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 8 March 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
8 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 9 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,367 4,044 5,767
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.66% 13.45% 12.92%
As % of the Vendors category 28.71% 28.69% 29.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,613 2,658 3,866
10th Percentile £205 £206 £190
25th Percentile £363 £348 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £582 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £439 £450
% change year-on-year +2.62% -2.56% -3.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 378 184 440
10th Percentile £13.35 £14.99 £11.06
25th Percentile £16.24 £18.00 £13.25
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.80 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -16.34% +48.19% -23.87%
75th Percentile £25.47 £33.75 £26.50
90th Percentile £63.75 £62.73 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.14 £22.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -14.94% +40.10% -19.70%

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 18,695 14,097 19,300
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.11% 46.89% 43.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,976 8,687 12,036
10th Percentile £306 £285 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +1.46% -2.75%
75th Percentile £600 £623 £625
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 941 454 1,029
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.02 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.00 £29.00 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -13.79% +17.65% -29.57%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £53.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.75 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.68 £27.50 £23.00
% change year-on-year -17.53% +19.57% -28.58%

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 8 March 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 8 March 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 8 March 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 0 4,712 £491 +3.37% 3,179
UK excluding London 0 2,872 £450 +2.62% 2,898
London -2 1,987 £513 +2.50% 843
Work from Home -1 1,342 £500 - 1,187
North of England -1 749 £433 -3.89% 691
South East -1 646 £475 -3.85% 905
Midlands -6 504 £450 +5.88% 431
North West -2 424 £414 -8.00% 373
South West -1 359 £525 +10.53% 305
East of England +1 357 £400 -4.48% 315
West Midlands -9 348 £475 +9.29% 223
Yorkshire +2 295 £450 +9.09% 220
Scotland 0 180 £455 +21.33% 180
East Midlands 0 154 £418 +4.38% 206
Wales +3 97 £310 -17.33% 110
North East -15 36 £450 +28.57% 113
Northern Ireland -1 23 £463 +42.31% 20
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
1 610 (11.37%) SharePoint
2 432 (8.05%) Microsoft Exchange
3 113 (2.11%) Confluence
4 38 (0.71%) Skype for Business
5 24 (0.45%) CMS
6 22 (0.41%) Apache Spark
7 20 (0.37%) Apache
8 17 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.32%) HCL Notes
9 12 (0.22%) IIS
9 12 (0.22%) SAS
10 10 (0.19%) Mendix
11 7 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
12 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 6 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
12 6 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2013
13 5 (0.093%) Oracle Application Server
14 4 (0.075%) Mattermost
15 3 (0.056%) MS Project Server
15 3 (0.056%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 618 (11.51%) Microsoft Office
2 511 (9.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 224 (4.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 123 (2.29%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (1.94%) MS Visio
6 77 (1.43%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 9 (0.17%) Trello
9 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.093%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.075%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.075%) InDesign
13 3 (0.056%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.056%) Sketch
13 3 (0.056%) SOLIDWORKS
14 2 (0.037%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.037%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 195 (3.63%) Dynamics CRM
2 50 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
3 26 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.34%) Dynamics NAV
5 15 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
6 14 (0.26%) Maximo
7 13 (0.24%) Aladdin
8 12 (0.22%) Loan IQ
8 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.19%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 9 (0.17%) NetSuite
10 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
11 8 (0.15%) Sage X3
12 7 (0.13%) Advent Geneva
