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 13 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
13 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 6 4 4
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 2,189 2,938 3,603
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 16.37% 13.78% 15.88%
As % of the Vendors category 33.20% 32.91% 35.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,368 1,813 2,562
10th Percentile £193 £175 £168
25th Percentile £256 £266 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £463 £450
Median % change year-on-year -8.11% +2.78% +5.88%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £575
90th Percentile £604 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 218 428 144
10th Percentile £14.20 £11.04 £13.05
25th Percentile £15.10 £13.00 £15.25
Median hourly rate £18.87 £15.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +25.80% -25.00% +21.21%
75th Percentile £30.53 £25.00 £38.75
90th Percentile £50.00 £56.92 £56.47
UK median hourly rate £20.00 £15.81 £24.50
% change year-on-year +26.52% -35.48% +39.52%

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 6,594 8,927 10,158
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 49.32% 41.86% 44.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,068 5,336 6,915
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 £582 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £501 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.82% -1.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 490 1,000 428
10th Percentile £14.41 £12.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.95 £14.39 £17.72
Median hourly rate £23.00 £21.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +6.98% -42.67% +92.31%
75th Percentile £50.00 £59.95 £59.41
90th Percentile £70.00 £70.00 £70.08
UK median hourly rate £26.04 £22.56 £42.50
% change year-on-year +15.43% -46.92% +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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -2 580 £425 -5.56% 1,386
South East 0 485 £464 -1.28% 2,042
North West -2 366 £425 -10.53% 778
Midlands 0 336 £400 -1.23% 863
South West 0 271 £425 -15.00% 561
West Midlands 0 238 £400 -5.88% 437
Scotland -5 228 £431 +23.14% 363
East of England +2 226 £479 +10.44% 516
Yorkshire +1 170 £413 -2.94% 436
East Midlands 0 96 £385 -3.75% 397
Wales -1 52 £300 -41.46% 161
North East -1 44 £340 +4.62% 177
Northern Ireland -6 35 £325 -40.91% 111
Channel Islands - 2 £298 - 86
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
1 269 (12.29%) SharePoint
2 205 (9.37%) Microsoft Exchange
3 60 (2.74%) Confluence
4 29 (1.32%) Skype for Business
5 18 (0.82%) IIS
6 15 (0.69%) IBM Domino
7 11 (0.50%) Apache
7 11 (0.50%) Exchange Server 2013
7 11 (0.50%) Tomcat
8 8 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2010
8 8 (0.37%) Mattermost
8 8 (0.37%) SharePoint Server
9 7 (0.32%) CMS
10 6 (0.27%) BizTalk Server
11 5 (0.23%) JBoss
11 5 (0.23%) SAS
11 5 (0.23%) WebSphere
12 4 (0.18%) Drupal
12 4 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2007
12 4 (0.18%) WordPress
Applications
1 386 (17.63%) Microsoft Office
2 291 (13.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 152 (6.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 54 (2.47%) MS Visio
5 49 (2.24%) Microsoft Project
6 16 (0.73%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.23%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.18%) Adobe Captivate
