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 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
23 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,105 4,880 6,212
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 14.29% 13.21% 13.37%
As % of the Vendors category 30.03% 29.39% 29.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,384 3,038 4,303
10th Percentile £205 £205 £200
25th Percentile £350 £351 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £482 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.45% -3.60% -
75th Percentile £575 £594 £623
90th Percentile £669 £688 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £450 £450
% change year-on-year -1.11% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 418 239 258
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.08 £13.57
25th Percentile £17.64 £15.62 £16.40
Median hourly rate £22.00 £23.80 £22.94
Median % change year-on-year -7.56% +3.77% +17.62%
75th Percentile £31.40 £37.64 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.80 £21.78 £22.00
% change year-on-year -4.50% -1.02% +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 17,000 16,606 21,092
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 47.58% 44.95% 45.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,713 9,773 13,503
10th Percentile £286 £300 £258
25th Percentile £405 £413 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -1.45%
75th Percentile £611 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £717 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 879 533 682
10th Percentile £15.34 £15.49 £14.66
25th Percentile £18.36 £19.59 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £30.41 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.31% -31.66% +73.08%
75th Percentile £42.63 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £76.73
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.32 £27.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -18.85% -38.20% +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 23 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 23 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 23 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 4,460 £475 -1.45% 3,710
UK excluding London -1 2,854 £445 -1.11% 3,460
London -1 1,833 £500 - 976
Work from Home -1 1,333 £500 - 1,353
North of England +2 762 £430 -4.44% 722
South East +2 628 £464 -2.37% 1,210
Midlands -2 483 £425 -2.10% 561
North West +1 447 £425 -5.56% 398
South West +1 375 £488 - 347
West Midlands -3 311 £475 +5.56% 352
Yorkshire +5 279 £435 +5.45% 240
East of England -1 278 £425 +6.25% 343
Scotland -4 228 £450 +10.02% 183
East Midlands +3 169 £375 -4.21% 205
Wales +2 92 £300 +11.11% 126
Northern Ireland +5 52 £350 +55.56% 45
North East -4 38 £419 +19.64% 89
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
1 552 (10.81%) SharePoint
2 401 (7.86%) Microsoft Exchange
3 107 (2.10%) Confluence
4 64 (1.25%) Skype for Business
5 37 (0.72%) CMS
6 33 (0.65%) Apache
7 27 (0.53%) IIS
8 22 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
9 21 (0.41%) Exchange Server 2013
10 19 (0.37%) Exchange Server 2010
11 18 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
12 17 (0.33%) SAS
13 16 (0.31%) JBoss
14 15 (0.29%) WebSphere
15 14 (0.27%) HCL Notes
16 13 (0.25%) Apache Spark
16 13 (0.25%) Mattermost
17 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
18 10 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2007
18 10 (0.20%) Office Communications Server
Applications
1 646 (12.65%) Microsoft Office
2 605 (11.85%) Microsoft Excel
3 261 (5.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 132 (2.59%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (2.04%) MS Visio
6 51 (1.00%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 10 (0.20%) Adobe Captivate
8 10 (0.20%) Trello
9 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.16%) Sketch
11 4 (0.078%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.078%) Maya
12 3 (0.059%) Adobe Premiere
12 3 (0.059%) Siemens NX
12 3 (0.059%) Windchill
13 2 (0.039%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.039%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.039%) InDesign
13 2 (0.039%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 183 (3.58%) Dynamics CRM
2 39 (0.76%) Remedy ITSM
3 38 (0.74%) SAP S/4HANA
4 19 (0.37%) Dynamics AX
5 11 (0.22%) Aladdin
5 11 (0.22%) Maximo
5 11 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
5 11 (0.22%) Workday HCM
6 9 (0.18%) Dynamics NAV
6 9 (0.18%) NetSuite
