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 28 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
28 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 8 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +4
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,022 4,581 5,723
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 13.59% 13.65% 13.15%
As % of the Vendors category 28.98% 29.80% 29.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,370 2,909 3,927
10th Percentile £204 £205 £194
25th Percentile £350 £350 £324
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £619
90th Percentile £675 £680 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £447 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.17% -2.78% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 389 206 244
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.49 £13.29
25th Percentile £16.50 £15.62 £16.25
Median hourly rate £20.00 £23.59 £22.39
Median % change year-on-year -15.22% +5.37% +11.94%
75th Percentile £27.71 £33.75 £46.18
90th Percentile £65.00 £61.13 £58.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.71 £21.46 £21.00
% change year-on-year -8.18% +2.19% +7.69%

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 17,331 15,375 19,418
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 46.91% 45.82% 44.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,059 9,171 12,306
10th Percentile £294 £285 £252
25th Percentile £409 £409 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.42%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £700 £717 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 838 451 667
10th Percentile £15.15 £15.50 £14.26
25th Percentile £17.99 £18.51 £19.19
Median hourly rate £23.79 £27.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.50% -38.89% +74.76%
75th Percentile £44.69 £61.25 £64.70
90th Percentile £73.90 £76.25 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.50 £25.00 £45.55
% change year-on-year -14.00% -45.11% +102.42%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 4,425 £475 - 6,944
UK excluding London -2 2,707 £447 +2.17% 6,207
London -1 1,875 £500 - 1,392
Work from Home 0 1,284 £500 +3.10% 3,214
North of England +1 709 £415 -2.35% 1,435
South East +1 620 £475 +5.56% 1,699
Midlands -4 471 £447 +5.18% 1,120
North West +2 418 £400 -11.11% 733
South West -1 361 £500 +5.26% 684
West Midlands -4 314 £478 +6.35% 614
East of England -1 271 £425 -2.86% 824
Yorkshire -1 258 £435 +5.45% 572
Scotland -3 192 £450 +10.02% 277
East Midlands +3 155 £375 - 460
Wales +1 82 £295 +3.51% 189
Northern Ireland +5 42 £361 +44.50% 72
North East -11 38 £410 +10.81% 141

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 (11.31%) SharePoint
2 378 (7.53%) Microsoft Exchange
3 105 (2.09%) Confluence
4 59 (1.17%) Skype for Business
5 39 (0.78%) CMS
6 25 (0.50%) IIS
7 23 (0.46%) HCL Notes
8 22 (0.44%) Apache
9 20 (0.40%) SAS
10 19 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
10 19 (0.38%) Exchange Server 2013
11 17 (0.34%) Exchange Server 2010
12 15 (0.30%) Apache Spark
13 14 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
14 13 (0.26%) Mattermost
15 12 (0.24%) WebSphere
16 11 (0.22%) WebSphere Application Server
17 10 (0.20%) iPlanet
17 10 (0.20%) JBoss
18 7 (0.14%) Mendix
Applications
1 616 (12.27%) Microsoft Office
2 550 (10.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 245 (4.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 127 (2.53%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (2.07%) MS Visio
