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 29 July 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
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 8 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 6,330 4,542 5,133
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.05% 13.84% 12.88%
As % of the Vendors category 29.15% 29.31% 29.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,151 2,907 3,365
10th Percentile £213 £213 £200
25th Percentile £375 £350 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £585 £582 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £435 £450
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 381 369 374
10th Percentile £13.70 £13.95 £11.74
25th Percentile £16.50 £16.00 £14.27
Median hourly rate £21.25 £22.50 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% +38.63% -27.96%
75th Percentile £37.50 £30.63 £33.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £63.40 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £21.13 £20.26 £16.23
% change year-on-year +4.30% +24.80% -14.58%

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 21,715 15,498 17,304
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.32% 47.23% 43.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,497 9,498 10,855
10th Percentile £313 £280 £280
25th Percentile £413 £400 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £601 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £706 £732
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £476 £500
% change year-on-year +4.99% -4.75% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,093 774 891
10th Percentile £15.85 £14.66 £13.50
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.02 £15.62
Median hourly rate £35.00 £25.15 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +39.17% -8.55% -34.21%
75th Percentile £65.25 £50.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.00 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £22.32 £25.30
% change year-on-year +52.32% -11.80% -27.19%

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 29 July 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 29 July 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 29 July 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 5,512 £492 +3.58% 3,740
UK excluding London -1 3,361 £450 +3.45% 3,157
London -2 2,426 £510 +2.00% 1,153
Work from Home +3 1,640 £500 - 1,454
South East -1 855 £475 +1.20% 976
North of England -5 839 £467 +6.75% 781
Midlands -2 577 £450 +20.00% 527
North West -1 485 £450 +2.27% 387
South West -1 419 £473 +8.62% 344
West Midlands -3 410 £450 +18.03% 289
Yorkshire -5 331 £478 +6.11% 272
Scotland +7 312 £450 - 127
East of England -1 257 £375 -25.00% 347
East Midlands +2 159 £407 +14.58% 238
Wales 0 104 £391 +41.78% 99
Northern Ireland -3 30 £350 -6.04% 49
North East -43 29 £450 +32.35% 141
Channel Islands 0 1 £550 -24.14% 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
1 732 (11.56%) SharePoint
2 391 (6.18%) Microsoft Exchange
3 136 (2.15%) Confluence
4 40 (0.63%) Apache Spark
5 35 (0.55%) Apache
6 27 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
7 21 (0.33%) IIS
8 17 (0.27%) CMS
9 15 (0.24%) HCL Notes
10 13 (0.21%) Skype for Business
11 11 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
12 10 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 10 (0.16%) SAS
13 8 (0.13%) nginx
14 6 (0.095%) Jupyter
14 6 (0.095%) SharePoint 2013
15 5 (0.079%) Camunda
15 5 (0.079%) OpenEdge
15 5 (0.079%) OpenStack