6 9 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
6 9 (0.18%) Teamcenter
7 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
7 7 (0.14%) Primavera
7 7 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
8 6 (0.12%) assyst
8 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.098%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.078%) Loan IQ
10 4 (0.078%) Oracle EBS R12
Cloud Services
1 1,802 (35.30%) Azure
2 1,170 (22.92%) Microsoft 365
3 769 (15.06%) Power Platform
4 561 (10.99%) Entra ID
5 462 (9.05%) AWS
6 378 (7.40%) Dynamics 365
7 341 (6.68%) Azure DevOps
8 305 (5.97%) Power Automate
9 293 (5.74%) PowerApps
10 181 (3.55%) GitHub
11 174 (3.41%) Microsoft Purview
12 170 (3.33%) SaaS
13 165 (3.23%) GCP
14 151 (2.96%) OneDrive
14 151 (2.96%) Serverless
15 145 (2.84%) Azure Sentinel
16 119 (2.33%) Azure Data Factory
17 115 (2.25%) Azure Logic Apps
18 114 (2.23%) Microsoft Copilot
18 114 (2.23%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 346 (6.78%) Firewall
2 265 (5.19%) DNS
3 171 (3.35%) DHCP
4 165 (3.23%) VPN
5 161 (3.15%) TCP/IP
6 99 (1.94%) Wi-Fi
7 98 (1.92%) Network Security
8 89 (1.74%) WAN
9 83 (1.63%) LAN
10 74 (1.45%) Skype
11 60 (1.18%) Wireless
12 47 (0.92%) Cisco IOS
13 43 (0.84%) VLAN
14 40 (0.78%) SAN
15 39 (0.76%) Unified Communications
16 37 (0.72%) VoIP
17 36 (0.71%) Internet
18 33 (0.65%) HTTP
19 31 (0.61%) Ethernet
19 31 (0.61%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 470 (9.21%) Power BI
2 241 (4.72%) SQL Server
3 125 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
4 89 (1.74%) Data Lake
5 88 (1.72%) PostgreSQL
6 83 (1.63%) Relational Database
7 78 (1.53%) Metadata
8 72 (1.41%) Azure SQL Database
9 69 (1.35%) Oracle Database
10 56 (1.10%) Tableau
11 50 (0.98%) MySQL
12 39 (0.76%) NoSQL
13 38 (0.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 35 (0.69%) Power Query
15 31 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
16 29 (0.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 24 (0.47%) Amazon RDS
18 19 (0.37%) Big Data
19 17 (0.33%) Delta Lake
20 16 (0.31%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 265 (5.19%) JIRA
2 173 (3.39%) Git
3 108 (2.12%) Jenkins
4 69 (1.35%) GitLab
5 45 (0.88%) Eclipse
6 37 (0.72%) Postman
7 32 (0.63%) Visual Studio
8 30 (0.59%) MSI
9 26 (0.51%) 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 (0.24%) InstallShield
18 11 (0.22%) Bitbucket Server
18 11 (0.22%) CA Release Automation
19 10 (0.20%) Gradle
General
1 2,044 (40.04%) Social Skills
2 1,135 (22.23%) Finance
3 700 (13.71%) Analytical Skills
4 523 (10.24%) Public Sector
5 275 (5.39%) Banking
6 217 (4.25%) Organisational Skills
7 178 (3.49%) Legal
8 158 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
9 149 (2.92%) Manufacturing
10 128 (2.51%) Presentation Skills
11 115 (2.25%) Marketing
12 110 (2.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 98 (1.92%) Telecoms
14 91 (1.78%) Retail
15 71 (1.39%) Local Government
16 70 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
17 50 (0.98%) Military
18 44 (0.86%) Investment Banking
19 43 (0.84%) Front Office
19 43 (0.84%) Law
Job Titles
1 813 (15.93%) Analyst
2 499 (9.77%) Architect
3 483 (9.46%) Developer
4 335 (6.56%) Senior
5 329 (6.44%) Support Engineer
6 290 (5.68%) Consultant
7 266 (5.21%) IT Support
8 255 (5.00%) Lead
9 180 (3.53%) Support Analyst
10 163 (3.19%) Business Analyst
11 161 (3.15%) Project Manager
12 156 (3.06%) Administrator
12 156 (3.06%) Solutions Architect
13 144 (2.82%) IT Engineer
14 138 (2.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 130 (2.55%) Azure Engineer
16 120 (2.35%) Security Engineer
17 111 (2.17%) Desktop Support
18 109 (2.14%) Data Analyst
19 104 (2.04%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 251 (4.92%) .NET
2 166 (3.25%) REST
3 123 (2.41%) OAuth
4 116 (2.27%) React
5 102 (2.00%) RESTful
6 95 (1.86%) HTML
7 90 (1.76%) AngularJS
8 88 (1.72%) SAML
9 86 (1.68%) CSS
10 82 (1.61%) OpenID
11 70 (1.37%) Web Services
12 66 (1.29%) JSON
13 63 (1.23%) SOAP
14 58 (1.14%) Node.js
15 57 (1.12%) XML
16 56 (1.10%) Microsoft Graph
17 55 (1.08%) .NET Framework
18 47 (0.92%) LDAP
19 46 (0.90%) Spring
20 45 (0.88%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 238 (4.66%) Onboarding
2 180 (3.53%) Cloud Native
3 142 (2.78%) Management Information System
4 141 (2.76%) Product Ownership
5 104 (2.04%) Enterprise Software
6 102 (2.00%) Data Centre
7 101 (1.98%) Security Posture
8 100 (1.96%) PKI
9 91 (1.78%) Self-Motivation
10 81 (1.59%) Driving Licence
11 73 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
