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 16 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
16 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +1 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,384 3,969 5,760
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.49% 13.43% 12.95%
As % of the Vendors category 28.43% 28.47% 30.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,606 2,646 3,858
10th Percentile £206 £206 £190
25th Percentile £363 £348 £334
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +3.47% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £581 £583 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -2.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 381 185 435
10th Percentile £13.39 £14.99 £11.06
25th Percentile £16.25 £17.61 £13.25
Median hourly rate £19.91 £23.80 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -16.34% +48.19% -24.88%
75th Percentile £25.47 £33.75 £26.50
90th Percentile £63.75 £62.55 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.14 £22.30 £16.05
% change year-on-year -14.16% +38.89% -19.74%

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 18,936 13,940 19,139
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 43.92% 47.15% 43.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,091 8,723 11,942
10th Percentile £308 £285 £256
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £513
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +1.46% -2.84%
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 971 458 1,028
10th Percentile £15.31 £15.62 £12.13
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.01 £14.48
Median hourly rate £25.15 £29.00 £24.65
Median % change year-on-year -13.28% +17.65% -31.53%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £53.75
90th Percentile £76.75 £83.57 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.50 £27.50 £23.00
% change year-on-year -14.55% +19.57% -30.30%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 +1 4,718 £492 +3.58% 3,037
UK excluding London 0 2,846 £450 +2.86% 2,882
London -1 2,019 £510 +2.00% 764
Work from Home -1 1,339 £500 +1.01% 1,077
North of England -3 746 £435 +2.35% 680
South East -2 650 £480 -4.00% 875
Midlands -4 499 £450 +8.63% 429
North West -2 425 £416 -7.67% 344
East of England 0 352 £400 -5.88% 297
West Midlands -9 349 £475 +11.76% 213
South West -1 338 £525 +10.53% 327
Yorkshire +4 293 £450 +12.50% 237
Scotland 0 184 £453 +20.67% 191
East Midlands 0 146 £400 - 215
Wales +1 96 £309 -11.79% 116
North East -17 34 £463 +32.14% 111
Northern Ireland -1 22 £463 +42.31% 31
Channel Islands +4 1 - - 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
1 602 (11.18%) SharePoint
2 425 (7.89%) Microsoft Exchange
3 113 (2.10%) Confluence
4 30 (0.56%) Skype for Business
5 23 (0.43%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.43%) CMS
6 19 (0.35%) Apache
7 18 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.32%) HCL Notes
9 13 (0.24%) SAS
10 11 (0.20%) IIS
11 10 (0.19%) Mendix
12 7 (0.13%) ArcGIS
13 6 (0.11%) SharePoint Server
14 5 (0.093%) Oracle Application Server
15 4 (0.074%) Exchange Server 2010
15 4 (0.074%) Exchange Server 2013
16 3 (0.056%) Drupal
16 3 (0.056%) MS Project Server
16 3 (0.056%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 607 (11.27%) Microsoft Office
2 513 (9.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 221 (4.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 124 (2.30%) Microsoft Project
5 103 (1.91%) MS Visio
