Microsoft Contracts in the Thames Valley

Microsoft
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the Thames Valley 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 May 2025, 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 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 7 3 6
Rank change year-on-year -4 +3 -3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 225 449 426
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 14.89% 16.72% 14.54%
As % of the Vendors category 28.34% 34.89% 30.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 141 300 300
10th Percentile £250 £163 £209
25th Percentile £394 £213 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £494 £465 £483
Median % change year-on-year +6.24% -3.63% +9.66%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £600 £608 £688
South East median daily rate £492 £465 £473
% change year-on-year +5.70% -1.59% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 38 10
10th Percentile £13.08 £16.18 £12.65
25th Percentile - £22.52 £18.17
Median hourly rate £14.20 £47.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -70.11% +90.00% +132.13%
75th Percentile £17.93 £59.95 £57.25
90th Percentile £28.78 £61.72 £66.19
South East median hourly rate £15.00 £21.00 £20.47
% change year-on-year -28.57% +2.59% +24.06%

All Vendors
Thames Valley

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 Thames Valley.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 794 1,287 1,417
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 52.55% 47.92% 48.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 495 799 975
10th Percentile £350 £205 £300
25th Percentile £441 £363 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -3.75% +3.90%
75th Percentile £627 £600 £619
90th Percentile £695 £688 £706
South East median daily rate £514 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.80% - +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 71 47
10th Percentile - £16.25 £18.08
25th Percentile £14.20 £22.59 £23.50
Median hourly rate £24.66 £52.50 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year -53.03% +7.14% +276.92%
75th Percentile £46.30 £61.60 £66.21
90th Percentile £67.50 £63.29 £80.25
South East median hourly rate £24.66 £48.75 £45.00
% change year-on-year -49.42% +8.33% +130.53%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Job postings citing Microsoft as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Job vacancy trend for Microsoft in the Thames Valley

Microsoft
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Microsoft in the Thames Valley.

Daily rate trend for Microsoft in the Thames Valley

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the Thames Valley

Microsoft
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Microsoft in the Thames Valley.

Hourly rate trend for Microsoft in the Thames Valley

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the Thames Valley

Microsoft
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 1 May 2025. 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
Berkshire -4 159 £484 -3.25% 348
Buckinghamshire -2 43 £550 +22.53% 260
Oxfordshire 0 23 £375 - 186
Microsoft
South East

