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 6 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
6 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,088 4,830 6,014
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.96% 13.42% 13.29%
As % of the Vendors category 29.45% 29.58% 29.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,408 3,048 4,156
10th Percentile £204 £204 £195
25th Percentile £350 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £477 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.42% -4.60% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £619
90th Percentile £671 £686 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -1.11% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 404 227 253
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.06 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.25 £15.62 £16.40
Median hourly rate £21.00 £23.80 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% +3.48% +15.00%
75th Percentile £30.00 £37.14 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.26 £21.46 £22.00
% change year-on-year -5.62% -2.45% +17.33%

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 17,279 16,328 20,469
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.40% 45.37% 45.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,984 9,674 13,046
10th Percentile £290 £291 £255
25th Percentile £406 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.87%
75th Percentile £610 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £718 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 865 509 678
10th Percentile £15.23 £15.50 £15.25
25th Percentile £18.22 £19.38 £19.82
Median hourly rate £24.00 £30.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% -32.58% +73.08%
75th Percentile £43.21 £63.75 £64.85
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £76.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.00 £27.13 £44.50
% change year-on-year -18.89% -39.04% +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 6 December 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 6 December 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 6 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
England 0 4,455 £475 -0.73% 3,559
UK excluding London -2 2,818 £445 -1.11% 3,321
London -2 1,838 £500 - 892
Work from Home 0 1,307 £500 - 1,306
North of England +2 749 £425 -5.56% 795
South East +2 642 £475 - 1,084
Midlands -3 479 £429 -1.29% 515
North West +1 447 £423 -6.11% 433
South West +2 364 £500 +5.26% 325
West Midlands -4 314 £475 +5.56% 320
East of England -1 279 £425 -1.45% 371
Yorkshire +2 269 £435 +5.45% 276
Scotland -2 210 £450 +11.25% 149
East Midlands +3 162 £375 - 191
Wales +2 91 £298 +19.83% 114
Northern Ireland +6 46 £361 +52.11% 37
North East -6 38 £410 +17.14% 98
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
1 568 (11.16%) SharePoint
2 390 (7.67%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (2.06%) Confluence
4 63 (1.24%) Skype for Business
5 36 (0.71%) CMS
6 30 (0.59%) Apache
7 29 (0.57%) IIS
8 20 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2010
8 20 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2013
9 19 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
10 18 (0.35%) HCL Notes
10 18 (0.35%) SAS
10 18 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
11 15 (0.29%) JBoss
11 15 (0.29%) WebSphere
12 13 (0.26%) Apache Spark
12 13 (0.26%) Mattermost
13 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
14 10 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2007
14 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
Applications
1 649 (12.76%) Microsoft Office
2 591 (11.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 260 (5.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 137 (2.69%) Microsoft Project
5 105 (2.06%) MS Visio
6 53 (1.04%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.26%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 11 (0.22%) Trello
9 9 (0.18%) Adobe Captivate
10 8 (0.16%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.16%) Sketch
11 4 (0.079%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.059%) Adobe After Effects
12 3 (0.059%) Adobe Illustrator
12 3 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
12 3 (0.059%) InDesign
12 3 (0.059%) Maya
12 3 (0.059%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.059%) Siemens NX
12 3 (0.059%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 169 (3.32%) Dynamics CRM
2 43 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
3 38 (0.75%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.35%) Dynamics AX
5 12 (0.24%) Maximo
6 11 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
6 11 (0.22%) NetSuite
6 11 (0.22%) Workday HCM