6 78 (1.45%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.24%) Chatbot
8 10 (0.19%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.17%) Trello
10 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
11 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
12 5 (0.093%) PTC Creo
13 4 (0.074%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.074%) InDesign
14 3 (0.056%) Photoshop
14 3 (0.056%) Sketch
14 3 (0.056%) SOLIDWORKS
15 2 (0.037%) AutoCAD
15 2 (0.037%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 194 (3.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 51 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
3 20 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
4 18 (0.33%) Dynamics NAV
5 14 (0.26%) Aladdin
5 14 (0.26%) Dynamics AX
5 14 (0.26%) Maximo
6 12 (0.22%) Loan IQ
6 12 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.19%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 9 (0.17%) NetSuite
8 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
9 8 (0.15%) Sage X3
9 8 (0.15%) Shopify
10 7 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
10 7 (0.13%) SystmOne
11 6 (0.11%) Advent Geneva
11 6 (0.11%) Primavera
12 5 (0.093%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.093%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,187 (40.62%) Azure
2 1,379 (25.61%) Microsoft 365
3 888 (16.49%) Power Platform
4 707 (13.13%) Entra ID
5 450 (8.36%) AWS
6 432 (8.02%) Azure DevOps
7 429 (7.97%) Dynamics 365
8 343 (6.37%) Power Automate
9 313 (5.81%) PowerApps
10 280 (5.20%) Microsoft Purview
11 255 (4.74%) GitHub
12 211 (3.92%) OneDrive
13 198 (3.68%) Microsoft Copilot
14 193 (3.58%) Serverless
15 187 (3.47%) Azure Data Factory
16 184 (3.42%) SaaS
17 167 (3.10%) GCP
18 155 (2.88%) PaaS
19 151 (2.80%) Azure Synapse Analytics
20 148 (2.75%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 306 (5.68%) Firewall
2 299 (5.55%) DNS
3 203 (3.77%) VPN
4 182 (3.38%) DHCP
5 149 (2.77%) Wi-Fi
6 137 (2.54%) WAN
7 122 (2.27%) TCP/IP
8 121 (2.25%) LAN
9 117 (2.17%) Network Security
10 57 (1.06%) Kerberos
11 55 (1.02%) Skype
12 53 (0.98%) VLAN
13 45 (0.84%) Wireless
14 38 (0.71%) SD-WAN
15 36 (0.67%) Unified Communications
16 32 (0.59%) HTTP
16 32 (0.59%) Internet
17 30 (0.56%) MPLS
17 30 (0.56%) SSL
18 29 (0.54%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 549 (10.20%) Power BI
2 252 (4.68%) SQL Server
3 168 (3.12%) Data Warehouse
4 141 (2.62%) Data Lake
5 113 (2.10%) Azure SQL Database
6 100 (1.86%) Metadata
7 99 (1.84%) PostgreSQL
8 72 (1.34%) Relational Database
9 69 (1.28%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 54 (1.00%) Oracle Database
11 51 (0.95%) MySQL
12 50 (0.93%) NoSQL
12 50 (0.93%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 42 (0.78%) Power Query
13 42 (0.78%) Tableau
14 32 (0.59%) Delta Lake
14 32 (0.59%) Star Schema
15 27 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
16 23 (0.43%) Spark SQL
16 23 (0.43%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 245 (4.55%) JIRA
2 170 (3.16%) Git
3 71 (1.32%) GitLab
4 69 (1.28%) Jenkins
5 26 (0.48%) Eclipse
6 23 (0.43%) Visual Studio
7 21 (0.39%) MSI
7 21 (0.39%) Postman
8 20 (0.37%) Artifactory
9 18 (0.33%) JMeter
9 18 (0.33%) Selenium
10 14 (0.26%) Android Studio
11 13 (0.24%) Cucumber
11 13 (0.24%) JUnit
11 13 (0.24%) MLflow
12 12 (0.22%) Browser DevTools
13 11 (0.20%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.20%) Xcode
14 10 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
