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 2 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
2 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 8 7
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Microsoft 5,285 4,058 5,776
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 12.77% 13.44% 12.94%
As % of the Vendors category 28.74% 28.83% 29.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,565 2,639 3,892
10th Percentile £204 £206 £190
25th Percentile £363 £345 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -4.04% -1.00%
75th Percentile £583 £588 £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 376 171 410
10th Percentile £13.54 £15.44 £11.50
25th Percentile £16.25 £18.17 £13.69
Median hourly rate £19.91 £24.00 £16.61
Median % change year-on-year -17.04% +44.53% -20.95%
75th Percentile £27.50 £33.75 £33.75
90th Percentile £64.13 £63.25 £51.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £19.10 £22.50 £16.06
% change year-on-year -15.13% +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 18,390 14,075 19,347
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 44.43% 46.63% 43.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,788 8,582 12,105
10th Percentile £305 £281 £255
25th Percentile £413 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £514
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +1.17% -2.47%
75th Percentile £603 £625 £626
90th Percentile £700 £713 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 923 435 981
10th Percentile £15.22 £15.62 £12.74
25th Percentile £18.15 £21.25 £15.10
Median hourly rate £24.00 £30.00 £25.50
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +17.65% -27.14%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £55.00
90th Percentile £74.68 £81.80 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.63 £27.43 £25.00
% change year-on-year -17.48% +9.70% -21.65%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 4,631 £490 +3.16% 3,612
UK excluding London 0 2,852 £450 +2.86% 3,359
London -3 1,939 £513 +2.50% 826
Work from Home -1 1,332 £500 - 1,360
North of England 0 746 £425 -5.56% 784
South East 0 645 £475 -2.86% 1,017
Midlands -6 489 £450 +5.88% 516
North West -1 423 £415 -7.78% 393
East of England +1 353 £400 -8.57% 385
South West +1 352 £523 +10.58% 380
West Midlands -8 335 £475 +9.42% 244
Yorkshire +2 291 £450 +9.09% 283
Scotland -1 190 £455 +18.95% 188
East Midlands 0 152 £409 +2.31% 261
Wales +3 95 £310 -24.85% 131
North East -13 38 £450 +25.00% 125
Northern Ireland 0 24 £450 +38.46% 38
Channel Islands +3 1 - - 2

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 (11.39%) SharePoint
2 422 (7.98%) Microsoft Exchange
3 113 (2.14%) Confluence
4 42 (0.79%) Skype for Business
5 25 (0.47%) CMS
6 21 (0.40%) Apache
7 20 (0.38%) Apache Spark
8 16 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.30%) HCL Notes
9 15 (0.28%) IIS
10 11 (0.21%) SAS
11 9 (0.17%) Mendix
12 8 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2013
12 8 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
13 7 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2010
14 6 (0.11%) ArcGIS
14 6 (0.11%) Mattermost
15 5 (0.095%) iPlanet
15 5 (0.095%) Oracle Application Server
15 5 (0.095%) WebSphere
Applications
1 624 (11.81%) Microsoft Office
2 508 (9.61%) Microsoft Excel
3 224 (4.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 125 (2.37%) Microsoft Project
5 104 (1.97%) MS Visio
6 76 (1.44%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 11 (0.21%) Trello
