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 10 July 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
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 5 6
Rank change year-on-year -2 +1 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 793 544 794
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 12.24% 16.22% 14.05%
As % of the Vendors category 28.72% 30.29% 29.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 517 362 513
10th Percentile £201 £200 £200
25th Percentile £355 £277 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £466
Median % change year-on-year - +1.93% -1.38%
75th Percentile £580 £575 £588
90th Percentile £675 £623 £671
England median daily rate £492 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +3.58% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 37 74
10th Percentile £13.13 £13.80 £11.71
25th Percentile £17.05 £14.20 £12.00
Median hourly rate £31.88 £15.75 £26.22
Median % change year-on-year +102.38% -39.92% +34.44%
75th Percentile £57.88 £30.00 £59.50
90th Percentile £110.75 £35.03 £61.60
England median hourly rate £22.63 £22.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year +0.58% +40.10% -27.00%

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 2,761 1,796 2,668
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 42.62% 53.55% 47.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,789 1,172 1,575
10th Percentile £283 £215 £247
25th Percentile £419 £375 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £505
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -0.99% +1.00%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £608
90th Percentile £688 £650 £698
England median daily rate £510 £513 £513
% change year-on-year -0.49% - -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 196 114 187
10th Percentile £16.00 £14.20 £12.00
25th Percentile £24.81 £15.28 £18.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £20.33 £53.00
Median % change year-on-year +158.24% -61.64% +17.78%
75th Percentile £85.00 £38.42 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £69.90 £70.00
England median hourly rate £35.50 £25.15 £25.00
% change year-on-year +41.15% +0.60% -31.51%

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 10 July 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 10 July 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 10 July 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 0 422 £500 +10.50% 268
Berkshire -1 241 £500 +3.09% 126
Hampshire -8 155 £525 - 108
Surrey +4 113 £450 +85.57% 103
Buckinghamshire -4 102 £505 +22.42% 77
Oxfordshire -2 79 £400 +60.00% 73
West Sussex -3 56 £400 +66.67% 38
Kent -3 26 £275 -12.00% 60
East Sussex +1 9 £298 -53.33% 27
Home Counties +2 4 - - 1
Middlesex - 1 - - 21
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 80 (10.09%) SharePoint
2 74 (9.33%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (1.26%) Confluence
4 2 (0.25%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.13%) Apache
5 1 (0.13%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.13%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.13%) BizTalk Server
5 1 (0.13%) IIS
5 1 (0.13%) MS Project Server
5 1 (0.13%) nginx
5 1 (0.13%) SharePoint 2010
5 1 (0.13%) SharePoint 2013
5 1 (0.13%) Smallworld
5 1 (0.13%) Tomcat
Applications
1 93 (11.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 86 (10.84%) Microsoft Office
3 38 (4.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 34 (4.29%) Microsoft Project
5 14 (1.77%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.25%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.13%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.13%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.13%) InDesign
7 1 (0.13%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.13%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 14 (1.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.26%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.63%) NEC Housing
3 5 (0.63%) SAP PSCD
4 4 (0.50%) SAP Business One
5 3 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.13%) iTrent
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.13%) Primavera
6 1 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 322 (40.61%) Azure
2 198 (24.97%) Microsoft 365
3 155 (19.55%) Entra ID
4 90 (11.35%) Power Platform
5 81 (10.21%) AWS
6 46 (5.80%) Azure DevOps
7 43 (5.42%) Dynamics 365
8 35 (4.41%) OneDrive
