Microsoft Contract Job Trends 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 27 December 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
27 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 6 5 5
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 -1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 2,715 2,233 2,864
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 14.75% 15.15% 14.55%
As % of the Vendors category 31.76% 32.94% 31.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,818 1,395 1,901
10th Percentile £181 £180 £163
25th Percentile £287 £263 £225
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £438 £450
Median % change year-on-year +2.23% -2.78% -
75th Percentile £550 £550 £575
90th Percentile £638 £655 £688
UK median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 322 168 218
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.07 £13.29
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.62 £15.73
Median hourly rate £19.71 £21.46 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.18% +2.19% +7.69%
75th Percentile £25.15 £33.75 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £55.20 £55.00
UK median hourly rate £20.00 £23.59 £22.28
% change year-on-year -15.22% +5.90% +11.38%

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 8,548 6,779 9,181
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 46.42% 46.01% 46.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,558 4,061 5,786
10th Percentile £220 £213 £208
25th Percentile £375 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.58% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 661 359 535
10th Percentile £14.75 £15.22 £14.08
25th Percentile £17.49 £16.92 £17.72
Median hourly rate £21.50 £25.60 £45.21
Median % change year-on-year -16.02% -43.38% +100.93%
75th Percentile £44.50 £59.94 £62.23
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £74.12
UK median hourly rate £23.79 £27.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -13.50% -38.89% +74.55%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Microsoft job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

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

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 27 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK excluding London

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

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

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

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 27 December 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 27 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 +1 710 £415 -2.35% 1,073
South East 0 622 £475 +5.50% 1,314
Midlands -4 471 £447 +5.15% 812
North West +1 418 £400 -11.11% 553
South West 0 361 £500 +5.26% 497
West Midlands -4 315 £475 +5.56% 447
East of England -1 272 £425 -2.86% 608
Yorkshire 0 259 £435 +5.45% 420
Scotland -5 195 £450 +10.02% 198
East Midlands +3 154 £375 - 333
Wales +1 83 £295 -9.23% 137
Northern Ireland +5 42 £361 +44.50% 49
North East -11 38 £410 +10.81% 111
South Coast - 1 £550 -
Microsoft
UK

