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 23 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
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 6 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 680 450 800
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 11.38% 15.43% 14.62%
As % of the Vendors category 27.34% 29.01% 31.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 470 304 527
10th Percentile £202 £202 £195
25th Percentile £363 £299 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £469 £465
Median % change year-on-year +1.35% +0.80% +3.33%
75th Percentile £575 £570 £579
90th Percentile £651 £615 £675
England median daily rate £495 £479 £485
% change year-on-year +3.29% -1.19% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 29 74
10th Percentile £12.53 £13.98 £11.71
25th Percentile £15.16 £14.20 £12.00
Median hourly rate £27.50 £14.30 £22.90
Median % change year-on-year +92.31% -37.55% +17.42%
75th Percentile £52.58 £23.75 £55.08
90th Percentile £101.67 £32.05 £61.60
England median hourly rate £20.35 £18.85 £15.00
% change year-on-year +7.96% +25.67% -28.61%

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 2,487 1,551 2,553
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 41.61% 53.19% 46.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,711 1,043 1,540
10th Percentile £300 £220 £213
25th Percentile £413 £388 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% - -
75th Percentile £607 £600 £600
90th Percentile £700 £661 £688
England median daily rate £501 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -4.67% +1.94% -3.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 85 184
10th Percentile £15.05 £14.20 £12.00
25th Percentile £21.35 £16.95 £16.62
Median hourly rate £47.50 £24.66 £48.75
Median % change year-on-year +92.62% -49.42% +8.33%
75th Percentile £84.38 £58.69 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £70.75 £68.23
England median hourly rate £32.50 £25.50 £22.50
% change year-on-year +27.45% +13.33% -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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -1 346 £489 +6.25% 247
Berkshire -7 165 £500 +4.44% 120
Hampshire -9 138 £538 +7.50% 112
Buckinghamshire -3 108 £500 -2.44% 78
Surrey +12 99 £438 -2.78% 73
Oxfordshire -1 73 £450 +80.00% 53
West Sussex -3 45 £475 +35.71% 39
Kent -2 28 £275 +4.76% 57
East Sussex 0 10 £538 -6.52% 15
Home Counties +2 4 - - 1
Sussex - 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 78 (11.47%) SharePoint
2 69 (10.15%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (1.76%) Confluence
4 3 (0.44%) ArcGIS
4 3 (0.44%) MS Project Server
4 3 (0.44%) Smallworld
5 2 (0.29%) GeoServer
6 1 (0.15%) Apache
6 1 (0.15%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.15%) BizTalk Server
6 1 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2010
6 1 (0.15%) IIS
6 1 (0.15%) nginx
6 1 (0.15%) SharePoint 2010
6 1 (0.15%) SharePoint 2013
6 1 (0.15%) Tomcat
Applications
1 77 (11.32%) Microsoft Office
2 71 (10.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 29 (4.26%) Microsoft Project
4 26 (3.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (1.62%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.44%) 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 11 (1.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.59%) SAP Business One
3 3 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.44%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.15%) iTrent
4 1 (0.15%) SAP PSCD
4 1 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.15%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 267 (39.26%) Azure
2 186 (27.35%) Microsoft 365
3 124 (18.24%) Entra ID
4 83 (12.21%) Power Platform
5 57 (8.38%) AWS
6 40 (5.88%) Azure DevOps
7 30 (4.41%) Dynamics 365
8 29 (4.26%) Power Automate
9 28 (4.12%) OneDrive
10 25 (3.68%) SaaS
11 22 (3.24%) PowerApps
12 21 (3.09%) Microsoft Purview
13 20 (2.94%) IaaS
14 18 (2.65%) Microsoft Copilot
14 18 (2.65%) Serverless
15 17 (2.50%) Azure Functions
15 17 (2.50%) GitHub
16 16 (2.35%) Azure Monitor
17 15 (2.21%) Azure Logic Apps
18 13 (1.91%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 59 (8.68%) DNS
