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 21 May 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
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,544 3,895 5,530
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 11.49% 13.38% 13.00%
As % of the Vendors category 28.05% 28.05% 30.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,722 2,557 3,636
10th Percentile £213 £209 £189
25th Percentile £375 £345 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +4.21% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £585 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £425 £450
% change year-on-year +5.88% -5.56% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 348 249 463
10th Percentile £13.64 £14.20 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.25 £15.25 £13.00
Median hourly rate £20.09 £18.85 £15.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.58% +25.67% -32.69%
75th Percentile £29.50 £29.07 £24.88
90th Percentile £63.45 £57.93 £55.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.00 £18.51 £15.00
% change year-on-year +8.05% +23.40% -21.05%

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 19,765 13,886 18,000
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 40.96% 47.71% 42.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,516 8,664 11,247
10th Percentile £313 £280 £263
25th Percentile £413 £406 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £514
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -0.29% -2.10%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £627
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £490 £500
% change year-on-year +0.41% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 988 568 1,094
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £14.48
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.50 £22.08
Median % change year-on-year +27.45% +15.52% -47.85%
75th Percentile £58.75 £56.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.40 £73.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.54 £22.72 £21.46
% change year-on-year +30.01% +5.86% -44.26%

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 21 May 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 21 May 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 21 May 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 4,860 £500 +5.26% 2,874
UK excluding London -1 2,878 £450 +5.88% 2,570
London -3 2,154 £515 +0.98% 821
Work from Home -1 1,373 £500 - 1,181
North of England -3 759 £450 +8.11% 610
South East -2 673 £475 +3.83% 811
Midlands -4 494 £450 +12.50% 397
North West -3 389 £427 +0.35% 319
Yorkshire 0 351 £475 +16.80% 214
West Midlands -7 341 £450 +12.50% 234
South West -2 330 £450 -0.88% 263
East of England 0 313 £375 -25.00% 264
Scotland +4 221 £451 +6.00% 124
East Midlands 0 146 £407 +1.56% 162
Wales +3 90 £335 +11.67% 93
North East -30 24 £450 +32.35% 83
Northern Ireland -5 19 £450 +38.46% 63
Channel Islands -3 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
1 593 (10.70%) SharePoint
2 369 (6.66%) Microsoft Exchange
3 103 (1.86%) Confluence
4 36 (0.65%) Apache Spark
5 26 (0.47%) Apache
6 23 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
7 22 (0.40%) HCL Notes
8 19 (0.34%) CMS
9 14 (0.25%) IIS
9 14 (0.25%) SAS
10 13 (0.23%) Skype for Business
11 12 (0.22%) Mendix
12 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.11%) Camunda
12 6 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 5 (0.090%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.090%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.072%) Drupal