Microsoft
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
1 300 (11.05%) SharePoint
2 244 (8.99%) Microsoft Exchange
3 55 (2.03%) Confluence
4 50 (1.84%) Skype for Business
5 20 (0.74%) CMS
6 19 (0.70%) Apache
6 19 (0.70%) IIS
7 18 (0.66%) Exchange Server 2013
8 16 (0.59%) Exchange Server 2010
9 15 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
10 13 (0.48%) SharePoint Server
10 13 (0.48%) WebSphere
11 11 (0.41%) SAS
11 11 (0.41%) WebSphere Application Server
12 10 (0.37%) iPlanet
12 10 (0.37%) JBoss
13 7 (0.26%) Exchange Server 2003
13 7 (0.26%) Exchange Server 2007
13 7 (0.26%) Mattermost
13 7 (0.26%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 444 (16.35%) Microsoft Office
2 316 (11.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 117 (4.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 80 (2.95%) Microsoft Project
5 51 (1.88%) MS Visio
5 51 (1.88%) Spreadsheet
6 9 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 7 (0.26%) Trello
8 6 (0.22%) Adobe Captivate
9 3 (0.11%) Acrobat
9 3 (0.11%) Sketch
9 3 (0.11%) Windchill
10 2 (0.074%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.074%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.074%) InDesign
10 2 (0.074%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.037%) Adobe After Effects
11 1 (0.037%) AutoCAD
11 1 (0.037%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.037%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 77 (2.84%) Dynamics CRM
2 17 (0.63%) Remedy ITSM
2 17 (0.63%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.48%) Maximo
4 12 (0.44%) Dynamics AX
5 11 (0.41%) Dynamics NAV
6 8 (0.29%) NetSuite
6 8 (0.29%) Payment Gateway
7 7 (0.26%) Advent Geneva
7 7 (0.26%) Teamcenter
8 5 (0.18%) assyst
8 5 (0.18%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
10 3 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
10 3 (0.11%) Primavera
10 3 (0.11%) Shopify
10 3 (0.11%) SystmOne
10 3 (0.11%) VisionPLUS
11 2 (0.074%) Odoo
11 2 (0.074%) SAP FI/CO
Cloud Services
1 785 (28.91%) Azure
2 657 (24.20%) Microsoft 365
3 300 (11.05%) Power Platform
4 274 (10.09%) AWS
5 225 (8.29%) Entra ID
6 174 (6.41%) Dynamics 365
7 118 (4.35%) Azure DevOps
8 115 (4.24%) GCP
9 112 (4.13%) PowerApps
10 107 (3.94%) Power Automate
11 87 (3.20%) OneDrive
12 79 (2.91%) SaaS
13 75 (2.76%) Microsoft Purview
14 74 (2.73%) GitHub
15 70 (2.58%) Serverless
16 57 (2.10%) PaaS
17 56 (2.06%) Azure Sentinel
18 41 (1.51%) Azure AKS
18 41 (1.51%) Azure Data Factory
18 41 (1.51%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 177 (6.52%) DNS
2 160 (5.89%) Firewall
3 115 (4.24%) DHCP
3 115 (4.24%) TCP/IP
4 104 (3.83%) VPN
5 72 (2.65%) Wi-Fi
6 66 (2.43%) Skype
7 57 (2.10%) Network Security
8 55 (2.03%) LAN
9 45 (1.66%) WAN
10 42 (1.55%) Wireless
11 37 (1.36%) VLAN
12 30 (1.10%) Unified Communications
13 27 (0.99%) VoIP
14 22 (0.81%) Kerberos
14 22 (0.81%) SAN
15 20 (0.74%) Ethernet
16 18 (0.66%) WebEx
17 17 (0.63%) HTTP
17 17 (0.63%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 193 (7.11%) Power BI
2 131 (4.83%) SQL Server
3 62 (2.28%) Relational Database
4 50 (1.84%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (1.80%) Oracle Database
6 47 (1.73%) PostgreSQL
7 41 (1.51%) MySQL
8 32 (1.18%) Metadata
9 28 (1.03%) Data Lake
10 26 (0.96%) Azure SQL Database
11 22 (0.81%) NoSQL
12 21 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
13 20 (0.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 20 (0.74%) Tableau
14 14 (0.52%) Power Query
15 12 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
16 11 (0.41%) Looker
17 10 (0.37%) Data Mining
17 10 (0.37%) DB2
18 9 (0.33%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 135 (4.97%) JIRA
2 78 (2.87%) Git