15 5 (0.079%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 588 (9.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 565 (8.93%) Microsoft Office
3 247 (3.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 162 (2.56%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (1.64%) MS Visio
6 40 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
7 25 (0.39%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 6 (0.095%) Adobe Illustrator
10 4 (0.063%) AutoCAD
10 4 (0.063%) Photoshop
11 3 (0.047%) Adobe Captivate
11 3 (0.047%) Adobe Premiere
11 3 (0.047%) Final Cut Pro
11 3 (0.047%) Trello
12 2 (0.032%) InDesign
12 2 (0.032%) InfoPath
12 2 (0.032%) Navisworks
12 2 (0.032%) PTC Creo
12 2 (0.032%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 229 (3.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 75 (1.18%) SAP S/4HANA
3 28 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
4 21 (0.33%) NetSuite
4 21 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
5 17 (0.27%) Dynamics NAV
6 15 (0.24%) Aladdin
6 15 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
7 14 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
8 12 (0.19%) Primavera
9 9 (0.14%) Magento
9 9 (0.14%) Sage X3
10 8 (0.13%) Dynamics AX
10 8 (0.13%) Teamcenter
11 7 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
11 7 (0.11%) SAP MM
11 7 (0.11%) SAP PSCD
12 6 (0.095%) Dynamics GP
12 6 (0.095%) iTrent
12 6 (0.095%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 2,662 (42.05%) Azure
2 1,592 (25.15%) Microsoft 365
3 1,093 (17.27%) Power Platform
4 927 (14.64%) Entra ID
5 564 (8.91%) AWS
6 527 (8.33%) Azure DevOps
7 526 (8.31%) Dynamics 365
8 381 (6.02%) Power Automate
9 347 (5.48%) PowerApps
10 341 (5.39%) Microsoft Copilot
11 289 (4.57%) Microsoft Purview
12 260 (4.11%) GitHub
13 241 (3.81%) OneDrive
14 226 (3.57%) SaaS
15 208 (3.29%) GCP
16 166 (2.62%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 164 (2.59%) Azure Data Factory
18 150 (2.37%) Serverless
19 147 (2.32%) PaaS
20 145 (2.29%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 334 (5.28%) DNS
2 313 (4.94%) Firewall
3 247 (3.90%) VPN
4 204 (3.22%) DHCP
5 175 (2.76%) TCP/IP
6 146 (2.31%) WAN
7 142 (2.24%) Wi-Fi
8 140 (2.21%) Network Security
9 135 (2.13%) LAN
10 68 (1.07%) VLAN
11 49 (0.77%) Wireless
12 43 (0.68%) SAN
13 41 (0.65%) MPLS
14 38 (0.60%) SSL
15 37 (0.58%) Unified Communications
16 30 (0.47%) Internet
16 30 (0.47%) SD-WAN
16 30 (0.47%) VoIP
17 27 (0.43%) BGP
17 27 (0.43%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 692 (10.93%) Power BI
2 363 (5.73%) SQL Server
3 187 (2.95%) Data Warehouse
4 131 (2.07%) Data Lake
4 131 (2.07%) PostgreSQL
5 125 (1.97%) Azure SQL Database
6 123 (1.94%) Metadata
7 72 (1.14%) Relational Database
7 72 (1.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 63 (1.00%) MySQL
9 61 (0.96%) Power Query
10 49 (0.77%) NoSQL
11 47 (0.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 43 (0.68%) Oracle Database
13 41 (0.65%) Star Schema
14 38 (0.60%) Tableau
15 34 (0.54%) Delta Lake
16 30 (0.47%) SQL Server Analysis Services
17 25 (0.39%) Big Data
18 24 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 314 (4.96%) JIRA
2 190 (3.00%) Git
3 86 (1.36%) Jenkins
4 59 (0.93%) GitLab
5 52 (0.82%) Visual Studio
6 32 (0.51%) MSI
7 27 (0.43%) Selenium
8 17 (0.27%) Eclipse
9 16 (0.25%) Postman
9 16 (0.25%) Team Foundation Server
10 15 (0.24%) WebDriver
11 13 (0.21%) Artifactory
11 13 (0.21%) MLflow
12 12 (0.19%) Bitbucket
12 12 (0.19%) ERwin
13 11 (0.17%) Cypress.io
13 11 (0.17%) JUnit
13 11 (0.17%) Maven
