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 23 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
23 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,059 4,612 5,757
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.67% 13.66% 13.25%
As % of the Vendors category 28.96% 29.87% 29.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,385 2,926 3,962
10th Percentile £204 £204 £195
25th Percentile £350 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £613
90th Percentile £675 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £448 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.29% -2.78% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 396 209 238
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.50 £13.57
25th Percentile £16.50 £15.62 £16.25
Median hourly rate £20.17 £23.59 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year -14.49% +2.57% +15.00%
75th Percentile £27.71 £35.00 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £63.00 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £21.46 £22.00
% change year-on-year -7.22% -2.45% +16.34%

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 17,466 15,440 19,589
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.19% 45.73% 45.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,122 9,193 12,424
10th Percentile £293 £285 £250
25th Percentile £408 £410 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £722 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -0.10% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 858 457 650
10th Percentile £15.15 £15.62 £14.73
25th Percentile £18.00 £19.38 £20.00
Median hourly rate £23.75 £28.00 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -15.18% -38.97% +78.45%
75th Percentile £44.40 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.72 £26.13 £45.88
% change year-on-year -16.87% -43.06% +103.91%

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 23 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 23 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Microsoft in the UK

Microsoft
Top 17 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 23 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 -1 4,444 £475 - 4,599
UK excluding London -2 2,743 £448 +2.29% 4,120
London -1 1,877 £500 - 1,022
Work from Home 0 1,301 £500 +2.04% 1,974
North of England +2 712 £423 -0.59% 987
South East +1 629 £475 +2.15% 1,197
Midlands -3 479 £440 +2.41% 715
North West +1 424 £401 -10.89% 523
South West 0 357 £500 +5.26% 438
West Midlands -4 317 £478 +6.23% 403
East of England 0 275 £425 -1.45% 526
Yorkshire +1 255 £439 +6.42% 367
Scotland -4 200 £450 +10.02% 164
East Midlands +3 159 £375 -6.25% 289
Wales +1 87 £298 +10.19% 130
Northern Ireland +4 45 £373 +56.84% 39
North East -10 38 £410 +10.81% 108

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
1 558 (11.03%) SharePoint
2 368 (7.27%) Microsoft Exchange
3 100 (1.98%) Confluence
4 60 (1.19%) Skype for Business
5 40 (0.79%) CMS
6 27 (0.53%) IIS
7 23 (0.45%) Apache
8 22 (0.43%) HCL Notes
9 20 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
10 19 (0.38%) Exchange Server 2013
10 19 (0.38%) SAS
11 17 (0.34%) Exchange Server 2010
12 14 (0.28%) Apache Spark
12 14 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
13 13 (0.26%) Mattermost
13 13 (0.26%) WebSphere
14 11 (0.22%) JBoss
14 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
15 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
16 7 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 618 (12.22%) Microsoft Office
