Microsoft Contracts in the UK excluding London

Microsoft
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London 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 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 1,960 2,915 3,910
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 15.35% 14.03% 16.25%
As % of the Vendors category 31.50% 32.90% 36.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,277 1,832 2,836
10th Percentile £189 £175 £170
25th Percentile £250 £260 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £432 £463 £463
Median % change year-on-year -6.59% - +8.82%
75th Percentile £541 £575 £586
90th Percentile £618 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 180 407 156
10th Percentile £14.20 £11.00 £13.13
25th Percentile £14.99 £12.85 £15.25
Median hourly rate £18.51 £15.00 £19.50
Median % change year-on-year +23.40% -23.08% +18.18%
75th Percentile £28.99 £24.72 £35.25
90th Percentile £37.50 £54.25 £58.13
UK median hourly rate £20.00 £15.42 £23.50
% change year-on-year +29.70% -34.38% +26.68%

All Vendors
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 6,222 8,861 10,677
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 48.74% 42.66% 44.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,963 5,339 7,359
10th Percentile £215 £205 £205
25th Percentile £369 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - +7.53%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £663 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £515 £517 £525
% change year-on-year -0.39% -1.52% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 431 940 476
10th Percentile £14.20 £11.79 £14.31
25th Percentile £16.95 £14.16 £17.74
Median hourly rate £24.18 £21.46 £38.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.67% -44.26% +106.79%
75th Percentile £58.63 £58.70 £63.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £26.45 £22.30 £43.75
% change year-on-year +18.61% -49.03% +108.14%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Microsoft as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Microsoft in the UK excluding London

Microsoft
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Microsoft in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Microsoft in the UK excluding London

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK excluding London

Microsoft
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Microsoft in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Microsoft in the UK excluding London

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK excluding London

Microsoft
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 within the UK excluding London 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
North of England -2 514 £419 -1.50% 1,072
South East -1 458 £492 +5.70% 1,344
North West 0 352 £438 -2.78% 596
Midlands 0 285 £400 -5.88% 686
South West 0 255 £470 -6.00% 459
West Midlands +3 218 £400 -5.88% 402
Scotland -9 205 £423 +5.63% 214
East of England +3 196 £438 +2.34% 482
Yorkshire -3 113 £400 +5.26% 355
East Midlands 0 66 £425 +8.70% 250
North East 0 50 £350 +52.17% 133
Wales -4 45 £300 -41.75% 132
Northern Ireland -6 25 £325 -40.91% 66
Channel Islands - 2 £298 -
Microsoft
UK

