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 25 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
25 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 11 7
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,570 3,930 5,599
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.95% 13.31% 12.83%
As % of the Vendors category 28.29% 28.04% 30.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,749 2,629 3,690
10th Percentile £209 £210 £189
25th Percentile £375 £350 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £499
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% -4.81% -0.20%
75th Percentile £578 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £463
% change year-on-year +2.86% -5.41% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 363 236 453
10th Percentile £13.53 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.35 £15.62 £12.99
Median hourly rate £20.35 £20.88 £15.42
Median % change year-on-year -2.51% +35.38% -34.38%
75th Percentile £29.00 £29.54 £24.75
90th Percentile £64.75 £61.00 £52.61
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.91 £18.81 £15.00
% change year-on-year +5.86% +25.38% -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 19,692 14,016 18,531
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 42.23% 47.49% 42.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,581 8,810 11,522
10th Percentile £313 £290 £260
25th Percentile £413 £406 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £518
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -0.48% -1.43%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £630
90th Percentile £703 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 990 559 1,077
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.99 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.75 £18.17 £14.36
Median hourly rate £30.50 £27.13 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.44% +20.56% -48.86%
75th Percentile £60.00 £57.50 £57.33
90th Percentile £78.83 £75.25 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.25 £24.18 £21.46
% change year-on-year +12.70% +12.67% -47.11%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 4,890 £493 +3.68% 2,593
UK excluding London 0 2,896 £450 +2.86% 2,401
London -2 2,149 £513 +2.50% 676
Work from Home -3 1,391 £500 - 1,397
North of England 0 795 £449 +5.65% 561
South East -3 645 £482 -2.18% 731
Midlands -3 500 £450 +12.50% 374
North West -2 433 £416 -7.25% 295
West Midlands -4 346 £463 +15.63% 212
Yorkshire +3 336 £454 +13.50% 181
South West -1 332 £450 -2.96% 257
East of England 0 330 £400 -11.11% 296
Scotland +4 199 £459 +8.58% 113
East Midlands -1 148 £400 -5.88% 162
Wales +3 93 £310 -4.62% 84
North East -21 31 £450 +28.57% 93
Northern Ireland +2 22 £450 +38.46% 59
Channel Islands -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
1 598 (10.74%) SharePoint
2 393 (7.06%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (1.89%) Confluence
4 34 (0.61%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.43%) Apache
6 23 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
7 21 (0.38%) CMS
8 19 (0.34%) HCL Notes
9 16 (0.29%) SAS
10 14 (0.25%) Skype for Business
11 13 (0.23%) IIS
12 12 (0.22%) Mendix
13 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
14 5 (0.090%) Camunda
14 5 (0.090%) Oracle Workflow
15 4 (0.072%) Appian
15 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2010
15 4 (0.072%) Exchange Server 2013
15 4 (0.072%) Jupyter
15 4 (0.072%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 586 (10.52%) Microsoft Office