8 4 (0.18%) Maya
9 2 (0.091%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.091%) InfoPath
9 2 (0.091%) Trello
10 1 (0.046%) 1Password
10 1 (0.046%) Acrobat
10 1 (0.046%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.046%) CANalyzer
10 1 (0.046%) CATIA
10 1 (0.046%) Maple
10 1 (0.046%) Siemens NX
10 1 (0.046%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 42 (1.92%) Dynamics CRM
2 14 (0.64%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.32%) Kondor
4 6 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
4 6 (0.27%) SAP PM
5 5 (0.23%) assyst
5 5 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
6 4 (0.18%) Maximo
6 4 (0.18%) SAP ERP
7 3 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
7 3 (0.14%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.14%) Primavera
7 3 (0.14%) SAP Oil and Gas
8 2 (0.091%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.091%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.091%) SAP CO
8 2 (0.091%) SAP ECC
8 2 (0.091%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.091%) SAP FI/CO
8 2 (0.091%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 587 (26.82%) Azure
2 573 (26.18%) Microsoft 365
3 216 (9.87%) Power Platform
4 212 (9.68%) Entra ID
5 124 (5.66%) AWS
6 101 (4.61%) Dynamics 365
7 91 (4.16%) Azure DevOps
8 83 (3.79%) PowerApps
9 76 (3.47%) Power Automate
10 63 (2.88%) GCP
11 60 (2.74%) OneDrive
12 50 (2.28%) IaaS
13 48 (2.19%) SaaS
14 40 (1.83%) Microsoft Purview
15 37 (1.69%) PaaS
16 30 (1.37%) Azure Data Factory
17 29 (1.32%) Azure Sentinel
18 25 (1.14%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 21 (0.96%) Cohesity
20 18 (0.82%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 171 (7.81%) Firewall
2 143 (6.53%) DNS
3 127 (5.80%) VPN
4 92 (4.20%) DHCP
5 74 (3.38%) SAN
6 63 (2.88%) LAN
7 59 (2.70%) WAN
8 55 (2.51%) Network Security
8 55 (2.51%) TCP/IP
9 50 (2.28%) Wi-Fi
10 39 (1.78%) Skype
11 32 (1.46%) Ethernet
12 28 (1.28%) Internet
13 27 (1.23%) Unified Communications
13 27 (1.23%) WebEx
14 25 (1.14%) Remote Desktop
15 24 (1.10%) Wireless
16 22 (1.01%) Cisco IOS
17 21 (0.96%) Intrusion Detection
17 21 (0.96%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 137 (6.26%) Power BI
2 124 (5.66%) SQL Server
3 41 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
4 36 (1.64%) Azure SQL Database
5 31 (1.42%) Metadata
6 27 (1.23%) Relational Database
7 23 (1.05%) Big Data
8 21 (0.96%) Oracle Database
8 21 (0.96%) Tableau
9 20 (0.91%) PostgreSQL
10 18 (0.82%) Data Lake
10 18 (0.82%) NoSQL
11 15 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
11 15 (0.69%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 14 (0.64%) MySQL
12 14 (0.64%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 13 (0.59%) Elasticsearch
13 13 (0.59%) GIS
14 11 (0.50%) Delta Lake
14 11 (0.50%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 109 (4.98%) JIRA
2 56 (2.56%) Git
3 35 (1.60%) Visual Studio
4 33 (1.51%) Jenkins
5 19 (0.87%) MSI
6 17 (0.78%) Postman
7 15 (0.69%) Maven
8 13 (0.59%) Eclipse
9 12 (0.55%) GitLab
9 12 (0.55%) Selenium
10 10 (0.46%) Sonatype Nexus
11 9 (0.41%) Subversion
12 8 (0.37%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.32%) Hudson
13 7 (0.32%) webpack
14 6 (0.27%) ERwin
14 6 (0.27%) IntelliJ
14 6 (0.27%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
15 5 (0.23%) Babel
15 5 (0.23%) PowerDesigner
General
1 916 (41.85%) Social Skills
2 402 (18.36%) Finance
