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 18 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
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 7 6
Rank change year-on-year -3 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 639 451 819
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 11.24% 15.05% 14.58%
As % of the Vendors category 25.98% 28.73% 30.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 443 305 543
10th Percentile £204 £220 £196
25th Percentile £363 £363 £306
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £493 £465
Median % change year-on-year -2.54% +5.91% -3.13%
75th Percentile £588 £586 £575
90th Percentile £672 £635 £675
England median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 29 75
10th Percentile £12.29 - £11.71
25th Percentile £13.27 £14.20 £12.00
Median hourly rate £17.75 £15.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.33% -28.57% +5.00%
75th Percentile £37.00 £23.75 £49.38
90th Percentile £81.05 £29.14 £61.12
England median hourly rate £20.09 £21.23 £15.00
% change year-on-year -5.37% +41.53% -28.59%

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 2,460 1,570 2,685
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 43.26% 52.39% 47.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,722 1,052 1,624
10th Percentile £306 £245 £213
25th Percentile £413 £406 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £500
Median % change year-on-year - +2.50% -
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 164 90 183
10th Percentile £13.44 £14.20 £12.00
25th Percentile £20.10 £16.95 £17.06
Median hourly rate £47.50 £24.66 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +92.62% -48.08% +5.56%
75th Percentile £86.50 £59.78 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £74.09 £65.00
England median hourly rate £30.00 £28.75 £22.50
% change year-on-year +4.35% +27.78% -40.00%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 0 332 £475 -3.85% 216
Berkshire -10 176 £500 +1.21% 85
Hampshire -7 139 £550 +10.00% 117
Buckinghamshire -3 104 £475 -5.94% 85
Surrey +12 84 £438 -2.78% 95
Oxfordshire -2 52 £275 -12.00% 47
West Sussex -6 33 £445 +15.43% 36
Kent 0 27 £400 +52.38% 58
East Sussex -1 11 £600 +9.09% 20
Sussex +1 6 £463 -7.50% 9
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 64 (10.02%) Microsoft Exchange
2 61 (9.55%) SharePoint
3 10 (1.56%) 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%) SharePoint 2010
6 1 (0.16%) SharePoint 2013
6 1 (0.16%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 101 (15.81%) Microsoft Office
2 86 (13.46%) Microsoft Excel
3 30 (4.69%) Microsoft Project
4 29 (4.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (1.72%) 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 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.63%) SAP Business One
2 4 (0.63%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.16%) iTrent
3 1 (0.16%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.16%) Sage 50
Cloud Services
1 227 (35.52%) Azure
2 178 (27.86%) Microsoft 365
3 105 (16.43%) Entra ID
4 66 (10.33%) AWS
4 66 (10.33%) Power Platform
5 37 (5.79%) Azure DevOps
6 29 (4.54%) OneDrive
7 27 (4.23%) Power Automate
8 26 (4.07%) Dynamics 365
8 26 (4.07%) Microsoft Purview
9 22 (3.44%) PowerApps
9 22 (3.44%) SaaS
10 20 (3.13%) GitHub
11 18 (2.82%) Serverless
12 17 (2.66%) Azure Functions
13 15 (2.35%) Azure Logic Apps
13 15 (2.35%) IaaS
13 15 (2.35%) Microsoft Copilot
14 13 (2.03%) Azure Monitor
15 11 (1.72%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 57 (8.92%) DNS
2 41 (6.42%) DHCP
3 36 (5.63%) Firewall
4 33 (5.16%) Wi-Fi
5 20 (3.13%) VPN
6 16 (2.50%) LAN
6 16 (2.50%) Unified Communications
7 14 (2.19%) WAN
8 13 (2.03%) TCP/IP
9 12 (1.88%) Kerberos
9 12 (1.88%) Network Security
10 10 (1.56%) Wireless
11 9 (1.41%) MPLS
12 8 (1.25%) BGP
12 8 (1.25%) SSL
13 7 (1.10%) SD-WAN
14 6 (0.94%) SAN