7 10 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 9 (0.18%) Aladdin
8 9 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
8 9 (0.18%) Teamcenter
9 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
9 7 (0.14%) Primavera
9 7 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.14%) Shopify
10 5 (0.098%) Oracle ERP
10 5 (0.098%) SAP ERP
11 4 (0.079%) assyst
11 4 (0.079%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 1,824 (35.85%) Azure
2 1,164 (22.88%) Microsoft 365
3 772 (15.17%) Power Platform
4 568 (11.16%) Entra ID
5 464 (9.12%) AWS
6 375 (7.37%) Dynamics 365
7 339 (6.66%) Azure DevOps
8 317 (6.23%) Power Automate
9 302 (5.94%) PowerApps
10 188 (3.69%) GitHub
11 182 (3.58%) Microsoft Purview
12 164 (3.22%) GCP
12 164 (3.22%) SaaS
12 164 (3.22%) Serverless
13 151 (2.97%) OneDrive
14 150 (2.95%) Azure Sentinel
15 123 (2.42%) Azure Data Factory
16 120 (2.36%) Microsoft Copilot
17 118 (2.32%) Azure Logic Apps
18 115 (2.26%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 330 (6.49%) Firewall
2 266 (5.23%) DNS
3 169 (3.32%) VPN
4 168 (3.30%) DHCP
5 152 (2.99%) TCP/IP
6 95 (1.87%) Network Security
7 93 (1.83%) Wi-Fi
8 88 (1.73%) WAN
9 80 (1.57%) LAN
10 75 (1.47%) Skype
11 59 (1.16%) Wireless
12 42 (0.83%) VLAN
13 40 (0.79%) Unified Communications
14 38 (0.75%) SAN
15 37 (0.73%) Cisco IOS
16 36 (0.71%) HTTP
17 35 (0.69%) Internet
17 35 (0.69%) VoIP
18 29 (0.57%) Ethernet
18 29 (0.57%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 475 (9.34%) Power BI
2 242 (4.76%) SQL Server
3 124 (2.44%) Data Warehouse
4 90 (1.77%) PostgreSQL
5 87 (1.71%) Data Lake
6 85 (1.67%) Relational Database
7 82 (1.61%) Metadata
8 74 (1.45%) Oracle Database
9 72 (1.42%) Azure SQL Database
10 51 (1.00%) Tableau
11 48 (0.94%) MySQL
12 40 (0.79%) Power Query
12 40 (0.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 38 (0.75%) NoSQL
14 31 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
15 27 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 25 (0.49%) Amazon RDS
17 18 (0.35%) Delta Lake
18 16 (0.31%) Big Data
18 16 (0.31%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 267 (5.25%) JIRA
2 167 (3.28%) Git
3 102 (2.00%) Jenkins
4 74 (1.45%) GitLab
5 44 (0.86%) Eclipse
6 32 (0.63%) Postman
7 30 (0.59%) Visual Studio
8 28 (0.55%) MSI
9 24 (0.47%) Selenium
10 22 (0.43%) Browser DevTools
10 22 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
10 22 (0.43%) Xcode
11 20 (0.39%) Android Studio
12 16 (0.31%) Cucumber
13 14 (0.28%) JUnit
14 12 (0.24%) InstallShield
15 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket
15 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket Server
15 11 (0.22%) CA Release Automation
16 10 (0.20%) SonarQube
General
1 2,054 (40.37%) Social Skills
2 1,099 (21.60%) Finance
3 689 (13.54%) Analytical Skills
4 530 (10.42%) Public Sector
5 264 (5.19%) Banking
6 224 (4.40%) Organisational Skills
7 176 (3.46%) Legal
8 156 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
9 145 (2.85%) Manufacturing
10 121 (2.38%) Presentation Skills
11 114 (2.24%) Marketing
12 103 (2.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 96 (1.89%) Telecoms
14 86 (1.69%) Retail
15 65 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
16 62 (1.22%) Local Government
17 47 (0.92%) Military
18 41 (0.81%) Electronics
19 40 (0.79%) Investment Banking
19 40 (0.79%) Law
Job Titles
1 766 (15.06%) Analyst
2 492 (9.67%) Architect
3 488 (9.59%) Developer
4 350 (6.88%) Senior
5 323 (6.35%) Support Engineer
6 283 (5.56%) Consultant
7 277 (5.44%) IT Support
8 243 (4.78%) Lead
9 164 (3.22%) Support Analyst
10 161 (3.16%) Administrator
10 161 (3.16%) Project Manager
11 159 (3.13%) Solutions Architect
12 154 (3.03%) Business Analyst
13 147 (2.89%) IT Engineer
14 143 (2.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 134 (2.63%) Azure Engineer
16 120 (2.36%) Security Engineer
17 106 (2.08%) Desktop Support
17 106 (2.08%) IT Support Engineer
18 101 (1.99%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 254 (4.99%) .NET
2 161 (3.16%) REST
3 123 (2.42%) OAuth
4 115 (2.26%) React
5 100 (1.97%) RESTful
6 92 (1.81%) AngularJS
6 92 (1.81%) SAML
7 83 (1.63%) OpenID
8 79 (1.55%) HTML
9 75 (1.47%) CSS
10 65 (1.28%) JSON
11 62 (1.22%) Web Services
12 61 (1.20%) Microsoft Graph
13 59 (1.16%) SOAP
14 56 (1.10%) Node.js
14 56 (1.10%) XML
15 55 (1.08%) .NET Framework
16 51 (1.00%) LDAP
17 46 (0.90%) OAuth2
18 44 (0.86%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 249 (4.89%) Onboarding
2 190 (3.73%) Cloud Native
3 142 (2.79%) Product Ownership
4 137 (2.69%) Management Information System
5 104 (2.04%) Data Centre
6 103 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
7 100 (1.97%) PKI
8 98 (1.93%) Security Posture
9 88 (1.73%) Self-Motivation
10 78 (1.53%) Driving Licence
11 75 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