Microsoft
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the Thames Valley by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 24 (10.67%) SharePoint
2 7 (3.11%) IIS
3 6 (2.67%) Confluence
4 5 (2.22%) Microsoft Exchange
5 4 (1.78%) Apache Spark
5 4 (1.78%) BizTalk Server
6 2 (0.89%) Camunda
6 2 (0.89%) CMS
Applications
1 34 (15.11%) Microsoft Office
2 28 (12.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (3.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (2.22%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.44%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.44%) CATIA
5 1 (0.44%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (1.78%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 3 (1.33%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.89%) SAP Oil and Gas
4 1 (0.44%) Oracle ASCP
4 1 (0.44%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.44%) Oracle SCM
4 1 (0.44%) Remedy AR System
4 1 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 93 (41.33%) Azure
2 42 (18.67%) Microsoft 365
3 33 (14.67%) Power Platform
4 27 (12.00%) Azure DevOps
5 24 (10.67%) AWS
6 17 (7.56%) Entra ID
7 11 (4.89%) Dynamics 365
8 10 (4.44%) SaaS
9 9 (4.00%) Azure AKS
9 9 (4.00%) Azure Data Factory
9 9 (4.00%) Power Automate
10 7 (3.11%) OneDrive
10 7 (3.11%) PowerApps
10 7 (3.11%) Serverless
11 6 (2.67%) Azure Monitor
11 6 (2.67%) GitHub
11 6 (2.67%) Microsoft Copilot
11 6 (2.67%) PaaS
12 5 (2.22%) Azure Storage
12 5 (2.22%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 22 (9.78%) VPN
2 21 (9.33%) MPLS
2 21 (9.33%) WAN
3 18 (8.00%) Firewall
4 17 (7.56%) Ethernet
4 17 (7.56%) LAN
4 17 (7.56%) SAN
5 16 (7.11%) ATM
5 16 (7.11%) Frame Relay
5 16 (7.11%) GPRS
5 16 (7.11%) GSM
5 16 (7.11%) LTE
5 16 (7.11%) SDH
5 16 (7.11%) UMTS
5 16 (7.11%) Wireshark
6 12 (5.33%) DNS
7 8 (3.56%) Wireless
8 7 (3.11%) Internet
9 6 (2.67%) Network Security
9 6 (2.67%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (8.89%) Power BI
2 16 (7.11%) Big Data
2 16 (7.11%) SQL Server
3 11 (4.89%) Azure SQL Database
4 8 (3.56%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (2.67%) Data Lake
5 6 (2.67%) Relational Database
6 5 (2.22%) Metadata
6 5 (2.22%) Power Query
7 4 (1.78%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (1.33%) MS Access
9 2 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.89%) GIS
9 2 (0.89%) Microsoft Analysis Services
9 2 (0.89%) Redis
9 2 (0.89%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 2 (0.89%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 2 (0.89%) Tableau
10 1 (0.44%) HBase
10 1 (0.44%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 8 (3.56%) ERwin
1 8 (3.56%) PowerDesigner
2 6 (2.67%) JIRA
3 5 (2.22%) Git
3 5 (2.22%) Jenkins
4 3 (1.33%) Postman
5 2 (0.89%) Burp Suite
5 2 (0.89%) Metasploit
5 2 (0.89%) QARun
5 2 (0.89%) Team Foundation Server
5 2 (0.89%) Terragrunt
5 2 (0.89%) Vite
5 2 (0.89%) WinRunner
6 1 (0.44%) Subversion
6 1 (0.44%) Visual Studio
General
1 106 (47.11%) Social Skills
2 43 (19.11%) Telecoms
3 38 (16.89%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (12.00%) Finance
5 12 (5.33%) Public Sector
6 10 (4.44%) Organisational Skills
7 8 (3.56%) Automotive
8 6 (2.67%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (2.67%) Presentation Skills
9 5 (2.22%) Manufacturing
9 5 (2.22%) Retail
10 4 (1.78%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (1.33%) Local Government
12 1 (0.44%) Aviation
12 1 (0.44%) Banking
12 1 (0.44%) Billing
12 1 (0.44%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.44%) Police
12 1 (0.44%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 30 (13.33%) Architect
2 23 (10.22%) Analyst
3 21 (9.33%) Developer
4 18 (8.00%) Senior
5 15 (6.67%) IP Engineer
6 14 (6.22%) Consultant
6 14 (6.22%) Test Engineer
7 11 (4.89%) Help Desk Support
7 11 (4.89%) Support Engineer
8 8 (3.56%) Azure Engineer
8 8 (3.56%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 7 (3.11%) Data Modeller
9 7 (3.11%) Desktop Engineer
10 6 (2.67%) Desktop Support
10 6 (2.67%) Desktop Support Engineer
10 6 (2.67%) Help Desk Agent
10 6 (2.67%) IT Support
10 6 (2.67%) Network Engineer
11 5 (2.22%) Coordinator
11 5 (2.22%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (4.89%) .NET
2 8 (3.56%) PySpark
2 8 (3.56%) SAML
3 6 (2.67%) Web Services
4 5 (2.22%) .NET Core
4 5 (2.22%) ADO
4 5 (2.22%) ARM Templates
4 5 (2.22%) OAuth
4 5 (2.22%) REST
5 4 (1.78%) .NET Framework
5 4 (1.78%) AngularJS
5 4 (1.78%) CSS
5 4 (1.78%) HTML
5 4 (1.78%) OpenID
5 4 (1.78%) React
6 3 (1.33%) JSON
6 3 (1.33%) Kafka
6 3 (1.33%) Node.js
