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 5 October 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
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 5 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 +2 -2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 1,062 575 595
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 16.32% 16.19% 13.60%
As % of the Vendors category 36.98% 31.11% 27.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 614 409 391
10th Percentile £203 £181 £200
25th Percentile £325 £220 £345
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £463
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -2.70% -0.53%
75th Percentile £588 £550 £588
90th Percentile £675 £623 £666
England median daily rate £490 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +3.16% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 168 40 26
10th Percentile £13.47 £12.95 £11.80
25th Percentile £15.45 £14.20 £18.91
Median hourly rate £18.75 £18.42 £48.75
Median % change year-on-year +1.82% -62.23% +178.57%
75th Percentile £66.29 £32.12 £59.30
90th Percentile £96.00 £83.66 £61.78
England median hourly rate £18.50 £22.63 £17.00
% change year-on-year -18.25% +33.12% -25.32%

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 2,872 1,848 2,145
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 44.13% 52.04% 49.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,718 1,247 1,307
10th Percentile £263 £204 £250
25th Percentile £425 £351 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -2.44% +2.50%
75th Percentile £610 £588 £630
90th Percentile £680 £650 £700
England median daily rate £515 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +1.48% -3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 272 110 86
10th Percentile £14.05 £14.18 £15.61
25th Percentile £16.10 £15.52 £23.44
Median hourly rate £37.24 £21.95 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +69.70% -61.73% +11.53%
75th Percentile £70.00 £34.83 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £77.85 £70.00
England median hourly rate £26.00 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +3.38% -28.14% -20.16%

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 5 October 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 5 October 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 5 October 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 0 519 £500 +11.11% 609
Berkshire +1 296 £500 +6.53% 282
Hampshire +1 258 £500 -4.76% 303
Surrey +3 153 £455 +119.28% 221
Buckinghamshire -3 128 £512 +36.53% 188
Oxfordshire -1 95 £450 +100.00% 146
West Sussex -6 60 £373 +77.62% 87
Kent -1 35 £525 +68.00% 123
East Sussex +5 16 £220 -48.99% 71
Middlesex - 7 £450 - 19
Sussex -1 4 - - 20
Home Counties +1 2 £600 +9.09%
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
1 124 (11.68%) SharePoint
2 44 (4.14%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (1.41%) Confluence
4 6 (0.56%) IIS
5 3 (0.28%) Apache
5 3 (0.28%) ArcGIS
6 2 (0.19%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.19%) Apache Superset
6 2 (0.19%) OpenStack
6 2 (0.19%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.094%) nginx
7 1 (0.094%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.094%) SharePoint 2010
7 1 (0.094%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 166 (15.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 136 (12.81%) Microsoft Office
3 73 (6.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 48 (4.52%) Microsoft Project
5 13 (1.22%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.19%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.094%) Adobe Captivate
Business Applications
1 20 (1.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.60%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.47%) SAP PSCD
4 4 (0.38%) Maximo
4 4 (0.38%) NEC Housing
4 4 (0.38%) Primavera
4 4 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
4 4 (0.38%) SAP Business One
5 2 (0.19%) Dynamics NAV
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.094%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.094%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.094%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.094%) Oracle Cash Management
6 1 (0.094%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.094%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.094%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.094%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 401 (37.76%) Azure
