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 7 March 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
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 7 5
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 652 473 877
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 12.71% 15.08% 15.57%
As % of the Vendors category 26.96% 29.67% 31.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 457 321 608
10th Percentile £202 £210 £180
25th Percentile £286 £363 £215
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £461
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +8.40% -2.90%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £575
90th Percentile £650 £651 £666
England median daily rate £492 £476 £493
% change year-on-year +3.47% -3.45% -1.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 71 20 66
10th Percentile £12.50 £13.08 £11.71
25th Percentile £13.13 £15.19 £13.16
Median hourly rate £17.50 £19.99 £22.54
Median % change year-on-year -12.43% -11.34% +18.63%
75th Percentile £27.50 £26.98 £55.08
90th Percentile £63.75 £57.62 £61.60
England median hourly rate £19.91 £24.18 £16.06
% change year-on-year -17.66% +50.56% -23.27%

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 2,418 1,594 2,781
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 47.15% 50.83% 49.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,704 1,048 1,727
10th Percentile £274 £242 £205
25th Percentile £413 £406 £368
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -1.96%
75th Percentile £600 £618 £600
90th Percentile £688 £675 £678
England median daily rate £505 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -3.81% +1.94% -4.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 73 159
10th Percentile £12.63 £16.95 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £21.25 £17.36
Median hourly rate £29.61 £27.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.67% -26.67% -16.67%
75th Percentile £80.07 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £74.25 £75.31
England median hourly rate £24.55 £31.17 £25.06
% change year-on-year -21.24% +24.40% -26.39%

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 7 March 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 7 March 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 7 March 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 +2 338 £475 -5.00% 262
Berkshire -1 215 £491 -1.80% 120
Hampshire -4 145 £550 +10.00% 139
Buckinghamshire -5 81 £465 - 87
Surrey +16 75 £425 +44.07% 84
Oxfordshire -1 42 £275 +10.00% 57
West Sussex -6 32 £400 -6.87% 48
Kent 0 28 £425 -25.24% 59
East Sussex +3 20 £600 +9.09% 32
Sussex +2 11 £463 -7.50% 4
Home Counties +1 3 - -
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 69 (10.58%) SharePoint
2 56 (8.59%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (1.53%) Confluence
4 3 (0.46%) MS Project Server
4 3 (0.46%) Skype for Business
5 2 (0.31%) ArcGIS
5 2 (0.31%) GeoServer
5 2 (0.31%) Mattermost
5 2 (0.31%) Smallworld
6 1 (0.15%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.15%) BizTalk Server
6 1 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2010
6 1 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 113 (17.33%) Microsoft Office
2 77 (11.81%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (4.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 26 (3.99%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (1.53%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.31%) SOLIDWORKS
6 2 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.15%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.15%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.15%) InDesign
7 1 (0.15%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 8 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.31%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.15%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (0.15%) iTrent
3 1 (0.15%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.15%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.15%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.15%) Sage 50
3 1 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.15%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 204 (31.29%) Azure
2 170 (26.07%) Microsoft 365
3 107 (16.41%) Entra ID
4 62 (9.51%) AWS
4 62 (9.51%) Power Platform
5 38 (5.83%) OneDrive
6 28 (4.29%) Azure DevOps
6 28 (4.29%) Microsoft Purview
