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 20 May 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
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 6 5
Rank change year-on-year -2 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 664 460 801
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 11.20% 15.40% 14.68%
As % of the Vendors category 27.01% 29.06% 31.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 469 309 529
10th Percentile £202 £205 £194
25th Percentile £363 £295 £334
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £468 £465
Median % change year-on-year +1.50% +0.65% +2.19%
75th Percentile £575 £573 £575
90th Percentile £660 £617 £675
England median daily rate £500 £476 £488
% change year-on-year +5.04% -2.36% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 31 73
10th Percentile £12.29 - £11.71
25th Percentile £14.21 £14.20 £12.00
Median hourly rate £24.50 £15.00 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.33% -33.33% +15.38%
75th Percentile £41.17 £24.38 £53.75
90th Percentile £57.80 £32.05 £61.60
England median hourly rate £20.22 £18.76 £15.00
% change year-on-year +7.80% +25.05% -28.57%

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 2,458 1,583 2,551
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 41.44% 53.00% 46.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,704 1,054 1,548
10th Percentile £300 £220 £213
25th Percentile £413 £387 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% - -
75th Percentile £610 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £664 £688
England median daily rate £501 £525 £517
% change year-on-year -4.67% +1.50% -3.32%
Number of hourly rates quoted 150 88 182
10th Percentile £14.90 £14.20 £12.00
25th Percentile £21.28 £16.95 £16.25
Median hourly rate £47.50 £24.66 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +92.62% -48.08% +5.56%
75th Percentile £82.75 £58.70 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £72.00 £67.02
England median hourly rate £32.36 £26.32 £22.50
% change year-on-year +22.96% +16.98% -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 20 May 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 20 May 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 20 May 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 0 334 £486 +6.70% 260
Berkshire -7 155 £500 +4.71% 117
Hampshire -8 133 £538 +7.50% 107
Buckinghamshire -4 108 £500 -9.09% 91
Surrey +11 96 £438 -9.04% 67
Oxfordshire 0 71 £450 +80.00% 56
West Sussex -1 47 £475 +35.71% 38
Kent -3 29 £284 +8.10% 57
East Sussex -2 10 £538 -2.27% 18
Home Counties +2 4 - - 1
Sussex -5 1 - - 6
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 76 (11.45%) SharePoint
2 69 (10.39%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.81%) Confluence
4 3 (0.45%) ArcGIS
4 3 (0.45%) MS Project Server
4 3 (0.45%) Smallworld
5 2 (0.30%) GeoServer
6 1 (0.15%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.15%) BizTalk Server
6 1 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2010
6 1 (0.15%) SharePoint 2010
6 1 (0.15%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 77 (11.60%) Microsoft Office
2 69 (10.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 30 (4.52%) Microsoft Project
4 25 (3.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (1.66%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.45%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.15%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.15%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.15%) InDesign
7 1 (0.15%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.15%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.15%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (1.36%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.60%) SAP Business One
3 3 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.30%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.15%) iTrent
5 1 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.15%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.15%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.15%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 256 (38.55%) Azure
2 184 (27.71%) Microsoft 365
3 120 (18.07%) Entra ID
4 84 (12.65%) Power Platform
5 53 (7.98%) AWS
6 39 (5.87%) Azure DevOps
7 30 (4.52%) Dynamics 365
8 29 (4.37%) OneDrive
9 28 (4.22%) Power Automate
10 24 (3.61%) Microsoft Purview