2 567 (11.21%) Microsoft Excel
3 244 (4.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 130 (2.57%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (2.06%) MS Visio
6 58 (1.15%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 11 (0.22%) Trello
9 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 7 (0.14%) Sketch
11 6 (0.12%) Adobe Captivate
12 4 (0.079%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.079%) Adobe Illustrator
12 4 (0.079%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.079%) InDesign
12 4 (0.079%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
13 3 (0.059%) Windchill
14 2 (0.040%) AutoCAD
14 2 (0.040%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 182 (3.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 41 (0.81%) Remedy ITSM
3 37 (0.73%) SAP S/4HANA
4 18 (0.36%) Dynamics AX
5 14 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
6 13 (0.26%) NetSuite
7 12 (0.24%) Maximo
8 11 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 11 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
9 10 (0.20%) Aladdin
10 8 (0.16%) Shopify
10 8 (0.16%) Teamcenter
10 8 (0.16%) Workday HCM
11 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
12 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.12%) Primavera
13 5 (0.099%) assyst
13 5 (0.099%) SAP ERP
14 4 (0.079%) Loan IQ
14 4 (0.079%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,890 (37.36%) Azure
2 1,170 (23.13%) Microsoft 365
3 773 (15.28%) Power Platform
4 571 (11.29%) Entra ID
5 466 (9.21%) AWS
6 393 (7.77%) Dynamics 365
7 348 (6.88%) Azure DevOps
8 332 (6.56%) Power Automate
9 305 (6.03%) PowerApps
10 194 (3.83%) GitHub
11 186 (3.68%) Microsoft Purview
12 178 (3.52%) GCP
13 175 (3.46%) Serverless
14 165 (3.26%) SaaS
15 154 (3.04%) Azure Sentinel
16 150 (2.97%) OneDrive
17 133 (2.63%) Azure Data Factory
18 129 (2.55%) Azure Logic Apps
19 122 (2.41%) PaaS
20 120 (2.37%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 305 (6.03%) Firewall
2 273 (5.40%) DNS
3 177 (3.50%) VPN
4 170 (3.36%) DHCP
5 139 (2.75%) TCP/IP
6 98 (1.94%) Wi-Fi
7 97 (1.92%) Network Security
8 79 (1.56%) Skype
8 79 (1.56%) WAN
9 76 (1.50%) LAN
10 55 (1.09%) Wireless
11 44 (0.87%) VLAN
12 41 (0.81%) Unified Communications
13 38 (0.75%) HTTP
14 35 (0.69%) Kerberos
15 33 (0.65%) Internet
16 30 (0.59%) SAN
16 30 (0.59%) VoIP
17 29 (0.57%) MPLS
18 26 (0.51%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 468 (9.25%) Power BI
2 233 (4.61%) SQL Server
3 122 (2.41%) Data Warehouse
4 94 (1.86%) PostgreSQL
5 93 (1.84%) Data Lake
6 87 (1.72%) Relational Database
7 78 (1.54%) Metadata
8 75 (1.48%) Oracle Database
9 70 (1.38%) Azure SQL Database
10 49 (0.97%) MySQL
11 46 (0.91%) Tableau
12 39 (0.77%) Power Query
12 39 (0.77%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 38 (0.75%) NoSQL
14 29 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
15 27 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 23 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
17 21 (0.42%) Delta Lake
18 18 (0.36%) Big Data
19 16 (0.32%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 249 (4.92%) JIRA
2 158 (3.12%) Git
3 93 (1.84%) Jenkins
4 74 (1.46%) GitLab
5 41 (0.81%) Eclipse
6 31 (0.61%) Postman
7 26 (0.51%) MSI
7 26 (0.51%) Visual Studio
8 24 (0.47%) Browser DevTools
8 24 (0.47%) Xcode
9 22 (0.43%) Android Studio
10 20 (0.40%) Selenium
11 18 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.26%) Cucumber
13 12 (0.24%) InstallShield
14 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket
14 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket Server
