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 7 August 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
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 0
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 6,555 4,543 5,056
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.27% 13.83% 12.96%
As % of the Vendors category 29.56% 29.22% 29.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,275 2,913 3,298
10th Percentile £213 £213 £200
25th Percentile £375 £350 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £585 £585 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £438 £450
% change year-on-year +2.86% -2.78% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 420 368 362
10th Percentile £13.65 £13.75 £11.79
25th Percentile £16.00 £16.00 £14.48
Median hourly rate £21.00 £22.32 £16.23
Median % change year-on-year -5.89% +37.49% -31.96%
75th Percentile £37.50 £30.63 £41.56
90th Percentile £70.67 £63.30 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.69 £20.26 £16.23
% change year-on-year +2.15% +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 22,174 15,546 17,032
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 41.51% 47.31% 43.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,713 9,519 10,642
10th Percentile £313 £280 £281
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £606 £613 £625
90th Percentile £700 £700 £731
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +4.17% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,151 787 849
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.49 £13.68
25th Percentile £18.88 £17.30 £15.62
Median hourly rate £33.99 £25.15 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +35.15% -10.18% -33.58%
75th Percentile £65.00 £49.38 £61.60
90th Percentile £83.62 £68.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £22.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year +47.73% -20.00% -21.43%

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 7 August 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 7 August 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 7 August 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 5,736 £490 +3.16% 4,998
UK excluding London -1 3,492 £450 +2.86% 4,034
London -2 2,515 £510 +2.00% 1,663
Work from Home +3 1,702 £500 - 1,869
South East -1 904 £475 - 1,204
North of England -4 868 £454 +3.89% 972
Midlands -2 610 £449 +16.56% 641
North West 0 503 £450 +2.80% 502
South West 0 435 £470 +8.05% 463
West Midlands -4 424 £450 +12.50% 358
Yorkshire -5 338 £475 +8.57% 356
Scotland +8 318 £450 - 223
East of England -1 257 £375 -25.00% 423
East Midlands +3 177 £425 +20.60% 283
Wales 0 99 £391 +45.58% 134
Northern Ireland -2 31 £350 -3.11% 66
North East -41 31 £450 +38.46% 133
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
1 766 (11.69%) SharePoint
2 397 (6.06%) Microsoft Exchange
3 143 (2.18%) Confluence
4 39 (0.59%) Apache Spark
5 37 (0.56%) Apache
6 31 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
7 22 (0.34%) IIS
8 19 (0.29%) CMS
9 18 (0.27%) HCL Notes
10 13 (0.20%) Skype for Business
11 12 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 11 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
13 10 (0.15%) SAS
14 8 (0.12%) nginx
15 6 (0.092%) Apache Superset
15 6 (0.092%) Exchange Server 2010
15 6 (0.092%) Jupyter
15 6 (0.092%) SharePoint 2013
15 6 (0.092%) ThingWorx
16 5 (0.076%) Camunda
Applications
1 629 (9.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 609 (9.29%) Microsoft Office
