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 3 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
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 5 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 +2 -2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 1,069 576 611
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 16.31% 16.19% 13.88%
As % of the Vendors category 36.95% 31.15% 28.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 621 408 402
10th Percentile £201 £181 £200
25th Percentile £325 £220 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £463
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% -2.70% -0.53%
75th Percentile £588 £550 £587
90th Percentile £675 £623 £658
England median daily rate £490 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +3.16% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 168 42 26
10th Percentile £13.47 £13.01 £11.80
25th Percentile £15.45 £14.20 £18.91
Median hourly rate £19.12 £17.78 £48.75
Median % change year-on-year +7.54% -63.53% +178.57%
75th Percentile £66.29 £32.05 £59.30
90th Percentile £96.00 £82.08 £61.78
England median hourly rate £18.54 £22.63 £17.00
% change year-on-year -18.08% +33.12% -24.55%

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 2,893 1,849 2,161
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 44.13% 51.98% 49.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,737 1,242 1,314
10th Percentile £263 £204 £252
25th Percentile £425 £350 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -2.91% +3.00%
75th Percentile £610 £588 £631
90th Percentile £680 £650 £700
England median daily rate £515 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +0.98% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 271 112 87
10th Percentile £14.05 £14.20 £15.69
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.50 £24.38
Median hourly rate £37.24 £21.07 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +76.74% -63.26% +14.70%
75th Percentile £70.00 £34.83 £62.53
90th Percentile £88.00 £77.13 £70.00
England median hourly rate £26.14 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +3.92% -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 3 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 3 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 3 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 0 522 £500 +11.11% 614
Berkshire 0 297 £500 +6.53% 286
Hampshire +1 258 £500 -4.76% 293
Surrey +3 156 £455 +119.28% 221
Buckinghamshire -2 130 £512 +30.45% 199
Oxfordshire -1 95 £450 +100.00% 136
West Sussex -6 60 £373 +77.62% 85
Kent -2 36 £525 +82.61% 117
East Sussex +3 16 £220 -48.99% 69
Middlesex - 7 £450 - 21
Sussex -1 4 - - 17
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
1 123 (11.51%) SharePoint
2 45 (4.21%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (1.40%) 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 (15.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 139 (13.00%) Microsoft Office
3 72 (6.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 48 (4.49%) Microsoft Project
5 13 (1.22%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
7 2 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.19%) SOLIDWORKS
8 1 (0.094%) Adobe Captivate
Business Applications
1 20 (1.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (1.59%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.47%) SAP PSCD
4 4 (0.37%) Maximo
4 4 (0.37%) NEC Housing
4 4 (0.37%) Primavera
4 4 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
4 4 (0.37%) 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%) iTrent
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
1 404 (37.79%) Azure
2 250 (23.39%) Microsoft 365
3 169 (15.81%) Entra ID
4 125 (11.69%) Power Platform
5 95 (8.89%) AWS
6 63 (5.89%) Azure DevOps
7 57 (5.33%) Dynamics 365
8 38 (3.55%) GCP
9 37 (3.46%) SaaS
10 35 (3.27%) Azure Monitor
11 34 (3.18%) IaaS
12 31 (2.90%) Power Automate
13 27 (2.53%) Microsoft Copilot
14 26 (2.43%) Azure Logic Apps