14 4 (0.072%) MS Project Server
14 4 (0.072%) nginx
Applications
1 544 (9.81%) Microsoft Office
2 475 (8.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 212 (3.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 120 (2.16%) Microsoft Project
5 91 (1.64%) MS Visio
6 52 (0.94%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.31%) Chatbot
8 11 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.11%) Trello
10 5 (0.090%) Acrobat
10 5 (0.090%) PTC Creo
11 4 (0.072%) InDesign
11 4 (0.072%) SOLIDWORKS
12 3 (0.054%) Adobe Captivate
12 3 (0.054%) AutoCAD
12 3 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.036%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.036%) InfoPath
13 2 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 201 (3.63%) Dynamics CRM
2 66 (1.19%) SAP S/4HANA
3 22 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
4 17 (0.31%) NetSuite
5 15 (0.27%) Aladdin
6 13 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
6 13 (0.23%) Teamcenter
7 11 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 10 (0.18%) Loan IQ
8 10 (0.18%) Maximo
8 10 (0.18%) Sage X3
8 10 (0.18%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 9 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
9 9 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
11 6 (0.11%) Dynamics GP
11 6 (0.11%) Primavera
11 6 (0.11%) Shopify
12 5 (0.090%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 2,347 (42.33%) Azure
2 1,405 (25.34%) Microsoft 365
3 955 (17.23%) Power Platform
4 721 (13.01%) Entra ID
5 469 (8.46%) Dynamics 365
6 446 (8.04%) AWS
7 437 (7.88%) Azure DevOps
8 328 (5.92%) Power Automate
9 300 (5.41%) Microsoft Purview
10 297 (5.36%) PowerApps
11 249 (4.49%) GitHub
12 240 (4.33%) Microsoft Copilot
13 213 (3.84%) OneDrive
14 194 (3.50%) SaaS
15 191 (3.45%) Azure Data Factory
16 177 (3.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 169 (3.05%) GCP
18 159 (2.87%) Serverless
19 142 (2.56%) PaaS
20 134 (2.42%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 278 (5.01%) DNS
2 258 (4.65%) Firewall
3 203 (3.66%) VPN
4 168 (3.03%) DHCP
5 133 (2.40%) Wi-Fi
6 132 (2.38%) WAN
7 114 (2.06%) LAN
8 109 (1.97%) Network Security
9 100 (1.80%) TCP/IP
10 57 (1.03%) Kerberos
11 53 (0.96%) VLAN
12 45 (0.81%) SD-WAN
13 37 (0.67%) SAN
14 34 (0.61%) SSL
14 34 (0.61%) Wireless
15 29 (0.52%) HTTP
15 29 (0.52%) Unified Communications
16 28 (0.51%) Skype
17 24 (0.43%) IPsec
18 23 (0.41%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 576 (10.39%) Power BI
2 265 (4.78%) SQL Server
3 175 (3.16%) Data Warehouse
4 151 (2.72%) Data Lake
5 119 (2.15%) Azure SQL Database
6 114 (2.06%) Metadata
7 95 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
8 67 (1.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 66 (1.19%) Relational Database
10 47 (0.85%) Power Query
11 46 (0.83%) NoSQL
12 45 (0.81%) Tableau
13 43 (0.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 41 (0.74%) MySQL
14 41 (0.74%) Star Schema
15 40 (0.72%) Delta Lake
16 38 (0.69%) Oracle Database
17 30 (0.54%) Spark SQL
18 26 (0.47%) Snowflake Schema
18 26 (0.47%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 254 (4.58%) JIRA
2 168 (3.03%) Git
3 63 (1.14%) Jenkins
4 60 (1.08%) GitLab
5 30 (0.54%) Visual Studio
6 24 (0.43%) Artifactory
7 20 (0.36%) MSI
8 19 (0.34%) Eclipse
9 15 (0.27%) MLflow
9 15 (0.27%) Selenium
10 14 (0.25%) ERwin
10 14 (0.25%) JMeter
10 14 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
11 12 (0.22%) Bitbucket
11 12 (0.22%) Maven