2 248 (23.35%) Microsoft 365
3 168 (15.82%) Entra ID
4 123 (11.58%) Power Platform
5 94 (8.85%) AWS
6 62 (5.84%) Azure DevOps
7 57 (5.37%) Dynamics 365
8 38 (3.58%) GCP
9 36 (3.39%) SaaS
10 35 (3.30%) Azure Monitor
11 34 (3.20%) IaaS
12 31 (2.92%) Power Automate
13 27 (2.54%) Microsoft Copilot
14 26 (2.45%) Azure Logic Apps
15 24 (2.26%) OneDrive
16 22 (2.07%) Azure Sentinel
17 21 (1.98%) Microsoft Purview
18 20 (1.88%) PowerApps
19 18 (1.69%) OpenShift
20 15 (1.41%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 79 (7.44%) DNS
2 57 (5.37%) Firewall
3 56 (5.27%) DHCP
4 53 (4.99%) VPN
5 47 (4.43%) TCP/IP
6 28 (2.64%) LAN
6 28 (2.64%) Wi-Fi
7 26 (2.45%) WAN
8 17 (1.60%) VLAN
9 15 (1.41%) Network Security
10 13 (1.22%) SD-WAN
11 11 (1.04%) MPLS
12 9 (0.85%) DNSSEC
13 8 (0.75%) Wireless
14 7 (0.66%) BGP
14 7 (0.66%) Intranet
14 7 (0.66%) SMTP
15 6 (0.56%) Broadband
15 6 (0.56%) Internet
15 6 (0.56%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (8.38%) Power BI
2 36 (3.39%) SQL Server
3 17 (1.60%) Azure SQL Database
4 13 (1.22%) MySQL
4 13 (1.22%) PostgreSQL
5 11 (1.04%) Data Warehouse
5 11 (1.04%) Relational Database
6 10 (0.94%) Oracle Database
7 9 (0.85%) Metadata
7 9 (0.85%) NoSQL
8 7 (0.66%) Data Lake
9 6 (0.56%) MS Access
10 4 (0.38%) Parquet
10 4 (0.38%) Tableau
11 3 (0.28%) Data Mining
11 3 (0.28%) GIS
11 3 (0.28%) Power Query
11 3 (0.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 3 (0.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 2 (0.19%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 30 (2.82%) JIRA
2 15 (1.41%) Git
3 12 (1.13%) MSI
4 8 (0.75%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.66%) GitLab
6 3 (0.28%) Android Studio
6 3 (0.28%) Browser DevTools
6 3 (0.28%) Eclipse
6 3 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.28%) Xcode
7 2 (0.19%) REST Assured
7 2 (0.19%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 1 (0.094%) ERwin
8 1 (0.094%) JUnit
8 1 (0.094%) NUnit
8 1 (0.094%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.094%) Visual Studio
General
1 396 (37.29%) Social Skills
2 166 (15.63%) Analytical Skills
3 124 (11.68%) Finance
4 111 (10.45%) Organisational Skills
5 81 (7.63%) Public Sector
6 56 (5.27%) Aerospace
7 38 (3.58%) Documentation Skills
8 28 (2.64%) Legal
9 25 (2.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 23 (2.17%) Marketing
10 23 (2.17%) Telecoms
11 22 (2.07%) Manufacturing
12 16 (1.51%) Influencing Skills
13 15 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
14 13 (1.22%) Military
15 12 (1.13%) Aviation
16 11 (1.04%) Billing
16 11 (1.04%) General Ledger
16 11 (1.04%) Local Government
16 11 (1.04%) Retail
Job Titles
1 130 (12.24%) Architect
2 96 (9.04%) Analyst
3 86 (8.10%) IT Support
4 80 (7.53%) Senior
5 69 (6.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 65 (6.12%) Administrator
7 57 (5.37%) Lead
8 54 (5.08%) Developer
9 53 (4.99%) Support Engineer
10 49 (4.61%) Cloud Engineer
11 48 (4.52%) Consultant
12 47 (4.43%) IT Engineer
13 46 (4.33%) Azure Engineer
14 33 (3.11%) Solutions Architect
15 32 (3.01%) IT Support Engineer
16 28 (2.64%) IT Analyst
17 25 (2.35%) Microsoft Engineer
18 24 (2.26%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
18 24 (2.26%) Project Manager
18 24 (2.26%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (6.59%) Terraform
2 39 (3.67%) OAuth
3 38 (3.58%) .NET
4 37 (3.48%) SAML
5 36 (3.39%) OpenID
6 28 (2.64%) REST
7 24 (2.26%) LDAP
7 24 (2.26%) OAuth2
7 24 (2.26%) Web Services
8 21 (1.98%) ARM Templates
9 19 (1.79%) SailPoint
10 17 (1.60%) JSON
10 17 (1.60%) Microsoft Graph
11 16 (1.51%) React
12 13 (1.22%) RESTful
13 11 (1.04%) .NET Framework
14 10 (0.94%) Middleware
14 10 (0.94%) XML
15 9 (0.85%) .NET Core
15 9 (0.85%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 111 (10.45%) Onboarding
2 51 (4.80%) Hybrid Cloud
3 45 (4.24%) Management Information System
4 38 (3.58%) Data Centre
5 35 (3.30%) PKI
6 32 (3.01%) Cloud Native
7 25 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
8 24 (2.26%) Security Posture
9 21 (1.98%) Product Ownership
10 19 (1.79%) Driving Licence
11 17 (1.60%) Public Cloud
12 16 (1.51%) Operational Technology
13 14 (1.32%) Enterprise Cloud
14 12 (1.13%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
15 11 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
15 11 (1.04%) Cyber Defence
15 11 (1.04%) Cyber Threat
15 11 (1.04%) Data Structures
15 11 (1.04%) Legacy Systems
16 10 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 270 (25.42%) Windows