13 11 (0.17%) Sonatype Nexus
14 9 (0.14%) Gatling
General
1 2,122 (33.52%) Social Skills
2 1,285 (20.30%) Finance
3 766 (12.10%) Analytical Skills
4 606 (9.57%) Public Sector
5 310 (4.90%) Banking
6 278 (4.39%) Organisational Skills
7 215 (3.40%) Legal
8 171 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
9 143 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 127 (2.01%) Manufacturing
11 121 (1.91%) Retail
12 110 (1.74%) Telecoms
13 101 (1.60%) Law
14 96 (1.52%) Marketing
15 86 (1.36%) Military
16 84 (1.33%) Local Government
17 71 (1.12%) Influencing Skills
17 71 (1.12%) Presentation Skills
18 60 (0.95%) Investment Banking
19 48 (0.76%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 732 (11.56%) Architect
2 657 (10.38%) Analyst
3 605 (9.56%) Developer
4 564 (8.91%) Senior
5 451 (7.12%) Lead
6 397 (6.27%) IT Support
7 386 (6.10%) Consultant
8 349 (5.51%) Support Engineer
9 249 (3.93%) IT Engineer
10 246 (3.89%) Data Engineer
11 233 (3.68%) Solutions Architect
12 225 (3.55%) Azure Engineer
13 218 (3.44%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 213 (3.36%) Project Manager
15 198 (3.13%) IT Support Engineer
16 184 (2.91%) Administrator
17 177 (2.80%) Business Analyst
18 151 (2.39%) Cloud Engineer
19 124 (1.96%) Security Engineer
20 109 (1.72%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 298 (4.71%) .NET
2 237 (3.74%) REST
3 126 (1.99%) Microsoft Graph
4 123 (1.94%) JSON
5 111 (1.75%) OAuth
6 105 (1.66%) PySpark
7 92 (1.45%) OpenID
8 91 (1.44%) SAML
9 90 (1.42%) XML
10 87 (1.37%) Web Services
11 85 (1.34%) .NET Framework
12 79 (1.25%) React
13 71 (1.12%) RESTful
14 66 (1.04%) HTML
15 65 (1.03%) SOAP
16 63 (1.00%) ARM Templates
16 63 (1.00%) LDAP
17 62 (0.98%) OAuth2
18 61 (0.96%) Middleware
19 60 (0.95%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 418 (6.60%) Onboarding
2 298 (4.71%) Cloud Native
3 180 (2.84%) Product Ownership
4 178 (2.81%) Management Information System
5 148 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
6 134 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
7 122 (1.93%) Hybrid Cloud
7 122 (1.93%) PKI
8 121 (1.91%) AI Agents
8 121 (1.91%) Data Centre
9 114 (1.80%) Security Posture
10 91 (1.44%) Data Structures
11 86 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
12 80 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
13 79 (1.25%) Virtual Team
14 73 (1.15%) Low-Code
15 67 (1.06%) Driving Licence
16 66 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
17 59 (0.93%) Replication
18 56 (0.88%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 1,340 (21.17%) Windows
2 357 (5.64%) Windows Server
3 325 (5.13%) Windows 10
4 299 (4.72%) Linux
5 130 (2.05%) Mac OS
6 117 (1.85%) Android
7 107 (1.69%) Apple iOS
8 57 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 44 (0.70%) Unix
10 36 (0.57%) Windows Server 2016
10 36 (0.57%) Windows Server 2019
11 34 (0.54%) Windows 7
12 32 (0.51%) VMS
13 26 (0.41%) Ubuntu
14 20 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
15 13 (0.21%) CentOS
16 12 (0.19%) SUSE
17 10 (0.16%) Solaris
18 8 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
18 8 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,103 (17.42%) Problem-Solving
2 1,008 (15.92%) DevOps
3 971 (15.34%) Agile
4 890 (14.06%) Migration
5 872 (13.78%) Stakeholder Management
6 826 (13.05%) CI/CD
7 721 (11.39%) AI
8 705 (11.14%) Business Intelligence
9 703 (11.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 697 (11.01%) Continuous Improvement
11 671 (10.60%) Analytics
12 596 (9.42%) ITIL
