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 29 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
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 6 6
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 855 545 675
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 13.02% 15.73% 13.17%
As % of the Vendors category 29.96% 29.62% 27.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 546 365 441
10th Percentile £203 £200 £200
25th Percentile £355 £256 £355
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £469 £480
Median % change year-on-year +1.20% -2.22% +3.92%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £623 £675
England median daily rate £492 £475 £498
% change year-on-year +3.58% -4.52% -0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 85 42 50
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.00 £11.71
25th Percentile £18.50 £14.20 £12.72
Median hourly rate £32.50 £16.68 £29.75
Median % change year-on-year +94.84% -43.93% +63.01%
75th Percentile £82.50 £32.05 £57.65
90th Percentile £110.75 £82.08 £61.60
England median hourly rate £24.00 £22.63 £16.23
% change year-on-year +6.05% +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 2,854 1,840 2,437
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 43.45% 53.10% 47.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,812 1,212 1,464
10th Percentile £281 £209 £263
25th Percentile £425 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £605 £600 £625
90th Percentile £695 £650 £700
England median daily rate £510 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +0.49% -3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 215 116 149
10th Percentile £16.50 £14.20 £14.40
25th Percentile £29.72 £15.13 £20.75
Median hourly rate £58.74 £19.46 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +201.90% -66.08% +27.44%
75th Percentile £85.00 £40.39 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £77.38 £70.00
England median hourly rate £35.71 £25.15 £28.00
% change year-on-year +41.99% -10.18% -29.20%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 +1 455 £500 +11.11% 269
Berkshire +2 250 £500 +5.89% 125
Hampshire -4 180 £500 -8.26% 134
Surrey +5 115 £438 +59.09% 125
Buckinghamshire -5 112 £510 +10.27% 78
Oxfordshire 0 93 £450 +80.00% 68
West Sussex -4 53 £400 +81.82% 46
Kent -1 30 £350 +33.33% 73
East Sussex +3 9 £298 -53.33% 31
Middlesex - 3 - - 21
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 86 (10.06%) SharePoint
2 68 (7.95%) Microsoft Exchange
3 15 (1.75%) Confluence
4 2 (0.23%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.12%) Apache
5 1 (0.12%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.12%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.12%) IIS
5 1 (0.12%) nginx
5 1 (0.12%) SharePoint 2010
5 1 (0.12%) SharePoint 2013
5 1 (0.12%) Smallworld
5 1 (0.12%) Tomcat
Applications
1 109 (12.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 91 (10.64%) Microsoft Office
3 46 (5.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 43 (5.03%) Microsoft Project
5 14 (1.64%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.12%) Acrobat
7 1 (0.12%) Adobe Illustrator
7 1 (0.12%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.12%) InDesign
7 1 (0.12%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.12%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.12%) SOLIDWORKS
7 1 (0.12%) Trello
Business Applications
1 17 (1.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.17%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.58%) NEC Housing
3 5 (0.58%) SAP PSCD
4 4 (0.47%) Primavera
4 4 (0.47%) SAP Business One
5 3 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
6 2 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.12%) Dynamics AX
7 1 (0.12%) iTrent
7 1 (0.12%) NetSuite
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle Assets
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle Cash Management
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
7 1 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
7 1 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 1 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 340 (39.77%) Azure
2 215 (25.15%) Microsoft 365
3 165 (19.30%) Entra ID
4 93 (10.88%) Power Platform
5 87 (10.18%) AWS
6 51 (5.96%) Dynamics 365
7 48 (5.61%) Azure DevOps
8 32 (3.74%) OneDrive
