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 26 June 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
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 5 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 +1 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 747 504 800
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 12.01% 16.47% 14.04%
As % of the Vendors category 28.62% 30.75% 29.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 489 333 515
10th Percentile £202 £200 £200
25th Percentile £360 £295 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £468 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.50% -1.47% +2.15%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £623 £675
England median daily rate £500 £475 £498
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.52% -0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 32 78
10th Percentile £12.78 £14.02 £11.71
25th Percentile £16.38 £14.20 £12.07
Median hourly rate £29.91 £14.90 £22.90
Median % change year-on-year +100.74% -34.93% +17.42%
75th Percentile £53.81 £28.81 £58.49
90th Percentile £110.75 £32.28 £61.60
England median hourly rate £22.64 £21.00 £16.00
% change year-on-year +7.79% +31.25% -27.27%

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 2,610 1,639 2,674
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 41.96% 53.54% 46.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,711 1,071 1,569
10th Percentile £285 £220 £250
25th Percentile £415 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -2.44% +2.50%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £688 £656 £700
England median daily rate £507 £513 £520
% change year-on-year -1.07% -1.44% -0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 185 99 196
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.20 £12.13
25th Percentile £21.35 £15.31 £17.48
Median hourly rate £47.54 £20.75 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +129.11% -56.32% +5.56%
75th Percentile £85.00 £41.28 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £67.93 £70.00
England median hourly rate £35.00 £26.45 £24.50
% change year-on-year +32.33% +7.96% -34.67%

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 26 June 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 26 June 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 26 June 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 0 397 £500 +11.11% 227
Berkshire -2 214 £500 +4.71% 95
Hampshire -8 148 £550 +7.32% 109
Surrey +3 108 £444 +77.50% 87
Buckinghamshire -5 107 £510 +13.33% 72
Oxfordshire -2 76 £410 +64.00% 66
West Sussex -2 48 £395 +54.90% 45
Kent -3 25 £275 -18.22% 49
East Sussex -3 7 £358 -42.22% 22
Home Counties +1 4 - -
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 75 (10.04%) SharePoint
2 68 (9.10%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (1.74%) Confluence
4 2 (0.27%) ArcGIS
4 2 (0.27%) MS Project Server
4 2 (0.27%) Smallworld
5 1 (0.13%) Apache
5 1 (0.13%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.13%) BizTalk Server
5 1 (0.13%) GeoServer
5 1 (0.13%) IIS
5 1 (0.13%) nginx
5 1 (0.13%) SharePoint 2010
5 1 (0.13%) SharePoint 2013
5 1 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 86 (11.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 78 (10.44%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (4.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 31 (4.15%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (1.61%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.27%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.13%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.13%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.13%) InDesign
7 1 (0.13%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.13%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (1.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.80%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.67%) NEC Housing
4 4 (0.54%) SAP Business One
5 3 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.13%) iTrent
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.13%) SAP PSCD
6 1 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 304 (40.70%) Azure
2 183 (24.50%) Microsoft 365
3 141 (18.88%) Entra ID
4 92 (12.32%) Power Platform
5 77 (10.31%) AWS
6 40 (5.35%) Azure DevOps
7 39 (5.22%) Dynamics 365
8 33 (4.42%) Power Automate