12 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
12 7 (0.13%) Shopify
13 6 (0.11%) Primavera
13 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
14 5 (0.093%) Salesforce CRM
14 5 (0.093%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 2,169 (40.41%) Azure
2 1,382 (25.75%) Microsoft 365
3 866 (16.14%) Power Platform
4 702 (13.08%) Entra ID
5 454 (8.46%) AWS
6 416 (7.75%) Azure DevOps
7 413 (7.70%) Dynamics 365
8 345 (6.43%) Power Automate
9 311 (5.79%) PowerApps
10 281 (5.24%) Microsoft Purview
11 239 (4.45%) GitHub
12 212 (3.95%) OneDrive
13 193 (3.60%) Microsoft Copilot
14 189 (3.52%) Azure Data Factory
14 189 (3.52%) Serverless
15 185 (3.45%) SaaS
16 171 (3.19%) GCP
17 152 (2.83%) PaaS
18 150 (2.79%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 142 (2.65%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 302 (5.63%) DNS
2 298 (5.55%) Firewall
3 200 (3.73%) VPN
4 184 (3.43%) DHCP
5 141 (2.63%) Wi-Fi
6 129 (2.40%) WAN
7 126 (2.35%) TCP/IP
8 112 (2.09%) LAN
8 112 (2.09%) Network Security
9 64 (1.19%) Skype
10 60 (1.12%) Kerberos
11 57 (1.06%) VLAN
12 42 (0.78%) Unified Communications
12 42 (0.78%) Wireless
13 37 (0.69%) SD-WAN
14 32 (0.60%) HTTP
15 30 (0.56%) Internet
15 30 (0.56%) MPLS
15 30 (0.56%) SSL
16 29 (0.54%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 528 (9.84%) Power BI
2 250 (4.66%) SQL Server
3 170 (3.17%) Data Warehouse
4 144 (2.68%) Data Lake
5 106 (1.98%) Azure SQL Database
6 105 (1.96%) Metadata
7 104 (1.94%) PostgreSQL
8 74 (1.38%) Relational Database
9 68 (1.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 53 (0.99%) Oracle Database
11 51 (0.95%) MySQL
12 50 (0.93%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 46 (0.86%) NoSQL
14 40 (0.75%) Power Query
14 40 (0.75%) Tableau
15 31 (0.58%) Star Schema
16 30 (0.56%) Delta Lake
17 27 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
18 23 (0.43%) Spark SQL
19 22 (0.41%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 241 (4.49%) JIRA
2 168 (3.13%) Git
3 77 (1.43%) GitLab
4 70 (1.30%) Jenkins
5 27 (0.50%) Eclipse
6 23 (0.43%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.39%) MSI
7 21 (0.39%) Postman
8 20 (0.37%) Artifactory
9 17 (0.32%) JMeter
10 16 (0.30%) Selenium
11 15 (0.28%) Android Studio
12 14 (0.26%) Cucumber
13 13 (0.24%) Browser DevTools
14 12 (0.22%) Bitbucket
14 12 (0.22%) JUnit
14 12 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
14 12 (0.22%) Xcode
15 11 (0.20%) MLflow
16 9 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 2,029 (37.81%) Social Skills
2 1,032 (19.23%) Finance
3 660 (12.30%) Analytical Skills
4 540 (10.06%) Public Sector
5 256 (4.77%) Banking
6 254 (4.73%) Organisational Skills
7 233 (4.34%) Legal
8 166 (3.09%) Documentation Skills
9 124 (2.31%) Manufacturing
10 115 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
11 98 (1.83%) Marketing
12 89 (1.66%) Telecoms
13 73 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 73 (1.36%) Retail
14 61 (1.14%) Influencing Skills
15 54 (1.01%) Military
16 52 (0.97%) Law
17 45 (0.84%) Investment Banking
18 44 (0.82%) Local Government
19 42 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 636 (11.85%) Analyst
2 620 (11.55%) Architect
3 523 (9.74%) Developer
4 421 (7.84%) Senior
5 362 (6.74%) IT Support
6 289 (5.38%) Support Engineer
7 283 (5.27%) Consultant
8 278 (5.18%) Lead
9 185 (3.45%) IT Engineer
10 184 (3.43%) Solutions Architect
11 181 (3.37%) Azure Engineer
11 181 (3.37%) Data Engineer
12 168 (3.13%) Business Analyst
13 165 (3.07%) Administrator
14 163 (3.04%) Project Manager
15 162 (3.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 140 (2.61%) IT Support Engineer
17 122 (2.27%) Security Engineer
18 120 (2.24%) Support Analyst
19 100 (1.86%) Microsoft Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 259 (4.83%) .NET
2 177 (3.30%) REST
3 127 (2.37%) OAuth
4 126 (2.35%) Microsoft Graph
5 109 (2.03%) SAML
6 101 (1.88%) React
7 90 (1.68%) OpenID
8 79 (1.47%) PySpark
9 77 (1.43%) RESTful
10 71 (1.32%) AngularJS
10 71 (1.32%) JSON
10 71 (1.32%) LDAP
11 69 (1.29%) HTML
12 63 (1.17%) ARM Templates
13 62 (1.16%) CSS
13 62 (1.16%) Web Services
14 60 (1.12%) Middleware
15 56 (1.04%) Node.js
16 55 (1.02%) OAuth2
17 46 (0.86%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 294 (5.48%) Onboarding
2 208 (3.88%) Cloud Native
3 165 (3.07%) Product Ownership
4 135 (2.52%) Management Information System
5 111 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
6 94 (1.75%) Data Centre
6 94 (1.75%) Security Posture
7 89 (1.66%) PKI
8 87 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
9 86 (1.60%) Hybrid Cloud
10 77 (1.43%) Low-Code
11 75 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
12 74 (1.38%) Replication
13 65 (1.21%) Driving Licence
14 64 (1.19%) AI Agents
15 59 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