15 24 (2.25%) OneDrive
16 22 (2.06%) Azure Sentinel
16 22 (2.06%) Microsoft Purview
17 20 (1.87%) PowerApps
18 18 (1.68%) OpenShift
19 15 (1.40%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 79 (7.39%) DNS
2 58 (5.43%) Firewall
3 56 (5.24%) DHCP
4 53 (4.96%) VPN
5 47 (4.40%) TCP/IP
6 29 (2.71%) LAN
7 28 (2.62%) Wi-Fi
8 27 (2.53%) WAN
9 17 (1.59%) VLAN
10 15 (1.40%) Network Security
11 13 (1.22%) SD-WAN
12 11 (1.03%) MPLS
13 9 (0.84%) DNSSEC
14 8 (0.75%) SMTP
14 8 (0.75%) Wireless
15 7 (0.65%) BGP
15 7 (0.65%) Intranet
16 6 (0.56%) Broadband
16 6 (0.56%) Internet
16 6 (0.56%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 91 (8.51%) Power BI
2 36 (3.37%) SQL Server
3 17 (1.59%) Azure SQL Database
4 13 (1.22%) MySQL
4 13 (1.22%) PostgreSQL
5 11 (1.03%) Data Warehouse
5 11 (1.03%) Relational Database
6 10 (0.94%) Oracle Database
7 9 (0.84%) Metadata
7 9 (0.84%) NoSQL
8 7 (0.65%) Data Lake
9 6 (0.56%) MS Access
10 5 (0.47%) Data Mining
11 4 (0.37%) Parquet
11 4 (0.37%) Tableau
12 3 (0.28%) GIS
12 3 (0.28%) Power Query
12 3 (0.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 3 (0.28%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 2 (0.19%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 30 (2.81%) JIRA
2 15 (1.40%) Git
3 12 (1.12%) MSI
4 8 (0.75%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.65%) 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
1 398 (37.23%) Social Skills
2 167 (15.62%) Analytical Skills
3 124 (11.60%) Finance
4 111 (10.38%) Organisational Skills
5 81 (7.58%) Public Sector
6 56 (5.24%) Aerospace
7 38 (3.55%) Documentation Skills
8 29 (2.71%) Legal
9 25 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 23 (2.15%) Marketing
10 23 (2.15%) Telecoms
11 22 (2.06%) Manufacturing
12 16 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
13 14 (1.31%) Presentation Skills
14 13 (1.22%) Military
15 12 (1.12%) Aviation
16 11 (1.03%) Billing
16 11 (1.03%) General Ledger
16 11 (1.03%) Local Government
16 11 (1.03%) Retail
Job Titles
1 131 (12.25%) Architect
2 98 (9.17%) Analyst
3 85 (7.95%) IT Support
4 80 (7.48%) Senior
5 72 (6.74%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 64 (5.99%) Administrator
7 58 (5.43%) Lead
8 54 (5.05%) Developer
9 52 (4.86%) Support Engineer
10 50 (4.68%) Cloud Engineer
11 48 (4.49%) Consultant
12 47 (4.40%) Azure Engineer
13 46 (4.30%) IT Engineer
14 33 (3.09%) Solutions Architect
15 31 (2.90%) IT Support Engineer
16 28 (2.62%) IT Analyst
17 25 (2.34%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
17 25 (2.34%) Microsoft Engineer
17 25 (2.34%) Technical Architect
18 24 (2.25%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 70 (6.55%) Terraform
2 39 (3.65%) OAuth
3 38 (3.55%) .NET
4 37 (3.46%) SAML
5 36 (3.37%) OpenID
6 28 (2.62%) REST
7 24 (2.25%) LDAP
7 24 (2.25%) OAuth2
7 24 (2.25%) Web Services
8 21 (1.96%) ARM Templates
9 19 (1.78%) SailPoint
10 17 (1.59%) JSON
10 17 (1.59%) Microsoft Graph
11 16 (1.50%) React
12 13 (1.22%) RESTful
13 11 (1.03%) .NET Framework
14 10 (0.94%) Middleware
14 10 (0.94%) XML
15 9 (0.84%) .NET Core
15 9 (0.84%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 111 (10.38%) Onboarding
2 52 (4.86%) Hybrid Cloud
3 45 (4.21%) Management Information System
4 39 (3.65%) Data Centre
5 35 (3.27%) PKI
6 32 (2.99%) Cloud Native
7 25 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
8 24 (2.25%) Security Posture
9 21 (1.96%) Product Ownership
10 19 (1.78%) Driving Licence
11 18 (1.68%) Public Cloud
12 16 (1.50%) Operational Technology
13 14 (1.31%) Enterprise Cloud
14 13 (1.22%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
15 11 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
15 11 (1.03%) Cyber Defence
15 11 (1.03%) Cyber Threat
15 11 (1.03%) Data Structures
15 11 (1.03%) Legacy Systems
15 11 (1.03%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 275 (25.72%) Windows
2 102 (9.54%) Windows Server
3 81 (7.58%) Linux
4 57 (5.33%) Windows 10
5 31 (2.90%) Apple iOS
6 21 (1.96%) Mac OS
