Microsoft Contract Job Trends

Microsoft
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies 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 8 April 2026, 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
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 11 7
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,599 3,889 5,644
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.24% 13.31% 12.86%
As % of the Vendors category 28.40% 28.23% 30.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,772 2,625 3,751
10th Percentile £205 £211 £189
25th Percentile £370 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £578 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £665 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £449 £463
% change year-on-year +0.33% -3.03% +0.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 387 205 430
10th Percentile £13.58 £14.84 £11.05
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.84 £12.85
Median hourly rate £20.09 £22.50 £15.42
Median % change year-on-year -10.71% +45.91% -31.47%
75th Percentile £27.86 £30.68 £23.82
90th Percentile £65.00 £61.40 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £21.00 £15.00
% change year-on-year -5.19% +40.00% -25.00%

All Vendors
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for knowledge or experience of vendor products and services 19,716 13,778 18,727
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.10% 47.15% 42.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,642 8,710 11,700
10th Percentile £313 £290 £258
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £515
Median % change year-on-year -2.88% -0.03% -1.90%
75th Percentile £600 £617 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.57% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 988 506 1,054
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.35 £12.05
25th Percentile £18.50 £19.19 £14.40
Median hourly rate £27.50 £28.75 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +27.78% -46.63%
75th Percentile £60.00 £61.13 £57.33
90th Percentile £78.40 £80.34 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.21 £27.13 £21.50
% change year-on-year -7.08% +26.16% -44.16%

Microsoft
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Microsoft job vacancy trend in the UK

Microsoft
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Microsoft
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Microsoft over the 6 months to 8 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Microsoft
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Microsoft over the 6 months to 8 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Top 18 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 within the UK over the 6 months to 8 April 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 +1 4,913 £492 +3.58% 3,243
UK excluding London 0 2,935 £450 +0.33% 2,912
London -2 2,131 £510 +2.00% 867
Work from Home -1 1,389 £500 - 1,234
North of England 0 799 £445 +4.71% 701
South East -3 654 £480 -4.00% 876
Midlands -6 501 £439 +3.24% 451
North West -2 442 £415 -7.89% 370
East of England 0 354 £400 -3.03% 304
West Midlands -8 350 £465 +9.41% 243
South West 0 336 £490 +3.16% 336
Yorkshire +8 330 £452 +13.00% 237
Scotland +3 197 £450 +12.50% 170
East Midlands 0 146 £375 -8.54% 207
Wales +2 98 £310 +8.77% 102
North East -17 33 £450 +28.57% 104
Northern Ireland +3 24 £450 +38.46% 39
Channel Islands -3 1 - - 1

Microsoft
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
1 624 (11.14%) SharePoint
2 421 (7.52%) Microsoft Exchange
3 110 (1.96%) Confluence