11 12 (0.22%) Postman
12 9 (0.16%) Android Studio
12 9 (0.16%) Browser DevTools
12 9 (0.16%) Gatling
12 9 (0.16%) InstallShield
General
1 1,797 (32.41%) Social Skills
2 1,108 (19.99%) Finance
3 622 (11.22%) Analytical Skills
4 495 (8.93%) Public Sector
5 292 (5.27%) Banking
6 245 (4.42%) Legal
7 237 (4.27%) Organisational Skills
8 136 (2.45%) Documentation Skills
9 100 (1.80%) Manufacturing
10 94 (1.70%) Law
11 88 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
12 87 (1.57%) Retail
13 82 (1.48%) Telecoms
14 80 (1.44%) Marketing
15 73 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 67 (1.21%) Local Government
16 67 (1.21%) Military
17 56 (1.01%) Investment Banking
18 54 (0.97%) Influencing Skills
19 47 (0.85%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 688 (12.41%) Architect
2 596 (10.75%) Analyst
3 508 (9.16%) Developer
4 462 (8.33%) Senior
5 357 (6.44%) IT Support
6 343 (6.19%) Lead
7 308 (5.56%) Consultant
8 256 (4.62%) Support Engineer
9 226 (4.08%) Data Engineer
10 206 (3.72%) Azure Engineer
11 192 (3.46%) Project Manager
12 190 (3.43%) Solutions Architect
13 177 (3.19%) Business Analyst
13 177 (3.19%) IT Engineer
14 167 (3.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 157 (2.83%) Administrator
16 133 (2.40%) IT Support Engineer
17 121 (2.18%) Security Engineer
18 105 (1.89%) DevOps Engineer
19 101 (1.82%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 240 (4.33%) .NET
2 169 (3.05%) REST
3 133 (2.40%) Microsoft Graph
4 107 (1.93%) OAuth
5 104 (1.88%) PySpark
6 97 (1.75%) SAML
7 88 (1.59%) JSON
8 82 (1.48%) React
9 79 (1.42%) OpenID
10 77 (1.39%) LDAP
11 67 (1.21%) Web Services
12 66 (1.19%) Middleware
13 55 (0.99%) HTML
14 53 (0.96%) Node.js
15 50 (0.90%) XML
16 49 (0.88%) CSS
16 49 (0.88%) SailPoint
17 48 (0.87%) AngularJS
17 48 (0.87%) OAuth2
18 47 (0.85%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 293 (5.28%) Onboarding
2 220 (3.97%) Cloud Native
3 174 (3.14%) Product Ownership
4 123 (2.22%) Management Information System
5 103 (1.86%) Data Centre
6 100 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
7 90 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
8 87 (1.57%) Hybrid Cloud
9 85 (1.53%) Security Posture
10 84 (1.52%) AI Agents
11 77 (1.39%) Replication
12 75 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
13 73 (1.32%) Low-Code
14 72 (1.30%) Data Structures
14 72 (1.30%) PKI
15 70 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
16 61 (1.10%) Virtual Team
17 45 (0.81%) Driving Licence
17 45 (0.81%) Operational Technology
17 45 (0.81%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 1,192 (21.50%) Windows
2 322 (5.81%) Windows 10
3 275 (4.96%) Windows Server
4 251 (4.53%) Linux
5 108 (1.95%) Apple iOS
6 104 (1.88%) Android
6 104 (1.88%) Mac OS
7 43 (0.78%) Windows 7
8 41 (0.74%) Unix
9 40 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
10 38 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 31 (0.56%) VMS
12 29 (0.52%) Windows Server 2019
13 22 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
14 15 (0.27%) Windows Server 2003
15 13 (0.23%) Ubuntu
16 11 (0.20%) CentOS
17 5 (0.090%) AIX
18 4 (0.072%) Solaris
18 4 (0.072%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 937 (16.90%) Problem-Solving
2 889 (16.04%) DevOps
3 842 (15.19%) Agile
4 789 (14.23%) Migration
5 748 (13.49%) CI/CD
6 627 (11.31%) Business Intelligence
7 603 (10.88%) Analytics
8 558 (10.06%) AI
9 553 (9.97%) Stakeholder Management
10 488 (8.80%) Continuous Improvement
11 466 (8.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 449 (8.10%) ITIL