Microsoft
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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
1 289 (14.74%) SharePoint
2 205 (10.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 61 (3.11%) Confluence
4 30 (1.53%) Skype for Business
5 19 (0.97%) IIS
6 10 (0.51%) Exchange Server 2013
7 8 (0.41%) Exchange Server 2010
8 7 (0.36%) SharePoint Server
8 7 (0.36%) Tomcat
9 6 (0.31%) CMS
10 5 (0.26%) BizTalk Server
10 5 (0.26%) Mattermost
10 5 (0.26%) SAS
11 4 (0.20%) Apache
11 4 (0.20%) Apache Spark
11 4 (0.20%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
11 4 (0.20%) Drupal
11 4 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2003
11 4 (0.20%) WebLogic
11 4 (0.20%) WordPress
Applications
1 364 (18.57%) Microsoft Office
2 274 (13.98%) Microsoft Excel
3 150 (7.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 50 (2.55%) MS Visio
5 43 (2.19%) Microsoft Project
6 18 (0.92%) Spreadsheet
7 6 (0.31%) InfoPath
8 5 (0.26%) Chatbot
9 2 (0.10%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.10%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.051%) Acrobat
10 1 (0.051%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.051%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.051%) CATIA
10 1 (0.051%) Trello
Business Applications
1 47 (2.40%) Dynamics CRM
2 10 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.36%) Kondor
3 7 (0.36%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
5 5 (0.26%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.20%) SAP ERP
6 4 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 3 (0.15%) Finacle
7 3 (0.15%) iTrent
8 2 (0.10%) Exstream
8 2 (0.10%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.10%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.10%) Payment Gateway
8 2 (0.10%) SAP BPC
8 2 (0.10%) SAP ECC
8 2 (0.10%) SAP FI/CO
8 2 (0.10%) SAP GRC
8 2 (0.10%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 600 (30.61%) Azure
2 572 (29.18%) Microsoft 365
3 218 (11.12%) Power Platform
4 210 (10.71%) Entra ID
5 110 (5.61%) AWS
6 102 (5.20%) Dynamics 365
7 99 (5.05%) PowerApps
8 92 (4.69%) Power Automate
9 74 (3.78%) Azure DevOps
10 67 (3.42%) OneDrive
11 54 (2.76%) SaaS
12 53 (2.70%) GCP
12 53 (2.70%) IaaS
13 48 (2.45%) PaaS
14 32 (1.63%) Azure Data Factory
15 29 (1.48%) Microsoft Purview
16 25 (1.28%) Azure Sentinel
17 20 (1.02%) Serverless
18 19 (0.97%) Azure Logic Apps
18 19 (0.97%) Yammer
Communications & Networking
1 141 (7.19%) VPN
2 131 (6.68%) Firewall
3 124 (6.33%) DNS
4 91 (4.64%) DHCP
5 64 (3.27%) LAN
6 63 (3.21%) Wi-Fi
7 59 (3.01%) WAN
8 48 (2.45%) SAN
9 47 (2.40%) Network Security
10 45 (2.30%) Skype
10 45 (2.30%) TCP/IP
11 34 (1.73%) VLAN
12 29 (1.48%) Remote Desktop
13 28 (1.43%) Internet
14 24 (1.22%) Ethernet
14 24 (1.22%) SMTP
15 22 (1.12%) MPLS
16 21 (1.07%) Unified Communications
17 20 (1.02%) Wireless
18 18 (0.92%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (6.79%) Power BI
2 121 (6.17%) SQL Server
3 35 (1.79%) Data Warehouse
4 34 (1.73%) Big Data
5 28 (1.43%) Metadata
6 27 (1.38%) Azure SQL Database
6 27 (1.38%) Relational Database
7 23 (1.17%) Data Lake
8 20 (1.02%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 19 (0.97%) PostgreSQL
10 17 (0.87%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 16 (0.82%) Tableau
12 14 (0.71%) RDBMS
13 13 (0.66%) Elasticsearch
13 13 (0.66%) NoSQL
14 11 (0.56%) MySQL
14 11 (0.56%) Oracle Database
15 10 (0.51%) Amazon RDS
15 10 (0.51%) Power Query
16 9 (0.46%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 94 (4.80%) JIRA
2 48 (2.45%) Git