3 298 (13.61%) Analytical Skills
4 230 (10.51%) Public Sector
5 99 (4.52%) Organisational Skills
6 88 (4.02%) Banking
7 81 (3.70%) Telecoms
8 77 (3.52%) Legal
9 71 (3.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 66 (3.02%) Manufacturing
11 57 (2.60%) Presentation Skills
12 49 (2.24%) Retail
13 48 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
14 27 (1.23%) Military
15 26 (1.19%) Automotive
15 26 (1.19%) Marketing
16 23 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
17 20 (0.91%) Games
18 19 (0.87%) Law
19 16 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 361 (16.49%) Analyst
2 214 (9.78%) Support Engineer
3 179 (8.18%) Architect
4 156 (7.13%) Developer
5 133 (6.08%) IT Support
6 112 (5.12%) Desktop Support
7 102 (4.66%) Consultant
7 102 (4.66%) Senior
8 96 (4.39%) Desktop Engineer
9 87 (3.97%) Service Analyst
10 84 (3.84%) IT Engineer
11 77 (3.52%) Support Analyst
12 75 (3.43%) Desktop Support Engineer
13 72 (3.29%) Service Desk Analyst
14 71 (3.24%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 64 (2.92%) Lead
16 60 (2.74%) Project Manager
17 59 (2.70%) Administrator
17 59 (2.70%) Solutions Architect
18 58 (2.65%) 2nd Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (3.75%) .NET
2 42 (1.92%) HTML
3 40 (1.83%) CSS
4 39 (1.78%) Web Services
5 29 (1.32%) REST
6 25 (1.14%) React
6 25 (1.14%) RESTful
7 24 (1.10%) SOAP
8 19 (0.87%) .NET Framework
9 18 (0.82%) JSON
9 18 (0.82%) OAuth
9 18 (0.82%) XML
10 16 (0.73%) AngularJS
11 15 (0.69%) .NET Core
11 15 (0.69%) Node.js
11 15 (0.69%) Spring
12 14 (0.64%) OpenID
13 13 (0.59%) LDAP
13 13 (0.59%) SailPoint
13 13 (0.59%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 71 (3.24%) Management Information System
2 66 (3.02%) Driving Licence
3 62 (2.83%) Self-Motivation
4 55 (2.51%) PKI
4 55 (2.51%) Product Ownership
5 46 (2.10%) Data Centre
6 41 (1.87%) Onboarding
7 33 (1.51%) Security Posture
8 30 (1.37%) iPhone
9 26 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
9 26 (1.19%) Hybrid Cloud
9 26 (1.19%) Smartphone
10 25 (1.14%) Cloud Native
10 25 (1.14%) Clustering
10 25 (1.14%) Legacy Systems
11 23 (1.05%) Enterprise Software
12 19 (0.87%) Replication
13 18 (0.82%) Analytical Mindset
13 18 (0.82%) Virtual Team
14 16 (0.73%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 696 (31.80%) Windows
2 201 (9.18%) Windows 10
3 189 (8.63%) Windows Server
4 154 (7.04%) Linux
5 74 (3.38%) Mac OS
6 58 (2.65%) Windows Server 2016
7 55 (2.51%) Windows Server 2019
8 53 (2.42%) Unix
9 48 (2.19%) Android
10 40 (1.83%) Windows 7
11 35 (1.60%) Windows Server 2012
12 25 (1.14%) Apple iOS
13 23 (1.05%) Windows Server 2003
14 15 (0.69%) Ubuntu
14 15 (0.69%) VMS
15 12 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
16 9 (0.41%) Windows XP
17 8 (0.37%) Windows Server 2008
18 7 (0.32%) CentOS
19 6 (0.27%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 575 (26.27%) Problem-Solving
2 340 (15.53%) Agile
3 337 (15.40%) ITIL
4 305 (13.93%) Customer Service
5 209 (9.55%) DevOps
6 198 (9.05%) Migration
7 156 (7.13%) Business Intelligence
8 155 (7.08%) Stakeholder Management
9 152 (6.94%) ITSM
9 152 (6.94%) Project Management
10 145 (6.62%) Cybersecurity
11 130 (5.94%) Incident Management
11 130 (5.94%) Service Delivery
12 129 (5.89%) Service Management
13 127 (5.80%) Continuous Improvement
14 112 (5.12%) Analytics
15 107 (4.89%) Project Delivery
16 106 (4.84%) Change Management
17 102 (4.66%) Collaborative Working