3 63 (2.32%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.40%) Eclipse
4 38 (1.40%) GitLab
5 23 (0.85%) Android Studio
5 23 (0.85%) Browser DevTools
5 23 (0.85%) Xcode
6 22 (0.81%) Postman
7 20 (0.74%) Visual Studio
8 19 (0.70%) MSI
9 14 (0.52%) Sonatype Nexus
10 11 (0.41%) Cucumber
11 10 (0.37%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.37%) Bitbucket Server
11 10 (0.37%) CA Release Automation
11 10 (0.37%) Selenium
11 10 (0.37%) SoapUI
12 7 (0.26%) InstallShield
13 6 (0.22%) JMeter
General
1 1,212 (44.64%) Social Skills
2 460 (16.94%) Finance
3 355 (13.08%) Analytical Skills
4 300 (11.05%) Public Sector
5 176 (6.48%) Organisational Skills
6 107 (3.94%) Legal
7 102 (3.76%) Banking
8 87 (3.20%) Manufacturing
9 82 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
10 51 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
10 51 (1.88%) Telecoms
11 42 (1.55%) Marketing
12 37 (1.36%) Retail
13 36 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 32 (1.18%) Military
15 31 (1.14%) Influencing Skills
16 26 (0.96%) Electronics
16 26 (0.96%) Local Government
17 24 (0.88%) Aerospace
18 22 (0.81%) Law
Job Titles
1 398 (14.66%) Analyst
2 235 (8.66%) IT Support
3 231 (8.51%) Support Engineer
4 221 (8.14%) Architect
5 184 (6.78%) Developer
6 151 (5.56%) Senior
7 116 (4.27%) Administrator
8 109 (4.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 104 (3.83%) Consultant
9 104 (3.83%) Support Analyst
10 103 (3.79%) IT Engineer
11 94 (3.46%) Lead
12 80 (2.95%) Desktop Support
13 75 (2.76%) IT Support Engineer
14 72 (2.65%) Project Manager
15 68 (2.50%) Technical Support
16 67 (2.47%) Solutions Architect
17 66 (2.43%) Business Analyst
18 56 (2.06%) IT Analyst
18 56 (2.06%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (3.35%) .NET
2 75 (2.76%) REST
3 62 (2.28%) OAuth
4 61 (2.25%) React
5 60 (2.21%) SAML
6 50 (1.84%) OpenID
7 44 (1.62%) CSS
8 41 (1.51%) AngularJS
9 39 (1.44%) RESTful
10 36 (1.33%) LDAP
11 35 (1.29%) HTML
12 32 (1.18%) GraphQL
12 32 (1.18%) Web Services
13 28 (1.03%) OAuth2
14 25 (0.92%) Node.js
14 25 (0.92%) SOAP
14 25 (0.92%) TensorFlow
15 24 (0.88%) Middleware
16 23 (0.85%) Ajax
16 23 (0.85%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 146 (5.38%) Onboarding
2 77 (2.84%) Cloud Native
3 73 (2.69%) Management Information System
4 69 (2.54%) Product Ownership
5 67 (2.47%) Driving Licence
6 66 (2.43%) PKI
7 56 (2.06%) Mobile App
8 53 (1.95%) Self-Motivation
9 52 (1.92%) Data Centre
10 47 (1.73%) Enterprise Software
11 43 (1.58%) Security Posture
12 40 (1.47%) Analytical Mindset
12 40 (1.47%) NHS
13 34 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
13 34 (1.25%) Replication
14 27 (0.99%) Cyber Threat
15 26 (0.96%) Legacy Systems
16 23 (0.85%) Operational Technology
16 23 (0.85%) Security Operations Centre
17 22 (0.81%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 842 (31.01%) Windows
2 265 (9.76%) Windows 10
3 221 (8.14%) Linux
4 177 (6.52%) Windows Server
5 77 (2.84%) Mac OS
6 75 (2.76%) Android
7 55 (2.03%) Unix
8 53 (1.95%) Apple iOS
9 34 (1.25%) Windows 7
10 26 (0.96%) Windows Server 2016
11 23 (0.85%) Windows Server 2019
12 18 (0.66%) Windows Server 2003
12 18 (0.66%) Windows Server 2012
13 17 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 7 (0.26%) Windows Server 2008
15 6 (0.22%) AIX
15 6 (0.22%) Mac OS X
16 5 (0.18%) CentOS
16 5 (0.18%) Windows 8
17 4 (0.15%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 582 (21.44%) Problem-Solving
2 445 (16.39%) Agile
3 333 (12.27%) ITIL
4 306 (11.27%) Customer Service
5 305 (11.23%) Migration
6 292 (10.76%) DevOps
7 255 (9.39%) CI/CD
8 242 (8.91%) Business Intelligence
9 236 (8.69%) Stakeholder Management
10 235 (8.66%) Continuous Improvement
11 199 (7.33%) Cybersecurity
