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 9 June 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
9 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 6 4 4
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 2,133 2,925 3,620
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 16.15% 13.88% 15.92%
As % of the Vendors category 32.81% 33.03% 35.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,334 1,803 2,572
10th Percentile £190 £175 £165
25th Percentile £250 £263 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% - +5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £575
90th Percentile £603 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 214 428 146
10th Percentile £14.20 £11.04 £13.00
25th Percentile £15.09 £13.00 £15.21
Median hourly rate £18.87 £15.00 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +25.80% -21.05% +15.15%
75th Percentile £30.57 £25.00 £37.50
90th Percentile £50.00 £56.92 £56.45
UK median hourly rate £20.00 £15.58 £23.50
% change year-on-year +28.41% -33.72% +30.56%

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 6,502 8,855 10,182
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 49.23% 42.02% 44.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,020 5,304 6,932
10th Percentile £220 £210 £205
25th Percentile £363 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £580 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 476 993 433
10th Percentile £14.25 £12.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.95 £14.27 £17.72
Median hourly rate £22.72 £21.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.66% -42.67% +92.31%
75th Percentile £50.00 £59.57 £60.00
90th Percentile £69.83 £70.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £26.39 £22.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year +17.27% -47.06% +97.67%

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 9 June 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 9 June 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 9 June 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 -2 555 £425 -5.56% 1,521
South East 0 466 £459 -1.34% 2,246
North West -2 357 £425 -8.36% 852
Midlands -2 334 £400 -1.23% 986
South West 0 275 £431 -13.75% 602
West Midlands 0 238 £400 -5.88% 512
East of England +2 221 £500 +16.96% 587
Scotland -6 220 £440 +25.57% 430
Yorkshire 0 154 £413 -2.94% 460
East Midlands 0 94 £380 -5.00% 440
Wales -2 51 £300 -41.46% 179
North East -1 44 £340 -10.05% 214
Northern Ireland -6 35 £325 -40.91% 125
Channel Islands - 3 £298 - 149
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
1 270 (12.66%) SharePoint
2 201 (9.42%) Microsoft Exchange
3 60 (2.81%) Confluence
4 30 (1.41%) Skype for Business
5 21 (0.98%) IIS
6 11 (0.52%) Tomcat
7 10 (0.47%) Apache
8 9 (0.42%) Exchange Server 2013
8 9 (0.42%) IBM Domino
9 8 (0.38%) Mattermost
10 7 (0.33%) CMS
10 7 (0.33%) Exchange Server 2010
10 7 (0.33%) SharePoint Server
11 6 (0.28%) BizTalk Server
12 5 (0.23%) SAS
12 5 (0.23%) WebSphere
13 4 (0.19%) Drupal
13 4 (0.19%) JBoss
13 4 (0.19%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.19%) WordPress
Applications
1 380 (17.82%) Microsoft Office
2 281 (13.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 151 (7.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 51 (2.39%) MS Visio
5 47 (2.20%) Microsoft Project