2 42 (6.18%) DHCP
3 34 (5.00%) Wi-Fi
4 29 (4.26%) Firewall
5 23 (3.38%) VPN
6 21 (3.09%) LAN
7 17 (2.50%) WAN
8 12 (1.76%) Kerberos
8 12 (1.76%) TCP/IP
9 10 (1.47%) SD-WAN
9 10 (1.47%) Unified Communications
10 9 (1.32%) MPLS
11 8 (1.18%) VLAN
12 7 (1.03%) Network Security
12 7 (1.03%) SAN
13 5 (0.74%) BGP
13 5 (0.74%) IPsec
13 5 (0.74%) SNMP
13 5 (0.74%) VSAN
13 5 (0.74%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (9.41%) Power BI
2 32 (4.71%) SQL Server
3 15 (2.21%) Azure SQL Database
4 14 (2.06%) MySQL
5 9 (1.32%) Metadata
5 9 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
6 8 (1.18%) Relational Database
7 7 (1.03%) Data Lake
7 7 (1.03%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 4 (0.59%) Oracle Database
9 4 (0.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 3 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
10 3 (0.44%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
10 3 (0.44%) Data Mining
10 3 (0.44%) GIS
10 3 (0.44%) MS Access
10 3 (0.44%) Star Schema
11 2 (0.29%) Geospatial Data
11 2 (0.29%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 17 (2.50%) JIRA
2 12 (1.76%) Git
3 9 (1.32%) Android Studio
4 6 (0.88%) Browser DevTools
4 6 (0.88%) Eclipse
4 6 (0.88%) Xcode
5 4 (0.59%) MSI
6 3 (0.44%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.44%) Gradle
6 3 (0.44%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.44%) JUnit
6 3 (0.44%) Maven
6 3 (0.44%) Robot Framework
6 3 (0.44%) Subversion
7 2 (0.29%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.15%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.15%) GitLab
8 1 (0.15%) NUnit
8 1 (0.15%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 190 (27.94%) Social Skills
2 69 (10.15%) Public Sector
3 65 (9.56%) Finance
4 59 (8.68%) Analytical Skills
5 43 (6.32%) Organisational Skills
6 22 (3.24%) Legal
7 18 (2.65%) Documentation Skills
8 15 (2.21%) Military
9 13 (1.91%) Aerospace
10 10 (1.47%) Telecoms
11 9 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 8 (1.18%) Retail
13 6 (0.88%) Local Government
13 6 (0.88%) Marketing
14 5 (0.74%) Aviation
14 5 (0.74%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.74%) Manufacturing
14 5 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
15 4 (0.59%) Advertising
15 4 (0.59%) Police
Job Titles
1 87 (12.79%) Architect
2 65 (9.56%) Analyst
2 65 (9.56%) IT Support
3 56 (8.24%) Senior
4 52 (7.65%) Support Engineer
5 49 (7.21%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 44 (6.47%) IT Engineer
7 37 (5.44%) Lead
8 35 (5.15%) IT Support Engineer
9 34 (5.00%) Consultant
9 34 (5.00%) Developer
10 24 (3.53%) Azure Engineer
10 24 (3.53%) Solutions Architect
11 21 (3.09%) Project Manager
12 19 (2.79%) Administrator
12 19 (2.79%) IT Analyst
13 18 (2.65%) Technical Architect
14 16 (2.35%) DevOps Engineer
14 16 (2.35%) Support Analyst
15 15 (2.21%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (4.41%) .NET
2 22 (3.24%) LDAP
3 18 (2.65%) OAuth
4 17 (2.50%) SAML
5 16 (2.35%) OpenID
6 15 (2.21%) REST
7 13 (1.91%) OAuth2
8 12 (1.76%) Web Services
9 11 (1.62%) SailPoint
10 10 (1.47%) React
11 9 (1.32%) AngularJS
11 9 (1.32%) ARM Templates
11 9 (1.32%) CSS
12 8 (1.18%) Microsoft Graph
12 8 (1.18%) XML
13 7 (1.03%) GraphQL
13 7 (1.03%) JSON
14 6 (0.88%) ADO
14 6 (0.88%) Ajax
15 5 (0.74%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 47 (6.91%) Onboarding
2 24 (3.53%) Data Centre
2 24 (3.53%) PKI
3 23 (3.38%) Product Ownership
4 21 (3.09%) Cloud Native
5 18 (2.65%) Hybrid Cloud
5 18 (2.65%) Legacy Systems
6 15 (2.21%) Public Cloud
6 15 (2.21%) Replication
7 13 (1.91%) Operational Technology
8 12 (1.76%) Driving Licence
9 11 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
10 10 (1.47%) Analytical Mindset
11 9 (1.32%) Cyber Defence
11 9 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
11 9 (1.32%) Mobile App
12 8 (1.18%) Security Posture
12 8 (1.18%) Virtual Team
13 6 (0.88%) Data Structures
14 5 (0.74%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 196 (28.82%) Windows
2 62 (9.12%) Linux
3 61 (8.97%) Windows Server
4 26 (3.82%) Windows 10
5 20 (2.94%) Mac OS
6 16 (2.35%) Android
7 14 (2.06%) Apple iOS
7 14 (2.06%) Unix