15 9 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 2,004 (37.22%) Social Skills
2 1,044 (19.39%) Finance
3 667 (12.39%) Analytical Skills
4 542 (10.07%) Public Sector
5 265 (4.92%) Banking
6 254 (4.72%) Organisational Skills
7 243 (4.51%) Legal
8 164 (3.05%) Documentation Skills
9 122 (2.27%) Manufacturing
10 115 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
11 97 (1.80%) Marketing
12 88 (1.63%) Telecoms
13 77 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 73 (1.36%) Retail
15 62 (1.15%) Law
16 57 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
17 55 (1.02%) Military
18 50 (0.93%) Local Government
19 46 (0.85%) Investment Banking
20 41 (0.76%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 637 (11.83%) Architect
2 621 (11.53%) Analyst
3 518 (9.62%) Developer
4 428 (7.95%) Senior
5 359 (6.67%) IT Support
6 292 (5.42%) Consultant
6 292 (5.42%) Lead
7 284 (5.27%) Support Engineer
8 191 (3.55%) Azure Engineer
9 190 (3.53%) IT Engineer
10 188 (3.49%) Data Engineer
11 185 (3.44%) Solutions Architect
12 171 (3.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 169 (3.14%) Business Analyst
14 168 (3.12%) Administrator
15 164 (3.05%) Project Manager
16 144 (2.67%) IT Support Engineer
17 121 (2.25%) Security Engineer
18 107 (1.99%) Support Analyst
19 102 (1.89%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 262 (4.87%) .NET
2 186 (3.45%) REST
3 128 (2.38%) Microsoft Graph
4 125 (2.32%) OAuth
5 108 (2.01%) SAML
6 93 (1.73%) React
7 87 (1.62%) OpenID
8 84 (1.56%) PySpark
9 76 (1.41%) RESTful
10 69 (1.28%) JSON
11 68 (1.26%) AngularJS
12 67 (1.24%) LDAP
13 66 (1.23%) HTML
14 63 (1.17%) ARM Templates
15 62 (1.15%) Middleware
15 62 (1.15%) Web Services
16 60 (1.11%) CSS
17 55 (1.02%) OAuth2
18 52 (0.97%) Node.js
19 46 (0.85%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 292 (5.42%) Onboarding
2 224 (4.16%) Cloud Native
3 163 (3.03%) Product Ownership
4 134 (2.49%) Management Information System
5 111 (2.06%) Enterprise Software
6 98 (1.82%) Data Centre
7 93 (1.73%) Security Posture
8 87 (1.62%) Hybrid Cloud
9 86 (1.60%) PKI
9 86 (1.60%) Self-Motivation
10 77 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
11 73 (1.36%) Replication
12 71 (1.32%) Low-Code
13 67 (1.24%) AI Agents
14 62 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
14 62 (1.15%) Data Structures
14 62 (1.15%) Driving Licence
15 57 (1.06%) Virtual Team
16 54 (1.00%) NHS
17 52 (0.97%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1,225 (22.75%) Windows
2 345 (6.41%) Windows 10
3 286 (5.31%) Linux
4 282 (5.24%) Windows Server
5 98 (1.82%) Android
5 98 (1.82%) Mac OS
6 90 (1.67%) Apple iOS
7 54 (1.00%) Unix
8 44 (0.82%) Windows 7
9 43 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
10 39 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 24 (0.45%) VMS
12 22 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
12 22 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
13 20 (0.37%) 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
1 996 (18.50%) Problem-Solving
2 874 (16.23%) Agile
3 826 (15.34%) DevOps
4 732 (13.60%) Migration
5 698 (12.96%) CI/CD
6 642 (11.92%) Business Intelligence
7 613 (11.39%) Analytics
8 529 (9.83%) Stakeholder Management
9 486 (9.03%) AI
10 474 (8.80%) Continuous Improvement
11 448 (8.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 439 (8.15%) Customer Service
13 419 (7.78%) ITIL
14 385 (7.15%) Cybersecurity
15 355 (6.59%) Data Modelling
16 314 (5.83%) Roadmaps
17 304 (5.65%) Infrastructure as Code
