Microsoft Engineer Contract Job Trends

Microsoft Engineer
UK

The median Microsoft Engineer daily rate in the UK is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 October 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 598 515 501
Rank change year-on-year -83 -14 +75
Contract jobs requiring a Microsoft Engineer 99 46 62
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.18% 0.14% 0.16%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.19% 0.15% 0.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 67 32 33
10th Percentile £293 £364 £220
25th Percentile £376 £475 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £625 £425
Median % change year-on-year -24.00% +47.06% -
75th Percentile £520 £725 £550
90th Percentile £648 - £626
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £650 £410
% change year-on-year -26.92% +58.54% -0.61%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 50,841 30,184 35,017
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.94% 90.90% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,834 19,073 21,148
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,158 1,652 1,437
10th Percentile £14.31 £13.80 £15.09
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.30 £20.50
Median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £41.27
Median % change year-on-year +65.23% -39.05% -8.30%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.30 £68.52 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.06 £25.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +64.24% -41.18% -4.49%

Microsoft Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Microsoft Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Microsoft Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Microsoft Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft Engineer over the 6 months to 15 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft Engineer in the UK

Microsoft Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Microsoft Engineer
Top 14 Contract Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 15 October 2026. 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
England -83 88 £475 -23.08% 93
UK excluding London -72 46 £475 -26.92% 52
London -60 43 £423 -23.18% 40
Work from Home -52 32 £500 +25.00% 42
South East -49 24 £475 -6.59% 12
North of England -60 13 £450 +12.50% 19
North West -42 8 £444 +11.00% 5
South West -43 4 £475 -32.14% 3
Midlands -45 4 £394 +12.50% 9
Yorkshire - 4 - - 14
East Midlands - 3 £250 - 3
North East -36 1 £520 +30.00%
West Midlands -44 1 £538 +53.57% 6
Scotland - 1 £450 - 2

Microsoft Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 15 October 2026, 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 featuring Microsoft Engineer in the job title.

1 99 (100.00%) Microsoft
2 46 (46.46%) Microsoft 365
3 41 (41.41%) Azure
4 29 (29.29%) Power Platform
5 27 (27.27%) SQL
6 26 (26.26%) Entra ID
7 24 (24.24%) SharePoint
8 23 (23.23%) Power BI
9 22 (22.22%) ETL
10 21 (21.21%) Active Directory
10 21 (21.21%) Business Intelligence
10 21 (21.21%) Microsoft Intune
11 20 (20.20%) Security Cleared
11 20 (20.20%) Windows
12 19 (19.19%) Lakehouse
13 18 (18.18%) SC Cleared
14 17 (17.17%) PowerShell
15 16 (16.16%) CI/CD
16 15 (15.15%) Cloud Security
16 15 (15.15%) DevOps
16 15 (15.15%) Microsoft Purview
17 14 (14.14%) Data Modelling
17 14 (14.14%) Data Pipeline
17 14 (14.14%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 14 (14.14%) T-SQL
18 13 (13.13%) Python
19 12 (12.12%) Decision-Making
19 12 (12.12%) Microsoft Exchange
20 11 (11.11%) Azure Data Factory
21 10 (10.10%) Analytics