11 23 (3.46%) SaaS
12 22 (3.31%) PowerApps
13 19 (2.86%) IaaS
14 18 (2.71%) GitHub
14 18 (2.71%) Microsoft Copilot
15 17 (2.56%) Serverless
16 16 (2.41%) Azure Functions
17 15 (2.26%) Azure Logic Apps
17 15 (2.26%) Azure Monitor
18 13 (1.96%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 57 (8.58%) DNS
2 41 (6.17%) DHCP
3 34 (5.12%) Wi-Fi
4 28 (4.22%) Firewall
5 23 (3.46%) VPN
6 20 (3.01%) LAN
7 17 (2.56%) WAN
8 12 (1.81%) Kerberos
9 11 (1.66%) TCP/IP
10 10 (1.51%) SD-WAN
10 10 (1.51%) Unified Communications
11 9 (1.36%) MPLS
12 8 (1.20%) VLAN
13 7 (1.05%) Network Security
14 6 (0.90%) SAN
15 5 (0.75%) BGP
15 5 (0.75%) IPsec
15 5 (0.75%) SNMP
15 5 (0.75%) VSAN
15 5 (0.75%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (9.79%) Power BI
2 32 (4.82%) SQL Server
3 15 (2.26%) Azure SQL Database
4 13 (1.96%) MySQL
5 10 (1.51%) Metadata
6 9 (1.36%) PostgreSQL
7 8 (1.20%) Relational Database
8 7 (1.05%) Data Lake
8 7 (1.05%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (0.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 4 (0.60%) Oracle Database
10 4 (0.60%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 3 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (0.45%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
11 3 (0.45%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.45%) GIS
11 3 (0.45%) Star Schema
12 2 (0.30%) MS Access
12 2 (0.30%) Oracle Reports
12 2 (0.30%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 17 (2.56%) JIRA
2 12 (1.81%) Git
3 9 (1.36%) Android Studio
4 6 (0.90%) Browser DevTools
4 6 (0.90%) Eclipse
4 6 (0.90%) Xcode
5 4 (0.60%) MSI
6 3 (0.45%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.45%) Gradle
6 3 (0.45%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.45%) JUnit
6 3 (0.45%) Maven
6 3 (0.45%) Robot Framework
6 3 (0.45%) Subversion
7 2 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.15%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.15%) MLflow
8 1 (0.15%) Postman
8 1 (0.15%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 184 (27.71%) Social Skills
2 69 (10.39%) Public Sector
3 68 (10.24%) Finance
4 61 (9.19%) Analytical Skills
5 41 (6.17%) Organisational Skills
6 21 (3.16%) Legal
7 18 (2.71%) Documentation Skills
8 15 (2.26%) Military
9 9 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 9 (1.36%) Telecoms
10 8 (1.20%) Retail
11 6 (0.90%) Aerospace
11 6 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (0.90%) Local Government
11 6 (0.90%) Manufacturing
11 6 (0.90%) Marketing
12 5 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.60%) Aviation
13 4 (0.60%) General Ledger
13 4 (0.60%) Police
Job Titles
1 88 (13.25%) Architect
2 65 (9.79%) Analyst
3 63 (9.49%) IT Support
4 53 (7.98%) Senior
5 51 (7.68%) Support Engineer
6 48 (7.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 42 (6.33%) IT Engineer
8 34 (5.12%) IT Support Engineer
9 33 (4.97%) Consultant
9 33 (4.97%) Lead
10 31 (4.67%) Developer
11 26 (3.92%) Solutions Architect
12 23 (3.46%) Azure Engineer
13 19 (2.86%) IT Analyst
13 19 (2.86%) Project Manager
14 18 (2.71%) Administrator
14 18 (2.71%) Technical Architect
15 16 (2.41%) DevOps Engineer
15 16 (2.41%) Support Analyst
16 15 (2.26%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (4.07%) .NET
2 19 (2.86%) LDAP
3 15 (2.26%) OAuth
4 14 (2.11%) REST
4 14 (2.11%) SAML
5 13 (1.96%) OpenID
6 11 (1.66%) SailPoint
6 11 (1.66%) Web Services
7 10 (1.51%) OAuth2
7 10 (1.51%) React
8 9 (1.36%) ARM Templates
8 9 (1.36%) CSS
9 8 (1.20%) AngularJS
9 8 (1.20%) Microsoft Graph
10 7 (1.05%) GraphQL
10 7 (1.05%) XML
11 6 (0.90%) ADO
11 6 (0.90%) Ajax
11 6 (0.90%) JSON
11 6 (0.90%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 46 (6.93%) Onboarding
2 23 (3.46%) PKI
3 22 (3.31%) Data Centre
3 22 (3.31%) Product Ownership
4 21 (3.16%) Cloud Native
5 18 (2.71%) Hybrid Cloud
5 18 (2.71%) Legacy Systems
6 15 (2.26%) Replication
7 14 (2.11%) Operational Technology
7 14 (2.11%) Public Cloud
8 11 (1.66%) Driving Licence
8 11 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
9 10 (1.51%) Analytical Mindset
10 9 (1.36%) Cyber Defence
10 9 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
10 9 (1.36%) Mobile App
11 8 (1.20%) Security Posture
11 8 (1.20%) Virtual Team
12 6 (0.90%) Data Structures
13 5 (0.75%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 190 (28.61%) Windows
2 61 (9.19%) Linux