6 3 (1.33%) RESTful
6 3 (1.33%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 29 (12.89%) Self-Motivation
2 13 (5.78%) Product Ownership
3 10 (4.44%) PKI
4 8 (3.56%) Management Information System
4 8 (3.56%) Onboarding
5 6 (2.67%) Cloud Native
5 6 (2.67%) Public Cloud
6 5 (2.22%) Clustering
6 5 (2.22%) Data Structures
6 5 (2.22%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (2.22%) Low-Code
6 5 (2.22%) Security Operations Centre
6 5 (2.22%) Security Posture
7 4 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (1.78%) Life Science
7 4 (1.78%) Renewable Energy
8 3 (1.33%) Driving Licence
8 3 (1.33%) NHS
8 3 (1.33%) Operational Technology
8 3 (1.33%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 52 (23.11%) Windows
2 30 (13.33%) Linux
3 23 (10.22%) Unix
4 17 (7.56%) Windows Server
5 5 (2.22%) Windows Server 2003
6 4 (1.78%) Mac OS
6 4 (1.78%) Windows 10
7 3 (1.33%) Android
7 3 (1.33%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.89%) AIX
8 2 (0.89%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.89%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.89%) Windows Server 2019
9 1 (0.44%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 74 (32.89%) Problem-Solving
2 34 (15.11%) DevOps
3 29 (12.89%) Agile
4 28 (12.44%) Project Management
5 27 (12.00%) Migration
6 26 (11.56%) Business Intelligence
7 21 (9.33%) Analytics
8 19 (8.44%) ITIL
9 18 (8.00%) Regression Testing
10 17 (7.56%) Stakeholder Management
10 17 (7.56%) Time Management
11 16 (7.11%) Fault Management
11 16 (7.11%) Test Strategy
12 14 (6.22%) CI/CD
12 14 (6.22%) Collaborative Working
12 14 (6.22%) Cybersecurity
12 14 (6.22%) Data Modelling
13 13 (5.78%) Roadmaps
13 13 (5.78%) SIEM
14 12 (5.33%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 35 (15.56%) SQL
2 30 (13.33%) PowerShell
2 30 (13.33%) Python
3 23 (10.22%) Java
4 14 (6.22%) C#
5 7 (3.11%) Bicep
5 7 (3.11%) JavaScript
5 7 (3.11%) TypeScript
6 6 (2.67%) Bash
6 6 (2.67%) Shell Script
7 4 (1.78%) Kusto Query Language
7 4 (1.78%) T-SQL
8 3 (1.33%) C++
8 3 (1.33%) Perl
8 3 (1.33%) VB
8 3 (1.33%) VBA
9 2 (0.89%) C
9 2 (0.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 2 (0.89%) PL/SQL
9 2 (0.89%) R
Qualifications
1 27 (12.00%) Security Cleared
2 25 (11.11%) Degree
2 25 (11.11%) SC Cleared
3 17 (7.56%) CCNP
3 17 (7.56%) Cisco Certification
4 16 (7.11%) ISEB
4 16 (7.11%) ISTQB
4 16 (7.11%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 14 (6.22%) Microsoft Certification
6 8 (3.56%) CISSP
6 8 (3.56%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (2.67%) CISM
8 4 (1.78%) Azure Certification
9 3 (1.33%) A+ Certification
9 3 (1.33%) AWS Certification
9 3 (1.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (1.33%) DV Cleared
9 3 (1.33%) MCSE
10 2 (0.89%) GWAPT
10 2 (0.89%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (2.67%) Cyber Essentials
1 6 (2.67%) Data Quality
1 6 (2.67%) GDPR
1 6 (2.67%) NIST
1 6 (2.67%) SLA
2 5 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (1.78%) NCSC
3 4 (1.78%) PMO
3 4 (1.78%) QA
4 3 (1.33%) HIPAA
4 3 (1.33%) PCI DSS
5 2 (0.89%) SOC 2
6 1 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (0.44%) GRC
6 1 (0.44%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 31 (13.78%) Active Directory
2 12 (5.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (2.67%) Docker
3 6 (2.67%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (2.67%) vSphere
3 6 (2.67%) XenApp
4 5 (2.22%) XenDesktop
5 4 (1.78%) Hyper-V
5 4 (1.78%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.44%) Apache Flume
6 1 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.44%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 17 (7.56%) Terraform
2 13 (5.78%) Microsoft Intune
3 9 (4.00%) Kubernetes
3 9 (4.00%) SCCM
4 8 (3.56%) Ansible
5 6 (2.67%) SCOM
5 6 (2.67%) WSUS
6 5 (2.22%) Microsoft Clustering
6 5 (2.22%) Puppet
7 4 (1.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 4 (1.78%) Progress Chef
8 3 (1.33%) Prometheus
9 2 (0.89%) Grafana
10 1 (0.44%) Amdocs OSS
10 1 (0.44%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.44%) NSN NetAct
10 1 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 24 (10.67%) Cisco
2 18 (8.00%) VMware
3 16 (7.11%) Juniper
4 13 (5.78%) SAP
5 12 (5.33%) Databricks
5 12 (5.33%) ServiceNow
6 10 (4.44%) Citrix
7 7 (3.11%) HP
8 6 (2.67%) Dell
9 5 (2.22%) Salesforce
10 4 (1.78%) Palo Alto
10 4 (1.78%) Sparx
11 3 (1.33%) Atlassian
11 3 (1.33%) Dynatrace
11 3 (1.33%) Google
11 3 (1.33%) IBM
11 3 (1.33%) Oracle
11 3 (1.33%) SolarWinds
11 3 (1.33%) Splunk
12 2 (0.89%) CrowdStrike