14 11 (0.22%) CA Release Automation
14 11 (0.22%) SonarQube
15 10 (0.20%) Artifactory
General
1 2,069 (40.90%) Social Skills
2 1,045 (20.66%) Finance
3 682 (13.48%) Analytical Skills
4 524 (10.36%) Public Sector
5 254 (5.02%) Banking
6 235 (4.65%) Organisational Skills
7 182 (3.60%) Legal
8 153 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
9 138 (2.73%) Manufacturing
10 117 (2.31%) Marketing
11 108 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
12 97 (1.92%) Telecoms
13 94 (1.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 83 (1.64%) Retail
15 59 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
15 59 (1.17%) Local Government
16 43 (0.85%) Investment Banking
17 42 (0.83%) Law
17 42 (0.83%) Military
18 40 (0.79%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 723 (14.29%) Analyst
2 505 (9.98%) Architect
3 482 (9.53%) Developer
4 352 (6.96%) Senior
5 320 (6.33%) Support Engineer
6 289 (5.71%) IT Support
7 274 (5.42%) Consultant
8 241 (4.76%) Lead
9 174 (3.44%) Administrator
10 160 (3.16%) Solutions Architect
11 159 (3.14%) Support Analyst
12 158 (3.12%) Project Manager
13 157 (3.10%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 153 (3.02%) Business Analyst
15 150 (2.97%) IT Engineer
16 138 (2.73%) Azure Engineer
17 122 (2.41%) Security Engineer
18 112 (2.21%) Desktop Support
19 107 (2.12%) Data Engineer
19 107 (2.12%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 250 (4.94%) .NET
2 157 (3.10%) REST
3 126 (2.49%) OAuth
4 116 (2.29%) React
5 95 (1.88%) RESTful
5 95 (1.88%) SAML
6 89 (1.76%) AngularJS
7 85 (1.68%) OpenID
8 70 (1.38%) HTML
9 69 (1.36%) CSS
10 66 (1.30%) JSON
11 62 (1.23%) Microsoft Graph
12 56 (1.11%) SOAP
13 55 (1.09%) Web Services
13 55 (1.09%) XML
14 53 (1.05%) Node.js
15 52 (1.03%) LDAP
16 49 (0.97%) PySpark
17 48 (0.95%) ARM Templates
17 48 (0.95%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 262 (5.18%) Onboarding
2 197 (3.89%) Cloud Native
3 136 (2.69%) Management Information System
4 133 (2.63%) Product Ownership
5 107 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
6 98 (1.94%) Security Posture
7 95 (1.88%) Data Centre
7 95 (1.88%) PKI
8 86 (1.70%) Self-Motivation
9 77 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
10 76 (1.50%) Driving Licence
11 72 (1.42%) Mobile App
12 71 (1.40%) Low-Code
13 65 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
14 61 (1.21%) Hybrid Cloud
15 60 (1.19%) Virtual Team
16 53 (1.05%) Replication
17 50 (0.99%) NHS
18 46 (0.91%) Data Protection Act
19 44 (0.87%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,218 (24.08%) Windows
2 340 (6.72%) Windows 10
3 312 (6.17%) Linux
4 276 (5.46%) Windows Server
5 127 (2.51%) Mac OS
6 108 (2.13%) Android
7 87 (1.72%) Apple iOS
8 81 (1.60%) Unix
9 41 (0.81%) Windows 7
10 36 (0.71%) Windows Server 2016
11 32 (0.63%) Windows Server 2019
12 28 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 22 (0.43%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
15 14 (0.28%) VMS
16 9 (0.18%) Mac OS X
16 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
17 7 (0.14%) Ubuntu
18 6 (0.12%) AIX
19 5 (0.099%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,049 (20.74%) Problem-Solving
2 917 (18.13%) Agile
3 716 (14.15%) DevOps
4 634 (12.53%) Migration
5 570 (11.27%) CI/CD
6 555 (10.97%) Business Intelligence
7 513 (10.14%) Stakeholder Management
8 478 (9.45%) Analytics
9 476 (9.41%) ITIL
10 434 (8.58%) Continuous Improvement
11 430 (8.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 410 (8.10%) Customer Service
13 377 (7.45%) Cybersecurity