7 15 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (1.40%) Unix
8 13 (1.22%) Android
9 11 (1.03%) CentOS
9 11 (1.03%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.65%) 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
1 246 (23.01%) Problem-Solving
2 177 (16.56%) Stakeholder Management
3 151 (14.13%) Continuous Improvement
4 139 (13.00%) Agile
5 129 (12.07%) ITIL
6 120 (11.23%) DevOps
7 109 (10.20%) Cybersecurity
8 106 (9.92%) CI/CD
9 105 (9.82%) ITSM
10 103 (9.64%) Customer Service
11 102 (9.54%) Analytics
12 97 (9.07%) Business Intelligence
13 95 (8.89%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 95 (8.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 90 (8.42%) Migration
15 81 (7.58%) Decision-Making
16 79 (7.39%) Project Delivery
17 76 (7.11%) Roadmaps
18 73 (6.83%) Technical Leadership
19 70 (6.55%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 172 (16.09%) PowerShell
2 94 (8.79%) Python
3 89 (8.33%) SQL
4 37 (3.46%) Bash
5 28 (2.62%) Bicep
6 25 (2.34%) JavaScript
7 20 (1.87%) C#
7 20 (1.87%) Java
7 20 (1.87%) T-SQL
8 14 (1.31%) Kusto Query Language
9 10 (0.94%) TypeScript
10 8 (0.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 7 (0.65%) X++
12 4 (0.37%) ABAP
13 3 (0.28%) Perl
14 2 (0.19%) VBA
15 1 (0.094%) C++
15 1 (0.094%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 390 (36.48%) Security Cleared
2 245 (22.92%) SC Cleared
3 154 (14.41%) DV Cleared
4 140 (13.10%) Degree
5 60 (5.61%) Microsoft Certification
6 52 (4.86%) Azure Certification
7 21 (1.96%) Cisco Certification
8 20 (1.87%) AWS Certification
8 20 (1.87%) DBS Check
9 17 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
10 15 (1.40%) CISSP
10 15 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
10 15 (1.40%) PMI Certification
11 14 (1.31%) PMP
12 13 (1.22%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 11 (1.03%) CISM
14 10 (0.94%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 10 (0.94%) MCSA
15 9 (0.84%) MCSE
15 9 (0.84%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (4.40%) Data Quality
2 46 (4.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 44 (4.12%) PMO
4 42 (3.93%) NIST
5 37 (3.46%) GDPR
6 31 (2.90%) NCSC
7 27 (2.53%) SLA
8 25 (2.34%) QA
9 19 (1.78%) 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 (0.65%) JSP 440
14 4 (0.37%) Accessibility
14 4 (0.37%) ISO 19650
14 4 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 4 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 3 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 217 (20.30%) Active Directory
2 77 (7.20%) VMware Infrastructure
3 34 (3.18%) Virtual Machines
4 32 (2.99%) Hyper-V
5 19 (1.78%) Docker
5 19 (1.78%) vSphere
6 17 (1.59%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (1.31%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.84%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.56%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 6 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
10 4 (0.37%) Firmware
10 4 (0.37%) 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 69 (6.45%) Microsoft Intune
2 47 (4.40%) Kubernetes
3 34 (3.18%) Ansible
4 33 (3.09%) SCCM
5 26 (2.43%) SCOM
6 25 (2.34%) vCenter Server
7 14 (1.31%) Avamar
7 14 (1.31%) WMI
8 13 (1.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 12 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (1.03%) QRadar
11 10 (0.94%) Jamf Pro
12 8 (0.75%) Grafana
13 5 (0.47%) FortiGate
13 5 (0.47%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.47%) Puppet
14 4 (0.37%) CASB
14 4 (0.37%) Clonezilla
14 4 (0.37%) Prometheus
15 3 (0.28%) Istio
Vendors
1 94 (8.79%) VMware
2 66 (6.17%) ServiceNow
3 57 (5.33%) SAP
4 43 (4.02%) Google
5 33 (3.09%) Cisco
6 30 (2.81%) Oracle
7 23 (2.15%) Databricks
7 23 (2.15%) Dell
8 20 (1.87%) Splunk
9 15 (1.40%) Meraki
10 14 (1.31%) CrowdStrike
10 14 (1.31%) F5
10 14 (1.31%) SolarWinds
10 14 (1.31%) Thales
11 11 (1.03%) Veeam
12 9 (0.84%) Infoblox
12 9 (0.84%) Palo Alto
13 8 (0.75%) Citrix
13 8 (0.75%) Red Hat
13 8 (0.75%) Salesforce