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 22 November 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
22 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,139 4,858 6,235
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 14.30% 13.22% 13.38%
As % of the Vendors category 30.08% 29.45% 29.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,405 3,026 4,316
10th Percentile £205 £205 £198
25th Percentile £350 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £482 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.45% -3.60% -
75th Percentile £575 £596 £623
90th Percentile £669 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £446 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -0.89% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 422 239 257
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.00 £13.57
25th Percentile £17.64 £15.62 £16.40
Median hourly rate £22.00 £23.59 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.74% +2.57% +17.95%
75th Percentile £31.40 £37.14 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.80 £21.46 £22.00
% change year-on-year -3.10% -2.45% +18.92%

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 17,086 16,497 21,170
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.56% 44.90% 45.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,769 9,710 13,557
10th Percentile £288 £300 £260
25th Percentile £405 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.59%
75th Percentile £612 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £720 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 888 529 681
10th Percentile £15.34 £15.25 £14.65
25th Percentile £18.26 £18.75 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £30.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.17% -32.58% +73.08%
75th Percentile £42.87 £62.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £72.88 £74.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.32 £27.35 £44.50
% change year-on-year -18.41% -38.54% +97.78%

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 22 November 2025.

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 22 November 2025.

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 22 November 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
England -1 4,491 £475 -1.45% 5,182
UK excluding London -2 2,872 £446 -0.89% 4,081
London -1 1,846 £500 - 1,762
Work from Home -1 1,346 £500 - 2,141
North of England +2 768 £433 -3.89% 920
South East 0 630 £469 -1.19% 1,356
Midlands -2 486 £425 -1.08% 655
North West +1 451 £430 -4.44% 529
South West +1 379 £488 +2.63% 429
West Midlands -3 314 £475 +5.79% 411
Yorkshire +3 281 £435 +5.14% 283
East of England -1 281 £438 +9.38% 391
Scotland -4 230 £450 +10.02% 218
East Midlands +1 169 £375 -4.21% 240
Wales +2 91 £300 +11.11% 137
Northern Ireland +5 52 £350 +47.37% 52
North East -3 38 £419 +19.64% 114
Channel Islands -2 2 £725 -

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
1 555 (10.80%) SharePoint
2 402 (7.82%) Microsoft Exchange
3 107 (2.08%) Confluence
4 64 (1.25%) Skype for Business
5 37 (0.72%) Apache
5 37 (0.72%) CMS
6 30 (0.58%) IIS
7 22 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
8 21 (0.41%) Exchange Server 2013
9 19 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2010
10 18 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
10 18 (0.35%) WebSphere
11 17 (0.33%) SAS
12 16 (0.31%) JBoss
13 14 (0.27%) HCL Notes
14 13 (0.25%) Apache Spark
14 13 (0.25%) Mattermost
15 11 (0.21%) WebSphere Application Server
16 10 (0.19%) Exchange Server 2003