6 58 (1.15%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 11 (0.22%) Trello
8 9 (0.18%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.12%) Adobe Captivate
9 6 (0.12%) Sketch
10 4 (0.080%) Adobe After Effects
10 4 (0.080%) Adobe Illustrator
10 4 (0.080%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.080%) InDesign
10 4 (0.080%) Photoshop
11 3 (0.060%) Acrobat
11 3 (0.060%) Adobe Premiere
11 3 (0.060%) Windchill
12 2 (0.040%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 185 (3.68%) Dynamics CRM
2 40 (0.80%) Remedy ITSM
3 35 (0.70%) SAP S/4HANA
4 17 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
5 15 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
6 14 (0.28%) Maximo
7 13 (0.26%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
8 11 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
9 9 (0.18%) Aladdin
10 8 (0.16%) Teamcenter
11 7 (0.14%) Advent Geneva
11 7 (0.14%) Shopify
12 6 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
12 6 (0.12%) Veritas eDiscovery
12 6 (0.12%) Workday HCM
13 5 (0.100%) assyst
13 5 (0.100%) SAP ERP
14 4 (0.080%) Loan IQ
14 4 (0.080%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 1,895 (37.73%) Azure
2 1,183 (23.56%) Microsoft 365
3 788 (15.69%) Power Platform
4 570 (11.35%) Entra ID
5 451 (8.98%) AWS
6 395 (7.87%) Dynamics 365
7 353 (7.03%) Azure DevOps
8 335 (6.67%) Power Automate
9 305 (6.07%) PowerApps
10 197 (3.92%) GitHub
11 194 (3.86%) Microsoft Purview
12 178 (3.54%) GCP
12 178 (3.54%) Serverless
13 163 (3.25%) SaaS
14 157 (3.13%) OneDrive
15 147 (2.93%) Azure Sentinel
16 143 (2.85%) Azure Data Factory
17 129 (2.57%) Azure Logic Apps
18 127 (2.53%) Microsoft Copilot
19 120 (2.39%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 291 (5.79%) Firewall
2 268 (5.34%) DNS
3 176 (3.50%) VPN
4 168 (3.35%) DHCP
5 139 (2.77%) TCP/IP
6 99 (1.97%) Wi-Fi
7 95 (1.89%) Network Security
8 82 (1.63%) WAN
9 79 (1.57%) LAN
9 79 (1.57%) Skype
10 54 (1.08%) Wireless
11 45 (0.90%) VLAN
12 41 (0.82%) Unified Communications
13 37 (0.74%) HTTP
13 37 (0.74%) Kerberos
14 33 (0.66%) Internet
15 30 (0.60%) SAN
16 29 (0.58%) VoIP
17 28 (0.56%) MPLS
18 26 (0.52%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 480 (9.56%) Power BI
2 234 (4.66%) SQL Server
3 129 (2.57%) Data Warehouse
4 111 (2.21%) Data Lake
5 93 (1.85%) PostgreSQL
6 87 (1.73%) Relational Database
7 81 (1.61%) Metadata
8 77 (1.53%) Azure SQL Database
8 77 (1.53%) Oracle Database
9 48 (0.96%) MySQL
10 44 (0.88%) Tableau
11 40 (0.80%) NoSQL
12 39 (0.78%) Power Query
13 38 (0.76%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 33 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 26 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
16 24 (0.48%) Delta Lake
17 21 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
18 18 (0.36%) Big Data
19 17 (0.34%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 253 (5.04%) JIRA
2 158 (3.15%) Git
3 91 (1.81%) Jenkins
4 77 (1.53%) GitLab
5 41 (0.82%) Eclipse
6 31 (0.62%) Postman
7 26 (0.52%) MSI
7 26 (0.52%) Visual Studio
8 24 (0.48%) Browser DevTools
8 24 (0.48%) Xcode
9 23 (0.46%) Android Studio
10 20 (0.40%) Selenium
11 16 (0.32%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.26%) Cucumber
13 12 (0.24%) Bitbucket
13 12 (0.24%) InstallShield
13 12 (0.24%) JMeter
14 10 (0.20%) Artifactory
14 10 (0.20%) SoapUI
14 10 (0.20%) SonarQube
General
1 2,052 (40.86%) Social Skills
2 1,031 (20.53%) Finance