9 30 (4.02%) OneDrive
10 27 (3.61%) SaaS
11 23 (3.08%) PowerApps
12 21 (2.81%) GCP
13 20 (2.68%) Microsoft Purview
14 19 (2.54%) Azure Logic Apps
15 18 (2.41%) Azure Monitor
16 17 (2.28%) Microsoft Copilot
16 17 (2.28%) Serverless
17 16 (2.14%) Azure Functions
17 16 (2.14%) GitHub
18 15 (2.01%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 76 (10.17%) DNS
2 50 (6.69%) DHCP
3 38 (5.09%) Firewall
4 36 (4.82%) Wi-Fi
5 29 (3.88%) LAN
6 28 (3.75%) VPN
7 27 (3.61%) TCP/IP
8 23 (3.08%) WAN
9 16 (2.14%) SD-WAN
10 13 (1.74%) MPLS
11 12 (1.61%) Kerberos
12 11 (1.47%) Unified Communications
13 10 (1.34%) Network Security
13 10 (1.34%) VLAN
14 9 (1.20%) BGP
14 9 (1.20%) DNSSEC
14 9 (1.20%) IPsec
15 7 (0.94%) BIG-IP
15 7 (0.94%) OSPF
16 6 (0.80%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (9.50%) Power BI
2 28 (3.75%) SQL Server
3 12 (1.61%) MySQL
3 12 (1.61%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (1.34%) Azure SQL Database
5 7 (0.94%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 6 (0.80%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 5 (0.67%) Metadata
7 5 (0.67%) Relational Database
8 3 (0.40%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.40%) Data Mining
8 3 (0.40%) Geospatial Data
8 3 (0.40%) MS Access
8 3 (0.40%) Oracle Database
8 3 (0.40%) Star Schema
9 2 (0.27%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.27%) BusinessObjects
9 2 (0.27%) GIS
9 2 (0.27%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 27 (3.61%) JIRA
2 11 (1.47%) Git
3 4 (0.54%) Android Studio
3 4 (0.54%) JUnit
3 4 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
4 3 (0.40%) Browser DevTools
4 3 (0.40%) Eclipse
4 3 (0.40%) Gradle
4 3 (0.40%) Maven
4 3 (0.40%) MSI
4 3 (0.40%) Robot Framework
4 3 (0.40%) Xcode
5 2 (0.27%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 1 (0.13%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.13%) GitLab
6 1 (0.13%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.13%) MLflow
6 1 (0.13%) NUnit
6 1 (0.13%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 224 (29.99%) Social Skills
2 75 (10.04%) Public Sector
3 71 (9.50%) Analytical Skills
4 69 (9.24%) Finance
5 47 (6.29%) Organisational Skills
6 28 (3.75%) Legal
7 27 (3.61%) Documentation Skills
8 21 (2.81%) Aerospace
9 18 (2.41%) Telecoms
10 15 (2.01%) Military
11 14 (1.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 11 (1.47%) Marketing
13 8 (1.07%) Influencing Skills
14 7 (0.94%) Local Government
15 6 (0.80%) Billing
15 6 (0.80%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.80%) Retail
16 5 (0.67%) Arabic Language
16 5 (0.67%) French Language
16 5 (0.67%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 90 (12.05%) Architect
2 75 (10.04%) IT Support
3 70 (9.37%) Analyst
4 57 (7.63%) Senior
5 48 (6.43%) Lead
6 47 (6.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 46 (6.16%) Support Engineer
8 44 (5.89%) IT Engineer
9 39 (5.22%) Consultant
10 35 (4.69%) Developer
10 35 (4.69%) IT Support Engineer
11 28 (3.75%) Azure Engineer
12 27 (3.61%) Solutions Architect
13 26 (3.48%) IT Analyst
14 25 (3.35%) Administrator
15 24 (3.21%) Project Manager
16 23 (3.08%) Cloud Engineer
16 23 (3.08%) Support Analyst
17 20 (2.68%) Technical Architect
18 19 (2.54%) Microsoft Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (4.02%) .NET
1 30 (4.02%) LDAP
2 27 (3.61%) OAuth
3 26 (3.48%) SAML
4 25 (3.35%) OpenID
5 18 (2.41%) Web Services
6 17 (2.28%) OAuth2
7 16 (2.14%) Microsoft Graph
8 15 (2.01%) REST
9 14 (1.87%) SailPoint
10 10 (1.34%) JSON
11 9 (1.20%) ARM Templates
12 8 (1.07%) React
12 8 (1.07%) XML
13 7 (0.94%) AngularJS
13 7 (0.94%) CSS
14 6 (0.80%) Middleware
14 6 (0.80%) Software Packaging
15 5 (0.67%) .NET Framework
15 5 (0.67%) ADO
Miscellaneous
1 50 (6.69%) Onboarding
2 30 (4.02%) Data Centre
2 30 (4.02%) PKI
3 28 (3.75%) Cloud Native
4 25 (3.35%) Product Ownership
5 22 (2.95%) Hybrid Cloud
6 21 (2.81%) Legacy Systems
7 16 (2.14%) Public Cloud
8 15 (2.01%) Replication
9 14 (1.87%) Operational Technology
10 13 (1.74%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 11 (1.47%) Security Posture
11 11 (1.47%) Self-Motivation
12 10 (1.34%) Data Structures
12 10 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
13 9 (1.20%) Driving Licence
14 8 (1.07%) Cyber Defence
14 8 (1.07%) Management Information System
14 8 (1.07%) Virtual Team
15 7 (0.94%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 205 (27.44%) Windows