3 264 (4.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 167 (2.55%) Microsoft Project
5 108 (1.65%) MS Visio
6 44 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
7 25 (0.38%) Chatbot
8 12 (0.18%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.14%) AutoCAD
10 7 (0.11%) ProjectWise
11 6 (0.092%) Navisworks
11 6 (0.092%) Revit
12 5 (0.076%) Adobe Illustrator
13 4 (0.061%) Photoshop
14 3 (0.046%) Adobe Captivate
14 3 (0.046%) Adobe Premiere
14 3 (0.046%) Final Cut Pro
14 3 (0.046%) MicroStation
14 3 (0.046%) Trello
15 2 (0.031%) InfoPath
Business Applications
1 238 (3.63%) Dynamics CRM
2 73 (1.11%) SAP S/4HANA
3 30 (0.46%) Remedy ITSM
4 20 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
4 20 (0.31%) NetSuite
4 20 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
5 14 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
6 13 (0.20%) Aladdin
6 13 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
7 11 (0.17%) Primavera
8 10 (0.15%) Magento
9 9 (0.14%) Dynamics AX
9 9 (0.14%) Sage X3
10 7 (0.11%) iTrent
10 7 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
10 7 (0.11%) SAP CRM
10 7 (0.11%) SAP PSCD
10 7 (0.11%) Teamcenter
11 6 (0.092%) Dynamics GP
11 6 (0.092%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 2,766 (42.20%) Azure
2 1,669 (25.46%) Microsoft 365
3 1,146 (17.48%) Power Platform
4 987 (15.06%) Entra ID
5 577 (8.80%) AWS
6 553 (8.44%) Dynamics 365
7 551 (8.41%) Azure DevOps
8 403 (6.15%) Power Automate
9 364 (5.55%) PowerApps
10 357 (5.45%) Microsoft Copilot
11 300 (4.58%) Microsoft Purview
12 278 (4.24%) GitHub
13 248 (3.78%) OneDrive
14 230 (3.51%) SaaS
15 219 (3.34%) GCP
16 173 (2.64%) Azure Data Factory
17 166 (2.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 150 (2.29%) Serverless
19 149 (2.27%) Azure Monitor
20 146 (2.23%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 360 (5.49%) DNS
2 333 (5.08%) Firewall
3 267 (4.07%) VPN
4 221 (3.37%) DHCP
5 185 (2.82%) TCP/IP
6 149 (2.27%) WAN
7 147 (2.24%) Network Security
8 141 (2.15%) Wi-Fi
9 136 (2.07%) LAN
10 71 (1.08%) VLAN
11 50 (0.76%) Wireless
12 46 (0.70%) SAN
13 42 (0.64%) MPLS
14 35 (0.53%) SSL
15 34 (0.52%) Unified Communications
16 31 (0.47%) SD-WAN
17 29 (0.44%) Internet
17 29 (0.44%) VoIP
18 27 (0.41%) BGP
19 26 (0.40%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 717 (10.94%) Power BI
2 377 (5.75%) SQL Server
3 192 (2.93%) Data Warehouse
4 133 (2.03%) Data Lake
5 131 (2.00%) Metadata
6 130 (1.98%) PostgreSQL
7 129 (1.97%) Azure SQL Database
8 76 (1.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 70 (1.07%) Relational Database
10 66 (1.01%) Power Query
11 62 (0.95%) MySQL
12 51 (0.78%) NoSQL
13 47 (0.72%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 44 (0.67%) Oracle Database
15 42 (0.64%) Star Schema
16 36 (0.55%) Delta Lake
17 35 (0.53%) Tableau
18 28 (0.43%) SQL Server Analysis Services
19 24 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
19 24 (0.37%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 319 (4.87%) JIRA
2 199 (3.04%) Git
3 89 (1.36%) Jenkins
4 68 (1.04%) GitLab
5 57 (0.87%) Visual Studio
6 37 (0.56%) MSI
7 30 (0.46%) Selenium
8 18 (0.27%) Postman
9 17 (0.26%) Eclipse
10 16 (0.24%) Team Foundation Server
10 16 (0.24%) WebDriver
11 14 (0.21%) MLflow
12 13 (0.20%) Claude Code
12 13 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
13 12 (0.18%) Artifactory
13 12 (0.18%) Bitbucket
13 12 (0.18%) Cypress.io
13 12 (0.18%) ERwin
13 12 (0.18%) JUnit
14 11 (0.17%) Maven
General