16 10 (0.19%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 648 (12.61%) Microsoft Office
2 608 (11.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 261 (5.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 133 (2.59%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (2.02%) MS Visio
6 51 (0.99%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 11 (0.21%) Adobe Captivate
9 10 (0.19%) Trello
10 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.16%) Sketch
12 5 (0.097%) Maya
13 4 (0.078%) Adobe XD
14 3 (0.058%) Adobe Premiere
14 3 (0.058%) Siemens NX
14 3 (0.058%) Windchill
15 2 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
15 2 (0.039%) Adobe Illustrator
15 2 (0.039%) InDesign
15 2 (0.039%) Revit
Business Applications
1 186 (3.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 39 (0.76%) Remedy ITSM
3 38 (0.74%) SAP S/4HANA
4 19 (0.37%) Dynamics AX
5 14 (0.27%) Maximo
6 11 (0.21%) Aladdin
6 11 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
6 11 (0.21%) Workday HCM
7 9 (0.18%) Dynamics NAV
7 9 (0.18%) NetSuite
7 9 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
7 9 (0.18%) Teamcenter
8 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
8 7 (0.14%) Primavera
8 7 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.12%) assyst
9 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
10 5 (0.097%) SAP ERP
11 4 (0.078%) Loan IQ
11 4 (0.078%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,811 (35.24%) Azure
2 1,172 (22.81%) Microsoft 365
3 772 (15.02%) Power Platform
4 561 (10.92%) Entra ID
5 467 (9.09%) AWS
6 382 (7.43%) Dynamics 365
7 343 (6.67%) Azure DevOps
8 306 (5.95%) Power Automate
9 294 (5.72%) PowerApps
10 181 (3.52%) GitHub
11 174 (3.39%) Microsoft Purview
12 170 (3.31%) SaaS
13 166 (3.23%) GCP
14 151 (2.94%) OneDrive
14 151 (2.94%) Serverless
15 145 (2.82%) Azure Sentinel
16 119 (2.32%) Azure Data Factory
17 118 (2.30%) Azure Logic Apps
18 114 (2.22%) Microsoft Copilot
18 114 (2.22%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 345 (6.71%) Firewall
2 268 (5.22%) DNS
3 173 (3.37%) DHCP
4 165 (3.21%) VPN
5 161 (3.13%) TCP/IP
6 101 (1.97%) Network Security
7 99 (1.93%) Wi-Fi
8 89 (1.73%) WAN
9 83 (1.62%) LAN
10 73 (1.42%) Skype
11 60 (1.17%) Wireless
12 46 (0.90%) Cisco IOS
13 43 (0.84%) VLAN
14 40 (0.78%) SAN
15 39 (0.76%) Unified Communications
16 37 (0.72%) Internet
16 37 (0.72%) VoIP
17 33 (0.64%) HTTP
18 31 (0.60%) Ethernet
18 31 (0.60%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 470 (9.15%) Power BI
2 248 (4.83%) SQL Server
3 125 (2.43%) Data Warehouse
4 89 (1.73%) Data Lake
5 88 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
6 84 (1.63%) Relational Database
7 79 (1.54%) Metadata
8 72 (1.40%) Azure SQL Database
9 69 (1.34%) Oracle Database
10 56 (1.09%) Tableau
11 50 (0.97%) MySQL
12 39 (0.76%) NoSQL
13 38 (0.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 35 (0.68%) Power Query
15 31 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
16 29 (0.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 27 (0.53%) Amazon RDS
18 19 (0.37%) Big Data
19 18 (0.35%) DB2
20 17 (0.33%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 265 (5.16%) JIRA
2 172 (3.35%) Git
3 108 (2.10%) Jenkins
4 69 (1.34%) GitLab
5 45 (0.88%) Eclipse
6 37 (0.72%) Postman
7 32 (0.62%) Visual Studio
8 31 (0.60%) MSI
9 27 (0.53%) Sonatype Nexus
10 23 (0.45%) Selenium
11 22 (0.43%) Browser DevTools
12 21 (0.41%) Xcode
13 18 (0.35%) Android Studio
14 16 (0.31%) JUnit
15 15 (0.29%) Cucumber
16 13 (0.25%) SonarQube
17 12 (0.23%) InstallShield