Microsoft Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 24 (24.24%) SharePoint
2 12 (12.12%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (2.02%) Exchange Server 2013
4 1 (1.01%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 4 (4.04%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (2.02%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.01%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 46 (46.46%) Microsoft 365
2 41 (41.41%) Azure
3 29 (29.29%) Power Platform
4 26 (26.26%) Entra ID
5 15 (15.15%) Microsoft Purview
6 11 (11.11%) Azure Data Factory
7 10 (10.10%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (9.09%) Azure Logic Apps
8 9 (9.09%) OneDrive
9 7 (7.07%) Azure Sentinel
9 7 (7.07%) Microsoft Copilot
10 6 (6.06%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 4 (4.04%) AWS
11 4 (4.04%) Copilot Studio
12 3 (3.03%) Azure AI
12 3 (3.03%) Azure AKS
12 3 (3.03%) Dynamics 365
12 3 (3.03%) GitHub
12 3 (3.03%) Power Automate
12 3 (3.03%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 3 (3.03%) DNS
1 3 (3.03%) SMTP
1 3 (3.03%) TCP/IP
2 2 (2.02%) DHCP
2 2 (2.02%) PSTN
2 2 (2.02%) Unified Communications
3 1 (1.01%) Cisco IOS
3 1 (1.01%) Ethernet
3 1 (1.01%) Firewall
3 1 (1.01%) VoIP
3 1 (1.01%) WebEx
3 1 (1.01%) Wi-Fi
3 1 (1.01%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (23.23%) Power BI
2 5 (5.05%) Metadata
3 4 (4.04%) Azure SQL Database
4 3 (3.03%) SQL Server
5 2 (2.02%) Amazon RDS
5 2 (2.02%) Data Lake
5 2 (2.02%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (2.02%) Semantic Layer
6 1 (1.01%) MongoDB
6 1 (1.01%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 3 (3.03%) Git
2 2 (2.02%) JIRA
General
1 21 (21.21%) Social Skills
2 10 (10.10%) Finance
3 8 (8.08%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (4.04%) Documentation Skills
5 3 (3.03%) Marketing
5 3 (3.03%) Telecoms
6 2 (2.02%) Banking
6 2 (2.02%) Local Government
6 2 (2.02%) Retail
7 1 (1.01%) Legal
7 1 (1.01%) Manufacturing
7 1 (1.01%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (10.10%) Terraform
2 5 (5.05%) Microsoft Graph
3 3 (3.03%) JSON
3 3 (3.03%) REST
4 2 (2.02%) ARM Templates
4 2 (2.02%) YAML
5 1 (1.01%) .NET
5 1 (1.01%) .NET Framework
5 1 (1.01%) 802.1X
5 1 (1.01%) ADO
5 1 (1.01%) Backbone.js
5 1 (1.01%) FIDO
5 1 (1.01%) HTML5 Canvas
5 1 (1.01%) OAuth
5 1 (1.01%) OAuth2
5 1 (1.01%) PySpark
5 1 (1.01%) Software Packaging
5 1 (1.01%) SPFx
5 1 (1.01%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 11 (11.11%) Security Posture
2 5 (5.05%) Enterprise Software
2 5 (5.05%) Onboarding
3 4 (4.04%) Cloud Native
3 4 (4.04%) Cloud Security Posture
4 3 (3.03%) AI Agents
4 3 (3.03%) Enterprise Cloud
4 3 (3.03%) Hedge funds
4 3 (3.03%) Virtual Team
5 1 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (1.01%) Blackberry
5 1 (1.01%) BYOD
5 1 (1.01%) Cyber Threat
5 1 (1.01%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (1.01%) Digital Signage
5 1 (1.01%) Linked Data
5 1 (1.01%) Management Information System
5 1 (1.01%) Product Ownership
5 1 (1.01%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 20 (20.20%) Windows
2 7 (7.07%) Windows Server
3 5 (5.05%) Linux
3 5 (5.05%) macOS
3 5 (5.05%) Windows 10
4 4 (4.04%) Apple iOS
5 3 (3.03%) Android
6 2 (2.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (2.02%) VMS
6 2 (2.02%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (22.22%) ETL
2 21 (21.21%) Business Intelligence
3 19 (19.19%) Lakehouse
4 16 (16.16%) CI/CD
5 15 (15.15%) Cloud Security
5 15 (15.15%) DevOps
6 14 (14.14%) Data Modelling
6 14 (14.14%) Data Pipeline
6 14 (14.14%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 12 (12.12%) Decision-Making
8 10 (10.10%) Analytics
8 10 (10.10%) Infrastructure as Code
8 10 (10.10%) Problem-Solving
8 10 (10.10%) Security Operations
8 10 (10.10%) Stakeholder Management
9 9 (9.09%) Agile
9 9 (9.09%) Data Engineering
9 9 (9.09%) Data Loss Prevention
9 9 (9.09%) Runbook
9 9 (9.09%) Threat Detection
Programming Languages
1 27 (27.27%) SQL
2 17 (17.17%) PowerShell
3 14 (14.14%) T-SQL
4 13 (13.13%) Python
5 10 (10.10%) Bicep
6 7 (7.07%) Kusto Query Language
7 3 (3.03%) C#
7 3 (3.03%) JavaScript
7 3 (3.03%) TypeScript
8 2 (2.02%) Bash
9 1 (1.01%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 20 (20.20%) Security Cleared
2 18 (18.18%) SC Cleared
3 7 (7.07%) Microsoft Certification
4 4 (4.04%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (2.02%) Azure Certification
5 2 (2.02%) Degree
6 1 (1.01%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 1 (1.01%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (1.01%) CISSP
6 1 (1.01%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (1.01%) ITIL Certification
6 1 (1.01%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (10.10%) Data Quality
2 3 (3.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (3.03%) QA
3 2 (2.02%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.01%) Cyber Essentials
4 1 (1.01%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
4 1 (1.01%) NIST
4 1 (1.01%) PCI DSS
4 1 (1.01%) SLA
System Software
1 21 (21.21%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.01%) Docker
2 1 (1.01%) Hyper-V
2 1 (1.01%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (1.01%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 21 (21.21%) Microsoft Intune
2 7 (7.07%) SCCM
3 5 (5.05%) Kubernetes
4 2 (2.02%) Norton AntiVirus
5 1 (1.01%) Cisco CUCM
5 1 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 99 (100.00%) Microsoft
2 6 (6.06%) Foundry
2 6 (6.06%) ServiceNow
3 4 (4.04%) Databricks
4 3 (3.03%) Altiris
4 3 (3.03%) Clearswift
4 3 (3.03%) Proofpoint
4 3 (3.03%) Ribbon
4 3 (3.03%) Salesforce
5 2 (2.02%) Apple
5 2 (2.02%) Cisco
5 2 (2.02%) Citrix
5 2 (2.02%) McAfee
5 2 (2.02%) OpenAI
5 2 (2.02%) Symantec
6 1 (1.01%) Informatica
6 1 (1.01%) Samsung
6 1 (1.01%) Splunk
6 1 (1.01%) Temenos
6 1 (1.01%) VMware