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 15 April 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
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 7 6
Rank change year-on-year -3 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 644 451 809
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 11.38% 15.11% 14.47%
As % of the Vendors category 26.13% 28.63% 30.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 444 306 541
10th Percentile £204 £220 £200
25th Percentile £363 £369 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £465
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% +7.53% -2.11%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £575
90th Percentile £650 £650 £675
England median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 28 74
10th Percentile £12.33 £13.86 £11.71
25th Percentile £13.96 £14.20 £12.00
Median hourly rate £17.50 £14.65 £19.98
Median % change year-on-year +19.45% -26.66% -1.28%
75th Percentile £36.50 £20.94 £49.69
90th Percentile £76.75 £27.07 £61.24
England median hourly rate £20.09 £21.23 £15.00
% change year-on-year -5.37% +41.53% -31.03%

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 2,465 1,575 2,666
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 43.57% 52.76% 47.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,726 1,053 1,618
10th Percentile £306 £248 £213
25th Percentile £413 £412 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% +5.00% -
75th Percentile £610 £613 £600
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £520
% change year-on-year -4.76% +0.96% -3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 91 184
10th Percentile £13.46 £14.20 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.95 £17.09
Median hourly rate £47.50 £24.66 £45.11
Median % change year-on-year +92.62% -45.33% +0.23%
75th Percentile £85.81 £60.81 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £65.00
England median hourly rate £28.00 £28.75 £22.50
% change year-on-year -2.61% +27.78% -41.56%

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 15 April 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 15 April 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 15 April 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 -1 342 £475 -5.00% 210
Berkshire -8 184 £490 -2.00% 79
Hampshire -7 139 £550 +5.01% 117
Buckinghamshire -6 103 £475 -5.94% 86
Surrey +15 77 £450 - 85
Oxfordshire -1 55 £345 -8.00% 47
West Sussex -6 32 £475 +23.06% 38
Kent 0 27 £400 -9.09% 58
East Sussex +1 15 £600 +9.09% 25
Sussex +1 6 £463 -7.50% 12
Home Counties +1 4 - - 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 63 (9.78%) Microsoft Exchange
2 60 (9.32%) SharePoint
3 10 (1.55%) Confluence
4 3 (0.47%) ArcGIS
4 3 (0.47%) MS Project Server
4 3 (0.47%) Smallworld
5 2 (0.31%) GeoServer
6 1 (0.16%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.16%) BizTalk Server
6 1 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2010
6 1 (0.16%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 101 (15.68%) Microsoft Office
2 84 (13.04%) Microsoft Excel
3 32 (4.97%) Microsoft Project
4 29 (4.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (1.71%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.31%) SOLIDWORKS
6 2 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.16%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.16%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.16%) InDesign
7 1 (0.16%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.16%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.16%) Trello
Business Applications
1 6 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.16%) iTrent
2 1 (0.16%) NEC Housing
2 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.16%) Sage 50
2 1 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.16%) SAP Business One
2 1 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 223 (34.63%) Azure
2 181 (28.11%) Microsoft 365
3 103 (15.99%) Entra ID
4 67 (10.40%) AWS
5 65 (10.09%) Power Platform
6 36 (5.59%) Azure DevOps
7 28 (4.35%) OneDrive
8 27 (4.19%) Power Automate
9 25 (3.88%) Dynamics 365
9 25 (3.88%) Microsoft Purview
10 22 (3.42%) PowerApps
10 22 (3.42%) SaaS
11 20 (3.11%) GitHub
12 18 (2.80%) Serverless
13 17 (2.64%) Azure Functions
14 16 (2.48%) Microsoft Copilot
15 15 (2.33%) Azure Logic Apps
15 15 (2.33%) IaaS
16 13 (2.02%) Azure Monitor