14 6 (0.94%) SNMP
14 6 (0.94%) VLAN
15 5 (0.78%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (8.45%) Power BI
2 34 (5.32%) SQL Server
3 16 (2.50%) Azure SQL Database
4 13 (2.03%) MySQL
4 13 (2.03%) PostgreSQL
5 12 (1.88%) Relational Database
6 10 (1.56%) Metadata
7 8 (1.25%) Oracle Database
8 7 (1.10%) Data Lake
8 7 (1.10%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (0.94%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
9 6 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
10 4 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
10 4 (0.63%) RDBMS
10 4 (0.63%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 3 (0.47%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.47%) GIS
11 3 (0.47%) Star Schema
12 2 (0.31%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 16 (2.50%) JIRA
2 13 (2.03%) Git
3 9 (1.41%) Android Studio
3 9 (1.41%) Jenkins
4 6 (0.94%) Browser DevTools
4 6 (0.94%) Eclipse
4 6 (0.94%) Xcode
5 5 (0.78%) JUnit
6 4 (0.63%) Gradle
6 4 (0.63%) 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%) SonarQube
General
1 204 (31.92%) Social Skills
2 72 (11.27%) Finance
3 68 (10.64%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (9.23%) Organisational Skills
5 57 (8.92%) Public Sector
6 14 (2.19%) Legal
7 13 (2.03%) Manufacturing
7 13 (2.03%) Military
8 12 (1.88%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (1.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (1.25%) Telecoms
10 7 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
11 6 (0.94%) Retail
12 5 (0.78%) Marketing
13 4 (0.63%) Advertising
13 4 (0.63%) General Ledger
13 4 (0.63%) Police
14 3 (0.47%) Automotive
14 3 (0.47%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 94 (14.71%) Architect
2 56 (8.76%) IT Support
3 52 (8.14%) Analyst
3 52 (8.14%) Support Engineer
4 51 (7.98%) Senior
5 44 (6.89%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 39 (6.10%) IT Engineer
7 32 (5.01%) Developer
7 32 (5.01%) IT Support Engineer
8 31 (4.85%) Lead
9 24 (3.76%) Azure Engineer
9 24 (3.76%) Solutions Architect
10 22 (3.44%) Consultant
11 21 (3.29%) Administrator
12 17 (2.66%) Infrastructure Architect
13 16 (2.50%) DevOps Engineer
14 15 (2.35%) IT Analyst
14 15 (2.35%) Technical Architect
15 14 (2.19%) Project Manager
16 13 (2.03%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (3.76%) .NET
2 13 (2.03%) LDAP
2 13 (2.03%) REST
3 11 (1.72%) ARM Templates
4 10 (1.56%) OAuth
4 10 (1.56%) React
5 9 (1.41%) CSS
5 9 (1.41%) OpenID
5 9 (1.41%) SAML
6 8 (1.25%) GraphQL
7 7 (1.10%) ADO
7 7 (1.10%) OAuth2
8 6 (0.94%) Ajax
8 6 (0.94%) AngularJS
8 6 (0.94%) Microsoft Graph
8 6 (0.94%) Spring
8 6 (0.94%) XML
9 5 (0.78%) .NET Core
9 5 (0.78%) PySpark
9 5 (0.78%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 42 (6.57%) Onboarding
2 33 (5.16%) PKI
3 20 (3.13%) Cloud Native
3 20 (3.13%) Product Ownership
4 17 (2.66%) Legacy Systems
5 16 (2.50%) Analytical Mindset
5 16 (2.50%) Replication
5 16 (2.50%) Self-Motivation
6 15 (2.35%) Data Centre
7 14 (2.19%) Hybrid Cloud
7 14 (2.19%) Public Cloud
8 12 (1.88%) Driving Licence
8 12 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
9 10 (1.56%) Operational Technology
10 9 (1.41%) Mobile App
11 8 (1.25%) Management Information System
12 7 (1.10%) Fat Client
12 7 (1.10%) Thin Client
13 6 (0.94%) Security Posture
14 5 (0.78%) Handset
Operating Systems
1 174 (27.23%) Windows
2 61 (9.55%) Linux
3 45 (7.04%) Windows Server
4 19 (2.97%) Windows 10
5 16 (2.50%) Mac OS
6 10 (1.56%) Android
7 9 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (1.41%) Windows 7
8 8 (1.25%) Unix
9 7 (1.10%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.78%) Windows Server 2016
10 5 (0.78%) Windows Server 2019
11 4 (0.63%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.47%) CentOS
13 1 (0.16%) Apple iOS
13 1 (0.16%) Debian
13 1 (0.16%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.16%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (15.34%) Problem-Solving