2 523 (9.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 235 (4.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 125 (2.24%) Microsoft Project
5 89 (1.60%) MS Visio
6 73 (1.31%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.29%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.16%) Trello
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.090%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.072%) InDesign
13 3 (0.054%) Adobe Captivate
13 3 (0.054%) AutoCAD
13 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.054%) SOLIDWORKS
14 2 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
14 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 205 (3.68%) Dynamics CRM
2 57 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
3 18 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
5 15 (0.27%) NetSuite
6 13 (0.23%) Aladdin
6 13 (0.23%) Maximo
6 13 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.20%) Loan IQ
7 11 (0.20%) Teamcenter
8 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
8 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 9 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
10 8 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
11 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
11 7 (0.13%) Shopify
12 6 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
12 6 (0.11%) Primavera
13 5 (0.090%) SAP Business One
13 5 (0.090%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 2,332 (41.87%) Azure
2 1,423 (25.55%) Microsoft 365
3 947 (17.00%) Power Platform
4 709 (12.73%) Entra ID
5 471 (8.46%) Dynamics 365
6 461 (8.28%) AWS
7 448 (8.04%) Azure DevOps
8 340 (6.10%) Power Automate
9 305 (5.48%) PowerApps
10 290 (5.21%) Microsoft Purview
11 266 (4.78%) GitHub
12 228 (4.09%) Microsoft Copilot
13 203 (3.64%) Azure Data Factory
14 198 (3.55%) OneDrive
15 188 (3.38%) SaaS
16 175 (3.14%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 175 (3.14%) Serverless
17 167 (3.00%) GCP
18 147 (2.64%) GitHub Actions
19 146 (2.62%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 295 (5.30%) Firewall
2 290 (5.21%) DNS
3 212 (3.81%) VPN
4 168 (3.02%) DHCP
5 143 (2.57%) Wi-Fi
6 138 (2.48%) WAN
7 121 (2.17%) Network Security
8 117 (2.10%) LAN
9 105 (1.89%) TCP/IP
10 55 (0.99%) Kerberos
10 55 (0.99%) VLAN
11 44 (0.79%) SD-WAN
12 37 (0.66%) SSL
13 36 (0.65%) Wireless
14 35 (0.63%) SAN
14 35 (0.63%) Skype
15 31 (0.56%) HTTP
16 27 (0.48%) Unified Communications
17 24 (0.43%) IPsec
17 24 (0.43%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 586 (10.52%) Power BI
2 273 (4.90%) SQL Server
3 179 (3.21%) Data Warehouse
4 155 (2.78%) Data Lake
5 124 (2.23%) Azure SQL Database
6 111 (1.99%) Metadata
7 106 (1.90%) PostgreSQL
8 72 (1.29%) Relational Database
8 72 (1.29%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 52 (0.93%) Oracle Database
10 49 (0.88%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 48 (0.86%) Tableau
12 47 (0.84%) NoSQL
13 45 (0.81%) MySQL
14 44 (0.79%) Power Query
15 41 (0.74%) Delta Lake
16 40 (0.72%) Star Schema
17 29 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
18 27 (0.48%) Spark SQL
19 25 (0.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 256 (4.60%) JIRA
2 171 (3.07%) Git
3 67 (1.20%) Jenkins
4 66 (1.18%) GitLab
5 26 (0.47%) Artifactory
5 26 (0.47%) Visual Studio
6 22 (0.39%) MSI
7 21 (0.38%) Eclipse
8 19 (0.34%) Selenium
9 18 (0.32%) Postman
10 16 (0.29%) JMeter
10 16 (0.29%) MLflow
11 13 (0.23%) Cucumber
11 13 (0.23%) Visual Studio Code
