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 1 September 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
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 6 6
Rank change year-on-year +2 0 -2
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 953 560 625
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 14.45% 15.89% 13.21%
As % of the Vendors category 33.17% 30.74% 27.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 574 387 400
10th Percentile £203 £196 £200
25th Percentile £356 £253 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £468 £463
Median % change year-on-year +1.50% +1.19% +0.13%
75th Percentile £590 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £625 £659
England median daily rate £489 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +2.95% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 128 41 35
10th Percentile £13.47 £14.00 £11.71
25th Percentile £15.50 £14.20 £11.80
Median hourly rate £27.04 £17.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.03% -60.00% +132.88%
75th Percentile £70.25 £32.05 £58.49
90th Percentile £101.12 £83.00 £61.38
England median hourly rate £20.69 £22.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year -8.57% +39.43% -26.23%

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 2,873 1,822 2,313
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 43.55% 51.70% 48.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,780 1,218 1,382
10th Percentile £281 £208 £255
25th Percentile £425 £363 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £638
90th Percentile £700 £650 £700
England median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 243 107 129
10th Percentile £15.03 £14.20 £14.50
25th Percentile £18.50 £14.75 £26.25
Median hourly rate £48.72 £18.87 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +158.19% -67.10% +13.09%
75th Percentile £75.40 £37.34 £61.60
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.65 £70.00
England median hourly rate £32.00 £25.15 £30.00
% change year-on-year +27.24% -16.17% -27.71%

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 1 September 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 1 September 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 1 September 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 0 480 £500 +11.11% 406
Berkshire +2 257 £500 +4.17% 181
Hampshire 0 218 £500 -6.28% 213
Surrey +4 134 £450 +80.00% 187
Buckinghamshire -2 125 £560 +42.68% 138
Oxfordshire +1 98 £450 +80.00% 91
West Sussex -5 57 £380 +80.95% 52
Kent -1 37 £488 +85.71% 96
East Sussex -3 8 £220 -60.00% 51
Middlesex - 5 - - 25
Sussex - 4 - - 19
Home Counties +1 2 - -
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 97 (10.18%) SharePoint
2 49 (5.14%) Microsoft Exchange
3 14 (1.47%) Confluence
4 3 (0.31%) Apache
4 3 (0.31%) ArcGIS
5 2 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.21%) Apache Superset
5 2 (0.21%) IIS
5 2 (0.21%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.10%) nginx
6 1 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.10%) SharePoint 2010
6 1 (0.10%) SharePoint 2013
6 1 (0.10%) Smallworld
6 1 (0.10%) Tomcat
Applications
1 126 (13.22%) Microsoft Excel
1 126 (13.22%) Microsoft Office
2 61 (6.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 49 (5.14%) Microsoft Project
4 13 (1.36%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.10%) Adobe Captivate
7 1 (0.10%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.10%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.10%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.10%) Trello
Business Applications
1 20 (2.10%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (1.36%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.52%) SAP PSCD
4 4 (0.42%) NEC Housing
4 4 (0.42%) Primavera
4 4 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
4 4 (0.42%) SAP Business One
5 3 (0.31%) Maximo
6 2 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.10%) Dynamics AX
7 1 (0.10%) iTrent
7 1 (0.10%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.10%) Oracle Assets
7 1 (0.10%) Oracle Cash Management
7 1 (0.10%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.10%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.10%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 383 (40.19%) Azure
2 223 (23.40%) Microsoft 365
3 158 (16.58%) Entra ID
4 111 (11.65%) Power Platform