13 513 (8.10%) Customer Service
14 468 (7.39%) Data Modelling
15 456 (7.20%) Roadmaps
16 449 (7.09%) Cybersecurity
17 444 (7.01%) Infrastructure as Code
18 416 (6.57%) Decision-Making
19 405 (6.40%) Project Delivery
20 404 (6.38%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 796 (12.58%) SQL
2 667 (10.54%) PowerShell
3 644 (10.17%) Python
4 314 (4.96%) C#
5 236 (3.73%) JavaScript
6 193 (3.05%) Java
7 176 (2.78%) Bicep
8 122 (1.93%) Bash
9 113 (1.79%) T-SQL
10 93 (1.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 84 (1.33%) TypeScript
12 71 (1.12%) Kusto Query Language
13 40 (0.63%) VBA
14 29 (0.46%) C++
15 27 (0.43%) PL/SQL
16 26 (0.41%) VB
17 20 (0.32%) X++
18 16 (0.25%) R
18 16 (0.25%) Scala
18 16 (0.25%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,295 (20.46%) Security Cleared
2 980 (15.48%) SC Cleared
3 612 (9.67%) Degree
4 328 (5.18%) Microsoft Certification
5 248 (3.92%) DV Cleared
6 227 (3.59%) Azure Certification
7 149 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
8 120 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
8 120 (1.90%) CISSP
9 116 (1.83%) Computer Science Degree
10 90 (1.42%) PMP
11 83 (1.31%) PMI Certification
12 67 (1.06%) AWS Certification
12 67 (1.06%) CISM
13 51 (0.81%) CCNP
14 49 (0.77%) DBS Check
15 48 (0.76%) Master's Degree
16 45 (0.71%) CCNA
17 44 (0.70%) A+ Certification
18 40 (0.63%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 336 (5.31%) Data Quality
2 219 (3.46%) QA
3 217 (3.43%) GDPR
4 186 (2.94%) SLA
5 172 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 151 (2.39%) PMO
7 147 (2.32%) NIST
8 102 (1.61%) Accessibility
9 78 (1.23%) Cyber Essentials
10 76 (1.20%) NCSC
11 41 (0.65%) GRC
12 33 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 33 (0.52%) WCAG
13 29 (0.46%) PCI DSS
14 26 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 20 (0.32%) Disclosure Scotland
16 15 (0.24%) NIST 800
16 15 (0.24%) SOC 2
17 14 (0.22%) Actionable Recommendations
17 14 (0.22%) P3O
System Software
1 1,210 (19.12%) Active Directory
2 229 (3.62%) Docker
3 215 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 114 (1.80%) Hyper-V
5 95 (1.50%) Virtual Desktop
6 90 (1.42%) Virtual Machines
7 57 (0.90%) vSphere
8 56 (0.88%) VMware ESXi
9 28 (0.44%) BitLocker
10 23 (0.36%) VMware NSX
11 20 (0.32%) Firmware
11 20 (0.32%) Microsoft App-V
12 8 (0.13%) NFS
12 8 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
13 7 (0.11%) IAG
14 5 (0.079%) Terminal Services
14 5 (0.079%) VMware Workstation
15 4 (0.063%) RACF
15 4 (0.063%) zsh
16 3 (0.047%) OpenAM
Systems Management
1 514 (8.12%) Microsoft Intune
2 445 (7.03%) Terraform
3 291 (4.60%) Kubernetes
4 227 (3.59%) SCCM
5 150 (2.37%) Ansible
6 112 (1.77%) Single Sign-On
7 59 (0.93%) Jamf Pro
8 52 (0.82%) vCenter Server
9 48 (0.76%) Grafana
10 35 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 35 (0.55%) SCOM
11 33 (0.52%) Prometheus
12 23 (0.36%) Puppet
13 21 (0.33%) QRadar
14 19 (0.30%) WSUS
15 18 (0.28%) FortiGate
16 16 (0.25%) Progress Chef
17 14 (0.22%) Argo
18 13 (0.21%) Avamar
19 12 (0.19%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 445 (7.03%) ServiceNow
2 301 (4.76%) VMware
3 300 (4.74%) Oracle
4 256 (4.04%) SAP
5 222 (3.51%) Databricks
6 207 (3.27%) Cisco
7 202 (3.19%) Google
8 120 (1.90%) Salesforce
9 106 (1.67%) Citrix
10 96 (1.52%) Splunk
11 91 (1.44%) Apple
12 79 (1.25%) Foundry
13 77 (1.22%) CyberArk
14 76 (1.20%) OpenAI
15 67 (1.06%) CrowdStrike
15 67 (1.06%) Okta
16 60 (0.95%) Red Hat
17 54 (0.85%) BeyondTrust
17 54 (0.85%) Zscaler
18 48 (0.76%) Meraki