17 12 (1.86%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 56 (8.70%) DNS
2 40 (6.21%) DHCP
3 36 (5.59%) Firewall
4 33 (5.12%) Wi-Fi
5 19 (2.95%) VPN
6 16 (2.48%) LAN
6 16 (2.48%) Unified Communications
7 13 (2.02%) Network Security
7 13 (2.02%) TCP/IP
7 13 (2.02%) WAN
8 12 (1.86%) Kerberos
9 10 (1.55%) Wireless
10 8 (1.24%) BGP
10 8 (1.24%) MPLS
10 8 (1.24%) SSL
11 7 (1.09%) SD-WAN
12 6 (0.93%) SAN
12 6 (0.93%) SNMP
12 6 (0.93%) VLAN
13 5 (0.78%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (8.39%) Power BI
2 36 (5.59%) SQL Server
3 16 (2.48%) Azure SQL Database
4 13 (2.02%) MySQL
4 13 (2.02%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (1.86%) Relational Database
6 10 (1.55%) Metadata
7 8 (1.24%) Oracle Database
8 7 (1.09%) Data Lake
8 7 (1.09%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (0.93%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
9 6 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 5 (0.78%) Oracle Reports
10 5 (0.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 4 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
11 4 (0.62%) GIS
11 4 (0.62%) RDBMS
12 3 (0.47%) Data Mining
12 3 (0.47%) Star Schema
13 2 (0.31%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 16 (2.48%) JIRA
2 13 (2.02%) Git
3 9 (1.40%) Android Studio
3 9 (1.40%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.93%) Browser DevTools
4 6 (0.93%) Eclipse
4 6 (0.93%) Xcode
5 5 (0.78%) JUnit
6 4 (0.62%) Gradle
6 4 (0.62%) MSI
7 3 (0.47%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.47%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.47%) Maven
7 3 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
7 3 (0.47%) Subversion
8 2 (0.31%) JMeter
8 2 (0.31%) Oracle APEX
8 2 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
8 2 (0.31%) Robot Framework
9 1 (0.16%) GitLab
General
1 210 (32.61%) Social Skills
2 68 (10.56%) Finance
3 67 (10.40%) Analytical Skills
4 62 (9.63%) Organisational Skills
5 56 (8.70%) Public Sector
6 14 (2.17%) Legal
7 13 (2.02%) Manufacturing
7 13 (2.02%) Military
8 12 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (1.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 9 (1.40%) Retail
10 8 (1.24%) Influencing Skills
11 7 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (1.09%) Telecoms
12 5 (0.78%) Marketing
13 4 (0.62%) Advertising
13 4 (0.62%) Pharmaceutical
13 4 (0.62%) Police
14 3 (0.47%) Automotive
14 3 (0.47%) Billing
Job Titles
1 93 (14.44%) Architect
2 59 (9.16%) IT Support
3 58 (9.01%) Analyst
4 52 (8.07%) Senior
4 52 (8.07%) Support Engineer
5 43 (6.68%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 40 (6.21%) IT Engineer
7 33 (5.12%) IT Support Engineer
8 31 (4.81%) Developer
9 30 (4.66%) Lead
10 24 (3.73%) Solutions Architect
11 23 (3.57%) Consultant
12 22 (3.42%) Azure Engineer
13 21 (3.26%) Administrator
14 18 (2.80%) Infrastructure Architect
15 15 (2.33%) DevOps Engineer
15 15 (2.33%) IT Analyst
15 15 (2.33%) Project Manager
16 14 (2.17%) Technical Architect
17 13 (2.02%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.73%) .NET
2 13 (2.02%) LDAP
2 13 (2.02%) REST
3 11 (1.71%) ARM Templates
4 10 (1.55%) React
5 9 (1.40%) CSS
5 9 (1.40%) OAuth
6 8 (1.24%) GraphQL
6 8 (1.24%) OpenID
6 8 (1.24%) SAML
7 7 (1.09%) ADO
8 6 (0.93%) Ajax
8 6 (0.93%) AngularJS
8 6 (0.93%) OAuth2
8 6 (0.93%) Spring
8 6 (0.93%) XML
9 5 (0.78%) .NET Core
9 5 (0.78%) Microsoft Graph
9 5 (0.78%) PySpark
9 5 (0.78%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 38 (5.90%) Onboarding
2 34 (5.28%) PKI
3 20 (3.11%) Product Ownership
4 19 (2.95%) Cloud Native
5 17 (2.64%) Legacy Systems
5 17 (2.64%) Replication
6 16 (2.48%) Analytical Mindset
6 16 (2.48%) Self-Motivation
7 14 (2.17%) Data Centre
7 14 (2.17%) Hybrid Cloud
8 12 (1.86%) Driving Licence
8 12 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
9 11 (1.71%) Operational Technology
9 11 (1.71%) Public Cloud
10 9 (1.40%) Mobile App
11 8 (1.24%) Management Information System
12 7 (1.09%) Fat Client
12 7 (1.09%) Security Posture
12 7 (1.09%) Thin Client
13 6 (0.93%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 178 (27.64%) Windows
2 61 (9.47%) Linux
3 44 (6.83%) Windows Server
4 21 (3.26%) Windows 10
5 16 (2.48%) Mac OS
6 10 (1.55%) Android
7 9 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (1.40%) Windows 7
8 7 (1.09%) Unix
8 7 (1.09%) Windows Server 2012
9 5 (0.78%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (0.78%) Windows Server 2019