1 2,249 (34.31%) Social Skills
2 1,324 (20.20%) Finance
3 825 (12.59%) Analytical Skills
4 620 (9.46%) Public Sector
5 320 (4.88%) Banking
6 312 (4.76%) Organisational Skills
7 225 (3.43%) Legal
8 176 (2.68%) Documentation Skills
9 151 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 136 (2.07%) Manufacturing
11 134 (2.04%) Retail
12 115 (1.75%) Telecoms
13 104 (1.59%) Marketing
14 103 (1.57%) Law
15 88 (1.34%) Local Government
16 85 (1.30%) Military
17 76 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
18 68 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
19 62 (0.95%) Investment Banking
20 58 (0.88%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 746 (11.38%) Architect
2 672 (10.25%) Analyst
3 618 (9.43%) Developer
4 570 (8.70%) Senior
5 463 (7.06%) Lead
6 416 (6.35%) IT Support
7 403 (6.15%) Consultant
8 373 (5.69%) Support Engineer
9 264 (4.03%) IT Engineer
10 250 (3.81%) Data Engineer
11 249 (3.80%) Solutions Architect
12 231 (3.52%) Azure Engineer
12 231 (3.52%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 219 (3.34%) Project Manager
14 212 (3.23%) IT Support Engineer
15 210 (3.20%) Administrator
16 183 (2.79%) Business Analyst
17 162 (2.47%) Cloud Engineer
18 126 (1.92%) Security Engineer
19 109 (1.66%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 312 (4.76%) .NET
2 252 (3.84%) REST
3 126 (1.92%) JSON
4 114 (1.74%) Microsoft Graph
5 113 (1.72%) OAuth
6 110 (1.68%) PySpark
7 97 (1.48%) XML
8 93 (1.42%) OpenID
8 93 (1.42%) SAML
9 89 (1.36%) .NET Framework
10 83 (1.27%) Web Services
11 77 (1.17%) React
12 73 (1.11%) RESTful
13 70 (1.07%) HTML
14 67 (1.02%) ARM Templates
15 66 (1.01%) LDAP
16 64 (0.98%) OAuth2
16 64 (0.98%) SailPoint
16 64 (0.98%) SOAP
17 59 (0.90%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 451 (6.88%) Onboarding
2 303 (4.62%) Cloud Native
3 197 (3.01%) Management Information System
4 184 (2.81%) Product Ownership
5 165 (2.52%) Enterprise Software
6 141 (2.15%) Hybrid Cloud
7 140 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
8 126 (1.92%) PKI
9 125 (1.91%) AI Agents
10 122 (1.86%) Data Centre
10 122 (1.86%) Security Posture
11 93 (1.42%) Data Structures
12 91 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
13 84 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
14 79 (1.21%) Virtual Team
15 74 (1.13%) Low-Code
16 71 (1.08%) Driving Licence
17 66 (1.01%) Distributed Systems
18 61 (0.93%) Analytical Mindset
19 60 (0.92%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 1,394 (21.27%) Windows
2 390 (5.95%) Windows Server
3 337 (5.14%) Windows 10
4 309 (4.71%) Linux
5 134 (2.04%) Mac OS
6 122 (1.86%) Android
7 114 (1.74%) Apple iOS
8 58 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 44 (0.67%) Unix
10 37 (0.56%) Windows Server 2019
11 34 (0.52%) Windows 7
12 33 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
13 30 (0.46%) VMS
14 28 (0.43%) Ubuntu
15 22 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
16 14 (0.21%) CentOS
17 12 (0.18%) SUSE
18 10 (0.15%) Solaris
18 10 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
19 7 (0.11%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,173 (17.89%) Problem-Solving
2 1,038 (15.84%) DevOps
3 994 (15.16%) Agile
4 949 (14.48%) Stakeholder Management
5 925 (14.11%) Migration
6 855 (13.04%) CI/CD
7 750 (11.44%) AI
8 748 (11.41%) Continuous Improvement
9 735 (11.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 729 (11.12%) Business Intelligence
11 689 (10.51%) Analytics
12 626 (9.55%) ITIL