7 27 (4.14%) Power Automate
7 27 (4.14%) SaaS
8 26 (3.99%) Dynamics 365
9 24 (3.68%) PowerApps
10 21 (3.22%) GitHub
11 16 (2.45%) Serverless
12 15 (2.30%) Azure Functions
12 15 (2.30%) Google Workspace
12 15 (2.30%) Microsoft Copilot
13 14 (2.15%) IaaS
14 13 (1.99%) GCP
15 12 (1.84%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 58 (8.90%) DNS
2 43 (6.60%) DHCP
3 38 (5.83%) Firewall
4 32 (4.91%) Wi-Fi
5 21 (3.22%) VPN
6 18 (2.76%) TCP/IP
7 15 (2.30%) Unified Communications
7 15 (2.30%) Wireless
8 13 (1.99%) Kerberos
9 11 (1.69%) LAN
9 11 (1.69%) Network Security
10 10 (1.53%) VLAN
11 9 (1.38%) 4G
12 8 (1.23%) BGP
12 8 (1.23%) WAN
12 8 (1.23%) WebEx
13 7 (1.07%) MPLS
13 7 (1.07%) SAN
14 6 (0.92%) SNMP
14 6 (0.92%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (7.36%) Power BI
2 38 (5.83%) SQL Server
3 21 (3.22%) Relational Database
4 18 (2.76%) MySQL
5 17 (2.61%) Azure SQL Database
6 12 (1.84%) PostgreSQL
7 10 (1.53%) Data Warehouse
7 10 (1.53%) Metadata
7 10 (1.53%) Oracle Database
8 7 (1.07%) Data Lake
9 6 (0.92%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
9 6 (0.92%) RDBMS
9 6 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 6 (0.92%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 5 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
11 4 (0.61%) MongoDB
11 4 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
12 3 (0.46%) GIS
12 3 (0.46%) NoSQL
12 3 (0.46%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 15 (2.30%) Android Studio
2 14 (2.15%) Git
3 13 (1.99%) JIRA
4 12 (1.84%) Browser DevTools
4 12 (1.84%) Eclipse
4 12 (1.84%) Xcode
5 9 (1.38%) Jenkins
6 5 (0.77%) JUnit
7 4 (0.61%) Gradle
8 3 (0.46%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.46%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.46%) Maven
8 3 (0.46%) MSI
8 3 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.46%) Subversion
9 2 (0.31%) JMeter
9 2 (0.31%) Oracle APEX
9 2 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
9 2 (0.31%) Robot Framework
10 1 (0.15%) SonarQube
General
1 233 (35.74%) Social Skills
2 76 (11.66%) Finance
3 69 (10.58%) Analytical Skills
4 64 (9.82%) Organisational Skills
5 56 (8.59%) Public Sector
6 12 (1.84%) Documentation Skills
6 12 (1.84%) Manufacturing
6 12 (1.84%) Military
7 10 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 9 (1.38%) Influencing Skills
8 9 (1.38%) Legal
8 9 (1.38%) Retail
9 7 (1.07%) Telecoms
10 5 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (0.61%) Banking
11 4 (0.61%) Marketing
11 4 (0.61%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.46%) Billing
13 2 (0.31%) Local Government
13 2 (0.31%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 101 (15.49%) Architect
2 67 (10.28%) Analyst
3 66 (10.12%) Support Engineer
4 65 (9.97%) IT Support
5 46 (7.06%) Senior
6 42 (6.44%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 38 (5.83%) IT Engineer
8 31 (4.75%) IT Support Engineer
9 27 (4.14%) Developer
10 23 (3.53%) Lead
11 22 (3.37%) Solutions Architect
12 21 (3.22%) Infrastructure Architect
13 20 (3.07%) Consultant
14 19 (2.91%) Administrator
14 19 (2.91%) Support Officer
15 17 (2.61%) Support Analyst
16 14 (2.15%) Infrastructure Support
16 14 (2.15%) Technical Support
17 13 (1.99%) Technical Engineer
17 13 (1.99%) Technical Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (3.07%) .NET
2 15 (2.30%) CSS
3 14 (2.15%) GraphQL
3 14 (2.15%) LDAP
3 14 (2.15%) React
4 12 (1.84%) Ajax
4 12 (1.84%) AngularJS
4 12 (1.84%) REST
5 11 (1.69%) ARM Templates
5 11 (1.69%) OAuth
6 9 (1.38%) OpenID
6 9 (1.38%) SAML
7 7 (1.07%) ADO
8 6 (0.92%) OAuth2
8 6 (0.92%) SailPoint
8 6 (0.92%) Spring
9 5 (0.77%) Microsoft Graph
9 5 (0.77%) PySpark
10 4 (0.61%) NETCONF
10 4 (0.61%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 38 (5.83%) Onboarding
2 36 (5.52%) PKI
3 23 (3.53%) Analytical Mindset
4 20 (3.07%) Replication
5 18 (2.76%) Enterprise Software
5 18 (2.76%) Product Ownership
6 16 (2.45%) Mobile App
6 16 (2.45%) Self-Motivation
7 15 (2.30%) Cloud Native
7 15 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
8 14 (2.15%) Driving Licence
9 12 (1.84%) Video Conferencing
10 11 (1.69%) Fat Client
10 11 (1.69%) Management Information System
10 11 (1.69%) Operational Technology
10 11 (1.69%) Thin Client
11 10 (1.53%) Data Centre
12 9 (1.38%) Hybrid Cloud
13 8 (1.23%) Security Operations Centre
14 5 (0.77%) Cyber Defence
Operating Systems
1 200 (30.67%) Windows
2 75 (11.50%) Linux