8 32 (3.74%) SaaS
9 29 (3.39%) GCP
10 28 (3.27%) Azure Monitor
11 27 (3.16%) Power Automate
12 26 (3.04%) IaaS
13 24 (2.81%) Azure Logic Apps
14 21 (2.46%) Microsoft Purview
15 16 (1.87%) PowerApps
16 15 (1.75%) Azure Sentinel
17 13 (1.52%) Azure Functions
17 13 (1.52%) PaaS
17 13 (1.52%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 77 (9.01%) DNS
2 49 (5.73%) Firewall
3 48 (5.61%) DHCP
4 39 (4.56%) TCP/IP
4 39 (4.56%) Wi-Fi
5 37 (4.33%) VPN
6 30 (3.51%) LAN
7 25 (2.92%) WAN
8 16 (1.87%) Network Security
8 16 (1.87%) VLAN
9 15 (1.75%) MPLS
10 14 (1.64%) SD-WAN
11 11 (1.29%) BGP
11 11 (1.29%) Unified Communications
12 10 (1.17%) Wireless
13 9 (1.05%) DNSSEC
14 7 (0.82%) Internet
14 7 (0.82%) IPsec
14 7 (0.82%) OSPF
15 6 (0.70%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (8.07%) Power BI
2 34 (3.98%) SQL Server
3 13 (1.52%) MySQL
3 13 (1.52%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (1.29%) Azure SQL Database
5 10 (1.17%) Data Warehouse
6 8 (0.94%) Oracle Database
7 6 (0.70%) Metadata
7 6 (0.70%) NoSQL
7 6 (0.70%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 5 (0.58%) Relational Database
8 5 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 3 (0.35%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.35%) Data Mining
9 3 (0.35%) MS Access
9 3 (0.35%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 2 (0.23%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.23%) BusinessObjects
10 2 (0.23%) Oracle Reports
10 2 (0.23%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 28 (3.27%) JIRA
2 12 (1.40%) Git
3 5 (0.58%) MSI
4 4 (0.47%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
5 3 (0.35%) Android Studio
5 3 (0.35%) Browser DevTools
5 3 (0.35%) Eclipse
5 3 (0.35%) GitLab
5 3 (0.35%) Robot Framework
5 3 (0.35%) Xcode
6 2 (0.23%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.12%) ERwin
7 1 (0.12%) JUnit
7 1 (0.12%) NUnit
7 1 (0.12%) REST Assured
7 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio
General
1 281 (32.87%) Social Skills
2 115 (13.45%) Analytical Skills
3 89 (10.41%) Finance
4 85 (9.94%) Public Sector
5 57 (6.67%) Organisational Skills
6 33 (3.86%) Documentation Skills
7 30 (3.51%) Aerospace
8 28 (3.27%) Legal
9 23 (2.69%) Telecoms
10 22 (2.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 18 (2.11%) Military
12 17 (1.99%) Marketing
13 12 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
14 11 (1.29%) Manufacturing
15 9 (1.05%) Retail
16 8 (0.94%) Aviation
16 8 (0.94%) Billing
16 8 (0.94%) French Language
17 7 (0.82%) Local Government
18 6 (0.70%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 89 (10.41%) Analyst
2 87 (10.18%) Architect
2 87 (10.18%) IT Support
3 72 (8.42%) Senior
4 62 (7.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
5 53 (6.20%) IT Engineer
6 52 (6.08%) Support Engineer
7 51 (5.96%) Lead
8 50 (5.85%) Consultant
9 40 (4.68%) Developer
9 40 (4.68%) IT Support Engineer
10 38 (4.44%) Cloud Engineer
11 37 (4.33%) Azure Engineer
12 32 (3.74%) IT Analyst
13 28 (3.27%) Project Manager
14 27 (3.16%) Support Analyst
15 26 (3.04%) Administrator
16 25 (2.92%) Solutions Architect
17 23 (2.69%) 3rd Line Engineer
17 23 (2.69%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (4.44%) OAuth
2 36 (4.21%) OpenID
2 36 (4.21%) SAML
3 32 (3.74%) .NET
4 23 (2.69%) LDAP
4 23 (2.69%) OAuth2
4 23 (2.69%) REST
5 21 (2.46%) Web Services
6 19 (2.22%) SailPoint
7 18 (2.11%) Microsoft Graph
8 13 (1.52%) ARM Templates
8 13 (1.52%) JSON
9 11 (1.29%) .NET Framework
10 10 (1.17%) Entity Framework
10 10 (1.17%) React
11 9 (1.05%) .NET Core
11 9 (1.05%) XML
12 8 (0.94%) Middleware
13 7 (0.82%) RESTful
13 7 (0.82%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 79 (9.24%) Onboarding
2 37 (4.33%) Hybrid Cloud
3 32 (3.74%) Data Centre
3 32 (3.74%) PKI
4 30 (3.51%) Cloud Native
5 24 (2.81%) Product Ownership
6 22 (2.57%) Legacy Systems
7 20 (2.34%) Public Cloud
8 18 (2.11%) Security Posture
9 17 (1.99%) Operational Technology
10 16 (1.87%) Enterprise Software
11 15 (1.75%) Management Information System
12 13 (1.52%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 11 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
13 11 (1.29%) Data Structures
14 10 (1.17%) Cyber Defence
14 10 (1.17%) Driving Licence
14 10 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
15 9 (1.05%) Private Cloud
16 8 (0.94%) Enterprise Cloud