3 38 (1.94%) Visual Studio
4 14 (0.71%) Jenkins
5 11 (0.56%) ERwin
6 10 (0.51%) PowerDesigner
7 9 (0.46%) Maven
7 9 (0.46%) Selenium
8 8 (0.41%) Bitbucket
8 8 (0.41%) Eclipse
8 8 (0.41%) Hudson
8 8 (0.41%) Postman
8 8 (0.41%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 8 (0.41%) Subversion
9 6 (0.31%) GitLab
9 6 (0.31%) MSI
9 6 (0.31%) Visual Studio Code
10 5 (0.26%) Babel
10 5 (0.26%) IntelliJ
10 5 (0.26%) webpack
General
1 839 (42.81%) Social Skills
2 304 (15.51%) Finance
3 277 (14.13%) Analytical Skills
4 254 (12.96%) Public Sector
5 83 (4.23%) Organisational Skills
6 81 (4.13%) Telecoms
7 79 (4.03%) Legal
8 72 (3.67%) Banking
9 58 (2.96%) Manufacturing
10 51 (2.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 40 (2.04%) Documentation Skills
12 39 (1.99%) Presentation Skills
13 37 (1.89%) Retail
14 33 (1.68%) Marketing
15 28 (1.43%) Pharmaceutical
16 26 (1.33%) Military
17 21 (1.07%) Automotive
18 20 (1.02%) Local Government
19 17 (0.87%) Influencing Skills
20 16 (0.82%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 288 (14.69%) Analyst
2 214 (10.92%) Support Engineer
3 183 (9.34%) Architect
4 143 (7.30%) Developer
5 112 (5.71%) IT Support
6 110 (5.61%) Senior
7 104 (5.31%) Desktop Support
8 100 (5.10%) Desktop Engineer
9 95 (4.85%) Service Analyst
10 88 (4.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 85 (4.34%) Consultant
11 85 (4.34%) IT Engineer
12 80 (4.08%) Desktop Support Engineer
13 77 (3.93%) Service Desk Analyst
14 58 (2.96%) Solutions Architect
15 54 (2.76%) Administrator
16 53 (2.70%) 2nd Line Support
17 52 (2.65%) Business Analyst
17 52 (2.65%) Project Manager
17 52 (2.65%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 65 (3.32%) .NET
2 50 (2.55%) HTML
3 45 (2.30%) CSS
4 31 (1.58%) Web Services
5 25 (1.28%) React
6 23 (1.17%) REST
7 22 (1.12%) RESTful
8 16 (0.82%) .NET Framework
8 16 (0.82%) AngularJS
9 15 (0.77%) ASP.NET
9 15 (0.77%) Middleware
9 15 (0.77%) SOAP
10 14 (0.71%) JSON
10 14 (0.71%) XML
11 13 (0.66%) PySpark
12 12 (0.61%) ADO
12 12 (0.61%) Node.js
13 11 (0.56%) SailPoint
13 11 (0.56%) SAML
13 11 (0.56%) SPFx
Miscellaneous
1 66 (3.37%) Management Information System
2 61 (3.11%) Driving Licence
3 60 (3.06%) Self-Motivation
4 53 (2.70%) PKI
5 42 (2.14%) Product Ownership
6 36 (1.84%) Onboarding
7 33 (1.68%) Hybrid Cloud
8 32 (1.63%) Data Centre
9 31 (1.58%) Security Posture
10 28 (1.43%) Data Protection Act
10 28 (1.43%) iPhone
11 23 (1.17%) Cloud Native
11 23 (1.17%) Clustering
12 21 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
12 21 (1.07%) Smartphone
13 20 (1.02%) NHS
13 20 (1.02%) Video Conferencing
14 19 (0.97%) Analytical Mindset
14 19 (0.97%) Legacy Systems
15 17 (0.87%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 625 (31.89%) Windows
2 190 (9.69%) Windows 10
3 161 (8.21%) Windows Server
4 147 (7.50%) Linux
5 55 (2.81%) Unix
6 46 (2.35%) Mac OS
6 46 (2.35%) Windows Server 2016
7 36 (1.84%) Windows Server 2012
8 33 (1.68%) Android
8 33 (1.68%) Windows 7
8 33 (1.68%) Windows Server 2019
9 25 (1.28%) Apple iOS
10 23 (1.17%) Windows Server 2003
11 17 (0.87%) Ubuntu
11 17 (0.87%) VMS
12 10 (0.51%) AIX
12 10 (0.51%) Windows XP
13 8 (0.41%) CentOS
13 8 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 8 (0.41%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 540 (27.55%) Problem-Solving
2 317 (16.17%) Agile
3 301 (15.36%) ITIL
4 272 (13.88%) Customer Service
5 193 (9.85%) Migration
6 164 (8.37%) DevOps
7 156 (7.96%) Business Intelligence
8 150 (7.65%) Project Management
9 131 (6.68%) Cybersecurity
10 130 (6.63%) Incident Management