4 29 (0.52%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.39%) CMS
6 22 (0.39%) Skype for Business
7 21 (0.38%) Apache
8 17 (0.30%) HCL Notes
9 15 (0.27%) SAS
10 10 (0.18%) IIS
10 10 (0.18%) Mendix
11 7 (0.13%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.089%) Camunda
12 5 (0.089%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.071%) Drupal
13 4 (0.071%) Exchange Server 2010
13 4 (0.071%) Exchange Server 2013
13 4 (0.071%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.071%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 598 (10.68%) Microsoft Office
2 528 (9.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 232 (4.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 127 (2.27%) Microsoft Project
5 102 (1.82%) MS Visio
6 79 (1.41%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.29%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Trello
9 10 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.089%) Adobe Captivate
11 5 (0.089%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.071%) InDesign
13 3 (0.054%) Adobe XD
13 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.054%) SOLIDWORKS
14 2 (0.036%) AutoCAD
14 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
14 2 (0.036%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 197 (3.52%) Dynamics CRM
2 54 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
3 21 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.25%) Aladdin
5 14 (0.25%) Maximo
6 13 (0.23%) NetSuite
6 13 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
7 11 (0.20%) Teamcenter
8 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 8 (0.14%) Sage X3
9 8 (0.14%) Shopify
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
10 7 (0.13%) SystmOne
11 6 (0.11%) Advent Geneva
11 6 (0.11%) Dynamics AX
11 6 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.11%) Primavera
11 6 (0.11%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,303 (41.13%) Azure
2 1,444 (25.79%) Microsoft 365
3 934 (16.68%) Power Platform
4 716 (12.79%) Entra ID
5 464 (8.29%) AWS
6 462 (8.25%) Dynamics 365
7 453 (8.09%) Azure DevOps
8 349 (6.23%) Power Automate
9 313 (5.59%) PowerApps
10 281 (5.02%) Microsoft Purview
11 268 (4.79%) GitHub
12 216 (3.86%) Microsoft Copilot
13 212 (3.79%) OneDrive
14 198 (3.54%) Azure Data Factory
15 191 (3.41%) SaaS
16 181 (3.23%) Serverless
17 167 (2.98%) GCP
18 163 (2.91%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 156 (2.79%) PaaS
20 149 (2.66%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 309 (5.52%) Firewall
2 305 (5.45%) DNS
3 214 (3.82%) VPN
4 176 (3.14%) DHCP
5 151 (2.70%) Wi-Fi
6 138 (2.46%) WAN
7 124 (2.21%) Network Security
8 121 (2.16%) LAN
9 115 (2.05%) TCP/IP
10 59 (1.05%) VLAN
11 54 (0.96%) Kerberos
12 44 (0.79%) SD-WAN
12 44 (0.79%) Skype
13 38 (0.68%) Wireless
14 35 (0.63%) SAN
14 35 (0.63%) SSL
14 35 (0.63%) Unified Communications
15 29 (0.52%) HTTP
16 27 (0.48%) MPLS
17 23 (0.41%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 580 (10.36%) Power BI
2 283 (5.05%) SQL Server
3 181 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
4 158 (2.82%) Data Lake
5 121 (2.16%) Azure SQL Database
6 111 (1.98%) Metadata
7 104 (1.86%) PostgreSQL
8 72 (1.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 71 (1.27%) Relational Database
10 56 (1.00%) Oracle Database
11 54 (0.96%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 49 (0.88%) NoSQL
13 47 (0.84%) MySQL
13 47 (0.84%) Tableau
14 41 (0.73%) Power Query
15 39 (0.70%) Delta Lake
16 37 (0.66%) Star Schema
17 26 (0.46%) Snowflake Schema
17 26 (0.46%) Spark SQL
17 26 (0.46%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 252 (4.50%) JIRA