Operating Systems
1 241 (28.19%) Windows
2 84 (9.82%) Windows Server
3 67 (7.84%) Linux
4 36 (4.21%) Windows 10
5 24 (2.81%) Mac OS
6 22 (2.57%) Apple iOS
7 15 (1.75%) Unix
8 14 (1.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (1.40%) Android
10 7 (0.82%) Windows Server 2019
11 6 (0.70%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.58%) CentOS
12 5 (0.58%) Ubuntu
12 5 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.12%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.12%) VMS
14 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 175 (20.47%) Problem-Solving
2 115 (13.45%) Agile
3 113 (13.22%) ITIL
4 108 (12.63%) Stakeholder Management
5 99 (11.58%) Customer Service
6 95 (11.11%) DevOps
7 92 (10.76%) Continuous Improvement
8 88 (10.29%) CI/CD
9 86 (10.06%) ITSM
10 85 (9.94%) Cybersecurity
11 84 (9.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 82 (9.59%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 80 (9.36%) Analytics
14 74 (8.65%) Business Intelligence
14 74 (8.65%) Decision-Making
15 71 (8.30%) Migration
16 67 (7.84%) Project Delivery
17 66 (7.72%) Project Management
18 61 (7.13%) AI
19 58 (6.78%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 134 (15.67%) PowerShell
2 83 (9.71%) Python
3 75 (8.77%) SQL
4 32 (3.74%) Bash
5 28 (3.27%) T-SQL
6 25 (2.92%) Bicep
7 22 (2.57%) C#
8 17 (1.99%) JavaScript
9 14 (1.64%) Java
10 12 (1.40%) Kusto Query Language
11 9 (1.05%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 8 (0.94%) X++
13 5 (0.58%) TypeScript
14 4 (0.47%) ABAP
15 3 (0.35%) Perl
16 2 (0.23%) Korn
16 2 (0.23%) VBA
17 1 (0.12%) Google Apps Script
17 1 (0.12%) Groovy
17 1 (0.12%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 307 (35.91%) Security Cleared
2 208 (24.33%) SC Cleared
3 121 (14.15%) Degree
4 104 (12.16%) DV Cleared
5 48 (5.61%) Microsoft Certification
6 38 (4.44%) Azure Certification
7 19 (2.22%) Cisco Certification
8 18 (2.11%) AWS Certification
9 15 (1.75%) PMI Certification
9 15 (1.75%) PMP
10 14 (1.64%) DBS Check
11 13 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
12 12 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
13 10 (1.17%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 9 (1.05%) CCNP
14 9 (1.05%) MCSA
14 9 (1.05%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 8 (0.94%) CISSP
15 8 (0.94%) MCSE
16 7 (0.82%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (4.68%) NIST
2 37 (4.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 31 (3.63%) PMO
4 29 (3.39%) Data Quality
4 29 (3.39%) GDPR
5 28 (3.27%) NCSC
5 28 (3.27%) SLA
6 23 (2.69%) QA
7 21 (2.46%) Cyber Essentials
8 6 (0.70%) GRC
8 6 (0.70%) ISO 31000
9 4 (0.47%) Accessibility
9 4 (0.47%) PCI DSS
9 4 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 3 (0.35%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.12%) GAAP
12 1 (0.12%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 222 (25.96%) Active Directory
2 75 (8.77%) VMware Infrastructure
3 32 (3.74%) Hyper-V
4 24 (2.81%) Virtual Machines
5 18 (2.11%) vSphere
6 14 (1.64%) VMware ESXi
7 13 (1.52%) VMware NSX
8 12 (1.40%) Virtual Desktop
9 9 (1.05%) Docker
10 5 (0.58%) Firmware
11 3 (0.35%) OpenAM
12 2 (0.23%) UAG
13 1 (0.12%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 1 (0.12%) Dovecot
13 1 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.12%) Postfix
13 1 (0.12%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 70 (8.19%) Microsoft Intune
2 61 (7.13%) Terraform
3 35 (4.09%) SCCM
4 27 (3.16%) Ansible
5 22 (2.57%) Kubernetes
5 22 (2.57%) SCOM
6 20 (2.34%) vCenter Server
7 14 (1.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 14 (1.64%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (1.52%) Avamar
9 11 (1.29%) Jamf Pro
10 6 (0.70%) QRadar
11 5 (0.58%) FortiGate
11 5 (0.58%) Progress Chef
11 5 (0.58%) Puppet
12 4 (0.47%) Clonezilla
12 4 (0.47%) WMI
13 3 (0.35%) Grafana
13 3 (0.35%) SCSM
14 2 (0.23%) vMotion
Vendors
1 94 (10.99%) VMware
2 57 (6.67%) ServiceNow
3 47 (5.50%) SAP
4 42 (4.91%) Cisco
5 29 (3.39%) Google
6 23 (2.69%) Oracle
7 22 (2.57%) Meraki
8 20 (2.34%) Dell
9 15 (1.75%) SolarWinds
10 14 (1.64%) Avaya
11 13 (1.52%) Databricks
11 13 (1.52%) Mitel
11 13 (1.52%) Thales
12 12 (1.40%) F5
13 11 (1.29%) Citrix
13 11 (1.29%) Splunk
14 10 (1.17%) Fortinet
14 10 (1.17%) Juniper
14 10 (1.17%) Palo Alto
15 9 (1.05%) Veeam