11 199 (7.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 197 (7.26%) Analytics
13 191 (7.03%) Change Management
14 185 (6.81%) Project Management
15 142 (5.23%) ITSM
15 142 (5.23%) Time Management
16 140 (5.16%) Infrastructure Engineering
16 140 (5.16%) Project Delivery
17 135 (4.97%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 300 (11.05%) PowerShell
2 286 (10.53%) SQL
3 265 (9.76%) Python
4 112 (4.13%) JavaScript
5 85 (3.13%) C#
6 75 (2.76%) Java
7 53 (1.95%) Bash
8 36 (1.33%) Perl
9 32 (1.18%) Bicep
10 24 (0.88%) TypeScript
11 21 (0.77%) C++
11 21 (0.77%) Shell Script
12 18 (0.66%) Go
12 18 (0.66%) Kusto Query Language
13 16 (0.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 15 (0.55%) T-SQL
15 14 (0.52%) VBScript
16 12 (0.44%) Groovy
16 12 (0.44%) VB
17 11 (0.41%) R
Qualifications
1 608 (22.39%) Security Cleared
2 426 (15.69%) SC Cleared
3 275 (10.13%) Degree
4 210 (7.73%) Microsoft Certification
5 168 (6.19%) DV Cleared
6 73 (2.69%) CISSP
7 70 (2.58%) Azure Certification
8 49 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
9 46 (1.69%) BPSS Clearance
10 44 (1.62%) CISM
11 42 (1.55%) MCSE
12 40 (1.47%) A+ Certification
13 38 (1.40%) ITIL Certification
14 33 (1.22%) AWS Certification
14 33 (1.22%) Cisco Certification
14 33 (1.22%) Master's Degree
15 29 (1.07%) PMI Certification
16 26 (0.96%) MCP
17 23 (0.85%) PMP
18 22 (0.81%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 130 (4.79%) GDPR
2 99 (3.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 96 (3.54%) SLA
4 83 (3.06%) QA
5 81 (2.98%) NIST
6 65 (2.39%) Data Quality
7 54 (1.99%) PMO
8 49 (1.80%) Accessibility
9 21 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
10 20 (0.74%) PCI DSS
11 15 (0.55%) EU AI Act
12 14 (0.52%) NCSC
13 13 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 13 (0.48%) HIPAA
14 9 (0.33%) Disclosure Scotland
14 9 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 8 (0.29%) GRC
16 7 (0.26%) NIST 800
17 6 (0.22%) Actionable Recommendations
17 6 (0.22%) HL7
System Software
1 612 (22.54%) Active Directory
2 142 (5.23%) VMware Infrastructure
3 91 (3.35%) Docker
4 53 (1.95%) Hyper-V
5 31 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
6 29 (1.07%) vSphere
7 28 (1.03%) VMware ESXi
8 16 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
9 14 (0.52%) VMware NSX
10 10 (0.37%) BitLocker
11 9 (0.33%) NFS
12 8 (0.29%) Firmware
12 8 (0.29%) ISA Server
12 8 (0.29%) Tivoli Directory Server
13 7 (0.26%) Brightmail
14 6 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
14 6 (0.22%) Terminal Services
15 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 5 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
15 5 (0.18%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 204 (7.51%) SCCM
2 192 (7.07%) Microsoft Intune
3 116 (4.27%) Kubernetes
4 88 (3.24%) Terraform
5 70 (2.58%) Single Sign-On
6 65 (2.39%) Ansible
7 57 (2.10%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 35 (1.29%) vCenter Server
9 24 (0.88%) Grafana
10 22 (0.81%) Jamf Pro
10 22 (0.81%) Prometheus
11 17 (0.63%) WSUS
12 14 (0.52%) Microsoft Clustering
13 13 (0.48%) Progress Chef
13 13 (0.48%) SCOM
14 12 (0.44%) WMI
15 11 (0.41%) CA Single Sign-On
16 10 (0.37%) CA Wily
17 9 (0.33%) QRadar
17 9 (0.33%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 182 (6.70%) VMware
2 180 (6.63%) ServiceNow
3 138 (5.08%) Oracle
4 132 (4.86%) Cisco
5 115 (4.24%) SAP
6 110 (4.05%) Splunk
7 86 (3.17%) Citrix
8 80 (2.95%) Google
9 49 (1.80%) Apple
10 43 (1.58%) IBM
11 36 (1.33%) HP
12 33 (1.22%) Veeam
13 32 (1.18%) Red Hat
14 30 (1.10%) CyberArk
14 30 (1.10%) Databricks
15 27 (0.99%) Salesforce
16 26 (0.96%) McAfee
17 24 (0.88%) Palo Alto
18 21 (0.77%) Remedy
19 19 (0.70%) Adobe