12 73 (1.43%) Mobile App
13 66 (1.30%) Low-Code
14 64 (1.26%) Virtual Team
15 62 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
16 58 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
17 55 (1.08%) Replication
18 48 (0.94%) Data Protection Act
19 47 (0.92%) NHS
20 42 (0.83%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,232 (24.21%) Windows
2 334 (6.56%) Windows 10
3 313 (6.15%) Linux
4 271 (5.33%) Windows Server
5 135 (2.65%) Mac OS
6 117 (2.30%) Android
7 83 (1.63%) Unix
8 81 (1.59%) Apple iOS
9 44 (0.86%) Windows 7
10 34 (0.67%) Windows Server 2016
11 33 (0.65%) Windows Server 2019
12 25 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 22 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
15 16 (0.31%) VMS
16 11 (0.22%) Ubuntu
17 10 (0.20%) Mac OS X
17 10 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
18 8 (0.16%) CentOS
19 6 (0.12%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,073 (21.09%) Problem-Solving
2 947 (18.61%) Agile
3 698 (13.72%) DevOps
4 617 (12.13%) Migration
5 568 (11.16%) CI/CD
6 563 (11.07%) Business Intelligence
7 510 (10.02%) Stakeholder Management
8 497 (9.77%) ITIL
9 466 (9.16%) Analytics
10 432 (8.49%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 427 (8.39%) Continuous Improvement
12 402 (7.90%) Customer Service
13 393 (7.72%) Cybersecurity
14 357 (7.02%) Project Management
15 345 (6.78%) AI
16 321 (6.31%) Change Management
17 255 (5.01%) Roadmaps
18 253 (4.97%) CRM
19 252 (4.95%) Data Modelling
20 251 (4.93%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 640 (12.58%) SQL
2 573 (11.26%) PowerShell
3 566 (11.12%) Python
4 266 (5.23%) C#
5 221 (4.34%) JavaScript
6 171 (3.36%) Java
7 114 (2.24%) Bash
8 101 (1.99%) Kusto Query Language
9 94 (1.85%) Bicep
10 76 (1.49%) TypeScript
11 51 (1.00%) T-SQL
12 44 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 41 (0.81%) Perl
14 36 (0.71%) C++
15 29 (0.57%) Shell Script
16 25 (0.49%) VBA
17 24 (0.47%) PL/SQL
17 24 (0.47%) R
17 24 (0.47%) VB
18 22 (0.43%) Go
Qualifications
1 945 (18.57%) Security Cleared
2 709 (13.93%) SC Cleared
3 544 (10.69%) Degree
4 360 (7.08%) Microsoft Certification
5 193 (3.79%) DV Cleared
6 179 (3.52%) Azure Certification
7 137 (2.69%) CISSP
8 123 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
9 84 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
10 83 (1.63%) Cisco Certification
11 70 (1.38%) CISM
12 57 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
13 54 (1.06%) PMI Certification
14 53 (1.04%) A+ Certification
14 53 (1.04%) Master's Degree
15 51 (1.00%) MCSE
16 50 (0.98%) AWS Certification
17 42 (0.83%) CCNA
17 42 (0.83%) MCP
17 42 (0.83%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 253 (4.97%) GDPR
2 185 (3.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 166 (3.26%) QA
4 157 (3.09%) NIST
5 137 (2.69%) Data Quality
6 114 (2.24%) SLA
7 111 (2.18%) PMO
8 87 (1.71%) Accessibility
9 52 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials
10 40 (0.79%) PCI DSS
11 33 (0.65%) HIPAA
11 33 (0.65%) NCSC
12 24 (0.47%) WCAG
13 22 (0.43%) EU AI Act
14 20 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 20 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 15 (0.29%) GRC
16 10 (0.20%) SOC 2
17 9 (0.18%) COBIT
17 9 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 1,043 (20.50%) Active Directory
2 187 (3.68%) Docker
3 175 (3.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 61 (1.20%) Hyper-V
5 57 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
6 46 (0.90%) vSphere
7 38 (0.75%) VMware ESXi
8 35 (0.69%) Virtual Desktop
9 19 (0.37%) BitLocker
9 19 (0.37%) VMware NSX
10 16 (0.31%) Firmware
11 13 (0.26%) NFS
12 11 (0.22%) ISA Server
12 11 (0.22%) XenApp
13 10 (0.20%) Brightmail
14 9 (0.18%) 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
1 379 (7.45%) Microsoft Intune
2 308 (6.05%) SCCM
3 262 (5.15%) Terraform
4 226 (4.44%) Kubernetes
5 120 (2.36%) Single Sign-On
6 107 (2.10%) Ansible
7 68 (1.34%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 51 (1.00%) SCOM
9 48 (0.94%) Jamf Pro
10 38 (0.75%) vCenter Server
11 34 (0.67%) Grafana
12 26 (0.51%) Prometheus
13 22 (0.43%) QRadar
14 21 (0.41%) HP SiteScope
15 20 (0.39%) Microsoft Clustering
15 20 (0.39%) WSUS
16 16 (0.31%) Progress Chef
16 16 (0.31%) WMI
17 15 (0.29%) Puppet
18 13 (0.26%) AirWatch
Vendors
1 292 (5.74%) ServiceNow
2 246 (4.83%) VMware
3 233 (4.58%) Oracle
4 215 (4.23%) Cisco
5 201 (3.95%) Splunk
6 197 (3.87%) SAP
7 151 (2.97%) Google
8 119 (2.34%) Databricks
9 112 (2.20%) Citrix
10 92 (1.81%) Apple
11 88 (1.73%) Salesforce
12 67 (1.32%) OpenAI
13 66 (1.30%) CrowdStrike
14 58 (1.14%) IBM
15 56 (1.10%) Palo Alto
16 53 (1.04%) Remedy
17 49 (0.96%) CyberArk
18 46 (0.90%) HP
19 44 (0.86%) Adobe
20 42 (0.83%) Veeam