Microsoft Engineer Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Microsoft Engineer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £700, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 December 2025.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 370 334 379
Rank change year-on-year -36 +45 +96
Contract jobs requiring a Microsoft Engineer 22 21 27
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.12% 0.14% 0.14%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.13% 0.15% 0.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 19 9 25
10th Percentile £390 £375 £290
25th Percentile £540 £413 £340
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £700 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year +47.37% +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £725 £613 £519
90th Percentile - £745 £567
UK median daily rate £604 £525 £450
% change year-on-year +15.05% +16.67% -10.00%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 16,365 13,654 18,188
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.12% 92.40% 93.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,045 8,137 11,891
10th Percentile £213 £213 £213
25th Percentile £369 £363 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £680 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,658 773 1,181
10th Percentile £13.87 £15.36 £14.36
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.24 £18.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -29.16% +84.29%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.25 £33.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -23.48% -26.67% +50.00%

Microsoft Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Microsoft Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Microsoft Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Microsoft Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Microsoft Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 22 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft Engineer in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Microsoft Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Microsoft Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Microsoft Engineer
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 Engineer within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 22 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
South West +6 17 £700 +47.37%
South East -19 4 £517 - 3
East of England -23 1 £650 - 1
North of England -43 1 £400 - 7
North East - 1 £400 -
Microsoft Engineer
UK

Microsoft Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 22 December 2025, Microsoft Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Microsoft Engineer in the job title.

1 22 (100.00%) Microsoft
2 18 (81.82%) Microsoft 365
3 17 (77.27%) PowerShell
4 16 (72.73%) Microsoft Exchange
4 16 (72.73%) Security Cleared
5 15 (68.18%) DV Cleared
5 15 (68.18%) SharePoint
6 14 (63.64%) Problem-Solving
7 13 (59.09%) DHCP
7 13 (59.09%) DNS
7 13 (59.09%) Knowledge Transfer
7 13 (59.09%) Skype
7 13 (59.09%) Skype for Business
7 13 (59.09%) TCP/IP
8 7 (31.82%) SC Cleared
9 5 (22.73%) Azure
10 4 (18.18%) Entra ID
10 4 (18.18%) SIEM
11 3 (13.64%) Active Directory
11 3 (13.64%) Incident Response
11 3 (13.64%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (9.09%) Analytics
12 2 (9.09%) Azure Logic Apps
12 2 (9.09%) Azure Sentinel
12 2 (9.09%) Cloud Security
12 2 (9.09%) Continuous Improvement
12 2 (9.09%) Cybersecurity
12 2 (9.09%) Microsoft Purview
12 2 (9.09%) Migration
12 2 (9.09%) OneDrive

Microsoft Engineer Skill Set
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 16 (72.73%) Microsoft Exchange
2 15 (68.18%) SharePoint
3 13 (59.09%) Skype for Business
Cloud Services
1 18 (81.82%) Microsoft 365
2 5 (22.73%) Azure
3 4 (18.18%) Entra ID
4 2 (9.09%) Azure Logic Apps
4 2 (9.09%) Azure Sentinel
4 2 (9.09%) Microsoft Purview
4 2 (9.09%) OneDrive
5 1 (4.55%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (4.55%) GitHub
5 1 (4.55%) GitHub Actions
5 1 (4.55%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 13 (59.09%) DHCP
1 13 (59.09%) DNS
1 13 (59.09%) Skype
1 13 (59.09%) TCP/IP
2 1 (4.55%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.55%) Data Lake
General
1 13 (59.09%) Social Skills
2 7 (31.82%) Analytical Skills
3 2 (9.09%) Public Sector
4 1 (4.55%) Automotive
4 1 (4.55%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (4.55%) ARM Templates
1 1 (4.55%) JSON
1 1 (4.55%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 2 (9.09%) Security Posture
2 1 (4.55%) Cyber Defence
2 1 (4.55%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1 (4.55%) Windows
1 1 (4.55%) Windows 10
1 1 (4.55%) Windows Server
1 1 (4.55%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (63.64%) Problem-Solving
2 13 (59.09%) Knowledge Transfer
3 4 (18.18%) SIEM
4 3 (13.64%) Incident Response
5 2 (9.09%) Analytics
5 2 (9.09%) Cloud Security
5 2 (9.09%) Continuous Improvement
5 2 (9.09%) Cybersecurity
5 2 (9.09%) Migration
5 2 (9.09%) Security Operations
5 2 (9.09%) SOAR
6 1 (4.55%) Actionable Insight
6 1 (4.55%) Anomaly Detection
6 1 (4.55%) Behavioural Analytics
6 1 (4.55%) Case Management
6 1 (4.55%) DevOps
6 1 (4.55%) Patch Management
6 1 (4.55%) Security Hardening
6 1 (4.55%) Server Patching
6 1 (4.55%) Threat Detection
Programming Languages
1 17 (77.27%) PowerShell
2 3 (13.64%) Kusto Query Language
3 2 (9.09%) Python
Qualifications
1 16 (72.73%) Security Cleared
2 15 (68.18%) DV Cleared
3 7 (31.82%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (4.55%) GDPR
1 1 (4.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 1 (4.55%) NIST
System Software
1 3 (13.64%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 2 (9.09%) SCCM
2 1 (4.55%) Microsoft Intune
2 1 (4.55%) Terraform
2 1 (4.55%) WSUS
Vendors
1 22 (100.00%) Microsoft
2 1 (4.55%) LogRhythm