3 44 (6.75%) Windows Server
4 37 (5.67%) Windows 10
5 17 (2.61%) Android
5 17 (2.61%) Mac OS
6 13 (1.99%) Unix
7 9 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (1.38%) Windows 7
8 8 (1.23%) Windows Server 2019
9 7 (1.07%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (0.92%) Windows Server 2016
11 4 (0.61%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.46%) CentOS
13 2 (0.31%) Apple iOS
14 1 (0.15%) Debian
14 1 (0.15%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.15%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (15.03%) Problem-Solving
2 83 (12.73%) Customer Service
3 73 (11.20%) Cybersecurity
4 70 (10.74%) Agile
5 67 (10.28%) ITIL
6 65 (9.97%) Migration
7 64 (9.82%) DevOps
8 56 (8.59%) Business Intelligence
9 55 (8.44%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 55 (8.44%) Stakeholder Management
10 54 (8.28%) Project Management
11 47 (7.21%) CI/CD
11 47 (7.21%) Project Delivery
12 44 (6.75%) Time Management
13 43 (6.60%) Continuous Improvement
14 40 (6.13%) Analytics
15 35 (5.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 33 (5.06%) Roadmaps
16 33 (5.06%) SIEM
17 30 (4.60%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 98 (15.03%) PowerShell
2 78 (11.96%) Python
3 55 (8.44%) SQL
4 22 (3.37%) Java
4 22 (3.37%) JavaScript
5 20 (3.07%) Bash
6 17 (2.61%) C#
7 13 (1.99%) Perl
8 7 (1.07%) T-SQL
9 6 (0.92%) Bicep
10 4 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
10 4 (0.61%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.46%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.31%) Korn
12 2 (0.31%) PHP
12 2 (0.31%) X++
13 1 (0.15%) Google Apps Script
13 1 (0.15%) VB
13 1 (0.15%) VBA
Qualifications
1 226 (34.66%) Security Cleared
2 145 (22.24%) SC Cleared
3 69 (10.58%) DV Cleared
4 63 (9.66%) Degree
5 35 (5.37%) Microsoft Certification
6 19 (2.91%) Azure Certification
7 18 (2.76%) CISSP
8 11 (1.69%) PMI Certification
9 10 (1.53%) DBS Check
9 10 (1.53%) GIAC
9 10 (1.53%) PMP
10 9 (1.38%) Computer Science Degree
11 8 (1.23%) A+ Certification
11 8 (1.23%) AWS Certification
12 7 (1.07%) Cisco Certification
12 7 (1.07%) CISM
12 7 (1.07%) Master's Degree
13 6 (0.92%) CEH
13 6 (0.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 5 (0.77%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (4.14%) NIST
2 25 (3.83%) PMO
3 24 (3.68%) GDPR
4 20 (3.07%) SLA
5 17 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 14 (2.15%) Data Quality
7 12 (1.84%) QA
8 11 (1.69%) Cyber Essentials
9 8 (1.23%) NCSC
10 5 (0.77%) NIST 800
11 3 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.46%) P3O
12 2 (0.31%) Accessibility
12 2 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 19770
12 2 (0.31%) PCI DSS
13 1 (0.15%) COSHH
13 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 1 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
13 1 (0.15%) HIPAA
13 1 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 27005
System Software
1 199 (30.52%) Active Directory
2 55 (8.44%) VMware Infrastructure
3 24 (3.68%) Hyper-V
4 12 (1.84%) Virtual Desktop
5 10 (1.53%) Docker
5 10 (1.53%) vSphere
6 9 (1.38%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (1.23%) VMware NSX
8 5 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.46%) DFS Replication
10 2 (0.31%) NFS
11 1 (0.15%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.15%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.15%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 61 (9.36%) Microsoft Intune
2 45 (6.90%) SCCM
3 25 (3.83%) Terraform
4 22 (3.37%) Single Sign-On
5 19 (2.91%) Ansible
6 18 (2.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 12 (1.84%) WMI
8 10 (1.53%) Jamf Pro
8 10 (1.53%) Kubernetes
9 4 (0.61%) Cisco CUCM
9 4 (0.61%) vCenter Server
10 3 (0.46%) Grafana
10 3 (0.46%) Nessus
10 3 (0.46%) PaperCut
10 3 (0.46%) Puppet
10 3 (0.46%) SCOM
10 3 (0.46%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 2 (0.31%) HP SiteScope
11 2 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
11 2 (0.31%) WSUS
Vendors
1 72 (11.04%) VMware
2 48 (7.36%) ServiceNow
3 29 (4.45%) Oracle
4 25 (3.83%) Cisco
4 25 (3.83%) Splunk
5 22 (3.37%) SAP
6 17 (2.61%) Citrix
6 17 (2.61%) Databricks
7 10 (1.53%) Fortinet
7 10 (1.53%) Tenable
8 9 (1.38%) Thales
9 8 (1.23%) F5
9 8 (1.23%) Meraki
9 8 (1.23%) Red Hat
10 7 (1.07%) CrowdStrike
10 7 (1.07%) CyberArk
10 7 (1.07%) Palo Alto
11 6 (0.92%) Dell
11 6 (0.92%) Juniper
11 6 (0.92%) Virgin Media