2 63 (8.43%) Windows Server
3 52 (6.96%) Linux
4 27 (3.61%) Windows 10
5 25 (3.35%) Mac OS
6 22 (2.95%) Apple iOS
7 13 (1.74%) Android
8 11 (1.47%) Unix
9 8 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 7 (0.94%) Windows 7
10 7 (0.94%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (0.67%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.40%) CentOS
13 3 (0.40%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.13%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.13%) VMS
14 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 128 (17.14%) Problem-Solving
2 92 (12.32%) ITIL
3 89 (11.91%) Agile
3 89 (11.91%) Customer Service
4 86 (11.51%) DevOps
5 80 (10.71%) Stakeholder Management
6 75 (10.04%) Business Intelligence
6 75 (10.04%) CI/CD
7 73 (9.77%) Migration
8 66 (8.84%) Cybersecurity
9 63 (8.43%) Project Delivery
10 61 (8.17%) ITSM
11 58 (7.76%) Analytics
11 58 (7.76%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 58 (7.76%) Project Management
12 54 (7.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 53 (7.10%) Decision-Making
14 51 (6.83%) AI
14 51 (6.83%) Roadmaps
15 48 (6.43%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 115 (15.39%) PowerShell
2 69 (9.24%) Python
3 67 (8.97%) SQL
4 28 (3.75%) T-SQL
5 22 (2.95%) Bash
6 20 (2.68%) C#
7 16 (2.14%) JavaScript
8 12 (1.61%) Bicep
8 12 (1.61%) Java
9 8 (1.07%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 7 (0.94%) X++
11 5 (0.67%) Kusto Query Language
12 3 (0.40%) Perl
12 3 (0.40%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.27%) Korn
14 1 (0.13%) Google Apps Script
14 1 (0.13%) Shell Script
14 1 (0.13%) VBA
Qualifications
1 263 (35.21%) Security Cleared
2 189 (25.30%) SC Cleared
3 94 (12.58%) Degree
4 78 (10.44%) DV Cleared
5 34 (4.55%) Microsoft Certification
6 28 (3.75%) Azure Certification
7 16 (2.14%) Cisco Certification
8 13 (1.74%) AWS Certification
9 11 (1.47%) Computer Science Degree
9 11 (1.47%) DBS Check
10 10 (1.34%) BPSS Clearance
10 10 (1.34%) CISSP
11 9 (1.20%) CCNP
11 9 (1.20%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 8 (1.07%) CISM
12 8 (1.07%) GIAC
12 8 (1.07%) MCSA
12 8 (1.07%) MCSE
13 6 (0.80%) PMI Certification
13 6 (0.80%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (4.42%) NIST
2 28 (3.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 28 (3.75%) NCSC
3 26 (3.48%) GDPR
4 25 (3.35%) SLA
5 20 (2.68%) PMO
6 19 (2.54%) Cyber Essentials
6 19 (2.54%) Data Quality
7 16 (2.14%) QA
8 6 (0.80%) ISO 31000
9 5 (0.67%) NIST 800
10 4 (0.54%) Accessibility
10 4 (0.54%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 2 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 1 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 1 (0.13%) Disclosure Scotland
13 1 (0.13%) ISO 19650
13 1 (0.13%) ISO 9001
13 1 (0.13%) JSP 440
System Software
1 210 (28.11%) Active Directory
2 65 (8.70%) VMware Infrastructure
3 27 (3.61%) Hyper-V
4 16 (2.14%) Virtual Machines
4 16 (2.14%) vSphere
5 15 (2.01%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (1.87%) VMware NSX
7 11 (1.47%) Virtual Desktop
8 9 (1.20%) Docker
9 5 (0.67%) Firmware
10 3 (0.40%) OpenAM
11 2 (0.27%) UAG
12 1 (0.13%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.13%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 1 (0.13%) Dovecot
12 1 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.13%) Postfix
12 1 (0.13%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 66 (8.84%) Microsoft Intune
2 45 (6.02%) Terraform
3 27 (3.61%) SCCM
4 26 (3.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 17 (2.28%) SCOM
6 15 (2.01%) Ansible
6 15 (2.01%) Single Sign-On
7 14 (1.87%) vCenter Server
8 13 (1.74%) Jamf Pro
9 11 (1.47%) Kubernetes
10 8 (1.07%) Avamar
11 4 (0.54%) Clonezilla
11 4 (0.54%) FortiGate
11 4 (0.54%) Puppet
11 4 (0.54%) QRadar
12 3 (0.40%) Progress Chef
12 3 (0.40%) SCSM
12 3 (0.40%) WMI
13 2 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
13 2 (0.27%) WSUS
Vendors
1 82 (10.98%) VMware
2 41 (5.49%) Cisco
3 38 (5.09%) ServiceNow
4 31 (4.15%) SAP
5 20 (2.68%) Google
6 19 (2.54%) Meraki
7 15 (2.01%) SolarWinds
8 14 (1.87%) Citrix
8 14 (1.87%) Databricks
9 13 (1.74%) Dell
9 13 (1.74%) Oracle
10 11 (1.47%) Avaya
10 11 (1.47%) F5
11 10 (1.34%) Fortinet
11 10 (1.34%) Mitel
11 10 (1.34%) Palo Alto
11 10 (1.34%) Thales
12 9 (1.20%) Infoblox
12 9 (1.20%) Splunk
13 8 (1.07%) Juniper