18 302 (5.61%) Project Management
19 299 (5.55%) Change Management
20 298 (5.53%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 711 (13.21%) SQL
2 681 (12.65%) PowerShell
3 632 (11.74%) Python
4 279 (5.18%) C#
5 225 (4.18%) JavaScript
6 155 (2.88%) Java
7 125 (2.32%) Bicep
8 111 (2.06%) Kusto Query Language
9 105 (1.95%) Bash
10 82 (1.52%) TypeScript
11 74 (1.37%) T-SQL
12 68 (1.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 33 (0.61%) PL/SQL
14 29 (0.54%) C++
15 26 (0.48%) Perl
15 26 (0.48%) VBA
16 23 (0.43%) VB
17 18 (0.33%) Shell Script
18 17 (0.32%) R
18 17 (0.32%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 1,077 (20.00%) Security Cleared
2 815 (15.14%) SC Cleared
3 547 (10.16%) Degree
4 313 (5.81%) Microsoft Certification
5 219 (4.07%) DV Cleared
6 187 (3.47%) Azure Certification
7 124 (2.30%) Computer Science Degree
8 109 (2.02%) CISSP
9 99 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
10 61 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
10 61 (1.13%) PMI Certification
11 60 (1.11%) Master's Degree
12 59 (1.10%) CISM
13 52 (0.97%) PMP
14 46 (0.85%) AWS Certification
15 43 (0.80%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 42 (0.78%) MCSE
17 35 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
18 32 (0.59%) A+ Certification
18 32 (0.59%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 244 (4.53%) GDPR
2 224 (4.16%) Data Quality
3 165 (3.06%) QA
4 158 (2.93%) SLA
5 148 (2.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 118 (2.19%) PMO
7 116 (2.15%) NIST
8 79 (1.47%) Accessibility
9 56 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
10 40 (0.74%) NCSC
11 38 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 29 (0.54%) PCI DSS
13 24 (0.45%) GRC
14 22 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 22 (0.41%) WCAG
15 19 (0.35%) EU AI Act
16 18 (0.33%) MiFID
17 13 (0.24%) FINRA
17 13 (0.24%) NIST 800
17 13 (0.24%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,083 (20.12%) Active Directory
2 215 (3.99%) Docker
3 170 (3.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 84 (1.56%) Hyper-V
5 69 (1.28%) Virtual Machines
6 48 (0.89%) Virtual Desktop
7 35 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
7 35 (0.65%) vSphere
8 22 (0.41%) BitLocker
9 19 (0.35%) VMware NSX
10 17 (0.32%) Firmware
11 13 (0.24%) Microsoft App-V
12 6 (0.11%) RACF
12 6 (0.11%) Snort
13 5 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
14 4 (0.074%) KVM
14 4 (0.074%) VMware Workstation
15 3 (0.056%) DFS Replication
15 3 (0.056%) Sendmail
15 3 (0.056%) Squid
Systems Management
1 423 (7.86%) Microsoft Intune
2 342 (6.35%) Terraform
3 253 (4.70%) Kubernetes
4 232 (4.31%) SCCM
5 145 (2.69%) Single Sign-On
6 113 (2.10%) Ansible
7 103 (1.91%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 42 (0.78%) Jamf Pro
9 41 (0.76%) Grafana
10 36 (0.67%) Prometheus
11 35 (0.65%) vCenter Server
12 25 (0.46%) FortiGate
13 22 (0.41%) SCOM
14 18 (0.33%) Puppet
15 16 (0.30%) WSUS
16 14 (0.26%) AirWatch
17 13 (0.24%) WMI
18 12 (0.22%) CASB
18 12 (0.22%) Nessus
18 12 (0.22%) ServiceCenter
Vendors
1 264 (4.90%) ServiceNow
2 253 (4.70%) VMware
3 201 (3.73%) Databricks
4 197 (3.66%) SAP
5 186 (3.45%) Oracle
6 177 (3.29%) Cisco
7 152 (2.82%) Google
8 133 (2.47%) Citrix
9 104 (1.93%) Splunk
10 90 (1.67%) OpenAI
11 83 (1.54%) Salesforce
12 75 (1.39%) Foundry
13 67 (1.24%) Apple
14 60 (1.11%) CrowdStrike
15 56 (1.04%) Palo Alto
16 54 (1.00%) HP
17 44 (0.82%) Okta
18 40 (0.74%) Adobe
18 40 (0.74%) Red Hat
19 36 (0.67%) CyberArk