2 78 (12.21%) Customer Service
3 77 (12.05%) DevOps
4 74 (11.58%) Agile
5 72 (11.27%) Migration
6 66 (10.33%) Cybersecurity
7 65 (10.17%) Business Intelligence
8 60 (9.39%) CI/CD
8 60 (9.39%) ITIL
9 55 (8.61%) Project Management
10 52 (8.14%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 51 (7.98%) Stakeholder Management
12 46 (7.20%) Project Delivery
13 42 (6.57%) Analytics
14 40 (6.26%) Time Management
15 37 (5.79%) Roadmaps
16 36 (5.63%) Infrastructure as Code
17 35 (5.48%) Continuous Improvement
18 33 (5.16%) Service Delivery
18 33 (5.16%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 93 (14.55%) PowerShell
2 69 (10.80%) Python
3 54 (8.45%) SQL
4 21 (3.29%) C#
5 20 (3.13%) Bash
6 19 (2.97%) JavaScript
7 16 (2.50%) Java
8 14 (2.19%) T-SQL
9 10 (1.56%) Bicep
10 7 (1.10%) Kusto Query Language
11 6 (0.94%) Perl
12 5 (0.78%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 3 (0.47%) PL/SQL
14 2 (0.31%) Korn
14 2 (0.31%) PHP
14 2 (0.31%) Shell Script
14 2 (0.31%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.31%) X++
15 1 (0.16%) Google Apps Script
15 1 (0.16%) VBA
Qualifications
1 224 (35.05%) Security Cleared
2 153 (23.94%) SC Cleared
3 70 (10.95%) DV Cleared
4 65 (10.17%) Degree
5 22 (3.44%) Microsoft Certification
6 14 (2.19%) CISSP
7 13 (2.03%) Azure Certification
8 11 (1.72%) PMI Certification
8 11 (1.72%) PMP
9 9 (1.41%) BPSS Clearance
9 9 (1.41%) Computer Science Degree
9 9 (1.41%) DBS Check
9 9 (1.41%) GIAC
10 8 (1.25%) Cisco Certification
11 7 (1.10%) Master's Degree
12 6 (0.94%) A+ Certification
12 6 (0.94%) AWS Certification
12 6 (0.94%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 5 (0.78%) CCIE
13 5 (0.78%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (3.91%) NIST
2 22 (3.44%) PMO
3 19 (2.97%) SLA
4 17 (2.66%) GDPR
5 16 (2.50%) Data Quality
6 14 (2.19%) NCSC
7 13 (2.03%) Cyber Essentials
7 13 (2.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 11 (1.72%) QA
9 6 (0.94%) NIST 800
10 4 (0.63%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 2 (0.31%) JSP 440
11 2 (0.31%) P3O
12 1 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.16%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.16%) ISO 9001
12 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 1 (0.16%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 187 (29.26%) Active Directory
2 54 (8.45%) VMware Infrastructure
3 23 (3.60%) Hyper-V
4 14 (2.19%) Docker
5 12 (1.88%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (1.41%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (1.41%) VMware NSX
6 9 (1.41%) vSphere
7 8 (1.25%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.78%) Firmware
9 3 (0.47%) DFS Replication
10 2 (0.31%) UAG
11 1 (0.16%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.16%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.16%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 59 (9.23%) Microsoft Intune
2 35 (5.48%) Terraform
3 34 (5.32%) SCCM
4 19 (2.97%) Ansible
4 19 (2.97%) Single Sign-On
5 17 (2.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 14 (2.19%) Kubernetes
7 10 (1.56%) Jamf Pro
8 9 (1.41%) WMI
9 4 (0.63%) SCOM
10 3 (0.47%) Grafana
10 3 (0.47%) Nessus
10 3 (0.47%) PaperCut
10 3 (0.47%) Puppet
10 3 (0.47%) SCSM
10 3 (0.47%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
10 3 (0.47%) vCenter Server
10 3 (0.47%) WSUS
11 2 (0.31%) Cisco CUCM
11 2 (0.31%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 69 (10.80%) VMware
2 31 (4.85%) Cisco
3 24 (3.76%) SAP
4 23 (3.60%) ServiceNow
5 17 (2.66%) Databricks
5 17 (2.66%) Oracle
6 15 (2.35%) Meraki
7 14 (2.19%) Citrix
8 13 (2.03%) Splunk
9 11 (1.72%) Fortinet
10 9 (1.41%) Avaya
10 9 (1.41%) Tenable
10 9 (1.41%) Thales
11 8 (1.25%) F5
11 8 (1.25%) Google
11 8 (1.25%) Mitel
11 8 (1.25%) Red Hat
12 7 (1.10%) Palo Alto
13 6 (0.94%) Juniper
14 5 (0.78%) CheckPoint