5 94 (9.86%) AWS
6 57 (5.98%) Azure DevOps
7 53 (5.56%) Dynamics 365
8 38 (3.99%) SaaS
9 36 (3.78%) Azure Monitor
10 33 (3.46%) GCP
11 30 (3.15%) Power Automate
12 28 (2.94%) Azure Logic Apps
12 28 (2.94%) IaaS
13 22 (2.31%) Microsoft Purview
13 22 (2.31%) OneDrive
14 21 (2.20%) Azure Sentinel
15 19 (1.99%) PowerApps
16 18 (1.89%) Microsoft Copilot
17 16 (1.68%) OpenShift
18 14 (1.47%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 79 (8.29%) DNS
2 59 (6.19%) Firewall
3 54 (5.67%) DHCP
4 46 (4.83%) VPN
5 45 (4.72%) TCP/IP
6 31 (3.25%) LAN
7 30 (3.15%) Wi-Fi
8 28 (2.94%) WAN
9 16 (1.68%) Network Security
9 16 (1.68%) VLAN
10 14 (1.47%) MPLS
11 12 (1.26%) SD-WAN
12 9 (0.94%) BGP
12 9 (0.94%) DNSSEC
13 8 (0.84%) Internet
13 8 (0.84%) Unified Communications
14 7 (0.73%) Intranet
15 6 (0.63%) OSPF
15 6 (0.63%) SSH
15 6 (0.63%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 82 (8.60%) Power BI
2 33 (3.46%) SQL Server
3 12 (1.26%) Azure SQL Database
4 11 (1.15%) MySQL
5 10 (1.05%) Data Warehouse
5 10 (1.05%) Oracle Database
6 9 (0.94%) PostgreSQL
7 8 (0.84%) Metadata
7 8 (0.84%) Relational Database
8 6 (0.63%) NoSQL
9 4 (0.42%) Data Lake
9 4 (0.42%) Data Mining
10 3 (0.31%) GIS
10 3 (0.31%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 2 (0.21%) MS Access
11 2 (0.21%) Oracle Reports
11 2 (0.21%) Parquet
11 2 (0.21%) Power Query
11 2 (0.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 2 (0.21%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 30 (3.15%) JIRA
2 12 (1.26%) Git
3 10 (1.05%) MSI
4 8 (0.84%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.73%) GitLab
6 3 (0.31%) Android Studio
6 3 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
6 3 (0.31%) Eclipse
6 3 (0.31%) Sonatype Nexus
6 3 (0.31%) Xcode
7 2 (0.21%) REST Assured
7 2 (0.21%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 1 (0.10%) ERwin
8 1 (0.10%) JUnit
8 1 (0.10%) NUnit
8 1 (0.10%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.10%) Visual Studio
General
1 343 (35.99%) Social Skills
2 152 (15.95%) Analytical Skills
3 104 (10.91%) Finance
4 83 (8.71%) Organisational Skills
5 82 (8.60%) Public Sector
6 47 (4.93%) Aerospace
7 35 (3.67%) Documentation Skills
8 32 (3.36%) Legal
9 24 (2.52%) Telecoms
10 19 (1.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 19 (1.99%) Manufacturing
11 18 (1.89%) Marketing
12 16 (1.68%) Influencing Skills
13 14 (1.47%) Military
14 12 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
15 9 (0.94%) French Language
16 8 (0.84%) Aviation
16 8 (0.84%) Retail
17 7 (0.73%) Billing
17 7 (0.73%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 116 (12.17%) Architect
2 93 (9.76%) Analyst
3 89 (9.34%) IT Support
4 80 (8.39%) Senior
5 67 (7.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
6 54 (5.67%) Lead
7 52 (5.46%) Consultant
8 50 (5.25%) Support Engineer
9 48 (5.04%) Cloud Engineer
9 48 (5.04%) IT Engineer
10 46 (4.83%) Developer
11 42 (4.41%) Azure Engineer
12 36 (3.78%) Administrator
13 34 (3.57%) IT Support Engineer
14 32 (3.36%) IT Analyst
15 30 (3.15%) Solutions Architect
16 29 (3.04%) Project Manager
17 25 (2.62%) Microsoft Engineer
17 25 (2.62%) Support Analyst
17 25 (2.62%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (8.18%) Terraform
2 38 (3.99%) .NET
3 36 (3.78%) OAuth
4 34 (3.57%) SAML
5 33 (3.46%) OpenID
6 24 (2.52%) LDAP
6 24 (2.52%) REST
7 23 (2.41%) OAuth2
8 22 (2.31%) Web Services
9 19 (1.99%) SailPoint
10 18 (1.89%) ARM Templates
10 18 (1.89%) Microsoft Graph
11 12 (1.26%) JSON
11 12 (1.26%) Middleware
12 10 (1.05%) .NET Framework
12 10 (1.05%) React
13 9 (0.94%) XML
14 8 (0.84%) Entity Framework
14 8 (0.84%) PySpark
14 8 (0.84%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 98 (10.28%) Onboarding
2 54 (5.67%) Hybrid Cloud
3 33 (3.46%) Cloud Native
4 31 (3.25%) Data Centre
4 31 (3.25%) PKI
5 26 (2.73%) Management Information System
6 22 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
6 22 (2.31%) Security Posture
7 20 (2.10%) Public Cloud
8 19 (1.99%) Product Ownership
9 16 (1.68%) Operational Technology
10 14 (1.47%) Driving Licence
10 14 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
11 13 (1.36%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 13 (1.36%) Enterprise Cloud
12 12 (1.26%) Data Structures
13 11 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
13 11 (1.15%) Private Cloud
14 10 (1.05%) Cyber Defence