12 12 (0.22%) Bitbucket
12 12 (0.22%) JUnit
12 12 (0.22%) Maven
13 11 (0.20%) ERwin
14 10 (0.18%) Gatling
14 10 (0.18%) InstallShield
General
1 1,908 (34.25%) Social Skills
2 1,109 (19.91%) Finance
3 643 (11.54%) Analytical Skills
4 534 (9.59%) Public Sector
5 298 (5.35%) Banking
6 253 (4.54%) Organisational Skills
7 248 (4.45%) Legal
8 152 (2.73%) Documentation Skills
9 114 (2.05%) Manufacturing
10 103 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
11 94 (1.69%) Marketing
12 92 (1.65%) Law
13 89 (1.60%) Telecoms
14 80 (1.44%) Retail
15 75 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 72 (1.29%) Military
17 63 (1.13%) Local Government
18 57 (1.02%) Influencing Skills
19 55 (0.99%) Investment Banking
20 40 (0.72%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 690 (12.39%) Architect
2 591 (10.61%) Analyst
3 536 (9.62%) Developer
4 460 (8.26%) Senior
5 366 (6.57%) IT Support
6 330 (5.92%) Lead
7 284 (5.10%) Consultant
8 251 (4.51%) Support Engineer
9 214 (3.84%) Data Engineer
10 211 (3.79%) Azure Engineer
11 192 (3.45%) Solutions Architect
12 183 (3.29%) IT Engineer
13 181 (3.25%) Project Manager
14 179 (3.21%) Administrator
15 175 (3.14%) Business Analyst
16 167 (3.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 135 (2.42%) IT Support Engineer
18 117 (2.10%) DevOps Engineer
19 111 (1.99%) Security Engineer
20 99 (1.78%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 261 (4.69%) .NET
2 176 (3.16%) REST
3 134 (2.41%) Microsoft Graph
4 115 (2.06%) OAuth
5 103 (1.85%) SAML
6 100 (1.80%) PySpark
7 86 (1.54%) JSON
8 85 (1.53%) React
9 82 (1.47%) OpenID
10 76 (1.36%) LDAP
11 68 (1.22%) Web Services
12 64 (1.15%) Middleware
13 58 (1.04%) HTML
14 56 (1.01%) AngularJS
14 56 (1.01%) OAuth2
15 54 (0.97%) ARM Templates
16 50 (0.90%) CSS
16 50 (0.90%) Kafka
16 50 (0.90%) Node.js
16 50 (0.90%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 282 (5.06%) Onboarding
2 223 (4.00%) Cloud Native
3 185 (3.32%) Product Ownership
4 128 (2.30%) Management Information System
5 105 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
6 96 (1.72%) Data Centre
7 90 (1.62%) Hybrid Cloud
8 89 (1.60%) Self-Motivation
9 88 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
10 86 (1.54%) Security Posture
11 84 (1.51%) AI Agents
12 79 (1.42%) PKI
13 76 (1.36%) Low-Code
14 75 (1.35%) Replication
15 72 (1.29%) Data Structures
16 62 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
17 55 (0.99%) Virtual Team
18 54 (0.97%) Driving Licence
19 51 (0.92%) NHS
20 46 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,205 (21.63%) Windows
2 321 (5.76%) Windows 10
3 282 (5.06%) Windows Server
4 271 (4.87%) Linux
5 103 (1.85%) Android
6 94 (1.69%) Apple iOS
7 93 (1.67%) Mac OS
8 44 (0.79%) Windows Server 2016
9 42 (0.75%) Windows 7
10 41 (0.74%) Unix
11 40 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 27 (0.48%) VMS
12 27 (0.48%) Windows Server 2012
13 25 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
14 17 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
15 11 (0.20%) CentOS
16 9 (0.16%) Ubuntu
17 8 (0.14%) AIX
18 5 (0.090%) Solaris
19 4 (0.072%) Windows 8
Processes & Methodologies
1 972 (17.45%) Problem-Solving
2 887 (15.92%) Agile
3 885 (15.89%) DevOps
4 783 (14.06%) Migration
5 756 (13.57%) CI/CD
6 658 (11.81%) Business Intelligence
7 626 (11.24%) Analytics
8 550 (9.87%) AI
9 530 (9.52%) Stakeholder Management
10 507 (9.10%) Continuous Improvement
11 463 (8.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 450 (8.08%) Customer Service
13 437 (7.85%) ITIL