13 431 (7.77%) Customer Service
14 423 (7.63%) Data Modelling
15 380 (6.85%) Roadmaps
16 354 (6.39%) Decision-Making
17 343 (6.19%) Cybersecurity
18 326 (5.88%) Infrastructure as Code
19 315 (5.68%) Project Delivery
20 310 (5.59%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 712 (12.84%) SQL
2 623 (11.24%) PowerShell
3 589 (10.62%) Python
4 258 (4.65%) C#
5 199 (3.59%) JavaScript
6 177 (3.19%) Java
7 126 (2.27%) Bicep
8 93 (1.68%) T-SQL
9 82 (1.48%) Kusto Query Language
10 75 (1.35%) Bash
11 73 (1.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 69 (1.24%) TypeScript
13 30 (0.54%) VBA
14 29 (0.52%) PL/SQL
15 27 (0.49%) C++
16 24 (0.43%) VB
17 19 (0.34%) Scala
18 18 (0.32%) R
19 15 (0.27%) Shell Script
20 14 (0.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,043 (18.81%) Security Cleared
2 819 (14.77%) SC Cleared
3 542 (9.78%) Degree
4 256 (4.62%) Microsoft Certification
5 180 (3.25%) Azure Certification
6 172 (3.10%) DV Cleared
7 122 (2.20%) Computer Science Degree
8 100 (1.80%) CISSP
9 96 (1.73%) BPSS Clearance
10 77 (1.39%) Cisco Certification
11 56 (1.01%) PMP
12 55 (0.99%) CISM
13 53 (0.96%) Master's Degree
13 53 (0.96%) PMI Certification
14 40 (0.72%) MCSE
15 38 (0.69%) AWS Certification
16 34 (0.61%) CCNP
16 34 (0.61%) DBS Check
17 30 (0.54%) MCSA
18 28 (0.51%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 277 (5.00%) Data Quality
2 217 (3.91%) GDPR
3 183 (3.30%) QA
4 144 (2.60%) SLA
5 135 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 118 (2.13%) NIST
7 98 (1.77%) PMO
8 72 (1.30%) Accessibility
9 70 (1.26%) Cyber Essentials
10 50 (0.90%) NCSC
11 37 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 33 (0.60%) GRC
13 27 (0.49%) PCI DSS
14 23 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 21 (0.38%) NIST 800
16 20 (0.36%) MiFID
17 15 (0.27%) SOC 2
18 13 (0.23%) FINRA
18 13 (0.23%) WCAG
19 12 (0.22%) HIPAA
System Software
1 1,051 (18.96%) Active Directory
2 213 (3.84%) Docker
3 192 (3.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 99 (1.79%) Hyper-V
5 80 (1.44%) Virtual Desktop
6 72 (1.30%) Virtual Machines
7 55 (0.99%) VMware ESXi
8 50 (0.90%) vSphere
9 25 (0.45%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 19 (0.34%) Microsoft App-V
12 16 (0.29%) Firmware
13 6 (0.11%) NFS
13 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
13 6 (0.11%) RACF
14 5 (0.090%) IAG
14 5 (0.090%) Snort
14 5 (0.090%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.072%) Squid
15 4 (0.072%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 434 (7.83%) Microsoft Intune
2 341 (6.15%) Terraform
3 243 (4.38%) Kubernetes
4 201 (3.63%) SCCM
5 120 (2.16%) Ansible
6 116 (2.09%) Single Sign-On
7 78 (1.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 47 (0.85%) vCenter Server
9 42 (0.76%) Jamf Pro
10 36 (0.65%) Grafana
11 31 (0.56%) Prometheus
12 22 (0.40%) FortiGate
13 19 (0.34%) SCOM
14 17 (0.31%) Puppet
15 15 (0.27%) AirWatch
16 14 (0.25%) QRadar
17 13 (0.23%) WSUS
18 12 (0.22%) HAProxy
18 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
19 11 (0.20%) CASB
Vendors
1 274 (4.94%) ServiceNow
2 264 (4.76%) VMware
3 220 (3.97%) Databricks
3 220 (3.97%) SAP
4 211 (3.81%) Oracle
5 184 (3.32%) Cisco
6 154 (2.78%) Google
7 109 (1.97%) Citrix
8 100 (1.80%) Salesforce
9 94 (1.70%) Splunk
10 82 (1.48%) OpenAI
11 70 (1.26%) Apple
11 70 (1.26%) Foundry
12 56 (1.01%) CrowdStrike
13 50 (0.90%) HP
14 46 (0.83%) CyberArk
14 46 (0.83%) Okta
15 45 (0.81%) Adobe
15 45 (0.81%) Palo Alto
16 40 (0.72%) Informatica