3 668 (13.30%) Analytical Skills
4 524 (10.43%) Public Sector
5 256 (5.10%) Banking
6 233 (4.64%) Organisational Skills
7 184 (3.66%) Legal
8 155 (3.09%) Documentation Skills
9 135 (2.69%) Manufacturing
10 117 (2.33%) Marketing
11 108 (2.15%) Presentation Skills
12 92 (1.83%) Telecoms
13 87 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 81 (1.61%) Retail
15 60 (1.19%) Influencing Skills
16 57 (1.14%) Local Government
17 44 (0.88%) Military
18 42 (0.84%) Investment Banking
19 40 (0.80%) Law
20 38 (0.76%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 700 (13.94%) Analyst
2 511 (10.18%) Architect
3 482 (9.60%) Developer
4 353 (7.03%) Senior
5 315 (6.27%) Support Engineer
6 289 (5.75%) IT Support
7 275 (5.48%) Consultant
8 239 (4.76%) Lead
9 169 (3.37%) Administrator
10 159 (3.17%) Business Analyst
11 157 (3.13%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 157 (3.13%) Solutions Architect
12 156 (3.11%) Support Analyst
13 149 (2.97%) Project Manager
14 148 (2.95%) IT Engineer
15 142 (2.83%) Azure Engineer
16 122 (2.43%) Security Engineer
17 115 (2.29%) Data Engineer
18 108 (2.15%) Desktop Support
19 105 (2.09%) IT Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 248 (4.94%) .NET
2 160 (3.19%) REST
3 119 (2.37%) OAuth
4 114 (2.27%) React
5 94 (1.87%) RESTful
6 89 (1.77%) SAML
7 88 (1.75%) AngularJS
8 79 (1.57%) OpenID
9 69 (1.37%) HTML
9 69 (1.37%) Microsoft Graph
10 68 (1.35%) JSON
11 67 (1.33%) CSS
12 55 (1.10%) SOAP
12 55 (1.10%) Web Services
13 54 (1.08%) PySpark
13 54 (1.08%) XML
14 53 (1.06%) LDAP
14 53 (1.06%) Node.js
15 51 (1.02%) ARM Templates
16 48 (0.96%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 266 (5.30%) Onboarding
2 193 (3.84%) Cloud Native
3 138 (2.75%) Management Information System
4 135 (2.69%) Product Ownership
5 111 (2.21%) Enterprise Software
6 97 (1.93%) Security Posture
7 93 (1.85%) PKI
8 90 (1.79%) Data Centre
9 87 (1.73%) Self-Motivation
10 76 (1.51%) Driving Licence
11 74 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
11 74 (1.47%) Mobile App
12 71 (1.41%) Low-Code
13 63 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
14 60 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
15 55 (1.10%) Virtual Team
16 52 (1.04%) Replication
17 50 (1.00%) NHS
18 48 (0.96%) Data Protection Act
19 43 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 1,206 (24.01%) Windows
2 343 (6.83%) Windows 10
3 309 (6.15%) Linux
4 270 (5.38%) Windows Server
5 118 (2.35%) Mac OS
6 108 (2.15%) Android
7 89 (1.77%) Apple iOS
8 82 (1.63%) Unix
9 40 (0.80%) Windows 7
10 36 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
11 31 (0.62%) Windows Server 2019
12 27 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 22 (0.44%) Windows Server 2012
14 21 (0.42%) Windows Server 2003
15 16 (0.32%) VMS
16 9 (0.18%) Mac OS X
16 9 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
17 6 (0.12%) AIX
17 6 (0.12%) Ubuntu
18 5 (0.100%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,043 (20.77%) Problem-Solving
2 919 (18.30%) Agile
3 723 (14.40%) DevOps
4 629 (12.52%) Migration
5 580 (11.55%) CI/CD
6 569 (11.33%) Business Intelligence
7 509 (10.14%) Stakeholder Management
8 486 (9.68%) Analytics
9 474 (9.44%) ITIL
10 436 (8.68%) Continuous Improvement
11 415 (8.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 410 (8.16%) Customer Service
13 369 (7.35%) Cybersecurity
14 356 (7.09%) AI
15 331 (6.59%) Project Management
16 309 (6.15%) Change Management
17 278 (5.54%) Data Modelling
18 273 (5.44%) Roadmaps
