Microsoft Clustering Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Windows Clustering
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Microsoft Clustering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 24 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 371 338 383
Rank change year-on-year -33 +45 +85
Contract jobs citing Microsoft Clustering 21 14 17
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.11% 0.094% 0.088%
As % of the Systems Management category 0.74% 0.66% 0.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 16 7 8
10th Percentile £319 £350 £431
25th Percentile £332 £375 £462
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £588 £401 £550
Median % change year-on-year +46.69% -27.18% +68.71%
75th Percentile £600 £480 £588
90th Percentile £619 £503 -
UK median daily rate £588 £531 £538
% change year-on-year +10.59% -1.16% +59.02%

All Systems Management Skills
UK excluding London

Microsoft Clustering falls under the Systems Management category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring systems management skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for systems management skills 2,838 2,111 2,581
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 15.53% 14.21% 13.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,986 1,347 1,799
10th Percentile £263 £230 £220
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £508
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -3.94% -3.33%
75th Percentile £575 £582 £606
90th Percentile £650 £656 £694
UK median daily rate £510 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -2.86% -2.33% -6.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 94 41 124
10th Percentile £16.25 £12.50 £17.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £19.64 £20.19
Median hourly rate £49.36 £24.18 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +104.14% -47.64% +37.85%
75th Percentile £67.00 £46.18 £65.00
90th Percentile £84.40 £74.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £45.00 £24.84 £46.18
% change year-on-year +81.16% -46.21% +31.94%

Microsoft Clustering
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Microsoft Clustering relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Microsoft Clustering job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Clustering
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Microsoft Clustering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Microsoft Clustering

Microsoft Clustering
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft Clustering in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 24 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft Clustering in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Clustering
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Microsoft Clustering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Microsoft Clustering

Microsoft Clustering
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Microsoft Clustering within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 24 December 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
North of England -41 10 £340 +4.62% 4
South East -6 8 £600 +50.00%
North West -23 8 £348 +6.92% 4
South West -11 2 £325 -30.85%
Yorkshire - 2 £300 -
Scotland - 1 - -
Microsoft Clustering
UK

Microsoft Clustering
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 7 (33.33%) Exchange Server 2003
1 7 (33.33%) Exchange Server 2007
1 7 (33.33%) Exchange Server 2010
1 7 (33.33%) Exchange Server 2013
1 7 (33.33%) Microsoft Exchange
1 7 (33.33%) Office Communications Server
1 7 (33.33%) SharePoint
1 7 (33.33%) SharePoint Server
1 7 (33.33%) Skype for Business
2 2 (9.52%) IIS
Applications
1 7 (33.33%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 3 (14.29%) Azure
2 2 (9.52%) Microsoft 365
3 1 (4.76%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 10 (47.62%) DHCP
1 10 (47.62%) DNS
2 7 (33.33%) DDNS
2 7 (33.33%) SAN
2 7 (33.33%) VPN
3 6 (28.57%) Network Security
4 2 (9.52%) Firewall
4 2 (9.52%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.76%) Oracle Database
1 1 (4.76%) SQL Server
1 1 (4.76%) SQL Server Analysis Services
1 1 (4.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
1 1 (4.76%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 2 (9.52%) Git
1 2 (9.52%) Jenkins
1 2 (9.52%) Postman
2 1 (4.76%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 5 (23.81%) Public Sector
2 2 (9.52%) Finance
2 2 (9.52%) Social Skills
3 1 (4.76%) Banking
Job Titles
1 7 (33.33%) Exchange Engineer
1 7 (33.33%) Exchange Support
1 7 (33.33%) Server Engineer
1 7 (33.33%) Support Engineer
2 2 (9.52%) Architect
2 2 (9.52%) Senior
2 2 (9.52%) Senior Technical Engineer
2 2 (9.52%) Technical Architect
2 2 (9.52%) Technical Engineer
2 2 (9.52%) Windows Engineer
3 1 (4.76%) 3rd Line Engineer
3 1 (4.76%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
3 1 (4.76%) Azure Architect
3 1 (4.76%) DBA
3 1 (4.76%) Dynamics 365 Architect
3 1 (4.76%) Microsoft Technical Architect
3 1 (4.76%) Oracle DBA
3 1 (4.76%) Senior Windows Engineer
3 1 (4.76%) SQL DBA
3 1 (4.76%) Windows Server Engineer
Miscellaneous
1 9 (42.86%) Clustering
2 7 (33.33%) Replication
3 2 (9.52%) Data Centre
4 1 (4.76%) Enterprise Storage
Operating Systems
1 20 (95.24%) Windows
2 7 (33.33%) Windows Server 2003
3 5 (23.81%) Windows Server
4 2 (9.52%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (4.76%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (52.38%) High Availability
2 10 (47.62%) ITIL
3 7 (33.33%) Architectural Design
3 7 (33.33%) Business Intelligence
3 7 (33.33%) Content Management
3 7 (33.33%) Disaster Recovery
3 7 (33.33%) Enterprise Content Management
3 7 (33.33%) Enterprise Search
4 6 (28.57%) Infrastructure Automation
5 5 (23.81%) Problem-Solving
6 3 (14.29%) Patch Management
7 2 (9.52%) Agile
7 2 (9.52%) Configuration Management
7 2 (9.52%) Performance Tuning
7 2 (9.52%) Resource Management
7 2 (9.52%) Root Cause Analysis
7 2 (9.52%) Strategic Thinking
7 2 (9.52%) Technical Leadership
8 1 (4.76%) Scrum
8 1 (4.76%) Security Management
Programming Languages
1 7 (33.33%) PowerShell
2 2 (9.52%) Python
3 1 (4.76%) Shell Script
3 1 (4.76%) SQL
Qualifications
1 11 (52.38%) Security Cleared
2 8 (38.10%) DV Cleared
3 2 (9.52%) SC Cleared
4 1 (4.76%) BPSS Clearance
4 1 (4.76%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (9.52%) SLA
System Software
1 16 (76.19%) Active Directory
2 9 (42.86%) Hyper-V
3 7 (33.33%) Brightmail
3 7 (33.33%) ISA Server
4 4 (19.05%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (9.52%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (9.52%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 8 (38.10%) Ansible
2 6 (28.57%) Nagios
2 6 (28.57%) Terraform
3 2 (9.52%) NetApp OnCommand
3 2 (9.52%) Puppet
3 2 (9.52%) SCCM
3 2 (9.52%) vCenter Server
3 2 (9.52%) vMotion
3 2 (9.52%) WSUS
Vendors
1 14 (66.67%) Microsoft
2 6 (28.57%) SolarWinds
3 4 (19.05%) VMware
4 2 (9.52%) MuleSoft
5 1 (4.76%) Oracle