8 9 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 7 (0.13%) Adobe Captivate
10 6 (0.11%) Acrobat
10 6 (0.11%) Adobe Illustrator
11 5 (0.095%) PTC Creo
12 4 (0.076%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.076%) InDesign
13 3 (0.057%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.057%) Sketch
13 3 (0.057%) SOLIDWORKS
14 2 (0.038%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.038%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 188 (3.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 50 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
3 30 (0.57%) Remedy ITSM
4 17 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
5 15 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
6 14 (0.26%) Aladdin
6 14 (0.26%) Maximo
7 12 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.19%) Loan IQ
8 10 (0.19%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.19%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 9 (0.17%) Teamcenter
10 7 (0.13%) Advent Geneva
10 7 (0.13%) Shopify
11 6 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
11 6 (0.11%) Sage X3
11 6 (0.11%) SystmOne
12 5 (0.095%) Primavera
12 5 (0.095%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.095%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 2,107 (39.87%) Azure
2 1,353 (25.60%) Microsoft 365
3 847 (16.03%) Power Platform
4 672 (12.72%) Entra ID
5 448 (8.48%) AWS
6 396 (7.49%) Azure DevOps
7 395 (7.47%) Dynamics 365
8 338 (6.40%) Power Automate
9 300 (5.68%) PowerApps
10 271 (5.13%) Microsoft Purview
11 227 (4.30%) GitHub
12 213 (4.03%) OneDrive
13 187 (3.54%) Serverless
14 186 (3.52%) Microsoft Copilot
15 184 (3.48%) Azure Data Factory
16 178 (3.37%) SaaS
17 171 (3.24%) GCP
18 146 (2.76%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 137 (2.59%) Azure Logic Apps
20 134 (2.54%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 303 (5.73%) DNS
2 287 (5.43%) Firewall
3 197 (3.73%) VPN
4 185 (3.50%) DHCP
5 140 (2.65%) Wi-Fi
6 127 (2.40%) TCP/IP
7 122 (2.31%) WAN
8 106 (2.01%) LAN
9 101 (1.91%) Network Security
10 69 (1.31%) Skype
11 63 (1.19%) Kerberos
12 56 (1.06%) VLAN
13 46 (0.87%) Unified Communications
14 43 (0.81%) Wireless
15 34 (0.64%) SD-WAN
16 32 (0.61%) HTTP
17 30 (0.57%) SSL
18 29 (0.55%) Internet
19 28 (0.53%) MPLS
19 28 (0.53%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 519 (9.82%) Power BI
2 246 (4.65%) SQL Server
3 158 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
4 140 (2.65%) Data Lake
5 103 (1.95%) PostgreSQL
6 101 (1.91%) Metadata
7 97 (1.84%) Azure SQL Database
8 75 (1.42%) Relational Database
9 64 (1.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 57 (1.08%) Oracle Database
11 52 (0.98%) MySQL
12 51 (0.96%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 43 (0.81%) NoSQL
14 37 (0.70%) Power Query
15 36 (0.68%) Tableau
16 28 (0.53%) Delta Lake
17 27 (0.51%) Oracle Reports
18 25 (0.47%) Star Schema
19 23 (0.44%) Spark SQL
20 22 (0.42%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 240 (4.54%) JIRA
2 165 (3.12%) Git
3 76 (1.44%) GitLab
4 73 (1.38%) Jenkins
5 30 (0.57%) Eclipse
6 25 (0.47%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.42%) MSI
8 20 (0.38%) Postman
9 19 (0.36%) Artifactory
10 16 (0.30%) Android Studio
10 16 (0.30%) JMeter
11 15 (0.28%) Selenium
12 14 (0.26%) Browser DevTools
12 14 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
13 13 (0.25%) Cucumber
13 13 (0.25%) Xcode
14 11 (0.21%) Bitbucket
14 11 (0.21%) JUnit
14 11 (0.21%) MLflow