6 15 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.19%) Adobe Captivate
8 4 (0.19%) Maya
9 2 (0.094%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.094%) InfoPath
9 2 (0.094%) Trello
10 1 (0.047%) 1Password
10 1 (0.047%) Acrobat
10 1 (0.047%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.047%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.047%) CATIA
10 1 (0.047%) Maple
10 1 (0.047%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 43 (2.02%) Dynamics CRM
2 12 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.33%) Kondor
4 6 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
4 6 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.28%) SAP PM
5 5 (0.23%) assyst
6 4 (0.19%) Maximo
6 4 (0.19%) SAP ERP
7 3 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
8 2 (0.094%) Finacle
8 2 (0.094%) iTrent
8 2 (0.094%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 2 (0.094%) Sage CRM
8 2 (0.094%) Salesforce CRM
8 2 (0.094%) SAP BPC
8 2 (0.094%) SAP CO
8 2 (0.094%) SAP ECC
8 2 (0.094%) SAP GRC
8 2 (0.094%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 584 (27.38%) Azure
2 556 (26.07%) Microsoft 365
3 213 (9.99%) Entra ID
4 206 (9.66%) Power Platform
5 123 (5.77%) AWS
6 97 (4.55%) Dynamics 365
7 90 (4.22%) Azure DevOps
8 81 (3.80%) PowerApps
9 76 (3.56%) Power Automate
10 65 (3.05%) GCP
11 61 (2.86%) OneDrive
12 50 (2.34%) IaaS
13 46 (2.16%) SaaS
14 38 (1.78%) Microsoft Purview
15 37 (1.73%) PaaS
16 32 (1.50%) Azure Data Factory
17 26 (1.22%) Azure Sentinel
18 23 (1.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 21 (0.98%) Cohesity
20 19 (0.89%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 164 (7.69%) Firewall
2 149 (6.99%) DNS
3 131 (6.14%) VPN
4 96 (4.50%) DHCP
5 71 (3.33%) SAN
6 64 (3.00%) LAN
7 60 (2.81%) WAN
8 53 (2.48%) TCP/IP
9 52 (2.44%) Network Security
9 52 (2.44%) Wi-Fi
10 42 (1.97%) Skype
11 30 (1.41%) Ethernet
12 29 (1.36%) Internet
13 27 (1.27%) Remote Desktop
13 27 (1.27%) Unified Communications
13 27 (1.27%) WebEx
14 26 (1.22%) Wireless
15 21 (0.98%) Intrusion Detection
15 21 (0.98%) VLAN
16 19 (0.89%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 128 (6.00%) Power BI
2 126 (5.91%) SQL Server
3 40 (1.88%) Data Warehouse
4 38 (1.78%) Azure SQL Database
5 32 (1.50%) Metadata
6 25 (1.17%) Relational Database
7 23 (1.08%) Big Data
8 22 (1.03%) PostgreSQL
9 21 (0.98%) Tableau
10 20 (0.94%) Oracle Database
11 19 (0.89%) Data Lake
12 18 (0.84%) NoSQL
13 15 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
13 15 (0.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 14 (0.66%) MySQL
15 13 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
15 13 (0.61%) GIS
15 13 (0.61%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 12 (0.56%) Delta Lake
17 11 (0.52%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 105 (4.92%) JIRA
2 56 (2.63%) Git
3 35 (1.64%) Visual Studio
4 30 (1.41%) Jenkins
5 18 (0.84%) MSI
6 16 (0.75%) Postman
7 14 (0.66%) Maven
8 12 (0.56%) Selenium
9 11 (0.52%) Eclipse
9 11 (0.52%) GitLab
10 9 (0.42%) Subversion
11 8 (0.38%) Bitbucket
11 8 (0.38%) Sonatype Nexus
12 7 (0.33%) webpack
13 6 (0.28%) ERwin
13 6 (0.28%) Hudson
13 6 (0.28%) IntelliJ
13 6 (0.28%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
13 6 (0.28%) Visual Studio Code
14 5 (0.23%) PowerDesigner
General
1 903 (42.33%) Social Skills
2 370 (17.35%) Finance
3 291 (13.64%) Analytical Skills
4 227 (10.64%) Public Sector