16 57 (1.06%) Data Structures
16 57 (1.06%) Virtual Team
17 56 (1.04%) NHS
18 55 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 1,246 (23.22%) Windows
2 364 (6.78%) Windows 10
3 296 (5.52%) Linux
4 280 (5.22%) Windows Server
5 106 (1.98%) Mac OS
6 102 (1.90%) Android
7 96 (1.79%) Apple iOS
8 57 (1.06%) Unix
9 45 (0.84%) Windows 7
10 43 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
11 38 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 24 (0.45%) VMS
13 21 (0.39%) Windows Server 2003
13 21 (0.39%) Windows Server 2012
13 21 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
14 9 (0.17%) CentOS
15 8 (0.15%) AIX
15 8 (0.15%) Ubuntu
16 5 (0.093%) Windows 8
16 5 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,018 (18.97%) Problem-Solving
2 870 (16.21%) Agile
3 813 (15.15%) DevOps
4 718 (13.38%) Migration
5 681 (12.69%) CI/CD
6 625 (11.65%) Business Intelligence
7 609 (11.35%) Analytics
8 541 (10.08%) Stakeholder Management
9 471 (8.78%) AI
10 469 (8.74%) Continuous Improvement
11 450 (8.38%) Customer Service
12 439 (8.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 434 (8.09%) ITIL
14 382 (7.12%) Cybersecurity
15 344 (6.41%) Data Modelling
16 318 (5.93%) Roadmaps
17 302 (5.63%) Change Management
17 302 (5.63%) Project Management
18 295 (5.50%) Project Delivery
19 293 (5.46%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 690 (12.86%) SQL
2 685 (12.76%) PowerShell
3 627 (11.68%) Python
4 278 (5.18%) C#
5 227 (4.23%) JavaScript
6 150 (2.79%) Java
7 121 (2.25%) Bicep
8 113 (2.11%) Kusto Query Language
9 110 (2.05%) Bash
10 88 (1.64%) TypeScript
11 71 (1.32%) T-SQL
12 66 (1.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 34 (0.63%) PL/SQL
14 29 (0.54%) C++
15 28 (0.52%) Perl
16 25 (0.47%) VB
16 25 (0.47%) VBA
17 20 (0.37%) Shell Script
18 16 (0.30%) Go
18 16 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 1,085 (20.22%) Security Cleared
2 816 (15.20%) SC Cleared
3 544 (10.14%) Degree
4 323 (6.02%) Microsoft Certification
5 224 (4.17%) DV Cleared
6 188 (3.50%) Azure Certification
7 119 (2.22%) Computer Science Degree
8 112 (2.09%) CISSP
9 96 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
10 61 (1.14%) CISM
11 60 (1.12%) Cisco Certification
12 58 (1.08%) Master's Degree
13 55 (1.02%) PMI Certification
14 48 (0.89%) PMP
15 47 (0.88%) AWS Certification
16 45 (0.84%) MCSE
17 44 (0.82%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 40 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
19 35 (0.65%) A+ Certification
20 32 (0.60%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 242 (4.51%) GDPR
2 212 (3.95%) Data Quality
3 158 (2.94%) QA
4 155 (2.89%) SLA
5 154 (2.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 118 (2.20%) NIST
7 117 (2.18%) PMO
8 78 (1.45%) Accessibility
9 56 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
10 40 (0.75%) NCSC
11 38 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 28 (0.52%) PCI DSS
13 23 (0.43%) GRC
14 22 (0.41%) WCAG
15 21 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 19 (0.35%) EU AI Act
17 17 (0.32%) MiFID
18 14 (0.26%) HIPAA
18 14 (0.26%) SOC 2
19 13 (0.24%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,100 (20.50%) Active Directory
2 214 (3.99%) Docker
3 177 (3.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 79 (1.47%) Hyper-V
5 69 (1.29%) Virtual Machines
6 47 (0.88%) Virtual Desktop
7 38 (0.71%) vSphere
8 35 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
9 21 (0.39%) VMware NSX
10 20 (0.37%) BitLocker
11 14 (0.26%) Firmware
12 10 (0.19%) Microsoft App-V
13 7 (0.13%) Snort
14 6 (0.11%) RACF
15 5 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
16 4 (0.075%) Microsoft Virtual Server
16 4 (0.075%) NFS
16 4 (0.075%) Squid
16 4 (0.075%) Virtual Servers
16 4 (0.075%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 432 (8.05%) Microsoft Intune
2 324 (6.04%) Terraform
3 256 (4.77%) SCCM
4 255 (4.75%) Kubernetes
5 150 (2.79%) Single Sign-On
6 109 (2.03%) Ansible
7 104 (1.94%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 43 (0.80%) Jamf Pro
9 40 (0.75%) Grafana
10 36 (0.67%) vCenter Server
11 34 (0.63%) Prometheus
12 29 (0.54%) SCOM
13 24 (0.45%) FortiGate
14 18 (0.34%) WSUS
15 17 (0.32%) Puppet
16 14 (0.26%) AirWatch
17 13 (0.24%) Nessus
17 13 (0.24%) WMI
18 12 (0.22%) CASB
18 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 269 (5.01%) ServiceNow
2 264 (4.92%) VMware
3 194 (3.61%) Databricks
3 194 (3.61%) SAP
4 186 (3.47%) Oracle
5 185 (3.45%) Cisco
6 151 (2.81%) Google
7 138 (2.57%) Citrix
8 118 (2.20%) Splunk
9 91 (1.70%) OpenAI
10 82 (1.53%) Salesforce
11 70 (1.30%) Foundry
12 69 (1.29%) Apple
13 62 (1.16%) CrowdStrike
14 56 (1.04%) Palo Alto
15 54 (1.01%) HP
16 45 (0.84%) Okta
17 39 (0.73%) CyberArk
17 39 (0.73%) Remedy
18 38 (0.71%) Adobe