13 557 (8.50%) Customer Service
14 485 (7.40%) Data Modelling
15 479 (7.31%) Cybersecurity
16 475 (7.25%) Infrastructure as Code
17 472 (7.20%) Roadmaps
18 431 (6.58%) Project Delivery
19 425 (6.48%) Decision-Making
20 414 (6.32%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 830 (12.66%) SQL
2 698 (10.65%) PowerShell
3 673 (10.27%) Python
4 323 (4.93%) C#
5 246 (3.75%) JavaScript
6 185 (2.82%) Bicep
7 183 (2.79%) Java
8 139 (2.12%) Bash
9 115 (1.75%) T-SQL
10 102 (1.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 90 (1.37%) TypeScript
12 68 (1.04%) Kusto Query Language
13 39 (0.59%) VBA
14 31 (0.47%) C++
15 25 (0.38%) PL/SQL
16 24 (0.37%) VB
17 21 (0.32%) X++
18 17 (0.26%) Scala
18 17 (0.26%) VBScript
19 16 (0.24%) R
Qualifications
1 1,364 (20.81%) Security Cleared
2 1,027 (15.67%) SC Cleared
3 636 (9.70%) Degree
4 344 (5.25%) Microsoft Certification
5 263 (4.01%) DV Cleared
6 236 (3.60%) Azure Certification
7 155 (2.36%) BPSS Clearance
8 129 (1.97%) CISSP
9 125 (1.91%) Cisco Certification
10 120 (1.83%) Computer Science Degree
11 89 (1.36%) PMP
12 82 (1.25%) PMI Certification
13 69 (1.05%) CISM
14 68 (1.04%) AWS Certification
15 55 (0.84%) CCNP
16 51 (0.78%) Master's Degree
17 48 (0.73%) DBS Check
18 47 (0.72%) A+ Certification
18 47 (0.72%) CCNA
19 42 (0.64%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 359 (5.48%) Data Quality
2 226 (3.45%) GDPR
3 224 (3.42%) QA
4 192 (2.93%) SLA
5 184 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 161 (2.46%) PMO
7 158 (2.41%) NIST
8 105 (1.60%) Accessibility
9 81 (1.24%) Cyber Essentials
9 81 (1.24%) NCSC
10 44 (0.67%) GRC
11 38 (0.58%) WCAG
12 35 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 35 (0.53%) PCI DSS
13 33 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 19 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
15 15 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
15 15 (0.23%) NIST 800
16 14 (0.21%) P3O
16 14 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 1,267 (19.33%) Active Directory
2 241 (3.68%) Docker
3 232 (3.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 125 (1.91%) Hyper-V
5 99 (1.51%) Virtual Desktop
6 93 (1.42%) Virtual Machines
7 60 (0.92%) vSphere
8 59 (0.90%) VMware ESXi
9 27 (0.41%) BitLocker
10 24 (0.37%) VMware NSX
11 20 (0.31%) Microsoft App-V
12 19 (0.29%) Firmware
13 8 (0.12%) NFS
13 8 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
14 7 (0.11%) IAG
14 7 (0.11%) zsh
15 5 (0.076%) Terminal Services
15 5 (0.076%) VMware Workstation
16 4 (0.061%) Virtual Servers
17 3 (0.046%) OpenAM
Systems Management
1 536 (8.18%) Microsoft Intune
2 468 (7.14%) Terraform
3 307 (4.68%) Kubernetes
4 230 (3.51%) SCCM
5 164 (2.50%) Ansible
6 116 (1.77%) Single Sign-On
7 61 (0.93%) Jamf Pro
8 53 (0.81%) vCenter Server
9 52 (0.79%) Grafana
10 40 (0.61%) SCOM
11 36 (0.55%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 34 (0.52%) Prometheus
13 23 (0.35%) Puppet
14 22 (0.34%) QRadar
14 22 (0.34%) WSUS
15 20 (0.31%) Progress Chef
16 19 (0.29%) FortiGate
17 16 (0.24%) Argo
18 14 (0.21%) CASB
19 13 (0.20%) Avamar
Vendors
1 472 (7.20%) ServiceNow
2 319 (4.87%) VMware
3 301 (4.59%) Oracle
4 254 (3.87%) SAP
5 224 (3.42%) Databricks
6 220 (3.36%) Google
7 211 (3.22%) Cisco
8 114 (1.74%) Salesforce
9 106 (1.62%) Citrix
10 103 (1.57%) Splunk
11 98 (1.50%) Apple
12 81 (1.24%) CyberArk
13 79 (1.21%) Foundry
14 75 (1.14%) OpenAI
15 73 (1.11%) Okta
16 70 (1.07%) CrowdStrike
17 61 (0.93%) Red Hat
18 60 (0.92%) BeyondTrust
19 56 (0.85%) Zscaler
20 50 (0.76%) Meraki