3 57 (8.58%) Windows Server
4 24 (3.61%) Windows 10
5 18 (2.71%) Mac OS
6 15 (2.26%) Android
7 14 (2.11%) Unix
8 13 (1.96%) Apple iOS
9 10 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 9 (1.36%) Windows 7
11 8 (1.20%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (1.05%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.75%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.60%) Ubuntu
15 3 (0.45%) CentOS
16 1 (0.15%) Debian
16 1 (0.15%) OpenVMS
16 1 (0.15%) VMS
16 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (13.86%) Problem-Solving
2 81 (12.20%) DevOps
3 78 (11.75%) Agile
4 76 (11.45%) ITIL
5 74 (11.14%) Customer Service
6 72 (10.84%) Business Intelligence
7 71 (10.69%) Migration
8 63 (9.49%) CI/CD
9 56 (8.43%) Analytics
9 56 (8.43%) Cybersecurity
10 55 (8.28%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 54 (8.13%) Stakeholder Management
12 52 (7.83%) Project Management
13 48 (7.23%) Decision-Making
14 43 (6.48%) Project Delivery
15 41 (6.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 40 (6.02%) User Experience
17 38 (5.72%) ITSM
18 34 (5.12%) Change Control
18 34 (5.12%) SIEM
Programming Languages
1 94 (14.16%) PowerShell
2 62 (9.34%) Python
3 58 (8.73%) SQL
4 24 (3.61%) T-SQL
5 19 (2.86%) C#
6 15 (2.26%) JavaScript
7 13 (1.96%) Bash
8 12 (1.81%) Java
9 10 (1.51%) Bicep
10 8 (1.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 7 (1.05%) Kusto Query Language
12 6 (0.90%) Perl
13 3 (0.45%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.30%) Korn
14 2 (0.30%) X++
15 1 (0.15%) Google Apps Script
15 1 (0.15%) PL/SQL
15 1 (0.15%) Shell Script
15 1 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 221 (33.28%) Security Cleared
2 153 (23.04%) SC Cleared
3 72 (10.84%) Degree
4 68 (10.24%) DV Cleared
5 23 (3.46%) Microsoft Certification
6 13 (1.96%) Azure Certification
6 13 (1.96%) CISSP
7 12 (1.81%) Cisco Certification
7 12 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (1.81%) GIAC
8 9 (1.36%) BPSS Clearance
8 9 (1.36%) CISM
9 8 (1.20%) DBS Check
10 7 (1.05%) PMI Certification
10 7 (1.05%) PMP
11 5 (0.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 5 (0.75%) ACCA
11 5 (0.75%) CESG Certified Professional
11 5 (0.75%) CIMA
11 5 (0.75%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (4.82%) NIST
2 23 (3.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 20 (3.01%) Cyber Essentials
4 19 (2.86%) NCSC
5 18 (2.71%) PMO
5 18 (2.71%) SLA
6 17 (2.56%) Data Quality
6 17 (2.56%) GDPR
7 13 (1.96%) QA
8 6 (0.90%) ISO 31000
8 6 (0.90%) NIST 800
9 5 (0.75%) Accessibility
10 3 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 3 (0.45%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.30%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.15%) ISO 9001
12 1 (0.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 202 (30.42%) Active Directory
2 65 (9.79%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (3.61%) Hyper-V
4 15 (2.26%) vSphere
5 13 (1.96%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (1.96%) Virtual Machines
6 11 (1.66%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (1.51%) VMware NSX
8 9 (1.36%) Docker
9 5 (0.75%) Firmware
10 3 (0.45%) DFS Replication
11 2 (0.30%) UAG
12 1 (0.15%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.15%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 1 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.15%) Sendmail
12 1 (0.15%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 58 (8.73%) Microsoft Intune
2 29 (4.37%) SCCM
2 29 (4.37%) Terraform
3 18 (2.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 18 (2.71%) Single Sign-On
4 11 (1.66%) Ansible
4 11 (1.66%) SCOM
5 9 (1.36%) Jamf Pro
5 9 (1.36%) Kubernetes
6 8 (1.20%) vCenter Server
7 6 (0.90%) WMI
8 4 (0.60%) Avamar
8 4 (0.60%) QRadar
9 3 (0.45%) Nessus
9 3 (0.45%) SCSM
9 3 (0.45%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
9 3 (0.45%) WSUS
10 2 (0.30%) Grafana
10 2 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
10 2 (0.30%) Puppet
Vendors
1 77 (11.60%) VMware
2 32 (4.82%) Cisco
3 29 (4.37%) SAP
4 18 (2.71%) Meraki
4 18 (2.71%) ServiceNow
5 16 (2.41%) Databricks
6 15 (2.26%) Oracle
7 14 (2.11%) Citrix
8 12 (1.81%) Splunk
9 11 (1.66%) Thales
10 10 (1.51%) Avaya
10 10 (1.51%) Dell
11 9 (1.36%) Fortinet
11 9 (1.36%) Google
11 9 (1.36%) Mitel
12 8 (1.20%) F5
13 7 (1.05%) Juniper
13 7 (1.05%) Red Hat
13 7 (1.05%) SolarWinds
13 7 (1.05%) Veeam