9 27 (3.40%) Power Automate
9 27 (3.40%) SaaS
10 24 (3.03%) GCP
11 22 (2.77%) Azure Logic Apps
12 20 (2.52%) Microsoft Purview
13 19 (2.40%) Azure Monitor
14 17 (2.14%) PowerApps
15 16 (2.02%) IaaS
16 14 (1.77%) GitHub
16 14 (1.77%) Serverless
17 13 (1.64%) Azure Functions
18 12 (1.51%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 81 (10.21%) DNS
2 52 (6.56%) DHCP
3 42 (5.30%) Wi-Fi
4 40 (5.04%) Firewall
5 32 (4.04%) LAN
6 31 (3.91%) TCP/IP
6 31 (3.91%) VPN
7 25 (3.15%) WAN
8 16 (2.02%) SD-WAN
9 15 (1.89%) MPLS
10 12 (1.51%) Network Security
10 12 (1.51%) VLAN
11 11 (1.39%) BGP
11 11 (1.39%) Kerberos
11 11 (1.39%) Unified Communications
12 9 (1.13%) DNSSEC
12 9 (1.13%) IPsec
13 7 (0.88%) BIG-IP
13 7 (0.88%) OSPF
13 7 (0.88%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (8.70%) Power BI
2 32 (4.04%) SQL Server
3 12 (1.51%) MySQL
3 12 (1.51%) PostgreSQL
4 8 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
4 8 (1.01%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (0.76%) Metadata
5 6 (0.76%) Oracle Database
5 6 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 6 (0.76%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 5 (0.63%) Relational Database
7 3 (0.38%) Data Mining
7 3 (0.38%) MS Access
7 3 (0.38%) Star Schema
8 2 (0.25%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.25%) BusinessObjects
8 2 (0.25%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.25%) Geospatial Data
8 2 (0.25%) Oracle Reports
8 2 (0.25%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 26 (3.28%) JIRA
2 14 (1.77%) Git
3 4 (0.50%) JUnit
3 4 (0.50%) MSI
3 4 (0.50%) Sonatype Nexus
4 3 (0.38%) Android Studio
4 3 (0.38%) Browser DevTools
4 3 (0.38%) Eclipse
4 3 (0.38%) Gradle
4 3 (0.38%) Maven
4 3 (0.38%) Robot Framework
4 3 (0.38%) Xcode
5 2 (0.25%) GitLab
5 2 (0.25%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.25%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 1 (0.13%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.13%) NUnit
6 1 (0.13%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 251 (31.65%) Social Skills
2 81 (10.21%) Analytical Skills
3 80 (10.09%) Public Sector
4 75 (9.46%) Finance
5 48 (6.05%) Organisational Skills
6 28 (3.53%) Documentation Skills
6 28 (3.53%) Legal
7 25 (3.15%) Aerospace
8 22 (2.77%) Telecoms
9 15 (1.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 15 (1.89%) Marketing
9 15 (1.89%) Military
10 8 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
11 7 (0.88%) French Language
11 7 (0.88%) Local Government
11 7 (0.88%) Retail
12 6 (0.76%) Billing
12 6 (0.76%) Manufacturing
13 5 (0.63%) Arabic Language
13 5 (0.63%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 84 (10.59%) Architect
2 82 (10.34%) IT Support
3 80 (10.09%) Analyst
4 59 (7.44%) Senior
5 51 (6.43%) Consultant
6 49 (6.18%) Support Engineer
7 48 (6.05%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 48 (6.05%) Lead
8 47 (5.93%) IT Engineer
9 38 (4.79%) IT Support Engineer
10 35 (4.41%) Developer
11 29 (3.66%) Azure Engineer
11 29 (3.66%) IT Analyst
12 27 (3.40%) Solutions Architect
13 26 (3.28%) Administrator
13 26 (3.28%) Cloud Engineer
13 26 (3.28%) Project Manager
13 26 (3.28%) Support Analyst
14 21 (2.65%) IT Support Analyst
15 20 (2.52%) Microsoft Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (3.78%) LDAP
2 28 (3.53%) .NET
3 27 (3.40%) OAuth
4 26 (3.28%) SAML
5 25 (3.15%) OpenID
6 20 (2.52%) REST
7 18 (2.27%) Microsoft Graph
7 18 (2.27%) Web Services
8 17 (2.14%) OAuth2
9 14 (1.77%) SailPoint
10 10 (1.26%) JSON
11 8 (1.01%) React
11 8 (1.01%) SOAP
11 8 (1.01%) XML
12 7 (0.88%) AngularJS
12 7 (0.88%) ARM Templates
12 7 (0.88%) CSS
12 7 (0.88%) Middleware
12 7 (0.88%) YAML
13 6 (0.76%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 59 (7.44%) Onboarding
2 32 (4.04%) Data Centre
3 29 (3.66%) Cloud Native
3 29 (3.66%) PKI
4 26 (3.28%) Hybrid Cloud
5 23 (2.90%) Product Ownership
6 22 (2.77%) Legacy Systems
7 18 (2.27%) Public Cloud
8 17 (2.14%) Operational Technology
9 15 (1.89%) Replication
10 13 (1.64%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 12 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
11 12 (1.51%) Security Posture
12 10 (1.26%) Cyber Defence
12 10 (1.26%) Data Structures
12 10 (1.26%) Self-Motivation
13 9 (1.13%) Management Information System
13 9 (1.13%) Private Cloud
14 8 (1.01%) Driving Licence
14 8 (1.01%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 219 (27.62%) Windows