12 72 (1.41%) Mobile App
13 66 (1.29%) Virtual Team
14 60 (1.18%) Low-Code
15 59 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
15 59 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
16 53 (1.04%) Replication
17 47 (0.92%) NHS
18 45 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
19 44 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,268 (24.84%) Windows
2 347 (6.80%) Windows 10
3 308 (6.03%) Linux
4 271 (5.31%) Windows Server
5 141 (2.76%) Mac OS
6 122 (2.39%) Android
7 85 (1.67%) Unix
8 81 (1.59%) Apple iOS
9 49 (0.96%) Windows 7
10 35 (0.69%) Windows Server 2019
11 34 (0.67%) Windows Server 2016
12 26 (0.51%) 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 (0.22%) Mac OS X
17 10 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
18 9 (0.18%) CentOS
18 9 (0.18%) Ubuntu
19 6 (0.12%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,076 (21.08%) Problem-Solving
2 941 (18.43%) Agile
3 708 (13.87%) DevOps
4 599 (11.73%) Migration
5 547 (10.71%) Business Intelligence
6 543 (10.64%) CI/CD
7 511 (10.01%) ITIL
8 508 (9.95%) Stakeholder Management
9 451 (8.83%) Analytics
10 423 (8.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 420 (8.23%) Continuous Improvement
12 409 (8.01%) Cybersecurity
13 393 (7.70%) Customer Service
14 368 (7.21%) Project Management
15 328 (6.43%) AI
16 321 (6.29%) Change Management
17 269 (5.27%) CRM
18 262 (5.13%) ITSM
19 260 (5.09%) Project Delivery
20 252 (4.94%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 652 (12.77%) SQL
2 594 (11.64%) PowerShell
3 541 (10.60%) Python
4 271 (5.31%) C#
5 231 (4.52%) JavaScript
6 176 (3.45%) Java
7 112 (2.19%) Bash
8 98 (1.92%) Kusto Query Language
9 92 (1.80%) Bicep
10 74 (1.45%) TypeScript
11 50 (0.98%) T-SQL
12 41 (0.80%) C++
13 40 (0.78%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 40 (0.78%) Perl
14 29 (0.57%) Shell Script
15 28 (0.55%) VB
16 27 (0.53%) VBA
17 22 (0.43%) Go
18 19 (0.37%) PHP
18 19 (0.37%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 929 (18.20%) Security Cleared
2 695 (13.61%) SC Cleared
3 549 (10.75%) Degree
4 370 (7.25%) Microsoft Certification
5 187 (3.66%) Azure Certification
6 184 (3.60%) DV Cleared
7 134 (2.62%) CISSP
8 119 (2.33%) Computer Science Degree
9 90 (1.76%) Cisco Certification
10 78 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
11 67 (1.31%) CISM
12 60 (1.18%) ITIL Certification
13 54 (1.06%) MCSE
14 53 (1.04%) PMI Certification
15 52 (1.02%) A+ Certification
16 49 (0.96%) CCNA
17 46 (0.90%) AWS Certification
18 45 (0.88%) Master's Degree
19 43 (0.84%) CCNP
20 40 (0.78%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 254 (4.98%) GDPR
2 186 (3.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 160 (3.13%) NIST
4 159 (3.11%) QA
5 132 (2.59%) Data Quality
6 113 (2.21%) PMO
7 112 (2.19%) SLA
8 89 (1.74%) Accessibility
9 52 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials
10 39 (0.76%) HIPAA
11 37 (0.72%) PCI DSS
12 30 (0.59%) 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 (0.24%) Disclosure Scotland
18 11 (0.22%) SOC 2
19 8 (0.16%) PSD2
System Software
1 1,042 (20.41%) Active Directory
2 179 (3.51%) VMware Infrastructure
3 177 (3.47%) Docker
4 62 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 56 (1.10%) Virtual Machines
6 46 (0.90%) vSphere
7 39 (0.76%) VMware ESXi
8 34 (0.67%) Virtual Desktop
9 22 (0.43%) BitLocker
10 20 (0.39%) Firmware
11 15 (0.29%) VMware NSX
12 14 (0.27%) NFS
13 12 (0.24%) XenApp
14 11 (0.22%) ISA Server
15 10 (0.20%) Brightmail
15 10 (0.20%) Microsoft App-V
16 8 (0.16%) Terminal Services
16 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
17 6 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
17 6 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 393 (7.70%) Microsoft Intune
2 321 (6.29%) SCCM
3 253 (4.96%) Terraform
4 213 (4.17%) Kubernetes
5 115 (2.25%) Single Sign-On
6 109 (2.14%) Ansible
7 65 (1.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (0.96%) SCOM
9 47 (0.92%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (0.71%) vCenter Server
11 31 (0.61%) 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 (6.11%) ServiceNow
2 248 (4.86%) VMware
3 236 (4.62%) Oracle
4 230 (4.51%) Cisco
5 204 (4.00%) Splunk
6 195 (3.82%) SAP
7 153 (3.00%) Google
8 117 (2.29%) Citrix
9 113 (2.21%) Databricks
10 99 (1.94%) Salesforce
11 98 (1.92%) Apple
12 64 (1.25%) CrowdStrike
12 64 (1.25%) OpenAI
13 61 (1.19%) IBM
14 56 (1.10%) Remedy
15 52 (1.02%) CyberArk
16 50 (0.98%) Palo Alto
17 48 (0.94%) HP
18 44 (0.86%) Adobe
19 43 (0.84%) Veeam