15 9 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 251 (26.34%) Windows
2 91 (9.55%) Windows Server
3 76 (7.97%) Linux
4 43 (4.51%) Windows 10
5 26 (2.73%) Apple iOS
6 21 (2.20%) Mac OS
7 15 (1.57%) Unix
8 14 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (1.26%) Android
10 8 (0.84%) CentOS
10 8 (0.84%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.73%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.63%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
14 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2012
15 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 213 (22.35%) Problem-Solving
2 153 (16.05%) Stakeholder Management
3 138 (14.48%) Agile
4 125 (13.12%) Continuous Improvement
5 122 (12.80%) ITIL
6 118 (12.38%) DevOps
7 104 (10.91%) CI/CD
8 102 (10.70%) Customer Service
8 102 (10.70%) Cybersecurity
9 99 (10.39%) ITSM
10 96 (10.07%) Analytics
10 96 (10.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 89 (9.34%) Business Intelligence
12 87 (9.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 80 (8.39%) Migration
14 76 (7.97%) Decision-Making
15 72 (7.56%) Project Delivery
16 71 (7.45%) Infrastructure as Code
17 68 (7.14%) Technical Leadership
18 66 (6.93%) AI
Programming Languages
1 147 (15.42%) PowerShell
2 91 (9.55%) Python
3 86 (9.02%) SQL
4 37 (3.88%) Bash
5 30 (3.15%) Bicep
6 22 (2.31%) JavaScript
6 22 (2.31%) T-SQL
7 20 (2.10%) C#
8 15 (1.57%) Java
8 15 (1.57%) Kusto Query Language
9 8 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 8 (0.84%) X++
10 7 (0.73%) TypeScript
11 4 (0.42%) ABAP
12 3 (0.31%) Perl
13 2 (0.21%) VBA
14 1 (0.10%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 358 (37.57%) Security Cleared
2 231 (24.24%) SC Cleared
3 135 (14.17%) Degree
4 132 (13.85%) DV Cleared
5 55 (5.77%) Microsoft Certification
6 44 (4.62%) Azure Certification
7 20 (2.10%) AWS Certification
8 18 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
8 18 (1.89%) DBS Check
9 17 (1.78%) Computer Science Degree
10 15 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
10 15 (1.57%) PMI Certification
10 15 (1.57%) PMP
11 13 (1.36%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 10 (1.05%) MCSA
13 9 (0.94%) CISSP
13 9 (0.94%) MCSE
13 9 (0.94%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
14 8 (0.84%) CCNP
15 7 (0.73%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (4.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 42 (4.41%) NIST
3 41 (4.30%) Data Quality
4 39 (4.09%) PMO
5 33 (3.46%) NCSC
6 32 (3.36%) GDPR
7 26 (2.73%) SLA
8 21 (2.20%) QA
9 20 (2.10%) Cyber Essentials
10 9 (0.94%) GRC
11 7 (0.73%) JSP 440
12 6 (0.63%) ISO 31000
13 4 (0.42%) ISO 19650
13 4 (0.42%) PCI DSS
13 4 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (0.31%) Accessibility
14 3 (0.31%) Disclosure Scotland
14 3 (0.31%) GMP
14 3 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 2 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 210 (22.04%) Active Directory
2 70 (7.35%) VMware Infrastructure
3 29 (3.04%) Hyper-V
4 23 (2.41%) Virtual Machines
5 18 (1.89%) Docker
6 17 (1.78%) vSphere
7 16 (1.68%) Virtual Desktop
8 13 (1.36%) VMware ESXi
9 10 (1.05%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.63%) Firmware
11 3 (0.31%) OpenAM
12 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 2 (0.21%) UAG
12 2 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
13 1 (0.10%) Dovecot
13 1 (0.10%) Postfix
13 1 (0.10%) vCloud
13 1 (0.10%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 63 (6.61%) Microsoft Intune
2 44 (4.62%) Kubernetes
3 36 (3.78%) Ansible
4 34 (3.57%) SCCM
5 26 (2.73%) SCOM
6 23 (2.41%) vCenter Server
7 14 (1.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 13 (1.36%) Avamar
9 12 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
10 11 (1.15%) WMI
11 10 (1.05%) Jamf Pro
12 8 (0.84%) Grafana
13 6 (0.63%) FortiGate
13 6 (0.63%) QRadar
14 5 (0.52%) Progress Chef
14 5 (0.52%) Puppet
15 4 (0.42%) Clonezilla
15 4 (0.42%) Prometheus
16 3 (0.31%) Dell DRAC
16 3 (0.31%) Istio
Vendors
1 88 (9.23%) VMware
2 60 (6.30%) ServiceNow
3 54 (5.67%) SAP
4 37 (3.88%) Cisco
5 35 (3.67%) Google
6 27 (2.83%) Oracle
7 19 (1.99%) Databricks
7 19 (1.99%) Dell
8 16 (1.68%) Meraki
9 14 (1.47%) SolarWinds
10 13 (1.36%) Thales
11 12 (1.26%) Splunk
12 11 (1.15%) F5
13 10 (1.05%) CrowdStrike
14 9 (0.94%) Avaya
14 9 (0.94%) Infoblox
14 9 (0.94%) Palo Alto
14 9 (0.94%) Veeam
15 8 (0.84%) Juniper
15 8 (0.84%) Salesforce