5 99 (4.64%) Organisational Skills
6 85 (3.98%) Banking
7 80 (3.75%) Telecoms
8 78 (3.66%) Legal
9 70 (3.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 63 (2.95%) Manufacturing
11 50 (2.34%) Presentation Skills
12 48 (2.25%) Retail
13 46 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
14 26 (1.22%) Marketing
14 26 (1.22%) Military
15 24 (1.13%) Automotive
16 20 (0.94%) Influencing Skills
17 18 (0.84%) Law
18 17 (0.80%) Pharmaceutical
19 14 (0.66%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 347 (16.27%) Analyst
2 213 (9.99%) Support Engineer
3 181 (8.49%) Architect
4 148 (6.94%) Developer
5 129 (6.05%) IT Support
6 113 (5.30%) Desktop Support
7 99 (4.64%) Senior
8 98 (4.59%) Consultant
9 96 (4.50%) Desktop Engineer
10 89 (4.17%) Service Analyst
11 83 (3.89%) IT Engineer
12 77 (3.61%) Desktop Support Engineer
13 74 (3.47%) Support Analyst
14 73 (3.42%) Service Desk Analyst
15 70 (3.28%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 62 (2.91%) Administrator
17 61 (2.86%) Lead
18 60 (2.81%) Solutions Architect
19 58 (2.72%) Project Manager
20 57 (2.67%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 84 (3.94%) .NET
2 43 (2.02%) HTML
3 40 (1.88%) CSS
4 38 (1.78%) Web Services
5 28 (1.31%) REST
6 27 (1.27%) RESTful
7 25 (1.17%) React
8 23 (1.08%) SOAP
9 19 (0.89%) .NET Framework
10 18 (0.84%) JSON
10 18 (0.84%) XML
11 17 (0.80%) OAuth
12 15 (0.70%) .NET Core
12 15 (0.70%) AngularJS
13 14 (0.66%) OpenID
13 14 (0.66%) Spring
14 13 (0.61%) LDAP
14 13 (0.61%) SAML
15 12 (0.56%) Node.js
16 11 (0.52%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 70 (3.28%) Management Information System
2 66 (3.09%) Driving Licence
3 63 (2.95%) Self-Motivation
4 55 (2.58%) PKI
5 52 (2.44%) Product Ownership
6 42 (1.97%) Data Centre
7 40 (1.88%) Onboarding
8 33 (1.55%) Security Posture
9 30 (1.41%) iPhone
10 26 (1.22%) Hybrid Cloud
11 25 (1.17%) Clustering
11 25 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
11 25 (1.17%) Legacy Systems
11 25 (1.17%) Smartphone
12 24 (1.13%) Cloud Native
13 23 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
14 20 (0.94%) Analytical Mindset
15 18 (0.84%) Replication
15 18 (0.84%) Virtual Team
16 17 (0.80%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 679 (31.83%) Windows
2 201 (9.42%) Windows 10
3 188 (8.81%) Windows Server
4 147 (6.89%) Linux
5 64 (3.00%) Mac OS
6 61 (2.86%) Windows Server 2016
7 58 (2.72%) Windows Server 2019
8 53 (2.48%) Unix
9 42 (1.97%) Android
10 39 (1.83%) Windows 7
10 39 (1.83%) Windows Server 2012
11 26 (1.22%) Apple iOS
12 22 (1.03%) Windows Server 2003
13 15 (0.70%) VMS
14 13 (0.61%) Ubuntu
15 11 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
16 9 (0.42%) Windows XP
17 7 (0.33%) Windows Server 2008
18 6 (0.28%) CentOS
18 6 (0.28%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 571 (26.77%) Problem-Solving
2 332 (15.56%) ITIL
3 330 (15.47%) Agile
4 304 (14.25%) Customer Service
5 201 (9.42%) DevOps
6 198 (9.28%) Migration
7 148 (6.94%) Business Intelligence
7 148 (6.94%) Project Management
8 145 (6.80%) ITSM
8 145 (6.80%) Stakeholder Management
9 136 (6.38%) Cybersecurity
10 126 (5.91%) Incident Management
10 126 (5.91%) Service Delivery
11 122 (5.72%) Service Management
12 119 (5.58%) Continuous Improvement
13 112 (5.25%) Analytics
14 103 (4.83%) Change Management
14 103 (4.83%) Collaborative Working
14 103 (4.83%) Project Delivery