8 10 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 9 (1.32%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (1.18%) Windows 7
11 7 (1.03%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.88%) Windows Server 2016
13 5 (0.74%) Ubuntu
14 4 (0.59%) CentOS
15 1 (0.15%) Debian
15 1 (0.15%) OpenVMS
15 1 (0.15%) VMS
15 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (13.82%) Problem-Solving
2 85 (12.50%) DevOps
3 80 (11.76%) Agile
4 78 (11.47%) ITIL
5 77 (11.32%) Customer Service
6 73 (10.74%) Migration
7 70 (10.29%) Business Intelligence
8 66 (9.71%) CI/CD
9 61 (8.97%) Cybersecurity
10 60 (8.82%) Stakeholder Management
11 56 (8.24%) Analytics
11 56 (8.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 53 (7.79%) Project Management
13 46 (6.76%) Decision-Making
14 45 (6.62%) Project Delivery
15 41 (6.03%) ITSM
15 41 (6.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 41 (6.03%) User Experience
16 38 (5.59%) Roadmaps
17 35 (5.15%) Change Control
Programming Languages
1 97 (14.26%) PowerShell
2 62 (9.12%) Python
3 60 (8.82%) SQL
4 24 (3.53%) T-SQL
5 20 (2.94%) C#
6 15 (2.21%) JavaScript
7 14 (2.06%) Bash
8 13 (1.91%) Java
9 10 (1.47%) Bicep
10 8 (1.18%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 7 (1.03%) Kusto Query Language
12 6 (0.88%) Perl
13 3 (0.44%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.44%) X++
14 2 (0.29%) Korn
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
1 230 (33.82%) Security Cleared
2 161 (23.68%) SC Cleared
3 74 (10.88%) Degree
4 69 (10.15%) DV Cleared
5 22 (3.24%) Microsoft Certification
6 17 (2.50%) Azure Certification
7 14 (2.06%) CISSP
8 12 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
8 12 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
8 12 (1.76%) GIAC
9 10 (1.47%) CISM
10 9 (1.32%) BPSS Clearance
11 8 (1.18%) DBS Check
12 6 (0.88%) PMI Certification
12 6 (0.88%) PMP
13 5 (0.74%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 5 (0.74%) ACCA
13 5 (0.74%) CESG Certified Professional
13 5 (0.74%) CIMA
13 5 (0.74%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (4.56%) NIST
2 24 (3.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 22 (3.24%) GDPR
4 21 (3.09%) Cyber Essentials
4 21 (3.09%) NCSC
5 19 (2.79%) SLA
6 18 (2.65%) PMO
7 17 (2.50%) Data Quality
8 14 (2.06%) QA
9 6 (0.88%) ISO 31000
9 6 (0.88%) NIST 800
10 5 (0.74%) Accessibility
11 4 (0.59%) PCI DSS
12 3 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 2 (0.29%) ISO 9001
13 2 (0.29%) JSP 440
14 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
14 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 1 (0.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 208 (30.59%) Active Directory
2 66 (9.71%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (3.68%) Hyper-V
4 15 (2.21%) vSphere
5 13 (1.91%) Virtual Desktop
5 13 (1.91%) Virtual Machines
6 11 (1.62%) VMware ESXi
7 10 (1.47%) VMware NSX
8 9 (1.32%) Docker
9 5 (0.74%) Firmware
10 3 (0.44%) DFS Replication
11 2 (0.29%) UAG
12 1 (0.15%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.15%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 1 (0.15%) Dovecot
12 1 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.15%) Postfix
12 1 (0.15%) Sendmail
12 1 (0.15%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 60 (8.82%) Microsoft Intune
2 31 (4.56%) Terraform
3 29 (4.26%) SCCM
4 21 (3.09%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 20 (2.94%) Single Sign-On
6 13 (1.91%) SCOM
7 12 (1.76%) Ansible
8 10 (1.47%) Jamf Pro
8 10 (1.47%) Kubernetes
8 10 (1.47%) vCenter Server
9 6 (0.88%) Avamar
10 5 (0.74%) WMI
11 4 (0.59%) QRadar
12 3 (0.44%) Nessus
12 3 (0.44%) SCSM
12 3 (0.44%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 3 (0.44%) WSUS
13 2 (0.29%) Grafana
13 2 (0.29%) Oracle RMAN
13 2 (0.29%) Puppet
Vendors
1 79 (11.62%) VMware
2 34 (5.00%) Cisco
3 31 (4.56%) SAP
4 20 (2.94%) ServiceNow
5 18 (2.65%) Meraki
6 15 (2.21%) Databricks
7 14 (2.06%) Citrix
7 14 (2.06%) Oracle
8 13 (1.91%) Thales
9 12 (1.76%) Dell
9 12 (1.76%) Splunk
10 10 (1.47%) Avaya
10 10 (1.47%) Google
11 9 (1.32%) F5
11 9 (1.32%) Fortinet
11 9 (1.32%) Mitel
12 8 (1.18%) Juniper
12 8 (1.18%) Red Hat
13 7 (1.03%) SolarWinds
13 7 (1.03%) Veeam