15 9 (0.17%) SpecFlow
General
1 2,037 (38.54%) Social Skills
2 1,017 (19.24%) Finance
3 666 (12.60%) Analytical Skills
4 514 (9.73%) Public Sector
5 255 (4.82%) Banking
6 251 (4.75%) Organisational Skills
7 228 (4.31%) Legal
8 165 (3.12%) Documentation Skills
9 119 (2.25%) Manufacturing
10 115 (2.18%) Presentation Skills
11 101 (1.91%) Marketing
12 91 (1.72%) Telecoms
13 71 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 70 (1.32%) Retail
15 61 (1.15%) Influencing Skills
16 55 (1.04%) Military
17 48 (0.91%) Law
18 46 (0.87%) Investment Banking
19 40 (0.76%) Pharmaceutical
20 37 (0.70%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 643 (12.17%) Analyst
2 602 (11.39%) Architect
3 500 (9.46%) Developer
4 412 (7.80%) Senior
5 358 (6.77%) IT Support
6 290 (5.49%) Support Engineer
7 286 (5.41%) Consultant
8 261 (4.94%) Lead
9 184 (3.48%) Solutions Architect
10 182 (3.44%) IT Engineer
11 177 (3.35%) Azure Engineer
12 176 (3.33%) Data Engineer
13 168 (3.18%) Business Analyst
14 164 (3.10%) Administrator
14 164 (3.10%) Project Manager
15 160 (3.03%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 140 (2.65%) IT Support Engineer
17 126 (2.38%) Support Analyst
18 115 (2.18%) Security Engineer
19 102 (1.93%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 250 (4.73%) .NET
2 164 (3.10%) REST
3 127 (2.40%) OAuth
4 113 (2.14%) Microsoft Graph
5 110 (2.08%) SAML
6 101 (1.91%) React
7 91 (1.72%) OpenID
8 76 (1.44%) PySpark
9 75 (1.42%) LDAP
10 74 (1.40%) RESTful
11 73 (1.38%) AngularJS
11 73 (1.38%) HTML
12 71 (1.34%) JSON
13 65 (1.23%) CSS
14 61 (1.15%) ARM Templates
15 57 (1.08%) Middleware
16 56 (1.06%) Node.js
17 54 (1.02%) Web Services
18 53 (1.00%) OAuth2
19 43 (0.81%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 291 (5.51%) Onboarding
2 202 (3.82%) Cloud Native
3 161 (3.05%) Product Ownership
4 134 (2.54%) Management Information System
5 110 (2.08%) Enterprise Software
6 94 (1.78%) Data Centre
7 91 (1.72%) Security Posture
8 89 (1.68%) PKI
9 83 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
10 81 (1.53%) Hybrid Cloud
11 75 (1.42%) Replication
12 72 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
13 71 (1.34%) Low-Code
14 64 (1.21%) Driving Licence
15 58 (1.10%) AI Agents
15 58 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
16 57 (1.08%) Virtual Team
17 56 (1.06%) Data Structures
17 56 (1.06%) NHS
18 55 (1.04%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 1,236 (23.39%) Windows
2 359 (6.79%) Windows 10
3 296 (5.60%) Linux
4 271 (5.13%) Windows Server
5 105 (1.99%) Mac OS
6 103 (1.95%) Android
7 97 (1.84%) Apple iOS
8 63 (1.19%) Unix
9 46 (0.87%) Windows 7
10 42 (0.79%) Windows Server 2016
11 37 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 22 (0.42%) VMS
13 21 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
13 21 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
14 20 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
15 8 (0.15%) AIX
15 8 (0.15%) CentOS
15 8 (0.15%) Ubuntu
16 5 (0.095%) Windows 8
16 5 (0.095%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,021 (19.32%) Problem-Solving
2 867 (16.40%) Agile
3 791 (14.97%) DevOps
4 696 (13.17%) Migration
5 670 (12.68%) CI/CD
6 615 (11.64%) Business Intelligence
7 573 (10.84%) Analytics
8 536 (10.14%) Stakeholder Management
9 452 (8.55%) AI
9 452 (8.55%) Continuous Improvement
10 450 (8.51%) Customer Service
11 433 (8.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 430 (8.14%) ITIL
13 368 (6.96%) Cybersecurity