2 100 (9.42%) Windows Server
3 81 (7.63%) Linux
4 58 (5.46%) Windows 10
5 31 (2.92%) Apple iOS
6 21 (1.98%) Mac OS
7 15 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (1.41%) Unix
8 13 (1.22%) Android
9 11 (1.04%) CentOS
9 11 (1.04%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.66%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
12 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.094%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.094%) VMS
14 1 (0.094%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 245 (23.07%) Problem-Solving
2 177 (16.67%) Stakeholder Management
3 151 (14.22%) Continuous Improvement
4 139 (13.09%) Agile
5 127 (11.96%) ITIL
6 119 (11.21%) DevOps
7 109 (10.26%) Cybersecurity
8 105 (9.89%) CI/CD
8 105 (9.89%) ITSM
9 102 (9.60%) Analytics
9 102 (9.60%) Customer Service
10 95 (8.95%) Business Intelligence
10 95 (8.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 92 (8.66%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 92 (8.66%) Migration
12 81 (7.63%) Decision-Making
13 79 (7.44%) Project Delivery
14 75 (7.06%) Roadmaps
15 73 (6.87%) Technical Leadership
16 70 (6.59%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 169 (15.91%) PowerShell
2 94 (8.85%) Python
3 89 (8.38%) SQL
4 37 (3.48%) Bash
5 28 (2.64%) Bicep
6 25 (2.35%) JavaScript
7 20 (1.88%) C#
7 20 (1.88%) Java
7 20 (1.88%) T-SQL
8 14 (1.32%) Kusto Query Language
9 10 (0.94%) TypeScript
10 8 (0.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 7 (0.66%) X++
12 4 (0.38%) ABAP
13 3 (0.28%) Perl
14 2 (0.19%) VBA
15 1 (0.094%) C++
15 1 (0.094%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 385 (36.25%) Security Cleared
2 242 (22.79%) SC Cleared
3 152 (14.31%) DV Cleared
4 138 (12.99%) Degree
5 60 (5.65%) Microsoft Certification
6 52 (4.90%) Azure Certification
7 20 (1.88%) AWS Certification
7 20 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
7 20 (1.88%) DBS Check
8 17 (1.60%) BPSS Clearance
9 15 (1.41%) CISSP
9 15 (1.41%) Computer Science Degree
9 15 (1.41%) PMI Certification
10 14 (1.32%) PMP
11 12 (1.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 11 (1.04%) CISM
13 10 (0.94%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 10 (0.94%) MCSA
14 9 (0.85%) MCSE
14 9 (0.85%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (4.43%) Data Quality
2 46 (4.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 44 (4.14%) PMO
4 42 (3.95%) NIST
5 37 (3.48%) GDPR
6 31 (2.92%) NCSC
7 27 (2.54%) SLA
8 25 (2.35%) QA
9 19 (1.79%) Cyber Essentials
10 13 (1.22%) GRC
11 10 (0.94%) ISO 31000
12 8 (0.75%) ISO 9001
12 8 (0.75%) PCI DSS
13 7 (0.66%) JSP 440
14 4 (0.38%) Accessibility
14 4 (0.38%) ISO 19650
14 4 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 4 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.28%) Disclosure Scotland
15 3 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 215 (20.24%) Active Directory
2 75 (7.06%) VMware Infrastructure
3 34 (3.20%) Virtual Machines
4 32 (3.01%) Hyper-V
5 19 (1.79%) Docker
6 17 (1.60%) Virtual Desktop
6 17 (1.60%) vSphere
7 14 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.85%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.56%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 6 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
10 4 (0.38%) Firmware
10 4 (0.38%) ISA Server
11 3 (0.28%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.28%) OpenAM
12 2 (0.19%) UAG
13 1 (0.094%) Dovecot
13 1 (0.094%) Postfix
13 1 (0.094%) vCloud
13 1 (0.094%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 67 (6.31%) Microsoft Intune
2 47 (4.43%) Kubernetes
3 34 (3.20%) Ansible
4 31 (2.92%) SCCM
5 25 (2.35%) vCenter Server
6 24 (2.26%) SCOM
7 14 (1.32%) Avamar
7 14 (1.32%) WMI
8 13 (1.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 11 (1.04%) QRadar
9 11 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (0.94%) Jamf Pro
11 8 (0.75%) Grafana
12 5 (0.47%) FortiGate
12 5 (0.47%) Progress Chef
12 5 (0.47%) Puppet
13 4 (0.38%) CASB
13 4 (0.38%) Clonezilla
13 4 (0.38%) Prometheus
14 3 (0.28%) Dell DRAC
Vendors
1 91 (8.57%) VMware
2 66 (6.21%) ServiceNow
3 56 (5.27%) SAP
4 43 (4.05%) Google
5 33 (3.11%) Cisco
6 29 (2.73%) Oracle
7 23 (2.17%) Databricks
7 23 (2.17%) Dell
8 20 (1.88%) Splunk
9 15 (1.41%) Meraki
10 14 (1.32%) CrowdStrike
10 14 (1.32%) F5
10 14 (1.32%) SolarWinds
10 14 (1.32%) Thales
11 9 (0.85%) Infoblox
11 9 (0.85%) Palo Alto
11 9 (0.85%) Veeam
12 8 (0.75%) Citrix
12 8 (0.75%) Red Hat
12 8 (0.75%) Salesforce