2 66 (8.32%) Windows Server
3 56 (7.06%) Linux
4 31 (3.91%) Windows 10
5 25 (3.15%) Mac OS
6 22 (2.77%) Apple iOS
7 15 (1.89%) Unix
8 12 (1.51%) Android
9 11 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 7 (0.88%) Windows Server 2019
11 6 (0.76%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.76%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.63%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.38%) CentOS
13 3 (0.38%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.13%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.13%) VMS
14 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 144 (18.16%) Problem-Solving
2 102 (12.86%) ITIL
3 97 (12.23%) Customer Service
4 91 (11.48%) Agile
4 91 (11.48%) DevOps
5 86 (10.84%) Stakeholder Management
6 80 (10.09%) CI/CD
7 78 (9.84%) Migration
8 74 (9.33%) Cybersecurity
9 72 (9.08%) Business Intelligence
10 70 (8.83%) ITSM
11 65 (8.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 63 (7.94%) Decision-Making
13 62 (7.82%) Project Delivery
14 61 (7.69%) Continuous Improvement
15 59 (7.44%) Infrastructure Engineering
16 58 (7.31%) Analytics
17 55 (6.94%) Project Management
18 53 (6.68%) AI
18 53 (6.68%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 124 (15.64%) PowerShell
2 74 (9.33%) Python
3 69 (8.70%) SQL
4 28 (3.53%) T-SQL
5 25 (3.15%) Bash
6 18 (2.27%) C#
7 16 (2.02%) Java
8 15 (1.89%) JavaScript
9 13 (1.64%) Bicep
10 12 (1.51%) Kusto Query Language
11 9 (1.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 7 (0.88%) X++
13 4 (0.50%) ABAP
14 3 (0.38%) Perl
14 3 (0.38%) TypeScript
15 2 (0.25%) Korn
16 1 (0.13%) Google Apps Script
16 1 (0.13%) Groovy
16 1 (0.13%) Shell Script
16 1 (0.13%) VBA
Qualifications
1 277 (34.93%) Security Cleared
2 203 (25.60%) SC Cleared
3 103 (12.99%) Degree
4 79 (9.96%) DV Cleared
5 40 (5.04%) Microsoft Certification
6 31 (3.91%) Azure Certification
7 18 (2.27%) Cisco Certification
8 13 (1.64%) AWS Certification
9 12 (1.51%) DBS Check
10 11 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
11 10 (1.26%) BPSS Clearance
11 10 (1.26%) PMI Certification
11 10 (1.26%) PMP
12 9 (1.13%) CCNP
12 9 (1.13%) CISSP
12 9 (1.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 8 (1.01%) MCSA
13 8 (1.01%) MCSE
14 7 (0.88%) CCIE
14 7 (0.88%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (4.29%) NIST
2 29 (3.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 28 (3.53%) GDPR
3 28 (3.53%) NCSC
4 26 (3.28%) SLA
5 19 (2.40%) Cyber Essentials
5 19 (2.40%) Data Quality
5 19 (2.40%) QA
6 18 (2.27%) PMO
7 6 (0.76%) ISO 31000
8 5 (0.63%) NIST 800
9 4 (0.50%) Accessibility
9 4 (0.50%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.38%) GRC
10 3 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 2 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 1 (0.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.13%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.13%) ISO 9001
12 1 (0.13%) JSP 440
System Software
1 221 (27.87%) Active Directory
2 72 (9.08%) VMware Infrastructure
3 30 (3.78%) Hyper-V
4 18 (2.27%) vSphere
5 17 (2.14%) Virtual Machines
6 15 (1.89%) VMware ESXi
7 14 (1.77%) VMware NSX
8 13 (1.64%) Virtual Desktop
9 9 (1.13%) Docker
10 5 (0.63%) Firmware
11 3 (0.38%) OpenAM
12 2 (0.25%) UAG
13 1 (0.13%) BitLocker
13 1 (0.13%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 1 (0.13%) Dovecot
13 1 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.13%) Postfix
13 1 (0.13%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 72 (9.08%) Microsoft Intune
2 49 (6.18%) Terraform
3 30 (3.78%) SCCM
4 25 (3.15%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 19 (2.40%) Ansible
5 19 (2.40%) SCOM
6 17 (2.14%) Kubernetes
7 16 (2.02%) vCenter Server
8 14 (1.77%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (1.64%) Jamf Pro
10 10 (1.26%) Avamar
11 5 (0.63%) QRadar
12 4 (0.50%) Clonezilla
12 4 (0.50%) FortiGate
12 4 (0.50%) Puppet
13 3 (0.38%) Progress Chef
13 3 (0.38%) SCSM
14 2 (0.25%) Grafana
14 2 (0.25%) vMotion
14 2 (0.25%) WSUS
Vendors
1 90 (11.35%) VMware
2 46 (5.80%) ServiceNow
3 43 (5.42%) Cisco
4 36 (4.54%) SAP
5 24 (3.03%) Google
6 21 (2.65%) Meraki
7 17 (2.14%) Oracle
8 16 (2.02%) Dell
9 15 (1.89%) SolarWinds
10 14 (1.77%) Citrix
11 13 (1.64%) Avaya
11 13 (1.64%) Databricks
11 13 (1.64%) F5
12 12 (1.51%) Fortinet
12 12 (1.51%) Mitel
13 11 (1.39%) Splunk
14 10 (1.26%) Juniper
14 10 (1.26%) Palo Alto
14 10 (1.26%) Thales
15 9 (1.13%) Infoblox