 (3.57%) Data Centre
3 32 (3.57%) PKI
4 31 (3.46%) Cloud Native
5 24 (2.68%) Product Ownership
6 21 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
7 20 (2.23%) Public Cloud
7 20 (2.23%) Security Posture
8 18 (2.01%) Operational Technology
9 17 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
9 17 (1.90%) Management Information System
10 13 (1.45%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 11 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
11 11 (1.23%) Data Structures
11 11 (1.23%) Driving Licence
12 10 (1.11%) Cyber Defence
12 10 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
13 9 (1.00%) Cloud Security Posture
13 9 (1.00%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 250 (27.87%) Windows
2 90 (10.03%) Windows Server
3 71 (7.92%) Linux
4 41 (4.57%) Windows 10
5 22 (2.45%) Apple iOS
5 22 (2.45%) Mac OS
6 16 (1.78%) Unix
7 14 (1.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (1.34%) Android
9 8 (0.89%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.67%) CentOS
10 6 (0.67%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.67%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.45%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.11%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.11%) VMS
13 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 186 (20.74%) Problem-Solving
2 122 (13.60%) Agile
3 119 (13.27%) Stakeholder Management
4 116 (12.93%) ITIL
5 103 (11.48%) DevOps
6 102 (11.37%) Customer Service
7 101 (11.26%) Continuous Improvement
8 95 (10.59%) CI/CD
9 94 (10.48%) Cybersecurity
10 91 (10.14%) ITSM
11 88 (9.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 86 (9.59%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 81 (9.03%) Analytics
14 79 (8.81%) Business Intelligence
15 77 (8.58%) Migration
16 71 (7.92%) Decision-Making
17 64 (7.13%) Project Delivery
18 62 (6.91%) Project Management
18 62 (6.91%) RBAC
19 61 (6.80%) AI
Programming Languages
1 145 (16.16%) PowerShell
2 89 (9.92%) Python
3 80 (8.92%) SQL
4 36 (4.01%) Bash
5 26 (2.90%) T-SQL
6 25 (2.79%) Bicep
7 21 (2.34%) C#
8 20 (2.23%) JavaScript
9 15 (1.67%) Java
10 12 (1.34%) Kusto Query Language
11 8 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 8 (0.89%) X++
12 7 (0.78%) TypeScript
13 4 (0.45%) ABAP
14 3 (0.33%) Perl
14 3 (0.33%) VBA
15 2 (0.22%) Korn
16 1 (0.11%) Google Apps Script
16 1 (0.11%) Groovy
16 1 (0.11%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 324 (36.12%) Security Cleared
2 216 (24.08%) SC Cleared
3 129 (14.38%) Degree
4 115 (12.82%) DV Cleared
5 52 (5.80%) Microsoft Certification
6 42 (4.68%) Azure Certification
7 21 (2.34%) AWS Certification
8 20 (2.23%) Cisco Certification
9 15 (1.67%) Computer Science Degree
10 14 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
10 14 (1.56%) DBS Check
10 14 (1.56%) PMI Certification
10 14 (1.56%) PMP
11 11 (1.23%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 10 (1.11%) MCSA
13 9 (1.00%) CCNP
13 9 (1.00%) CISSP
13 9 (1.00%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
14 8 (0.89%) MCSE
15 7 (0.78%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (4.79%) NIST
2 41 (4.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 34 (3.79%) PMO
4 32 (3.57%) Data Quality
4 32 (3.57%) GDPR
5 29 (3.23%) NCSC
6 27 (3.01%) SLA
7 23 (2.56%) Cyber Essentials
8 20 (2.23%) QA
9 7 (0.78%) GRC
10 6 (0.67%) ISO 31000
11 4 (0.45%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.33%) Accessibility
12 3 (0.33%) ISO 19650
12 3 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 3 (0.33%) NIST 800
13 2 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 2 (0.22%) Disclosure Scotland
13 2 (0.22%) JSP 440
System Software
1 231 (25.75%) Active Directory
2 74 (8.25%) VMware Infrastructure
3 33 (3.68%) Hyper-V
4 26 (2.90%) Virtual Machines
5 18 (2.01%) vSphere
6 15 (1.67%) VMware ESXi
7 13 (1.45%) Docker
7 13 (1.45%) VMware NSX
8 9 (1.00%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.56%) Firmware
10 3 (0.33%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.22%) UAG
12 1 (0.11%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 1 (0.11%) Dovecot
12 1 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.11%) Postfix
12 1 (0.11%) vCloud
12 1 (0.11%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 70 (7.80%) Microsoft Intune
2 68 (7.58%) Terraform
3 32 (3.57%) Ansible
4 30 (3.34%) Kubernetes
4 30 (3.34%) SCCM
5 23 (2.56%) SCOM
6 22 (2.45%) vCenter Server
7 14 (1.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 13 (1.45%) Avamar
8 13 (1.45%) Single Sign-On
9 11 (1.23%) Jamf Pro
10 7 (0.78%) WMI
11 6 (0.67%) FortiGate
11 6 (0.67%) QRadar
12 5 (0.56%) Grafana
12 5 (0.56%) Progress Chef
12 5 (0.56%) Puppet
13 4 (0.45%) Clonezilla
14 3 (0.33%) Dell DRAC
14 3 (0.33%) SCSM
Vendors
1 94 (10.48%) VMware
2 55 (6.13%) ServiceNow
3 47 (5.24%) SAP
4 43 (4.79%) Cisco
5 33 (3.68%) Google
6 23 (2.56%) Oracle
7 22 (2.45%) Meraki
8 21 (2.34%) Dell
9 16 (1.78%) Databricks
9 16 (1.78%) SolarWinds
10 14 (1.56%) Avaya
11 13 (1.45%) Mitel
11 13 (1.45%) Thales
12 12 (1.34%) F5
12 12 (1.34%) Splunk
13 10 (1.11%) Fortinet
13 10 (1.11%) Juniper
13 10 (1.11%) Palo Alto
14 9 (1.00%) CrowdStrike
14 9 (1.00%) Infoblox