18 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket Server
18 11 (0.21%) CA Release Automation
19 10 (0.19%) Maven
General
1 2,054 (39.97%) Social Skills
2 1,143 (22.24%) Finance
3 705 (13.72%) Analytical Skills
4 526 (10.24%) Public Sector
5 276 (5.37%) Banking
6 218 (4.24%) Organisational Skills
7 180 (3.50%) Legal
8 158 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
9 150 (2.92%) Manufacturing
10 130 (2.53%) Presentation Skills
11 114 (2.22%) Marketing
12 111 (2.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 98 (1.91%) Telecoms
14 91 (1.77%) Retail
15 72 (1.40%) Local Government
16 70 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
17 50 (0.97%) Military
18 44 (0.86%) Investment Banking
19 43 (0.84%) Front Office
19 43 (0.84%) Law
Job Titles
1 814 (15.84%) Analyst
2 502 (9.77%) Architect
3 490 (9.53%) Developer
4 338 (6.58%) Senior
5 328 (6.38%) Support Engineer
6 296 (5.76%) Consultant
7 264 (5.14%) IT Support
8 257 (5.00%) Lead
9 181 (3.52%) Support Analyst
10 163 (3.17%) Business Analyst
10 163 (3.17%) Project Manager
11 158 (3.07%) Administrator
12 157 (3.06%) Solutions Architect
13 145 (2.82%) IT Engineer
14 138 (2.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 130 (2.53%) Azure Engineer
16 120 (2.34%) Security Engineer
17 113 (2.20%) Desktop Support
18 108 (2.10%) Data Analyst
19 103 (2.00%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 257 (5.00%) .NET
2 167 (3.25%) REST
3 123 (2.39%) OAuth
4 117 (2.28%) React
5 103 (2.00%) RESTful
6 97 (1.89%) HTML
7 90 (1.75%) AngularJS
8 88 (1.71%) CSS
8 88 (1.71%) SAML
9 82 (1.60%) OpenID
10 73 (1.42%) Web Services
11 68 (1.32%) SOAP
12 66 (1.28%) JSON
13 60 (1.17%) XML
14 58 (1.13%) Node.js
15 57 (1.11%) .NET Framework
16 56 (1.09%) Microsoft Graph
17 48 (0.93%) LDAP
18 46 (0.90%) Spring
19 45 (0.88%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 240 (4.67%) Onboarding
2 180 (3.50%) Cloud Native
3 144 (2.80%) Management Information System
4 141 (2.74%) Product Ownership
5 104 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
6 102 (1.98%) Data Centre
7 101 (1.97%) Security Posture
8 100 (1.95%) PKI
9 91 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
10 80 (1.56%) Driving Licence
11 74 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
12 71 (1.38%) Mobile App
13 66 (1.28%) Virtual Team
14 61 (1.19%) Low-Code
15 59 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
15 59 (1.15%) Hybrid Cloud
16 53 (1.03%) Replication
17 47 (0.91%) NHS
18 45 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
19 44 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,276 (24.83%) Windows
2 348 (6.77%) Windows 10
3 311 (6.05%) Linux
4 277 (5.39%) Windows Server
5 141 (2.74%) Mac OS
6 120 (2.34%) Android
7 86 (1.67%) Unix
8 81 (1.58%) Apple iOS
9 48 (0.93%) Windows 7
10 37 (0.72%) Windows Server 2019
11 34 (0.66%) Windows Server 2016
12 27 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 23 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
15 16 (0.31%) VMS
16 11 (0.21%) Mac OS X
17 10 (0.19%) CentOS
17 10 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
18 9 (0.18%) Ubuntu
19 6 (0.12%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,085 (21.11%) Problem-Solving
2 948 (18.45%) Agile
3 717 (13.95%) DevOps
4 602 (11.71%) Migration
5 548 (10.66%) CI/CD
6 547 (10.64%) Business Intelligence
7 513 (9.98%) ITIL
8 511 (9.94%) Stakeholder Management
9 453 (8.81%) Analytics
10 424 (8.25%) Continuous Improvement
11 423 (8.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 410 (7.98%) Cybersecurity
13 396 (7.71%) Customer Service