14 356 (7.04%) AI
15 338 (6.68%) Project Management
16 317 (6.27%) Change Management
17 266 (5.26%) Infrastructure as Code
18 264 (5.22%) Data Modelling
19 263 (5.20%) Roadmaps
20 256 (5.06%) CRM
Programming Languages
1 640 (12.65%) SQL
2 598 (11.82%) PowerShell
3 569 (11.25%) Python
4 266 (5.26%) C#
5 217 (4.29%) JavaScript
6 163 (3.22%) Java
7 113 (2.23%) Bash
8 108 (2.13%) Kusto Query Language
9 98 (1.94%) Bicep
10 77 (1.52%) TypeScript
11 52 (1.03%) T-SQL
12 46 (0.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 42 (0.83%) Perl
14 28 (0.55%) C++
15 27 (0.53%) Shell Script
16 24 (0.47%) Go
16 24 (0.47%) VBA
17 23 (0.45%) PL/SQL
17 23 (0.45%) R
18 20 (0.40%) VB
Qualifications
1 960 (18.98%) Security Cleared
2 715 (14.13%) SC Cleared
3 532 (10.52%) Degree
4 352 (6.96%) Microsoft Certification
5 196 (3.87%) DV Cleared
6 184 (3.64%) Azure Certification
7 139 (2.75%) CISSP
8 127 (2.51%) Computer Science Degree
9 86 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
10 72 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
11 71 (1.40%) CISM
12 57 (1.13%) Master's Degree
13 56 (1.11%) PMI Certification
14 52 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
15 50 (0.99%) A+ Certification
15 50 (0.99%) MCSE
16 49 (0.97%) AWS Certification
17 45 (0.89%) PMP
18 42 (0.83%) MCP
19 37 (0.73%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 247 (4.88%) GDPR
2 189 (3.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 157 (3.10%) QA
4 150 (2.97%) NIST
5 143 (2.83%) Data Quality
6 123 (2.43%) SLA
7 102 (2.02%) PMO
8 85 (1.68%) Accessibility
9 49 (0.97%) Cyber Essentials
10 38 (0.75%) PCI DSS
11 32 (0.63%) NCSC
12 28 (0.55%) HIPAA
13 25 (0.49%) WCAG
14 22 (0.43%) EU AI Act
15 20 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 17 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 16 (0.32%) GRC
18 11 (0.22%) SOC 2
19 9 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
19 9 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 1,038 (20.52%) Active Directory
2 193 (3.81%) Docker
3 178 (3.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 67 (1.32%) Hyper-V
5 59 (1.17%) Virtual Machines
6 45 (0.89%) vSphere
7 37 (0.73%) VMware ESXi
8 32 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
9 19 (0.38%) VMware NSX
10 18 (0.36%) BitLocker
11 16 (0.32%) Firmware
12 11 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
12 11 (0.22%) XenApp
13 10 (0.20%) NFS
14 8 (0.16%) ISA Server
14 8 (0.16%) Terminal Services
14 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
15 7 (0.14%) Brightmail
16 6 (0.12%) Snort
17 5 (0.099%) Squid
Systems Management
1 371 (7.33%) Microsoft Intune
2 299 (5.91%) SCCM
3 271 (5.36%) Terraform
4 235 (4.65%) Kubernetes
5 125 (2.47%) Single Sign-On
6 103 (2.04%) Ansible
7 73 (1.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (0.97%) SCOM
9 42 (0.83%) vCenter Server
10 41 (0.81%) Jamf Pro
11 34 (0.67%) Grafana
12 27 (0.53%) Prometheus
13 21 (0.42%) HP SiteScope
14 20 (0.40%) QRadar
14 20 (0.40%) WSUS
15 16 (0.32%) Progress Chef
16 15 (0.30%) Kibana
16 15 (0.30%) Microsoft Clustering
17 14 (0.28%) WMI
18 13 (0.26%) Puppet
Vendors
1 271 (5.36%) ServiceNow
2 242 (4.78%) VMware
3 231 (4.57%) Oracle
4 196 (3.87%) SAP
5 192 (3.80%) Cisco
5 192 (3.80%) Splunk
6 159 (3.14%) Google
7 129 (2.55%) Databricks
8 125 (2.47%) Citrix
9 89 (1.76%) Apple
10 79 (1.56%) Salesforce
11 69 (1.36%) OpenAI
12 64 (1.27%) CrowdStrike
13 55 (1.09%) Palo Alto
14 54 (1.07%) IBM
15 50 (0.99%) CyberArk
15 50 (0.99%) Remedy
16 49 (0.97%) HP
17 42 (0.83%) Adobe
17 42 (0.83%) Foundry