19 258 (5.14%) Infrastructure as Code
19 258 (5.14%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 644 (12.82%) SQL
2 593 (11.81%) PowerShell
3 559 (11.13%) Python
4 267 (5.32%) C#
5 218 (4.34%) JavaScript
6 157 (3.13%) Java
7 108 (2.15%) Bash
8 105 (2.09%) Kusto Query Language
9 99 (1.97%) Bicep
10 75 (1.49%) TypeScript
11 53 (1.06%) T-SQL
12 47 (0.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 41 (0.82%) Perl
14 28 (0.56%) C++
15 27 (0.54%) Shell Script
16 24 (0.48%) Go
16 24 (0.48%) PL/SQL
17 22 (0.44%) R
17 22 (0.44%) VBA
18 20 (0.40%) VB
Qualifications
1 973 (19.37%) Security Cleared
2 726 (14.46%) SC Cleared
3 526 (10.47%) Degree
4 352 (7.01%) Microsoft Certification
5 199 (3.96%) DV Cleared
6 183 (3.64%) Azure Certification
7 139 (2.77%) CISSP
8 122 (2.43%) Computer Science Degree
9 84 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
10 73 (1.45%) CISM
11 66 (1.31%) Cisco Certification
12 59 (1.17%) Master's Degree
13 55 (1.10%) PMI Certification
14 54 (1.08%) MCSE
15 52 (1.04%) A+ Certification
16 51 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
17 46 (0.92%) AWS Certification
18 44 (0.88%) MCP
18 44 (0.88%) PMP
19 36 (0.72%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 243 (4.84%) GDPR
2 189 (3.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 156 (3.11%) QA
4 151 (3.01%) NIST
5 147 (2.93%) Data Quality
6 125 (2.49%) SLA
7 101 (2.01%) PMO
8 86 (1.71%) Accessibility
9 50 (1.00%) Cyber Essentials
10 35 (0.70%) PCI DSS
11 32 (0.64%) NCSC
12 25 (0.50%) WCAG
13 23 (0.46%) HIPAA
14 22 (0.44%) EU AI Act
15 21 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 19 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 16 (0.32%) GRC
18 11 (0.22%) SOC 2
19 9 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
19 9 (0.18%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,021 (20.33%) Active Directory
2 193 (3.84%) Docker
3 174 (3.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 66 (1.31%) Hyper-V
5 57 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
6 42 (0.84%) vSphere
7 36 (0.72%) VMware ESXi
8 34 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
9 16 (0.32%) BitLocker
9 16 (0.32%) VMware NSX
10 15 (0.30%) Firmware
11 11 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
12 9 (0.18%) NFS
12 9 (0.18%) XenApp
13 8 (0.16%) ISA Server
13 8 (0.16%) Tivoli Directory Server
14 7 (0.14%) Brightmail
14 7 (0.14%) Terminal Services
15 6 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
16 5 (0.100%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 372 (7.41%) Microsoft Intune
2 295 (5.87%) SCCM
3 271 (5.40%) Terraform
4 235 (4.68%) Kubernetes
5 121 (2.41%) Single Sign-On
6 103 (2.05%) Ansible
7 77 (1.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 49 (0.98%) SCOM
9 40 (0.80%) vCenter Server
10 38 (0.76%) Jamf Pro
11 34 (0.68%) Grafana
12 27 (0.54%) Prometheus
13 21 (0.42%) HP SiteScope
14 20 (0.40%) WSUS
15 19 (0.38%) QRadar
16 15 (0.30%) Microsoft Clustering
16 15 (0.30%) Progress Chef
17 14 (0.28%) Kibana
18 13 (0.26%) Puppet
18 13 (0.26%) WMI
Vendors
1 269 (5.36%) ServiceNow
2 235 (4.68%) VMware
3 229 (4.56%) Oracle
4 185 (3.68%) SAP
5 182 (3.62%) Cisco
6 181 (3.60%) Splunk
7 158 (3.15%) Google
8 138 (2.75%) Databricks
9 122 (2.43%) Citrix
10 86 (1.71%) Apple
11 76 (1.51%) Salesforce
12 72 (1.43%) OpenAI
13 63 (1.25%) CrowdStrike
14 55 (1.10%) Palo Alto
15 53 (1.06%) IBM
16 48 (0.96%) HP
16 48 (0.96%) Remedy
17 46 (0.92%) CyberArk
18 42 (0.84%) Adobe
18 42 (0.84%) Foundry