18 101 (4.61%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 282 (12.88%) PowerShell
2 261 (11.92%) SQL
3 132 (6.03%) Python
4 103 (4.71%) C#
5 77 (3.52%) Java
6 73 (3.33%) JavaScript
7 26 (1.19%) VB
8 22 (1.01%) Bash
9 20 (0.91%) Bicep
9 20 (0.91%) C++
10 18 (0.82%) Kusto Query Language
10 18 (0.82%) PL/SQL
10 18 (0.82%) Shell Script
11 15 (0.69%) T-SQL
12 13 (0.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 13 (0.59%) TypeScript
12 13 (0.59%) VBA
13 10 (0.46%) Delphi
14 8 (0.37%) PHP
14 8 (0.37%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 402 (18.36%) Security Cleared
2 290 (13.25%) SC Cleared
3 254 (11.60%) Degree
4 204 (9.32%) Microsoft Certification
5 102 (4.66%) DV Cleared
6 67 (3.06%) Azure Certification
7 61 (2.79%) A+ Certification
8 56 (2.56%) Cisco Certification
9 50 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
10 39 (1.78%) MCSE
11 34 (1.55%) ITIL Certification
12 33 (1.51%) MCSA
13 29 (1.32%) CCNP
14 27 (1.23%) CCNA
14 27 (1.23%) Dell Certification
15 26 (1.19%) AWS Certification
16 23 (1.05%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 21 (0.96%) Master's Degree
18 20 (0.91%) BPSS Clearance
18 20 (0.91%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (4.71%) SLA
2 56 (2.56%) QA
3 55 (2.51%) GDPR
4 50 (2.28%) PMO
5 43 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 42 (1.92%) Data Quality
7 21 (0.96%) Accessibility
7 21 (0.96%) NIST
8 19 (0.87%) HIPAA
9 13 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
9 13 (0.59%) Disclosure Scotland
10 12 (0.55%) PCI DSS
11 11 (0.50%) GRC
12 10 (0.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 8 (0.37%) NCSC
13 8 (0.37%) SOC 2
14 6 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 6 (0.27%) GxP
15 5 (0.23%) MiFID
16 3 (0.14%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 554 (25.31%) Active Directory
2 129 (5.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 43 (1.96%) Hyper-V
4 42 (1.92%) vSphere
5 39 (1.78%) Docker
6 37 (1.69%) VMware ESXi
7 31 (1.42%) Virtual Servers
8 28 (1.28%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 25 (1.14%) BitLocker
9 25 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
10 19 (0.87%) Virtual Desktop
11 14 (0.64%) Microsoft App-V
12 10 (0.46%) Terminal Services
13 9 (0.41%) DFS Replication
13 9 (0.41%) XenApp
13 9 (0.41%) XenDesktop
14 8 (0.37%) NFS
15 6 (0.27%) Firmware
16 5 (0.23%) VMware NSX
17 4 (0.18%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 211 (9.64%) Microsoft Intune
2 170 (7.77%) SCCM
3 70 (3.20%) Ansible
4 69 (3.15%) Terraform
5 54 (2.47%) WSUS
6 46 (2.10%) Kubernetes
7 44 (2.01%) Jamf Pro
8 26 (1.19%) Single Sign-On
9 25 (1.14%) SCOM
9 25 (1.14%) vCenter Server
10 24 (1.10%) Puppet
11 23 (1.05%) Microsoft Clustering
12 13 (0.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 11 (0.50%) Nagios
14 10 (0.46%) Grafana
14 10 (0.46%) vMotion
15 8 (0.37%) Progress Chef
15 8 (0.37%) Prometheus
16 7 (0.32%) Tivoli Identity Manager
17 6 (0.27%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 188 (8.59%) ServiceNow
2 185 (8.45%) VMware
3 132 (6.03%) Cisco
4 96 (4.39%) Citrix
5 90 (4.11%) Oracle
6 76 (3.47%) SAP
7 74 (3.38%) Apple
8 72 (3.29%) HP
9 70 (3.20%) Google
10 69 (3.15%) Splunk
11 58 (2.65%) Dell
12 36 (1.64%) Veeam
13 31 (1.42%) Databricks
14 30 (1.37%) Salesforce
15 29 (1.32%) NetApp
16 25 (1.14%) Meraki
17 24 (1.10%) IBM
17 24 (1.10%) Red Hat
18 23 (1.05%) Atlassian
19 22 (1.01%) Juniper