14 409 (7.34%) Data Modelling
15 365 (6.55%) Roadmaps
16 363 (6.52%) Cybersecurity
17 339 (6.09%) Infrastructure as Code
18 322 (5.78%) Decision-Making
19 309 (5.55%) Project Management
20 306 (5.49%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 732 (13.14%) SQL
2 642 (11.53%) PowerShell
3 626 (11.24%) Python
4 281 (5.04%) C#
5 211 (3.79%) JavaScript
6 183 (3.29%) Java
7 129 (2.32%) Bicep
8 98 (1.76%) Kusto Query Language
9 89 (1.60%) Bash
10 82 (1.47%) T-SQL
11 81 (1.45%) TypeScript
12 70 (1.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 35 (0.63%) PL/SQL
14 30 (0.54%) VBA
15 28 (0.50%) C++
16 23 (0.41%) VB
17 20 (0.36%) R
18 19 (0.34%) Scala
19 18 (0.32%) Shell Script
20 14 (0.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,072 (19.25%) Security Cleared
2 830 (14.90%) SC Cleared
3 570 (10.23%) Degree
4 282 (5.06%) Microsoft Certification
5 196 (3.52%) DV Cleared
6 186 (3.34%) Azure Certification
7 131 (2.35%) Computer Science Degree
8 96 (1.72%) BPSS Clearance
8 96 (1.72%) CISSP
9 70 (1.26%) PMI Certification
10 62 (1.11%) Cisco Certification
10 62 (1.11%) PMP
11 58 (1.04%) Master's Degree
12 52 (0.93%) CISM
13 44 (0.79%) MCSE
14 40 (0.72%) AWS Certification
15 34 (0.61%) ITIL Certification
16 31 (0.56%) DBS Check
17 30 (0.54%) MCSA
18 28 (0.50%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 267 (4.79%) Data Quality
2 238 (4.27%) GDPR
3 182 (3.27%) QA
4 155 (2.78%) SLA
5 133 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 109 (1.96%) PMO
7 108 (1.94%) NIST
8 72 (1.29%) Accessibility
9 58 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
10 46 (0.83%) NCSC
11 39 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 32 (0.57%) GRC
13 28 (0.50%) PCI DSS
14 19 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 19 (0.34%) MiFID
15 17 (0.31%) NIST 800
16 15 (0.27%) WCAG
17 13 (0.23%) FINRA
18 12 (0.22%) HIPAA
19 11 (0.20%) GxP
System Software
1 1,083 (19.44%) Active Directory
2 241 (4.33%) Docker
3 190 (3.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 96 (1.72%) Hyper-V
5 76 (1.36%) Virtual Machines
6 64 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
7 52 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
8 38 (0.68%) vSphere
9 26 (0.47%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 17 (0.31%) Firmware
12 13 (0.23%) Microsoft App-V
13 7 (0.13%) RACF
14 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
15 5 (0.090%) IAG
15 5 (0.090%) NFS
15 5 (0.090%) Snort
16 4 (0.072%) KVM
16 4 (0.072%) XenApp
16 4 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 426 (7.65%) Microsoft Intune
2 369 (6.62%) Terraform
3 269 (4.83%) Kubernetes
4 203 (3.64%) SCCM
5 131 (2.35%) Ansible
6 121 (2.17%) Single Sign-On
7 79 (1.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 43 (0.77%) vCenter Server
9 42 (0.75%) Grafana
10 38 (0.68%) Jamf Pro
11 32 (0.57%) Prometheus
12 23 (0.41%) SCOM
13 21 (0.38%) FortiGate
13 21 (0.38%) Puppet
14 19 (0.34%) WSUS
15 16 (0.29%) AirWatch
16 12 (0.22%) CASB
16 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
17 11 (0.20%) HAProxy
18 10 (0.18%) QRadar
Vendors
1 259 (4.65%) VMware
2 252 (4.52%) ServiceNow
3 216 (3.88%) Databricks
4 214 (3.84%) SAP
5 205 (3.68%) Oracle
6 174 (3.12%) Cisco
7 160 (2.87%) Google
8 124 (2.23%) Citrix
9 96 (1.72%) Salesforce
10 92 (1.65%) OpenAI
11 90 (1.62%) Splunk
12 76 (1.36%) Foundry
13 65 (1.17%) Apple
14 47 (0.84%) CrowdStrike
15 46 (0.83%) HP
16 45 (0.81%) Adobe
16 45 (0.81%) Palo Alto
17 40 (0.72%) Informatica
17 40 (0.72%) Red Hat
18 38 (0.68%) CyberArk