2 173 (3.09%) Git
3 69 (1.23%) GitLab
4 68 (1.21%) Jenkins
5 24 (0.43%) Visual Studio
6 23 (0.41%) Artifactory
7 22 (0.39%) Eclipse
8 18 (0.32%) MSI
8 18 (0.32%) Postman
9 17 (0.30%) Selenium
10 16 (0.29%) MLflow
11 15 (0.27%) JMeter
12 13 (0.23%) Cucumber
12 13 (0.23%) JUnit
12 13 (0.23%) Visual Studio Code
13 11 (0.20%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.20%) Maven
14 10 (0.18%) Android Studio
14 10 (0.18%) SpecFlow
15 9 (0.16%) ERwin
General
1 2,000 (35.72%) Social Skills
2 1,117 (19.95%) Finance
3 657 (11.73%) Analytical Skills
4 540 (9.64%) Public Sector
5 296 (5.29%) Banking
6 252 (4.50%) Organisational Skills
7 251 (4.48%) Legal
8 156 (2.79%) Documentation Skills
9 119 (2.13%) Manufacturing
10 112 (2.00%) Presentation Skills
11 100 (1.79%) Marketing
12 92 (1.64%) Telecoms
13 91 (1.63%) Law
14 85 (1.52%) Retail
15 81 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 62 (1.11%) Local Government
17 60 (1.07%) Influencing Skills
18 59 (1.05%) Military
19 53 (0.95%) Investment Banking
20 42 (0.75%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 682 (12.18%) Architect
2 631 (11.27%) Analyst
3 532 (9.50%) Developer
4 441 (7.88%) Senior
5 379 (6.77%) IT Support
6 325 (5.80%) Lead
7 294 (5.25%) Consultant
8 283 (5.05%) Support Engineer
9 208 (3.71%) Data Engineer
10 203 (3.63%) IT Engineer
11 202 (3.61%) Azure Engineer
11 202 (3.61%) Solutions Architect
12 178 (3.18%) Administrator
13 176 (3.14%) Business Analyst
14 174 (3.11%) Project Manager
15 168 (3.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 155 (2.77%) IT Support Engineer
17 115 (2.05%) Security Engineer
18 111 (1.98%) DevOps Engineer
19 104 (1.86%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 263 (4.70%) .NET
2 181 (3.23%) REST
3 131 (2.34%) Microsoft Graph
4 120 (2.14%) OAuth
5 102 (1.82%) SAML
6 93 (1.66%) React
7 92 (1.64%) PySpark
8 82 (1.46%) OpenID
9 71 (1.27%) JSON
10 66 (1.18%) LDAP
11 65 (1.16%) Middleware
12 63 (1.13%) Web Services
13 62 (1.11%) RESTful
14 60 (1.07%) ARM Templates
14 60 (1.07%) HTML
15 58 (1.04%) OAuth2
16 55 (0.98%) AngularJS
17 53 (0.95%) Node.js
18 52 (0.93%) CSS
19 51 (0.91%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 286 (5.11%) Onboarding
2 226 (4.04%) Cloud Native
3 189 (3.38%) Product Ownership
4 126 (2.25%) Management Information System
5 110 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
6 97 (1.73%) Data Centre
7 92 (1.64%) Hybrid Cloud
8 89 (1.59%) PKI
9 88 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
10 83 (1.48%) Security Posture
11 77 (1.38%) Legacy Systems
12 75 (1.34%) AI Agents
13 74 (1.32%) Replication
14 68 (1.21%) Low-Code
15 67 (1.20%) Data Structures
16 65 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
17 58 (1.04%) Driving Licence
17 58 (1.04%) NHS
18 57 (1.02%) Virtual Team
19 46 (0.82%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,251 (22.34%) Windows
2 349 (6.23%) Windows 10
3 286 (5.11%) Windows Server
4 281 (5.02%) Linux
5 104 (1.86%) Android
6 97 (1.73%) Apple iOS
7 96 (1.71%) Mac OS
8 45 (0.80%) Windows 7
9 43 (0.77%) Windows Server 2016
10 41 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 40 (0.71%) Unix
12 29 (0.52%) VMS
13 24 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
14 21 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
15 10 (0.18%) CentOS
16 9 (0.16%) Ubuntu
17 8 (0.14%) AIX
18 4 (0.071%) Windows 8
18 4 (0.071%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 995 (17.77%) Problem-Solving
2 891 (15.91%) Agile
3 869 (15.52%) DevOps
4 782 (13.97%) Migration
5 747 (13.34%) CI/CD
6 661 (11.81%) Business Intelligence
7 624 (11.14%) Analytics