14 369 (7.18%) Project Management
15 330 (6.42%) AI
16 321 (6.25%) Change Management
17 272 (5.29%) CRM
18 267 (5.20%) ITSM
19 265 (5.16%) Project Delivery
20 256 (4.98%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 661 (12.86%) SQL
2 597 (11.62%) PowerShell
3 547 (10.64%) Python
4 275 (5.35%) C#
5 236 (4.59%) JavaScript
6 178 (3.46%) Java
7 112 (2.18%) Bash
8 98 (1.91%) Kusto Query Language
9 92 (1.79%) Bicep
10 74 (1.44%) TypeScript
11 50 (0.97%) T-SQL
12 42 (0.82%) C++
13 40 (0.78%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 40 (0.78%) Perl
14 29 (0.56%) Shell Script
15 28 (0.54%) VB
15 28 (0.54%) VBA
16 22 (0.43%) Go
17 20 (0.39%) PHP
17 20 (0.39%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 938 (18.25%) Security Cleared
2 702 (13.66%) SC Cleared
3 550 (10.70%) Degree
4 371 (7.22%) Microsoft Certification
5 187 (3.64%) Azure Certification
6 185 (3.60%) DV Cleared
7 134 (2.61%) CISSP
8 119 (2.32%) Computer Science Degree
9 91 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
10 80 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
11 67 (1.30%) CISM
12 59 (1.15%) ITIL Certification
13 55 (1.07%) MCSE
13 55 (1.07%) PMI Certification
14 53 (1.03%) A+ Certification
15 50 (0.97%) CCNA
16 46 (0.90%) AWS Certification
17 45 (0.88%) Master's Degree
18 43 (0.84%) CCNP
19 41 (0.80%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 254 (4.94%) GDPR
2 186 (3.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 162 (3.15%) QA
4 160 (3.11%) NIST
5 133 (2.59%) Data Quality
6 113 (2.20%) PMO
7 112 (2.18%) SLA
8 89 (1.73%) Accessibility
9 52 (1.01%) Cyber Essentials
10 39 (0.76%) HIPAA
11 37 (0.72%) PCI DSS
12 30 (0.58%) NCSC
13 24 (0.47%) WCAG
14 22 (0.43%) EU AI Act
15 21 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 21 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 18 (0.35%) GRC
17 12 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
18 11 (0.21%) SOC 2
19 8 (0.16%) PSD2
System Software
1 1,047 (20.37%) Active Directory
2 183 (3.56%) VMware Infrastructure
3 177 (3.44%) Docker
4 62 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 56 (1.09%) Virtual Machines
6 47 (0.91%) vSphere
7 41 (0.80%) VMware ESXi
8 34 (0.66%) Virtual Desktop
9 22 (0.43%) BitLocker
10 20 (0.39%) Firmware
11 15 (0.29%) NFS
11 15 (0.29%) VMware NSX
12 12 (0.23%) XenApp
13 11 (0.21%) ISA Server
14 10 (0.19%) Brightmail
14 10 (0.19%) Microsoft App-V
15 8 (0.16%) Terminal Services
15 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
16 6 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 6 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 393 (7.65%) Microsoft Intune
2 323 (6.29%) SCCM
3 254 (4.94%) Terraform
4 213 (4.14%) Kubernetes
5 115 (2.24%) Single Sign-On
6 110 (2.14%) Ansible
7 65 (1.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (0.95%) SCOM
9 47 (0.91%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (0.70%) vCenter Server
11 31 (0.60%) Grafana
12 26 (0.51%) Prometheus
13 25 (0.49%) Microsoft Clustering
14 22 (0.43%) QRadar
15 21 (0.41%) HP SiteScope
16 19 (0.37%) Puppet
16 19 (0.37%) WSUS
17 16 (0.31%) Progress Chef
17 16 (0.31%) WMI
18 14 (0.27%) Kibana
Vendors
1 312 (6.07%) ServiceNow
2 251 (4.88%) VMware
3 239 (4.65%) Oracle
4 233 (4.53%) Cisco
5 208 (4.05%) Splunk
6 196 (3.81%) SAP
7 155 (3.02%) Google
8 117 (2.28%) Citrix
9 113 (2.20%) Databricks
10 101 (1.97%) Salesforce
11 99 (1.93%) Apple
12 67 (1.30%) CrowdStrike
13 65 (1.26%) IBM
13 65 (1.26%) OpenAI
14 56 (1.09%) CyberArk
14 56 (1.09%) Remedy
15 50 (0.97%) Palo Alto
16 48 (0.93%) HP
17 45 (0.88%) Adobe
18 44 (0.86%) Veeam