14 340 (6.43%) Data Modelling
15 311 (5.88%) Project Management
16 307 (5.81%) Roadmaps
17 301 (5.70%) Change Management
18 291 (5.51%) Project Delivery
19 288 (5.45%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 671 (12.70%) SQL
2 669 (12.66%) PowerShell
3 617 (11.67%) Python
4 274 (5.18%) C#
5 232 (4.39%) JavaScript
6 148 (2.80%) Java
7 113 (2.14%) Bicep
8 107 (2.02%) Bash
9 102 (1.93%) Kusto Query Language
10 87 (1.65%) TypeScript
11 72 (1.36%) T-SQL
12 61 (1.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 35 (0.66%) PL/SQL
14 32 (0.61%) C++
15 29 (0.55%) Perl
16 26 (0.49%) VB
17 24 (0.45%) VBA
18 23 (0.44%) Shell Script
19 16 (0.30%) Go
20 15 (0.28%) R
Qualifications
1 1,052 (19.91%) Security Cleared
2 788 (14.91%) SC Cleared
3 543 (10.27%) Degree
4 321 (6.07%) Microsoft Certification
5 217 (4.11%) DV Cleared
6 183 (3.46%) Azure Certification
7 120 (2.27%) Computer Science Degree
8 111 (2.10%) CISSP
9 92 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
10 62 (1.17%) CISM
11 58 (1.10%) Cisco Certification
12 57 (1.08%) Master's Degree
13 55 (1.04%) PMI Certification
14 48 (0.91%) PMP
15 46 (0.87%) MCSE
16 44 (0.83%) AWS Certification
16 44 (0.83%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 39 (0.74%) ITIL Certification
18 35 (0.66%) A+ Certification
19 33 (0.62%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 237 (4.48%) GDPR
2 208 (3.94%) Data Quality
3 155 (2.93%) QA
4 154 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 151 (2.86%) SLA
6 118 (2.23%) PMO
7 115 (2.18%) NIST
8 75 (1.42%) Accessibility
9 55 (1.04%) Cyber Essentials
10 36 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 34 (0.64%) NCSC
12 26 (0.49%) PCI DSS
13 22 (0.42%) GRC
13 22 (0.42%) WCAG
14 21 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 19 (0.36%) EU AI Act
16 17 (0.32%) MiFID
17 15 (0.28%) HIPAA
17 15 (0.28%) SOC 2
18 13 (0.25%) NIST 800
System Software
1 1,084 (20.51%) Active Directory
2 209 (3.95%) Docker
3 172 (3.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 75 (1.42%) Hyper-V
5 68 (1.29%) Virtual Machines
6 49 (0.93%) Virtual Desktop
7 38 (0.72%) vSphere
8 34 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
9 21 (0.40%) VMware NSX
10 19 (0.36%) BitLocker
11 14 (0.26%) Firmware
12 9 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
13 7 (0.13%) Snort
14 6 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
14 6 (0.11%) RACF
15 5 (0.095%) Microsoft Virtual Server
15 5 (0.095%) Tivoli Directory Server
15 5 (0.095%) Virtual Servers
16 4 (0.076%) KVM
16 4 (0.076%) Squid
Systems Management
1 427 (8.08%) Microsoft Intune
2 320 (6.05%) Terraform
3 260 (4.92%) SCCM
4 245 (4.64%) Kubernetes
5 154 (2.91%) Single Sign-On
6 105 (1.99%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 105 (1.99%) Ansible
7 43 (0.81%) Jamf Pro
8 39 (0.74%) Grafana
9 34 (0.64%) Prometheus
9 34 (0.64%) vCenter Server
10 33 (0.62%) SCOM
11 24 (0.45%) FortiGate
12 19 (0.36%) WSUS
13 16 (0.30%) Puppet
14 14 (0.26%) AirWatch
14 14 (0.26%) Nessus
14 14 (0.26%) Progress Chef
14 14 (0.26%) WMI
15 11 (0.21%) CASB
Vendors
1 268 (5.07%) ServiceNow
2 259 (4.90%) VMware
3 196 (3.71%) SAP
4 193 (3.65%) Oracle
5 187 (3.54%) Cisco
6 184 (3.48%) Databricks
7 152 (2.88%) Google
8 137 (2.59%) Citrix
9 125 (2.37%) Splunk
10 85 (1.61%) Salesforce
11 82 (1.55%) OpenAI
12 69 (1.31%) Apple
13 64 (1.21%) Foundry
14 62 (1.17%) CrowdStrike
15 57 (1.08%) Palo Alto
16 53 (1.00%) HP
17 45 (0.85%) Okta
18 43 (0.81%) Remedy
19 41 (0.78%) CyberArk
20 39 (0.74%) IBM