8 535 (9.56%) AI
9 533 (9.52%) Stakeholder Management
10 508 (9.07%) Continuous Improvement
11 470 (8.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 469 (8.38%) Customer Service
13 430 (7.68%) ITIL
14 394 (7.04%) Data Modelling
15 380 (6.79%) Cybersecurity
16 335 (5.98%) Roadmaps
17 329 (5.88%) Infrastructure as Code
18 305 (5.45%) Project Management
19 301 (5.38%) Change Management
20 298 (5.32%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 738 (13.18%) SQL
2 670 (11.97%) PowerShell
3 629 (11.23%) Python
4 291 (5.20%) C#
5 222 (3.96%) JavaScript
6 174 (3.11%) Java
7 128 (2.29%) Bicep
8 106 (1.89%) Kusto Query Language
9 96 (1.71%) Bash
10 85 (1.52%) TypeScript
11 80 (1.43%) T-SQL
12 70 (1.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 37 (0.66%) PL/SQL
14 31 (0.55%) VBA
15 28 (0.50%) C++
16 23 (0.41%) VB
17 21 (0.38%) Perl
18 18 (0.32%) Shell Script
19 17 (0.30%) R
20 15 (0.27%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,094 (19.54%) Security Cleared
2 833 (14.88%) SC Cleared
3 562 (10.04%) Degree
4 300 (5.36%) Microsoft Certification
5 220 (3.93%) DV Cleared
6 189 (3.38%) Azure Certification
7 130 (2.32%) Computer Science Degree
8 99 (1.77%) BPSS Clearance
9 97 (1.73%) CISSP
10 71 (1.27%) PMI Certification
11 67 (1.20%) Cisco Certification
12 61 (1.09%) PMP
13 57 (1.02%) Master's Degree
14 53 (0.95%) CISM
15 41 (0.73%) AWS Certification
16 40 (0.71%) MCSE
17 35 (0.63%) ITIL Certification
18 33 (0.59%) DBS Check
19 32 (0.57%) A+ Certification
19 32 (0.57%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 254 (4.54%) Data Quality
2 240 (4.29%) GDPR
3 170 (3.04%) QA
4 155 (2.77%) SLA
5 138 (2.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 114 (2.04%) PMO
7 110 (1.96%) NIST
8 73 (1.30%) Accessibility
9 62 (1.11%) Cyber Essentials
10 47 (0.84%) NCSC
11 39 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 30 (0.54%) PCI DSS
13 28 (0.50%) GRC
14 23 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 19 (0.34%) MiFID
16 18 (0.32%) WCAG
17 15 (0.27%) NIST 800
18 13 (0.23%) FINRA
19 12 (0.21%) HIPAA
20 11 (0.20%) GxP
System Software
1 1,110 (19.82%) Active Directory
2 225 (4.02%) Docker
3 181 (3.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 91 (1.63%) Hyper-V
5 68 (1.21%) Virtual Machines
6 57 (1.02%) Virtual Desktop
7 43 (0.77%) VMware ESXi
8 33 (0.59%) vSphere
9 26 (0.46%) BitLocker
10 20 (0.36%) VMware NSX
11 17 (0.30%) Firmware
12 12 (0.21%) Microsoft App-V
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 5 (0.089%) IAG
14 5 (0.089%) Snort
15 4 (0.071%) KVM
15 4 (0.071%) NFS
15 4 (0.071%) VMware Workstation
16 3 (0.054%) DFS Replication
Systems Management
1 441 (7.88%) Microsoft Intune
2 359 (6.41%) Terraform
3 270 (4.82%) Kubernetes
4 212 (3.79%) SCCM
5 138 (2.46%) Single Sign-On
6 116 (2.07%) Ansible
7 100 (1.79%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 45 (0.80%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (0.71%) Grafana
10 35 (0.63%) vCenter Server
11 30 (0.54%) Prometheus
12 24 (0.43%) FortiGate
13 23 (0.41%) SCOM
14 19 (0.34%) Puppet
15 17 (0.30%) WSUS
16 15 (0.27%) AirWatch
16 15 (0.27%) CASB
17 12 (0.21%) ServiceCenter
18 11 (0.20%) QRadar
18 11 (0.20%) WMI
Vendors
1 262 (4.68%) ServiceNow
1 262 (4.68%) VMware
2 216 (3.86%) Databricks
3 211 (3.77%) Oracle
4 207 (3.70%) SAP
5 186 (3.32%) Cisco
6 165 (2.95%) Google
7 133 (2.38%) Citrix
8 103 (1.84%) Splunk
9 95 (1.70%) OpenAI
10 93 (1.66%) Salesforce
11 79 (1.41%) Foundry
12 66 (1.18%) Apple
13 57 (1.02%) CrowdStrike
14 49 (0.88%) HP
14 49 (0.88%) Palo Alto
15 48 (0.86%) Red Hat
16 44 (0.79%) Adobe
17 40 (0.71%) Informatica
18 39 (0.70%) Okta