11 124 (6.33%) Stakeholder Management
12 118 (6.02%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 117 (5.97%) Service Delivery
14 109 (5.56%) ITSM
15 107 (5.46%) Collaborative Working
16 99 (5.05%) Service Management
17 96 (4.90%) Continuous Improvement
18 95 (4.85%) Analytics
19 90 (4.59%) Change Management
20 85 (4.34%) Mathematics
Programming Languages
1 234 (11.94%) PowerShell
2 233 (11.89%) SQL
3 98 (5.00%) Python
4 81 (4.13%) C#
5 70 (3.57%) JavaScript
6 54 (2.76%) Java
7 24 (1.22%) PL/SQL
8 23 (1.17%) TypeScript
9 16 (0.82%) Delphi
9 16 (0.82%) T-SQL
10 15 (0.77%) Bash
11 14 (0.71%) C++
12 12 (0.61%) Bicep
12 12 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
12 12 (0.61%) VBA
13 11 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 11 (0.56%) VB
14 10 (0.51%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.46%) VBScript
16 7 (0.36%) Perl
Qualifications
1 376 (19.18%) Security Cleared
2 284 (14.49%) SC Cleared
3 236 (12.04%) Degree
4 208 (10.61%) Microsoft Certification
5 90 (4.59%) DV Cleared
6 66 (3.37%) A+ Certification
7 64 (3.27%) Azure Certification
8 48 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
9 47 (2.40%) Cisco Certification
10 39 (1.99%) MCSE
11 37 (1.89%) MCSA
12 34 (1.73%) AWS Certification
13 28 (1.43%) Dell Certification
14 25 (1.28%) CCNP
15 24 (1.22%) CCNA
16 23 (1.17%) ITIL Certification
17 22 (1.12%) CISSP
17 22 (1.12%) Master's Degree
18 20 (1.02%) ISTQB
18 20 (1.02%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (5.26%) SLA
2 50 (2.55%) QA
3 39 (1.99%) Data Quality
4 37 (1.89%) GDPR
5 35 (1.79%) PMO
6 32 (1.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 19 (0.97%) Cyber Essentials
8 17 (0.87%) Accessibility
9 16 (0.82%) NIST
10 11 (0.56%) Disclosure Scotland
11 9 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 9 (0.46%) PCI DSS
12 8 (0.41%) HIPAA
12 8 (0.41%) SOC 2
13 7 (0.36%) GxP
13 7 (0.36%) NCSC
14 6 (0.31%) GRC
14 6 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 2 (0.10%) NIST 800
15 2 (0.10%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 540 (27.55%) Active Directory
2 119 (6.07%) VMware Infrastructure
3 44 (2.24%) vSphere
4 43 (2.19%) Hyper-V
5 33 (1.68%) Docker
5 33 (1.68%) VMware ESXi
6 31 (1.58%) Virtual Machines
7 24 (1.22%) BitLocker
8 13 (0.66%) Virtual Servers
9 12 (0.61%) Virtual Desktop
10 11 (0.56%) Microsoft App-V
10 11 (0.56%) Terminal Services
11 10 (0.51%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 9 (0.46%) VMware NSX
13 8 (0.41%) XenApp
14 6 (0.31%) DFS Replication
14 6 (0.31%) XenDesktop
15 4 (0.20%) NFS
16 3 (0.15%) ISA Server
16 3 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 185 (9.44%) Microsoft Intune
2 133 (6.79%) SCCM
3 48 (2.45%) Terraform
4 45 (2.30%) Kubernetes
5 42 (2.14%) WSUS
6 41 (2.09%) Ansible
7 33 (1.68%) vCenter Server
8 29 (1.48%) Jamf Pro
8 29 (1.48%) Single Sign-On
9 20 (1.02%) SCOM
10 19 (0.97%) Puppet
11 17 (0.87%) Microsoft Clustering
12 12 (0.61%) vMotion
13 11 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 11 (0.56%) AppManager
14 10 (0.51%) Progress Chef
15 9 (0.46%) Grafana
15 9 (0.46%) Nagios
16 7 (0.36%) Nessus
17 6 (0.31%) OPNET
Vendors
1 180 (9.18%) VMware
2 157 (8.01%) ServiceNow
3 86 (4.39%) Citrix
4 85 (4.34%) Cisco
5 75 (3.83%) Oracle
6 68 (3.47%) Google
7 66 (3.37%) HP
8 63 (3.21%) SAP
9 58 (2.96%) Dell
10 54 (2.76%) Apple
11 36 (1.84%) Databricks
12 28 (1.43%) Splunk
12 28 (1.43%) Veeam
13 23 (1.17%) Atlassian
14 22 (1.12%) Red Hat
15 21 (1.07%) Juniper
15 21 (1.07%) Symantec
16 18 (0.92%) McAfee
17 17 (0.87%) Salesforce
18 16 (0.82%) Ivanti