15 95 (4.45%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 270 (12.66%) PowerShell
2 258 (12.10%) SQL
3 124 (5.81%) Python
4 101 (4.74%) C#
5 75 (3.52%) Java
6 68 (3.19%) JavaScript
7 24 (1.13%) VB
8 20 (0.94%) Bicep
9 19 (0.89%) PL/SQL
10 18 (0.84%) Bash
10 18 (0.84%) C++
11 17 (0.80%) Shell Script
12 16 (0.75%) Kusto Query Language
13 14 (0.66%) T-SQL
13 14 (0.66%) TypeScript
14 13 (0.61%) VBA
15 12 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.52%) Delphi
17 8 (0.38%) VBScript
18 6 (0.28%) Perl
Qualifications
1 401 (18.80%) Security Cleared
2 291 (13.64%) SC Cleared
3 249 (11.67%) Degree
4 201 (9.42%) Microsoft Certification
5 99 (4.64%) DV Cleared
6 66 (3.09%) Azure Certification
7 62 (2.91%) A+ Certification
8 56 (2.63%) Cisco Certification
9 50 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
10 40 (1.88%) MCSE
11 36 (1.69%) MCSA
12 31 (1.45%) ITIL Certification
13 29 (1.36%) CCNP
14 27 (1.27%) CCNA
14 27 (1.27%) Dell Certification
15 25 (1.17%) AWS Certification
16 23 (1.08%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 21 (0.98%) BPSS Clearance
17 21 (0.98%) Master's Degree
18 20 (0.94%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 110 (5.16%) SLA
2 55 (2.58%) QA
3 54 (2.53%) GDPR
4 47 (2.20%) PMO
5 43 (2.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 42 (1.97%) Data Quality
7 22 (1.03%) NIST
8 20 (0.94%) Accessibility
9 19 (0.89%) HIPAA
10 14 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
11 13 (0.61%) Disclosure Scotland
12 12 (0.56%) PCI DSS
13 11 (0.52%) GRC
14 8 (0.38%) NCSC
14 8 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 8 (0.38%) SOC 2
15 7 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 7 (0.33%) GxP
16 5 (0.23%) MiFID
17 3 (0.14%) Basel III
System Software
1 555 (26.02%) Active Directory
2 131 (6.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 45 (2.11%) Hyper-V
4 41 (1.92%) vSphere
5 39 (1.83%) VMware ESXi
6 37 (1.73%) Docker
7 32 (1.50%) Virtual Servers
8 29 (1.36%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 28 (1.31%) Virtual Machines
10 25 (1.17%) BitLocker
11 20 (0.94%) Virtual Desktop
12 14 (0.66%) Microsoft App-V
13 10 (0.47%) Terminal Services
14 9 (0.42%) DFS Replication
14 9 (0.42%) XenApp
14 9 (0.42%) XenDesktop
15 7 (0.33%) NFS
16 6 (0.28%) Firmware
17 5 (0.23%) VMware NSX
18 3 (0.14%) Brightmail
Systems Management
1 204 (9.56%) Microsoft Intune
2 164 (7.69%) SCCM
3 66 (3.09%) Ansible
4 60 (2.81%) Terraform
5 57 (2.67%) WSUS
6 43 (2.02%) Kubernetes
7 37 (1.73%) Jamf Pro
8 29 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
9 28 (1.31%) vCenter Server
10 25 (1.17%) SCOM
11 24 (1.13%) Microsoft Clustering
12 23 (1.08%) Puppet
13 13 (0.61%) vMotion
14 12 (0.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 11 (0.52%) Nagios
16 9 (0.42%) Grafana
17 8 (0.38%) Progress Chef
17 8 (0.38%) Prometheus
18 7 (0.33%) Tivoli Identity Manager
19 6 (0.28%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 185 (8.67%) VMware
2 181 (8.49%) ServiceNow
3 125 (5.86%) Cisco
4 97 (4.55%) Citrix
5 89 (4.17%) Oracle
6 73 (3.42%) SAP
7 71 (3.33%) Apple
7 71 (3.33%) Google
7 71 (3.33%) HP
8 63 (2.95%) Splunk
9 58 (2.72%) Dell
10 35 (1.64%) Veeam
11 32 (1.50%) Databricks
12 30 (1.41%) Salesforce
13 28 (1.31%) NetApp
14 24 (1.13%) IBM
15 23 (1.08%) Atlassian
16 22 (1.03%) Juniper
17 21 (0.98%) Red Hat
18 20 (0.94%) Symantec