10 4 (0.62%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.47%) CentOS
12 1 (0.16%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.16%) Debian
12 1 (0.16%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.16%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (14.91%) Problem-Solving
2 80 (12.42%) Customer Service
3 77 (11.96%) DevOps
4 72 (11.18%) Agile
5 69 (10.71%) Migration
6 68 (10.56%) Cybersecurity
7 65 (10.09%) Business Intelligence
8 59 (9.16%) CI/CD
9 58 (9.01%) ITIL
10 56 (8.70%) Project Management
11 53 (8.23%) Stakeholder Management
12 52 (8.07%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 50 (7.76%) Project Delivery
14 43 (6.68%) Analytics
14 43 (6.68%) Time Management
15 36 (5.59%) Continuous Improvement
15 36 (5.59%) Infrastructure as Code
16 35 (5.43%) Roadmaps
17 34 (5.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 33 (5.12%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 93 (14.44%) PowerShell
2 69 (10.71%) Python
3 54 (8.39%) SQL
4 21 (3.26%) C#
5 20 (3.11%) Bash
6 19 (2.95%) JavaScript
7 16 (2.48%) Java
8 14 (2.17%) T-SQL
9 10 (1.55%) Bicep
10 7 (1.09%) Kusto Query Language
10 7 (1.09%) Perl
11 5 (0.78%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 4 (0.62%) PL/SQL
13 2 (0.31%) Korn
13 2 (0.31%) PHP
13 2 (0.31%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.31%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.31%) X++
14 1 (0.16%) Google Apps Script
14 1 (0.16%) VBA
Qualifications
1 223 (34.63%) Security Cleared
2 151 (23.45%) SC Cleared
3 71 (11.02%) DV Cleared
4 65 (10.09%) Degree
5 21 (3.26%) Microsoft Certification
6 15 (2.33%) CISSP
7 13 (2.02%) Azure Certification
8 11 (1.71%) PMI Certification
8 11 (1.71%) PMP
9 10 (1.55%) DBS Check
10 9 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
10 9 (1.40%) GIAC
11 8 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
12 7 (1.09%) BPSS Clearance
12 7 (1.09%) Master's Degree
13 6 (0.93%) A+ Certification
13 6 (0.93%) AWS Certification
13 6 (0.93%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 5 (0.78%) CCIE
14 5 (0.78%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (3.88%) NIST
2 23 (3.57%) PMO
3 19 (2.95%) SLA
4 18 (2.80%) GDPR
5 15 (2.33%) Data Quality
6 14 (2.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 13 (2.02%) Cyber Essentials
7 13 (2.02%) NCSC
8 10 (1.55%) QA
9 5 (0.78%) NIST 800
10 4 (0.62%) Accessibility
11 3 (0.47%) P3O
12 2 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 2 (0.31%) JSP 440
13 1 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
13 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 1 (0.16%) GRC
13 1 (0.16%) ISO 9001
13 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 1 (0.16%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 187 (29.04%) Active Directory
2 55 (8.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (3.88%) Hyper-V
4 13 (2.02%) Docker
5 12 (1.86%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (1.40%) vSphere
7 8 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (1.24%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (1.24%) VMware NSX
8 5 (0.78%) Firmware
9 3 (0.47%) DFS Replication
10 1 (0.16%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.16%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 1 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
10 1 (0.16%) Sendmail
10 1 (0.16%) UAG
Systems Management
1 58 (9.01%) Microsoft Intune
2 36 (5.59%) SCCM
3 35 (5.43%) Terraform
4 19 (2.95%) Ansible
5 18 (2.80%) Single Sign-On
6 16 (2.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 14 (2.17%) Kubernetes
8 10 (1.55%) Jamf Pro
9 9 (1.40%) WMI
10 4 (0.62%) SCOM
11 3 (0.47%) Grafana
11 3 (0.47%) Nessus
11 3 (0.47%) PaperCut
11 3 (0.47%) Puppet
11 3 (0.47%) SCSM
11 3 (0.47%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 3 (0.47%) WSUS
12 2 (0.31%) Cisco CUCM
12 2 (0.31%) Progress Chef
12 2 (0.31%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 70 (10.87%) VMware
2 28 (4.35%) Cisco
3 24 (3.73%) ServiceNow
4 21 (3.26%) SAP
5 18 (2.80%) Oracle
6 17 (2.64%) Databricks
7 15 (2.33%) Meraki
8 14 (2.17%) Citrix
8 14 (2.17%) Splunk
9 11 (1.71%) Fortinet
10 9 (1.40%) Avaya
10 9 (1.40%) Tenable
10 9 (1.40%) Thales
11 8 (1.24%) F5
11 8 (1.24%) Mitel
11 8 (1.24%) Red Hat
12 7 (1.09%) Palo Alto
13 6 (0.93%) Google
13 6 (0.93%) Juniper
14 5 (0.78%) CheckPoint